by Lizzie Page
‘Do you ride?’ he asked.
I told him that I preferred motorcycles. ‘I suppose they’re a bit like aeroplanes.’
He laughed. ‘A plane is basically a motorbike with wings attached.’
I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not.
We didn’t have a huge amount in common – perhaps only the war and our eagerness to talk about it when few others would. Still, at that point in our lives, the war was everything.
Like me, Jack was more forthcoming in his letters than he was in real life. In real life, he was reserved, often struggling to find the right words and stuttering to get them out. He wasn’t well educated, that was clear, but he had a sharp intelligence. If I yawned, he yawned too (Dr Munro said this was a sign of an emotionally mature person!) However, sometimes, when he talked, I couldn’t help but compare him to Harold. I knew this was wrong – you can’t compare people, any more than I could compare Shot to Doris – but Harold was more elegant, more adept at conversation than Jack. And English was Harold’s third language!
Still, Harold was not mine to compare anyway.
I asked Jack if he had ever heard of a British general called Macdonald. Had Arthur still been in Belgium, I would have asked him (I had asked Elsie but she was rubbish with names).
‘Ramsay Macdonald?’
‘No, Major General Sir Hector Macdonald?’
He laughed. Oh yes, Jack knew all about him. ‘Son of a crofter. He rose to the top of the ranks but they didn’t like him because he was an outsider.’
It didn’t make sense.
‘What happened to him?’ I asked.
‘They killed him – no, he killed himself – they were out to get him, see, because he was from the lower class.’
How this could relate to my Uilleam was anybody’s guess.
‘They accused him of being a homosexual,’ Jack added. I spun around to look at him. Suffice to say, I had never heard that word spoken aloud before. He shrugged. ‘They’ll say anything.’
It was too cold to stay still. We walked along the beach and then into town, where we found a café. They made us coffee and galettes des rois, and I declared I hadn’t ever tasted anything so delicious. Jack was even less at ease indoors than he was outside, so when he started pulling on his coat, I did too.
‘Do you mind walking again?’ he asked. He was sweating.
I said I would be delighted.
Down the road we went. We must have walked about five miles and then we found another bench where we could sit. The sun had burned off the January frost.
When Jack talked about the war, his eyes blazed with fury.
‘And why the bloody hell are we fighting in the first place?’
‘What would you do, Jack? Leave Belgium to the mercy of the Hun?’
Jack didn’t know the answers but he was full of angry questions. He also said that whereas other friends seemed to be able to zip it away, pack up their troubles, he couldn’t.
‘I go over it in my head all the time,’ he said, ‘pathetic, isn’t it?’
‘No,’ I said. Although I found his struggle painful to hear – in some ways, it mirrored my own.
‘That’s why I like you so much,’ he said. ‘I can’t imagine myself with a normal girl!’
I laughed at the word ‘normal’. He added quickly, ‘I mean someone who didn’t know.’
‘I know what you meant!’
Jack said the only time he felt any sustained relief from the horrible images in his head was when he got in a plane.
‘Up there,’ he said, not realising how wonderful it was for me to see him so vibrant, ‘it’s like you’re above everything bad, everything foolish, every human mistake, you’re almost like God.’ He looked uncomfortable. ‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t be, it’s interesting,’ I said and meant it. ‘So, they sent you to France to train?’
His face turned scarlet. ‘Not exactly,’ he admitted. ‘I had a few days off and… I wanted to see you. I didn’t think you’d accept unless I said I was working nearby.’
I was flattered but didn’t understand. Why did he want to see me?
Jack looked at me like he was trying to read my face. ‘The training is hard, damn hard, but I’m glad I’m not in the trenches. I’m out in the open, I don’t have to dodge bullets and shells.’
‘I’m glad you’re not there too,’ I said spontaneously, feeling a burst of affection for this gloomy lad who’d gone through so much. And that’s when Jack kissed me. My lips were dry from the wind and chapped too, but so were his. My mind went to the dying boy, and I wondered if this was my first kiss or if that one was? His lips had moved once and then stilled. Both times were sweet and soft and made me wonder what was to happen next.
When Jack was done, he smiled his uneasy smile at me, and I smiled back, pretending that this was what I had been waiting for. A seagull cried overhead. It made me jump and Jack put his hand on me protectively.
I thought again of the boy who’d slipped away, dead in my arms. I had a painful feeling that I would never be able to kiss anyone again without remembering him.
When I came back to the cellar that evening with three slices of galette, Martin grunted that Elsie was in the trenches. One man was asleep in the cot, another warming up by the stove. Shot ignored me; he was part-playing with, part-eating an old newspaper. There was another postcard on Elsie’s blanket. Again, I wondered if she had left it out for me deliberately.
Dear Kenneth,
* * *
I have a very special friend for you to meet, darling. His name is Harold. I know you will like him very much. He wears a fine uniform and he speaks four languages. I have told him all about you and he can’t wait to meet you.
* * *
Love Mama! (and Shot and Harold and Mairi)
Xxx
* * *
After I read it, I decided she had not.
