by Lizzie Page
* * *
At Christmas, since there is no Mary – no one could have been expected to learn all those lines in just a few days – Mrs Bankhead, flushed with embarrassment, stands in for her. I imagine she regrets extending the role now. Loping around the mock stable at the front of the church, she holds the script in trembling hands. Pearl should be doing this, I think resentfully.
‘You’re an angel.’ Mrs Bankhead delivers her big line without enthusiasm to an angel less than half her size.
* * *
I don’t know whether to send Pearl a Christmas card. Foolishly, I mention it to Edmund who, now we have resumed normal service at home, is his usual sniffy self.
‘Why would you? She’s a Jew,’ he says flatly and then when I give him a look, he shrugs. ‘Do what you like. You always do.’
The very next morning, a card arrives from her. It shows a fireside scene, stockings and presents.
To Mr and Mrs Lowe,
I am surprised she calls me Mrs Lowe, and I am surprised she has mentioned the Mr. I imagine someone who didn’t know anything about us had helped her write this.
I hope all is well. I have seen three films. You could have been in them all. I am currently with my grandmother in her house in Watney Street. My favourite uncle will be here for Christmas and he will have a surprise for me!
On Christmas Day, Edmund and I and his parents chew overcooked chicken quietly in the dining room. That’s how they like it. They still can’t understand why we don’t have staff.
‘No one does any more,’ Edmund tells them. Which is as good a cover for we-don’t-have-enough-money as I’ve ever heard.
‘Anyway, Vivienne manages.’ He nods curtly at me. And this is as good a compliment as I’ve ever had from him.
‘We’re fine!’ I say brightly. ‘There’s just the two of us, after all.’
Edmund’s mother watches me steam the plum pudding. She is very proud of the pudding that her last maid from London sent for her. You’d think she slaved over it herself the way she goes on. We tuck into it silently. Edmund’s father finds the coin hidden inside and says angrily, ‘Almost broke my tooth on it.’
‘It’s good luck,’ I say.
‘We’re going to need it when Mr Hitler decides it’s time.’
‘Well, hopefully by then, we’ll have built up our defences a bit,’ Edmund comments. Edmund might be an idiot, but he’s usually spot on with politics.
‘We’re going to sign a peace agreement before too long,’ his father retorts.
‘I sincerely doubt that,’ says Edmund. ‘I don’t think it’s peace that Hitler wants.’
Edmund’s father doesn’t like anyone disagreeing with him. He slams down his cup. ‘I don’t care what that bloody man wants.’
Finally, they go to listen to the wireless and leave me to start clearing up. From the kitchen, I hear them say that Edmund doesn’t visit enough, and he offers for me to go more often. That’s good of you, Edmund.
I can hear Mrs Burton’s next-door noise through the walls: a party; Mr Burton’s brothers have come, the girls have their friends, there are grandparents, and I wish I could be anywhere but here.
Evacuate me, I think, as I stand by the sink.
16
1915 – Then
Some men were shocked by us FANYs. We would be loading up some poor fellow into the back of the ambulance and he might cry out:
‘But you’re a lady!’
‘And you’re a man,’ I liked to reply sarcastically.
Some of the soldiers liked a laugh and joke, despite their misery.
‘Oh, I thought I might have been in heaven!’
‘Not this time, we’re taking you to the hospital.’
Or the serious type might say, ‘Thank you for being here, Mrs.’
‘No, no, thank you,’ I would say, as I said to all the men. For they had given so much. The conditions they endured were inhumane and yet everyone I met was stoical and steadfast.
* * *
While driving, Olive and I still managed to bicker just as much as we did at home. Once, we picked up a man in a dreadful state – his arm had blown right off. In between yelps of agony, he was still in good enough spirits to tease us.
‘Sisters, are you?’
‘How can you tell?’
‘S’obvious. Arghhh!’ he shouted. ‘No, it’s all right, it’s just—arghh!’
