Ambulance Girls At War

by Deborah Burrows

  ‘Miss Halliday?’

  ‘Yes. Do I know you?’

  ‘I think you do. I’m Albert Lee.’

  I searched my memory, but the name was not one I recognised. ‘I’m sorry but I don’t …’

  ‘Was that Miss Palmer-Thomas? On the bike?’

  ‘Um, I don’t – oh, Celia? Yes, it was.’

  ‘I wrote,’ he said eagerly. ‘I told you how much I admired you and Miss Palmer-Thomas. In the ambulance girls film. You were wonderful, Miss Halliday. And so was she.’ I had no memory of reading his letter and wondered if it had been addressed to Celia.

  ‘Thank you for the letter, Mr Lee,’ I said. ‘It’s lovely to meet you and I’m glad that you enjoyed the film, but I really must go now. It’s been a long night.’

  ‘I’ll walk you home,’ he said.

  I shook my head. ‘No. Thank you but I’d rather walk alone.’ He seemed about to remonstrate and I said quickly, ‘Mr Lee, I’m engaged to be married. Please don’t make a fuss.’

  ‘Is there a problem?’ Moray had come out of the station.

  ‘Mr Lee is a fan of our film,’ I said. ‘I’ve explained that I don’t want him to accompany me home.’

  Moray stood, looking at the man, who scowled.

  ‘It was a civil request,’ he said to Moray. ‘Young women like Miss Halliday shouldn’t walk home alone. Anything could happen to her.’

  ‘But it won’t,’ said Moray, with a scowl of his own. ‘Be off with you. Miss Halliday has asked you to leave.’

  The man strode off, but after walking about fifty yards, he stopped to frown at Moray. He spat on the ground, turned and walked off quickly before disappearing around a corner.

  ‘And that’s the problem with being famous, ‘said Moray.

  ‘Do you think he’ll come back?’ I asked. He didn’t frighten me, but it would be tiresome having to deal with him again.

  ‘Let’s hope not.’ Moray looked in the direction the man had taken. ‘Like me to walk you home?’

  I shook my head. ‘I’m not afraid of someone like him. He’ll be easy enough to deal with if he gets too annoying.’

  Moray frowned. ‘You’re probably right, but try to keep to where there are people around, and if you feel worried, ask someone for help.’

  I laughed. ‘Men used to follow me down the street in Paris. I know what to do with annoying males. I’ve learned a few tricks over the years.’

  ‘Got it. You can look after yourself,’ he said, with a smile.

  ‘You know that I showed you the, um, locket?’ I said, with some hesitation.

  Moray’s smile faded. ‘I know that. I had the thing for an hour or so when you were out at an incident. That’s all you know about it, and let’s not discuss it again.’

  ‘Sorry.’ I silently cursed myself for my stupidity. ‘I’ll be off home, then.’

  I also silently cursed Mr Albert Lee as I trudged towards Soho in the early morning sunshine. For the first time, I felt apprehensive. I’d walked those streets in pitch darkness without any concerns, and now one strange man who thought he knew me because he’d seen me on film had destroyed that easy confidence.

  My intuition was proved right. He reappeared when I was in the narrow alleyway leading to Oxford Street. I increased my pace. So did he.

  ‘It’s not safe for a girl as pretty as you to walk alone,’ he said, in a hissing whisper as he came up close behind me. ‘You’re so pretty, Maisie Halliday. Drives a man to distraction.’

  His arms came around me from behind, pinning my arms to my side. I froze, then instinct took over. I wished I was wearing high heels rather than sensible brogues as I brought my foot down hard on his instep. When he flinched in pain I elbowed him hard in the midsection, ducked down and brought my head back to connect with his jaw. He let go of me with a howl of pain and I ran, screaming loudly, towards Oxford Street. At the corner, I looked behind me. My heat was thumping and my breaths were hard and fast. Albert Lee was doubled up where I had left him, gasping for air.

  ‘You aw’right, love?’

  Two women had appeared from Oxford Street, street walkers from their outfits. I was so keyed up that it took me a couple of seconds to recognise Edna and her friend Rosie. They didn’t need to be told what had happened.

  ‘Did that bastard bother you?’ said Edna.

