The FitzOsbornes at War

by Michelle Cooper

  What a depressing thought . . . but hooray, the telephone’s ringing! With some exciting news, I hope!

  MUCH LATER, NEARLY MIDNIGHT.

  I wonder if God (or Fate, or whoever) was reading over my shoulder and thinking, ‘She’s always whingeing about how dreary her life is. Well, I’ll show her. I’ll give her exciting.’

  I would vow to stop complaining forever, if it meant I’d never again have to have a telephone conversation like the one this morning.

  ‘Is that Miss Sophia FitzOsborne?’ asked the voice, brisk and female. A nurse, I realised instantly, before I’d even grasped what that could mean. ‘You’re the next of kin of Simon Chester?’ she went on.

  ‘Yes,’ I managed, feeling all the blood draining from my face. ‘Yes, what’s happened?’ A horrible rushing sound filled my ears, engulfing most of her words. The name of the hospital, I caught that. Something about surgery and a doctor. Simon couldn’t be dead, then! They wouldn’t operate on a dead person, would they? But I couldn’t get my mouth to work, to ask the right questions. Thank Heavens Veronica walked in at that moment – not soon enough to snatch the telephone receiver from me, but at least to stop me fainting on the floor.

  ‘Keep your head on your knees,’ she ordered, tearing through the telephone directory for the hospital’s number. ‘I don’t suppose you caught the name of that nurse? Or the doctor? Never mind . . . Hello, do you have a patient called Simon Chester? He may have been admitted just now . . . No, I don’t know who telephoned. Yes, I’ll wait . . . What? Why not? But I’m his sister . . . Oh, all right. Yes. Fine.’

  ‘Well, that was a waste of time,’ she said, turning to me. ‘He’s there, possibly in surgery, but they wouldn’t tell me anything else. Let’s go.’ She bundled me into my coat and got us into a taxi. I don’t remember much about the journey, except the driver was awfully kind and charged us far less than I would have expected for a trip across London. He said his son was in the army, so he could just imagine what we were going through. But I didn’t even know what I was going through – I simply couldn’t understand what had happened. What was Simon doing in London? Had he been in a motor car accident? He couldn’t have crashed his aeroplane, could he? I kept saying to myself, ‘But we aren’t even at war, not properly! This just isn’t right!’

  As though it would have been much better if he’d been shot down in battle.

  The hospital, when we reached it, was the sort of hulking Victorian edifice designed to frighten patients and visitors into complete submission. The reception desk was at the end of a gloomy corridor and was staffed by a gorgon, who sent us on a long journey to a ward that didn’t exist. When we were finally directed to the correct ward, we were confronted with the terrifying sight of an empty bed.

  ‘Oh, you’re looking for that pilot who got himself smashed up?’ rasped a nearby patient, raising himself on his elbows. He was horribly scarred, and his leg was suspended from something resembling a gallows. ‘I think they’ve moved him down the end, closer to the nurses’ station.’

  So, when we finally arrived at the foot of Simon’s bed, I almost burst into tears from sheer relief that he was alive and in one piece. Veronica, of course, showed her concern in quite a different way.

  ‘What on Earth have you done to yourself now?’ she said, as if he did this on a regular basis. His chest was swathed in bandages, one arm was in a sling, and his shoulder was swollen and mottled blue and purple. But he managed to glare back at her with some of his usual spirit.

  ‘I deliberately went and crashed my plane,’ he said, ‘just to annoy you.’

  ‘Well, you might have spared some consideration for poor Sophie,’ Veronica retorted. ‘That nurse who telephoned made her think you were dead.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said to me. I sat down by his side and reached for his good hand, which was icy.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ I asked.

  ‘Not too bad. The morphia seems to be working.’

  ‘What did the doctor say?’

  ‘Broken arm, a couple of cracked ribs. I was pretty lucky, actually. The plane’s a mess.’

  ‘What happened?’ Veronica asked, frowning down at him.

  ‘Engine stalled. Made a bad landing. Ploughed into a stone wall. Satisfied?’

  Veronica opened her mouth, closed it, then turned around. ‘I’m going to talk to the matron,’ she announced over her shoulder.

