At the Water's Edge

  He was interrupted by a huge explosion in the distance, followed immediately by another--a terrible sound that reverberated across the water and through the glen. I screamed into my mask and grabbed Meg, who gripped me just as tightly.

  After about twenty minutes, which felt like twenty years, the siren rose to its highest pitch and stayed there, before finally dropping off into silence.

  "What's that? What does that mean?" said Hank, who remained on the top bunk.

  "That's the all clear," said Meg, removing her mask. She was pale. "Sweet Mother of God. I wonder where that was?"

  Mr. Ross set his rifle down and simply shook his head.

  "Please God they didn't hit anyone," said Meg, pressing her fingertips to her temples.

  "Aye," said Mr. Ross, nodding slowly.

  I tried to pull off my mask, which wouldn't budge, so I yanked even harder. Meg stilled my hands and got me free. I'd forgotten she'd threaded the straps through my rollers.

  Without a word, Mr. Ross shut off the flashlight and left the shelter, leaving the flap open.

  "Come on then," said Meg. She and I felt our way to the front and climbed out. I could see Mr. Ross's silhouette as he trudged across the yard toward the inn, Conall at his side. He never looked back.

  Meg and I linked arms, feeling our way together across the frozen earth, and trying not to step on the precious winter vegetables. Hank and Ellis followed.

  --

  Moments after I reached my room, there was a knock on my door.

  "Maddie? Darling?" said Ellis.

  "I'm getting ready for bed."

  "Maddie, please. I need a pill."

  I let him in.

  "They're in the top drawer," I said.

  Ellis yanked it open and rummaged around until he found the bottle. I could tell from the rattling that he was taking more than one. He kept his back toward me until he'd tossed them in his mouth.

  "Do you want one?" he asked, after gulping them down with water from the pitcher. It dribbled down the front of his pajamas. "Fuck," he explained, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

  "I'm fine," I said.

  "You must be shattered. Here, take these." He shook a couple of pills into his hand and held them out to me.

  "Put them on the dresser," I said.

  I took my coat off, folded it in half, and laid it over the back of the chair. Then I lined my shoes up beneath the chair's edge, where I wouldn't trip over them.

  Ellis watched with narrowed eyes. "Were those laid out for you?"

  Instead of answering, I smoothed my coat, brushing off the frost.

  "They were, weren't they?" he insisted. "That's why you were able to get them on so quickly."

  He glanced at the dresser drawer he'd left open, at the clothes that had been folded until he'd messed them up. He stepped across the room and opened my closet, revealing dresses and other items on hangers.

  "They've put your things away," he said indignantly. "You should see the state of my room. It's like they're refusing to do it on general principle."

  "I put my own things away."

  It took him a second to respond. "You did what?"

  "I did it myself."

  He blinked at me in disbelief. "Darling, you know better than that. What were you thinking?"

  He launched into a speech about the dangers of making excuses for the help, and how slippery a slope it was from there to familiarity, and then Heaven only knew where it would end, but certainly not well. If Hank's kitchen maid wasn't proof of that, he didn't know what was. Mrs. Boyd had nearly gotten into a legal pickle sorting that mess out. Maintaining a proper distance was crucial, and he certainly hoped I wasn't...

  I stared in fascination, watching his tongue undulate behind his teeth. Once, a string of saliva attached itself to his lips and survived the length of a few words before snapping. His nostrils flared beneath his pinched bridge. Deep lines appeared between his eyes, and when he tilted his chin so he could look down his nose at me, I could have sworn I was looking at his mother's head spliced onto his body, a living, breathing cockentrice that had climbed off its platter and spat the apple out of its mouth so it could yammer at me about how surely even I could see that my blurred boundaries not only encouraged the lower classes to be lazy, but threatened the very social structures our lives were built upon.

  I realized that he'd stopped talking.

  "Maddie?" he said, peering closely at me. "Are you all right?"

  "I'm fine," I said, trying to shake the image from my head. "It's just been a long night, and I'd like to get to bed."

  His expression softened. "I'm sorry, darling. Sometimes I forget how fragile you are. I shouldn't have scolded you, especially right after..."

