‘Frankly, I’m more worried about your mother’s reaction to our relationship, than your wife’s,’ Edna laughed.
John didn’t think that was funny. He had absolute horrors every time he thought about it.
George, meanwhile, was becoming more and more agitated, daily. He and Gelly discussed the problem over every meal, regularly arriving at a different conclusion. Gelly had offered, more than once, to back out, gracefully, but George would not hear of it. ‘I’m sorry. I appreciate what you are saying but fond as I still am of Margery, I am not in love with her. You are my woman, now, and that is that.’ He wished it could be that simple. Visiting Greg at the vineries he told him the final decision. ‘I want her to be back here, in her own home before I say anything,’ he declared. ‘I think it would be awful for her to hear by letter, or even be told before returning.’
‘But she is with relatives, isn’t she?’ Greg was dubious.
‘True, but I want her to know that the home we built together will always be hers. Gelly and I will move out.’
Looking at him, Greg felt very concerned. George was obviously very upset by the situation.
*
On Thursday, May 17th, The Guernsey Ladies’ College girls assembled as usual for Prayers in the Lecture Theatre loaned them for the purpose by Howells’ School for the Duration. The brief service was always conducted by the Head, who arrived with a pile of envelopes, today, which she placed on the desk in front of her. When Prayers were over, she said, ‘You will be pleased to know that we have received mail for you from your families in Guernsey which I will hand out now.’ She proceeded to read the names, one at a time, for the excited recipients to go forward for their letters. Suzanne’s was the very last and she trembled with excitement. She recognised her father’s sloping script on the envelope, although she hadn’t seen it for five years, and the letter inside was covered with her mother’s familiar, spiky scrawl. The news centred around her brother Richard, and told about Grandma Alice living with them, and Polly and Belle! She wondered why, but there was no explanation. The photo which fell out from between the pages baffled her. She stared at the strange people who stared back at her through the camera lens, wondering who they were, until turning it over and seeing the names written on the back. Greg, Sarah, Gelly and Richard, 1943.
Sue continued to stare at the faces for several minutes, but she couldn’t honestly say she recognised anyone! She frowned, unable to believe it. Then decided the fault lay in the photograph itself. It was badly out of focus, surely.
*
All the problems awaiting George and John were forgotten on May 26th when they, together with Edna and Gelly, Greg and Sarah linked up with the Martels and other friends to attend the Victory Ball at the Royal Hotel. Not that they remained together for long . . . The girls were soon swept up by the liberating troops, and waltzed away from their partners, while the boys congregated in the bars, swapping stories of purloined provisions and secret hiding places for food, radios and even an unregistered vehicle.
Sarah and Gelly had raided their junk boxes to rake out some dresses, and had promptly dissolved in hysterics when they tried them on.
‘That looks like a poor reproduction of a wigwam,’ Sarah giggled helplessly at the voluminous material hanging in folds from her friend’s skinny frame. ‘You’ve no bust and no bottom!’
‘Why don’t you take a look in the mirror, girl? Noah wore that thing in the ark!’ Gelly cocked her head on one side. ‘Except I think he probably wore it the other way up.’
They laughed, stitched and tucked, not too bothered by the hilarious results. They knew it no longer mattered. They were liberated. Ma would soon be safely back home at Val du Douit with Aline; Filly would come back with Gus and Anne to their place at L’Ancresse, and best of all, darling Suzanne would be safely installed again in her bedroom.
Waves of excitement washed over Sarah every time she thought of her daughter.
*
Marie was first of the family to return to Guernsey. She and Aline took a cab, loaded with their belongings, straight from the White Rock to Val du Douit where Sarah, Greg and Richard were waiting to greet them.
Edna had returned to The Wing, John’s official residence, where she was introduced as the housekeeper, while it was explained that John had gone over to England to see Mary.
‘John has been living here in the main house, Ma,’ Sarah said. ‘One couldn’t leave a house empty or it was taken over by the Germans or the Todt workers.’
‘Hmm,’ Aline commented, significantly.
Marie marched into the kitchen. ‘He seems to have been doing a lot of cooking!’
