Philippa Carr: We'll meet again

The sound of sirens and fire engines filled the air. It was like a nightmare. I am not sure how long it lasted. These were familiar sounds in our war-torn city. So many times we had heard them. This was different. This was us.

It is difficult to remember exactly what happened. I just know that there was tremendous activity. We were numbed, bemused … and amazed to find that we seemed to be unhurt.

Then I heard Peggy crying: “Where’s Florette? She wasn’t with us. She’d gone to get her cuttings book.”

Billy Bunter started to speak. We would leave the building as soon as possible … just in case it collapsed. The bomb had apparently not hit the building but had fallen close beside it. There was considerable damage and it would be better for us to get out. There was nothing we could do but wait for instructions.

“You’ll be looked after, and as soon as possible. There’ll be a bus to take you home. You’ll have to report to the hospital for a checkup, but the main thing is to attend to the injured. You won’t leave the usual way. You’ll have to be shown. Go quietly, please. That’s the best way you can help.”

We stood huddled together. Peggy was very anxious. She kept saying: “Florette. Where’s Florette? Why did she go off? Why didn’t she stay with us?”

“She’ll be there in the cloakroom,” said Mary Grace.

“I hope she got her cuttings book all right,” said Marian.

It seemed a very long time before we were led out of the building. The bus was there and we filed in.

I looked back at the familiar building as we drove away. It was not the same; it would never be. One end was gone completely and there was a jagged gap. I saw a part of a room with filing cabinets standing in it—open to the sky.

There were people everywhere. I saw the ambulances and a stretcher being carried into one of them.

Then we were off. I was glad. I did not want to look any more at the scene of devastation.

It was two days before we heard the news about Florette. The cloakroom was at that end of the building which had suffered most from the blast of the bomb and Florette had died, clutching the book of cuttings in her hand.

The news shocked us all terribly, but Peggy I think was most affected. She looked shriveled and bewildered.

We all met again afterwards. Mary Grace took us to her house. We could not have met in the Café Royal; that would have been too heart-rending. We should have pictured Florette there all the time. It was sad enough in the Dorrington house.

All the gaiety had gone. We were all so unhappy thinking of bright Florette with her dreams of a future which now would never be. We tried to talk normally but it was impossible.

Marian should have been happy because both she and Peggy were being transferred to another branch of the Ministry. It was very near home for Peggy and not so very far for Marian, and they had both dreaded losing their jobs; but there was no happiness for either of them, particularly Peggy.

I told them that I would be going back to my parents for a while and then I would plan what I should do. Mary Grace would not be returning to the Ministry.

It was no use trying not to talk about Florette. It was almost as though she were there with us.

“If only she hadn’t gone back for that book,” said Peggy. “She’d have been with us under the table. Why did she want to go?”

“None of us knew the thing would turn back,” I said. “Oh, why did she?” wailed Peggy. “If only …” Her poor face looked older and more tired than usual, even more wistful than when she was yearning to be someone’s pet. She would not have lost her friend had Florette not gone back for the book.

“That’s life,” said Marian. “It all works on chance.” And we sat there in silence, thinking of Florette, who had had such dreams and had died so cruelly before she could try to make them come true.

I HAD VISITED THE hospital. No bones had been broken, but a rest was suggested, particularly as I had recently suffered a similar experience.

My parents were delighted to have me home.

“I only wish Dorabella was not up there,” said my mother. “Those wretched bombs are worse than the other kind, it seems to me.”

I spent a lot of time with Tristan. Nanny Crabtree was inclined to treat me like an invalid and attempted to “fatten me up,” but there was no doubt of her joy in having me back in the fold.

I did not want to be idle and so I helped my mother in her work with the various organizations in which she was involved.

There was a great deal of discussion about the progress of the war, which seemed to be going well in spite of certain setbacks; but clearly the end was not going to come as quickly as we had hoped.

I thought that, if Jowan were a prisoner of war and the Allies were advancing, it might be that they would come to where he was held, and free all the prisoners. Every day I waited for news with mounting hope. It would go first to Mrs. Jermyn, of course, but she would inform me immediately.

My mother knew this and was afraid for me. I guessed that in her heart she did not share my optimism.

She said to me one day: “Violetta, you still believe that Jowan will come back, don’t you? It is four years now.”

It was one of those days—they came now and then—when my hopes seemed to fade. It was a long time. Sometimes I wondered if he would be the same man when he came back. People change. Would his love still be as strong for me as mine was for him?

I hesitated and she was aware of this.

“Time is passing,” she went on. I knew what was in her mind. I should be twenty-five in October. I was no longer very young. She was wondering whether I was going to spend my life mourning a lost lover. She had known a friend who had been engaged to be married to a young man who was killed on the Somme during the last war. My mother had spoken of her occasionally. It was not only that she had missed marriage and family, but she had spent her life mourning for a man she had lost when she was eighteen. She did not want a similar fate for me.

She said: “I am sure you are better here than in Cornwall. I wonder if Richard will have to go overseas. Gordon is lucky. Not that he isn’t doing an excellent job. They couldn’t have done without him on the estate. Oh, I do hope this wretched war will be over before Richard has to go out there.”

I could read her well. She was thinking: here were two good men, either of whom, with a little encouragement, would be ready to marry me, and yet I went on mourning for someone who might never come back.

There was a telephone call from Richard. My mother took it and when she came to me she was very excited.

“Who do you think has just telephoned? Richard. He’s got a little leave and wants to come for the weekend.”

“And you said you would be delighted to see him, I am sure.”

“I did.”

“Is this leave because he is going overseas?”

“I asked him that. He said no, they can’t make any decision about that. He said the wound is playing up a bit and they won’t let him go while he is in that state.”

She looked pleased and excited. I knew she was hoping.

Richard arrived. My father was delighted to see him and my mother was more pleased than she had been for a long time because my brother Robert had leave too, though I feared that might mean that he would soon be going with his regiment to the Continent.

Richard arrived in the evening on Friday and would have to leave on Sunday afternoon to be sure of being back in the barracks by the appointed time.

He looked a little strained, I thought.

We sat round the dining-room table and talked about the progress of the war, and I was not alone with Richard until the following morning.