by Lizzie Page
And although I did not want to remember it, I recalled the attack I had sustained in the ambulance. Mrs Fielding’s unexpected kindness towards those who were suffering ‘diseases of the brain’. I remembered watching the first casualties of war arriving in London: the drooling man who had horrified me so.
Wasn’t the more likely explanation for Edmund’s sojourn in hospital that he had lost his mind?
35
1941 – Now
One time, in spring, I pick up Pearl from school and we go to the Harrisons’ because Edmund’s dad isn’t doing too well; the doctor is coming at four, and Mrs Harrison has asked if I could be there too. Edmund long ago delegated care of his parents to me – so I find out who the doctor is, and since he isn’t mine, I agree.
The doctor’s fancy car pulls up and, as no one else seems about to, I go to open the front door. As he comes in, he greets Pearl heartily and she asks him if that is his car, and he replies, ‘She’s a beauty, isn’t she?’
He asks Pearl what she wants to do when she’s older, and she pauses dramatically. She is getting better at speaking to strangers, but she is still by no means fluent. ‘Films, maybe?’
‘A little actress?’ he says with his eyebrows raised at me. I shrug.
I show him to Edmund’s father. Edmund’s father doesn’t look at all well, but the doctor’s verdict is ‘An infection – keep him warm’ and ‘plenty of fluids’.
Back in the living room, about twenty minutes have passed before I realise I haven’t seen Pearl for a while.
‘Where are you, Pearl?’ I call out. Domino man and wireless man look bewildered. She’s not with them. Could she be with the folding paper lady? No, she isn’t. Surely she’s not with Edmund’s mother? (That would be a first.)
‘Pearl!’ I run through the house, checking the kitchen, checking the ‘best room’. I hammer on the toilet door. She hasn’t gone upstairs, has she? I throw open all the bedroom doors, frightening an old lady who has retreated to her bed for her afternoon nap.
‘Pearl?’
Edmund’s mother finds me. Gripping my arm, she hisses, ‘They can’t be trusted, Vivienne.’
‘What?’
‘See what else is missing. I bet she’s gone through my purse.’
I shake her off, the hateful, hateful woman. ‘Pearl! PEARL! Where are you?’
She is nowhere to be found. I have never felt this desperate in my life. Not even in Calais during the war. I can’t lose her, I can’t, I can’t.
I want to cry, Help me, Olive. I’m so sorry for what I did. Olive. Please forgive me.
Out in the garden, Mrs Harrison is slowly pruning pink roses but she is on her own. ‘What’s happened, Mrs Lowe?’
I run out into the street, calling out Pearl’s name, my own ugly voice echoing in my ears. I’m screeching ‘Peeeearrllll!’, surveying each suspicious tree, bush and streetlight, and then I’m back indoors again, circling the place like a frenzied dog.
The old people gaze at me like I’ve arrived from Mars. Mrs Harrison’s cook comes out to see the commotion. Trying to keep my voice steady, I beg for information but she too doesn’t know anything; she tries to settle everyone down. I want to sink into the ground and be disappeared. I just want to die.
I cannot deal with this. I cannot. Not again. Pearl, please. Please be safe, please.
My fears are bounding ahead unleashed: the phone call I will have to make to London from Mrs Dean’s. Mrs Dean’s ears flapping, the way she gets excited when she is the first to hear a terrible tale. ‘Is Pearl there? No? I’m so sorry, I seem to have lost her. Yes, that’s right. I’ve done it again.’
And suddenly the doorbell chimes.
The doctor is standing there. Back again, like he’s never been away. Back with a big smile on his usually serious face, his bag at his polished shoes.
‘Come and see.’
Little Pearl is curled up asleep in the back seat of his sedan.
36
1917 – Then
We were still at war. It was so cold that winter in Lamarck that it took twenty minutes to get the ambulances going, men’s hands froze to their guns and I learned everything you could ever need to know about frostbite – quite the innocuous word for something so heinous. The roads were churned-up mud or rinks of ice and morale among the men was lower than it ever had been. The English Army did not revolt – but if someone had told me they had, I wouldn’t have been surprised. Conditions were that bad.
