by Lizzie Page
She tries to get me on my own in the kitchen. I stare at the kitchen scales that her mother and grandmother used before her, and the silver cake slice that has given pleasure from so many thousands of cakes. I hear strains of bad news from the wireless in the other room. We wait for water to boil. She is gazing at me.
‘What’s happened, Vivi? You seem so out of sorts recently. Is it Mr Lowe?’
I shake my head. Not this time. Won’t the kettle ever boil?
‘Is it Pearl?’
Mrs Burton looks worried and distractedly offers me an empty biscuit tin. I pretend to take one, and she apologises.
‘You haven’t been right since Pearl’s mother visited. Did something happen?’
‘The only thing that’s wrong is that you keep asking me what’s wrong,’ I say wryly. The tea takes forever to infuse, and we sit in silence, both gazing at the pot as though it holds all the world’s secrets.
‘You can talk to us. You’re among friends here, Mrs Lowe,’ says Mrs Shaw when I head back into the room, tea cups balanced precariously on the tray, and everyone murmurs agreement. I am mortified. They’ve been discussing me, and it feels like they pity me. I can’t bear that.
‘Mrs Burton is on her way!’ I say brightly. ‘Who’s for a brew?’
* * *
Churchill is on the wireless. Sometimes he reassures us, sometimes he puffs us up ready for the fight. Sometimes his speeches move me to choking, hot tears. We are going to get through this, like we did the last time, we the ones who’ve been through it before say. But I am frightened too. Fear is a constant background noise. I think I was less afraid last time, even when I was in the thick of it – that’s the horrible thing about growing older. You know how precarious it all is.
What will we do if they invade? How bad might it get? We no longer fear parachutists dropping from the sky. It’s goose-steps on the Dover coast that is our new nightmare.
‘Will I have to wear a yellow star?’ Pearl asks out of the blue when we are queuing for stamps in the post office.
‘If you have to, I will too, and so will everyone else, love,’ I say. This is what the brave people did in Denmark to protect their Jewish friends and neighbours.
I try to imagine Edmund and his parents marching up to the village hall with the six-pointed yellow star on their coats to protect their Jewish friends and neighbours, and I think, Oh God, it had better not come to that.
The old woman in front of me turns round. She looks timid in an expensive-looking wool coat and she is wearing glasses, which don’t seem to help for she is squinting madly at us. She smiles first at me and then at Pearl.
‘That’s right, chicky,’ she says encouragingly. ‘We all stand together. Don’t you worry.’ She strokes Pearl’s cheek while saying to me, ‘Your daughter is lovely.’
‘Evacuee,’ I say quickly.
‘Of course,’ she says. She squints into my eyes. ‘Lucky you.’
When it’s my turn, I pass over our letters to post. One for Eleanor Posner, 5A, Watney Street, London, England, The World, The Universe, from Pearl. One for Mrs Cecily Thompson from me. ‘Keep calm and carry on,’ Mr Shaw says solemnly.
‘Sorry, what?’
‘It’s from the new posters,’ he says. ‘Haven’t you seen them, Mrs Lowe? They’re everywhere.’
How could I not have noticed the new posters? Olive would have spotted them right from the off. She would have been disappointed at my narrow vision. Again.
32
1917 – Then
Not long after our disagreement over the painting, Olive decided to go off on her own. She had long wanted to go to Italy, where the war was being bitterly fought in the mountains and civilians were being pushed from their homes in their thousands.
Olive’s Italian was better than her French. She wasn’t the best at driving – she would do anything to get out of it – but she was a wonderful linguist and a friend of a friend of a friend needed someone to help translate. In Italy, she would be helping to coordinate relief efforts there.
I watched as Olive pulled her suitcase from under the bed. She still walked with a slight limp but if I worried about it, she grew agitated. ‘Don’t fuss, it’s fine.’ It was another subject best avoided; we could have made a long list of them by now.
