by Lizzie Page
I had eighteen hours. I didn’t know what to do. And then I knew. Elizabeth – of course. Oh, to be in Elizabeth’s comfortable living room, with Tiggy, Winkle and even Delia. Oh, to sink my teeth into her sweet macaroons! This time I walked, or rather, galloped, to my favourite address in London, brimming with renewed hope: Elizabeth would sort this out. Nothing was beyond my brilliant friend.
It was about ten when I arrived, sweating despite the northerly wind. When the front door swung open and Elizabeth was stood before me, dazzled and beautiful, I could have hugged her. But my hopes were soon dashed. Elizabeth’s pale skin reddened; her pupils were huge. She looked shocked, but worse than that, she seemed frightened.
‘May! Why didn’t you tell me you were coming back?’
‘Aren’t you pleased to see me?’
‘I’m… I’m…’ Finally, Elizabeth managed a smile. Those lovely, happy wrinkles stood in the corners of her eyes. ‘Always thrilled to see you, of course, but –’ she lowered her voice –‘it is very late.’
I explained my problem in as few words as possible: ‘I need to get to Leamington before George does.’
Elizabeth wrung her hands.
‘I can’t just drop everything for you, May. I have work, I have to train.’
‘In the middle of winter? Near Christmas?’ I asked incredulously.
‘Yes, I have a strict regime now.’
‘But it’s my girls, Elizabeth, I don’t know what to do.’ There were sounds of movement from upstairs. I slapped my hand over my mouth. ‘I’m so sorry, have I woken your mother?’
Elizabeth turned so pale that she looked ghostlier than ever. But I quickly realised it wasn’t her mother coming down the stairs, it was a woman about our own age. She was wearing long white bloomers and a tight off-white corset. Her hair was loose, straight as a rod; it fell just to her fleshy shoulders. She was a plump woman, not fat, but rounded – the kind of shape George would make a big thing about. Her cheeks were pink and her lips were fashionably tulip-shaped.
She stood herself right next to Elizabeth – you couldn’t have put a ruler between them – and held out her hand for me to shake. I thought I might recognise her from the bathing lake, but I wasn’t sure.
‘Evening, I’m Harriet Dobinson,’ she announced cheerfully. I didn’t recall hearing the name before. ‘Don’t worry, we weren’t asleep, were we, Liz-bet?’
Liz-bet?
Elizabeth’s lips were clamped tightly shut.
‘Are you coming in?’
‘No,’ said Elizabeth and I both at the same time. The awkwardness was mitigated by the arrival of Winkle and Tiggy, who scraped against my legs as though they were my biggest fans. Delia, of course, was nowhere to be seen.
When I looked up, Elizabeth and Harriet were mouthing words at each other.
‘May, I’m sorry, Harriet’s going to Barking tomorrow and I promised…’
Here, Elizabeth’s voice trailed off.
‘I’m on trams,’ Harriet continued for her. ‘It’s not too terrible…’ She paused, looking at us both searchingly. ‘We all need to pull our weight, don’t we?’
I nodded. I couldn’t have felt more bewildered if Captain Matthew Webb, deceased Channel swimmer, had come down the stairs wrapped in jellyfish. After an even longer pause, Elizabeth spoke again.
‘You can take my car if you like.’
‘Me? No! Don’t be ridiculous, Elizabeth. I can’t drive.’
But Elizabeth never took no for an answer. ‘You’ll be fine, I’ll show you. Harriet and I will take the train tomorrow. Just bring back the car when you’re finished with it.’
She made everything sound so easy. She looked over at Harriet, who shrugged and said, ‘I’m going back to bed.’
* * *
‘Clutch to change gears, brake to stop. Go the speed you like. Don’t heed the other drivers, most of them are complete incompetents.’
Elizabeth talked me through it. Once we’d got the vehicle started, which was an enormous task in itself, it wasn’t as complicated as I’d feared. Or maybe I had grown in my confidence to tackle such things? I thought of meeting Elsie that time at Percy’s and how she helped me to conquer my fears.
