The Girl Behind the Gates

by Brenda Davies

  And now she can see her mother standing in the kitchen, her belly huge. She whispers, ‘Quick, Nora, come and feel,’ and she places Nora’s little hand on her belly to feel the sweet, gentle kick of her unborn sister. A sister who sadly was not destined to live for more than days. And up beyond her mother’s wrists there’s flour from kneading the bread. Then the moment she longs for when they sit together at the kitchen table with one of the little buns straight from the oven and all dripping with butter, Nora with a glass of milk and her mother with a cup of tea. Just the two of them before her father comes home.

  She gathers the letters in handfuls and holds them to her chest and silently weeps. One by one she looks at the envelopes and arranges them by date. November 1939. An unsealed one – a card – for her birthday, November 1939. Then another, probably a Christmas card, 22 December 1939. And so on until her bed is covered with her past, these envelopes probing her memory, prodding her emotions – emotions she has not allowed herself to feel for many years. Letters and cards, year after year until 1958 and then . . . nothing.

  Hands trembling, she opens the first letter. The paper is yellowed by time, but the script is unmistakable. Perfectly formed and slanting – her grandfather had been a schoolmaster after all. Her mother must have had to practise very hard to produce this perfection. Nora closes her eyes, hardly daring to read, so afraid of being reminded of her guilt and shame now tidily stored in some distant part of her mind, but how easily it could be opened, unleashing a Pandora’s box of pain. She takes a breath and starts to read.

  My darling Nora,

  She blinks and stops, looks out of the window. She takes a deep breath, her heart beating as fast as a hummingbird’s wings. This is enough, that she is greeted in this way. These three words say all she needs to know. Might it be best not to read more, just in case? She could hold the magic of these three words for the rest of her life and be comforted by them and never need more. She sobs, knowing that she cannot stop now.

  Please forgive us for this terrible thing we have allowed to happen to you. I cannot bear it that you are just there, yet out of reach, and that I cannot touch you, or see you or talk to you at this time when you have never needed me so much. I am so sorry that we could not have talked about what has happened and maybe we could have found a better solution. I have failed you as your mother and I will make it up to you, my dearest Nora. I promise.

  We are not allowed to visit you yet. The legal situation seems very complicated and controlling in a way we could not have imagined. It seems like there’s a whole huge system to overcome, but we will. I assure you we will.

  I will visit you when I can. Please forgive your father too. His pride is hurt and he is not himself. I’m sure that all of this will be ironed out and very soon you will be home. I hope they are taking care of you and that you got the warm clothes I sent you on Monday.

  It may comfort you to know that we all miss you. There is a hole in our lives. But we are all as well as we can be, so please don’t worry about us. Just stay strong and well and we will all be together very soon.

  Your ever-loving

  Mother

  Nora smooths out the single sheet of paper, which immediately springs back to the position that has been enforced upon it for the last twenty-seven years. She wonders how long it might take her to smooth out her own creases if ever she’s released from here.

  She stares at the letter and then reads it again and again. When she has read it so many times she can recall every word, she opens the next – a birthday card bearing a painting of a ballerina.

  Happy 18th birthday.

  We hope you are well and look forward

  to you being home by Christmas.

  Your ever-loving Mother and Father

  Letter after letter, card after card, mapping out the days, the weeks, the months, the years – her lifetime, witnessing her mother’s descent into hopelessness and despair and eventually an early death. Nora remembers her own similar journey, though the death was not corporeal. The theft of her identity as a girl, a woman, a daughter, a mother, even a human being, was paralleled by her mother’s loss of identity in relation to Nora. But for her mother was added the guilt that she had, in part, been instigator of this tragedy – though this could never equal Nora’s regret that she, herself, was the tragedy.

  The last letter is one that Nora has been consciously avoiding. It looks official and has clearly been opened and read, then taped shut. The envelope is addressed to Miss N. Jennings, Hillinghurst Hospital. She rips it open.

  Stoke Mandeville Hospital

  Mandeville Road

  Aylesbury

  4 August 1944

  Dear Miss Jennings,

  This letter, addressed to you, was in the pocket of Sergeant Robert Harcourt when he was rescued at Monte Cassino, unconscious and with a serious head injury. He remains critically ill yet we are hopeful that he will make a good recovery.

  As soon as he regained consciousness, he was insistent that his letter be posted to you.

  If you wish to visit him, please contact the hospital. I know he would be happy to see you.

  Yours sincerely,

  Cornelia Robinson

  Matron

  Nora can hardly breathe as, with trembling fingers, she unfolds the yellowing pages that are smeared with dirt and what looks like blood. Though so many years have passed, she recognises it instantly as Robert’s handwriting. Her mouth feels suddenly very dry and, clutching the letter tightly, she looks out of her window, her vision blurred by tears. How can a broken heart keep on breaking? She brings up an angry hand and dashes away the tears, takes a long breath as everything around her seems to disappear, leaving her in an island of silence. Just her and Robert.

