Daughters of War

by Lizzie Page

  Louis was in the canteen talking enthusiastically with Gordon. I couldn’t believe it. How dare he just appear like this?! It wasn’t kind to come back into my life with no warning.

  My stomach knotted as I watched Bonnie walk over and greet him warmly. Both she and Gordon were traitors, I decided. Then Kitty arrived and, although slightly more reticent, she still shook hands with Louis and laughed at something he said. I was boiling with rage. In their excitement, no one noticed me draw nearer.

  ‘How’s young Freddie?’ I heard Louis say. Ever the liaison man, I thought scornfully, always trying to win over a crowd.

  ‘He’s two now!’ Bonnie beamed, predictably thrilled that her bonny boy had been remembered. ‘I just got back from leave with him. He babbles and everything.’

  ‘I’m so pleased.’ Everyone looked pleased.

  I couldn’t wait any longer. I called hello. Louis spun around, and his smile told me that I was the reason he was here.

  ‘May!’

  I felt all my old feelings for him flood back, but then that had never changed, not really. It was him who had changed, not me: he had rejected me. I cautioned myself to remember that.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  Bonnie and Kitty excused themselves and scuttled away. Gordon made his exasperated face and went after them. I knew it would have suited them all if I was kind to Louis. Well, I wasn’t here to make life more pleasant for them.

  ‘I didn’t mean to cause you upset,’ Louis said hesitantly. His bottom lip turned pale under his teeth. I think he was disappointed with my tone (he had no right to be).

  ‘I’m not upset,’ I said coldly. Don’t flatter yourself. ‘I asked, what are you doing here?’

  He wrung his hands – the hands I used to clutch and kiss. ‘It’s a little strange, but I’ve, we’ve, been invited to a wedding…’

  I laughed, then realised that he was being serious.

  ‘A wedding? What? Whose?’

  He gave his dry, uncertain cough. ‘Elsie Knocker’s.’

  ‘Elsie? What on earth? Who is she marrying?’

  Elsie had never mentioned anything to me about marriage. With some women it was always on their mind. If it had been on hers, it had been obscured by thousands of other more pressing things. Louis licked his lips uneasily. ‘Baron T’serclaes.’

  ‘Who? Is that Harold?’ Her Man of the Moment?

  ‘Yes…’ Louis gestured to the canteen chairs. ‘Shall we?’

  I shook my head. I thought, why are you always trying to get me to sit down? We weren’t going to get comfortable together ever again.

  ‘Really? Elsie Knocker is getting married to a baron?’

  ‘Yes!’

  He chuckled nervously, and I couldn’t help but grin – until I reminded myself again, this man is not your friend.

  ‘Is it in Exeter?’ I asked, vaguely remembering Elsie mentioning that she was from there.

  ‘Um, no,’ he said even more nervously. ‘It’s… it’s in a little church, near the Western Front…’

  Who on earth gets married along the Western Front?

  Elsie Knocker does, of course.

  ‘I’d be delighted if you’d agree to accompany me.’

  I tried to look non-committal, but my mind was racing ahead. Elsie and Harold were getting married and I was invited. Louis and I would go together. This was a chance for me to show him what a terrible mistake he had made, to show him that I was a desirable and lovable woman and he was a fool.

  What to wear though? There was no way George would release my clothes. And there was no way I would even ask. He would be delighted to know he had more leverage over me. That’s if he hadn’t dumped them on a bonfire yet.

  I would have to order something gorgeous from Liberty’s. The type of thing people wore before the war. I would somehow style my hair into the latest look – whatever it was now – and I would be irresistible, and Louis would tell everyone that he rued the day he’d left me. If I wrote to Liberty’s now, this very evening, they could get something to me within the next month. Or perhaps, if Kitty or Bonnie were going back to England in the next few weeks, they could pick out something and then Bonnie could make sure it fitted. She was a whizz at making a dress look unintentionally tight.

  ‘I’m not sure.’ Suddenly, I felt less interested in the wedding and more interested in making Louis squirm. I knew the hurt I could inflict on him would be just a drop in the ocean compared to what he had done to me, but it felt very important to me then. Which would upset him most, I evaluated coolly: refusing to go with him, or going but snubbing him all day long?