We took off down the street. Elizabeth made no mention of her guest, so I didn’t either. I drove around the block, stopping and starting, ye gads, and all the way, she was repeating her instructions. ‘Lights are here, of course. Wipers here. Fuel you’ve already seen… Ignore that man, he’s a lunatic.’
‘I can’t go all the way to Leam—’
‘You can,’ she said firmly.
I must, I told myself. Think of my girls. If I were to see them this Christmas, then this is what I would do. I knew once George had them in his domain, he wouldn’t give me an inch.
I did the same circuit four times, and by the fifth I felt quite capable. Elizabeth declared my driving was not significantly worse than that of anyone else on the road. I pulled up outside her house. I had thought I was sweaty before, but that was nothing compared to now – I was drenched. Trying to get some control over this humiliating situation, I found myself saying, ‘Your friend seems nice.’
‘You know everything you need to know,’ Elizabeth said. She tooted the horn loudly. I wasn’t sure if I imagined it, but I thought the curtains flickered. Was Harriet up there, watching us?
‘Good luck, May. I hope you get the girls back soon.’
* * *
I had just left Elizabeth’s street when I nearly crashed into a hedge. A fox frightened me, causing me to swerve away, squealing like a fool. It was a good lesson in concentration. I kept my foot on the accelerator and my eyes to the future. Clutch to change gear, all the other drivers are halfwits. My knuckles were white. At one point I wanted to stop the engine and just cry, but I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to start the motor again, not in the pitch-black.
Then the night mail went by, and somehow, I felt my resolve harden. On that train were hundreds of letters to boys out in France, and if they could tolerate the trenches, I could surely tolerate this. Clutch to change gear, brake to stop. Ignore that man, he’s a lunatic.
It was two twenty in the morning when I arrived. I parked near the school gates and tried to sleep, slung between driver’s and passenger’s seats. The gearbox jabbed my back. But it was far quieter than the Somme, the air was clear, there was no snoring Matron and I soon dropped off.
I woke at six, the same time as I usually did in France if I was on day shift. I was freezing. I flattened down my hair, which no doubt looked like some bird’s nest, then rubbed my fingers together and wrote in my diary. I followed this with a ditty about cars and how you could get very far(s). The truth was, I was feeling quite proud of my driving, proud of myself.
‘You’re braver than I’, Louis Spears had said and each time I remembered it, it made me smile. At seven, I made my way past the high wire fences and along to the entrance.
A maid answered and then someone else came, and then finally, the headmistress was stood in front of me, arms crossed.
‘I thought Mr Turner was coming this afternoon.’
‘Well, I’m Mrs Turner and I’ve come this morning.’ I flicked my cape around me as though it gave me special powers. ‘And I’m just back from a field hospital in France.’
19
Out came my girls, dragging their suitcases behind them. The trunks caught in the shingle and made a terrific noise, but they were too heavy to carry. The grey wool coat Joy was wearing was not the coat she had left in and was far too big for her. She reluctantly planted a kiss on my cheek and when I whispered fearfully, ‘Is everything all right, sweetheart?’ she responded that she hadn’t been awake long and ‘Why wouldn’t it be?’ then, ‘Where’s Father?’
Her hair was pulled back into a high ponytail and was as smooth and tidy as Leona’s was messy. Leona, looking like she’d been dragged through a hurricane, smacked into my legs and squeezed me so tight that I had to laugh: ‘If I were a lemon, you’d have
my pips flying.’ She was grinning broadly – where did those freckles come from? Even her teeth had grown!
What a pleasure it was to have them in my arms again. Were these not the best children that ever were? The most wonderful girls? The most radiant? I couldn’t stop hugging them, although as usual Joy was less keen on physical contact than Leona and kept her cuddles to a minimum.
The headmistress came out to see us off. She said it was a very special thing to have a mother who was working overseas as a nurse: ‘Your mother is quite the career woman, girls!’
