The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (18 page)

Escorted at different times by Eben, Eli, Dawsey or Isola, I have been round the island's ten parishes in the past five days; Guernsey is very beautiful in all its variety—fields, woods, hedgerows, dells, manors, dolmens, wild cliffs, witches' corners, Tudor houses and Norman stone cottages. I have been told stories of her history (very lawless) with almost every new site and building. Guernsey pirates had superior taste—they built beautiful homes and impressive public buildings. These are sadly dilapidated and in need of repair, but their architectural splendour still shows through. Dawsey took me to a tiny church—every inch of which is a mosaic of broken china and smashed pottery. One priest did this all by himself—he must have made pastoral visits with a sledgehammer.

My guides are as various as the sights. Isola tells me about cursed pirate chests bound with bleached bones washing up on the beaches, and what Mr Hallette is hiding in his barn (he says it's a calf, but we know better). Eben describes how things used to look before the war, and Eli disappears suddenly and then returns with peach juice and an angelic smile on his face. Dawsey says the least, but he takes me to see wonders—like the tiny church. Then he stands back and lets me enjoy them for as long as I want. He's the most unhurrying person I've ever met. As we were walking along the road yesterday, I noticed that it cut very close to the cliffs and there was a path leading down to the beach below. ‘Is this where you met Christian Hellman?' I asked. Dawsey seemed startled and said yes, this was the spot. ‘What did he look like?' I asked, because I wanted to picture the scene. I thought it was a futile request, given
that men can't describe each other, but Dawsey surprised me. ‘He looked like the German you imagine—tall, blond hair, blue eyes—except he could feel pain.'

With Amelia and Kit, I have walked into town several times for tea. Cee Cee was right in his rapture at sailing into St Peter Port. The harbour, with the town traipsing up steeply to the sky, must be one of the most beautiful in the world. Shop windows on High Street and the Pollet are sparklingly clean and beginning to fill up with new goods. St Peter Port may be essentially drab at the moment—so many buildings need restoring—but it does not give off the dead-tired air poor London does. It must be because of the bright light that flows down on everything and the clean, clean air and the flowers growing everywhere—in fields, on verges, in crannies between paving stones.

You really have to be Kit's height to see this world properly. She's marvellous at pointing out things I would otherwise miss—butterflies, spiders, flowers growing tiny and low to the ground—they're hard to see when you're faced with a blazing wall of fuchsias and bougainvillea. Yesterday, I came across Kit and Dawsey crouched in the undergrowth beside the gate, quiet as thieves. They weren't stealing though, they were watching a blackbird tug a worm out of the ground. The worm put up a good fight, and the three of us sat there in silence until the blackbird finally got it down his gullet. I'd never really seen the whole process before. It's revolting.

Kit carries a little box with her sometimes when we go to town—a cardboard box, tied up tightly with string and with a red-yarn handle. Even when we have tea, she holds it on her lap and is very protective of it. There are no air-holes in the box, so it can't be a ferret. Or, oh Lord, perhaps it's a dead ferret. I'd love to know what's in it, but of course I can't ask.

I do like it here, and I've settled in well enough to start work now. I will, as soon as I come back from fishing with Eben and Eli this afternoon.

Love to you and Piers,

Juliet

From Juliet to Sidney
30th May 1946

Dear Sidney,

Do you remember when you sat me down for fifteen sessions of the Sidney Stark School of Perfect Mnemonics? You said that writers who sat scribbling notes during an interview were rude, lazy and incompetent and you were going to make sure I never disgraced you. You were unbearably arrogant and I loathed you, but I learnt your lessons well—and now you can see the fruits of your labour:

I went to my first meeting of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society last night. It was held in Clovis and Nancy Fossey's living room (spilling over into the kitchen). The speaker of the evening was a new member, Jonas Skeeter, who was to talk about
The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
.

Mr Skeeter strode to the front of the room, glared at us all, and announced that he didn't want to be there and had only read Marcus Aurelius' silly book because his oldest, his dearest, and his
former
friend, Woodrow Cutter, had shamed him into it. Everyone turned to look at Woodrow, and Woodrow sat there, obviously shocked, his mouth agape.

