by Lizzie Page
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In March 1917 I went back to England for a weekend. I went straight to Elizabeth’s house, and we drove up to Leamington in her car. This was Elizabeth’s plan. Once we were outside the school, Elizabeth changed her shoes. She put on a bonnet and glasses. I didn’t think the disguise was necessary, and she looked more rather than less peculiar to me, but she insisted. She made me redo my hair too and told me that I should let my slip show. Smirking, she said, ‘All the young ladies do nowadays.’
We went to the front gate and fortunately it was not the headmistress, who knew me, who answered.
‘My daughter and I are here to look around,’ croaked Elizabeth, in a voice that explained why she had never been involved in amateur dramatics.
‘Have you made an appointment?’ asked the gatekeeper.
Elizabeth and I looked nervously at each other.
‘Yes,’ I said just as Elizabeth responded, ‘No.’
‘No,’ I said, the very moment Elizabeth changed her answer to: ‘Yes… I think so.’
* * *
Anyway, we were in. No, we didn’t want a guide, thank you. We would walk around and then come to the headmistress’s study with any questions we had. Yes, thank you.
I couldn’t believe we had done it. Elizabeth had done it. We’d got in. We giggled down the corridors. Now we just had to find my girls among the schoolgirls who were all dressed the same. Not an easy task. But then, a godsend, a timetable stuck on a wall, showed that class 5W – Joy’s class – were playing hockey. We strode out to the sports fields. Elizabeth dropped her elderly-lady stoop and I pulled up my slip. And there, out there, I picked out my lovely Joy at once. It was the menace in her movements that gave her away. She wielded her hockey stick like a scythe, cutting down the opposition. My heart leapt to see her.
When the final whistle blew, I waved. I saw confusion on her face, followed by pleasure. She ran over to me, her hockey stick held high in the air as if in salute.
‘Mummy?’
‘Darling, sshhh!’ I said, as per the plan. ‘I shouldn’t be here, don’t say anything.’
Joy nodded. She was always quick on the uptake.
‘I know. Daddy said you’re banned.’
I paused.
‘Can you come down to the playing field at the far end? The door in the fence there? About five o’clock tonight. Bring Leona.’
‘Of course, Mummy. I can’t wait.’
‘Nor can I.’
It was agony to let her go. She looked at me longingly, but I could see her teacher was getting tetchy.
‘Leona will be happy,’ she told me with an odd expression. ‘She cries at bedtime now.’
* * *
How slowly five o’clock came around. We avoided the headmistress’s office, and crept back to the car, where I willed the minutes to move faster. After what felt like a lifetime, we made our way to the meeting point.
But not only was the door heavily padlocked now but the wire fence either side of it was at least six feet tall.
Elizabeth and I gazed at it in dismay.
‘That’s one problem I didn’t anticipate,’ admitted Elizabeth. She was furious with herself. ‘How in God’s name are we going to get in – or out?’
I rummaged in my bag and with a flourish produced something heavy and iron and sharp.
‘Wire-cutters?’ asked Elizabeth incredulously.
‘Keep them on you at all times—’ I choked. Must not think of Louis.
* * *
My sweet girls were waiting on the other side by the time I cut through the wire. They stared at me like they couldn’t believe I was real. And then I had made a gap, large enough for Elizabeth and me to pull ourselves through. We hugged and kissed while Elizabeth stood in the background, then I pulled her forward and we all hugged and kissed and squealed some more. Then we remembered where we were and what we were doing and shushed each other. We sat quietly on the grass, near the fence, under the protection of an old oak tree.
‘Do you want to come away with me?’ I asked urgently.
‘And leave school?’
I had known this would be their reaction. ‘We could go and live somewhere.’ At this they looked even more horrified, if possible. ‘That’s a “no” then, girls? Are you absolutely certain?’
They were. In that case, I estimated, we had three hours together. Elizabeth, far more conservative, thought we should send the girls back inside after one and a half. We didn’t want to get them in trouble. The girls talked quickly, tripping over their stories, competing with their tales. They told me about the procession of evil governesses that George had employed. One of whom had the audacity to cook rice. I relaxed. ‘Well, that doesn’t sound too bad.’
‘You haven’t eaten it,’ said Joy flatly.
We made plans for the next school break: tennis club, of course, Ice-skating. Museums. Art galleries. And we talked about things we had done together in the past. Such a relief that they had sweet memories.
‘You are so beautiful!’ I couldn’t contain myself. ‘Both of you. And I love you so much. Will you remember that, whatever happens?’
‘Fine,’ said Joy casually, stretching out her legs in the evening sunshine.
I looked over to where Leona was now giggling and playing elastic with Elizabeth. She pulled her curls behind her ears. The normalcy of it killed me.
‘I’ve got you both in my locket here,’ I added. ‘Next to my heart.’ I showed Joy the photo I carried of her. A reluctant smile crept over her face. ‘I always knew you did, Mummy,’ she murmured. She let me hold her hand.
