The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

by Mary Ann Shaffer

  She missed Christian, not just for herself, for Kit, too. Kit knows her father is dead. Amelia and I told her that, but we didn’t know how to speak of Elizabeth. In the end, we said that she’d been sent away and we hoped she’d return soon. Kit looked from me to Amelia and back, but she didn’t ask any questions. She just went out and sat in the barn. I don’t know if we did right.

  Some days I wear myself out with wishing for Elizabeth to come home. We have learned that Sir Ambrose Ivers was killed in one of the last bombing raids in London, and, as Elizabeth inherited his estate, his solicitors have begun a search for her. They must have better ways to find her than we have, so I am hopeful that Mr. Dilwyn will get some word from her—or about her—soon. Wouldn’t it be a blessed thing for Kit and for all of us if Elizabeth could be found?

  The Society is having an outing on Saturday. We are attending the Guernsey Repertory Company’s showing of Julius Caesar—John Booker is to be Marc Antony and Clovis Fossey is going to play Caesar. Isola has been reading Clovis his lines, and she says we will all be astonished at his performance, especially when, after he’s dead, he hisses, “Thou shalt see me at Philippi!”

  Just thinking of the way Clovis hisses it has kept her awake for three nights, she says. Isola exaggerates, but only enough to enjoy herself.

  Kit’s stopped whispering. I’ve just peered under the table, and she’s asleep. It’s later than I thought.

  Yours ever,

  Dawsey

  From Mark to Juliet

  April 30, 1946

  Darling,

  Just got in—the entire trip could have been avoided if Hendry had telephoned, but I smacked a few heads together and they’ve cleared the whole shipment through customs. I feel as though I’ve been away for years. Can I see you tonight? I need to talk to you.

  Love,

  M.

  From Juliet to Mark

  Of course. Do you want to come here? I have a sausage.

  Juliet

  From Mark to Juliet

  A sausage—how appetizing.

  Suzette, at 8:00?

  Love,

  M.

  From Juliet to Mark

  Say please.

  J.

  From Mark to Juliet

  Pleased to see you at Suzette at 8:00.

  Love,

  M.

  From Juliet to Mark

  1st May, 1946

  Dear Mark,

  I didn’t refuse, you know. I said I wanted to think about it. You were so busy ranting about Sidney and Guernsey that perhaps you didn’t notice—I only said I wanted time. I’ve known you two months. It’s not long enough for me to be certain that we should spend the rest of our lives together, even if you are. I once made a terrible mistake and almost married a man I hardly knew (perhaps you read about it in the papers)—and at least in that case, the war was an extenuating circumstance. I won’t be such a fool again.

  Think of it: I’ve never seen your home—I don’t even know where it is, really. New York, but which street? What does it look like? What color are your walls? Your sofa? Do you arrange your books alphabetically? (I hope not.) Are your drawers tidy or messy? Do you ever hum, and if so, what? Do you prefer cats or dogs? Or fish? What on earth do you eat for breakfast—or do you have a cook?

  You see? I don’t know you well enough to marry you.

  I have one other piece of news that may interest you: Sidney is not your rival. I am not now nor have I ever been in love with Sidney, nor he with me. Nor will I ever marry him. Is that decisive enough for you?

  Are you absolutely certain you wouldn’t rather be married to someone more tractable than I?

  Juliet

  From Juliet to Sophie

  1st May, 1946

  Dearest Sophie,

  I wish you were here. I wish we still lived together in our lovely little studio and worked in dear Mr. Hawke’s shop and ate crackers and cheese for supper every night. I want so much to talk to you. I want you to tell me whether I should marry Mark Reynolds.

  He asked me last night—no bended knee, but a diamond as big as a pigeon egg—at a romantic French restaurant. I’m not certain he still wants to marry me this morning—he’s absolutely furious because I didn’t give him an unequivocal yes. I tried to explain that I hadn’t known him long enough and I needed time to think, but he wouldn’t listen to me. He was certain that I was rejecting him because of a secret passion—for Sidney! They really are obsessed with one another, those two.

