The parrot cage, p.10
The Parrot Cage, page 10
‘There’s a kiosk at the corner, there,’ said Anna, pointing towards Sloane Square. ‘Off you go.’
Gerry obeyed, looking back towards the house every few yards, finding it hard to leave even for a few minutes. When she got to the red telephone box on the corner, she found herself absurdly incompetent, first dialling the number before she had put in any money and then pressing button ‘B’ instead of ‘A’. But she got through to Suvarov in the end and tried to tell him what had happened, but she was stuttering so much that he could not understand her.
‘Gerry,’ he said with a note of command in his voice.
‘Yes,’ she said, staring out of the sticky windows of the kiosk.
‘What’s happened?’
Something in his voice made her able to pull herself together and at last she spoke quite calmly.
‘My sisters’godmother’s house was hit last night,’ she said. ‘The twins were there, and though there’s still no sign of them the rescuers think it’s possible that they could be alive.’
‘Gerry, there isn’t anything to say except … I’m sorry,’ said his voice with such warmth that she felt a shred of comfort in her mind. ‘Do you want to stay there now?’
‘Would you mind?’ she asked dismally, her eyes closing. In her fear she longed for her husband with a passion she had not felt since she had said goodbye to him in Palestine.
‘Of course not, Gerry,’ said Peter. ‘You stay there until they’ve got them out.’
‘Thank you, Peter. I’ll get back as soon as I can.’
She put down the receiver and left the booth to walk back to Anna’s side. Although Gerry recognised that there was nothing she could do to help in the rescue, she could not have left while her sisters were still buried. Four men were digging in the rubble of Anna’s house and two to the right of it, and spectators were kept several yards away, helpless behind the yellow barriers.
‘Is there … do they think there’s any hope?’ she said to Anna by way of greeting.
‘Yes,’ answered Anna carefully. ‘It seems that it was the Farringdons’house that took the full force and pushed mine down from the side, if you see what I mean. They are probably quite all right, somewhere in there, protected by beams or something.’
‘And what about you? Will you be all right standing here? I mean, with your ankle. Shouldn’t I try to find you a chair or something?’
‘No. I’m all right.’
After another hour, Gerry managed to persuade Anna to sit on the steps of a house opposite her own to take the weight off her plastered ankle, and together they waited, hating the smell of smashed brickwork and drains that hung all round in the heavy, dust-laden air. They watched the rescuers digging long, thin shafts and carrying the debris away in soft baskets. Every so often the leader would yell for silence and everyone would strain forward even though only the people down in the trench would have been able to hear anything. The light started to fade soon after four and Gerry was desperate at the idea that the men might have to knock off so soon. The only torches they were allowed to use were quite inadequate.
She peered forward into the gloom. From the debris that the men were throwing out of their way – Anna’s delicate porcelain vases and the remains of some of her rugs and pictures – it seemed that they had reached where the ground floor had been. It could not be much longer. She looked up, cursing the short winter days and the blackout and the Germans, and her mother for allowing he twins to come to London. Gerry must have spoken aloud, for she felt Anna’s thin hand on her wrist.
‘Don’t, Gerry. They had to get some clothes. And we all thought this part was safe – and God knows when it’s all going to end. You can’t just shut off your life because of the Germans. That makes them the winners.’ Her hand tightened convulsively. ‘Look, they’ve found something.’ Breathless, Gerry watched as two of the men appeared climbing over the rubble with a limp, grey bundle between them. The waiting First Aid people sprang forward as the body was laid gently on to a waiting stretcher.
‘They must let us through now,’ said Gerry and went forward. No one stopped her and as she stood over the stretcher, one of the nurses said:
‘Can you identify her?’
For a horrible moment, Gerry thought she might not be able to. The body was so covered with dust and scratches that it could have been either of the twins. Then the pale girl opened her dark-blue eyes and Gerry saw that it was Ming. She knelt down on the road beside the stretcher and took Ming’s scraped and filthy hand in hers.
