Strangers in Time

Two boys, Lonzo Rossi and Eddie Gray, told Charlie there was money at St. Savior’s that he could access with a lockpick. Since breaking out of a cruel orphanage, Lonzo and Eddie have lived on the streets together. Charlie plans to steal the money and return home before his gran wakes to go to work. Charlie secretly dropped out of school a year ago, and Gran doesn’t know about his illicit activities.

He arrives at St. Savior’s and, to his surprise, the door has two locks. He uses his homemade lockpick but can only open one of the locks, and he realizes the boys lied to him. Charlie considers stealing some boots closer to home, in the East End, but he has a rule against taking from the needy. Charlie starts to run home when a sliver of light in a dark alleyway catches his eye.

Charlie draws closer to the light, which emanates from a store, The Book Keep. Charlie peers through the window and sees two men, one tall and one short. The short man hands a packet of papers to the tall man, whom Charlie assumes is the proprietor listed on the sign, Ignatius Oliver. 

Charlie hides as the short man leaves the store and watches Ignatius write in a ledger and fiddle with a cylindrical tool before going into the back of the store. Charlie enters the store and hides behind a stack of books when the doorbell jingles. Ignatius comes to the front again to ensure the stack of papers is still safe before he locks the door and returns to the back. 

Charlie races to the counter and takes biscuits, a book, and the money from the till. He examines the cylindrical tool, which has rows of rotating letters on it. As he runs out the door, Charlie turns back to see Ignatius staring in shock.

Charlie rides on the end of a bus to Bethnal Green, where he sneaks back into his and Gran’s flat. He creeps into his small cupboard of a room and slips into bed. The quarters are cramped, but Charlie is grateful to have a space of his own. Gran once described the workhouses where some families go when they become too impoverished, and the living conditions sound so wretched that Charlie promised himself he’d never enter a workhouse. 

He eats his stolen biscuits and inspects his spoils: £42 and a blank journal. Charlie hears the buzz of a neighbor’s radio, which he sometimes listens to through the walls. A boat horn outside reminds Charlie of the East End’s devastation, since German bombers could easily spot the neighborhood from the sky. A train whistle stirs Charlie’s imagination, and he wonders whether he’ll ever leave London.

Charlie recalls Black Saturday, the first day of German bombing in London, in September 1940. Radar stations saw German planes in northern France, and an hour later, the fleet dropped bombs in England. When the air raid sirens sounded, Charlie and his family huddled together with gas masks on. 

Over 900 German planes flew over the city and dropped bombs in the East End on critical docks and warehouses. Charlie heard the bombs wail as they fell and felt the vibrations when they hit. Hundreds of people died, and thousands were seriously injured. The destruction was so extreme that firefighters pumped water straight from the river to keep up with the fires.

Charlie hears Gran shuffle around as she gets ready for work. She laments her age, Charlie’s late family, and the cupboard that is growing too small for the boy. Charlie looks forward to when he turns 14 and can legally start work, but Gran wants him to keep getting an education. He thinks about enlisting in the army, which frightens her, and she changes the subject, telling Charlie what food there is for breakfast and lunch. Their new ration books arrived, so they’ll have more options for food. 

Gran criticizes the wealthy Londoners who don’t have to ration like everyone else, and who have glamorous bomb shelters at hotels. She wishes she had a garden, and she reminisces about the food stalls in the city before the war. She gives Charlie another kiss and leaves for work at a bakery.

Charlie feels bad about lying to Gran. She educated herself despite her poor upbringing, though she couldn’t become a nurse due to class prejudice. She helped Charlie with his own education, like softening his Cockney accent. Charlie considers what he’ll buy with the stolen money as he eats both his breakfast and lunch, and he looks around Gran’s room. She has a mattress on the floor, an old vanity that cracked during a bombing—much to her dismay—and windows covered with tar.

An old photo stirs up memories of Charlie’s father and their time together after his long workdays at the docks. Charlie’s father died in Dunkirk, and his mother died more recently. After her death, Charlie lived with his grandparents, but his grandfather died soon after in a crowd crush at a bomb shelter. Charlie worries about what will happen to him when Gran dies, but he pushes the morbid thoughts out of his mind. He dresses and exits the flat. To his surprise, he sees Ignatius looking up at his building.

Charlie stands motionless, wondering how Ignatius found him. He takes up a spot in the hallway where he can watch his door and sees Ignatius stop in front of his flat. Ignatius knocks, and when no one answers, he pins something to the door and leaves. 

Charlie inspects what the man left: the name-and-address tag from his coat that must’ve fallen off in the bookstore, which identifies him as “The Honorable Charles Elias Matters” (35). He doesn’t see himself as honorable, and he now feels especially guilty about the stolen money.

