The Bird in the Bamboo Cage

by Hazel Gaynor

  I will sign off with your own words, as written in my Girl Guide Handbook, which sits beside me now, and has been a source of tremendous faith and inspiration all these years.

  ‘As a Guide your first duty is to be helpful to other people, both in small everyday matters and also under the worst of circumstances. It has been said that women can never be the same after the great events of the last few years, and we must never forget that the Girl Scouts of today are the women of tomorrow.’

  Elspeth Kent, Guide Captain, 1st Chefoo Girl Guides

  I sealed the envelope, added a stamp, and set off for the post box. A breeze whipped my hair around my cheeks as I made my way down the steep lane. As I walked, my feet picked up the pace of their own will, propelling me forward, until my walk became a jog, and then I started to run, and I ran and I ran and I ran, because I could, because I was free, and it felt wonderful.

  PART FOUR: REMEMBRANCE

  1975

  THE GUIDE LAW: A GUIDE IS A FRIEND TO ALL AND A SISTER TO EVERY OTHER GUIDE

  The Girl Scout finds a special comrade in every other Girl Scout, it goes without saying, and knows how to make her feel that she need never be without a friend or a meal or a helping hand as long as there is another Girl Scout in the world.

  NANCY

  St Hilda’s College, Oxford University, June 1975

  The last day of Trinity term delivers a much-needed downpour of warm summer rain. I push open the sash window and inhale the ripe earthy aroma. Petrichor. The scent of summer.

  But summer rain isn’t the only thing the day brings.

  I’ve often wondered when my past would catch up with me, but in all my ponderings I’d never imagined it would arrive by second-class post from Scotland. I’d rather hoped it would be sent with a little more urgency for a start.

  ‘Edinburgh? Who do I know in Edinburgh?’ I push my reading glasses onto the bridge of my nose and scrutinize the address on the envelope. Professor Nancy Crofton (née Plummer). I don’t recognize the writing, although there is something rather admirable about the bold flourish of the N.

  The grandmother clock beside me ticks away the seconds as I slice through the top of the envelope and remove a single sheet of Basildon Bond. It carries the scent of menthol cigarettes. Consulate. Larry’s favourite. And there he is, smiling at me through the candlelight, the tip of his after-dinner cigarette glowing red as we sit through another damned power cut. I grumble and call them a nuisance. He smiles and calls them romantic. I linger a moment in the memory before I drag myself back to the present and unfold the page. The groundsman cuts the engine of the lawnmower outside. Everything pauses, even the drone of a bee on the honeysuckle falls away.

  10th June, 1975

  25 Willow Lane

  Edinburgh

  Scotland

  My dearest Plum,

  Surprise!

  I do hope this finds you well, and that you remember me! It really has been such a long time. Too long by far, and yet I can still see you as clearly as if you were standing beside me at assembly, all dimpled smile and Shirley Temple curls. I remember you very fondly, despite the many years and miles and all the curiosities of life that have passed between us since I last saw you.

  The thing is, dear Plum, I have embarked on a rather ambitious project to write an account of our internment to mark the 30th anniversary of our liberation. To that end, I’m inviting members of Kingfisher Patrol and the 1st and 2nd Chefoo Brownies to attend a reunion luncheon in London this summer. Finding everyone has proven to be rather tricky, and you, dear girl, are my last discovery, so I write this feeling rather triumphant. Of course, having found you, I have absolutely no idea of your personal circumstances, bar the obvious acquisition of a husband somewhere along the way – Mrs Crofton. Professor Crofton, nonetheless! If your present situation makes a trip to London at all possible, do you think you might be able to join us? 17th August at the Chinese Embassy, 12 noon. It really wouldn’t be the same without you.

  I tracked down dear Miss Butterworth, who is delighted to join us, but sadly Edwina Trevellyan (do you remember her?) died quite a few years ago. We’d kept in regular contact over the years so I was desperately sad to learn of her passing. There’s one other thing I must tell you. Miss Kent (or rather, Mrs Harris as she is now) is not at all well I’m afraid. Her family aren’t sure if she’ll be able to travel to the reunion, or, indeed, whether she might prevail that long. I’m dreadfully sorry to be the bearer of such sad news, but I thought you might like to know, since you were always especially fond of her.