‘Ming, dearest, you’re out now.’
‘Gerry, where’s Annie?’
‘They’re getting her out now. Was she near you, sweetie?’
‘Yes, but I think she’d fainted. She wasn’t talking at the end. I couldn’t see her, but at the beginning she talked to me.’ Ming began to cough, desperately, as though something was tearing inside her chest. The nurse pushed Gerry out of the way, murmuring to her:
‘It’s the dust. You can’t do anything now. We’ll take her to St George’s. Call round first thing tomorrow and they’ll let you know how she’s getting on.’
Gerry moved back and called to the men in blue dungarees who were back at their task.
‘She says our sister was quite near her, but she couldn’t see her.’
‘OK, miss. We’re trying.’
Don’t stop, don’t stop, whispered Gerry to herself.
They did not, but it was almost completely dark when one of them called:
‘We’ve got her.’
‘Thank God,’ said Gerry, but Anna said:
‘Wait, Gerry. It doesn’t look too good.’ Together they walked towards the ring of men who were now standing looking down at the body at their feet, barely illuminated by their dimmed torches. Gerry joined them, and did not need anyone to tell her that her sister was dead. There was a great, gaping wound in Annie’s skull, but the blood had dried a long time ago; and the skin of her face was waxy and somehow shrunk against the bones of her cheeks and eye sockets.
Gerry turned away and Anna Kingsley was there, opening her arms and calling gently:
‘Gerry, come here, child.’ Gerry went and let herself lean against Anna’s shoulder. Just before Anna’s hands closed about her head, she heard one of the Heavy Rescue men say to his mate:
‘They should’a’stayed in bed. Look at them beds: ’ardly touched, they isn’t. They’d’a’been all right if they’d’a’stayed in bed.’
Later, when she could think and speak without shaking, Gerry looked at Anna, trying for the moment to shut out what had happened and to suppress her pathetic desire for Andrew suddenly and miraculously to appear and take charge.
‘Anna, what about getting you a hotel room?’ Gerry asked, trying to do the things that Andrew would have done if he had been there. ‘I’m sure you shouldn’t stand about on that ankle any more. Or do you want to come back to Dover Street? Presumably Jeremy Oldridge has a spare bed.’
‘Yes he has, but I’d rather go to the Hyde Park. Don’t fret about me, Gerry. You go on home and have something hot to eat. Would you like me to try to get Fanny on the telephone and tell her?’
‘Would you, Anna? I’ve been dreading it. I should have done it before, but couldn’t bear to worry her before we knew …’ Gerry’s voice wobbled, and she turned away for a moment to regain control of herself. ‘I’ll talk to her as soon as I can, of course I will, but if you tell her first … And I’ll have to try to get Flixe. I wish to God I knew where she was.’
‘Don’t think about any of it now. Go home, do yourself a hot bottle and have something to eat and go to bed. Go on, Gerry, I’ll ring you up tomorrow, and we’ll go and see Ming. The ambulancewoman said we wouldn’t be allowed to see her today.’
Gerry obeyed, almost too tired to protest, and walked with painful slowness back to Dover Street. She had not had time to go shopping recently to queue for food and all she had in the flat was a bit of hard cheese and two eggs. She was not at all hungry, but recognised the sense of Anna’s instructions and was thinking about turning the eggs into an omelette when there was a knock at the door.
It seemed rather early for Jeremy Oldridge, but she shrugged and went to open it. There stood Suvarov in his uniform.
‘May I come in, Gerry?’
‘Of course.’
‘Is there any news?’
‘They’ve got them out now. One, Mary, is in hospital.’
‘And Annie?’
Gerry just shook her head.
‘I am very sorry. How is Ming?’
Gerry had forgotten the evening when she had told him all about her family and was surprised that he knew the nickname. But she felt too tired and mangled to say anything about it.
‘Coughing desperately when I last saw her and very anxious for Annie. They took her off to St George’s. I don’t know what’ll happen when she hears that Annie is dead. They’re twins, you know … were twins, I mean.’
