Beowulf

a job. An old lady, waiting at the corner, looked up at the sky; the sirens began again, shaking the air and picking each other up among the buildings until he thought of wolves, answering from hill to hill. “That’s the second alert this morning,” the conductor grumbled as he boarded a calm but half-empty bus. “Wouldn’t you think, sir, that they could find something better to do?”
It was possible to catch a glimpse of the street through small diamonds cut out of the splinter netting across the windows, but they altered the perspective strangely and gave an illusion of speed. Ferguson’s neighbour went on reading his paper. He had read it, no doubt, for twenty years in the same manner and, raid or no raid, the habits of a lifetime were not easily broken. An old lady in a brown fur jacket that hung shapelessly to her waist clasped a hamper containing not parcels but a Pekinese. The bow of her grey felt hat stuck up like an ear. “They have got some really good bath towels, dear, at Barlow’s,” she chattered, “an absolute bargain. I got a dozen yesterday, and three little striped bathing ones for Woggles. Darling,” she glanced at the black rose resting on the rim of the basket, “he will get his toes so wet.”
“But do you think in these days it is right to buy anything?” Her friend’s face was almost green with terror and she gripped a black handbag tightly with both hands.
“Of course. You should be a fatalist like me. Besides, if you are really nervous, you can always send a trunk to the country.”
“I wonder you haven’t evacuated Woggles.”
“He doesn’t seem to mind. If it is very noisy, he barks.” “Pekes always were good watchdogs in spite of their size, but do you suppose he realizes the danger?”
The gunfire slackened in the distance. “Barlow’s,” the conductor shouted. Most of the passengers stood up. How extraordinary people were, Ferguson thought, getting up with the others, armoured against defeat with this sublime stupidity. They had ignored all warnings only to be ready to fight to the last dog for some unpredictable reason of their own that, born here though he was, he was unable to analyse. Woggles, released from his basket, sniffed a piece of shell and his mistress smacked him. An old man went on gravely painting white lines along a row of sandbags. Nobody had even thought of going to a shelter; and, looking up at the grey, dismal sky, Ferguson was almost sorry for the Germans.

4
ADELAIDE SPENSER PAUSED in front of Barlow’s plate-glass windows less to inspect the carpets than to admire her hat. It was essential today not to lower one’s standards. Thomas had been quite impossible last night; but then, poor dear, though he would not admit it, he did not really like raids. He had been so rude at dinner that Kate had given notice and it had taken hours of patient listening to her grievances before Adelaide had contrived to smooth things over. As reward she had spent the last hour trying on models that sat upon forlorn stands, simply crying to be bought and worn. Normally she would never have purchased anything so obvious as this tricolour ribbon, but in an autumn when people seemed to welcome drabness with a sort of gaiety, the bright blue and scarlet cheered her up. If her husband were to accuse her of extravagance she would quote the words to him that he had used about stocking up the cellar: “It will be double the price that it is now, next year.”
The central display was not a still life of those amazing waxlike figures with impossible dresses and a parchment smile but a large piece of glass covered with torn and dirty netting. “In spite of a bomb dropping in the immediate neighbourhood,” a notice said circumspectly, “there was no splintering.” The shop windows themselves had been fitted with a device resembling a spokeless wheel. The bright green gloves arranged above a minute black handbag looked infinitely brave or absurdly anachronistic according to one’s mood. A driver put his brakes on suddenly and she looked up at the screech, thinking that it was another warning; but the skies were clear and the sound passed into the ordinary rumble of wheels.
It was a good thing that she had asked her sister-in-law to meet her at the Warming Pan, Adelaide thought, as she crossed the road and turned into a side street. Poor Alice never knew, with her diets and her ideas, whether she was eating toast or the plump breast of a partridge. Anything other than “good plain food” would be wasted on her, so difficult in these days when luxuries could be obtained with ease but eggs had almost disappeared. She must remember to stop at Parke’s on the way home and get some more canned fruit. Mrs. Spenser had begun stocking her larder directly after Munich when any fool could have seen that there was bound to be a war. Alice had had conscientious scruples. Adelaide could still see her sister-in-law’s blue eyes, which must have been faded before she was out of school, and hear the excited voice, “Oh, Adelaide, isn’t Mr. Chamberlain wonderful? I knew if we prayed enough we should have peace.”
“How does being an ostrich save one from disaster?” Adelaide had wanted to reply, having already ordered sixty pounds of marmalade; but arguments were bad for the complexion and the best way to deal with relatives, she had found out by long experience, was to sit quietly, say nothing, and treat herself to a good dinner afterwards.
The marmalade had proved invaluable. Mrs. Spenser had locked it up in the tall cupboard where she had formerly kept her summer clothes, doling out an occasional pot as if it were gold in substance as well as colour. She had bartered five pounds of it for eggs; it made such a difference both to