War Girls

by Adele Geras

  Was Alice listening? No, she was not. Because, turning her head to watch the morning light gleam through stained glass, she’d spotted in the furthest row a carefully trimmed hat she thought she recognised.

  Mrs Coral was back. But she was barely recognisable once again. This time her face was lifted and her eyes were bright. Her cheeks had filled out, and those restless fingers now lay in peace on her prayer book. Even as Alice stared, Mrs Coral turned her head and gave her the warmest smile.

  Alice could barely wait until the service ended. They met beyond the gate, where Mrs Coral waited arm in arm with her companion from The Lodge.

  ‘You look so well!’ said Alice.

  ‘And I hear such good things of you, my dear! If you heard Mrs Parry praising your handiwork, your ears would burn. So will you come one evening to tell us all your news?’

  ‘As soon as I can.’

  They parted with a hug, and Mrs Coral hurried off to greet another friend. But her companion stayed behind to catch at Alice’s arm. ‘Alice, I hope you understand exactly what you did that night.’

  Alice flushed hot with shame and stared at her boots. Now she would be exposed! What would her father say when he was told? Would he disown her for ever or, worse, weep at his failures both as a father and a minister?

  The housekeeper kept her hand on Alice’s arm. ‘You know she talks to Sam now? All the time. She says he’s with her often and she swears that he speaks back to her.’

  Alice looked up. But where was the grim and hostile look that she remembered all too well? The woman’s face had softened into a smile. ‘Well may your father preach from his lofty pulpit about the virtues of trust. But you, my dear, were brave enough to step out on a rainy night and offer real hope.’

  The words fell like forgiveness. Alice felt her misery and guilt fading away. So hope had two meanings after all! One for her father, one for her. And his was his – to do with learning and convictions. And hers was hers – to do with friendship and with love.

  As Mrs Parry’s housekeeper leaned closer to squeeze the young girl’s arm, she added one last blessing. ‘And surely hope is worth a hundred thousand pairs of knitted socks.’

  The Green Behind the Glass

  by Adèle Geras

  The Green Behind the Glass

  1916, November

  The telegram was addressed to Enid. Sarah put it carefully on the table in the hall. The white envelope turned red in the light that fell through the coloured squares of glass above the front door. She had no desire to open it. She knew that Philip was dead. The possibility that he might be wounded, missing in action, captured, never occurred to her. It was a death she had been expecting; these were only the official words setting it out in writing. For a moment, Sarah wondered about the people whose work it was every day to compose such messages. Perhaps they grew used to it. The telegraph boy, though, couldn’t meet her eyes.

  ‘Telegram for Miss Enid Romney,’ he’d said.

  ‘I’ll take it. I’m her sister. They’re all out.’

  ‘Much obliged, I’m sure.’ He had thrust the envelope into her hand and run towards the gate without looking back, his boots clattering along the path. The envelope had fluttered suddenly in a rush of wind.

  Sarah sat on the oak settle in the hall and wondered whether to take the message to Enid in the shop at once. To them, she thought, to the writers of this telegram, Philip is Enid’s young man. He was. Was. Haven’t we been preparing for the wedding, embroidering and stitching since before the War?

  It seemed to Sarah that they’d always known Philip Stansforth. The two families, Stansforths and Romneys, had been neighbours in the days before Sarah’s father died. She was five when that had happened and she had little memory of him, recalling only a big, jolly presence, a round, smiling face and a very tickly moustache. Mother and Sarah and Enid had had to fend for themselves as best they could. They had sold the big house in Kentish Town and moved south of the river, so that Mother could work in a draper’s shop run by her elderly cousin, Maudie.

  Philip and his mama came often to visit. He was the same age as Enid, and four years older than Sarah. Looking back now, she couldn’t remember a time when she didn’t adore him. She used to pretend that he was her brother. Enid did her very best to leave Sarah out of their activities, but Philip didn’t seem to mind her being there. He made sure to include her in card games and even let her help with the putting-together of huge and intricate jigsaw puzzles. How we used to love those, Sarah thought. When did we stop doing them? The pieces would be spread out all over the table in the dining room. Somehow she always managed to sit next to Philip and find just the right pieces to go in the bits that he was working on.

