Ambulance Girls Read online

  ‘Touché,’ he murmured, and then he addressed me in a language I did not recognise, but I thought might be Russian or Polish.

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ I said.

  ‘Just wondering,’ he replied. ‘Ready, Nan?’

  Nancy smiled at him dreamily. ‘I’ll fetch my coat. Give me a mo, darling.’ She flashed what I’d swear was a warning glance at me, then ducked up the stairs to her flat, leaving him facing the four of us.

  ‘Daniel in the lion’s den,’ murmured Katherine.

  Celia’s mouth twitched. ‘This lion is desperately in need of a nap,’ she said. ‘It was lovely to see you again, Jim. Please give my regards to your mother the next time you write.’

  She headed upstairs.

  He seemed to be on good terms with Celia, I thought, and wondered if he was as fascist in his views as her husband. It seemed unlikely, given that he was a pilot and was fighting the Nazis, but who knew what anyone was like, really?

  ‘I’ve got a couple of Aussies in my squadron,’ he said to me. ‘I like them.’

  Had he, ever so slightly, emphasised ‘them’?

  ‘Good-oh,’ I replied, and immediately regretted it. Sometimes the Australianisms just slipped out. His smile returned and I felt my jaw tense.

  ‘Fred Harland? Mike Corrs? They’re Australians.’

  ‘It’s a big country.’

  ‘Where, in that big country, do you hail from?’

  ‘Western Australia. I grew up in the Eastern goldfields. My parents had a hotel near Kalgoorlie, before they moved to the city.’

  As his smile broadened, I could imagine how he was seeing me now: categorising me as a barmaid from a rough goldfields town. Barmaid Brennan. That was what the posh girls at school had called me.

  ‘What’s your surname?’ I asked. ‘Katherine didn’t really say.’

  ‘Vassilikov. Ivan Vassilikov, actually, but I’m known as Jim.’

  The name surprised me, as I had thought he was entirely English. On looking more closely, there was a hint of the Slav in his broad cheekbones and deep-set grey eyes. There had been Slavs working in the goldfields who came to my father’s hotel.

  Before I could reply, a metallic screech announced the arrival of the lift, and Nancy emerged with an exquisite Persian lamb coat over her arm. I hadn’t seen it before, and wondered if it was a recent gift from one of her admirers. She placed it carefully across a chair to pull on her gloves and check her hair in the lobby’s mirror.

  ‘Poor Jim,’ she said to her reflection. ‘He only has a weekend’s leave. So I’m helping him to enjoy it.’

  He opened the door and Nancy scurried over to join him. They turned to say goodbye, like grand seigneurs surveying the peasants: the tall man in the blue-grey uniform of the heroes of our aerial war against the Germans and the pretty blonde girl in the sunshine yellow frock. Nancy smiled, showing white teeth under pink gums. All the better to eat you with, my dear.

  ‘We’ll be off, then,’ said Nancy. ‘Don’t wait up.’

  ‘As if,’ muttered Pam.

  Jim nodded in my general direction. I made my face blank as they left the hall.

  ‘Of all the cheek,’ Pam exploded once the door had closed. ‘Don’t wait up indeed. She’s such a . . . a . . .’

  ‘Spit it out,’ drawled Katherine.

  ‘She’s a b-i-t-c-h. You know she is. She’s a married woman. How can she play around like she does? Going out with all sorts of men and I know they stay the night. And then she has the cheek to show off the expensive gifts they buy her. She’s nothing but a common who—’

  ‘Wholly inappropriate language,’ substituted Katherine, laughing. ‘Aren’t you the bishop’s daughter? Yes, she is a bitch. But she’s our resident bitch and we have to put up with her. As for her being married, well, hubby’s away and while he’s in Cairo little Nancy mouse will—’

  The door opened and we froze as Jim re-entered the foyer.

  ‘Nan forgot her coat.’ He went over to the chair by the mirror and picked it up. ‘I was at Cambridge with her husband,’ he said, to no one in particular, then looked towards me. ‘I’m only English by adoption, as you may have gathered from my name. I was born in Russia, and was seven when I came here. Do I qualify as a, er, Pom?’

  As I pretended to consider the matter, he said, ‘Why are you wearing my old school tie?’

  ‘That settles it,’ I said. ‘If you attended Harrow, you’re most definitely a Pom.’

