White Feathers

by Susan Lanigan

  ‘Yes,’ Lucia replied.

  ‘Is it all settled?’

  Lucia handed her Sybil’s wad of notes. The woman nodded and called out to someone at the back. Eva heard once again that soft tinkle, then a little girl with jet-black skin and braided hair appeared. Mama Leela gave her some instructions in a dialect of French Eva did not understand. The girl vanished, the bell tinkling with her as she went.

  Lucia took Eva’s hands in hers. ‘Good luck. Stay strong.’

  ‘Are you not coming with me?’ Eva said, horrified. She surely could not go through this alone. Lucia shook her head and tapped her watch. ‘I have to go back. It’s curfew in an hour.’

  ‘Please stay,’ Eva said. For the second time in a week, she was begging someone for support. But she could not help herself; she was mortally frightened. What if she were to die alone? That primitive thought crossed her soul like a footstep, leaving a soft, firm imprint. Lucia’s face softened at her distress. ‘I cannot stay now. I will come in the morning.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘I will come in the morning,’ Lucia repeated, gently releasing Eva’s hands.

  ‘You promise?’

  ‘You want a signed document with a big wig? Yes, I said. You will be fine and alive when I see you.’

  Eva reluctantly gave in, and they said their goodbyes. When the door closed behind her, it took a few moments for Eva to focus on Mama Leela, who was speaking to her. Mama Leela’s English was not fluent. ‘You go here.’ She beckoned Eva to follow her down to the end of the basement flat. There, to her relieved surprise, was a well-turned-out room: a tungsten light bulb hanging from the ceiling, a large, clean-looking hospital bed and a trolley containing shining, clean instruments. They looked so sharp, so brutal and butcher-like, Eva had to turn her head. The small window was locked and barred.

  Mama Leela pointed to the bed. Eva lifted herself up onto it and sat there uncertainly. Mama Leela bade her remove her dress and underthings and felt about her abdomen. She clucked a few times in reproof, then stood up and looked Eva in the eye. ‘Doctor have to operate. Drink not enough. Too far gone.’

  Eva started to shake. ‘Will it hurt?’

  Mama Leela laughed. ‘No, we will put you heavy asleep.’ Before leaving the room, she handed Eva an itchy calico gown to change into and instructed her to lie on the bed. Eva did as she was asked. She was more scared than she had ever been in her life. How would the doctor operate on her? It would have to be something sharp, something scraping. The thought of it had her rushing to the small sink to throw up. As quick as a thought, Mama Leela was back. ‘Control, control,’ she chided, pulling Eva back. ‘Here, drink some of this.’ She handed Eva a cracked mug of something that tasted treacly at the start and bitter on the swallowing, so bitter that Eva felt a twinge all down her gut and an urge to spit it back up. But Mama Leela insisted she drink again. ‘More.’

  Eva shook her head. Was this woman out to poison her? Mama Leela grabbed her by the shoulder and brought the cup to her mouth. ‘You must drink! My word must stand for dominate!’ Eva had no choice but to trust her. She swallowed back another few mouthfuls of the vile syrup, fighting the urge to spit it back up each time. She could feel the liquid sink down into her stomach and a haze come up in front of her eyes. The older woman’s face loomed in and out of view. She was chanting ‘Erzulie ninnin, oh hey! Moin senti ma pe ‘monte’, ce moin minn yagaza …’ On and on it went, that weird Haitian chant, the words twisting around themselves like ribbons as Eva found herself on the cusp of blacking out. Her tongue tasted metal at the roof of her mouth, and she was sweating and feeling feverish. And he was back in her mind’s eye, her husband, Joseph, slouching, plaintive. ‘For God’s sake,’ she shouted in her delirium, ‘leave me alone! I hate you.’

  But no matter what Eva cried out, still that supernal voice continued to murmur ‘Erzulie ninnin, oh hey!’ while she felt the benison of a cold cloth on her forehead. Mama Leela was so close that Eva could smell the old-paper smell of her breath. Then she put something on Eva’s nose and mouth. ‘Breathe.’

  For a moment Eva thought Mama Leela was saying ‘breed’, which sounded like a strange instruction from an abortionist; then she realised that the woman spoke like the Irish, hardening the ‘th’s. She breathed in and felt a heavy band around her head, Mama Leela’s image wavering. ‘Deep,’ the voice commanded, sounding as if it came from the bowels of the earth. Eva obeyed. Mama Leela said something in her own tongue. ‘Again,’ she said to Eva, adding, ‘Now I call the doctor.’ Eva didn’t remember what she said next.

