Winds of Eden

by Catrin Collier

  Exasperated, Georgiana reached for her cigarettes. ‘Like Harry you have an answer for everything.’

  ‘I don’t, but I do know we’re both worried sick about him. I need to be with him, Georgie, so I can see how he’s bearing up.’

  ‘Mesopotamia’s vast. What are the odds of you being sent anywhere near Harry?’

  ‘That’s the beauty of being a war correspondent. I won’t be “sent” anywhere. I can go where I like, even into the thick of the action.’

  ‘Great, knowing Harry, that’s exactly where he’ll be. It will be comforting to know you were killed together.’

  ‘Neither of us will be killed, Georgie. Once I’m there, I’ll check his whereabouts with HQ and travel to wherever he’s stationed. I’ll write to you as soon as I see him. Then you can stop worrying.’

  ‘You know what Harry and I are like. I’m not just his sister. I’m his twin. Whatever affects him affects me. I know he’s unhappy, desperately so, but I don’t think it’s the war. It could be something to do with his wife. He didn’t mention Furja in his last few letters.’

  Michael smiled. ‘Only Harry could marry a Bedouin. He sounded so happy when he first wrote to us about her, but if he’s been on active service he might not have seen her for a while.’

  ‘It’s possible, I suppose.’

  ‘I’ve often wondered if Harry married his Arab and you married Gwilym just to annoy our parents.’

  Georgiana rarely mentioned her brief marriage to a Welsh coalminer. A pacifist, he’d volunteered for Red Cross duties in France. His death within a week of arrival at the Western Front was still raw.

  ‘When I fell in love with Gwilym, I thought only of myself – and Gwilym. Children should live their lives the way they want without paying heed to their parents, especially when the said parents are antiquated remnants of another age.’

  ‘Don’t let Father catch you saying that.’

  ‘He’s so hidebound he’s positively Neanderthal. He’d keep me at the back of the cave cooking, cleaning, and skinning his kills if he could.’

  Michael laughed at Georgiana’s depiction of their immaculately turned-out, meticulous, and correct army officer father as a primitive hunter. ‘Let’s forget the parents and Harry for now. Enjoy a damned good lunch – on me – and spend the afternoon doing whatever you want before we have to change to dine with Tom, Clarissa and Helen.’

  ‘What time’s your train out?’

  ‘Midnight. Until then I forbid you to think further than five minutes ahead.’ He read the menu and summoned the waitress. ‘I’ll order for both of us. How does stuffed herring rolls, followed by roast sirloin, Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes, and Brussels sprouts, finished off with blackberry and apple pie with cream sound?’

  ‘Leaden.’ She turned to the waitress, ‘I’ll have the herring rolls to start, the cold beef, pickles and tomato salad …’

  ‘You must have blackberry and apple pie and cream,’ Michael broke in. ‘I don’t want to be the only stuffed piggy.’

  ‘And the pie,’ Georgiana capitulated.

  Michael summoned the wine waiter. He ordered vintage claret to go with the food and cherry brandy to be served with Viennese coffees after dessert.

  ‘You and your sweet tooth,’ Georgiana teased. ‘I remember the cook’s screams whenever she caught you and Harry in the pantry, spoons in hands dipping into her pots of preserves. It’s a wonder any survived for the breakfast table.’

  ‘It was always Harry’s idea, but then most of the fun things we did were. Where do you want to go after lunch?’

  ‘As it will be your last afternoon in London for a while, it’s your choice.’

  ‘National Portrait Gallery,’ he said decisively.

  ‘You’re only saying that because it’s one of my favourite places.’

  ‘Is it so awful of a man to want to please his big sister?’

  ‘I’ve tickets for the Adelphi for a matinee of Hi Jinks.’

  ‘Fat lot of good they are on a Tuesday when matinée days are Wednesdays and Saturdays.’

  ‘Except when management’s laid on a special performance for wounded and convalescent soldiers.’ She pulled the tickets from her pocket.

  ‘I couldn’t take a serviceman’s seat.’

  ‘You wouldn’t. So few soldiers are fit enough to leave the hospitals we were given double the number of tickets we could use. I telephoned the theatre. They were so delighted at the prospect of having a war correspondent witness their generosity they offered us a box. Unless of course you’re too embarrassed to be seen with your big sister.’

