Wives at War (38 page)

‘Look, look at him now,' said Polly, close to tears, as Master Davy released a stream of pee on to the blanket. ‘This place will smell for days.'

‘For God's sake, stop fussing,' Christy told her. ‘He's only a kid.' He pulled the little boy from Doreen's arms and held him over the chamber pot to complete what he had started. ‘Don't you have any diapers?'

‘Towels,' said Polly. ‘There are towels upstairs.'

‘Where?' Christy said.

‘In the big cupboard on the first-floor landing.'

‘I'll fetch them,' said Doreen. ‘You know what he's liable to do next, so keep holdin' him over the pot, Mr Cameron.'

‘Wait,' Christy said.

But the girl had already gone.

*   *   *

The lamp flickered and went out. Davy began to cry. Polly fumbled for matches, struck one, found the pocket torch and switched it on.

Christy was kneeling on the floor, holding the struggling toddler over the pot. Polly held the match flame to the candle wick. She hated what was happening, not just the raid but the intrusion. Most of all she hated an open door that revealed not the familiar outlines of her kitchen but only darkness. She longed for the girl to return so that she could close the door again.

Matchstick and candle wick fused into one long slender flame. She saw flame reflected in the child's dark eyes, the wet, red cavity of his mouth. At that moment he seemed to be yelling not at but for her, like a little succubus. Then she heard whistling. Christy snatched the baby from the pot. He turned away, sinking into the pillows on the cot. Then there was light, a brilliant flash, like sheet lightning. Then there was darkness. Then noise filled Polly's ears like water and she was flung back into the corner. Then the candle flame snuffed out and she was left with a wisp of pale grey smoke to stare at before the table fell on her and bottles, biscuits and the lamp tumbled on top of her. Then there was a long moment of silence before the house began to fall around her, creaking and groaning, and something thudded just above her head.

Polly covered her head with her arms.

There was nothing to see except a dart of light from the torch on the floor and four or five little rivulets of dust cascading down the wall of the larder.

Christy said, ‘You okay?'

‘Yes – I think so.'

‘Not hurt?'

‘No.'

‘You sure?'

‘No.'

Christy pulled back from the cot with the baby.

To Polly's vast relief Master Davy let out a piercing yell and glimpses of chubby legs and curled toes appeared in the torchlight.

‘He's messed himself,' said Christy.

‘I'm not surprised,' said Polly.

She found the torch and propped it upright.

The overhead beams were intact. The cracks from which plaster ran were confined to the angle of the wall.

Polly pulled her legs out from under the table and untangled herself from the cord of the lamp. Her skirt was torn, her stockings ruined. There was a graze on her knee that seeped a little blood but she was otherwise undamaged.

She struggled to her feet, lifted the torch and directed it at Christy.

All she could see was the baby, all legs and belly, like a cherub in an Italian painting.

‘Was that a direct hit?' Polly asked.

‘If it had been, we'd be dead by now.'

‘Can't you shut him up?'

‘I doubt it.'

Christy rose stiffly and seated himself on the edge of the cot. He held the squirming child tightly.

The racket from the avenue was louder now. Polly was reminded of afternoon visits to the theatre and how intrusive sunlight and fresh air seemed when the exit doors were opened, how unreal the world outside became. She heard fire bells and a soft, fluctuating roar like ocean waves and smelled the garden, moist and earthy in the cold night air.

‘Listen,' Christy said. ‘I'd better go look for her. Take the kid.'

‘No.'

‘Polly!'

‘Look at him; he's filthy.'

‘It's only poop. Take him.'

‘I'll find her,' Polly said.

‘All right, but be careful. We don't know what sort of damage has been done to the house. Don't go lighting any cigarettes in case there's a gas leak.'

Polly eased out of the larder.

The kitchen window had been blown in. It lay over the sink, glass and debris everywhere. The dresser, tipped forward, had shed its cups and plates, and broken crockery littered the table and the floor.

She picked her way upstairs into the hall.