‘Not quite,’ I stammered self-effacingly, while the girls nodded dutifully. The headmistress added that a friend of hers was a matron on the continent. When I asked where, she said, ‘Oh, somewhere out there,’ gesturing vaguely. ‘Modern gals get all over the place, not like my generation: we stayed put,’ and I agreed, although I wasn’t sure what she was trying to say about either her friend or me.
* * *
The girls were thrilled to be in a motorcar and even more thrilled that I was driving it. Leona said she had never seen a woman drive a motorcar before. I joked that I still couldn’t stop or reverse – I think she believed me for a minute!
Joy stared out the window, arms crossed. Her expression said, don’t talk to me. I knew I’d have to work hard to win over my firstborn, I always did.
‘There are fewer cars on the roads here than in France,’ I said brightly, which was exactly the wrong thing to say. I could see from her sour expression that Joy was thinking: ooh, everything is better in France, now, is it?!
‘I hope you drive better than you style your hair,’ she snapped. She did not like me dishevelled. I thought of something cutting I could say back, but then I reminded myself: Joy was hurting, of course she was. She wanted to punish me.
We drove through the lush Warwickshire countryside. I tried to get them to sing along with me, but Joy preferred to pretend to be asleep. Instead, Leona and I whispered I Spy. As usual, I could never guess hers.
When Joy next opened her eyes, she asked: ‘Is this your boyfriend’s car?’
‘What boyfriend?’ I asked, mystified. She just looked out the window. I really wasn’t sure what was going on with her, but I realised it wasn’t good.
‘It’s Elizabeth’s,’ I said, ‘remember Elizabeth, my friend? The swimmer?’
Joy went back to sleep.
* * *
I didn’t have much of a plan. Tentatively, I asked if they would prefer not to go back to school in January.
‘What?’ said Joy, even more horrified than I had anticipated she would be. ‘Leave school?!’
‘Mother, you can’t do that to us,’ responded Leona fiercely, her arms crossed in front of her.
‘I just… if you ever change your minds…’ I swallowed. ‘We could…’ I didn’t know what we could do, ‘arrange something else.’
‘Never,’ they both said firmly. So that was one option out the way.
I knew I couldn’t go back to the house, for when George found out what I had done he would be rabid with fury. I resolved we would stay in a hotel for a few nights and then I would take them back to the house in time for Christmas. I asked them how they felt about that, given that Mrs Crawford was no longer there.
‘If it’s just for a few days…’ Leona said mildly.
‘We’ve been invited to the Pilkingtons’ anyway,’ said Joy more brightly. ‘Straight after Christmas. You don’t mind if we go?’
‘No, darling,’ I said, relieved. ‘That sounds like a very good idea.’
* * *
We used to go to the ice rink at Aldwych on a Saturday morning when the girls were little. In a world where George ruled with an iron fist, it was freedom on ice.
As the girls realised where we were heading, their excitement grew, but I felt increasingly apprehensive. On our approach, I saw cardboard boxes, bags and blankets outside in the street and the main door was adorned with padlocks. I had to tiptoe to see through the grimy windows and then I couldn’t see the rink, only piles and piles of suitcases. A woman walking by took sympathy and explained that there was no skating any more: the rink was now home to hundreds of refugees from Belgium.
She told us there might be another place, only a fifteen-minute drive away, but she couldn’t be certain. Suddenly, I felt like the whole success of my England visit, of my parenting, of my life, depended on this.
‘Let’s go,’ I said confidently, although my heart was in my boots. I could have done with Elizabeth by my side then.
* * *
For once, fortune favoured the brave – there was a skate rink and it was open. Within minutes, my girls were out, twirling on the ice.
I let them drag me with them. At first, I could only stagger, clutching the sides. But I knew being bold was the answer, so soon I was pushing out with my feet, emulating the best of them. Not everyone could skate: in the middle, one girl with shaky legs like a baby deer was laughing and grabbing onto everyone.
Joy fell. For a moment, she wore the same expression as some of the men brought in injured: part-bewildered, part-appalled. I skated over to her, nearly stumbling in my haste. I tried to lever her up by the arm. She resisted.