  ‘Elsie very much wants you there,’ he added. He laid his cap on the table and it seemed to me he was intentionally making himself more vulnerable. Why did he have to have that handsome face, those blue eyes? I remembered Madame Lorenzo’s warning that he was complex and again, I thought she wasn’t completely wrong.

  ‘When is it then?’

  Louis looked more uncomfortable than ever. He twisted his hands. ‘It’s tomorrow!’

  * * *

  Louis insisted he hadn’t had any more notice than that himself. He had come right away, as soon as he had heard. But still, it was ridiculous, wasn’t it? Only one day’s warning? How could I get ready? I would look shabbier than the scarecrow in Farmer Norest’s fields. But then I thought, actually, Kitty had several fine hats – her uncle was a milliner – and Bonnie had just received a delivery of boot polish that I could surely use in exchange for some rouge, if necessary. She had also come back from her last leave home with a very pretty jacket ‘borrowed’ from an unsuspecting sister. That might work. So, I accepted, and it was arranged that Louis would pick me up the following day.

  ‘I look forward to it,’ he said as he left. I didn’t bother to reply, and his words hung unanswered like the cobwebs in the air.

  * * *

  Gordon was the first to return. ‘So, May, what’s going on?’

  I was still dazed. Elsie was marrying on the Western Front and I was going to her wedding with Louis. It was so surreal that for a moment it felt like I had stepped into one of Percy’s paintings.

  ‘It’s no big deal, Gordon. I just have to go somewhere with Louis tomorrow.’

  ‘You have to go?’ he echoed, laughing. ‘You don’t want to go?’ This made me furious. Gordon thought he was right about everything, but he really wasn’t.

  ‘Louis and I are over,’ I snapped. ‘What would make me most happy would be if I never had to see that pathetic man again.’

  There was a noise at the entrance. Both Gordon and I swung around.

  ‘Er, hmm…’ Louis was standing in the gap. Sunlight shafted around him. ‘I think I forgot my cap…’

  47

  The next morning, Gordon, Kitty, Bonnie and Matron gathered to see me off. I felt silly at the fuss, but grateful too. Bonnie had made my boots gleam and her sister’s stylish jacket did indeed fit a treat. Kitty’s hats did nothing for me, but Millicent had lent me a beautiful cream coloured bonnet. I felt quite the glamourpuss!

  ‘You should have seen the clothes I brought out here,’ Millicent said, shamefaced. ‘I was such a ninny.’

  I confided in her about my abandoned bathing suits and my long-gone weekend shoes and she laughed. ‘Glad I wasn’t the only one.’

  * * *

  Louis didn’t say anything until we had started the drive. Then, staring straight ahead, he said I looked elegant. I shrugged as if to say, your opinions aren’t important to me anymore.

  He asked how the girls were and I told him fine. I didn’t want to talk. We were not lovers anymore and we had never been friends; I had no need to elaborate. He had made his decision, he had chosen not to be with me. I would not reward him by being nice. Perhaps if he grovelled, perhaps if he begged for my hand, I might. I eyed him nervously. He did not look like he was about to grovel or beg.

  Today is about Elsie and Harold, I reminded myself. That’s all. Not us. Let’s get this done with.


  * * *

  As we drove, I remembered my own wedding. Drunken George rubbing his clammy hands together, making insinuations about our wedding night. Drooling through the endless speeches. The worst mistake of my life. My mother’s face like thunder – but then she had never been pleased with me. My grandmother had once let slip that I was supposed to be a boy and it seems she never got over the disappointment. Funny how she had been dismayed that I had married George, yet doubly dismayed when I left him – how clearly I could see it all now.

  * * *

  It was a magnificent church. Elsie had found a diamond in the ruins, one of those freak survivors of a storm. If you were superstitious, you might say it had been saved by God expressly for this reason. Exquisite stained glass of fishermen and farmers completed the interior. Gorgeous blue and yellow shades everywhere you looked. Think of all the work that had gone into this! I thought, think of all the love.

