However, the evacuees soon discovered that the rooms at the back of the house were not so clean. Anything but: the long-eared cocker spaniel with matted, flea-ridden coat saw to that. Daily he traipsed in from the back garden covered in mud which was mixed into a paste of long, black dog-hairs and grease from Mrs Hughes’s frying pan. Children are not normally quick to notice such things, so it was not until the incident of the porridge oats that they realised just how disgusting the floor was. Reaching up one day to put her saucepan on a shelf, the lady’s vast stomach dislodged a bag of oats from the drainboard, which burst as it hit the floor. The girls watched in disbelief as, having swept the oats up into her dustpan, Mrs Hughes tipped the lot into a used paper bag and put it away in the food cupboard.
Alone in their room, Suzanne and Melanie speculated on what possible use the woman could have for the oats. They discovered next morning at breakfast.
“Ugh!” Melanie exclaimed. “What’s happened to the porridge?”
“Eh? What are you fussin’ about?”
“It’s full of grit and dog-hairs!”
“Pah! It won’t hurt you.”
“I’d rather have toast, please.”
“Not until you finish that porridge!” Under a thatch of white hair the incongruous black eyebrows met in a terrifying frown. “There’ll be no wastin’ of food in this house.”
She sounded so fierce and angry that both girls reluctantly stuck their spoons into the grey mush. The grit crunched in their teeth, and pulling the long hairs out of their throats made them retch. They left as much as they dared on their plates.
“Shall we tell Miss Watson?” Melanie asked on the way to school.
“I think we should,” Suzanne said. “But . . . suppose she sends the billeting officer down to tell Fatty not to give us any more dirty food? She’ll be flaming mad and take it out on us.”
“Mmm. P’raps we’d better leave it, this time. I suppose it could have been worse: the dog might not have been house-trained.” Melanie dissolved into giggles.
*
The bus to Town arrived at last and Sue climbed aboard, just as the rain was starting.
*
Fatty Hughes had decided to economise on laundry, Sue recalled, and when the girls had returned home from school one day they found they were to sleep in the best bedroom . . . sharing Fatty’s double bed.
The two had an argument on the first night, hissing at each other in the bathroom against the dubious honour of sleeping in the middle. “I bagsy the outside,” Melanie demanded.
“Not likely!” Suzanne retorted. “I’m not sleeping next to her.”
But it was Fatty herself who made the decision. “I’m not havin’ that Melanie next to me in bed,” she confided, removing her teeth and dropping them into a glass of water on the dressing table, to sink through a sea of decaying food crumbs. “She’s always complainin’. I don’t like her. She’s not nice like you.”
Suzanne attempted a feeble smile at the unwanted accolade.
The chocolate cake incident brought Melanie’s final downfall. One evening at the end of their meal, Fatty got out the rusty, round cake tin and cut three wedges of cake, conveying each to their respective plates with fat sticky fingers which she licked clean after each serving.
Suzanne took a large bite and nearly gagged – it tasted revolting.
Melanie, meanwhile, was fumbling with her portion over her plate, removing a layer from the base.
“What you doin’, then?” Fatty glared at the girl.
“Er . . . nothing.” Melanie picked up the cake and nibbled a little from the top.
Suzanne glanced up at the proud cook, at Melanie and then, for the first time, at the underneath of her piece . . . at the colourful blue, green and yellow whiskers growing there. Ugh!
“Yes you are. Why are you cuttin’ it like that?”
Melanie, red in the face, was nearly in tears. “Because it’s gone mouldy,” she muttered.
“Mouldy!” The three chins which concealed the collar of Fatty’s blouse, quivered. “Rubbish! My cakes don’t go mouldy. That’s good food, that, all made fresh last week before I went to Bodfari.” Both girls knew she visited her cousin in Bodfari three weeks ago. Fatty planted her vast bosom into the remaining slices on the bread and butter plate as she leaned across to grab the cake from Melanie’s plate and cram it, whole, into her own mouth.
