The Guernsey Saga Box Set

by Diana Bachmann

  “Me! And when do I get a rest?”

  “All winter. Ah, there’s the doorbell. That’ll be Norton. I’m going out for a drink with him and Tiny. Nice supper, dear.” He propelled himself into the hallway, took his coat off the conveniently low hook in passing and opened the front door. “All ready, boys. Where are we going?”

  Sue cleared the table and sat down by the fire with her aching legs up on a footstool. Not for long: the phone rang.

  It was Jessica. “Haven’t seen you folks for over a week. I wondered, if you’re not busy, whether I might drift up for a coffee?”

  “Lovely. I’d love to see you but I’m afraid I’m alone. Jonathan’s gone out.”

  “I’ll be there in five minutes.”

  She arrived before Sue had finished filling the percolator, and one glance at her daughter-in-law was enough. “Go and sit yourself down immediately! You look worn out.”

  Sue didn’t argue.

  Jessica carried in the tray, set it on a low table and poured out. “Now, are you going to tell me what you are doing to get so overtired or do I have to drag it out of you with a winkle-picker?”

  “I don’t feel that bad,” Sue began.

  “Don’t prevaricate. What are you doing each day? What time do you get up?”

  “The children get me up at about six-thirty.”

  “So you wash and dress and feed them, and Jonathan. Go on?”

  Sue listed the sorting of household laundry, meals and, with some hesitation, the errands she had to run for Jonathan, before going up to the hotel by nine o’clock.

  “For what?”

  “Supervising the finishing of jobs and preparations before we reopen.”

  “I thought Terry was supposed to be doing that?”

  “He does some of it. But he also handles the bar work.”

  “Well what is he, an assistant manager or a barman? He can’t be both.”

  Sue bit her lip. She had never told Jessica the difficulties she was having with Jonathan, ever since his accident. The coffee was already tepid so she finished it, giving herself more time to think before replying. “Jonathan doesn’t seem to think—”

  “At all! About anyone!” his mother exploded. “I don’t know what is happening between you two but whatever it is it isn’t good! Now come on. Spill the beans.”

  Much to her own disgust, Sue burst into tears.

  Next morning Jonathan was on the receiving end of one of Jessica’s fiercest lectures. “Just because you’re in that bally chair doesn’t give you the right to pile your daily work onto your wife,” she ranted, “Nor onto your assistant manager. You simply must face up to the need for more staff. Now get on with it!”

  Inevitably, after she had gone, Jonathan turned on Sue. “I should have known you’d go whining to outsiders the moment I was out of earshot! Who else have you complained to?”

  Sue had had one of Jessica’s lectures, too, the previous night, all about standing up for herself and for what was fair. “I shall treat that remark with the contempt it deserves,” she said, and walked out of the room.

  “Bitch!” he shouted after her.

  She poked her head back round the door. “Emmy will have great fun relaying your clarion call round the neighbourhood,” and quickly disappeared again.

  It was apparently a good ploy. Jonathan resisted the urge to vent his frustration on her on a daily basis, even if his resolution was soluble in alcohol at least once a week, and he agreed to employ a barman for the summer. Furthermore, he said Sue could have a nanny for the children and breastfeed the new babe.

  But he remained cold and distant.

  *

  Deborah was born on 2 June 1953 – Coronation Day.

  It was a difficult and painful birth. Fortunately, Sue had had time to sleep and recover a little strength by the time Jonathan arrived with the obligatory bouquet and chocolates, and she was able to greet him with a smile. “Sorry to keep you all in suspense so long,” she said. “It ended up being a hammer and chisel job.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means it was a breech birth,” a nurse replied as she handed him a cup of tea. “The baby came bottom first. And your wife has needed a lot of stitches. I’m afraid she is going to find it uncomfortable being on her feet for some weeks.”

  “Then she’ll have to keep off her feet until everything has healed up.” He smiled lovingly at Sue.

