Fireweed by Jill Paton Walsh

went out through the shattered hallway, I saw the smoke from our fire, coming out of the first floor fireplace on the side wall, and drifting upwards. I wondered if it showed from the square enough to give us away. I crossed the square and looked back. But the smoke was so spread out by the time it rose above the façade of the house, that I thought one would only see it if one knew it was there, especially in the soft hazy weather of autumn. All the houses on our side of the square were gutted, and abandoned. We didn’t have any neighbours. I was glad of that; I thought we had better try not to be seen.
    It was a horrible day. A cutting north wind was blowing, and the stall keepers stamped their feet, and whistled into their upturned collars to keep warm. Money was short too, because nobody was shopping who didn’t have to. I had a bit of trouble finding work, but Big Ben and Little Bert took me on for a couple of hours, mainly out of kindness, I think,
    â€˜How’s the girlfriend?’ asked Little Bert.
    â€˜Who? Oh, she’s all right, thank you.’
    â€˜Bit of all right. Wouldn’t mind myself, if I weren’t too old for her,’ said Little Bert, winking at me.
    When my couple of hours with them were up, I went off looking for something else. The stalls were no good; they weren’t taking enough money to be ready to payout any. But in a side street I found a frail old boy trying to put bits of furniture from a bombed-out house onto a handcart, standing in the gutter.
    â€˜A bob to do it for you, Guv,’ I said. He looked at me thoughtfully, and sniffed. Then he painfully reached into his pocket, and brought out a handful of change, and turned it over, and muttered to himself, counting it. At last he said, ‘Done.’ By that time I felt a real swine for taking anything, and so when he got his things loaded up, I trundled the handcart round into the next street for him, and helped him unload it into a neighbour’s garden shed.
    By this time I was famished, as well as cold, and I bought myself a twopenny-worth of chips from the fish and chip shop, just chips, to save money. After that I found a cold-looking newspaper vendor at the entrance to an Underground station, and I offered to mind his stall while he went off to lunch. It was a pretty late sort of lunch, but he said he’d be glad of it.
    Newspapers were selling all right; the war was good for that sort of trade. There was an air-raid warning while I stood there, but people didn’t take much notice of it. And when he came back it was nearly four o’clock, and I thought I’d call it a day.
    I was dead tired when I scrambled down the stairs to our den, and opened the door to the front room. And after all this time I can still see in my mind’s eye what I saw then when I opened the door, and remember the astonished pleasure it gave me. A fire was burning brightly in the grate, and the paraffin lamp hung from a hook in the ceiling. Everything was clean and neat. The table from the other room had been pulled through, and put in one corner, and spread with a green-and-white cloth. There were plates, and knives, and forks set out there, and a loaf of bread. Beside the fire, on the tiles inside the fender, stood a little primus stove, with a pan simmering on it. The warmth of the room reached out and embraced me, laced with a slight smell of methylated spirit from the stove.
    Julie looked up from a book, and smiled as I came in. ‘Hullo, Bill,’ she said. ‘I’ll just put some more coal on the fire, and then I’ll serve up your tea.’ I don’t think in my whole life till then I remember being made to feel welcome, coming home.
    The coal scuttle was full, and she piled a generous shovelful onto the flames. Then she picked up that pan, and brought it to the table, and took off the lid. A delicious meaty smell filled the room. She poured out thick ladlefuls of stew, and set the