The Heat of the Day
Elizabeth Bowen
Language: English
Pages: 372
ISBN: 0385721285
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
In The Heat of the Day, Elizabeth Bowen brilliantly recreates the tense and dangerous atmosphere of London during the bombing raids of World War II.
Many people have fled the city, and those who stayed behind find themselves thrown together in an odd intimacy born of crisis. Stella Rodney is one of those who chose to stay. But for her, the sense of impending catastrophe becomes acutely personal when she discovers that her lover, Robert, is suspected of selling secrets to the enemy, and that the man who is following him wants Stella herself as the price of his silence. Caught between these two men, not sure whom to believe, Stella finds her world crumbling as she learns how little we can truly know of those around us.
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‘But you expected me.’ ‘I was waiting for you somehow to get in touch with me, to say where else to meet. We could have met somewhere else.’ ‘If I am tailed, what matter where I go? Somewhere else – where else? Some street corner?’ ‘We could have talked.’ ‘Yes, we could have talked. But what do you suppose I thought in my mother’s house? – that I’d never be in your arms again. What do you suppose I had to make sure of? That. That, then to tell you. Because yes, that too I saw, in my mother’s.
Not so far offer any solution. ‘How would it be if we simply went to the café and sat down quietly? It isn’t exactly time for tea yet, but we’ve been there so often that I don’t suppose they’d mind us just sitting down, especially as I imagine almost nobody else will be waiting to sit there till it is tea-time.’ ‘No, let’s walk first,’ she said. She guided Roderick’s look in the direction of the asphalt field-path she had seen in her mind’s eye while she was still with Robert. ‘Let’s walk that.
When it did, she came to the door, though promptly, with the air of one who had already decided this must be a mistake. She wore an overcoat and was carrying a cat. They stared at one another. She exclaimed: ‘Where have you been?’ The cat gave a start and tried to run up her shoulder. ‘I hope this is not an awkward hour to drop in?’ ‘Why, no,’ she said, civilly if uncertainly, ‘I wasn’t doing anything particular – reading, listening to the guns. Come in.’ She went ahead of him through another.
Should be surprised enough if I ever got a stripe – Fred, you know, got his a month ago. I see how you feel; I am very, very sorry I’m not more like your brothers. Mother, but there it is. I’ll really try and exert myself if you’d rather, but I don’t think the Army’s quite what it was in your day – everything now depends on so much else. I must say, I should like to be known as “the Captain” when I settle at Mount Morris; but I suppose quite a lot of water will have to flow under the bridge.
More preposterous from his point of view, expecting to be liked for their own sakes . . . Since she felt, or believed she felt, that Roderick ought to change, how foolish to dread lest the Army change him! ‘Well, it’s your leave, darling,’ she said. ‘Do as you like.’ Roderick was loath to remind his mother that she had so far done nothing about the blankets – however, nature spoke for him: he sneezed twice. At this she started up. He unfolded his arms in order to delve about, underneath himself.