The Memory of Us: A Novel

by Camille Di Maio

  His eyes opened fully, and he looked at me incredulously. “You really don’t know?”

  “No. Tell me.”

  Leaning up on his elbow, he smiled at me as if I were a child about to hear a story. How I was going to miss that smile.

  “Do you remember years ago when you had your birthday party outside?”

  “Yes. That was my sixteenth. How did you know about that?”

  “Well, apparently, it was a big ordeal for your mother, because she brought on extra help. She had a different gardener then, but he brought in Dadaí to help manage all the work. I was about to graduate, so he needed me to start helping him. I had a lot of studying to do that weekend, and I’ll admit that I wasn’t in the best of moods about coming out. But then I saw you.”

  “I was wearing green chiffon that day. I loved that dress.”

  “You weren’t wearing that yet when I saw you. You were out early, taking a walk near the garden. You were lost in thought, twirling a curl in your finger and biting your lip the way that you always do.”

  “I don’t remember that.”

  “I do. It’s very vivid to me. You didn’t look like a girl about to celebrate her birthday. You looked like you were . . . uncertain. And a little nervous.”

  “Oh, I remember feeling that. I was a little nervous. Mother saw it as a coming-out party of sorts, a precursor to being a debutante, and she had invited so many people that I didn’t even know. I wanted to be sure that I was going to say and do the right things.”

  “That’s what I mean. You looked very vulnerable, and I wanted to protect you from whatever was making you sad. But of course I couldn’t. Then you came out a few hours later, looking like a vision, the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. You were immediately surrounded by hordes of people, and I knew that it was hopeless to wish that you would ever notice me.”

  “Kyle, I had no idea.”

  “Well, you’re all mine now, aren’t you?”

  “Forever.”

  Kyle rolled onto his back, looking at the ceiling. “That’s not all, you know. I’d see your parents in the newspaper sometimes. And once or twice there was a picture of you with them. When I saw you again at Bootle Home, I knew exactly who you were. You took my breath away when you entered the room.”

  “You acted as if you’d never met me. Why didn’t you say something?”

  “Like what? ‘Hello, Miss Westcott. You don’t know me, but I remember seeing you years ago and I’ve never got you out of my mind’?”

  “I would rather have liked that.”

  He turned back to face me and put his arm around my waist. “I couldn’t have known that. I didn’t exactly seem like the type you’d go for.”

  “Do I really have a type?”

  “Think about it. Beautiful socialite girls don’t fancy immigrant seminarians. And in the newspaper pictures, you were always in the middle of a group of other people.”

  “Well, I suppose you’re right.”

  “But still, I got to see that under all those curls and cosmetics, and inside those fancy shoes of yours, there was a girl who was softhearted enough to come see her brother and to befriend the secretary.”

  “Miss Ellis?”

  “Of course. You know, she was not too subtle about finding one reason or another to bring up your name around me. I rather think she saw herself as some kind of matchmaker.”

  “And you still didn’t do anything about it? I was feeling guilty because my reasons for visiting Bootle soon had more to do with seeing you than visiting Charles.”

  “Well, no one ever said that men aren’t thickheaded. Besides, I saw you more and more in the society pages, and then the crazy bidding war broke out at the auction. Not to mention, I had my own path set and there wasn’t any room for a woman in it.”

  “So what changed your mind?”

  “The fact that I couldn’t stop thinking about you, for starters. The fact that I kept one of the clippings with your photograph and told one of the other seminarians that you were my cousin when it slipped out of my notebook. The fact that when we were stranded in that barn, it took every ounce of willpower not to come over and kiss you right there. And then, when you spent those weeks with Dadaí, I realized that my heart might actually break in two if I couldn’t be with you. That’s when I really loved you.”

  “Why did you never tell me this before?”

  “I guess I thought that you would already know.”

  “Well, I suppose I had the notion when you brought me to the gazebo.”

  “You mean where I did this?”

  And he leaned over to kiss my neck, re-creating the moment when I knew he loved me and not stopping this time. Every touch, every kiss burned on me so intensely that I knew I would never forget this moment.

  After that, he got up to shower and came out wearing his uniform. My heart leapt at seeing this man, my man, looking so suited for the role of soldier and protector. I knew then that he was going where he needed to be and that my time with him was only stolen anyway. We had agreed to say good-bye here, because going to the train station set a tone of finality that I didn’t want to accept. Seeing him now made me consider changing my mind, but I think it was better this way. Except for the uniform, it was easy to imagine that he was just leaving for work and that I would see him tonight.

  At least, that was what I tried to convince myself of.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Misery loves company, they say, and if the war had brought about misery, it had also created a company of friendships that were forged through common suffering.

  One afternoon while walking to the hospital, I came upon a wrenching scene that I had witnessed far too many times. What must have been forty children were in the process of boarding a bus. They all carried satchels or suitcases, wore their coats buttoned, and had the boxes carrying their gas masks hung by a string around their necks. Cardboard name tags were clipped to their clothes. They looked like miniature adults getting on the bus for work. But, in reality, they were leaving for places far away, where the lucky few would be housed with family and the rest with strangers.

