by Caroline Lea
There were wives and sweethearts crying now. And, like a daguerreotype of twenty-five years before, there were plenty of howling children, clinging on to Papa’s legs. Little ones pick up on moods, even when they don’t fully understand. People don’t give children enough credit—they’re born with old heads on their shoulders.
Edith did what she could to be of some comfort. Passed a sugared almond to a child here and there. Gave some of the women a tight embrace or a kind word. Held poor Rebecca Mourant’s hair back while she vomited; made sure she didn’t splash her good shoes.
She saw the Duret family but didn’t try to speak to them. No one likes to make a scene and she’d not exchanged so much as a glance with them since Sarah had screamed her from their house six months ago: And don’t ever come back, you interfering old witch!
Claudine’s papa was the only one leaving, it seemed. He had a small bag and not much else. Off to fight, or he’d be taking the family with him, surely? None of Edith’s business, of course. Not now, in any case.
Claudine had grown frail and fretful since Edith had last seen her. It tugged at her to think of how chubby she’d been as a tiny babe. Edith recalled blowing raspberries into her fat little stomach when she’d changed her nappy. Memories: holding her close, pressing kisses to a little mouth, squashed into a fish pout. Bicycling those plump legs while the chuckles juddered through her body. And now, Edith might as well have been a stranger for all the family looked at her.
Edith tried to see Claudine with an outsider’s measuring gaze. She was thin-faced, sallow and ill-kempt. Wild, knotted hair and torn boys’ trousers and a boy’s shirt—grubby around the collar. Edith’s fingers itched to go and comb out that hair and give her a good scrub and a kiss on the forehead.
Instead she watched, as Claudine turned to Sarah and said, ‘Why can’t we go with Papa?’
Sarah’s voice was the same cigarette-harsh rasp that Edith remembered.
‘Well, dear, they don’t let women and children fight in the army.’
Claudine giggled. ‘No, Maman. I mean to live. So we’re not here when the Germans arrive. Can’t we go to England with Papa and leave the war here?’
‘Be a good girl and hush yourself,’ Sarah said. ‘We’re staying. No point in fussing. What would Rowan and Elderflower do without us? Besides, where would we live in England?’
Claudine nodded and poked at a stone with her toe. ‘Who will care for us?’
Sarah’s face was flat and impassive as she stared out at the departing boat. ‘Wave to Papa, Claudine. We shall care for ourselves.’
‘But how? Where will we get food? And money?’
Edith winced; she could see the hardness in Sarah’s jaw and she half expected to hear the sound of a slap.
But Sarah glanced around at the surrounding crowd and knelt down in front of Claudine and took her shoulders in her hands. Edith could see Sarah’s fingers digging into her daughter’s flesh.
‘Gracious, what have I told you about fussing? Those are my concerns. Not yours. We shall manage. Do you hear me? We’ve nothing to fret about. So, no tears. You’ve to be a big, strong girl now. Understand?’
Her knuckles were white and her arms shook with the force of her grip. Claudine was pale-faced but she didn’t try to squirm away and she put Edith in mind of a rabbit, lying limp in a fox’s jaws.
‘No more questions then. Yes?’
Sarah’s eyes were huge and bright and, for a moment, Edith could remember her as a child herself. So sweet and full of mischief. She had been like a tonic for Edith, after Frank’s death—being widowed at twenty-six had stamped the life out of her, but she had slowly found herself again through the small child’s laughter. Sarah had grown into a lovely young woman—generous, with a sharp wit, and Edith had been happy to help her with Claudine and then, later, with Francis, even though her forty-nine years sometimes made running around after children exhausting. But Sarah had become a different creature after Francis’s birth—there was a hard darkness in her, which made her eyes and voice steel, made her quick to lash out: she reminded Edith of a caged animal, frantically snapping at any hand which came near.
Now, watching Sarah stiffen at her daughter’s challenge, Edith found she was holding her breath. Then Claudine nodded and Sarah gave a quick, tight smile and let her go.
‘That’s the spirit. Good girl.’