* * *
The girls and I hugged and clutched each other one last time and then they ran off towards school, beaming and waving, and we made our way back to the car. The moment they left me I felt bereft, but I told myself: Be strong, they are well and happy. We can do this. We were only a few miles from London when Elizabeth said she had something to tell me. I felt myself tense – I wasn’t in the mood for revelations. It was taking all my effort not to burst into tears or to beg Elizabeth to drive me straight back to Leamington.
‘So…’ she began. But she was smiling, so it wasn’t going to be unpleasant. I relaxed slightly.
‘So?’ I said.
‘I want to become a VAD, a nurse, like you, May.’
I remembered her nearly running over a man in the car, her revulsion at a woman in the lake with a verruca – as a nurse she would see a whole lot worse than that. I couldn’t imagine Elizabeth doing dressings or bedpans. My best friend had so many wonderful qualities: resourcefulness, courage and passion – but empathy was not one of them. And Elizabeth was such a water baby too: she needed the lake. What would she do without her regular life-affirming swims?
‘Don’t you think I would be a good nurse, May?’
Then I remembered Elsie’s kind words to me in Percy’s studio. How fearful I was once, yet how naturally it had come in the hospital: that urge to do my best, the desire to not let down my team.
‘Yes,’ I said as sincerely as I could. ‘Why not?’
It had started very lightly to rain. We both gazed out the windshield as the wipers slowly and noisily flicked the drops away. My girls would be indoors now, changing into their soft flannel nightgowns. Leona would be holding on to her bear Cardinal Wolsey, Joy would be finishing her drawings, getting ready for bed.
‘I could come out to be with you,’ Elizabeth added softly. ‘You and me, together at your field hospital in France.’
My heart dropped further still. ‘Yes,’ I said, cautiously, ‘I imagine you could.’
* * *
It did me good, as always, to swim in the lake the following day, to feel light and weightless again. But the elation didn’t last long. Who knew when I would see my girls again? Was it feasible to keep breaking into the school like common thieves to see them? Were they really as robust as they pretended? Did they secretly despise me? My mood remained dark and even the magnificence of the outdoor bathing couldn�
��t help me. When the whistle blew for session’s end, I jolted with fear, and when Elizabeth, in the next cubicle, dusted herself down with talcum powder, it reminded me of the dust clouds after explosions and I could feel myself shiver. Don’t go down that road, I told myself.
We sat on a bench on the common, our picnic in the space between us. Elizabeth cuddled her knees close to her chest, her long red plait curling up at the end.
I would have liked to have skipped the buttered roll entirely and gone straight to the macaroons, but I felt this would be uncivilised. So I was tucking into the sandwiches, when Elizabeth, who was never a fool, asked quietly: ‘May, what’s wrong? Is it about me coming out to France?’
Why did I feel so peculiar about that? I had always suspected that I was an unpleasant person. My mother had always said it. George said it. Now, I realised I was a monster. But France was my place. The team were my team. These were my friends and experiences… I had grown strong and indispensable there. I had found myself and I was a different person to the May in England. And what if they grew to love Elizabeth more than they did me? I chewed and chewed and made my friend wait. I couldn’t imagine her at our hospital though, really, I couldn’t: she would be a fish out of water. Finally, I swallowed.
‘What would Harriet say?’ I said quietly, ‘Your friend, Harriet Dobinson?’
Elizabeth stroked her hair. ‘It has nothing to do with her, does it?’
‘And it’s dangerous,’ I said weakly. ‘How would your mother cope if something happened to you?’ I mentioned Elle Harcourt, hating myself as I did.
Elizabeth nodded slowly. Her face was even paler than usual. Then I thought: they’re always looking for volunteers for the hospital trains – no, for the boats! I sat up, suddenly excited at my own idea. This was it! I said, ‘I bet you’d enjoy being a nurse on a ship more, it’s the next best thing to being in the water. Really, I can picture you doing that – floating around the Mediterranean…’
She nodded again, still silent, and I realised what I was doing. I tried to backtrack quickly: ‘I could always ask my matron, though, if there might be…’
Elizabeth packed up the remainder of our lunch. She had not touched her sausage roll. Usually, she was famished after a swim. ‘No, May. I understand. I will look into that other idea, thank you.’
But the air between us had rapidly cooled. We went our separate ways as we had planned, but try as I might, our goodbyes were far less effusive than usual. Elizabeth’s face was stony. As I walked back to the station, I couldn’t understand why I had been so mean. It dawned on me that I had let Elizabeth down, again and again when she had only ever gone out of her way to be kind to me. I was a horrible person.
List of things I hate by Joy Turner (age thirteen)
Rice. Especially overcooked and soggy. (Rice pudding is okay.)
Sharpening a pencil to perfection – and then it breaks. Grrrr!
Leaving the Pilkingtons’ house.
Dissecting mice in biology.
And pigs’ hearts.
The basement toilets at school.
Mummy being miles and miles away in France.
People saying: ‘I bet you want to be a nurse like your mother…’ I don’t. I want to be a great artist.
45
Louis was in the newspapers in France again. He was quoted as saying: ‘Mon Général, if by your action the British Army is annihilated, England will never pardon France, and France will not be able to afford to pardon you.’
