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“The pub shut three hours before the bombing started,” Carol cut across her. “Who knows where she is now!”
A silence descended on the cramped space, interspersed with the whistling and thuds of the bombs raining down outside. At least they didn’t sound so close now, but who knew where the next one would land.
“She’ll be all right,” Richard said, laying a clumsy hand on his wife’s arm. “We can’t wrap her in cotton wool all her life—”
“I hardly want to do that.”
“Lieutenant Reese seemed like a good lad,” Richard persisted. “He meant well.”
“Did he?”
Another silence fell, this one suffocating. The bombs continued, a symphony of thuds in the distance that they were all trying to ignore.
“Let’s get some sleep,” Richard said finally. “We all have work in the morning.”
Lily stretched out on her bunk, cringing at the cold, damp sleeping bag and trying not to shiver. Richard had turned off the lantern and the darkness was so impenetrable, she could not see her own hand in front of her face. She felt as if she were entombed, as if the earth on top of the shelter was pressing down on her. It was hard to breathe, and she tried to concentrate on each breath she took, evenly in, evenly out, doing her best not to think about Sophie or where she might be.
She’d had to re
peat this little exercise every night she’d spent in the dark and damp little shelter. She’d managed to hide her panic from her family, but she’d always dreaded the time inside the shelter, more even than the bombs whistling outside. She hated not being able to see, despised the way the walls felt as if they were coming closer, bathing her body in an icy sweat that had nothing to do with the chilled air or the damp sleeping bag. In the silence, her breathing sounded ragged, and images of Sophie caught out, the bombs falling around her, kept flashing through her mind.
“Do be quiet, Lily,” Carol said crossly.
Lily pressed her lips together and turned on her side. Another thud rattled the sides of the shelter. She didn’t sleep.
The long, flat sound of the all-clear rousted them from an unsettled doze at six o’clock in the morning. It was still dark outside, the clouds floating in shreds across a scarred and livid sky. The smell of smoke clung to everything, along with another, indefinable smell of destruction that Lily didn’t like to think about too closely. Sophie was still gone.
In silence, they headed back to the house, Richard to inspect for damage and Carol to make tea. Lily stood uncertainly in the kitchen as her mother filled the kettle.
“She’ll be back,” she said, needing to convince both herself and her mother.
Carol did not reply. The back she presented to Lily was rigid with both anxiety and affront.
If something happened to Sophie, Lily realized in that moment, it would be her fault. Never mind that Sophie had been determined to go out, or that Lily had tried to stop her, or that she was the younger one. It would still be her fault, and she realized she accepted that.
She might be younger, quieter, shyer, but she was more responsible. She always had been, just as Sophie had always been braver. It was the way they had worked, from the time they’d been little girls in pinafores to now. Perhaps it would never change.
The three of them were just sitting down to their morning oatmeal and tea when the front door opened and Sophie’s voice sang out merrily, as if she were coming in from a day at work rather than a night on the street.
“Hell-o!”
Relief shot through Lily even as she tensed at the sound of Sophie’s jolly voice, while Carol rose from the table.
“Where,” she asked, her voice both shaking and cold, “have you been?”
Sophie stopped in the doorway of the kitchen, taking in her mother’s fury, her father’s silence. Lily saw that her hair was in disarray, her makeup smeared. Even worse, beneath her open coat, her blouse was buttoned up wrong. She wondered if her mother noticed.
“I was caught by the air raid,” Sophie said. “I spent the night in the Clapham Common Tube station. It was ever so fun, actually. Everyone was singing! It felt like a party.” She laughed, but no one else did. No one else even smiled.
“You snuck out to see that Lieutenant Reese?” Carol said.
Sophie darted a look at Lily, who gave a grimace of apology.
“That Lieutenant Reese?” Sophie raised her eyebrows. “What have you got against him?”
“He seemed a bit fast to me.”
“Fast! Just because he’s American, I suppose? Except it can’t be that, because you were fond enough of Sergeant Lawson when he brought that hamper by, weren’t you? Pushing him and Lily together. It was rather obvious, Mother.”
