—
The Anderson shelter was out back, beyond a large vegetable garden. Except for a few rows of sturdy cabbages and chard, the garden was covered in straw.
The shelter looked like an enormous discarded tin can, half-swallowed in dirt and sporting a thin layer of anemic sod. Moss clung to the sides, and a thick piece of burlap hung over the opening.
“So here it is,” said Meg, lifting the flap. “You can go in if you like, but there’s not much to see. Just remember there are a couple of steps down and two bunks at the back. We’ve got torches and bedding, in case we have to spend the night. Keep your coat and shoes handy. Bedding or not, you’ll be wanting them. I’ve got a siren suit myself. You pull it on over everything, zip it up, and off you go. Have you got any clothing coupons left?”
I shook my head wordlessly.
“Well, never mind. I can get my hands on a pattern if you want to make one, although you’d have to come up with the material.”
Although it was just past four, the sky had turned the jeweled blue of twilight, and I shivered in a sudden gust of wind.
“That’s that then,” said Meg. “Let’s get inside.”
She headed back, walking quickly. I broke into a jog to catch up.
“Make sure you come down for dinner tonight,” she said. “We’ve a lovely haunch.”
“I can’t have any,” I said, utterly miserable. “I haven’t got a ration book.”
“You needn’t worry. It’s venison.”
“Venison isn’t rationed?” Hope sprang up like a bird taking flight.
“They can’t ration what they don’t know about,” Meg said, “and Angus isn’t one to let people starve.”
“You don’t mean he poached it?” I was aghast the second the words rolled off my tongue.
“I said no such thing,” Meg said emphatically. “But even if he did—which I did not imply in any way—the taking of a deer is a righteous theft. He used to be the gamekeeper at Craig Gairbh, you know.”
“Why did he leave?”
“He joined up. And of course, by the time he came back, the old laird had offered up the house and grounds to the military for the duration of the war. His son was killed, and the laird thought that was the least he could do, since he was too old to fight himself. He was a real warrior himself, back in the day. So for the moment, there’s no need for a gamekeeper. At any rate, the only difference between then and now is the title.”
“Was he the gamekeeper in ’thirty-four?” I asked.
She glanced over her shoulder and cocked an eyebrow. “That he was.”
Which meant he had been there for all of the Colonel’s shenanigans, and making it all the more remarkable that he was letting me stay.
When we reached the building, Meg held the door open and let me go in first.
“It wasn’t my idea,” I said weakly. “I mean, the name thing.”
“Oh, aye,” Meg replied, nodding. “From what I gather, your husband doesn’t consult you about a number of things. I don’t suppose you’ll help with the Blackout curtains, will you? Only it’s getting dark already and I haven’t even started the neeps and tatties.”
“Sure,” I said. Although I was taken aback, it didn’t even occur to me to say no.
“Make sure they’re nice and tight. Even a sliver of light will get us a fine. Or bombed.” She glanced at my face and laughed. “It’s just gallows humor.”
“Yes, of course,” I said, turning to leave.
“Wait a minute.”
She went to the pantry and came back, lifting my right hand and planting an apple in it.
I stared at it, nearly speechless with gratitude. “Thank you.”
She picked up my other hand and inspected my nails. “You look like you’ve been lifting tatties. I’ll fix that for you tomorrow. ‘Beauty is your Duty,’ you know. Keep the fellows’ spirits up. And what’s going on under that scarf of yours, anyway?”
“Nothing good,” I said, clutching the apple so tightly I pierced its skin. “Maybe you could show me how to set my hair with rags sometime.”
“Certainly. If you can stand sleeping on them, you can use my rollers.” She looked at me critically and nodded. “You have a natural head for victory curls. Go on then—I have to finish up dinner, as well as make myself presentable.”
—
I ate the apple down to a tiny nubbin, leaving the stem and seeds hanging by a fibrous ribbon of core, but it didn’t make so much as a dent in my hunger. I hated the idea of going down to dinner on my own, but since Ellis and Hank had left me no choice, I did.
The barstools and tables were taken up by the same men as the night before (with the notable exception of Old Donnie), but this time none of them paid any attention when I joined Conall by the fire. Almost immediately, Meg set an enormous plate of food in front of me.
The venison roast was well done, brown through and through, and served with rowanberry jelly and an ample heap of mashed potatoes and turnips.
