trying to detect a secret sign that might differentiate this bombardment from all of the others; she’s trying to detect some dark, non-audible vibration which might reveal that everything has changed, that Glenda and Mum have not, this time, escaped.
Once the air-raids are over, she walks home in the pitch black, past the vague shadows of bombed out buildings, past smoking, steaming remains, past shadowy figures who might be friends, only it’s too dark to see. Sometimes a blazing building provides light and she jumps over vast, snake-like fire hoses dragged by exhausted, blackened firemen. She tries not to notice the child’s toy poking from beneath a collapsed wall, tries not to worry about the origin of the red stain on the pavement. War provides no censorship, so Barbara tries to create her own. And now she must round the final corner – she holds her breath. Will the house still be there? Will it be in flames? Or will it be flattened?
She lets herself in and sits watching the door, waiting for Glenda and her mother to come separately through it, hoping that the siren won’t sound before they do so. And here they are, revealing that it has happened again: they have been spared – another daily miracle amidst the mayhem of bombed-out London. But today something isdifferent. Barbara can sense a change. Minnie is holding Glenda’s hand, and Glenda is as white as a sheet.
“Come on,” Minnie tells her. “Get your things. We’re going to the shelter tonight,” and Barbara doesn’t ask why; she doesn’t want to know what has happened, because she has learned that there is enough terror in each day for everyone and that sharing it around is superfluous, that sharing it around just adds to everybody’s burden. It’s one huge life-lesson that she will never forget.
Last night’s raids were local and lethal, and the youth club shelter, in the arched tunnel of the basement, is packed solid. There is sitting room but no more. Minnie tells Barbara to look after her big sister and starts to tiptoe to the far side to fetch soup from the WVS ladies. Everyone around them looks exhausted; no one slept much last night.
“Are you OK, sister?” Barbara asks, a little unnerved by Glenda’s silence. She hasn’t said a word yet.
Glenda nods and blinks slowly. “They were asleep,” she says quietly. “The whole family. It was an unexploded one from the night before, so they wasn’t even in the shelter. Not that it would have done ‘em any good. That was flattened too.”
Barbara nods and hopes that Glenda won’t tell her who has died. She doesn’t like to put names and faces to these stories, because once fleshed out she knows that they will have the power to haunt her dreams, turning them into nightmares.
“Poor Billy,” Glenda says, shaking her head and breathing erratically with the effort she is making not to cry.
Poor Billy , Barbara repeats in her head and then, despite herself, the image of Glenda’s schoolfriend Billy Holt comes to mind, closely followed by Mrs Holt sweeping the front porch. She wonders about Billy’s sister Harriet – with whom she sometimes played – but decides, quite consciously, not to ask. All the same, she imagines Harriet, whose pretty dresses she was always so jealous of, buried somewhere beneath rubble, the crisp, starched cotton crushed by the weight of fallen brick. She imagines what that would feel like.
Minnie returns with mugs of watery soup and Barbara takes hers, grasps it between both hands, and counts to twenty so as to delay the first sip. Her anticipation of the soup is, she knows from experience, more powerful than its ability to actually satisfy her hunger. She likes to wait as long as possible.
“Eat your soup,” Minnie tells Glenda. She crouches down and pushes the hair from her daughter’s eyes – a rare display of affection reserved for exceptional circumstances such as these.
Someone at the far end of the cellar tries to start a singalong with a
Once the air-raids are over, she walks home in the pitch black, past the vague shadows of bombed out buildings, past smoking, steaming remains, past shadowy figures who might be friends, only it’s too dark to see. Sometimes a blazing building provides light and she jumps over vast, snake-like fire hoses dragged by exhausted, blackened firemen. She tries not to notice the child’s toy poking from beneath a collapsed wall, tries not to worry about the origin of the red stain on the pavement. War provides no censorship, so Barbara tries to create her own. And now she must round the final corner – she holds her breath. Will the house still be there? Will it be in flames? Or will it be flattened?
She lets herself in and sits watching the door, waiting for Glenda and her mother to come separately through it, hoping that the siren won’t sound before they do so. And here they are, revealing that it has happened again: they have been spared – another daily miracle amidst the mayhem of bombed-out London. But today something isdifferent. Barbara can sense a change. Minnie is holding Glenda’s hand, and Glenda is as white as a sheet.
“Come on,” Minnie tells her. “Get your things. We’re going to the shelter tonight,” and Barbara doesn’t ask why; she doesn’t want to know what has happened, because she has learned that there is enough terror in each day for everyone and that sharing it around is superfluous, that sharing it around just adds to everybody’s burden. It’s one huge life-lesson that she will never forget.
Last night’s raids were local and lethal, and the youth club shelter, in the arched tunnel of the basement, is packed solid. There is sitting room but no more. Minnie tells Barbara to look after her big sister and starts to tiptoe to the far side to fetch soup from the WVS ladies. Everyone around them looks exhausted; no one slept much last night.
“Are you OK, sister?” Barbara asks, a little unnerved by Glenda’s silence. She hasn’t said a word yet.
Glenda nods and blinks slowly. “They were asleep,” she says quietly. “The whole family. It was an unexploded one from the night before, so they wasn’t even in the shelter. Not that it would have done ‘em any good. That was flattened too.”
Barbara nods and hopes that Glenda won’t tell her who has died. She doesn’t like to put names and faces to these stories, because once fleshed out she knows that they will have the power to haunt her dreams, turning them into nightmares.
“Poor Billy,” Glenda says, shaking her head and breathing erratically with the effort she is making not to cry.
Poor Billy , Barbara repeats in her head and then, despite herself, the image of Glenda’s schoolfriend Billy Holt comes to mind, closely followed by Mrs Holt sweeping the front porch. She wonders about Billy’s sister Harriet – with whom she sometimes played – but decides, quite consciously, not to ask. All the same, she imagines Harriet, whose pretty dresses she was always so jealous of, buried somewhere beneath rubble, the crisp, starched cotton crushed by the weight of fallen brick. She imagines what that would feel like.
Minnie returns with mugs of watery soup and Barbara takes hers, grasps it between both hands, and counts to twenty so as to delay the first sip. Her anticipation of the soup is, she knows from experience, more powerful than its ability to actually satisfy her hunger. She likes to wait as long as possible.
“Eat your soup,” Minnie tells Glenda. She crouches down and pushes the hair from her daughter’s eyes – a rare display of affection reserved for exceptional circumstances such as these.
Someone at the far end of the cellar tries to start a singalong with a