When I Was Yours

by Lizzie Page

  ‘I would have come on the bike,’ she says, ‘but for this.’ She goes round to the back of the car, and there, alongside the spare tyre, is a great big trunk fixed to the boot. She unfixes it as I stare, open-mouthed.

  ‘Take an end for me, would you? I’m not as strong as I once was.’

  Between us, we manage to lug the trunk into the house. In the living room, she unlocks it, then, carefully, raises out the contents. It’s Olive’s artwork. There is so much of it. Olive hated being called prolific, as though this signified quantity over quality, but when I used the phrase I meant no such thing. She was prolific. She had done so much with her short time on earth.

  Some of the papers were rough to the touch: Olive’s hands had been here. Olive’s fingers had rested, stroked, touched here. Olive’s eyes had looked over these sheets, Olive had been present here.

  I had seen some of the pictures. The ones she drew almost as soon as we had arrived at Lamarck Hospital. Just as we’d started driving on rain-tipped roads. She’d captured behind the lines: the monotony, the excitement, the teamwork and the loneliness, all with a few well-chosen strokes. My talented sister.

  I flick through her sketchbooks: Sanctuary Wood. Stripped trees, naked fields. Nudes. There are written notes too, in that familiar curly scrawl. She always preferred a blue pen. She used to rail against writing in black ink. She was as bold on the page as she was in life, never afraid of taking up room. Her notes sound just like her speaking. It’s all jumbled up; I think it’s chronological at first, but it’s not.

  In the Belgium notes, she describes mothers and fathers quietly making pilgrimage to the battlefields after the war.

  Moving like a very different kind of ghost army. Would they find the answers they sought? The last resting place. The Somme for clear-up. Women travelling out. Old men. Soldiers who didn’t come back. Imagine what you had seen, you have been cooped up for months, and then out you look, and see this… nothingness, waste. Abandoned fears. Abandoned. What a place.

  Mairi pulls out a picture. It is a painting of two tanks, rearing up, both shells of themselves. Skeletal, skull-like, flesh burned away from what had been the inhabitants.

  Dop Dopter and D24. Two tanks, Polcapelle.

  After the War: a VAD ambulance bringing in French peasants wounded by shells left on the Somme Battlefield. Beaulencourt Convoy.

  This one, where the sky is greyer than Earl Grey.

  Etaples: British Military Cemetery.

  Mairi whispers, ‘I put this one in a frame, hope you don’t mind.’

  I am so engrossed that for a moment, I had forgotten she was even there.

  How could I mind?

  * * *

  I don’t know much about art and what is good and what is not, and I know that was another thing Olive railed against. Art is subjective, Vi, it’s what is good to you – but I also know Olive had done something exceptional here. She had captured the awfulness of war and the anguish of those involved behind the scenes. The ambulance drivers. The gravediggers. The civilians-turned-warriors. If only I could have told her how incredible she was. I hold the pictures tight, and it seems to me she is here, she is beaming, bounding around the room. She is more alive than any of us. I imagine she is calling out, Do you love them, Vivi? Do you? Really? Do you?

  Yes, my darling, I do.

  * * *

  ‘She left them with me after her Belgium trip,’ Mairi explains. ‘Some of her work had been destroyed so she impressed on me how very important it was to keep these safe. She wanted them out of London.’

  I nod.

  I realise, belatedly, that Mairi has travelled an awfully long way on this mission, and although we’ve had cake, the right thing to do would be to offer her some lunch.

  Mairi wolfs down the fried egg and bread. I say, ‘I have plenty,’ but in fact that is my egg ration gone.

  ‘I eat too much,’ she says with a sigh, dabbing her lips. ‘I think it comes from not knowing where my next meal would come from during the Great War… I find rationing a bugger.’

  ‘I seem to have lost all interest in food,’ I admit.

  She smiles kindly at me. ‘Funny how it affects everyone so very differently. You were a FANY, like Olive?’

  ‘Three years.’ I nod. ‘Only, I stayed in France. She went all over – Belgium, Italy. And you?’

  ‘Three and a half. Belgium, near Ypres. I was invalidated out near the end of 1917.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It is what it is. Gas. Awful stuff. That’s why I…’ She inhaled, catching her breath. ‘Do struggle. Lungs. I’d have loved to do my bit this time round.’

  Mairi is the only woman I know who’s been gassed. I pour more water and she drinks it.

  ‘How well did you know Olive?’

  ‘She visited me on the Isle of Wight a few times.’

  I try to imagine Olive travelling in her flat shoes, her big coat, buying the tickets, dreaming out of the train windows. What did she and Mairi do there? How did they spend the days? I suddenly remember the time… the time… Richard had died, and the way Olive had answered the door at the Fords’ in little more than her underwear.

  ‘She always talked about you,’ Mairi continues breezily.

  I take in her short red hair, her freckles. Mairi isn’t pretty, and I doubt she ever has been, but she isn’t plain either. Her looks suggest someone totally indifferent to their appearance. Strangely enough, this is quite attractive.

  ‘Can I ask you something?’

