The Surplus Girls

by Polly Heron

  ‘You can’t tell me what to do.’

  But he was already marching back into their room. Bracing herself, she set off through the rain, huddling inside her wet shawls, and without the promise of permission to keep her warm.

  At End Cottage, Auntie Enid and Grandma Beattie drew her indoors, relieving her of the shawls and her boots, which Auntie Enid stuffed with screwed-up newspaper and put on one of the range’s shelves to dry out. Then she was pressed into a chair and offered a hot drink, which her fingers were at first too chilled to hold.

  ‘What did Mr Layton say?’ asked Auntie Enid.

  ‘No.’

  She was aware of a look passing between them. They had got what they wanted.

  But Auntie Enid said, ‘Your father can’t have it both ways. If he had wanted to hang onto his authority, he should have kept you at home instead of letting you move in with us. As your honorary mother-in-law, I’ll write you a letter giving permission.’

  ‘Oh, Auntie Enid.’

  ‘Grandma Beattie and me have had a talk. Without Ben to take care of you, we can see that you have to be able to take care of yourself. You won’t always have the two of us and we need to know you’ll be all right.’

  She filled with an inner glow. They were on her side after all. ‘Thank you. This means everything to me. And I promise that going to night school won’t change things here.’

  Auntie Enid sniffed. ‘It already has.’

  Chapter Eight

  I LIVE IN THE present, the here and now, right this moment. I used to have a past. Past, present and future – that’s what you’re supposed to have, isn’t it? Your past life, childhood, parents, your family; going to school; getting your first job; everything that brought you to this moment, this now. And you have plans to take you towards your future. A better job? Marriage? Children? You’re supposed to know what you want, what you’re aiming for.

  I don’t know any of that. I have no past. Well, that’s not strictly true. I’m building a past, little by little; starting with waking in a bedroom with a sloping ceiling. I remember the smells of lavender and iodine. Such familiar smells. In that moment, a hundred memories danced around me, so close I could almost touch them, but they were just – just – out of reach.

  Lavender. A grandmother? A scented pillow? An English garden?

  Iodine. Childhood scrapes? Grazed knees? A field hospital?

  I know the kind of memories these smells might evoke. I just don’t know my own memories.

  And I have lived like that ever since.

  The bedroom with the sloping ceiling is in a farmhouse in France. I don’t know how I got there – or rather I do know, because I’ve been told. What I mean is, I don’t know it of my own knowledge. Is that the correct expression? An expression that is widely used and generally understood? It could be a family saying, for all I know.

  Anyhow, Monsieur Durand and his son Jean-Louis found me. I was conscious, apparently, though I don’t remember. German soldiers had set a building on fire in the town; and there were men inside. No one could do anything to help, not in that situation. Monsieur Durand and Jean-Louis crept to the back of the building, standing on something to see over the wall. They arrived in time to hear a great shattering of glass. Thick black smoke poured through the opening; then – apparently – I clambered out of the window, dragging a comrade with me. I dumped him on the ground, coughing his guts up, and climbed back inside.

  When Jean-Louis would have shinned over the wall, his father pulled him back. He had seen what his son had failed to notice: soldiers in a look-out position on the steps of the old stone cross that marked the centre of the market square. The soldiers couldn’t see the back of the building, but they would have seen someone climbing over the wall. Discretion being the better part of valour – and that one has got to be a common saying; I refuse to believe my family coined it – the Durands, père et fils, jumped down and melted away.

  They returned a few hours later. The Germans were gone and the building was a stinking, blackened shell. Round the back, they found me and a heap of others. A heap, yes. The others were dead, and I was as good as. We were dressed in the uniforms of the British Army, but beyond that there was nothing to identify any of us; no asbestos identity tags, no precious letter from home tucked inside a breast-pocket, not even a packet of cigarettes. Some had presumably died when the smoke invaded their lungs, others had been shot for good measure. I was the lone survivor and it didn’t look like I was long for this world.

