In Falling Snow (31 page)

Another of them tried to give Violet the ring he wore on his finger. “No,” she said, taking his hand and smiling. “This is yours.” He pleaded with her but she wouldn't be moved. He was a handsome young soldier with black hair and brown eyes. Violet refused him again.

Afterwards, I asked her why she didn't take the ring. “It would have made him happy,” I said.

“Oh Iris, you idiot. It's his wedding ring. He's giving it to me because he thinks he's going to die. By refusing it, I'm telling him to stay alive.”

We came out of the station into a bright spring day. As soon as I saw the city again, I realised Miss Ivens had been right, as she so often was. I was exhausted, not just from work, but to my soul, and Violet, while better than she had been a year before, wasn't fully healed. We'd seen so much at Royaumont, so much human suffering. You couldn't keep looking it in the face and not start to sink. Paris, beautiful Paris, refreshed us.

Violet took my arm as we walked the streets. “Oh Iris, I wish we could just be here from now on and not have to go back to the stupid war.”

“Trouble is, the war will come here eventually, Violet.”

“I suppose it will.” We bought croissants from a boulangerie we found near the station. We sat outside and ate them. The sun was shining on our faces. A gentle breeze blew towards us. It felt like perfection.

We found the hotel in the Latin Quarter and then went to a bathhouse Violet knew. The hot bath was heavenly after months and months of a quick sponge or shower under a canvas bag. To lie and soak in warm water was as good as finding a book you could escape into. We slept on freshly laundered sheets. I woke to a fine day feeling wonderful.

We took breakfast in a little café across the street from our hotel. Coffee was available again—it had been rationed—and Violet ordered us each a café au lait and a croissant. “You're so much brighter here,” I said. Violet was wearing a plain green sweater that drew out her eyes. Her cheeks had some colour again.

“You're so sweet, Iris,” she said. “Like a mother.”

“Am I?” I said. “I'm going to see Dugald today. I hardly want to be like a mother.”

“No, I don't suppose you do. But I'd give my eyeteeth to be like you.”

“In what way?”

“You're just uncomplicated.”

“No I'm not,” I said. “You just haven't seen my complicatedness.”

“Perhaps,” she said. “But I think you'll be happier than me.”

“Do you?” Violet was such a bright star. But I knew what she meant. I'd felt it too. There was something not quite real about Violet's brightness.

“Come on, darling,” she said, smiling now. “Let's take in the sights while we may!”

I saw Tom as we approached along Boulevard Saint-Germain, sitting at a table on the footpath, his long legs extended out in front of him and crossed at the ankles. He stood when he saw me and came towards us. I could feel his ribs under his coat as we embraced, could see he no longer filled it. He'd lost more weight. I could see it in his face too. How long was it since I'd seen him? Perhaps a month, two, even three? I needed to keep a closer eye on him, get him coming to Royaumont more often to help out.

“Violet,” Tom said, and took her hand. He smiled and it was so like the Tom I knew that the anxiety of a moment before faded. “You have hair again.”

Violet laughed. “I do,” she said, “and ears too. Just like the humans.”

Tom laughed. “I meant . . . your hair is mostly hidden in the helmet.”

“Yes,” she said. “Is there something on my face?”

“No,” he said, but he kept staring. Tom had brought a friend, the one who suggested the café, I later learned, who had also stood and now took off his hat. He was a tall thin boy, sandy hair already receding, pink cheeks and clear blue eyes. Something about him reminded me of fresh cream at the top of a pail of milk. He stared at Violet too. She took her hand from Tom's and looked at his friend. “Oh, how rude of me,” Tom said. “This is Hugh, Hugh Passmore. He works in the postal service with me. Hugh, Violet Heron and my sister, Iris.”

“Hello to you both,” Hugh said. His voice was soft like his face. He looked more a boy than Tom.

“Shall we sit, or just stand here all day?” Violet said.