  The first thing she realised after that was wakefulness, but she couldn’t quite get at it. The world was awake and calling at her, nagging her, but she could not rise to the surface: it hurt too much, it was just a few steps too many up a flight of stairs, that was all. Snatches of the Sicut Cervus floated in and out, broken melody and countermelody, all fuzzed and obscured; she thought once she heard Lucia’s voice rising above all that brokenness, singing something entirely different, but that faded too. There was Angela, whose face always fell into darkness when she looked at it. A hand clasped hers, and she felt laughter in her heart and saw a pair of brown eyes, mocking and affectionate – she called out a name – but then lost it again.

  When she opened her eyes it was morning proper; a raw blue light made the room look smaller than it had the previous night. From her supine position, Eva could see that some attempts had been made to clean her up; the sheet that brushed her legs was stainless, if worn. If anything, she wished she could see less. The light streaming through that dirty, barred window was too bright and too cruel. Then she heard someone whisper her name. It was Lucia, come in the morning, just as she had promised. ‘Eva, I brought you some water.’

  ‘Is it gone?’ Eva said hoarsely.

  ‘Yes. You sad?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Eva, and it was true. Such rage she had felt against it, but the rage masked something else, a feeling that surged when she felt afraid and the little thing seemed to jump along with her heart. As if, were she not vigilant, she could feel attached to it. That the wall she had built around herself could collapse. Then they would have won.

  She lifted herself, slowly and painfully, into a sitting position and took the glass. It was well timed – her throat and tongue were like sandpaper – and to her parched mouth even London water was clear, beautiful and cold. Lucia restrained her. ‘Drinking water is not illegal under the Defence of the Realm Act. Slow down, ’fore you make yourself sick.’

  ‘How long have you been here?’

  Lucia shrugged. ‘An hour? Two? Don’t worry, I was fine. I read the paper.’

  ‘My …’ Eva pointed to her abdomen ‘… hurts.’

  ‘It will for a while.’

  But it was too much, the pain. Eva waved away the offered bowl; she could only point at her pelvis once more. It hurt so badly that tears of pain rolled down her cheek. Lucia grasped her hand. ‘Hold on, star.’ Eventually, the worst stabs passed and the pain reverted to a dull ache. ‘Better now,’ Eva managed, not having the energy for more.

  They sat together a few moments. Soon it would be time to leave, but for now Eva needed a minute or two.

  ‘Can I ask you a question?’ Lucia said. Eva, realising that she was probably trying to distract her from the pain, nodded. ‘Who is Christopher?’ Seeing Eva’s face, she added, ‘I’m sorry, I did say no fas inna yu business, and I meant it. But earlier you called out his name. Was it his? He the one who get you into this mess?’ Eva shook her head violently. ‘A man in your life, then.’ A small, proud nod. That much at least she could do. ‘Where is he now?’

  Before Eva could answer, another round of pain overtook her. Lucia ran into the corridor and called Mama Leela, who huffed and swore her way in. ‘It normal,’ she shrugged when Lucia expressed her concerns. ‘Stay with her for a while, is all right. But you both need to leave soon. I have other girls coming.’

  Grimacing with pain, Eva stood up a
nd started to dress. Sybil would be at home in Great Cumberland Place, waiting and anxious. Not a soul knew of this: not Clive, not Sybil’s new friend Roma, nobody. Sybil, of course, would have preferred not to have known herself.

  But Lucia was there and for that Eva felt a gratitude that almost moved her to tears. This Jamaican girl, a stranger, had come back as she had promised. It was, after all, a business transaction, and it had cost Sybil a pretty packet. One couldn’t be too sentimental. But still …

  Through the door, she could hear a woman’s moan, followed by a shouted instruction to fetch Dr Hill, then another door creaking open and closing as if a breeze had caught it in a slam. And that little bell, tinkling throughout the corridor, an inappropriately childlike sound in such a charnel house. Had that little girl had any sleep? Inside the room, all was silent.

  Eva realised that she hadn’t answered Lucia’s question. ‘He went to war,’ she said.

