The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

by Mary Ann Shaffer

  Now I’ve made her sound waiflike, and she isn’t, really. You might think so from a distance, but never up close. There is a grave intensity in her that is almost unnerving. She is not cold and certainly not unfriendly, but she seems to be leery of spontaneity. I suppose if I had been through her experience, I would be the same—a bit removed from daily life.

  You can cross out all of the above when Remy is with Kit. At first, she seemed inclined to follow Kit around with her eyes instead of talking to her, but that changed when Kit offered to teach her how to lisp. Remy looked startled, but she agreed to take lessons and they went off to Amelia’s greenhouse together. Her lisp is hampered by her accent, but Kit doesn’t hold that against her and has generously given her extra instructions.

  Amelia had a small dinner party the evening Remy arrived. Everyone was on their best behavior—Isola arrived with a big bottle of tonic under her arm, but she thought better of it once she had a look at Remy. “Might kill her,” she muttered to me in the kitchen, and stuffed it in her coat pocket. Eli shook her hand nervously and then retreated—I think he was afraid he’d hurt her accidentally. I was pleased to see that Remy was comfortable with Amelia—they will enjoy each other’s company—but Dawsey is her favorite. When he came into the sitting room—he was a little later than the rest—she relaxed visibly and even smiled at him.

  Yesterday was cold and foggy, but Remy and Kit and I built a sandcastle on Elizabeth’s tiny beach. We spent a long time on its construction, and it was a fine, towering specimen. I had made a thermos of cocoa, and we sat drinking and waiting impatiently for the tide to come in and knock the castle down.

  Kit ran up and down the shoreline, inciting the waters to rush in farther and faster. Remy touched my shoulder and smiled. “Elizabeth must have been like that once,” she said, “the Empress of the seas.” I felt as if she had given me a gift—even such a tiny gesture as a touch takes trust—and I was glad she felt safe with me.

  While Kit danced in the waves, Remy spoke about Elizabeth. She had intended to keep her head down, conserve the strength she had left, and come home as quickly as she could after the war. “We thought it would be possible. We knew of the invasion, we saw all the Allied bombers flying over the camp. We knew what was happening in Berlin. The guards could not keep their fear from us. Each night we lay sleepless, waiting to hear the Allied tanks at the gates. We whispered that we could be free the next day. We did not believe we would die.”

  There didn’t seem to be anything else to say after that—though I was thinking, if only Elizabeth could have held on for a few more weeks, she could have come home to Kit. Why, why, so close to the end, did she attack the overseer?

  Remy watched the sea breathe in and out. Then she said, “It would have been better for her not to have such a heart.”

  Yes, but worse for the rest of us.

  The tide came in then: cheers, screams, and no more castle.

  Love,

  Juliet

  From Isola to Sidney

  1st August, 1946

  Dear Sidney,

  I am the new Secretary of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. I thought you might like to see a sample of my first minutes, being as how you are interested in anything Juliet is interested in. Here they are:

  30th July–1946–7:30 p.m.

  Night cold. Ocean noisy. Will Thisbee was host. House dusted, but curtains need washing.

  Mrs. Winslow Daubbs read a chapter from her autobiography, The Life and Loves of Delilah Daubbs. Audience attentive—but silent afterwards. Except for Winslow, who wants a divorce.

  All were embarrassed, so Juliet and Amelia served the dessert they’d made earlier—a lovely ribbon cake, on real china plates—which we don’t usually run to.

  Miss Minor then rose to ask if we were going to start being our own authors, could she read from a book of her very own thoughts? Her text is called The Common Place Book of Mary Margaret Minor.

  Everybody already knows what Mary Margaret thinks about everything, but we said “Aye” because we all like Mary Margaret. Will Thisbee ventured to say that perhaps Mary Margaret will edit herself in writing, as she has never done in talking, so it might not be so bad.

  I moved we have a specially called meeting next week so I don’t have to wait to talk about Jane Austen. Dawsey seconded! All said, “Aye.” Meeting adjourned.

  Miss Isola Pribby,

  Official Secretary to the Guernsey Literary

  and Potato Peel Pie Society

  Now that I’m Official Secretary, I could swear you in for a member if you’d like to be one. It’s against the rules, because you’re not an Islander, but I could do it in secret.

