When the Sky Fell Apart

by Caroline Lea

  Edith smiled. There, there, never you mind.

  Then Edith held the sticks of potato and carrot up to the girl’s lips; she chewed them as best she could. Sometimes she choked and gagged a little, but at least she knew what to expect and at least she wanted to be eating. It was a start.

  Edith always tried to eat with her, and had similar things on her plate too, so she wouldn’t feel babied. It’s how she would have done things with her own child—the small, silent scrap of white flesh she’d buried as soon as it was born. Never took a breath but was perfect as if it had been lovingly moulded from clay. Little upturned nose, eyelashes fine as the wisps of dandelion seeds and so few, on those tiny eyes, squeezed shut against the bright glare and clamour of the world.

  Would have been about Marthe’s age by now, give or take a year or two. It seemed like a lifetime ago, back when Frank was still alive. They had hoped for a houseful. Edith wept as she buried the little thing. Not enough tears in the world for that grief. Still, she’d have wept longer and harder if she’d known Frank planned on having himself shot in a ditch in France before they had a chance to try for another.

  She still ached for it, that babe buried at the back of the churchyard. No marker in the earth but her heart knew the exact spot. Lodestone. She sensed it, even after the yawning gape of the years—that remnant of her body under sand and soil. Never looked to see if it was a boy or girl. Simply wrapped it tight, laid it in the tiny hole she had dug with her own hands—ripping shreds of skin from her fingers as she burrowed. Pushed the earth back over that unmarked blue face, patted it down so it would be nice and warm. Sometimes, she wished she’d looked—boy or girl? She wished she’d given it a name.

  Edith knew she had to move Marthe out into the fresh air. Like plants, folk needed sunlight on their skin. Marthe had been too long cooped up, when what she needed was to feel the wind buffeting her face and see the trees and the grass stretching skywards.

  Marthe shouted the first time Edith took her out in the wind. Scared stupid, she was, heaven knows why. Edith didn’t press her. Instead, she propped her on the doorstep with plenty of soft cushions around her. Then Edith sat. Knitted a little. Shelled some peas. Ground up some more acorns for coffee. All the while Edith kept chatting away, talking over what she was doing, speaking about the plants, the land, the colour of the light—yellow like beeswax.

  Oh, but Marthe’s grumbles made Edith anxious: what if a soldier marched past and wondered who she was, and why she was slumped and dribbling like an infant? Next thing they knew, Marthe would be carted off to one of those experiment camps and Maurice would have Edith’s skin for a waistcoat.

  They saw not a soul that first time outside. Soon enough, Marthe stopped her moaning and her eyelids dropped. Edith kept up her talking, soft and constant as the breeze. Then the girl was faintly snoring. Watery winter sunlight barely touching her neck, the wind scarcely moving that wispy hair of hers.

  Before long, they were out there every day, weather permitting. Edith soon moved her from the doorstep to the garden. Marthe didn’t complain or grumble a bit as Edith laid her out on her tiny square of grass so that the girl didn’t have to slump on the potato patch and grow dirty, or be uncomfortable sitting on the thyme bushes. Edith chattered about whatever she was doing—knitting or making up poultices for poor Clement—or mixing some new salve which she thought might take the tightness from those burn scars. After a while, Marthe would fall into a doze and Edith would tuck the blanket around her or prop a cushion under her cheek or stroke that lovely golden hair from her forehead.

  When a soldier finally walked past one day, he didn’t take a second glance. Edith felt the blood drain from her cheeks but she kept her voice steady and said, ‘My daughter.’ He nodded. Then she added, ‘Jennifer,’ without even thinking. She’d no idea why. Marthe was a nice enough name, to be sure, and goodness knows where Jennifer came from. Just a name she had always liked. Pretty.

  Moving to and from the hospital to help Clement was more of a battle and needed a little more thought. Marthe couldn’t be left; she’d do herself an injury. Anyway, who would be there to give her food and water and soothe her to sleep? Edith couldn’t carry her; she’d draw too much notice. Besides, her arms weren’t up to it, for all the girl felt like she had the hollow bones of a bird.

