Connie Willis - Blackout

I have no idea, she thought, standing irresolutely on the pavement. She needed to find Polly. But even if she found her, she couldn’t go through the drop till she’d disposed of Alf and Binnie.

But she could at least locate Polly and find out where the drop was and then, when Mrs. Hodbin finally made it home, she could go straight to it. “Come along,” she said. “We’re going shopping.”

“With all this lot?” Binnie asked, holding up their bags.

She was right. They could scarcely walk into a department store like this. “We’ll ask her if you can at least leave your things here,” she said, starting up to the door.

“No! They’ll pinch our stuff,” Binnie said.

“I know a place,” Alf said. He grabbed the bags, tore off up the street with them to the bombed house, clambered up onto the rubble, and behind a still-standing wall. He reappeared immediately, without their luggage, and jumped down off the rubble to the pavement. “Where are we goin’ shoppin’?” he asked.

“Oxford Street,” she said. “Do you know how to get there?”

They did, and she was almost glad they were along to navigate the tube station and find the right platform and get off at the right stop. They weren’t in the least intimidated by the size of Oxford Circus station or its network of tunnels and two-story-long escalators, or by the masses of people. Had people actually slept here during the raids? How did they manage to keep from being trampled?

The pavement outside was just as crowded as the tube station had been, with automobiles and taxis and enormous double-decker buses roaring past. I’m glad I only had to drive on country lanes, Eileen thought, standing on the corner, looking in vain for the stores Polly’d named. There were scores of shops and department stores in this block alone, and the line of them stretched as far as she could see in both directions. Thank goodness she knew which three Polly might be working in. If she could find them. She scanned the names above the doors-Goldsmiths, Frith and Co., Leighton’s-

“What’re you lookin’ for?” Alf asked.

“John Lewis,” she said, and then, so they wouldn’t think that was a person, “It’s a department store.”

“We know,” Binnie said. “It’s this way,” and dragged Eileen down the street.

They passed department store after department store-Bourne and Hollingsworth, Townsend Brothers, Mary Marsh-and all of them were enormous buildings with at least four floors. Selfridges, on the other side of the street, covered an entire block. Let’s hope Polly’s not working there, Eileen thought. It would take a fortnight to find her.

But Padgett’s was nearly as large, with even more grandiose Greek columns along its front. John Lewis, two streets down, had columns as well, plus unboarded-up display windows. Eileen corralled Alf and Binnie-who’d gone next door to Lyons Corner House to look at the pastries in the window-and tried to clean them up a bit. She tied Binnie’s sash and straightened her collar. “Pull up your socks,” she told them, rummaging in her handbag for a comb.

“I’m ’ungry,” Binnie said. “Can we go in here?”

“No,” Eileen said, yanking the comb through her tangles. “Tuck in your shirt, Alf.”

“We ain’t ’ad nothin’ to eat in hours,” Alf complained. “Can’t we-?”

“No,” she said, trying to hold him still so she could give him a quick spit bath with her handkerchief. “Come along.”

She took their hands and led them over to the entrance. And stopped, stymied. There was no door, only a sort of glass-and-wood cage, divided into vertical sections. “Ain’t you never seen a revolving door?” Alf said, and darted into one of the sections, pushing on it to make it turn, followed by Binnie, giving a running commentary on how to do it. Eileen trusted neither it nor the Hodbins, but in spite of a momentary feeling of being trapped, she made it through and inside the store.

And what a store! Hanging brass-and-glass lamps and carved wooden pillars and polished floors. The counters were of oak, and behind them rows of brass-handled drawers went all the way to the high ceilings. On each counter stood an elegant lamp and behind each one an equally elegant young woman.

Oh, dear, Eileen thought. John Lewis was clearly too good for a housemaid and two slum children-and the problem wasn’t just that they stood out in their shabby clothes. Eileen had intended to pretend to look at merchandise till she’d located someone she could ask, but that wasn’t going to be possible. Except for several hats on a brass hat stand, and some folded scarves on one of the counters, no merchandise was on display. She was obviously supposed to ask to see things, and the salespeople just as obviously wouldn’t believe she could afford anything in the store.

Her assessment was rapidly borne out by a middle-aged man in a frocked coat and striped pants bearing down on the three of them with an appalled expression. “May I assist you, madam?” he asked, sounding as appalled as he looked.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m looking for someone who works here. Polly Sebastian?”

“Works here? As part of the cleaning staff?”

“No, as a shopgirl.”

“I think you must have the wrong store, madam,” he said, his tone of voice clearly saying, “We would never hire anyone who knew the likes of you.”

He won’t even check to see if she works here, Eileen thought, and he won’t let me look for myself either. In another minute he’d be escorting them to the revolving door, and there’d be no way he’d let them back in. I should never have brought Alf and Binnie with me, she thought, and had a sudden inspiration. “These children are evacuees,” she said. “They’re staying with Lady Caroline at Denewell Manor. I’m her maid. She sent me to London to have them outfitted with new clothes. I was told to ask for Miss Sebastian.”

“Oh, of course,” he said, all smiles now. “You’ll want our children’s department. That’s on the third floor. This way, if you please,” he said, leading the way, and for a moment she was afraid he intended to go with them up to third, but he stopped outside a lift. A boy not much older than Binnie leaned out and asked, “Which floor, miss?”