“Let's stand,” Tom said, and laughed. He and Hugh both went to pull out a chair for Violet but Hugh got there first and sat down next to her, Tom next to me. We ordered—I'd become partial to the tiny cups of strong black coffee prepared in the mornings by Michelet. Violet ordered the same as me. Tom and Hugh had hot chocolate.

The waiters wore long starched white aprons and treated us with disdain. I don't know if this was their usual demeanour or resentment born of war and invasion. Hugh said it was the way they always were. “Service is beneath them, and yet they serve. It's a conundrum.”

“So tell me, Tom. How's the postal section?” Violet said, a hint of mockery in her voice.

Thankfully, Tom didn't pick it up. “They've set up a distribution centre at Le Havre,” he said. “So a lot more sorting can be done there. It's easier for us.”

“They say the Germans target our postal ships because they know how much a letter can mean to a soldier,” Hugh said. “We get millions of letters every week.”

Before long, Tom started talking again about the fighting. He said the other blokes in the postal service agreed a young fellow ought to be fighting. “Most of them are old or injured. That's why they're doing the post. Signals is the ticket, they reckon. They think I'd make a good messenger because I'm fast on my feet.”

“Is that safe, Tom?” I couldn't help myself.

“We're at war, Iris. Nothing's safe.”

“Where are you from, Hugh?” Violet said, changing the subject. He said he was from Tintagel.

“I'm from Port Isaac. We're practically neighbours. Passmore . . . not the McClintock Passmores?”

“That's right,” Hugh said. “Are you Mrs. Heron's girl?” Violet nodded. “My brother and yours were at school together.” Violet's older brother Ian had died of pneumonia. “You were at Harry Moore's engagement.”

“Your older brother,” Violet said to Hugh. “Richard. All the girls were sweet on him at school.”

“He's up in the north fighting,” Hugh said.

“And your mother?” Violet said. “I remember she made a wonderful apple pie.”

He laughed. “Still does. She sent me some, but it was didn't do too well on the journey. I ate the crumbs. She writes every week and tells me to keep my head down. You know what they're like.”

“I do,” Violet said. “Iris here is playing mother to Tom. She says he should go home. What do you think?”

“I think mothers and sisters ought to be locked up so we can get on with the men's work,” Hugh said.

Tom laughed. “Violet likes to point out I'm too young for war too,” he said. “Tell them your age, Passmore.”

“I know how old he is,” Violet said. “You wouldn't be seventeen yet, Hugh. Is that right?”

“Sixteen,” he said. “My dad was happy enough for me to come over, but my ma's angry.”

Violet shook her head. “Where will all this end?” she said.

“Please don't start,” Tom said to Violet. “Guess what else I'm doing, Iris? Censoring letters.” Tom had told me that in their letters home, soldiers weren't supposed to mention anything to do with battles or troop movements or even the conditions they lived in. Envelopes were opened routinely by officers in Tom's unit, who blacked out anything forbidden. The only way to write openly, Tom said, was to use an honour envelope. The soldiers had to sign a declaration on the back that said there was nothing but private and family matters contained within. “Boy, people are strange. One chap tells his fiancée he wants to kiss her knees. I felt like blacking out knees so she'd think he was a bit more romantic. Another asks his mother if she can send his girl's underwear which he left behind. I kid you not. They have no shame.”

“They're going to die,” Violet said. “Shame probably isn't high on the list of things to worry about.”

“Survival's more important, you think?” Tom said.

“Although less achievable,” Violet said. When we'd first come to Royaumont, Violet was always one for fun. She'd make a laugh out of even the worst situation. But now, while I had become more tender, crying at the drop of a hat, Violet had become tougher. She hated any kind of talk of the war that suggested it was somehow righteous or heroic and if any of the new drivers started that way, she was quick to put them straight. I could see that Tom and Hugh, with their talk of fighting and going up to the front, had set her off. “I carried a man in my ambulance last year,” Violet said, and took a long draw of her cigarette. “He'd lost both arms and one of his legs.”

