Free Coventry by Helen Humphreys Page A

chest. “Chintz,” she says. “Not sure he’s going to think much of those pink flowers when he wakes up.”
    Harriet is always suspicious of people who seem unnaturally cheerful.
    Another wave of bombers passes overhead and Marjorie Hatton ducks through the doorway of the shelter.
    “We can’t stay here,” says Harriet. “What about your mother?” She doesn’t want to go inside the shelter. She doesn’t want to help the wounded. She can’t explain this to Jeremy without sounding cruel. She has had enough of death. One of the injured reaches out in his pain and delirium and grabs hold of her ankle. She has to shake hard to dislodge him.
    “My mother can take care of herself,” says Jeremy. “She’s good at that. It’s me she’ll be worried about.” He moves to follow Marjorie into the shelter, looks back at Harriet. “And you don’t need to stay here on account of me.” He leaves her standing alone. Harriet follows Marjorie and Jeremy into the bomb shelter. She is annoyed that Jeremy could so easily dispense with her.
    Inside, two lanterns hang from the ceiling, illuminating the makeshift hospital. On each of the two benches set along the side walls of the shelter are two patients, stretched out, covered in blankets, one patient quiet and one moaning and moving her head about. On the dirt floor of the shelter are bolts of fabric and several saucepans of water. It is impossible to stand up straight, and even in the few moments she has been inside the shelter, Harriet feels that she’s getting the beginnings of a migraine from stooping over.
    “Here,” says Marjorie, leading them to the woman who is tossing her head from side to side. “She’s cut her leg badly and needs stitching. I need one of you to help hold her down while I sew her up.”
    Jeremy immediately moves forward to help. He avoids looking at Harriet, and she can’t tell if he cares or not that she came after him. She can’t bear to think of sewing up the young girl’s leg without anaesthetic. I’m selfish, she thinks. I’m selfish and inflexible and so used to being alone that I no longer know how to relate to people. But she is still hurt. She has brought him this far through the burning city. She feels responsible for him.
    Marjorie is trying to thread a needle by the dim light of one of the lanterns. “God,” she says. “What I wouldn’t give for a cup of tea.”
    “I’ll go,” says Harriet. “I’ll go and get you one.”
    “Don’t be mad,” says Jeremy. “You’ll be blown to bits out there.”
    “No,” says Harriet, “I can see it’s what’s needed. Tea. I’ll go and get you a cup.” And before Jeremy can say anything more, she backs out of the shelter. It was a noble gesture, but now that she is back outside again, she has no idea where in hell she will be able to find anything that resembles tea. If the water mains have been hit, then there will be no such thing as hot water. There will be no boiling a kettle, even if she manages to find one.
    She creeps along the back of the shops instead of returning to the main street. There’s a crater where the last shop in the row used to stand. She can see the tatters of dark cloth waving about inside, like streamers from the deck of an ocean liner. It looks blue in the moonlight. Coventry blue. The cloth made in Coventry was once prized for the lasting qualities of its blue dye.
    Harriet kicks at a brick in her path. She can feel the smouldering heat of it through her shoe. But there seems to be a lull in the bombing.
    She passes half a house, the front half—the back half is blown off. In the maze of charred beams a man is wearing a bowl on his head and is standing in front of a broken mirror. He is stripped to the waist and holds a razor. A steady stream of water drips from over his head, from the open floor above his head, into another bowl set on a strip of wood before him. He dips the razor into the bowl, raises it to his face. He is shaving.
    He waves at