The Guernsey Saga Box Set

by Diana Bachmann

  Roddy was frowning. “It won’t take long, will it? I must get back to work.”

  Sue studied the dark rings under his eyes and his pallid complexion. “I really do think you should take Sundays off, darling. You’re not getting enough rest.”

  “What do you need to expand the table for, anyway?” Stephanie asked.

  “Lunch. Granpa, Richard and Anne are coming with little Derek. And Uncle John and Aunt Edna. So there will be ten of us.”

  “Nine,” Stephanie corrected. “I’m going out.”

  “I’d like you to be here for the meal. Granpa does love to see you and you never go round to Les Mouettes to visit him.”

  “What we having for lunch, Mummy?” piped up the youngest breakfaster.

  “Are you thinking of the next meal already!” his step-sister demanded. “You haven’t finished this one yet!”

  “I’ve got a lovely big sirloin, Bobbie. That’s beef. And we’ll have roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding and vegetables.”

  “Followed by your special apple crumble and custard?” Stephen said hopefully.

  “Yes! Yes, please, Mummy,” Bobbie put his vote behind his father’s. “It’s my favourite.”

  “Okay. Okay!” Sue held up her hands in surrender. “Now, may I make myself quite clear. I need help with the table, first thing, and I require everyone at the table, looking clean and respectable, at one o’clock.”

  “But Mum . . .”

  “No buts!”

  “That’s not fair.” Roddy exploded. “You don’t need us all to do the table. I’ve got work to do. Steph does nothing all day except dress herself up like a tart.”

  “I do not! And you wouldn’t know what a tart looks like. You’re utterly sexless!”

  Sue was about to boil over when she happened to catch Stephen’s blank expression. His mouth was twitching and suddenly she saw the funny side, too.

  “It’s not funny, Mummy!” Stephanie said severely.

  Which opened the floodgates, tears of laughter running down her mother’s face. “You’re not sitting where I am, my darling!”

  *

  “Hope I’m not late.” Greg poked his head round the kitchen door.

  “No, you’re the first to arrive. Was Stephen still at the nineteenth when you left?”

  “Yes. He and his fourball came into the clubhouse sometime after us. It was bitterly cold on the golf course today.”

  “Well, it is nearly the end of November. How Debbie and her friends can play tennis in this weather I cannot imagine.”

  “And where are the others?” He loved seeing his grandchildren growing up.

  “Oh, they’ll be here shortly.” Sue prayed she was right. “I am afraid that Debbie has a double dose of your tennis bug. Look, you can see them out there on the court.”

  Greg stood watching through the window, across the kitchen sink, while Sue poured the Yorkshire pudding batter into a baking tray. “She has some magnificent ground strokes. Lucky girl to have had the opportunity of good tuition to start her off. Never had a lesson in my life so I was doomed to remain an also-ran.”

  “Daddy! You can’t complain! You and Mummy had the most marvellous fun out of your social tennis.”

  “Yes. We had endless fun together.” Which wasn’t quite true. He sighed, because it had ended, far too soon. Sarah had died so young. Only in her fifties. Ten whole years ago, and still he grieved for her.

  “Hallo, Granpa. Would you like me to show you my Spitfire?”

  Greg rumpled Bobbie’s dark hair. “I was hoping you would. Best aircraft ever invented, don’t you think?”

  “Absolutely,” the six year old responded gravely, while he cleared a space on the kitchen table for a runway.

  The front door knocker thumped and the door opened. “May we come in?”

  “Hallo, Edna! Come through. Dad and I are in the kitchen.” Sue whipped off her frilly apron and kissed her aunt. “Hallo, Uncle John, how are you?”

  “Happy in anticipation of what’s cooking! Smells delicious.” John Ozanne, her mother’s eldest sibling, was, like his brothers, short, fat and bald. It had been a great regret of his father’s that the sons of the family had inherited their mother’s stature while the girls had all been tall like himself. John’s miserable first marriage had ended when his wife and children evacuated in 1940. Mary had been a depressing and depressed character who suddenly came to life in a munitions factory where she worked with her sister, and by the time the war ended she had no intention of returning. Meanwhile, released from her depressing influence, John’s heart was touched by romance with Edna Quevatre who had a most uplifting effect on him. From being serious and morose he developed a great sense of humour, a love of life, not least due to Edna’s excellent cooking, and as soon as he and Mary were divorced after the war, the lovers were wed. He reached up to kiss his tall niece, then grasped Greg’s hand. “Good to see you, young feller. Been out on the golf course trying to catch pneumonia this morning?”