‘Do we look alike?’ I asked. Although no one could accuse us of that! We had always been chalk and cheese, or as Olive liked to say, ‘paintbrush and Madeira cake’.
‘No, it’s the arguing. You’re just like my girls at home.’
‘She thinks she’s the boss,’ Olive replied playfully.
‘I am the boss,’ I said suddenly. I think that took Olive by surprise. It certainly surprised me. But I could feel myself growing in France; I was transforming into something stronger. I had a natural affinity for the roads. I quickly learned mechanics. I liked being around the men. I loved doing my best for them.
In England I was so used to being with Father and Mrs Webster, or the dull customers talking about weaves and shades, that I hadn’t realised I could ever be daring or interesting. This life was a world away from wrapping myself up into knots, trying to anticipate what Edmund or his mother would think of me. For the first time, I felt like I was truly myself.
For Olive, it was less easy. She would always be my wonderful sister, but she didn’t see herself as wonderful here. She couldn’t help but cover her eyes if a man was spurting blood. She was rendered speechless if someone was in terrible pain. The other FANYs liked her but she was indifferent to them, and I quickly realised that out here I, for once, was the more popular one.
Olive said all she wanted to do was draw or paint and she admitted she resented time spent away from her canvases. Oh, it was fine when we were rescuing people, but all the waiting around?
‘Such a bore,’ she said.
* * *
It wasn’t all work. We sometimes walked to watch the ships pull in to the port at Calais. And one time we went bathing in the sea. Olive stayed on shore, sketching, but even she was eventually tempted to dip her toes in the blue. We visited Paris a couple of times too: I sent postcards to Edmund and his mother, and I was careful to describe the sights in an informative way that couldn’t be interpreted as boastful. Such a fine line!
Daisy wanted me to go on a double date with her. A Canadian patient had seen me in the hospital grounds and wanted to take me to town to hunt for some cake. We FANYs weren’t allowed out alone on dates, but we were allowed on a double date, strangely. We were also allowed to date in the afternoon, but not of an evening.
I explained to Daisy that I had someone back home.
‘But you’re not engaged?’ Daisy was nothing if not persistent. ‘You can still come? I’m sure your Edmund wouldn’t mind.’
But I thought that even if Edmund wouldn’t mind, Edmund’s mother certainly would, so I’m afraid I rather conned Olive into going in my place. I had noticed she barely wrote to Walter and indeed had hardly heard from him, so it seemed to me that she was now a free agent. She said she would love a walk to town, so she set off with Daisy and the two soldiers, quite oblivious to the fact that it was, in fact, a date.
She was still oblivious when she returned.
‘Did you like him?’ I enquired.
‘Oh yes, he was very interesting. A botany student before the—’
‘No, I mean, did you like him?’
‘Not like that,’ she said, bewildered. ‘Anyway, it’s you who should be going on dates, not me!’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Because I’m not looking for anyone,’ she said as slowly as if I were a simpleton.
‘But I’m not looking for anyone, I have Edmund,’ I huffed. ‘You know that.’
She scowled. I continued. ‘I didn’t know that you and Walter were still a thing. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have fixed you up.’
She made a fac
e.
But after that, I noted she put her London letters under her pillow. And when Agnes came round to our hut with her new Brownie camera and I said, ‘I would like a photograph for Edmund, if you wouldn’t mind?’ Olive piped up, saying that she supposed she must have one taken for someone special back home too.
* * *
About a month after we’d arrived, we were waiting in our ambulance at a railway sidings. The wait was routine, but this place was new. We were to collect our assignment, put them in the ambulances, drive to the hospital, same as usual.
You never knew what state the poor men would be in. It was with some relief that I found our three that day weren’t bad: all were coherent, with wounds to the legs and arms, nothing to the chest; the chest was so much trickier.
