“No, Alf and I tried to work that out. It was after the north transept of St. Paul’s was hit—”
Which had been on April sixteenth. “And there were raids that night?”
“Yes. At any rate, I think so. It’s difficult to remember. There were so many raids. I’m sorry I can’t be of more help.” She put her hand on his arm. “You mustn’t grow discouraged if you’re not able to find the right date straightaway.”
“Did Eileen tell you that happened?”
“No, and I’m not certain it did, but you seem younger today than you did the night you came through.”
“Is that why you gave me that odd look in the air-raid shelter?”
“The air-raid shelter?” she said, looking suddenly cornered, caught out.
“Yes,” he said. “We were talking about Eileen and then the bomb sound effect went off and the shelter lit up, and you gave me an odd look and said, ‘I wonder if she … that would explain …’ Was that what you meant? That I looked older?”
“It must have been. That’s the worst thing about growing old. One can’t remember what one was talking about five minutes afterward.” She laughed. “I can’t think what else it could have been. Oh, I know—it wasn’t about you at all. Mrs. Netterton said she didn’t remember there being red lights in the shelters, and I had no idea what she was talking about. She’s rather scattered, poor dear. And then when the bomb went off, and there was that red light, I realized that must have been it.”
It sounded plausible, and he’d have no doubt believed her if it hadn’t been for that Evacuation Committee head telling him, “They’d stand there looking all wide-eyed and innocent and tell you the most outrageous fibs.”
But what possible reason could she have for lying to him? She had spent the last six years trudging from one place to another to find him and tell him the truth, not hold it back.
Unless it was something terrible. But she had looked bemused, not distressed. Perhaps something had occurred that night at the theater that she hadn’t fully understood till now.
Whatever it was, it was clear she had no intention of telling him. “I must get back before they miss me,” she was saying, looking up at the museum. “They’ll think we’ve run off together.”
“I wish we could,” he said. “Thank you. For everything you’ve done.” He leaned forward and kissed her on her cheek, in spite of what it was likely to do to her reputation. “It was above and beyond the call of duty.”
She shook her head. “It was the least we could do for her after all she did for us. She took us in, fed us, clothed us, sent us to school. She was ‘the only one what was nice to us,’ as my brother would say.” She smiled at him. “I doubt if we’d have survived the war without her. And even if we had, I’d have ended up on the streets, and Alf—I hate to think of where he’d be.”
“But I thought—you said he was down at the Old Bailey.”
“He is. Oh, you thought because I said he’d been detained that he was the defendant.” She laughed. “Oh, dear, I must tell Alf that. No, he’s had an important case on this week, and the jury stayed out longer than expected.”
“He’s a barrister?” Colin said, astonished.
“No,” she said, and laughed again. “He’s a judge.”
All shall be well, and
All manner of thing shall be well.
—T. S. ELIOT, FOUR QUARTETS
London—7 May 1945
AT THREE, EILEEN PICKED UP COLONEL ABRAMS FROM THE Savoy in the staff car. “To the War Office, Lieutenant,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” she said. She pulled out of the drive onto the Strand and then jammed on the brakes as a man ran straight in front of the car and across the road, shouting,
“It’s here!”
“It’s not a V-2, is it?” Colonel Abrams, who was newly arrived from the States, said, peering anxiously out the window.
“No,” she said. It’s the end of the war.
And as soon as she’d delivered him to the War Office and he’d gone inside, she drove straight to Alf and Binnie’s school.
“I’ve come for Alf and Binnie,” she told the headmistress. “I need to take them home with me at once.”
“Have you heard something, then?” the headmistress asked.
And what should she answer? The surrender wouldn’t be officially announced till tomorrow, even though it had been signed at three this morning. And the newsagents’ signboards she’d seen on the way had said only, Surrender Soon?
“I haven’t heard anything official,” she said, “but everyone’s been saying they expect the announcement at any moment.”
The headmistress beamed. “I’ll fetch them,” she said, and bustled off down the corridor.
She was gone for what seemed like forever. They’d better not have chosen today to play truant, Eileen thought anxiously.
She leaned out the door to look down the corridor, and caught a glimpse of a teenaged girl at the end of it, taking her coat out of the cupboard. The girl was tall and graceful, with shining blonde hair. What a pretty girl, Eileen thought.
The girl shut the cupboard and turned, and Eileen realized with a shock that it was Binnie. Oh, my, she’s nearly
