All Clear

  “We may have some in the games department,” Polly said, cutting her off in midflow. “It’s on fifth. And if we’re out of plimsolls,” which Polly was almost certain they would be, with rubber needed for the war effort, “you mustn’t worry. We’ll think of something else.”

  “Of course you will.” Miss Laburnum patted her arm. “You’re such a clever girl.”

  Polly escorted her over to the lift and helped her into it. “Fifth,” she said to the lift boy, and to Miss Laburnum, “Thank you ever so much. It was terribly kind of you to do all this for us.”

  “Nonsense,” Miss Laburnum said briskly. “In difficult times like these, we must do all we can to help each other. Will you be at rehearsal tonight?” she asked as the lift boy pulled the door across.

  “Yes,” Polly said, “as soon as I get my cousin settled in.”

  If she and Mike are back by then, she added silently as she went back to her counter, but she felt certain now they would be.

  You were worried over nothing, she thought, picking up the umbrella and looking ruefully at it. And it will be the same thing with Mike and Eileen. Nothing’s happened to them. There weren’t any daytime raids today. Their train’s been delayed, that’s all, like yours was this morning, and when they get here, you’ll tell Eileen the airfield names you’ve collected, and she’ll say, “That’s the one,” and we’ll ask Gerald where his drop is and go home, and Mike will go off to Pearl Harbor, Eileen will go off to VE-Day, and you can write up your observations of “Life in the Blitz” and go back to fending off the advances of a seventeen-year-old boy.

  And in the meantime, she’d best tidy up her counter so she wouldn’t have to stay late tonight. She gathered up the umbrella, the Burberry, and Eileen’s coat and put them in the stockroom and then put the stockings her last customer had been looking at back in their box. She turned to put the box on the shelf.

  And heard the air-raid siren begin its unmistakable up-and-down warble.

  In all our long history we have never seen a greater day than this. Everyone, man or woman, has done their best.

  WINSTON CHURCHILL,

  VE-Day, 8 May 1945

  London—7 May 1945

  “DOUGLAS, THE DOOR’S CLOSING!” PAIGE SHOUTED FROM the platform.

  “Hurry!” Reardon urged. “The train will leave—”

  “I know,” she said, attempting to squeeze past the two Home Guards who were still singing “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary.” And forming a solid wall. She tried to go around, but dozens of people were trying to board the car and pushing her back away from the door. She shoved her way back to it.

  The door was sliding shut. If she didn’t get off now, she’d lose them and never be able to find them again in these crowds of merrymakers. “Please, this is my stop!” she said, eeling her way between two very tipsy sailors to the door. There was scarcely enough room to slip through. She braced the door open with both elbows.

  “Mind the gap, Douglas!” Paige shouted and held out her hand.

  She grabbed for it and half stepped, half jumped off the train, and before her feet even touched the platform, the train was moving, disappearing into the tunnel.

  “Thank goodness!” Paige said. “We were afraid we’d never see you again.”

  You wouldn’t have, she thought.

  “This way!” Reardon called gaily and started along the platform toward the exit, but the platform was just as jammed as the train had been. It took them a quarter of an hour to get off it and through the tunnel to the escalators, where things were no better. People were blowing tin whistles, cheering, leaning over the top throwing confetti on them as they rode up, and somewhere someone was banging on a bass drum.

  Reardon, five steps above her, leaned back down to shout, “Before we get outside, we’d best settle on a meeting place! In case we get separated!”

  “I thought we said Trafalgar Square,” Paige shouted.

  “We did,” Reardon shouted, “but where in Trafalgar Square?”

  “The lions?” Paige suggested. “What do you think, Douglas?”

  That won’t work, Douglas thought. There are four lions and they’re right in the middle of the square, which will be jammed with thousands of people. Not only will we not be able to find the correct lion, but we won’t be able to see anything from there if we do.

  They needed an elevated vantage point they could see the others from. “The National Gallery steps!” she shouted up to them.

  Reardon nodded. “The National Gallery steps.”

  “When?” Paige asked.

