Connie Willis - Blackout

“No,” Polly said. Marjorie hadn’t said a word about leaving. She’d promised to cover for her and to tell the retrieval team where she was. What if they’d been here this morning?

“Did anyone come in-?” she began, but Doreen cut her off.

“Quick, Miss Snelgrove’s coming,” she whispered. She scuttled off to her own counter, and Polly started toward hers, but too late. Miss Snelgrove was already bearing down on her.

“Well?” she demanded. “I trust you have a good reason for being two and a half hours late?”

That all depends on what Marjorie told you on Saturday, Polly thought. Had she said she was ill or visiting her mother?

“Well?” Miss Snelgrove said, folding her arms belligerently across her chest. “I trust you’re feeling better.”

She’d told her she was ill, then. I hope. “No, actually, I’m still a bit gippy. I rang up to say I wouldn’t be in today, but they said you were dreadfully shorthanded, so I thought I’d best try to come in.”

Miss Snelgrove was not impressed. “To whom did you speak?” she demanded. “Was it Marjorie?”

“No, I don’t know who it was. I didn’t know about Marjorie till I got here. I was so surprised-”

“Yes, well, go and tell Miss Steinberg she can go back to her department. And I believe you have a customer.”

“Oh, yes, sorry,” Polly said and went over to her counter, but Miss Snelgrove continued to watch her like a hawk, so she didn’t have a chance to ask Sarah if anyone had come in asking about her this morning, and no chance to talk to Doreen either till Miss Snelgrove went on her lunch break.

As soon as she was out of sight, Polly darted over to Doreen’s counter and asked her, “Marjorie didn’t say whether anyone had come in asking for me before she left, did she?”

“No, I didn’t even have a chance to talk to her,” Doreen said. “We were swamped, what with you being out ill and all, and then, just before closing, Miss Snelgrove said I’d made a mistake in my sales receipts, and I had to tote them all up again and by the time I’d finished, Marjorie’d gone.” She looked speculatively at Polly. “Who were you expecting? Did you meet someone?”

“No,” Polly said. She repeated the story she’d told Marjorie about her cousin coming to London. “And you didn’t see her talking to anyone?”

“No, I told you, we were frightfully busy. There was a story in the Saturday morning papers about the government rationing silk because the RAF needed it for parachutes, and everyone in London came in to buy up nightgowns and knickers. She could at least have said goodbye,” Doreen said indignantly. “Or left a note or something.”

A note. Polly went back to her counter and searched its drawers and her sales book and then, pretending to rearrange the merchandise, the drawers of stockings and gloves, but all she found was a scrap of brown wrapping that read cryptically “6 bone, 1 smoke”-presumably a reminder of stocking colors to be ordered. Or the description of a bomb site. But no note.

Even though it was unlikely Sarah would have seen the note and pocketed it, Polly ran upstairs to Housewares on her tea break to ask her. She hadn’t, and no, no one had come in asking for Polly this morning before she got there. Sarah hadn’t talked to Marjorie on Saturday either. Neither had any of the other girls except Nan, and Marjorie hadn’t mentioned anyone inquiring about her.

“Face it, luv, he’s not coming,” Doreen said as they covered their counters.

“What?” Polly said, startled. “Who?”

“This boyfriend you’ve asked everyone in the entire store about. What’s his name?”

“I haven’t got a boyfriend. I told you, my cousin-”

Doreen didn’t look convinced. “This chap didn’t… you’re not in trouble, are you?”

Yes, Polly thought, but not the sort you mean. “No,” she said. “I told you, I haven’t got a boyfriend.”

“Well, you haven’t one now, that’s certain. He’s left you in the lurch.”

No, they haven’t, Polly thought, but there was no one standing outside the staff entrance, and no one in front of Townsend Brothers. Polly waited as long as she could, hoping the team didn’t know about the earlier closing hour, but darkness-and, consequently, the raids-were coming earlier now that it was nearly October. In another week, the raids would begin before people left work.

Sir Godfrey was waiting for her at Notting Hill Gate when she stepped off the train. He took her arm. “Viola! I have tragic news. You weren’t here to vote with me last night, and so we are condemned to do that sentimental ass Barrie.”

“Oh, dear. Not Peter Pan?”

“No, thank God,” he said, escorting her to the escalator and down, “though it was a near thing. Mr. Simms not only voted for it but demanded Nelson be allowed to vote as he would be playing Nana. And after I intervened to get the wretched dog allowed down here in the first place! Foul traitor!”

He smiled at her and then frowned. “Don’t look so heartbroken, child. All is not lost. If we must do Barrie, The Admirable Crichton’s at least amusing. And the heroine shows great courage in adversity.”

“Oh, good, you’re back,” Miss Laburnum said, coming down the escalator. “Has Sir Godfrey told you we’re doing The Admirable Crichton?” and before Polly could answer, “How is your dear mother?”

Mother? Polly thought blankly and then remembered that was where she was supposed to have gone. “Much better, thank you. It was only a virus.”

“Virus?” Miss Laburnum said, bewildered.