Agnes went home to take care of her sick mother, but Daisy, Enid and Dorothy remained: a hardy core. There were other FANYs in northern France and we met them occasionally. We met the girls who drove shower trucks for soldiers to wash in – Daisy was most envious of them. And girls who drove food trucks near the front line for soldiers to have some hot cabbage soup – Enid thought that sounded great. But I thought that we, the transport mules, had the best deal. We were neither at the war front or the home front but somewhere in between.
We were visited by some very high-up army bigwig, and he was highly complimentary. ‘You girls are neither fish, flesh nor fowl,’ he shouted, his monocle popping, ‘but you are thundering good red herring!’
Mrs Fletcher turned as red as a herring at that and we FANYs delighted in calling each other herrings for some days afterwards.
Sometimes, I could hardly recognise myself as the timid daughter and office clerk I had been in London. The girl who had been so shocked at the sight of a man’s privates in an art class. And although I missed Olive, it was nice to move out from under her shadow.
I thought about Sam Isaac a lot. Obviously, I knew I shouldn’t have but he had had a huge impact on me. I was just an ordinary woman but he had made me feel extraordinary. I shouldn’t have let him kiss me, that was clear, but I was glad I had. To know what a passionate kiss was like, to feel completely loved and desired, was part of life’s rich tapestry, I told myself. It was an educational experience. Silly things reminded me of him: aeroplanes, sewing, poetry, writing, badminton… and I was amazed how often the words Chu Chin Chow came up in conversation.
Before Christmas, I wrote to Edmund asking if I might visit him in his hospital over the holidays. I knew hospitals well enough to know that the nurses would run themselves ragged to provide a good time for the men: wherever he was, he would be cared for, especially at this time of year. But the thought of him alone in some dreary ward, trying to join in with the carol singers, made me shudder.
I didn’t get a reply from him, but in the new year a card came from his mother saying she had seen my letter, and ‘not to worry, Edmund still wants to marry you, more than ever, Vivienne dear.’ I was too embarrassed to tell anyone about it.
* * *
Finally, towards the end of that long winter, just as the driving rain was beginning to, if not stop, but at least feel warmer on an exposed neck or cheek, I got a letter from Edmund. He was still in hospital, he wrote, but would go straight back to his regiment out in Belgium. He wanted to thank me for all my letters, my sweet cards and most of all, my patience. He missed me, I was a darling woman and he was so proud that one day he would call me his wife.
It was the kind of letter I’d hoped to receive all my life. So why did it confuse me so much now?
Edmund’s handwriting was even, his grammar and his spelling were as they should be. There was nothing in the content that should have raised suspicions and yet… I didn’t quite recognise it as Edmund’s voice. It was more flowery, more emotional than the Edmund I knew. Was this the work of someone with a severe case of shell shock perhaps? Had he spent the last few months basket-weaving?
While I was still puzzling over it, a telegram came from Aunt Cecily. She was dreadfully sorry to bother me, but Father was ill. Could I possibly come home? She wrote that she had sent for Olive in Italy too. She had been right about Christopher last time; I had no doubts she was right about Father too.
I tried to organise it so Olive and I came home at different times, to spread the care, but
it didn’t work out like that. We both took a month’s leave with three weeks’ overlap. It was the middle of March. As she hugged me goodbye, Daisy laughed and said, ‘Beware the Ides of March’ and I agreed that I would.
Olive got back first. She swung open the front door to greet me. It was the first time I had seen her for over a year. Her hair was short at the back and over the ears and her eyes were sparkling. The limp was gone! Italian coffee and wine had fixed her. And the spaghetti! Thank heavens for spaghetti. She said she adored la bella Italia. Italy at war was better than Britain at peace.
‘Ciao, bella!’ she called and tackled me to kiss me once on each cheek. She spoke with a strange hybrid accent – she said she couldn’t help it. She told me that she was ‘extraordinarily susceptible to the foreign tongue’. I stared at her, mystified.
