Blackout - Connie Willis

“Indeed,” the elderly gentleman said from his corner. “‘The isle is full of noises,’” and Polly looked over at him in surprise. His voice had changed completely from the quiet, well-bred voice of a gentleman to a deep, commanding tone that made even the little girls stop crying and stare at him.

He shut his book and laid it on the floor beside him. “‘With strange and several noises,’” he said, getting to his feet, “‘of roaring…’” He shrugged his coat from his shoulders, as if throwing off a cloak to reveal himself as a magician. Or a king. “‘With shrieking, howling, and more diversity of sounds, all horrible, we were awaked…’”

He strode suddenly to the center of the cellar. “‘To the dread rattling thunder have I given fire,’” he shouted, seeming to Polly to have grown to twice his size. “‘The strong-bas’d promontory have I made shake!’” His resonant voice reached every corner of the cellar. “‘Sometime I’d divide and burn in many places,’” he said, pointing dramatically at the ceiling, the floor, the door in turn as he spoke, “‘on the topmast, the yards, and bowsprit would I flame-’” He flung both arms out. “‘Then meet and join.’”

Above, a bomb crashed, close enough to rattle the tea urn and the teacups, but no one spared them a glance. They were all watching him, their fear gone, and even though the terrifying racket hadn’t diminished, and his words, rather than attempting to distract them from the noise, were drawing attention to it, describing it, the din was no longer frightening. It had become mere stage effects, clashing cymbals and sheets of rattled tin, providing a dramatic background to his voice.

“‘A plague upon this howling!’” he cried. “‘They are louder than the weather or our office,’” and went straight into Prospero’s epilogue and from there into Lear’s mad scene, and finally Henry V, while his audience listened, entranced.

At some point the cacophony outside had diminished, fading till there was nothing but the muffled poom-poom-poom of an anti-aircraft gun off to the northeast, but no one in the room had noticed. Which was, of course, the point. Polly gazed at him in admiration.

“‘This story shall the good man teach his son, from this day to the ending of the world,’” he said, his voice ringing through the cellar, “‘but we in it shall be remembered-we few, we happy few, we band of brothers.’” His voice died away on the last words, like a bell echoing into silence.

“‘The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve,’” he whispered. “‘Sweet friends, to bed,’” and bowed his head, his hand on his heart.

There was a moment of entranced silence, followed by Miss Hibbard’s “Oh, my!” and general applause. Trot clapped wildly, and even Mr. Dorming joined in. The gentleman bowed deeply, retrieved his coat from the floor, and returned to his corner and his book. Mrs. Brightford gathered her girls to her, and Nelson and Lila and Viv composed themselves to sleep, one after the other, like children after they’d been told a bedtime story.

Polly went over to sit next to Miss Laburnum and the rector. “Who is he?” she whispered.

“You mean you don’t know?” Miss Laburnum said.

Polly hoped he wasn’t so famous that her failing to recognize him would be suspicious.

“He’s Godfrey Kingsman,” the rector said, “the Shakespearean actor.”

“England’s greatest actor,” Miss Laburnum explained.

Mrs. Rickett sniffed. “If he’s such a great actor, what’s he doing sitting in this shelter? Why isn’t he onstage?”

“You know perfectly well the theaters have closed because of the raids,” Miss Laburnum said heatedly. “Until the government reopens them-”

“All I know is, I don’t let rooms to actors,” Mrs. Rickett said. “They can’t be relied on to pay their rent.”

Miss Laburnum went very red. “Sir Godfrey-”

“He’s been knighted, then?” Polly asked hastily.

“By King Edward,” Miss Laburnum said. “I can’t imagine that you’ve never heard of him, Miss Sebastian. His Lear is renowned! I saw him in Hamlet when I was a girl, and he was simply marvelous!”

He’s rather marvelous now, Polly thought.

“He’s appeared before all the crowned heads of Europe,” Miss Laburnum said. “And to think he honored us with a performance tonight.”

Mrs. Rickett sniffed again, and Miss Laburnum was only stopped from saying something regrettable by the all clear. The sleepers sat up and yawned, and everyone began to gather their belongings. Sir Godfrey marked his place in his book, shut it, and stood up. Miss Laburnum and Miss Hibbard scurried over to him to tell him how wonderful he’d been. “It was so inspiring,” Miss Laburnum said, “especially the speech from Hamlet about the band of brothers.”

