Blackout - Connie Willis

“But it is the best we’ve seen… Very well, I’ll take it.”

Thank goodness. “Excellent, madam. I’ll have it and your other purchases sent round first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Perhaps it would be best if I took them with me.”

No, no, no. If you take them, they’ll need to be wrapped, and those are definitely planes.

“You’re certain they’ll be delivered by tomorrow morning?” Mrs. Sadler was saying. “Roland-”

Is leaving for Scotland on Thursday. I know. “Absolutely certain, madam. I’ll see to it personally.” She walked them over to the lifts, where the lift operator was waiting impatiently, then dashed back to her counter, wrote up the sales slip, pinned it to the stack of clothes, and started into the storeroom with them.

Oh, no, here they came again. “Did you forget something, Mrs. Sadler?” Eileen asked.

“No, I decided I want to see Roland in the blazer and the woolen waistcoat. It will be very cold in Scotland. Roland, unbutton your coat.”

“I won’t,” Roland said.

“I know you’re tired, darling,” Mrs. Sadler said, “but we’re nearly finished.”

Truer words, Eileen said silently, glancing nervously up at the ceiling. The planes sounded very close, and it was a long way from here to the tube station.

Where is the retrieval team? she thought for the thousandth time since she’d arrived in London. If they don’t get here soon, there’ll be nothing left for them to retrieve.

“Won’t you please put the blazer on for Mother?” Mrs. Sadler said. “There’s a good boy.”

He was anything but. He twisted his head violently as Eileen attempted to put the waistcoat on him and, when she held out the blazer, folded his arms belligerently across his chest. “I don’t like her,” he said. “She twisted my arm before.”

You little liar, Eileen thought, wishing Alf and Binnie were here. “I’ll be very careful,” she said, and, under her breath, “Hold your arm out before I break it.”

He promptly extended it and she got the blazer on him.

“There. It’s a perfect fit.”

“You’re quite right. It is.” Mrs. Sadler stood back, looking doubtfully at him. “But now that I see them together, I don’t know…”

“I could hold them for you,” Eileen said before she could ask to see anything else.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said doubtfully. “I had hoped to finish his shopping today… but if you haven’t any brown… yes, I think having you hold them will be best.”

Thank God, Eileen thought, even though it meant she’d have all this to do again tomorrow. She unblazered and unwaistcoated Roland, forgetting in her eagerness to have them gone to watch out for him. He stomped down hard on her instep, and when she yelped, said innocently, “Oh, did I tread on your foot? I am sorry.”

“Come, Roland,” Mrs. Sadler said. “We must hurry.”

She’s finally noticed we’re in the middle of a raid, Eileen thought, and about time. The searchlights had gone on, and the anti-aircraft guns were starting up.

“Do hurry, darling. We must go to Harrods and see what they have.”

Harrods is closed, Eileen thought, but she wasn’t about to say that, or anything else that might delay them. She saw them to the lift again, and then hobbled over to switch off the department’s lights, wondering if Roland had broken her foot.

And just when I need to make a run for the tube shelter, she thought, limping back to her department. Another gun, nearer than the last, began firing, and she heard an explosion.

If I don’t leave soon, I’ll have to spend the night here again. And perhaps that would be best. The planes sounded as if they were headed straight for Oxford Street, and at least she was safe here in Padgett’s. She scooped up the blazer and waistcoat, dumped them in the storeroom, and covered her counter.

And heard voices from over by the lifts. Oh, no, Eileen thought. They’re back again. She quickly switched off the lamp on her counter and ducked into the storeroom. She wouldn’t put it past Mrs. Sadler to send Roland in here to look for her. She limped to the back and hid behind the last row of shelves, straining to hear above the increasing drone of the planes.

The voices were coming closer. I am not going out there, no matter what, she thought. She pressed herself into the corner and prepared to wait them out.

I am coming home if I can. 

London-25 October 1940

FOR AN ENDLESS MINUTE STANDING THERE IN PADGETT’S, Polly couldn’t absorb what Michael Davies was saying or even the fact that he was there, she’d been so focused on finding Merope. She simply stood there gaping at him while he shook her arm and shouted that they had to get out of there.

“What are you doing here?” she managed finally. “Why aren’t you at Pearl Harbor?”

“It’s a long story. I’ll tell you later. The question is, what are you doing here? Didn’t you hear the sirens? Come on!”