  Mothers surrounded them, giving them cheery good-byes and telling them how much fun they would have. The littlest ones cried and clutched their teddy bears as their mothers walked them up the steps.

  After the bus drove off and the last waving child could no longer be seen, the forced smiles of the women faded. They clung to each other in tears. Leaning against a green metal lamppost, one woman crumbled into a sobbing heap as another held and rocked her.

  It was a scene that was being repeated almost daily as tens of thousands of children left for reception zones throughout the country. I watched each time and never became numb to the horror of it. I imagined the complexities of moving so many children across the country and keeping track of them. I thought about the nightmares they might have and how their mothers weren’t there to comfort them. How great the danger had to be if sending your child across such a vast uncertainty was the better choice. Every day I grew a sense of appreciation that my own child had left this world before knowing this particular misery.

  Two women in my building had husbands who were away fighting as well, and we formed a dinner club where we combined our ever-decreasing rations and came up with creative ways to make them palatable. I was eager to learn, as I had not yet perfected the art of cooking that they had learned by their mothers’ sides. And it served the higher purpose of trying to distract me from my constant worry for Kyle’s safety. But there was no occupation that could eliminate even a moment of the anguish I felt over his absence.

  Mary Margaret’s husband was in France, as far as she knew, and Pamela’s was heading to Italy. Both had sent children to Salisbury.

  Dorothy joined us one evening and brought a baked vegetable hash that she’d made from carrots and ground potatoes after her meat ration ran out. She bemoaned how bland it was.

  “I know what can fix that,” said Mary Margaret. “A gree
n pepper. I have one downstairs that I can send home with you.”

  “You’re not going to use it?”

  “I can’t stand them myself, but I take whatever I can get when I’m at the store.”

  Mary Margaret was the only Catholic among us, and it occurred to me that if some good were to come out of this war, perhaps it would be the reconciliation between the two faiths that had feuded over disputes dating back centuries before any of us were born.

  Dorothy remained after they had left, and I showed her something I had stashed away.

  “A bottle of red wine? Wherever did you get that, Julianne?”

  “My father was in town a couple of weeks ago for some government meeting, and he brought it to me. I thought I’d save it for a special occasion.”

  “This is a special occasion?”

  “I think every day that we’re alive is something to celebrate right now, don’t you think?”

  “Cheers to that.”

  I poured the wine into some juice glasses and we clinked them together, then drank deeply, welcoming the temporary dulling of our circumstances.

  “Cheers to your father,” Dorothy said, and we drank again. “Did your mother come down, too?”

  “No, but she never accompanies him on business trips, so there was nothing unusual there. She and I write now and then. Nothing more than a few words about what we’re each doing, and she still never mentions Kyle and addresses everything to Julianne Westcott. But in the spirit of Kyle, and all that he’s away fighting for, I suppose that I can raise a glass to her good health.”

  “Cheers to your mother!”

  “Cheers!”

  It was nice getting together like this with Dorothy outside of class. We were both worn to the bone, as senior nurses had moved to military hospitals, and student nurses had taken on extra responsibilities. Abigail had married Roger and left the school to be the wife of a politician. They’d moved to Mayfair, near the new American Embassy on Grosvenor Square, surrounded by the kinds of posh shops and restaurants that my mother liked to visit. Despite the best of intentions, we didn’t get together as we’d promised.

  Routine became the glue that kept one’s sanity intact when so much around us was uncertain. It had become a habit to strap my gas mask case around my neck after putting on my shoes and buttoning my coat. It felt silly to wear it, day after day, but the government warned that the need for them could come at any moment. Before he left, Kyle made me promise to comply with every recommended precaution. I never missed Sunday Mass, although I still sat in the back and didn’t participate when the congregation went up for Communion. The gestures and the postures were familiar to me now, and any regulars who might’ve noticed me would have thought me quite devoted. In truth, I was there because it was where I most felt Kyle’s presence. Every moment of the day, and even in the restless nights where his side of the bed felt so desolate, I worried. But at Mass, a peace descended on me that was like the inhalation of air after drowning for so long.

  Lucille and I wrote frequently, updating each other on what we knew of the whereabouts of Ben and Kyle, although our information was often a month outdated. Both spoke of missing us, but between the lines, we could see that they were enjoying their work. To the best of our knowledge, neither had seen heavy combat yet. We suspected that they weren’t telling us everything, though. Ben was a radio operator away from the front lines. Kyle was an artillery loader in a tank somewhere between the Egyptian–Libyan border. I knew that he had something to do with the capture of some Italian prisoners of war, but few other details. Most of his letters were devoted to inquiring about me.

  We often received each other’s letters out of sequence, as they took weeks to arrive.

  Kyle had been gone for ten weeks when I noticed the familiar signs of impending motherhood. When the doctor confirmed what I suspected, I did not feel the elation that I had the first time around. For one thing, my husband was not there to share it with me. I feared another miscarriage, and I was reluctant to bond with this baby in the way that I had with the first one. And again, the nausea overwhelmed me.

