by Lizzie Page
‘What’s your name?’ She spoke in heavily accented English.
‘May Turner!’ I yelled.
‘Nurse May Turner and Major Louis Spears,’ she repeated. ‘Welcome!’
Louis said warmly to me, ‘This is Ginger, and this is the best club in Belgium!’
She leaned forward conspiratorially and whispered to me: ‘I think he means this is the only club in Belgium.’
Before too long, I understood Ginger was not only witty, charming and beautiful, but she had a brilliant memory for names and faces: quite the perfect skill set for a club hostess.
In one corner, a soldier was playing a piano. He was thumping the keys and changing position on his stool – sometimes he was standing, sometimes sitting with his legs up in the air, other times sitting facing us, away from the keys. It was an amazing performance. I was spellbound.
Louis went to get some drinks and when he came back he said:
‘I’ve found someone who knows you!’
I was about to say ‘No one knows me here’ when I saw that he was right: looking as magnificent as ever was the woman who inspired me, Elsie Knocker. I hugged and kissed her cheeks incredulously. What a small world it was! Elsie and her – boyfriend? I didn’t know for sure who he was – had a table right by the bar, and I could see by the way everyone treated them that they were quite the favourites. His name was Harold and he was as good-looking as Louis, but a different type. He was as correct and accomplished as Louis was, and his manners were similarly impeccable, but he was confident too, assertive even, while Louis was more cautious. The two got on right away.
The men were talking logistics, so Elsie and I broke away and found a small table where we could talk privately.
How was the hospital? Who was I working with? Did I manage? Did I miss home? Elsie knew Gordon, ‘a brilliant mind,’ she said, and she had heard of Matron. She said, ‘Her bark is worse than her bite,’ so I decided not to launch into all my anecdotes about her miserableness.
She knew Louis ‘from Brussels’ – whatever that meant – and she asked me if I had met his dear friend Winston Churchill? (‘Of course, everyone knows Winston – he’s going places.’) She didn’t have much to tell me about Louis other than that he was doing well too. I said I wasn’t sure what ‘doing well’ meant. She said, ‘Oh, he’s quite important in diplomacy, negotiations, decision-making, that kind of thing.’
‘Important?’
She sighed impatiently. ‘People are listening to him. Leaders, generals, et cetera.’
She said it like Et Cetera was another person. I laughed. With my eyebrows arched, I whispered, ‘I like listening to him too,’ and joyfully, she held out her glass for me to clink. ‘Santé.’
* * *
I tried to find out more about this Harold she was with. ‘Is it serious or not?’ I asked. Percy had been clear that Elsie was not the type to settle, she was a free spirit. (I had always wondered if he was making a dig at me when he talked about free spirits.)
‘Is what serious?’ she asked. She reminded me a little of Kitty with her energetic deflections.
‘You and Harold…’
‘He’s seriously my Man of the Moment,’ she laughed. She laughed a lot.
‘Is that all?’
She raised her pretty eyebrows. They were dark and even, she didn’t need a pencil.
‘For now,’ she insisted. The crowd grew louder, and she leaned forward to be heard. Her words felt hot in my ear. ‘I’m superstitious,’ she said, laughing again. ‘If you get too attached, they die. Keep a rotation of them and the gods can’t look down and shoot them.’
Ginger collected our glasses. She was such a vision of loveliness; I couldn’t imagine how it must have been for men to crawl out from the trenches to see her.
‘So, Nurse Turner,’ she said, ‘you’re Canadian?’
‘American,’ I corrected her, ‘via London.’
‘An American war nurse?’ She clapped her hands. ‘A rare species.’
‘Not at all.’ If it were anyone else I would have been irritated, but Ginger seemed so young and naive. ‘We are looking after our dear soldiers in America, Canada and all over Europe, and on the trains and the hospitals and…’ I paused, both Ginger and Elsie were now looking at me sympathetically. ‘Many years ago, my grandma was one of the first war nurses. She served on the battlefields at Fredericksburg…’
I don’t know why but I suddenly felt like crying.