She took great care packing her art papers – I was always surprised how careful Olive could be, when she wanted – but then she rolled up her clothes and chucked them on top haphazardly. She still had her ridiculous hairy sheepskin coat and an array of frightful berets. I hovered nearby, wishing I could do something, but she wouldn’t let me. I was frightened at being left alone out there, but also relieved in a way that she was going. I realised she hadn’t been a part of the gang of Daisy, Enid, Agnes, Dorothy and me for a long while now, even before her accident.
‘Do you want to come?’ she asked, blowing her hair out of her eyes.
‘I’m fine here at Lamarck,’ I said.
‘Thought so.’
I was still worried about the picture of Sam and me. She had titled it: In an Ambulance: a VAD lighting a cigarette for a patient. I told myself, Don’t be stupid, how would anyone know it’s you?
I thought of my initial reaction to ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’ or ‘’Til the Boys Come Home’. I had had no idea how quickly an idea, a work of art, a song, can catch hold and become part of the national fabric of the time. It sounds ridiculous, melodramatic maybe, but I had an intuition that In an Ambulance… also had the potential to be that fabric too.
I had to ask Olive about it. ‘Did you change it then?’
‘I said I would, didn’t I?’
‘Thank you. And what will you do with it now?’
‘I got rid of it,’ she snapped.
I paused. I could never quite trust my sister.
‘How, though? Have you sent it to Mrs Ford?’
‘This is not your business, Vivienne.’
* * *
Despite our recent altercation, I wanted to get Olive a gift, a reminder that I loved her. In Calais town one afternoon, I had found a strange tiny shop selling pipes. Among them all, hanging from the walls like the pipes of a church organ, a slender silver pipe with a fine swirling engraving caught my eye. I told the gentleman at the counter that ‘C’est pour mon fiancé’, blushing scarlet as I did. I didn’t know how he would have reacted if I said it was for my sister. Some people have an aversion to seeing women with mannish things.
I gave it to her then, unwrapped because I could not find any good paper. It was a beautiful thing.
‘I know you wanted one, Olive…’
Her eyes filled with tears. She hugged me tightly. ‘I’ll think of you every time I smoke it.’
33
1940 – Now
One morning, there is a knocking at my front door at 6 a.m. I race down, with a presentiment of horror, but also half-afraid Edmund might wake and be put in a worse mood than normal.
It’s Mrs Burton, but my relief is short-lived. Had I heard? Coventry had it terrible last night. Coventry? I knew Coventry was where the not-often-seen Mr Burton did his ARP.
‘We need the van.’
‘Oh, yes, of course.’
Her girls will give Pearl breakfast and take her to school. She says it all quickly. It tumbles from her mouth – the scheme, the plan.
She is a woman, I think admiringly, who thinks on her feet.
I race up to dress, heart pumping. It’s like the bad old days in France, winding up the ambulance ready for a rescue. Never knowing what grim horrors you’d find there. Whispering, I wake Pearl and instruct her to go straight next door when she’s ready. She nods. Her hair is all wild, sleep in her eyes: ‘Next door… yes, yes, bye-bye, love you…’
‘I love you too, Pearl.’
* * *
We’re off and there’s nothing much on the road yet. I’m driving. I know I can do this. I’ve done this before.
‘Any news from Mr Burton?’ I ask Mrs Burton, nonchalantly, as t
hough it’s not the main thing on our minds.
‘Not yet,’ she says cheerfully, but her lips are in two straight, stern lines.
The van is the fastest thing I’ve ever driven. We’re at 40 mph and it doesn’t mind, it would happily do more. It has a windscreen and wipers that you operate by hand – not that we need it; it’s a beautiful November day. The moon is still in the blue sky. You wouldn’t believe there had been a bombing.
The closer we get to Coventry, the more vehicles there are on the road; there are ambulances and police cars, and some routes are entirely blocked off. And in the city, we are met with destruction. Where buildings were, now only bricks and rubble lie. I can’t look at my friend. She speaks with a policeman and he directs her to a good place to set up. He says he’ll be along for a pick-me-up, soon as he can.