  The nurse was about to joke that he’d have to keep off, too, but stopped herself in time when she registered the significance of the wheelchair.

  “Don’t worry, darling,” he whispered when the crisply starched nurse had gone. “You must take all the time you need.”

  She was sure he meant it . . . at that moment.

  Sadly, the moment passed.

  *

  “There are fewer visitors this year, that’s why,” Sue snapped, when he asked yet again why the turnover had dropped so much behind the previous two years.

  “We have never had empty beds before. Dammit, I wish I could spend more time in the place and find out what you’re doing up there.”

  “Are you suggesting it’s my fault?”

  “Well, apart from the past three weeks, you are in charge, now.”

  “And I suppose if you were able you would go over to England and order people onto the boats to fill our empty beds.”

  “Don’t be childish! Can’t you understand the basic principles of business? Like balancing the books? Of course we’ll have lean years, but in those years we have to pare down our expenditures. Instead, we have a far larger wage bill than ever. For two thirds the number of guests. Doesn’t make sense. Particularly having taken on a qualified chef.”

  Sue had only been home for two weeks with the baby, and was feeling desperately weary. The girl they had taken on as nanny knew very little about tiny babies, so Sue had to demonstrate, over and over, how to handle her. Also, breastfeeding drained her resources, she was overweight and her hair was badly in need of skilled attention. She was in no mood to accept criticism after all the excessive hours she had put into the hotel, nor was she in any fit state to sustain an argument. “I’ll check it all out tomorrow,” she promised.

  After her bath and feed next morning, the baby threw up over her clean cot. Then the washing machine wouldn’t work and Emmy couldn’t remember what to prepare for lunch. Having ironed out the household problems, Sue hurried up to the hotel as fast as the lingering pain would allow and found a chambermaid in tears in a vacated bedroom.

  “It’s not me, ma’am, what lost them sheets. I packed ’em into the laundry boxes like you said, but I ’aven’t ’ad time to check the list since they came back. Not with all the dining room work as well.”

  It was almost lunchtime when she reached reception.

  “Mrs Paige, with an ‘I’, wants a meeting with the management,” the girl told her from behind the counter.

  “What about?”

  “Noise from the bar in the evening, I expect. She’s forever complaining about it.”

  “I’ll go and speak to Jimmy.”

  “He’s gone, Mrs Martel.”

  “Gone?”

  “Mr Martel came up when you were in the hospital and dismissed him.”

  “Well, then I will have to speak to whoever has taken his place.” Sue wondered what on earth Jimmy had done to get the sack.

  “There isn’t anyone. Mr Martel said you didn’t need anyone else.” She blushed. “At least, that’s what Jimmy told me last night at the cinema.”

  One couldn’t go on getting all this vital information from a junior member of staff; Sue thanked the girl and hurried home.

  “Who is currently managing the hotel?” she asked Jonathan.

  “Terry, you and I,” he replied.

  “But I’ve been away for three weeks, and even now I can’t put in much time. And you . . . are busy . . . looking after the books. Terry can’t do everything.”

  “Terry has not been asked to do eve
rything!” he released the brakes on his chair and shoved himself away from the table. “I can’t face any more of that muck. I’m going into the sitting room.”

  Even Sue herself admitted it was not the best Irish Stew she had ever made.

  A couple of weeks later Terry tackled her in the empty hotel dining room. “Look here, Sue, I can’t keep this pace up much longer. I haven’t had an hour off since Jimmy left. We have to have a replacement.”

  “I agree, but it’s not up to me. You’ll have to tackle Jonathan about it.”

  “You’re joking!” he muttered. Nevertheless he did try.

  Sue could hear the argument through the open windows the moment she switched off the car engine outside the bungalow next morning. She was still debating with herself whether to go in or not, when Terry emerged through the open door, puce in the face. He stared at her for a second before turning to hurry away.

  It was the last time she ever saw him.

  Jonathan had sacked him.

  Chapter Seven – In Sickness and in Health

  A huge flower arrangement in a basket stood in the empty fireplace. Sue stared at it in amazement. “Where on earth have those come from?”