But we were under fire. Our trucks were being sniped at. Shells were coming over at us. You couldn’t see the enemy, there must have been a trench just the other side of the railway tracks. While everyone else ran for cover, Olive and I stayed with our charges, our charges who couldn’t move. For once, she let me hold her hand like when we were little girls: I think it was more for my benefit than for hers. Oh dear God. A whizzing, a buzzing, a terrible screeching sound. It was petrifying. If we die, we die, I told myself. I thought of Father, Aunt Cecily and Edmund and his mother. We can’t die. Not yet. Not yet.
The ambulance next to ours was shelled. It collapsed.
We sat sheltering in the back with the two men, who couldn’t move.
‘Get shelter,’ one groaned. The other man just lay there, his lips trembling. He was repeating something, I thought from the Bible, but when I leaned in closer, he was saying, Mum, Mum, Mum, Mum.
We hadn’t been there long enough to know the rules. Both of us knew we couldn’t leave them, though. We couldn’t leave them defenceless.
The first told me his name was Frank. Frank Bollingham, reservist.
‘Don’t want to die, Miss.’
‘No, we mustn’t die,’ I murmured to Olive. ‘Father will go nuts.’
Olive’s eyes were gleaming like a madwoman’s. ‘This is strangely exhilarating.’
‘It isn’t, Olive,’ I whispered.
I’ve never had much of a voice, Olive neither. But we met each other’s eyes then and started to sing and even poor frightened Frank and the other fellow joined in.
Keep the home fires burning,
While your hearts are yearning,
Though your lads are far away
They dream of home
And then, about thirty minutes later, the shelling had stopped, everyone raced back and we drove away with what was left of our sorry convoy.
‘You should have left them to get to safety yourselves,’ announced Daisy as she climbed into the driving seat. The threat was over. It was their ambulance that had been destroyed. She and Enid would return with us. They’d go back for the bodies tomorrow.
‘Next time make sure you get to cover,’ snapped Mrs Fletcher when we returned. ‘You’re no good to us if you’re dead.’
It was growing light. Pink and orange streaked the sky. Olive staggered off to bed, but I stayed back to do maintenance on our van. I felt very affectionate towards it suddenly, as though it were a loyal pet. Take care and reward it. Kneeling down by the tyres, greasing the engine, I tried not to think of the carnage we’d just seen. We’d got lucky. Very lucky.
I went into our hut. I tried to describe it to Olive the next day, but I couldn’t find the words: it was just indescribably lovely to see her lying there, mouth open, snoring and alive.
And from then on, everyone in the hospital canteen seemed to know about us. Olive and I had gained a reputation for being heroic. It was both flattering and unsettling. I knew you were only as heroic as the last thing you’d done. I didn’t know if I could carry on being brave. I didn’t know if we had been brave. Are you brave if you’re unaware of just how much danger you’re in?
* * *
A few days after our ambulances had come under fire, Mrs Fielding caught me going back to our hut.
‘I want to take you and Olive to King Leopold II first thing. Courtyard at five.’
Olive was already half asleep but since this was big news, I woke her up.
‘We’re going to meet the King tomorrow!’ I called urgently. I wondered what I could wear that might make me look a little more feminine. I wondered if he’d heard of our steadiness under fire. A medal would be a fine thing. The Lowes did not impress easily, but a medal would surely stir them. I could only dream of Edmund’s mother clucking over it. ‘And then I told Lord Astor about your meeting the King…’
Olive sat up. Her hair and her face were mussed. ‘Wha-at?’
I started undressing quickly.
‘We’re meeting the King of Belgium tomorrow.’ We would only have six hours’ sleep. Dear God, I didn’t want to look ruined.
‘The King?’
‘Yes. We’re meeting King Leopold II.’
But Olive only threw back her head and laughed.
‘What?’ I said, now annoyed with her.
‘It’s a bloody ship, you nincompoop. The Leopold the Second. It’s another way of bringing casualties in. Agnes told me. They sometimes use the ships and canal boats if the men’s injuries are so bad, they don’t think they will be able to withstand the bumpy roads.’
‘Oh,’ I said, pretending not to be disappointed. Of course it was.