‘We’ll go through the sugar ration today,’ she says perkily. ‘Glad I picked up that sack last week.’
People start queuing before we’ve had time to put on the urn. They tell us the names of the factories and department stores that have been wiped out. Gone up in flames, burning all through the night.
‘You should see the cathedral,’ they say. ‘It’s still on fire.’
* * *
Tea always goes down well. I make sure Mrs Burton remembers to have one, for she is looking more ravaged as every minute passes. I hope Sally will remember to take Pearl to school. Course she will. And if not, what’s one day off school? The kids here aren’t going to school today, that’s for sure. They’ve lost everything.
Mrs Burton has even thought to put a bag of soft toys in the back, made from old jumpers from the retirement home. How does she think of everything?
She’s also brought a bag of socks.
‘Clean socks and a cup of tea,’ she says. ‘That’ll fix it.’ She is so pale I worry she is about to faint. I tell her to sit on the wooden stool we keep at the back. It’s hard to convince her to rest.
‘I don’t need to,’ she says.
‘Just for a minute, Mrs Burton. I can keep us going.’ Filling, heating, pouring, stirring, waiting. It is tea but it is more than tea, it is a symbol of us. Of hope and survival.
What if Mr Burton is not coming back?
* * *
It’s not just tea. They’re still finding people dazzled and distressed. They’re still pulling people from the rubble. A police officer shouts for us, explains that there are no ambulances at the moment.
‘We’ll take them,’ I call. ‘Won’t we, Mrs Burton?’
We shut our window and pull the poor souls in. They’re in quite the state. Mrs Burton sits in the back to hold shaking hands. The nearest hospital is too full, and they send me to another, five miles away. It’s like I’m in France all over again. For a moment I imagine Olive by my side and I take a deep breath to steady myself.
Precious cargo delivered, back we go. There are more walking wounded waiting for a lift.
‘Squeeze up,’ I say, and we take two more up in the front. ‘What a night!’ they say. One of the babies cries until Mrs Barton gives her some sugar from her finger.
After that, it’s back to the urn, and news of us must have spread for thirsty tea-seekers are coming from far and wide, and thank goodness for one woman, who jumps up: ‘I can’t bear just sitting around. Give me something to do!’
We get her to rinse the cups.
* * *
We have been there twelve hours, we have done four hospital trips and we have run out of milk three times. The people of Coventry and the emergency services won’t stop drinking our tea.
‘It means we’re alive,’ I say to a fireman. I regret it instantly when I see Mrs Burton wiping tears away.
The sun is setting when we see an outline or silhouette of two men in long black overcoats, helmets and boots.
‘ARPs?’ I ask. I don’t want to give her false hope, but it looks like Air Raid Patrols to me. Covered in dust, head to toe, they look like the contents of an ashtray have been dashed upon them.
Mrs Burton rises onto her tiptoes, squints out into the setting sun.
‘Ernie?’ she calls in a tone I’ve never heard before. It’s a rumbling sound of fear and longing. ‘Ernie… Is that you?’
The dust-covered man’s mouth twitches.
‘Who else would I be? So, old girl, do you like my new look?’
‘Hmm, I don’t think so.’ Mrs Burton hangs onto the counter to steady herself. I make the tea.
‘Haven’t you got any biscuits?’ He shakes his head in fake disapproval.
Mrs Burton’s hands are shaking as she hands over the cup. ‘Didn’t get a moment to bake today…’
He grips his tea. Drinks it, and his face, almost imperceptibly, relaxes.
‘You all right, my love?’ Mrs Burton whispers.
‘Tell you about it when we get home.’
‘Good man,’ she says indistinctly. ‘Good work.’
He leans against the side, pulls his helmet low over his face and closes his eyes. She lowers herself back on the stool with her head in her hands. I warm through the teapot for the next round.