  “Midnight,” Reardon said.

  No, she thought. If I decide I need to go tonight, I’ll have to be there by midnight, and it will take me the better part of an hour to get there. “We can’t meet at midnight!” she shouted, but her voice was drowned out by a schoolboy on the step above her blowing enthusiastically on a toy horn.

  “The National Gallery steps at midnight,” Paige echoed. “Or we turn into pumpkins.”

  “No, Paige!” she called. “We need to meet before—”

  But Reardon, thank goodness, was already saying, “That won’t work. The Underground only runs till half past eleven tonight, and the Major will have our heads if we don’t make it back.”

  Half past eleven. That meant she’d need to start for the drop even earlier.

  “But we only just got here,” Paige said, “and the war’s over—”

  “We haven’t been demobbed yet,” Reardon said. “Till we are—”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Paige agreed.

  “Then we meet on the National Gallery steps at a quarter past eleven, agreed? Douglas?”

  No, she thought. I may need to be gone before that, and I don’t want you waiting for me and ending up being late getting back.

  She needed to tell them to go on without her if she wasn’t there. “No, wait!” she called, but Reardon was already to the top of the escalator and stepping off into an even larger crowd. She turned back to say, “Follow me, girls,” and disappeared into the mêlée.

  “Wait! Reardon! Paige!” Douglas called, pushing up the moving stairs to catch Paige, but the boy with the horn was blocking her way. By the time she reached the top of the escalator, Reardon was nowhere to be seen, and Paige was already nearly to the turnstiles. “Paige!” she called again, and started after her.

  Paige turned back.

  “Wait for me!” Douglas called, and Paige nodded and made an effort to move to the side but was swept on through.

  “Douglas!” Paige shouted and pointed to the stairs leading up to the street.

  She nodded and started that way, but by the time she reached Paige, she was halfway up the steps and clinging madly to the metal railing. “Douglas, can you see Reardon anywhere?” Paige shouted down to her.

  “No!” she called, bracing herself against the noisy, laughing crowd, which was carrying them inexorably up the stairs to the street. “Listen, if one of us isn’t there on the steps when it’s time to leave, the others shouldn’t wait!”

  “What did you say?” Paige shouted over the din, which was growing even louder. Just above them a man in a bowler shouted, “Three cheers for Churchill!” and the crowd obligingly bellowed, “Hip hip hurrah! Hip hip hurrah! Hip hip hurrah!”

  “I said, don’t wait for me!”

  “I can’t hear you!”

  “Three cheers for Monty!” the man shouted. “Hip hip—”

  The cheering crowd pushed them up out of the stairway, rather like a cork from a bottle, and spewed them out onto the packed street. And into an even louder din. Horns were honking and bells were ringing. A conga line snaked past, chanting, “Dunh duh dunh duh dunh UNH!”

  Douglas pushed up to Paige and grabbed her arm. “I said, don’t—”

  “I can’t hear a word you’re saying, Doug—” Paige said, and stopped short. “Oh, my goodness!”

  The crowd crashed into them, around them, past them, creating a sort of eddy, but Paige was obliv
ious. She was standing with her hands clasped to her chest and a look of awe. “Oh, look, the lights!”

  Electric lights shone from shops and the marquee of a cinema and the stained-glass windows of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. The pedestal of Nelson’s monument was lit, and so were the lions and the fountain. “Aren’t they the most beautiful things you’ve ever seen?” Paige sighed.

  They were beautiful, though not nearly as wonderful to her as they must be to the contemps, who’d lived through five years of the blackout. “Yes,” she said, looking over at Trafalgar Square.

  St. Martin’s pillars were draped in bunting, and on its porch stood a little girl waving a glittering white sparkler. Searchlights crisscrossed the sky, and a giant bonfire was burning on the far side of the square. Two months ago—two weeks ago—that fire would have meant fear and death and destruction to these same Londoners. But it no longer held any terror for them. They danced around it, and the sudden drone of a plane overhead brought cheers and hands raised in the V-for-victory sign.

  “Isn’t it wonderful?” Paige asked.