  ‘You can talk to me,’ said the man in the next bed, in hopeful tones. She gave him a thin look, then stalked off.

  ‘She’s just worried,’ I told Simon, who’d closed his eyes. ‘You know how she is. Did they say how long you’ll be in hospital?’

  ‘A couple of days. I should be up walking tomorrow. I suppose I should be grateful it was my left arm, not my right.’

  I looked at his arm, which was encased in plaster from below his elbow to his wrist. ‘And you’ll still be able to move your fingers. I expect you’ll get a few weeks of leave now?’

  ‘Well, I certainly won’t be flying for a while,’ he said. There was a pause. ‘Perhaps never again,’ he added.

  ‘You mean . . . But they wouldn’t blame you for a mechanical failure, surely?’

  ‘A better pilot would have brought that plane down safely.’

  ‘But you’re still in training! You can’t be expected to know everything yet!’

  ‘Sophie,’ he said. He shifted his head on the pillow to look at me. ‘I’m not going to get any better than this. They only assigned me to pilot training because I work so hard and follow all the rules. They must have thought I’d turn out all right, if I kept putting in that much effort. But it’s not enough. It’s never enough . . .’

  I stared back at him, into those dark eyes that were so like Veronica’s, yet so shadowed, so wretchedly unhappy . . . Well, of course, he was still in shock from the accident, and the morphia was clouding his mind. But, for a moment, I could almost have believed he’d done this on purpose, in some desperate attempt to escape his miserable situation. Perhaps Freud was right about the unconscious mind directing one’s behaviour – although I’m not sure an unconscious mind, even Simon’s, could be powerful enough to disable the engine of an aeroplane.

  ‘What would happen if you weren’t a pilot?’ I asked, choosing my words carefully.

  ‘They’d transfer me somewhere else. Navigation, communications . . . there are plenty of other options in the air force.’

  ‘And you might like that better,’ I said. I gave him an encouraging smile, but he’d turned away.

  ‘I don’t think what I like has very much to do with it,’ he said heavily. He let his eyelids fall. Even his face looked bruised and tender. ‘Sorry, I’m a bit tired.’

  I gently pulled my hand away from his. ‘Yes, you get some rest. I’ll telephone tomorrow morning. Do you need me to bring you anything?’

  There was no answer. I thought he must have fallen asleep, but after I stood up, he suddenly said, ‘Sophie!’

  ‘Yes?’ I said.

  ‘Could you let Mother know? Only don’t tell her anything about . . . I mean, don’t let her worry, will you?’

  ‘I’ll contact her clinic,’ I said. ‘And I’ll write to Toby, as well. Don’t you worry, either. I’ll take care of it.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, and he did fall asleep then, almost at once. It was only as Veronica and I were walking back down the corridor that I realised he must have put my name down in his RAF records as his next of kin. I don’t know why that surprised me. I could understand him not wanting to write Rebecca’s name, or Veronica’s – and Toby was in the RAF, too, so unlikely to be able to come to Simon’s aid in an emergency. But it made me sad, to think Simon had so few people to call family.

  ‘Where’s he going to go, when they discharge him from hospital?’ I asked Veronica.

  ‘Well, we don’t have room in our flat.’ She was burrowing through her bag. ‘I think we’ll have to take a bus home. Not enough money for a taxi.’

  ‘He
could have my room,’ I said. ‘And I could have the sofa . . . except we’ll be at work, so there’d be no one to look after him.’

  ‘He can go to Milford.’

  ‘Aunt Charlotte’s still cross at him for abandoning her. I don’t think she’d be very welcoming. Besides, who would look after him there?’

  ‘Barnes?’

  ‘She doesn’t like him. I don’t know why.’

  ‘I do,’ said Veronica. ‘It’s his maddening character. He could go to his mother’s.’

  ‘Oh, Veronica!’

  ‘What? They have plenty of nurses there.’

  ‘It’s a mental asylum.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Veronica said. ‘It might lead to an improvement in his personality.’

  ‘I know you’re only talking like this to distract me from worrying,’ I said, ‘and you’re almost succeeding. I suppose the RAF has places where it sends injured servicemen to recuperate, but . . . Oh! What about Julia? She’s got her first aid certificate now, and she has lots of room.’