‘I know. You told me. Gerry, don’t you think you – we – should go to the hospital now and tell her, before some well-meaning voluntary worker does?’
It was not the moment to protest that she was tired, but she could hardly stop the instinctive groan that rose to her lips. She had had about four hours’sleep the night before and had spent most of the day on her feet in torturing anxiety. But he was right. Without speaking, she put the eggs and cheese back under the little meat safe and picked up her coat.
‘Gas mask, Gerry.’
‘Oh, they’re not going to drop gas. They don’t need to, do they? IBs and HEs do plenty – what’d gas do that they don’t?’ He just looked at her and picked up the khaki canvas bag himself, slung it over his shoulder with his own and took her elbow.
He did not speak as they walked down Piccadilly towards Hyde Park Corner and Gerry was grateful for his silence. When they reached the big, dirty-white building that housed the hospital, Peter Suvarov led the way up the shallow steps into the pedimented entrance, turning to ask:
‘Which ward, Gerry?’
‘I don’t know. I last saw her in the road – on a stretcher. I should have asked …’
‘Don’t worry. Sister!’
A harassed, thin, dark-haired nurse took two steps towards them.
‘Yes, what is it?’
‘Female casualties from Eaton Gate?’
‘Nightingale Ward, second on the left, third floor.’
‘Thank you.’
Surprised by his efficiency, but a little repelled by it, too, Gerry walked up the steep stone stairs in his wake. When they reached the ward he pushed open one of the swing doors and gestured for her to precede him. She went in and walked slowly down the long rows of white-sheeted patients, searching for her sister. But it was Suvarov who found her and who pulled up two chairs.
Ming was lying there so pale that it was hard to believe that she was not dead too. Suvarov took one of her limp, scratched hands, between his and said:
‘Mary, here is Gerry with something to tell you.’
He nodded furiously to Gerry as she fumbled with the words and she made herself speak very simply to tell Ming that her twin was dead. Then Gerry sat down on the second chair and watched her chief stroke the hand he held and once lay one of his hands on Ming’s forehead and then wipe away the tears that seeped out from under her closed eyelids. He said nothing for at least five minutes and then very gently began to talk. Gerry had never heard his voice sound so warm; it was as though the sounds carried their own consolation quite divorced from the sense of the words he spoke.
As she listened she began to learn for the first time something of his life. He, too, had had a twin, it seemed, and lost him when they were only a few years older than Ming herself. No one who had not had a twin could understand what it felt like to be the one left behind, anguished by the thoughts of how you should have saved your twin, knowing that whatever happened in the years to come, whoever came to love you or be loved by you, you would always be lonely, hurting in the place where your twin should have been joined to you.
At first Gerry listened in horror, wondering what he could be doing to thrust his own sadness on to poor little Ming, who had so much of her own to deal with. But gradually Gerry understood that he was trying to bring her sister back into the daylight where fears and feelings could be spoken about and to reassure her that she was not alone, that other people had felt what she was feeling and survived. Moved nearly to tears both by his care for her sister and by the thought of the unassuageable loneliness he described, Gerry watched Ming listen, a faint colour coming back into her pearl-pale cheeks. Then she began to talk in her turn.
After a little Gerry could not bear to listen and, murmuring something about finding some water for Ming who was still coughing between each sentence, got up and moved out of earshot. Her respect for Peter Suvarov had always been firm, but that he could sit and listen to all that raw pain without saying anything to try to quieten it made her think of him with awe. He did not even try to say anything to soothe Ming as she struggled with the dust in her lungs and throat; he just sat, his hand on hers, taking into himself all the terrible things she wanted to say.