  Lucia raised her eyes and hands to heaven. ‘War,’ she said. ‘Life mash, this bloody war.’

  21

  ‘Name, please?’ The young matron sat with her elbows on the desk, her peaked cap slightly askew on her head. Eva ached to correct it.

  ‘Eva Downey – ah, Cronin … no, Downey.’

  ‘Would you like to tell me which it is?’ the matron said, not unkindly. Behind the desk hung a felt banner bearing the name of Queen Alexandra’s Military Hospital, surrounded by army propaganda posters. A heavy smell of boiled sheets and bicarbonate of soda hung in the air.

  ‘I’m widowed, ma’am, but I use my maiden name.’

  The matron nodded, the skin under her chin folding a little. A peaky, dimpled Yorkshirewoman, she did not offer condolences, merely saying, ‘Right, let’s save the details for now. Have you completed your first-aid training?’

  ‘Not yet, ma’am.’

  ‘You can start tomorrow. You’ll have to fulfil that and qualify for the Red Cross before we can accept you.’ Eva nodded. The matron gave her a sharp, sidelong look. ‘You look young, if you don’t mind my saying so.’

  ‘I am twenty-four, ma’am.’ The lower age limit for volunteering in the Voluntary Aid Detachment nursing unit was twenty-three. Eva added a year, to be on the safe side, rather than reveal her true age, a mere nineteen. The matron clearly did not believe her, but Eva was not overly anxious. Sybil had already reassured her on that count. ‘Oh, they were all Fussy Fussbudgets to start off with, but a year in and they’re crying out for people. They’ll not be picky, don’t worry.’

  The matron leaned forward and put her head on the steeple of her interlaced hands. ‘You will find it difficult, Mrs – Miss Downey, if you are not accustomed to such work. I’ve heard that some units have trouble with their VADs. They imagine their purpose in life is to drift around the wards bringing comfort while the nurses proper have to wash the bedpans.’

  ‘The Tollington-Smythes,’ Eva said before she could stop herself.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Nothing. Just something somebody said.’

  The matron’s chin angled hard with disapproval.

  ‘I am not afraid of hard work, ma’am,’ Eva said hurriedly. ‘My marriage taught me many skills. I can make eggs all ways, boiled, poached and fried. I can cook pigs’ trotters and make soup from the jelly. And put laundry through a mangle.’ This last was said with considerable pride. How strange that such a miserable, penurious year should have taught her anything at all, but it had.

  The matron smiled drily. ‘I’m glad to hear you’re not shy of work, Miss Downey. Because I’ve had my fill of society girls, believe you me. This is not the Derby.’ She wrote something on a slip of paper. ‘Your Red Cross classes should take two weeks. There’ll be a bit on home nursing and first aid. I see no reason not to put through your orders as soon as that’s done, and you should be with Queen Alexandra’s by the start of February. We have a lot of our boys coming back from the Dardanelles. I must warn you, they are very badly shaken up.’

  ‘I will do my best, matron.’

  ‘Well, then, that’s settled. Welcome to the Queen Alexandra’s Voluntary Aid Detachment.’ She stood up and extended her hand. Eva took it. ‘By the way,’ she added, ‘I’m very sorry to hear of the death of your husband. Was he at the front?’

  ‘Yes. At the battle of Loos.’ At it, maybe, but certainly not in it.

  ‘You hear it so often these days. Doesn’t make it any less painful.’ Although she couldn’t have been more than thirty-five, the matron looked as if she had seen it all. What was one more death far away when men were dying every day in her own wards? And Eva, for her part, was grateful she did not have to go into any detail about her husband’s death. She took the piece of paper the matron handed her, a voucher for her new uniform, redeemable for the next month.

  Sybil had done her level best to talk her out of it. ‘Oh, Evie,’ she said, when they were in the milliner’s the day before, ‘why? It’s such a bore, all this nursing stuff. Ten to one you’ll end up cleaning slops. And you’re not cut out for it, you know you’re not.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Eva said, ‘but I’m hardly cut out for anything else, am I?’

  ‘Do you remember,’ Sybil said more gently, ‘that you once had ideas about sitting for a scholarship for Oxford?’

  Eva went white almost to the lips. It was a moment before she spoke. ‘I think we both know there’s no place for that in my life any more.’