But when she tried to light a cigarette, Sarah’s fingers were trembling so much that she snapped three matches in half.
Edith turned away to watch the last remaining passengers boarding the boat.
Old Monsieur Le Brun, sitting on the quay, smoking and stroking his yellowed moustache, shouted out, ‘Like rats, you are. Rats, buggering off at the first sign of trouble.’
One of the men on the gangplank stopped and called, ‘Well, I’d rather be a living rat than a dead dog. You won’t even see that boot coming until it kicks you in the ribs.’
Le Brun spat a thick yellow streamer of mucus on to the quay. ‘May God forgive your desertion of your land in her time of need.’
The other men on the gangplank laughed harshly. One of them bellowed back, ‘Yes, and God forgive you, you damned fool, bedding down with the enemy.’
The man next to him said, ‘They’ll all be speaking German the next time we see them. They’ll have little moustaches. Even the women.’ They laughed louder.
‘And the babies. They’ll be born with blond hair and their first words will be Heil Hitler!’
That raised the loudest laugh of all.
Dr Carter was at the quay too, but he wasn’t leaving. He had a satchel on his shoulder, a bowl of water and a sponge. He was examining all the hospital patients who were well enough to be shipped off the island.
He took his time, talking to each of his patients and their families. He handed out tablets and gave injections here and there. But he was also redoing dressings and bandages—he even gave a quick sponge bath to one of the men who must have been completely bed-bound. Real donkey work, you might say. The last doctor, the one who thought Edith was the devil or close enough, would have had a flock of nurses seeing to all that for him.
Carter finished the last dressing and then came to stand next to her, eyebrows raised as if he were asking a question. No point in pretending she hadn’t been gawking.
‘Quite a bedside manner you have there, Doctor. They trust you, these folk, you know. And that’s saying something.’
He gave a wry smile. ‘I would say I’m flattered. But I suspect trust is a pleasant byproduct of being in charge of the medication for pain relief. I’ve found myself most popular with those patients in need of morphine.’
‘Don’t you believe it. We’re an awkward bunch, we Jèrriais, or we can be, if we take against someone. But the people here don’t mind you. Some might even like you. And that’s something worth a pat on the back, when you’ve only been here a matter of months. Takes most visitors half a lifetime before they can make folk start to trust them, let alone like them.’
He turned to her with a quizzical smile. ‘But I’m not a visitor. I plan to stay.’
‘But you weren’t born here. If you live here for the next half-century and draw your last breath on the island, you’ll still be known as that English doctor.’
He laughed.
‘I’m not jesting. Some families here can trace their blood back hundreds of years. Back to before the Conquest, or so they’d have you believe. And, as I say, we’re a tricky bunch. See, we were part of French territory here, way back, but even when we were busy rebelling against the French, we were a law unto ourselves—we weren’t ever English. We simply chose to side with them when it came to picking our loyalties for battles. But we’re Jèrriais through and through. So if you’re English then you’re most certainly a visitor, Doctor, and a foreign one at that.’
He smiled. ‘You paint quite a picture there. But surely you’ve all been English since 1066? Don’t the Channel Islands belong to England nowadays?’
‘Quiet with that sort of talk. There’s people here would have your eyes for saying that we belong to anyone, let alone the English. If anything, the English belong to us.’
‘You’re pulling my leg?’
‘Not at all,’ Edith said. ‘It’s like this you see: when William of Normandy took England for his own, we were part of Normandy. Part of the conquering army, if you like. Which means that we don’t belong to England—England belongs to us. Our oldest possession, she is. Never you mind that smile, Doctor. There’s some folk who’ve gone happily off to fight for the English, and that’s their choice. But there are others who would no more leave here than peel off their own skins. I’ll be buried here, even if it is the Germans who dig the hole.’
He had remarkable eyes when he smiled. Really quite blue. But why was he smiling when she mentioned the invasion?
‘You’re not frightened at all?’ she asked.
He gave a tiny shrug. ‘A little. I suspect we’ve chosen a raw deal. And you?’
