These eddies of bitterness were the same every day. Laura was tired of the impotent chorus, but she stood weakly at the barrier, not knowing what to do next.
‘Nothing to see – pass along now,’ said one of the demolition squad to no one in particular. Laura began to walk away, taking an aimless course as she thought through her options. She had a series of instructions about what to do if a meeting was stalled for any reason. There was the dead-letter drop in Camden Town, and there was the Clerkenwell tobacco shop where she could speak in code to the owner (‘Can you let me know when you will get more Quintero cigars?’) and leave them a number. Then, in theory, she would be contacted. She decided she had to try the drop first. She was desperate to get rid of the film. Although it carried no weight, it felt like a burden. But when she got to Camden Town she wondered why she had wasted her time. It wasn’t that the wall had been destroyed, but there was so much rubble and broken glass, the area had obviously been a target more than once. It seemed absurd that Stefan thought she could risk leaving something precious in the fragile fabric of this breakable city.
Laura turned and began to make her way south again. But she had never walked in this part of London before, and as the road stretched on its dusty way she began to be unsure whether she was taking the most direct route. She asked a young woman, who told her to take a bus. Laura waited at the stop for a long time before someone else told her the buses were being diverted due to another time bomb on the previous street. Laura’s once shiny patent shoes had lost the rubber to one heel at some point during her walk, so she went along with an uncomfortable limp. Finally she came to the road in Clerkenwell. The shop now stood in a row of boarded-up frontages. A scrawled notice in the window said, ‘Closed due to bomb damage’.
She began to limp back along the street, and just as she thought to wonder what the time was, ‘Here it comes,’ came the shout from across the road and the sirens began to wail. Laura knew no shelters in that part of town, and she meant to go on walking, but as she crossed towards Farringdon, a warden shouted, ‘Are you deaf?’ and she realised she could hear the thrumming of planes, already coming near. With other people, she started running towards Farringdon station. The noise was suddenly all around, and they crushed together as they entered the station. ‘Careful there, no need to push,’ voices said as they struggled into the ticket hall, stumbling over people who had already spread mattresses on the floor. A great rustling and sighing filled the air around where Laura was standing in the station entrance, as the bombers began to release their first loads.
‘Incendiaries,’ said a voice behind her, as the chandelier flares began their crazy descent. ‘Incandescent incendiaries.’
‘Incredible incendiaries,’ said another voice.
‘Inglorious, insidious, Indescribable, intensifying incendiaries,’ said the first voice again.
‘Alistair,’ Laura said, recognising the voice, but her words were covered by the rising force of the anti-aircraft guns, and she had to shout, ‘Alistair!’ before he turned and saw her, his face lit by the green-white flares of the incendiaries bursting on the road outside.
‘They’ve got St John’s,’ someone shouted, and she saw the light further away change to yellow and then blue where a gas main had been hit.
Alistair said something about this being an absurd place to meet as he struggled and failed to move closer to her. Laura replied, saying the bombardment had come early, but then she saw the station clock and realised she must have been wandering the city for hours. Her mouth was dry, her bladder burning, and someone’s bag was jabbing into her side.
She asked a ticket inspector who was trying to gather up mattresses from the people who had got there early, to encourage them to stand up to make more room, if there was more space further in. He told her that the escalators had been turned off, but people had already filled every step. ‘They’re getting it bad in Holborn,’ he said. ‘Watch yourself, what are you doing?’ The press of people was making Laura feel claustrophobic, and she had stepped into the road.
‘Wait, Laura,’ Alistair called to her. ‘Wait till this lot have dropped and I’ll come out with you.’
She stepped back in, and they waited for a few minutes that extended like elastic around the whooshing of falling bombs, the rumble of falling masonry, the dirge-like voices of the commentary of the people around them.
‘Come,’ he said, as the skies quietened. ‘Or do you want to wait it out after all?’
‘I can’t stand it, I’d rather walk.’