she fell down the stairs. You thought it was a real siren,” he said, pointing at her and then doubling up with laughter. “What a good joke! You shoulda seen your face. Wait’ll I tell Binnie!” He started to run off, but Eileen hadn’t spent nine months with them for nothing. She was not leaving without the map. She grabbed Alf’s collar and held on in spite of his wriggling.
“Stop squirming and stand still,” she said. “I want to talk to you. Do you still have the map the vicar gave you?”
“I dunno,” he said. “Why?”
“I need to borrow it.”
“What for?” he said, his eyes narrowing again. “You ain’t one of them fifth columnists, are you?”
“Of course not. I need it to look up something. If you’ll lend it to me, I’ll give you a book.”
Alf snorted. “A book?”
“Yes,” she said, attempting to decide whether she dared let go of him long enough to take it out of her bag. “About chopping people’s heads off.”
He was immediately interested. “Whose ’eads?”
He was immediately interested. “Whose ’eads?”
“Anne Boleyn’s. Sir Thomas More’s. Lady Jane Grey’s.” She took the book from her bag.
“Does it got pictures?” he asked, and when she nodded, “Can I see ’em?”
“Not till you bring me the map.”
He thought it over. “No,” he said finally. “What if a Messerschmitt comes over? ’Ow’ll I mark it if I ain’t got —”
“I only need it for a day or two. After they chopped their heads off, they put them up on spikes on London Bridge.”
His face lit up. “Does it got pictures of that?”
“Yes,” she lied.
“All right. Only you got to pay me. Five quid.”
“Five quid?” Eileen said. “Do you know how much money that is? I have no intention—”
Alf shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
Very well, Eileen thought. “Where did you get that parrot, Alf?” she asked. “You stole it, didn’t you?”
“No!” he said, outraged. “We never. We found it in the rubble. There’s all sorts of things in the rubble.”
“That’s looting,” Eileen said, “and looting’s a crime.”
“It ain’t looting!” he protested, his hands going defensively to his pockets. “ ’Ow can it be looting if the people what owned it’s dead?”
Which was a good point, but Eileen needed that map, and they’d just taken ten years off her life with that parrot. “It’s still looting in the eyes of the law.”
“Mrs. Bascombe woulda died if we ’adn’t found her. We rescued ’er.”
“That may be, but I’m still going to have to call a constable and tell him you’re keeping a stolen parrot in your rooms.”
He went white as a sheet. “Wait! Don’t!” he pleaded. “You can borrow the map.”
“Thank you,” she began, and he wrenched suddenly free of her grasp, snatched the book out of her hands, and went racing off across the rubble. “Alf, you come back here!” Eileen called after him, but he’d already disappeared.
And so had her chances of getting the map. She would have to admit defeat, go to Charing Cross Road, and hope she could find a map in a travel guide.
She began walking toward Mile End Road, hoping the journey back wouldn’t be as—
“Eileen!” Alf called, running up to her, Binnie at his heels. “You was s’posed to wait,” he said accusingly, and handed Eileen the map.
“You needn’t bring it back,” Binnie said. “You can keep it. He don’t do planespotting no more. Now he collects shrapnel.”
“And UXBs,” Alf said.
Of course, Eileen thought.
“So you needn’t come back,” Binnie finished.
Eileen needn’t have worried about them following her back to Mrs. Rickett’s. On the contrary, they couldn’t wait to be rid of her. Why? What were they up to now? Alf had turned pale when she’d mentioned calling a constable. Had he “collected” a UXB and taken it home? But surely not even Mrs. Hodbin would have let them keep—
“ ’Ad’nt you better be goin’?” Binnie said. “It’s gettin’ late.”
She was right, and whatever mischief they were up to, it was no longer her responsibility. “Yes,” Eileen said. “Thank you for the map, Alf. Goodbye, Binnie.”
“Dolores.”
I’ll almost miss you, Eileen thought. Almost.