  Thank God we were at his flat by then—he began shouting about Sidney and godforsaken islands and women who care more about a passel of strangers than men who are right in front of them (that’s Guernsey and my new friends there). I kept trying to explain and he kept shouting until I began to cry from frustration. Then he felt remorseful, which was so unlike him and endearing that I almost changed my mind and said yes. But then I imagined a lifetime of having to cry to get him to be kind, and I went back to no again. We argued and he lectured and I wept a bit more because I was so exhausted, and eventually he called his chauffeur to take me home. As he shut me into the back seat, he leaned in to kiss me and said, “You’re an idiot, Juliet.”

  And maybe he’s right. Do you recall those awful, awful Cheslayne Fair novels we read the summer we were thirteen? My favorite was The Master of Blackheath. I must have read it twenty times (and so did you, don’t pretend you didn’t). Do you remember Ransom—how he manfully hid his love for the girlish Eulalie so that she could choose freely, little knowing that she had been mad for him ever since she fell off her horse when she was twelve? Here’s the thing, Sophie—Mark Reynolds is exactly like Ransom. He’s tall and handsome, with a crooked smile and a chiseled jaw. He shoulders his way through the crowd, careless of the glances that follow him. He’s impatient and magnetic, and when I go to powder my nose, I overhear other women talking about him, just like Eulalie did in the museum. People notice him. He doesn’t try to make them—they can’t help it.

  I used to get shivers about Ransom. Sometimes I do about Mark, too—when I look at him—but I can’t get over the nagging feeling that I’m no Eulalie. If I were ever to fall off a horse, it would be lovely to be picked up by Mark, but I don’t think I’m likely to fall off a horse any time soon. I’m much more likely to go to Guernsey and write a book about the Occupation, and Mark can’t abide the thought. He wants me to stay in London and go to restaurants and theaters and marry him like a reasonable person.

  Write and tell me what to do.

  Love to Dominic—and you and Alexander as well.

  Juliet

  From Juliet to Sidney

  3rd May, 1946

  Dear Sidney,

  I may not be as distraught as Stephens & Stark is without you, but I do miss you and want you to advise me. Please drop everything you are doing and write to me at once.

  I want to get out of London. I want to go to Guernsey. You know I’ve grown very fond of my Guernsey friends, and I’m fascinated by their lives under the Germans—and afterward. I’ve visited the Channel Islands Refugee Committee and read their files. I have read the Red Cross reports. I’ve read all I can find on Todt slave workers—there hasn’t, so far, been much. I’ve interviewed some of the soldiers who liberated Guernsey and talked to Royal Engineers who removed the thousands of mines from their beaches. I’ve read all of the “unclassified” government reports on the state of the Islanders’ health, or lack of it; their happiness, or lack of it; their food supplies, or lack of them. But I want to know more. I want to know the stories of the people who were there, and I can never learn those by sitting in a library in London.

  For example—yesterday I was reading an article on the liberation. A reporter asked a Guernsey Islander, “What was the most difficult experience you had during the Germans’ rule?” He made fun of the man’s answer, but it made perfect sense to me.

  The Islander told him, “You know they took away all of our wireless sets? If you were caught having a hidden radio,
you’d get sent off to prison on the continent. Well, those of us who had secret radios, we heard about the Allies landing in Normandy. Trouble was, we weren’t supposed to know it had happened! Hardest thing I ever did was walk around St. Peter Port on June 7, not grinning, not smiling, not doing anything to let those Germans know that I KNEW their end was coming. If they’d caught on, someone would be in for it—so we had to pretend. It was very hard to pretend not to know D-Day had happened.”

  I want to talk to people like him (though he’s probably off writers now) and hear about their war, for that’s what I’d like to read, instead of statistics about grain. I’m not sure what form a book would take, or if I could even write one at all. But I would like to go to St. Peter Port and find out.

  Do I have your blessing?

