The Year It All Ended

by Kirsty Murray

  ‘It was so lovely to arrive here, to be somewhere that isn’t spoiled by war,’ said Tiney. ‘It’s hard to imagine what it must be like to live with all that desolation day in and day out.’

  ‘You need time to recover. Lord knows, Mummy and I were shattered after Villers-Bretonneux. Mummy didn’t want to stay in Paris more than a week before going back to Sussex to be with Mrs Bloomfield. The only good thing about you taking so long to join us was that it helped my case of convincing Mummy that I simply had to stay on here.’

  Ida leaned forward, her eyes bright. ‘You have no idea, Tiney, the number of Australian women painters I’ve met since I arrived. Evelyn Chapman is here – she was the first artist to paint Villers-Bretonneux in 1918. And Agnes Goodsir, a simply astonishing painter from Portland, is here – and so many American and British painters and writers. You can be a woman painter in Paris, make real art, and not be treated like a childish amateur. And Paris is so cheap, too. You could live here for a whole year on the smell of an oily rag.’

  ‘It sounds wonderful, Ida. I wish I could stay.’

  ‘You must stay, Tiney. We’ll have such fun.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking I might make a short trip, maybe to Berlin or Heidelberg. You know Mama’s family were German. I think it would mean a lot to Mama and to my Onkel and Tante. They did pay my fare.’

  ‘Germany! Are you mad? Didn’t you read about the Kapp Putsch?’

  ‘I couldn’t get English newspapers in Amiens,’ said Tiney. ‘And I was too busy writing letters to struggle with the French ones.’

  ‘A whole brigade of German soldiers took Berlin earlier in the month. The workers went out on strike and so the nasty little uprising failed, but as the soldiers left the city they opened fire on the crowds. The putsch may have failed but there’s nothing to say there won’t be another. And there are terrible things happening in the Ruhr. They shot twelve Red Cross nurses! Germany simply isn’t safe. You mustn’t even dream of going, Tiney.’

  Tiney stood up and went to the window and looked out over the rooftops of Paris. ‘I may never come to Europe again. I can’t fritter away my time and money here in Paris. And there are other things too . . . things I need to do.’

  ‘You have to take some time for yourself, Tiney. Visit the galleries, sit in a cafe and write more letters home. You could even come to the life drawing classes with me.’

  ‘Ida, I can’t draw. You know that’s your gift and Thea’s, not mine.’

  ‘You could come to our classes as a model. I’d love to draw you and to see how the other artists render you too.’

  ‘You mean take my clothes off? In front of strangers?’

  Ida laughed. ‘You have a lovely face, Tiney. We need a portrait model at our life drawing class, as well as a life model. You could keep your clothes on. The artists all pitch in and pay the models. It wouldn’t be much but it would cover your costs of staying in Paris until you’ve thought about what you want to do next.’

  ‘You mean they’d pay me to sit for them?’ said Tiney, suddenly feeling brighter.

  ‘It’s harder work than it sounds. You have to be very still and you can’t let your expression flit about the way it’s doing right this minute.’

  Ida took Tiney’s chin in her hand and turned her face towards the spring sunshine. ‘Your face has changed. Your cheekbones seem higher, your features more etched. I can’t wait to paint you.’

  The worn floorboards of the atelier were flecked with paint and the space smelt of linseed oil and turpentine. Podiums were positioned at either end of the long room. A woman in a tattered kimono sat on the edge of the far podium, smoking a cigarette. She waved and blew a kiss as Ida entered the studio and Ida winked at her before leading Tiney over to the second podium. Tiney took off her coat and hat and sat meekly on a stool while Ida combed her hair.

  ‘That’s better,’ said Ida. ‘We must keep all that unruly gold fluff away from your face.’

  ‘Is there anything I should do?’ whispered Tiney.

  ‘Simply sit, without twitching that cheeky mouth of yours. We’ll work in twenty-minute sessions. And do try to keep your gaze steady.’

  After ten minutes, Tiney developed an itch on her back and it took all her concentration to not flinch. She was aware of a man standing to her left, sketching her profile, just out of the line of her peripheral vision. When Ida finally called ‘Time!’ and Tiney was allowed to move again, she turned to look at the man. It was Martin Woolf. He was standing by the window, with light flooding in from behind him. When Tiney met his gaze, he smiled.