‘I’ll do it myself…’
She pushed back ineffectually on her palms.
‘Let me help, darling…’
‘Stop fussing,’ she hissed.
I hovered over her, still desperate to assist. You’re my daughter, I wanted to remind her. I helped you walk, I dried your tears. There’s no need to hide your vulnerability from me. She shook her head before clambering onto her skates furiously.
‘You’re not hurt?’
‘Do you mind? I skate far better than you!’ she sneered as she spun away.
I was still reeling from the rejection when sweet Leona grabbed me. We skated smoothly together. I made sure to keep an eye on Joy as she went over to the side, her confidence knocked, but then she returned to her rightful place in the centre of the rink: pirouetting and pirouetting, faster and faster, her mutinous face never more beautiful.
* * *
I sent a telegram to George explaining the situation: it was just for a few days and it wasn’t my intention to worry him – I was just restoring justice. I was their mother, this was my right. How dare he try to deny it?
By late afternoon the girls were yawning, so we went to the hotel. It was the girls’ first time in a hotel, and in the foyer they became quieter versions of themselves while I bizarrely came over all American with the staff – much to Joy’s scowling disapproval.
Dinner was served in a room with paintings on the wall of shipwrecks and Napoleonic battles. How exciting the pictures made everything look: worlds of dashing red uniforms, flaming swords, battling flames and fearless horses rearing up and charging. I wondered what, in a hundred years, they would make of our grey war, with its endless flooded trenches, barbed wire plains and tented hospitals. Would they render the men flamboyant and eager, or would they show the dirty, muddy truth?
We ate pork chops and if they were fattier and smaller than pre-war chops, they still tasted good. I scraped off Leona’s sauce – she still hated eating anything wet. She also loathed peas with a passion. They told me that the food at school was not half as good as Mrs Crawford’s offerings. And they told me about ‘the naughty girls’. Naughty girls were a perennial favourite. Naughty girls hung out windows and passed notes. Naughty girls chewed mints in RE.
Joy couldn’t seem to decide if she hated or admired them.
I wanted to tell them about my work, but they interrupted: the new hockey mistress must be at least a hundred! I would have told them about boys not much older than them who lived in that twilight zone between life and death, but they didn’t even want to hear about Bonnie and the sweet baby, although Joy did ask what his name was and my answer of ‘Freddie’ got their approval. There was something hurtful about their lack of curiosity, but, I reminded myself, these are children. It’s natural they want their mother t
o be their mother and nothing else.
At least they didn’t want to talk about George.
* * *
A band was playing dance tunes in the hotel ballroom. No one was dancing though and when you looked around, it was obvious why. There were no men of dancing age any more, they were in France or Belgium, Malta, Iraq or Turkey. The old men and their wives drank – they looked like they didn’t give a damn what was happening in their names two hundred miles away – but I wondered if secretly they felt as guilty and useless as I used to.
Leona agreed to dance with me. Her back was soft and supple in my arms. She told me she had dance lessons at school. Her feet were always in the right place. She was quite the talent. And what a pleasure it was when an old man with a monocle and bow-tie called out ‘Lovely sisters.’
Leona giggled. ‘He thinks we’re sisters, Mumma!’
‘He’s as blind as a bat…’
He sent over a glass of wine for me and fizzy drinks for the girls.
‘Will he be your boyfriend, Mummy?’ Leona’s eyes were on stalks.
I waved over to him, then leaned forward to whisper to her, ‘Darling, he’s one hundred and three.’
‘Have you got someone in France?’ Joy persisted. She had wrapped her long legs around each other and looked frightfully grown-up. In five more years, she would be the age I was when I met George.
Please, please, please, don’t let her fall for a man like her father.
‘How do you mean?’
‘A boyfriend.’
I thought of Major Louis Spears. We had met only once; for thirty minutes no longer. Two hundred words exchanged, if that. We would probably never see each other again. And anyway, he was probably bleeding to death in some desert in Egypt. Ridiculous that one’s mind could play such tricks.