  15 May 1943

  My dearest Nora,

  She refolds it quickly, her hands shaking. Can she bear to read this? She blinks and takes deep, gulping breaths and then she unfolds it again.

  I’ve written and rewritten this letter so many times. I find it easier to help others to write theirs – something that has helped preserve my sanity. People’s lives here can be completely changed by the mail, and maybe that goes for the people at home too. (This isn’t said to try to manipulate you into writing to me.)

  I’ve wanted to talk to you so badly for so long. I heard from Uncle Henry that our baby had died and

  Nora crumples the letter. You knew? All this time, you knew? Even when I didn’t? Even my father knew? And my mother? And they never came? She closes her eyes as an inner scream rises and she wants to tear at her skin, pull at her hair, run amok. But her body remains perfectly still as icy fingers of fury clutch her throat. Should she move a muscle, she will never be able to stop. She hardly dare even breathe.

  What seems like hours later, though in fact maybe only minutes, she smooths out the letter with trembling hands and continues to read, her eyes blurred by tears, her heart feeling like a cold stone in her chest.

  I am so sorry that I couldn’t have been there to share that with you, to hold your hand so that we might comfort each other.

  Nora looks away into the distance, breathing through her anger, then once again comes back to the words on the yellowing page.

  I don’t know where you are, how you are, or what has happened these last four years, but I’ll send this to the last address I have for you – that awful place – and hopefully they can forward it to you. I miss you still but don’t want to disturb your life.

  Nora, I’m such a huge disappointment to myself and not at all what either of us thought I was. I haven’t forgotten and am ashamed that I haven’t been in touch, or around to help you.

  But first of all, my dear Nora, don’t worry about me. I’m managing fine. The separation from home, family – and you, of course – is much more painful than the war, and homesickness is crippling. So much feels like a nightmare, with patches I don’t remember at all, and many that I’ll never be able to forget. Sometimes something simple changes everything. The
other day I saw a little rabbit. I could hardly believe it – it was so normal in a place where nothing is normal. Then I thought of the rabbits in the fields around Fenshaw and was reduced to tears in ten seconds flat. I wanted so much to be home. Sometimes I can hear you singing in church and my heart aches to actually be there listening to you. I hope you’re still singing, in spite of everything.

  Life here alternates between drama and tedium with little middle ground. Though we’re at war, battle is less frequent than you’d think. Often, I find myself wondering why we’re here; what it’s all about that we’ve been forced to leave home and all that we love, to fight a war about human rights, when, in conscription, our rights were taken away. It makes no sense at all.

  Nora, I wish I could say that I’d enlisted out of a sense of duty and honour, but in fact I did so out of cowardice. It seemed less frightening to be at war than to face you and your family and to have to deal with things. It also gave me an opportunity to be tested and find out whether I was really a man. And the men with whom I’ve shared the awfulness of war have become like family and I found I could fight with them rather than against the enemy, standing together in some small way protecting those at home. It gave me a cause. In respecting them I found again some of the self-respect I lost in abandoning you. I’ve done my best not to let anyone else down as I let you down and that has sustained me.

  I’ve spent many an hour with an inner argument about armed conflict, trying to distinguish the act of killing from the act of murder – the one apparently being worthy of honour and praise and the other of punishment and disgrace. I’m still working on it, but I know that if I make it home, I want to work for a better way of defending human rights than killing people over them. I’ve often tried to imagine the men we kill as they were before someone decided we were enemies. Devils, as propaganda would have us believe, or men just like me, who long for peace and to go home, who miss touch, and love, and cosy fires to sit round and talk, laugh, sing. What makes one of us the hero and the other worthy only of being killed? They carry photos of their loved ones in their tunic pockets just like we do. (I wish I had a photograph of you.) We’re all men, just of different cultures, wearing different uniforms, having different-coloured skins perhaps, but simply men nevertheless. I am the enemy to him just as he is to me. There’s no morality here. But battle would be impossible to sustain if we started to think of our common humanity. Sometimes I feel such respect for these men who are trained to kill me just as much as I’m trained to kill them.

  I’ve been shocked at the things we’ve done here and the senselessness of it. Though we try to think that someone has a bigger map and can see more of what’s really going on. I wish it were all at an end. It’s just stupidity. Please, God, this will be the last war.

  Most of the men have some kind of memento and – please don’t think me stupid – I brought your handkerchief with me. I fancy I can still smell you and your perfume on it and it makes me feel less lonely. I miss our talks, our laughter together, our singing and all the other things we shared. Please forgive me for unburdening myself like this. When I come home, I want to

  And there it stops. She turns the page over. Nothing. She clenches her fists and hammers on her bed, then drops her head into her hands and weeps. All this wasted time. All this wasted sorrow. All this wasted life.

  She clutches her arms around her knees and rocks, tears coursing down her cheeks. Finally, she picks up her music box and turns the key. The ballerina springs to life – so easily, even after so many years of waiting. How she wishes that she could do the same. She looks out of the window and in the distance sees those tall, iron gates. But the yearning to finally walk out through them withers. She turns her gaze once more to the ballerina. Round and round . . . round and round. She closes her eyes, and finds herself humming along to the familiar, forgotten melody.