* * *
We go back to Coventry four days in a row. We’re not just doing tea, we’re an ambulance service, a clean-sock service and a listening, cuddling service too. On day three, Mrs Burton finds out I’ve been putting in one extra spoonful for the pot and we have a mild altercation about my wastefulness costing lives, but her heart is not in it. Despite that, we are a great team. Secretly I think she would have been a far better partner for me than Daisy – who was so rude – and Olive – who could be so tearful – in the Great War.
The people of Coventry are brave, stoical and grateful for every hot drink or kindness. We all agree Winny Churchill is going to get us out of this fix. Old Adolf is getting desperate – he must be.
* * *
Edmund complains that his dinner is not on the table. I queued up two hours for some brisket at our butchers but didn’t have time to fry it over. In Coventry, I pick up some salted cod – they get more fish in the towns – and prepare it late at night when the house is quiet. No one’s going to like it much, but it’s good for our health. I prepare an egg and bacon pie one morning, and when I’m back late in the evening, it’s all gone. I’m too exhausted to question it. I think of all the families in Coventry, in London, in Hull, still waiting for news, living in church halls or sleeping on the floors of relatives: I can’t complain.
* * *
Pearl goes in to school with Susan or Ethel. I suspect some mornings she arrives after the bell, but I don’t say anything.
‘When are the Nazis going to stop bombing?’ she asks at dinner. We’re all asking ourselves that.
‘We’ll beat them soon,’ I say.
‘How?’ she despairs.
‘We’re bringing planes down all the time.’
I remember the planes coming over Calais last time round and I find that I’m holding my breath. Edmund, for once, is surprisingly helpful. He reassures Pearl that planes have come along a lot since the olden days. She says, ‘Oh, interesting!’ but it’s cars Pearl loves most, not biplanes.
‘Thank you,’ I mouth to him, over her head. Solemnly, he nods.
34
1917 – Then
Sam was a man of his word. He didn’t write. No letters came from Edmund either, although Edmund’s mother wrote regularly, letters that were full of words but with surprisingly little substance. Aunt Cecily also wrote regularly. She meticulously detailed her regime, the food shortages, the walks she took. She was knitting and would send mittens that I didn’t need but I gave them to patients.
My dear aunt was petrified of being caught up in an attack in London. Living as I did only five miles from the front line, where explosions, shellings and shootings were a daily occurrence, this seemed absurd to me. But Aunt had worked herself up about it. She described zeppelins, the black shadows, ‘as long as your dad’s warehouse,’ then the explosions. ‘Poor beloved Croydon,’ she wrote,
a phrase I never expected to hear. Apparently, Uncle Toby was annoyed that ‘he missed the show’.
I thought hatefully, So they’re getting a little taste of the suffering we see daily out here.
I remembered Mrs Fielding saying how easy it was to lose our humanity, and so I wrote back especially kind words to make up for the blackness in my heart.
Some time later, my aunt wrote to ask if I knew what was going on exactly with Edmund. She said that the Lowes were ‘keeping very quiet about it’. It was she who put a new idea in my head. She wrote:
They don’t want me to visit him in Sussex, and they refuse to elaborate on his injuries. I am beginning to wonder if he’s not in hospital at all and instead is doing some kind of military intelligence. Is he awfully hush-hush with you too? Uncle Toby thought he might be with the War Office now?
Military intelligence, I thought. Something about that phrase rather pleased me. It would be right up Edmund’s street too and it would explain a lot. Not everything, but a lot. But still, my doubts remained. And the more I thought about it, and the less I heard from England, the more they grew. I had ultimately dismissed the idea of a Blighty wound; it wasn’t Edmund Lowe at all – for all his initial reluctance to fight, Edmund was a team player. Also, he was in mourning for his brother; it was not possible. I was sure whatever had happened to him, it was something that he had no control over.
I remembered his despair at the hospital: the pained way he told me, ‘I saw six men die, six.’ He had lost his only brother, for goodness’ sake; things do not get much worse than that.