I was dizzy with food-lust. I glanced around to make sure there was still no one looking, then ate. It was a struggle to keep to a civilized speed.
The dog, who was once again lying between the end of the couch and the fire, watched with intense interest until I scraped the plate clean, then heaved a disappointed sigh. I’d wanted to slip him a couple of tiny bits while I was eating, but Mr. Ross was behind the bar and occasionally glanced over. He did not strike me as the type to spoil a dog, and I was trying to be unobtrusive. I didn’t want to do anything to make him change his mind about letting me stay.
When Meg came for my plate, she brought a glass of beer, telling me it would “build my blood.” I’d never had beer before—our crowd considered it lowbrow—and I sipped it with apprehension. It was not unpleasant, and contributed to the warm glow I felt from finally having a full stomach.
It was the only thing I felt warm about. Every time the door opened, I couldn’t help looking, hoping it was Ellis and Hank, but it never was, and I began to accept that they really had left me without two nickels to rub together, no ration book, and no explanation.
—
I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but since I was alone, I couldn’t help overhearing bits and pieces of conversation.
The young men who occupied the tables belonged to a military lumberjack unit, the Canadian Forestry Corps, which had been deployed to supply the British army’s endless need for wood, and Meg—who, in the name of duty, had donned a swing skirt, painted her lips red, and once again drawn lines up the backs of her legs—worked with them during the day. The local men were older, several of them bearing obvious scars and injuries, presumably from the Great War. They sat on stools at the bar chatting with each other and paying no attention whatsoever to either the Canadian lumberjacks or me.
At ten minutes to nine, Meg turned on the wireless to let the tubes warm up. When the chimes of Big Ben announced the nightly broadcast, everyone fell silent.
The Red Army was advancing in south Poland despite intense fighting and were now only fifty-five miles from German soil. In one battle alone, they had killed more than three thousand German soldiers and destroyed forty-one of their tanks. In Budapest, during three days of fighting, they had captured 360 blocks of buildings and taken forty-seven hundred prisoners. On all fronts, 147 German tanks had been destroyed and sixty of their planes shot down. And in four days Franklin D. Roosevelt would be sworn into office for the fourth time.
Despite undisputed progress on the Front, my satiated contentment collapsed into unfathomable depression.
In Philadelphia, the war had seemed a million miles away. It was certainly discussed and debated, but it was essentially an academic exercise, conducted over cocktails, or lunch at the club. It felt like theoretical men fighting a theoretical war, and after Ellis was excluded from service we avoided the topic altogether out of concern for his feelings.
Experiencing the U-boat attack and witnessing the terrible injuries of the men who’d been pulled from the sea’s flaming surface had thoroughly shredded any sense of detachment I might have had, but I was still having trouble comprehending the notion of three thousand dead in a single afternoon—and that was just enemy soldiers. I’d heard of death counts at least that large many times over during the course of the war, but until that moment, while sitting in a room full of uniformed men and aged veterans, I don’t think I truly understood the human toll.
—
In bed, with my hair in Meg’s rollers and my face slathered in cold cream, I had a sudden longing for Ellis, which was utterly ludicrous given that he was directly responsible for my current dilemma. Then I realized that homesickness was the real culprit. The mention of President Roosevelt had set it off.
I wanted to be in my bedroom in Philadelphia, before New Year’s Eve, before any of this. I wanted to be safe, even if it meant enduring countless more years of Edith Stone Hyde.
Instead, I was alone in a building full of strangers in a foreign country—during a war, no less. If I disappeared, I doubted anyone would notice, never mind care. At home, at least my mother-in-law would notice if I disappeared—she might rejoice, but she’d notice.
I thought of Violet, and wondered if she hated me before realizing that yes, of course she hated me. All she’d know was that I’d been brought along and she’d been left behind. I wondered what she’d think if she knew I’d trade places with her in an instant.
It then dawned on me that if Hank really hadn’t told Violet about our so-called adventure, the only person on earth who knew where we were was Freddie. When Ellis’s parents eventually investigated, they’d see that Ellis had emptied his bank account and that we’d left most of our belongings in storage at the hotel, but then the trail would grow cold.
If Hank and Ellis never came back, it was absolutely true that no one would notice if I disappeared.