The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

by Mary Ann Shaffer

  Have you ever noticed that when your mind is awakened or drawn to someone new, that person’s name suddenly pops up everywhere you go? My friend Sophie calls it coincidence, and Mr. Simpless, my parson friend, calls it Grace. He thinks that if one cares deeply about someone or something new one throws a kind of energy out into the world, and “fruitfulness” is drawn in.

  Yours ever,

  Juliet

  From Isola to Juliet

  18th April, 1946

  Dear Juliet,

  Now that we are corresponding friends, I want to ask you some questions—they are highly personal. Dawsey said it would not be polite, but I say that’s a difference twixt men and women, not polite and rude. Dawsey’s never asked me a personal question in fifteen years. I’d take it kindly if he would, but Dawsey’s got quiet ways. I don’t expect to change him, nor myself either. I see it that you cared to know about us, so I guess you would like us to know about you—only you just didn’t happen to think of it first.

  First of all, I saw a picture of you on the dust jacket of your book about Anne Brontë, so I know you are below forty years of age—how far below? Was the sun in your eyes, or does it happen that you have a squint? Is it permanent? It must have been a windy day because your curls are blowing all about. I couldn’t quite make out the color of your hair, though I can tell it isn’t blonde—for which I am glad. I don’t like blondes very much.

  Do you live by the river? I hope so, because people who live near running water are much nicer than people who don’t. I’d be mean as a scorpion if I lived inland. Do you have a serious suitor? I do not.

  Is your flat cozy or grand? Be fulsome, as I want to be able to picture it in my mind. Do you think you would like to visit us on Guernsey? Do you have a pet? What kind?

  Your friend,

  Isola

  From Juliet to Isola

  20th April, 1946

  Dear Isola,

  I am glad you want to know more about me and am only sorry I didn’t think of it myself, and sooner.

  Present-day first: I am thirty-three years old, and you were right—the sun was in my eyes. In a good mood, I call my hair Chestnut with Gold Glints. In a bad mood, I call it mousy brown. It wasn’t a windy day; my hair always looks that way. Naturally curly hair is a curse, and don’t ever let anyone tell you different. My eyes are hazel. While I am slender, I am not tall enough to suit me.

  I don’t live by the Thames anymore and that is what I miss the most about my old home—I loved the sight and sound of the river at all hours. I live now in a borrowed flat in Glebe Place. It is small and furnished within an inch of its life, and the flat owner won’t be back from the United States until November, so I have the run of his house until then. I wish I had a dog, but the building management does not allow pets! The Kensington Gardens aren’t so very far, so if I begin to feel cooped up I can walk to the park, rent a deck chair for a shilling, loll about under the trees, watch the passers-by and children play, and I am soothed—somewhat.

  Eighty-one Oakley Street was demolished by a random V-1 just over a year ago. Most of the damage was to the row of houses behind mine, but three floors of Number 81 were sheared off, and my flat is now a pile of rubble. I hope Mr. Grant, the owner, will rebuild—for I want my flat, or a facsimile of it, back again, just as it was—with Cheyne Walk and the river outside my windows.

  Luckily, I was away in Bury when the V-1 hit. Sidney Stark, my friend and now publisher, met my train that evening and took me home, and we viewed the huge mountain of rubble and what was left of the building.

  With part of the wall gone, I could see my shredded curtains waving in the breeze and my desk, three-legged and slumped on the slanting floor that was left. My books were a muddy, sopping pile and although I could see my mother’s portrait on the wall—half gouged out and sooty—there was no safe way to recover it.

  The only intact possession left was my large crystal paperweight—with Carpe Diem carved across its top. It had belonged to my father—and there it sat, whole and unchipped, atop a pile of broken bricks and splintered wood. I could not do without it so Sidney clambered over the rubble and retrieved it for me.

  I was a fairly nice child until my parents died when I was twelve. I left our farm in Suffolk and went to live with my greatuncle in London. I was a furious, bitter, morose little girl. I ran away twice, causing my uncle no end of trouble—and at the time, I was very glad to do so. I am ashamed now when I think about how I treated him. He died when I was seventeen so I was never able to apologize.

