“But I wasn’t going to let Johnnie go to England on his own,” says Gwen. “Not after . . . well . . .”
She doesn’t finish her sentence. Her eyes glitter with unshed tears; a stricken look crosses her face. Brian, her elder son, was lost at Trondheim, in the Norwegian campaign. After it happened, I would panic sometimes when I was with her, afraid of the gaps in our conversations, as though they were cliffs you could fall from—afraid of saying his name. Once I told her, I’m so frightened of reminding you, I don’t want to make you upset. . . . And she said, Vivienne, it’s not as though you’re reminding me of something I’ve forgotten. It’s not as though I don’t think of him every moment of every day. The only time I don’t think of him is when I’m fast asleep—then every morning I wake up and I have to learn it again. So let’s just get on with it. . . .
“I want to keep Johnnie close,” she says now.
I put my hand on her wrist.
“Of course you do,” I say. “Of course you wouldn’t want him to go.”
Perhaps I’m lucky that both my children are girls. When I was younger, I felt I’d love to have a son as well; but war changes everything. Even the things you hope for.
Mrs. du Barry brings our tea. The quilted tea cozy is shaped like a thatched cottage, and the milk jug has a crochet cover held in place by beads. There are cakes on a silver cakestand—Battenberg, cream slices, luxurious chocolate eclairs. I take a slice of Battenberg. We sip our tea and eat our cake, and watch as the sun sinks down in the sky and spreads its gold on the sea.
Gwen sighs.
“Johnnie’s such a worry—what he might get up to,” she says. “He’s been a bit wild since it happened. It’s not really anything he’s done, just what I feel he could do. . . .”
“It’s such a short time,” I tell her.
“He worshipped his brother,” she says.
“Yes.”
I remember Brian’s memorial service—how Johnnie didn’t cry, how he stood at attention, his face white as wax, his body so rigid, controlled. He made me think of a cello string stretched too tight, that might suddenly break. He troubled me. I know just why Gwen worries so about him.
“He longs to do what Brian did,” she tells me. “He wears Brian’s army jumper. And he’s got a box of Brian’s things—his binoculars, and his shotgun that he used for shooting rabbits, and his famous collection of Dinky cars that he kept from when he was small. The box is Johnnie’s most precious possession, he keeps it under his bed.”
I feel a tug of sadness for Johnnie.
We’re quiet for a moment. It’s getting late, and Mrs. du Barry hangs the CLOSED sign on her door. My hands are sticky with marzipan from the Battenberg cake, and I wipe them on my handkerchief. The spicy scent of the marigolds is all around us.
And then I ask the question that looms at the front of my mind—vivid as neon, inescapable.
“Gwen. What will happen?”
She leans a little toward me.
“They’ll overlook us,” she says, too definitely. “Don’t you think? Like in the Great War.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Nobody bothered with us, during the Great War,” she says.
“That’s true enough. But that was then . . .”
“I mean, what difference do we make to anything? What use could these little islands possibly be to Hitler?” There’s a note of pleading in her voice; perhaps it’s herself as much as me that she’s trying to persuade. “Maybe he won’t think of us. That’s what I hope, anyway. You’ve got to hope, haven’t you?”
But her hand holding the teacup is shaking very slightly, so the tea shivers all across its surface.
She clears her throat, which seems suddenly thick.
“Anyway, Vivienne—tell me more about all of you,” she says. Moving on to safer things.
“Blanche is unhappy,” I tell her. “She terribly wanted to go.”
“Well, she would, of course,” says Gwen. “There isn’t much here for young people, you can see how she’d long for London. And Millie?”
“She’s being ever so brave, though she doesn’t really understand.”
“She’s a poppet,” says Gwen.
“And Evelyn—well, I’m not sure she’s quite right in her mind anymore. Half the time she seems to forget that Eugene joined up. . . .” I see the shadow that rapidly moves across Gwen’s face, at the mention of Eugene, then fades away just as quickly. I wish I hadn’t eaten the Battenberg cake: the sweetness of the marzipan is making me feel slightly sick. “Sometimes she asks for him,” I tell her, “as though he’s still at home.”