In the instant that Fatty’s attention was diverted, Suzanne grabbed her cake and held it in her hand inside her skirt pocket. “Will you excuse me, please? I need to go to the bathroom.” And without waiting for an answer she dashed upstairs to flush the offending object down the lavatory, waiting to check that every crumb had disappeared before going back to the table.
Fatty Hughes was still ranting. “Why can’t you eat up the good food I give you like Suzy does? Look, she’s finished all of hers.”
The price of popularity was to be kept at Fatty’s house as ‘favourite’ while Melanie was removed to the hostel.
*
Arriving at the town terminus, Sue was relieved to see the Bordeaux bus had not yet left. Dashing through the rain she leapt up the steps as the engine rumbled into life, and took a rear seat where she could be alone with her thoughts.
*
A week or so after Melanie left, Fatty had gone to the doctor. She had been scratching a great deal, lately, particularly at the sores between her fingers. “Can’t remember the name of the trouble what he says I got, but he gave me some ointment,” the landlady told Suzanne over tea. “He says it has to be rubbed all over my body every night,” adding, “O’ course I can’t do it all, I’m too big to reach. So you’ll have to help me.”
The thirteen-year-old choked into her teacup.
Fatty undressed in front of the fire while Suzanne cleared the table. Returning from the scullery she tried not to show any reaction to the vast acreage of mottled, pimply flesh; she had never seen a naked grown-up before and this was a pretty grotesque introduction.
“Here,” the woman said, handing over a flat tin of pungent-smelling paste, “You do my back and I’ll manage my front.”
Thanking heaven for small mercies, the girl commenced pasting, her brain busy counting how many nights were left of the school term before she could escape to her grandparents for Christmas.
*
Suzanne knew she would be grateful for the rest of her life, for the way Auntie and Gran had cared for her. Looking back she could only guess at how horrified they must have been on her arrival.
Chapter Three – Escape Plans
Sue rubbed the condensation off the bus window and screwed up her eyes, trying to see the islands of Herm and Jethou across the Little Russel. They were just vague shadows through the thin blanket of rain. Even so, they were beautiful; the whole of Guernsey and its surrounding rocks and islets were beautiful, a glorious place to claim as home. A paradise, except . . . was it home any longer?
Surely the animosity, the misunderstandings between Gran and Auntie and her parents could soon be resolved: despite her threat this afternoon, it would be awful not to see her grandmother and aunt, simply to keep the peace with her parents.
*
“What in Heaven’s name is the matter with you?” Auntie had demanded on the station platform when she sat heavily onto her suitcase to wait for the dizziness to wear off.
“Just that I’ve been sitting in the train for a long time, I suppose.”
“You’re very skinny,” Gran remarked later at table. “Aren’t you eating properly in Denbigh?”
“The food isn’t very nice at Mrs Hughes’s.”
Marie Ozanne studied the blue circles round her granddaughter’s eyes, the thin wrists protruding from dirty cuffs. “Aline, you’d better take her to Dr Phillips tomorrow. Look at her hair – it’s a mess. Looks as though it’s been chewed by mice.”
“I think I’ve got nits, again. Mrs Williams says I haven’t when she checks every week, but I’m sure they’re there.”
Marie was appalled. “And why are you scratching your hands all the time?”
“They keep itching.”
*
Dr Phillips looked rather like a bloodhound with his long, droopy chin and perpetually sad expression. “There is a new and quite effective treatment for head-lice. You can buy it from your chemist,” he commented after fastidiously parting Suzanne’s hair with a wooden spatula which he hastily dropped into a sterile bin before pulling down her lower eyelids adding, “and she is very anaemic, too.” Then he picked up her hands and held them under his desk lamp, peering at them through a magnifying glass. “Hm. This will be the worst problem.”
“What is it?” Aline asked. “Surely not eczema?”
“No. Scabies.”
Aline nearly fainted. She had heard of it before, a dreadful type of microscopic bug like a crab which burrowed in channels under the skin and was found only in the unwashed classes. “You must be mistaken,” she shuddered. “That is impossible!”