  The Durands carried me back to their farmhouse, where, in due course, I awoke in the room with the sloping ceiling and the smell of lavender and iodine.

  And that, in a way, was the beginning of my life.

  I had no memory of what had gone before. I hadn’t lost just the immediate past, those traumatic events that had brought me to this point. I had lost everything. My entire life, my name, everything. I tried not to worry at first. It would all come back before long. I just needed to recover.

  Give it time, I told myself. It’ll come back.

  That was at the end of 1918. Peace broke out while I was convalescing. It’s now the beginning of 1922 and my memory never has returned.

  I still live at the farm, though I have not slept in the room with the sloping ceiling for a long time. These days I lay my head in the upstairs part of the barn, where an area was sectioned off for someone, a farmhand or a groom, who went off to war and didn’t return. The idea was that I would stay as long as I needed, in other words until I regained my memory or until someone came for me, but neither of those things happened. The war ended and I… stayed.

  I could have made my way back home to England – oh, I do know I’m English. If nothing else, so says Monsieur Durand, my excruciating French accent would have made that evident. The Durands call me Pierre. You have to have a name, don’t you? It’s odd, answering to a name I know is not mine.

  I know plenty of other things about myself. I learned French at school – I know that. I don’t take sugar. The first time I picked up a pencil, I knew without experimenting which hand to use. I knew I could get on a horse and ride it. I know how to ride a bicycle, how to tie a variety of knots, how to juggle (yes, really!), how to leap like a hurdler over a fence and how to make a paper dart. I know I love the scent of roses. That might sound ridiculous, because who doesn’t? But I don’t simply love it, I love it. That piece of knowledge is deep down inside at the very core of my being, and at the same time, it is right up at the top, near the surface, immediate and necessary… and out of reach.

  Did my family – does my family have roses in the garden? Was I a gardener before the war?

  Whatever I was then, I’m a farmhand now. The Durands let me stay, thinking I would move on when the time came. I thought the same thing. But that time has never come. Am I a coward? Is that why I have stayed here this long? Would a braver man have thrown a sack of provisions over his shoulder and headed for his native country?

  Was I a coward in wartime?

  The locals are used to me. They think nothing of my presence now. I am… I am part of the furniture. Now there’s an English expression, if ever there was one. I must tell the Durands. It will make them smile. No doubt there will be an equivalent French expression they will share.

  We have managed pretty well, all told, as regards language. My schoolboy French and their limited English proved to be enough to get by on; and over time, my French has come on no end. I do a bit of English teaching in the village; and – very English – I play cricket with the children.

  It is a new year. Am I going to stay here, to while away my life, making no attempt to seek out my identity? Was I a ditherer back in the days when I knew myself? Was I a weak fellow, incapable of making decisions?

  Or was I capable and determined? Have I lost my character as well as my memory?

  It is a cold day, but the skies are azure blue and the sun shines brilliantly. I pick up my pace as I walk into town. That blue sky, after a grey, wet wi
nter, has infected me. I am as close to cheerful as I ever feel. I am heading for the école to do a spot of teaching. I have devised a counting game, a loud and boisterous game, I might add, and the children love it.

  I have to pass the shell of the building where I was found, where my comrades perished. One day it will be pulled down and rebuilt but for now there are many other jobs that need doing all over the local area. Seeing the wreck of the building where I nearly lost my life does not distress me as such. It frustrates me; the not knowing frustrates me. I have no memory of the atrocity committed by the enemy soldiers. No hideous, nightmarish thoughts or impressions are awakened by my proximity to what remains of the building. I have been inside it, clambering my way through the internal ruins, trying to spark a memory, trying to force memories to the surface, but nothing ever happens.

  Will my memory ever return to me? In the early days, I thought all I had to do was wait. Everyone thought so. But time passed and nothing changed. At this stage – what? Am I to accept that my mind will be for ever closed to me?

  A man stands outside the building, looking at it. He is a stranger. His upright bearing speaks of the military, even though he is dressed in a suit with a double-breasted jacket. I change course so as not to disturb him, but he hears me and glances round.

