by Lizzie Page
‘Sam, you know I married Edmund?’ I launch in without preamble. I have to tell him. I can’t have him making decisions about us without knowing exactly what I am.
Lightly, Sam says, ‘Yes, Vivi.’ But he also knows there is more to this sorry tale, and so he waits. His eyes on me are full of sympathy.
‘We have separated.’
‘Ahh,’ he says. He wipes the beer moustache with his sleeve, admits, ‘Pearl did mention he’d moved out.’
‘But the thing is… it’s very difficult.’ I stare into my glass. God give me strength. I have never said these words aloud. Never. When I went to sign up with the local doctor the first time, I wrote it on a rectangle of paper, pushed it across Mrs Carmichael’s desk.
‘I can imagine.’
‘No, it’s worse than that. You see, he gave me a… kind of… disease.’
Not disgust, not hate, not revulsion. I see something else come over his face, like the sun rising in the morning: understanding, pity, respect.
‘Vi—’ he begins.
‘It’s under control,’ I explain quickly. That’s the word they use, ‘control’, like they’ve chained up a rabid dog. Under control – not my control, unfortunately, but under the control of the medication.
‘The doctors say I’m not contagious. If… you know… you’re careful. If one is careful, I mean. Not you.’
‘I understand,’ he says. ‘My darling Vivi, it changes nothing.’
* * *
We have a small bed and breakfast and a landlady who doesn’t ask questions. Walls that don’t have ears. Flocked wallpaper curling up at the bottom. He apologises for it. He thought it would be nicer than it is. I say he has no need to apologise and I mean it. This tiny shabby room feels like the centre of the world. The whole of my world.
He sits on one side of the bed. My fingers shake so much I can’t undo the buckles of my shoes, buckles I have undone countless times before.
‘It’s okay,’ he says. ‘Let’s sleep.’
I can’t stop crying now.
He holds me, and I cry with his arms round me, not lean or spindly but strong arms and strong hands. This is the man I have loved for over two dozen years, this is the man I’ve always wanted. I’ve been a fool and a coward.
We could have had children. We might have had a little girl like Pearl. A family.
* * *
The next morning, waking next to sleepy-faced Sam, I have never felt happier. I know that this is how my life could have been if I had been braver but this realisation is not as painful as it once was because this is how my life will be. From now on. There will be no more time-wasting. No more people-pleasing. We are together now.
We sit in the cramped breakfast room, giggling at the menu, for virtually all the items have been crossed out except for tea, crackers and eggs.
‘And they’ll be powdered,’ I warn him.
‘Eggs, please,’ says Sam brightly to the landlady.
‘Sorry,’ she says. They don’t even have powdered!
* * *
Sam sits back in his chair, crunching on a dry cracker. There’s more bad news on the wireless but that morning, it doesn’t affect me like it usually does. I am here, smiling into Sam’s eyes. Everything feels right. I don’t feel guilt or shame or remorse. I think suddenly of Olive and how happy she would have been for us: she always wanted us to get together.
Sam, however, is listening hard. Suddenly he puts down his crackers.
‘Such terrible things are happening. In Germany. In Poland. Even in France now. I have family still there.’
I put my hand on his arm. My man’s arm. I almost chuckle at the details of last night. It was everything I had dreamed of, and more. And the thoughts of next time make me smile too. We mustn’t wait another twenty years!
‘It’s awful.’
‘I need to do something.’
I can’t stop smiling at him. I love him for his courage and his passion and his sense of duty and… everything about him.
‘They won’t take you, my love.’ I pat his arm confidently. Sam is still athletic. He is still strong. There’s fire in his belly, oh yes, I know this, but he is – thank God – far too old for active service.
‘It’s true, the British military won’t take me.’
I nod, rearranging the pepper pot and salt on the table.
‘But I have to do something…’
I’m not smiling any more. Sam is being serious. Suddenly he talks feverishly, ‘You won’t believe it, Vivi.’ He lowers his voice to a whisper as though the landlady might object. ‘The people… my people, the Jewish people are being exterminated. They pretend there are showers, but it’s actually poison gas. They are my cousins, Vi. If it weren’t for my parents leaving all those years ago, it would be me.’