  ‘Clever Sarah,’ he’d say and smile at her fondly. ‘That’s just the bit of sky I need. I must say, you’ve got a very good eye for these puzzles.’

  Enid always sat up straighter when Philip praised her sister and tried not to look put out, but Sarah could see that she was vexed.

  It was Mother and Mrs Stansforth between them who encouraged the engagement. As Philip and Enid grew older, Sarah was urged to leave them to their own devices more and more. They began to walk out together, to visit museums and parks, and take tea in local teashops. Sarah was still at school. By the time she was fourteen and left to work in the shop with Mother, it was too late. Enid was eighteen and so was Philip, and neither of them could imagine, it seemed, a life different from the one which had been suggested to them.

  When the engagement was first announced, Sarah was as happy as everyone else and began to look forward to a wedding day and a bridal dress. But the years passed and the wedding ceased to be mentioned. It seemed to Sarah as though ‘being betrothed’ must be a state so comfortable and respectable in itself that you didn’t need to concern yourself with the business of actually getting married.

  And then War had been declared.

  Sarah stood up and looked at herself in the mirror that hung above the settle. She saw straight, fair hair, tied back; eyes which were not exactly blue (Philip called them ‘sea-coloured’); a small mouth and a pale complexion. Am I pretty? she asked her reflection. Philip thought so. The day he told her was when she first realized she was in love with him, though to be truthful she couldn’t remember a single hour when she hadn’t loved him. The only thing that changed was the quality of that love; the way it made her feel.

  They had met in the street. Philip had just got off the omnibus (he was coming to visit Enid), and Sarah was on her way home from the shop. Of course they walked together – why would they not? They were going to be related soon enough. Part of the same family.

  ‘You’re not a little girl any longer, are you?’ Philip said. He said it suddenly, right in the midst of their conversation, interrupting himself.

  ‘No,’ Sarah said. ‘I’m sixteen.’

  ‘You’re very pretty, Sarah,’ he said. He put out his hand and took hers. They were standing in the shadow of the hedge, just a few houses down from where Enid was waiting for him. He pulled her towards him and before Sarah could find words to object, he was kissing her: hard, passionately, on the mouth, as she had never been kissed before. She nearly swooned from the strangeness and unexpectedness of it. How long did it last? Two seconds? Three? Maybe minutes? She had no idea. She knew only that her whole body seemed to turn a kind of somersault, lurching and falling and melting. Then just as suddenly Philip pulled away. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve behaved like a cad. I should never have kissed you. Please forgive me and promise me that this … will be our secret. Do you promise?’

  Sarah had nodded, overcome. And she had kept her word. It should have ended there. But whenever she saw Philip (and that was often) the memory of the kiss seemed to hang between them and Sarah would imagine it happening again and again. She could see that Philip felt it too. Something like an electrical charge passed between them, unguessed at by anyone else.

  Sarah’s eyes fell to the telegram. Enid will enjoy mour
ning, she thought. She will look elegant in black. She’ll cry delicately so as not to mar the whiteness of her skin and she’ll dab her nose with a lace-edged handkerchief. All the customers will sigh and say how sad it is, and young men will want to comfort and console her, and they will succeed, oh yes, because she didn’t really love him.

  ‘She didn’t really love him!’ Sarah found herself saying the words aloud and blushed as if there were a part of Enid lurking somewhere that could overhear her. ‘Not really,’ she whispered. ‘Not like I did.’ I know, she thought, because she told me.

  Enid is sewing. I ask her: ‘Do you really love him, Enid? Does your heart beat so loudly sometimes that you feel the whole world can hear it? Can you bear it, the thought of him going away? Do you see him in your dreams?’

  ‘Silly goose! You’re just a child!’ She smiles at me. She is grown up. Her face is calm. Pale. ‘And you’ve been reading too many novels. I respect him. I admire him. I am very fond of him. He is a steady young man. And besides, ladies in real life don’t feel those things. It wouldn’t be right.’

