The Guernsey Saga Box Set

by Diana Bachmann

  Greg, however, regretted the passing of the all-day Sunday beach picnics, when all branches of the family and all generations congregated for swims and lunch, followed by post-food snoozing for the oldies, and rock-pool shrimping for the young. There used to be beach cricket and more swimming before tea, after which sleepy children would be gathered up and hauled reluctantly home to bed. Those were the days, when all the generations were part of each other’s lives, but where had those days gone? Why had the successive generations lost interest? Were they dumping the older and younger members of their families in favour of private pools and boats and a faster, more entertaining lifestyle?

  “I’m glad you have retained the job of housewife,” he told Sue. “So much more important to have someone building a happy home environment, being there for the young as they grow up, rather than this modern compulsion for young women to chase high-powered jobs.”

  “I was a working mother myself, remember, when Jonathan and I had the hotel.”

  “And you were thin as a wraith and looked awful, doing it.”

  “Well, Dad, there are so many more pressures, nowadays. The current working generations want to keep up a certain standard of living.”

  “Money! Practically all most people think about today is ways to make more money, or acquire it from the State. And most of it is spent on amusements and unnecessary luxuries.”

  Oh dear! Dad was on his hobby horse again! Sue tried not to grind her teeth. “There are certain improvements in life which are considered basic necessities, today.”

  “You mean cars and televisions and fancy gadgets. Well, fair enough if they can afford it, I suppose, and the children’s family life doesn’t suffer. But of course the lazy and the uneducated want the same advantages, and why should we, the taxpayers, pay for the entertainment of unemployed layabouts? So many of them could earn quite enough to live comfortably.” Warming to his subject, he wagged a forefinger at her. “They don’t put their money to improving their homes or family life, you know. The entertainment of the illiterate idiocracy has always been sex, booze and gambling. More money in their pockets has always meant more of those. Once upon a time a poor child’s treat was a sticky bun. Now, they are fed so many sticky buns and iced lollies and chips they are grossly overweight; and all to keep them quiet while the parents sit watching endless TV, smoking and drinking too much and sleeping around. The kids are too often thoroughly neglected; they may have smart clothes and expensive toys, but their parents never bother to talk to them. Just like children of the upper ten, brought up by cheap nursemaids and so-called nannies. Never feeling their parents had any love or interest in them.”

  “Oh look! Here’s Stephen home already. I must put the kettle on.” Sue breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn’t that she disagreed with much of what her father said. But once he got on his hobby horse there was no stopping him.

  *

  “Are you going to enter any flower arrangements in the North Show?” Coralie stood back to cast a critical eye over her latest creation.

  “Me! I wouldn’t dream of it. I’m not nearly good enough.”

  “Pity. I’ve put your name down.”

  “You haven’t!” Debbie was horrified. “Honestly, I’m nowhere near your standard.”

  Coralie grunted. “Even my sister could do better than this with one hand tied behind her back.” She glared with distaste at the arrangement in front of her.

  “Why do you say that? It’s lovely.”

  “Too much heavy foliage in the front, here. And I cannot get this altrameria to do the right thing. It keeps twisting.”

  “Are you putting in any entries?” Debbie asked.

  “No. I can’t because I’m professional. But I’m entering some of the riding events. Are you coming to the show?”

  “I hadn’t thought of it.”

  “Do. I’d love someone to go with. And you can shout encouragement or clap when I’m in the ring. There won’t be anyone else to spur me on.”

  Which made Debbie feel she had to say yes, even while every bone in her body wanted to say no. She didn’t want to mix with crowds of people, because inevitably she would catch herself seeking his face in that sea of faces, listening for his voice from the midst of passing snatches of conversation. After all this time she continued to ache for the dream of what might have been. People, including her mother, had tried to tell her that Amanda was only one in a list of infidelities – but she didn’t want to know. She could not bear to face the thought that those years of loving, of lovemaking, of lying in each others arms giving all, body and soul, had been, for Justin, only a fake. That she could have been to him just another lay. So she told herself that Justin was a very sexual animal who needed more than one woman at a time to satisfy his needs . . . and she had to face the fact that he would never change. But though acceptance of that knowledge might be the first step on the road to understanding and forgiveness, it was not a situation she could live with: she loved him still, desperately. Although every hour of each day she suffered a painful lump in her stomach with yearning for the feel of his arms, she knew she was a one-man woman and needed a one-woman man . . . or none at all. And right now it was impossible to visualise any one ever taking Justin’s place in her heart.

  *

  It had been a warm, misty summer and in Sausmarez Park the marquees were sweltering hot that August. Judges moved along the trestle tables tasting and comparing the scones and buns, Guernsey gache and Guernsey biscuits, fruit cakes and sponges. The entries were from all age groups from five-year-olds to great-grannies. Amongst the produce, wilting green vegetables vied for attention with huge pumpkins and onions: and in the Arts and Crafts, entries of knitted garments and framed tapestries, pretty handmade blouses and embroidered tablecloths, dressed dolls and quilted tea cosies had been submitted from the very young up to the very old.

