"Connie Willis - Jack" - читать интересную книгу автора (Willis Connie)

Jack
Connie Willis
The night Jack joined our post, Vi was late. So was the Luftwaffe. The sirens still
hadn't gone by eight o'clock.
"Perhaps our Violet's tired of the RAF and begun on the aircraft spotters," Morris
said, "and they're so taken by her charms they've forgotten to wind the sirens."
"You'd best watch out then," Swales said, taking off his tin warden's hat. He'd
just come back from patrol. We made room for him at the linoleum-covered table,
moving our teacups and the litter of gas masks and pocket torches. Twickenham
shuffled his paper into one pile next to his typewriter and went on typing.
Swales sat down and poured himself a cup of tea. "She'll set her cap for the ARP
next," he said, reaching for the milk. Morris pushed it towards him. "And none of us
will be safe." He grinned at me. "Especially the young ones, Jack."
"I'm safe," I said. "I'm being called up soon. Twickenham's the one who should
be worrying."
Twickenham looked up from his typing at the sound of his name. "Worrying
about what?" he asked, his hands poised over the keyboard.
"Our Violet setting her cap for you," Swales said. "Girls always go for poets."
"I'm a journalist, not a poet. What about Renfrew?" He nodded his head towards
the cots in the other room.
"Renfrew!" Swales boomed, pushing his chair back and starting into the room.
"Shh," I said. "Don't wake him. He hasn't slept all week."
"You're right. It wouldn't be fair in his weakened condition." He sat back down.
"And Morris is married. What about your son, Morris? He's a pilot, isn't he?
Stationed in London?"
Morris shook his head. "Quincy's up at North Weald."
"Lucky, that," Swales said. "Looks as if that leaves you, Twickenham."
"Sorry," Twickenham said, typing. "She's not my type."
"She's not anyone's type, is she?" Swales said.
"The RAF's," Morris said, and we all fell silent, thinking of Vi and her bewildering
popularity with the RAF pilots in and around London. She had pale eyelashes and
colourless brown hair she put up in flat little pincurls while she was on duty, which
was against regulations, though Mrs Lucy didn't say anything to her about them. Vi
was dumpy and rather stupid, and yet she was out constantly with one pilot after
another, going to dances and parties.
"I still say she makes it all up," Swales said. "She buys all those things she says
they give her herself, all those oranges and chocolate. She buys them on the black
market."
"On a full-time's salary?" I said. We only made two pounds a week, and the
things she brought home to the post тАФ sweets and sherry and cigarettes тАФ couldn't
be bought on that. Vi shared them round freely, though liquor and cigarettes were
against regulations as well. Mrs Lucy didn't say anything about them either.
She never reprimanded her wardens about anything, except being malicious about
Vi, and we never gossiped in her presence. I wondered where she was. I hadn't seen
her since I came in.
"Where's Mrs Lucy?" I asked. "She's not late as well, is she?"
Morris nodded towards the pantry door. "She's in her office. Olmwood's
replacement is here. She's filling him in."
Olmwood had been our best part-timer, a huge out-of-work collier who could lift
a house beam by himself, which was why Nelson, using his authority as district