A World of Other People (2 page)

So she asked for these duties. And she didn’t have to look far. For Mr Eliot, the famous Mr Eliot, whom she not so much read as devoured before she ever met him, before she ever studied him, is the warden at her old church, St Stephen’s — the church she steals away from for the guilty pleasures of Maiden Lane. She knew he was a fire-watcher one or two nights a week because he talked about it after the Ash Wednesday service which she went to just to please her parents. Looking out for firecrackers, did he say? Something like that. She liked the sound of it. And so she asked if she
could too, a task made easier because she had already spoken to Mr Eliot (for the inside of the church, where fame was foreign, vulgar even, where Mr Eliot was just another parishioner, where he came and prayed and drank the wine of communion like anybody else, was a different world from the one outside).

And so tonight she will start her duties. Looking out for firecrackers on the same rooftop from which Mr Eliot observes them. With, it seems, a couple of retired Indian Army officers. The afternoon is still bright as she steps into St Martin’s Lane, but the evening can’t come too soon.

Throughout the remainder of the afternoon she immerses herself in the odd, hypothetical business of calculating the wages of civil servants who’ve been taken off to the war, and the annual increases they’ll be due when they return. If they ever do. And as much as it’s her job (and as much as she’s been told again and again she does it well and that the Treasury would never let her go, not until the war is over), it’s an odd business, calculating the increments due to someone whose life might return to normal one day. Or might not. But the calculations go on anyway. They call it Notional Promotion in Absentia, and that gives her
a smile before opening another file.
Finnegans Wake
is beside the pile. Iris, a curious reader, is not afraid of Mr Joyce and all his tricks (in fact, she’s inclined to agree with Mrs Woolf, who thinks it’s
all
tricks and smoke and mirrors). And she will take that same curiosity up onto the roof.

They have been bombed every night now for so long she can barely remember when it started. And it will happen again tonight. Of course. Every night they come over. From France, just over there. And it’s so terribly strange to think that just over there, not so very far away, twenty-one miles from coast to coast, close enough to see on a clear day, a young woman who reads and dreams of falling in love one day (or already has) is sitting in some town square eating a sandwich in her lunch break. Except she’s got Germans all around her. And her country’s not hers any more. And neither is her life.

She puts one file down in the Out tray and picks up another. Laughter, a woman’s, echoes up the hallway outside and she looks up from the file, noting that it’s not just the loudness of the laughter but the fact that it
is
laughter that catches her attention, for the raid the night before was the nightmare raid that everybody,
all along, has dreaded was coming. So many dead. They don’t even know how many. And there’s no end to it. It just doesn’t let up. So this laughter rings strangely in her ears. They’ll come over again tonight, of course. They always do. Like clockwork. Like Germans. Like good Germans. And the sky will fill with the drone of their clockwork return. She refuses to listen to the commentaries on dogfights and whatnot on the wireless, as if it were a football match, and has written to the BBC to complain. The laughter in the corridor dies down and she goes back to the file, vaguely wondering what the joke was.

She’s witnessed raids from her bedroom window (in a converted stable near St James) on those nights when she has been too tired to go to the shelter, and has even been caught up in one. She was part of a group one night, before the big raids started. They were tipsy and young and death didn’t exist for them. That night there were no bombers out there in the night following the line of the river and saying I know who you are and where you are and I’m coming for you — which is how she has since come to think of them. And not just her. Others too. At the office, in the pubs, they say the same thing. That the bombers
speak to them in the night. And it’s funny, this need to give the bomber a voice. To make it human. To make it speak. To make it just like some dodgy character coming up a laneway at you. ‘I know who you are and where you are and I’m coming for you.’ Or does giving a voice to the bomber,
your
bomber, make it more than human? Does it make it a sort of god? After all, it knows who you are, and where you are — and it’s coming for you. Is there perhaps something gratifying in that? That it knows you and you’re not just some featureless number? One of those dots on the ground? No, it
knows
you. A god has singled you out. You’re special. Worth coming all this way for. But on this night they were young and tipsy, death didn’t exist and the bombers were yet to be given voice. The flames were far away over the river and so was the sound of the raid. And they found a restaurant with a name that had that summer-holidays-in-Europe ring (that none of them had ever had). Frascati’s. They ate the five-shilling menu and drank the wine until the bombs got close and somebody said that maybe death did exist that night after all, and maybe there really was a bomber out there following the line of the river saying I know who you are … Just for them.
And maybe that’s the way death gets you, just when you think it’s not there. So they left the restaurant and were in the street when they saw a building go up and were nearly blown over by the hot wind at the same time as the windows of Frascati’s blew out. And in the shelter they couldn’t stop talking. For an hour they couldn’t stop talking, and then they went deathly silent and couldn’t talk at all.

