The Dynamite Room Page 27
She didn’t move. She shook her head again.
“I can’t.”
“Please. Please, Lydia. That’s an order, God damn it. Just do it.” He released the safety lock.
She nodded. Then she turned her back on him, knowing in that moment that the shot would fire. And it did—the sudden concussion of a blast and a thrumming in her ears as if the world had been sucked from around her. She turned and shouted. He slumped slowly onto his side. A rush of sound flooded back, a deluge of voices—Lydia! Lydia!—banging and yelling from beneath the hatch. His body found an awkward resting place among her mother’s fur coats, his eyes bright and wide and blue in the sunlight, empty but still fixed on her. His name was there on her lips but she couldn’t say it; and then the room tipped her from it and she slipped into darkness.
The day is beautiful: fresh and sunny. After the rain everything looks invigorated, somehow brought back to life. She sits in Alfie’s room looking down onto the garden. Butterflies flutter about the buddleia. The air is filled with the scent of damp grass and the smell of sun-dried corn washes in from across the fields.
She imagines her father walking out into the snow-bound forests of Norway, stepping through the snow and not once looking back. He would disappear into the trees and snow would fall from the branches, covering his tracks. She never thinks of him dying out there, just slowly, peacefully fading away until there is nothing left of him but mist. Perhaps that way, one day, he would be found. They would stand on the railway platform and, just as she had envisaged him vanishing into the fog of Norway, so, on his return, would he reappear out of the smoke and steam of a train engine as if from nothing more than a conjuror’s trick.
In truth though her father would never return to her. But Alfie often did. She felt him with her sometimes, as if he was holding her safe in his smile. She’d found a tiny white feather that morning blowing down the hallway.
She hears a car pulling up outside and her mother going out to meet it.
“Come on, then!” her mother shouts. “The car’s here! Let’s go!”
Someone from the army was driving them to Wickham Market, where a friend of Bea’s was putting them up.
She takes a matchbox from her pocket and slowly pushes it open. Inside lies the matchstick man with his charred and blackened head. She rests him against the window; a memento that she has been there, or a sign if her father comes back while they are gone, even in his spirit—that he should wait for them. She puts the dog tags Heiden had given her into the box, counting them in one by one. She’ll have to hand them to someone official, but not yet.
In time, of course, there would be school again, games, squabbling, laughter. They’d get new chickens, grow new vegetables, perhaps get another rabbit from Heathcote Farm, just like Jeremiah. They would open up Shingle Street and she would walk along it, remembering the line of shells leading down to the shore and the house filled with pebbles, Alfie standing on the slope watching out for boats on the horizon or maybe the back of a submarine surfacing like a whale. Her mother would tell her to pull her socks up, or do up the buckles on her sandals. There would be a normality of sorts, order restored; the days would come and go. She would think about the man called Heiden less and less until he became nothing but a story that was told, if not by her then someone else: the day the German came.
Across the lawn, she spots something she’s never seen in the garden before: a white parakeet. It sits on the branch of a tree preening itself, and only when the car engine starts and her mother calls—Lydia, we’re waiting—does it open its wings and lift up into the sky.
She gets up off the bed and, taking a final glance around the room—at the wooden soldier, the cricket bat and ball, the butterflies trapped in their frame—she leaves and quietly closes Alfie’s door behind her. Her hand guides her down the banisters as she makes her way down the stairs, the matchbox held safe in her other hand. The house is dark but peaceful; a cool breeze passing through it, its breath blowing around her ankles. Through the door she sees Button looking back through the car window for her and her mother standing by the open door. She stops for a moment in the doorway to watch the bird passing overhead, and the afternoon is warm and bright as Lydia steps out into the sun.
Acknowledgments
I’d like to take the opportunity to acknowledge a few people without whom you would not be reading this and who have given me invaluable help, advice, and support in the production of this book and my journey to this point.
Firstly, I would like to thank my editor, Sarah Murphy, for her boundless enthusiasm and, in particular, for taking such a big gamble on such a little me. Also, the rest of the team at Little, Brown, who have welcomed me into their publishing family, as well as Catherine Cooker, my copyeditor, for her eagle eyes and for teaching me the difference between “fringe” and “bangs,” and everyone else involved in the production of this book (in particular Ben Allen for guiding the book so painlessly through to publication, and Lauren Harms for the fabulous cover design). I’d also like to thank everyone at Simon & Schuster UK—most importantly my UK editor, Jessica Leeke—and my US and UK agents, PJ Mark and Will Francis, both at Janklow & Nesbit. Terry Chapman, author and senior historian at the Imperial War Museum, London, and Adam Dighton at the University of Salford for hunting out my factual blunders and setting me straight on a few things! Also Sophie Hardach for generously reading it through with her enthusiastic German eye. Thanks also to the staff of the British Library and the Imperial War Museum for providing access to unpublished documents and countless fascinating books. My dedicated Bath Spa alumni workshop group—Sam, Jenni, Karen, Becky, Pam, and Anthea—need special mention for never ceasing to push me, and whose advice, support, encouragement, and valuable criticism helped shape the story into what it has become. The end result? Not only a better novel than I ever could have produced without them, but also a tougher skin. Thanks also to the staff at Bath Spa University for their prior guidance whilst I studied for my master’s there. The most special and heartfelt thanks, of course, go to my parents for their unwavering love, belief, and patience, and for never doubting me, even when I doubted myself. My brother, Jonathan, too, and sister-in-law, Helen, for their endless support and enthusiasm, for being my get-out-of-London retreat, and for giving me the two most adorable nephews a writer could want, William and Henry, who bring me joy every minute I see them and keep my feet firmly on the ground. Finally, to everyone else—friends and family too many to mention—who have supported, loved, enthused, challenged, and occasionally propped me up over the years. Thank you.
I should also like to take this opportunity to point out that whilst some of the minor characters who appear in this book are based on historical figures, and many of the locations described exist, it is important to stress that the story is a fiction and that the portraits of the characters that appear in it are fictional, as are some of the events and places, including the village of Willemsley. Any factual inconsistences are my own, but some may be deliberate wanderings from the truth put into play for the benefit of the story.
About the Author
Jason Hewitt was born in Oxford and lives in London. He has a bachelor of arts degree in history and English from the University of Winchester and a master of arts with distinction in creative writing from Bath Spa University. Between his degrees he spent a number of years working in a bookshop in Oxford before moving into the publishing industry, where he worked primarily as a marketing manager for a number of professional and academic publishers. He is also a playwright and actor. The Dynamite Room is his first novel.
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&nbs
p; Contents
Cover
Welcome
Title Page
Dedication
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Newsletters
Copyright
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2014 by Jason Hewitt
Author photograph by Sam Conway
Cover design by Lauren Harms
Cover art copyright © Getty Images / Hulton Archive
Cover copyright © 2015 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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First North American ebook edition: March 2015
Originally published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd: March 2014
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