  But I felt them, thought Sarah. And other feelings too, which made me blush. I turned away, I remember, so that Enid would not see my face, and thought of his arms holding me, and his hands in my hair and his mouth … oh, such a melting; a melting in my stomach. I loved him. And I can never say anything. I shall only be able to weep for him at night, after Enid has fallen asleep. And I shall have to look at him. Enid will keep his photograph between our beds, the one that isn’t him at all, just a soldier in uniform, sepia, like all the soldiers. Perhaps she will put it in a black frame, but after a while, I will be the only one who really sees it. I will look at it even though it’s nothing like the Philip I know, because it is the only image of him that I have.

  Sarah tried to cry and no tears would come. It seemed to her that her heart had been crushed in metal hands, icy cold and shining. How could she bear the tight pain of those hands? But soon, yes, she would have to pick up the telegram and walk to the shop and watch Enid fainting and Mother rustling out from behind the counter. Mrs Feathers would be there – she was always there – and she would tell, as she had told so often, the remarkable story of her Jimmy, who’d been posted as dead last December and who, six months later, had simply walked into the house, bold as you please, and asked for a cup of tea.

  ‘You’re mine now,’ Sarah said aloud to the telegram. She giggled. Maybe I’m going mad, she thought. Isn’t talking to yourself the first sign? I don’t care. I don’t care if I am mad. I shall go and change into my blue dress, just for a little while. Later, I shall have to wear mourning, Philip, even though I promised you I wouldn’t. Mother will make me. What would the neighbours think otherwise?

  ‘Philip is like a son to me,’ Mother used to say, long before he proposed to Enid, ‘one of the family.’ She and Philip’s mother would congratulate one another on the forthcoming marriage. They’d arranged the whole thing. She is good at arranging. Enid is piqued, sometimes, by the attention Philip pays me. I am scarcely more than a child. Mother says: ‘But of course he loves Sarah too. Isn’t she like a little sister to him?’ When she says this, I clench my fists until the nails cut into my palms. I don’t want that kind of love, no, not that kind at all.

  Sarah laid the blue dress on the bed. The sun shone steadily outside, but the leaves had gone. Swiftly, she pulled the hatbox from under the bed, and lifted out the straw hat with the red satin ribbons. It had been wrapped in tissue paper, like a treasure. It was a hat for long days of blue sky, green trees and roses. I can’t wear it in November, she thought. She had looked at it often, remembering the afternoon at Kew Gardens, so long ago, a whole three months. She had thought of this as the happiest day of her life, a day with only the smallest shadow upon it, the slightest wisp of fear, nothing significant to disturb the joy. But now Philip was dead, that short-lived moment of terror spread through her beautiful memories like ink stirred into clear water.

  Enid’s sewing-basket was on the chest of drawers. Sarah was seized suddenly with rage at Philip for dying, for leaving her behind in the world. She took the dress-making scissors out of the basket, and cut and cut into the brim of the hat until it hung in strips, like a fringe. She laid the ribbons beside her on the bed and crushed the crown in her hands until the sharp pieces of broken straw pricked her, hurt her. Then she snipped the long, long strips of satin into tiny squares. They glittered on the counterpane like drops of blood. When she had finished, her whole body throbbed, ached, was raw, as if she had been cutting up small pieces of herself. She lay back on the bed, breathless. I must go to the shop, she told herself. In a little while. If I close my eyes I can see him. I can hear his voice. And Enid’s voice. Her voice was so bossy, that day.

  ‘You can’t wear that hat,’ Enid says. ‘It’s too grown-up.’

  ‘I am grown up.’ I dance round the kitchen table, twirling the hat on my hand, so that the ribbons fly out behind it. ‘I shall be seventeen at Christmas, and it’s just the hat for Kew.’

  ‘I don’t know why you’re coming anyway,’ says Enid.

  ‘Because it’s a lovely day and because I invited her,’ Philip says. He is leaning against the door, smiling at me.

  ‘Thank you, kind sir,’ I sweep him a curtsey.

  ‘A pleasure, fair lady,’ he answers and bows gracefully.

  ‘When will you two stop clowning?’ Enid is vexed. ‘You spoil her all the time. I’ve had my hat on for fully five minutes.’

  ‘Then let us go,’ he says and offers an arm to Enid and an arm to me.

