Jim Brown, with the unenviable task of holding off what looked like it could turn into a mob, took a step backwards. Cook didn’t like the way his finger curled around the trigger.
He was guarding a stairwell. A small brick building behind a formidable iron fence. Beneath the stairwell, according to Gracie, was one of the safest spaces on the island – a cavernous wine cellar, built to hold thousands and thousands of barrels of the finest wine. Some of the richest people in the country maintained stocks there. Hence the security. Strictly no admittance, the signs said. Jim Brown was there to enforce that rule and he looked like he meant business.
‘How many shells have you got loaded?’ Cook asked.
Jim Brown looked at him, and Cook saw panic in his eyes.
‘I’ll make it easy for you,’ Cook said. ‘The answers range from a minimum of none to a maximum of two. Let’s say it’s two, all right?’
The young man nodded.
‘So what’s your plan? You fire both shells, kill a few people. What do you think’s going to happen after that?’
‘I’ll tell you what’s going to happen after that—’ someone shouted from the crowd.
Cook held up his hand.
‘Nothing’s going to happen because Jim isn’t going to fire his gun,’ Cook said. ‘Jim’s a good lad. He’s got to do his duty, but he can’t go around shooting half the island. So he’s got a problem, and we’ve all got a problem.’
‘If I let you in, you have to promise not to nick anything, and you have to keep it a secret,’ Jim said.
There was a general muttering. Jim raised the gun into the air, away from the crowd. As soon as the gun was out of the equation, the crowd surged, past Jim, through an iron gate, down a spiral staircase cut into the stone wharf.
‘I’m telling the boss this was your idea,’ Jim said to Gracie.
‘Tell him what you want,’ Gracie replied. ‘At least we’ll be alive to tell the tale.’
Cook stepped aside as the crowd flowed in. He wasn’t ready to shelter yet. He was thinking about the building they’d left. A death trap. If he didn’t do something about it, others would find it and take shelter.
Gracie waited with him, watching back along the route they’d just taken.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.
‘Haven’t seen Frankie,’ she said.
37
Annie sat on a pile of bricks and watched her island burn. Born and raised here. Seventy-five years. Only left once, when they’d taken her and the other children for a day in the country. She crossed the bridges once a week to go up to the market, but she never felt right until she was back on the island. The docks had provided work for Father, never quite enough to pay the rent and put food on the table but somehow they’d survived. Children had come and gone. Many of them had died within weeks. Just visiting, the other women used to say, little mites too weak to draw breath. But it had been a good life, all things considered.
Father sat next to her, shaking. He was cold. Since their house had been blown up they’d been living rough. The young folks from the ARP had told her to go to the rest shelter, given her two coupons for tea. When she’d asked where she was meant to spend the night, they’d looked at each other and smiled, as if she were an imbecile. Stay put, they’d said. Someone will know what to do.
Not their fault. They were doing their best. Helped her get Father safe. Made sure the gas was turned off. Then they’d rabbited. Plenty more piles of rubble to dig through. Coupons to give out.
She’d done the best she could, found a bombed-out warehouse with a bit of roof left. But it wasn’t enough. No place for a fire. No place to keep anything that the rats wouldn’t get at.
She clutched her gas mask. The papers had been very clear. Any day now, the Germans would gas the city. Millions would die. Annie wasn’t scared of dying. She didn’t think there’d be an afterlife. She wasn’t stupid. Not like she’d be in heaven, reunited with her babies. It would be like going to sleep. Sometimes she thought she could do with a long sleep.
But she couldn’t die yet, not while Father needed her. He’d been fading for a long time. If she was honest, he’d been gone for a long time. The man who’d hefted crates twice his size, who’d taken her up West to the pictures the day he’d proposed to her, who’d carried her over the threshold of their tenement flat, promising to look after her as long as they lived. If he was still in there, she hadn’t seen him for a couple of years. Now he was like one of her babies, needing feeding, and changing. She’d hated him at first, for leaving her. But she couldn’t hate him any more. Not his fault, she told herself, when it got so bad she had to step outside and grit her teeth and give out a silent scream.
A cloud of yellow smoke rose out of a distant warehouse. She’d seen the bomb come down. Watched the flames consume the roof of the building. An odd sight, seeing a wall come down that had been her horizon for half her life. Now the smoke was drifting towards her. She could already taste it, making her cough.
Gas.
‘Got your mask, Father?’ she asked. She knew he wouldn’t respond, but it was her habit. Give him the chance to redeem himself. Show he’d been hiding in there all along.
He coughed, and looked at her. His eyes were streaming, the gas already swirling around him.
She put the mask on his face but he pushed it away.
