Ambulance Girls Under Fire

by Deborah Burrows

  ‘Here it is,’ said Jim, waving at the sign outside a brick shop front with birdcages in the window. ‘Ephraim Tulloch, Birds Rare and Exotic.’

  Mr Tulloch was a little man with a large round stomach that strained his waistcoat, and his eyes sat in his fleshy face like two blackcurrants in a pale, doughy bun. He laughed when we said we had come for Bobby.

  ‘You’re welcome to him,’ he said. ‘He’s not a handsome bird and he doesn’t say anything. Knew I’d never be able to sell him, but Syd would have wrung his neck if I didn’t take him.’ He leaned towards us and said, in a more confidential tone, ‘I’ve a weakness for parrots, so I couldn’t allow that. Almost human, they are. Especially African Greys. Ferociously intelligent are the African Greys.’

  ‘So it is a male parrot?’ said Lily. ‘I thought so, but we weren’t sure.’

  Mr Tulloch winked. ‘He’s a boy all right. Now, let’s talk turkey.’

  Jim might be a barrister in peacetime, but Mr Tulloch was able to comprehensively out-argue him to strike a bargain to his advantage. We took ownership of Bobby for what Mr Tulloch had paid the warden, plus the price of the bird’s food over the past week and ‘a little something extra for my trouble’.

  The problem that faced us then was how to transport Bobby and his cage to my flat. Taxis were in short supply so we decided on the tram. After negotiations with the conductor, Jim bought Bobby his own ticket and the parrot sat next to me in his large, blanket-covered cage.

  The other passengers were naturally curious and, after some encouragement, I pulled away the blanket to reveal my new pet.

  ‘That’s one ugly parrot,’ said a sailor who was sitting in front of me.

  Heads nodded in agreement. I looked at Bobby, who was indeed a sorry sight with his three large bald patches revealing wrinkled grey skin underneath the feathers. But his bright red tail feather still curled proudly and his yellow eyes had a glitter of knowing intelligence.

  I replied, stiffly, ‘He looks remarkably well, I think, given he was dug out of a bombed house a week ago. He is still recovering.’

  ‘Does he talk?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  I hoped Bobby would not announce himself to these people as repetitively as he had done when we were trapped together. I did not want to hear again the voice of the old woman who had loved him enough to think of him as she was dying.

  ‘You know,’ said a middle-aged man in a brown suit, ‘one of my earliest memories is being taken to see a lady who lived in Highgate by the cemetery. She had a parrot, and the parrot used to say, “I’m pretty witty Nell, who the devil are you?”’

  There was laughter around us. A motherly-looking woman in a felt hat leaned across to say to Bobby, ‘Who’s a pretty boy, then?’

  Bobby regarded her lugubriously through one round eye, but did not reply. When he continued to make no sound, interest in him lapsed. I kept the blanket off the cage, however, thinking he might enjoy seeing what was going on around him.

  A few minutes later, just as we had swung into Clerkenwell Road, we all flinched as the upward wailing notes of the Warning filled the tram. There was a general groan of annoyance.

  ‘It’s only four o’clock. Jerry’s early today.’

  Then the shriek of a falling bomb rent the air. There was no time to take cover or prepare for eternity. In the seats around me people screamed and ducked down, terror distorting their faces. Lily grabbed Jim and buried her head in his chest as his arms tightened around her. Time seemed to slow. I had a moment’s sharp panic followed by resignation. At least I am facing death in the light, in the open air. For some reason that was important to me. Simon Levy’s face flashed into my mind. Would he be sorry that he had refused my offer of peace? Or merely annoyed that all his efforts to save me had failed after all.

  There was a sound like crashing thunder as the bomb exploded.

  I felt no thump of impact. No pain.

  Nothing happened at all. The tram continued rattling along on its journey. Almost immediately, the All Clear sounded.

  Around me exclamations and sobs resolved into swearing and angry muttering.

  ‘Oh, you clever bird,’ said Lily, pushing herself out of Jim’s tight hold and staring at the parrot with an expression of bewilderment. She shook her head. ‘Crikey.’

  ‘Bloody thing almost scared the wits out of me,’ said the sailor who had called Bobby ugly. ‘It oughta have its neck wrung.’