Ginger pulled up a chair. She told us her eldest sister, Martha, was learning to nurse. Her father was there – she pointed behind the bar. She said I was her first American guest. She called to the pianist to play ‘Turkey in the Box’ in my honour. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I didn’t know it but instead clapped and swayed all the way through.
‘Can he play “Gilbert the Filbert”?’ asked Elsie. Ginger spoke to the pianist and he launched into a jolly tune. I didn’t know that one either.
* * *
I was not used to drinking much. I suppose living with George had put me off but also if I drink alcohol, I can become even more morose and self-critical than usual. Not always, but tonight, after my third beer, I began to slur. The efforts I put in to straighten my words failed.
‘It’s thanks to you I’m here, Elsie. You made me believe in myself. I was so… so… unhappy back home.’
I put my hands in my lap. It was too hard to say. If I told her that sense of waste and isolation I had experienced in London I would cry. How cruel everything in the world felt there.
‘And how are you now?’ Elsie asked.
‘I feel even if I died tomorrow, I would know that I had done my best.’
‘Don’t die tomorrow,’ she advised.
‘I’ll try not to.’
‘Oh God!’ She sighed abruptly. ‘Harrowing, isn’t it?’
I thought of the men we treated. The suffering we witnessed every day. The poignancy of the letters they dictated. The pathos of the growing cemetery out the back. The stream of warning telegrams we received: three injured coming from Friesland. Two from Herbécourt.
Louis was waving at me from the other side of the room and I thought of Johnny blinded and the guilt Louis carried. I waved back. There were several men at his table, talking earnestly, their drinks full, their beer mats drenched but I only had eyes for Louis. What a man. I felt quite bowled over by him.
I tried to concentrate. ‘More harrowing than anything I could ever possibly have imagined.’
‘Hold tight because it’s set to get worse.’
I looked at Elsie, puzzled, but she forced her mouth into a smile, poured more whisky and quickly changed the subject. ‘So, in your place in France, do you have a special, right-hand girl?’
I thought of Kitty, the favourite of all my colleagues, but she and Bonnie were the team, not she and I. Gordon was a favourite but we were separated by rank, by sex, by… just about every single thing that can come between two people. Then there was Matron. But Matron hated me almost as much as she hated the dreaded Hun. No, we weren’t special to each other.
Back home, I had Elizabeth. Pale, sporty Elizabeth, training to cross the Channel. Elizabeth with her aspirations, her plans and her ability to make you feel like the only person in the room, in the lake, in the car, who listened harder than anyone I had known, perhaps, until Louis. Then I thought of the mysterious Harriet and the way Elizabeth had looked so fearful at the door that night.
I shook my head. ‘Not out here, no.’
‘It makes a difference,’ Elsie said to me, ‘to have someone by your side, someone who understands you.’
‘I suppose so.’
She blew cigarette smoke at me. She had such handsome lips. ‘Sometimes, I feel like I can’t go on, but Mairi, who works alongside me in the cellar, is like one of those German tanks. She squashes all opposition.’
I thought I would love to have someone talk about me the way Elsie talked about Mairi. I looked over at Louis again. I felt helplessly, hop
elessly attracted to him. He raised an eyebrow at me, and I raised my glass back. I thought, please, please, let him feel the same way about me.
* * *
The soldier was wearing a filthy bandage over his arm but there was something not right about the way it hung. Elsie noticed him before I did.
‘Excuse me,’ she said to me. She strode straight over to him, with me trailing after her, and delicately put a hand on his other shoulder. ‘You need that checked out.’
‘They’ll hold me back if I do. Need to be with my men.’ I admired the sentiment, but Elsie wasn’t having any of it.
‘Don’t be a fool. Come and see me, I’ll fix it for you.’
‘Maybe,’ he said. It was clear he meant no.
