Birmingham Friends

by Annie Murray

  Silently I listened, my arm crooked across his flat stomach. He spoke quietly into the darkness, in an even voice.

  ‘You can’t say the obvious, can’t share it. I’m shit scared. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to leave you, Katie.’

  Our arms tightened round each other.

  ‘My darling, I love you,’ I told him helplessly. ‘I love you so much.’ We slept, clinging as if afraid that the other might slip away.

  That room has stayed with me always. Waking the next morning: the white bowl and pitcher on the chest of drawers, powder-blue wallpaper with trailing pink roses, the pink eiderdown with satin finish, sun through that window overlooking fields. And the shadows of the place round us the evening before, the firelight: Angus’s face.

  They embarked from Liverpool in early January 1941, on the Empress of Australia for Freetown, Mombasa, the Arabian Sea. At Bombay, the squadrons joined the Aquitania with its draft of a thousand service personnel bound for the nutmeg smell of Rangoon. In March the squadrons formed at Kallang Airport to aid the defence of Singapore, with their cumbersome Buffalo fighter planes.

  Two days before he left, Angus sent me a postcard.

  Thank you for a wonderful leave, my love. Something to carry with me in the darker days ahead.

  Guess who I ran into last night – Olivia! At one of the local Naafis. We had quite a jolly time together. Good to see a familiar face in all this. Keep your spirits up, my darling. Thinking of you constantly. Love, Angus.

  *

  I ran into Elizabeth Kemp, forced the meeting, though I’m sure she would have preferred a pretence of not seeing me. Even her appearance grated on me. It was the spring of 1941, and the air raids were at last beginning to let up, but it had been a hard, heartbreaking winter for so many people. The city was peppered with bomb sites and we were all pale-faced, haggard from nerves and lack of sleep. But there was Elizabeth, sauntering along New Street dressed in what must have been a very expensive navy coat, stylish high-heeled shoes and an extravagant, wide-brimmed hat. So few people looked glamorous in the city. I couldn’t help thinking how typical it was of her, this inability to confront even the reality of the war.

  ‘Good morning, Mrs Kemp.’ I wouldn’t call her Elizabeth. I stood square in front of her in my flat nursing shoes and blue serge coat.

  ‘Oh! Katie!’ She recoiled slightly. ‘I didn’t see you.’

  ‘How odd. I could have sworn you were looking straight at me.’ I gave her a broad smile so that she was left unsure whether I was being sarcastic or not. I could feel her thinking what a frump I looked.

  ‘How’s Olivia? I don’t hear all that much from her.’

  Elizabeth’s hands fiddled with the clasp of her glossy blue handbag. ‘To tell you the truth, neither do we.’ She looked down, watching the drab feet passing us. She had aged even since I last saw her. Her face was thinner, more lined. ‘I gather she’s getting along fine. Well settled in. Doing her bit – you know. To tell you the truth we thought she might soon find she’d had enough, but not a bit of it.’ She forced a laugh, still unable to meet my eye.

  When she looked up again it was over my shoulder at the grand frontage of the bank behind me. ‘And how are you, Kate?’

  We exchanged a few more pleasantries. As we said our goodbyes she looked at me directly for the first time, eyes slightly narrowed.

  ‘Was it you that put her up to joining up?’

  ‘Good heavens, no.’ I began to turn away. ‘Actually, I had the impression that it was your influence. Both of you.’

  I didn’t see Olivia all that year and only heard from her occasionally. My letter telling her of Angus’s departure and our plans to marry provoked a brief note of congratulation. The year sped past. We were all so taken up by the war and all I could do was to hope she was safe. It wasn’t until November 1941 that I knew she was home. A freezing, windy day, the breath clouding back from her face as she stood on the step in Chantry Road.

  ‘Olivia?’ My face must have shown blankness or astonishment.

  ‘That’s not much of a greeting.’ She gave me a self-conscious smile. ‘Didn’t your mother tell you I’d called yesterday?’

  She must have forgotten. Typical of her, to have let something so important to me slip her mind. Both my parents were, as usual, busy.