‘Woodrow,' Jonas Skeeter went on, ‘came across my field where I was busy with my compost. He was holding this little
book in his hands and he said he'd just finished reading it. He'd like me to read it too, he said—it was very
profound
.

‘“Woodrow, I've got no time to be
profound
,” I said.

‘He said, “You should make time, Jonas. If you'd read it, we'd have better things to talk about at Mad Bella's. We'd have more fun over a pint.”

‘Now, that hurt my feelings, no good saying it didn't. My childhood friend had been thinking himself above me for some time—all because he read books for you people and I didn't. I'd let it pass before—each to his own, as my mum always said. But now he had gone too far. He had insulted me.
He put himself above me in conversation
.

‘“Jonas,” he said, “Marcus was a Roman emperor and a mighty warrior. This book is what he thought about, down there among the Quadi. They were barbarians who was waiting in the woods to kill all the Romans. And Marcus, hard-pressed as he was by those Quadi, took the time to write up this little book of his thoughts. He had long, long thoughts, and we could use some of those, Jonas.”

‘So I pushed down my hurt and took the damned book, but I came here tonight to say before all, Shame, Woodrow! Shame on you, to put a book above your boyhood friend! But I did read it and here is what I think. Marcus Aurelius was an
old woman
—forever taking his mind's temperature, forever wondering about what he had done, or what he had not done. Was he right—or was he wrong? Was the rest of the world in error? Could it be him instead? No, it was everybody else who was wrong, and he set matters straight for them. Broody hen that he was, he never had a tiny thought that he couldn't turn into a sermon. Why, I bet the man couldn't even have a piss—'

Someone gasped. ‘Piss! He said piss in front of the ladies!'

‘Make him apologise!' cried another.

‘He doesn't have to apologise. He's supposed to say what he thinks, and that's what he thinks. Like it or not!'

‘Woodrow, how could you hurt your friend so?'

‘For shame, Woodrow!'

The room fell quiet when Woodrow stood up. The two men met in the middle of the floor. Jonas held out his hand to Woodrow, and Woodrow clapped Jonas on the back, and the two of them left, arm in arm, for Mad Bella's. I hope that's a pub and not a woman.

Love,

Juliet

P.S. Dawsey was the only Society member who seemed to find last night's meeting at all funny. He's too polite to laugh out loud, but I saw his shoulders shaking. I gathered from the others that it had been a satisfying but by no means extraordinary evening.

Love again,

Juliet

From Juliet to Sidney
31st May 1946

Dear Sidney,

Please read the enclosed letter—I found it slipped under my door this morning.

Dear Miss Ashton,

Miss Pribby told me you wanted to know about our recent Occupation by the German Army—so here is my letter.

I am a small man, and though Mother says I never had a prime, I did. I just didn't tell her about it. I am a
champion whistler. I have won contests and prizes for my whistling. During the Occupation, I used this talent to unman the enemy.

After Mother was asleep, I would creep out of the house. I'd make my silent way down to the Germans' brothel, if you'll pardon the expression, on Saumarez Street. I'd hide in the shadows until a soldier emerged from his tryst. I do not know if ladies are aware of this, but men are not at their peak of fitness after such an occasion. The soldier would start walking back to his quarters, often whistling. I'd start slowly walking, whistling the same tune (but much better). He'd stop whistling, but I
would not stop whistling
. He'd pause a second, thinking that what he had taken for an echo was
actually another person in the dark—following him. But who?
He would look back, I'd have slipped into a doorway. He'd see no one—he'd start on his way again, but not whistling. I'd start to walk again and to whistle again. He'd stop—I'd stop. He'd hurry on, but I'd still whistle, following him with firm footsteps. The soldier would hasten to his quarters, and I'd return to the brothel to wait for another German to stalk. I do believe I made many a soldier unfit to perform his duties well the next day. Do you see?