  In the street, Enid frowns. ‘It’s not proper. Walking along arm-in-arm … like costermongers.’

  ‘Stuff and nonsense,’ says Philip. ‘It’s very jolly. Why else do you suppose we have two arms?’

  I laugh. Enid wrinkles her nose. When we arrive in Kew Gardens we walk along the paths until we reach a wooden bench. ‘August is a silly time to come here.’ There is complaint in her voice. She is sitting between me and Philip. ‘The camellias are long since over, and I love them so much. Even the roses are past their best.’ She shudders. ‘I do dislike them when all the petals turn brown and flap about in that untidy way.’

  ‘Let’s go into the Glass House.’ I jump up and stand in front of them.

  Enid pretends to droop. ‘Philip,’ she sighs. ‘You take her. I don’t think I could bear to stand in that stifling place, among the drips and smells.’

  Philip rises reluctantly, touches Enid’s shoulder. ‘What about you though?’ he says. ‘What will you do?’

  ‘I shall sit here until you return.’ Enid spreads her skirts a little. ‘I shall look at all the ladies and enjoy the sunshine.’

  ‘We’ll be back soon,’ I say, trying to keep my voice from betraying my excitement. I am going to be alone with him. Will I ever be alone with him again? Please, please, please, I say to myself, let the time be slow, don’t let it go too quickly.

  Philip and I walk in silence. I am afraid to talk, afraid to open my mouth in case all the dammed-up words of love that I am feeling flood out of it.

  We stand outside the glass Temperate House for a moment, looking in at the dense green leaves pressing against the panes. A cloud passes over the sun, darkens the sky, and we are reflected in the green, Philip’s face and mine, together. In the dark mirror we turn towards each other. I stare at his reflection because I dare not look at him, and for an instant, his face disappears, and the image is of a death’s head grinning at me; a white skull, bones with no flesh, black sockets with no eyes. I can feel myself trembling. Quickly, I look at the real Philip. He is there. His skin is brown. He is alive. His eyes are smiling at me.

  ‘What is it, Sarah? Why are you shaking?’

  I try to laugh and a squeak comes from my lips. How to explain? ‘I saw something,’ I say. ‘Reflected in the glass.’

  ‘There’s only you and me.’

  ‘It was you and me but you … you had turned into a skeleton.’

  Th
e sun is shining again. Philip’s face is sad, shadows are in his eyes as he turns to look. I look too, and the skull has vanished. I let out a breath of relief.

  ‘It’s only me after all,’ he says.

  ‘But it was there. I saw it so clearly. Philip, please don’t die.’

  ‘I shan’t,’ he says, seriously, carefully. ‘I shan’t die. Don’t be frightened. It was only a trick of the light.’

  I believe him because I want to believe him. He takes my hand. ‘Let’s go in,’ he says.

  Inside the Temperate House, heat surrounds us like wet felt. Thickly about our heads, a velvety, glossy, spiky, tangled jungle adds to the moisture that hangs in the air. Leaves, fronds, ferns and creepers glisten, wet and hot, and the earth that covers their roots is black, warm. Drops of water trickle down the panes of glass. The smell of growing is everywhere, filling our nostrils with a kind of mist. We walk between the towering plants. No one else is here. A long staircase, wrought-iron painted white, spirals upwards, hides itself in green as it winds into the glass roof. Philip is still holding my hand, and I say nothing. I want him to hold it for ever. I want his hand to grow into mine. Why doesn’t he speak to me? Usually we laugh and joke and talk so much that Enid is perpetually hushing us. Now he has nothing to say. I think, Perhaps he is angry. He wants to sit with Enid in the cool air. He is cross at having to come here with me when his time with her is so short. He is leaving tomorrow and I have parted them with my selfishness and my love. Tears cloud my eyes. I stumble, nearly falling. My hat drops to the ground. Philip’s hand catches me round the waist. I clutch at his arm, and he holds me and does not let me go when I am upright. We stand, locked together.

  ‘Sarah …’ It is a whisper. ‘Sarah, I must speak.’ The hand about my waist pulls me closer. I can feel the fingers spreading out, stroking me. He looks away. ‘I can’t marry Enid,’ he says. ‘It wouldn’t be right.’