In Falling Snow (46 page)

“But I came to love him, you see. He was just so . . . uncomplicated. Oh, I knew there was no future. We all knew that. They were different times. The ambulance on the road at night, shelling nearby, the cloister in the early morning, the patients. At Royaumont, the rest of the world faded away. As I say, I was young,” she said, “and I've always been quite clever at pretending to be more than I am. That was how I became a doctor, after all. Me, who had no compassion.” She let out a sob and her voice cracked. “That's what Miss Ivens said. I lacked a doctor's most necessary gift. Compassion.”

Grace nodded. This had clearly upset Violet. She'd said it once already.

“Tom was different from the others. He just loved me. And then, the pregnancy. What was I to do? He never knew. I hadn't told him. Perhaps I would have. I was confused. He died not knowing he had a child. I used to think sometimes that if it had been different . . . But that only made it worse, that kind of thinking. I quickly learned that.

“Iris was angry with me, of course, never forgave me. But I hadn't meant her harm. It just happened.”

Grace watched Violet as she spoke. “So you had the baby in Edinburgh, you said. Rose.”

“Iris named her. I've never been back to the hospital. Once I was offered a job in Edinburgh, a good job, but I didn't take it because I'd have had to walk back through those doors. I couldn't do it, not then, not ever.” Violet took a breath in and held it, then let it out heavily.

“After the child was born, my mother came and took me home. She came up on the train and took me back with her. I thought I'd be fine, I'd just get on with life.” She smiled but looked like she might cry again.

“After we'd been home a few weeks, we went to town to a café Mother liked. She ordered scones for herself and for me, although I'd said I wasn't hungry. A young woman came into the café, Amelia Wickham. We'd gone to school together. I recognised her across the café, hoping she'd relieve us, my mother and I, of the need to converse with one another. I smiled. Then I saw she carried a bundle, a small bassinette. But she'd registered my smile and was upon us before I knew. I looked briefly inside the bassinette and saw a new baby, mottled red arms out of a white nightdress, peeling skin. I began to feel cold. It's hard to describe. I didn't really notice the baby. I just began to feel cold.” Violet stopped, swallowed, narrowed her eyes.

“My mother knew Amelia's mother. There had been some tragedy. At the time, I couldn't quite recall the details. Amelia greeted my mother and turned to me. She mentioned that she'd heard I was going to be a doctor. Who'd have thought? she said. My mother ignored this part of the conversation. Medicine wasn't something we discussed. She was against it from the start, felt women shouldn't work.

“So of course my mother fussed over Amelia, who had the far more appropriate life with a husband and baby. Do join us for tea, my mother said. Neither my mother nor I had mentioned the baby. I'm meeting Rob's parents, Amelia said. My mother looked a question. Robert Benton, my late husband. He was in the Somme. Her mouth was set tight. My mother offered condolences, happy now to have got to the nub. She began to ask Amelia about her family, who we knew vaguely.

“I hadn't said a word. I stood so suddenly I felt faint. I excused myself. In the lavatory I vomited and then I sobbed, my heart just a stone inside me.” Violet whimpered. Grace reached out a hand and took Violet's.

Violet withdrew her hand, composed herself. “The feeling subsided eventually. I returned to the table. Amelia had taken her leave. The child was gone. It's going to be like this for a long time, my mother said. She put her hand on mine and said, You didn't have to do it, you know. I didn't reply.

“What I always remembered about that day wasn't Amelia Wickham, who couldn't have known what I'd done. It was my poor mother, trying in her own way to reach out and help me.” Tears were rolling down Violet's cheeks now. Grace felt for her deeply. Violet grinned through her tears. “And yet I remained helpless.” The smile turned into a grimace. She covered her mouth with her hand, as if her feelings were a surprise to her.

“I used to tell people I wasn't someone who regretted things. And when I did regret what I'd done, I told myself that I had chosen my life. I had made the decision, however badly I felt. No one made it for me. It helped to know I'd made the choice.

“But I've always remembered that day with my mother, her reaching out her hand, trying to help me. We'd never been close, and yet she tried in her way to reach out. I always felt bad that I didn't respond. My mother. You have to understand the kind of life she had, the kind of woman she was. My brother died as a child and she never got over it.”

“What did he die of?” Grace said. In the pit of her stomach she felt a coldness without yet understanding why. But something nagged at the edge of her consciousness.

“Pneumonia,” Violet said. “There was something wrong with him. He was always sick. No one quite knew what it was.”

Grace looked at her, realisation dawning. “Muscular dystrophy,” she said. “Your brother had Duchenne's muscular dystrophy.”

After she left Violet, Grace went up to her room. She couldn't be angry with Violet. Grace had seen the girls come into the hospital who were adopting their babies out. It changed them. You could see that. After Mia was born, Grace wondered how they could do it, walk away from their babies. This was how they did it, she thought now, closing off the past and only looking towards the future. Poor Violet.

She tried to phone David but it rang out. She'd try again later. She didn't want to talk to Violet again for now either. She went out of the room intending to walk again, although it was dark outside and cold. On the stairs, she passed two women, wool suits and hats, one old, one very old. The very old one, holding onto the balustrade, cane hooked on the other arm, put her hand on Grace's arm. “I knew your grandmother, dear,” she said. She had washed-out blue eyes that lit up when she smiled at Grace.