  In the alleyway, Mr Lee slowly got to his feet, scowling at the three of us. He flinched as Edna ran up to him, swung her handbag high and brought it down on his head. From the loud thump it made when it connected with his skull I surmised that it contained a bottle. Gin, probably. He fell to his knees and wrapped his arms around his head to protect it from further blows.

  Rosie was close behind. She shrieked at him. ‘You leave respectable young girls alone, you bastard,’ and kicked him in the ribs. He cringed away from them, whimpering.

  They ran back to me. ‘C’m on love, let’s get out of here ’fore the rozzers come.’

  I shouted to Mr Lee. ‘Don’t you ever come near me again, or I’ll have the law on you. I mean it, Albert Lee.’

  We turned into Oxford Street and I marched home triumphantly with Edna and Rosie on either side of me.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  ‘There’s a man been asking about you,’ said Lorna, when I came down to lunch at the club on Wednesday. It was two days after my run-in with Mr Lee and I had just risen from my morning nap after returning from my shift.

  ‘What man?’ I asked, hoping it was Michael.

  ‘An old man. He asked for Miss Maisie Halliday, who was in the film about the ambulance girls.’

  I sighed. ‘Another fan. This is really becoming annoying. Is he still there?’

  ‘No. He said he’d be back at teatime. He had a thick accent. Seemed nice enough.’

  I didn’t care how nice he was, I had no desire to meet another man like Mr Albert Lee. Should I slip out after lunch? On reflection I decided that it would be better to confront him and discover how he had found me at the club. A nasty thrill ran up my spine, like a thin shard of ice, because the most likely answer was that Mr Lee had followed me here and told his friends. It would be best to face down this mysterious old man on my home ground. The girls and Mrs King would support me if he became troublesome.

  And so, after lunch I sat in the most comfortable armchair in the common room and read David Copperfield and waited. At four o’clock Millie put her head around the door.

  ‘Man to see you downstairs, Miss.’

  I jumped to my feet and prepared to do battle. ‘It’s so annoying,’ I said to her. ‘Just because you’re in a film they think they know you. Think they can—’

  ‘But miss,’ said Millie, ‘he says he’s your granddad.’

  He looked very much as he had eight years ago, the last time I’d seen him. Then he had stood beside Nannan, red-faced and shouting that Mam and I would be going straight to the Devil if we went to London.

  Granddad was still a powerfully built man, although he was now close to seventy and the hair that showed under his cloth cap had turned pure white. The only concession to his age seemed to be a slight stoop, because his shoulders were as broad as I remembered, his blue eyes still blazed with intelligence and fervour and his moustache bristled just as ferociously as it had done when I was a child.

  ‘Granddad?’ I said, and was shocked when his eyes filled with tears.

  ‘Maisie,’ he said, and dashed a hand across his eyes. ‘It’s right good to see you. How are you, Maisie?’

  ‘I’m fine, Granddad. How did you get here?’ And then I remembered my manners. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Train. I’m not but middling.’ He had always been a man of few words, unless he was in a pulpit. I knew the Sheffield code. His last answer meant that things were not going well for him.

  ‘I’m right sorry to hear that,’ I said. ‘Come upstairs, Granddad.’ He followed me to the common room.

  Most of the girls were able to see from the expression on my face that I needed priv
acy, and those who didn’t were soon shepherded out by Lorna. But Miss King insisted on making an appearance, and was introduced.

  ‘Maisie never told us she was from Sheffield,’ she said.

  ‘Not ashamed of us, lass?’ he asked me.

  ‘No, Granddad. Sheffield’s home and always will be.’ I looked at Miss King, who took the hint and left us alone.

  He sat very upright in the chair facing me, looking like a caricature Yorkshireman in his Sunday best, clutching his cloth cap like a lifeline.

  He swallowed, took a breath, and said, very quickly, ‘Your grandmother – she’s dead, lass. She were gathered in last month, on May eleven.’

  I stared at him, open mouthed. My grandmother was dead?

  ‘Now then, say nothing, lass. Sarah were hard on you, I know. She were hard on us all. It were the lead, it poisoned her body and her mind.’

  Somehow I found my voice. ‘I know it was the lead, Granddad. I know it was her work as a file-cutter made her breathe in the lead. She was ill. I don’t hold it against her.’

