Ambulance Girls

by Deborah Burrows

  ‘No. Not at all.’

  ‘I find the service restful. It brings me peace.’

  I knew nothing about the Russian Orthodox Church. I was Church of England, baptised and confirmed, but had never been a regular communicant except when I was teaching at Duranillin, because it was expected in that small community that the local teacher attend the local church. My church attendance schedule was otherwise Christmas, Easter, Anzac Day and whenever I needed comfort and was not too exhausted. It was yet another difference between us.

  I kissed him goodbye and he crept down the hallway to the fire escape.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  I joined Katherine for breakfast and began to stagger through a lie about when Jim had left the night before, until she stopped me with a look.

  ‘Never explain without being asked,’ she said. ‘It always smacks of a lie, even if it’s the truth. And Lily . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You’re a shocking liar.’

  I applied myself to the porridge.

  ‘Promise me you’ll be careful, though.’ I looked up in surprise, and she winked. ‘Did you use—’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, face flaming.

  ‘And I don’t just mean careful about the mechanics of stopping babies. It’s easy to break your heart in wartime.’

  ‘He’s not flying any more. He has a desk job.’

  ‘They don’t have to die to break your heart. London’s a smorgasbord for men nowadays, especially if they’re wearing a pilot’s uniform. He may be playing the field.’

  ‘He’s not like that. He won’t break my heart. Not intentionally anyway.’

  Katherine smiled and sipped her coffee. ‘To tell you the truth, Lily, if Jim was the sort of man who simply wanted an affair, he would be unlikely to choose you.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Don’t look like that. You’re adorable, just like a little doll.’

  ‘I am not like a doll,’ I said. ‘I wish people wouldn’t compare me to a doll. Veronica Lake is shorter than I am. Norma Shearer is my height. They’re both sexy as anything.’

  ‘And Shirley Temple?’ said Katherine, laughing.

  She had me there. Of all the Hollywood stars, it was twelve-year-old Shirley Temple I was most often compared with, mainly due to my curly hair and ridiculous dimples.

  ‘As I said,’ Katherine went on, ‘you’re adorable, and of course any man would be interested in you, but if Jim wanted a fleeting affair, then a married woman like Nancy, or even me, would be a much better bet. The knowledge that there’s a husband floating around in the background makes a man feel safe. A married woman is unlikely to want to tie him up, demand a ring, get pregnant to ensure a marriage. He can have fun without responsibility.’

  ‘It sounds as if you’ve put a lot of thought into this.’

  She laughed again. ‘In a way, I have. I’m not saying it’s a good thing to fool around the way Nancy does, or for a married woman to fool around at all really. I’m just saying – oh, I don’t know what I’m saying.’

  ‘You’re saying you won’t judge me for an affair with Jim.’

  She smiled. ‘Darling, I’ll applaud it. I’m neither straight-laced nor narrow-minded. You’re both single and he’s an attractive man who obviously is very taken with you. But do try to ensure he doesn’t break your heart or give you an unwanted baby.’

  I looked at Katherine’s shrewd, clever face. ‘Are you ever tempted?’

  She gave me a guarded smile. ‘Harry was posted overseas in late 1939, so it’s been a year since I last saw him. I’m in an odd situation, married but not married.’ She began to play with her table napkin. ‘I sometimes wonder if Harry has been faithful.’

  ‘I’m sure he is.’ I tried to make my voice certain.

  She looked up at me. ‘Are you? Actually, I’d forgive him a couple of transient infidelities. Because, if this war drags on and I don’t see Harry for another year, or two or three years – well, I suspect it’s inevitable that I’ll drift into an affair. Danger is so erotic, don’t you think?’

  I stared at my empty bowl.

  ‘That’s why I don’t judge Nancy,’ she said. ‘I’m not made to be celibate, either.’

  I remembered what Jim had said about Nancy.

  ‘But what if your husband found out?’ I felt my cheeks heat up again. ‘Jim said Nancy’s husband had heard about Nan’s goings on.’

  ‘So Jim was spying on her?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘Will he tell Nancy’s husband what she’s been doing?’

  ‘He said he’ll be discreet. But I think that discretion may just confirm Nancy’s husband’s worst fears.’