The woman had said “grandmother.” She meant Iris, of course, although would Grace ever think of Iris as her grandmother again? She wanted to cry, bit her lip. “Did you?” Grace said. I didn't know her, she thought angrily.

“You look a bit peaky, dear,” the woman said. “We were going down for a sherry. Do join us. I'm Marjorie Lanois. I was Marjorie Starr,” as if she expected Grace would know who she was. Her accent was American, Grace thought. “Iris and I were good friends. And this is Miss May Robertson.”

“Oh yes,” the younger one said. “Do join us. My auntie Frances thought the world of your grandmother.” Frances Ivens had been director at the hospital, Violet had said. May had spent some time there as a volunteer, she told Grace now.

“We're so sorry for your loss,” Marjorie said.

Grace felt like crying then. She told them she wouldn't join them, she was going for a walk.

“Don't be silly,” Marjorie said. “Come, join us.”

Grace was about to refuse outright when something changed her mind. She sighed. “Yes, a drink,” she said, “and you can tell me about my grandmother.”

She helped Marjorie Starr negotiate the rest of the stairs. “It's my knees, dear.” She was better on flat land.

They went to a little alcove off the dining room, ordered drinks, champagne cocktails for themselves. Grace ordered a neat scotch.

“This was once the monks' bathrooms,” Marjorie said. “They had a hundred and eighty toilet seats.”

Grace looked at her. They were all a bit odd, she thought.

Marjorie sighed, took a long look at Grace. “Iris was the one I was looking forward to seeing,” she said. “So it's lovely you came for her. She'd have liked that. We were all so sad when we heard. She was such a good woman. It wasn't fair, what happened. She blamed herself.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, her brother, dear. She was supposed to take him home. You knew that, didn't you?” Grace nodded. Violet had told her. Iris hadn't. “That's why she came over originally. And then she got to Royaumont and Miss Ivens wanted her to stay and she and Violet became such good friends. She eventually learned what Violet was like.”

“And what's that?” Grace said, taking a long pull on the drink. It felt good, calming.

“Violet got the place in medicine, didn't she? That was Iris's place.”

“Iris was going to do medicine?” Grace said, confused. This was something Violet had said too but Grace hadn't understood.

Marjorie nodded. “Oh yes, Miss Ivens had a scholarship to give out. The Scottish Women's Hospitals were great fund-raisers. They had money come in from all over the world, even Canada where I'm from.” Canadian rather than American. “A lot of those women wouldn't give their money to the war, but they'd give it to our hospitals.” Marjorie took a sip of her drink. “You see, we didn't ever support the war really. We just did what we could for the men. They were lovely, the French soldiers, so kind and considerate.

“The nurses weren't to fraternise with the patients. That was a cardinal rule with Miss Ivens. But goodness me, you put all those young men with all those young women and what do you expect? We used to have concerts and dances. It was a merry place, almost as if the war was all around us but couldn't touch us.”

May Robertson smiled, even blushed. “It was such a time for all of us,” she said.

Grace smiled too. She couldn't help it. They were such amazing women, crazy but amazing. “So why didn't Iris get the scholarship in the end?”

“Well, she had the baby, dear. And you know who got the scholarship instead? Violet.” Marjorie pursed her lips.

Grace didn't know if Marjorie knew the truth about Violet and Iris. “Iris had such a way with people,” Marjorie said. “And such initiative.” She told Grace the story of the lorry. “It probably doesn't seem like much now but it was very difficult for us to get anything done. Iris just looked at a problem and solved it. She was a blessing. Miss Ivens would never have succeeded without her.”

May Robertson said Iris was wonderful at cutting through the nonsense to keep them on track. “She certainly kept my auntie Frances on track and that's saying something.”

“You must be so proud of her,” Marjorie Starr said.

Finally she managed to reach David. The kids were still out with his parents at dinner, but he'd come back early to wait for her call. She told him everything she'd found out, that Violet was her blood grandmother, Tom her blood grandfather, that Iris had lied, hadn't done medicine, had felt guilty about her brother, had never talked because of all this, had kept this information from her daughter and granddaughter.

“To be honest, I'm still reeling,” she said. “The rooms keep moving on me.”

“I knew there was something,” David said. “If you think about it, for you it's not really any different though,” he said.

“Yes it is. They didn't tell my mother who her parents were. Can you believe that? They didn't tell me. How could they . . .”

“Well, they were a different generation. You didn't tell. You hid things,” David said.

“Yes, but Iris never told me. Iris looked at me and lied.”

“Give it up, Grace,” David said. “You're starting to sound . . .”

“To sound what?”

“Ungrateful.”

“Ungrateful? My whole life's been a lie. You just have no idea.”

“That's not true. Your whole life hasn't been a lie. Your mother died having you. Your father didn't want you. Your grandmother raised you as her own.”

“But she wasn't my grandmother, much less my mother.”

“Yes, she was. She stepped up and said, I'll do this. She was willing. I can't help but think that what she did for your mother, taking her home when she'd been offered a chance to do medicine . . . I can't help but think that took extraordinary courage. And it doesn't change anything.”

“Our son has muscular dystrophy.”

“Would you have done anything differently if you'd known?”

“You mean, aborted a male foetus?”

“Or not had children?”

“No. Maybe. But it's not about that. It's about my right to know.”