Page 154 of The Gathering Storm

‘All the more reason to hold on to what’s precious,’ he said. He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers, very lightly. ‘May I?’

‘Court me? Here at the end of the world?’

‘Before night comes. Two people who’ve found each other again, against all the odds. May I?’

‘You may,’ she said.

Together they packed up paintings, furniture, silver, porcelains. They did the Candé runs together. They were entertained lavishly at both ends, by Hélène and by the Bedauxs. And at Candé, one evening at the end of May, they went for a walk in the green, river-haunted twilight, with the soft flicker of bats above them and the melancholy calling of owls echoing back and forth across the valley; and when they stopped at the edge of the scarp, where the ground dropped away, she turned to him, and he saw that it was all right. He took her in his arms and kissed her, and she kissed him back, for a long time, as twilight turned to darkness.

Two people at the end of the world.

June was the best month for Scarborough, when the weather was fine but the holiday hordes had not yet arrived. Polly and Lennie had only a week, but it was good to be away on their own. They slept late, ate heartily, walked a lot. The sea was still too cold for bathing, but they took off their shoes and paddled at the edge of the water, and enjoyed the brilliant light and the exhilarating freshness of the air. Sea and cliff and beach, waves endlessly trundling in and turning over with a sigh and a suck, gulls riding the moving air and crying plaintively: it all seemed so eternal. It must always have been like this. And surely it would always be.

One day, just for variety, they got the car out and drove up the coast to Robin Hood’s Bay, down the steep, cobbled street to the harbour, and had a luncheon of fish and fried potatoes in the Bay Hotel, sitting out on the terrace over the sea. ‘It’s a good thing Al Feinstein didn’t find out about this place,’ Lennie said. ‘He’d have found some way of setting a scene for Robin and Marian here. Probably would have squeezed Bonnie Prince Charlie and Grace Darling in, too.’

Polly laughed. ‘When is that film going to come out? I really want to see it. My actual house is in it!’

‘Morland Place looked magnificent,’ Lennie assured her. ‘I should think it will come out in the autumn in the States, and probably January or February over here. If—’ He didn’t finish that sentence. ‘What I want to know,’ he said briskly, to cover himself, ‘is how Rose is getting on as Anastasia.’

‘You’re worried about her?’

‘Not at all. Van Kerk will look after her. I’m just interested. I always will be, you know.’

‘That’s all right. I’m not jealous. I’ll always be interested in James.’

On the way back, their route took them along an ordinary street of Scarborough houses, where a crowd of people had gathered on the pavement around a lorry parked at the kerb. Lennie slowed, and Polly said, ‘Oh, do let’s find out what’s going on.’ So he stopped and they got out. On the back of the lorry there was a load of corrugated steel, in what looked like curved sections. The lorry driver and several men, presumably residents, were staring at a piece of paper the driver was holding. As he got nearer, Lennie could see it was a technical diagram of some sort.

‘Can I help?’ he asked.

The crowd – women in aprons, some wearing head-rags, men in shirtsleeves, and children of both sexes in a state of excitement – parted willingly, and the driver looked relieved. He pushed his cap back in order to scratch at his head, and said, ‘It’s this ’ere plan, maister. Ah’m trying to explain to this gent—’

‘He’s got it upside down,’ the gent – presumably the householder outside whose house they were planted – said indignantly.

‘It doesn’t matter which way oop Ah hold it, you daft—’ the driver began, in exasperation.

Lennie played peacemaker. ‘May I see?’

Polly could see they were both glad to defer to him. Solomon and the baby, she thought with amusement. ‘What’s all this about?’ she asked the woman beside her, whose carpet slippers suggested she came from the house too.

‘Anderson shelter,’ the woman said. ‘In case of air raids. T’council’s givin’ ’em out. Poor folk get ’em for nowt, but we have to pay seven pund,’ she added proudly.

‘Oh,’ said Polly. ‘How does it work?’

‘You’ve to dig a hole, like, then them round bits go over it, then you put the muck you dig out over the top. It’s simple enough,’ she added confidentially, ‘but you know men! Got to make a song an’ dance out of everything. Look at ’em!’ she said fondly, nodding to where Lennie, the driver, and three or four responsible householders all had their heads jammed into the small space above the diagram. ‘Lord save us if Ah’d to look at a recipe every time Ah cooked dinner!’

Polly smiled dutifully. ‘So, is everyone getting one?’

‘Aye, miss, everyone in t’town ’at’s got a garden. Our warden, Tom Battersby, said ’at folk as haven’t’ll have to shelter in t’cupboard under t’stairs, or under t’kitchen table. God help ’em,’ she added charitably.

‘I suppose it’s necessary,’ Polly said doubtfully.

The woman looked stern. ‘Folk forget, but Scarborough was bombed in the war. Hundreds killed. You got to be prepared, miss. Ey oop, your man’s got ’em sorted out, seemingly. Now mebbe we’ll get some action.’

The confabulation broke up. Polly saw from Lennie’s posture that he was ready to go into the back garden and see the job through, but she caught his eye and gave him a stern look, and he said something to the men, caps were touched and hands shaken, and she got him back.

‘Damned interesting,’ he said, when they were in the car. ‘Those curved sheets are bolted together, with steel plates at either end. The corrugation makes them very strong.’

‘That lady said they put them up over a hole in the ground.’