  Debbie was most impressed with many of the flower arrangements and glad she had entered after all when she saw she had placed third in her section. She loved the miniature gardens the children had made in tomato trays, tiny gravel paths leading between flower borders filled with minute flower heads, imitation lawns and hand mirrors for garden ponds. Three small children stood admiring their handiwork, and reminded Debbie of the children she and Justin would never have . . .

  The two girls sat together in the tea tent eating huge wedges of coffee-iced walnut cake, then they wandered round the sales tents admiring shiny farm machinery, and the growers tents to see the boxes of dozens of different types of flowers prepared for Covent Garden market and trays of graded tomatoes.

  “There aren’t as many entries in the cattle sections, nowadays,” Debbie remarked. “There used to be lots more cows and young heifers, bulls and goats.”

  “There seemed to be more competition in the animal sections at the West Show,” Coralie replied. She looked quite splendid in her riding gear and won a rosette on Thursday afternoon. Then they both stayed on for the parade of flower-decked floats and the Battle of Flowers.

  “I’m quite glad I made the effort to go,” Debbie told her mother when she arrived home. “I really felt much better, most of the time. Part of the scene.”

  Sue and Stephen looked at each other. Might this be a turning point in Debbie’s recovery?

  After two or three abortive visits with feeble explanations and excuses, nothing more had been heard from Justin. Hilary relayed his whereabouts in England to Sue when the latter asked, and explained what he was doing – which seemed to be very little of any consequence. While Amanda continued her busy social life in the island, as well as in London. Being one to spread his favours around on his solo visits to England, Cy Blaydon was inclined to laugh off the ‘incident’, as he called it, and wonder what all the fuss was about. Not that he approved of his stepdaughter, or even liked her much, but he made no attempt to reprove or condemn her. Which did not improve his popularity in the Martel household, but of this he seemed blissfully unaware, continuing to seek their company,
especially when his son Neal was on the island. He genuinely doted on the young man, now in his mid thirties, and was devastated when Neal’s wife Annabel asked for a divorce.

  “Why? What is the matter with the girl?” he demanded.

  Devastated himself, Neal had no answer. Annabel had moved into a smart little terraced house with her cat, and he was allowed to visit her if he wished.

  When he came over on holiday, it was immediately obvious to Sue that he was a lost soul going through the motions of a social life which had lost all meaning. “A very weird situation in the Blaydon household,” she said to Stephen one night. “No one seems to talk to anyone else.”

  “Amazing, really,” Stephen agreed. “Annabel staged her walkout months ago, and poor Neal doesn’t seem to know yet what has hit him. He walks round in a daze, a bit like Debbie.”

  “Yes, I’ve noticed. He is a funny-looking chap, too much like his father in appearance to be attractive, but one has to feel sorry for him.”

  *

  Sybil, Lady Banks, held a coffee morning that November for her mother Maureen, Sue, Richard’s wife Anne and the latter’s mother, Aunt Filly, for the sole purpose of them watching together the wedding of Princess Anne to Captain Mark Phillips. A trolley was loaded with cups and coffeepot, plus plates of hot, buttered Guernsey biscuits, and tiny savoury tartlets. Sybil had arranged the chesterfield and chairs to the best advantage round the big television screen and all the ladies were seated in good time to see the arrival of important heads of state, followed by members of the royal family in their respective carriages.

  Princess Anne looked so lovely, walking up the aisle on the arm of her father, that everyone felt quite weepy.

  “This must be a dream marriage, made in heaven,” Maureen sniffed into her handkie. “Let’s hope they look as adoringly at each other on their ruby anniversary as they do today.”

  Everyone “Mmmm,”d their agreement. They all knew what a very difficult marriage Maureen had had . . . and survived.

  *

  Cyril and Carol Blaydon gave a large New Year’s Eve Party to welcome in 1974, and having established that Amanda Smith would be living it up in London that night, Debbie agreed to accompany her parents, plus Bobbie who was coming up thirteen and wearing a dark suit and bow tie for the first time, and Roderick, who was tending to team up nowadays with Jane Tetchworth, Justin’s sister.

  “It’s time you had yourself a new look,” Sue told Debbie, after checking through her wardrobe. “Come on, let’s go into Town during your lunch hour and see what we can find.”

  Debbie acquiesced, not through any desire for a new dress, but rather because she lacked the will to argue, and they came away with a stunning number in green, a shoulder-strapped gown with matching bolero jacket which somehow managed to disguise her painfully thin frame. Added to which, Sue made an appointment at her hairdressers for Debbie at the same time as her own, from where they both emerged stiff-necked in headscarves, trying to protect their elegant coiffures from the south-easterly whipping up the High Street.

