In Falling Snow (4 page)

I peered into the snow ahead of us. “It's very dark.”

“Night tends to do that. Cicely said you were supposed to be in Soissons with the hospital there. Frances has told her to ‘fix it, will you, dear.' I think Cicely's planning to ship you off as soon as she can.”

I smiled. “I think you're right about that. The Red Cross gave me a choice—a hospital ship in the Aegean, nursing typhoid cases, or France, where there were vacancies in Soissons. When we last heard from Tom, he mentioned Amiens so I asked to go to Soissons because it's close. To be honest, I don't quite know what possessed me to follow Miss Ivens,” I said.

“I do. She's put one of her spells on you,” Violet said. “Frances could convince rain to fall upwards.”

“She probably could.” I laughed. “And I'm very glad to have come to meet you all. It sounds marvellous, what you're planning to do. But I really must go tomorrow. I'm supposed to be looking for Tom, not having fun.”

“Surely you can do both,” Violet said. She paused. “We're just as near Amiens as Soissons is, and we're a good deal nearer Paris, more to the point. It's criminal to be too far from Paris when one is living in France, my dear. Perhaps you could just stay with us until you find him. That wouldn't hurt.” She looked over at me, screwing up her nose and giving me a little pixie smile.

“Perhaps I could,” I said. “I mean, it's not as if I'll be able to locate him just like that anyway.”

“Exactly. I imagine it might be quite difficult to find one young man in all this war. Even if he started in Amiens, he would have moved south with the troops by now.” I was nodding agreement. I hadn't given much thought to how I'd actually locate Tom, and Violet was right. It might take quite a bit of time. “Hurrah,” she said, although I hadn't said anything. “Someone I can have a laugh with. I have to warn you, Iris, the others take everything very seriously. And don't get me wrong. I like being at Royaumont and I'm frightfully serious, but goodness me a little fun now and then never goes astray.” I didn't reply.

“So why does your father want you to take your brother home?” Violet said after a pause.

“He's only fifteen,” I said. I felt a pull of emotion. “We're very close, Tom and I.” Suddenly I thought I might cry. I narrowed my eyes to stop the tears.

“Oh, that
is
young,” Violet said, failing to notice my upset. “And so you've come all this way, all by yourself?”

“Yes,” I said, recovering my composure. “Actually, the ship journey was fun. But then we were held up in Folkestone because of the Channel storms, then Boulogne, then Paris. I've been to the train station for three days running but there were no trains to Soissons. The line's been blown up.”

Violet laughed. “There is a war on, dear.”

“So I hear. I didn't mind at all. I loved the station, just watching all the people.”

Gare du Nord had been exactly as I'd imagined it, the rafters thickly lined with pigeons, moving about aimlessly, mirroring the people milling about below. The uniforms were there, the khaki of the British, the blue and red of the French who looked so gallant wrapped in their greatcoats with their caps low. Ordinary French people were scattered among the soldiers, their baskets and bags and need to travel in front of them like signs against enchantment. Porters were moving about slowly as if there had never been a war. They looked at their watches, at their shiny shoes, and cast sly glances at the soldiers.

On the second day, having confirmed the train was cancelled again, I'd left the station and wandered the city. “We weren't supposed to be on the streets unaccompanied, but how could I stay inside?” I said. “It was Paris,” I added, trying to sound sophisticated like Violet. And it
was
Paris, the Paris that Claire had made so real for me. From the way Daddy had talked, I'd expected the city to be in ruins because of the war but it was nothing like that at all.

I went to all the places I'd read about. I started to feel as if I could be someone else, not plain Iris Crane from Risdon but someone who might be present at important places and important moments, someone more like Violet seemed to me to be, perfectly relaxed in the world. This new Iris ate lunch in a café in Montmartre called Chartiers—baked ham with cabbage that tasted heavenly, like nothing she'd ever eaten at home—and drank red wine that came in a little glass bottle and tasted like the fruit it had once been. She stood below the Arc de Triomphe. In the afternoon, she walked along a street on her way back to the pension, kicking a little rounded black pebble that skipped along in front of her merrily. The street was empty but for an old man in a cap and a boy playing marbles. She kicked the stone and felt she had found perfection itself.