  ‘No. I’m sorry, Livy.’ I laughed, suddenly full of delight, and tried to hug her. ‘It’s so amazingly good to see you – it’s been such a long time. Are you on leave?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ she said abruptly.

  I was full of questions, but Olivia stood stiffly in my embrace, and as she walked in past me I took in her extreme thinness and the exhausted sag of her face. Her black coat made her skin look very white and she coughed as her lungs met the warmer air of the house.

  We sat in the living-room drinking tea. Livy toyed with the spoon on her saucer.

  ‘You look terrible. Have you been ill?’

  She crossed one bony leg over the other, a tight gesture. ‘Yes – a touch of pneumonia.’ She spoke lightly. ‘The dear old navy took pity on me and sent me home to recuperate for a couple of weeks. I think I was really on the mend by the time I got here, though. Mummy and Daddy have been clucking over me of course, poor darlings.’

  ‘Why poor?’ I said tersely. ‘It’s not them who’ve been ill.’

  ‘Oh, they seem to be missing me rather a lot. The centre of their lives taken away by the war and all that . . . Actually – ’ She looked warily at me, then shifted her gaze down to her lap. ‘They were asking after you. They wondered if you’d come round some time, just for tea or something. It’s been a long time, Katie. It’d be so nice to have you in the house again.’

  ‘You could have let me know you were ill.’ My voice softened. ‘I’d have come to see you before.’

  ‘Oh – ’ she brushed this aside. ‘They were told to keep me very quiet and rested. Of course they always follow doctors’ orders to the letter. Anyway, darling – tell me what you’ve been doing, won’t you?’

  ‘I’m doing my Health Visitor’s training. I’ve written that to you, if you remember.’ Clearly she didn’t. I poured more tea, putting plenty of sugar in Olivia’s. ‘That’s since September. Before that I did my midwifery experience.’

  Olivia sat watching me, her pinched face arranged in attentive lines. Somehow I felt I was being interviewed.

  ‘I adored doing that. I was very tempted to stay on, but I’ve been set on doing Health Visiting for so long.’ I had been totally absorbed by my experience of the beginning of life: the extraordinary miracle of it, the price of it. I laughed. ‘I think I cried at every birth I attended. The other midwives thought I was completely cuckoo. They kept saying, “You’ll soon get hardened to it. Seen one, seen ’em all.” ’

  ‘How very interesting,’ Olivia said brightly. ‘I always knew you were a soppy old thing really.’

  ‘The first time I was allowed to deliver one myself, I was so afraid I wouldn’t be able to manage it. I laid my hand on the top of its head and guided it as it came out. I thought his mother would crack apart, you know, giving him life – ’ I found myself making gestures with my hands, remembering it all. ‘And he looked so cross, as if it was all a shock with the light suddenly all round him. I couldn’t see a thing, my eyes were so full of tears! Livy – oh, don’t!’

  I leapt up and went to put my arms round her. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.’

  Her shoulders were shaking, the sobs breaking into coughs. I could tell even through her layers of clothes how little flesh she had now on her bones.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said in a broken voice. ‘I just feel so very low at the moment. The slightest thing makes me go all weepy.’

  ‘Of course. It’s always like that after you’ve had a bad illness. I got carried away, talking like that. I’m so sorry. Poor Livy, you must have been very ill. You feel so thin.’

  I sat on the arm of the chair, my arm round her and her head resting
just above my waist. Here we were, back to normal, all the awkwardness and brittleness gone in these moments. I could forgive Livy anything. All my feelings of love and protectiveness washed through me. It was a relief to feel warm towards her again.

  ‘I know I’ve been silly.’ She turned to look up at me, brown eyes still full of tears.

  ‘Have you? Why? You didn’t write much. I haven’t much idea what you’ve been up to.’ I couldn’t help the resentment showing a little in my voice.

  ‘It was the freedom – being away . . .’ She started crying again in a helpless, broken way which disturbed me.

  ‘Livy, don’t. Please don’t be so unhappy. You really must rest and get yourself better.’

  She didn’t speak, but just cried herself out until she sat jerking and gulping like a child, wiping her eyes.

  ‘Have you heard from Angus?’ she asked eventually.