  I do hope to hear from you!

  Fondest regards,

  Joan Nuttall (aka Mouse!)

  P.S. Do you still have the patrol log books? I would very much like to see them again, for old time’s sake. I’ve also enclosed something I found recently, which I believe belongs to you.

  I sink into my chair like a slowly deflating balloon.

  ‘Well I never. After all this time.’

  Amid the shock of the dreadful news waiting for me back in England following liberation, we’d lost touch. It is one of my greatest regrets in life. To see Joan’s name, to hear from her after all these years, stirs a well of emotion that I’ve kept hidden, deep in my heart.

  The heat of the wood-panelled office presses in on me as distant names and places jump from the page. Like the magical pop-up books I’d loved as a child, my memories spring up in stark detail: the guards in their uniforms standing to attention on the parade ground as we begin the daily roll-call: ichi, ni, san, shi, go …; the clipped English vowels of our teachers; the thrilling drone of the American B-25 as I lay in my hospital bed; the kaoliang that stuck to the roof of our mouths; the terrible foul stench of the latrines. The years fall away as I imagine them all beside me – Sprout, Mouse, Miss Kent, Miss Butterworth, Larry, Wei Huan, Shu Lan, Mrs Trevellyan, Home Run – each of them tugs at the rusted buckles of the old steamer trunk that I’d locked and packed away nearly thirty years ago.

  I read the letter several times and shake the envelope to see what she’s enclosed. I unwrap the lilac tissue paper carefully. A Girl Guide proficiency badge tumbles into my palm. I run my fingertips over the careful embroidery, so many memories captured in the neat lines of running stitch. It was the one badge I hadn’t completed before we were liberated, and she’d remembered.

  For the first time in almost thirty years I let myself go back to China, combing over my memories, careful not to miss any strands. Like an echo carried over the years, I can still hear the chatter of the girls in the dorm, the hum of crickets and cicadas, the whip-poor-will singing me to sleep during sticky summer nights, the steady click click click of the ceiling fan that promised to cool us down and never did. But one memory stands out much clearer than the rest: the memory of waving to my mother from the deck of the boat that would take me away from her.

  As a child, I’d wept with the agony of being parted from her. As an adult, I still ache with the pain of knowing that the distant flash of a kingfisher-blue dress was the last I ever saw of her. As my father had driven me and Edward home, he’d explained that Mummy had contracted the typhoid, and had died on February 22nd, 1943, after a short illness. While I was celebrating World Thinking Day at Temple Hill, my mother had slipped quietly away.

  I write and post my reply to Mouse that afternoon to confirm that I will, indeed, attend the reunion, and to offer a small alteration to her plans.

  I was so sorry to hear that Miss Kent isn’t well. Of all the people who were with us at Weihsien, I think of her the most. I hate to interfere, but I wonder – since she isn’t able to travel to London – might it be possible for us to travel to her? It would be a jolly adventure, as she would say. Her girls on the march once again. She did, after all, do so much for us. It only feels right that we do something for her in return.

  To have the chance to thank my teacher properly feels suddenly terribly important. I lock up the office, say a hasty farewell to my colleagues, and cycle the shor
t distance home in a hurry.

  The letter from Mouse has all but unbuckled the latches of the old steamer trunk so that it isn’t so much a matter of if I’ll open it, but how long I’ll put it off. I decide to get it over with quickly, rather than prolong the agony of wondering.

  It is hidden at the back of the wardrobe, gathering dust and mildew among a few old suits of Larry’s. He can’t fit into them anymore but he refuses to admit that his fondness for cheese and wine has any impact whatsoever on the size of his waist. Also, we never throw anything away. Camp Fever, we call it. The inability to waste a single thing, forever looking for an opportunity to reuse it.