Later I wondered if that girl, that Iris, was still there on the street in the Latin Quarter kicking the stone, and I could go back and find her, and change the rest of the story. But of course, you can't do that. If I was to be that new Iris, I would have to give up the old Iris. There would be no going back. There never is.

On the third day, I'd been fully ready to go to Soissons. At the station I remember seeing another nurse in a wool coat like mine hurrying along the platform with a confidence I admired. She was older than me, perhaps middle forties. Nearer me was a young French couple, leaning towards one another, focusing on a bundle the woman held in her arms, an infant. They looked so forlorn, I was wondering whether I should ask them if they needed help when the man looked up past the woman and child and met my gaze. His eyes were dark and wet. He looked from my face to my shoulder, saw the red cross emblazoned on my coat, the red cross of hope. “Please, please, will you help us?” he asked in French. “Our little one is sick.”

I went over immediately, with no idea what I might be able to do. “I'll do what I can,” I said. I led the mother, whose gaze was fixed on the child, over to a bench. When she did look up at me finally I saw dark smudges under her eyes and tear lines down her face. I put a hand on her shoulder and smiled with what I hoped was reassurance. She kept both arms firmly around the child. Her husband remained a little distance away.

I was trying to remember what I'd learned about newborns, for the child looked very new. A boy, his mother told me, her voice croaky. He'd been sick with a fever for three days and they'd come to Paris but there were no doctors available because of the war so they were going back home. The night before, the boy had gone completely rigid—they'd thought he was dying—and then he'd slept. He'd been asleep all night now. The woman's voice shook with emotion. I kept my own voice as even as I could. “Is he on the breast?” I asked matter-of-factly. He was. “Was the fever very high?” She nodded, yes. The boy had had a seizure, I surmised, brought on by the fever, no bad thing but not really relevant to the underlying condition. “I'll need to have a look at him,” I said. She brought the child down to cradle him in her arms. I felt his forehead. “The fever's broken,” I said. “That's good.” Gently, I peeled back the shawl and a blanket. I checked glands, no swelling; pupils, normal as far as I could tell; belly, no distension.

“He has a rash,” his mother said.

“Show me,” I said. There were serious illnesses that started with fevers and moved to pox. The mother cradled the child in her left arm and lifted the nightdress with her right hand. I pulled up a little vest. The skin was red with raised white papules, all around the child's torso. It wasn't chickenpox, which came out everywhere, nor shingles in a newborn. Nor measles; the spots were too small. And then I knew it. It was false measles. A high fever resolves into a rash like this that spreads. Roseola was the name. It used to be confused with measles, thus the common name of false measles.

“I'm pretty sure it's harmless,” I said. “The fever has worn him out. Exhausted, needs fluid.” I was talking more to myself now. The little boy's lips were as dry as his mother's. “And so do you. You must look after yourself to keep your milk. Have you expressed?” I didn't know the word and made a pumping action with my hand on my own breast. The girl smiled for the first time and she was beautiful suddenly. She had, she said. “Good. He'll wake soon, I hope, and be ravenous. Feed him as often as he likes. The rash should move out from his middle before fading in a day or so. If it does anything differently, you should find a doctor.” The girl looked worried again. “I'm a nurse,” I said, “not a doctor.”

The other nurse I'd noticed when I'd arrived at the station earlier was talking to the little porter. I wondered if I should ask her advice. I caught snatches of the conversation. The porter was rocking from the balls of his feet to his heels as she spoke. I'm sorry, madam, he said in French, then, there are no sleeping cars on account of the war. You will have to sit up like everyone else. The journey is not long. Oh for God's sake, man, she replied, can't you speak English? She made a pillow of her hands and put her head there in a mock sleep. She even snored gently. The porter told her again that there were no berths because the journey was too short. She wouldn't need sleep. Her cheeks were flushed with exasperation. She looked straight at me then and called over. “Can you help me?” she said. “He doesn't seem to understand.”