  Mairi looks up like she has expected me to say that. She places her cup down onto its saucer carefully.

  ‘Were you in a relationship with my sister?’

  Mairi doesn’t look horrified but she doesn’t look startled either. She shakes her head. ‘No, Olive and I were always friends.’

  ‘But she told me there was someone after… after her trip to Belgium.’

  Mairi asks if she might have some more tea. I nod. She has three sugars. She takes her time before she speaks.

  ‘She was in a relationship, yes, with a Miss Dobinson – Harriet. They stayed with me once. A lovely summer holiday it was. They weren’t so compatible but I suppose they had something very powerful in common: they had both loved and lost. Olive was grieving.’

  ‘You knew about Mrs Ford?’

  ‘Olive loved her very deeply.’

  I find myself coughing. ‘You know she wrote that famous song?’

  ‘Yes, Olive told me’ – Mairi smiles mischievously – ‘several times.’

  * * *

  Mairi puts on her driving gloves and we walk to her car. She ties on her headscarf and puts on her glasses.

  ‘Oh, don’t you want the trunk back?’

  ‘It’s all yours,’ she says.

  Suddenly I don’t want her to go. She is a connection with my sister. Maybe one of the last connections. It feels like she is an invisible thread running through us from here to then.

  ‘I can’t forgive myself for the way I treated her!’ I burst out. ‘How could I have been so stupid?’

  She looks at me gently. There is something so honest about her homely face.

  ‘Everyone makes mistakes.’

  ‘Not like this, not like what I did.’

  ‘Yes, like this. Exactly like this.’

  She places her gloved hand over mine. ‘You’re not alone, Vivienne.’

  ‘I can’t forgive myself… I was so bad to her. Cruel.’

  ‘She loved you. She would have forgiven you.’

  ‘I should have taken better care of her.’

  ‘You need to forgive yourself.’

  * * *

  That evening, Pearl and I cuddle up in my bed, and we go through my sister’s pictures together. Pearl likes the one with the tanks best too.

  She says, ‘It looks like a wild animal rising up on its hind legs.’

  There is such quiet around us in our house in this little cul-de-sac that it is strange to think we are still at war. At the end of
my bed, there is a strong reminder: boxes and boxes of jumpers we have knitted, toys we have made, our WVS work.

  ‘I wish I could have met your sister.’

  ‘So do I,’ I say. I lean over and switch off the lamp.

  * * *

  The next morning, I find something deep in the bottom of the trunk. At first, I think it is part of the lining itself, until I pull and feel it loosen. It is a page of sheet music. I can guess what it is before I examine it.

  It’s one of the first drafts of ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’, a version so early that the title is still ‘’Til the Boys Come Home’ – the one everyone else wanted. The one I didn’t.

  How beautiful it looks, this page of music with its graceful black clefs, its parallel lines and its comforting white spaces.

  Someone has circled some of the words: and a noble heart must answer to the sacred call of friends.

  On the back of the page is written:

  How proud I am of you to have gone away, to follow your heart, to serve and protect your people. Surely, that is the most honourable thing?

  I will keep the home fires burning, my dear bravest girl. Never doubt my affection for you.

  All my love

  Lena Guilbert Ford

  I put it back in the trunk. My heart aches at the tender words. My darling sister was loved. She was admired. She had someone waiting for her. I am so very glad of that.

  The next day, I take out my best writing paper and I write a long letter to Sam.

  Epilogue

  After the war, Pearl asked if she could come and live with me. At first, I laughed it off, but then, when it became clear it wasn’t a joke, I said, ‘We’ll have to speak to your mum.’

  Eleanor, naturally, wasn’t keen. I regret there were some choice words in her reply.

  I said, ‘How would it be, then, if I came to live in London?’

  ‘Would you?’ squealed Pearl.

  ‘Maybe,’ I said. I had Mrs Burton and many friends here in Leicester, but I had been living with ghosts for a very long time, and suddenly, perhaps for the first time in my life, I felt in the mood for an adventure.

  * * *

  We sold the house and Edmund was surprisingly amenable about reaching a settlement. Mr Burton said he’d always wanted a tortoise, so he and Mrs Burton took Charles over the fence and, after a few days’ excitement, even Laurel and Hardy left him alone.

  I went to Edmund’s father’s funeral and held Edmund’s hand throughout the service. His mother was still furious with me: Lowes do not separate, apparently. But she didn’t have many people to speak to – no dukes, lords or ladies travelled to Leicester for the interment, surprisingly – so she stayed by my side for virtually the whole length of the occasion. As Edmund drove her back to Mrs Harrison’s, she thanked me for coming.

  Edmund apologised to me more than once. He said, ‘I was a poor husband’ and ‘You deserved so much better, Vivienne.’

  It meant a lot to me. I told him, ‘We should never have married,’ and he agreed. Finally, we had found something we agreed on.

  * * *

  I asked the Imperial War Museum if they would like some of Olive’s pictures and they jumped at the chance. Her work would be safe there and it might get an audience some day. My sister deserved an audience, she deserved to be heard. She had a lot to say about the Great War and it’s all there in oil and charcoal, both serious paintings and cartoons.