Such days. Such strange days. But for all that she’s never stood through the night on a rooftop and seen one through. Not a big raid. Tonight, though, if tonight is like all the other nights and the Germans are good Germans and have their clocks set, she will. The times will fall upon her, like ash in the air. Thunder and silence will ring alike in her ears. And firecrackers will fall to earth and she will watch them fall and watch where they fall because that is what she is there for.

Behind her on a wall the clock grinds on, and slowly, gradually, the afternoon light begins to dim. And she welcomes the dying of the light, at the same time fingering the ring in her purse, given to her by a young man that morning who left for war, wondering where on earth he might soon be.

A small group, three middle-aged men and a young woman, make their way, one by one, onto the rooftop. Two retired Indian Army officers go first, through the open window and onto the roof. The third to appear is a distinguished-looking gentleman wearing a thick tweed overcoat to protect him from the cold, for although it is May, this is a chilly night. Besides, he is a heavy smoker and prone to colds and pneumonia. It is his office that the small group has emerged from. His roof that they have stepped onto. He has worked here all day, which explains the three-piece suit under his overcoat, and will now spend the night, right through until dawn, on the rooftop of the office in which he works. It is, in fact, a famous office, for this
is a famous publishing house. The retired officers are aware of this. As is Iris, who pauses before stepping through the open window and onto the rooftop.

It may be her first night on duty, but she knows exactly where she is, even if she has never seen inside the place until now. For this is the office of Mr Eliot. And they are standing in the house of Faber and Faber. It is, she believes (and she is not alone in believing it), Mr Eliot who made the house famous. For although it was known before, it was the conjunction of Mr Eliot and the house that made it famous to the likes of Iris. And it was from this office in particular (low ceiling, white walls, and she can’t help feeling there’s a touch of the monastery in those walls) that the fame of the house was created. It was
here
that the author of ‘The Waste Land’ brought his fame (and his banking experience), to
this
room, and she stands staring around her at the framed photographs of famous people on the wall above the mantlepiece (is that really Groucho Marx with the cigar?), then at the overflowing desk by the window upon which the manuscripts of the generation of poets who followed Mr Eliot and his kind landed. For it is in this office that names that are now known but were once
unheard of were chosen, plucked from the air like so many fluttering white birds. It was here that fame was conjured. And the magician was Mr Eliot.

Iris is familiar with all of them — the chosen, those whom the eyes of Mr Eliot fall upon approvingly — for she reads them. And she has even dared to imagine that one day a manuscript of hers might land on that desk and that she, too, like one of those fluttering white birds, might be plucked from anonymity. So this office is a kind of mythological site, which is why she pauses before stepping out the window. A long pause. And even though she has met him before, many times, the Mr Eliot she observes here in this office, together with the signs of the poet’s day-to-day life (the overfilled ashtray, the cigarettes, the drained tea cup), constitutes a different Mr Eliot from the world of the church, and it is, therefore, something of a jolt to be standing here.

But as much as it may be a mythological site, it is not history. For it is a working office, and the manuscripts continue to arrive and the work goes on, which makes it all the more potent a mix — that meeting of past and present humming, or so it seems to her, in the confined air. And she would stand here
longer if she could, but she must join the others, so although it is a long pause, it is a pause nonetheless. Slowly, almost reluctantly, she steps through the window. Firecrackers await.

Soon they are all gathered on the rooftop, the three regulars talking and joking, the solemn face of Mr Eliot breaking into smiles and laughter from time to time. For these hours, early in the evening before it all begins, are hours that have to be seen through. And the jokes, smiles and laughter all help. For they will stay on this rooftop until the sirens sound the all clear in the grey hours of the morning, when all the bombs and the firecrackers have fallen or fluttered to earth, usually in the relative distance of the East End — although a parachute bomb fell on Bloomsbury Park a while ago, and the Ministry of Information just across Russell Square in front of them, whose glittering lights regularly defy the blackout and which some wag has dubbed the Lighthouse of Bloomsbury for the way it draws the enemy bombers, has been hit often enough. They will stay on this rooftop until the sky is emptied of sound and they are aware only of that eerie silence that follows a raid and falls on the city like the dust left in the air, drifting slowly back to
earth, landing on the dead and the living with equal indifference.