“Mattresses,” I said in French to the porter. “She has mattresses she wants you to put on the train.”

“
Oui
,” said the little porter. “Of course. Why didn't she say so?” The porter went off to get help with the mattresses, and the woman came over. I stood. We were about the same height, a rare enough experience for me. I had been the tallest in my class all through school.

“You're a marvel,” the woman said. “If I don't get their beds on the train, my girls will have another rough night of it. Frances Ivens.” She held out her gloved hand, which I took.

“Iris Crane.”

“You're not English.”

“Australian.”

“Where on earth did you learn to speak French?” Before I could answer she was looking beyond me to the mother and child.

“Have you nursed babies? This child is sick,” I said. “I didn't look after children very much in my training.”

“You're a nurse to boot,” she said. “Why don't you come with me?”

“What?” I said. “Where?”

But Miss Ivens had moved on to the child and his mother. She smiled and I felt a great sense of relief. “My bag's over there, dear one,” she said, placing a hand on the young woman's shoulder. “I'll be back,” and she strode off, returning directly with a little leather case. When she opened it up, I saw the stethoscope and instruments, and that was when I realised she was a doctor, not a nurse.

“I really didn't expect to see a woman doctor,” I said to Violet now.

“You're lucky Frances didn't bite your head off. I shouldn't think she'd like being mistaken for a nurse. She's even particular about women doctors being employed as nurses. That's what they do at some of the hospitals, employ women doctors but only to nurse. Frances says we'll never do that at Royaumont.”

Miss Ivens sat down beside the mother and confidently took the sleeping boy into her own arms and examined him while I recounted the symptoms.

“And what did you conclude?” she said, looking at me so intensely I felt nervous and unsure.

I told her what I'd told the couple. “The rash,” I said.

“Well done. It's roseola. Reassure this poor woman her child will live.” Miss Ivens smiled at the mother. “She must make sure he takes in fluid while he has the diarrhoea. She should give him sugar water. Where are they from?”

I asked the woman. “Senlis,” she said.

“That's near enough,” Miss Ivens said. She took out a pen and scrap of paper and wrote down an address. “Tell them that's a hospital where they'll always find a doctor who can help them.” I told the woman, who thanked us both, tears streaming down her face. “Tell her she must bring him when he's well so we can see if he needs extra care. The seizure has probably done no harm, but . . . we don't need to worry about that just yet.”

I interpreted as confidently as I could. “You need to bring your baby to the hospital when he's better,” I said. “No urgency.”

“Where did you say you were going?” Miss Ivens asked me when the couple left us.

“Soissons,” I said. “My train has just arrived.” I was disappointed, to be honest, to see the Soissons train running. I'd hoped for another day in Paris.

“That's no good,” Miss Ivens said. “I need an interpreter. Come to Royaumont.”

“Where's Royaumont?”

“That way,” Miss Ivens said, pointing north. “Not far. And much more exciting. Where are your things? Here's the porter with the mattresses and the train will be off soon. Hurry now or we'll miss it and I don't know when there's another.”

“But I have orders.”

“I'll take care of those.”

“And so, here I am,” I said to Violet. We'd arrived at the station in Viarmes. Violet pulled around and brought the car to a sudden stop next to the platform. Our bags and chattels were just as we'd left them, the straw mattresses piled against the back wall, our luggage supporting them on one side, my own portmanteau, everything I owned in the world, standing bravely against its first French snow. The station remained deserted. We worked together quickly in the cold to pack the truck. Violet left the headlamps burning so we could see what we were doing.

When we'd finished loading the truck, we climbed back in and set off for Royaumont. “I've still seen no sign of this war they keep talking about,” I said. “And for all I know, Matron is writing to my father right now to say I've gone missing in Paris.”

“I doubt they'll even notice,” Violet said. “And if they do, Frances will speak to someone who knows someone and the orders will disappear. She has a way. I know what you mean about the war, though. Royaumont's so strange. You don't imagine the war could ever touch us there.”