Oh, God, hadn’t viruses been discovered in 1940? “I…”

“Virus is a variety of influenza,” Sir Godfrey said. “Isn’t that right, Viola?”

“Yes,” she said gratefully.

“Oh, dear,” Miss Laburnum said. “Influenza can be dreadfully serious.”

“So it can,” Sir Godfrey said, “but not with the proper medicine. Have you given Miss Sebastian her script?”

Miss Laburnum fluttered off through the crowd to fetch it. “If she asks you what sort of medicine,” Sir Godfrey whispered to Polly, “tell her gin.”

“Gin?”

“Yes. A most efficacious remedy. Tell her your mother came to so fast she bit the bowl off the spoon.”

Which was from Shaw’s Pygmalion and meant that he knew perfectly well that she’d lied about going to see her mother. She braced herself for his asking where she had been, but Miss Laburnum was back with a stack of small blue clothbound books.

She handed one to Polly. “Alas, I was unable to locate sufficient copies of Mary Rose to enable us to perform it,” she said, leading them out to the platform, “though I’m certain I saw several in the bookshops only last week.”

They reached the group. “Miss Sebastian’s mother is much improved,” she announced, and went over to give the rector his copy.

“I hope you appreciate the sacrifice I’ve made for you,” Sir Godfrey whispered to Polly. “I spent three pounds ten buying up every copy of Mary Rose on Charing Cross Road to save you from sentimental claptrap like ‘Goodbye, little island that likes too much to be visited.’”

Polly laughed.

“Attention, everyone,” Mrs. Wyvern said, clapping her hands. “Does everyone have a script? Good. Sir Godfrey is to play the title role, Miss Sebastian is to be Mary-”

“Mary?” Polly said.

“Yes, the female lead. Is there a problem?”

“No, it’s only… I didn’t think we were doing Mary Rose.”

“We’re not. We’re doing The Admirable Crichton. You are playing Lady Mary.”

Sir Godfrey said, “Barrie was inordinately fond of the name Mary.”

“Oh,” Polly said. “I’m not certain I should be given such a large part, with my mother and everything. If I were to have to leave suddenly…”

“Miss Laburnum can act as your understudy,” Sir Godfrey said. “Go on, Mrs. Wyvern.”

Mrs. Wyvern read the rest of the cast list. “Sir Godfrey has also kindly agreed to direct. The play is about Lord Loam, his three daughters, and their fiancйs. They and their servants are shipwrecked-”

Shipwrecked, Polly thought. How appropriate.

“-on a desert island. And the only person among them with any survival skills at all is their butler, Crichton, so he becomes their leader. And then, when they’ve resigned themselves to remaining on the island forever, they’re rescued-”

Resigning myself’s not an option, Polly thought. I can’t afford to sit here and wait for rescue. If I’m not off the island when my deadline arrives…

But there was nothing to do but sit and wait for the retrieval team to come. Or for her drop to open. If the problem was a divergence point, then the drop might not have been damaged, and its failure to open was only temporary. If so, the retrieval team might not have come because it wasn’t necessary. She could go home on her own.

So when the all clear went the next morning, Polly stayed behind, saying she wanted to learn her lines. She gave them half an hour to get home and then went to the drop.

Workmen had begun clearing the site, so the passage was even more visible from Lampden Road, but there was no one about. The passage and the well looked just as they had the night she’d waited there except for a heavy coat of plaster dust, no doubt churned up by the work going on outside. There weren’t any footprints in the dust, so none of the men clearing the site had discovered the passage, which was lucky, but there weren’t any footprints on the steps leading down to the drop either, or any other sign that the team had come through the drop.

Polly sat down on the steps to wait, staring at the peeling black door and thinking about The Light of the World. And about Marjorie. It seemed so unlike her to have left when she’d promised to cover for Polly. And without telling anyone. But perhaps she’d been afraid if she told people, they’d attempt to talk her out of it-or say she’d lost her nerve and was running away-so she’d waited till Polly was gone and the store was especially busy to slip away.

If Merope had been in Backbury, you’d have disappeared just as precipitiously, Polly told herself. As you will now if your drop opens.

But it didn’t. It didn’t open the next morning either, or that night. Which meant either the divergence point was still occurring, or her drop had been damaged after all. But even if it had and the retrieval team had to come through somewhere else, they might still come here looking for clues to her whereabouts.

She scribbled her name and “Townsend Brothers” on a scrap of paper, folded it, and wedged it half under the peeling black door and, after work the next day, ran up to Alterations and stole a piece of French chalk.

It rained that night, preventing her from going back to the drop, so she went to Holborn and, on the pretext of borrowing an Agatha Christie mystery from the lending library, told the frizzy-haired librarian all about the acting troupe and The Admirable Crichton, mentioning her own name twice and Notting Hill Gate three times. “I work at Townsend Brothers in the stockings department during the day,” she said, “so acting makes a nice change. You must come see our play. We’re on the northbound District Line platform.”

She did the same thing at work the next day on her lunch and tea breaks. After work she wrote her address and Mrs. Rickett’s phone number on the back of her sales receipt book and, although it was still misting slightly, went to the drop.