But at the moment it is merely quiet. Iris steps carefully across the rooftop, for the roof slopes and is tricky at first. She makes her way to the railing which has not yet been cut up for scrap and takes in the view. There is a faint breeze. And although there are thick, low clouds over the river, here the clouds part and it is a bright, moonlit night. They have a clear view over Russell Square, and back towards Tavistock Square behind them. Nobody is about, but still there is the sound of the occasional motor car or lumbering bus. And there, beside them almost, the unmistakable structure of the Senate House, looking, it is generally agreed, more like something out of Manhattan than London, or one of Stalin’s Moscow towers — not so much ugly as out of place. Out of character.

Everybody smokes. And Mr Eliot, unable now to purchase his favoured French cigarettes, is reduced to Navy Cut or Woodbines or whatever is around. But it is names, not cigarettes, that Iris is contemplating. For she is faced with a quandary. Exactly what to call Mr Eliot. The two regulars call him Tom. But she can’t possibly do that. Nor can she fall back on the
absurd formality of Mr Eliot, which is how she always addressed him (when she needed to) at the church, and which is fine for the church. But not (and she’s not sure why), not here. So she has decided to avoid calling him anything.

A siren whines across the park and the group falls silent. Faces turn towards the source of the sound, almost the whine of a beast in the night. Prehistoric. A call. And the group turns as if responding. Suddenly they are tense. All of them. The night before they witnessed, the regular watchers, the worst raid of the war so far. And they didn’t need to be told that by the newspapers or the wireless. Hour after hour, wave after wave, the sky filled with the drone of engines. The dead were so many they haven’t been counted yet, and inevitably some streets will be left smelling, for days, of the sweet corruption of death, from bodies still buried where their houses fell on them. These things take time.

And the talk in the Treasury corridors that morning was unusually tense. Brittle. Even jittery, which is why that outbreak of laughter in the afternoon rang strangely in Iris’s ears, like laughter at a funeral. Any more nights like that and the kind of anarchy (riots,
looting, the law of the jungle, heaven only knows what) that many thought would happen might yet surface. Society is a fragile thing. You never know just how fragile until it breaks. Or comes tumbling down. Society is a house of cards. Doesn’t take much. Any more nights like that and we just might see it fall to pieces. We’ve never been here before, not in a situation like this — only in books, and dire books at that with dire titles and dire predictions. And it was all delivered, this talk (and possibly ‘loose’ talk, to which Iris never contributed), in pockets of hushed conversation here and there, in offices and corridors, with a raising of the eyebrows that said you didn’t hear this. Not from me.

So, it will soon begin. From here, this relatively safe spot (if anywhere is safe) where they will watch for firecrackers. And report them to the fire brigade on Mr Eliot’s telephone. Even put them out if they’re near enough and they have to. But that has rarely happened. The hum of the bombers and the whine of the fire trucks will mingle with the clap of bombs and continue for hours, until the all clear sounds.

So they settle in and wait, but nothing happens. They settle in and wait for the familiar, distant drone
of engines, but none comes. And so it continues, hour upon hour and on until midnight. Nothing. And the unspoken sentiment on the rooftop is that it would be better to have something instead of the tension of waiting.

But the siren they heard when they stepped out onto the rooftop was a false alarm. No raid tonight. And the watchers have had nothing to do all evening. They don’t know it yet, but the Blitz is over. That raid the night before, any more of which might blow apart more than just buildings, houses and castles alike, was a last, ghastly farewell. They’ve come through, but they don’t know it. And the conversations in corridors about one more raid like that and we’ve had it will continue for some time yet.

For now the air is still. The square and the surrounding streets are silent. No motor cars, no vehicles, nobody about at this hour of the morning. The only light comes from the moon. No burning glow from the docks along the river. And they pass the time with idle chat and cigarettes: Iris, Mr Eliot and the two retired Indian Army officers.