‘Promise you’ll come to see me,’ Elsie said firmly. ‘You’ll be no use to the men if you’re sick…’
He looked about to protest, but then backed down, grinning sheepishly. They shook hands and she walked away. As I rejoined her, I heard him tell his friends, ‘That’s Elsie Knocker, that is.’
His mate said, ‘The one from the cellar house?’
‘That’s her,’ he said admiringly. Not long after, more drinks arrived at our table and we waved our thank-yous.
* * *
Louis’ face was different when he laughed. Looking at him from across the room, I thought, I want to get closer to this man. Something that had long been snuffed out was igniting in me. Something I barely recognised. I walked across the room, never more aware of my hips, my legs, the shape I presented to the world. As I swayed over his table, the arguing men fell silent.
‘You’ve been ignoring me all evening,’ I said thickly, even though it was probably two of one and one of half another.
Louis looked startled, then apologetic. He stood up, took my hand. His hand was big around mine and as cool as mine was hot.
‘What would you say if I asked you to dance?’
I grinned, thinking, finally! ‘Are you a good dancer, Louis?’
‘I’ll let you decide,’ he said.
He twirled me around, capable, and confident, so I felt like a spinning top. He was a very good dancer.
Soon, people were looking at us. I heard Ginger call out, ‘Why are Americans the best dancers? It’s not fair!’ And Louis called back, ‘Oi, I’m not American!’
He twisted me around so fast my feet couldn’t keep up with him.
‘I can’t,’ I puffed.
‘You can,’ he said, twirling me some more. Some of the other patrons were clapping in time with the music. And I turned more and more. It was exhilarating, but exhausting, and after a few minutes of this, I fell back into his arms. I thought he was going to kiss me but, very seriously, he pushed a stray hair out of my eyes, then set me upright again. My legs felt wobbly.
The lively soldier left the piano to take a well-earned break at the bar. There were drinks all lined up in a row for him. Ginger’s father, with his droopy, downcast moustache, took his place. His tunes were slower and more sentimental. I didn’t recognise the first but the second was ‘Auld Lang Syne’. The lights flickered. Louis’ hand was on the small of my back. I closed my eyes; I wanted to be here for ever. I wanted to stop time, and for a short while it felt as though we had somehow paused it. I don’t know if you could call what we were doing dancing any more – it was more of a shuffle or a sway. We swayed there in the middle of that room, swaying the world away. I had never felt so safe.
When I next opened my eyes, Elsie and Harold had gone and the bar had emptied out. Tears were dripping from the pianist’s eyes. His drooping moustache was soaked at either end. Ginger was learning over him, her pretty face wreathed in concern.
‘It’s all right, Papa. I’m here.’
But nothing could console that old man. He folded his arms and wept into them, over the black and white keys.
* * *
I was disappointed to leave. I used to say to the girls, ‘There will be other tennis matches, there will be other trips,’ but this time, I thought, no, there mightn’t be. Some things are just once-in-a-lifetime moments. Tomorrow, La Poupée could be burned to the ground or Louis could be murdered in a field at Passchendaele, or I could be shelled in my tent like poor Elle Harcourt, who never really got to do her bit. You mustn’t drink so much, I told myself as Louis walked me to the car. That’s why you’re so emotional. But the sight of the old man’s heartbreak was locked in my mind.
I fell asleep in the car. Whether it was because I was lulled by the motion, or by the feeling of peace I had from being by Louis’ side, I’m not sure.
* * *
The lanterns outside the hospital were lit but it looked, blessedly, quiet. My nap had done me good. I felt sober and more like myself again. The world no longer looked so bleak. Louis stopped the engine and turned to me.
‘So, what is it you actually do, Major Spears?’ I asked, thinking of what Elsie had said. People are listening to him.
‘Liaison.’
‘And what exactly is liaison?’
‘I encourage people to make the best decisions with the information available.’ Louis’ arms were crossed and he looked thoughtful.
‘And how do you do that?’
‘Ah well, I do projections and estimate outcomes,’ he said vaguely.
