“Are you all right, Granna?” It was Mia’s voice. “You look scared.”
I came back to myself and looked at the boy, momentarily still not quite sure who he was. And then his name came back. “I’m fine.”
Grace had dropped the children off and backed straight out of the driveway. “Just going home to make a call,” she’d said. I tried to tell her I had a perfectly good telephone but she’d already wound up the window and didn’t hear me. I looked up the street. No sign of her yet. I took the children into the front hall.
I lifted the cloth over the umbrella box. The sugar glider was staring right up at us with those big dark eyes, blinking in the sudden light. “I think he’s hungry. Let’s feed him.” They fought over who’d go first. I said we’d do it by age, youngest to oldest. We warmed some milk and put plenty of sugar in. Henry concentrated carefully as he held the dropper. The glider knew by now what it meant. He slurped hungrily. “He’s a little piggy, Henry,” I said. “No wonder he’s called a sugar glider. Now give Phil a turn.”
“Does he fly like Superman?” Henry said.
“What do you mean?”
“A glider. Is he a glider? Can he fly?”
“Sort of,” I said. I picked up the tiny creature and carefully, I laid him flat on my palm on his belly, legs outstretched. “When he grows up, he’ll use his body and glide from tree to tree,” I said. “He’ll be as light as a bird.” I pointed to the webbing between front and back legs. “He’ll use this to stay in the air,” I said, “a bit like a parachute.”
“Then that’s his cape,” Henry said. “Let’s draw an S on it.”
“Perhaps later, Henry. Right now we need to let him sleep. Let’s go out the back. We’ll make some biscuits and have some apples and milk.” I watched Henry get up. He stood slowly, with considerable effort. “Are you all right, son?” I said.
“I’m super-duper,” he said. “Can I get some chocolate?”
I smiled. “There’s nothing wrong with you, Tom Crane.”
“Who’s Tom Crane?” Mia said.
“What?” I said. “Tom Crane’s my brother. Why?”
“Oh Granna,” Mia said. “What would you do without us to look after you?”
“I’d be lost in the long grass,” I said. “But let’s not think about that. Let’s think of pleasant things.”
At first, when I heard the porter’s horn, I thought it was just another rehearsal. We’d been ready for almost a week. But when I saw the cars making their way up the icy drive and then the inspector-general from the health service in Paris and the other two emerging and coming towards the doors, I realised it was the inspection at last. I rushed downstairs, joined by Miss Ivens and Mrs. Berry coming out of our operating theatre on the first floor. This was it, we knew, the inspection that would make us a working hospital, or not. “Once more unto the breach,” Miss Ivens said. We went together to the entry hall.
It had been such a busy time and the cold had been awful. I’d never felt anything like it. We rose from our beds and it wasn’t until we’d worked for two or three hours that we’d have feeling back in our fingers and toes. I got to where I couldn’t stand to wash my hands and face on waking, cracking the ice in the bowl. It seemed better to feel grubby. We had no warm water for a bath. We had running water in the kitchen but nowhere else, which meant we carried bucket after bucket up the three flights of stairs for cleaning, and for the first week, we continued to work by candlelight or used one of the makeshift lamps we’d created with rags. Then one dark afternoon, Quoyle and I were looking for something in the kitchen, too lazy to light the lamps but realising we’d need to soon, and suddenly, there was Mr. Edison’s electrical light. A great cheer went up through the abbey. A few days later, we had running water and the abbey cesspits were back in business. Still no bath for the staff though.
