London Town by I. K. Watson

Author:I. K. Watson [Watson, Ian K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-84982
Publisher: M P Publishing Limited
Published: 2011-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

Nothing changed. Behind her battledress of patchwork netting and sandbags, gun emplacements and Ministry of Home Security posters, the city’s nakedness exposed a comforting familiarity, its great buildings and institutions a fortress. Tom Smith felt good to be back, excited even, but this affection was tinged with sadness as though his today was perfect, his tomorrow uncertain, for while he knew that nothing changed, he also knew that nothing would ever be the same.

The unchanging river moved heavily beneath him and he breathed in the memory of the docks, the spices and the fruits, the fish and the dank, musty smell of oil. The grey water reflected the galvanized sky; the barges, moored for the night, moved sluggishly, beating a tired time to the river’s heavy heart. The cranes and jibs, secured in their loop-holes, crazy patterns against the sky, strange silent statements of a commerce that went on; and the abandoned quays seemed somehow fragile, while the swelling tide lapped so slowly against the ancient stanchions.

He wanted the feeling to last, this heady mix of euphoria and apprehension; he wanted his city to wash over him and cleanse his darker thoughts. He’d made it! He was home!

A train clattered by into the station and a tram’s warning bells rang out. A convoy of military trucks overtook him and he gave a half-hearted wave to the drivers. The buff and green jigsaw slipped across the plate glass rectangles of the shop fronts, the windows themselves criss-crossed with brown tape. A policeman on a noisy motorcycle escorted them, his steel helmet and gasmask strapped to his back. The station, its entrances and the square beyond were packed with people, khaki and green and two shades of blue, kitbags and packs and suitcases, luggage piled high and ribbons on summer bonnets fluttering in the breeze. There was chatter, and laughter, and brave goodbyes, and loudspeaker messages, and a steam train screaming above it all. The city was swamped in squaddies wasting their time, faraway from home, suddenly free from the soul-destroying fatigues, the square-bashing, and the polishing of brasses. In this state of enforced suspension, their forty-eight hour passes tucked safely in their tunics, they drifted through the city in a state of uncertainty, wayfarers, displaced, trying to keep out of trouble but finding the endless regulations, both military and civilian, impossible to live with. It was a disorientating time with the front lines over there, somewhere, and the home front totally bemused. Tom moved across the crowded square past the fountains and the lions and the pigeons. He kept his gaze off Nelson, boarded up in any case, and the souvenir and seed sellers, and made his way past the sandbagged National. He wandered into the other square and on down to the Circus and recalled telling Maureen Devine that any couple that held hands in front of Eros would love each other forever. He smiled when he saw that the winged archer had flown. This was no time or place for the God of Love.

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