As Little As Nothing by Pamela Mulloy

Author:Pamela Mulloy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ECW Press
Published: 2022-10-11T00:00:00+00:00

13 January 1939

Sabotage

“The Wilkes’s boy was knocked off his bicycle by John Fisher driving his motor car during one of the blackout trials,” Edmund said, while still on his hands and knees before the wireless. “‘Black as tar, the night,’ the driver said. No moon, the road barely visible. I don’t know how the ministry expects drivers to see with no lights. There was the Wilkes’s boy right in his path.” He sat back on his heels. “Nothing seems to be working as it should.”

They’d become attached to their wireless, a Marconiphone, newly purchased, and a way of staying connected now that the national network had been established. Their nightly ritual, listening to the 6:00 p.m. news. They tried to glean something that would tell them whether war would soon be with them.

But Edmund was having a steady battle with the new wireless, erratic interruptions, crackling, whooping interference, and these he took to be another sort of war, one of sabotage, the Germans infiltrating communications, which to his mind, was as bad as dropping bombs. He kneeled before the wireless as if at an altar and fiddled with the knobs while Miriam sat in her chair, gazing out the window.

“How is he? The boy?”

“He lived, but a broken leg has made him near useless on the farm now. No charges laid, but this blasted war that’s still hovering’s been put to blame.”

The war wasn’t to blame for everything, Miriam wanted to say. She rubbed her hand up and down the upholstery of her chair, her agitation mounting as the whir and crackle of the wireless rose and fell, thinking of progress and its aftermath. People knocked off bikes, wireless radios that hissed, wars that failed to materialize.

War had become a ghost to them, as chilling as a spectre and just as elusive.

It was the lack of bananas that frightened Miriam for some reason. They hadn’t gone yet, but soon would be. That’s what Mr Staines, the greengrocer, had told her. “Sure as not,” he’d said. It was the government, he’d said, they were pulling back, keeping reserves.

“I’ve got it, here it is.” Edmund lifted his hands from the knob and the voice of the newsreader pulsed through the wireless.

“Prioritizing,” is what Mr Staines, had told her, cocking his head as if to suggest something ominous. Earlier that day she’d been to the market after her flight with Frank and had noticed the reduced stock. They’d seen the effect in the shop, but now the weekly market was diminishing, too. Like a thief who pilfered in increments, the war that was not was stealing bits of their lives. Mildred had complained about the lack of cherries when Miriam had seen her at the village fête a few months back. For them the shortages were the most significant sign that the world was turning on an altered axis.

Edmund finally settled back in his chair, confident the wireless would deliver the evening news, while Miriam continued to work the arm of her chair,

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