BOMBS OVER LONDON
By mac2
- 387 reads
BOMBS OVER LONDON
Born in 1942, I am often asked if I remember the war. I have to close
my eyes and wait for long buried fragments of recall to form
disconnected patterns. I am strapped into a green painted wooden chair,
sometimes it is as high as the table, sometimes it is low on the floor
with a little table in front of me. It has small wheels and I can push
it about on the floor by paddling my feet. The room is light with big
windows. There is a rumbling noise, then silence, then a heavy thud.
The chair is low. I look up past the table top. I see dust in the air
outside the window. Another rumble, silence and then the windows
shatter and fall into the room like icy rain. The floor ripples like
water and the chair runs across the wavy floor. I can taste warm salt
in my mouth. My mother is kneeling beside me. Her knees are wet and red
on the pieces of window. Her fingers are in my mouth. She tells me to
open wide. I do. Her voice is calm, but her hands are shaking. She
takes sharp, pricking bits of glass out of my mouth. I taste salt and
she tells me to spit. I see blood on my chair, with shiny flecks in it.
She runs her fingers gently all around my baby teeth, over and under my
tongue. She tells me I can swallow now. I never knew before that blood
was salty as well as red. My tongue and my mouth are cut inside. I am
more interested in the taste than in what has happened to the windows,
because I am not able to understand why the floor was moving, or why
the walls shook. I am too young to be told it was a flying bomb that
hit the next door building. I am in my mother's arms, wrapped in a
blanket from my cot. The night sky is orange and red, like bonfires. I
can smell smoke and people are running, crying, shouting, holding on to
one another. Grown-ups are frightened, children are screaming. I am
afraid, because they are afraid. I can feel tears coming and my mother
must hear me sob. She hugs me very close. I can smell her flowery soap
and her hair. "There, there - there's nothing to be afraid of, my
darling, nothing at all!" There are big, big bangs shaking the world
and engines in the sky. "Listen! It's only the pretty boom-booms!" We
are underground, people are going to bed on the station where the
trains stop. I am very sleepy, my mother holds me safely, I have the
corner of the blanket in my grip, so I sleep. Later, when I am old
enough to walk beside my mother, we stand in the cold wind for a long
time. I am wearing a one-piece boiler suit my mother made for me out of
a camel coloured blanket. Sewn onto the collar is a hood which is
pulled over my head almost to the end of my nose. I can only see the
pavement and pairs of large feet. My hands are inside mittens which are
all part of my sleeves. My mother's gloved hand is holding my mittened
hand, which is wonderfully warm. We are queuing for broken biscuits.
When we get inside the shop, it smells of dried peas and dried potato
and tea, with just a little hint of cheese and bacon. A round man in a
not really white coat uses a scoop like a tin shovel and a big brown
bag for each person. Two scoops each and he twists the bag shut. I look
up at him, from under my hood. He takes a piece of paper and makes a
cone of it. He puts broken biscuit bits into the cone and reaches down
over the counter to tuck it into my pocket, which is like a kangaroo
pouch across my front. My face goes hot and I say thank you, but I feel
funny inside, because he doesn't give anyone else a cone of biscuit
bits. I look around. People are smiling at him and at me. There are no
other children there. I take many quick strides to keep up with my
mother on the way home. I enjoy the taste of bits of different
biscuits, because my mother tells me what they are - digestive, rich
tea, marie, bourbon, ginger nut, fig newton - strange names. Dark green
squares are cut carefully out of our ration books in shops. Dolly
mixture lasts longer than anything else from month to month. Some taste
pink, some taste yellow, some taste orange and some taste white, but
they are all very sweet, sickly sweet, so one at a time is enough.. Do
I remember the war? I suppose I do.
? LINDY MCNAUGHTON JORDAN, 2002 (817 words)
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