“Poor Vivienne. Your mother-in-law was never exactly the easiest of people,” says Gwen carefully. “You’ve certainly got your hands full.”
Chapter 9
WE SAY GOOD-BYE. Gwen leaves, and I go to the ladies’. I wash the marzipan from my hands, push my brush through my hair, take out my compact to powder my face. My hands have a clean, astringent smell from Mrs. du Barry’s carbolic soap. Then I go back to the table to pick up my cardigan that I left there.
All the china on the tables begins to rattle violently. There’s a roaring from outside. At first, I can’t work out what it can be, then I think it must be a plane—yet the sound is too sudden, too loud, too near, for a plane. Fear surges through me: if this is a plane, it will crash on the town. Everyone rushes to the window. The air seems to thin, so it’s hard to breathe.
“No no no no,” says Mrs. du Barry. She’s standing close to me; she clutches my arm.
We see the three planes that are flying over us, swooping down over the harbor. We see the bombs falling, catching the sun as they fall. They seem to come down so slowly. And then the crump of the impact, the looming dust, the flame—everything breaking, broken, fires leaping up, loose tires and oil drums flung high in the air by the blast. I hear the ferocious rattle of guns. I think, stupidly, that at least there are soldiers here after all, the soldiers haven’t left us. Then I realize that the guns I hear are German guns, in the planes. They’re machine-gunning the men, the lorries. There’s a ripping sound, a flare of fire, as a petrol tank explodes. The men on the pier are scattered, running, crumpling like straw men, thrown down.
Fear floods me. My whole body is trembling. I think of my children. Will the planes fly all over the island, will they bomb my children? And Gwen—where is Gwen? How much time did she have? Could Gwen have gotten away?
I stand there, shaking. Someone drags me under a table. We are all under the tables now—the elderly couple, Mrs. du Barry, the mother clutching her child. Someone is saying Oh God oh God oh God. There’s a shattering sound as the window blows in, shards of glass all around us in a dangerous, glittering shower. Somebody screams—it might be me, I don’t know. We crouch there, wait for the end, for the bomb that will surely land on us.
Suddenly, amid the clamor, the air raid siren goes off.
“About time,” mutters Mrs. du Barry beside me. “About bloody time.” I hear the sob in her voice. Her fingers dig into my arm.
The elderly woman is gasping now, as though she has no breath, her husband holding her helplessly, like someone holding on to water, as though she might slip from his grasp. The young mother presses her baby tight to her chest. The sounds from the harbor assault us, the boom and crash of falling bombs, the growl and scream of plane engines, the terrible rattle of guns. More windows shatter around us. It goes on and on, it seems to last forever, an eternity of noise and splintering glass and fear.
And then at last the sound of the planes seems to fade, receding from us. I find that I am counting, like you do in a storm, waiting for the thunderclap—expecting them to circle back, more bombs to fall. But there’s nothing.
A silence spreads around us. The tiniest sound is suddenly loud. I hear a splash of tea that spills from a table onto the floor: there’s nothing but the drip drip of tea and the pounding of blood in my ears. Within the silence, the baby starts wailing, as though this sudden st
illness appalls him more than the noise.
I look down, see that a piece of glass is stuck in my hand. I pull it out. My blood flows freely. I don’t feel any pain.
I crawl out from under the table, leaving the other people. Not thinking at all, just moving. I get to my feet and run out the door, and down the High Street, and through the arch to the covered steps that take you down to the pier. The steps are dark and smell of fish and the damp stone is slippery under my feet. I have only one thought—to look for Gwen, to see if Gwen is alive.
