Ambulance Girls

by Deborah Burrows

  A Russian nobleman? I found it hard to believe as I walked across the grass towards him. He looked so ordinary, until I realised that no man wearing an RAF uniform in London could look ordinary. The admiring glances he was getting from the people around him showed that. I tried to consider him dispassionately. Apart from the uniform, he did not appear different from any other reasonably good-looking Englishman.

  ‘Handsome is as handsome does,’ my grannie used to say. It was one of those old-fashioned aphorisms that she adored, although I was less partial to another of her favourites: ‘Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever.’

  As I walked up to Jim I wondered whatever he and I would talk about. The music would require our full attention, though, which left only intermission and the goodbye at the gate. He would learn quickly that this Aussie was not to be easily charmed into bed. Not even by one of Churchill’s ‘Few’, and one with a title to boot. If indeed getting me into bed was his intention, because I still had no real idea why he had asked me out.

  ‘Good afternoon, Australia.’

  ‘G’day, Pom.’

  He’d bought the tickets, so we went straight in. As we walked to our seats I realised that this would have to be our one and only date, because he was just too tall for me. I felt like a midget walking beside him.

  ‘I’m so glad that you came,’ he said.

  ‘How could I refuse such a charmingly obscure invitation?’

  ‘Oh, I excel in obscure invitations. After the concert I’ll allude to the English custom of taking tea in the afternoon, and make a vague gesture towards the exit.’

  ‘And I may or may not reply that I’d be delighted,’ I said, wondering where he had in mind for tea.

  He smiled.

  Once we were seated in our astonishingly uncomfortable chairs I looked up beyond the tall trees surrounding us, to the tops of the Regency terraces in the Outer Circle of the park. The pale blue autumn sky showed through a lattice of empty windows and shattered walls. I shivered, wondering when the night’s raid would begin. The planes usually arrived at eight or so, but sometimes there was a short raid around five o’clock.

  ‘Cold?’ Jim’s whisper made me start.

  ‘Always, ever since I got to this country.’

  ‘Want my coat?’ He stood, in an ungainly mess of knees and elbows, and began to shrug off his greatcoat.

  ‘Why don’t we share it,’ I said.

  He moved his chair closer to mine and draped the thick woollen coat over both of us. It was warm from his body. The wind had picked up and a few autumn leaves drifted past as the St Marylebone clock began to strike three and the orchestra tuned up. His shoulder was hard against mine. I debated moving away from the contact, but decided it was better not to make a point of it.

  The man sitting in front of us was leaning forward, elbows planted on his thighs, grimly intent. The woman beside me was asleep, her head to one side, peaceful after a night I supposed had been spent in a shelter. I suspected that everyone was hoping to lose themselves in the music that afternoon, so they did not have to think about the night to come.

  The orchestra played first the Serenade for Strings by Tchaikovsky. I cannot listen to music without being affected, and that music in that place was deeply affecting. It was more than the music; it was the setting and the atmosphere of only partially subdued fear in the audience around us.

  As the music ebbed and swelled I thought of Jim, now safely beside me, who tomorrow would be up in the sky I could see through the ruined terraces, his tall body tucked into a thin shell of paper and wood, playing chasey with death. For the second time that afternoon tears threatened and I was annoyed with myself; there was simply no room for sentimentality in a war.

  I pulled my hankie from my sleeve and dabbed my eyes, sneaking a look at Jim, hoping he had not noticed. He was staring – almost glaring – at the orchestra, his face set and intense. I found myself watching him rather than the orchestra, his hair as fair and soft as a child’s, framing a pale face with broad cheekbones and those deep-set eyes. Strongly arched eyebrows, a long mobile mouth, firm chin, large beaky nose. He had the young-old look of men who had been given too much responsibility too early, and there were lines of stress etched around his eyes and his mouth. His face was not as insipid as I had originally thought. It was an interesting face, and surprisingly attractive.

  He did not move until the music stopped. When the last notes played, he shook his head, seemingly bewildered to find himself sitting in the park. He joined in the applause and turned to me with a contrite expression.

