He’d been home a couple of weeks, weary but in good spirits, assuring her that a bonfire and fireworks—her first Guy Fawkes celebration—would be held especially for her birthday. She had already tagged after a few of the local boys, up and down neighbourhood streets, while they wheeled the Guy in a broken-down pram, begging for a penny. Her family had helped with rag-and-straw stuffing and contributed a pair of oversized trousers. The boys painted the Guy’s face on a stuffed paper bag that served as head. Someone’s grandfather proffered a worn fedora and a pair of holey socks. Another donated scuffed boots. Hazzley’s father, at the boys’ invitation, added the final touches: a buffoonish Hitler moustache drawn with charcoal under the Guy’s large nose, and a puny and distorted swastika on each cheek. And then, the event itself, a long procession of flaming torches through the blackest of nights.

In an open space that backed onto a row of bombed-out flats and amid great cheers, the effigy burned atop a pyramid of wood scraps, boxes, crates, old mattresses and broken furniture. For days, the people in the surrounding area had been tossing these onto the growing heap. When Hazzley thought of it now, she realized that the pile must have been fifteen or twenty feet high, the blazing fire even higher, flames shooting straight up into the night air. A memorable birthday, yes.

After the fire was lit, after potatoes were thrown into coals around the edges, the fireworks that had been purchased with “pennies for the Guy” were set off. Empty milk bottles had been lined up to hold rockets; Catherine wheels were tacked in place; there were Roman candles, bangers and squibs. Ah, it was all so much fun. Especially the Catherine wheels, spinning in a frenzy at the end. Sometimes an occasional wheel disappointed and fizzled out, but that still wasn’t quite the end because the potatoes, now black and charred lumps, were prodded from the coals with gloved hands and peeled—a mess of dirty potato skin and ash, to be eaten with enormous pleasure. Of course, Guy Fawkes Day and the bonfires went on year after year, but Hazzley’s first was the standout memory, never to be repeated in quite the same way.

FROM THE SECOND-STOREY WINDOW, she saw that the falling snow was now caught in an updraft, as if released from earth rather than sky. Surely this small storm wouldn’t amount to much so early in November.

Having thought of Guy Fawkes in postwar London, she remembered a partially gutted building not far from her childhood home, a three-storey affair that had been hit by a German bomb. Any surviving occupants had been moved, the remains of the building condemned and cordoned off. But this did not stop her and one of her pals, a girl named Dorothy, from squeezing through a barricade at the rear. After crawling through a shattered window and climbing unstable stairs to get to the top floor—steps missing or swinging from a single nail—she and Dorothy created their own secret space within a ruined kitchen. Here, inside a cupboard that still had doors, they stored their prized finds: a tortoiseshell comb studded with rhinestones, two teacups, a cracked plate, one bent spoon, one partly melted knife, a doll’s head attached to its shoulder and left arm, two pieces of twisted shrapnel (one of which had German markings). Much of the roof was destroyed, and rain frequently dampened their play area. One afternoon there was a light snowfall, which caused the blackened kitchen floor to sparkle magically, but only for a moment because the snow melted so quickly. It was a wonder the whole structure hadn’t collapsed on top of them. Their parents didn’t know they were there, and how would they? Hazzley and Dorothy were entirely free to play in the bombed-out streets.