At the bottom of the steps I come out into sunlight again, on the Esplanade that runs along the harbor past the pier. All the horror of it slams into me. Everything is on fire before me; I can feel the heat of it here, but the fire seems unreal, as though it couldn’t burn me. There are bodies everywhere, lying strangely, arms and legs reaching out, as though they were flung from a great height. The lorries are all burning. Tomato juice and blood run together over the stones, and there is gray smoke everywhere—smoke from the fires, and a smoke of dust—and smells of burning and blood, and a terrible rich charred smell that I know must be burning flesh. The body of a man has dropped out of the cab of his flaming lorry—it’s an ugly, broken, blackened thing. I hear a cry, and it chills me—it’s like an animal blind with anguish, not a human sound. I rub my eyes, which are stinging, as though the sight of the fire is hurting them. Everything is so bright, too bright—the red, the flames, the blood that streams on the stones.
I look up and down the Esplanade, but I can’t see Gwen, I don’t think Gwen can have been here. I’m praying she got away in time. I walk out onto the pier. Heat sears my skin as I pass a smoldering lorry. My foot slips in a pool of blood. I have some vague thought that perhaps I could help—I can do a splint, a neat bandage, I know a little first aid. Yet even as I think this, I know how pointless, how useless, it is—I know that everything here is utterly beyond me.
I come to a man who is lying on the pier beside his lorry. His face is turned away, but something draws my eye—the checked cloth cap on the ground beside him. There’s some significance to this, but my thoughts are so heavy and slow.
“Oh God,” I say then, out loud. “Frank. Oh God.”
It’s Frank le Brocq.
I kneel beside him. I can see his face now. At first I think he must be dead already. But then his eyelids flicker. I cradle his head in my hands.
“Frank. It’s Vivienne. Frank, it’s all right, I’m here. . . .”
But I know it is not all right. The one thing I know is that he cannot live with such wounds—the blood that seeps from the side of his head, the blood that slides out of his mouth. I feel a heavy passive helplessness, so any gesture, any word, takes all the strength I have.
He’s trying to speak. I put my ear close to his mouth.
“Bastards,” he whispers. “Fucking bastards.”
I kneel there, holding him.
I try to say the Lord’s Prayer. It’s all I can think of. My mouth is stiff and I’m afraid that I won’t remember the words. But before I get to the power and the glory he is dead. I carry on anyway. For ever and ever. Amen.
He’s staring at me with empty eyes. I reach out and close his eyelids. Then I just kneel there beside him. I don’t know what to do now.
A shadow falls across me; someone is bending down to me. I look up—it’s a fireman. Behind him, I see the single fire engine that’s come.
“Excuse me,” I say. “I know you’re terribly busy, but this man—he’s a friend of mine, Frank le Brocq.”
The fireman’s face is white but composed. He peers down.
“I know Frank,” he says.
“The thing is—he’s dead, you see,” I say.
“Poor, poor bugger,” says the man. “You knew him, did you? You knew Frank?”
“Yes.” My voice is rather cheerful and brittle and high. “Well, I know his wife better, really. Angie le Brocq. I was up at Les Ruettes just a few days ago. They were going to take in my mother-in-law, if we had gone on the boat. . . . But then we didn’t go of course.” The words tumbling out of me. Somehow I can’t stop talking.
The man looks at me in a worried way. He puts his hand on my shoulder.
“Look, ma’am, you need to go home. You should go and get yourself some rest. Go home and make yourself a cup of sugary tea.”
“But I can’t just leave him here like this. . . .”
“There’s nothing you can do,” he says, and gives my arm a wary pat, as though I’m some skittery wild animal that he is trying to soothe.
“I mean it, ma’am. You should just take yourself off home now,” he tells me.
I RING ELM Tree Farm from the first public phone box I pass.
Gwen answers.
“Oh Gwen. Thank God.”
“I’m all right, Viv,” she tells me. “I got away in time. I’ve been sick with worry about you. . . .” Then, when I don’t say anything, “Viv—are you sure you’re all right?”
I can’t answer her question; my mouth won’t seem to work properly.
“Gwen—I can’t talk now. I have to get back to the girls. But I’m not hurt—don’t worry.”
I put down the phone.