  ‘Sorry. I become engrossed in music. Especially the Russians, I’m embarrassed to admit. Cliché, I know. Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff are favourites.’

  He laughed self-consciously. His gaze drifted down and I realised my hankie was in my hand and my eyes were still moist.

  ‘It’s a beautiful piece,’ I said.

  He smiled.

  ‘Shh,’ I said, although he had not spoken. ‘They’re starting again.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  When the concert ended he turned to me.

  ‘Time for tea,’ he said. ‘Sorry to be so appallingly direct, but what about the Dorchester?’

  I smiled assent, pleased I had brought my gloves. I imagined the Dorchester was the sort of place that would expect gloves.

  We walked past the beautiful, ruined terraces along the way to Marylebone Road, where Jim had parked his car.

  ‘So you go out in all this?’ he asked, waving at the desolation around us. ‘In the middle of a raid?’

  I stumbled on some rubble, and he grabbed my arm, holding me steady. He did not let it go when we began to walk again.

  ‘When the Blitz first began we were supposed to wait for the All Clear before we set out,’ I said, ‘but that’s not very much help for injured people. So now we whizz around picking up casualties no matter what’s going on.’

  ‘You and Celia.’

  I had a moment of blankness. Celia? Then I realised he meant Celia Ashwin. ‘She picks up the walking wounded in a saloon car. I drive an ambulance with an attendant.’ I decided to see if he was Levy’s friend. ‘I’m always paired with a man called David Levy.’

  ‘David Levy?’ Jim’s voice was amused. ‘I know a David Levy. Around my age, dark-haired and devilishly handsome?’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘So that’s why you wear a Harrow tie.’

  ‘He gave it to me as a joke. I suppose I shouldn’t wear it.’

  Jim laughed and tightened his grip on my arm as we negotiated some broken pavement.

  ‘I’ll give you mine if you like, to make a pair. It looks much nicer on you than it ever did on me or David.’

  ‘Levy told me he had a friend from Harrow who was a pilot. I’d been wondering if that was you.’

  ‘Probably. We were great friends at school, then caught up a few months ago and discovered we were still friends. Here’s the car.’ He gestured in front of us, at a sports car parked by the roadside. It was a sleek and beautiful machine, although ash and brick dust obscured what must have been a shiny blue bonnet.

  ‘She needs a wash,’ I said, ‘but she’s gorgeous.’

  His face shone. ‘My pride and joy. A thirty-seven Alfa Romeo Touring Spider. Fairly eats up the road when she’s given her head.’

  ‘Not much chance of that these days.’ I gestured at the debris on the road.

  ‘I’ll take you for a drive in the country, then we can put her through her paces.’

  ‘I’m told there’s the odd sheep in the country.’

  ‘The horn’s good and loud. They’ll just have to get out of our way.’

  ‘Oh, what dust clouds I shall make! What carts I shall fling into the ditch!’ I was quoting Mr Toad; I had loved The Wind in the Willows as a child.

  ‘What are you saying? I’m a toad?’

  ‘Not a toad,’ I said, laughing, ‘the toad.’

  ‘Well, Toadie and I share a love of the poe
try of motion.’ Jim had met my quote with another. ‘Are you game for a country outing?’

  ‘You’re on. But only if I can have a drive of her.’

  ‘We’ll see.’

  He opened the door for me and when I saw how low the passenger seat was, I tried to picture how the elegant Celia Ashwin would seat herself as I squeezed in. I landed with a thump.

  ‘Do all pilots have a weakness for fast cars?’ I asked, as he eased himself into the driver’s seat.

  ‘One becomes rather addicted to speed up there.’

  But few would be able to afford this little beauty, I thought. He pushed the starter. It roared into life and took off with a burst of power, juddering a little as it ran over the inevitable potholes.

  As we drove through the ruined streets towards Mayfair, I reached discreetly into my handbag for my gloves and pulled them on.

  Jim parked the car in a narrow street and we walked along Park Lane towards the Dorchester, passing houses that had been scarred and shattered by bombs. Shredded curtains fluttered from empty windows. The entire front of one house had been torn away, revealing a grand staircase covered in broken glass that lay like drifts of brittle snow.