  He smiled and pulled the door shut with a snap as he left.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Katherine, Pam and I stared at each other.

  ‘I didn’t think so at first, but now I’m sure he’s got it – S.A.,’ Katherine said. ‘Sex appeal, darling,’ she explained to Pam, who replied indignantly, ‘I know that.’

  ‘Can’t see it, myself,’ I said.

  ‘Well, I think he’s smashing,’ said Pam. ‘And a pilot to boot . . .’ Her voice faded into a sigh.

  The door opened again and Jim poked his head through once more. The three of us stood absolutely still, like wax figures in Madame Tussauds – before it was bombed.

  ‘Forgot my gloves,’ he said.

  He walked over to a chair and picked them up. ‘Regulations. We can’t wear the greatcoat without the gloves. Madness.’ He flicked me a glance. ‘Are you fond of music, Miss Brennan?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, surprised. ‘And it’s Lily.’

  He nodded, and returned to the doorway. There he paused, swallowed, took a breath and, almost as an aside, addressed a point somewhere over my left shoulder.

  ‘I hear they’re playing Tchaikovsky in Regent’s Park tomorrow. It’s the last Sunday afternoon concert for the year. It should be a marvellous concert.’

  ‘Glad to hear it,’ I said.

  ‘Begins at three o’clock.’

  ‘What’s that to do with me?’ I added, but the door had already closed.

  ‘We-ell,’ said Pam.

  ‘So he’s not interested in our Nance,’ said Katherine. ‘And he just made a date with our Lil.’

  ‘Shut up, Katherine,’ I said. ‘He didn’t ask me out.’

  ‘He certainly wasn’t talking to me, or to Pam, when he mentioned a concert tomorrow.’

  ‘Alas,’ said Pam. ‘I adore pilots.’

  ‘You know perfectly well he was asking you out,’ said Katherine.

  ‘He’s a friend of Nancy’s, for heaven’s sake.’

  ‘Of her husband’s.’

  ‘If he wanted to meet me tomorrow he should have asked properly.’

  He wasn’t even all that attractive, I told myself. Far too tall and gangly, and that nose!

  Katherine’s smile broadened, became taunting. ‘I thought he was a sweetie,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, he seems likeable enough,’ I admitted. ‘But it’s a peculiar way to invite someone out.’

  ‘Nancy told me about him,’ Katherine went on. ‘It’s a duty visit – looking up the wife of a college friend who’s away in the war.’

  Pam sniggered. ‘She’ll still try to get him into bed.’

  Katherine gave her a reproving look. ‘Mind out of the gutter, please, Pamela. You heard him – it was before you arrived, Lily – he’s staying at the home of a friend of his mother’s tonight. Nancy looked most put out.’ She smiled. ‘Apparently he’s a prince or count. Duke? Something like that.’

  ‘What?’ I laughed. ‘Nancy’s been spinning you a line and you’ve fallen for it hook, line and sinker.’

  Katherine raised a shoulder. ‘But it isn’t a line. He really is some sort of Russian nobility. Although that means less than nothing now the Soviets are in power, of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ I repeated, sarcastically.

  ‘You will go to Regent’s Park, won’t you?’ Pam was wide-eyed. ‘Oh, please do go. He’s a fighter pilot.’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ll think about it.’

  ‘Going out tonight?’ Katherine asked Pam, in an obvious change of subject.


  ‘I’m on duty at the shelter. You?’

  Katherine smiled. ‘Dinner with friends. At Quags.’

  Pam whistled. ‘I hope they’re paying. What about you, Lily?’

  ‘It’s been a tough day. The only company I want tonight is a hot bath – then a good book and the wireless. I’ve got to get out of these wet clothes.’ I suddenly realised I was shivering.

  ‘Meet me for supper in the service restaurant then,’ said Pam.

  I nodded, said goodbye to both of them and entered the lift. As it hauled me up to the third floor I heard Katherine’s clear voice calling out, ‘Be sure to use the hot-water bottle trick. Damp clothes can only lead to rheumatism.’ Her voice became fainter. ‘And dream tonight of pilots and grand music.’

  Alone in my bathroom I looked at myself in the mirror. Ash and plaster dust flecked my brown hair, which was damp and flat and greasy after a day under a steel hat and exposure to the rain. My eyes were sunken with exhaustion and there were faint blue shadows underneath.