  ‘Hello again,’ he said.

  Tiney climbed down from the podium and crossed over to look at the drawing that he had made of her. It was a simple charcoal sketch that looked nothing like her.

  Martin laughed at her bemused expression. ‘I know. I’m not much of an artist,’ he confessed.

  ‘Then why are you here?’

  ‘The concierge at Ida’s said I’d probably find you here.’

  ‘That doesn’t really answer my question,’ said Tiney.

  ‘I had to see you and thank you for your letters, your beautiful, shining, wonderful letters.’

  Tiney looked down at her feet. When she’d written the letters, it was like writing them to a part of herself, almost without believing that Martin would actually read them.

  Ida came over to them and interrupted. ‘Tiney, we only take short breaks to begin with – could you please get back on the podium? We can have a cup of tea after the next round.’

  Martin looked flustered. ‘Sorry for holding you up. I won’t stay,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I can do your portrait justice but I would like to ask if you’d join me for dinner this evening.’

  ‘Martin, darling, I’m not sure I approve,’ said Ida teasingly. ‘And how can you leave me out of your plans when I’m your favourite dance partner?’

  ‘You’d be welcome to come along,’ said Martin, deflated.

  It was the prompt that Tiney needed. She looked Martin directly in the eyes and said, ‘I would love to have dinner with you. I’m sure Ida is only teasing and far too busy to join us, aren’t you, Ida?’

  ‘Touché, Tiney Flynn,’ said Ida. ‘Paris is having the right effect on you.’

  Tiney scribbled Ida’s address onto a scrap of paper. ‘I’ll meet you in the courtyard of Ida’s apartment at seven thirty. There’s a seat outside the concierge’s. I’ll wait for you there.’

  Ida laughed and took Tiney’s arm, dragging her towards the podium.

  ‘You certainly have changed, Tiney. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re turning into quite the flapper.’

  Later, as Tiney and Ida walked back to the apartment, Tiney asked, ‘Where did you dance with Martin?’

  ‘At a party last week. But he danced with half the women there. He seems to know everyone in the Australian circles in Paris – or everyone knows him. He rubs shoulders with the most provocative people – the socialists, the pacifists, the Americans, and he talks as if he has entree to every salon in Paris.’ Ida turned and smiled at Tiney. ‘A tall, dark, mysterious stranger will come into your life . . .’

  ‘Stop it, Ida,’ said Tiney, blushing.

  ‘Tiney Flynn! That blush is very becoming. No wonder Martin is charmed. But it is Paris and it is spring, so don’t you do anything I wouldn’t do. Actually, I take that back. Don’t do anything I would do – or at least anything that will get me into trouble with your sisters.’

  That evening, Tiney almost had to pinch herself. She couldn’t quite believe that she was walking along the banks of the Seine with a man on a warm spring evening. Martin offered her his arm as they climbed the steps. They crossed over from the Left Bank to the Right Bank across the Pont Royal and then walked past the Tuileries.

  Martin had chosen a cafe on the Champs-Élysées. Tiney had never imagined a setting as beautiful. She had that strange sensation that she’d first had on the ship coming over that she was suspended between two worlds,
as if she were living a life that belonged in a book, not the life of an ordinary young woman from Adelaide.

  They talked of Martin’s work with the League of Nations Union, and his hopes of securing a position with the newly formed International Labour Organisation in Geneva. When he asked her to tell him more about her life, she laughed.

  ‘You already know all about me and my family, yet you haven’t told me anything about your family,’ said Tiney.

  ‘My mother lives in Victor Harbor still,’ said Martin. ‘She’s a Quaker, a pacifist, the gentlest woman in the world. She wasn’t happy about my signing up, even though I was a stretcher-bearer and didn’t fire a gun.’

  ‘And your father?’ asked Tiney.

  Martin cradled his glass and didn’t look at Tiney for a long moment.

  ‘My father was a German Jew. He left Germany because he objected to the Kaiser’s militarism. He met my mother in England, where I was born, and then we emigrated to South Australia when I was a small boy. My father had become a naturalised Australian a few years before war broke out, but he was interned at Holdsworthy in 1915.’