You’re the retrieval team, she thought, dazed. You’re finally here. She felt suddenly light and buoyant, as if an enormous weight she hadn’t known she was carrying had been lifted. “Oh, my God, Michael, I…” she stammered, “I am so glad to see you!”

“You’re glad?” An anti-aircraft gun started up. “Listen, we can’t stay here. We’ve got to get to shelter. Does this store have one?”

“Yes, but we can’t use it. It was demolished.”

“Demolished? What do you-?”

“Padgett’s is going to be bombed tonight.”

“Tonight? What time?”

“I don’t know. At some point during one of the first raids.”

“Then let’s get out of here,” he said and began pulling her back toward the stairwell.

“No! We’ve got to find Merope first.”

“Merope? What’s she doing here? She was supposed to have gone back ages ago.”

“I don’t know, but she works here on this floor. In Notions.” She wrenched free of him and ran across the darkened floor, calling, “Eileen!”

There she was, standing next to a counter. “Merope!” Polly cried, but it wasn’t her-it was a mannequin, draped in lengths of fabric, her hands modishly posed. Polly raced past her, past bolts of fabric and rows of sewing machines, looking for Notions.

And this was obviously it-here was the buttons cabinet and the threads case-but the counter was shrouded, like all the others, in green baize, and its counter lamp was switched off. “Merope? Eileen? Are you here?” she called, but there was no answer, no movement. “She’s not here,” she reported to Michael as he came up.

He was limping. “What happened?” she asked. “Did you hurt your foot?”

“Yes, but not recently. I’ll tell you later. Right now we need to get out of here.”

“Not without Merope.”

“Who told you she worked here?”

“A girl I work with. Why?”

“Because I’ve been here the whole afternoon, looking for you, and I didn’t see her.”

“But-you looked on this floor? Here in the notions department?”

“Yes. She wasn’t here.”

“She might have been on her tea break or-”

“No, I was here over an hour. And then I stationed myself where I could watch the staff entrance when the store closed. That was what I was doing when I spotted you. She didn’t come out the staff entrance.”

“Then she must still be here. She must work in some other part of the store,” Polly said, even though Marjorie’d said she was certain about her working in Notions. On third. “Or she may have been sent to another floor to fill in.”

“Even if she was, she’d have left by now.” He looked up at the ceiling. “We’ve got to get out of here. Listen to those planes. They’ll be here any minute-”

“Not till we’ve searched the other floors.”

“We don’t have time-”

“We will if we split up. You go back down to first and work your way up, and I’ll-”

“Absolutely not. It took me almost a month to find you. We’re not getting separated again. Come on.” He grabbed her arm and hurried her across the floor. “We’ll take the elevator.”

“You mean the lift?” Polly said. “But-”

“Don’t worry, I know how to run it. That’s how I got up here.” He pushed her into the open lift.

“But they aren’t supposed to be used during raids.”

“The raid hasn’t started yet.” He pulled the metal grille across and reached for the lever. “Which floor?”

She looked up at the numbers above the door. “The top one. Seven. We’ll work our way down.”

“Along with the bombs,” he said, yanking the lever across. The car began to ascend. “Seven’s nothing but offices. We’ll start with six.”

She nodded, watching the arrow creep past four to five and then six. “Do you remember what was on six?”

“Sixth floor. China, kitchenwares, home furnishings,” he chanted in a lift boy’s singsong. “Here we are, madam.” The lift jolted to a stop. “Sorry.” He slid the gate back and reached to open the door.

“Careful,” Polly whispered. “If the guard’s out there-”

“He’s not. He’s down on the ground floor looking for me.” He opened the door onto a roar of planes. “Or if he has any survival instincts, he’s in a shelter. It doesn’t look like she’s-”

“You take that side and I’ll take the other,” Polly said and ran through the darkened departments, past the place settings and sofas, shouting Merope’s name over the rumble of the planes, but she wasn’t there.

Or on fifth. “She’s not here,” Mike said, hobbling over to her, “and we’ve got to go. The planes-”

“Fourth,” Polly said grimly.

They got back in the lift. “If there’s no one here either,” he said, opening the door, “we’re going to have to-”

“She’s here,” Polly said. “Look. The lights are still on.” But the light was coming from the searchlights and an orange glow from a fire somewhere. Between them, they lit the entire floor and it was obviously deserted.

“She’s not here either,” Michael said.

“We still must check,” she said stubbornly and started out of the lift.