* * *
Daisy had tricks she could do with cards. She could guess the card you’d seen. She could make a card appear on the other side of the room. She said at home, she could pull a rabbit out of a hat, yes, a live rabbit.
‘Why can’t you do it here then?’ Agnes jeered.
Daisy responded that she could cast spells on people, so they couldn’t speak any more, and she’d do it to Agnes if she wasn’t careful.
She turned the whole card deck into red, then black, then mixed again.
One time, she said, ‘I’ve another. I’m going to analyse you.’ I looked at Enid, Agnes and Dorothy. They shrugged. Dorothy said, ‘I’ve already been done…’
She threw a coin about five metres in front of her. I waited.
Everyone stared at me. I stared at Daisy’s bright grey eyes, which were giving nothing away.
I watched the copper coin as it shone on the floor; I could see it clearly. Was this about my eyesight? I waited. Or perhaps Daisy had glued it to the floor? I had seen her do a trick with glue once – you spent ages trying to unstick yourself. I didn’t want to look like a ninny. I hated showing myself up. Everyone was giggling now. I couldn’t tell if I’d done the thing – whatever it was – wrong or right.
Suddenly, Daisy had her arms round me. ‘You’re all right, Vi! You’re not a Jew.’
I felt a cold wave wash through me, but I was delighted at the same time. I’d passed the test. That had to be better than not passing, didn’t it? I had been quite tempted to pick the thing up too.
‘Ha, brilliant,’ I said.
Olive arrived next. She’d been drawing in our room. She was working on a lovely little cartoon. It was three pictures in a row: What a VAD does in Theory. Popular Fiction. Practice. In the Theory picture, the volunteer is well-turned-out and smart, standing by a shining automobile. In Popular Fiction, she is having a jolly time of it; soldiers are holding mistletoe over her head, she is slender, radiant as a bride. It is only the third VAD that I recognise: the one who is overwhelmed, rained on, carrying a leaky oilcan.
I couldn’t wait for her to show it to everyone. I wished they could all see how talented she was.
Olive came and stood next to me and asked what was going on.
‘We’re doing a thing!’ I explained vaguely, letting Daisy take over.
‘Let’s find out what you’re made of, Olive!’ Daisy made it sound quite ominous.
She threw the coin higher this time, and it rolled across the ground. I thought of something the Canadian soldiers had told me the other day: ‘Things can turn
on a dime.’
Olive had no compunction about walking over to the coin. I tried to tell her with my face, ‘No, don’t do it,’ but either she didn’t get my message or she ignored it. She squatted down, stared at it for a second, then picked it up. She came back with her arm outstretched and tried to return it to Daisy, who refused it.
‘It’s yours,’ Olive said, confused.
‘Oh, dearie me,’ said Daisy. ‘This is not good, Olive.’ Everyone laughed.
* * *
Those months with the FANYs in 1915 passed faster than a blink of an eye. Edmund was in Belgium now, and sometimes I wondered if I might one day have to transport him to a hospital or if we would be reunited in some railway siding or waterfront. I remembered him as tall, lean and handsome but I couldn’t quite picture the details of him and this made me ashamed. I couldn’t conjure him up. There were just fragments of him: an ambitious, intelligent man who wanted to be in the Indian Civil Service. A sombre man with his hands in the pockets of his coats. A man who needed to be left alone.
All will be well, I reminded myself, when the war is over and we’re back in England.
Edmund hardly wrote and when he did, it was usually a dry old message of the kind I sent to Aunt Cecily. (Olive had read one over my shoulder once, and her expression said everything!)
As for Olive, I noted, she now wrote more to Mrs Ford than Walter. She explained Walter wasn’t great with words. With that, I could sympathise.
‘Do you miss him though?’ I asked her.
She paused. ‘A little,’ she admitted. ‘It would be… invigorating to see him chopping some wood in the garden,’ she added mischievously. ‘He was rather adept at that.’
17