All Clear

Imperial War Museum, London—7 May 1995

“HERE SHE IS, MR. KNIGHT,” TALBOT SAID. “EILEEN!” SHE shouted, waving across the room at the woman who’d just come into the Blitz exhibit.

She was just as Talbot had described her: gray hair, medium height, rather stout. “Lambert! Over here!” Talbot called, and then turned to Calvin, beaming. “I told you she’d be here soon, Mr. Knight.”

“Her name’s Eileen?” he asked, hoping to God he’d misheard her.

“Yes. Eileen! Goody!” Talbot called, waving again. Mrs. Lambert hadn’t looked up. She was fumbling in her handbag, apparently looking for a pen to write on the name tag she held in the other hand.

There were lots of Eileens in the war, he told himself over the sickening thud of his heart. That’s why Merope chose the name, because it had been so common.

And this Eileen looked nothing like the slim, pretty, green-eyed redhead he’d seen in Oxford eight years ago.

But she would have aged fifty-five years since then, and the curly-haired brunette WAAC in the photo had looked nothing like the elderly woman he’d talked to either. And Mrs. Lambert’s gray hair as she bent over a display case, writing her name on the name tag, bore hints of what might be faded red.

Now she was struggling to put her name tag on. And what if, when she finally managed to pin it on, it read “Eileen O’Reilly”?

“What did Mrs. Lambert do in the war?” he asked Talbot. Let her say she was a Wren. Or a chorus girl, he prayed.

“She drove an ambulance,” Talbot said. “Oh, dear, she still doesn’t see us. Come along.” And Talbot dragged him across the room to Mrs. Lambert. She didn’t look as old as Talbot, but that was no doubt due to her plumpness, and Merope had been younger than Polly. The evacuation of the children had been her first assignment.

And, if this was her, her only one.

“Eileen,” Talbot said. “Here’s someone who wants to meet you.”

Eileen had finally got her name tag attached, but it was no help. It merely read “Eileen Lambert,” and “Women’s World War II Alumni Association,” and when she looked up, her eyes were a pale aqua, which might or might not have been green when she was younger.

“I’m sorry,” Talbot was saying. “I’ve forgotten what your name was, Mr.—”

“Knight. Calvin Knight. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Lambert,” he said, watching her closely as he shook her hand. “I’m from Oxford,” he added, and thought he saw a flicker of recognition. Oh, God, it was her.

“Mr. Knight is looking for someone who might have known his grandmother,” Talbot said. “Where were you, Goody? Browne said you had to run some sort of errand?”

“Yes. At St. Paul’s. I’d asked my brother to go for me, but he couldn’t. He’s down at the Old Bailey this morning, so I had to go.”

Brother. She had a brother. It wasn’t Eileen after all. The relief hit him with the force of a punch to the stomach.

“And the traffic was wretched,” Mrs. Lambert was saying.

Talbot nodded. “They simply must do something about that area near St. Bart’s. It’s impossible.”

Pudge came up. “Oh, you two have found each other. Excellent. Did Lambert know your grandmother?” she asked him.

“I haven’t asked her yet.”

“His grandmother was in London during the Blitz,” Talbot explained to Eileen. “Her name was Polly—what did you say her last name was, Mr. Knight?”

“Sebastian. Polly Sebastian.” Both ladies looked expectantly at Eileen Lambert, but she was already shaking her head.

“No, there isn’t anyone by that name in the organization,” she said. “Was Polly a nickname for Mary?”

“Yes.”

“We had a Mary in our ambulance unit,” Talbot said, “but her last name was Kent.”

Mrs. Lambert ignored her. “What was your grandmother’s maiden name, Mr. Knight?”

“Sebastian. Her married name was O’Reilly,” he said, just in case, but he couldn’t detect any reaction from her.

“No, sorry,” she said. “We haven’t any Mary O’Reillys either. Have you tried the museum’s archives?”

Yes, he thought. And the British Museum’s. And the Public Record Office’s. And the morgues of the Times and the Daily Herald and the Express.

“That’s a good idea,” he said. “I’m afraid I haven’t time today, but I’ll certainly come back. Thank you for your help. And for yours, Mrs. Vernon,” he said to Talbot, “and yours.” He shook hands with each of them in turn. “I don’t want to keep you from the exhibition.”

“Yes. Oh, Eileen, you must see the ‘Beauty in the Blitz’ display,” Talbot said. “They have nylons from the American PX and that dreadful face powder made from chalk. And there’s a lipstick just like the one I lost when Kent pushed me into the gutter that time. It may even be the same one. I’ll never forget that lipstick. Crimson Caress, it was called.” She and Pudge dragged Mrs. Lambert off, and Calvin headed for the exit, winding his way through the displays to the VE-Day exhibit, which was complete with cheers and simulated fireworks.

It was already after eleven, but if he hurried, he might be able to reach St. Paul’s by noon and catch some of the visitors having lunch in the cathedral’s café. He walked swiftly toward the exit.