  When I was thirteen, my uncle decided I should go away to boarding school. I went, mulish as usual, and met the Headmistress, who marched me into the Dining Room. She led me to a table with four other girls. I sat; arms crossed, hands tucked under my armpits, glaring like a molting eagle, looking around for someone to hate. I hit upon Sophie Stark, Sidney’s younger sister.

  Perfect, she had golden curls, big blue eyes, and a sweet, sweet smile. She made an effort to talk with me. I didn’t answer until she said, “I hope you will be happy here.” I told her I wouldn’t be staying long enough to find out. “As soon as I find out about the trains, I am gone!” said I.

  That night I climbed out onto the dormitory roof, meaning to sit there and have a good brood in the dark. In a few minutes, Sophie crawled out—with a railway timetable for me.

  Needless to say, I never ran away. I stayed—with Sophie as my new friend. Her mother would often invite me to their house for holidays, which was where I met Sidney. He was ten years older than me and was, of course, a god. He later changed into a bossy older brother, and later still, one of my dearest friends.

  Sophie and I left school and—wanting no more of academic life, but LIFE instead—we went to London and shared rooms Sidney had found for us. We worked together for a while in a bookshop, and I wrote—and threw away—stories at night.

  Then the Daily Mirror sponsored an essay contest—five hundred words on “What Women Fear Most.” I knew what the Mirror was finagling for, but I’m far more afraid of chickens than I am of men, so I wrote about that. The judges, thrilled at not having to read another word about sex, awarded me first prize.

  Five pounds and I was, at last, in print. The Daily Mirror received so many fan letters, they commissioned me to write an article, then another one. I soon began to write feature stories for other newspapers and magazines. Then the war broke out, and I was invited to write a semi-weekly column for the Spectator, called “Izzy Bickerstaff Goes to War.” Sophie met and fell in love with an airman, Alexander Strachan. They married and Sophie moved to his family’s farm in Scotland. I am godmother to their son, Dominic, and though I haven’t taught him any hymns, we did pull the hinges off his cellar door last time I saw him—it was a Pictish ambush.

  I suppose I do have a suitor, but I’m not really used to him yet. He’s terribly charming and he plies me with delicious meals, but I sometimes think I prefer suitors in books rather than right in front of me. How awful, backward, cowardly, and mentally warped that will be if it turns out to be true.

  Sidney published a book of my Izzy Bickerstaff columns and I went on a book tour. And then—I began writing letters to strangers in Guernsey, now friends, whom I would indeed like to come and see.

  Yours ever,

  Juliet

  From Eli to Juliet

  21st April, 1946

  Dear Miss Ashton,

  Thank you for the blocks of wood. They are beautiful. I could not believe what I saw when I opened your box—all those sizes and shades, from pale to dark.

  How did you happen to find the different kinds and shapes of wood? You must have gone to so many places to find them all. I’ll bet you did and I don’t know how to thank you for that. They came at just the right time too. Kit’s favorite animal was a snake she saw in a book, and he was easy to carve, being so long and thin. Now she’s gone on ferrets. She says she won’t ever touch my whittling knife again if I’ll carve her a ferret. I don’t think it wi
ll be too hard to make one, for they are pointy, too. Because of your gift, I have wood to practice with.

  Is there an animal you would like to have? I want to carve a present for you, but I’d like it to be something you’d favor. Would you like a mouse? I am good with mice.

  Yours truly,

  Eli

  From Eben to Juliet

  22nd April, 1946

  Dear Miss Ashton,

  Your box for Eli came Friday—what a kindness of you. He sits and studies the blocks of wood—as if he sees something hidden inside them, and he can make it come out with his knife.

  You asked if all the Guernsey children were evacuated to England. No—some stayed, and when I missed Eli, I looked at the little ones around me and was glad he had gone. The children here had a bad time, for there was no food to grow on. I remember picking up Bill LePell’s boy—he was twelve but weighed no more than a child of seven.