  He left the sentence unfinished, having apparently decided that reminding me of the air raid would send me over the edge.

  "Can you forgive me?" He took a step toward me, and I instinctively held up my hand. He stopped, but looked hurt.

  I gripped the back of the chair and trained my eyes on the grate. There was no point in telling him that his behavior in the shelter had been a degree worse than ungentlemanly. I wasn't looking for an argument.

  "And now I'm the one who's sorry," I said, turning to face him. "I didn't mean to be prickly. I just need to sleep."

  "Yes, of course," he said, becoming the epitome of chivalry. "But if you need anything, anything at all, you know where to find me. And make sure you take your pills. Even if you're not having an episode, they'll help you sleep."

  As soon as he left, I went to the door and turned the lock. I also slid the bolt.

  When I put the pills he'd set out back in the bottle, I was alarmed by how many were missing.

  --

  Twenty minutes later, there was another knock.

  I turned my back to the door and pulled the pillow up around my face. If I ignored him, surely he'd assume I was asleep and leave me alone.

  "Mrs. Hyde?" said Meg.

  Seconds later, I was standing at the open door.

  "Meg--is everything all right?"

  "Perfectly," she whispered. "Except my feet are freezing, and I thought yours might be too, so I brought you a pig."

  She thrust a hot water bottle made of stoneware into my arms. It was indeed shaped like a pig, complete with snout.

  "Thank you," I said, clutching it. Though it made no sense, I shivered all the more for its heat.

  "Best close the door now. I've only brought the two, and I'm not going back for more--not for the likes of them, anyway. I've got to be up and out in less than four hours."

  I shook my head in the dark. "I honestly don't know how you do it."

  She let out a quiet laugh.

  "Me either. No choice, I suppose."

  Chapter Twenty-one

  When I dragged myself downstairs in the morning, I found Ellis and Hank in unusually good spirits, not in spite of being wrenched out of their beds in the middle of the night, but because of it.

  As they revisited the air raid over the breakfast table, the details matured. By the final retelling, Ellis had made sure that everyone else was safely in the shelter before coming in himself, Hank had positioned himself on the bunk above Meg and me to shield us with his own body, and Mr. Ross was barely present.

  Anna's demeanor got stonier and stonier as she served and cleared breakfast.

  Hank decided he would write to Violet, musing that perhaps the idea of his being in mortal danger would loosen her draconian premarital rules.

  "You and she are premarital now, are you?" said Ellis.

  "Well, pre-premarital, at least," said Hank. "But still, I think I ought to be able to sample the goods. What if I wait until the wedding night and then find I'm stuck with something subpar until death do us part?"

  "Hank," I said urgently.

  "What?"

  "In case you've forgotten," I continued in a lowered voice, "you're in mixed company."

  "Darling girl, when did you become such a prude
?"

  "I don't mean me." I cut my eyes over to Anna.

  "Oh," he said, furrowing his brow.

  He changed the topic to monster hunting, but not before giving me an odd look. It was perfectly obvious that he hadn't registered Anna's presence at all.

  --

  The front door opened, and a handsome ginger-haired man in shabby clothing came in. He nodded at Hank and Ellis, set the two baskets he was carrying on the floor, and turned his attention to the door, swinging it back and forth until he identified the point at which it squeaked most loudly. He was young enough to be fighting, and I wondered why he wasn't--not that I would judge, but I was certainly sensitive to the issue.

  "Well, whadya know," Hank said to Ellis. "It's George the Vannie. Maybe he'll give us a lift again."

  "Aye aye, George," said Anna, appearing behind the bar. "And how are you getting on?"

  "You're seeing it. Although it's right dank, the day," he said, closing the door and carrying his baskets to the bar.

  I couldn't help staring. He walked from side to side, almost like a penguin, swinging his right leg forward from the hip. The leg was false.

  "And what have you got for me today?" asked Anna.

  "Paraffin, naturally. Plus a packet from the laundry and some things from the butcher."

  "Well, let's see them."

  "There's mutton shanks and some lovely sausages," said George, hauling them out and setting them on the bar. The meat was unwrapped with the price drawn directly on it.