  ‘If I go down that path I’ll be a great deal more discreet than our Nancy.’ She put down her knife and fork and looked away, out into the room. ‘Falling in love,’ she said, with a sigh. ‘That’s the real danger for married women like Nancy and me. Whatever do you do if you fall in love with the man?’

  Jim arrived to pick me up on the dot of twelve. I sank into the low seat of his car fairly gracefully now I had had some practice. He pressed the starter. The little car roared into life and we set off down Gray’s Inn Road.

  ‘I met your station officer when I was having breakfast around the corner,’ he said, as we turned into Guildford Street. ‘There were no spare seats in the cafe, so I shared a table with him.’

  ‘Jack Moray? How do you know him?’

  ‘I don’t. He mentioned he was the acting station officer at Bloomsbury auxiliary ambulance station and I said I knew you and Celia and I had known David.’

  ‘I don’t like Moray. He might appear friendly enough, but he’s pretty ruthless at the core, I should think.’

  ‘He seemed all right to me. He was most upset about David’s death.’

  ‘Moray? I doubt it. He’s as anti-Semitic as they come.’

  ‘Well, he told me that David had been a fine ambulance attendant and he was sorry that he’d died like that.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Lily, I don’t know. In an air raid, I suppose. He was very complimentary about you.’

  ‘Oh? But he really is an anti-Semitic bigot. I work with him, remember?’

  ‘Well, he’s a bigot who thinks you do a wonderful job and that David will be hard to replace. He seemed sincere to me.’

  At Shaftesbury Avenue we were forced to halt as a heavy rescue unit moved debris off the road in front of us.

  ‘What did you say to Moray about me?’ I asked Jim.

  I caught a slight smile. ‘I told him I was a very close friend of Lily Brennan.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘That Miss Brennan is a lovely young woman and I am a lucky fellow.’

  ‘Hmm,’ I said, ‘he’s the sort of man who would try to get on the good side of an RAF officer, especially one who knows Ashwin. He’s a frightful snob.’

  Jim gave a roar of laughter. ‘I think he meant it, Lily.’

  We arrived at Piccadilly Circus to find the Lyons’ Corner House there had been devastated by blast and fire and water. The whole area looked desolate and damaged, but people milled around on the street quite cheerfully. Eros was not flying high above us, as the statue had been stored away for safety at the start of the war and wooden boards had been put up to protect its base. These had been decorated with a frieze of flower sellers and London bobbies, which was now obscured by dust and soot and pitted by shrapnel.

  ‘Looks like the West End copped it last night as well as the City,’ I said.

  He frowned at the destruction around us. ‘Hope they didn’t get Half Moon Street.’

  Jim turned the car on to Piccadilly, driving slowly to avoid glass and debris. Half Moon Street was roped off. Jim parked the car on Piccadilly and we stepped onto a footpath that was ankle-deep in glass.

  ‘It’s from that shop,’ I said, taking Jim’s arm to steady myself. The heavy plate glass windows of the antique furniture store on the corner lay shattered on the
footpath and great pieces of shrapnel were embedded in the gilt and ivory painted wood panelling inside. The blast had played its usual trick of leaving one fragile thing intact, as an elegant porcelain vase stood untouched on its stand amid the chaos.

  Carefully, apprehensively, we stepped over the rope and into Half Moon Street. Bricks and plaster and splintered wood were strewn on the narrow roadway and the smell of smoke hung around us. Clean-up crews were at work amid the sound of machinery and falling masonry. We walked past them until we stood in front of what had been Jim’s apartment building. The elegant staircase was open to the sky, with no roof above it and no walls around it.

  Jim took my hand and his fingers closed around mine in a hard, painful grip. We stepped gingerly across the lumpy piles of mud and rubble and paper and charred wood. The staircase itself seemed solid and stable to the first floor, although beyond that the stairs stepped into space. We climbed slowly and carefully to where Jim’s flat had been, and stood in the doorway. The door had been ripped away by the blast and his living room was a sodden mess of charred beams, splinters, chunks of masonry and broken glass. There were no rooms beyond.

  ‘It’s all gone,’ said Jim, walking into the ruined room and staring around.

  His face was white and he had a tense, puzzled expression. I had seen that reaction before. Now he knew what I had come to accept, that nowhere was safe in this Blitz.