  ‘But you thought me wanting in not helping you more. Protecting you, like. But if I’d been kind she’d have been worse on you. D’you understand that, lass?’

  Tears flooded my eyes. ‘I understand.’

  ‘She were right bad since your mam died. Been at Middlewood these past two year.’

  Middlewood was the Sheffield Mental Asylum.

  ‘I didn’t know,’ I whispered.

  ‘You were a good lass, to send us money. Meant she had some treats. She didn’t know me at all at end.’ He stared into the distance, and said, quietly, ‘She weren’t always like that. She were sweet-natured when she were a young lass. And she were a beauty. Hair black as raven’s wing. Like yours, lass. Skin like milk. Aye, a real beauty she were, and sweet-natured with it. I counted myself lucky to win my Sarah.’ He looked up at me and his suffering showed in his eyes. ‘It were the lead, and the loss of our bairns. It took her senses.’

  I leaned over to put my hand on his. He flinched, then took my hand between both of his. ‘You’ve a real look of her about you,’ he said. ‘Fair stole my breath away when I saw you on doorstep, looking the spit of Sarah when she were young.’

  ‘Do I?’ The idea was shocking, somehow. When I knew her, my grandmother had hair of steely grey, and her skin was sallow.

  ‘Aye. Beauties, both of you.’ For the first time, the pain left his eyes and he gave me a shy smile.

  ‘How did you find me?’ I’d never let him know my address.

  ‘Your man wrote me.’

  ‘My man? Do you mean Michael? Michael Harker?’ I said, astonished.

  ‘Aye. Told us he were courting my granddaughter. Wanted my blessing. It were just after your nannan …’ He swallowed. ‘I wrote and told him she were gone and asked him to tell you, but he never wrote back until this week. Said where I’d find you and sent money for train.’

  ‘Granddad, I—’

  ‘Told me to explain why I’d not come to London for your mam’s funeral.’

  I looked down at my hands, gripped tightly together in my lap, and said, ‘Why didn’t you come? I had to do it all myself. I was sixteen, and I had to bury my mother alone.’

  ‘Ah, lass.’ It was a moan. ‘I wanted to come, but I couldn’t leave Sarah. Not for so long. And she couldn’t come. She were right bad by then.’ I looked up and again saw tears in his blue eyes; they were same colour my mother’s eyes had been.

  I stared at him. ‘You should have told me that when you wrote? Why didn’t you?’

  ‘Pride, lass. And anger, too.’

  ‘Anger? Why?’

  ‘My only bairn was dead, and so far from home. I were angry at her for leaving and at Sarah for being so poorly she could not be left. And I were angry at you. Our Lizzie came to London for you. She’d have done anything for you.’

  ‘I know,’ I whispered.

  ‘I wrote you,’ he said, fixing me with his gaze. ‘Later, when I thought better of it. Letter came back. Never knew where you were, all these years, not until your man wrote.’ He pulled out a big handkerchief, wiped his eyes and blew his nose.

  ‘I was angry too,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry, Granddad.’

  ‘Lass, it says in Bible we must forgive those who trespass against us.’ He stood up. ‘You’re all the family that’s left to me, Maisie.’ His voice cracked. ‘Forgive me, lass?’

  I went to him, and when his arms wrapped around me I thought I could feel Mam there, in the room with us. And I thought she was happy.

  I woke up in a sudden panic, but did not open my eyes. My internal clock, which was very reliable, told me it was around three in the morning, and my intuition told me that someone was in my room.

  It came again, the slight, hesitant sound that had awoken me. A footstep on the wooden floor? My mind whirled with possibilities. Granddad? Had someone let him in? Surely not. I’d taken him to his lodgings in King’s Cross, at Rowton House, where a shilling a night bought him a clean and roomy cubicle in company with hundreds of other men, access to a reading room, smoking room, restaurant and shop. He’d declared himself well content with the accommodation, and we’d made arrangements to meet again on Thursday. It couldn’t be Granddad.

  Albert Lee? But how could Mr Lee have got into the club? Once the door was locked then you could get inside only if someone let you in, or you could scale a drainpipe. Some of the more athletic girls could do that, but not stringy little Mr Lee.