The hall seemed to be intact. The clock was still ticking and, curiously, the telephone was ringing in short intermittent bursts. Polly ignored it. If the kitchen had caught it, the breakfast room, with its big French windows, would be devastated too. She moved to the foot of the staircase and looked up the length of the torch beam.

‘Doreen?'

Torrents of small debris cascaded down the staircase. The light fitting, a great brass pendant, had become detached from its moorings and swayed on a frayed cord. Even by the scant light of the torch Polly could see that the blast had struck the rear wall of the house, smashing through windows, scouring passageways and corridors and battering open cupboard doors.

‘Doreen, are you all right?'

No answer.

Cautiously Polly picked her way upstairs.

The light pendant, like a Damoclean sword, dangled just above her head. She ducked under it and pulled herself into the first-floor passageway.

Through a gaping hole in the wall at the far end of the passage she could make out moonlight, and flames. Flames soared from one of the houses that backed the Avenue, sparks shooting high into the night sky. The gap framed the scene like a parlour painting and for an instant Polly was entranced. Then she moved forward, stepping over glass, smashed frames, lumps of masonry and pale hummocks of linen that had been sucked from the cupboard and blown down the length of the corridor.

The girl was lying on her back, skirt over her face.

Her legs were bent backward and there was a gigantic hole in her stomach. Her blood looked like treacle in the torchlight.

Polly got down on one knee and lifted away the skirt.

Doreen's face was unmarked except for a frond of blood clinging to her parted lips. She was still dimpled, still pretty. Her eyes were wide open.

‘Doreen?' Polly whispered.

She expected no answer for even to Polly it was obvious that Doreen Quinlan was dead.

*   *   *

The German pathfinders had done their work well. Marker fires raged all through Clydebank and across the slopes of the Old Kilpatrick Hills. The oil tanks at Dalnottar released great shawls of black smoke and the pungent odour of whisky stung the throat; the distillery at Yoker was burning too. Across the river in Renfrew incendiaries had taken a heavy toll and the entire horizon, from east to west, was ablaze.

The view from Blackstone Farm was breathtaking.

Dougie leaned in the open doorway of the barn, a cigarette in his mouth, an arm about the boy.

Angus had refused to go indoors and curl up between the straw bales like his sisters. Dougie couldn't blame him. If he had been Angus's age he would have been gripped by an experience that was no longer an air raid but more a force of nature, awful and awe-inspiring at one and the same time.

‘Do you really think Ron'll be all right?' Angus asked.

‘Well, if he's wise,' said Dougie, ‘he'll be hidin' in his shed.'

‘Maybe we should go back there, see if he needs anything.'

‘We're staying right where we are,' said Dougie.

‘They're not dropping anything on us now,' said Angus.

‘It's half-past four in the mornin', son,' said Dougie. ‘This is the longest air attack we've had yet. No sayin' how many more planes are to come.'

‘Look,' Angus shouted, excitedly. ‘Look, look at that, Dougie.'

‘I see it,' said Dougie.

‘What is it?'

‘Probably the timber yard at Singer's.'

‘
Whoosh!
' Angus shouted. ‘
Whoosh!
'

‘There're people down there,' Dougie said, ‘remember.'

‘They'll be okay, though, won't they, in the shelters?'

‘Not them all,' said Dougie.

He had extinguished the two incendiary canisters that had fallen into the yard, one with a dustbin lid and the other with a shovelful of slurry from the pit by Ron's sty. The pig had been nervous and skittery but Dougie had hurled a handful of rotten apples into the sty to give Ron something to chew on before he'd scuttled back to the stables where, tucked among the straw bales under the gallery floor, Margaret had bedded down the girls.

May and June were asleep now, their fears calmed and put aside. There was the smack of adventure about sleeping in blankets in the stable-barn, Dougie supposed, but it would become a whole lot less adventurous if the Luftwaffe made a habit of raiding Glasgow, and the sight of the sky on fire would pall quickly enough when the kids saw the damage that bombing caused. Dougie promised himself that he would keep them away from Clydebank for God knew what horrible sights might greet them there.

‘There!' Angus pointed again. ‘See the steeple. Is that St John's?'