  The Dorchester Hotel, however, seemed to be untouched. Not one of the glittering mirrors in the hall was even cracked.

  ‘It’s as if they don’t know there’s a war on,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, they know there’s a war on,’ he said. ‘They’ve set up the basement with artificial sunlight and put in Vichy baths, gymnasiums and all the fittings of the Continental spas. Dorchester Hotel guests are able to see out the Blitz in an ersatz holiday resort.’

  ‘While London has to damn well take it,’ I said quietly. We all knew the hotel was a fortress made of concrete and steel, and that was why the guest list was so eminent. It was a fortress propped up with moneybags.

  I excused myself to visit the ladies’ room to remove my raincoat and freshen up. The decor was opalescent pink and the attendant was a slender girl of around sixteen, dressed in severe black.

  ‘Oh, you do have lovely curls, miss. Are they natural?’ A pink enamelled tag told me her name was Doris. I admitted that my hair was naturally curly.

  ‘Please let me help you with it.’ Her tone was gently insistent. I hadn’t realised that it Just Wouldn’t Do as it was.

  Doris ruthlessly brushed my hair and spritzed it with something, before expertly wielding a comb. When she stepped back, I looked as if I had just left the hairdresser. She brushed a soft cloth over my hat to remove any dust and replaced it carefully, tilting her head to make sure the angle was sufficiently chic. Her nod of approval made me happy, until she said, ‘Shame no one can get nice hats in this war.’

  A practised eye was cast over my outfit.

  ‘Paris, miss?’

  It was a measure of how much this slight young thing had intimidated me that I actually nodded, and then felt cheapened by the pointless lie.

  ‘Actually, it was made in Prague to a Parisian design.’

  Her look was sympathetic. ‘It’s still a lovely frock.’ She pulled open a drawer and extracted a clothes brush. ‘Oh, that brick dust. It gets everywhere.’

  Once my dress was brushed free of air-raid grit, Doris used cleaning fluid to sponge away a few almost invisible spots on the fabric.

  ‘Stand up straight, miss. It’s not hanging right.’ She reached down and gave a couple of tugs at the hem, which improved the line immeasurably.

  As I was about to leave she picked up a perfume bottle and sprayed it in my direction.

  ‘Thanks so much, Doris. You’ve done a fabulous job. I’m really grateful.’ I smiled and tipped her a good proportion of what was in my purse.

  ‘Oh, miss, it’s no bother really.’

  Most tables in the restaurant were occupied, but as soon as we appeared a sloe-eyed waitress pounced upon us, addressing Jim in French as if he were an old friend. She threw me one glance of exquisite contempt before assuring him that of course they could find a table for him.

  As she led us to a table Jim asked, also in French, after her mother. She replied that maman was as well as they could expect during such terrible times and that so far they had been spared any damage from the bombs of the filthy Nazis. Once we were seated, the waitress took our order, seemed almost to curtsy and turned around with a graceful flick of her black-clad derrière. We both watched her walk away. I wondered if managing to walk in a straight line despite that sinuously swaying bottom was a learned or an innate skill.

  Jim turned to me. ‘Natasha’s mother was a famous ballerina in Imperial Russia and is a great friend of my mother’s. Unfortunately, what she saw and experienced in the Revolution affected her mind, so it’s been hard on Natasha, who has to care for her.’

  ‘Why did she speak to you in French, if she is Russian?’

  ‘We St Petersburg émigrés speak French to each other as a rule,’ he went on. ‘And how does an Australian girl come to speak French so beautifully?’

  ‘In 1938, soon after I arrived in England, I took a position as governess to the daughters of a Czech family. I taught the girls how to speak English with an Australian accent and they perfected my French and German. And I went with the family to the Riviera for several months, which probably also helped my accent.’

  ‘The Riviera?’ He smiled. ‘Plush job.’

  ‘Count Szrebesky was my employer. I looked after his daughters and I stayed a year with the family. Mainly in Prague. It was before the German invasion of Czechoslovakia, of course.’ With a laugh, I added, ‘Levy dit que mon accent était australien, mais d’autres ont dit qu’il est très bon. Que pensez-vous?’