‘Of course, I’d be foolish not to be terrified.’ She laughed, a high-pitched sound with an edge in it. It took her by surprise to say it out loud: she was petrified, losing sleep, queasy and knock-kneed with fear.
His eyes searched her face. ‘You’re thinking of the rumours of what they did in France?’
‘Aren’t we all?’
‘And yet you chose to stay.’
‘As did you. You could have left, very easily. I know you’ve said you felt a duty and that’s very admirable. But there must be some other reason for a man like you to stay. Wouldn’t you rather be near your family, at home?’
‘Home…’ He shook his head. ‘No, I—I wanted to stay. Things cannot be as bad as all that, surely?’
She frowned. Was he a simpleton?
He looked at her for a long moment then leant forward and spoke quickly, earnestly. ‘Because this isn’t 1914. Because history doesn’t repeat itself. Because it’s only rumours, after all, and because the fear of the enemy is half the battle: if they have us running scared then they’ve already won, don’t you see?’
She nodded, slowly. ‘I think I do. You speak a fair amount of sense. For an Englishman, that is.’
He laughed and gave a small bow, as if at the end of a performance, and she suddenly wondered how much of what he said and did was just that: a performance, a brave face to scare the wolf of fear away.
A HAMMERING on the door dragged Maurice from sleep and he sat upright with a gasp. It took a moment for him to remember: the bombs, the evacuation, the Germans coming… For a confused moment he thought it might actually be soldiers battering on his door. But that wasn’t possible, surely? Not so soon.
He rubbed his eyes. There was that hammering again.
Marthe grumbled in her sleep and Maurice heaved himself upright and opened the door an inch, squinting in the sudden sunlight.
That girl, Claudine, was standing on his doorstep, pink-cheeked as if she’d been running.
He frowned. ‘Stop that hammering, will you? What are you doing here?’
‘You’ve missed the boat,’ she gasped. ‘It’s gone already. Just set sail. Papa has left, but you missed it.’
‘Keep your voice down—Marthe is sleeping.’
‘But Maurice, I thought you wanted to take Marthe.’
He rubbed his eyes. ‘You’re sharper than you look, young Claudine. I tried to leave, but she wouldn’t come. Screamed the place down.’ He tried to keep his voice calm. ‘So now we’re staying.’
‘Aren’t you worried the Germans will hurt her?’
He stared at her for a beat, then said, ‘Yes. Perhaps I am.’ And for an awful moment, he felt a rising tide of panic and thought he might weep in front of the girl. Then he drew a steadying breath.
‘Well, it’s too late to be fretting, in any case. It’s wretched, but there’s no escaping now.’
‘But you’ve a boat of your own,’ Claudine said. ‘You could escape. You could row to England. With Marthe in the boat. You could rescue her—it would be such a thrilling adventure.’
For goodness sake. Was everything excitement and intrigue for this girl?
He shook his head. ‘No, I can’t take her anywhere alone. She’s too far gone. I couldn’t row and care for her as well…’
He couldn’t force any more words past the cold stone of panic that crushed his chest.
And, bless the girl, she must have heard his voice tremble, because she looked out at the horizon while he calmed himself.
After a moment he managed to say, ‘I’ve no choice but to stay now.’
‘What rot! You simply need to find someone to go with you. And I’m going to help you. I will make it my very special task, to help you rescue Marthe and take her somewhere safe.’
For a moment, exasperating as it was, the child’s blind optimism seemed as magical and unlikely as the stars: something that existed in spite of its own implausibility.
Maurice reached out and clasped her hand. Her fingers were small and cold in his and he was reminded of just how young she was. Ten, and a foreign army on the doorstep, but she wasn’t cowering under the covers, howling in fear as he wanted to.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘For wanting to help. You’re a good girl. A marvel.’
After Claudine left, Maurice started scrubbing the floor, trying to pull himself together. But those stories skittered about in his head. What they said Germans did—what they’d done to the French when they invaded—it was enough to make a man sick. Perhaps the girl was on to something. Or perhaps not. Escaping once the Germans were here would be a bloody foolish business. Might as well take himself to the loony bin, or simply ask to be shot in the head.