  Your friend,

  Isola

  From Juliet to Sidney

  3rd August, 1946

  Dear Sidney,

  Someone—and I can’t imagine who—has sent Isola a present from Stephens & Stark. It was published in the mid-1800s and is named The New Illustrated Self-Instructor in Phrenology and Psychiatry: with Size and Shape Tables and Over One-Hundred Illustrations. If that is not enough, there’s a sub-title: Phrenology: the Science of Interpreting Bumps on the Head.

  Eben had Kit and me, Dawsey, Isola, Will, Amelia, and Remy over for supper last night. Isola arrived with tables, sketches, graph paper, a measuring tape, calipers, and a new notebook. Then she cleared her throat and read the advertisement on the first page: “You too can learn to read Head Bumps! Stun Your Friends, Confound Your Enemies with Indisputable Knowledge of Their Human Faculties or Lack of Them.”

  She thumped the book onto the table. “I’m going to become an adept,” she announced, “in time for the Harvest Festival.”

  She has told Pastor Elstone she will no longer dress up in shawls and pretend to read palms. No, from now on she will see the future in a Scientific way, by reading head bumps! The church will make far more money from head bumps than Miss Sybil Beddoes does with her booth, WIN A KISS FROM SYBIL BEDDOES.

  Will said she was exactly right; Miss Beddoes wasn’t a good kisser and he for one was tired of kissing her, even for Sweet Charity’s sake.

  Sidney, do you realize what you have unleashed on Guernsey? Isola’s already read the lumps on Mr. Singleton’s head (his stall is next to hers at market) and told him his Love of Fellow Creatures Bump had a shallow trench right down the middle—which was probably why he didn’t feed his dog enough.

  Do you see where this could lead? Someday she’ll find someone with a Latent Killer Knot, and he’ll shoot her—if Miss Beddoes doesn’t get her first.

  One wonderful, unexpected thing did come from your present. After dessert Isola began to read the bumps on Eben’s head—dictating the measurements for me to write down. I glanced over at Remy, wondering what she would make of Eben’s hair standing on end, and Isola rummaging through it. Remy was trying to stifle a smile, but she couldn’t manage it and burst out laughing. Dawsey and I stopped dead and stared at her!

  She is so quiet, not a one of us could imagine such a laugh. It was like water. I hope I’ll hear it again.

  Dawsey and I have not been as easy with one another as we once were, though he still comes often to visit Kit, or to walk Remy over to see us. Hearing Remy laugh is the first time we’ve caught eyes for a fortnight. But perhaps he was only admiring how my sunny nature had rubbed off on her. I do, according to some people, have a sunny nature, Sidney. Did you know that?

  Billee Bee sent a copy of Screen Gems magazine to Peter. There was a photo essay on Rita Hayworth—Peter was delighted, though surprised to see Miss Hayworth posing in her nightdress! Kneeling on a bed! What was the world coming to? Sidney, isn’t Billee Bee tired of being sent on personal errands for me?

  Love,

  Juliet

  From Susan Scott to Juliet

  5th August, 1946

  Dear Juliet,

  You know Sidney does not keep your letters clasped next to his heart; he leaves them open on his desk for anyone to see, so of cour
se I read them.

  I am writing to reassure you about Billee Bee’s errand-running. Sidney doesn’t ask her. She begs to perform any little service she can for him, or you, or “that dear child.” She all but coos at him and I all but gag at her. She wears a little angora cap with a chin bow—the kind that Sonja Henie skates in. Need I say more?

  Also, contrary to what Sidney thinks, she isn’t an angel straight from Heaven, she’s from an employment agency. Meant to be temporary, she has dug herself in—and is now indispensable and permanent. Can’t you think of some living creature Kit would like to have from the Galapagos? Billee Bee would sail on the next tide for it—and be gone for months. Possibly forever, if some animal there would just eat her.