‘Edna comes in to do it for him.’
‘Hmm,’ Aline repeated.
‘What do you think of your grandson?’ Sarah tried changing the subject.
‘Fine boy,’ Marie nodded approvingly. ‘Have you got another kiss for your Grandma?’ She held out her arms to him.
Richard immediately ran at her for a hug.
Upstairs, the problems really began.
‘Where are all my clothes?’ Aline demanded.
‘I’m afraid we had to use most of them,’ Sarah told her.
‘Wha . . . at! My clothes! Whatever for?’
‘To keep warm!’ Sarah frowned. This was not quite the reunion she had expected.
‘But you had plenty of clothes of your own!’
‘Come on, Aline! Clothes do wear out. Do you mean to tell me you’ve had nothing new in five years?’ She said it laughingly, hoping Aline would understand.
But Aline was furious. ‘I didn’t steal them. I bought and paid for them!’
‘But don’t you realise, there were no new clothes to be bought, here. There was nothing in the shops.’
‘Does that give anyone the right to steal?’ She opened all the wardrobe doors, rummaging through long evening dresses. ‘And where is the lovely cocktail dress I bought just before we left? That couldn’t possibly have kept anyone warm!’
‘I haven’t the faintest idea,’ her sister lied, well remembering Edna wearing it at Christmas time. ‘And you obviously haven’t the faintest idea of the suffering and privations on the island throughout the occupation.’ She was beginning to feel very angry.
‘Huh! You don’t know what you’re talking about, does she Ma? You have no idea what Ma and I have suffered, wandering homeless all that time, losing Pa . . . and Bertie.’
‘That’s right,’ Marie agreed.
Sarah wanted to weep. Was it possible that after all the years of separation, they could be arguing within the first half-hour, about who had suffered most? Well, she certainly wasn’t going to ruin the day by furthering the argument. ‘Let’s go downstairs and join Greg and Richard. We hoped you might come down to Bordeaux for lunch.’ The celebration table was already laid at Les Mouettes, and a bird roasting in the oven.
‘All right. We might as well,’ Marie agreed. ‘I don’t suppose there’s anything in the cupboards, here.’
Sarah knew Edna had stocked up the cupboards, but thought the less the ‘housekeeper’ and the returned exiles saw of each other, the better. So she didn’t correct the assumption.
Greg frowned when he saw her come down the stairs. Her transparent joy had suddenly disappeared.
*
John wasn’t faring much better.
Mary had enjoyed the war. After quitting the factory which was rather hard and unrewarding work, she had been ‘adopted’ by a charming, older gentleman for whom she now worked as housekeeper. The job did not entail quite the same arrangements as John and Edna had, which suited her very well. But it was a great improvement on the factory. After a suitable show of grief and mourning for her husband, her sister Nancy had invited her paramour to move into her house, which had led to the termination of Mary’s stay. With tragedy etched on her face, she told her employer how she was now left without a roof over her head . . . and he responded predictably with an invitation for her to live in his house, agreei
ng to have young Margaret and Charles as well. An ideal situation.
However, when John arrived and suggested they should divorce, she was incensed. ‘How dare you even think of it? How dare you tell me you want to marry someone else? You . . . you adulterer!’ She shouted, wept, told him she loved him, hated him, would sue him for every ha’penny she could get. In reality she was only indignant that he should prefer another woman. Moneywise, she knew her ‘employer’ would take care of her for the rest of her life. He was a very wealthy man.
*
‘I’m jolly glad we don’t have to be in school uniform to go home,’ Suzanne’s friend Alison declared. ‘What are you going to wear, Suzanne?’
‘My grey suit, with a white blouse.’ She was very pleased with the outfit she had persuaded Aunt Aline to get for her at Easter. Not without difficulty. She realised her aunt had been using her clothing coupons for years, and it had required all Suzanne’s powers of persuasion to prise the remainder out of her.
