THE H-BOMB GIRL by Stephen Baxter (beach books txt) 📕

Germans. Once the war was over, the battered British tried to recover and rebuild, but the Americans wanted their money back. And Britain had to accept American bases all over the country. “We’re just a big aircraft carrier for the bally Yanks,” Dad would say sometimes. But it was his job to work with people like Mort.

“You’re always going on about the war,” Laura found herself saying.

They all turned to her.

Mort shrugged. “Well, it was kind of a big event for those of us who lived through it, missy.” He grinned around his ciggie.

Dad said more thoughtfully, “You’re growing up in an aftermath society, Laura. Physical, psychological. Everything around you is shaped by the war. I can understand you’d get a bit miffed with that, but—”

Her mother snapped, almost tearful, “Why are you always so difficult, Laura? I was younger than you when the war broke out. We all thought we were going to die. You children, the first to be born after the war, were precious. Can’t you see that?”

Laura stood up. “But there’s nothing I can do about it, is there? It was all over before I was born!”

Mum said, “Oh, sit down, you little fool.”

“I’m full, thanks. You just get on with talking about the dead and gone,” Laura said, and, though she knew she’d pay for this later, she walked out.

She got her stuff and left the house.

She was supposed to meet Bernadette at the coffee club, but not until later in the afternoon. She couldn’t call Bernadette. She didn’t have a number, and besides Bernadette didn’t look like she came from a house with a phone.

On the other hand she didn’t have anywhere else to go. So she walked, to save the bus fare, and to stretch out the time. The day was dull, the suburban streets were empty. It didn’t take her long to reach the coffee club, which turned out to be the cellar of a semi in an ordinary-looking road. It had a hand-painted sign with an arrow pointing downwards:

The place looked closed, the house empty. But Bernadette and Joel were here, sitting on a garden wall.

Bernadette was in what looked like her school uniform, save for her blazer, but with thick black mascara and lipstick on her face. She wore bright pink stilettos that looked a foot high, and her dirty blonde hair was heaped up in a spectacular beehive. Joel was wearing his red hat, a battered old suede jacket, and baggy corduroy trousers.

“Not open yet,” Bernadette said.

“I can see that,” Laura said.

“So what you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?”

“Nowhere else to go,” Joel said.

“I hate Sundays,” Bernadette said. She didn’t seem either glad or irritated to have Laura turn up. She looked at Laura shrewdly. “Have you got any money?”

Laura didn’t have much, but more than the others. They pooled what they had, and counted carefully through the coppers, sixpences and shillings.

“We could go to the flicks,” Bernadette said.

“Where?”

“How about the Abbey?”

“That’s Wavertree,” Joel said.

“We could get a bus.”

“Not enough money. Unless we bunk it. Anyway you’d wait for ever for a bus on a Sunday. It’s only a couple of miles. Let’s walk.”

So they set off, through Sunday afternoon streets. Smoke curled up from chimneys, and through open windows you could smell roast dinners. There were few people around. The odd dog-walker, boys playing football. Once a couple of little kids followed them down the road, staring at Joel. Joel just put up with it.

They saw a few knots of teenagers hanging around corners or bus stops or telephone boxes. There were places to go, church youth clubs where you could play table tennis or learn the quickstep. But there were no shops open, the pubs and coffee bars closed, nothing to do at home, nothing on the telly until the evening.

“I hate Sundays,” Bernadette said again.

The cinema was a big modern place called the Cinerama. They had a choice of Summer Holiday, a musical featuring Cliff Richard riding around in a double-decker bus, or Dr No, a movie about a new spy called James Bond. Laura voted for Cliff, but Bernadette made puking noises, and they chose the spy.

The cinema was packed. They didn’t have enough money for popcorn, so Bernadette swiped some Mars Bars and Milky Ways from the foyer. Laura ate hers guiltily.

The movie was about a debonair British spy taking on an evil half-Chinese warlord who was sabotaging American atomic missiles. It was colourful and fast-paced. At the end they all came spilling out, blinking in the still-bright afternoon.

“Well, that was dead good,” Bernadette said. She made some quick repairs to her lippy using her compact mirror. “That fella in his suit, the casino, the posh cars. I bet there were a few wet seats in that cinema by the end.”

Laura pulled a face. In fact she hadn’t liked Bond. She quite enjoyed spies, like Dick Barton on the radio, and The Saint on the telly. But something about Bond’s cruelty, he shot unarmed people dead without a qualm, reminded her of Mort.

“I did like the spy business,” she said.

“Like where that old biddy had a radio transmitter hidden behind her bookcase?”

“The simple stuff. Where he put talc on his briefcase to see if anybody messed with it. And stuck a hair across that cupboard door to see if it had been opened.”

Joel snorted. “Boy scout stuff. Didn’t you ever read The Secret Seven?”

Bernadette laughed. “Did you?”

He looked away.

Bernadette said, “You know, I hate the war with the Nazis. Everything the wrinklies moan about. Rationing and bombed-out houses. You kids today don’t know you’re born. But if James Bond is what the Third World War is going to be like, it’ll do. Radios and spies and satellites.”

Joel said, stern despite his limp and his huge red hat, “Nuclear war would not be like that.”

Bernadette laughed at him. “You saw the movie. They got contaminated by radiation and just showered it off!”

Joel shook his head. “That movie was a