  All my best to you and Kit,

  Susan

  From Isola to Sidney

  5th August,1946

  Dear Sidney,

  I know it was you who sent The New Illustrated Self-Instructor in Phrenology and Psychiatry: with Size and Shape Tables and Over One-Hundred Illustrations. It is a very useful book and I thank you for it. I’ve been studying hard, and I’ve got so I can finger through a whole headful of bumps without peeking into the book more than three or four times. I hope to make a mint for the church at the Harvest Festival, as who would not desire to have their innermost workings—good and rotten—revealed by the Science of Phrenology? No one, that’s who.

  It’s a real lightning bolt, this Science of Phrenology. I’ve found out more in the last three days than I knew in my whole life before. Mrs. Guilbert has always been a nasty one, but now I know that she can’t help it—she’s got a big pit in her Benevolence spot. She fell in the quarry when she was a girl, and my guess is she cracked her Benevolence and was never the same since.

  Even my own friends are full of surprises. Eben is Garrulous! I never would have thought it of him, but he’s got bags under his eyes and there’s no two ways about it. I broke it to him gently. Juliet didn’t want to have her bumps read at first, but she agreed when I told her that she was standing in the way of Science. She’s awash in Amativeness, is Juliet. Also Conjugal Love. I told her it was a wonder she wasn’t married, with such great mounds.

  Will cackles up, “Your Mr. Stark will be a lucky man, Juliet!” Juliet blushed red as a tomato, and I was tempted to say he didn’t know much because Mr. Stark is a homosexual, but I recollected myself and kept your secret like I promised.

  Dawsey up and left then, so I never got to his lumps, but I’ll pin him down soon. I think I don’t understand Dawsey sometimes. For a while there, he was downright chatty, but these days he doesn’t have two words to rub together.

  Thank you again for the fine book.

  Your friend,

  Isola

  Telegram from Sidney to Juliet

  6th August, 1946

  BOUGHT A SMALL BAGPIPE FOR DOMINIC AT GUNTHERS YESTERDAY. WOULD KIT LIKE ONE? LET ME KNOW SOONEST AS THEY ONLY HAVE ONE LEFT. HOW’S THE WRITING? LOVE TO YOU AND KIT. SIDNEY

  From Juliet to Sidney

  7th August, 1946

  Dear Sidney,

  Kit would love a bagpipe. I would not.

  I think the work is going splendidly, but I’d like to send you the first two chapters—I won’t feel settled until you’ve read it. Do you have the time?

  Every biography should be written within a generation of its subject’s life, while he or she is still in living memory. Think what I could have done for Anne Brontë if I’d been able to speak to her neighbors. Perhaps she wasn’t really meek and melancholy—perhaps she had a screaming temper and dashed the crockery to the floor regularly once a week.

  Each day I learn something new about Elizabeth. How I wish I had known her myself! As I write, I catch myself thinking of her as a friend, remembering things she did as though I’d been there—she’s so full of life that I have to remind myself she’s dead, and then I feel the wrench of losing her again.

  I heard a story about her today that made me want to lie down and weep. We had supper with Eben this evening, and afterward Eli and Kit went out to dig for earthworms (a chore best done by the light of the moon). Eben and I took our coffee outside, and for the first time he chose to talk about Elizabeth to me.

  It happened at the school where Eli and the other children were waiting for the Evacuation ships to come. Eben was not there, because the families were not allowed, but Isola saw it happen, and she told him about it that night.

  She said the room was full of children, and Elizabeth was buttoning up Eli’s coat, when he told her he was scared about getting on the boat—going away from his mother and his home. If their ship was bombed, he asked, who would he say good-bye to? Isola said that Elizabeth took her time, like she was studying his question. Then she pulled up her sweater and took a pin off her blouse. It was her father’s medal from the first war, and she always wore it.

  She held it in her hand and explained to him that it was a magic badge, that nothing bad could happen to him while he wore it. Then she had Eli spit on it twice to call up the charm. Isola saw Eli’s face over Elizabeth’s shoulder and told Eben that it had that beautiful light children have before the Age of Reason gets at them.