  Jonathan gave her a sly grin.

  “Darling! Why?” she hurried to give him a grateful kiss.

  His powerful arms drew her down, he kissed along the hairline on her forehead, nuzzled her ear. “Because I’ve been such a bastard lately. I don’t know how you put up with me, sometimes.”

  Sue allowed her file of papers to slide onto the floor, as she knelt to put her arms round his waist and rest her head in his lap. “Darling,” she muttered, unable to think what else to say, savouring the moment of peace and harmony. Of course she knew it wouldn’t last; it never did. She would dare allow herself to relax, love him and believe he loved her . . . then out of the blue would come another storm. Sometimes the climate was just wet and overcast, Jonathan wallowing in self-pity, at others it was close and humid, himself silent and simmering. There were times the bitterly cold wind of his sarcasm knifed through her, but nothing was as bad as the raging storms of undisciplined temper when the air filled with shouts and flying missiles. Occasionally there were warning signs and Sue was able to take shelter just in time, but too often, triggered by some mysterious functioning in his brain, Jonathan exploded, thunderously.

  It was so hard to know how to handle it. She had tried ignoring it, carrying on as though nothing was happening; she had tried walking out of the room and letting him rant on alone. Sometimes she would deliberately square her shoulders, adopt an aggressive stance and coldly inform him that she refused to be spoken to in that manner and if he couldn’t act like a reasonable human being she would leave him to stew alone until he learned to behave himself. Worst of all was when she was desperately overtired and unable to hold back her own anger, flying at him for being so damned unreasonable, careless of other people’s efforts and feelings.

  If any of these responses had brought consistent reactions, Sue would have known where she stood. But they never did. However, the fact was that she lived on hope, continuing to believe that Jonathan’s attacks of remorse were genuine and that one day, despite his disability, they could return to the happy home life, shared parenthood and working relationship they had so enjoyed in their first years of marriage.

  *

  During the winter months a new set-up was organised. What had been a storeroom behind reception was turned into an office for Jonathan, from where he could direct operations. A cement path was laid from the bungalow to the hotel along which he could propel himself and from the beginning of the 1954 season at around nine in the morning, he would unlock his office door and wheel up to his new desk. The door remained open so that he could see and hear all that went on, check who passed through the foyer or rang at reception.

  Molly Machon was due at the reception counter at nine o’clock, too, and had she not had the most gorgeous head of long, blonde hair swinging silkily over her shoulders, and violet blue eyes twinkling coyly under fluttering lashes, no one doubted she would have been sacked on the spot by her ill-tempered boss any day of the week, for arriving anything up to half an hour late. But in Jonathan’s eyes she could do no wrong.

  In contrast, Sue who was in the hotel kitchen by seven-thirty each day to supervise early morning teas and cope with visitors’ queries regarding beaches, buses, hairdressers and tar-removal, and provide weather forecasts while breakfast was in progress, was in constant line of critical fire. With guests safely dispatched on their chosen pursuits and the chef taking over in the kitchen, she helped the waitress/chambermaids change bedlinen and towels, clean and tidy the rooms and replace filched toilet rolls. Tar and toffee had to be removed from carpets, curtains rehung after being torn off their hooks and water mopped up from under flooded basins. She had to check every room to see that sticky fingermarks were polished off windows and mirrors and, on one occasion, rescue a favorite teddy bear which had been stuffed head first down a lavatory and flushed halfway round the bend.

  And in the middle of these tasks, Molly would appear. “Mrs Martel! The boss wants you in his office!”

  Stupidly, Sue used to drop what she was doing and hasten downstairs, only to be tackled about some trivia which could well have waited for hours, even days. Now, on this particular day well into the season and increasingly irritated by Molly’s tone of voice, she decided to dig her heels in. “What does Mr Martel want me for?”

  “I couldn’t say.” Molly examined her nail varnish.