  ‘I’d be honoured to accompany you, Dr Downe.’ He leaned back as the waitress set their stuffed herring rolls on the table.

  ‘You sound exactly like Harry. Deferential to the point of sarcasm.’ She fell serious. ‘Michael, tell me to shut up if you like, but you and Lucy …’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘Is your marriage beyond salvaging?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You rushed into it.’

  ‘I did. I regret it. If you want to say “I told you so …” ʼ

  ‘I don’t. Can I help?’

  ‘Not unless you can magic Lucy off the planet. No, that’s unfair. I don’t wish her dead or ill, only a million miles away from me. Permanently.’

  ‘Have you seen her?’

  ‘Not since my last leave five months ago.’

  ‘You haven’t been to Clyneswood?’

  ‘Not since I returned from France the day before yesterday, and, before you ask, we haven’t corresponded for five months.’

  ‘Have you told our parents?’

  ‘They’d have to be blind not to notice we can’t stand one another.’

  ‘Do you intend to divorce her?’

  ‘When I’m back in this country for longer than a week I’ll talk to a solicitor. But that’s the problem, isn’t it, Georgie? While King and Country need us body and soul we can’t make plans to do anything personal, and won’t be in a position to until “after the war”.’

  Chapter Two

  The Ritz, London, early evening, Tuesday 30th November 1915

  Damp from his bath, Tom padded naked into the bedroom. He looked at Clarissa lying in bed, and without warning yanked the covers from her.

  Naked and irritated, she shouted, ‘Tom!’ before grabbing the sheet and tugging it to her chin.

  ‘That’s like sealing the cake tin after the cake’s been eaten.’

  ‘Now I’m a cake?’

  ‘A luscious strawberry and cream sponge.’ He peeled back the sheet, nuzzled her bare back, and slipped his hand between her thighs. ‘Why so coy? Especially after what we’ve been doing for the past six hours?’

  ‘I’m cold,’ she lied. His attitude to nudity was casual, hers wasn’t, and she knew he thought her prudish.

  ‘I could give you a hot bath.’

  ‘I’m not a child.’

  ‘As I discovered earlier.’ He lifted the sheet and slapped her buttocks lightly. ‘Time to rise and make yourself beautiful, Mrs Scott. I’ve booked a table for seven thirty.’

  ‘Our last dinner.’

  ‘Please, don’t get maudlin. I hope you have a dress that will complement those earrings.’

  ‘As it happens, I do.’ Furious with herself for allowing the façade of happy, compliant girlfriend to drop, she pulled the sheet from the bed, wrapped it around herself and went to her weekend bag. She unbuckled the clasp and pulled out a midnight blue lace evening gown.

  ‘Scratchy lace.’

  ‘Uncrushable lace.’

  ‘Bath, woman. I need a drink before Mike, Georgie, and Helen get here and there’s no champagne left.’

  ‘Ten minutes.’

  ‘Make it five.’ He caught the end of the sheet and pulled it from her grasp.

  ‘Tom …’

  ‘Can’t blame a man for wanting to admire the view.’

  Swallowing her irritation she drew closer to him. He pushed her away. ‘I’m
clean and about to get dressed. Get a move on.’

  It took all her powers of forbearance to remember she’d promised herself to do whatever it took to send him off with a smile on his face.

  Dining Room, the Ritz, London, evening, Tuesday 30th November 1915

  Tom rose from his chair, kissed Georgiana and shook Michael’s hand when they joined him, Clarissa, and Helen Stroud at their table. ‘Did you get the posting you wanted, Michael?’ Mindful of the ‘careless talk’ directives, he didn’t mention the destination.

  ‘He did,’ Georgiana confirmed.

  ‘Well done you.’ Dr Helen Stroud, who was Georgiana’s closest friend and knew Michael well, rose from the table and kissed Michael’s cheek. ‘Every time I see you I think you look more like Harry’s twin than Georgie.’ She indicated the empty chair next to hers.

  Michael took it. ‘I keep forgetting you knew Harry?’

  ‘All the female medical students exiled to the Royal Free Hospital lest they contaminate male students with their girl bacteria knew Harry. He made quite an impact on the medical parts of the city the year he pretended to study medicine.’

