Zachary turned to Molly. “Go off and play.”
After she did, Mary collected herself. “Zachary,” she said in her teaching voice, “would you find whoever handles these things among the players, and fetch me just one dose of morphine?” Then she added with perfect cunning: “Say it isn’t for me.”
But his face! As though she had asked him to murder someone. It was too bad that she had taught him geometry but no sense of proportion.
“Do go, won’t you? There must be some around here.”
“I can’t.”
“But it is perfectly simple. Just put your shoes on, and go!”
He wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Have a cigarette instead.”
He took them from her bag and lit one for each of them. She didn’t try to forbid him and so, without fuss, he passed from her power. She almost laughed. He watched the glowing end as if it contained lost summers, then stubbed out the cigarette half smoked—not crushing it but rolling the point until it was extinguished, to keep for later. Mary smoked hers till it blistered her lip.
“Please?” she said again.
He lifted a strand of hair from her eyes and tucked it behind her ear. His “no” the louder for going unspoken. Her mood—which had cooled to a pale despair—now boiling over again into furious irritation.
“After everything I have done for you! You act the man but you are an ungrateful child. I might have known your sort would never come right.”
He shrugged.
“But you are incorrigible!” she said, unable to stop a miserable grin curling at the corners of her mouth. “You are a lazy, unappreciative nigger who will not lift a finger to help.”
He said nothing.
She raised a warning hand. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m from a good family and if it weren’t for you I’d be with them now. I wish I’d never come looking for you. I wish I’d never come to this nasty jigaboo club.”
Zachary didn’t change his expression at all. The light seemed to be dimming and she did not know if they had any candles. She did not know if candles were still available. She was not convinced that light was still manufactured.
Her anger was gone. She did not remember ever being angry. There was only a feeling of dread: of the darkness finding its way. And here was the boy. She shivered in her blankets as his eyes became Alistair’s. She moaned and turned away.
Now, finally, the full gaze of the war came upon her. Her mind was fragments, each loud with its voices. She fought to keep one image of herself alive at the center. She was rushing across town with a willing heart, to a point marked with an X. She was wearing her alpine sweater. Yes, that was it. But war had been declared, and it was thrilling and then it was terrible. Life was all the heavier for starting with a lightness of heart.
“You mustn’t have any more morphine,” said Zachary.
Her eyes snapped open and she stared at him, wondering how it was possible that he was still here, unchanged, when she had gripped the blankets and shut her eyes tight through the terror of eternity.
“What?” she whispered.
“No more.”
“Just a little, don’t you see? Just to take the edge off.”
“No.”
“Please . . .”
“No.”
“You’re cruel because you don’t yet understand,” she said, and closed her eyes.
She slept, and when she woke her mind was clear. Alistair had arrived. She sat up, her heart soaring. He was just as she had last seen him, on the platform at Waterloo. He cupped her face in his hands and she let herself be kissed. Orange sparks floated on the night. The cold air of the basement made her shiver, and she held him for his warmth. Oh, the slow dances they used to play, back when needles could still be found for the gramophones. His eyes were electric bulbs, and as she stared back into them she realized that she was awake, and sitting alone.
“Oh . . .” she whispered, disintegrating again.
When she awoke she was in her blankets, shaking monotonously in the dim light of the bulbs. Zachary was at her side.
“Thank you for coming back. I’m so very sorry for what I said.”
Zachary produced something from his pocket. “I didn’t have the money. The manager says you can owe him.”
Just looking at the syrette of morphine flooded her with relief. She had forgotten how to be alive, that was all, and now she remembered the trick of it. She stretched out her hand. “Thank you.”
Zachary held out the syrette, balled in his fist. She watched his hand with rapt attention, the smooth brown skin and pink quicks. “Please . . .”
“Remember how you always said no, when I asked for a cigarette?”
“Don’t be like that. It wouldn’t have been appropriate.”
“This isn’t appropriate for you.”
She made herself smile. “No, darling. It’s only medicine. Like aspirin.”
“Aspirin didn’t call me a nigger.”
She looked from his hand to his face. “Please . . .”
“You can have it if you want. But if you do, then don’t come back here. It’s not like we can’t live without you.”