  Greg punched him playfully in the stomach. “About time you thought of taking some exercise, old chap. Soon you’ll be putting one arm and one leg in your trousers, one arm and one leg in your Guernsey, and no one will know the difference.”

  “Ah! He always was a cheeky young beggar,” John told the women.

  Richard and Anne arrived next, with baby Derek, who captivated his aunt and great-aunt with his laughter, until Anne settled him into his highchair and quietened him with a toy.

  Sue opened the kitchen window. “Debbie!” she called. “I’m dishing up in ten minutes.”

  “This should be the last game,” the bouncy redhead replied, her words carrying away on the wind.

  Stephen came in. “Boy, that smells good.”

  Sue hurried to kiss him. “Have a good game, darling?”

  “Terrible. I was on the beach at the third. Lost two balls in the water on the ninth and tenth . . . I was darned if I was wading in after them in this weather. Plus I found every divot on the course.”

  Sue laughed. “But the beer was good. I can smell it!”

  “True. I’ll just nip upstairs and change. Won’t be more than two minutes.”

  “Tell Roddy and Steps to come on down, will you?”

  Stephen raised his eyes to the ceiling. “I can but try.”

  There remained one empty place at the dining table when Stephen finished carving and everyone had been served with vegetables and crisp chunks of Yorkshire pudding.

  “Shall I pop this into the oven for you to keep warm, Sue?” Edna pushed back her chair.

  “Sweet of you, dear, but no thanks,” Sue said firmly. “She should be here any moment.”

  Stephanie made her entrance ten minutes later, convinced that she was the ultimate fashion model.

  Unfortunately none of her family agreed.

  Greg’s eyebrows shot up in amazement. “What on earth have you got on?” he asked, sure that she was in fancy dress.

  “Oh, Granpa!” the girl sighed. “They’re hot pants.”

  “They look like jolly cold pants to me.”

  “That’s because you don’t know anything about fashion,” she told him severely.

  “For goodness sake sit down, Steps, and hide that lot under the tablecloth,” Roddy complained. “You’re putting us all off our lunch.”

  “I didn’t hear that. And I wish you’d stop calling me Steps. My name is Stephanie.” She sat down, eyeing the gravy congealing on her plate.

  “Your dinner is cold,” Bobbie observed.

  Stephanie picked up her fork and took a mouthful. “No it’s not, it’s just perfect,” she lied.

  Stephen decided on a diplomatic change of topic. “So, Dad, what do you reckon Callaghan is going to do about this financial crisis?”

  Greg stroked his chin. “I have a horrible feeling he is going to have to devalue sterling.”

  “Lord forbid,” John groaned.

  “Why would that be such a bad thing, in the circumstances?” Stephen quer
ied.

  “It’s all very well for young fellows like you. Your incomes will adjust. It’s people of our generation, retirees living on their life’s savings, that get hit below the belt.”

  “He won’t do it, though,” Richard chipped in. “He said only recently, and I quote, that ‘devaluation was a flight into escapism’. Wilson can’t keep him on as Chancellor of the Exchequer if he devalues the pound after making a public statement like that!”

  Greg shrugged. “He will have to do what is best for the country, I suppose. Let’s hope if it happened it will only be a small percentage.”

  Sue watched the gloom settling at that end of the table. She stood up. “More roast potatoes, anyone? Stephen, can you get a few more slices off that joint?”

  “Sure,” he got the message. “Roddy, be a good chap and top up the glasses, would you?”

  The following Wednesday James Callaghan devalued the pound sterling by 14.3 percent.

  Chapter Two – Fledglings

  While glancing up at Miss Martin a few times, Stephanie’s pencil was busy – but not in making notes on Medieval Fashions.