“Third,” Eileen said and stepped in with the children. The boy reached forward to shut the wooden door, pull the brass gate across, and push down on the lever. The lift started up.

“Second floor, men’s wear and shoes,” the boy recited mechanically. “Third floor, children’s wear, books, toys.” He pulled the gate open, opened the door, and held it for them while they exited.

Eileen had worried they’d immediately be confronted by another striped-pants person, but the one on this floor was assisting a woman and her daughter.

Good, Eileen thought, taking Alf and Binnie by the hand and starting across the floor in the opposite direction, but Alf and Binnie dug in their heels and refused to move. “We’re ’ungry,” Binnie said.

“I told you-”

“So ’ungry we might say something we ain’t s’posed to,” Alf said.

“Like Lady Caroline didn’t really send you.”

Why, you wretched little blackmailers. But she didn’t have time to argue with them. Striped Pants was coming this way. “Very well, I’ll take you to Lyons for lunch,” she whispered. “After I finish here.”

“Lunch and a sweet,” Binnie said.

“Lunch and a sweet. If you help me find my cousin.”

“We will,” Alf said, and they were as good as their word. When Striped Pants asked Eileen if he could assist her, Alf said promptly, “We’re Lady Caroline’s evacuees,” and looked appropriately pathetic.

“You’ll want our children’s department then,” Striped Pants said. “This way.”

And what do I do when I get there? Eileen wondered, half sorry she’d invented the evacuee story. Now she couldn’t ask the shopgirls if Polly worked here, and what excuse could she give for not buying anything when they reached Children’s Wear?

But Alf came through for her. “Eileen, I feel like I’m gonna be sick,” he said, clutching his stomach, and Striped Pants led them hastily to the ladies’ lounge instead.

Once inside, Alf said, “I know a better way to go up and down without no floorwalker seein’ us.”

A floorwalker, that was what Striped Pants was.

“Come on,” Alf said, and led her-with Binnie acting as lookout- over to a door marked Stairs and through it into a stairwell. Eileen followed them, trying not to think about why he and Binnie were both so familiar with department stores and revolving doors and lifts. Blackmail and shoplifting.

But she had to admit using the stairs was a stroke of genius. It was possible to stand inside their windowed doors and survey the entire floor before emerging. If Polly had been there, Eileen would have seen her.

But she wasn’t. Eileen searched all six floors, including the basement, part of which had been fitted up as a shelter, but there was no sign of her. “Can we have our lunch now?” Binnie begged.

“And a sweet,” Alf added.

“Yes,” Eileen said, steering them out of the store and next door to Lyons. “You’ve earned it,” though when she saw the prices she regretted agreeing to the sweet. “No, you may not have the four-course meal,” she told Alf, who had found the most expensive thing on the menu. “I said lunch.”

“But it’s already past three,” Binnie said. “We should get lunch and tea.”

“Past three?” Eileen said, looking over at the clock, but Binnie was right. It had taken the better part of the afternoon to search John Lewis. She’d planned on doing Padgett’s after the children ate, but it was even larger than John Lewis, and she had to deliver Alf and Binnie or be stuck with them for another night. And by the time she got them to Whitechapel and came back, the raids would be starting.

She hurried them through their lunch and pudding, out of Lyons, and back up the street toward Oxford Circus. “Marble Arch is nearer,” Binnie said, pointing in the other direction.

She was right. Marble Arch station was only a short distance from Lyons and an even shorter one from Padgett’s. Eileen made a mental note to use Marble Arch when she came back.

If she had time to come back. What if their mother’s still not there and I have to take them back to Theodore’s with me? Eileen thought, waiting on the platform for their train. But when they reached Gargery Lane, she was-a blowsy woman in a frayed silk kimono who’d clearly been awakened by Eileen’s knocking. Her blond pompadour was mussed and her makeup smeared.

“What’re you two doing here?” she demanded when she saw Alf and Binnie carrying the luggage Alf had just retrieved from the bombed house. “Threw you out, did they?”

Eileen explained about the manor being taken over, but Mrs. Hodbin wasn’t interested. “Have you got their ration books?”

“Yes,” Eileen said, handing them over. “They both had the measles this summer, and Binnie was very ill.”

But Mrs. Hodbin wasn’t interested in that either. She snatched the ration books, ordered Alf and Binnie inside, and banged the door shut.

Eileen stood there a moment, feeling oddly… what? Cheated, because Mrs. Hodbin hadn’t let her say goodbye to them? That was ridiculous. She’d been trying for the last three days to rid herself of them. And now you’re free to go find Polly and her drop and go home, she told herself, hurrying down the stairs and up the street, past the bombed-out tenement. I hope they’ll be all right.

She stopped short, remembering the vicar’s letter. Oh, no, she’d forgotten to give it to Mrs. Hodbin. She rummaged through her handbag, found it, and started back toward the Hodbins’, and then stopped again, trying to decide what to do. It was dangerous here in Whitechapel, but far more dangerous on board the City of Benares, and Mrs. Hodbin had looked as if she’d be glad to be rid of Alf and Binnie. If she took them to the Overseas Programme office today or tomorrow, they’d almost certainly end up on the City of Benares.