Mike had said Turing hadn’t been injured by the collision, but he wouldn’t have had to be. This was Alan Turing, the man who was behind Bletchley Park’s success, and he still hadn’t cracked the naval Enigma code. What if Mike’s colliding with him had interrupted his train of thought at a crucial moment, and he didn’t crack the code? Or what if Mike had done something else while he was in Bletchley which—combined with Hardy’s rescue and what she and Eileen had done—would tip the balance of the war later on? Or what if he’d done something now in Saltram-on-Sea?
I should have warned him, she thought. I should have told him about the City of Benares and about the possible discrepancies. But she wasn’t certain they were discrepancies. And he’d been so distraught when she told him about her deadline, and then, after he’d got the letter from Daphne, so certain that the retrieval team had come.
And if they have, then there’s no reason to worry him with any of this. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”
But what if they haven’t?
“You are worried, aren’t you?” Eileen asked anxiously. “About Mike’s not phoning.”
“No,” Polly said firmly. “Remember, he said the phone at the Crown and Anchor wasn’t at all private. He may have to wait till he arrives back in Dover to find one that is. Or the telephone lines may be out.”
From the shelling Dover is taking every night, Polly added silently, wishing Mike would find a way to phone so she could tell him about the shelling and the upcoming raids. He’d be all right for the next few days—the raids would all be in the Midlands or the west—Liverpool on the twentieth, Plymouth on the twenty-first, and Manchester the night after that. But on the twenty-fourth Dover would undergo a major shelling, and two trains in Kent would be machine-gunned from the air.
They waited another quarter of an hour, hoping he’d phone. “It’s twenty till,” Polly said finally. “We really must leave, or I’ll be late for rehearsal.”
“All right,” Eileen said reluctantly. “Wait, was that the phone? It’s Mike. I knew it!” She pelted down the stairs to answer it.
It was Mrs. Rickett’s sister, and it was clear they intended to talk for some time. “She’s phoned twice in the past three days. Mike’s very probably phoned already and couldn’t get through,” Eileen said as they walked over to Notting Hill Gate. She paused. “You knew Lady Caroline, didn’t you? When you were in Dulwich.” And when Polly looked at her in surprise, “The day I got the letter from the vicar about Lady Caroline and Lord Denewell, you said ‘You worked for Lady Denewell?’ ”
And what else has she worked out? Polly wondered.
“Yes,” she said. “She was my commanding officer.”
Eileen nodded as if she already knew that. “And she made you do all the work.”
“No. She was a wonderful commanding officer, hardworking, always thinking of her girls, determined to get us the supplies we needed. That’s why I was so surprised. From what you’d told me about her—”
“I think it must have been because of losing her husband and her son. War changes people. It makes people do things they never thought they could,” Eileen said thoughtfully. “In Mrs. Bascombe’s last letter, she said Una’s become quite a good driver in the ATF. You don’t suppose the war will improve Alf and Binnie Hodbin, do you?”
“I very much doubt it.”
“So do I,” Eileen said as they turned onto Kensington Church Street. “Have you told the troupe that you may not be here for the performance of A Christmas Carol and that they need to arrange for an understudy?”
“Not yet,” Polly said, wishing she could believe that Mike had simply been delayed and that the retrieval team would be waiting for them when they arrived at the tube station, or that when Mrs. Rickett came, she’d tell them Mike had phoned after she’d rung off.
She didn’t, and there was no one at the tube station or at Townsend Brothers the next morning. “He’ll phone today, I know it,” Eileen said confidently, going up to the book department. “I’ll see you at lunch.”
But there was no time for lunch. There were Christmas decorations to put up—evergreen and cellophane garlands and paper bells (the aluminum-foil ones had gone to Lord Beaverbrook’s Spitfire drive) and banners reading There’ll Always Be a Christmas. And there was a horde of customers to contend with.
“The only good thing,” Polly told Eileen when they met after work, “is that we’ve sold so much we’ve run completely out of brown paper.”
But when she arrived at Townsend Brothers the next day there was a large stack of Christmas paper on her counter. “Miss Snelgrove found it in the storeroom,” Doreen said. “From Christmas two years ago. Wasn’t that lucky?”