  ‘Bonjour,’ I say.

  He steps into my path. ‘Excuse me.’ He speaks to me in English. ‘Isn’t that an English accent?’

  Something rushes through me. Fear? Elation? ‘Yours is the first English voice I’ve heard in a long time.’

  ‘You live here?’

  ‘Since the war ended.’

  ‘Can you tell me what happened here?’ He looks at the building.

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘I may not be in uniform, but I’m an army man. There are a lot of unanswered questions about what happened here. I should like to find the answers.’

  Am I standing on the brink?

  ‘I was one of the soldiers trapped inside. I lost my memory because of it. I don’t even know my own name.’

  ‘Really?’ He gazes at me. His eyes narrow, then widen again in acceptance. ‘If that is the case, sir, then I’ll be able to help you find out who you are.’

  Chapter Nine

  THE LIGHT DUSTING Patience normally did on a Saturday wouldn’t be sufficient. Today was special. Today their plan was going to be officially announced.

  ‘I don’t know how you have the nerve,’ she had told Prudence. It was a good thing she wasn’t a nail-biter or she would have nothing left but stumps.

  But Prudence exuded composure and resolution. ‘We have to do it this way. Telling the press, making it public – how can Lawrence argue? He’s going to be the hero of the hour.’

  ‘He won’t be fooled for one moment.’

  ‘He doesn’t have to be fooled,’ Prudence said crisply. ‘He merely has to want to be an alderman. His desire to be seen by the world as a jolly good egg will do the rest.’

  The week had passed in a whirl. Instead of the packing that Lawrence and Evelyn were undoubtedly picturing, they had been busy preparing for their business school. Patience couldn’t help feeling useless compared to Prudence, who had worked in an office for forty years.

  Forty years! Where had the time gone? Prudence was going to be fifty-two this year. She hadn’t seemed to mind about turning fifty, though Patience had minded quite awfully for her. She was dreading her own fiftieth birthday next year. At least Prudence could claim to have done something with her life. What did she, Patience, have to show for it? A life of domesticity wasn’t all it was cracked up to be when it wasn’t centred around a family of your own.

  But this week had been different. Oh yes, there was nothing like the threat of losing your beloved home to ginger you up. But it wasn’t all bad-different. Parts of this week had felt distinctly good-different. Like popping into the St Clement’s sale of goods in aid of the local orphanage and finding, of all things, a telephone.

  ‘It’s only a replica,’ said the anxious-looking woman behind the stall, as if customers routinely attended church sales looking for the real thing. ‘Someone in the local amateur theatre company made it as a prop. Goodness knows who’s going to buy it.’

  Someone in the process of setting up a business school, that’s who. Patience bore it home in triumph and Prudence was gratifyingly impressed.

  ‘Now we can teach the correct use of the telephone; how to dial, how to hold it. The girls can have pretend business conversations. That’ll be your responsibility. I’ll give you guidance in what the conversations should be about. I’ll be busy teaching typewriting, filing and so forth. We’ll charge extra for book-keeping tuition.’

  Patience opened her housemaid’s box. They had had a maid once, but that was years ago. Pa had treated Mother’s small annuity as if it had turned him into a gentleman of private means, and Prudence’s wage stretched only so far. They still had a daily char, of course, to do the rough and keep their doorstep pristine. It was a question of standards.

  Talking of standards, she wanted the sitting room gleaming this afternoon. From the housemaid’s box, she took cloths and beeswax and polished all the wooden surfaces; well, not quite all, obviously, not the skirting-boards, as that was the char’s job. Afterwards she ran the library-brush over the bookcase. As she put the box away, she was tempted to get out the carpet-broom, but that was the char’s job – or was it, these days? You did see advertisements in which the lady of the house was using a vacuum cleaner. Mind you, if they had one of those, their faithful old carpet would probably disintegrate and get sucked up, never to be seen again.

  She went into the dining room, where Prudence was writing busily.