Polly suppressed a smile. Sir Godfrey thanked the two ladies solemnly, his voice quiet and refined again. Watching him putting on his coat and picking up his umbrella, it was hard to believe he’d just given that mesmerizing performance.

Lila and Viv folded their blankets and gathered up their magazines, Mr. Dorming picked up his thermos, Mrs. Brightford picked up Trot, and they all converged on the door. The rector pulled the bolt back and opened it, and as he did, Polly caught an echo of the tense, frightened look they’d had before Sir Godfrey intervened, this time for what they might find when they went through that door and up those steps: their houses gone, London in ruins. Or German tanks driving down Lampden Road.

The rector stepped back from the opened door to let them through, but no one moved, not even Nelson, who’d been cooped up since before midnight.

“‘Hie you, make haste!’” Sir Godfrey’s clarion voice rang out. “‘See this dispatch’d with all the haste thou canst,’” and Nelson shot through the door.

Everyone laughed.

“Nelson, come back!” Mr. Simms shouted, and ran after him. He called down from the top of the steps, “No damage I can see,” and the rest of them trooped up the steps and looked around at the street, peaceful in the dim gray predawn light. The buildings were all intact, though there was a smoky pall in the air, and a sharp smell of cordite and burning wood.

“Lambeth got it last night,” Mr. Dorming said, pointing at plumes of black smoke off to the southeast.

“And Piccadilly Circus, looks like,” Mr. Simms said, coming back with Nelson and pointing at what was actually Oxford Street and the smoke from John Lewis. Mr. Dorming was wrong, too. Shoreditch and Whitechapel had taken the brunt of the first round of raids, not Lambeth, but from the look of the smoke, nowhere in the East End was safe.

“I don’t understand,” Lila said, looking around at the tranquil scene. “It sounded like it was bang on top of us.”

“What will it sound like if it is on top of us, I wonder?” Viv asked.

“I’ve heard one hears a very loud, very high-pitched scream,” Mr. Simms began, but Mr. Dorming was shaking his head.

“You won’t hear it,” he said. “You’ll never know what hit you,” and stomped off.

“Cheerful,” Viv said, looking after him.

Lila was still looking toward the smoke of Oxford Street. “I suppose the Underground won’t be running,” she said glumly, “and it’ll take us ages to get to work.”

“And when we get there,” Viv said, “the windows will have been blown out again. We’ll have to spend all day sweeping up.”

“‘What’s this, varlets?’” Sir Godfrey roared. “‘Do I hear talk of terror and defeat? Stiffen the sinews! Summon up the blood!’”

Lila and Viv giggled.

Sir Godfrey drew his umbrella like a sword. “‘Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more!’” he shouted, raising it high. “‘We fight for England!’”

“Oh, I do love Richard the Third!” Miss Laburnum said.

Sir Godfrey gripped the umbrella handle violently, and for a moment Polly thought he was going to run Miss Laburnum through, but instead he hooked it over his arm. “‘And if we no more meet till we meet in heaven,’” he declaimed, “‘then joyfully, my noble lords and my kind kinsmen, warriors all, adieu!’” and strode off, umbrella in hand, as if going into battle.

Which he is, Polly thought, watching him. Which they all are.

“How marvelous!” Miss Laburnum said. “Do you think if we asked him, he’d do another play tomorrow? The Tempest, perhaps, or Henry the Fifth?”

Open for business. And we do mean open. 

London-18 September 1940

IT TOOK POLLY TWO HOURS TO GET TO OXFORD STREET. Since Oxford Circus and Bond Street stations would both be closed from the attack on Oxford Street, she’d intended to take the tube to Piccadilly Circus, but the Circle Line trains weren’t running at all, and when she attempted to take the District and then the Piccadilly, she couldn’t get beyond Gloucester Road and had to leave the station and find a bus. But it only went as far as Bond Street, where a huge pile of rubble blocked the street. She had to walk the rest of the way, dodging barricades and a roped-off area with a notice saying Danger: Gas Leak.

Oxford Street was awash in water from the firemen’s hoses and shattered glass. It took her another quarter of an hour to reach the gutted John Lewis, and when she did, it was much, much worse than she’d envisioned from the photos. The great brick arches gaped emptily onto a vast, blackened expanse of charred beams and girders, dripping with water. It looked less like a burned building than the wreck of some massive ocean liner. Here and there among the drowned wreckage were a half-burnt placard saying On Sale, a sodden glove, a charred clothes hanger.

