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

joke. You can’t shower off radiation. Nuclear war would be hell.”

Laura asked, interested, “How do you know?”

Bernadette grabbed the lapel of Joel’s battered suede jacket and turned it over. He was wearing a badge with a symbol, a circle with an upside-down Y inside. “See that?” she said, sneering. “CND.”

“What’s that?”

“The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament,” Joel said.

“Posh students and Labour MPs, all jazz and science fiction, marching about in London,” Bernadette mocked. “Ban the bomb!”

“It’s more than that,” Joel said quietly. “People just don’t know. They’re stupid, like you, Bernadette.”

Laura asked, “Don’t know what?”

“About what would happen if war came. People aren’t told. That’s what CND are campaigning for, for people to be told. And to get rid of the bomb.”

“Tell that to Uncle Joe Stalin,” Bernadette said cheerfully.

“Stalin is dead,” Laura said. “There’s a man called Khrushchev now, in charge of Russia.” Crooss-chov.

“You’d know, wouldn’t you?” Joel said.

“What do you mean by that?”

“That Key you wear around your neck. I looked it up.”

“Where?”

“CND has found out a lot of stuff. We’re like plane-spotters.” He leaned close, his big red hat ridiculous on his head. “I was right. The Key does come from a Vulcan. A V-bomber, a nuclear plane. It’s an enabler that a pilot would use. A bit like an ignition key on a car. With that Key, if you knew what you were doing, and you knew the right codes and such, you could start up a V-bomber, and fly off and bomb Moscow.”

Wow, Laura thought. No wonder she would be arrested if anybody knew she had it.

Joel stared at her. “You didn’t know all that, did you?”

Bernadette turned to Laura. “Good stuff, Posh Judy,” she said respectfully.

Laura blurted, “My dad gave it to me. Bern—just don’t tell anybody.”

Bernadette studied her. She seemed to be making a decision. She could make Laura a friend, or use her secret as a way to impress others. “OK,” she said at last.

“Bus!” Joel yelled.

They were a hundred yards short of the stop. Bernadette and Laura got there in time, panting, laughing, and then held the bus while Joel limped up.

Chapter 5

By the time they got back to the Jive-O-Rama it was after five and the Sunday afternoon daylight was going.

There were a couple of scooters parked outside the club, perky, bright machines. Joel lusted after these. “That one’s a Lambretta GT200. And that is a Vespa GS160. Very, very cool…”

The house itself looked as dead as ever, but the garage door was open, to reveal steps down to the cellar. Lurid pink light glowed, and music thumped out, a fast, heavy beat.

Led by Bernadette, the three of them clattered down the stairs. At the foot of the staircase a little boy sat behind a table, with a roll of tickets and a plastic cup full of change. He looked Chinese. He was only five or six. He held his hand out. “Shillin’.”

Bernadette handed over the money. “Here, Little Jimmy, you money-grubber.”

Joel scratched Little Jimmy’s scalp. “Some doorman you are. Mucky as a dustbin lid. What will you do if a bunch of Teds turn up looking for a ruck?”

“Bash them.” He showed white teeth, grinning, and waved tiny fists.

They passed the kid, and walked into a packed cellar full of music and glaring light.

“It’s chocker,” Bernadette said. “Stay close.” She led the way, squeezing through the crowd towards the counter.

The decor was bright-red plastic and rubber plants. In one corner a huge gleaming jukebox blared out a fast track. There were probably only fifty people down here, Laura thought. But this “club” was only a cellar, made to look bigger by the bright coloured spotlights on the ceiling, and cheap mirrors screwed to the walls. The air was a fog of sweat and perfume and cheap aftershave, all laced with the stale tang of ciggies.

Laura had never been in a crowd like this. The boys’ clothes ranged from jazzed-up school uniforms to fancy Ted or Mod outfits. The girls wore beehive hairdos, slacks or skirts, with black mascara and bright lipstick. There were a few beatnik types, in black polo-neck sweaters and thick Buddy Holly glasses. Some of them were dancing in the tiny space by the jukebox, but most were sitting around Formica-covered tables, nursing half-drunk coffees. It was impossible to tell how old anybody was. They all talked loudly, in bright, brittle Scouse accents.

The jukebox music was exciting, with a pulsing guitar riff and a hammering drumbeat. Laura had never heard anything like it before.

Behind the counter a cheerful Chinese man was working chrome machines that dispensed espresso coffees and milkshakes. He was helped by a thin, depressed-looking woman.

Bernadette shouted at the woman. “Oi, tatty head!”

She turned, her face a slab. “Yeah?”

“One espresso,” Bernadette called, above the racket. “Italian style.”

“There’s three of you,” the waitress pointed out.

“We haven’t got enough money.”

“Not my problem.”

“Give us three straws. Italian style.”

The others laughed.

The waitress just gazed back, dully. She wore a hand-lettered name tag: AGATHA. She was a sallow, skinny woman of about forty, but with an oval face that might once have been pretty, and pale-blue eyes, and thin hair pulled back. She looked bored, resentful.

But when she saw Laura, her eyes widened. As if she recognised her.

Laura looked away, confused.

The Chinese man came over. His tag read BIG JIMMY. “Oh, it’s you,” he said cheerfully. “Saint Bernadette. I wish you’d shove off back to Lourdes and stop causing me trouble.” His accent was pure Scouse, not a trace of the Chinese Laura had expected.

Agatha said, “She wants one espresso and three straws.”

“Oh, give her what she wants.” He wandered off to tend to his shining machines.

Agatha just shrugged and went to get the drink.

Laura, disturbed by the interest Agatha had shown in her, watched her go. And she saw that Agatha had a thick book, bound in brown leather, jammed into the pocket of her grimy apron. The end of the spine was ripped, and the gold page ends looked scorched.

For all the world it looked like