Blackout

London-25 October 1940

“I DO BELIEVE THAT EVERY SINGLE UNPLEASANT PERSON in London has decided to shop in Padgett’s today,” Miss Peterson whispered to Eileen in the stockroom, and Eileen had to agree. She’d spent all afternoon waiting on Mrs. Sadler and her wretched son Roland, who was being belatedly evacuated to Scotland on Thursday.

And it’s too bad it’s not Australia, Eileen thought, bringing out yet another blazer for Roland to try on. He refused to extend his arm so she could get it into the sleeve and, when his mother turned away to look at the waistcoats, he kicked Eileen hard in the shins. “Ow!”

“Oh, did I knock into you?” Roland said sweetly. “I beg your pardon.”

And I thought Alf and Binnie were bad, Eileen thought. They were angels compared to Roland. “How is this, madam?” she asked Mrs. Sadler after she’d finally managed to force the jacket onto him.

“Oh, yes, the fit’s much better,” Mrs. Sadler said, “but I’m not certain of the color. Do you have it in blue?”

“I’ll see, madam.” Eileen limped into the curtained storeroom, her ankle throbbing, to fetch the blazer in blue and then brown, and wrestle them onto the resisting Roland.

Why am I always stuck dealing with horrible children? she thought. I should never have let them transfer me up here from Notions, shorthanded or not. And now it was perfectly obvious why they’d been shorthanded in Children’s Wear. When I get back to Oxford, I am never doing another assignment involving children. Even if it means giving up VE-Day.

“This blue is much nicer,” Mrs. Sadler said, fingering the lapels, “but I’m afraid it won’t be warm enough. Scotland’s winters are very cold. Have you something in wool?”

The first four blazers he tried on, Eileen thought. “I’ll see, ma’am,” she said and made another trip to the storeroom, thinking, Why couldn’t I have searched the stores on the other side of Oxford Street first? If she had, she wouldn’t have missed Polly. She’d still have been at Townsend Brothers when she went there, and they could have gone through to Oxford together. Instead, Polly was gone, and she was stuck here at Padgett’s waiting on six-year-old psychopaths till either someone came for her or she saved enough money to return to Backbury.

She’d written the vicar on the pretext of telling him she’d safely delivered the children, so he knew where she was staying and could tell the retrieval team, but if she were in Backbury, they wouldn’t have to come to London looking for her.

And it was far safer there. Stepney was bombed constantly, and Oxford Street had already been hit twice. The first time John Lewis had been gutted, which meant it hadn’t been the one Polly had mentioned. She must have got it muddled with the similar-sounding Leighton’s, and Townsend Brothers was where she’d got the idea it was a man’s name.

Thank goodness she hadn’t been hired on at John Lewis. But nowhere on Oxford Street was truly safe. If she’d been on her way to the tube station when John Lewis’s windows blew out…

But at this point she hadn’t managed to save enough money to go to Backbury. She needed not only train fare, but enough to pay her expenses once she got there. Mrs. Willett wasn’t charging her to stay since she watched Theodore at night and since they’d spent every night thus far in the Anderson. But she was charging Eileen board, and there were also her lunches and tube fare. She would have to work another full fortnight before she could afford to go.

And it looked as though it might take Mrs. Sadler that long to decide on a blazer. “No, I’m afraid that isn’t warm enough either,” she was saying. “Haven’t you anything heavier? A tweed, perhaps?”

Eileen went on yet another search, wishing Mrs. Sadler would make up her mind so she could get her purchases written up before Padgett’s closed. The air raids had been starting earlier and earlier this past week, and it was a long way to Stepney. And if she was forced to spend the night in town, Theodore would have to stay next door with Mrs. Willett’s neighbor, and Eileen didn’t trust her to take him out to the Anderson.