  ‘You look like something the cat dragged in,’ I said to my reflection. ‘Flight Lieutenant Vassilikov must be the sort of man who feeds strays. Or has very odd taste in females.’

  I grinned at my reflection. Maybe he likes dimples, I thought, as I popped a shilling in the meter. I brushed my teeth as the trickle of hot water filled the bath.

  When I was clean and warm in my dressing gown, I took down my first aid kit from the shelf where it sat next to the tin of Poison Gas Ointment Number 1. We all had those tins, together with our gas masks. A gas attack was the ultimate horror, one we could only pray would not eventuate.

  I dabbed antiseptic on the cuts and abrasions that had collected during the shift, wincing as the astringent lotion met broken skin. I always wore thick gloves and tried to cover as much of myself as possible, but gloves had to be removed sometimes. And my face was always exposed, despite my eye shields and steel hat.

  In my bedroom I dressed for dinner, which was served in the restaurant on the ground floor. It was one of the advantages of our building that meals were prepared. They weren’t particularly well-cooked, but they were no worse than boarding school fodder.

  As I combed my damp hair in front of the dressing table mirror I glanced, as I always did, at the framed photograph standing beneath. A studio portrait of a young man in naval uniform, inscribed ‘To Lily, love Denys’. It had stood there since he left for Scotland at the start of the war, and there it had remained after his death.

  Denys Crawford and I had known each other only three weeks before we became unofficially engaged, in September 1939. Katherine and her husband introduced him to me and we ‘clicked’ immediately. It had been easy to fall in love. War had just been declared and we were fired up with the romance of it all and our imminent separation. We had parted with tears and promises and one night of madness before Denys sailed to Scapa Flow, in Scotland. He had died there a few weeks later, along with eight hundred other fiancés, husbands, lovers and sons, when the base was destroyed by enemy action. Four days after I heard of his death I resigned from my clerical job at Australia House and joined the Ambulance Service.

  Poor Denys. It all seemed like a sweet dream now that a year had passed, now that I was living through a Blitz. The world had changed, and I had changed with it. Only fragmented memories remained of who he was, this man I’d thought I loved enough to marry. He had become a water-colour memory, one that was fading too quickly in the harsh light of wartime life.

  Perhaps that was why I was so ambivalent about Flight Lieutenant Vassilikov’s invitation. My life was busy and fulfilled. Becoming fond of a serviceman – especially a pilot – was a sure road to misery. Then again, it was only a concert and I didn’t even fancy the man all that much. Should I go and meet him tomorrow? I really could not decide.

  Before I left the flat to head downstairs for dinner I used my little gas ring to boil some water for Katherine’s hot-water bottle trick. I filled the bottle with boiling water, and hung it on a clothes hanger. Then I placed my wet clothes over it and hung it up. The garments were gently steaming when I left and I knew they would be dry in a few hours.

  As I entered the restaurant I glanced at the blackboard, on which was chalked that evening’s menu: tomato soup (undoubtedly tinned), boiled mutton, cabbage and potatoes, and chocolate blancmange for dessert. Meat, tea, cheese and other essentials were now rationed, although food was still in reasonable supply. I was entirely in favour of Lord Woolton’s motto of ‘a fair share for all of us’, but meals were already monotonous and it could only get worse as the war dragged on.

  Pam was waving to me and I went to join her. I had just sat down when a quiet voice asked if she could join us. It was Betty Wilkinson, whose husband had been killed at Dunkirk. Her frock hung loosely on her thin frame, and her swollen face and red-rimmed eyes announced that she had been weeping for much of the afternoon.

  ‘Of course, please do,’ I said, pulling back a chair. I received a vague, hesitant smile in response.

  It had been more than four months since her husband’s death, but Betty’s grief was as raw as it had been in June. I felt achingly sorry for her, but could do nothing in the face of such unrelenting misery. Other tenants had begun to avoid her, making comments about Betty ‘letting the side down’ or ‘laying it on too thick’. Her persistent suffering had become a confronting embarrassment to many of them, and now she gravitated towards Katherine, Pam and me on her infrequent visits to the restaurant, probably because we never asked her how she was, or took umbrage at her despondent silences.

