The Guernsey Saga Box Set

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The Guernsey Saga Box Set Page 16

by Diana Bachmann


  Filly, who adored him and agreed with his every decision, allowed him to tease away her nerves and shyness, after all she had met his parents at the wedding. Anxious to please everyone, she smiled and gave the situation her best effort.

  Gregarious by nature and full of fun, Filly made friends with people in the village. Nevertheless, her lonely pillow was often damp in the morning.

  *

  Auntie Aline had sent Suzanne enough money for her train fare from Wales to stay with them for Christmas. Lots of girls were going to relatives for the holiday: the teachers made all the arrangements and saw the girls off by rail, through the Moel Fammau mountain range at Bodfari, to Chester, where seniors transferred them to their connections.

  Aline met her at Bristol to escort her the rest of the way, and Suzanne stared at her aunt for several moments before realising who she was. ‘You look different, Auntie,’ she said.

  ‘Six months is a long time.’

  ‘Yes . . . But . . . I know what it is. Your hair is a different colour!’

  Aline had hoped the child wouldn’t notice, or at least have the grace not to comment. The fact was she had not been able to find a hairdresser with the right colour dye to keep the grey hidden. ‘It’s not polite to make personal remarks, Suzanne,’ she said sharply.

  ‘Oh. Sorry.’ Her niece turned away to stare out of the window, hurt at being rebuked so soon.

  Marie was sadly put out: after all this time away from home there was no sign yet of them getting back. ‘Never in my wildest nightmares could I have imagined we would be away for Christmas,’ she moaned repeatedly.

  The novelty of Christmas shopping soon wore off, trailing round after Grandma and Auntie as they enjoyed criticising everything on offer. Grandpa seldom came with them, preferring to sit at home with his pipe and radio, mulling over his newspaper. Suzanne almost wished she might do the same, though she did enjoy visits to tea and coffee shops. She bought a china dog in Woolworths for Grandma, and a bowl with a cork stump in the middle for Grandpa’s pipe. For Auntie she got a little glass vase for her bedroom. And she made them each a Christmas card.

  All of them found Christmas a sadly odd affair. They didn’t have a tree, but Suzanne had made an impressive length of paperchains which stretched right round the room. Grandma contrived to create a Christmas cake from ingredients she had collected up from their ration books for several weeks, but there was a strange sense of festivity-in-miniature as Grandpa tried to carve the capon. Where were the steaming piles of vegetables, sauces, and huge boiled ham? Where were all the family faces topped with hilarious hats? The wine, brandy-soaked pudding flaming blue? The port and cigars, the jokes and endless laughter?

  After they had cleared away the lunch the presents were handed out.

  ‘Ooh! Thank you Auntie.’ Suzanne was really pleased with the pony book. She said much the same to Grandma and Grandpa, though she didn’t feel quite so enthusiastic about the leather-bound Bible. Her aunt and grandparents kissed her for their respective presents and seemed pleased. Grandpa gave Grandma a new watch and she gave him a new pipe.

  Aline had organised her own present. It was the suit from Simpson’s. She gave her parents a small mirror: there wasn’t one in the bathroom.

  *

  In Guernsey, Sarah was planning to cook her first ever Christmas dinner. It would not be the lavish meal they had always associated with the festive season at Val du Douit, cooked by her mother, or even like Mina’s at Les Marettes, because the food rationing was dreadfully limiting. Her speed round the tennis court had been severely hampered in the past few years by the extra weight she had put on since Suzanne’s arrival, so shedding just over a stone in the past six months was a bonus, and even Greg looked better after being pruned down to fourteen stones, but it was ridiculous being on such a restricted diet for the holiday.

  In waiting for Greg to come in for lunch she had written her shopping list, and looked up, now, to frown at the clock. She was debating whether to phone Les Marettes when she heard him arrive. ‘What has happened?’ she asked. ‘Why so late?’

  Greg pulled off his coat and cycle clips, and draped his large frame over a kitchen chair. ‘It’s Dad. He’s had a fall and Mina came out to call me from the greenhouse to help get him up to bed.’

  ‘Has the doctor seen him?’