She’d had to stay in Padgett’s shelter the night before last, and when she reached home, Theodore’d told her they’d spent the night at Mrs. Owens’s kitchen table playing cards. “She’s teaching me to play gin rummy,” he reported proudly. “And when the bombs get very bad, we hide in the cupboard under the stairs,” and when Eileen had confronted her, Mrs. Owens had said, “That cupboard’s safer than a bit of tin, I don’t care what the government says.”

Eileen hoped Alf and Binnie’s mother didn’t have the same cavalier attitude toward shelters. Whitechapel was bombed nearly every night. She hoped she’d done the right thing in not giving Mrs. Hodbin the vicar’s letter. It was too late to give it to her now. After the City of Benares’s sinking, they’d suspended overseas evacuations, and she’d heard on the wireless this week there was a severe shortage of places for evacuees.

“No, this tweed’s much too rough,” Mrs. Sadler said. “Roland is extremely sensitive.”

Sensitive, my foot, Eileen thought.

“Haven’t you anything in camel’s hair?”

The closing bell rang while Eileen was searching for it. Thank goodness, she thought, but Mrs. Sadler remained oblivious, even though all around them customers were departing and shop assistants were covering their counters and putting on their coats and hats.

“I’m afraid Padgett’s is closing, ma’am,” Eileen said. “Would you like me to send the things you’ve purchased thus far and decide on a blazer tomorrow?”

“No, that won’t do at all,” Mrs. Sadler said. “Roland leaves next Thursday, and if it should need to be altered…”

Eileen’s supervisor, Miss Haskins, hurried up. “Is there a problem, Mrs. Sadler?”

Thank goodness, Eileen thought. Tell her the store is closing, but Mrs. Sadler had already launched into the tale of her decision to evacuate Roland to Scotland. “Everyone said I should send him to the country, but what’s to keep the Germans from bombing Warwickshire as well as London? I want to know that he’s truly safe. In my opinion, the Queen’s simply being foolhardy not to send the Princesses to Scotland. After all, one must put the safety of one’s children first, no matter how painful the separation may be.”

“Painful” is the word, Eileen thought. Roland had taken the opportunity of his mother’s not watching him to pinch Eileen hard on the arm.

“… so you can see how important it is I complete Roland’s shopping today,” Mrs. Sadler was saying.

“Yes, of course. Miss O’Reilly, you don’t mind staying, do you?” Miss Haskins didn’t wait for an answer. “Miss O’Reilly will be happy to assist you,” she said, and to Eileen, “Remember to switch off the lights in your department when you leave.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Eileen said. Miss Haskins left, and a moment later, the lights on the rest of the floor went off, leaving Children’s Wear a small island of light.

Eileen managed to fight Roland into the camel’s hair blazer without suffering further injury. “It’s an excellent fit,” she said, neatly dodging Roland’s aimed foot. “And very warm-” She stopped and listened as a siren sounded.

“It is a good fit…” Mrs. Sadler said consideringly.

Eileen was constantly amazed at the coolness of Londoners during raids. They didn’t seem at all bothered by the sirens or the sound of the anti-aircraft guns, and when they went to the shelters, they strolled along as though they were window-shopping. Her first few days in London, Eileen had thought it was because they’d had more experience with them than she had. “You’ll get used to them soon,” Theodore’s mother had said when she flinched at the crump of the bombs, but she still panicked every time she heard the sirens, even when she knew she wasn’t in any danger, like here in Padgett’s.

“Madam, the sirens have gone,” she said, looking up at the ceiling. She thought she could hear the faint buzz of planes.

Roland apparently heard them, too. “Mummy, listen,” he said, tugging at Mrs. Sadler’s arm. “Bombers.”

“Yes, dear. And I do like it, but I don’t know…”

It was obvious why it had taken Mrs. Sadler over a year to evacuate her son. She’d obviously dawdled over that decision the way she was dawdling now over this blazer. You accused the Queen of being foolhardy, Eileen thought. What would you call this? For all you know, Padgett’s could be bombed at any moment.

“Madam, we can’t stay here,” she said. “It’s not safe.”