  ‘Yes. He’s well so far as I know.’ I felt close to tears myself. It was so long since I’d seen him and I ached to hold him, to be held, just to feel him near me. ‘I gather you met him?’

  ‘I was in London, briefly,’ she said flatly. ‘He was passing through. It was good to see someone from home.’

  ‘That’s what he said. Oh, I so wish it was all over. I just want him back here with me.’

  ‘Will you come – to the house?’

  ‘I’ve only got tomorrow. Then I’m back at work.’

  ‘Tomorrow then.’

  ‘Katie – how marvellous to see you.’ Alec actually kissed my hand when I arrived. He raised his head and looked into my eyes and I felt his charm turned on me fully. Anything that had gone before was apparently to be forgotten. My ungracious meeting with Elizabeth might never have happened. She was once again the smiling hostess, perfect in every detail, each syllable of speech and every gesture exuding the correct measure of friendliness and pleasure in my company.

  How I longed to be beguiled again after my long absence. I had seen pictures of Alec, of course, but the grainy quality of newspaper print concealed just how much he had aged. It only added to his looks. The lines round his eyes and mouth gave him a kind of vulnerability. I wanted to admire, to be wooed. But I knew, as he took my hand, that I was keeping myself closed, not letting him in the way I had as a child when I blushed at anything he said.

  ‘It’s been so long since we’ve seen you,’ he said smoothly. It was a moment before he let go my hand. ‘We mustn’t let that happen again.’

  They had lit a fire in the drawing room, and the wind moaned outside and buffeted the window. Over the fireplace hung the De Loutherbourg painting of the furnaces of Ironbridge in a thick gold frame. We drank China tea and ate sponge and delicate langue de chat biscuits.

  ‘Is business going well?’ I asked Alec. I heard an abruptness in my voice. I was determined not to play along with this new situation. He must want something from me.

  ‘Oh, not bad,’ he said. ‘Not bad at all.’ He sat back casually in the cream chair, one leg crossed over the other. His hair was slicked back and his suit perfectly cut. The dainty tea plate and knife rested foolishly on the palm of one hand. ‘It wouldn’t be right to say the war’s done you a favour, would it?’ He chuckled uneasily.

  ‘But it has?’ I questioned him, not joining with his laughter.

  ‘Well, let’s say it hasn’t been the end of the world where business is concerned.’ He gave me that smile of his, its suddenness designed to dazzle.

  Elizabeth leaned forward. ‘Alec is thinking of standing as an MP,’ she said in her soft, whispery voice. ‘Isn’t it marvellous? He’ll have the backing of so many people. Of course there might be quite a wait, until the end of the war, but I think he’d be absolutely marvellous, don’t you?’

  I stared incredulously at the two of them. Was there no limit to their self-promotion, their obliviousness to whatever else was going on? Olivia was gazing at the fire, cut off from the conversation, her face so sad that I wanted to go to her and put my arms round her.

  ‘Oh, marvellous,’ I said abstractedly to Elizabeth. She saw me watching Olivia and stood up quickly.

  ‘More tea, Katie? Let me give you another drop. It’s very good, isn’t it? Lapsang souchong.’ As she poured from the slim spout, she said, ‘Do tell us about your exciting work.’ I felt her eyes boring into me as she sat down again.

  Briefly I filled them in.

  ‘How very brave of you to work during the raids!’ she exclaimed. ‘It must have been simply dreadful. We’re so proud of both of you – Olivia working so hard in the Wrens as well. It makes me feel quite useless.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you could find something to do if you were to look around,’ I said unctuously.

  ‘Well – of course Alec wouldn’t hear of me working,’ she said. ‘Would you, darling? Not unless there was some really catastrophic reason.’

  I was wondering how much more catastrophic a reason she needed than this war, when she said, ‘And of course, Olivia has been so ill, I’ve been needed here at home. Poor darling. We were really frightened for her at one stage.’

  This confused me. Olivia had said she had only been home convalescing for ten days or so. I saw her turn to fix her eyes on her father’s.

  ‘It was a bad do she’s had, no doubt about that,’ Alec said. ‘Double pneumonia, the doctor told us. Should have been in hospital really, but we all felt the best place for her was at home. Nowhere like home when you’re ill.’ He chuckled. ‘I bet your patients are keen to see the back of the hospital, aren’t they?’