Polly stared hopelessly at the holly-sprigged sheets. “Haven’t we a duty to turn it in to the War Ministry for the war effort, to make stuffing for gun casings or something?” she asked.
Miss Snelgrove glared at her. “We have a duty to our customers to make this difficult Christmas as happy as possible.”
What about my Christmas? Polly thought. She attempted to convince her customers it was their patriotic duty to take their purchases home unwrapped, but to no avail. It was the only wrapping paper they were likely to get their hands on for the duration, and they didn’t intend to pass up the chance. Some of them even bought things just to obtain the paper, as witness all the bilious lavender-pink stockings she sold. She spent nearly all her time struggling with knots and corners and the rest of it struggling to learn her lines for A Christmas Carol.
She had been wrong about the play. The female roles were small, but there were a great many of them, and Polly found herself playing not only Scrooge’s lost love, Belle, but also the eldest Cratchit daughter, one of the businessmen soliciting a charitable donation from Scrooge (in a false mustache and sideburns), the boy sent to buy the turkey (in a cap and knee pants), and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.
How appropriate, she thought. She hadn’t realized till now that the play was about time travel, and that Scrooge was a sort of historian, journeying to the past and then back to the future.
And he had altered events. He’d given Bob Cratchit a raise, he’d improved the lot of the poor, he’d saved Tiny Tim’s life. But in A Christmas Carol, there wasn’t the possibility that what he’d done would have a bad effect. In Dickens, good intentions always resulted in good outcomes.
And none of his characters had deadlines.
They can occupy the same time twice, Polly thought enviously, watching the rector playing the young Scrooge and Sir Godfrey playing the elder in the same scene.
When Sir Godfrey wasn’t onstage, he was berating Miss Laburnum for her failure to secure a turkey for the Christmas-morning scene.
“There are simply none to be had, Sir Godfrey,” she said. “The war, you know.”
Or he was shouting at Viv (Scrooge’s nephew’s wife) and Mr. Simms (the Ghost of Marley) for their inability to learn their lines.
“I suppose you don’t know your lines for the tombstone scene either, Viola,” he growled at Polly when she missed a cue.
“I haven’t any lines,” Polly reminded him. “All I do is point at Scrooge’s grave.”
“Bah, humbug!” he said, bellowed at Tiny Tim (Trot) to get her cane out of the way, and started them through the Scrooge-confronts-his-own-death scene.
“Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point,” he said, quailing from the pasteboard tombstone, “answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that will be, or are they shadows of things that may be only?”
I don’t know, Polly thought.
The war still seemed to be on track. Liverpool, Plymouth, and Manchester had been bombed, Victoria Station had been hit, and the British had counterattacked the Italian forces in North Africa, all on schedule.
But would they stay that way? Or would Marjorie—who’d sent Polly from Norwich, where she was doing her training, a card saying, “Wishing you anything but a Jerry Christmas!”—save the li
fe of someone who would make a decisive error at El Alamein or on the HMS Dorsetshire?
“Spirit!” Sir Godfrey shouted. “Lady Mary! Viola! Kindly remember this is a holiday play, and you are the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, not Dark Unyielding Doom. I realize the thought of performing in Piccadilly Circus is grim, but if you look like that during the performance, you’ll terrify the children. This is a comedy, not a tragedy.”
I haven’t seen any proof of that, Polly thought. But she attempted—both onstage and off—to put on a face more in keeping with the season. Like everyone else was doing in spite of their facing a future which was just as uncertain as hers and civilian casualties which were mounting daily. The contemps entered wholeheartedly into the Christmas spirit, pinning decorations to their blackout curtains and greeting one another gaily with “Happy Christmas!”
And preparing presents to give each other. “I went in to Miss Laburnum’s room just now to borrow her iron,” Eileen reported, “and caught her trying to cover up something on her writing table. I think she’s making us Christmas gifts.”
“Or she’s a German spy,” Polly said, “and you caught her writing messages in code.”