“Violet,” I said, not wanting her to tell this story.

“Be quiet, Iris,” she said. “They want to go to war. Let them hear. He died before we reached Royaumont, as we knew he probably would. I wondered why they bothered transporting him at all, so I asked my stupid question when I went back to Creil for the next load. Do you want to know why they sent him to Royaumont?” Neither Hugh nor Tom responded. “They didn't want to have to fill in the forms themselves. So they sent a dying man on an excruciating journey to avoid paperwork. We none of us should talk of the war as if it's anything but evil. We've lost the right to be called human.”

We sat silently for a moment until Tom said, “Well, that's cheered me up no end. Thank you, Violet. We're all feeling brighter for that.”

Violet looked at him and smiled bitterly. For a moment, I thought she might cry.

We talked of other things then. Tom asked after Daddy, Claire, and the twins. He said he hadn't heard from them. I said they were well and that Daddy had hired some shearers who weren't as good as Tom. I'd had a note from Veronica too I said, our mother's sister, to say she was coming across to Paris and would visit me. “Do you remember her, Tom? She came to see us at Risdon.” He shook his head. “You're probably too young. She was grand. It will be nice to see her again.”

Tom looked over at Violet. “Come on, cheer up. It's a horrible war but look at us. We're happy.” He smiled. I looked across at Tom. He had grown into a handsome young man, Violet had been right, but it was more than that. Tom had a light within him that shone on everyone his life touched. Daddy and I had done well by him, I thought then.

Violet smiled with a sigh. “Yes, look at us,” she said. “We really are the lucky ones.”

I looked at my watch. “We must go, Violet. I'm due at the Croix-Rouge at eleven.”

“Do I have to come?” she said. “I think I'd rather take in the morning a bit longer.”

“Stay with us,” Tom said. “We're going sightseeing.”

“Do,” said Hugh. “It would be so much fun to spend some time with someone who's not a chap.”

“I'll be the un-chap then,” she said.

“All right,” I said. In truth, I was relieved. I hadn't wanted Violet with me when I saw Dugald. And as I often did, I felt surplus to requirements with Violet when anyone of the male sex was around. Both Tom and Hugh followed her every word.

Hugh had brought a camera along with him and he asked me to take a photograph of him and Tom, which I did, under instruction from both of them about how to hold the camera and expose the film. Hugh then took one of Violet and Tom and me sitting at the table—Violet had just asked the waiter for another coffee and he'd been so very rude she'd given him one of her looks and we all fell about laughing for some reason. Hugh promised to send me a postcard of the picture but he never did.

I said good-bye to Hugh and wished him well. I hugged Tom tightly. “You take care of yourself,” I said.

“Course I will,” he said.

I told Violet I'd see her back at the room in the afternoon.

The Croix-Rouge offices were in the Latin Quarter. I walked down the narrow streets to a small square fronted by the church they were using to pack up parcels for soldiers. I walked around the side of the church to the door of the Croix-Rouge office and went in and asked for Dr. Dugald McTaggart. Normally he worked in Chantilly at the Allied Command Headquarters, but he was in Paris working on hospital accreditation reports.

A few minutes later, Dugald emerged. “Iris, you came to see me.” He smiled, taking my hands in his and kissing me on both cheeks. I felt the roughness of his cheek against my own. He smelled sweet like cinnamon. He stepped back to look at me. “Will we walk?” he said. “I'll get my coat. It's so good to see you.”

I almost forgot about the reports I'd brought. “I actually came to give you these. I believe you asked Miss Ivens to provide them. They're our clinical reviews.”

“Ah,” he said. “And here I thought you'd come to see me. Let's walk anyway,” he said. I was still holding on to the reports. “If you give me those, I'll put them in the office and get my coat.” I handed across the sheaf of papers and as I did our hands touched. I felt the same spark of electricity I'd felt before.