Churchill examined his cigar and found it had gone out. He patted his pockets for his lighter, until his wife reached over – lighter in hand.
He lit the cigar, puffing on it to build up a good head of steam.
‘I’d be crossing the Channel already,’ Churchill said. ‘Synchronised landings while we’re distracted by all of this.’
Bunny noticed more and more of the young men and women below were stealing glances up at the audience in the circle.
‘How many more reserves do we have?’ Churchill asked.
Park paused before answering. He shook his head. A slight movement. Involuntary.
‘None.’
Churchill took another puff from his cigar.
‘None?’
Park shook his head again.
‘None.’
Churchill grimaced. Bunny detected a note of satisfaction. A grim welcoming – they’d been waiting for the worst. Now the worst was upon them.
‘So this is it,’ Churchill said.
Churchill turned to Bunny. Bunny knew what was coming and he was tempted to turn away. To remove himself from the process. To give himself a chance that in the future he’d be able to tell himself he wasn’t part of it. It wasn’t his fault.
‘It’s time,’ Churchill said.
1
One week later
Saturday, 7 September 1940
Ruby checked her wristwatch for the hundredth time as the air-raid siren wailed to life. Her arm was sticky from where she’d let it rest on the polished marble. Only half five and the bar was packed solid. Seemed like every day more people arrived in London, coming from all corners of the globe, all of them headed straight here, eager to find out who else had got away. A boisterous crowd of Scandinavians had taken up residence at the end of the bar. One of them looked familiar – one of those European royals you read about in the papers, arriving in a small plane with a suitcase of jewels, getting out ten minutes ahead of the German invaders.
She had to go. She’d had to go at four thirty, and then quarter to five, then five, but each time she’d gathered her things, the bartender had delivered another drink, each with the compliments of one of the seemingly endless number of airmen crowded into the bar, mixed in with the aristocrats and the refugees. Invariably, each had come over to try their luck. Some had been nice, wanting to talk, others assuming they’d get something in return for the cheap G and T she’d never asked for. Still, better than buying your own drinks.
She saw him, at the far end of the room. Her pulse quickened with fear. She’d heard he’d moved on to another hotel,trying his luck with a different crowd, but here he was, his distinctive copper hair like a warning flag.
Now she really had to go. She should have been getting off the number nine bus at the end of her street by now, hurrying over the narrow bridge onto the docks, to the dark row of houses anchored by their pub on the corner. Still, no use crying over spilt milk. And she did want to see Frankie again, of course she did, after he’d been sent away to the country. Ruby couldn’t think of anything worse. How miserable, biding your time in a godforsaken farm in the middle of nowhere, missing out on everything. There’d been a suggestion that Ruby should accompany Frankie, keep an eye on him, but she’d put her foot down. Besides, she wasn’t a child, she had a job to do here in town.
The lights flicked off, then back on. Off again, then on again. A visual warning – a workaround for times like this when even an air-raid siren wouldn’t penetrate the hubbub of the crowded bar.
Last September, the siren would have emptied the place. The first Ruby ever heard, she’d been sure it was the end of the world. Straight after Chamberlain had been on the wireless, telling them war had been declared. Mum had bundled them into the dank cellar and they’d sat there, gas masks fogging up, waiting to die. Two hundred thousand people would be killed in the first raid, the papers said. But the planes hadn’t come. Frankie had been the first to take his mask off, earning him a clip round the ear from Mum, but half an hour later they’d all been back upstairs, talking excitedly about their first air raid. Had they heard a plane? Annie from round the corner had said a thousand parachutists had landed on the Kent coast but got rounded up by the police. Ruby heard stories of a landing craft going down in the Channel, and hundreds of bodies washing upon the beaches, all in their German uniforms, rifles clenched in their hands, bayonets fixed. None of the stories true, of course. Even at the time Ruby hadn’t believed them. Hitler was busy razing Poland to the ground, all you had to do was watch the newsreels. He wouldn’t have thought about England if Chamberlain hadn’t declared war. He certainly wouldn’t have been able to mount an attack with the whole of the French army lined up against him, their Maginot Line the eighth wonder of the world, the most heavily defended strip of land in history.
But that was a year ago. A lot had changed since then.
Ruby flashed a smile to the bartender as she climbed down from the stool, smoothed her dress and went through the familiar panicky grabbing for her gas mask. She’d left it on the bar but it wasn’t there. With a flash of relief she felt it hanging from the coat-hook under the bar, the grey leather box she’d bought with her first pay packet from Lyons. If you had to carry the blasted thing around, might as well have it look half decent, as she’d told Mum in response to the raised eyebrow. In Mum’s day, young women didn’t go out to work, apparently. Certainly not Up West. If they had, theycertainlywouldn’t have spent half their pay on a replacement for something the government had already given you for free.
He was pushing through the crowd towards her. Last time they’d met he’d made it very clear she wasn’t to cross his path again. Last time, he’d hurt her, and said it would be worse if it had to happen again. Said the powers that be had made it very clear – he was to disappear her if necessary. Or even if not necessary. Perhaps he’d do it just for the fun of it.
2
Ruby hurried across the lobby, to the side door out onto Arlington Street. They didn’t like the girls to use the front door.
It was hot outside. It had been in the nineties earlier, and it hadn’t dropped off yet. It was jarring, emerging into the light. She’d usually be inside until the early hours, until the party moved to the downstairs bar, the one buried under twenty feet of concrete and steel. The safest place to get a drink in London. Safe, until she’d crossed paths with him, of course.