Gordon was impressed. ‘That is one clever man,’ he said, tapping the front page in his tent. He looked at me pointedly. Classical music was playing in the background as ever. ‘Why don’t you write to him? You know you want to.’
‘He has to come to me.’
The truth was, reading the newspaper articles only made me more confused. How could I forget him if he was always there in black and white? And seeing Louis held up as a hero in his public life when I felt he had been such an untrustworthy coward in his private life: well, wasn’t that just the eternal story? I pretended I was indifferent to his heroics, but I was still a long, long way from that. I missed him so much.
I wondered, had Mathilde been right? Was Louis only ever besotted with me? Yet that didn’t ring quite true. Other times, I wondered if perhaps Louis had discovered the real monstrous me, the one who turned on her best friend, and had become revolted by me? But I couldn’t believe that was the full-story either. All I knew for certain was that I had never loved a man as much as I loved him, and I would never love in the same unconscious, free and trusting way again. He had seen to it that all that was finished.
I dreamt he came back to me and had been shot in the heart. I dreamt blood was spurting ferociously from his chest. ‘Save me, save me!’ he’d cry and I would turn him away: no, I would dig my hands deep into the cavity: ‘Here it is, Louis, I’ve found your heart.’
* * *
And then Winston appeared in the convalescence tent one morning. Once I’d established there was nothing wrong with him – he had come to pick up someone he knew – I dared ask:
‘How’s Louis?’
‘Moping,’ he said, which I confess was music to my ears. It told me that Louis was alive. And more importantly, it told me that he too was miserable. Louis should be moping. Ideally for the rest of his days.
‘How have you been anyway?’
‘Brilliant,’ Winston said cheerfully. ‘Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result. And how have you been, May? Writing lots of poems, I hope.’
‘I have been and they’re not bad, if I say so myself,’ I said, smiling.
‘If they’re anything like you, May, they’ll be pretty wonderful.’
Here was someone who had the gift of the gab. And what a gift it was.
‘You’ve sent them out to the magazines?’
‘Wha-at? No, I haven’t done anything with them.’
‘Send them off.’
‘I don’t think—’
‘That’s an order.’
‘You’re not my commanding officer.’ I laughed. Winston was so shocked at being answered back that he tripped over a rope – he never looked where he was going.
‘I insist, as a friend.’
‘Why would anyone want to publish me?’ I asked. I didn’t really think that, but fishing for compliments with Winston was easy. He always came up with a great big trout.
‘Why not you? You’re lyrical, you’re thoughtful. Rise up, young woman!’
I laughed. Winston could be very silly at times.
He continued, ‘If you don’t bloody send them off, May Turner, I will creep into your tent, go through that notebook of yours and send them myself!’
‘Have you never met my room-mate, Matron? She’d give you what-for if you tried that!’
Winston shook his head. He was not joking. He looked suddenly downcast.
‘Good God, May! What am I going to do with you and Louis? I should knock your heads together!’
* * *
Kitty was still grieving for her mother. After our shifts, we talked about her. Kitty explained that her mother had made her feel loved, respected, admired even.
‘But how?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know,’ she said, wiping away the tears. ‘She wasn’t a clever woman, she wasn’t an educated woman, but she just did.’
My mother had carried, fed, educated and clothed me, but I had never felt more than a fly in her ointment, a spider in her soup. ‘Take her out.’ ‘Get her upstairs.’ ‘What does she want now?’
No wonder I found it painful to speak to her. No wonder I was a sitting duck for a man like George.
* * *
Not long after I had gone back to France, a letter came from Elizabeth. The envelope had a black footprint on it and I opened it apprehensively, afraid she was still hurt or angry at my selfishness. She had every right to be. I had not been a good friend. Elizabeth began with her usual updates on her cats, but then she cut to
the chase:
Anyway, May Turner, here is the news! I have work! I am going to be a nurse but I am NOT going to a hospital overseas, nor a hospital in England. Can you guess where I am going?
I stood stock-still.
I am going on a ship! It was such a brilliant idea of yours, I can’t believe I didn’t act on it sooner!
I imagined her grinning delightedly as she wrote that. She was going in one week, she said, which meant – I checked the date at the top – she was already there! She would be helping to transport patients from France to England.
Isn’t it marvellous how so many of the ships are called ‘castle’ these days? And mine has the best name of all: Glenart Castle. Remember that, darling. And make sure you look out for me. We might even dock near you!
I’m nowhere near the sea, I thought, but this was so Elizabeth. Why let a silly thing like geography get in your way?
I plan to jump over the side and swim like a fish every morning, so I haven’t given up on my Channel crossing dreams just yet. The goose fat is in my suitcase. The record may still one day be mine!
I started laughing to myself.
I can hardly believe how well it all worked out. Thank you, thank you, sweet May! I’m sorry if it seemed like I was agitated by your comments on your last visit. Forgive me. I understand now that you were exactly right, as always, your loving and plump friend, Elizabeth.
Elizabeth was incorrigible. Of course she would still be crossing the Channel; of course she would! And she didn’t hate me at all. Things had worked out just perfectly. I ran to my tent and wrote her a long and grateful reply.
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