‘Word-soup.’ I laughed. He shrugged.
But I was curious. ‘Do you sometimes withhold information or present it in the way you want it to go, to influence the outcome?’
‘As if I’d do that!’ he said. ‘I’m not a cheat.’
No, I thought. You’re not.
He leaned over to me slowly and we kissed. It had been a long time since I had someone’s lips press onto mine, and it was a shock at first. My lips didn’t know what to do. Yet, quickly, I remembered – more than remembered, I learnt all over again. I caught the back of Louis’ head with my hand, felt his wonderful soft, tufty hair and pulled him closer to me.
But then Louis pulled away. He shook his head, he looked down into his hands, curled into small knots in his lap.
‘What is it?’
‘May, are you sure?’ he asked. I waited but he didn’t add anything. I could still taste him in my mouth. Alcohol, cigarettes and Major Louis Spears.
Someone extinguished one of the lanterns ahead. It felt like a punctuation mark.
‘How do you mean, Louis? I’m sure. Aren’t you?’
Louis sighed deeply.
‘Are you not attracted to me?’
In the same solemn voice that he probably used when he was explaining to General Pétain that things were looking bad on the Western Front, he said quietly: ‘I’ve never been so attracted to anyone in my entire life.’
And I believed him. I could see that whatever was going on inside that beautiful head of his was torture.
‘So?’
‘You’re a married woman.’
‘Divorcing…’
‘And a mother. I would hate to make your life more difficult or complicated, I don’t want to confuse things for you.’
I looked out at the hospital, my hospital, and as my eyes got used to the darkness, I could just make out the silhouetted shapes of the other team. Our ghostly equivalent, tending to the injured men at night.
‘Well, then, goodbye.’
There was no point waiting around. I opened the door and stepped out the car. This was going nowhere – the last thing I wanted was to get involved with a man who didn’t want me. However much I was yearning for him, an unrequited love affair was not for me.
But Louis had got out the car too, and he moved faster than I did. He came around in front of me and caught me. He pressed me up against the passenger door – the handle dug into my back, but I didn’t mind – and we kissed some more and some more and even though fraternising was an offence, and even though I was still a married woman, that ship had long since sailed.
We got back in the car.
25
A few days later, Kitty and I walked into town. It was about
an hour on the rough tracks and twice we were offered lifts by passing trucks but we turned them down. There wasn’t much to do with our free time, so the walk was part of it. Plus, if you ignored the smell, the noise, the dust, the burnt-out houses and the engineers laying down railtracks, there were hedgerows and daisies to enjoy and for a short while, you could pretend that you were on vacation.
In town, the street traders were selling peaches and plums out of old suitcases. The plums were too pale, not quite ripe, but we were too hungry to care.
‘We might be dead tomorrow,’ Kitty said brightly.
We sat eating them on the steps of the city hall. Some small birds darted near us. So bold. My head was aching. Ever since my night out with Louis, I had been filled with terrible tension: I didn’t know if he would come to see me again. I didn’t know if I wanted to see him again. Well, I did, desperately, but I was also frightened. What does it all mean? I wanted to ask. What does it mean to fall in love with someone in this place, and what did it mean for my life back home? What would it mean to George?
* * *
Kitty was reading Wuthering Heights now, all by herself, and she was telling me about it.
‘I thought you still had your hour studying with Gordon? Why, when you can read so well?’ I interrupted.
‘Oh that,’ she said airily. ‘That’s for medicine.’
‘Oh?’
She continued with her confident retelling of the classics. ‘She thinks Heathcliff doesn’t love her, so she stops living.’
‘I didn’t know that.’ I had read Wuthering Heights when I was fifteen, about a year before I had run off with George. Perhaps if I had paid more attention, I might not have been such a gullible twerp.
‘Well, it’s not spelled out, I suppose, it’s implied. She dies in childbirth but before that she starved herself and became weaker and weaker, because she loves Heathcliff, but she’s stuck with her husband Linton.’