Charlie follows Ignatius through the city. He passes the ruins of a café and library he once visited with his mother. A bus with a Doctor Carrot ad passes by, promoting the consumption of carrots. Gran hates the adverts because they show how the Ministry of Food mishandled the food supply. 

Charlie watches Ignatius enter a strange building and exit with a stack of papers. Through the door, he sees the same short man from the previous night. Charlie takes a shortcut to Covent Garden and meets the proprietress of The Book Keep’s neighboring shop, Desdemona Macklin. He pretends to be job hunting and asks Desdemona about Ignatius, who is also an air raid warden. Desdemona is skeptical about Charlie, but they share sympathies over the bombings. Ignatius soon appears in the alleyway, and Charlie runs away.

Ignatius greets Desdemona and explains that his late-night visitor was a collector. Charlie waits until Desdemona returns to her shop before approaching the bookstore’s window. He watches Ignatius go to the back, then he enters and silences the bell. Charlie sees a photo of a woman wrapped in funeral crepe, and he notices Ignatius’s worn coat and hat. Feeling guilty, he places the money and blank journal on the counter. 

Ignatius suddenly returns and asks Charlie why he returned the money. Charlie evades the question and asks about the shop. Ignatius tells him that it was owned by his late wife Imogen, who believed books could help people through bad times. Charlie lies that he found the money on the street. He asks about the journal and the cylindrical tool, which is a cryptography device.

Ignatius gifts Charlie the journal and tells him to write his thoughts in it, like Imogen used to. Charlie asks about the short man, and Ignatius claims he was a friend dropping off a manuscript. Charlie tells Ignatius he’s not honorable, like his clothing tag implied, and leaves the store.

Fifteen-year-old Molly Wakefield returns to London after spending years in the countryside, like thousands of other children who were evacuated at the start of the war. She can’t find a cab, so she walks home, trying to recognize landmarks in the city’s rubble. 

Molly heard of the London bombings on the radio, but she never imagined how bad they were. Her family gave the Coopers a small allowance for keeping her in the country, and they continued her rigorous education. Mrs. and Mr. Cooper let Molly use their large library, and when Eleanor Cooper needed help treating wounded soldiers in Leiston, she recruited Molly. Molly started with simple housekeeping duties, but Eleanor soon trained Molly in nursing so she could treat the soldiers. The soldiers’ injuries frightened Molly, but she was pleased with her work and now dreams of becoming a doctor.

As Molly hails a cab, she sees a ransacked Italian café. The cab driver ensures Molly can pay the fare before letting her in the cab. Molly tells the driver where she’s been, and she asks about his medals. The driver fought in the war but was injured by an exploding mortar round. 

Molly didn’t experience any bombings in the countryside, but her father recently stopped paying her allowance. The Coopers offered to keep Molly regardless, but Molly wanted to see her family. She worries about what she’ll find at home, since no one replied to her homecoming letter.

Molly reads the last letter her mother sent, nearly five years ago. In the letter, her mother laments having to send her away and desperately longs for their reunion. After that, Molly occasionally received letters from her father but no more from her mother. Even when Molly called home, her mother was always unavailable. 

Molly looks at her mother’s picture in a locket and wonders how she’ll look after all these years. The driver pulls up in front of Molly’s house in the rich Chelsea neighborhood and carries her bag to the door. Molly notices the property’s disrepair and sees a strange man watching the house.

Molly knocks on the door, and her old nanny, Mrs. Pride, answers tearfully. Mrs. Pride informs Molly that they didn’t receive her letter, which is why no one picked her up. She offers to make Molly a cup of tea while she gets settled. 

Molly asks about her parents, and Mrs. Pride claims that her father is working at the Ministry of Food and her mother is lying down. Molly takes her bag upstairs and peeks into her parents’ room, expecting to see her mother, but to her surprise, the room is empty. Confused, she goes to her own room and finds a letter from her father, in which he apologizes for missing her return. 

When Mrs. Pride brings up the tea, Molly confronts her with her findings. Mrs. Pride admits that Molly’s mother hasn’t been well, so she’s living in a psychiatric hospital in Cornwall. Before explaining any further, Mrs. Pride hurries from the room.

That night, Molly falls asleep, but a noise startles her awake. She peers outside and sees a man smoking across the street. She also sees a young boy hiding from a passing police car. Molly wonders what the boy has witnessed while she’s been comfortable in the country. 

Unable to fall back asleep, Molly dresses and quietly leaves the house, taking the extra key with her. She doesn’t know how she’ll find the Ministry of Food’s offices, since London is so changed. She recalls outings with her family around town, but a driver always guided them.