  Part II

  Chapter One

  1981

  Forty-two years

  Janet sits, mug in hand, opposite Dale, his beautiful brown eyes regarding her with sympathy. The acute ward of Hillinghurst Hospital is packed full of patients, some of whom need a great deal of attention. She’s just had to retrieve a knife from a distressed ex-husband. ‘Heavy morning?’ he asks her.

  ‘You could say that. And it’s not over yet—’

  ‘Uh-oh! Here’s trouble . . .’ Dale interrupts, looking past her out of his office and into the ward.

  Janet puts down her mug and turns just as the door opens and Dr Derek Pauling, Janet’s supervising consultant, leans in through it. Even in this serious moment she can’t help but think of Robert Redford: with that shock of thick hair, tanned complexion and amazing blue eyes, Dr Pauling is handsome enough to be auditioning for any leading role. His usual air of supreme authority is intensified by the thunder on his face. ‘Dr Humphreys, my office in five minutes – if you’re not too busy, that is.’ And with that he leaves, his sarcasm still hanging in the air like a noxious smell.

  Janet turns back and catches Dale’s eye. ‘Oh God. Now what?’ She sighs heavily and gets to her feet. She’s only been here a couple of weeks, but already she knows that look.

  Five minutes later she stands outside Dr Pauling’s office, hair brushed and lipstick reapplied. She smooths down the skirt of her suit and takes a deep breath before she taps on her boss’s door. As she opens it and steps over the threshold, it occurs to her that she has never actually been into the inner sanctum. She steps inside and glances around surreptitiously.

  Dr Pauling’s office is as immaculate as the man himself. His desk bears a brass plate showing not only his name but a string of impressive qualifications. Photographs of a pretty woman and two young blond-haired boys are framed in silver, and a black Anglepoise lamp gazes down at the burnished wood. Apart from the desk chair, there are two more at the opposite side of the desk, and against the wall a small sofa decked with tastefully matching cushions is perfectly placed – of course.

  He waves Janet to one of the chairs on the other side of his desk, while reaching for the phone. ‘Phyllis, could you please let Dr Sheridan know I’ll be another couple of minutes? Something’s come up.’ As he puts the phone down, his eyes fall on Janet appraisingly. After a moment or two of uncomfortable silence, he speaks. ‘We need to get things straight, Dr Humphreys. We can’t expect the staff to excel if we doctors don’t. Sitting around drinking coffee gives the wrong impression.’

  Janet stares. This is ridiculous. Does he think she can’t discuss the patients and manage a cup of tea at the same time? Despite her best intentions, she rises to the bait. ‘I drink tea, actually, and I don’t just sit around. I’d had—’

  ‘I don’t intend to argue the point. In any event, you seem to have time on your hands—’

  ‘That’s unfair,’ she says, trying to make her voice as assertive as possible. How she wishes that at times like this she didn’t feel like the little girl with the regional accent and grammar school education who has no right to be in this world dominated by public school men.

  He scowls. ‘Is it? You seem to spend a lot of time sitting chatting with the nurses.’

  ‘I discuss the patients with them,’ she retorts, ‘and—’

  ‘Whatever.’ He waves his hand dismissively. ‘In any case, I would like you to do a review of the patients on the back wards.’

  Janet squares her shoulders. ‘The patients on the back wards are the senior house manager’s job—’

  ‘Actually, it’s the job of whomever I tell to do it,’ he retorts, his eyes almost begging her to dare to argue.

  ‘But I—’

  ‘Dr Humphreys, you’ve only been here for five minutes and yet already you’re building yourself a bit of a reputation. Could you for once just do your job without everything needing to be an argument?’ Dr Pauling straightens his cuffs and smooths his tie. ‘Let’s leave it there for today. I’ll expect a report. And now, I’m rather busy.’ He picks up his pen and carries on with his paperwork, studiously i
gnoring her. She stands and leaves without another word, seething, and stomps along the corridor back to the ward.

  ‘Pompous idiot,’ she mutters under her breath just as Dale walks around the corner.

  ‘That didn’t go too well, then.’ Dale gives a knowing smile as he joins her on the way back to her office.

  ‘You can say that again,’ she says, opening the door and flopping down on her chair. ‘There’s no pleasing that bloody man. There’s hardly a day goes by that he’s not on my back about something. Now he wants me to sort out the back wards as well as everything else. I’ve just about had it with him.’

  Janet opens the filing cabinet and yanks out a file and flings it on the desk, then plonks herself down on her chair. She picks up a pen and attempts to write, but it’s empty. She throws it down with a grunt of frustration and picks up another, and another – none of them is working. ‘Bloody NHS pens,’ she grumbles, and hefts her handbag from the floor onto her lap. She turns out her keys, some tissues, a lipstick, a notebook and finally a pen. She scribbles on the blotter to make sure it works then throws everything else back in the bag.