  ‘Just because—’

  ‘It’s not only that.’ Eva was harsh; she couldn’t bear to let Sybil finish her sentence. ‘I’ve no money, Sybil, and no means of earning any. If I want to support myself with any dignity, it’s either war or service, and to be honest war looks more appealing.’

  ‘Really,’ Sybil said, turning away to look at a cluster of faille hats with brown silk ribbons on top, ‘and there was I thinking it’s nothing but a cruel and sinful waste of life.’

  Of course – Bo. Eva started to stammer an apology for her lack of tact, but Sybil cut her off. ‘I’m not the first to suffer, and I won’t be the last. I mean, look. It’s nearly impossible to find someone in town who’s not wearing black. No offence, but I’m sick of it. Bo wouldn’t have wanted it.’

  ‘I understand,’ Eva said, ‘and I think you should wear what you want.’ After all, it wasn’t as if she were wearing black for Joseph Cronin.

  For a moment her friend said nothing, just stood there holding the hat in her hand, her fingers crushing the silk. Eva felt wretched for her. But Sybil pulled herself together – Eva could see her do it, it took a physical effort. ‘How does this one look?’ she said, pushing up the short brim and allowing a few tendrils of hair to escape around her ears and forehead.

  ‘Very attractive.’

  ‘I would have thought you’d be rebelling against the war, not joining in.’ Sybil tended to hop from topic to topic like a gadfly.

  Eva smiled bitterly. ‘I think,’ she said, fingering the soft felt of a black-bowed hat with a wide brim, ‘that for a man, if you renounce war you’re a rebel, but for a woman it’s the opposite. To rebel is to fight. We’re supposed to marry well, be nice girls and stay out of public affairs. Every person I ever met told me this – except Christopher. He told me the opposite, but that’s the man he was. Is. Anyway, they’ve pulled the rug out from under us. How can we marry when they’ve taken our men? We might as well be the rebels.’

  Sybil put down the faille hat and stared at her. ‘That was quite a speech.’ On impulse, she put her gloved hand on Eva’s shoulder. ‘You still miss him, don’t you?’ Seeing Eva’s face crumple a little, Sybil put her arm around her. ‘Bear up, old girl,’ she whispered. Eva nodded, blinking away her tears, then declared, ‘I will, I promise. I’ll not leech off you any longer, Sybil. You’ve been generous to me, beyond what I’ve a right to ask. I need to make my own way in life.’

  ‘And that’s very commendable,’ Sybil said, leading her to the counter. ‘But, darling, they hardly pay at all. Living quarters, whate
ver hellhole they might be, and some sort of honorarium, that’s it. The clue is in the word “voluntary”, you see.’

  ‘I don’t care. I need to get out of London and make myself useful, Syb.’ Eva drew her shawl around her. ‘Too many ghosts. I see them everywhere.’

  ‘Well, you’ll have to wait till I pay the man; I can’t just rob the shop because you’re suddenly agoraphobic.’

  ‘I mean, I want to go to France.’

  ‘Well,’ exclaimed Sybil, as the cash register rang and the smooth jacketed assistant wrapped her purchase, ‘of all the crazy ideas you’ve given me for signing up, that has to be the craziest of all. As if bedpans and VD and nerves weren’t enough – you’ll be stuck with the French! The blasted French! I can only conclude you’ve lost your reason, Evie.’

  Eva couldn’t resist a grin. ‘Look at it this way, Sybil. I’ve lost everything else. What’s reason, at the end of the day?’

  ‘Now that,’ her friend sighed, ‘is a Shandlin question. In other words, it’s one I have no idea how to answer.’

  ‘Then I suppose it never shall be answered,’ said Eva bleakly.

  *

  A week later, Eva moved her few belongings from Great Cumberland Place to the hostel on Markwell Hill where she would be staying while she worked in Queen Alexandra’s. Markwell House was grim and grey, about a century old, with no decorative features to break its relentless front apart from a double-edged, unadorned pediment above the doors, which were as thick as those of a prison. Its gardens, once fine but now reduced to ragwort and dandelion, swept down the hill from where there was a magnificent view of the bend of the Thames as it continued east. The park on which it sat was a full two miles from the hospital. The rooms were long, high-ceilinged and full of draughts. Each girl had a Spartan cubicle with a thin curtain, containing a bed, a washstand and a rickety chest of drawers, and there were fifteen of these in each room.