We were so proud of how much we’d achieved in such a short time, but as the inspectors walked towards the door, three of them, I had a sinking feeling. The general, knowable by the plume on his hat and the fact that he emerged from his own car, a Mercedes, was short, a foot shorter than Miss Ivens and me, shorter even than Mrs. Berry. He came through the door before the others and Miss Ivens took his hand, leaning down in that way she had, and I knew we were in for trouble. Miss Ivens and I towered over him, and no matter how I tried to make myself smaller, I could not remove a foot or more to make him feel taller. Later I wondered had Drs. Savill and Courthald, of much more reasonable female stature, shown him around, would it have been different. The general was accompanied by a young Croix-Rouge doctor, tall and willowy, who said little, other than that the wards were large and the operating theatres appeared well appointed, and an architect, who took copious notes. None of the three spoke English, so I translated. As Miss Ivens took them through room by room, I could see the general was looking for problems. Some of the X-ray equipment was still to arrive and so we were making do. An old fish kettle had been commandeered as a cistern for developing films. The general picked it up, made a dismissive hmph, and placed it back down. Wires hung out of the ceiling in the operating theatre—we were waiting for a lamp from Paris. At one stage the general turned to me and asked, “Where are the WCs?” I assumed he needed to use one so I took him upstairs to the doctors’ quarters. “How will you expect the wounded to climb these stairs?” he said.
I apologised. “I made a mistake. The patients’ WCs are downstairs.” He thought I was an idiot.
The day after the inspection, Miss Ivens received the news by wire from Paris, the full report to be delivered later in the day. She read the telegram in silence, looked up and to the left, narrowed her eyes, read it again, and folded it and placed it neatly on the desk. I wanted to ask her what it said but thought it best to wait. Finally she said, “It seems you were right about the wards, Iris.” She had the softest facial features, Miss Ivens, and while she was as strong as an ox, any upset would write itself all over her face. I hated to see her like this. She handed me the telegram. Our second-floor ward was deemed unsuitable, too far from the entrance to the abbey, too dark and with inadequate ventilation. The general had intimated as much following his inspection tour but this confirmed our worst fears. The report, when it came, was more of the same, highly critical not just of the rooms but of those who’d chosen them. “It would be obvious to any competent surgeon that the layout of the hospital is totally impractical.” The report listed other problems, unfinished work, a requirement that we prove our doctors were appropriately qualified. It must have stung Miss Ivens to be so criticised, although she didn’t show it. They’d failed the hospital. They’d failed us and the only option was to make the changes they were proposing—changes that made much of our earlier work completely wasted—and undergo a second inspection.
Miss Ivens sat behind her desk and looked at me as I read. When I looked up, I saw all the desperate feelings in the world written on her strong face. “It’s not the end of the world,” I said. “They haven’t said no. They just don’t like our choices.”
Miss Ivens laughed then, back to her old self suddenly. “Exactly, Iris. They don’t like our choices, damn them to hell. You’d better call the troops together. We’ll meet in Blanche at four. I think I need a little walk first. Get Cicely to spread the word.”
Before the meeting, all the other women knew the outcome and we’d privately or in groups of two and three inspected the rooms we’d now have to clear and clean. One was simply dusty and dirty and full of furniture, but the other you couldn’t even get into because of the leftover building materials. It was no surprise we’d avoided them.
Miss Ivens came in to Blanche smiling broadly. “You’ll all have heard by now that the Croix-Rouge is not ready to accredit our hospital. The major concern is the second-floor ward, which is in the wrong place, it seems.
“I would like to be able to say they are wrong but they are not. The first floor will be far more prac
tical for wards, closer to the reception area and the theatre. The good news is that once we establish the new wards, Royaumont will surely be accredited and we will have wounded. I know many of you are disappointed. I was myself at first. But if we take a longer view, our work upstairs will never be wasted. I think some of you are wondering if we’ll ever have our patients, but I assure you we will work day and night to that end. We must forget about the Croix-Rouge and its complex machinations. We must forget about our own beliefs that brought us here.” There had been unrest among the women—some had joined in the protests for the vote before the war and others were anti those who’d protested—and Miss Ivens was worried it would erupt into more open conflict. “The only thing any of us should have to exercise in our minds in the next few days is the thought of those wounded soldiers who currently die and lose limbs for want of Royaumont Hospital.”