  I threw the blanket over Bobby’s cage and silently dared anyone to try. My hands were shaking, so I held them tightly together in my lap.

  ‘Leave it alone,’ said the man in the brown suit. ‘Bird was only mimicking what it’s been hearing. Just be thankful it wasn’t real.’

  ‘Why don’t you teach him something nicer, dear?’ said the woman in the felt hat. ‘A song, or a nursery rhyme, perhaps.’

  ‘“London Bridge is Falling Down”?’ suggested brown-suit man.

  And the laughter started. It may have been slightly hysterical but it was, on the whole, good-natured. I caught Lily’s eye and we laughed together until tears were streaming down our faces.

  Jim deposited Bobby’s large cage in a corner of my sitting room and he and Lily left me alone with the bird. When I removed the blanket Bobby bobbed his head and walked sideways along the perch, all the while regarding me with a grave, knowing frown. Mr Tulloch had said that parrots, and especially African Greys, were extremely intelligent. Bobby certainly seemed to ponder deeply upon life. Bobby. The name did not suit the gravely dignified bird that was subjecting me to such unwinking scrutiny.

  Mr Tulloch had suggested that I let him wander about. ‘Get him used to your flat,’ he had said. ‘Bit of bird dirt never hurt anyone. Mind you, he’s a clever feller in that department. Been trained, you see. Goes in the morning, and won’t go again unless he’s really scared.’ So I opened the cage door and gestured towards the room.

  ‘Come out if you like,’ I said. ‘This is your new home.’

  Bobby hopped from his perch to the floor of the cage and stepped delicately out into the room. He waddled across to the bookcase that stood under the window, gave a gentle squawk and flapped up to land on the top of a pile of books. From this vantage point he looked around the sitting room and at the closed window. Bobby peered out over London, fluffed up his feathers and turned around to face me. Again I was subjected to that dark lugubrious gaze. Did the answers to all the questions of the universe lurk deep within those round yellow eyes?

  ‘Hello, I’m Bobby,’ he squawked. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Good God, Celia. A parrot?’

  My sister ran a pocket-comb through the long shining bob of her auburn hair and adjusted the mink cape she wore over her evening gown. Helen had dropped in to see me on her way to dinner at the Ritz.

  ‘I like the parrot. He’s company,’ I said, too defensively.

  ‘Cedric won’t like it.’

  ‘Well, it’s none of his business. As I’ve told you, I want to divorce Cedric.’

  Her mouth tightened. ‘You can be very worrying, Celia. It’s as if I don’t know you any more. You always have been out of the usual, but now…’ She waved her arms in a gesture of annoyance. ‘It’s this war. It’s changed you. It’s changing everything. Girls are quite above themselves nowadays, off to work in the factories, or in uniform and walking out with the young servicemen. I shudder to think what they’ll be like after the war. And look at you, cool as a cucumber, telling me you want a divorce. It’s utterly ridiculous. I remember how happy you were when you were first engaged, when you—’

  ‘I was eighteen years old. I had no idea what marriage, or Cedric, was really like.’

  ‘A husband isn’t something you can throw away like a – a faulty gas mask.’ She paused, as if to admire her simile. ‘A husband is for life.’

  ‘Gas masks aren’t for life, and neither is Cedric.’

  She firmly changed the subject. ‘So Jim really is intending to marry his colonial?
’

  ‘In less than three weeks now.’

  ‘What a waste of an impressive title. She won’t appreciate the honour.’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, don’t be such a snob, Helen. She’s marrying Jim, not his title. Not only does she not appreciate the title, Lily honestly doesn’t give two hoots about it.’

  Helen raised an eyebrow. ‘As I said, a waste.’

  She moved across to the parrot’s cage and stood for a while, looking at Bobby and he walked slowly up and down his perch and watched her back with his soulful eyes. A cat may look at a king, I thought, and a parrot at a brigadier’s wife.

  ‘Will you put Cedric up here when he’s released?’ she asked, still looking at Bobby.

  ‘No. Of course not. He can stay with his father or in an hotel.’

  ‘His father doesn’t want Cedric to move in with him for political reasons.’ She gave an elegant shrug. ‘I’m sure the Dorchester or somewhere similar will have room for him. Actually, he mentioned it in his last letter.’