  Moving the suits aside, I grab the handle of the trunk and drag it forwards. It is surprisingly weighty, and just as cumbersome and bulky as I remember. I can still feel the pain as it banged against my shins on the long walk from Chefoo School to Temple Hill. I can still hear us all singing, so jolly as we marched off into the abyss. I wonder if our teachers knew what was waiting for us, or if they were as surprised by it all as we were. With the benefit of hindsight, I’ve often replayed the whispered conversations and furtive glances between our teachers, and wondered how many horrors they’d protected us from. The entire Weihsien experience looks rather different when considered from an adult’s point of view.

  The trunk topples forward as I wrestle it out of its hiding place. It lands on the carpet with a thud. I pull a pillow from the bed to save my knees and hunker down in front of the trunk. The old luggage labels are still there. Nancy Plummer. China Inland Mission School. Chefoo. I run my fingertips over the black and white school emblem of a Chinese dragon and the lettering on the Chinese seal which, I remember, translates as ‘Chefoo’s Old Scholar’s Association’. Funny how little details come back to me.

  Everything is still in its place, perfectly preserved like a museum exhibition. My Girl Guide uniform and Promise badge, our patrol flag with the kingfisher crest stitched neatly onto both sides, my log books for Kingfisher Patrol, and my old tea caddy, full of little trinkets and mementoes.

  For a long time I sit quietly, surrounded by this strange museum of memories. Some happy. Some sad. Some poignant and indefinable in their own way. But it isn’t the items spread on the floor around me that give me pause, it is the heart-clattering absence of the things, and the people, that aren’t.

  The last thing I remove from the trunk is the letter my father had given to me when we’d returned to the family home. A letter from my mother, written in the final stages of her illness. I take a deep breath as I unfold the page for the first time in many years, and read her words again.

  My darling Nonny,

  When you read this, I will have already slipped away. I want you to know that I am not afraid, or in pain, and that I am smiling as I think of you. You will always be the world to me. I am looking at photographs of you and Edward as I write this, and my heart is full.

  We heard about the occupation of Chefoo School, and your transfer to Temple Hill. Mission HQ managed to send word that you are all faring well and being terribly brave, from which I have taken much strength and hope. I know you will be missing me very much, and that you may be afraid of what is happening, but I also know that you are a very capable girl, and that you will make the best of it and go on to do many incredible and admirable things when the war is over.

  Don’t be sad, darling. Remember that I will always be with you, just as I have been every day we’ve spent apart. You must spread your wings now and fly, and what marvellous things will be waiting for you!

  With all my love to you, darling.

  Mummy

  With the passing of time, I’ve understood that it was my desire to see my mother again that kept me going on the very darkest days. Even without being there, she’d walked every mile with me, stood beside me at every roll-call and tucked me in at night. In the end, I’d survived without her, learned to stand on my own two feet. For all my Oxford exams, and distinguished university degrees and doctorates, that has been the most important lesson of all: to trust myself, to cherish myself as much as I cherish others.

  I’m still sitting on the floor of the back bedroom when I hear the key rattling in the lock. I glance at my wristwatch, surprised to discover it is already five o’clock and I’ve been sitting here for three hours and there isn’t a potato scrubbed or a carrot chopped.

  I stand and wince at the pain. I still forget about my osteoporosis – Weihsien’s lasting legacy – staunchly denying the fact that I shouldn’t kneel on cold floors for hours on end. I hear the radio being switched on, the sound of the tap filling the kettle, something being muttered to the cat.

  ‘Hello, love,’ I call. ‘That you?’

  ‘No. It’s Elvis Presley. Where are you?’

  I smile. ‘Upstairs.’

  ‘Are you coming down, or should I starve down here on my own?’

  ‘I think you should come up.’

  It still surprises me that I’d married Larry Crofton, that we’d found each other again after many years. Edward brought us back together, or perhaps it was fate. Either way, it makes sense that we are together. Nobody else would have ever understood. We know that look in each other’s eyes.

  He puts his arm around my shoulder as he walks into the bedroom. ‘I see. Moving out, are we?’

