Cooper gave her the tone reserved for a child who had got the answer jolly nearly correct. “Our duty, since you use the word, is to send the message that London under the circumstances is not the right place for the young.”
“And yet there are children the countryside won’t take.”
“But I don’t make the policy, and the policy is one of full evacuation.”
“Then what are we to do with the crooked and the colored and the slow? Are we to let them rot, simply because it is not policy for them to exist?”
“If you must split hairs, it is policy that such children exist but it is not politic for them to be schooled here.”
“Does it not seem that what you say is monstrous?”
Cooper turned from the window. “What is monstrous is that seven children and their parents are dead because my predecessor saw fit to let you play the pretty schoolmarm while the grown-ups were using the city for war.”
Mary blinked once, twice, then recovered herself. She fixed the man with a slight arch of the eyebrow as she lit a new cigarette.
He returned her gaze unsteadily. “I suppose we both wish we could undo it.”
Her hands shook. “We were hardly doing ballet on the roof. We were underground, in the shelter. People are killed in shelters every day.”
“Well it won’t happen in any school of mine.”
“Apparently not, if neither will any teaching.”
He patted her on the shoulder. “You’re emotional because you were so caught up. You are charming and young, and I don’t hold what happened against you. The one who should have known better is my predecessor.”
“Tom was my lover. It is well known. Won’t you stop speaking as if we weren’t both aware?”
“I am trying to protect your feelings, and the name of your family.”
“You might best serve both by letting me teach again. There are hundreds of children in this district, you know full well. One sees them on every street, poking around in the rubble.”
“I’m afraid there’s no position for you.”
“I apologize for becoming emotional. Please let me teach again.”
“Take a break,” he said gently. “God knows, I would if I could. Get out of town for a few weeks, blow away the cobwebs.”
She turned her back on him. In the little watercolor she had given Tom, the light was yellow and frisky. If you went at that light with an egg whisk, you could work up a froth to stand a spoon in. London stretched away beyond the heath. The landmarks stood. They had been so firmly attached back then that the artist had had to paint the sky around them.
She went to the window. “What can I do to change your mind?”
He said nothing. She moved closer, letting her arm brush against his as she smoked. “We needn’t put this city back the way we found it, you know.”
He gave an amused look that turned into something more serious. “Look,” he said, “it is overdue lunch. Why don’t you and I go for a bite and discuss it?’ ”
She tilted her head up to his, giving him the full benefit of her eyes. For a moment she let him drown himself.
“No, thank you,” she said brightly. “I’m not at all hungry.”
He stared at her, coloring slowly. He seemed inclined to strike her, then turned abruptly and left her alone at the window. She heard him banging drawers in the desk, collecting his coat and hat from the peg, slamming the door behind him.
She turned from the window and went to stub out her cigarette. The small painting of Hampstead Heath hung in the gray light, in its golden frame. She let her hand linger, for a moment, on the cold blue glass of Tom’s ashtray. She turned it on its axis—twice, three times—then left it where it was.
“I miss you,” she said to the empty office.
January, 1941
THEY CALLED THE NEW club the Joint. As if it weren’t a thing in itself but only a hinge between night and day. The bombers raised their tempo and the syncopated city matched the rhythm. When a raid interrupted the minstrel show now, the players rushed underground with the audience to join the big band that was already down there. They had cleared out the Lyceum’s great basement to make the club. There was a stage at one end, a bar at the other and alcoves in between where soldiers pushed their luck.
Zachary fetched drinks from the bar in exchange for coins and cigarettes. It was weeks since he’d last seen the sky. It suited him. If you couldn’t see the sky, it couldn’t see you. People patted him on the head when he fetched their drinks. They called him Baby Grand. Everyone was christened again now, sometimes two or three times, as if by this expedient every person might stay ahead of the war’s ability to call them by name.