  ‘I hope to God that Greenfield – he’s the doorman, you met him – I hope he’s all right. He would insist on spending his evenings fire-watching on the roof.’

  ‘Gosh, I hope so.’

  Jim turned to look at me. ‘I would have been here,’ he said. ‘If I’d not stayed with you last night I would have been here.’

  I remembered that he had told me he never went to the basement in an air raid, no matter how bad the raid. My hands were suddenly moist inside their gloves and I felt a little dizzy. Jim would have been here, and his broken body would have been lying alongside the dirty rubble and the bits of clothing and books, wet and blackened, that were visible among the bricks. I would have lost Jim, as well as Levy.

  ‘Pepys,’ he said.

  I looked at him, surprised out of my morbid fancies. He was gazing at the sodden pages by his feet. ‘Is that ironic? His London was almost destroyed, too.’

  ‘The Nazis burn books in Germany and bomb them to bits in London,’ I said. ‘I don’t know if that’s ironic.’

  We both started at a harsh voice behind us.

  ‘Oi! You two. Wotcha doing up here? It’s dangerous. The crew’s not finished making it safe.’ A steel-hatted warden stood at the top of the stairs.

  Jim turned and said to him, ‘Cotton? It’s me, Flight Lieutenant Vassilikov.’

  The warden nodded sympathetically. ‘Flight Lieutenant Vassy, of course. I apologise, sir, for not recognising you. I’ll find out if they’ll let you fossick about to see what can be salvaged.’ He looked at the mess and grimaced.

  ‘Is Greenfield all right?’ asked Jim.

  The warden shook his head. ‘He was on the roof when it hit. Shame.’

  I left Jim alone with his thoughts until the warden returned with permission for us to stay and gather what we could. Not much had survived the blast, the fire that followed and the drenching water of the fire hoses.

  We drove back to my flat with a few books (water damaged), one alabaster lamp base (chipped), a well-executed engraving of Florence (water damaged) in a narrow pearwood frame (edges charred), and the bronze statue of Diana the huntress with a dented crescent moon on her forehead.

  We carted the remains of Jim’s mother’s friend’s flat inside to find Nancy in the foyer, dressed to go out.

  ‘I’ve been bombed out,’ he told her. ‘Lily has offered to keep this stuff for me.’

  ‘Will you be dossing down here until you do?’ she asked sweetly, but with a knowing air.

  ‘No. I’ll be in the Air Force Club or the Lansdowne until I find a more permanent place to live.’

  It wouldn’t be hard for him to find somewhere to rent. Throughout London ‘To Let’ notices were proliferating, as so many former inhabitants were fleeing to the countryside.

  ‘Jacques Decasse is leaving his place in Riding House Street tomorrow,’ Nancy said. ‘It’s just around the corner from Portland Place. He was saying he wanted someone to look after the flat.’

  ‘You know Jacques?’ Jim seemed surprised.

  ‘Oh, yes. We’re close friends.’ I heard a hint of desperation in her voice. She stroked the fine ermine stole she was wearing and briefly rested her cheek on the fur.

  ‘I’ll give him a call,’ said Jim.

  ‘You do that, darling,’ she said as she slipped away outside. ‘Bye Lily.’

  ‘Jacques Decasse?’ I asked when she was gone.

  ‘One of de Gaulle’s Forces françaises libres officers. He’s been waiting for his embarkation orders; they must have come. I like him, but he has a bad reputation as far as women are concerned.’ He flicked me a look. ‘Let’s dump this stuff, and I’ll take you somewhere for lunch.’

  The lift arrived with its juddering shriek and we carried our small bundles of damaged items inside the cage. As we were hauled up through the floors I said, hesitantly, ‘You could stay here tonight.’

  Jim glanced at me from over the alabaster lamp and shook his head in a quick, decisive movement. ‘Not with Nan floating around, prying.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said quickly, and shifted the books and picture to hold them more securely.

  ‘I don’t want to sneak around, Lily. It’s our business, not Nan’s or any of the other people in this building.’

  The lift shuddered to a stop. Jim pulled the cage door across, revealing an empty hallway, and bent down to kiss me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  At a quarter to six the following evening Celia and I were sitting beside each other in the common room, waiting for our first call-out. I was trying to read and she was smoking cigarette after cigarette, much as Levy used to do when we were waiting for a raid to begin.