  Vanessa leaned across the library table and twisted the notebook around. She snorted: the broken spectacles, scraggly grey ponytail and chinless face were unmistakably those of the teacher working at a bookcase the other side of the room.

  The other two girls grabbed at the book and the quartet dissolved into muffled hysterics, hissing suggested additions for the cartoon.

  The unsuspecting victim pulled the one-armed glasses down her nose sufficiently to peer over the top, frowned, held a forefinger to her lips and said “Sshh!” then turned back to her task.

  The bell rang, Miss Martin glanced at her watch, replaced two books and hurried away.

  “It’s perfect,” Karen shrieked.

  “Steph, can’t you do a full length one to include her skirt and those awful shoes?” Caroline laughed.

  “I shan’t do any more at all if you lot don’t shut up! If that had been Miss Crabtree we’d all have been given Conduct Refusals. You know what she is.”

  “Yes. Sex starved!” Karen declared.

  “Are you suggesting that in comparison old Martin gets a regular ration?”

  “What bloke would want to do it with that animated beanpole?”

  “What animation? Haven’t noticed any myself.”

  “I distinctly saw her look at her watch, just now. Maybe she was calculating how much longer to her next fulfilment?” Vanessa giggled.

  “Can one be fulfilled by school coffee at breaktime?” Stephanie asked, straightfaced. She waited till the next round of laughter subsided then announced, “I’m staying in here for break. It’s bucketing down outside.” She opened her bag and fished out a Crunchie. As upper fifth-formers they were allowed the freedom to organise their own work schedules . . . so called.

  Karen drank from a plastic bottle of Ribena, Vanessa had an apple.

  “Anyone want some crisps?” Caroline Patterson put three bags on the table between then, plus several bars of chocolate. The poor little rich girl felt it was necessary to buy friendship to make up for her many other shortcomings.

  Stephanie knew the score; she had been let down by the girl so many times, had had special outings cancelled when Caroline had a subsequent and more attractive diversion offered which did not include this particular friend. In a way she felt a degree of sympathy for the girl, whose parents treated her like a spare wheel, yet on the other hand she was half envious of the casual freedom Caroline had to do her own thing, of her clothes, her own horse . . .

  Karen eyed the proffered feast. “Does your mother pack your lunch box?”

  Caroline doubted if her mother knew she had one. “No, the maid does it.”

  “Mum always fusses about what is or is not good for me,” Vanessa moaned. “Bad teeth, spots, obesity . . .”

  “And despite her efforts you’ve got them all.” Stephanie ducked as an empty, screwed up crisp bag was fired in her direction.

  “You going on holiday with your parents this year, Caro?”

  Caroline smiled brightly. “Of course. Dunno where, yet. They are talking of Cannes again.” Not that she was feeling very bright about it. Flying south to join one’s private yacht in the Med sounded all very exotic to her friends, but when you’d done it several times, and been stuck with aged aunts and grandparents while Mum and Dad hit the town every night and spent most of each day sleeping it off, the novelty wears a bit thin. But it wouldn’t do for the others to know that. “They’re skiing at the moment,” she added.

  “So who’s at home with you while they’re away?”

  “The maid.”

  “Then you’ve got the run of the house?” Karen asked.

  “Yes. Why, do you think we should have a party?”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, it had better be this weekend. They’ll be back the following week.” Not for long, of course. Dad would be going up to London for a session of business meetings, and Mum would go with him to have her hair cut because she didn’t think anyone in the island capable of doing it to her satisfaction. Sometimes Caroline wondered if she had been wise to make such a fuss against being sent off to boarding school; she didn’t really see any more of her parents by being at a day school over here. Once, only once, she had allowed herself to wonder why they had bothered to have a child; maybe it was a desire to satisfy some natural instinct? Or the wanting to have something to cuddle, like some people who buy a puppy or kitten, or a teddy bear? But that whole line of thinking had been too painful to repeat. Anyway, she really couldn’t complain: she was the envy of all her friends because she had everything she could possibly want. Everything, that was, that money could buy.

  The four girls huddled over Stephanie’s notebook, making lists. The list of boys was easy – all the decent ones they knew. The list of girls was more awkward: a matter of who to exclude lest they grab the best blokes.