  So, in the end, she piled soft cushions and blankets in her old wheelbarrow and pushed her along, back and forth to the hospital, panting and sweating, but it was worth it to see the whisper of a smile on Marthe’s slack mouth.

  Edith got some odd glances, to be sure, but she hoped the Jèrriais folk knew to stay mum—even if some of them couldn’t stand her and even though, between themselves, they were saying that Marthe had some sort of curse on her that was rotting her brain, they wouldn’t see harm come to either of them, surely? That was what Edith liked to believe. They were all neighbours, after all, huddling in against the ravening cold and with bloody-mouthed wolves in their midst.

  Happily, the soldiers didn’t ask too many questions. If ever one came near, Edith shouted, ‘Watch out, sir! She has a terrible sickness. Vomiting all night. Just taking her to hospital. Can’t even walk, poor soul. Ooh, I wouldn’t come too close if I were you—she’s already caught my boots twice today.’

  Perhaps the soldiers didn’t understand a word of it, but Marthe would often oblige her by shouting or flapping her arms. Most of them hurried past, tried to look the other way. As if by looking at Marthe, really looking, they might catch whatever ailed her.

  The performance wouldn’t keep the soldiers at bay forever, but it did the trick for the moment. It helped that there were thousands of the blighters on the island—they didn’t often see the same one twice.

  Edith had been overjoyed when Clement took a turn for the better. Of course, it had folks gossiping about witchcraft. Maurice started calling her Edith Emmanuel and bringing dead fish for her to revive. Once, he kept a cod alive and sneaked it into her kitchen sink—heaven knows how—and then pretended to faint when it swam.

  ‘It’s a miracle!’

  He clutched his head, as if overwhelmed, and then turned to Edith and prostrated himself at her feet.

  ‘All hail the Queen of Cod!’

  ‘Hush you! Up off my floor, you great lump! You’ll have Sophie Renouf and the prayer group on our backs with that talk. And take that bloody fish out of my good sink!’

  Later, when they were eating that miraculous cod, Maurice said, ‘But you know they’re saying you raised Hacquoil from the dead, not once but twice. People have started going on pilgrimages to the hospital with their sickly children.’

  She grinned. It was a warm feeling.

  ‘I’ll bet the Germans are thrilled.’

  ‘The nurses and doctors aren’t best pleased, either. They found one woman rooting through the hospital laundry, digging out Clement’s sheets to sleep on. I tell you, Edith, next thing you know you’ll have a troupe of apostles and a book named after you.’

  A gust of laughter. ‘Quiet, you rogue!’

  Maurice was right in one respect: it did wonders for Edith’s business, Clement’s recovery. She took payment in extra meat and eggs and butter, rather than the worthless paper scrip the Germans forced the islanders to use for money. And the more Clement improved, the more people came to Edith for remedies.

  But even she was surprised by how sprightly he looked after some months with the teas and the poultices. She’d taken him off most of the injections and the tablets. It had been five weeks before he reopened his eyes. Then, layer upon layer, his skin had started to knit together. Like the very flesh was being woven over his bones, for all it was thick and shiny-looking and had the smooth, uncanny feel of an oilskin coat.

  After Christmas, he had started moving again. Edith danced a few steps of a jig around his bed while he tried to shape that distorted face of his into a smile and rasped, Thank you. Then Edith made him stretch out that scarred tissue so it couldn’t knit too tightly and paralyse him
inside his own skin.

  She’d had him up and walking by the new year, leaning on her arm. His breath was still ragged, though: every exhalation was ripped from him. He couldn’t speak in more than a harsh whisper and, lipless and frozen-faced as he was, it was a trick to untangle his words. But, piece by piece, she shaped him back into something that would pass for a man.

  It was about that time that Dr Carter took an interest in Marthe. Scrawled down some notes. Asked her to move her arm, hold his pen, touch her nose, recite she sells seas shells.

  Marthe moaned and flailed her arms; Carter scribbled away, shook his head, frowned. He did this every day for weeks, not a word to Edith about it—just kept writing.

  The next Edith knew, he was waiting on her doorstep first thing in the morning.

  ‘I do apologise, I simply—I wondered if you might allow me to examine Marthe?’