He grabbed her arm. “There’s no time. You’ve got to face it, she’s not here. Even if she does work here, we must have missed her somehow. Maybe she took one of the other elevators down while we were coming up. There’s nobody here. The store’s completely empty.”

“No, it’s not. There were casualties. Three people were killed-”

“Yes, and two of them will be us if we don’t get out of here right now.”

He was right. The planes were nearly overhead. And Merope obviously wasn’t here. Marjorie must have got the name of the store muddled-

Marjorie, whom nobody had known was on Jermyn Street. What if Merope had stayed late to tidy her shelves? Or had come back for something she’d forgotten? There’d been three casualties-

Polly wrenched violently free of Michael and ran out across the floor. “Merope!” she shouted above the drone of the planes. There was a loud crump, and the tall windows lit up. She flinched. “Eileen!”

“Polly!” Mike shouted, hobbling after her. “Get away from the windows!”

She ignored him, running on toward what had to be the children’s wear department. There was a tiny mannequin in a frilly dress. “Eileen!” she called, running past it toward a row of infants’ cots.

“We’ve got to go!” Mike shouted. “She’s not here-” There was another explosion, closer, and Mike’s voice cut off.

Polly wheeled, but he wasn’t hurt: He was standing there, staring back toward Children’s Wear as if he’d heard something. “What is it?” Polly asked.

And Merope was running toward them from the door of a storeroom, her face radiant with smiles. She threw herself into Polly’s arms. “Polly, oh, my goodness, I’ve never been so happy to see anyone in my life!” She ran over to hug Michael. “And you’re here, too! This is wonderful! I’d nearly given up hope. Where have you been?”

The poom-poom-poom of an anti-aircraft gun started up, so close it rattled the windows, and Michael said, “We can discuss that later. Right now we’ve got to get out of here.”

“There’s a shelter here,” Merope said. “In the basement-”

“No, we must get out of the store,” Polly said.

“Oh. Then I’ll get my coat and-”

“There isn’t time. Come on!” Michael shouted over the deafening sound of the planes. “Where’s the closest way down?”

“There’s a stairway over there,” Merope said, pointing.

“The elevator will be quicker,” Mike said and started back across the floor.

Polly opened her mouth to say, “But the raid’s begun. Wouldn’t the stairs be safer?” but it was four flights, and with that limp, he clearly couldn’t move that fast. She followed him, dragging Merope along with her. “Hurry.”

Merope was limping, too. “Is your foot injured?” Polly shouted as they ran.

“No. A perfectly horrid child trod on my instep.”

“The ones you were telling me about in Oxford?”

“Alf and Binnie? No, they’re amateurs compared to this little wretch. I hope one of these bombs falls on him,” she said, glancing anxiously up at the ceiling. The planes were very near. Another anti-aircraft gun roared into action, and the windows lit up with a garish green. A flare. “I don’t think there’s time to go to a shelter. We’ll have to use Padgett’s. It’s all right. It’s been reinforced.”

Polly shook her head. “Padgett’s is going to be bombed.”

“It is?” Merope turned frightened eyes to her. “But you said… When?”

“I don’t know,” Polly said. “Any minute.”

“But you said Padgett’s hadn’t been bombed.”

“I did not. Hurry! We can talk about this later.”

But Merope continued to chatter as Polly dragged her, hobbling, to the lift. “That’s why I took the job here, because you said it was safe. You said you were going to work in a department store, Selfridges or Padgett’s or-”

Oh, God. I said those were the ones Mr. Dunworthy forbade me to work in, Polly thought, but this was no time to go into it. Or into why Merope hadn’t come back to Townsend Brothers that Monday. Or what she was still doing here. “We’ll sort it all out later,” she said.

Merope nodded. “After we’re back in Oxford. When I found out you’d already gone, I was afraid I’d never see Oxford again. I didn’t know what to do-”

Michael was already inside the lift. “Come on!” he yelled.

There was a loud crump, half a mile away, and a bright flash. Polly pushed Merope into the lift ahead of her, and pulled the brass gate across for Michael. “Go,” she said.

He yanked the lever all the way back, and the lift began to descend. “I still can’t believe you’re here,” Merope chattered to Michael. “I heard voices, but I thought Mrs. Sadler and her horrid son Roland had come back, so I hid in the storeroom, and then I heard someone calling Polly’s name. When I think I nearly didn’t come out-”