Once I managed to calm her down, I asked how Father was faring.
‘Oh, Father…’ she said in a bored tone. She thought he might be ‘on his way out’.
‘Is that what the doctors say?’
‘Well, no,’ she admitted, ‘but he’s not eating so… Anyway, if he’s going to go, it must be within the month,’ she added. ‘I have to go back to Milano.’
I hadn’t known she could be this heartless.
I leapt up the stairs to our father’s room and there I found him, sat up in bed, pillows propped behind him, flicking through a notebook.
‘Father!’ I called out.
‘You’re home too?’ he said. ‘I must be in a very bad way.’
I had always been slightly afraid of my father’s room. Silly, really; there was nothing to be scared of. Just old oak drawers, a wash jug – it was a simple room with a man’s smell. That day, the window was open and you could hear the ringing of bicycle bells, the starting of engines outside. As soon as I came in, I asked him if he wanted the window shut, but he said no, he liked listening to the signs of life outside.
I sat down and tried to hold his hand, but he was too preoccupied.
‘Can you help me make sense of these numbers?’
‘I must say, I thought you’d be worse.’
‘Oh, you know Cecily.’
‘It wasn’t just Cecily.’
‘Olive too? Well, she is an alarmist, you know that. She will keep smoking that pipe in here though. Makes me cough.’
* * *
Later, he put down his notebook and looked me in the eye.
‘So, tell me, Vi. How is my future son-in-law?’
‘Not too bad,’ I said shortly. My father looked at me, worried. He knew me well. I told him I hadn’t seen Edmund since I was in England over a year earlier, when Christopher died and we became engaged. It was strange in that while in France it seemed like only a moment or two had passed, back here it suddenly seemed to be an abnormally long time. Other couples managed to visit each other in hospital or take leave together. Other couples managed to write more. Once the word ‘abnormal’ had entered my head, it settled there. I shook myself. I was being cruel. Poor Edmund. Losing his men, losing his brother… He wouldn’t want to lose me.
Abnormal Edmund.
‘He’s been in hospital in Sussex. Poor Edmund,’ I said.
‘He didn’t get himself shot, did he?’
‘I’m not entirely sure,’ I said slowly. It was humiliating to admit I still didn’t know his whereabouts or his whatabouts, even if it was only to my own father.
‘We-ll! What’s wrong with him?’ asked my father, puzzled.
‘I don’t really know.’
Father was fit to explode. His cheeks puffed up. ‘What… but what do you think?’
I busied myself cleaning the bedside table. There were three half-full glasses there, and Father’s spectacles, and a book.
‘Aunt Cecily thinks he may be doing hush-hush intelligence work.’
‘But you don’t?’
‘I suspect, maybe he had an illness of the mind.’
My father winced. ‘Edmund? Is he the type?’
‘I don’t think there is a type, is there? It’s afflicting an awful lot of—’
He pulled a face again, then got back to his numbers.
* * *
Olive and I didn’t overlap as much as I’d hoped. She spent much of her time with Walter, Mrs Ford and Mrs Brown. She asked if I would like to come to Warrington Crescent, but I felt I shouldn’t and instead, I spent most of my time with Father. The first week we were there we found him in the type of nightgown that even Scrooge himself would have found old-fashioned, so first thing we bought him new pyjamas. He battled us over them at first, but once he relented, he was very pleased.
I asked if the Fords’ house was still being used as a convalescent home and Olive laughed – ‘No, that didn’t last long’ and told me, ‘The poor injured were moved to somewhere more sombre.’
When I asked after Walter, she shrugged. ‘Walter is here and there.’
* * *
Our father was not as poorly as everyone had feared. After a few days of eating very little, he rallied and tucked into a watery chicken soup and crackers. From then on, he had a raging appetite for anything. The food shortages were hitting England hard by now, harder than I’d realised back in France, where portions had been meagre for so long, but we fed him porridge with honey and toast and he began to look brighter by the hour.