Eileen ignored that. “What if we’re still here on Christmas, and she gives us a gift and we haven’t one for her? We must get something for her and for Miss Hibbard and Mr. Dorming … oh dear, do you think Mrs. Rickett will expect a gift?”
“She won’t be here. I heard her tell Miss Hibbard she’s going to her sister’s in Surrey for the holidays.” Polly started to say she doubted any of them would expect gifts in light of all the government admonitions to have a “frugal Christmas” to assist the war effort, and then thought better of it. Planning gifts might keep Eileen from fretting about Mike. “What about Theodore?” she said instead.
“Oh, yes, I must definitely get Theodore and his mother something,” Eileen said, making a list. “I know we can’t spend much money because we’ve got to save for our train fares to the drop, but I should send a gift to Alf and Binnie as well. Speaking of which, do you think you could steal some Christmas paper at work to wrap them in?”
“Gladly, if it will make us run through our supply sooner,” Polly said. “You’d best do your shopping soon, or the shops will be sold out.”
Which was true. Townsend Brothers’ shelves were becoming barer and barer, and Polly spent half her time bringing out ancient, dusty stock from the storeroom to sell in place of the stockings and gloves she was out of—old-fashioned garters and bed jackets and Victorian nightgowns. Customers snapped them up.
Both Townsend Brothers and Oxford Street were jammed with shoppers, parents bringing children to see Father Christmas, and elderly women soliciting donations for the Air-Raid Distress Fund, the Minesweepers Fund, and the Evacuated Children’s Fund. In front of bombed-out John Lewis’s, Victory bonds were being sold from the back of a lorry. Banners went up on government buildings proclaiming Not a Merry Xmas but a Happy Xmas—Devoted to the Service of Our Country, and Christmas trees went up in the shelters. Mistletoe hung from the tunnel arches, the canteen was swathed in fir branches, and WVS volunteers handed out sweets and toys and tickets to pantomimes.
One of them gave two tickets for Rapunzel to a mortally offended Sir Godfrey, “because you like plays and things.” He promptly gave them to Polly. She gave them to Eileen to pass along to Theodore and his mother.
“But they’re for Sunday the twenty-ninth, and she works Sundays,” Eileen said. “And I can’t take Theodore because we won’t be here. What do you think I should do? Give them to someone else?”
No, Polly thought, because if Mike’s still not here by the twenty-ninth, you’ll definitely need something to keep your mind off things.
“Hang on to them for now,” she told Eileen. “Mike may have difficulty traveling this near the holidays. The trains and buses are jammed with soldiers coming home on leave. Did you find a gift for Miss Hibbard?”
“Yes. Did you manage to pinch the wrapping paper?”
“I did. Not that it helped the situation. We appear to have an endless supply. And Miss Snelgrove told us we’re to use less string. Have you ever tried to tie a knot with an inch of string?”
“Give me the paper,” Eileen ordered. She vanished into the bathroom for several minutes and came back with a small, neatly wrapped parcel. “I’m giving you your Christmas present early,” she said, handing it to Polly.
“But I haven’t anything for—”
Eileen waved her objection away. “You need it now, and if Mike comes back tonight, you won’t have any use for it. Open it.”
Polly did. It was two rolls of cellophane tape.
“It was all I could find,” Eileen said. “I do hope it’s enough to get you through Christmas.” She looked anxiously at Polly, who was still staring down at the tape. “You like it, don’t you?”
“It’s the nicest Christmas present anyone’s ever given me,” Polly said, and, to her horror, burst into tears.
“Except for getting to go home, and we’ll get that soon. Don’t cry. You’re making the paper wet, and I need to use it again for Theodore’s gift.”
“We’ll wrap it this minute,” Polly said, and waited impatiently as Eileen ironed the paper out and fetched Theodore’s toy Spitfire from the bureau drawer.
The tape was wonderful. It held the ends of the paper beautifully. And now what was she going to get Eileen? And when? Christmas was only a few days off, Townsend Brothers was a zoo, and she’d promised Miss Laburnum, who was nearly hysterical about the prospect of their performing in other stations—“Leicester Square is in the heart of the West End, and who knows who might be in the audience?”—to help her with costumes and props. And she still hadn’t learned Belle’s lines. And tomorrow Dover would be shelled, and Mike still hadn’t phoned. Or written. Or sent another crossword puzzle. Because he’s dead, she thought.