  ‘My cousin was at Holdsworthy too,’ said Tiney.

  Martin didn’t meet her gaze. ‘There were more than six thousand prisoners held at Holdsworthy. He was an older man, quiet. He kept to himself.’

  ‘And is he home with your mother again?’

  ‘No, he was extradited to Germany last September. But he never reached Europe. He died of a heart attack on board ship.’

  Tiney reached across the table and took Martin’s hand. He had seemed so strong, so sure of himself at Villers-Bretonneux she hadn’t imagined he carried a burden of secret grief.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said.

  ‘I’m glad I can tell you. It’s not the sort of thing that I’d share with many people.’

  ‘I feel I can tell you things that I can’t tell anyone else, too,’ said Tiney. ‘About my cousin Will and my family. I’m so grateful to you for helping me find Louis’ grave. I think it made me understand much more about grief.’

  ‘My father was buried at sea,’ said Martin. ‘I was thinking of him that first time we met, at Beachy Head. Whenever I look at the ocean, I can feel his presence.’

  ‘It’s strange, isn’t it, how you can feel as though the spirit of someone you’ve lost is in a landscape? I can understand how the sea would make you feel that way. I feel closer to Louis just being in France, in the country where he died.’

  Martin nodded.

  ‘Martin,’ said Tiney, suddenly nervous. ‘I think I need to find my cousin Will’s grave too, for my uncle and aunt’s sake as much as my own. I wouldn’t be here if they hadn’t helped me.’

  ‘There’s a new group organised that plans to care for the German war graves. They’re called Deutsche Kreigsgraberfursorge. It might be worth writing to them but you should also write to the Red Cross. They’ve done a good job of tracking the German dead. But if your cousin is buried in Germany, I wouldn’t advise you look for his grave. The government isn’t stable and it’s not safe yet.’

  ‘I’ve just had a letter from my uncle and aunt – about my other cousin, Paul. The one who was in Holdsworthy. He’s in Germany, in Berlin. If it’s possible, I’d like to visit him.’

  ‘Tiney, I don’t think this is a good idea. The British aren’t exactly popular in Germany at the moment.’

  ‘You sound like Ida. But I speak German and I’m not actually British. I’m Australian.’

  ‘Twelve Red Cross nurses in the Ruhr were murdered this week. Some of them may have been Australian. Being a beautiful young woman won’t exempt you from harm.’

  Tiney opened her mouth to reply but was suddenly ashamed. Instead of feeling grief at the thought of the twelve murdered nurses, all she could think of was that Martin had told her she was beautiful.

  They talked until after midnight, until the cafe emptied of customers and the waiters began up-ending chairs onto tables, signalling they were about to close up for the night. Martin flagged a cab to drive them back to Ida’s apartment in the Latin Quarter. When they reached Ida’s, Martin asked the driver to wait while he saw Tiney to the gates.

  ‘I leave for Geneva at the end of the week,’ he said, taking Tiney’s hand. ‘But I’d like us to keep in touch.’

  ‘I’d like that too,’ said Tiney, waiting for the moment he would draw her into his arms.

  Then Martin frowned, leaned forward, and kissed her on the top of her head, as if she were a child. Tiney took a step back. After all the letters and the long evening of intimate conversation, she’d expected something different.

  ‘Goodnight, Martin,’ she said. ‘I hope things go well for you in Geneva.’

  The concierge opened the gate for her and motioned her inside. She glanced over her shoulder. Martin was standing at the open door of the cab, watching her. She raised one hand in farewell, slipped through the doorway and burst into tears.

  Langemarck

  A plump Englishman took Tiney’s battered cardboard suitcase, and flung it into the back of his car. ‘You think the job at the school might suit, Miss Flynn?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t think I’m the person you’re looking for,’ said Tiney. ‘I came to Europe to visit my brother’s grave in the Somme. I have a cousin who died here in Belgium too. I’m not a qualified teacher.’

  ‘You look like an educated young lady to me.’