  Louis and I were seated in a middle row, at the far side, but I still had a good view of the aisle Elsie would walk up. I could see no sign of Harold and it fleetingly crossed my mind that something, anything, could still go wrong. How awful that would be. The place was crowded, mostly with men and women in uniform, but there were a few in civilian clothes too. There were a couple of babies with their mothers furiously rocking them to keep them quiet. A few small children looking around for things to do. An elderly Belgian man who kept talking loudly, others who kept saying ‘sshhh!’.

  It was ridiculous but when Elsie finally arrived at the church door with the sunlight behind her, it was almost like we were in the presence of something holy. She was wearing a veil, so of course you couldn’t see her expression, but you could absolutely tell that underneath she was calm and content and that everything was in place, everything was exactly as it ought to be.

  Harold stood up, ah there he was, of course, he had been waiting in the front pew, and could a fellow possibly have smiled more? His face was bursting with pride. As Elsie moved towards him, she looked as though she were floating, so smooth and graceful were her movements.

  Usually, I can’t abide a slow service, but this was excellently paced. The priest alternated between Flemish and English, but he had an expressive, clear voice and he virtually skipped through the introductions. I found I couldn’t take my eyes off them all. I was hardly aware of Louis next to me until he coughed. No one declared any reason the couple shouldn’t wed. A ripple of relieved laugher ran through the crowd at that point. Their vows were exchanged in low, serious voices. When the priest said Elsie’s full name, Elizabeth Blackall Shapter, I raised my eyebrows at Louis for one moment – I did not know that was Elsie’s real name! – but when he smiled back, I hastily looked away from him:

  He is not my friend.

  Harold lifted Elsie’s veil. They stared at each other with such longing and intent, I could hardly breathe.

  At the same time, it occurred to me that there was something so unlikely about all this: Elsie had never shown any interest in marriage, in monogamy, in the old institutions, yet here we were. Harold must have pulled her back to the traditional ways. It must be love.

  Louis wiped his cheek. He looked at me and for the first time in a long while, I let down my guard. I forgot the pain he had caused me, and it seemed natural to place my hand on his. Almost like a reflex he closed his beautiful eyes.

  I had to close my eyes too and hold my breath. Our legs brushed together briefly. I don’t think I had ever wanted him more.

  * * *

  Outside, the English threw rice while the Belgians looked appalled, muttering about the waste. Elsie and Harold stood in the midst of it all, in the centre but aloof somehow, elevated and hardly there. There was the usual faffing around outside the church door. And then there were the photographs, always with the photograph! Elsie wasn’t known as the most photographed woman on the Western Front for nothing. The photographers took over, the occasion was theirs for now. They organised Elsie: they took shots of her on her own, and she looked as cool and self-possessed as she ever did; then they took shots of her with Harold and I couldn’t help but smile to see her so girlish.

  An old man swept the rice into a neat pile. When he thought no one was looking, he knelt on the ground, knees in the dirt, and with wizened fingers pushed all those tiny grains of rice into a paper bag and then strolled off nonchalantly, bag under his arm.

  * * *

  The reception was held at La Poupée, of course: it was Elsie’s favourite place. Nowhere else would make sense. We drove the thirty minutes in silence. And darling Ginger was there, greeting everyone, matching names to faces, taking coats, making drinks appear from thin air, making sure the pianist was playing the songs everyone wanted to hear. Her father looked redder and more tired than ever, but he too dashed around the tables, magicking up whisky and gin.

  Elsie transformed from blushing bride into perfect host, rotating around, checking we all had a drink and had been fed. And there were too many people to talk to; Louis and I were never left alone together, thank goodness. When it was my turn, Elsie hugged me, told me that I was a vision – she loved this jacket – it has to be from Harrods, no? – and she was thrilled I had come. She hugged me, held me by the shoulders so she could look at me properly, then hugged me again.

  ‘I hear you have medals from the Somme.’

  ‘Oh…’ I flushed. I hated talking about it. Hated, hated it. Wished those horrendous months, like the medals, could be locked away in a hidden box. ‘You know how it is.’

  Elsie nodded. ‘And you drive, now?’

  ‘Drive, ride motorbikes… still afraid of horses though,’ I admitted.

