Maggie rose as majestically as she could manage, shrugged on her coat, grabbed her pocketbook, and started for the door.
“That’s not it at all,” he said, getting up. He gave a few coins to the waitress and followed.
Maggie would have walked faster, but her skirt was too tight around the knees. Stupid skirt. “And if you followed your seriously misguided logic to its inevitable conclusion,” she snapped, tromping through mud puddles to the bus stop, shrouded in the growing darkness of the London blackout, “you’d see anyone with eyes and a brain can break codes. Not just spoiled, rich Oxford graduates who’ve never actually had to work for anything a day in their lives!”
“Is that how you see me?” John said, keeping pace with her easily with his long legs. The evening traffic gave them just enough light to navigate. “Spoiled and rich?” He shook his head. “Typical.”
Having reached the bus stop, Maggie turned to face him, hands on her hips. “Well, aren’t you? You and David. And Snodgrass. And Frain, for that matter. You’re all upper-class men who’ve had every advantage, every door opened for you. It’s no wonder you want to preserve the system that created you.”
In the dim light from the traffic, John’s face looked flushed. The evening was now a complete and utter disaster. To top it off, it was beginning to rain again. Big, cold drops splashed on them, but it didn’t stop them from glaring at each other.
Just then, the red bus pulled up beside them, its shuttered headlights cutting through the gloom, windshield wipers whispering softly.
“This has been the most disagreeable evening ever,” Maggie said in her best Aunt Edith tone, as she waited in line behind an older man to board. She knew she was being petulant and childish, and she didn’t care.
John was silent.
Without warning, the air-raid siren began its keening wail. Maggie’s stomach lurched into a fast descent, and instinctively John grasped her arm. They looked at each other, argument forgotten. Around them, people scrambled for shelter.
“Let’s go back to the café,” she said. “There’s bound to be a basement.”
“Lead the way.”
They made their way through the thick darkness as quickly as they could as the drone of planes grew louder. There must have been hundreds of them circling overhead in formation. Finally, finally, they made it back to the café.
“Come on, ducks—in you go,” said the waitress, recognizing them from earlier, even with wet hair. “Door in the back on the right goes down to the basement.” They ran through the shop to the door and then down the tiny, narrow stairs.
Then the bombs began to drop.
They could hear the screams of the bombs as they came down and feel the vibrations as each one hit nearby. Maggie worried that the building above would collapse, falling in on the basement. Is there a bomb up there with our names on it?
Down in the damp-smelling cellar, people had brought their cups and saucers with them, and the staff was moving the furniture. Thin yellow beams of light from various people’s flashlights lent the proceedings a spooky, haunted air.
John and Maggie sat down on a bench against the wall. An elegant older man in a cravat and monocle took out a small silver flask from his coat pocket and held it out to Maggie. “Want some, darling? Gin. In case of emergencies.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” she said, and the man passed her the bottle. She unscrewed the cap and took a swig. It didn’t help. John shook his head no, so she gave it back to the man. “Thanks,” she said, trying to keep her tone light.
“You’re welcome, luv,” he said, taking a long pull. “I think it’s going to be a long night.”
The sounds of the bombs and their jolts on impact were getting stronger. They could now smell the smoke from above seeping in through the closed doors and windows, harsh and pungent, as the bombs continued their death drops.
“They’re getting closer,” she whispered, and John put his arm around her. Their thighs and knees were pressed together so tightly that Maggie could feel his bones and muscles beneath his wool trousers. She could feel his warmth and smell his neck.
Bombs pounded down. They could only imagine the horror and the damage. Maggie squeezed her eyes shut and wondered what it felt like to be dying on this damp night. Would it be quick? Oh, please, God, just let it be quick.
For what felt like days they sat there, pressed together, the impact from the bombs bruising their bones. We’re going to be stiff and sore tomorrow, Maggie thought, then caught herself. If there even is a tomorrow. For distraction, she tried making patterns with numbers, starting with the Fibonacci series, as far as she could go.