  I kiss him on the cheek and hand him the letter.

  ‘From Mouse. Do you remember her? She’s organizing a reunion of the Chefoo Brownies and Guides and wants me to go.’

  He doesn’t need to ask if I will. He already knows the answer.

  ‘Take your time,’ he says as he squeezes my shoulder.

  It has been thirty years, and suddenly I’m in a rush. Miss Kent is running out of time, and there is still so much I want to say to her.

  NANCY

  August 1975

  Nine of us manage to make the journey to St Columba’s Hospice in Windsor. We gather in a small waiting room, embracing and admiring each other in turn; amazed to see the girls we’d once known now grown into women.

  The nurse in charge of the ward steps into the room to tell us that although visiting is usually restricted to two at a time, the family members have agreed that we can all go in together.

  ‘She might not be very responsive, but she’s fully aware of what’s going on, so please do talk to her,’ the nurse explains. ‘She especially likes people to sing to her.’

  We walk along the quiet corridors, politely acknowledging the other visitors and nursing staff who bustle past and take a second glance. What a spectacle we must make in our matching blue hats, scarves tied neatly at our necks, our Promise badges pinned to our blue shirts.

  Mouse holds the door open as we tiptoe into the dimly lit room. A bunch of sunflowers stands in a vase on the windowsill. The window is open slightly, allowing a light breeze to wash through the room and play at the lace curtains that flutter gently. A handsome young man and an older man smile warmly and thank us for coming.

  The older man takes my hand and kisses me lightly on the cheek. ‘Hello, Nancy.’

  ‘You recognize me?’

  ‘I’d recognize those curls anywhere. You look exactly the same.’

  I smile. ‘It’s lovely to see you, Master Harris.’

  ‘Charlie will do. We’re not in school now!’

  He introduces the younger man. ‘This is our son, Harry.’ He turns to the bed then. ‘And this marvellous woman needs no introduction at all.’

  And there she is, as fragile as melting snow, the hospital bed enormous around her narrow frame. She was always petite, but there is so little of her left. She is a bird with broken wings. Our beloved Brown Owl. Our dear Guide Captain.

  Mouse sits on the chair beside the bed and patiently explains who is there, and all about the book she is writing, and the reunion she’s organized, and how she found the girls from the 2nd Chefoo Brownies and Kingfisher Patrol and that we all insisted we come and see her.

  It takes a moment for her to open her eyes. Her
gaze flickers around the room like a guttering candle, taking us all in. We step forward one at a time, take her hand, and tell her how lovely it is to see her again.

  I wait until last.

  ‘Hello, Miss Kent. It’s me. Nancy Plummer.’

  Her grip tightens a little as she turns her face toward me, and in her eyes I see a glimmer of recognition. Her lips are dry and cracked, but she manages a brief smile.

  ‘Dear little Nancy. You’ve grown.’

  I smile. ‘A little. Yes.’ There’s so much I want to say; so many things to thank her for. ‘I wanted to say thank you. For being a mother to me when mine wasn’t there. For keeping us safe, and giving us hope.’

  She shakes her head. ‘You gave me hope. All of you. My children.’ She studies me, her grey eyes softened with age. ‘I remember you,’ she whispers. ‘I remember it all.’

  For decades I’ve fought against Weihsien, blocking it out, turning away, a part of my past that I refused to rake over. Only now, I understand that it is also my present, and my future. Weihsien is part of the young girl I was, and the woman I’ve become. Those years took so much from all of us, but our teachers gave us everything we needed to carry on: an education, a family, a home, hope.

  It seems fitting to sing ‘Taps’. One by one, the others join in, our voices linked in perfect harmony, soaring back across the miles and the years to the little meeting room we’d called our own, and where lost and frightened little girls had learned how to become strong and brave young women.

  ‘Day is done / Gone the sun, / From the lakes, from the hills, from the sky! / All is well, safely rest, / God is nigh.’

  We lower our voices as the song reaches its gentle end and we hold the final note, just as we always did.