Now, if you'll forgive me, I will say more about brothels. I do not believe those young ladies were there because they wanted to be. They were sent from the Occupied territories of Europe, same as the Todt slave workers. It could not have been nice work. To the soldiers' credit, they demanded that the German authorities give the women an extra food allowance, same as given to the island's heavy workers. Furthermore, I saw some of these same ladies share their food with the Todt workers, who were sometimes let out of their camps at night to hunt for food.

My mother's sister lives in Jersey. Now that the war is over, she's able to visit us—more's the pity. Being the sort of woman she is, she told a nasty story. After D-Day the Germans decided to send their brothel ladies back to France, so they put them all on a boat to St Malo. Now those waters are very wayward, broiled up and ugly. Their boat was swept on to the rocks and all aboard were drowned. You could see the bodies of those poor women—their yellow hair (bleached hussies, my aunt called them) spread out in the water, washing against the rocks. ‘Served them right, the whores,' my aunt said. She and my mother laughed.

It was not to be borne! I jumped up from my chair and knocked the tea table over on them deliberately. I called them dirty old bats.

My aunt says she will never set foot in our house again, and Mother hasn't spoken to me since. I find it all very peaceful.

Yours truly,

Henry A. Toussant

From Juliet to Sidney
Mr Sidney Stark
Stephens & Stark Ltd
21 St James's Place
London SW1

6th June 1946

Dear Sidney,

I could hardly believe it was you, telephoning from London last night! How wise of you not to tell me you were flying
home. You know how planes terrify me—even when they aren't dropping bombs. Wonderful to know you are no longer five oceans away, but only across the Channel. Will you come to see us as soon as you can?

Isola is better than a stalking horse. She has brought seven people over to tell me their Occupation stories—and I have a growing pile of interview notes. But for now, notes are all they are. I don't know yet if a book is possible—or, if possible, what form it should take.

Kit has taken to spending some of her mornings here. She brings rocks or shells and sits quietly—well, fairly quietly—on the floor and plays with them while I work. When I've finished we take a picnic lunch down to the beach. If it's too foggy, we play indoors; either hairdressers—brushing each other's hair until it crackles—or Dead Bride.

Dead Bride is not a complicated game like Snakes and Ladders; it's quite simple. The bride veils herself in a lace curtain and stuffs herself into the laundry basket, where she lies as though dead while the anguished bridegroom hunts for her. When he finally discovers her entombed in the laundry basket, he breaks into loud wails. Then and only then does the bride jump up, shout ‘Surprise!' and clutch him to her. Then it is all joy and smiles and kisses. Privately, I don't give that marriage much of a chance.

I know that all children are gruesome, but I don't know whether I am supposed to encourage them. I'm afraid to ask Sophie if Dead Bride is too morbid a game for a four-year-old. If she says yes, we'll have to stop playing, and I don't want to stop. I love Dead Bride.

So many questions arise when you are spending your days with a child. For instance, if one likes to cross one's eyes a lot, might they get stuck like that for ever—or is that a rumour?
My mother said they would, and I believed her, but Kit is made of sterner stuff and doubts it.

I am trying hard to remember my parents' ideas about bringing up children but, as the child in question, I'm hardly one to judge. I know I was spanked for spitting my peas across the table at Mrs Morris, but that's all I can remember. Perhaps she deserved it. Kit seems to show no ill-effects from having been brought up piecemeal by Society members. It certainly hasn't made her fearful and retiring. I asked Amelia about it yesterday. She smiled and said there was no chance of a child of Elizabeth's being fearful and retiring. Then she told me a lovely story about her son, Ian, and Elizabeth when they were children.

He was to be sent to school in England, and he was not at all happy about it, so he decided to run away from home. He consulted Jane and Elizabeth, and Elizabeth persuaded him to buy her boat for his escape. The trouble was, she had no boat—but she didn't tell him that. Instead, she built one herself in three days. On the appointed afternoon, they carried it down to the beach, and Ian set off, with Elizabeth and Jane waving their hankies from the shore. About half a mile out, the boat began to sink—fast. Jane was all for running to get her father, but Elizabeth said there wasn't time and, as it was all her fault, she would have to save him. She took off her shoes, dived into the waves, and swam out to Ian.