Chapter Eight
Ming was to be released five days later, by which time her sister would have been buried. Gerry was just beginning to panic about how she was going to organise a funeral when Anna Kingsley told her that she would make all the arrangements, as well as telling Fanny Alderbrook what had happened. It was clearly impossible to take the body down to Gloucestershire and so the burial was arranged for three days after the incident in one of the huge London cemeteries. Gerry, trying desperately to track down Felicity, assumed that their mother would come up for it, but Anna told her that too would be impossible. For a time it seemed as though there would be only the two of them at Annie’s graveside.
But after several abortive and frustrating telephone calls, Gerry managed to get hold of Felicity and told her about the bomb and what it had done to the twins. After the first shocked silence, Flixe promised to be at the cemetery in good time and then said:
‘But how’s Ming? Is she very bad?’
‘Not too awful, Flixe. The hospital say that she can come out the day after tomorrow. They’ve assured me that there’s nothing physically wrong with Ming, but the shock of the explosion, let alone being buried for all those hours and hearing her twin die just out of reach, has weakened her badly. She’s coughing a lot, but that’ll soon cure itself, apparently, as all the wood and brick dust she swallowed is spat out of her lungs.’
‘Poor little creature. And is she desperate about Annie? It’s hard to think of them separated …’
‘I know, and yes, she is. Oh, Flixe … No, we can’t talk now.
And I ought to ring Mother to tell her about Ming. See you tomorrow.’
‘Yes. ’Bye.’
As soon as she had put down the receiver, Gerry asked for her mother’s number to pass on the hospital’s verdict. It was impossible to tell how Fanny Alderbrook was taking the news of Annie’s death for it was not in her code either to weep or to say anything revealing in her daughter’s hearing. When Gerry said that she and Flixe would encourage Ming to go home as soon as she was released from the hospital, her mother said:
‘No, Gerry, please do keep her with you until she really is strong enough. My three evacuees have arrived here and quite apart from their turning the place into something like a madhouse, they probably have all kinds of infections, as well as nits. Poor little Ming ought not to be exposed to them until she is really fit.’
‘Evacuees, Mother? You?’
‘Don’t sound so surprised, Gerry. You’re not the only one who wanted to do her bit, you know. I couldn’t possibly have accepted any at the beginning of the war when you were so ill, but now that my time – and the house – is my own … I’d arranged their arrival so carefully for when the twins …’ Her voice threatened to break, but she rallied. ‘For when the twins’term had begun.’
‘But how do you manage? Aren’t they the most fearful nuisance?’
Gerry thought she could almost hear a smile in her mother’s voice when she answered:
‘Noisy, of course, and very rumbustious, but I think once they’ve got over their homesickness we’ll get on quite well.’
‘Where did they come from?’ asked her daughter, wondering whether her mother had hit on one of the few middle-class families who had agreed to evacuate their children.
‘Stepney. Oh, Gerry, I must go. It’s three minutes. Thank you for telling me about Ming. Give her my love. Goodbye.’
Gerry was left to stare at the black Bakelite receiver in her hand and wonder how her mother really was. Her voice had been strained and there had been that one moment when she sounded distressed, but Gerry wished that her mother might have managed to say something about Annie. Gerry rubbed the back of her hand across her eyes, which suddenly felt hot and tight, and blessed Anna Kingsley for being there, for doing and being all the things an ideal mother would have done and been. She had made all the arrangements for the funeral and had promised to house Ming when she was let out of the hospital.
Anna had left the Hyde Park Hotel within two days of the bomb and moved into the ground and first-floor flat in Dover Street. When she was not sitting at Ming’s bedside or talking to the undertakers, she spent her time buying furniture and searching the ruins of Eaton Gate for anything she could salvage from the wreckage of her home before the looters picked it clean. It slowly dawned on Gerry how much the loss of her house must have added to Anna’s unhappiness at her god-daughter’s death. Not only had the Eaton Gate house been a refuge for Anna, but she had filled it with the furniture, paintings and books she had collected over nearly thirty years. There must have been memories locked up within its walls that now seemed fragile and fugitive. As Gerry thought about how Anna must be feeling, for the first time she began to wonder about her as a person rather than simply as an old friend of the family and a substitute mother.