  “Yes!” she said, shouting into Paige’s ear. “But listen, if I’m not on the steps at a quarter past eleven, don’t wait for me.”

  But Paige wasn’t paying any attention. “It’s just like the song,” she said, transfixed, and began to sing, “ ‘When the lights go on again all over the world …’ ”

  The people near them began to sing along with her and then were drowned out by the man in the bowler, shouting, “Three cheers for the RAF!” which was in turn drowned out by a brass band playing “Rule, Britannia.”

  The jolly mob was pushing her and Paige apart. “Paige, wait!” she shouted, grabbing for her sleeve, but before she could catch hold, she was abruptly grabbed by a British Army private who swung her into a dip, planted a wet kiss on her lips, swung her back to standing, and grabbed another girl.

  The entire episode had taken less than a minute, but it had been long enough. Paige was nowhere to be seen. She attempted to find her, heading in the direction she’d last seen her going, and then gave up and struck out across the square toward the National Gallery.

  Trafalgar Square was, if possible, even more crowded than the station and the street had been. Huge numbers of people were sitting on the base of Nelson’s monument, astride the lions, on the sides of the fountain, on a Jeep full of American sailors that was, impossibly, trying to drive through the center of the square, horn honking continuously.

  As she passed it, one of the sailors leaned down and grabbed her arm. “Want a ride, gorgeous?” he asked, and hauled her up and into the Jeep. He called to the driver in an exaggerated British accent, “Buckingham Palace, my good man, and make it snappy! Does that please you, milady?”

  “No,” she said. “I need to get to the National Gallery.”

  “To the National Gallery, Jeeves!” the sailor ordered, though the Jeep clearly wasn’t going anywhere. It was completely surrounded. She scrambled up onto its bonnet to try to spot Paige. “Hey, beautiful, where you goin’?” he said, grabbing at her legs as she stood up.

  She swatted his hands away and looked back toward Charing Cross, but there was no sign of Paige or Reardon. She turned, holding on to the windscreen as the Jeep began to crawl forward, to look toward the National Gallery steps.

  “Get down, honey!” the sailor who was driving shouted up at her. “I can’t see where I’m going.”

  The Jeep crept a few feet and stopped again, and more people swarmed onto the bonnet. He leaned on the horn, and the crowd parted enough for the Jeep to creep a few more feet.

  Away from the National Gallery. She needed to get off. When the Jeep stopped again, blocked by the conga line writhing past, she took the opportunity to slip off. She waded on toward the National Gallery, scanning the steps for Paige or Reardon. A clock chimed, and she glanced back at St. Martin-in-the-Fields. A quarter past ten. Already?

  If she was going to go back tonight, she needed to be back in the tube station by eleven, or she’d never make it to the drop, and it could take longer than that just to reach the National Gallery steps. She needed to turn back now.

  But she hated to leave without saying goodbye to Paige. She couldn’t actually tell her goodbye, since her cover story was that she’d been called home because her mother had been taken ill. Technically, she wasn’t supposed to leave without permission, but with the war over, she’d have been demobbed in the next few days anyway.

  She’d intended to go back tonight because, with everyone from the post in London, it would be easier to slip away. But if she went tomorrow—even though it would be more difficult to effect her escape—it would give her a chance to see everyone one last time. And she didn’t want Paige to wait for her, miss the last train, and get into trouble.

  But surely Paige would realize she’d failed to show up because of the crowds and go on without her. Now that the war was over, it wasn’t as if her absence would mean that she’d been blown up by a V-2. And even if she did stay, there was no guarantee she could find Paige in this madness. The National Gallery steps were jammed with people. She’d never be able to spot … no, there Paige was, leaning over the stone railing, anxiously peering out at the crowd.

  She waved at Paige—a totally useless gesture amongst the hundreds of people waving Union Jacks—and elbowed her way determinedly toward the steps, veering left when she heard the “dunh duh dunh” of the conga line off to the right.

  The steps were packed. She pushed over to the end of them, hoping it might be less crowded there.