Of course, we worked hard once more and in a relatively short time managed to clear and clean the new rooms. The chapter room in the eastern wing, which opened on to the cloisters, became our Millicent Fawcett ward, named after the president of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies from where the idea for our hospital originated. And the two wards running north and south became Jeanne d’Arc and Marguerite d’Écosse.
I had news from home after Christmas, a letter from Daddy. He said the twins were into mischief now, just like Tom as a boy, and Claire could hardly keep up with them. Daddy was off to Toowoomba the next week for the show and Mrs. Carson had offered to come and stay with Claire but Claire had said she’d be all right. I bet she’d said that, I thought. Claire couldn’t stand Mrs. Carson, who snooped around for any shred of gossip she could take away with her and gossiped about our other neighbours. Daddy asked me to write soon, to give him news of Tom. I realised I’d hardly given Tom a thought since I’d sent my note. I felt guilty, wondered what I’d write to Daddy in reply, put the feelings away.
By New Year we were ready once again. This time they sent a team of four, the same architect, a different chief inspector, from the Zone Nord de Paris rather than the general from the Service de Santé, and two Croix-Rouge officers—different from last time—who might also have been doctors. I wasn’t sure as I missed the introductions—held up trying to get the stove in the new Jeanne d’Arc ward alight—only catching the rear of the group as they headed up the stairs to the wards. The inspector, who spoke English, and the architect walked with Miss Ivens and Mrs. Berry while one of the Croix-Rouge officers went off with Cicely Hamilton to check that our doctors’ qualifications were in order—a request after the first inspection. We’d had to send to the British Medical Society for qualification bona fides.
The second Croix-Rouge officer remained with me. He was a tall slim man with dark hair combed back from a high forehead so that it stood up slightly. He had piercing blue eyes, quite close together, which, combined with the hair, gave him the look of an eagle. His face was pink where he’d shaven that morning and he smelled fresh like soap.
“Is there anything in particular you want to see?” I said in French.
“I’ll just wander around with you quite happily,” he said.
His body moved as he spoke with nothing like the grace of an eagle. Gangly was the word that came to mind, perhaps an eagle going for a walk. It was as if his limbs had only recently grown and he was still getting used to them. “I understand General Foveau gave you troubles,” he said.
“We’ve addressed all the concerns he raised in his report,” I said carefully.
“So you have,” the officer said. “So you have.” He smiled suddenly and his face softened. “And tell me, what is your name?” I told him. “And what exactly do you do here?” I said I was assistant to the chief. We were crossing the cloister on the way to the kitchen, following Miss Ivens and the others.
“Weren’t you just a little annoyed after our last report?” he said to me quietly. I said no, I wasn’t, that the report made some good points and that we should have addressed them. He nodded. “Good answer,” he said. “Well, I would have been annoyed at a report like that. I thought it was arrogant of us to assume we might know more than your doctors.”
I was taken aback by his frankness. “We want to be the best hospital we can be,” I said. “I would assume the health service has much more experience than us with these matters. We would be fools not to heed their advice.”
He stopped to light a cigarette, after first offering me one, which I declined. “I suppose you would,” he said, “but it’s you, not us, who have created all this. I want you to know I for one didn’t like the report we gave you. It won’t happen this time.”
He remained with me for the rest of the visit. He was oddly familiar to me. Not that I thought I’d met him before. I knew I hadn’t. But I felt at home with him. I kept having to remind myself that he was a member of an inspection team, that I needed to be careful what I said lest I ruin something for Miss Ivens.
At the end of the tour, the Croix-Rouge officer and I joined the rest of the team with Miss Ivens in the foyer while we waited for the second Croix-Rouge officer who soon came with Cicely Hamilton, smiling and chatting. The inspectors discussed the abbey’s history then, and I translated the architect’s French for Miss Ivens. The officer who’d accompanied me continued to speak in French and I translated for him too. They seemed less interested in whether or not the abbey was now suitable as a hospital and more interested in passing the time of day. I didn’t know what to make of it. When we came to the front door to say good-bye, the officer and I were behind the rest again. He gestured for me to go in front of him and put his hand on the small of my back to usher me through. I felt a strange warmth up my spine, like a static shock. I turned to look at him but his expression betrayed nothing.
