The Restless Sea. Vanessa de Haan
is Stoog, and he is rattling the bent and broken doors, searching high and low for whatever he can lay his hands on. Jack trips on, over a baby squashed and pulped in the gutter; beneath a bare tree, its branches adorned with limbs instead of leaves. And all the time the jangling bells of the fire engines and the crunching of the rubble underfoot and the cries for help and the dust filling their lungs so that he is choking on death.
Jack squeezes Betsy’s hand tighter, pulling her on. They are nearly at Southwark Park Road when they catch sight of Stoog and the others again. Stoog is grinning. He has got what looks like a haunch of meat and some new boots. The other boys’ bags are full, and they are carrying things too: Jack glimpses a stiff chicken, its feathers dull, its neck thin and long, a pair of gentleman’s silk dressing gowns.
The all-clear siren is sounding, calling out across the city that the danger has passed. All over London people will be coming out of their shelters, wondering what they will find.
‘What you got?’ says Stoog.
Jack shakes his head.
‘Nothing? But …’
Jack holds up his hand. ‘Don’t,’ he says. A terrible, morbid feeling has settled in his bones.
Stoog grins disdainfully and moves off. The other boys follow. Their faces are speckled with grime; they are camouflaged soldiers fighting their own battles. They melt away into the war-torn city before anyone can ask questions. Jack watches them go and is filled with disgust at what they have all become.
He and Betsy make their way home. Ash floats through the air, settling in their hair. Small flames still burn around them: wisps of light in the dark. The fires cast a creepy guttering light across Jack’s broken neighbourhood. The high street is unrecognisable. Walls are missing. You can see right in to people’s bedrooms. Clothes flap across the ground. Twisted metal lies everywhere. The moon is reflected in a mirror on someone’s wall. A bed half hangs from a first storey.
The pub on the corner that marks where they turn for their road is a furnace, flames burning in every window. Clouds of black smoke billow from the roof into the sky. There are fire wardens everywhere, clutching their stirrup pumps, aiming their hoses at innumerable streaks of flame. Boys and girls younger than Jack, many of whom he knows, fill buckets of water for them. Others race around with wheelbarrows full of sand, which they tip on the flames. Girl Guides in their blue uniforms soothe the injured and carry water and blankets to the shell-shocked.
They almost stumble into a deep crater halfway down their neighbouring street. Jack starts to jog. Broken glass crunches and crackles beneath his feet. Betsy runs to keep up. But it is all right. The houses at their end are untouched. Their home is still there. The front door is still on its hinges.
His mother is behind it, chewing her lip. ‘Where have you been?’ she shouts as soon as they fall into the hall.
Jack hesitates for a moment. The relief that surges through him is quickly replaced by defensiveness. ‘Down the Underground,’ he says. No need to look at Betsy. She will always back him up. But their mother doesn’t question them; that they are here and alive is enough. She kneels down and opens her arms and clings to them in the dark.
Outside, sirens still scream and bells still ring. The clean-up will continue all night. Inside, the three of them slump on the floor. Betsy is a ghost, her face and clothes so pale with ash, the dribble of dried blood a dark scar across her forehead.
Their mother leans her head back against the wall, a knot of exhaustion. ‘Enough is enough,’ she says. She picks something out of Betsy’s hair. She does not catch Jack’s eye. ‘It’s just us left,’ she says.
‘Don’t say it.’ Jack clenches his fists.
‘They’re gone. Both of them. They’re not coming back.’ There has been no news of his dad or Walt. They did not return with the men from Dunkirk.
‘You don’t know that for sure,’ says Jack.
‘I do.’
They stare at each other.
‘There’s a special train leaving in the morning. Another round of evacuations. I’ve booked her on it.’ She doesn’t need to carry on. Jack’s shoulders sag. He cannot fight any more. His mother is right. He cannot keep his sister safe. No one left in this smouldering city is safe.
Betsy’s eyes widen as the news sinks in. She shakes her head and inches back towards the door. ‘You promised,’ she says. Jack cannot stand the accusation in her voice, her eyes. He stops her, clasping her tightly, smoothing her smoky hair, filled with the dust of the dead. He feels her knobbly shoulders shiver beneath his sore hands, and he feels the piece of glass from Cherry Garden Pier burning like a hot coal in his pocket.
They wake early to the scratch of metal on rubble as London clears away debris on top of debris. Jack’s mother dresses Betsy in her only coat. Her shoes are so threadbare now that Jack shoves some cardboard into them to cover up the holes. He can barely look at his mother. He can barely look at himself.
His mother has written ‘Betsy Sullivan, Drummond Road, London SE17’ on a large white label. She ties it to Betsy’s coat, as if she’s a piece of lost luggage. ‘I’ve done you lunch, my love,’ she says. Her voice is almost a whisper. A tremor runs through it, but she has no more tears to cry. ‘Jam sandwiches. And I made your favourite biscuits.’ She has used their week’s ration of butter and sugar for these instead of the stale bread she usually tries to get away with.
Betsy holds the bag with her food in it. Jack holds her little suitcase. His sister has been polished and scrubbed. She looks as tidy as if she is off to church. His vision blurs for a moment. Then he clears his throat. He must be strong for her. He takes her hand. Their mother hovers in the background. ‘Right, you,’ he says, struggling to force the words out as they scratch and catch in his throat. ‘Let’s go.’
They pass walls teetering on the edge of collapse, hosepipes and buckets of sand, burning gas pipes, curtains flapping in the wind in buildings that look like dolls’ houses with their fronts left open. They pass the posters telling mothers to send their children away, people who look like they haven’t slept for weeks. They look out for live wires, particularly where the streets are waterlogged. Everywhere there is the smell of sewage, and wet, charred wood.
At Paddington Station, Betsy is pushed and pulled into one of the many groups of children. They all have the same wide, staring eyes. Some of them are crying. Betsy bites her lip and swallows, but she won’t cry. Jack feels his heart break. It actually breaks in two right there. He stands next to his mother. He feels her coldness. She is their mother, but she’s a shell. She steps forward towards her daughter. ‘Betsy love, I’m sure you’ll be back by …’ She cannot finish her sentence. The word ‘Christmas’ is too gay and bright and precious to exist at this moment. She tries to bend down and kiss Betsy’s pale cheek, but she is split from her by the ample figure of a buxom woman in a tweed suit.
‘Where are they going?’ Jack asks the woman, who is checking off a list.
‘We’ll tell you when they get there,’ she says, without looking up.
Jack smacks her clipboard, making a sharp sound. Now he’s got her attention. ‘Tell me now,’ he says.
‘You’ll find out in due course,’ she says, glancing at him as her lip curls. She is not intimidated. ‘Now hurry along. You’re only making it more difficult for your sister.’ She is right. He can see that Betsy’s bottom lip is quivering. He lets her usher Betsy towards a group of children who are then herded down the platform by more women in tweed suits. Betsy doesn’t even turn to wave goodbye, she just lets herself be carried away on the tide of other bewildered children. The battered gas mask box bumps against the back of her legs.
His vision blurs as she is ushered up into the train. The platform is an empty space, devoid of life as he is devoid of feeling. His fingers close over Betsy’s piece of glass, and he feels the familiar rage trickle into his bloodstream. The woman with the clipboard is still here, ticking things off her list. He grabs hold