  She blinked then smiled. ‘Well, of course, if you can help her. Come in.’

  ‘I’m unsure if I will be able to help exactly, but I’ve become intrigued recently by the idea of incurable cases—I’ve been studying my medical textbooks, you see, for a patient who has a…difficult condition. It made me wonder: you helped Clement Hacquoil to recover, and you seem to be doing a marvelous job with Marthe. I’m fascinated. Call it medical curiosity.’

  His smile looked nervous. Edith nodded.

  ‘Go on and please yourself, by all means. I’ll be making some coffee. Parsnip today, I’m afraid.’

  She went into the kitchen. As she boiled the burnt parsnip peelings and stirred the viscous, black liquid, she wondered again how Carter had managed to escape deportation. There were rumours, of course, that he was cosying up to the Germans, but she couldn’t bring herself to believe them. Carter seemed so kind and he was so outraged by the Germans’ cruelty. She remembered his touching naïveté, the way he’d called the Commandant brutal and inhuman in his carelessness with Clement’s life, and she knew, without any doubt, that there must be some other explanation.

  She watched him now, from the doorway, talking softly to Marthe, asking questions of her, looking for any response and then jotting notes in that little pad of his.

  In the end, she said, ‘Reporting back to someone, are you, Doctor?’

  He started. ‘Forgive me. I must seem terribly rude, ignoring you. It’s simply that I find her fascinating.’

  ‘Tragic through and through is what she is.’

  ‘What I mean is, I examined her when I first arrived on the island. Her husband brought her because she had begun to exhibit the chorea so classic in Huntington’s cases—’

  ‘It’s what?’

  ‘Her disease. Huntington’s Chorea. Juvenile onset, I would say, from her age and the rapid decline. What did you imagine was wrong with her?’

  ‘Hadn’t a clue, Doctor. I thought she was going mad, poor love. Like her mother before her.’

  ‘Ah, it’s more usually passed down from the father.’

  ‘They say madness runs in families, don’t they? There’s plenty whisper her family has been cursed. I don’t put much stock in that rubbish, but her mother died very young. Beautiful, she was, just like Marthe.’

  Carter sighed. ‘It’s not madness. Huntington’s is a degenerative disease, which strikes the brain.’

  Edith felt a surge of excitement. ‘If you know what she has then you can cure her!’

  Carter shook his head. ‘Sadly, no. It’s incurable,’ he said, quite softly, and with a hand on her arm. ‘She’ll die, Edith. Like her mother. I’m so sorry.’

  She had known it, of course. Seen her mother go. Folk said the same had happened to her grandmother too. But nothing like hearing the words to bring things home. A crushing sensation in Edith’s chest and, before she could stop herself, she was sobbing on Carter’s smart jacket with the leather elbow patches.

  She was not usually given to tears. She took deep breaths, but they kept on coming. She concentrated on the rough wool and thought about how it smelt of sheep’s urine when it was damp, which was why she never wore wool from Scotland, and she stopped crying quickly enough.

  ‘Thank you,’ she sniffed. ‘You’re a good man. A kind man.’

  ‘If there’s anything I can do. Anything at all…’

  Carter patted her arm, turned to go and then stopped, suddenly.

  ‘It occurs to me… If you’re really determined to help her, then there are various lifestyle changes that may have a positive impact in terms of slowing the progression of the disease or improving her quality of life. But’—he smiled sadly—‘I wouldn’t advise you to give Maurice false hope.’

  She understood. ‘So, what must I do?’

  Edith memorised Carter’s every word: sunlight; lots of meat and fish; exercise every day, even if only helping her try to walk a few paces around the garden; plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables and lots of sleep and rest.

  Simple enough. Except that the bloody greedy Germans had already eaten most of the stock of fresh meat and vegetables, which would have lasted the island the whole winter any other year. Edith would have to be clever about finding some extras. Good thing Clement was in her debt—extra meat was near on impossible to find. All the more reason to work on those scars and put him back behind the butcher’s block as soon as possible.

  HER soldier’s name was Gregor.