It was to be hoped she wouldn’t grow anymore—at five foot seven in her socks she was more than tall enough, and the pinstriped suit looked so smart with cuban-heeled court shoes and flesh-coloured stockings. Her hair had grown quite long, and was fixed in the nape of her neck with a rubber band covered by a smart, tortoiseshell clasp. She had become remarkably like her father, inheriting his tall, wide-shouldered and athletic frame, green eyes and dark, almost black hair, but she retained a look of her mother about the mouth which was wide, generous and full of laughter. The nails she had bitten to the quick in the early years away from home, were now long and neatly filed, and she wore a small silver ring of entwined leaves, given her by David Morgan, her steady boyfriend for the past several months.
He was a problem. She was dying to get home and see her family again, but it would be agony parting from David. He had made her promise to return as soon as possible, and she extracted a guarantee from him to come over to the island on holiday next year. Till then, they would write every week.
Suzanne looked at the calendar. Just two weeks to go.
*
Margery had her arms round Geraldine Sommers. ‘Please! Please don’t be so upset, Gelly!’
‘You are so understanding, Marge! Why? I think it would be easier if you shouted at us!’ George’s mistress sat laughing and crying, alternately, being comforted by his wife.
‘Maybe I’m being selfish,’ Margery said philosophically. ‘I have to admit that the bond between George and myself has been broken by the five years apart. We have gone our separate ways and frankly, I have been dreading trying to pick up the pieces and stick them all together again. I have been mistress of my own destiny for so long: come and gone as I wanted. I eat when I like, what I like. I met loads of friends over there when I left the school and joined the Land Army. I feel quite a part of the farming community now. I love gardening, which George hates, and I’ve taken up art: I do quite a lot of painting. I intend holding an exhibition in Birmingham next Christmas. So you see, I am not devastated!’
Both George and Gelly could tell that she was not being wholly honest. She was upset: this was not how she had envisaged the ending of her exile. But they blessed her from the bottom of their hearts for trying so hard to make the transitions in their lives as smooth as possible.
*
The sea was dead calm, smooth as glass, as the mailboat rounded St Martin’s Point off Guernsey on August 4th, 1945. Already, at just after six in the morning, the sun was rising behind Sark, spreading a silvery path across the Russel and bathing St Peter Port in a rose-pink haze.
Many of the original Guernsey Ladies’ College girls had left school on attaining their seniority, to join the British forces, and were replaced by girls from other schools evacuated from the island in 1940.
The ship’s rail was lined with excited pupils, pointing, laughing, chattering . . . impatient to arrive at the dockside so they could search the sea of waiting faces for their respective families. Unfortunately, during their occupation of the island, the Germans had elected to construct a barrier across the Town end of the White Rock, to keep all unauthorised personnel off the dockside, and this had not yet been removed. So there was no sea of faces.
The girls checked their hair, straightened their clothes and, suitcases in hand, allowed themselves to be herded down the gangways; the White Rock seemed endlessly long as they rushed towards the barrier at the far end.
Suzanne’s eyes flickered over the crowd behind the wire fencing. Where were they? It shouldn’t be hard to see her father, who would be standing head and shoulders above the rest.
Greg and Sarah had left Richard at home: the meeting between just the three of them would be emotional enough. They saw the girls approaching . . . and recognised none of them. ‘Are you sure she is coming on this ship?’ Sarah asked anxiously.
‘Definitely,’ Greg confirmed, the official notice safe in his pocket. ‘Look, they’re coming through the gates now.’
Sarah saw her first. Saw Greg’s eyes, height, colouring . . . and waved.
Suzanne spotted the wave and stared. Was it? Could it be . . .? Yes, it was the man and woman in that photograph! ‘Daddy! Mummy!’
Greg and Sarah gasped as the elegant young woman in a grey, pin-striped suit and court shoes approached them. ‘It’s her!’
They hugged, and kissed. She was home at last! She might look different . . . very different indeed, but their daughter had come back to them!
Suzanne’s mind was spinning. She was with her father and mother again! In Guernsey! What did one say? ‘How are you both, then?’ she asked.
‘Pardon? What did you say?’ Greg and Sarah stared at her, then laughed. ‘No doubt where you’ve been all this time.’
