Daughters of War

by Lizzie Page

  ‘No? Why?’

  Four more weeks and he would be back. And I would still be married to George.

  ‘Father says you have boyfriends.’

  ‘Loads of them,’ said Leona dreamily into her drink. ‘All of them.’

  ‘Father can be silly.’ I chose my words carefully. ‘I don’t have one boyfriend, let alone several.’

  Leona fixed her beautiful eyes on mine. She fiddled with the clip in her hair, then whispered, ‘We met one of Father’s girlfriends, Mummy.’

  ‘One of them?’

  ‘She was not very bright,’ Joy said, intolerantly. Sometimes, she sounded more cynical than me. ‘She thought we were at war with France!’

  I grinned but knew better than to say anything. Whenever I thought about it afterwards, I thought, Hmm, that’s just George’s type and it was very satisfying.

  * * *

  Next morning in the hotel we had – according to the girls – ‘the best breakfast in human history’. The food was all laid out on one big table under tablecloths that reached the floor, and the girls trotted back and forth and then back and forth some more. They were as at ease in this milieu as they were at the ice-skating rink, or in the park. That was the gift of their schooling: they felt entitled to be everywhere.

  ‘They have bacon!’ Joy shouted. ‘And porridge.’

  The next few days with my girls were perhaps my favourite ever. When we weren’t admiring the sights of London, we kicked off our shoes and read together on the hotel beds. Clean sheets, warm baths, my girls waving out the window at a man on stilts. A Punch and Judy in the park, flags at half-mast at Buckingham Palace, hot sausage rolls, dancing in a smattering of snow that didn’t settle. And then it was time to go.

  I don’t know why, an irrepressible optimism maybe, but I had expected George to be civil when we arrived back home. I expected him to have a sense of humour about our escapade.

  Hadn’t he once taken me from church class, taken me to a department store and bought me heels that were too high and a dress that was too adult for me?

  As we pulled up in front of the house, there he was in the doorway, in full bloated fury. I didn’t even have time to blot my lips raspberry, like I’d planned.

  ‘Come in with us, Mummy,’ pleaded Leona.

  ‘I’d better not,’ I said quickly. ‘I don’t think Daddy wants to see me.’

  ‘Do you have to go back to France, Mummy?’ Joy was unemotional again, the way she had been when I’d first picked her up. Foolish to be surprised by this, but I was.

  ‘Oh, darling! I can’t stay here, not with your father… and you’ve got so much going on at school and with your friends and your tennis.’

  I still hadn’t realised it was too much to expect them to like me being away.

  ‘The poor fellows out there have nothing,’ I added limply.

  Trembling, I unloaded the girls’ trunks. I told myself this was like skating away from the side: I had to act bold.

  ‘Did you get my telegram?’ I called out cheerily.

  ‘How dare you go behind my back!’ he bellowed back.

  I smiled at him indulgently. Treat him like a child, I thought. A petulant, badly behaved child.

  ‘Thought I’d save you the trip, George.’

  ‘This is never going to happen again.’

  I wasn’t going to rise to it. He was stupid Mr Toad, without a thought for anyone; nothing clever about that.

  The girls wandered towards him. You wouldn’t know they hadn’t seen him for six months either. They lugged their twin trunks across the sidewalk and up the steps. He watched them without offering to help – that was George all over. He pulled the girls into the house without a hello or a welcome, then slammed the door on me. The house seemed to shake in sympathy. I could hear the reverberation, as if shells had gone off in the park. I knocked again, and he swung the door open.

  ‘What?’

  ‘George, can’t we be adults?’

  He glared at me, eyes bulging. I thought maybe ‘adult’ wasn’t the word I was looking for.

  ‘We need to talk.’

  ‘What’s there to say?’

  ‘Well…’ I was momentarily thrown. ‘Are we going to divorce or—’

  ‘It’s long overdue,’ he yelped. ‘I’ll keep the house. You will get nothing, nothing, nothing.’ He had turned quite purple. ‘And I’m naming Percy Milhouse on the petition.’

