Christmas by the Lighthouse

by Rebecca Boxall

  ‘Nothing, really, but I’ve always wanted to live by the sea and if I want to achieve that life goal then I need to get on with it. The only problem is, there’s not that much around at the moment. But we’ll see – maybe I’ll be able to find something close to Mandla!’

  Summer, reverting to the naturally impulsive nature she’d tamed pretty well over the last twenty years, had taken hold of Jude’s hand.

  ‘Why don’t you move in with me?’ she’d said, and Jude had raised those beautiful eyebrows.

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Look, I know it’s not sensible, but we’re not dealing with normal timescales here, are we? And it makes sense if you’re looking to move somewhere by the sea. I’ve got this place for at least six months.’

  Jude had looked at Summer thoughtfully. ‘What an incredibly generous offer . . . But are you sure your aunt won’t mind? Do you need to speak to her?’

  Summer had shaken her head. ‘No, she won’t mind at all . . . She’s a complete free spirit. If it makes you feel better, why don’t we try it out for a week or so and see how it goes?’

  But already, after a week living together, they’d quickly established a happy routine – a slow and uncomplicated kind of regime.

  Each day began with one of Summer’s healthy breakfasts – a fruit smoothie, fresh fruit salad and Bircher muesli. Jude had baulked at the muesli initially but he’d been forced to admit it was very tasty. After breakfast, usually eaten on the terrace while reading the papers, they would walk for miles. But wherever they went they always tried to end up at a vegetarian café on the cliffs (fashionably named ‘Veganista’), which was only ten minutes from the cottage.

  Here they’d enjoy lunch before winding their way along the headland and down the steps to the cottage. They would go to bed together and then, while Jude rested, Summer would sit at the desk in the living room and try not to spend too long gazing out of the window as she got on with her magazine work. This done, she would turn off her laptop and set about creating an evening meal. She’d realised that, actually, if she stuck to food she was interested in eating herself she wasn’t such a bad chef after all. It had been the endless meaty meals she’d prepared for Seth over the years that had challenged her, as well as all the sugary puddings he’d enjoyed. Assisted by the heat of the early summer, she and Jude stuck mainly to inventive salads – not Jude’s first choice but he’d admitted he was a worse cook than Summer and was more than happy to just enjoy being fed, whatever the food.

  And while all her food choices were healthy, Summer was as eager as Jude to enjoy a few drinks with their meals. He would drive up to Waitrose in St Brelade and cram his trolley with all kinds of beers and wine and stagger in with boxes of the stuff. Before the sun set they would sit out on the terrace on the wooden furniture enjoying a couple of beers and sometimes – if it was warm enough – eating out there.

  Then, when it became too cold, they’d return to the warmth of the living room and sit on the floor playing Sylvie’s board games – Scrabble and Snakes and Ladders and Guess Who?, an ancient children’s game they both remembered playing as kids. Jude told Summer about an office version he and his colleagues had played during rainy lunch breaks.

  ‘How did it work?’ Summer asked.

  ‘One player chose a person whose details were on the department phone list and they’d give “yes” or “no” answers to questions the other players asked while they tried to work out who the chosen colleague was.’

  ‘What kind of questions?’

  ‘Just like the board game, but with more personal details. You know – Are they male? Yes. Do they have a moustache? Yes. Are they a complete dick? Yes. Is it Bradley Smith? Yes! ’ Summer laughed.

  It was all very simple and undemanding – exactly what they both needed.

  One day – a particularly bright but breezy day – they went on an especially long walk, five miles along St Ouen’s Bay from one end to the other, then past a series of potato fields where workers had arranged themselves in diagonal lines, industriously picking Jersey Royals. Then up the cliff steps at L’Etacq towards Grosnez, where they paused to take in the insanely beautiful mix of coast and agriculture. On the way back they retraced their steps but stopped off at Faulkner Fisheries – an old German bunker from the days of the occupation that had been turned into a fish shop. They’d only intended to buy some fish for their supper, which they did (some delicious-looking sea bass), but they spotted the owner lighting a barbecue.