  ‘Yes. That’s why I stayed on. I had to wait till he’d been; Ma wouldn’t have heard half he had to say.’

  ‘Which was . . .?’

  ‘He reckons there is some concussion, but we’ll have to wait a few days to see how he goes on.’ He accepted the cup of tea Sarah poured for him and grimaced as he drank: he still hadn’t got used to taking it without sugar. ‘That’s not the worst problem, though. You remember Mina’s brother was injured in the bombing on the White Rock?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He is coming home from hospital but in a wheelchair. He can’t do anything for himself and Mina says she will have to go and stay at his house to look after him.’

  Sarah frowned. ‘You mean she’ll leave Les Marettes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She stared at him, eyes wide with horror. ‘Not go to Les Marettes at all?’

  Greg nodded. They both knew that meant leaving their bungalow for a while at least, and moving back into the Gaudion family house.

  She closed her eyes, covering her mouth with her hand. A saucepan began to boil over on the stove. She ran to it, just as the baby started crying.

  Greg fetched Richard and returned, sitting him on his knee.

  ‘When does Mina leave? When must we go?’

  ‘Friday. I would like to have asked her to give us more time, but one couldn’t expect the poor man to stay in hospital any longer. He has been there for months.’

  ‘Friday! That gives us four days to pack up and move our stuff over there.’ She circled the table to put her arms round Greg’s shoulders. ‘Never rains but it pours! So it looks as though I’ll be cooking Christmas dinner over there, instead of bringing them here. What about George? Will he still want to come?’ They had invited him to spend Christmas with them, but the thought of inflicting the old folk on him was a bit much.

  ‘We’ll have to ask him.’ He bounced the baby on his knee to keep him happy while Sarah busied herself at the sink. ‘What’s for lunch?’

  ‘Potatoes fried with onions, carrot and swede mash, and cabbage. I’ve made up some gravy with the fat left over from yesterday’s chops,’ a rather inflated title for two pathetic pieces of scrag end, ‘and I stirred in a fraction of Marmite.’ The latter being a bit extravagant as there was only one more pot left in her mother’s store.

  ‘Sounds delicious.’ Greg’s feigned enthusiasm fooled neither of them.

  *

  Christmas at Les Marettes could not be described as jolly even by the wildest stretch of imagination, but George and, following a last minute invitation when Sarah learned she would be alone, her friend Gelly Sommers, helped the Gaudions make the most of the comparatively frugal fare. The old man remained upstairs in bed, showing no interest whatever in coming down. His bad sight had deteriorated since his fall and his mind wandered more than ever, so he was perfectly happy sitting in resplendent comfort, chatting away to the wardrobe, believing it was a succession of visitors.

  Alice proved to be even less of a problem. She concocted in her mind all she couldn’t hear of the conversations going on around her, as she had done for the past dozen or so years, and consequently her comments offered a source of much needed hilarity to the occasion.

  Sarah had left their home two weeks earlier with profound misgivings; but she was older and wiser than the young bride who had moved into Les Marettes eleven years before, better equipped to handle her awkward mother-in-law. Daisy had come too, agreeing to move into one of the attic bedrooms, and Greg had tracked down a day nurse to help with his father, so the move wasn’t as traumatic as she had anticipated.

  George brought a couple of bottles of wine with him, and once
everyone had been served a slice of chicken and the inevitable pile of vegetables, Greg raised his glass and said, ‘To absent friends!’

  Everyone raised their glasses. ‘Absent friends!’

  Alice raised her glass, too. ‘And the sooner they go the better!’

  Gelly snorted into her glass, spraying wine over her blouse.

  Sarah’s nose wrinkled ominously and she dashed out to the kitchen. She wanted to laugh . . . and cry. Her heart ached miserably for her family, but especially for her little girl: every moment of this day in particular, she wondered what Suzanne was doing. Was she with Ma and Pa? Did she have any presents? Christmas Eve had been hell with no stocking to fill, no cake to put out for Father Christmas. Not that Suzanne believed the fairy-tale any longer, but nonetheless they all wanted to preserve the ritual. And the child had never seen her little brother. Did she even know he’d been born?