The bloodhound raised his head, casting a watery eye over the woman who dared to question his diagnosis. He didn’t utter a word; his expression silenced her. Sitting back in his chair he made notes on a pad, then smiled at Suzanne . . . which was not a particularly encouraging sight. “Well, young lady, you will have to take Parrish’s Food three times a day for your anaemia. The scabies will be more difficult.” He turned to Aline. “She must bath every day in permanganate of potash and then every inch of skin must be covered with sulphur ointment. And of course, her clothes and bedlinen must be changed and washed every day.”
When Aline had got her breath back she asked in a strangled voice, “For how long?”
The heavy jowls shook despondently. “It varies. But in Suzanne’s case it shouldn’t take more than six weeks.”
Six weeks of non-stop laundry! Aline’s knees felt weak.
Six weeks! Suzanne’s first thought was that she wouldn’t be returning to school, or to Fatty, till well into the next term: the best bit of news she’d had in ages! However, at nearly fourteen she was well aware of the dreadful nuisance this must be to her aunt and grandmother. She felt guilty and embarrassed about it and said so when they got back to the flat.
Her grandmother’s response had been immediate: she put both arms round the girl, who was already a head taller than herself, and said, “Don’t you worry yourself about it. Your aunt and I are going to look after you and see you thoroughly fit before you go back. It’s not just the scabies, either. You are completely run down and I intend to find out why.”
The first clue came when Aline started applying the ointment. That’s funny,” Suzanne remarked. “It’s exactly the same stuff that Fatty Hughes has.”
“Are you sure?” Aline exchanged glances with her mother.
“I should be!” and she went on to explain how she coated her billetor with it every night.
Aline was kneeling on the floor at the time. She rocked back on her heels, mouth hanging open, eyes wide in horror.
Marie gasped. “What did you say? Well!” Her face turned puce. “What in the devil is your headmistress playing at?”
“She doesn’t know.”
“Why not? Didn’t you report it straight away?”
“No,” Suzanne shook her head.
Marie opened and shut her mouth twice before allowing herself to reply. “You didn’t know that the woman had no right asking you to do such a thing? Weren’t you disgusted?”
Her throat tight, the girl simply nodded.
Marie’s eyes narrowed. “Were you frightened of her?”
Suzanne nodded again.
“Didn’t the teachers ever inspect your billet?”
“Yes. But not when I was putting the ointment on.”
Marie’s shoulders heaved with anger. “And what else did this woman get up to?”
“Wait till she’s back in bed,” Aline reached out a steadying hand as her niece swayed. “She’s not fit to be up.”
By the time Marie and Aline had heard about the porridge oats, mouldy cake and the two girls sharing the billetor’s bed, Aline’s fountain pen was already busy drafting a fierce letter of condemnation to the headmistress.
“No wonder the woman never told you you had head-lice,” Marie observed. “She knew you had caught them from her. Like the scabies. Thank heavens your mother doesn’t know. She’d have fifty fits.”
Mummy. Suzanne had closed her eyes and tried to visualise her mother. But despite the irregular, twenty-five word Red Cross messages which arrived, months apart, the three and a half years of separation had dulled the mental image of her parents. If only she had had a photograph to remind her. Of course none of this would have happened if Mummy had got away in time before the Germans landed; no head-lice, no scabies . . . no Fatty Hughes for that matter. Mummy would have made a home and been there when she got home each day from school . . .
*
Like now? No, surely it would never have become like now! All the interminable family rows, no one seeing anyone else’s point of view. Mum constantly complaining and criticising Gran and Auntie. And Gran and Auntie going on about Mum whenever she visited them.
They had been so kind and protective, after the Fatty Williams affair, cooking up tasty meals to tempt her appetite, playing rummy to entertain her, sharing her favorite wireless programmes. They never complained about the extra work, their self-righteous anger given plenty of targets amongst school authorities, billeting officers and billetors, quite apart from Hitler and the Nazis.