  ‘It’s supposed to be bomb-proof, earthquake-proof and fire-proof.’ I flicked away a mote of dust from the side table. ‘So you’ve been corresponding with him?’

  ‘More regularly than you, he informs me.’

  ‘I write to him only to ask for my freedom.’

  She swung around to face me at that, and I caught a glimpse of fury in her eyes, soon damped down. ‘How melodramatic you are sometimes, Celia,’ she said lightly. ‘You’ll see things differently once he’s back.’

  Dr Cameron senior was a genial Scotsman of around seventy with shaggy white eyebrows and a twinkle in his pale blue eyes. When I asked after his son he replied, ‘Och, Alastair’s getting quite a tan in the desert sun, I believe.’

  After he had removed the stitches in the head wound and given me a thorough check-up, he told me I was fine to report for duty.

  ‘It all looks ticketyboo to me,’ he said, ‘but wait one more day before you go back.’

  He wrote me a note to take to Moray, which said I was fully fit for duties in two days.

  ‘I’ll let your Dr Levy know,’ he said, as he handed me the note. ‘He was insistent that you should not return to work as an ambulance driver until you were quite well.’

  I stared at him. ‘How…’ And then, annoyed, ‘He’s not my Dr Levy.’

  Dr Cameron peered at me from under his shaggy brows. ‘Now you just climb off that high horse, madam. Dr Levy wrote to me, explaining about the circumstances of the injury and the infection. It’s usual to do so if you treat another doctor’s patient.’

  I wondered how Simon knew that I was Dr Cameron’s patient. Then I realised. Lily. She had asked me who my doctor was, and must have informed Simon. Were my friends spying on me? I told myself not to fall prey to paranoia, but it was disconcerting to know that Simon Levy was keeping an eye on me.

  I decided that if I couldn’t return to work at the station, then I would spend the following day at Bloomsbury House instead. My accident and recovery meant that I hadn’t appeared at the refugee centre for more than a week, and I missed the work.

  I had some qualms about leaving Bobby alone, so I put his cage by the window to allow him to look out, and I left the wireless on, tuned to the BBC, reasoning that if he picked up any words, they would be acceptable in polite company. Despite my best efforts over the past two days, I’d not been able to teach him any words or phrases at all. Or, at least, none that he was willing to repeat. And yet, I found his silent company cheering, especially when he let me hold him close and he tucked his feathery head under my chin. Maybe it was simply having a living creature in my flat to look after.

  ‘Now you be a good boy,’ I said to him as I left.

  I laughed at myself as I negotiated the stairs. Was I at risk of becoming one of those lonely women who talked to their pets as if they were human? And yet … there was something about Bobby that did seem almost human. I laughed again. Don’t become eccentric, I told myself. Then I wondered whether, if Cedric could be convinced that I had become an eccentric embarrassment to him, he would want to be rid of me. Was it worth a try? Cedric was cunning and could be charming but he wasn’t all that bright. I was laughing as I opened the door.

  I decided to walk to Bloomsbury House, rather than cycle. It was a clear morning, although very cold. During my walk I looked – really looked – at London. It had a very different appearance to the grand cosmopolitan city I had moved to after my marriage. There were gaps where buildings that had stood for centuries, or as little as decades, were now just rubble on the ground. Windows that still had glass in them were criss-crossed with paper in various designs, or stuck over with a muslin or net curtain to prevent splinters. Nearly every house had a wall of sandbags against a window or a front door. Buckets of sand and water were in most doorways to deal with incendiaries and large water tanks stood in parks or wherever there was space for them. The kerbs were painted white, and thick yellow bands on the pavements pointed to the fire hydrants. White signs showed the way to air-raid shelters.

  Chillingly, on the corner of Bedford Avenue was an object that resembled a large bird table. The square top was painted yellowish-green. These tables had been placed throughout London and they were supposed to change colour from green to red in the presence of mustard gas. I patted my gas mask, safe in its natty leather case. There had been talk of gas attacks lately, as a precursor to invasion. Then I remembered Sadler’s Aunt Millie’s gas-beating knickers trick, and I laughed.

  Lore examined me closely as I walked into the JCPB office, and said in her accented English, ‘Celia. Why are you here? I heard you were ill – injured, I mean. Injured in a raid. Are you well enough to be here?’