  People have started calling the Great War the ‘First World War’. It’s a subtle shift, and I’m not sure I approve of it. But what can you do? Language evolves. Values evolve. We thought the Great War was ‘the war to end all wars’ at one point.

  Only a fool would try to hold back the tide.

  * * *

  I rent a flat along the Westway. It’s not far from Portchester Terrace and sometimes when I’m walking to the high street or the park I walk by my old childhood home and try to catch a glimpse of who lives there now. My new place is small – just two bedrooms – but it does for me. The piano is in the hallway and there are pictures all over the walls.

  They built over the houses that were bombed in Warrington Crescent long ago: they put up nice, Georgian-style homes, perfectly in keeping with the rest of the street. If you didn’t know, you wouldn’t know anything had ever happened. When I go past, I manage to smile at the memories: Mrs Ford, Walter, David – or Ivor Novello, as everyone knows him now – Johnny, Uilleam, Olive and me.

  I go to the theatre and the cinema whenever I like. A couple of men – widowers, both – ask me to dinner, but I say no. Mrs Burton comes to stay sometimes, when she needs to get away from Mr Burton, Ethel and Peter, her darling grandson, who is ‘into everything’. Sally, Nathan and their baby – yes – are living in north London, so she divides her time between us.

  Pearl spends most weekends with me. She finds her little brothers irritating. They play with her things; she complains as is big sister’s job to do. Her flannel has been washed, folded and put away in a drawer somewhere. She is still lousy at spelling and disagrees with country dancing. I pay for her to have Chinese lessons with an elderly woman in Soho and she diligently writes out little squiggly characters in a notebook.

  If you ask Pearl what she wants to do when she’s older, she’ll say, ‘Hmm, something that pays well?’ She wants to buy a car outright when she is eighteen.

  Eleanor thinks Pearl will be an actress because she doesn’t stop talking. I think Pearl might be an ambassador or a diplomat. Pearl, of course, says, ‘Why not both?’

  * * *

  It is a Friday, late afternoon, in March 1946. The rationing is even stricter than before and there is still conscription, but we have a new government and we have tentative hopes for a brighter future.

  Pearl is late, very late, and I am tetchy because we are supposed to be going to see Gilda at the cinema and even though I’ve seen it once already, and Pearl’s seen it twice, I hate to miss a start and she knows that. I am wearing new shoes – my first new pair for seven years – and they need wearing in. Perhaps that’s why I’m so grumpy. All my dresses are old now too, but this is a favourite going-out dress that I know Pearl will approve of. She’s become awfully picky about fashion all of a sudden.

  It’s a wonder to be without the blackout, to be able to look out to see gaslights in the street, or the beam of a car’s headlights or the glow from the houses opposite. I stare out of the window, curtains pushed to the side, waiting for my girl to arrive.

  Then I see her walking up the road. Here she comes with a black beret at an angle, the way Olive sometimes used to wear hers, and in a pretty mustard-coloured coat that Eleanor managed to acquire from goodness knows where. Eleanor’s resourcefulness is without parallel.

  It takes a moment to register that Pearl is not alone. A man with a stick is making his way slowly alongside her.

  It’s Sam. Sam Isaac is here. Sam is at my doorstep, leaning against the front wall. I fly down the stairs, I fly.

  ‘Look what I’ve brought you,’ Pearl says proudly.

  He’s not a ghost, he’s here, he’s here, he’s here. I fall into his arms, full of questions, weeping at the sight of my lost love.

  Did you love Pearl and Vivi’s incredible wartime story? Then don’t miss Daughters of War, when American May Turner joins the war effort as a frontline nurse, she will find herself facing a dreadful choice: her duty or her family…

  * * *

  Available to order now!

  Daughters of War

  An emotional tale of wartime love and sacrifice, inspired by an incredible true story…

  * * *

  As a teenager in Chicago, May always dreamed of travelling the world. So when she meets handsome George Turner, she jumps at the chance to return to London as his wife. Ten years later, May is wondering if she’s made a terrible mistake.

  * * *

  It’s 1914 and war has been declared in Europe. All around, brave young men are being called up to serve. George, bann
ed from conscription himself, has taken to the bottle, and May suspects he’s seeing other women too. She longs for a way to escape.

  * * *

  The chance comes when May meets veteran nurse Elsie, who persuades May to join the war effort. May knows nothing of nursing – it will be difficult, dangerous work, but her heart is telling her it’s the right thing to do.

  * * *

  But then George does the unthinkable and May’s future is put at risk. Will she have to make the impossible choice between duty to her family and her promise to the soldiers on the front line? And can she live with the consequences if her husband goes through with what he’s threatening to do?

  * * *

  A gripping wartime drama, perfect for fans of Soraya M. Lane, Daughters of the Night Sky and Kathryn Hughes.

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  Books by Lizzie Page

  The War Nurses

  Daughters of War

  When I Was Yours

  Available in audio

  The War Nurses (UK listeners | US listeners)

  A Letter from Lizzie