  When she returned to the dining-room there were more toasts.

  ‘Ruination to the Reich!’ George declared.

  ‘Kick the Krauts off the Continent!’ Gelly called.

  ‘And may he soon come downstairs again!’ Alice nodded at her, smiling.

  Sarah grinned. ‘Here’s to next Christmas with all our loved ones safely back home!’

  After lunch they sat in the living-room round the wireless, to listen to the King’s speech. The radios had already been confiscated once, but returned for Christmas as a special concession. Fortunately Alice had forgotten about the broadcast and had gone upstairs for ‘forty winks’, so the listeners would not be obliged to repeat every sentence.

  The King spoke of the bravery and fortitude of both servicemen and civilians. He referred to the wonderful Merchant Navy bringing vital supplies . . . and the warships who protected them . . . The four friends devoured every word, waiting impatiently for mention of the only British territory to be overrun by the Huns.

  But no mention ever came.

  ‘Do you reckon they have forgotten we exist?’ Gelly demanded, bitterly.

  Greg scowled. ‘They can’t have. But you’d think he could have sent us some message.’

  ‘Perhaps he knows something we don’t. Maybe an invasion is planned to start any minute and he was warned not to draw attention to us.’ Sarah knew it was a forlorn hope: she just wanted to raise their spirits a little after the disappointment.

  ‘How are you off for tea?’ George asked. ‘Got enough to make another pot?’

  Thanks to her mother there were still a few pounds left. ‘Yes, I’ll go and make it now.’

  Dear God! Six whole months of occupation! Enough was enough! How much longer was this confounded war going on?

  Chapter Eight – CAPTIVES

  ‘Have you filled in your Registration Forms yet?’ George asked. He had called with a precious gift of Guernsey whiting.

  ‘Greg’s just come in. He’s starting work on them now in the dining-room. Go through and have a word.’ Sarah finished folding the nappies which had been strung across the kitchen above the stove, before following him.

  Greg was seated at the table with papers strewn in front of him. ‘I’ve filled in all the details about my date of birth and who my father is . . .’ he looked up at the other two and smiled, ‘. . . and now I come to the easy part. A description of me. Let’s see . . . tall, dark, handsome, attractive to women . . .’

  ‘Here, you better give me that . . .’ Sarah snatched playfully at the form, ‘. . . I think we should fill in the descriptions for each other, or the Krauts are going to deport us for lying. Let’s see . . . lanky, going grey, clothes hanging loose from malnutrition, that sounds nearer the truth.’

  ‘They’d love me for the malnutrition bit. Imprison me for offensive literature, most likely!’ But it was true, and especially so of Sarah herself: she’d lost much of her sparkle.

  ‘I can’t think what they want all this information for,’ George grumbled.

  ‘I suppose they need to know how many of us there are,’ Sarah suggested, ‘for food rationing.’ The perpetual problem. ‘But why the details about our parents, for heaven’s sake!’

  ‘To weed out the possible Jews? Thank goodness William and Annemarie got away.’

  ‘And I gather they are requisitioning all empty houses, either for themselves or for their Todt workers. The forms should help them.’

  Greg looked startled. The Organisation Todt, named after the Nazi military engineer Fritz Todt, who had designed the fortifications of ‘The Atlantic Wall’, had imported thousands of slave workers gleamed from all over Europe to construct massive defences all over the island. ‘Perhaps we’d better put our address as the bungalow. We don’t want them to know it’s empty.’

  George shrugged. ‘That’s up to you, but I wouldn’t do it. You never know who’s watching you. We get officials down at the careening yard, prowling round the boats and asking questions. Did you know that all the boats have to be re-registered? Even the blessed little skiffs and tenders. Do they imagine someone is going to sail off to England with all their military secrets in a six foot pram with a six inch draft?’ He snorted. ‘They’re nuts!’

  ‘Simon Baker was livid the other day,’ Greg told them. ‘They had taken away his Morris . . . well it wasn’t much use to him now with hardly any petrol available. He was walking across the road at the Bridge when a car came tearing up, blasting its horn for him to get out of the way. He had to jump back onto the pavement, only to see it was his own flipping car being driven past with a Jerry officer sitting in the back.’

