“You’re leaving, aren’t you?” Binnie asked. “That’s why you let Alf bring fireworks and why you didn’t care if you got in trouble over the car. Because you’re leaving. You came here to find Polly so you can go back with her.”
“Back?”
Binnie nodded. “To where you came from. I ’eard you talkin’ in the theater. And I seen you. In the woods at the manor,” she said, reverting to her old Cockney speech. “Alf said you was meetin’ somebody in the woods. ’E thought you was a spy. So I followed you. And me and Alf ’eard you talkin’ in the emergency staircase.”
They had always been two steps ahead of her. “Binnie—”
“You were goin’ to lose us on purpose in the crowd, weren’t you?” Binnie said accusingly. “Like in Hansel and Gretel—”
“No. Binnie, I’m not going anywhere.” She reached her hand out to the girl.
Binnie flinched away from her. “Then why did you bring us ’ere?” she said, nearly crying with rage. “Why’d you wear that coat?”
“Because Polly has to see us standing here.”
“So she can come over and get you.”
“No.”
She glanced around at the surrounding crowd. They had no business discussing this here, but no one was paying any attention to them. They were all cheering, laughing, waving flags. “Polly has to see us so everything that’s happened can happen. Because where I come from, this night has already happened, and when it did, Polly saw me in the crowd wearing my green coat. And she saw you, too.”
“And then what?”
And then she went back to Oxford, Eileen thought, and we stood in the quad and talked to Mike and he went to Dunkirk and lost his foot and you got the measles and we went to London and your mother was killed and Mike was killed and Polly and I took you in and we found Mr. Dunworthy and you saved our lives.
“Then what?” Binnie repeated angrily.
“Then nothing. Polly didn’t speak to me. She didn’t take me back with her. She wasn’t even certain it was me she’d seen. And all of that already happened so, you see, I couldn’t go back with her even if I wanted to. Which I don’t, because I want to stay here with you and Alf.”
And because if I did go back, Mr. Dunworthy would have pulled me out and canceled all our drops, and none of this would have happened. Including this VE-Day celebration.
There’d have been no cheering crowds, no church bells, no victory. Binnie would have died of pneumonia and Alf on the City of Benares, and Captain Westbrook would have died waiting for an ambulance, and they would have lost the war.
“When did Polly see you?” Binnie demanded.
“I’m not certain,” Eileen said. “She told me she got to Trafalgar Square around half past nine, and she was only in the square an hour.”
“Then why’d you come get us out of school? Why’d you make us hurry?”
If she lied to her now, Binnie would never trust her again. “Because I hoped that Colin—the man who came to fetch Polly and Mr. Dunworthy that night—might be here.”
“And he’d take you back.”
“No. I told Colin—will tell Colin—where to find us, and I thought tonight might have been when I told him. I thought he might be here, but I don’t know that for certain. I don’t know when I told him. It might be tonight or years from now.”
“And when you tell him, he’ll go back and find everyone at the theater,” Binnie said.
“Yes.”
Binnie frowned at her. “You should have asked him when it was you told him,” she said practically. “And where, so you wouldn’t have to go running about looking for him.”
“That’s true,” Eileen said. “But it doesn’t matter. We’ll find each other in time, and I’ll tell him.”
“Because he had to have found you or he wouldn’t have known where you were, so he couldn’t have come to the theater,” Binnie said.
And why did I assume she wouldn’t be able to understand time travel? Eileen wondered. “Exactly.”
“And that’s why you had to stay here. To tell him.”
“No, I stayed because I couldn’t leave you and Alf.” She smiled at Binnie. “Who’d take care of me if I left—?”
But she didn’t get it out. Binnie had flung herself at her, her arms round her neck, clinging so tightly Eileen could scarcely breathe.
“Binnie,” Eileen said gently, enfolding her in her arms.
“I can’t see Polly nowhere,” Alf said, jumping down from the lion. “Are you sure she’s ’ere?”
“Yes,” Eileen said.
“What part of the square was she in?” Binnie asked.
“I don’t know. She said she saw me from a long way off.”
“Well, I can’t see nothin’. She must’ve climbed up on Nelson’s statue or somethin’,” he said, elbowing his way over to a lamppost.
“She would not have climbed a lamppost,” Eileen said.
“I know,” Alf said. “I’m only climbing up so’s I can see.” He stuck the staff of his Union Jack between his teeth, like a pirate’s cutlass, and shinned up it.
“Can you see her?” Eileen called up to him.
“No,” Alf said, taking the flag out of his teeth. “Are you sure she’s—there she is!” He pointed toward National Gallery with his Union Jack. “She’s wearin’ a uniform.”
Eileen craned her neck, standing on tiptoe and hanging on to the lamppost for balance. Uniform, uniform …
“I see her!” Binnie said excitedly.
“Where? Show me where she’s standing.”
“There,” Binnie said, pointing. Eileen sighted along her outstretched arm. “On the porch.”
“No, she ain’t!” Alf shouted from halfway up the lamppost. “She’s comin’ down the steps.”
“Where?” Eileen still couldn’t see her, and if she’d started down the stairs already … “Where?”
“There. At the foot of the stairs.”
If Polly had already gone down the stairs, she had already seen her standing by the lion, was already leaving for her drop in Hampstead Heath.
“Did you see her?” Binnie asked.
“No,” Eileen said, “but it doesn’t matter. It wasn’t necessary for me to see her.”
But she’d hoped so much that she would catch a glimpse of her. All these last four years, she’d held to that hope, that she’d see her again, if only from a distance.
“I’m sorry, Mum,” Binnie said.
“It’s all right.” She gave Binnie a hug. “Let’s go get some supper.” She looked for Alf, but he was no longer on the lamppost. “Where’s Alf?” she asked. “Can you see him anywhere?”
“No,” Binnie said, scanning the crowd.
She darted off suddenly into the middle of the square. “Binnie, wait! No!” Eileen said, grabbing for her, but she was already out of reach.
And out of sight. The crowd closed about her as if it was water, leaving no trace. “Binnie! Come back!” she called, starting after her through the crush.
And saw Polly. Polly was only a few yards away, working her way against the current toward Charing Cross. She looked younger than Eileen remembered, nearly as young as Binnie, her face without the worry and sorrow it would have. And without the transcendent joy it had had that night when Colin came.
Because none of it’s happened yet, Eileen thought.
She had hoped for one final look, but this wasn’t the end, it was the beginning. Everything—the escape from Padgett’s and the race to St. Paul’s the night of the twenty-ninth and Christmas dinner with Miss Laburnum and Miss Hibbard and Mr. Dorming—was all still to come. Standing in line together at the canteen and walking home from Notting Hill Gate in the foggy dawn after the all clear and sitting on the platform after everyone else was asleep, talking of Mrs. Rickett’s appalling meals and the trials of wrapping parcels and mending stockings.