It is hard to believe.
He reaches into his pocket, then pushes a photo across the table. I don’t know where he got it and I don’t know if it is real. It’s people behind barbed wire. They aren’t wearing tops, and they are skeletal: their ribs protrude, and their faces are just wafer-thin skin stretched over skulls. Dull eyes that have seen terrible things. They are more animal than human. Impossible to imagine they were once normal people. People like Sam.
‘They bring them in trains, they sort them: the youngest and the oldest are sent to be killed immediately.’
I think of Pearl and feel sick. Not Pearl, they couldn’t do that to Pearl. With rising shame, I remember the conversations we had about Jews in the drawing room at the Lowes’ or Aunt Cecily’s. I have often thought Sam could read my mind. I hope he can’t read it now.
They’ve got no loyalty to anyone. My words, all those years ago.
How Sam would hate me if he knew.
‘There are mountains of shoes, false teeth, glasses. Baby shoes,’ he says. He is almost incoherent with fury. I think of Pearl’s shoes. The old flannel she still holds against her cheek at night.
‘The others, they tattoo numbers on them. They are just a number, and then they are allocated a job.’
‘Do… does our government know about this? Mr Churchill – what does he say?’
He shrugs.
‘But, Sam,’ I say wearily. My honeymoon bubble has well and truly burst. Everything feels dark again. ‘What on earth can you do about it?’
He leans across the yellow Formica table.
‘I am going to join the resistance in Europe, Vi.’
* * *
After we leave the bed and breakfast, we walk to Hackney Fields, past the bombed-out areas, the schools in ruins, destroyed houses, knocked-down garages. I have tears in my eyes. We sit on a bench near the ruins and he wraps his firm arms round me, but I sit stony-faced and unresponsive. I can’t believe this is happening.
‘You conned me!’ I eventually say. ‘You got me to London for one sordid night, and now… and now you’re off again!’
He’s a fly-by-night – one of the type who got Mrs Burton’s Ethel in her predicament, a Johnny-come-lately. This is what they call a ‘one-night stand’. And in the women’s magazines, we are warned: ‘You would be amazed at the lengths men will go to get one’.
I had given myself to him last night – and this morning – with such certainty. I could hardly believe I had done it. I had felt safe. Now, I hated myself for being such a cliché. A naive, stupid cliché. Good Lord, it might be excusable in a woman half my age, but I am nearly fifty. I’m too embarrassed to speak. I had thought this was the start of something beautiful, not the end of my dreams. I can’t bring myself to look at him, although when finally, I do, I see his expression is incredulous.
‘What? Sordid? What are you saying? How could you possibly think that of me? I love you, Vivi. I’d never walk away from you, never.’
‘But…’ My hands are trembling. ‘You may love me, but you don’t love me enough to stay with me, to be with me here. Am I right?’
He sighs. ‘Vi, there is a war on.’
‘How dare you suggest I don
’t know it!’
‘I’m not. I just… I have to do something to help.’
‘You can help from here,’ I exclaim, ‘and you bloody well know that.’
‘Ooh, I’ve never heard Vivienne Mudie-Cooke swear before.’ Sam smiles, stops as he realises how serious I am.
‘You’re doing good, important work here, right now,’ I insist. He can’t go. He just can’t. He wants to put himself in the firing line. What bravado is this?
‘I know.’ He looks at his hands. ‘But it’s not enough any more. I used to be a pilot, Vi. I have experience, training and skills. I have the desire to do something.’ He grabs my hand. ‘Wait for me, darling. This time give me a chance. Let me prove myself.’
I shake my head. ‘Don’t go! You’re fifty, not twenty-five. You’ll be a joke anywhere you go. You can do more from here. HERE! What about the factory? And the ARP?’
Sam sinks his head into his hands. Suddenly I remember how my father broke down when we were leaving and how I had just stared at him. He had lost my mother and was petrified of losing us. And I had thought him pitiful.