  ‘Percy?’ My voice was shrill. ‘What nonsense! As if—’

  ‘If you deny it, I will drag you through the dirt… I know all about your dirty little afternoons.’

  ‘I have never been with Percy in that way, how dare you!’ I hissed at him furiously. ‘What about all your women then, eh? I bet you don’t even know half of their names!’

  He shrugged. ‘Take it or leave it, May. Those are the terms I am offering.’

  I thought for a moment. I knew the law. I knew how crushingly hard it was for women to get a divorce. If George wanted to do it this way, then more fool him. What did I care? What did Percy care? Let us cut the ties as quickly and as cleanly as possible. What was it Gordon always told us about wounds? Clear it out, cut it off, because if that infection takes hold…

  ‘Do it then, George, divorce me.’

  ‘Oh, I will,’ he said. ‘I will.’

  I turned on my heels.

  ‘Merry Christmas then,’ I added coldly.

  ‘Merry Christmas to you too,’ he snapped back.

  Leona and Joy waved down from their old nursery window. I blew kisses at that old window until there was nothing to see any more.

  * * *

  So, I was alone in London just two days before Christmas. I considered knocking at Percy’s door – it might be fair to give him a tip-off about the divorce petition – but then resolved to write him about it instead. I wasn’t sure how he would react. It would have been terrible news for a respectable man in society, but Percy never aspired to that. (Even if he was never as unconventional as I’d expected.) And it wasn’t fair to ask to spend time with Percy, not when I didn’t feel anything for him, and I didn’t want to spend time with his pictures either. When I remembered the paintings, with their sharp lines and sinister reds, I shivered. At the time, I hadn’t realised it, but he had caught the atmosphere of the war very well.

  I thought about returning to the hotel, perhaps to dance again, but without my girls, I knew, it would be miserable. How would they spend Christmas? Would George even bother going through the motions for them? My darling girls: turkey and cranberry sauce against a backdrop of George’s thunderous face. I had bought glass marbles for Leona and regretted it now. Might she think they were too childish? As for the notebook and pencils I had wrapped for Joy, would she think it was a hidden message about writing more often? (It wasn’t.) At least they were going to stay with the Pilkingtons from the twenty-seventh. They would have a marvellous time there.

  As I sat on the step, a pitiful fella sidled up and planted himself next to me. This was the last thing I needed. I didn’t look up but stared into my hands. Hopefully he’d go away when he realised I wasn’t interested in chatting.

  ‘Here.’ He shoved his bread in my face. He thought I was hungry, he thought I was pitiful. ‘You look like you could do with a good meal.’

  I couldn’t take food from the poor soul, but it was true, I was hungry – I hadn’t eaten since I had dropped off the girls. He showed me where his arm had once been. I think he may have expected me to recoil but of course I was used to amputees – I had tended to enough of them.

  ‘Belgium?’

  He nodded. ‘Loos.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You should see the other guy,’ he joked.

  We sat there for a few minutes. He told me about the things he had seen. He got money for his disability. Not much, but it should have been enough.

  ‘I’ve got four kids. I give it all to the wife, she kicked me out.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said.

 
‘She got with a fella who’s only lost his foot.’

  I looked at him, wondering if he was joking. I decided he wasn’t.

  ‘That doesn’t sound very nice,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ he said after a pause. ‘It isn’t.’

  * * *

  I considered the wounded soldiers I could serve in France, I thought about my team and my place with them, and I didn’t have to think for much longer. I drove the car back to Elizabeth’s house and pushed the keys through the letterbox with a note of thanks. I didn’t try to see if anyone was there: I didn’t want to see her friend Harriet, and even if Elizabeth were alone, I wasn’t sure I could face her either right now. Then I walked back towards the station.

  I thought of Joy’s question and my answer. Had I explained it well enough? Probably not. I was never good when put on the spot. How could I convey to her how empty my life had been in London, and how full it was now? She would take it personally, I knew she would, when it wasn’t personal at all. It was just who I was.