The inspectors thanked Miss Ivens for her patience and said they’d have their report to her that same afternoon. The wire came, as promised, granting us full accreditation. “Just like that,” I told Violet an hour later. “It was as if they didn’t even need to carry out a second inspection.” I told her about the young officer I’d met. “I wonder why he stayed with me instead of talking to Miss Ivens and Mrs. Berry.”
“Knows where the real power is. Or maybe he just liked you.” I found myself blushing. “Oh Iris. Iris has a sweetheart! Are you going to see him again?”
“Violet,” I said, “he’s not a sweetheart. I just thought it was nice of him to stay with me, that’s all.” I hadn’t told Violet about Al. I hadn’t told anyone at Royaumont. If I’d thought about why I hadn’t, it was that my old life, my life in Australia, already seemed far away.
I realised I didn’t even know the young officer’s name. I went down to Miss Ivens’s office and asked to see the report. The chief inspector’s name, Jacques Pireau, was at the bottom along with his signature. I already knew the architect, Monsieur Pichon, whose name was listed along with the Croix-Rouge officers Jean-Michel Poulin and Dugald McTaggart. The officer who went to check qualifications spoke English. The officer I was with only spoke French. He must be Jean-Michel Poulin, I thought. When I asked Miss Ivens, she said she couldn’t remember which one was which but weren’t they a marvellous trio.
Although we’d been awarded full accreditation, there was one caveat in the written report that reached us the next day. The inspectors were recommending “in the strongest possible terms” that we engage a French chef as the French soldiers couldn’t be expected to eat English food. Miss Ivens said they were the living end and they hadn’t even tasted Quoyle’s shepherd’s pie so how would they know about our food. The next day she and I went to Paris to try to work out how we could meet their request and still open the hospital on schedule. We took the train in the morning but we were held up because one of the other lines had been blown up. When we finally arrived, it was late afternoon so we stayed for a night in a hotel near the Croix-Rouge offices. We ate together in a little café on the Left Bank. Miss Ivens sai
d we must get an ice cream after dinner, but it being midwinter and there being a war on, the ice cream place was closed.
Although I didn’t say it to anyone else, I’d hoped I might see Jean-Michel Poulin again the next morning, but when we arrived at the offices it was another Croix-Rouge officer who met with us. And it seemed there was no room to negotiate the matter of a cook.
“Oh for God’s sake, man,” Miss Ivens was saying to him. “We’re opening a hospital, not a hotel.”
“Miss Ivens wonders whether we really need a chef,” I translated, “since the patients will be injured and will not eat much.”
“My dear madame,” the officer said. “We must have French food for our French wounded.”
I turned to Miss Ivens. “Perhaps we can find someone suitable among the villagers left in Asnières,” I said. “I don’t think they can bend on this one.”
“On this one?” she said. “Which ones do these officious fools bend on?”
“You may call me officious if you like, madame,” the man said in accented English. “I am not a fool. The French don’t make those distinctions you English make between the officers and the men. All Frenchmen eat well.”
“I am Scottish and not English,” Miss Ivens lied, without a blink of embarrassment at being caught out calling the fellow a fool. “And I am trying to help your soldiers as I’m sure you are. Please do not get in my way. I implore you.”
The man sighed. “Very well,” he said, nodding and closing the file in front of him. “You keep your English cook for now.” He stood up for us to go.
In just a few more days our first patients would arrive and we would be a war hospital. Another pageant, more champagne, and then hospital mode, shifts in the wards, theatre at the ready, X-ray, pharmacy, waiting for wounded.
In Falling Snow Page 11