One evening Aunt Cecily and Uncle Toby came round and we shared the bottle of red Italian wine that Olive had brought home with her. Unfortunately, we had nothing but crackers to eat with it, and Uncle Toby grew quite melancholy.
‘Who would have thought things would turn out like this?’ he said. I remembered his exultance, his jubilation, in August 1914.
I shook my head at Olive: ‘Now we know.’ And it felt good to see her smile like in the old days.
* * *
Edmund’s family invited us all for supper, and seeing as our supplies were so low, we agreed. I didn’t expect Olive to join us, but she was in great spirits that afternoon. She said her paintings were going well and she was looking forward to going back to Italy. She preferred working there, she explained. She felt like she was making more of a difference than she had in Lamarck.
Tentatively, I asked if we might see the pictures she was working on. She glanced at me briefly, then said most of them were at Mrs Ford’s.
‘But they are bellissimo!’ she said, laughing to herself.
What are these affectations? I thought. Olive used to hate things like that.
‘I’ll bring some tonight, if you like, to show the Lowes?’
‘Wonderful, I’m sure they would be pleased.’
I was always curious about my sister’s love life, or the absence of a love life. Since it now didn’t seem as if she was concerned about Walter, and since she was in such a pleasant mood, I dared ask if she had met anyone ‘of consequence’ in Italy.
‘Gosh no… the only people I met were Americans who think they’re dashing, and Italians who know they’re dashing, and neither are my type at all. No, no, no!’ She said that half the ambulance drivers dreamed of being artists, writers and poets. She laughed at that. ‘Who wants to get into a relationship with one of those?’
This seemed to be a joke, but I wasn’t sure what was so funny. Still, as I gazed at her, I could tell there was no secret sweetheart in Italy.
It was her turn to ask the questions.
‘And how about you, Vi? Did you ever hear from Sam again?’
‘No.’
‘Really? No communication at all?’
‘What would be the point?’ I responded sternly. Really, Olive was incorrigible. ‘Edmund and I are engaged and that’s that.’
‘I thought you had strong feelings for Sam.’
I was scarlet. ‘Well, I didn’t.’
‘He certainly had strong feelings for you.’
‘Enough, Olive, enough.’
* * *
Edmund’s mother and father were very welcoming to us all that evening. It wasn’t just that Edmund an
d I were engaged; each time I saw them, I found myself liking them more and more. They might come across as snobbish, but that’s just their exterior, they’re soft and vulnerable inside. They clearly wanted the best for everyone, even Olive.
We ate a starter of broth, then a course of lamb and potatoes. Edmund’s mother was terribly apologetic. They had been expecting more vegetables, but unfortunately their ‘source’ had the dates wrong and they wouldn’t be with them until Saturday.
‘Too late for you girls, although’ – she turned to our father – ‘would you please join us then? We need to build you up a little.’
Father agreed. He was feeling a lot better now and regretted very much pulling us away from our important work overseas. Both Olive and I assured him that we had been delighted to come home, and were even more delighted to see he was on the mend.
‘The war sometimes just has to wait,’ said Olive. She was very kind to Father’s face.
The Lowes did their usual showing-offs about their lord and lady friends and their dances (there may be a war, but lords and ladies still have to dance), but inevitably, they were more subdued than they used to be.
And then Olive showed them the drawings she had done in Italy: ambulance sidings and huts. Empty fields.
I could see Edmund’s parents didn’t think much of them and I felt stirred and defensive. I tried to explain what Olive was doing.
‘They’re not beautiful, but they are true. That’s how things look out there right now. Not many people get to see the war from this perspective.’
The Lowes nodded and considered. Then Edmund’s mother said, ‘I liked that one you did ages ago, was it of the grapefruit?’
‘It’s fine,’ Olive said coolly. ‘These are not for everyone. I understand that. Some people prefer art like that of Percy Millhouse.’
I smirked. I knew that, these days, Olive regarded the artist Percy Millhouse as a talented sell-out, no matter how respected he was.