Free The People on Privilege Hill by Jane Gardam

finished.”
    But the dentist was jovial. “Come along, come along, what’s all this? It’s not over yet. They’re not here yet. We’ll fight them on the beaches and in the dentist’s chair. A dentist is always king, boy. Right? I’ve enough gas in this house to fill a bunker. Have you plaque, boy, by the way? It’s in the family. I’ll see to it for you in the morning, if you like. Five shillings or near offer.”
    Nell and Jim Smith sat down, and all sat on. On and on. Someone poured a glass of water. Jim Smith asked if he could use a telephone to ring his mother. If they had one.
    â€œOh yes, we have one. But you can’t ring now, I’m afraid. The next raid will be starting in a minute. You’d have to hold on for an hour to get connected. And you’d be monopolising the line. Sorry, boy.”
    Jim Smith ached with hunger. He had not eaten since early morning. There had been nothing on the train. Someone—a pretty woman—had offered him a marmite and bread sandwich but he hadn’t taken it. He thought of the ham in his case in the hall and asked if he could wash somewhere but was shown a cupboard place under the stairs: the old servants’ lavatory.
    I could eat the soap, he thought, but there was no soap. He was almost hallucinating as he tottered back to the table, where they all still sat. I am among the dead, he thought, the uncaring dead. Or I am part of a seance. Or I was killed on the Underground and I’m in hell.
    The door behind the dentist all at once banged open and a cloud of warmth flooded in with a glorious smell of cooking and a goddess filled the doorway. She bore a big blue oval cooking pot. She was tall and blonde. A figure of gold.
    Composed as Venus, she carried the casserole dish towards the dentist and set it before him, retired and returned with two big vegetable dishes. She removed lids and the dishes were brim-full of steaming potatoes, carrots and greens. She handed round heaped-up plates as Jim Smith gazed at her. And gazed.
    The goddess was old. She might even have been thirty. She looked at nobody, half smiling to herself.
    â€œThis is the most wonderful, wonderful food,” he said.
    Nobody spoke. The goddess returned to the kitchen. Cis messed with her fork and sipped her gin.
    The dentist preened. “Yes, we didn’t do too badly finding Mac,” he said. “Can’t remember how she found us, as a matter of fact. ‘Mac,’ she’s called. Scotch lady. Second sight and all that. Knows everything. Always gets the washing-up done before the raid starts. Can’t believe our luck. Plenty of room here, of course, for her to lead her own private life and no questions asked. Child around, of course.”
    â€œShe looks, well, sort of Germanic.”
    â€œGermanic? No. Couldn’t have that. We don’t ask questions though. The thing we like is that neither does she. She knows her place.”
    In moments all the food was gone. Bulldog Miss Gowland leaned across to take the remains of Cissie’s. Mr. Shaw belched. Nell rang a bell that stood on the iron table. It was a brass lady in a crinoline and rang beneath her skirts. The goddess re-entered and stood looking intently at Jim Smith, who stood up in a trance and helped clear the dishes. Nobody else moved.
    In the kitchen, among clean cooking pots and saucepans, sat a little girl about four years old, eating a slice of bread and margarine. Her eyes were as blue and her hair as gold and curly as her mother’s. Mac stood by the stove, untying a hot wet cloth from round a dripping basin. She turned the basin upside down over a serving dish and lifted it away from a shiny suet pudding that oozed with sticky golden apples and the child stared and stretched an arm towards it. The goddess pushed away the small hand with her own that held a knife and cut the pudding into six exact slices, and the child went back to her bread and