  It was impossible, too, to feel excitement for your child when the children of all of your friends were countless miles away, leaving their mothers with broken hearts. In its place was only fear for the future of my child and uncertainty of its father ever returning.

  Dorothy and I graduated from school with little fanfare, although Abigail and Roger did come out to celebrate by taking us to eat at one of the few upscale restaurants that were still in operation. My parents had actually considered coming down, but I begged them not to and accepted their note of congratulations. They would notice my drawn look and worry about me, and I was not prepared to tell them about the pregnancy. Mother’s letters were increasingly warmer now that Kyle was gone. I wondered if Father ever told her of our conversation about Charles. I imagined not.

  As the middle of the summer approached, I was feeling better and was beginning to believe that I might not lose this one. Every day that passed was a little victory. I finally told Lucille about the baby. My friends in London now knew, as it was becoming obvious by my tiny, rounded belly. I was showered with secondhand maternity clothes that Mary Margaret and Pamela had kept. Gone were the days of frivolous attire—another of the changes that had taken place in me in only a few years.

  Kyle’s letters were sporadic, still full of love and adulation, but I could also see that he was keeping difficult information from me. He gave me very few details about his duties, but he did say that the African heat in the summer was brutal and he would give anything to have a rainy English day in bed with me. I couldn’t have agreed more.

  I didn’t tell Kyle about the baby. Although I was further along and the pregnancy was going well, I didn’t want to worry him. I wanted him to be sharp and focused so that he would return to me safe and alive. Instead, my letters were full of news about dinners with my neighbors and stories from the hospital. Always light, always loving.

  July and August brought news of increased Luftwaffe attacks against the RAF airfields, but the pounding did not break the resolve of England. So in early September the Führer turned his fury onto the citizens, beginning a relentless barrage of bombings on London and other cities.

  The first time I heard one, it was as if fire had ripped through the sky. It was followed by another and another, the crashing sounds disorienting me. I didn’t know if the building next to me or one a mile away was destroyed. I threw on my robe without tying it, left my feet bare, and felt my way through the dark to the cold, concrete stairs that led to the basement. Other residents did the same, and we stumbled faceless, nameless, scrambling to get to some semblance of safety. Even in that space, lights were discouraged, and it was only the glow of nearby bombs and raging fire that occasionally lit the tiny windows. In those flashes, I saw women and children clinging to one another, with looks of horror frozen on their faces.

  For fifty-seven straight days, the nighttime sky was lit with the explosions, and the remaining citizens in London spent the overnight hours in shelters. I took to spending many nights at the hospital, where we had a downstairs area that doubled as a shelter. Many people slept in the underground stations. Our flat was never destroyed, but it did receive damage from shrapnel. Just one block away, the street no longer existed.

  The bombs did not discriminate, and people across the spectrum were affected. Some buildings had chunks taken out as if cavities had rotted them away, while others had been reduced to unrecognizable rubble. The sound of a building being flattened sounded like a large crunch, and with the high and low sirens, the yelling of firemen, and the crackling of citywide fires, it formed a monstrous symphony. Sometimes, the baby kicked in response to the noise.

  It was bewildering to see the everyday aspects of life go on amidst such a ravaged landscape. To see the milkman stepping over piles of debris to bring deliveries to the residences that still stood. To walk a path I’d walked just the day before, only to come u
pon a hole so deep that it seemed I could see down into the center of the earth. Perhaps the most unnerving sights were the few children that remained in the city, prancing among this new concrete playground and making toys out of the scraps of someone’s former life. How I wished I were a child and could find joy among such agony. I thought, too, of Charles, with something akin to envy. How lonely it must be to live in darkened nothingness, and yet it served to shield him from the threats that everyday living now brought.

  My midwifery skills were barely called into duty, but my other nursing skills were tested mightily. The role I had once envisioned for myself—administering injections, checking vitals, comforting patients—was a distant fantasy. We were called on to hold entrails as doctors desperately tried to stitch up patients. Or restrain a person as his leg was being amputated. The floors became caked with blood, scissors and instruments were passed from surgeon to surgeon with no time for disinfection. Screams for the limited supply of pain medication haunted what little sleep we stole. Our charges were civilians and soldiers alike. I liked tending to the soldiers. It made me feel as if I was helping Kyle. I held their hands, listened to their stories, and all too often became the last voice they ever heard.

  By mid-November, I was receiving frequent implorations from my parents and Lucille to leave London, and out of consideration for the baby I realized, finally, that I had no choice. Liverpool had already faced its own share of devastation, but at least I would no longer be alone. I made plans to arrive by train on the twenty-eighth. I intended to visit with Lucille first and my parents the following day. I needed my best friend to give me the strength to see my mother for the first time since I’d eloped. I was hesitant to find out what their reaction to my pregnancy would be. Would it be the salve that would soften them to my decision? Would they become doting grandparents? Or would they see the baby as the nail in the coffin of their hopes that I would leave Kyle?