‘Don’t want it,’ he said.
She held it to his face, struggling with the leather straps. He pushed again, hurting her. Still a trace of his old strength.
‘I said no!’ he yelled, giving her the back of his hand as anger flashed across his face. All traces of her husband gone.
She recoiled, and he saw then what he’d done. His face screwed up, the tears arriving in an instant.
She tried once more, raising the mask to his face, but he shook his head.
She held him to her chest. Comforting him. Hating herself for the anger she’d felt as he’d pushed her away. Not his fault.
Not his fault.
The gas was getting in her chest.
She threw the mask away, the glass eyepieces smashing as it landed on the rubble.
‘Come here,’ she said, holding him. Doing her best to comfort him.
She felt him pull away, but she held tight. Kept his face pushed into her chest. Taking care of him this one last time, before they both went to sleep.
He struggled harder, but the fight was gone out of him. She was coughing now, the gas working its way into her lungs. She hoped it wouldn’t hurt too much.
Eventually, he stopped struggling, and she held him more, the way she’d held her babies when their short visits had come to an end. She closed her eyes and let the tears come.
38
Cook heard an incongruous sound, over the wail of the siren, and the rumble of the bombers. Children laughing. Cheering. Even more incongruous, but unmistakable, he heard the crack of a well-struck cricket ball, followed by the smash of broken glass.
Sounded like they were in the park. Near the shelter.
A lone bomber rumbled in from the south. Must have come up over Kent or Sussex. Cook kept a wary eye on it.
A Hurricane chased the bomber, lining up behind it, the rattle of its eight guns, a second or less for each burst. The Hurricanes only carried enough ammunition for fifteen seconds of firing, a pilot had told him.
The Hurricane must have got his target, because Cook saw a plume of smoke erupt from the bomber. But still it kept on its way. Crossing the river, over the island. The bomb bay doors opened. Bombs tumbled out, looking weightless.
The first one hit a street away. Cook ducked into a doorway as the second one crashed through a roof. A window blew out, spraying glass across the street.
The next two bombs landed with two crumps – one, then another. Cook felt the shockwaves through the narrow streets.
Then he felt another shockwave. Something else, hitting the ground. Something heavy. A crump, without a bomb.
Cook ran. He knew what it was – something heavy enough to shake the ground like a bomb, something just as deadly.The roof of the shelter. Several tons of concrete, left unattached to the badly pointed brick walls.
The park was a maelstrom of dust and flying leaves. The air was gritty, getting in his eyes. Cook squinted against the sharp dust, kept his mouth closed and held his hand over his nose.
The shelter wasn’t there. Or rather, in place of the shelter was a pile of rubble. The brick walls had gone outward, and the concrete slab was flat on the ground, a crack across it, but otherwise in one piece.
Cook hurried towards it.
A flash of colour caught his eye. A distinctive shade. Red leather, sewn around a cork ball, hand stitched and polished. Stamped in gold with the maker’s mark. A Dukes cricket ball.
Cook picked up the ball. It was warm and sticky, the way it would be if a boy had carried it around all night.
Cook picked up three bricks mortared together. As he grabbed them, they came apart, the mortar that should have been joining them little more than sand.
Cook grabbed a chunk of concrete and threw it behind him, the adrenaline giving him extra strength. If he could find where the doorway had been, there was a chance. He threw brick after brick behind him, clearing a space, all the while looking for any sign ...
