These Dark Wings (13 page)

Another crash wakes me.

I slide out from under the pile of blankets, which now includes the rug – it is far too cold otherwise – and move through the dark. Uncle will expect me to be asleep. He will be listening to the radio, so I can easily sneak past his room and down to the Stone Kitchen. It is a not-so-secret secret between us that the biscuits are hidden behind the great suit of armour.

I open my door and leave it slightly ajar. Let the mouse, who has definitely returned, escape again. Cold air immediately grabs me but I shrug it off. I am not going far. Just a biscuit and then back to bed; hopefully a few more hours’ sleep before the dawn.

Slipping down the stairs, I ease up before reaching Uncle’s door. Seeing no light from underneath the crack, I breathe easier. He is asleep.

My foot misses the next stair.
No. I can hear people talking.

It is Oakes’s voice, coming from Uncle’s room, though his tone is somehow different. I risk a step closer to the door. Uncle is arguing with Oakes. I can make out their words.

‘What if something happens?’

‘
Something
could happen to any of us, at any time.’

‘You are ill, Henry.’

‘My thoughts are clear. This is not a discussion.’

There is a silence and then Uncle speaks again, his voice softer.

‘She can never know.’

The air in the stairwell is like ice. I am certain that Oakes has left the room through the back door until he speaks.

‘Never? Is that in the interest of the girl?’

What girl? Me? I have forgotten all about my hunger.

As I inch forward another step, the voices cease. Have they gone into another room? What can I never know? He is angry that I interrupted his writing.
You accused him of being a spy and murdering a raven.

I let another long minute pass; no sound comes from behind the door. Only the quiet ticking of a clock. Slowly I retreat up the stairs and pull my own door softly shut.

I sit in the darkness, eyes wide, certain of the truth.

They were talking about Mum.

Uncle is lying to me. They are all lying to me.

Hope has tricked me enough. The walls, the tunnels, the docks: every possible escape is blocked. I can’t go to Montreal; I can’t go home. If Hitler invades, nowhere in the kingdom will be safe.

I must stay. Protect the ravens, like I told Timothy Squire, like I promised Uncle. I must stay, in the Tower, with its mean girls and traitors and bombs. I must stay and find out the truth about Mum.

Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution will Bring Us Victory.

– Ministry of Information, poster

Friday, 18 October 1940

Of all the rotten classmates, Timothy Squire is the rottenest.

School work is impossible when you are always tired: eyes dry, hands slow, mind drifting. Timothy Squire still never acknowledges me in class.

Leslie, who was beastly – all eye-rolling and hostile laughter – seems to have changed her mind about me being a spy. Even though she keeps calling me Magpie, she doesn’t say it in the same mean way. Her laugh, too, is still nasty, but now it is directed elsewhere. Sometimes at stout Kate, who sends cross looks back at us.

Now Leslie turns to me between classes and tells me all sorts of things. ‘You can still get anything you want in the city,’ she says. ‘You just have to talk to the right people.’ Just
imagine
, someone being able to get hot chocolate and scones with cream.

Leslie is full of dreadful stories too. ‘When the night clubs get bombed, and everyone is running and screaming in a panic, pickpockets and thieves go to work. Sometimes,’ she leans in cautiously, ‘they take fingers.’

‘Fingers?’ The desk creaks as I pull away. ‘Why?’

She rolls her eyes at my innocence. ‘Magpie, you can sell
anything
on the black market.’

Nobody would accuse her of being a Sunshine Susie. Many people talk about the black market, and it sounds like a dreadful place – filled with cheats and crooks and bloody fingers. Is this where you get the hot chocolate?

How she hears all this, I can’t imagine. Leslie knows all about the pilots too – the day boys and the night fighters – and talks about how brave they are. While it occurs to me that she would find Timothy Squire
fascinating
, for some reason I don’t mention it.

Why does no one speak to him?

Miss Breedon returns and silence with her.

Leslie is a great desk partner, and far more interesting than the lessons. Flo would
love
her. I can’t imagine these things happening in Montreal. She must be so
bored
.

Today we have more gas-mask drills, and we wear the masks through history class. They smell dark and rubbery and the strap pinches my ears, and the eye-pieces instantly begin to fog up.

‘Great, now I look just like those stupid birds,’ comes Leslie’s blurred voice. With a long black beak and rounded eyes. She is not wrong.
She could be Cora’s cousin.

Before class ends, she nudges my elbow and, when I look, makes the loudest croaking noise through her mask. Even Timothy Squire turns round, his grey eyes wide with surprise, and I laugh even louder.

‘Sorry if we were a bit hard on you,’ Leslie says. ‘When you first came, I mean.’

‘It’s all right,’ I say.

‘We don’t get vacuees coming to us. You’re our first, Magpie.’

I learn a lot from her. We often sit, the hour before dusk, on the low wall. Kate is never there. (She’s probably at home, crying like a watering cart.) Leslie says things are different now. Before the war, kids in the Tower were normal enough – they went to the cinema, rode bikes, ate Marmite sandwiches and ices.

