Free Trick or Treat by Lesley Glaister Page B

Anderson shelter where it is cold and mushroomy-dark and almost quiet, and she rocks him to sleep. She is a good mother and her child loosens his clutch on her coat as his breathing deepens and he grows heavy in her arms. Little Rodney is asleep. She puts him down in the packing-case cot Jim made for him, and covers him snugly in blankets. She listens to his breathing, heavy, even, healthy. And then sits huddled and cold, listening to the muffled war outside and sucking a fluffy peppermint she found in her coat pocket. Quite a way away, she thinks comfortingly. They wouldn’t bomb here, not ordinary people like me, not mothers with babies, not ordinary houses with ordinary people. But, of course, they would, and they do. There is a high-pitched squeal. Near. Almost in her ear, like a mosquito, close enough to swat. And then there is a pause, silence but for the peaceful rhythm of Rodney’s breathing. And then there is a whooshing thud and the shelter rocks and Nell has to stifle a scream. There is a close thumping in the earth, a movement, as if it is gathering itself up to spring, and then it subsides. Nell’s heart is racing. There is the awful trickle of sweat inside her clothes although she is so cold. Rodney has not even stirred. He sleeps the sleep of the innocent, the trusting. Nell waits she doesn’t know how long, a long time, long enough for the sounds of war to recede, like a storm passing over.
    And then she has to look. She has to get out and look to see whether it is her house that has been hit, her carpets and curtains and furniture destroyed. She leaves Rodney where he is safe and goes out into the garden. She has to push hard on the door for there is something in the way: slates, slates blown like autumn leaves against the door. She cannot see at first the few feet to the house for the air is thick and sour with smoke and dust. But her house is still there, intact but for a broken window-pane or two and the glass blown out of the back door. She almost weeps with relief – but there is trouble two doors down, at Olive and Arthur’s.
    The house is standing but there are flames, there is destruction. There is nothing Nell can do to help, not with a baby asleep in the shelter. She goes back inside and closes the door and only hours later, after all-clear, does she step outside again. Her limbs are stiff with the cold and the cramped position she has been sitting in. Outside everywhere, from everywhere, people are calling and shouting, quite jolly some of the voices as if it is some sort of game – and yes, Olive’s voice is among them. The fire is out but there is a smoking hole in the back of the house, and the roof is damaged. Nell crunches on glass and broken slates as she carries Rodney into her own safe house. She tucks him into his wooden cot and then she sets to work, sweeping up the broken glass and scrubbing the floor and the window-sills, brushing the carpet to get rid of the dust and the smoky grime. When it is as clean as she can make it, she goes back outside into the raw light of dawn – for she is attracted to destruction.
    Olive’s things are everywhere, strewn everywhere with the broken bits of her house. In her own garden, Nell finds some odds and ends worth picking up. As she stands out there looking at the dawn-lit ruins of the city, there is a sudden high-pitched ringing and she jumps, her heart spurting painful blood, thoughts of sinister weapons, delayed-action bombs, racing: and then she laughs. It is an alarm clock. Olive and Arthur’s alarm clock most likely, flung right across the gardens. It rings insistently despite its shattered glass, and Nell picks it up from among the sharp fragments that litter the ground and switches it off. She slings it over the fence and carries her more important booty back into the house.
    Nell smiles and opens her eyes. She is refreshed though she hasn’t been to sleep, not properly. She liked the war. She was