Free Coventry by Helen Humphreys Page B

Harriet when he sees her. “Have to keep up my good looks,” he says. “Might be back at work tomorrow.”
    Harriet looks at the stream of water falling from above. “Is that hot water?” she asks.
    “It is indeed. The bomb heated up my rainwater tank. It’s as hot as though it came fresh from the boiler. That’s why I’m shaving now.”
    “Do you think I might borrow some to make tea?”
    “Help yourself.” The man waves his razor toward the wreck of his house. “I’m afraid my crockery is crocked, and I don’t know where the tea has got to, but you’re welcome to the water.”
    Harriet is cheered by finding what surely must be the most elusive component in the tea-making process. “Thank you,” she says. “I’ll be back.” She moves a few feet on, stops, cocks her head to one side. She can hear something else. “What’s that ringing?” she asks.
    “Doorbell,” says the man. “The bomb gave me hot water and it also burned through the wires, fused my front and back doorbells permanently on. And,” he says, dipping his razor back into the bowl of water, “it destroyed pretty well everything in my house, except for the half-dozen eggs I bought yesterday, and of those not a one is broken.” He shakes his head. “What madness. You’re welcome to have an egg with your tea if you like.”
    “I’ll be back,” says Harriet again, and she continues her slow walk over the bomb debris.
    She finds a pot standing upright on a pile of bricks as though it had just been placed there by an unseen hand. The lid is missing and there is a dent on one side, but it’s fit enough to make tea in.
    The air is smoky, but the moon is so bright that it is easy to see where she is going. Harriet moves slowly on. She wishes she hadn’t been so snide to the nurse at the shelter.
    The bombing starts up again. Harriet crouches on the ground, puts her arms up to cover her head. The ground shakes and there is dust in her eyes and mouth. Something glances off her arm and she feels the sting on her skin that means she has been scraped to bleeding. She reaches up and puts the saucepan she’s holding on her head. It fits her better than the fire-watcher’s helmet did.
    Ahead not a building is standing. She will have to go back.
    The shaving man is gone, along with what was left of his house. Harriet wades through the wreckage. Water is still dripping from the ceiling. She puts up her hand and feels the heat of it slide through her fingers, rubs her hand across her eyes. The man is lying under a wooden beam. At first she can’t see him, he is so covered in debris. His eyes are staring open, but his chest has been crushed in. Harriet pushes aside bits of wood, twisted pieces of metal, the shattered mirror; tugs at his arm, but she can’t get him out. He’s wedged in too securely. She reaches down and touches his cheek, still warm and smooth from shaving, then she looks to see if he still holds the razor in his hands. His fist is closed around something. She kicks through more wood to clear some space, and then she kneels down, uncurls the dead man’s fingers, and finds the twist of tea cupped securely in the palm of his hand.
    She crouches beside him for a moment. His kindness has touched her, and she doesn’t want to leave him alone. But it is foolishness to remain out in the open, keeping the dead company. Harriet pockets the twist of tea, puts her hand up to the dead man’s face, and gently closes his eyes.
     
     
    There was a day a few years ago, a cold day, when the wind snapped in the trees, and Harriet walked out with a cloud of breath slung above her. She wandered over the snowy fields outside Coventry, following the weave of old stone walls across the landscape. She was trying to write a description of the walls, had become obsessed with them, how they were made by human effort though they looked so natural. Harriet remembers that day as joyful, a rarity in her days. Somehow the walking and the cold and the weave