Their daughter had a very pronounced Welsh accent.
Greg picked up the suitcase and led his womenfolk back home.
*
They went swimming that afternoon, Greg and Sarah, Suzanne, Richard and Toby, from Bordeaux beach. It was the first sea bathe that Suzanne had had for five years and she thought she would have forgotten how it felt. But as she sank into the cool water, the buoyancy, the smell and taste of it was strangely, deliciously familiar. The air was hot and still, the sea a sheet of glass reaching all the way to Herm and Jethou.
Suddenly there was a rumbling sound and Suzanne stood up in the water, frowning.
‘What is the matter, darling?’ her mother asked.
‘I thought I heard the sound of thunder.’
Sarah smiled and shook her head. ‘No, not thunder. Quite harmless. Just Les Canon des Isles.’
AN ELUSIVE FREEDOM
Table of Contents
Chapter One – Land of Freedom
Chapter Two – Family Ties
Chapter Three – Escape Plans
Chapter Four – Trapped
Chapter Five – Teenage Bride
Chapter Six – Emergency
Chapter Seven – In Sickness and in Health
Chapter Eight – Lost and Found
Chapter Nine – Accords and Discords
Chapter Ten – Turn of the Tide
These things shall be! A loftier race
Than e’er the world hath known shall rise,
With flame of freedom in their souls,
And light of triumph in their eyes.
hymnjohn addington symonds
Chapter One – Land of Freedom
The wind tore the shed door out of her hand, slamming it wide against the wall with a crash. She hesitated a moment, listening, then grabbed her old bicycle and manoeuvred it out. Another crash. Still no sound from inside the bungalow. Perhaps they’d think it was the wind alone that had caused the noise. Hitching herself onto the saddle, she pedalled down the drive, praying that the gale would drown out the sound of scrunching gravel; the lawn would have been quieter but too slow. This had to be a quick getaway.
She had reached the gate when she heard Sarah’s voice. “Suzanne? Is that you? You can’t go out now, it’s
time for supper!”
You haven’t heard that, girl. Or rather you wouldn’t have but for the westerly gale. Keep going. Toby squeezed through the gate, passing her rear wheel a split second before it clicked behind her and they were away, the old James cycle which had accompanied her everywhere for the past three years, bouncing and clattering over the narrow, cobbled road with the dog panting along in pursuit. At least she had made her escape. By the time they left the road to follow a rough path through brambles and gorse to Fort Doyle, her heartbeat had returned to normal.
But the misery continued to claw at her stomach.
Leaving James propped against a large boulder, she clambered down over thick, springy tussocks to the rocks and out to the point where the gale carried salty spume over her head as each gigantic roller burst at the foot of the rockface below. They sat together on her usual granite shelf, Toby leaning against her, tongue lolling, both watching the breakers building higher and higher, waiting for the legendary seventh one, the biggest of all. Sue often held her breath, scarcely daring to believe the approaching mountain of water wouldn’t surge right over them and drag them away. It was scary but terribly exciting. Turbulent. Passionate. Deeply emotional . . . or was it just her state of mind at present?
Toby scratched his ear before moving away to explore, leaving her sitting alone, arms wrapped round her long, bare legs, dark hair pulled away from her face by the salty wind.
Suzanne Gaudion’s parents were both tall and she took after them, with her father’s sea-green eyes and mother’s dark brown hair. Though at fifteen she was still skinny, physically immature, mentally she was not. In years to come her type of maturity would be described as ‘streetwise’, developed the hard way. Born and raised an only child, up until the birth of her brother during the war, evacuation from the island of Guernsey just days before the Germans landed had cut her adrift from the love and security of home and family, into a strange world where people were kind and polite, at least most of them were, but obviously indifferent to one’s existence. The transition from being a loved only child to just a name on a list, one of X number of children to be counted, checked, taught and accommodated, had been bewildering. For five years she had belonged to no one, had had no one to confide in, to hug, to love or be loved by. It had been bewildering and painful, too painful for conscious thought, so she had deliberately ‘switched off’.
The Guernsey Saga Box Set Page 28