You don’t know that, she told herself. You thought something had happened to him when you didn’t hear from him when he was in Bletchley, and he was perfectly all right. And there could be all sorts of reasons why you haven’t heard from him. The retrieval team’s drop site is in Northumberland or Yorkshire, and Mike’s having trouble getting there. Or Daphne’s gone off to visit relatives for the holidays, and Mike has to wait for her to come back. Or the shelling on the coast has taken out the telephone lines, and it takes longer for a letter to be delivered because of the Christmas rush.
We’ll hear from him tomorrow, she thought. But they didn’t.
Do a good turn for Christmas.
—MAGAZINE ADVICE,
December 1940
London—December 1940
MIKE STILL WASN’T BACK BY CHRISTMAS EVE.
“Do you think he’ll come tonight?” Eileen asked Polly as they rode down the escalator to Piccadilly Station to perform A Christmas Carol.
The man behind them said, laughing, “Ain’t you a bit old to believe in Father Christmas, dearie?”
“You fool, she wasn’t talkin’ about Father Christmas,” his companion said. “She was talkin’ about ’Itler.” He nodded at Eileen. “I’ll give you six-to-one odds ’e’ll come tonight. It’d be just like ’im to try to ruin our Christmas, the little bastard.”
They had obviously both had more than a little Christmas cheer.
“That’s no way to talk in the presence of ladies, you bleedin’ sod,” the first man said belligerently, and Polly hoped they wouldn’t come to blows there on the escalator.
But the other man tipped his cap and said, “Beggin’ your pardon, misses. I shouldn’t ’ave called ’Itler a little bastard. ’E’s the biggest bastard what ever lived. And I’ll wager five bob ’e’s up to something. A nasty Christmas surprise. You watch. Them sirens’ll go any minute now.”
They wouldn’t, but it was obvious he wasn’t the only one who thought that. There were more people in the station than there had been in the last two weeks, all with their bedrolls and picnic baskets. The woman just below th
em on the escalator had a Harrods carrier bag full of Christmas presents, and two toddlers had each brought a long brown stocking with them.
The two men weren’t the only ones who’d been drinking. There were periodic outbursts of too-loud laughter and unsteady choruses of “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” on the platforms. And during their performance, when Sir Godfrey as Scrooge launched into his “Bah, humbug!” speech, someone shouted from the audience, “What you need is a spot of rum, you auld sod!”
The troupe gave two performances, the first in the main hall and the second on a stage built out over the tracks on the westbound Piccadilly Line platform after the trains had stopped. Even with the stage, the platform was still too small to accommodate the crowd. “Do you see that crutch by the fireplace, tenderly preserved?” Sir Godfrey muttered to Polly. “That’s Tiny Tim’s. He was pushed onto the track by his adoring public and run over by a train.”
“But at least he wasn’t doing panto when he died,” Polly whispered back.
“Or, God forbid, Peter Pan,” Sir Godfrey said, and made his entrance.
Scrooge bahhed, humbugged, saw the ghost of Marley (Mr. Simms), traveled to the past and back to the future, learned the error of his ways, made amends, and prevented Tiny Tim from dying, in front of a large and enthusiastic crowd, which Polly and Eileen both scanned for Mike.
But he didn’t come. He wasn’t waiting for them outside Notting Hill Gate or at Mrs. Leary’s either. And all that was waiting for them at their boardinghouse was the news that Mrs. Rickett had taken the Christmas goose and plum pudding—purchased with her boarders’ ration points—with her when she went to her sister’s and left them turnip soup for their Christmas dinner.
“No matter,” Miss Laburnum said. “My nephew in Canada sent me a Christmas box and the convoy got safely through.” She brought down a tin of biscuits, a packet of tea, and a bag of walnuts. Eileen and Polly chipped in their emergency stash of tinned beef, marmalade, and chocolate, and Mr. Dorming produced a tin of condensed milk and one of peaches.