Then one of the officers turns towards the river, in the direction of the Museum — not looking,
but listening. There is a sound out there. Barely audible, but there. And as he turns the pace of the morning suddenly picks up. And soon they have all turned towards the distant sound. They form a frozen tableau: looking down, cigarettes in hands, listening, staring up at the sky or looking out over the horizon. Looking, but not seeing. Not really. All their concentration is given over to the sense of hearing. For this living tableau, at this moment, is all ears. There is a sound out there, coming from somewhere inside the thick bank of cloud gathered over the south of the city on the other side of the river. An approaching sound, getting nearer by the second. And soon, as it comes near enough to be defined, this sound acquires a name. It is a drone. Unmistakably so, all agree, without need of speech. Just a raised eyebrow, here and there, to indicate as much. And with the naming of the sound the situation clarifies itself. For it is the drone of a large engine — not a motor car or bus or even a fire truck. But an engine large enough to gradually fill the silent sky. An aeroplane is heading right for them. And, immediately, it is a disturbing sound. Foreboding. Almost biblical. A sky full of bombers, at this moment, might be less disturbing.
But one plane is like a lone rider. A lone horseman on a white horse. In simply being alone it announces that it doesn’t need company. Or support. It is, this aloneness says, a force unto itself.

And as the sound nears it becomes all the more threatening. Not because it might be an enemy plane — lost or a lone raider about to randomly drop its load where it will. No, not because of any conventional threat, any known threat, but because of its mystery. And as the sound gathers, the tableau tenses. Tenses, but remains in formation. Frozen in gesture. Frozen to the spot, everyone exactly where they were a minute ago when the sound first announced itself.

And then, in a rush, it is upon them. Or so it seems. A scarcely audible, faint wave of sound one minute; reverberating, deafening waves of sound the next. One minute their world one of hushed houses settled down for the night; the next everything woken by the sound of this single engine. And the plane itself, locked in distant low cloud one minute, then bursting forth onto a stage-set city, floodlit by a full, chandelier moon.

For it is then that the sound becomes sight. That the dark shape of a bomber becomes visible just beyond
the park opposite, somewhere above the Museum. And because over the last year these watchers, the regulars, have become expert at distinguishing one bomber from another, they know the name of this one. It is one of theirs. A Wellington. Become lost in the clouds and flying low. One engine glowing in the night. And it is at this moment, when sound becomes sight, that this living tableau breaks formation, that this tableau of watchers frozen in mid-gesture wakes, it seems, from mesmerised paralysis, and rushes to the railing. Everyone leaning forward. Eyes intent on the horizon and the oncoming plane, growing larger and louder by the second, just above the tree-tops as it crosses the square, one engine aflame. Heading straight towards them.

And as the watchers lean over the railing, straining towards the dark, flaming object in the sky, its mystery is not diminished but compounded. I am a moment, it says. One you will never forget. Of all the formations, the waves of bombers in the sky, that you have seen and will see from your rooftop, I am the one moment you will never forget. I am the lone bomber that broke from the low cloud and entered the still, moonlit night of your watch. Until now, an
uneventful watch that craved
something
instead of hours of endless nothing. And
I
am that something.

You won’t forget me, it says, like beauty momentarily glimpsed before disappearing into the crowd. For there is now a terrifying beauty to the plane as it passes directly in front of them, no more than a few hundred feet above the rooftop. The watchers, straining at the railing, transfixed by the spectacle. The flames flickering over and about the engine casing. The crew just visible from this distance, the pilot concentrating on the road ahead, oblivious, it seems, of the watchers below. And there, on the side of the plane, painted onto the fuselage, bold and distinct in the clear moonlight, its emblem. A white dove. A white dove, just ascending or descending. It almost feels close enough to touch. Within the grasp of an outstretched hand. To the point that nobody needs their binoculars. All eyes are fixed on the plane.

And, it seems to Iris, no one is more mesmerised by the spectacle than Mr Eliot himself. His eyes are wide, his face almost glowing as the bomber passes. Only moments before everyone had the worn-out, drained, ghostly look that watchers take on in the early morning hours of an all-night shift. Now they are transfixed by
the spectacle before them. Mr Eliot’s face is animated. His whole being enlivened. As if he were … what? Iris toys with this ‘what’. Afraid? Excited? Awed? No, no, no … what? Then it comes to her. As if he were — and this is all read in a glance — a fox, suddenly shaking himself into life, shivering into action. Lifting his animal nose to the sky. A fox in the night, come across its prey. Even surprised by it. Yes, and Iris’s eyes turn back quickly to the passing spectacle of the flaming bomber. Yes, she tells herself, as if he were … inspired. For this
is
the stuff of inspiration. And at that moment her eyes too must be as bright as that flaming object up there. Are they foxes together? For she is certain it is not a bomber that Mr Eliot sees, but inspiration bursting from the low cloud on a night of dull, routine duty. Yes, it is inspiration that animates him. He is enlivened; they all are. Mesmerised by the sheer improbability of what is in front of them.