Two more blocks, she thought, splashing across a street, and the sirens went. People began heading for shelter. Polly zigzagged through them and arrived at Padgett’s entrance. A doorman stood under the pillared porch, arguing with a woman and a small boy.
“Hail me a taxi at once,” the woman was ordering the doorman.
“The sirens have gone, madam,” he said. “You and your son need to take shelter. Ow!” he yelped as the boy kicked him in the shins.
Polly darted past them to the revolving door and pushed on it, but it wouldn’t budge. “Sorry, miss,” the doorman said, turning from the woman. “Padgett’s is closed.”
“But I’m supposed to meet a friend here,” Polly said, trying to peer through the door into the store. “She-”
“She’ll have gone,” he said. “And, as I was telling this lady, you need to take shelter-”
“I know, but I’m not looking for a customer. My friend’s employed here. On third. She-”
“I must get to Harrods before it closes,” the woman cut in, and the little boy pulled his foot back for another kick.
The doorman sidestepped quickly and said to Polly, “You want the staff entrance.”
“Where’s that?”
“I insist you obtain a taxi for me immediately,” the woman said. “My son is leaving for Scotland on Thursday, and it’s essential he be properly outfitted-”
Polly couldn’t wait to find out where the staff entrance was. She ran down to the side of the building and around to the rear, looking for it. Shopgirls were coming out, hesitating in the doorway to see how hard it was raining and to open their umbrellas, looking anxiously up at the sky at the planes, which sounded as if they were coming closer.
“How tiresome!” one of them said as Polly darted past her. “I wanted to buy a chop for my tea on the way home. Now it will have to be shelter sandwiches. Again. Doesn’t Jerry ever take a night off?”
Townsend Brothers’ staff entrance was guarded, but Padgett’s didn’t seem to be, thank heavens. Polly pushed past the shopgirls and their umbrellas to the entrance and slipped through the door.
And collided with a guard standing just inside. “Where are you going?” he demanded.
She’d have to pretend she worked here. “I forgot my hat,” she said, hurrying past him as if she knew where she was going. She couldn’t see any stairway, only a long corridor lined with doors. Which one led to the stairs?
“Here, wait!” the guard said behind her, and the last door on the left opened, revealing a stairway and, at its foot, two young women, pulling on their gloves. Polly ducked past them through the door and ran up the stairs. As the door swung shut, she heard the guard shout, “Here! Where do you think you’re going?” and then the sound of footsteps running awkwardly after her. She raced up the stairs past the door marked Mezzanine, and up to first. He’d be coming any second. She opened the door to first and ran out onto the floor, hoping there was no one still here.
There wasn’t. The lights had been switched off and the display cases covered for the night. Polly dived behind the nearest counter and crouched there, watching the door to the stairs. After a moment, it opened and she could hear footsteps. She pressed closer behind the counter, holding her breath, and the footsteps retreated and the door closed.
She waited another long minute, listening. She couldn’t hear anything but the hum of the planes, still distant but moving steadily closer. She looked over at the lift. She could operate it-she’d watched the lift boys at Townsend Brothers do it-but the dial above its door said it was on Ground. It couldn’t come up to first without an operator. And if she went back to the stairs, and the guard had gone on up the stairwell, she’d run straight into him.
She ran across the floor, hoping there was another stairway on the far side, and there was. She darted up them, counting floors. One and a half. Two. No, mezzanine. Mezzanine and a half. Two. Why couldn’t Merope have worked on the ground floor?
The drone of the planes was substantially louder. She hoped the sound was being somehow magnified by the narrow stairwell. If it wasn’t… Two and two-thirds… three. She opened the door silently and peered out onto the floor. She couldn’t see any sign of the guard. Or of Merope anywhere on the darkened floor. The sound of the planes was less loud here than in the stairwell, but only marginally, and far off to the east Polly could hear the faint crump of a bomb.
She slipped through the door and started across the floor, looking for the notions department. “Merope!” she called. “Where are you?”
No answer. Polly remembered her saying she hadn’t recognized Polly calling her name that day in Oxford, and if anyone else was here, they’d know her by the name Eileen, too. “Eileen!”
Still no answer. She’s not here, Polly thought, running through the linen department. Or the planes are drowning out my voice. “Eileen!” she shouted more loudly. “Eileen O’Reilly!”
A hand clamped on her arm. Polly whirled, trying to think what excuse to give the guard. “I know you said the store was closed, but-” She stopped, her mouth open in astonishment.
It wasn’t the guard. It was Michael Davies.
In view of the present situation, all parents whose children are still in London are urged to evacuate them without delay.
London-25 October 1940
“I DO BELIEVE THAT EVERY SINGLE UNPLEASANT PERSON in London has decided to shop in Padgett’s today,” Miss Peterson whispered to Eileen in the stockroom, and Eileen had to agree. She’d spent all afternoon waiting on Mrs. Sadler and her wretched son Roland, who was being belatedly evacuated to Scotland on Thursday.
And it’s too bad it’s not Australia, Eileen thought, bringing out yet another blazer for Roland to try on. He refused to extend his arm so she could get it into the sleeve and, when his mother turned away to look at the waistcoats, he kicked Eileen hard in the shins. “Ow!”
“Oh, did I knock into you?” Roland said sweetly. “I beg your pardon.”
And I thought Alf and Binnie were bad, Eileen thought. They were angels compared to Roland. “How is this, madam?” she asked Mrs. Sadler after she’d finally managed to force the jacket onto him.
“Oh, yes, the fit’s much better,” Mrs. Sadler said, “but I’m not certain of the color. Do you have it in blue?”
“I’ll see, madam.” Eileen limped into the curtained storeroom, her ankle throbbing, to fetch the blazer in blue and then brown, and wrestle them onto the resisting Roland.
Why am I always stuck dealing with horrible children? she thought. I should never have let them transfer me up here from Notions, shorthanded or not. And now it was perfectly obvious why they’d been shorthanded in Children’s Wear. When I get back to Oxford, I am never doing another assignment involving children. Even if it means giving up VE-Day.
“This blue is much nicer,” Mrs. Sadler said, fingering the lapels, “but I’m afraid it won’t be warm enough. Scotland’s winters are very cold. Have you something in wool?”
The first four blazers he tried on, Eileen thought. “I’ll see, ma’am,” she said and made another trip to the storeroom, thinking, Why couldn’t I have searched the stores on the other side of Oxford Street first? If she had, she wouldn’t have missed Polly. She’d still have been at Townsend Brothers when she went there, and they could have gone through to Oxford together. Instead, Polly was gone, and she was stuck here at Padgett’s waiting on six-year-old psychopaths till either someone came for her or she saved enough money to return to Backbury.