  Anna leaned over to sniff it. When she stood back up, she put her hands on her hips.

  "And I suppose our sheets are also smelling like paraffin?" she asked accusingly.

  "Just pitching in to save petrol," said George. "They'll air out. Put them in the meat locker and they'll be right as rain."

  "I'm to put the sheets in the meat locker, am I?" Anna said with a long-suffering sigh. It was apparently a rhetorical question, because she turned and took the meat through to the back.

  "Shall I oil the door for you, then?" he called after her. "It screeches like someone caught a cat by the tail."

  He craned his neck, peering through the doorway and waiting in vain for an answer. Eventually he gave up.

  "Well, I'm off then," he said to the three of us. "Tell her I'll be back to fix the door."

  "Say, I don't suppose you're going anywhere near the Horseshoe, are you?" Hank asked.

  "I wasn't, but I suppose I could be."

  "Same terms as before? Perhaps a little extra for your trouble?"

  "I'd be a fool to say no," said George. "Are you ready now, or shall I come back when I've finished my rounds?"

  Hank drained his tea and lifted his duffel bag. "Ready when you are. Why don't you drop us off at the telephone and collect us when you're done? We have some calls to make."

  Ellis kissed my cheek before he left.

  --

  Anna came back from the kitchen and cut the strings on the parcels of sheets. She flipped a few folds open and sniffed the creases.

  "Oof!" she said, waving a hand in front of her nose. "I'd hang these out back if it weren't for the snow. Maybe if I leave the quilts off and open the windows for a few hours...And I suppose it's paraffin pie I'll be making for dinner tonight." She glanced sideways at me. "I can't help but notice you've not gone with them for a week and a half."

  "Can you blame me?"

  "Not a bit," she replied. "They're that sleekit you might turn around and find they've left you at the side of the road."

  After a few seconds, I said, "Anna, can you teach me to knit?"

  She had started refolding the sheets. She stopped.

  "Come again?"

  "You once asked if I could knit. I can't. But I want to. I want to knit socks for the soldiers."

  "It's not as easy as that," she said, looking at me strangely. "It's difficult to turn a good heel. There are competitions over it."

  "What about squares? Surely I could learn to knit squares. Are those also for the soldiers?"

  "Mrs. Hyde--" she said.

  "Maddie. Please call me Maddie."

  "I'm very sorry, but I don't have time to teach you how to knit."

  "Then can I help you with the housework?"

  She shook her head vigorously. "Oh, I don't think so. No, I don't think that would be wise at all."

  "But why?" I pleaded. "When we first got here, you accused me of 'lolling about by the fire,' and it's true. It's what I do all day, every day, and it's driving me mad, but I'm stuck here until my husband either finds the monster or gives up on it. Please--your load would be lightened, and I'd be so happy to have something to do."

  She frowned. "Your husband would never approve, and I don't suppose Angus would either."

  "They'll never know. I won't say a word to anyone, and I'll turn back into my usual idle self the second anyone else steps in the door."

  Her hands went still, and I knew she was considering it.

  "Have you ever made a bed?" she finally asked.

  "Yes," I said. "Well, once."

  She did a double take, then returned to folding. "I suppose if I change the sheets, you'd only have to put the quilts back on. And Mhathair did ask me to pick up a few things at the shops this afternoon..."

  "I can do more than just put the quilts on. I can also put their things away."

  She gave a sharp laugh. "Well, that would be an immense improvement. I've fairly given up hope in that regard."

  "So have they," I said solemnly.

  Her eyes widened. "I beg your pardon?"

  She stared at me, daring me to deny it. Instead, I nodded.

  "Oh, no, they never did think," she said indignantly. "They could not have expected..."

  "Yes, they most certainly did." I raised my eyebrows for effect. "And still do."

  Her eyes blazed. "Well, in that case, I'll just get these on the beds and leave you to it. Because if you don't do it, I cannot see how it's ever going to happen, and if nobody ever does it, I'll never be able to sweep the carpets again."

  She scooped the sheets off the bar and sailed away, her bosom hoisted like the prow of a Viking ship.