  Lowell? Possible, but why? Surely he didn’t really think I had the microfilm, not after I’d practically told him that it was with Moray.

  Another sound, this time a slight scraping movement. The legs of my chair? Had my visitor sat down? I kept my breathing soft, shallow and regular. A red haze flicked over my closed eyelids. He’d shone a torch on my face.

  Then he sighed. My eyes flew open and searched the darkness.

  ‘Michael,’ I squeaked.

  A laugh, and he shone the torch on his own face. ‘At last you’ve woken up. I thought you’d snore all night.’

  I sat up, indignant. ‘I don’t snore.’

  ‘Wanna bet?’

  ‘Yes. Apart from this room, I’ve shared a bedroom since I was born. I know I don’t snore.’

  ‘You really want to talk about snoring when I’ve risked life and limb to get to you?’

  ‘Why are you here? How did you get here?’ Then it dawned on my sluggish brain that it was Michael and I hadn’t seen him for weeks. I flung back the covers, flew out of bed and threw myself on him, nearly toppling the chair he was sitting on in the process.

  He laughed and stood up and hugged me so tightly that I found it difficult to breathe. I pushed away and lifted my face to him. In the darkness he used his fingertips to find my lips, then he covered them with his own.

  Some time later he was sitting next to me on my bed with his arms tightly around me. My head was on his shoulder and I felt perfectly happy as we conducted an intense whispered conversation, so as not to wake anyone else in the house.

  ‘But how did you get here?’

  ‘Scaled a drainpipe to the first floor and got in through an open window.’

  ‘I can’t believe you’re really here. And that you broke in. Why would you do such a daft thing, you barmpot? You can knock at the door, you know. Between six a.m. and eleven p.m.’

  ‘A couple of reasons. One, I wanted to see if I could breach the walls of the harem. A matter of professional pride. Two, I’m here in England in secret, and I wanted to see you.’ He laughed. ‘I met two girls sneaking up the stairs – your friend Bobbie had come down to let in your friend Lorna. They remembered me and guided me here. Bobbie said that if you didn’t want me she had first dibs.’

  ‘Wretches,’ I said, laughing. ‘You could have been a sex fiend.’

  ‘I am,’ he said, kissing my hair, ‘just not at the moment.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When the time is right.’ He ran his fingers through my long
hair. ‘I’ve never seen your hair down before.’

  ‘You can’t see it now.’

  He buried his face in my neck. ‘I can imagine it. It’s long and midnight black. Like Bess, the landlord’s daughter.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The Highwayman. I loved that poem as a kid. Had a real crush on Bess, the landlord’s black-eyed daughter, who plaited her long black hair as she waited for her lover, and gave up her life for him.’

  I drew in a shaky breath and smiled at his romantic idiocy. ‘So that’s why you came to me by moonlight tonight.’

  He breathed a laugh. ‘Perhaps it had something to do with it. You know, first time I saw you properly, in that crummy little cafe after I’d almost knocked you over, all I could think of was that you were just how I’d imagined beautiful Bess. You blew me away.’

  I snuggled closer. ‘You hid it well.’

  ‘Not any more.’

  ‘My granddad came visiting yesterday.’

  ‘So he came.’ Michael laughed softly.

  ‘Came by train all the way from Sheffield. He said you’d written to him and given him my address and sent him the fare.’

  ‘You annoyed?’

  ‘No. It was lovely to see him. We talked for an hour, and cleared the air about a lot of things.’

  ‘That’s swell news. It just felt wrong, that you didn’t have anything to do with your only kin. You need to be loved, Maisie, and not just by me. You deserve to be loved.’

  I gave a shaky laugh. ‘He’s still a gruff old man. He didn’t say it, but I really think he does love me.’

  ‘Of course he does. You’re lovable. You catching up with him again?’

  ‘Day after tomorrow. He goes back home the next day. I wish you could meet him.’

  He held me closer. ‘I wish I could, too. And I will, just not at the minute.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Honey, I don’t know, but it’s looking hopeful that I’ll be back at the embassy real soon. I can’t talk about it but things are looking up for me.’

  ‘It’s about time.’

  ‘Hey, I saw your film yesterday. Your voice sounded—’