  Love to you and Piers,

  Juliet

  Cable from Sidney to Juliet

  10th May, 1946

  HEREWITH MY BLESSING! GUERNSEY IS A WONDERFUL IDEA, BOTH FOR YOU AND FOR A BOOK. BUT WILL REYNOLDS ALLOW IT? LOVE, SIDNEY

  Cable from Juliet to Sidney

  11th May, 1946

  BLESSING RECEIVED. MARK REYNOLDS IS NOT IN A POSITION TO FORBID OR ALLOW. LOVE, JULIET

  From Amelia to Juliet

  13th May, 1946

  My dear,

  It was a delight to receive your telegram yesterday and learn that you are coming to visit us!

  I followed your instructions and spread the news at once—you have sent the Society into a whirlwind of excitement. The members instantly offered to provide you with anything you might need: bed, board, introductions, a supply of electric clothes-pins. Isola is over the moon that you are coming and is already at work on behalf of your book. Though I cautioned her that it was only an idea as yet, she is bound and determined to find material for you. She has asked (perhaps threatened) everyone she knows in the market to send you letters about the Occupation; she thinks you’ll need them to persuade your publisher that the subject is book-worthy. Don’t be surprised if you are inundated with mail in the next weeks.

  Isola also went to see Mr. Dilwyn at the bank this afternoon and asked him to offer you the rental of Elizabeth’s cottage for your visit. It is a lovely site, in a meadow below the Big House, and it is small enough for you to manage easily. Elizabeth moved there when the German officers confiscated the larger house for their use. You would be very comfortable there, and Isola assured Mr. Dilwyn that he need only stir himself to draw up a lease for you. She herself will tend to everything else: airing out rooms, washing windows, beating rugs, and killing spiders.

  I hope you won’t feel burdened by all these arrangements, as Mr. Dilwyn had planned to assess the property soon for its rental possibilities. Sir Ambrose’s solicitors have begun an inquiry into Elizabeth’s whereabouts. They have found there is no record of her arrival in Germany, only that she was put on a transport in France, with Frankfurt as the intended destination of the train.

  There will be further investigations, and I pray that they will lead to Elizabeth, but in the meantime, Mr. Dilwyn wants to rent the property left to Elizabeth by Sir Ambrose, to provide income for Kit.

  I sometimes think that we are morally obliged to begin a search for Kit’s German relations, but I cannot bring myself to do it. Christian was a rare soul, and he detested what his country was doing, but the same cannot be true for many Germans, who believed in the dream of the Thousand-Year Reich. And how could we send our Kit away to a foreign—and destroyed—land, even if her relations could be found? We are the only family she’s ever known.

  When Kit was born, Elizabeth kept her paternity a secret from the authorities. Not out of shame, but because she was afraid that the baby would be taken from her and sent to Germany to be raised. There were dreadful rumors of such things. I wonder if Kit’s heritage could have saved Elizabeth if she had made it known when she was arrested. But as she didn’t, it is not my place to do so.

  Excuse my unburdening myself. My worries travel about my head on their well-worn path, and it is a relief to put them on paper. I will turn to more cheerful subjects—such as last evening’s meeting of the Society.

  After the uproar about your visit had subsided, the Society read your article about books and reading in the Times. Everyone enjoyed it—not just because we were reading about ourselves, but because you brought us views we’d never thought to apply to our reading before. Dr. Stubbins pronounced that you alone had transformed “distraction” into an honorable word—instead of a character flaw. The article was delightful, and we were all so proud and pleased to be mentioned in it.

  Will Thisbee wants to have a welcome party in your honor. He will bake a Potato Peel Pie for the event and has devised a cocoa icing for it. He made a surprise dessert for our meeting last night—Cherries Flambé, which fortunately burned down to the pan, so we did not have to eat it. I wish Will would leave cookery alone and go back to ironmongery.