  ‘I’m fine. Really. Got my All Clear from the doctor this morning.’

  She seemed unconvinced. ‘Simon – I mean Dr Levy – he seemed to think you—’

  ‘Dr Levy?’ Was there a person in London who had not been told my entire medical history by Simon Levy? I took a breath and consciously relaxed my jaw. ‘Dr Levy is an excellent doctor, but he is excessively cautious. I am absolutely fine.’

  Lore gave me a bright smile. ‘I admit that you do look very well indeed. Apart from the bandage, of course.’ Her eyes became dreamy. ‘Isn’t Simon a lovely young man? Such a caring doctor. He came to us for the Seder on Friday.’ Dreaminess gave way to a slight look of calculation. ‘He is partial to my Miriam, and it would be an excellent match.’ Then she made a face and laughed. ‘All the women wanted a Levy boy for their girls, but Elise Levy is like a guarding dog over her sons.’ A querying look. ‘Is it terribly rude to call Elise a guarding dog?’

  ‘It is, rather. Better to say that she’s vigilant in looking after their interests. Or, that she’s a careful mother.’

  Lore looked down at the desk. ‘I worry about my Miriam. Especially after… You knew David?’

  ‘Yes… I did.’

  She sighed. ‘Such a shame. Miriam adored him.’

  I picked up the day’s mail and began to leaf through it. ‘And did he…?’

  ‘Sadly, no. He liked her, but not, you understand, like that. David kept his private life very private. Even from his mother. It must have been so much easier for parents in the old days, with shidduch.’

  She must have seen my look of incomprehension.

  ‘Matchmaking. Such things were arranged in a civilised manner in past centuries.’ She gave me a wry smile. ‘Not that we had shidduch in modern Berlin. Like my father, Mrs Levy’s was ein Deutscher, aber ein Jude. That means, a German, but Jewish.’ Her expression became bitter. ‘Of course, the Nazis see us only as Jews. It doesn’t matter if we are devout or liberal or atheists. Or if we were born and raised as Christians. To them we are Jews if only one grandparent was Jewish and all the rest were Aryan.’

  ‘Mrs Levy must be very worried about her family.’

  Lore sighed. ‘She has heard nothing for some months. It is very distressing. I am lucky to have no family in Germany. Not a
ny more. I persuaded them to come over here to join me in England when that evil house painter came to power. The Levys sponsored them. All of them.’ She looked at me and raised her hands. ‘And so, Elise and Jonathan Levy probably saved the lives of my entire family.’

  ‘Surely it’s not that bad in Europe,’ I said, falteringly.

  Lore gave me a wistful smile. ‘My dear, it is that bad. We Jews know what is happening over there, but who will listen?’ She seemed to recollect where she was and shuffled the papers in front of her into a neat pile. Her tone became brisk. ‘But you and I cannot solve the problems of the Jews in Europe. We must consider only the problems of the children we managed to bring across to Britain.’ She looked down at the papers in front of her. ‘And here is a small boy who is a very big problem.’ She pointed to a small photograph. ‘Leonhard Weitz.’

  ‘But we placed him. Last week. I finished the paperwork.’

  ‘No,’ said Lore. ‘The foster-parents you identified refused to have him. And now he is in trouble at the hostel for fighting.’

  I frowned down at the picture. ‘I’ll find someone to foster him. I’m sure I can find someone.’

  She gave me a rueful smile. ‘We have an offer to foster him from a wealthy and loving Jewish family.’

  ‘Then what is the big problem?’

  ‘The big problem is that it is Elise Levy who is determined to take in the boy. And her husband and son are just as determined not to allow her to do so. And you and I are in the middle of it all.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Mrs Levy shook her head. ‘Alles ist gut, Celia. The boy could not stay in the hostel. He was being bullied.’

  I was in the Levy’s new home, a Georgian townhouse in Montague Street, behind the British Museum and close to Bloomsbury House. Lore had insisted that I walk over to see Mrs Levy that afternoon. My instructions were to convince Mrs Levy to return Leonhard Weitz to the hostel and allow us to find other foster-parents, but since my arrival Mrs Levy had been firmly and gently refusing to consider giving Leonhard up.