  ‘My brother John had a stock of Harry stories about that year,’ Tom signalled to the wine waiter.

  ‘If they were scurrilous they were probably true,’ Helen qualified.

  ‘Dressing corpses and wheeling them into lectures, hiding body parts in professors’ studies, painting spots on himself when he wanted to get out of doing anything he didn’t want to …’

  ‘Which was often,’ Helen interrupted. ‘Considering they were cousins you couldn’t meet two more different men than John and Harry. I felt sorry for John having to share rooms with Harry. John was so serious and dedicated. When he finished training everyone agreed he was a brilliant doctor.’

  ‘Whereas Harry is still making an impact. From what I heard today, this time it’s for the right reasons. He’s been mentioned in dispatches.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s found his niche in war and mayhem,’ Helen observed.

  ‘More like they’re allowing him to run wild with the natives.’ Tom glanced down the wine list. ‘Champagne all round to drink with the meal and moonlight fizz cocktails to put us in the mood for the evening?’

  ‘Sounds good,’ Georgiana agreed.

  Michael took the menu the waitress handed him. ‘Palestine soup and roast goose, please.’ He looked enquiringly at the others.

  ‘We’ve all ordered,’ Tom informed him.

  ‘In that case please double the order,’ Georgiana said to the waitress.

  ‘No dessert?’ Tom raised his eyebrows.

  ‘After what Michael and I ate for lunch, we won’t have room.’

  ‘Lunch was hours ago. I’ll have the chestnut cream and cheese fingers, please.’ Michael returned the menu to the waitress.

  ‘Lunch might have been hours ago but we’ve done nothing since except sit in a theatre box.’

  ‘What did you see, Georgie?’ Clarissa asked.

  ‘Hi Jinks.’

  ‘I’m green with envy. Do tell what it was like?’ Clarissa begged.

  ‘Brilliant!’ Michael couldn’t say more because he’d spent the whole show thinking about what lay ahead in Mesopotamia.

  ‘Was it really brilliant?’ Clarissa pressed.

  ‘So …’ Helen turned to Michael, while Georgiana was talking theatre to the others. ‘Have you heard from Harry lately?’

  ‘Not for over two months, but, given the news this week, that’s hardly surprising. Although I was told today it’s not a defeat, it’s a …’

  ‘Strategic withdrawal,’ Tom finished for him. ‘As you well know, we’ve had a lot of those of the Western Front.’

  ‘I’ve been trying to explain to Clarissa how busy the men are and how often the mail goes astray.’ Georgiana kicked Tom under the table.

  ‘You’d think men would have nothing to do when they spend all day sitting in a trench waiting to be shelled but the brass never let up. It’s spit and polish day and night.’ Tom knew he’d failed to sound convincing when he caught Georgiana’s eye.

  Clarissa sipped her cocktail. ‘My brother used to write home every week when he was posted to Basra before the war. Sometimes his letters took six months or more to arrive but at least we received them. Then he was always complaining how bored he was. When war broke out and his unit was absorbed by Indian Expeditionary Force D he stopped complaining, but we haven’t had a single letter from him now, for over four months. My mother and I have pored over the casualty lists until we see double. Stephen isn’t on any of them, thank God, but I wish the Times would use larger font.’

  ‘If they did, they’d have to make the newspaper as thick as Kelly’s directory,’ Helen observed, ‘and that would be unpatriotic. A waste of valuable paper.’

  ‘You mentioned a withdrawal, Michael. That has to be good, doesn’t it? It’s not like a defeat,’ Clarissa pleaded. ‘It’s so the troops can regroup and attack again.’

  ‘Of course they can.’ Georgiana was finding it increasingly difficult to be patient with Clarissa given her own mounting concerns about Harry, John and Charles.

  ‘Has anyone heard from John, I think he’d be a better bet than Harry to keep in touch with home?’ Helen made an effort to sound casual. She’d been close to John Mason during his student days, just how close, neither she nor John had revealed to anyone before he’d left to take a post in the Indian Army Medical Service. Seeing his younger brother Tom had rekindled memories. Tom was as tall, well-built and handsome, but, unlike John, she’d noticed Tom was aware of his good looks.