‘I don’t want to go, Vi, but I have to. It won’t be for long, I promise you. We’ll finish Hitler off. And then my heart will be yours. Evermore.’
‘I don’t want your bloody heart.’ This time he doesn’t laugh. I continue furiously. ‘And what about Pearl? She needs you.’
‘Pearl has you,’ he says quietly.
‘But…I want you here. Now.’
He shakes his head. ‘You will write to me though, won’t you, Vivi?’
I shake my head. ‘No, I won’t. Not if you go.’
I won’t. I can’t. I’m not going through this again. I feel betrayed and abandoned. I had made myself vulnerable to him, I had been awake all night, loving him, letting him love me, and now he is leaving me. I am a fool. I am no better than those young women who hang around the fences of the American airfield, hoping to be noticed. I am not going to be treated like that. No one is going to treat me like that. Not even Sam.
He puts his fingers on my lips, shakes his head. ‘I’m not losing you. Not again.’
‘You are.’ Tears fill his eyes. ‘If you go, you are! That’s exactly what you are choosing,’ I say more forcefully. The man is a fool. He’s not some youngster. What does he think he can possibly achieve?
‘I’m going,’ he says. ‘I have to.’
Through the tears, I whisper, ‘Then we can never see each other again.’
‘That’s really what you want?’ He can’t hide the shock in his voice. He must be able to understand what he’s doing, how much it took for me to come here, to be here and to open myself up to him. I need him now, not a vague hint at a possible future. I know what ‘after the war’ means. I’ve done that before. I’m not doing it again.
‘This is really what you want, Vivi?’
‘I don’t want you to go!’ I repeat. One more time and I can change his mind.
If he loved me, he’d stay.
We walk back to the station. We don’t hold hands and our shoulders are low. The platform is so crowded: he pulls me into the dingy waiting area with grimy windows. There is no one there but us. He says it again, he makes me repeat it, ‘Don’t write. Don’t call. Don’t.’
I can’t bear it. I don’t think he can either, but I’m adamant I’m not doing this. I will not be vulnerable again. I will not be abandoned again. I can’t do it.
I can’t see for the tears. I expect him to kiss me like he did when we parted the last time, all those years ago, in another country, in another war, but this time he is too furious with me. And I am too furious with him as well. I would not have responded. I would have taken pleasure in pushing him away. When the train pulls in he stomps out of the waiting room, leaving me there, the door swinging shut after him, not quite fitting its own frame.
57
1944 – Now
Thank goodness for the WVS. I do believe they save my life. They keep me occupied. They keep me company. The dogs come and go, chew the furniture, give up their fur and nuzzle my neck. The knitting, the sewing, the tea van – the van is always in demand.
I change the house around now that it’s just me and Pearl to please. I buy myself a telephone and for the first few days, Mrs Dean and I call each other every morning just to joyfully say, ‘Testing, testing.’
I put the picture Olive drew of me downstairs. It’s one of the first things you see when you come into the house. I also frame the paper programme from Pearl’s school performance of Oliver Twist, starring Pearl Posner as the Artful Dodger! When she sees it, Mrs Burton teases me about being a stage mother. I agree – I have no shame. Pearl has also made some changes to her room. She’s stuck up some pictures of heart-throbs. The usual suspects: Rick from Casablanca and Rhett from Gone with the Wind. She’s surprisingly pedestrian in her taste in heroes.
Pearl keeps me busy too. Twelve going on twenty, she babysits for Ethel’s charming little boy, Peter, and borrows inappropriate books from Sally. I try to make her well-balanced meals on the diminishing rations. I have to feed up Pearl, my growing girl. We don’t peel potatoes or carrots any more. Every little bit that can be eaten must be preserved. Those forgotten throwaway parts? Vegetable water, apple peel? That’s where the nutrition lies.
We still listen to the wireless together, and I play with her hair and she plays with mine, but occasionally she says I smell of wet dog and refuses to sit near me. It’s true, I do sometimes.
