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Eugene, then fades away just as quickly. I wish I hadn’t eaten the Battenberg cake: the sweetness of the marzipan is making me feel slightly sick. “Sometimes she asks for him,” I tell her, “as though he’s still at home.”
    â€œPoor Vivienne. Your mother-in-law was never exactly the easiest of people,” says Gwen carefully. “You’ve certainly got your hands full.”

Chapter 9
    W E SAY GOOD-BYE . Gwen leaves, and I go to the ladies’. I wash the marzipan from my hands, push my brush through my hair, take out my compact to powder my face. My hands have a clean, astringent smell from Mrs. du Barry’s carbolic soap. Then I go back to the table to pick up my cardigan that I left there.
    All the china on the tables begins to rattle violently. There’s a roaring from outside. At first, I can’t work out what it can be, then I think it must be a plane—yet the sound is too sudden, too loud, too near, for a plane. Fear surges through me: if this is a plane, it will crash on the town. Everyone rushes to the window. The air seems to thin, so it’s hard to breathe.
    â€œNo no no no,” says Mrs. du Barry. She’s standing close to me; she clutches my arm.
    We see the three planes that are flying over us, swooping down over the harbor. We see the bombs falling, catching the sun as they fall. They seem to come down so slowly. And then the crump of the impact, the looming dust, the flame—everything breaking, broken, fires leaping up, loose tires and oil drums flung high in the air by the blast. I hear the ferocious rattle of guns. I think, stupidly, that at least there are soldiers here after all, the soldiers haven’t left us. Then I realize that the guns I hear are German guns, in the planes. They’re machine-gunning the men, the lorries. There’s a ripping sound, a flare of fire, as a petrol tank explodes. The men on the pier are scattered, running, crumpling like straw men, thrown down.
    Fear floods me. My whole body is trembling. I think of my children. Will the planes fly all over the island, will they bomb my children? And Gwen—where is Gwen? How much time did she have? Could Gwen have gotten away?
    I stand there, shaking. Someone drags me under a table. We are all under the tables now—the elderly couple, Mrs. du Barry, the mother clutching her child. Someone is saying Oh God oh God oh God . There’s a shattering sound as the window blows in, shards of glass all around us in a dangerous, glittering shower. Somebody screams—it might be me, I don’t know. We crouch there, wait for the end, for the bomb that will surely land on us.
    Suddenly, amid the clamor, the air raid siren goes off.
    â€œAbout time,” mutters Mrs. du Barry beside me. “About bloody time.” I hear the sob in her voice. Her fingers dig into my arm.
    The elderly woman is gasping now, as though she has no breath, her husband holding her helplessly, like someone holding on to water, as though she might slip from his grasp. The young mother presses her baby tight to her chest. The sounds from the harbor assault us, the boom and crash of falling bombs, the growl and scream of plane engines, the terrible rattle of guns. More windows shatter around us. It goes on and on, it seems to last forever, an eternity of noise and splintering glass and fear.
    And then at last the sound of the planes seems to fade, receding from us. I find that I am counting, like you do in a storm, waiting for the thunderclap—expecting them to circle back, more bombs to fall. But there’s nothing.
    A silence spreads around us. The tiniest sound is suddenly loud. I hear a splash of tea that spills from a table onto the floor: there’s nothing but the drip drip of tea and the pounding of blood in my ears. Within the silence, the baby starts wailing, as though this sudden stillness appalls him more than the noise.
    I look down, see that a piece of