“You getting out here, young miss?” the bus driver called down the aisle.
Sue peered out into the darkness. “Gosh, yes! I didn’t realise where we were. Seems to have stopped raining.” She paid her fare and hurried home down the dark lane.
“Some boy was on the telephone for you,” Sarah told her as she took off her mac.
“That’ll be John.” He of the black, wavy hair, soft, smiling lips and madly attractive blue eyes.
“John who?”
“Harper.”
“Where from? What does his father do?”
“They have a pub in town.”
“You don’t mean Busty Harper from the Kings Arms?”
“That’s right. I’ll phone him back before supper.”
Later, when Richard had fallen asleep and Sue was sitting at the supper table with her parents, Sarah asked, “What did that Harper boy want?”
“For me to go to the pictures with him next week,” Sue replied.
“I presume you said no?”
“No. I said yes.”
“Then you’d better phone him again and tell him you can’t.”
Sue sighed, very loudly. “Why ever not?”
“The Harpers are not the sort of people we mix with.” Sarah sounded quite adamant. “Anyone want another helping of pudding?”
“Why on earth not? John is very nice. He’s a prefect at college,” she added for good measure.
“Nevertheless he is not from the sort of family your father and I want you mixing with. Pass your plate.”
Sue glanced at her father, who remained silent. “That’s old-fashioned rubbish: went out with the ark. People don’t think like that any more.”
It was Sarah’s turn to look at Greg for support, but none was forthcoming. She pursed her lips. “Well we do!”
“That’s only because you were stuck here all through the war, out of touch. You don’t realise how society has changed.”
Greg felt obliged to jump in before Sarah exploded. “I don’t think it has changed all that much. There has always been a social ladder throughout history; wars have never altered that.”
“This last one did. Everyone in Britain worked and fought together. They became close pals with everyone else, rich and poor alike.”
Sarah was pleased, in a way, that Sue’s thinking had developed sufficiently to make such observations; on the other hand, she did not approve of precocious children arguing with their parents. “That may hav
e been so in a time of crisis. Now the war is over and we must return to normal as soon as possible. Now, let’s hear no more about it. Just telephone the boy and tell him you’d forgotten you had already made arrangements to do something else.”
“But that’s not true!”
“No, I know. I only suggested it so he wouldn’t be offended.”
Sue was furious, not that she was much interested in John Harper though he did give her the opportunity to get ‘in’ with his crowd. No, what really annoyed her was having her life, her decisions, interfered with. She glared at her mother. “What you are actually asking me to do is tell a lie to suit your social aspirations!”
Even Greg was shocked, so before Sarah got her breath back he ordered Sue to her room.
She marched out of the dining room carrying her plate of shepherd’s pie and slammed the door behind her.
*
The problem of Suzanne was discussed between rubbers over the bridge table with the Martels, at badminton with George and Gelly, Greg’s and Sarah’s old school friends, and with John Ozanne, Sarah’s brother, and Edna. Nothing was said to Marie and Aline – Sarah could imagine her sister saying “Really! Of course we had no trouble with her at all. Such a sweet, co-operative child. Would you like me to have a word with her for you?” She could do without that! Nevertheless, with all the observations and advice, plus pressure from Greg, Sarah was forced to concede that her daughter was understandably resentful of sudden parental authority. “You must give the girl more rein,” they all said.
So Sarah said nothing more about the Harper boy, and for the sake of peace Sue cancelled her date with him. Lots of parties and dances were to be held to celebrate the first Christmas since Liberation, and Sarah took Sue into town to buy her first long dress. “We want you to join us at as many functions as you want, dear,” she announced.
Sue was duly excited. She took Richard to the shops at St Sampson’s to buy presents for their parents and kept him amused making decorations for the Christmas tree.
Marie and Aline accepted Sarah’s invitation to Christmas lunch but elected to spend that evening at home. Which enabled Sarah to invite John and Edna to come to supper that night.
The Guernsey Saga Box Set Page 33