  I was so sorry things had ended like this with George, so sour, so bitter. Hard to believe he was the same person who stood in front of our fireplace, cap in hand winning over my mother: I will take care of May, I will devote my whole life to making her happy. I bet Bella and his others got all those lines now.

  George would come around soon enough, I knew that. And we were divorcing. It wasn’t a nice thing but it was the best and only alternative available. And I was certain I would be back in England soon. The war had already been going on for over a year. It simply couldn’t go on for much longer now. And if it did end up lasting another year – most people swore it wouldn’t – I would be home for Easter and summer anyway. Perhaps I might buy myself a little apartment near the girls’ school. Yes. We could spend every weekend together.

  By the time I could see the station lights and smell the steam, I felt a renewed sense of purpose. I was on the move again. Back to my clearing hospital in France. Back home.

  Things Grandma Leonora left me

  A love of nursing.

  A love of card games.

  A love of reading, writing and poetry.

  A Chinese fan (not sure if it’s real).

  An ornament of a Flamenco dancer (this is real, unfortunately).

  All her savings from her account. (Take that, George! You can keep the damn house.)

  20

  I arrived back on the evening of 23 December. It was daft, but I really thought I might discover Kitty and Gordon together. For who else wasn’t certain that the reading they did together was a ruse for secretive lovers to be alone?

  Gordon was in his tent and – as I suspected – he was not alone. Classical music was playing and there was a pleasant hum of voices. I didn’t want to make an indecent interruption, so I called out a few times from outside the tent. ‘Gordon, oh, Gordon!’ I didn’t have to wait long. He swept out towards me, pulling the cloth flap firmly shut behind him.

  ‘What in God’s name are you doing here, May? You’re supposed to be in England!’

  ‘What are you doing, Gordon?’ I teased. I tugged at the tent walls, laughing. ‘Kitty, come out, come out, wherever you are. I won’t tell anyone!’

  Gordon did an excellent imitation of confused. He stared at me, his hands on his hips, a big triangular space behind which he was hiding my friend.

  ‘I won’t tell a soul…’ I marched forward.

  ‘No, May, no!’ he yelped.

  ‘KITTY! If you don’t reveal yourself to me this instant, I’ll—’

  A small Indian man emerged, the tent door flapping uselessly behind him. ‘At your service…’

  * * *

  I found Kitty later, in the canteen, diligently spooning out peas so overcooked they resembled some deadly chemical paste. Lots of the kitchen staff had been granted leave over Christmas, so the remaining staff had their hands full. Kitty looked red-eyed but still managed to give me a welcoming smile.

  ‘I was sure I’d caught you and Gordon out…’

  ‘No, May!’ Kitty was so startled that she jumped; her hat almost fell from her head. ‘How could you have thought that?’

  I was still in shock. I said in a low voice that I didn’t know which was worse: that Gordon was with a man, or that the man was an Indian! Kitty looked stricken. Her hand wobbled. The watery peas slipped off the spoon and back into the pan.

  ‘Please don’t tell anyone, for goodness’ sake,’ she whimpered.

  I gazed at her over the cutlery. I hadn’t realised she was so upset.

  ‘Who would I tell?’

  ‘Anyone. He’ll be in terrible trouble if he’s found out, you must know that, May.’

  * * *

  When I next saw Gordon, I tried to be funny and friendly and knowing rolled into one.

  ‘Ye gods, Gordon, of all the fellas to pick!’

  ‘Of all the fellas to pick?!’ he repeated incredulously. I noticed a vein tic in his forehead that I’d never seen before. I smiled nervously as he went on.

  ‘Do you think I have a great deal of choice in romance, May?’ he hissed.

  ‘I don’t know.’ I realised I had made a mistake with the conversation, but I wasn’t sure how.

  ‘If I chose the wrong guy, I’d get arrested.’

  ‘I didn’t—’

  ‘No, there’s a lot you don’t realise,’ he said enigmatically and stalked off.