  ‘Two out of three isn’t bad.’

  She looked around, and I wondered if she was losing interest in me. But instead she leaned forward, whispering, ‘We war nurses have a special bond.’ I agreed, but later, I wondered if we did. I wondered if there was something that you could tell about us that distinguished us from other people, other nurses, other veterans. If there was a special bond now, in two years, ten, fifteen years, would it fade, and would we be unremarkable, invisible women again?

  ‘And how is it with Louis?’

  Elsie didn’t know? Louis hadn’t told her?

  Goosepimples on my arm. ‘There is no “it”. We no longer…’ I couldn’t think of the word. What did we no longer do? ‘…communicate,’ I said weakly.

  ‘But…’ She gaped at me. ‘Why? I was certain you adored each other!’

  ‘You’ll have to ask him.’ I shrugged. Then a Frenchman in a uniform covered with medals came along and possessively put an arm around Elsie. ‘Hurry! The Queen of Belgium is here.’

  But Elsie just shrugged.

  ‘You must come and speak to her,’ he insisted.

  ‘But I am talking with my old friend…’

  ‘Go, go!’ I said, laughing, and apologetically, Elsie allowed herself to be pulled away from me.

  * * *

  At any gathering now, there were men with no legs or men with no arms, so sometimes you didn’t even look twice. Even Elsie’s Harold hadn’t escaped unscathed: he had a limp. The atmosphere was buoyant. I didn’t get to see the Queen but I mingled with fine ladies and hospital matrons and there were Australian, New Zealander and Canadian servicemen in addition to the usual Belgians, French and British. The sun was just setting behind the old clock tower when Harold picked Elsie up in his arms. She tried batting him away half-heartedly, but was laughing too much to put up much of a fight. Harold staggered away with her in his arms out to their car. It was surprising they made it that far. I suppose they went somewhere to be alone. A hotel perhaps. I had no doubt her wedding night would be better than mine had been. Better than my life ever had been – except when I was with Louis. I looked over at him, remembering our previous visit here and after, after in the car. I was smiling and cheering along with everyone, but I wanted to cry.

  I thought, to be loved, to be accepted, isn’t that what we all want?
>
  I drained my glass of champagne and took another from Ginger’s father. My emotions were churning. I wondered, was it possible Louis and I could try again? I knew there was something still between us. I had felt it in the car and in the church. I wasn’t wrong about it, surely? Mightn’t it be that Louis had finally realised his mistake – and would beg for me to be his once again? Sure enough, just as I was wondering this, Louis strode over to me purposefully. I gave him my first genuine smile of the day.

  ‘Oh Louis, the bubbles are going to my head,’ I said with the tinkly little laugh I hadn’t bothered with for so long. ‘Are you enjoying yourself? They say the Queen of Belgium is here!’

  ‘It’s a wonderful party,’ he agreed. He was drumming his leg, which I knew meant he had something on his mind.

  ‘Louis, I want to say, I don’t think you’re pathetic,’ I talked quickly before he could stop me. ‘But you must understand, I was very hurt and… taken aback by your rejection.’

  Behind him, I noticed a young French soldier with pockmarked skin watching me uncertainly. Too late, I realised he was waiting for Louis.

  ‘I regret hurting you, May,’ Louis replied shortly. His skin was a furious flush. He gestured to the young soldier to come forward. ‘Sergeant Forzay will drive you back whenever you are ready.’

  Sergeant Forzay’s hand was plump and damp.

  ‘My pleasure, Nurse Turner.’

  I couldn’t think of what to say. I didn’t want Louis to go yet, I felt like I’d played everything badly.

  But there was nothing I could do.

  Louis gave me a nod. His eyes, so gentle, so intelligent, were shaded. This was it.

  ‘Goodbye, May.’

  48

  Since Elizabeth was now somewhere on the English Channel, I was very grateful that Kitty agreed to come with me to Leamington. It was kind of her to give up a precious day of leave. On the train, I felt excited and optimistic. We were the only people in the compartment and we ate Bath buns and read aloud the more interesting articles in the newspaper to each other. Kitty read beautifully now.