—30—
When the all clear sounded, Nina and I staggered aboveground, brushing ourselves off, and miraculously found a cab. We were shaken, but all in one piece.
When I arrived home, Mother waited in the sitting room, looking wan but otherwise well, her knitting in hand. A pair of kittens frolicked on the rug, chasing each other.
Her condition was bewilderingly variable from day to day. I felt in over my head trying to predict how to care for her.
“Where’s Betty?” I asked.
“She went out late morning for rations, and I have not seen her since.”
I frowned. “Do you know where she was going?”
“No. She said only rations. She had the coupons with her.”
“Have you eaten?”
“Hours ago. She made chicken salad if you’re hungry. No apples, but the celery gave it an agreeable crunch.”
“I had a good lunch with Nina, so perhaps we’ll save that for dinner.” I peered out the window, hoping to spot Betty in her chintz turban.
“I wouldn’t mind a spot of tea,” Mother said.
“Of course.” I shed my coat, and as I hung it up, I felt the small hard vial of cyanide.
I took it out, so evil and so innocuous at once, and wondered what trauma would force me to use it.
When the Nazis invaded? When Mother died and there was no more food?
The noise of the bombs this afternoon, exploding and knocking down buildings, came back to me, and I wondered if I ought to keep it on me at all times, in case I was buried alive. How long could a person bear that?
No. I would not give in to such fatalism.
Not yet. I tucked it back into the inner pocket, and headed for the kitchen to put the kettle on, lifting lids and opening cupboards to see what might be left from last week’s rations.
As I was taking out the mugs, I worried where Betty might have gone. I hoped she’d not been injured.
I checked the drawer to see which coupons she’d taken with her. All of them. A concern, but not yet dire. Perhaps I could nip out and see if the fish monger or the baker had seen her.
Just now, I felt a deep need to paint, to express the tangled emotions stirred up by the raid. I took Mother her tea and headed upstairs to the studio, but even as I ascended the stairs, I fretted about those enormous bombs today, all over the city. Surely Betty had not gone far?