Page 43 of Strangers in Time

And then she, like the building, had ceased to exist. Jane Matters had been transformed into a mere memory, simply because she had wanted her son to go to a proper school and had walked him there on his first day because she loved him so.

Charlie had known his mother was dead long before he had been told. Else she would have been sitting next to him all that time, holding his hand, cooling his brow, and whispering things that would matter greatly to the only child she would ever bear.

And now, all this time later, the underlying shock remained sucha part of him that Charlie didn’t even realize itwasa part of him. Just as a heart thudded in synchronicity, lungs inflated, and kidneys filtered, the shock continually palpitated throughout him, as though he had grown a new organ, of unceasing, debilitating anxiety.

Charlie’s last image of his mother was her walking away down the hall. She had turned once and smiled, managing to calm, with just her look, the fear of her only child’s being left there without her. Then she had turned back around, and gone to her death.

He stared across the width of the road where lay the nearest Underground station, which had been miraculously undamaged by the bombing that had destroyed the school. There Charlie and his grandparents had slept, night after night, either on the tracks or on the platforms with hundreds of others as explosives dropped all over the city. Incendiary devices or parachute flares had often fallen first, in large clusters called breadbaskets, igniting buildings, and also lighting the way for the wave of long bombs that would do most of the damage and take most of the lives.

The incendiaries were nasty things, made of magnesium that burned hot enough to melt solid steel. They crashed into buildings and caused conflagrations that were nearly impossible to put out, because magnesium was impervious to water. The ingenuity of killing via warfare was often beyond belief, Charlie sometimes thought.

Lying on the tracks or suspended over them in a rude hammock made from a slit burlap bag, Charlie had closed his eyes and tried not to listen to what was going on overhead. Then came the shaking of the earth in a way that bled uncontrollable terror among all down there. Charlie would listen intently to the return fire from the ground and pray that every single British shell would find its mark.

Someone had set up a piano in the station, and the crowd would engage in singalongs each night. The Women’s Voluntary Services, or WVS, would also provide tea and sandwiches, which Charlie very much looked forward to, because it was often the most expansive meal he would have. And libraries donated books, so he would sometimessit and try to read to keep his mind off the bombs. But it was not easy, because waiting to die like that was not natural, Charlie felt.

Along their way home, after the all clear had sounded, he and his grandparents had circumnavigated holes where something had once been, and averted their eyes from crumpled, blasted bodies that had, not too long before, been living. It was a field of debris spawned by the depravity of humankind, minus the human.

The new school Charlie had ended up going to after his mother’s death was a room in the basement of a disused and shabby government building. It contained a single chalkboard, a few chairs, and one weary teacher for forty children. Most students sat on the floor wearing their gas masks, which was a stark reminder to Charlie of what had happened to both him and his mother that day.

Every time he drew close to the basement his heart seemed to seize up, his muscles tensed, and his vision blurred. When he was actually inside the dank, gloomy room with his mask on, his mind shut down and the teacher would look at Charlie, who always sat hunched over in a little ball, with pity. Then she moved on to those children who could still learn.

Then one day Charlie had written out the letter in Gran’s hand and delivered it to the basement before anyone arrived there. And that was the end of Charlie’s formal education, and the commencement of his informal one.

Charlie’s thoughts returned to the present and he rose from the wall and left the place where his mother had died. He spent the rest of the Sabbath cleaning out a shed by the river for two bob and a soft apple. The apple constituted both his breakfast and his lunch, for Gran had had next to nothing to put in the icebox for his breakfast, or for his Sunday lunch. Her reduced wages had been late in coming—and besides which, the market shelves where she could shop with her ration book and few coins were bare.

After a meager supper that night, Charlie gave Gran his shilling and explained that on his way home from a walk, a man in a shiny hat had been inclined to be charitable.

Gran said, “Well, it does the heart good to know that there is still decency out there. That peopledocare. The rich and the poor in the fight together, eh, Charlie?”

Shortly after her gentle snores reached his cupboard that night Charlie had gone down the fire escape.

“Oi, Charlie.”

He turned to see Lonzo standing there, waiting.

SOLONG

CHARLIE LOOKED TO SEEwhether Lonzo was holding his knife or not. He wasn’t. Lonzo came forward while Charlie stood his ground.

“Eddie’s dead,” said Lonzo somberly.

“I know, I saw it in the paper.”

Lonzo looked down at the ground. “See, blokes know me and Eddie was mates. If the coppers think… then they’ll know… And that lorry driver, ’e got a good look at me, I reckon.”

“What are you goin’ to do?” asked Charlie.

“Dunno. I could leave ’ere, but I got nowhere’s to go, and no money to get there.”

“Would a half crown help?”

Lonzo stared at him. “Yougot a ’alf crown?”

“I can get it. Then I’ll give it to you.”

Lonzo looked dumbstruck. “Why… why would you do that, Charlie?”

“We didn’t want Eddie or the copper to die, Lonzo. It just happened.”

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