  ‘Staying for lunch?’ the man asked. ‘You just choose whatever you want and I’ll throw it on the barbecue for you. There’s beer and wine for sale, too, if you want a drink.’ They did. They sat at a picnic bench and enjoyed a leisurely, boozy lunch while they ate fresh barbecued prawns and put the world to rights. They still had more than five miles to walk after this, stopping only briefly to buy potatoes from an honesty stall, and by the time they neared the cottage the bright sun had been replaced with dark clouds whipping in from the east. With a mile still to go, it began to pour with rain. Jude and Summer looked at each other and started to laugh wildly, then run, the bag of potatoes bouncing against Jude’s hip. They arrived at the cottage drenched and exhilarated.

  ‘Look at me! I’ve got to get out of these clothes,’ Summer giggled. They were stuck to her like glue.

  ‘Let me help,’ said Jude, and he peeled off Summer’s jeans then began tearing off his own as they started to kiss. The wet clothes abandoned on the cottage floor, they ended up in bed. Afterwards they rested, contented. Jude was quiet.

  ‘You okay?’ Summer asked him, conscious that he could easily slip from feeling well to terrible when his headaches struck.

  ‘I’m fine,’ he told her. ‘Just thinking.’

  ‘About?’

  ‘My bucket list.’

  ‘No way! I’ve heard of those. Fifty things you want to do before you die – that kind of thing? Have you always had one?’

  ‘Nope. It was something I came up with after I was diagnosed. I thought the list would help me achieve a few things. Not fifty things – just a handful – and they’re pretty unambitious. My parents brought me up to value the simple things in life, although there are two items on the list that I’m too curious not to try. Staying in a five-star hotel and driving a flashy car! I want to know what all the fuss is about!’

  ‘What else?’ asked Summer, curious.

  Jude smiled sheepishly. ‘Well, number one on the list is not to die alone.’

  Summer felt tears spring to her eyes. ‘Surely that would never happen? Your family . . .’

  ‘I know I can count on them. I guess I was hoping I might meet someone who would stick by me and be with me to the end . . .’

  ‘And you have!’

  ‘Let’s not jump the gun. It’s early days still.’

  ‘I mean it, Jude,’ Summer said, still feeling emotional. ‘What else is on the list?’ she asked, trying to fight back tears. ‘We should get started on it!’

  ‘I’d love to, but before I make a start on ticking off the things on the bucket list I want to find out more about my grandmother.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She lived through the Nazi occupation of Jersey and when she was alive I never really asked her about it. I don’t know why but it suddenly feels important – to find out what she lived through. I could ask my parents but I’m trying to avoid talking to them – I don’t feel ready to burden them with my news. I’ve managed to track down one of Granny Sabine’s old friends. She’s still in Jersey – in a nursing home. I was planning to go and visit her. Would you . . . I mean, would you find it dreadfully boring to come with me?’

  ‘I’d love to!’ Summer told him. ‘This is turning out to be quite an adventure. I was picturing six months of dossing around on my own doing very little, and now look at me!’

  ‘You don’t look like a layabout anyway!’ Jude laughed. ‘But you must tell me if you want some time alone. Please just say, won’t you?’


  ‘I will. But for now, let’s set things in motion with this lady. I can’t wait to meet her . . .’

  ‘I’ll sort something out. Sooner rather than later.’

  Summer smiled, both the journalist and humanist in her intrigued to find out more about this woman who’d lived through the Nazi occupation with Jude’s grandmother.

  Chapter Seventeen

  JERSEY

  JUDE

  ‘It’s down this lane, I think,’ said Summer, scanning the map. ‘Yes, look – there’s a sign – the Willow Lane Nursing Home.’ Jude indicated and turned left and two minutes later they were pulling up in front of a large, impersonal-looking building.

  ‘I’d hate to end up somewhere like this,’ Summer said as she unfastened her seatbelt. ‘Like an orphanage for old people.’

  ‘Luckily, I’m not going to have that problem!’ laughed Jude, but Summer just looked sad. ‘Come on, you,’ he said the next moment, pulling her out of the passenger seat.

  Having signed in and been led along endless corridors by a severe-looking woman with dyed black hair, they finally met the reason for their visit: Di. She was instantly fascinating – 102 years old and yet sitting in an armchair looking immaculate. She had long silver hair, a dainty bone structure and an incredibly warm and smiling face.

