Connie Willis - Blackout

No, she thought, I know it’s not, and felt suddenly sorry for him.

Mistake. He clearly took her silence for encouragement. “It’s not as though I were asking for any sort of commitment,” he said. “All I want is for you to give me a chance to catch up to you, and then, when we’re both the same age-or, wait, do you like older men? I can shoot for any age you like. I mean, not seventy or something: I don’t want to have to wait my entire life, but I’d be willing to do thirty, if you like older men-”

“Colin!” she said, laughing in spite of herself. “I have no business letting you talk to me like this. You’re seventeen-”

“No, listen, when I’m the right age, whatever it is, if you don’t like me or you’ve fallen in love with someone else in the meantime-you haven’t, have you? Fallen in love with someone?”

“Colin-”

“You have. I knew it. Who is it? That American chap?”

“What American chap?”

“Over at Balliol. The tall, good-looking one, Mike something.”

“Michael Davies,” she said. “He’s not an American. He had an American L-and-A implant. And he’s just a friend.”

“Then which historian is it? Not Gerald Phipps, I hope. He’s a complete stick-”

“I am not in love with Gerald Phipps or any other historian.”

“Good, because we’re absolutely made for each other. I mean, a contemp won’t work, because either they’ve died before you were born, or they’re ancient. And there’s no point in falling in love with someone in this time because even if you start off at the same age, after a few flash-time assignments you’ll be too old for him. And they can’t come rescue you if you get in trouble. So the only thing left’s another historian, and as it happens, I’m going to be an historian.”

“Colin, you are seventeen-”

“But I won’t be soon. You’ll feel differently about this when I’m twenty-fi-”

“You are seventeen now, and I have work to do. This conversation is over. Now go away.”

“Not until you at least promise me you’ll do your zeppelin assignment real-time.”

“I’m not promising anything.”

“Well, then at least promise me you’ll think about it. I plan to be devastatingly handsome and charming when I’m twenty-five.” He grinned his crooked grin at her. “Or thirty. You can let me know which you’d prefer when I bring you the sirens list.” And he raced off, leaving Polly shaking her head and smiling.

She had a feeling he was right-with that reddish-blond hair and disarming grin, he was going to be fairly irresistible in a few years. And she wouldn’t be surprised if ten minutes from now, he showed up with another question and more arguments as to why they were made for each other, so she took the maps back to Lark’s rooms to memorize, stopping on the way to ask Wardrobe when her black skirt would be ready.

“Three weeks,” the tech said.

“Three weeks? I told you to put in a rush order.”

“That is a rush order.”

Which meant she’d better settle for the navy blue. She didn’t want the lack of a skirt to keep her from going. For want of a nail, the shoe was lost… she thought, quoting one of Mr. Dunworthy’s favorite adages.

She told the tech she’d decided the navy blue would work after all. “Oh, excellent,” the tech said, relieved. “Will you need shoes?”

“No, the ones I have will work, but I’ll need a pair of stockings.”

The tech found her a pair, and Polly took the clothes over to Magdalen, memorized the map, and reread her notes on department stores. She was only halfway through them when the phone rang.

Colin, I do not have time for this, she thought. But it was Linna. “We’ve found a site, believe it or not, but the problem is, I can’t fit you in till a fortnight from now unless you can get here in the next half hour. If you’re not ready yet-”

“I’m ready. I’ll be there,” Polly said and scrambled into her costume, nearly running her stockings in her haste. She grabbed her ration book, identity card, departure letter, and letters of recommendation, and crammed them into her shoulder bag. Oh, and her money. And Mr. Dunworthy’s twenty extra pounds. And her wristwatch.

And now all I need is to run into Mr. Dunworthy, she thought, putting it on as she dashed out of Magdalen and hurried along the High, but her luck held, and she arrived at the lab with five minutes to spare. “Thank goodness,” Linna said. “I was wrong about that slot a fortnight from now. The next open time I have is the sixth of June.”

“D-Day,” she said.

“Yes, well, your D-Day’s exactly five minutes from now,” Badri said, coming over. He positioned her in the net, taking measurements and then adjusting her shoulder bag so it was farther inside the net. “You’re going through to 6 A.M. on the tenth of September.”

Good, Polly thought. That will give me the entire day to find a flat and then go apply for jobs.

Badri adjusted the folds of the net. “Ascertain your temporal-spatial location as soon as you go through, and note any slippage.” He went back to the console and began typing. “And make certain you use more than one landmark to fix the location of your drop, not just a single street or building. Bombing can change the landscape, and it’s notoriously difficult to judge distances and directions in a bombed-out area.”

“I know,” she said. “Why do you want me to note the slippage? Are you anticipating more than usual?”

“No, the estimated slippage is one to two hours. Linna, ring up Mr. Dunworthy. He wanted to be notified when we found a drop site.”

No, Polly thought, not when I’m this close.