  ‘That rather depends on the state of the homes they have to go back to,’ I said. ‘Of course you’d understand, with all the interest you’ve taken in housing, why some of them seem to find the hospital rather restful.’

  Alec laughed extra loudly. ‘Well, yes – I’d never thought of it like that. We’re the lucky ones, of course.’

  ‘And it’s been so lovely having Olivia home again, hasn’t it darling?’ Elizabeth leaned over and stroked Olivia’s hair. Livy accepted the caress passively.

  ‘Proper family again.’ Alec sliced more cake. ‘Come on, Katie, have another go at this. You’re looking a bit peaky. Not the girl you used to be.’

  Not the fat, ugly one, you mean, I thought bitterly.

  ‘Lovely to be home, isn’t it, Olivia?’ he went on.

  Olivia nodded meekly, fingers crumbling the uneaten cake on her plate.

  ‘Eat up, my lovely. You need some flesh back on those bones. Don’t want the Wrens to think we’ve been starving you, do we?’

  ‘You’re going back then?’ I asked, surprised. She didn’t seem herself at all yet.

  ‘Next week,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Are you sure you’re well enough? You do seem pretty run-down still.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Olivia said in a tight voice. ‘I don’t do physical work, you know. I’m a typist. And they need all hands on deck, as they say.’

  ‘You’re a secretary, not just a typist,’ Elizabeth corrected her. ‘And a very good one, I’m sure.’ She glanced anxiously at me. ‘Do you think she should be going back? You’re a nurse – what’s your opinion? Of course we’d be much happier if she’d throw in the towel and stay at home.’

  Olivia stared at me with unmistakable appeal. There was a desperate look in her eyes.

  ‘I’m sure Olivia knows whether she feels well enough,’ I said carefully.

  I stayed talking with them for a time, and it was polite if not relaxed. I had hoped for a few words with Olivia alone, but when I stood up ready to leave, Alec followed us out into the hall.

  ‘D’you like these?’ he asked, guiding me by the elbow to the wall opposite the stairs, almost as if anxious to delay me. ‘Bought them a few weeks ago.’

  He was looking up at a set of five prints. I moved closer and stared at them carefully. They were all black and white engravings of the sort you might have come across in an old half-crown gift book. One showed a couple walking through woodland, she with the hem of her
high-necked dress brushing the grass, the strings of her bonnet between her fingers; a young man, casually dressed, was leaning protectively towards her, one arm round her shoulders. Underneath, the caption read Shall we fix the wedding day?.

  Some were scenes of Victorian families with rosy-cheeked children at the fireside: A romp with the children and Love is a mighty power. There was one slightly bigger than the other four which he had arranged in the middle. It showed a bearded man with an austere expression standing in a dark street lit only by a dim gas lamp. In the background a church spire was just visible. Kneeling at his feet was a young girl, her long hair over her shoulders and her hands outstretched to him, begging for assistance or for money, it was not clear. Much more apparent was the expression of desperation on her face. Underneath the title read, The Supplicant.

  ‘Marvellous, aren’t they?’ Alec said softly. He pointed at The Supplicant. ‘Especially that one. Don’t you agree?’

  He was clearly moved by the pictures. There was even a slight break in his voice as he spoke. I turned to look at him carefully. We were standing close together and I couldn’t fail to notice the magnetism of the man. I realized suddenly how exhausted he looked, the dark patches under his eyes. He adored Olivia. Her illness had evidently taken a lot from him.

  I could find nothing honestly polite to say about the pictures, but he didn’t seem to expect a reply. I actually saw tears in his eyes as he stood staring at the engravings. For a second I found myself moved, an instinct to comfort welling in me. Then I wondered if this was not a theatrical ploy, the kind of thing he used to approach other women, luring them to pity.

  ‘I must be off,’ I said.

  ‘Of course. Of course. It was good of you to come.’ He was flustered, eager to please.

  As I left, he and Elizabeth were full of wide smiles and good wishes. Olivia and I finally got away from them, and we held each other out on the cold of the steps. Her arms were almost convulsively tight round me.