  “Well find out and let me know if it’s important. Tell him I am very busy.”

  Two minutes later the girl reappeared. “He says it is.”

  Sue straightened, rubbing her aching back, and pushed the hair out of her eyes. “What is what?”

  “What he wants you for is important.”

  “What is it?”

  “Don’t know!”

  “Well go back and find out and let me be the judge of whether it’s more important than this!” She waved the lavatory plunger at Molly.

  The girl didn’t return, but when Sue finished upstairs and went down to the office, Jonathan was in a foul mood.

  “Where the hell have you been?” he demanded.

  “Sshh!” she tilted her head towards the open door.

  “I will not sshh! What’s the matter with you? You know damn well I cannot get upstairs to you, yet you refuse to come down and speak to me. Twice I’ve had to send that poor girl upstairs . . .”

  “Stop shouting and tell me what is so important that I have to come running to your summons.”

  “I have to know whether rooms eight and nine are booked for the last week in August,” he snarled. “I’ve had an enquiry this morning . . .”

  “And you couldn’t ask Molly to check with me when she came up?”

  “No! I wanted to ask you myself, for the simple reason that you have no business pencilling in bookings unless they are confirmed.”

  “If you had read the pencilled note you would see that they promised confirmation by today if they wanted to keep it.” She snatched the pile of post from by his elbow, and withdrew a sheet. “Here! Here is your confirmation along with their deposit.” Her anger dissipated and she grinned at him. “Just try opening the post when it arrives, my love. It will save us all a lot of hassle.”

  “There wouldn’t have been any bloody hassle if you’d come when I sent for you. Silly bitch!”

  Molly was smirking at reception as Sue left.

  *

  Many people in Guernsey were still enjoying the post-war party spirit. The hotel cocktail bars were full night after night, with reunions and camaraderie, men and women returning after demobilisation and the younger set eager to hear their stories. Despite the previous year’s devaluation of sterling, many islanders were prospering: builders were busy repairing and replacing all that the Germans and Todt workers had destroyed, scrap iron merchants were keen to rip out all that remained in the German fortif
ications, hoteliers and shop keepers were benefiting from the 25 per cent Purchase Tax imposed in Britain which did not apply in the islands, encouraging tourists to spend – and smuggle. Growers couldn’t keep up with the demand for their produce.

  Greg was very pleased with the returns at Les Marettes Vinery . . . and his brother Andrew took all the credit; Greg just smiled and ignored him.

  Andrew lived in a constant state of depression. Everything was wrong. “Have you seen that awful construction they’re putting up in the Truchot?” he grumbled.

  “I thought it was rather nice, with the stone facing.”

  “Facing! Why can’t they build properly in solid granite? And another thing. Where’s all this compulsory States Insurance going to get us?”

  “Security in our old age.”

  “Bah! Ought to be left to the individual what he does with his money. I don’t agree with it.”

  “There have been a lot of changes since the war and I cannot say I like all of them. But we have to move with the times.”

  “Bah!” Andrew repeated.

  *

  “The boss says will you come down to reception, quickly!” Molly shouted at her from the top of the stairs.

  Sue hissed with annoyance and stuck her head out of the linen closet. “What for this time?”

  “He didn’t say!”

  Once again Sue had the urge to send the girl away with a curt message, but at that moment two guests emerged from their room and greeted her with charming smiles. So she responded in kind and followed them, and Molly, down the stairs. Once in the office she closed the door before saying, “Well? What do you want me for?”

  Jonathan looked up from the papers on his desk. “Eh? Oh yes. That Nanny of yours just rang to announce a crisis. You’d better find out what it’s all about.”

  Sue turned the phone round on his desk and dialled. “Nanny?” She listened, her face expressing concern.

  Jonathan was watching her. “What’s the matter?”

  “Sshh!” she frowned at him. “Yes, of course you did right. I’m coming over.” She replaced the receiver in its cradle. “It’s Roddy. He’s passed out! He has been complaining his head hurt for the past couple of days.”