  Claudine walked past the bomb shelter every morning before school and every afternoon on her way home, and he was nearly always there, waiting. Except for when he had to do some important soldier work, guarding all the Russian and Italian Häftlinge. They were prisoners because they had done bad things to the German army in other countries. They were dangerous men, but the Germans kept them under control.

  ‘Aren’t you frightened of them, Gregor?’

  ‘Nein. These are animals. Just broken animals.’

  He seemed sad and he rubbed at the skin on his crooked arm, as he often did when he was troubled. Looking at the arm had upset Claudine at first, but she hardly noticed it now. He could still loop a bucket handle over the shiny stump and could use the bunched-up fingers to grip part of a spade and…it was simply part of him, like his thin face or his blue eyes or his quick smile.

  ‘Shall we go into the sea? I can teach you to swim.’

  Claudine wasn’t horribly hungry like she had been after the Germans first arrived and gobbled all the food. There still wasn’t much food, but Gregor often brought her presents, like pieces of meat, which no one else had very much of anymore.

  Her eleventh birthday had been and gone. They had a little extra meat and Maman had wrapped an old dress of hers as a present. It was too long and Claudine kept tripping over the hem, but she laughed and they all skipped around the living room to stay warm.

  Gregor had given her some extra meat for her birthday, too. Perhaps he had stolen it. She was too hungry to ask and ate it, greedily.

  When Gregor couldn’t find any meat, they tried to catch fish from the end of the pier—Gregor was allowed to fish because soldiers could do anything they pleased. Claudine sat far enough away from him that it wouldn’t look odd if another soldier were to see them.

  From three arms’ lengths away, while looking out at the flat expanse of the sea, she taught him to fish: Take a scrap of stale bread. Spit on it a little, like so, and mash it up with your finger, and then squash it into a hard ball on the end of your fishing line. Then when a big fish nibbles it, the hook will stick fast in his cheek.

  Sometimes, if no one was on the beach, they found a little ledge where both of them could sit side by side with their feet dangling just above the water. Their reflection could have been a sepia photograph from years before, the sort of thing tourists would have bought and sent home on a postcard as a memento of the idyllic island: young girl fishing with her older brother.

  Once, Gregor caught a bass, laughed and shouted.

  Claudine seized it and gave it a quick bash on the head with a sharp stone, just as Papa had shown her when he used to take h
er fishing when she was very little. Fish blood and brains spattered onto her hand and across her cheek.

  She held the fish up to show Gregor. Silver scales glinting in the pale sunlight. She thought he would be happy, but his face was blank.

  She asked if he wanted to hold it, to feel how heavy it was.

  ‘It’s enormous, Gregor, look!’

  But he stepped backwards, his face twisted in revulsion. He was very quiet for a long time after that.

  Sometimes Gregor was busy elsewhere with his soldier duties, so Claudine sat in the cold sand in the den and pretended to find monsters in the clouds. Or she climbed up on top of La Rocque pier. A long way away, she could see the soldiers marching. Like beetles, making dark grey shapes on the clean sand. Building, they were always building. Turning the island grey, shaping it into a fortress, bristling with weapons for the Germans to use. Within Claudine’s gut was a frozen sort of sadness, like slowly melting ice. Or perhaps that was hunger.

  On those days, Maman said, ‘Where have you been, out until this hour? It’s nearly curfew. I was worried sick.’

  ‘Sorry. I was trying to catch another bass.’

  ‘Silly goose. We’ll just stretch out what we have. With the potatoes we’ve enough here for the three of us.’

  Often that wasn’t true, but Claudine didn’t call her a liar, even when they all went to bed with insides that felt like they’d been scooped out with a jagged spoon.

  The family huddled around the illegal wireless late at night, all tucked under one blanket to hear the BBC News broadcast. It was mostly names of strange places: Bardia, Tobruk, Eritrea. And something called the Blitz, which the newsreader described in a sombre voice—which meant, to Claudine’s horror, that the Germans were killing people in England with bombs. She shuddered, reminded of the sour-sweet stench of Clement Hacquoil as he burned on the beach.

  Still no news from Papa. Once a week, Claudine walked with Maman to the post office to see if he had sent a message to them through the Red Cross. Every week, Maman said, ‘He must have forgotten us.’