  ‘Like Clarissa with her brother, we haven’t heard from John in months,’ Tom revealed.

  ‘I told you it was the mail, Clarissa.’ Georgiana finished her cocktail. The wine waiter removed her glass.

  ‘Do you have a relative in Mesopotamia, Helen?’ Tom asked.

  ‘I don’t know anyone there except John, Harry, and Charles Reid.’

  ‘You’ve met Charles too?’ Michael asked.

  ‘John and I had dinner with him and Harry the night before the three of them sailed to take their commissions in the Indian Army. John wrote to me a few times from India but his letters were always slow in travelling. I received a Christmas card from him in August 1913 that had been sent in November 1912.’

  ‘My mother commented that John’s last few letters seemed strange but that wasn’t surprising. He was marching across country when he wrote them and there was a high incidence of disease and heat stroke among the troops. In medical terms that means no rest for doctors. He probably left personal things like writing home until bedtime when he was sleeping on his feet and hardly knew what he was doing.’

  Georgiana didn’t disagree with Tom, although she couldn’t imagine careful, methodical John leaving anything as important as a letter home until he was too tired to think. Especially knowing his mother would read every word at least ten times over.

  ‘I heard John married?’ Helen ventured.

  ‘Maud Perry, a colonel’s daughter at the beginning of the war. He met her in India.’ Tom confirmed.

  ‘No one in the family knows a thing about her,’ Georgiana said, ‘other than to use Charles’s words, “she’s pretty”.’

  ‘She’s with him?’ Helen continued to fish.

  ‘Not in the front line, but living in a mission in Basra.’

  ‘As it’s a Presbyterian mission, we hope she’s not overly religious.’ Tom patted his pockets.

  ‘Looking for your travel warrant?’ Michael asked.

  ‘Checking I have my wallet, I did say tonight was on me.’

  ‘We can all afford to chip in,’ Georgiana said.

  ‘As I’m sailing to the back end of beyond for months, if not years, I’ll soon have nothing to spend my money on, so I may as well splash out now.’

  ‘I had dinner with Uncle Reid last night at his club. He told me exactly where your “back end of beyond is”.’ Georgiana glared at Michael. ‘You knew?’

>   ‘I knew,’ he admitted.

  ‘You’re both leaving from St Pancras tonight?’

  ‘Midnight train,’ Michael confirmed.

  ‘It will be good to have a bridge partner who knows how I play,’ Tom declared.

  Georgiana stopped listening. She’d heard the bravado too often to believe it.

  ‘Anywhere has to be better than France.’ ‘It’ll be a picnic in the desert.’ ‘We’ll be home in good time for next Christmas.’ ‘The Turks haven’t a clue how to fight.’ ‘One of our troops is worth a dozen Axis soldiers.’

  She was tired of the platitudes. Tired, of doctoring and operating on smashed young bodies, but most of all she was tired of war and patriotic forced gaiety.

  St Pancras station, 11.50 p.m., Tuesday 30th November 1915

  Georgiana hugged Michael, holding him close so he couldn’t see her face – or her tears.

  ‘Write as often as you can. If you’re lucky enough to find Harry, give him my special love and tell him to hurry home because I can’t bear the thought of him in danger or having to live any longer without seeing him.’

  Michael suppressed a tide of emotion. ‘I will.’

  ‘Don’t forget to give Harry, John and Charles the Fortnum and Mason hampers I bought this afternoon. They should have been delivered to the train by now …’

  ‘I’m sure they’re on board with the rest of my luggage, Georgie. I’ll hand them out if they survive the crossing although I wish you’d settled on smaller boxes. Any thoughts I had on not needing a bearer disappeared the moment I saw how much you were intent on dumping on me.’

  ‘If the food’s at risk of spoiling …’

  ‘I’ll feed it to my travelling companions.’ He gripped her shoulders and pushed her at arms’ length so he could look her in the eye. ‘Stop worrying, Georgie. We’ll all be back in one piece as soon as we’ve licked the opposition.’

  ‘Take care of yourself, little brother.’

  ‘If you agree to do the same, big sister.’

  The stationmaster blew the first whistle. Helen had stood tactfully back to allow Georgiana and Michael to say their goodbyes in privacy. She joined them when the porters started closing the carriage doors.