A squeal came down the line, as if a kitten had inhaled a kazoo. “Oh, we’ll have an adventure!”
Mary leaned her head against the wood paneling. “I’m not sure.”
“You haven’t been thinking, have you? There’s really no need. You see, there will be a peaked cap, with a badge.”
“You know I’m not a uniform girl.”
“But it’s hardly for your benefit, is it? It will work on men like catnip.”
“I’m not in the market.”
“Nonsense, darling. I telephoned the speaking clock. The time for mourning is over.”
“But you are outrageous!”
“Now look here,” said Hilda. “If you were mourning then I’d leave you to it. But now you are just moping. You’re almost certainly the reason Hitler is still bombing us. You know the Nazis cannot stand a funk.”
“I just—”
“Stop it. Say you’ll take the ambulance job. I’ve never worked a day in my life and I’m hardly going to start without you.”
Mary stared at the flowers. Their trumpets screaming with pollen. The gray light surprised into colors by the vase. “I’m just not sure if—”
“Oh do come along now,” said Hilda in a plaintive voice. “Won’t you put down the handset, whoever you are, and fetch my friend Mary to the telephone?”
“I don’t feel as if I’m for anything anymore, that’s the trouble. I used to know straight away what was the right thing to do.”
“Yes but never mind, because that was infuriating.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t deserve you.”
“The only thing you don’t deserve is what’s happened to you. Of course you feel low. But the longer you hide in your room the worse it’ll be.”
“I just don’t know if an ambulance job will help. It might only remind me.”
“But don’t you already think about it now?”
“Constantly.”
“It will be the same, then, only with uniforms and badges. Why wander through your thoughts when you could drive through them quite recklessly, with sirens? The worst that could happen is that we might help someone.”
Mary smiled despite herself. “Us. Imagine.”
“I know! Don’t tell me you can’t picture it. Screeching to the rescue—‘Oh, where did I put those bandages? I’m sure they were in this box but it seems to be full of glamour.’ ”
Mary hesitated. “I suppose we could try it for a while, and see.”
“That’s the spirit. Or at least, it’s something to put your spirit in when we find it again.’
Mary closed her eyes. “Thank you.” And when no reply came, “Hilda?”
“It’s just that you’ve never thanked me for anything before.”
“See?’ said Mary. “You should try being nice more often.”
March, 1941
AT SUNSET MARY REPORTED to the Air Raid Precautions station at St. Helen’s church in Bishopsgate. The church was undamaged, with only the windows boarded up. The area all around was laid waste. Mary made a point of not looking. If one kept the great yellow mounds of smashed brick in the corner of one’s eye, then the mind understood them as the contours of nature and forgot its trick of making one unhappy.
A man wrapped in a gray blanket was sitting outside at a trestle table.
“I’ve come on church business,” said Mary. “I’m the new vicar.”
The man raised his eyes with what Mary felt was impressive weariness.
“Mary North,” she said. “I’m to be the new driver for the Joint War Organisation stretcher party.”
He looked her up and down. He was fiftyish and gaunt, with red eyes and a silver two-day beard. He wore knee-high Wellingtons and his jacket bloomed with water stains. His breath was vapor in the thin light of the sunset. “You can drive?”
“Was it in the job description?”
At last, the man smiled. “I’m Huw. I’m one end of the stretcher. Clive is the other. He’ll be here once he runs out of beer money.”
“Glad to know you,” said Mary.
“You won’t be. Have you done this work before?”
“It’s my first time.”
He angled a thumb over his shoulder. “ ‘Well the van’s around the back if you want to familiarize yourself. There’s no bells or whistles. It’ll be just like a normal Sunday drive, only with bombing. The new nurse is already there—keen little thing she is, says she’s been here since two.”
“That’s my friend Hilda. Hates to miss a party. We signed up together.”
“You wait years, then two come along at once.”
The ambulance was a black Hillman saloon with red crosses on the door panels and four stretchers in a rack on the roof. Hilda was done up in a duffel coat two sizes too big for her. She was organizing the medical bag, and when she looked up her cap fell down over her eyes.
“Should we hug or salute?” she said.
“Shall we do both, to be safe?”
Hilda’s Red Cross brassard slipped to her elbow on the backswing.
“Idiot,” said Mary. “Let me fix that for you.”