He tried to think of something else; his fretting did Marthe no good. She sensed it and it made her restless and gripey.
She had settled back to sleep for the moment. Maurice had a mountain of washing, but that meant too much clattering with the scrubbing board and mangle. He could do the floor, though. It was a fine, quiet job. Just the scratch of the brush and the slosh of the water. If he set a good rhythm going then it helped to soothe her and she could sleep for hours. He liked to imagine she was dreaming about being out on the sea with him in the boat, back when they were courting and life stretched wide and open before them.
Dr Carter had told him there was nothing much going on in her head anymore, but sometimes she looked at him and Maurice could swear blind she was still there. Deep in those eyes, somewhere. So never mind the knife blade of pain in his back and the gunshot crack of his knees, he carried on scrubbing as long as he could bear it so she could have a good, long sleep. Perhaps find her way back to him while she was dreaming.
Maurice missed fishing terribly, of course. The oyster runs weren’t the same: they were a rush out into the dark, snatch a net and back again. Rowing like the clappers; screaming muscles. All the while with his ears prickling for the sound of another boat, or a shout that might mean he’d been caught. Then it’d be a French prison for him, or a beating. Something worse, perhaps. And what would his Marthe do without him?
Fishing was different. He’d set off early in the morning, or in the dark breath of night sometimes, depending on the tide. Rowing steadily, keeping the same pace for an hour or more, until the island was a black smudge floating on the horizon. Far enough away for it to look like something he’d imagined, all the worries on it too distant to remember.
He’d cast his net out as if in a dream. A sort of magic to the action: like flinging out hope. Full of holes. Then sit and wait, every breath a prayer. Then tug and heave and dredge up wriggle-bodied treasure, slippery and gleaming.
There was nothing in the world like the enchanted stillness of the sea. Yes, there was a chorus of sounds: the water slapping on the wood and the whisper of his own breathing. Perhaps the cough of another fisherman, if he was close. But not one of those sounds crept under his skin. They were hums on the horizon. Outside of thought or care. As though they were buried fathoms
under the sea, muffled by the weight and velvet darkness of the water.
And he could simply sit, silent. Wait for his net to fill with fish. Know that at home his wife would be rousing and washing, perhaps cooking something for his breakfast. When he returned he would be able to give her the money he’d raised from selling the fish: a conjuror to pluck gold from water. And she would help to sponge that sea smell from his body. And then perhaps they would both go back to bed for a touch of closeness. That face, those eyes. That sweet breath in his mouth and deep in his lungs. Fingers in his hair, nails on his back. He would sleep with her body wrapped around him. He would carry that peace with him all day.
He’d seen signs of the illness even before they married: changes in her mood, forgetfulness and a sort of absence in her eyes sometimes when she looked at him, as if she couldn’t remember who he was.
Gradually, she’d become wilder: sometimes she lashed out at him for no reason. And they had both seen her mother’s decline and knew how it might be for Marthe. But he loved her too much to leave her; he couldn’t imagine existing without her. So they married and hoped that somehow Marthe’s fate might be different.
Maurice had carried on fishing when Marthe’s illness had worsened: they both pretended it wasn’t happening, even as she became angrier, more absent, less herself. But then he would come home and find that she’d forgotten to fill the pan before she put it on the stove. The kitchen would be thick with smoke, stove smouldering, her coughing her insides up. Or she’d dropped a pile of dishes and then couldn’t remember how to clean them up, had shredded her poor hands trying.
Every time he came home there would be something new she’d forgotten how to do—a piece of herself she had lost. Every time, she’d be crying and saying sorry over and over, as if she were somehow to blame for her illness.
But he knew he must stop the fishing when he came home and she’d spilled a pan of boiling water down her legs. She was rubbing at them—perhaps she had thought that might take the pain. But her skin was peeling off in her hands where the hot water had blistered it. Translucent parings of flesh, like white petals, which she threw to the floor, while underneath, her blood—so much blood.