Pearl gets letters from her Uncle Sam. I don’t. We don’t talk about it, but each time those brown envelopes dive onto the mat, I think to myself, Thank God, he’s still alive.
* * *
After we are weary of nearly five years of war, there is wonderful news: Leicester Council want to give Mrs Burton a medal for her war service. I think of the mild-mannered neighbour who offered me tea and toys, the kind woman desperate to do her bit. She tells me in her kitchen, in her plain matter-of-fact way, Laurel flapping around her legs, Hardy dozing in the corner by the bin. ‘A grafter,’ my father might have called her. ‘Salt of the earth,’ the newspapers say about the unshowy army of women like her.
* * *
We hold a big party to celebrate. We dress up way too much for the church hall but the church hall is dressed up too, in reams of Union Jack bunting. We’ve even strung flags up in the trees out the front. Pearl wears an old dress of Sally’s that was formerly Ethel’s – she loves their clothes. We WAVs stand and giggle and clap like a troop of teenagers. Mrs Burton says, ‘It’s overwhelming, I’ve never been recognised for anything before.’
Mr Shaw nudges her: ‘I’d recognise you anywhere.’
Even the mayor comes. The mayor, this time, not the deputy mayor! It shows what a big deal this is. He is – what a surprise! – landed gentry. As privileged as Uncle Toby, and as snotty as Edmund’s father. We line up to meet him.
‘And you were an ambulance driver in the Great War!’ the mayor says to me, reading from his notes. I nod. ‘Good training.’ I nod again. ‘I bet you wish you could be overseas, in the middle of the action again!’
I was in the middle of the action once, yet I am in it still. Not only the devastating bombing of Coventry, or the deaths at Warrington Crescent, London, but the work we WAVs do every day – the washing, the ironing, the making, the mending, the dog-brushing. It is all worthwhile. Driving an ambulance in France was valuable. But so is this.
‘Well, I have been quite busy here too,’ I say, ‘on the home front.’
He moves on to Mrs Dean, who, in her fluster, curtseys to him – a move I will tease her about forever.
* * *
There are journalists who want to talk with Mrs Burton. The newspaper photographer’s flash goes off with a boosh and everyone in uniform looks rather rattled. Some people get up and dance to the big band music – the vicar’s gramophone is tireless – and then the mayor calls the numbers for the raffle. The prize is a big bunch of bananas. It feels appropriate tha
t Mr Burton wins, because everyone knows, it’s the Burtons’ night really, but he insists on giving out one each to the children there. Pearl takes hers and thanks him effusively – ‘Good manners, Pearl!’ – then she nudges me: ‘What on earth is this thing?’
‘It’s fruit – a banana,’ I explain. ‘No, NO, Pearl, you have to peel it first.’
* * *
Pearl runs ahead on our way home. She is my family. Her dress whips up around her thighs. One sock is up and one squidged down round her ankle. She has pulled her hair loose, out of her plaits, and now it flies free in the wind. I suddenly see with a painful jolt that she is one hundred shades of Olive. I know I don’t deserve such joy in my life after all I have done, and I’m so sorry.
She calls to me, ‘Hurry up, we’ve got banana to eat,’ and I do.
58
1944 – Now
Mairi Chisholm – the younger sister of Uilleam Chisholm – calls the day before she appears on my doorstep. She asks if I will be home and the word ‘yes’ makes its way out of my mouth before I can stop it.
‘May I ask what it’s in aid of?’
‘I have things for you,’ she explains, her voice deep and authoritative across the wires. I can’t think what on earth she plans to bring – I have never met the woman before. In fact, I only ever met Uilleam himself a few times at Mrs Ford’s gatherings. Mairi apologises again, and I say, as politeness prescribes, ‘Not at all.’
* * *
She arrives in a black Austin Healey, a beautiful machine with shiny fenders and massive lights. She parks it and steps out, a vision of modernity in her dotty headscarf and sunglasses. I remember suddenly how Uilleam had described her: ‘Daredevil…’