  ‘That’s nothing,’ George laughed. ‘You know how obsessed Willy Owens was about his new car . . . well he decided the Huns were not going to get it. So he took the whole bally thing apart, took him days to do it, and buried each piece in the field behind his place. Silly ass forgot that they had the records of all vehicles from the States Road Tax Office. Next thing he knew he got a letter stating that all cars under a certain age were to be handed over, clean and in first class working order! It took him two weeks hard labour to dig it all up and put it together again.’

  All three were convulsed. Willy was a pompous fat peacock.

  ‘They haven’t written to us yet,’ Greg wiped his eyes, ‘but Dad’s car is so old they probably don’t think it’s worth it.’ He went on to tell George of the repeated visits he had had regarding the greenhouses. ‘These Krauts reckon they know everything about raising greenhouse crops. I’ve got a pile of papers and instructions in the office, and most of it is only good for loo paper!’

  One had to laugh, of course. Otherwise one would have to go out and shoot oneself . . . except one wouldn’t have a gun. Everyone had had to hand over all firearms however ancient the musketry.

  Sarah, responsible for all the catering, was constantly weary of trying to create something edible out of nothing. She worried about the baby. Milk was one of the first things to be rationed, and although her brother John had risked keeping back more than his quota from the milkings at Val du Douit, setting it aside for Greg to collect, fetching it was becoming increasingly difficult: carrying a concealed loaf of bread or well-wrapped fish about one’s person while riding a bicycle was hard enough, but concealing miscellaneous bottles of milk was something else. She was worried about Greg, too. He had lost over two stone already; she had had to alter the waistbands of his trousers, and still he needed braces to keep them up.

  One thing of which there was no shortage early in 1941, was paint. George remarked on the fact one day after visiting a hardware shop and Greg immediately made a mental note. And it was with enormous glee that he and Sarah set about obliterating the nauseating colours of Les Marettes, transforming the house to cream walls and white doors and windows. His parents never noticed.

  Whenever the weather was fine enough Sarah wheeled Richard in his pram through the lanes to Bordeaux Bay. Winter gave way to spring and though the March winds were cold, she risked sitting on a rock near the shore, one day, to gaze out over the Russel towards Herm and Jethou. She had
sat on this same rock so many times in the past when Suzanne was small, even before the child was born, little dreaming that their idyllic life could ever be so shattered. There was no doubt that this had been a land of lotus-eaters: the winter parties, the summer picnics, the bridge, tennis and badminton and trips to Herm with George and Margery; the fun and laughter associated with being one of a large family, with their supportiveness during a crisis (well, most times, anyway). And now it was all swept away. They really must try to build up more of a social life: they had all the time in the world, now. The curfew made it a bit awkward, but why not invite friends for bridge and to stay overnight? Bringing their own supper and breakfast, naturally. She would put it to Greg. Gulls and terns wheeled over the rocks, sandpipers trotted along the edge of the receding tide, hunting food grubs. Did Suzanne ever think of Bordeaux? she wondered. Where was she? Who was looking after her? Why, after nearly nine months, had they had no word of her whereabouts? She swallowed quickly, trying to control the tightening in her throat, the lead weight in her chest.

  An aircraft zoomed overhead, breaking into her thoughts. She didn’t know if it was a Hun or RAF, but if it was the latter the big guns would open up any minute. She hurried home with the sleeping babe.

  *

  Hundreds, thousands of messages were sent through the Red Cross Organisation, from the mainland to Guernsey and vice versa, but only a small number reached their destinations. The messages were of twenty-five words maximum and heavily censored. Sarah received notification that a message had arrived for her in the late spring of 1941, two weeks before one of her many messages to various members of her family arrived in Cornwall for William. As instructed, Sarah went up to Elizabeth College where she was allowed to read her message. It said little except that all the family, including Suzanne were well and happy and looking forward to seeing her again. On the way home she made a slight detour, propped her bicycle against St Sampson’s churchyard wall and went inside to kneel alone . . . and thank God.

 

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