  ‘I think David’s standards are too high. You sound slightly foreign, but I’d not pick you as Australian.’

  ‘That’s good to know. Leonor and Karolina – my charges – took pride in my French accent. Once I arrived in Europe I lost interest in perfecting my German. But what about you? I suppose you speak a few languages.’

  ‘Russian, French, German, Italian, Spanish, some Polish.’ He shrugged, then smiled. ‘Oh, and English.’

  Natasha arrived with a tray of wafer-thin sandwiches, tiny cakes, scones and a pot of tea. Food rationing did not apply if you ate out, and I was determined to eat all I could of such luxuries.

  Jim poured the tea into a pair of terrifyingly delicate cups. My hands were unsteady and the cup rattled in its saucer as I took it from him. Embarrassed, I remarked teasingly that he had poured like an expert.

  ‘When we arrived here my mother insisted on becoming more English than the English,’ he said, settling back in his chair and picking up his cup and saucer with the effortless grace that I assumed was taught by nannies and governesses and tutors. ‘That included the English tea ceremony. It was tea at five every day, and not a samovar in sight.’

  ‘But you love Russian music?’

  He placed the cup back into its saucer and picked up a sandwich. ‘Yes. It’s odd. I don’t really see myself as Russian.’ He took a neat bite, and seemed to consider the matter. ‘Actually, my bloodline is as German as it is Russian, and there is a fair dollop of French as well, on my father’s side, though I was born in St Petersburg. I speak the language, of course, but I dislike most of the food, detest ballet, never managed more than a few pages of Tolstoy. Don’t like vodka, either.’ The sandwich was polished off. ‘And yet, I adore Russian music. Must be in the blood. Who knows?’ He gave a soft bark of laughter.

  ‘Well, I like Russian music too, and I doubt there’s a drop of Russian blood in me. But who knows?’

  ‘Brennan’s an Irish name.’

  ‘Oh, Dad’s people were from there but I’m all Australian.’

  ‘A Botany Bay sort of Australian? I must say, I’ve always found your convict history fascinating.’

  I settled for an enigmatic look.

  An eyebrow rose, the corner of his mouth hooked up into the slight ironic smile that seemed habitual and he changed the subject.

&n
bsp; ‘So you spent some time in Prague, how did you like it?’

  ‘I loved it. It’s such a beautiful city. I met some very fine people there, mainly students, people I think of as friends. We solved all the problems of the world in those little cafes in the Old Town. It was a very happy time for a while.’ I stared at the tablecloth. ‘I was in Prague during the betrayal of Czechoslovakia by the Allies and during the Nazi invasion in May 1939. I had an English passport, and so they let me travel to London.’

  There was a pause as we both took another sandwich and sipped our tea. My thoughts were stuck in that terrible time when the Germans invaded and my friends were swept away in the storm. Dita, Bedřich, Stela, Nikol, Tomas. Tomas escaped to Poland in the first few hectic days after the invasion. He came to Britain with thirty other battle-ready Czech airmen in June and was now with the RAF. We met not long after he arrived, but his news had not been good. Bedřich was dead, shot in the street after he had been caught posting anti-Nazi material. Nikol had been interned in October 1939 along with more than over a thousand other student protesters. He had no news of Stela and Dita.

  Jim’s voice brought me back to the present with a jolt.

  ‘Was it difficult to get out of the country? I know that Britain wasn’t at war with Germany then, but the Germans can be very officious.’

  ‘It was all very orderly, really.’ I could hear the bitterness in my voice, but there was nothing I could do about that; my heart ached for poor Czechoslovakia. ‘No one cared about one Australian governess who wanted to go to London – they were too busy arresting Jews and communists and student protestors and building the new concentration camps to house them.’

  ‘And after you returned to London?’

  I pushed aside my memories of those awful days and managed a smile. ‘I got a clerical job at Australia House. After war was declared I joined the Ambulance Service, but at first I wondered what I’d got myself into. After all those uneventful months of the phoney war, people began to say, “It won’t happen.” They laughed at us when we were doing exercises in the streets.’