  Betty’s dark eyes had sparkled with a newlywed’s joy when she arrived at St Andrew’s in May. Now there was a greenish tint in their depths, like that seen in the bottom of a dirty pond. She murmured a thank you and sat down, keeping her silence as Pam and I chattered over the meal. I noticed that, as usual, she ate very little.

  ‘You’re on night shift again next week?’ Pam asked me.

  I had a mouthful of soup and merely nodded.

  ‘And that means your shift begins at five on Monday?’

  I nodded again.

  ‘I’m taking Monday off to do some shopping,’ she said. ‘What about an early movie? There’s a new Robert Taylor at Leicester Square. Afterwards we could have tea at a Lyons before your shift.’ She turned to Betty. ‘You’re very welcome, too, but I expect you are working.’

  Betty murmured a polite refusal.

  ‘Boring old Lyons,’ I teased. ‘I know a cafe in Soho that serves divine European pastries.’

  ‘Even with rationing?’

  I touched my nose. ‘Ask them no questions . . .’

  ‘Soho? Are you sure it’s safe?’ asked Pam, the bishop’s daughter, rather primly.

  ‘In the daytime, of course it is. All the best cafes are there.’

  Pam nodded cheerfully. ‘You’re on, then. I’ll meet you outside the cinema at noon.’

  After the meal Pam headed off to the Gloucester Road Tube station. She would spend the night there, one of only two officers dealing with the needs of up to a thousand shelterers a night. Betty tried to slip away, but I urged her to join me for coffee, which was served in another room. There we sat alone in a corner sipping our drinks.

  ‘I know I’m a wet blanket,’ she said, breaking a short silence. ‘The women here are sick of me. I try to be cheerful, really I do, but nothing means anything to me anymore.’

  I put my hand on her arm, tried to say something bracing but she turned her head away and whispered, ‘I wish I could die.’

  My grip on her arm tightened. ‘If you ever really feel like that, come and bang on my door. Or if I’m on duty, bang on Pam’s door, or Katherine’s. Come and talk to one of us.’

  She nodded, still looking away. ‘Don’t worry, Lily. I’m not going to do it myself.’ She sighed. ‘Nights are the worst. I lie in bed wishing I could go out into the raid and let the Germans do it, but I’m too much of a coward. So I pray for one of the raiders to pick this buil
ding, drop a bomb and blow me to smithereens. It is unforgivable, I know.’

  ‘Not unforgivable,’ I said, really concerned now. ‘You work for one of the ministries, don’t you?’

  ‘War Office. I can’t talk about it.’

  ‘If nights are the worst, why don’t you join Pam on her evenings in the shelter? They are always looking for volunteers. I could speak to her about it. May I do that?’

  She turned her head to look at me. ‘Yes.’ Her voice strengthened. ‘Yes, that might be a good idea. If I can keep myself busy then perhaps . . .’ Again she sighed.

  The light was swiftly fading when I reached the sanctuary of my flat. I put up the blackout blinds before switching on the lamp and the gas heater and the wireless. The cool music of Benny Goodman and His Orchestra filled the room, and I settled down on the sofa to think things through about Jim Vassilikov.

  Levy had mentioned a pilot friend, who flew a Hurricane and who had been with him at Harrow. Like Levy, he had been an outsider there. It was likely that a White Russian would be considered an outsider at Harrow, so it was odds-on that this was Levy’s pilot friend. That made it a bit better prospect to meet him at Regent’s Park.

  I was still considering the question when the wailing notes of the Warning drowned Benny Goodman out. I let my head fall back as I debated whether to walk down to the cellar which the occupants of St Andrew’s Court used as an air raid shelter or remain where I was. I decided I would take my chances in the flat. St Andrew’s was a new building and solid, unlike the shaky eighteenth and nineteenth century structures that tumbled into bricks at the first shudder of a bomb blast. And I had seen too many people dug out of basement shelters – and too many of those had not been dug out alive.

  The nine o’clock news began, as usual, with the chimes of Big Ben.

  ‘Here is the news and this is Alvar Lidell reading it.’

  I loved to hear his voice, but Alvar had no good news to report. The war dragged on. Two Italian destroyers had shelled a British convoy in the Red Sea; there had been damage sustained in raids over London and an unnamed ‘coastal city’ but few casualties; the RAF had engaged with the enemy and brought down several German planes with the loss of no British planes.