‘What do you think of... him?’ I gesture vaguely as we leave the school. Leslie knows who I mean.

‘Timothy Squire? You’re the only one who can stand talking to him.’

‘Oh. Why?’

‘Because you’re new.’

That doesn’t answer my question, but for some reason I don’t want to ask again. Leslie has been completely lovely. She doesn’t even sound like she’s from the East End, not like Nell or Timothy Squire. She seems almost fond of me now. The ravens, however, Leslie has not grown fond of. Maybe it’s because of all the gas-mask drills.

‘You must hate it. Being around those awful birds,’ she says as we pass by the Green, a long day of memorizing the names of committees and agencies now behind us.

I shrug, but Leslie won’t leave it.

‘What? You like them?’

‘They’re not so bad.’

‘Just look at it.’ She comes to a stop, points. ‘If you died, it would eat off your face, just like that. Pluck out your eyes and swallow them.’

‘Raven Cora?’

My disbelief is matched only by hers.

‘Giving it a name doesn’t make it a girl, dummy. It’s still vermin. Why your uncle is allowed to keep them here is beyond me.’

I shrug again, too tired to argue, as Cora turns towards me, listening. Across the ramparts the setting sun stretches her shadow. Two black eyes shine no light back at me.

To others, they are a symbol of hope. And if I can help the ravens, keep them happy, keep them here, people will not lose hope.

If the Tower ravens leave, the kingdom will fall.

‘Why don’t you ever talk to Timothy Squire?’

Leslie answers in a mocking, sing-song voice. ‘Timothy Squire is a dirty old liar.’

She laughs, an old joke.

When Leslie and I part ways under the afternoon sky, I exhale loudly. A crashing headache is coming. Is he a liar? A loud croak wrests my attention back to the gathering ravens. They appear much more sinister as a group.
Uncle would likely have some explanation for that.

‘I’ll be back to feed you lot in an hour.’

Uncle finishes the crossword before starting the fire with the paper –
The Times
, not the
Evening Standard
. Whatever passed between Uncle and Mum stops him from even reading her old newspaper. In my first week here, I thought he was worried that I might stumble upon her obituary, as the notices are now staggered to avoid specific information about bomb strikes – which night, on which street – that might help Hitler measure his accuracy. Still there is never a trace of the paper. The fire barely gets hotter.

‘Another tea?’ Uncle holds up the pot. ‘I think I may even have a chocolate or two if you fancy. A shop on Cartwright Street had some in today.’

He pours the weak tea. ‘And you’re enjoying school? Brodie tells me how you and Malcolm get along.’

I nod.
Famously.

‘Miss Breedon speaks quite well of you – a perfect lamb, she says – and tells me you’re fitting in nicely.’

‘School is fine, thanks.’
A perfect lamb?
‘Uncle?’

‘Yes, dear?’

I don’t know what to say, or how to say it, with his kind eyes on me. But I must.

‘Uncle. Why... why did you never come to see us?’

‘You must not remember, dear,’ he says smoothly. ‘I visited you, in Warwick Avenue. We had tea in the kitchen with your mother, much like we are having now. I was still in Palestine then, though I came to London whenever I could. Your mum was always happy to see me.’

‘But she never did.’

Now there is something – a stiffening in his cheeks.

‘Well, adults can be very silly—’

‘Did you and Mum have a row?’

‘Anna, your mother was a dear lady.’

‘Then why did she hate you?’

Uncle has turned white, his face emptied of all colour. ‘Your mother didn’t hate a single thing in this world. There are just some things that are...
impossible
for some people to understand.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Your mother and I had a disagreement, Anna. It just made sense for everyone if we... stayed out of each other’s lives.’

‘Because of my father?’

‘Your father had already died, Anna. Your mum didn’t want my help – didn’t need my help.’

‘But... you are my uncle.’ I don’t mean for it to sound like a question and I can see that it wounds him. ‘What happened—’

‘Don’t worry about all that, dear. Plenty of time for the business of adults. You are twelve years old.’

‘Thirteen,’ I say quietly.

He gives me a confused look.

‘It was my birthday, the thirteenth of October, the day of the prime minister’s visit.’

He gives a sad smile. ‘I am sorry, my dear. I
had
noticed... something. You do seem older. Wiser.’

He closes his eyes for a moment. Then he stands and limps over to the stack of cold firewood, adding a single log.

‘Enjoy your tea, dear. I will see you after lessons.’

Uncle moves slowly, hiding the fire’s glow, as he leaves the room.

Saturday, 19 October 1940

The first thing I noticed when I was brought here is how misty it is. From the river, Uncle said. It seemed yet another barrier, a castle bordered with fog. Again it is misty – and smoke-stung eyes make it hard to be sure – but I would see if Timothy Squire was on the Green.