  I don't know if I was more astounded at having talked her into the idea, or at coming up with it in the first place.

  --

  While Anna changed the sheets, I flipped through the newspaper to see if there were any details about the bombs we'd heard drop. There weren't, but of course the paper would have already gone to press by the time it happened. There was plenty of other news though, and as I read it, my optimism about having found something to do with my days crashed into bleak depression.

  The juggernaut that was the Russian army was now only 165 miles from Berlin, and Marshal Stalin had announced that in one advance in Silesia alone they'd left behind sixty thousand dead Germans and taken another twenty-one thousand prisoner. It was a victory for our side, but I could not feel anything but a grim acknowledgment of progress.

  So many dead. Only two weeks earlier, I had found the idea of three thousand men killed in a single afternoon nearly impossible to comprehend. The sheer vastness of sixty thousand deaths was even more numbing. It made it almost possible to forget that each and every one of the dead had been an individual, with hopes and dreams and loves now snuffed.

  I did not see how this could go on. The world would run out of men.

  --

  When Anna came back downstairs, I was sitting with the newspaper open in my lap, staring at the wall.

  "You've not had a change of heart, have you?" she said.

  "Not at all," I said, forcing a smile. I folded the newspaper and stood. "So besides straightening everything and putting the quilts back on the beds, what else should I do? Fill the pitchers?"

  She frowned in temporary bafflement. "Oh, you mean the jugs? Don't worry about that. I'll finish up after I've been to the shops."

  "It's okay, Anna," I said. "Even I can't mess up filling pitchers--or rather, jugs--and you can check my hand
iwork when you get back."

  She tsked. "Oh, I'm not worried. Well, all right. Maybe I'll have a wee peek, but just for the first few days." She dug a key out of her apron pocket and held it out to me. "Here's the master."

  I took hold of it, but it was several seconds before she let go.

  --

  I started with Meg's room, which was easy because she was tidy, and worked my way down the hall.

  Hank's room was about as I expected. His clothes were mostly out of his luggage and scattered across the floor, and the rest looked like they were trying to make a slithering escape. I piled everything temporarily on the bed and began dragging his trunks and suitcases into the closet.

  One trunk appeared to be full of stockings and cigarettes, but when it refused to budge, I dug beneath the top layers and found dozens of bottles of liquor. They were buffered by straw and cardboard, but I was surprised they'd survived the trip. Hank's cache of international currency was so heavy I had to get down on my hands and knees and brace a foot against the bed to shift it, but eventually I forced it into the closet.

  I was out of breath. Although the window was wide open, my blouse was sticking to my back, and this was before I had even begun to address the remaining mess.

  It felt oddly intimate to be touching things like his socks and pajamas, never mind his underpants, but I soon got into a rhythm. At least he'd thrown his dirty clothes into one pile, so I didn't need to inspect anything too closely in that regard.

  Just when I thought I'd put everything away, I caught sight of something under the bed. It was a stack of postcards, and when I picked them up was shocked to find I was looking at a naked woman. She was reclining on a chaise longue with her legs apart, wearing nothing but a long string of pearls and a tiara.

  I glanced through the rest of them, fascinated. I had never seen a fully naked body except my own--Ellis had always gotten straight to business with as little displacement of clothes as possible, and always in the dark--and was surprised at how different they were. One lay on her back on a white horse, letting one leg dangle so the camera could focus on the dark area between her legs. Another was on all fours on a picnic blanket, smiling over her shoulder at the photographer. Her legs were parted just enough that her dangling breasts were visible between them, so large they almost looked weighted. Mine were tiny by comparison.

  When I came to the final card and realized there was a naked man in it as well, pressed up behind the woman and cupping her breasts, I became suddenly self-conscious and eager to be rid of them. I pulled open the drawer of the bedside table and, as I did, saw a small package labeled DOUGH-BOY PROPHYLACTIC. I had always thought a prophylactic was a toothbrush, but when I saw the words "for the prevention of venereal disease," I realized it was something quite other. I dropped the postcards inside and closed the drawer. I didn't want to learn anything else about Hank, and was glad that I'd finished his room.