  It was a terrible thing to decide—send your kiddies away to live among strangers, or let them stay with you? Maybe the Germans wouldn’t come, but if they did—how would they behave to us? But, come to that, what if they invaded England, too—how would the children manage without their own families beside them?

  Do you know the state we were in when the Germans came? Shock is what I’d call it. The truth is, we didn’t think they’d want us. It was England they were after, and we were of no use to them. We thought we’d be in the audience like, not up on the stage itself.

  Then in the spring of 1940 Hitler got himself going through Europe like a hot knife through butter. Every place fell to him. It was so fast—windows all over Guernsey shook and rattled from the explosions in France, and once the coast of France was gone, it was plain as day that England could not use up her men and ships to defend us. They needed to save them for when their own invasion began in earnest. So we were left to ourselves.

  In the middle of June, when it became pretty certain we were in for it, the States got on the telephone to London and asked if they would send ships for our children and take them to England. They could not fly, for fear of being shot down by the Luftwaffe. London said yes, but the children had to be ready at once. The ships would have to hurry here and back again while there was still time. It was such a desperate time for folks and there was such a feel of Hurry, Hurry.

  Jane had no more strength than a cat then, but she knew her mind. She wanted Eli to go. Other ladies were in a dither—go or stay?—and they were wild to talk it over, but Jane told Elizabeth to keep them away. “I don’t want to hear them fuss,” she said. “It’s bad for the baby.” Jane had an idea that babies knew everything that happened around them, even before they were born.

  The time for dithering was soon over. Families had one day to decide, and five years to abide with it. School-age children and babies with their mothers went first on the 19th and 20th of June. The States gave out pocket money to the kiddies, if their parents had none to spare. The littlest children were all excited about the sweets they could buy with it. Some thought it was like a Sunday School outing, and they’d be back by nightfall. They were lucky in that. The older children, like Eli, knew better.

  Of all the sights I saw the day they left, there is one picture I can’t get out of my mind. Two little girls, all dressed up in pink party dresses, stiff petticoats, shiny strap shoes—like their Ma thought they’d be going to a party. How cold they must have been crossing the Channel.

  All the children were to be dropped off at their school by their parents. It was there we had to say our good-byes. Buses came to take the children down to the pier. The boats that had just been to Dunkirk came back across the Channel for the children. There was no time to get a convoy together to escort them. There was no time to get enough lifeboats on board—or life jackets.

  That morning we stopped first at the hospital for Eli to bid his mother good-bye. He couldn’t do it. His jaw was clamped shut so tight, he could only nod. Jane held him for a bit, and then Elizabeth and me walked him down to the schoolyard. I hugged him hard and that was the last time I saw him for five years. Elizabeth stayed because she had volunteered to help get the children inside ready.

  I was walking back to Jane in the hospital, when I recalled something Eli had once said to me. He was about five years old, and we were walking down to La Courbière to see the fishing boats come in. There was an old canvas bathing shoe left lying right in the middle of the path. Eli walked around it, staring.

  Finally, he said, “That shoe is all alone, Grandpa.” I answered that yes it was. He looked at it some more, and then we walked on by. After a bit, he said, “Grandpa, that’s something I never am.” I asked him, “What’s that?” And he said, “Lonesome in my spirits.”

  There! I had something happy to tell Jane after all, and I prayed it would stay true for him.

  Isola says she wants to write you herself of the doings inside the school. She says she was witness to a scene you will want to know about as an authoress: Elizabeth smacked Adelaide Addison in the face and made her leave. You do not know Miss Addison, and you are fortunate in that—she is a woman too good for daily wear.

  Isola told me you might come to visit Guernsey. I would be glad to offer you hospitality with me and Eli.

  Yours,

  Eben Ramsey

  Telegram from Juliet to Isola

  DID ELIZABETH REALLY SLAP ADELAIDE ADDISON? IF ONLY I HAD BEEN THERE! PLEASE SEND DETAILS. LOVE, JULIET

  From Isola to Juliet

  24th April, 1946

  Dear Juliet,

  Yes, she did—slapped her right across the face. It was lovely. We were all at the St. Brioc School to help the children get ready for the buses to take them down to the ships. The States didn’t want the parents to come into the school itself—too crowded and too sad. Better to say good-byes outside. One child crying might set them all off.