“The question is, will it be warm enough?”

For goodness’ sake, he’s not going to Antarctica.

“But it is the best we’ve seen… Very well, I’ll take it.”

Thank goodness. “Excellent, madam. I’ll have it and your other purchases sent round first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Perhaps it would be best if I took them with me.”

No, no, no. If you take them, they’ll need to be wrapped, and those are definitely planes.

“You’re certain they’ll be delivered by tomorrow morning?” Mrs. Sadler was saying. “Roland-”

Is leaving for Scotland on Thursday. I know. “Absolutely certain, madam. I’ll see to it personally.” She walked them over to the lifts, where the lift operator was waiting impatiently, then dashed back to her counter, wrote up the sales slip, pinned it to the stack of clothes, and started into the storeroom with them.

Oh, no, here they came again. “Did you forget something, Mrs. Sadler?” Eileen asked.

“No, I decided I want to see Roland in the blazer and the woolen waistcoat. It will be very cold in Scotland. Roland, unbutton your coat.”

“I won’t,” Roland said.

“I know you’re tired, darling,” Mrs. Sadler said, “but we’re nearly finished.”

Truer words, Eileen said silently, glancing nervously up at the ceiling. The planes sounded very close, and it was a long way from here to the tube station.

Where is the retrieval team? she thought for the thousandth time since she’d arrived in London. If they don’t get here soon, there’ll be nothing left for them to retrieve.

“Won’t you please put the blazer on for Mother?” Mrs. Sadler said. “There’s a good boy.”

He was anything but. He twisted his head violently as Eileen attempted to put the waistcoat on him and, when she held out the blazer, folded his arms belligerently across his chest. “I don’t like her,” he said. “She twisted my arm before.”

You little liar, Eileen thought, wishing Alf and Binnie were here. “I’ll be very careful,” she said, and, under her breath, “Hold your arm out before I break it.”

He promptly extended it and she got the blazer on him.

“There. It’s a perfect fit.”

“You’re quite right. It is.” Mrs. Sadler stood back, looking doubtfully at him. “But now that I see them together, I don’t know…”

“I could hold them for you,” Eileen said before she could ask to see anything else.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said doubtfully. “I had hoped to finish his shopping today… but if you haven’t any brown… yes, I think having you hold them will be best.”

Thank God, Eileen thought, even though it meant she’d have all this to do again tomorrow. She unblazered and unwaistcoated Roland, forgetting in her eagerness to have them gone to watch out for him. He stomped down hard on her instep, and when she yelped, said innocently, “Oh, did I tread on your foot? I am sorry.”

“Come, Roland,” Mrs. Sadler said. “We must hurry.”

She’s finally noticed we’re in the middle of a raid, Eileen thought, and about time. The searchlights had gone on, and the anti-aircraft guns were starting up.

“Do hurry, darling. We must go to Harrods and see what they have.”

Harrods is closed, Eileen thought, but she wasn’t about to say that, or anything else that might delay them. She saw them to the lift again, and then hobbled over to switch off the department’s lights, wondering if Roland had broken her foot.

And just when I need to make a run for the tube shelter, she thought, limping back to her department. Another gun, nearer than the last, began firing, and she heard an explosion.

If I don’t leave soon, I’ll have to spend the night here again. And perhaps that would be best. The planes sounded as if they were headed straight for Oxford Street, and at least she was safe here in Padgett’s. She scooped up the blazer and waistcoat, dumped them in the storeroom, and covered her counter.

And heard voices from over by the lifts. Oh, no, Eileen thought. They’re back again. She quickly switched off the lamp on her counter and ducked into the storeroom. She wouldn’t put it past Mrs. Sadler to send Roland in here to look for her. She limped to the back and hid behind the last row of shelves, straining to hear above the increasing drone of the planes.

The voices were coming closer. I am not going out there, no matter what, she thought. She pressed herself into the corner and prepared to wait them out.