  ‘Brilliant,’ said Veronica. ‘Inflict a grumpy convalescent relative on one of our dearest friends.’

  ‘She likes Simon,’ I said. ‘She thinks he’s fascinating. And he’d probably be less grumpy with her than with other people, including us.’

  ‘Trust me, he’d be more grumpy,’ said Veronica. ‘He’s one of those men who dislike the women they’re attracted to – especially if the woman is unattainable.’

  The bus arrived while I was still spluttering. ‘Simon’s not attracted to Julia!’ I exclaimed, a bit too loudly. The conductor gave me an interested look. ‘Anyway,’ I continued, lowering my voice after Veronica handed over our fares, ‘what do you mean, “one of those men”? Since when have you been an expert on this? How many men do you know?’

  ‘The Foreign Office is full of them. And I’ve discovered that some of them – the ones who expect every woman to turn into a blushing, simpering idiot in their presence – don’t take kindly to being ignored. Or to having their advances rejected.’

  ‘Gosh!’ I said, sitting down with a bump. Veronica really had managed to distract me. ‘You’ve never mentioned this before.’

  ‘It wasn’t worth mentioning. They don’t deserve to take up the smallest part of any of my conversations.’

  ‘But isn’t it difficult, dealing with that sort of thing at work?’ I persisted.

  ‘It’s mildly annoying,’ she conceded, picking up the newspaper that someone had left on the seat. ‘Oh, look – it’s about Finland’s peace treaty! Not that they could have held out any longer against the Soviet invasion, but didn’t they put up a valiant fight? I do so admire the Finns. Sophie? Don’t you agree?’

  Veronica is absolutely wrong. Not about Finland, or certain awful, arrogant men at the Foreign Office, or even men in general – just about Simon, who is definitely not attracted to Julia. Except in a sort of vague, admiring way, because she’s so elegant and sophisticated.

  But still, it would be ridiculous to ask her if he could stay with her. Quite inappropriate.

  21st April, 1940

  LETTER FROM TOBY YESTERDAY. THANKFULLY, it doesn’t seem as if his squadron is going to be sent to Norway. This is reading between the lines, of course, as the commanding officers don’t tell the pilots very much, and Toby wouldn’t be allowed to say if he did know. However, as he spent an entire page complaining about not being able to use his lovely new Spitfire for anything more than a bit of aerial surveillance, I feel that I’ve been granted a reprieve – especially as Simon is now safely tucked away somewhere up north, being trained in some secret technology.

  I realise how inconsistent of me it is to want the Nazis defeated without being prepared to have anyone I know killed in combat. (If I were really being honest, I would say ‘hypocritical’, rather than ‘inconsistent’, but there are limits to my ability to reproach myself.) The thing is, I only have one brother and one male cousin, and I don’t want to sacrifice either of them, no matter how important the cause. Of course, I don’t want Anthony, or even a complete stranger, to die in their place . . . Not that it matters, what I want. I haven’t the slightest control over any of it.

  I’m not sure who is in control, except it’s definitely not useless old Chamberlain. He’d just given a speech about how Hitler had ‘missed the bus’ and was never going to attack anyone, when the Nazis invaded Norway. Norway! It’s just across the sea from Scotland! And the battles seem to be going very badly for the Norwegians right now. The King of Norway and his Parliament have fled Oslo, and Veronica says the Foreign Office is making plans to evacuate them to London. There are British troops over there, but they don’t seem to be helping much. I expect it’s pretty difficult, fighting in all that snow. But still, it doesn’t make one feel very optimistic about the Allied forces, does it? What about when the Germans move on to wherever they’re going to attack next? Perhaps it won’t be Scotland, after all – there is quite a lot of sea they’d have to cross first. But France is right beside Germany. Or there’s Belgium. Or the Netherlands . . .

