Doctor Who_ Just War - Lance Parkin [25]
On the way back, Benny didn’t encounter any patrols. At first this didn’t make her feel any safer, just paranoid that the Germans were saving themselves the effort and that they would be waiting for her at the boardinghouse. Finally, she decided that she ought to consider herself lucky, not worry too much about it. There was no sign of the Doctor anywhere. The Doras’ boardinghouse was right in the centre of St Peter Port. Security in the town was a lot tighter than in the country, but it tended to be in fixed positions: guardposts at road junctions, outside the town hall and by the post office.
With no organized resistance, and no real threat of invasion, there wasn’t any point wasting resources on stricter security.
She’d had three months of practice at sneaking to and from the Doras’, and there were good hiding places lining most of the approaches. She picked her way across the town without much effort, by sticking to the backstreets and alleyways.
Now, Benny stood with her back to the wall, two doors down from Ma Doras’ front garden.
It was time to become Celia again. She rummaged through her pocket, quickly finding the holowig filament. She brushed it hurriedly into place. There wasn’t any way of seeing herself, so she didn’t know whether it was working or not. She assumed that it was, but waited a moment, for luck, before stepping out. Benny approached the imposing front door of the boardinghouse with mixed feelings. She liked Ma Doras and Anne, but had said her goodbyes. She did not want to go back there, not now. Not back to a life dominated by rationing and randy young troops in the bathroom.
Perhaps the Doctor could take her to Guernsey after the war was over. It would be good to visit Ma and Anne in better times, to see Anne’s fiancé, and the children she hadn’t had yet, to see holiday-makers back in the guest rooms.
Ma Doras opened the door, a cigarette in her mouth.
‘What’s the matter, Bernice? Where’s the Doctor?’
‘You had better call me Celia.’
‘Celia, you need to get changed.’
Brushing past Ma Doras, Benny pulled herself upstairs, locked herself in the bathroom and peeled off her dress. The mud would wash out. In normal circumstances, her shoes would have been ruined, but this was wartime, and shoes were in short supply, so they’d be mended. She kicked them off. Then she caught a glance of herself in the mirror, covered in mud and scratches, with stupid 1941 blonde hair a mess, stupid 1941 make-up running down her cheeks, stupid 1941 underwear pushing and squeezing her in awkward places. The reflection didn’t look like her at all, it looked like some bimbo on the cover of a lurid true-crime novella. THIS
ISSUE: CELIA NOT HER REAL NAME) - HELPLESS
VICTIM OF NAZI TERROR. She had thought she was going to get away. She really thought that the Doctor would come along and whisk her away from all this oppression. It was never as straightforward as that, was it?
Anne was sitting on the big sofa in the front room, cradling a mug of tea, her head leaning against the antimacassar. She managed a smile as Benny sat alongside her. Benny had washed and changed, and she was feeling a little better.
‘Back so soon?’
‘The Doctor and I got split up. It’s not exactly the first time. He’ll come back and get me when he’s finished what he’s doing.’
‘Were you over at St Jaonnet? That’s where our Germans have gone.’
Benny had forgotten about Gerhard. He’d died — no, don’t deny it, she’d killed him — less than an hour ago, and already he’d slipped her mind. Perhaps now in Waiblingen, Gerhard’s lover or mother or sister was sitting in her front room waiting for news. Did any such woman exist? Bernice had lived with Gerhard for three months, but didn’t know anything about him. He must have a family, though. Across the world, women sat alone in houses and factories, anxious for letters, waiting for their men to come home, dreading the thought they might not. Of course, Anne was in the same situation, not knowing where her lover