When I arrive back at Le Colombier, Blanche’s face is at the window. She sees me and runs to the door.
“Mum. What happened?”
Her voice is shrill, her eyes are wide and afraid.
“They bombed the harbor,” I tell her.
“We heard the planes,” she says, in a little scared voice. “Mum. We thought you were dead.”
Millie is clinging to Blanche’s hand. I can tell she’s been crying—the tracks of tears gleam on her cheeks.
“I’m all right. I’m not hurt,” I say.
I reach out to hug Millie. She pulls away, stares at my dress. All the color has gone from her face.
“Mum. You’ve got blood all over you,” says Blanche, in that small thin voice.
I look down. I hadn’t realized. There’s a lot of blood on the front of my dress, where I cradled Frank as he died.
“It isn’t my blood,” I tell them. “I’m all right. Really.”
They don’t say anything, but just stand there, staring at me.
“Look—I’m going to have to leave you for a little longer,” I say. “I have to go to Angie’s.”
I can see that Blanche understands at once. Her face darkens.
I can’t go to see Angie with her husband’s blood on my clothes. I change, and put my dress to soak in a bath of cold water, swirling the water around to try to loosen the stain. I almost faint as I straighten up, the bathroom spinning around me. My body feels flimsy as eggshell, as though the slightest touch might shatter me. I can’t break the news to Angie feeling like this.
I make myself drink some sugary tea, just as the fireman advised. Something has gone wrong with my throat, and it’s hard to swallow the drink, but afterward I feel a little stronger. The girls sit at the table with me, watching over me anxiously.
“Now, will you two be all right?” I say. “I promise I won’t be long.”
“We’ll be fine, Mum,” says Blanche.
“No, we won’t. I won’t let you go,” says Millie.
She comes to stand by my chair, wraps herself around me. I have to peel her fingers like bandages from my arms.
I WALK UP the lane to Les Ruettes. My feet are heavy, as though I am wading through deep water. I knock at Angie’s door, and my dread is a bitter taste in my mouth. I would rather be anywhere else but here.
She opens the door.
“Angie.” My throat is thick. “Something’s happened. . . .”
She stares at my face. She knows at once.
“He’s dead, isn’t he?”
“Yes. I’m so sorry.”
She sinks down. She’s trying to hold on to the door post, but her hands slide down, her body collapses in on itself, as though she has no bones. I can’t hold her. I bring a chair and pull her up onto it. I kneel beside her
.
“I was in town today. Frank was there with his lorry. They bombed the pier and I found him. Angie—I was with him, I was holding him when he died.”
She wraps her hands around each other, wrings them. Her mouth is working, but she can’t speak. There are no tears in her eyes, but her face looks all wrong, damaged.
At last she tries to clear her throat.
“Did he . . . say anything?” Her voice is hoarse, and muffled as though there’s a blanket over her mouth. “Did he have a message for me, Vivienne?”
I don’t know what to tell her. I think of his last words.
“He couldn’t speak,” I say.
I take her hand in mine. Her skin is icy cold; the cold in her goes through me.
“He died very quickly, he wouldn’t have suffered,” I say.
She moves her head very slightly. I can tell she doesn’t believe me.
“Come back with me, I’ll give you a meal,” I tell her.
“No, Vivienne,” she says. “It’s so kind of you, but I won’t . . .”
“I think you should,” I tell her. “You can’t stay here all alone.”
“I’ll be all right,” she says. “I just need some time on my own, to take it in.”
“I don’t like to leave you,” I say.
“Really, Vivienne. Don’t you worry. In a bit I’ll take myself over to Mabel and Jack’s.”
Mabel and Jack Bisson have four children; their house will be busy and boisterous. But Angie is insistent.
I leave her sitting alone by her hearth, wringing her hands as though she is wringing out cloth.
I COOK TEA for Evelyn and the girls, though I can’t eat anything. Then Blanche helps me bring the girls’ mattresses down from their rooms, and I make up beds for both of them in the narrow space under the stairs. This is the strongest part of the house, its spine.
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