  * * *

  I was on ward duty on Christmas Day. A young lad was brought in in the morning – shrapnel to the chest – and he didn’t make it. We were subdued, patients and nurses alike. In the afternoon, we did some singing. Then Doctor Rafferty burst in, wearing a Santa hat and fake beard. Ho-ho-ho-ing, he gave out chocolates and cigars. We made a good fist of it, all things considered.

  Many of our patients’ thoughts turned to home, so that evening we wrote even more letters than usual. My wrist was aching by the time the shift ended but I was satisfied that there would be some happy families next week. After the shift, Kitty put her arm through mine and said we were invited to Gordon’s. Given our most recent exchange, I felt uneasy, but didn’t want to create a drama by not going.

  There was mistletoe. Gordon and I kissed civilly on the cheek and it was as though we’d agreed to pretend we hadn’t had an argument at all. We listened to his beloved classical music and dug into the Turkish delight he told us he’d been saving since he’d been on leave at Easter.

  Gordon’s Indian friend, introduced as Karim, arrived. He smoked a cigar. Now, in the lamplight, I saw that he was neatly built, probably around the same height as me and no broader. But his face – what a face he had! Heavy-lidded, sensual eyes, skin as smooth as satin. And he was clever too, talking about music and books and politics. I could see the appeal.

  He didn’t stay long though and after he had left, Kitty went to the wards to offer around the last of the Turkish delight so once again I was left alone with Gordon.

  ‘I worry about you,’ I said tentatively.

  ‘And I worry about you.’ He was tidying up the tent and not looking at me as he said: ‘We are the keepers of each other’s secrets.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘How are your children?’

  I couldn’t catch a breath.

  ‘What children?’

  He whispered. ‘I know, May.’

  He said he had worked it out way back, from my face when I waited for and then read my letters. My behaviour when Bonnie gave birth. My ‘natural way’ with Freddie. I felt collapsed from the inside out. That had done it.

  ‘Will they send me back?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so. It’s frowned upon, but –’ he smiled wryly – ‘so are a lot of things that go on. Anyway, so far as I know, it’s not actually against any rules. You should tell your friends though – it might make life easier for you.’

  ‘Or they might send me home.’

  ‘I won’t let them.’ He put his arm around me, squeezed. ‘Merry Christmas, May.’


  21

  It was another six weeks before I felt I could tell Kitty or Bonnie about my girls, or George. It was bitterly cold. Sleep grew scarcer. The air was thick with dust, although the explosions had stopped shocking us; we’d just carry on as normal. Patients were more than plentiful. There were more painful losses to endure. Telegrams came more regularly and the numbers of injured were up. Six or seven men from Fricourt. They didn’t say what injuries anymore because it could be anything. The times my team could sit around chatting were fewer now. I probably could have told them over a bedtime mug of oatmeal in the canteen or as we ate our crackers in the morning, but those rare times when we had the right moment, I could never seem to find the right words. And the longer I hadn’t told them, the harder it seemed to find those words.

  In the middle of February, Bonnie, Kitty and I sat at the corner table of Chez Tartine, our favourite café in the town of Bray-sur-Somme, not far from its ancient church. A man with one leg was playing the violin. After one particularly soaring piece, he said, ‘For the nurses,’ and we raised our glasses to him.

  And that’s when I told them the sorry tale of George and me. His fall outside my church. Our premature marriage. My dying hopes for an amicable split. And finally, I told them about my daughters.

  ‘Tiggy and Delia?’ asked Kitty. She hadn’t said anything all the time I had been talking but had studied my face impassively.

  ‘Actually, those are my friend’s cats,’ I admitted, flushing redder still. ‘My girls’ names are Joy and Leona.’

  ‘That’s a relief.’ Kitty smiled.

  ‘I quite liked the name Tiggy,’ said Bonnie.

  I was worried they would be annoyed at me for lying but they were understanding. I should have known. They put their hands over mine.