  *

  A north-easterly wind was whistling through the boat sheds, rattling the corrugated iron doors and nearly tearing the roof off its bolts. But at least with the wind in that quadrant there was no rain. Not that it would have worried Richard Gaudion. The lunchtime concert on his radio was playing Beethoven’s Fifth and he was humming along with it as he finished applying a second coat of varnish to the beautifully curved gunwale he had fitted onto the yacht’s fibreglass hull. Cleaning his hands on a spirit-soaked rag, he stood back to admire his work, and smiled happily to himself. Job satisfaction, he decided, was one of the most precious gifts life had to offer. And he thought about Geoff. He often did think about his old schoolfriend, who had stayed on at school after Richard had left to start work in the yard. The boy had slogged his guts out, wrecked his eyesight, and finally got a place at university where he read mathematics and economics. He had some high-powered job in a London office, now, with about four times Richard’s income, but for what? For a poky little terraced house on a suburban street, from which he commuted to and fro for three-quarters of an hour each end of the day to get to work. And for relaxation at the weekend he could choose between sitting in his garden, which was smaller than Richard’s sitting-room, or taking his wife and family in their smart car to join a queue of traffic, all attempting to reach some moderately breathable air.

  “How are you doing up there?” a voice called from the shed floor, twelve feet below.

  “Fine, Uncle George. All the interior’s finished and nearly everything up top. I just need to do the final coat on the hatchway and grab-rails this afternoon and when she’s dried out we can put her outside.”

  “Good. There’s some new people with a gin palace in the Albert Dock. They want her brought up and anti-fouled. And we are supposed to have the wiring fixed in the Patterson’s yacht by the time they get back from Switzerland.”

  Richard swung a foot over the side of the hull and felt around for the top rung of the ladder, taking care to avoid touching any wet varnish. “They’ve got s
o many electrical gadgets on board it’s a miracle their generator can keep up with them all,” he commented as he clambered down to join his employer. “By the way, how are you and Dad getting on in the Swinburne?” A much coveted golf trophy played for annually.

  “He’s through to the next round, but I went out at the beginning. It was pouring with rain that day and blowing a gale and my arthritis was giving me gyp.”

  Richard gave him an old fashioned look; what golfer hadn’t a good excuse for a bad round? “I’d better fill in my time-sheet before I go to lunch or I’ll forget.”

  “I thought you’d been on it the whole morning.”

  “I was meant to be, but I can’t charge this account with the half hour spent talking to some prospective customer about his problems. One of these people who don’t know their bow from their stern but are determined to convince you they’ve been at sea all their lives. Pompous sort of chap by the name of Blaydon.”

  “Blaydon? That’s the man I was just telling you about. The one with the gin palace,” George Schmit laughed.

  “A boat to fit the voice, then.” Richard shrugged out of his overalls and pulled an old jacket on over his sweater. “I can’t wait for the wind to back. This easterly cuts through you like a knife.”

  George walked out with him to the old Ford banger parked in the yard. “She’s kept going well.”

  The owner patted the roof, fondly. “That’s because I treat her well. They tell me cars are like women: they respond to TLC!”

  “You’re learning! See you after lunch!” George called, and headed towards his own midday meal, smiling to himself. It couldn’t have worked out better, having Greg’s boy working for him. Intelligent lad, and bright at school. He could have gone on to university and got himself a smart, pinstripe job if he’d wanted to. Yet he’d chosen the simple life; loved boats and the sea as much as George did himself, and his father-in-law before him. He’d never had any children of his own – his nearest young relative was his wife Gelly’s nephew, Billy Smart, and he was bad news. Smart Alec, he called him. Of course he felt obliged to employ him for Gelly’s sake, but the boy never did any solid work to justify his time-sheets. All he was interested in was dreaming up “deals” and impressing the girls and it was hard to decide which looked the shadiest. There was that business ten years or more ago when the boy was found to be selling goods to customers on the cheap, all pinched from each other’s boats. Very awkward that had proved. Because Billy had still been a teenager he had given him another chance. To do what, remained to be seen.