  ‘Putting the finishing touches to my lessons,’ she said without looking up. ‘We can’t afford to be caught out when Lawrence challenges the validity of this venture.’ She put down her pen. ‘I’ve asked the girls to arrive for three o’clock. We’ve got four signed up so far.’

  ‘It was a good idea of yours to put a postcard on the noticeboard at work. When the two Corporation girls apply for better jobs, that will spur others to join us.’

  ‘In an ideal world, but I doubt the Corporation will be pleased to see its typing pool vanishing.’

  ‘What time is the press coming?’ Patience felt a thrill of delight. There was something rather racy in talking about the press.

  ‘Three-thirty. I want the girls here in good time beforehand so I can talk to them about the tuition available to them.’

  ‘And perhaps let them have a go on the typewriter and the telephone; you know, to break the ice.’

  Prudence dealt her a withering look. ‘This isn’t meant to be a jolly jaunt.’

  ‘Of course not, but I’m sure the gentlemen of the press are more likely to be interested if they find pretty girls with smiles on their faces.’

  ‘The gentlemen of the press would do well not to be so susceptible.’

  ‘I only meant that the girls will look eager and interested.’

  ‘In any case, Miss Hunt and Miss Michaels are from the Corporation typing pool. They don’t need to be introduced to the typewriter.’

  ‘Then they can show it to Miss Shaw and Miss Layton. It would give Miss Layton a chance to be involved. We don’t want her feeling overwhelmed because of her humble background.’

  ‘I hope we haven’t made a mistake by accepting a workingclass girl. We don’t want to give our other pupils the wrong impression.’

  ‘Miss Layton may not be out of the top drawer,’ said Patience, ‘but she’s a polite girl with a pleasant manner. Bright, too. I rather like her.’

  ‘As long as you don’t make a pet out of her.’

  ‘She’s the one who gave you the surplus girls idea. She deserves a chance.’

  ‘Let’s hope so.’ Prudence clearly wasn’t going to back down: she seldom did. ‘As well as the Manchester Evening News and Stockport Echo reporters, there’ll be a lady journalist from Vera’s Voice.�
��

  Patience leaned forward. ‘Really?’

  ‘She lives locally, apparently: Mary Brewer. She writes under the name of Fay Randall.’

  ‘Fay Randall is coming to our house?’

  ‘Mrs Brewer is coming to our house. Fay Randall doesn’t exist. Please don’t be an embarrassment.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’ It wouldn’t be embarrassing if she happened to leave the latest copy of Vera’s Voice lying around. It would be a compliment. And perhaps a little speech of appreciation would be in order. Nothing effusive, just a few words. ‘Miss Randall—’

  ‘Mrs Brewer.’

  ‘Mrs Brewer, then. This is precisely the sort of article she writes: about women doing their best for themselves.’

  ‘If you’re considering leaving your most recent Vera’s Voice in a strategic place, please don’t.’

  ‘As if I would.’

  ‘And don’t fuss over Mrs Brewer. That would be highly inappropriate.’

  ‘Really, Prudence, I don’t know where you get your ideas from.’

  ‘That will be my brother now.’ At the sound of the doorbell, Prudence rose to her feet, every inch the gracious hostess. If the occupants of the sitting room could have seen the real, brusque Miss Hesketh, they would have been startled, to say the least.

  Patience glanced round. Lawrence had arrived at exactly the right moment. Much longer, and the press would have finished and left. The gentleman from the Manchester Evening News was making notes as Miss Hunt answered his questions, while Mrs Brewer was quietly drawing Miss Layton out of her shell. Little Miss Layton had arrived wearing a coat and hat, a tired-looking ensemble but an infinite improvement on last Sunday’s shawl.

  Prudence accompanied Patience to the front door. They shared a glance before Patience opened the door to reveal Lawrence, in his overcoat with the astrakhan collar, and Evelyn, resplendent in burgundy wool complete with those revolting foxes dangling down her front.

  ‘Come in,’ said Prudence. ‘Thank you for coming, Lawrence; and you’ve brought Evelyn. How nice.’