  So it was strangers who tied up shoelaces, wiped noses, put a nametag around each child’s neck. We did up buttons and played games with them until the buses could come.

  I had one bunch of kiddies trying to touch their tongues to their noses, and Elizabeth had another bunch playing that game that teaches them how to lie with a straight face—I forget what it’s called—when Adelaide Addison came in with that doleful mug of hers, all piety and no sense.

  She gathered a circle of children around her and commenced singing “For Those in Peril on the Sea” over their little heads. But no, “safety from storms” wasn’t enough for her. God had to keep them from being blown up too. She set about ordering the poor things to pray for their parents every night—who knew what the German soldiers might do to them? Then she said to be especially good little boys and girls so that Mama and Daddy could look down on them from Heaven and BE PROUD OF THEM.

  I tell you, Juliet, she had those children crying and sobbing fit to die. I was too shocked to move, but not Elizabeth. No, quick as an adder’s tongue, she had ahold of Adelaide’s arm and told her to SHUT UP.

  Adelaide cried, “Let me go! I am speaking the Word of God!”

  Elizabeth, she got a look on her that would turn the devil to stone, and then she slapped Adelaide right across the face—nice and sharp, so her head wobbled on her shoulders—and hauled her over to the door, shoved her out, and locked it. Old Adelaide kept a-pounding on the door, but no one paid her any heed. I lie—silly Daphne Post did try to open it, but I got her round the neck and she stopped.

  It is my belief that the sight of a good fight shocked the fear right out of those babies, and they stopped crying, and the buses all came and we loaded the children on. Elizabeth and me, we didn’t go home, we stood in the road and waved till the buses was out of sight.

  I hope I never live to see another such day, even with Adelaide getting slapped. All those little children bereft in the world—I was glad I did not have any.

  Thank you for your life story. You have had such sadness with your Ma and Pa and your home by the river, for which things I am sorry. But me, I am glad you
have dear friends like Sophie and her Ma and Sidney. As to that Sidney, he sounds a very fine man—but bossy. It’s a failing common in men.

  Clovis Fossey has asked if you would send the Society a copy of your prize-winning essay on chickens. He thinks it would be nice to read aloud at a meeting. Then we could put it in our archives, if we ever have any.

  I’d like to read it too, chickens being the reason I fell off a hen-house roof—they’d chased me there. How they all came at me—with their razor lips and back-to-back eyeballs! People don’t know how chickens can turn on you, but they can—just like mad dogs. I didn’t keep hens until the war came—then I had to, but I am never easy in their company. I would rather have Ariel butt me on my bottom—that’s open and honest and not like a sly chicken, sneaking up to jab you.

  I would like it if you would come to see us. So would Eben and Amelia and Dawsey—and Eli, too. Kit is not so sure, but you needn’t mind that. She might come round. Your newspaper article will be printed soon, so you could come here and rest up. It may be that you could find a story here you’d like to tell about.

  Your friend,

  Isola

  From Dawsey to Juliet

  26th April, 1946

  Dear Juliet,

  My temporary job at the quarry is over, and Kit is staying with me for a bit. She is sitting beneath the table I’m writing upon, whispering. What’s that you’re whispering, I asked, and there was a long quiet. Then she commenced whispering again, and I can make out my own name mixed into the other sounds.

  This is what generals call a war of nerves, and I know who is going to win.

  Kit doesn’t resemble Elizabeth very much, except for her grey eyes and a look she gets when she is concentrating hard. But she is like her mother inside—fierce in her feelings. Even when she was a tiny creature, it was so. She howled until the glass shivered in the windows, and when she gripped my finger in her little fist, it turned white. I knew nothing of babies, but Elizabeth made me learn. She said I was fated to be a father and she had a responsibility to make sure I knew more than the usual run of them.