24
The conflict ran on like a runaway train. Boys kept arriving and boys kept dying. And small cogs though we were in this giant and terrible machine, together Elsie and I did our best as the war did its worst.
The continued publicity we were getting in England was still paying off. Towards the end of January, we reinforced our cellar with concrete. A few days after that, Elsie came in cock-a-hoop. ‘Guess which British luxury department store has sent us a door?’
I didn’t understand the question. ‘Which what?’
‘HARRODS!’ she shouted excitedly. ‘They heard what we’re doing and they’re sending us a door made of the best-quality steel! Can you believe it?’
It arrived the next day. Robin and some of the other engineers helped us to fit it. It was far superior to our cracked wooden one. Elsie joked that the best thing was that a little corner of this foreign field was now ‘forever Harrods’.
I wondered what Madeleine and her family would say about it. I hadn’t forgotten them, although it was a long time since I had found any more of their belongings, and Madeleine’s box of precious things now had medical equipment stacked on top of it. I liked to think Madeleine’s English was improving quickly across the Channel. I hoped she was concentrating in class. ‘Education is important, Madeleine,’ I imagined myself explaining. ‘The more people know about each other and the more things we value, the more hope there is that we can stop killing each other. One day, we will all be sane again.’
* * *
An increasing number of men tried not to fight. The horrors here might have been concealed from those back home, but what they were facing would have been evident as soon as they arrived. Elsie would speak at length to the desperate ones. She always made the time. I don’t know what she said. She couldn’t offer them the comforting prospect of heaven like I could. She couldn’t paint pictures of paradise. What consolation was there from her lips? She spoke about their wives’ pensions, maybe. Or the suffocating shame for generations and generations. Some still tried to run away. She had heated debates with their officers when they came to
us. Sheltering was an offence. ‘We are not sheltering!’ she shouted, enraged at the suggestion. ‘I will not accept this accusation!’ And they backed off. Our medals probably helped.
I told her better the men died honourably on the battlefield than cowering in front of a firing squad. Everybody knew that.
She said, ‘What a stinking choice.’
Once, I saw her whispering with one of the youngest, newest recruits, but she refused to tell me what she had said. I went on at her until finally she admitted that she had suggested that next time they were ordered out, he ‘sneak down into a shell hole and wait.’
‘You can’t tell him that!’
‘For God’s sake, he’s a dead man, Mairi,’ she actually hissed like a wild animal. ‘I will say what I bloody well like.’
I didn’t know what was changing between us or how to stop it. Since her engagement, I had felt a divide go up, like barbed wire and sandbags. There were things we weren’t to discuss any more. She was shutting me out.
The following month, Elsie was underneath the ambulance, refitting its wheel, when our first female guest came to have a look around.
I was very excited to welcome a woman to Pervyse. Apart from Lady D and Elsie, of course – oh and the infamous Ginger, who I still hadn’t met – the four hundred or so miles of the Western Front were almost exclusively a male zone. Rumour had it that not long after we received our medals, the Queen of Belgium had cycled from her hiding place to see us, but neither Elsie nor I had been at home. Elsie was convinced it was more than trench-gossip: ‘Of course she was here – why wouldn’t she come to see us?!’
But I wasn’t so sure – perhaps I found the idea of missing the queen’s visit, maybe by just a few minutes, too painful to contemplate.
I led our guest, Madame Curie, over to Elsie.
‘This is Mrs Elsie Knocker…’
Elsie muttered a ‘hello’ but she didn’t get up. We stood patiently at the side of the car as though waiting for a recalcitrant toddler, but still Elsie was not forthcoming. We were there for a further three or four minutes but still she wouldn’t come out. I felt my face grow hot. Recently, Elsie made me feel like a little girl again.
‘Elsie, Madame would like to—’
But she snapped, ‘I’m busy, Mairi, can you not see that?’
Embarrassed, I took our visitor away. Elsie wanted visitors but when they came, her behaviour was obnoxious. This wasn’t the first time she had treated guests with disdain.
Down in the cellar, I served tea and biscuits. Madame Curie had brought packets of French cocoa and peculiar cheese-flavoured biscuits, which I tucked into greedily. Well, if Elsie was too stubborn…
‘And these?’ She held up some warm underwear.
‘Is that for us?’
‘I thought you ladies might be missing some comforts.’
I nodded, touched as ever by the kindness of strangers.
‘They are not beautiful, but they are useful.’ She had a strange, mangled accent. Slightly French, slightly English, but also with a touch of somewhere else.
As always with our visitors, she expressed incredulity that we managed to live in the cellar house.
‘What hardships you endure,’ she said and I replied, mechanically, ‘This is nothing compared to what the boys go through.’
‘But still,’ she said, ‘just you and Elsie too. That must have its challenges.’
This woman had a warm intellect, and I felt I could confide in her. Powerlessness was something I was used to wearing like a second skin – yet that day, that moment, with Elsie having been so rude outside, I had never felt more powerless. But I couldn’t tell her how difficult I was finding Elsie so I focused on the boys.
As I talked, I found tears pouring down my cheeks. ‘They are fired on, living with the threat of death – and not just the threat, the smell, the sight, the taste of death. You mustn’t ever feel sorry for us. It makes me ashamed to sleep here, in relative safety, while the boys are outside.’