  Of all the things that happened during the war, this one—making your children go away to try to keep them safe—was surely the most terrible. I don’t know how they endured it. It defies the animal instinct to protect your young. I see myself becoming bearlike around Kit. Even when I’m not actually watching her, I’m watching her. If she’s in any sort of danger (which she often is, given her taste in climbing), my hackles rise—I didn’t even know I had hackles before—and I run to rescue her. When her enemy, the parson’s nephew, threw plums at her, I roared at him. And through some queer sort of intuition, I always know where she is, just as I know where my hands are—and if I didn’t, I should be sick with worry. This is how the species survives, I suppose, but the war threw a wrench in all that. How did the mothers of Guernsey live, not knowing where their children were? I can’t imagine.

  Love,

  Juliet

  P.S. How about a flute?

  From Juliet to Sophie

  9th August, 1946

  Darling Sophie,

  What lovely news—a new baby! Wonderful! I do hope you won’t have to eat dry biscuits and suck lemons this time. I know you two don’t care which/what/who you have, but I would love a girl. To that end, I am knitting a tiny matinee jacket and cap in pink wool. Of course Alexander is delighted, but what about Dominic?

  I told Isola your news, and I’m afraid she may send you a bottle of her Pre-Birthing Tonic. Sophie—please don’t drink it and don’t dispose of it where the dogs might find it. There may not be anything actually poisonous in her tonics, but I don’t think you should take any chances.

  Your inquiries about Dawsey are misdirected. Send them to Kit—or Remy. I scarcely see the man anymore, and when I do, he is silent. Not silent in a romantic, brooding way, like Mr. Rochester, but in a grave and sober way that indicates disapproval. I don’t know what the trouble is, truly I don’t. When I arrived in Guernsey, Dawsey was my friend. We talked about Charles Lamb and we walked all over the Island together—and I enjoyed his company as much as that of anyone I’ve ever known. Then, after that appalling night on the headlands, he stopped talking—to me, at any rate. It’s been a terrible disappointment. I miss the feeling that we understood one another, but I begin to think that was only my delusion all along.

  Not being silent myself, I am wildly curious about people who are. Since Dawsey doesn’t talk about himself—doesn’t talk at all, to me—I was reduced to questioning Isola about his head bumps to get information about his past life. But Isola is beginning to fear that the lumps may lie after all, and she offered as proof the fact that Dawsey’s Violence-Prone Node isn’t as big as it should be, given he almost beat Eddie Meares to death!!!!

  Those exclamations are mine. Isola seemed to think nothing at all of it.

  It seems Eddie Meares was big and me
an and gave/traded/sold information to the German authorities for favors from them. Everyone knew, which didn’t seem to bother him, since he’d go to a bar to brag and show off his new wealth: a loaf of white bread, cigarettes, and silk stockings—which, he said, any girl on the Island would surely be plenty grateful for.

  A week after Elizabeth and Peter were arrested, he was showing off a silver cigarette case, hinting it was a reward for reporting some goings-on he’d seen at Peter Sawyer’s house.

  Dawsey heard of it and went to Crazy Ida’s the next night. Apparently, he went in, walked up to Eddie Meares, grabbed him by the shirt collar, lifted him up off his bar stool, and began banging his head on the bar. He called Eddie a lousy little shit, pounding his head down between each word. Then he yanked Eddie off the stool and they set to it on the floor.

  According to Isola, Dawsey was a mess: nose, mouth bleeding, one eye puffed shut, one rib cracked—but Eddie Meares was a bigger mess: two black eyes, two ribs broken, and stitches. The Court sentenced Dawsey to three months in the Guernsey jail, though they let him out in one. The Germans needed their jail space for more serious criminals—like Black Marketeers and the thieves who stole petrol from army lorries.

  “And to this day, when Eddie Meares spies Dawsey coming through the door of Crazy Ida’s, his eyes go shifty and his beer spills and not five minutes later, he’s sidling out the back door,” Isola concluded.

  Naturally, I was agog and begged for more. Since she’s disillusioned with bumps, Isola moved on to actual facts.

  Dawsey did not have a very happy childhood. His father died when he was eleven, and Mrs. Adams, who’d always been poorly, grew odd. She became fearful, first of going into town, then of going into her own yard, and finally, she wouldn’t leave the house at all. She would just sit in the kitchen, rocking and staring out at nothing Dawsey could ever see. She died shortly before the war began.