At the rear of the store Polly could see a fireman playing a hose on the timbers, though the fire was long since out. Two other firemen wound a heavy hose onto a wooden reel, and a fourth walked toward the fire pumper still standing in the middle of the street. A middle-aged woman in trousers and a tin hat was stringing a rope around the area. There was broken glass everywhere, and brick dust, and when Polly looked up Oxford Street, it was shrouded in thick smoke.

She picked her way through the broken glass, stepping over hoses and between puddles. This is pointless, she thought. There’s no way any of the stores will be open, let alone hiring. But two workmen were putting up a banner over Peter Robinson’s main doors that read We’re Open. Don’t Mind Our Mess, as if they were under construction. And she could see a woman going into Townsend Brothers. Polly crunched through the glass behind her, stopping at the door to straighten her jacket and pick glass fragments out of the soles of her shoes before she went in.

She needn’t have bothered. Two shopgirls were sweeping up more glass inside, and a third was showing lipsticks to the woman Polly had followed in. There was no one else on the floor, and no one in the lift except for the lift operator, who asked her, “Didja see what Jerry did to John Lewis?” as she slid the gate across.

There was no one shopping on the fifth floor either. They obviously don’t need any additional help, Polly thought, but the moment she walked into the personnel manager’s office, he offered her the position of junior shop assistant in the lingerie department and escorted her personally down to the third floor to a pretty, brown-haired young woman. “Where is Miss Snelgrove?” the manager asked her.

“She telephoned she’d be late, Mr. Witherill,” she said, smiling at Polly. “She said there was a UXB in the Edgware Road, and they’d cordoned the entire neighborhood off, so she had to go through the park, and-”

“This is Miss Sebastian,” Mr. Witherill cut in. “She will be working the gloves and stockings counter.” And to Polly, “Miss Hayes will show you where things are and explain your duties. Tell Miss Snelgrove to report to me the moment she comes in.”

“Don’t mind him,” Miss Hayes said after he’d left. “He’s a bit nervy. We’ve had three girls give notice this morning, and he’s worried Miss Snelgrove might have legged it as well. She hasn’t, more’s the pity. She’s our floor supervisor and very particular,” she confided, lowering her voice. “I think she’s the reason Betty quit, though she said it was because of what happened to John Lewis. Miss Snelgrove was always on at her about something. Have you worked in a department store before, Miss Sebastian?”

“Yes, Miss Hayes.”

“Oh, good, then you’ll have had some experience with stock and things,” she said, stepping behind the counter. “And you needn’t call me Miss Hayes when it’s only us. Call me Marjorie. And you’re…?”

“Polly.”

“Where did you work, Polly?”

“In Manchester, at Debenham’s.” She’d picked Manchester because of its distance from London and because she knew there was a Debenham’s there. She’d seen a photo of it gutted in a raid in December. But it would be just her luck to have Marjorie say, “Really? I’m from Manchester.”

She didn’t. She said, “Do you know how to write up sales?”

Polly did. She also knew how to do sums, use carbon paper, work an adding machine, sharpen pencils, and every other possible task Research and Mr. Dunworthy-who believed historians should be prepared for every possible contingency-thought a shopgirl might conceivably need to know.

The money had been the most difficult to learn. Really, their monetary system had been insane, and she’d expected that to give her the most trouble at work, but Marjorie told her all of Townsend Brothers’ cash transactions were handled by the financial office upstairs. All Polly had to do was place the money and the bill in a brass tube, send it shooting along a system of pneumatic chutes, and it came back moments later with the correct change. I needn’t have learned all those guineas and half-crowns and farthings, she thought.

Marjorie showed her how to bill a sale to a customer’s account and write up a delivery order, which drawers the different sizes of gloves and silk and cotton lisle and woolen stockings were in, and how to line the hosiery boxes with a single sheet of tissue, lay the stockings in them, then wrap the box in brown paper, folding the ends under and tying them with string from a large bolt.

That was something neither Research nor Mr. Dunworthy had thought of, but it didn’t look too difficult. But when she made her first sale-Marjorie had been right, it had picked up; by eleven, there were half a dozen women shoppers, one of whom, an elderly lady, told Polly, “When I saw what Hitler’d done to Oxford Street, I decided to buy a new pair of garters, just to show him!”-she made a complete botch of the wrapping. Her ends were uneven, her folds crooked, and when she tried to wrap the string around it, the wrapping came completely undone.

“I’m so sorry, madam. It’s my first day,” she said, trying again, and this time she managed to hold the parcel together, but her knot was so loose the string slid off one end.