  ‘Well, what a treat this is!’ Di told them immediately in her charming cockney accent. She’d lived in Jersey for most of her adult life but she’d never lost the accent. ‘Come and sit down ’ere. Would you like a cuppa?’ she asked. Jude and Summer said they would.

  ‘Jilly!’ she called back to the severe lady. ‘Three cups of tea and a plate of your finest biscuits, please!’ she ordered, as though in a smart five-star hotel rather than a somewhat gloomy residential home.

  Jilly looked like she might argue but thought better of it and returned five minutes later with a stainless-steel pot of tea, three pale-green 1940s teacups and a plate of bourbons.

  ‘I don’t believe these are the finest they can muster,’ Di muttered before Jilly was out of earshot, ‘but I ’ope they’ll do?’ she smiled.

  ‘Of course! I love bourbons,’ said Summer, and Jude looked on in amusement as she started to scoff the biscuits, just as she had the first time they’d met.

  ‘Now,’ Di said, appraising Jude fully. ‘Well, aren’t you a toothsome young boy! Dear me, you’d ’ave been just my type three-quarters of a century ago,’ she chuckled. ‘But then your grandmother was an ’andsome woman. One of my best friends she turned out to be – Sabine. I still miss ’er now. I weren’t ’alf sad when she passed away. We first got to know each other during the occupation years.’

  ‘How did you meet?’

  ‘I moved to Jersey after I married me first ’usband – we met in London but Jersey was ’is ’ome. Well, ’e turned out to be a rotter, that man, but I ’ad me kids with ’im so I couldn’t regret nothing. Then ’e died of an ’eart attack – ’e weren’t even thirty! That was before the war started. I was just about able to make ends meet, got meself a job as a seamstress. Then next thing we knew there was a rumour the Jerries were ’eading to Jersey! I packed me kids off to stay with a cousin in London and I was going to follow after, once I got the ’ouse sorted out. Only before I got a chance, the Germans ’ad invaded and then in 1942 I was deported to an internment camp in Germany. Five years I didn’t see my nippers. They barely recognised me when I finally saw ’em again. Broke my ’eart, that did.’ Di paused, deeply sad at the remembrance, and Summer reached out to hold her wizened hand.

  ‘I didn’t know what to do with meself, but there was this pantomime going on. The second Christmas of the occupation. I was asked to make the costumes and that kept me nice and busy. That was when I met your gran. Sabine. She was playing Cinderella. She were great friends with a girl called Queenie and they was a bit younger than me, but ever such nice girls. After I was sent off to the camp in Germany I ’ad no way to keep in touch with ’em. But after the war I remarried and went to live in the north of England – and then, a few years later, I moved back to Jersey with me second ’usband, Glen – he was a goody, that one, though he went and died before me ’n’ all. So we made Jersey our ’ome back in the fifties. That was when I met up with Sabine again and we became very friendly. She’d just ’ad a baby when I moved back – your mum, Beryl – and I ’elped ’er out, gave ’er a bit of advice.’

  ‘I can’t imagine what it must have been like living here when the island was taken over. Was it a shock?’ Summer asked.

  ‘Well, it was and it wasn’t. The Germans ’ad defeated France and we’re such close neighbours we knew it would just be a matter of time, but we kept ’olding out ’ope that the British would somehow find a way to protect us. Most of us ’ad been burying our ’eads in the sand but in June 1940 we were told the island was going to be “demilitarised” or whatever they called it and we ’ad to decide whether to evacuate or not. There was an awful lot of dithering and talking. When German aircraft started flying over, more and more people began to flee. A woman along the road from us ’ot-footed it down to the ’arbour one day ’alfway through ’er ironing – she left the iron on in ’er fluster and the ’ouse set fire! That was when I sent the kids off, thinking I could follow later. A mistake, that was, although at least they were spared being packed off to Germany.’

  ‘So what was it like – after the invasion?’ asked Jude as he sipped his tea.

