Not After Midnight by du Maurier Daphne

Author:du Maurier, Daphne [du Maurier, Daphne]
Format: epub
Tags: Short Stories
Published: 2009-09-27T23:00:00+00:00

She was travelling by sleeper back to boarding-school in the north of England. Her father was waving goodbye to her from the platform. 'Don't go,' she called out, 'don't ever leave me.' The sleeper dissolved, became a dressing-room in a theatre, and she was standing before the looking-glass dressed as Cesario in Twelfth Night. Sleeper and dressing-room exploded ...

She sat up, bumped her head on the rack of loaves. Nick was no longer with her. The van was stationary. Something had awakened her, though, from total blackout--they must have burst a tyre. She could see nothing in the darkness of the van, not even the face of her watch. Time did not exist. It's body chemistry, she told herself, that's what does it. People's skins. They either blend or they don't. They either merge and melt into the same texture, dissolve and become renewed, or nothing happens, like faulty plugs, blown fuses, switchboard jams. When the thing goes right, as it has for me tonight, then it's arrows splintering the sky, it's forest fires, it's Agincourt. I shall live till I'm ninety-five, marry some nice man, have fifteen children, win stage awards and Oscars, but never again will the world break into fragments, burn before my eyes. I've bloody had it....

The van door opened and a rush of cold air blew in upon her. The boy with the mop of hair was grinning at her.

'The Commander says if you're fond of fireworks come and take a look. It's a lovely sight.'

She stumbled out of the van after him, rubbing her eyes. They had parked beside a ditch, and beyond the ditch was a field, a river surely running through it, but the foreground was dark. She could distinguish little except what seemed to be farm buildings around a bend in the road. The sky in the distance had an orange glow as if the sun, instead of setting hours ago, had risen in the north, putting all time to odds, while tongues of flame shot upwards, merging with pillars of black smoke. Nick was standing by the driver's seat, the driver himself alongside, both of them staring at the sky. A muffled voice was speaking from a radio fixed near to the dashboard.

'What is it?' she asked. 'What's happening'?'

The driver, a middle-aged man with a furrowed face, turned to her, smiling.

'It's Armagh burning, or the best part of it. But there'll be no damage done to the cathedral. St Patrick's will stand when the rest of the town is black.'

The young man with the mop of hair had bent his ear to the radio. He straightened himself, touched Nick on the arm.

'First explosion has gone off at Omagh, sir,' he said. 'We should have the report on Strabane in three minutes' time. Enniskillen in five.'

'Fair enough,' replied Nick. 'Let's go.'

He bundled Shelagh back into the van and climbed in beside her. The van sprang into action, did a U-turn, and sped along the road once more.

'I might have known it,' she said.

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