  It was, marginally. She began to work her way up, stepping between and over people. “Sorry … I beg your pardon … sorry.”

  There was the sudden heart-stopping, high-pitched whine of a siren, and the entire square fell silent, listening, and then—as they realized it was the all clear—erupted into cheers.

  Directly in front of her, a burly workman sat on a step, his head in his hands, sobbing as if his heart would break. “Are you all right?” she asked anxiously, putting her hand on his shoulder.

  He looked up, tears streaming down his ruddy face. “Right as rain, dearie,” he said. “It was the all clear what did it.” He stood up so she could pass, wiping at his cheeks. “The most beautiful thing I ever ’eard in me ’ole life.”

  He took her arm to help her up to the next step. “ ’Ere you go, dearie. Let ’er through, blokes,” he called to the people above him.

  “Thank you,” she said gratefully.

  “Douglas!” Paige shouted from above, and she looked up to see her waving wildly. They worked their way toward each other. “Where did you go?” Paige demanded. “I turned round and you were gone! Have you seen Reardon?”

  “No.”

  “I thought perhaps I might spot her or some of the others from up here,” Paige said. “But I haven’t had any luck.”

  She could see why as she looked out over the crowd. Ten thousand people were supposed to have gathered in Trafalgar Square on VE-Day, but it looked like there were already that many here tonight, laughing and cheering and throwing their hats in the air. The conga line, at the far corner, was weaving off toward the Portrait Gallery, replaced by a line of middle-aged women dancing an Irish jig.

  She tried to take it all in, to memorize every detail of the amazing historical event she was witnessing: The young woman splashing in the fountain with three officers of the Royal Norfolk Regiment. The stout woman passing out poppies to two tough-looking soldiers, who each kissed her on the cheek. The bobby trying to drag a girl down off the Nelson monument and the girl leaning down and blowing a curled-paper party favor in his face. And the bobby laughing. They looked not so much like people who had won a war as people who had been let out of prison.

  Which they had been.

  “Look!” Paige cried. “There’s Reardon.”

  “Where?”

  “By the lion.”

  “Which lion?”

  “That lion.” Paige pointed. “The one with part of
his nose missing.”

  There were dozens of people surrounding the lion and on the lion, perched on its reclining back, on its head, on its paws, one of which had been knocked off during the Blitz. A sailor sat astride its back, putting his cap on the lion’s head.

  “Standing in front of it and off to the left,” Paige directed her. “Can’t you see her?”

  “No.”

  “By the lamppost.”

  “The one with the boy shinning up it?”

  “Yes. Now look to the left.”

  She did, scanning the people standing there: a sailor waving his cap in the air, two elderly women in black coats with red, white, and blue rosettes on their lapels, a blonde teenaged girl in a white dress, a pretty redhead in a green coat—

  Good Lord, that looks just like Merope Ward, she thought. And that impossibly bright green coat was exactly the sort of outfit those idiot techs in Wardrobe would have told her was what the contemps wore to the VE-Day celebrations.

  And the young woman wasn’t cheering or laughing. She was looking earnestly at the National Gallery steps, as if trying to memorize every detail. It was definitely Merope.

  She raised her arm to wave at her.

  There won’t be any next time if this war is lost.

  —EDWARD R. MURROW,

  17 June 1940

  London—26 October 1940

  FOR A MOMENT AFTER THE SIREN BEGAN ITS UP-AND-DOWN warble, Polly simply stood there with the stockings box still in her hand, her heart pounding. Then Doreen said, “Oh, no, not a raid! I thought for certain we’d get through today without one.”

  We did, Polly thought. There must be some mistake.

  “And just when we were finally getting some customers,” Doreen added disgustedly. She pointed at the opening lift.

  Oh, no, what a time for Mike and Eileen to finally arrive. Polly hurried over to intercept them, but it wasn’t them after all. Two stylish young women stepped out of the lift. “I’m afraid there’s a raid on,” Miss Snelgrove said, coming over, too, “but we have a shelter which is very comfortable and specially fortified. Miss Sebastian will take you down to it.”