  ‘At the start, it weren’t too bad. The soldiers we came across at that stage were mostly young and not too intimidating, aside from the air force officers. My word, they were an arrogant lot! Attractive enough, but far too full of themselves. Then they disappeared all of a sudden and it were just the ground soldiers left. Well, them and the Gestapo, of course. After the war ended everyone said there ’adn’t been any Gestapo in Jersey during the occupation but if you ask me there was! After the invasion, at first we was able to go about our lives reasonably normally aside from a lot of silly rules. But the Gestapo, or whoever they were, put the fear into you. Worst kind of eavesdroppers, they were! You soon learnt just to pass the time of day with friends when you saw ’em in the street, as you could never be sure who was listening.’

  ‘What kind of rules were there?’ asked Summer.

  ‘Some were just plain daft, but others were more serious – they banned wirelesses. Didn’t want anyone listening to the British news broadcasts. So everyone ’ad to ’and over their sets, although some people ’ad a couple and ’anded in one and kept the other ’idden. If anyone got caught with a wireless after the ban, they risked being packed off to a concentration camp in Europe. You ’ad to be so careful – there were neighbours settling grievances by grassing on their old rivals. But the news broadcasts were an obsession for everyone. To be without a wireless made ’em feel like there was no ’ope. Like I say, I was packed off to Germany in 1942, but after the war ended I found out what Sabine ’ad been up to. She’d taken terrible risks as the war ’ad gone on: braver and braver she’d got as time went by. She were very close to the organist in our local church and persuaded ’im to let ’er keep a wireless ’idden under the floorboards next to the organ. She’d go into the church, often after curfew, and listen to the news. The penalties got ’arsher and ’arsher, but she carried on. She even started up a news-sheet that was passed around the island. She was never caught, though she came close a couple of times. She was brave, that girl. Brave or foolish, I said to ’er when she told me what she’d been up to during those years.’

  ‘I didn’t know this!’ Jude exclaimed, pouring more tea. ‘I mean, she’d occasionally tell me a few tales about Jersey in wartime, but she never told me that.’

  ‘Well, she learnt to be secretive. We all did. Probably didn’t want to brag, neither. It weren’t the only brave thing she did. But in a way, I always thought the drowning incident were the most courageous thing of all.’

  ‘She nearly drowned?’ asked Jude.

  ‘Not ’er. She was a very stron
g swimmer. I was, too. In fact, I saved my Glen when ’e got tangled up in ’is parachute at St Brelade’s Bay, but that’s another story. Sabine saved a German soldier, down at ’avre des Pas, quite early on in the occupation. He was a young lad – about our age. We thought ’e was mucking about but then Sabine realised ’e was drowning. He’d gone out too far and the current was strong. He was panicking, flailing about. She didn’t think twice. She plunged into the sea and swam out to ’im, saved his life. She saw ’im as another ’uman being when most of us that day would’ve just left the enemy to drown. Her actions were frowned upon by some. She were accused of fraternising with the enemy. But Sabine weren’t one of those Jerry-bags who took off with the soldiers, then lorded it over the rest of us. The soldier did become almost a friend to Sabine, though, after she saved ’im. He became a useful ally at times. Anyway, that was Sabine. Brave, through and through.’

  ‘It’s all so interesting,’ Summer remarked. ‘I just can’t believe how different it must have been.’

  ‘Oh, it was! The deprivations. Sabine said she thought they’d all starve to death by the end. But she told me as well about the celebrations when the island were freed! The ninth of May 1945. Sabine and ’er friend Queenie watched the Nazi flag being taken down from the Pomme d’Or Hotel – that nasty swastika – and replaced with the Union Jack. She said she’d never forget that day!’

  Di paused, as if in a reverie, and Jude and Summer were reluctant to disturb her. Eventually she shook her head. ‘I’ve gone on, I’m sorry, and now me tea is cold!’

  ‘Let me go and get some more,’ Summer said. ‘And then we should probably go. We don’t want to outstay our welcome.’

  ‘Now that would be impossible!’ Di said. ‘But I ’aven’t found out anything about the pair of you! Will you come again?’ she asked, and all at once she seemed her age. Vulnerable. Lonely. ‘Only me kids both live abroad now – me girl’s in New Zealand and me boy’s in California. They visit now and then, but they’re getting quite frail themselves . . .’