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 mum and dad and your home by the river, for which I am sorry. But me, I am glad you have dear friends like Sophie and her mother and Sidney. As for 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 rolling 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 came to see us. So would Eben and Amelia and Dawsey—and Eli, too. Kit is not so sure, but you mustn’t mind that She might come round. Your newspaper article will be printed soon, so you could come here and have a rest. You might find a story here you’d like to tell about.
Your friend,
Isola
From Datasey to Juliet
26th April 1946
Dear Miss Ashton,
My temporary job at the quarry is over, and Kit is staying with me for a while. She is sitting under the table I’m writing on, 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 amongst 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 tiny, 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 about 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. 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 wishing for Elizabeth to come home. We have learnt 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 performance of Julius Caesar—John Booker is to be Mark Antony and Clovis Fossey is going to play Caesar. Isola has been reading Clovis his lines, and she says we will all be astonished by his acting, especially when, after he’s dead, he hisses, ‘Thou shalt see me at Philippi!’ Just thinking of the way Clovis hisses 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,
Dawsey Adams
From Mark to Juliet
30th April 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’ve got a sausage.
Juliet
From Mark to Juliet
A sausage—how appetising. Suzette, at eight?
Love,
M.
From Juliet to Mark
Say please.
J.
From Mark to Juliet
Pleased to see you at Suzette at eight.
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 about 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 colour 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?
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 biscuits 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’s 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 each another, those two.
Thank God we were at his flat by then—he started shouting about Sidney and godforsaken islands and women who care more about 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 car, he leaned in to kiss me and said, ‘You’re an idiot, Juliet.’
And maybe he’s right. Do you remember those awful, awful Cheslayne Fair novels we read the summer we were thirteen? My favourite was The Master of Blackbeath. 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 about him ever since she fell off her horse when she was twelve? The thing is, Sophie—Mark Reynolds is exactly like Ransom. He’s tall and handsome, with a crooked smile and a chiselled jaw. H
e 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 the 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 in the near future. 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 theatres and marry him like a reasonable person.
Write and tell me what to do.
Love to Dominic—and to you and Alexander.
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 since. 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 the beaches. I’ve read all 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 our wirelesses? If you were caught with one, you’d get sent off to prison on the Continent Well, those of us who had secret wirelesses, 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 the 7th of June, 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 probabjy off writers now) and hear about their war, because 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,
I was delighted 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 pegs. Isola is ecstatic that you are coming and is already at work on behalf of your book. Though I warned her that it was only an idea so far, she is 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 letters in the next few weeks.
Isola also went to see Mr Dilwyn at the bank this afternoon and asked him to let you rent Elizabeth’s cottage. 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 see to everything else: airing the rooms, washing the windows, beating the rugs, and killing spiders.
Please don’t feel as though these arrangements place you under any obligation. Mr Dilwyn was planning in any case to assess the property for its rental possibilities. Sir Ambrose’s solicitors have begun an inquiry into Elizabeth’s whereabouts. They have found that 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 in order 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. There were dreadful rumours 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 round 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 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 honourable 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 for you. He will bake a Potato Peel Pie for the event and has devised a cocoa icing for it He made a surprise pudding for our meeting last night—cherries flambe, which fortunately burnt to a crisp 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 airliostesses give gin to passengers—and the mail boat doesn’t). But unless you are bedevilled 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 stormclouds, 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 Jidiet
14th May 1946
Dear Julie
t,
I have been getting your house ready for you. I have asked several of my friends at the market to write to you about 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 liar.
Would you like to know about my first sight of the Germans? I will use adjectives to make it more lively. I don’t usually—I prefer 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 hedge-hopped, swooping up and swooping down all over Guernsey, scaring the cows in the fields.
Elizabeth was at my house, but we didn’t have the heart to make hair tonic even though my yarrow was in. We just drifted around like a couple of ghouls. Then Elizabeth pulled herself together. ‘Come on,’ she says. ‘I’m not going to sit inside waiting for them. I’m going into town to find the 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 and stare.’