  The Warning sounded, the wailing notes rising and falling in a sobbing rhythm that made my heart pound. Celia lit another cigarette.

  McIver was on duty that night. She appeared in the doorway and her expression was grave.

  ‘They’re dropping flares and incendiaries over the City,’ she said, in her soft Scottish accent. ‘Lighting up the raid. I’ve been told to expect a bad night.’

  Forty minutes later the main event began. The City and the government offices in Whitehall were bearing the brunt of it, as usual. Or so McIver informed us at nine o’clock, when she began to hand out the chits.

  ‘We’re on diversion tonight,’ she said. ‘You’re all off to the City. It’s fearfully bad there.’

  We set off in a lull in the action, rumbling south-east in a small convoy, towards the City.

  Celia and I were silent for a while, as the Monster rumbled on, then she said, ‘God, what a bore. Another bloody raid.’

  ‘A bore?’ I responded. ‘Are you trying to be irritating? I’d suggest terrifying as a more appropriate word.’

  ‘What’s the matter, Brennan?’ asked Celia. ‘You seem a trifle blue-devilled tonight. Not the little Aussie ray of sunshine we’ve come to know and love.’ Her tone was coolly mocking.

  I was tired and miserable with all the loss – Levy, brave Greenfield, even Jim’s flat – and in no mood for Celia’s comments.

  ‘Go to hell, Ashwin.’

  ‘It was a compliment, you silly girl. That was uncalled for.’

  We were forced to halt while they cleared the road in front of us and I turned to look at her. Outside, the searchlights gave a day-bright radiance and the fires in front of us reddened her face.

  ‘We’re driving through an air raid to a bomb site,’ I said, ‘hoping to help people who’ve lost just about everything they care about, not to mention that they’ve been injured as well. I certainly don’t find it boring.’ My
voice rose. ‘At least Fripp has the sense to be afraid. Fake world-weariness annoys me, Ashwin. So go to hell.’

  ‘You are abominably middle class.’ Celia’s voice was coolly contemptuous. ‘I was taught that emotions were rarely discussed and were secondary always to manners.’

  ‘What does that even mean?’

  Celia regarded me with a steady, but rather wooden, gaze. ‘That it is regrettably gauche to be annoyed at anything, and particularly so to show annoyance to anyone. I wish you’d learn that.’

  I was well aware that, as usual, my face was giving me away. Middle-class Lily Brennan was obviously – regrettably – annoyed at the toff, Celia Ashwin.

  ‘So you think it’s gauche to be afraid? Or miserable?’

  ‘It’s gauche to show it,’ she said.

  ‘Or happy?’

  She shrugged and stared out the window.

  ‘You think I’m not good enough for Jim because I show my emotions?’

  She gave a short laugh. ‘I suspect you’re far too good for him. That’s not the problem at all.’

  ‘I’m too good for him? Make up your mind Ashwin.’

  ‘You’re not suitable for him, and he’s not suitable for you. Fish and fowl, Brennan. They don’t mix.’

  Suitable. The French word – the word Henri Valhubert had used when he had told me what amounted to the same thing – was convenable. He had said I was not suitable for a French count, and now Celia was saying I was not suitable for Jim. My face flamed and my grip on the wheel tightened.

  ‘So Jim must choose a suitable woman,’ I said, through gritted teeth. ‘One who’s trapped by her social obligations in a no-man’s-land where nothing and nobody can reach her.’

  Celia now looked bored, which inflamed me even further.

  ‘What about love? Are your lot not allowed to show that either? Sounds like it would be a bit tough on your lover.’

  She took a long slow breath before turning to stare at me in silence. Her eyes had narrowed and I had the feeling that I had made a hit, that I had pierced her armour.

  My hands were clenching the wheel so tightly that they hurt. I released them and, as Celia had done, I drew in a deep breath, and instantly felt calmer. I could not imagine anything more horrible than to be always hiding what you felt beneath a veneer of civility. Because I knew that Celia’s cool poise was only a veneer; the emotions she was holding in check so masterfully swirled around us. They must be choking her, I thought.