‘I dunno. It's kinda far away. It might be St Jerome's?'

‘Where's that?'

‘Over the river, where your mama works?'

Angus swung round. ‘Mum's not there, is she?'

At last it had dawned on the boy that people were dying.

‘She won't be at work in the middle o' the night,' Dougie said. ‘She'll be safe at home in the Anderson shelter, with April.'

‘What if she's not?'

‘She'll be fine, Angus.'

‘What if she dies? What'll we do if she dies?'

‘Angus, they're not bombing Raines Drive.'

‘I don't want her to die.'

‘Your mama will be fine.'

‘How do
you
know? Look at it,' Angus shouted. ‘It's terrible.'

‘It's all that,' Dougie agreed.

‘Why are they doing it? Why are they bombing us?'

‘Because they want to win the war.'

‘But why – why is this the way to win the war?'

‘There are all sorts o' ways to win a war, son,' Dougie said.

‘I wish I had a gun,' said Angus, grimly. ‘A great big gun.'

‘And just what would you do with a gun?' Miss Dawlish asked.

She appeared behind them with a blanket to drape over the boy's shoulders and two beakers of tea poured from a Thermos flask.

‘Shoot them,' Angus shouted. ‘Shoot them all,' then with a blood-curdling cry, crouched and fired an imaginary weapon up into the burning sky.

*   *   *

Ten minutes after Babs tucked her into the cot in the Anderson shelter, April gave a little sigh and fell fast asleep. She wakened only once when something big and heavy thundered along Raines Drive.

‘Daddy's not fighting now,' she murmured, sleepily.

Babs, seated by the cot, said, ‘No, dearest, Daddy's not fightin' now.'

‘Where's Christy?'

‘He's takin' care of Auntie Polly.'

‘That's good,' said April, and closed her eyes again.

Christy had drained water from the shelter with a stirrup pump, put candles into holders and a torch with spare batteries in an old biscuit tin. He had even laid out kindling and coal for the stove but Babs didn't have the sense to light it for a kind of paralysis came over her as soon as April fell asleep.

She wished that Christy was with her now for as the night wore on she became scared and lonely, fretting about Mammy in Knightswood, Rosie in town, even about Polly over in Manor Park. She was less worried about Angus and the girls, whom she assumed were safe in the countryside.

About half-past four, she opened the door and peeped out.

Noises in the Drive: the imperious shouting of wardens and the shrilling of whistles relaying tuneless messages across the moonlit gardens. She crawled up the steps on her knees, glanced up at the sky, navy blue and deep, and at the moon and the flushed cloud that formed a canopy above the rooftops.

She stood up. She could make out the glint of moonlight in the glass of the villas and bungalows round about and, heartened, clambered up the slope of the shelter on to the roof.

‘Get down, woman! Get down from there!'

Babs peered into the shadows by the side of the bungalow and saw a tin helmet, a gas cape, the flicker of a torch.

The warden advanced to the edge of the lawn.

‘Are you tryin' to get yourself killed?'

Because she was at work all day, she had no contact with Civil Defence groups and didn't know the warden's name. She slid down the slope of the shelter and flounced across the lawn. Through gaps between the bungalows she was aware of flames but she saw them out of the corner of her eye, not focusing.

Hands on hips, she said, ‘What's up? What's happening?'

‘There's been no all clear. Get back into your shelter an' stay there.'

The fiery red sheet behind the man expanded and at that moment Babs realised its significance. She made to move past the warden, heading for the path at the front of the bungalow, but he checked her progress, snatching at her arm.

‘No,' he said, growling. ‘No, lady, don't look.'

Babs broke free, ran down the narrow path, and stopped in her tracks.

Everything was on fire, everything. The river, the hills, the townships were all illuminated by great ghastly sheets of flame.

She clapped her hands to her cheeks.

‘Oh God!' she cried out.
‘Oh God!'

‘I told you not to look, didn't I?' the warden said and snaring her by the waist, led her, shocked and unprotesting, back to the safety of the shelter.

*   *   *