  ‘I’m sorry if there’s been a misunderstanding,’ said Tiney. ‘I wrote to see about being billeted with the schoolteacher, but I’m very happy that there’s a room at the Hôtel de la Gare.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you’d think of staying on after you’ve found your cousin’s resting place?’ he persisted. ‘My little ones, their mum has this idea that if I talk English to them and she speaks Flemish, they’ll work out both languages. But the little buggers don’t seem to be able to learn to read either language. Charlotte’s coming up six now, our first little war baby, and I’m right worried about her.’

  ‘Are there a lot of Englishmen working in Ypres?’

  ‘My word! Less than half the locals have come back. There’s talk of turning the whole town into a war memorial; others want to rebuild, make the old town what it was. The Imperial War Graves Commission is based here too and we don’t have enough men to tackle the job of building the cemeteries. The Chinese Labour Corps are working on the battlefield clearance but there’s no end of work needs doing. Visitors are banned from the Salient but we can’t stop those with money and connections. And to be honest, I think it’s good to see a loyal young lady like yourself make a pilgrimage for our brave boys.’

  The jolly Englishman chatted all the way from the station to the hotel, as they drove through ruined streets full of rubble and destruction. The hotel looked as though it had been hastily repaired. The building was not much more than a shell, missing sections of walls and roof, its empty windows framing patches of blue sky. Most of the street was in ruins and only a few buildings were still standing. In the distance, small huts used as temporary housing sat clumped on the bleak plain like ugly mushrooms.

  Before opening the door, Tiney turned to the driver and took a deep breath. ‘As I said, I’ve come to find my cousin’s grave. I was wondering if I could employ you to drive me out there tomorrow? The Red Cross sent me his details. He’s in Langemarck Cemetery.’ She took the letter from her bag and unfolded it. ‘I have a map of how to reach it.’

  ‘That can’t be right. Langemarck is a German cemetery. The Huns are renting the land they’re buried in but they shouldn’t be allowed to stay.’

  ‘My cousin fought with the Germans,’ said Tiney. She tried to keep her voice steady but she sensed the driver freeze.

  ‘You shouldn’t have come to Ypres,’ he said, finally, his tone heavy and flat. ‘The German cemeteries are dangerous. They’re in a terrible state. You’ll never find your cousin’s grave. There’s more than a million dead Boche in the Salient plain.’

  Tiney f
olded the map and letter and put them back in her bag. A heaviness settled on her limbs and she could hardly bring herself to open the car door.

  Martin had warned her against coming to Ypres. He’d even written her a letter from Geneva trying to dissuade her. Ida had told her the idea was ludicrous, that it was more than enough to have simply found the information about where Will was buried. No one expected her to go and visit his grave. Onkel Ludwig and Tante Bea had expressly said it wasn’t necessary. But Tiney was determined. While Ida was away on a painting expedition with friends, Tiney spoke with some of the painters who had been to Ypres and made her plans. By the time Ida returned to Paris, Tiney was on her way to Belgium.

  The driver unloaded Tiney’s suitcase from the car and placed it on the ground outside the Hôtel de la Gare. Then he turned to face Tiney. ‘The war will never be over for the people of this town,’ said the Englishman, ‘nor for any of us who survived it. The war exists in people’s imaginations and memories and it will live on forever and ever. You should go home to your own country and get on with things.’

  ‘Peace lives in the imagination too,’ said Tiney, and suddenly she found herself quoting Martin. ‘We need to make a place for peace.’

  The driver didn’t respond. He slammed the door of his car and sped off down the dusty roadway.

  That evening, Tiney walked down to Skindles, a small restaurant that served simple Flemish food. It was housed in a temporary building at the end of the road. Tiney sat by the restaurant’s coal-burning stove and ordered a bowl of what she thought was rabbit stew. There were two other tables of battlefield visitors in the small room as well as several local workers, many of them speaking in English, but after the reaction of the driver, Tiney wasn’t keen to strike up a conversation. The room smelt close, of beer and tobacco, of fried onions and coal smoke. She slunk back to the hotel.

  That night, Tiney hardly slept. In the early-morning light, before anyone else in the hotel awoke, she packed her bag and slipped out into the ruins of Ypres. Most of the residents were living in small and flimsy temporary houses made of wood and corrugated iron on the edge of the town. It was eerie walking past the shadows of the crushed and broken Cloth Hall. The medieval town was like a ghost town. No one was up and few birds sang as she made her way along the road to Langemarck Cemetery.