  We all look forward to welcoming you. You mentioned that you have to finish several reviews before you can leave London—but we will be delighted to see you whenever you come. Just let us know the date and time of your arrival. Certainly, an aeroplane flight to Guernsey would be faster and more comfortable than the mail boat (Clovis Fossey said to tell you that air hostesses give gin to passengers—and the mail boat doesn’t). But unless you are bedeviled by sea-sickness, I would catch the afternoon boat from Weymouth. There is no more beautiful approach to Guernsey than the one by sea—either with the sun going down, or with gold-tipped, black storm clouds, or the Island just emerging through the mist. This is the way I first saw Guernsey, as a new bride.

  Fondly,

  Amelia

  From Isola to Juliet

  14th May, 1946

  Dear Juliet,

  I have been getting your house all ready for you. I asked several of my friends at Market to write to you of their experiences, so I hope they do. If Mr. Tatum writes and asks for money for his recollections, don’t pay him a penny. He is a big fat liar.

  Would you like to know of my first sight of the Germans? I will use adjectives to make it more lively. I don’t usually—I favor stark facts.

  Guernsey seemed quiet that Tuesday—but we knew they were there! Planes and ships carrying soldiers had come in the day before. Huge Junkers thumped down, and after unloading all their men, they flew off again. Being lighter now and more frolicsome, they hedgehopped, swooping up and swooping down, all over Guernsey, scaring the cows in the fields.

  Elizabeth was at my house, but we couldn’t summon up the spirit to make hair tonic, even though my yarrow was in. We just drifted around like a couple of ghouls. Then Elizabeth gathered herself up. “Come on,” she says. “I’m not going to sit inside waiting for them. I’m going to town to seek out my enemy.”

  “And what are you going to do after you’ve found him?” I asks, sort of snappish.

  “I’m going to look at him,” she says. “We’re not animals in a cage—they are. They’re stuck on this island with us, same as we’re stuck with them. Come on, let’s go stare.”

  I liked that idea, so we put on our hats and went. But you would never believe the sights we saw in St. Peter Port.

  Oh, there were hundreds of German soldiers—and they were SHOPPING! Arm in arm they went strolling along Fountain Street—smiling, laughing, peering into store windows, going in shops and coming out with their arms filled with packages, calling out to one another. North Esplanade was filled with soldiers too. Some were just lolling about, others touched their caps to us and bowed, polite-like. One man said to me, “Your island is beautiful. We will be fighting in London soon, but now we have this—a holiday in the sun.”

  Another poor idiot actually thought he was in Brighton. They were buying ice lollies for the streams of children following them. Laughing and having a fine time they were. If it weren’t for those green uniforms, we’d have thought the tour boat from Weymouth was in!

  We started to go by Candie Gardens, and there ever
ything changed—carnival to nightmare. First, we heard noise—the loud steady rhythm of boots coming down heavy on hard stones.

  Then a troop of goose-stepping soldiers turned onto our street; everything about them gleamed; buttons, boots, those metal coal-scuttle hats. Their eyes didn’t look at anyone or anything—just stared straight ahead. That was scarier than the rifles slung over their shoulders, or the knives and grenades stuck in their boot-tops.

  Mr. Ferre, who’d been in back of us, grabbed my arm. He’d fought on the Somme. Tears were running down his face, and not knowing it, he was twisting my arm, wringing it, saying, “How can they be doing this again? We beat them and here they are again. How did we let them do this again?”

  Finally, Elizabeth said, “I’ve seen enough. I need a drink.”

  I keep a good supply of gin in my cupboard, so we came on home.

  I will close now, but I will be able to see you soon and that gives me joy. We all want to come meet you—but a new fear has struck me. There could be twenty other passengers on the mail boat, and how will I know which one is you? That book photo is a blurry little thing, and I don’t want to go kissing the wrong woman. Could you wear a big red hat with a veil and carry lilies?

  Your friend,

  Isola

  From An Animal Lover to Juliet

  Wednesday evening

  Dear Miss,

  I too am a member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society—but I never wrote to you about my books, because I only read two—kiddies’ tales about dogs, loyal, brave, and true.

  Isola says you are coming to maybe write about the Occupation, and I think you should know the truth of what our States did to animals! Our own government, mind, not the dirty Germans!