“He’s in London,” Linna called back. “He went to see Dr. Ishiwaka again. When I phoned his secretary with the slippage data, he said he won’t be back till tonight.”

Thank goodness.

“All right, never mind,” Badri said. “Polly, you’re to report back to us as soon as you’ve located a place to live and been hired on.” The draperies began to lower around her. “And note exactly how much slippage you encounter when you go through. Ready?”

“Yes. No, wait. I forgot something. Colin was doing some research for me.”

“Is it something necessary for your assignment?” Badri asked. “Do you need to postpone?”

“No.” She couldn’t risk Mr. Dunworthy canceling her drop, and she had the times of the raids. Colin had said the sirens had generally gone twenty minutes before the raids began, and she could get the list from him when she came back through to tell them her address. “I’m ready.”

The net immediately began to shimmer. “Tell Colin-” she said, but it was too late. The net had already opened.

Every owner of a motor vehicle should be ready, in the event of invasion, to immobilize his car, cycle, or lorry the moment the order is given.

THE VICAR CAME TO GIVE EILEEN AND THE REST OF THE staff their first driving lessons the day after she returned from Oxford. “Aren’t you frightened?” Una asked Eileen.

“No,” she said, taking off her apron. “I’m certain the vicar’s an excellent teacher.” And, thanks to my time in Oxford, I shall be an excellent pupil.

In spite of her having had only two days and no help from Polly, she’d learned not only how to get into the Bentley, but how to start it and how to work the gear stick and the hand brake. Just before she’d come back, she’d driven it along the High, up Headington Hill, and safely back again. “I rather think these lessons will be fun,” she told Una and went out to the car. But it wasn’t the Bentley, it was the vicar’s battered Austin.

“Her ladyship had a WVS meeting in Daventry,” the vicar explained.

And she didn’t want her car damaged, Eileen thought.

“But driving one car is much like driving another,” the vicar said.

Not true. The clutch pedal on the Austin seemed to operate on an entirely different principle. It stalled no matter how slowly Eileen let it out-if she could get it started in the first place. Either the engine refused to turn over, or she flooded it. When she finally did succeed in starting it and putting it in gear, it died before she’d gone ten yards. “The old girl’s rather temperamental, I’m afraid,” Mr. Goode said, smiling at her. “You’re doing very well.”

“I thought clergymen weren’t supposed to tell lies,” she said, and after three more tries managed to nurse the Austin all the way to the end of the drive. But compared to Una, who couldn’t even remember which foot to put on which pedal and burst into tears every time the vicar attempted to coach her, she was positively brilliant.

Samuels was even worse, convinced he could master “that bloody car” by brute force and blasphemy, and Eileen was surprised the vicar didn’t abandon the whole project, Lady Caroline or no Lady Caroline. But he kept grimly on, in spite of his students and the Hodbins, who’d decided it was the funniest thing they’d ever seen, and who raced home from school on lesson days to sit on the steps and heckle.

“What do they think they’re doin’?” Alf would ask Binnie in a loud voice.

“Learnin’ to drive, for when the jerries invade.”

Alf would watch the proceedings for a moment and then innocently ask, “Whose side are they on?” and they would both collapse in merriment.

I must get back to Oxford on my next half-day out and practice on an Austin, Eileen thought, but she didn’t make it. On Monday morning four new evacuees arrived, and she had no chance to get to the drop, and a week later evacuees they’d had before began to come back-Jill Potter and Ralph and Tony Gubbins-all of whom joined the Hodbins on the steps to watch the driving lessons and shout taunts. “Get a ’orse!” Alf yelled during a particularly bad lesson of Una’s. “You’d ’ave better luck teaching it to drive than this lot, Vicar!”

“I think the vicar should teach me to drive,” Binnie said. “I’d be heaps better than Una.”

No doubt, Eileen thought, but a Hodbin version of Bonnie and Clyde, with Binnie driving the getaway car, was the last thing the vicar needed. “If you truly want to help win the war, go collect paper for the scrap drive or something,” she told the Hodbins, only to find out the next day they’d “collected” Lady Caroline’s appointment book, a first folio of Shakespeare, and all of Mrs. Bascombe’s cooking receipts.

“They’re impossible,” she told the vicar when he came for her next lesson.

“Our faith teaches us that no one is beyond the hope of redemption,” he said in his best pulpit manner, “although I must admit the Hodbins test the limits of that belief,” and proceeded to show her how to reverse the car. She felt guilty that he was spending so much time teaching her. He should be working with someone who’d be here when the war began in earnest, and she only had a few weeks left. She comforted herself with the knowledge that Backbury had had almost no need for ambulance drivers. It hadn’t been bombed, and only one plane had crashed-in 1942, a German Messerschmitt west of the village. The pilot had died on impact and hadn’t needed an ambulance. And at any rate, petrol rationing would soon prevent anyone from driving anything.