  My sense of impending doom is not, I must point out, based on any political or military analysis of my own, but simply on observing Veronica and the Colonel. Veronica is currently downstairs, sweeping out the cellar so we can use it as an air raid shelter. Our local ARP warden said the cellar was just as good as an official Anderson shelter, because ‘even if that flat of yours scores a direct hit, you’ve got that second cellar exit that comes out in the garden. That’s far enough away that it won’t get covered in too much debris – we’ll probably be able to dig you out in a couple of hours if there aren’t any gas leaks or unexploded bombs nearby.’ Oh, well, that’s absolutely fine, then! Among other worrying signs, Veronica has become obsessed with listening to the BBC news and has lugged the enormous atlas down from the Montmaray House library, so she can track the movements of troops in Norway. And she’s bought a paraffin lamp in case the electricity goes out. And she asked Julia what we ought to keep in our first aid kit.

  As for the Colonel, he’s warned me to stay away from the American Embassy. Something is going on, but he says it’s best I don’t know about it just yet. He also asked me to write out a sample of Kernetin for him, and asked if Veronica would be able to read it.

  ‘Not the abbreviated form,’ I said. ‘She can read the regular code, though.’

  ‘Good,’ he said, in his annoyingly cryptic way, before departing.

  So – as I am thoroughly in need of distraction, I decided I ought to make the effort to have a little fun, and therefore I agreed to go out on Friday evening with the girls from work. ‘Effort’ is the right word, because it took a whole Sunday of searching through my wardrobes up in the house, plus a visit to Julia, before I had anything remotely suitable to wear. All my debutante dresses seemed so frilly and pastel, the skirts too full, the necklines all wrong. I’d worn my good suit and a silk blouse to those cocktail parties at the Embassy, but that wouldn’t do for a nightclub. In the end, Julia helped me alter the skirt of an old blue satin evening gown to make it shorter and tighter. She also lent me some long, sparkly earrings.

  ‘Don’t worry if you lose them, they’re only rhinestones,’ she said. ‘But darling, when did you last visit a hairdresser?’

  ‘I never have time for that sort of thing now,’ I said, trying not to sound too resentful. Julia is only posted on at her ambulance station three nights a week, and they seem to spend the whole evening sitting around, playing cards and drinking mugs of tea.

  ‘Well, just pin your hair up, then,’ she said. ‘Let’s see if I can find a hair clip that matches those earrings . . . Where exactly are you going, anyway?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Felicity and Anne both like the band at the Café de Paris.’

  ‘Do you have an evening bag?’

  ‘Veronica’s got a little black velvet clutch. Would that be all right, do you think?’

  ‘Perfect. Well, darling, have a fabulous time, don’t fall too madly in love
with anyone in uniform, and tell me all about it next week. I’m so glad you’re going out and having some fun!’

  I didn’t tell Julia that I’d only agreed to this outing because Felicity said her boyfriend had a cousin who was ‘just your type, Sophie’. At last, I would find out what ‘my type’ was! I decided not to invite Veronica to join us – partly because I’m trying to be more independent, but mostly because no matter what ‘my type’ turned out to be, there was a fair chance he’d prefer Veronica to me. Anyway, nightclubs are not really her thing, and she’s up to the second-last lesson in our shorthand workbook and was keen to finish it. She helped me fasten the back of my dress, pinned up my hair and lent me some money for taxi fares. Then I skipped off to my date.

  Well. ‘My type’ proved to be a stout young man with beady eyes and a lot of sleek brown hair. He reminded me of a guinea pig. I do try not to judge people on their looks – after all, I’m hardly Helen of Troy. And guinea pigs can be quite endearing. But Nigel’s appearance was the best thing about him. He didn’t like to dance. He didn’t like to laugh, smile or make eye contact, either. When I tried to engage him in conversation, he answered in monosyllables or not at all, meanwhile staring over my shoulder at the dance floor – that is, at Felicity, with whom he was clearly besotted.

  ‘That’s why you brought me along, isn’t it?’ I hissed at Felicity in the powder room, as she was repairing her lipstick. ‘To get him off your back!’

  ‘Oh, sweetie! It’s just that he’s doing that training course and staying with Mark for a month, and we can’t simply abandon the poor boy every time we go out, can we? Anyway, I thought you two would hit it off. He’s from the country, too, you know – and he collects stamps.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Well, and you collect books.’

  ‘I don’t collect them. I read them.’ (She seemed to think reading was some sort of hobby, as opposed to being as necessary as breathing, sleeping and eating.)