“Mr. Knight!” someone called from behind him. He stopped and looked back. Mrs. Lambert was bustling along the corridor after him. He stopped and waited for her to catch up. “Oh, good,” she panted, “you’re still here. I was afraid you’d already gone.” She hurried up to where he was standing.

“What is it?” he said. “Did you remember something?”

She shook her head, attempting to catch her breath, her hand to her bosom.

“Are you all right?” he asked. “Can I get you a glass of water or something? We could go into the cafeteria.”

“No, they’ll all be coming in for lunch shortly. I’m sorry about that just now. I couldn’t say anything with Talbot and Pudge there.” She took his arm and led him past the gift shop and into the main hall, looking around, presumably for somewhere they could talk. “I’d hoped to catch you when you first arrived, but I wasn’t certain where you’d be. St. Paul’s is opening their exhibition today as well, and I thought you were more likely to go there to look.”

Oh, God, it was Eileen, and the story about the brother was a fabrication, part of the identity she’d had to adopt after Polly died and she’d been left to fend for herself. She’d had to cope all alone with the duration of the war and all the long years after. And how could she stand there smiling, he wondered. Knowing what I did to her, to them?

She couldn’t, he thought. It isn’t her. She’s talking about something else, a reporter she was supposed to meet or a—

“… and they had exhibits all over the cathedral, in the Crypt and both transepts, so it took forever to make certain you weren’t there, and then another hour to drive out here, and—” She stopped, frowning at him. “You are Colin, aren’t you?”

And there went any doubt. It was her.

“Oh, dear, I’m afraid I’ve made a dreadful mistake,” she said, just as Ann had. “I thought—”

“You didn’t make a mistake,” he said dully. “I’m Colin.”

“Colin Templer?”

He nodded.

“Oh, good,” Eileen said. “I was afraid for a moment I’d got the wrong man. It’s been so many years since I saw you.” She glanced toward the gift shop. Three chattering women were headed their way from it with bags full of parcels. “Come, let’s go find somewhere quiet where we can talk.” She led him back into the Blitz exhibit and over to the door marked “Air Raid Shelter.”

She opened the door, took a swift look around, and pushed him through it. Inside was a replica of an Underground station platform. Mannequins sat along the curved tile walls and lay on the floor wrapped in blankets.

Eileen shut the door. “This is perfect,” she said over the muffled sound of a bomb. She sat down on a bench and patted the seat beside her.

He sat down.

“Now, then,” she said, and beamed at him.

And how can she? he thought. Knowing how I failed her? “Eileen,” he said helplessly. “Merope, I am so sorry—”

She looked up at him in surprise. “Oh, Colin, I am sorry. I recognized you, so I suppose I thought you’d recognize me, but I was forgetting you haven’t met me yet.”

Haven’t met—

“And even if you had, it’s been over fifty years. I should have told you straightaway.” There was another explosion and a flash of red light. “I’m not Eileen. I mean, I am, but not Eileen O’Reilly.”

Hope leaped in Colin. This wasn’t Eileen, which meant there was still a chance he could get them out. And if this Eileen knew where they were—

“I should have started at the beginning,” she said. “I’m Binnie Hodbin. My brother, Alf, and I were evacuees. We were sent to the manor where M—where Eileen worked as a maid.”

Alf and Binnie Hodbin, the children everyone had remembered because they were such terrors. And apparently Alf still was, since he was “detained” at the Old Bailey. Was that merely a polite way of saying he was under arrest? Or worse?

But this made no sense. Binnie had been a child during the war. “But the women said you drove an ambulance,” he said.

“I did. During the V-1 and V-2 attacks.”

“But you’d only have been—”

“Fifteen,” she said. “I lied about my age.”

And that certainly went with what he’d been told about the Hodbins. And now that he looked more closely at her, she was obviously younger than the other women. “But you said your name was Eileen—”

“It is. Binnie wasn’t a real name—it was short for Hodbin. So, since I hadn’t any name of my own, Eileen said I could choose any name I wanted, and that’s the name I chose. And then after the war, when Mum—I mean, Eileen—and Dad legally adopted us, that was the name that was put down.”

After the war. Oh, God. “You called her Mum.”

“I’m sorry. I keep forgetting you don’t know any of this yet. After we went back to London at the beginning of the Blitz, Eileen took us in and raised us. Our mother had died, and we were living in the Underground, and Eileen found us and …”

He wasn’t listening. Eileen had raised them. He hadn’t got them out. That was why Binnie was here. Eileen had sent her to tell him he’d failed, that she’d spent the last fifty-five years waiting for him to come rescue her. To no avail. “She doesn’t want to see me, does she?” he asked. “I don’t blame her.”

“No, you don’t understand,” Binnie said. She took a deep breath. “Mum died eight years ago.”

If an air raid warning be received during the performance the audience will be informed from the stage.

—NOTICE IN THEATER PROGRAM,

1940