There was nothing Madame Curie could have said to cheer me up, and I was glad she didn’t try. Instead, she walked over to me, pulled me to my feet and folded me into a womanly hug while I wept.
* * *
After our guest left, I stormed out to Elsie. She wasn’t going to get away with humiliating me like that! Even Shot must have sensed I was in foul temper, for he scooted away from me. That dog, so casual when it came to bombs, couldn’t stand cross words.
‘Why were you so impolite?’ I felt utterly ashamed of Elsie. To be so rude to someone so nice was awful. And our guest was far more than just nice.
‘I am fed up with all these joyriders.’
‘You invite them, yet I end up looking after them! Just be civil. That’s all that’s required.’
‘Easy to say be civil if you’re not in the middle of a breakdown.’ She looked at me, annoyed. ‘A mechanical breakdown.’
‘I’ll sort that out.’
‘I want to do it.’
I thought Elsie was going to engage, but she went and washed her hands in a bucket. I wondered if she had had another row with Dr Munro or something, she was in such a bad mood.
‘They’re tourists. They want to brush against the war so they can tell stories over their grand dinners. “Lady Ascot, when you hear what I have seen: you will want to take me to bed…”’
‘The campaigners and the colonels don’t come for that. And the journalist who brought you tins of caviar – you didn’t complain then.’
‘There’s so many though. They interfere with our work. That one before last even needed our petrol to get away. We’re becoming a circus. Mairi, you are the strongman – no, the moustached lady.’
I felt so hurt. Having visitors was all her blasted idea anyway! She invited them then ignored them, and I was left to deal with it. She got the glory, I got the paperwork. Elsie always did what she liked, and I had to put up and shut up. I wasn’t going to obey her any more. I had opinions of my own.
‘Ha ha. And what are you, Elsie? Chief clown?’
‘They are envious of the work we are doing. That vacuous woman! What has she ever done?’
‘Do you know who that vacuous woman was?’
‘I don’t care if she’s the wife of the Tsar with Rasputin hiding in her drawers.’
‘Madame Curie is a renowned scientist who has developed mobile X-ray machines that will greatly aid our work.’
Elsie still looked furious, then suddenly she softened. She said in her low voice, ‘Mairi, I am sorry. I will try to be a better person in future.’
I felt choked with tears again. ‘You don’t have to—’
‘I do, I do.’
‘We can cancel the next one,’ I offered. He was in my logbook. An MP from Britain.
‘It’s fine.’ She gave me a weak smile. ‘If I can cope with running a field hospital, then I can manage a few well-intentioned sightseers.’
‘Of course.’
‘We’ll manage like we manage everything: together,’ she said embracing me.
I breathed in the sheer brave, energetic loveliness of her. How did she always win me around?
‘You’re still my sister, right?’
I nodded. She could be so brilliant. Why couldn’t she always be like this?
* * *
I found Shot hiding under the ambulance. A cheese-flavoured biscuit soon worked him free.
25
A few days after Madame Curie’s visit, Lady D organised another get-together in Furnes. I was nervous about socialising with Dr Munro again after the hoo-ha over the medals, but he didn’t seem to be holding a grudge.
Lady D thumped us on the backs as we arrived. ‘Such news, ladies!’ She didn’t seem perturbed not to have got an award, but Lady D was too considerate to let you know what she was thinking.
‘And the other news?’ she asked, eagerly.
Elsie shrugged non-committally.
‘You and Harold?’ Lady D paused, but when Elsie still didn’t r
espond, she continued. ‘I would never have had you down as the sort to marry again, Elsie. I thought you were one of our proud spinsters’ club.’
I had never heard of the proud spinsters’ club. For a moment, I thought it was an actual organisation, another thing I had been excluded from. Then I realised this was a joke between them.
Lady D’s cheeks were tinged with red. For the first time, I noticed the new thread-veins and the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. Lady D was soft, she’d always been soft, but now she looked angular and drawn.
‘Oh.’ Elsie waved her hands around. ‘We’ll see, Lady D. Maybe when all this is over.’
Lady D persisted. ‘You plan to convert, Elsie? How exciting!’
Elsie didn’t look excited. ‘It is a huge commitment and right now, we have too much on our minds, don’t we Mairi?’ She smiled elegantly at me. ‘Do you have a light?’
Relief flooded through me. Elsie was still my Elsie and Harold was still our Harold and nothing had to change. Engagement meant nothing. How many times had I met engaged boys who never got around to getting married?
I sprang forward with the matches and lit her cigarette. I liked doing it. I suddenly felt in better spirits than I had for some time.
‘And how is my favourite doggy?’ Lady D had a soft spot for Shot.
‘Currently cuddled up on a man with pneumonia,’ said Elsie proudly. ‘Shot deserves an order from the King of Belgium too.’
Furnes wasn’t the same without Helen and Arthur, but we passed a pleasant evening playing Newmarket, learning a new game called ‘Crazy Eights’ and speculating about politics: Gallipoli and the Eastern Front, The Tsar and the scoundrel Rasputin.