  There was no lack of prospective partners for Debbie at the Blaydons that night: she danced politely but without enthusiasm with each gentleman who asked her and was greatly relieved when Neal took pity on her, led her to a corner of the conservatory and proceeded to question her on his stepsister Coralie’s progress with the shop.

  “I don’t get to see the books, actually, but judging by the number of regular customers I would say the business is doing very nicely,” she told him. “Coralie has tremendous artistic flair.”

  “Not the sort of girl to set the world on fire,” Neal grinned, “But a genuinely nice, steady person.”

  Debbie warmed to him. “Yes. She has a heart of gold. She has been so kind to me.” She smiled at the quiet, bald young man beside her, relieved to be under no pressure from a would-be ardent admirer.

  Chapter Seven – Allegiances

  Joe Mason withdrew his head and shoulders from the engine compartment below the deck of the cockpit and nodded at Richard. “Yes, well, she is obviously not new but seems to be in reasonable condition. What was the previous owner like? Did he know anything about marine engines?”

  “I don’t know anything about the man, except that he seems to have looked after her very well.” Aware that Mason, their third prospective buyer for the boat, was trying to work a canny deal, Richard added. “He must have loved her like a mistress the way he lavished paint and oil on her.”

  “Hmm,” Mason commented, running his hand along the smooth teak trim. “What do you think, dear?”

  Monica Mason was grinning broadly. Fed up with the discomforts of their racing yacht on the Hamble, she had been trying to talk Joe into something like this for two years. “She is beautifully equipped below. Mr Gaudion says the crockery, cutlery and the saucepans in the galley are all part of the inventory. And I do like the layout of the master cabin.”

  “Fine. We are seeing another boat tomorrow,” he said which judging by the expression on Mrs Mason’s face Richard guessed was a lie. “And we will then discuss which we prefer. However, I think you will have to consider dropping your price for us to settle on this one. You are definitely asking more than I’d planned to spend.”

  When the Masons had gone, Richard crossed the road to George Schmit’s house to report. “They are certainly hooked,” he told his boss, “but trying to play hard-to-get.”

  George spread his hands. “They all do, my boy. Especially the ones who fancy themselves as businessmen. Where do they live?”

  “Birmingham.”

  “Oh! So they’ll want to purchase her through a locally registered company. Which almost certainly means they’ve got more money than they’re letting on.”

  “I think you’d better handle the rest of the deal,” Richard laughed. “You’re obviously a harder nut to crack than I am.”

  Much to Billy’s annoyance, his Uncle George did allow the Masons to knock him down the extra thousand he had added to the asking price, especially for the purpose. “You’d have got it, easily, if you’d hung on,” he declared.

  “Possibly. But this way I’ve not only got a happy, permanent customer in the repair yard, but also he is going back to Birmingham to tell his friends about this funny little halfwit dealer he found in Guernsey and how he knocked the price down. Then his friends will come over and buy some more boats from us.”

  “And they’ll all want to knock us down,” Billy grumbled.

  “Don’t you worry, lad. We’ve made a very fair profit on this boat. Richard’s nearly finished the second one and she’ll get a good price, too.”

  “Number three is a nice little cabin cruiser. When shall I fetch her?”

  “Soon as you like,” Richard told him. “We are taking on an another hand at the end of the month, to cope with the extra work.”

  *

  “What’s that new gadget you’ve got there?” Greg wanted to know as he sipped his coffee at Sue’s kitchen table.

  “This?” she patted a sleek white machine under the work counter. “This is my new dishwasher. An absolute godsend.”

  Her father shook his head and grinned. “I don’t know what this world is coming to. Your mother never had any of these things and seemed to manage very well.”

  “Oh come on, Dad! With the help of a full time maid! I only have a lady coming in for three hours, twice a week.”

  “Is that all? I thought you had a girl called Sharon, every day.”

  “She left to get married years ago! And that was when the children were young and I had an old fashioned washing machine with a mangle. And no tumble dryer. I tell you, I needed her.”

  “They say that some young mothers nowadays use throwaway nappies. Can’t be bothered to wash them.”

  Surreptitiously, Sue studied his grey head and noted the increasing lines round his eyes and mouth. He was still a fine figure of a man for his seventy-five years, broad shoulders showing no sign of a stoop, but mentally he seemed to be agei
ng. Maybe it was from being without Mum for so many years. “Well, I wish disposables had been around when my kids were babies. Though I don’t know if I could have afforded them.”

  When Greg had gone, Sue continued her baking for the weekend, thinking about their conversation as she worked. How things had changed. She patted the over-worked Kenwood mixer which dominated the kitchen on baking days, knowing she couldn’t produce half the cakes, pastry and homemade bread without it. She remembered the wet nappies strung out round the kitchen and round the sitting room fire on wet winter days; there were no nappies to worry about now but she was still grateful for the tumble dryer, and for the washing machine that did all the rinsing and spun the excess water from the clothes automatically. It saved so much time and energy, yet where did the saved time go? Years ago she travelled by bike or bus, now she flew everywhere in her own little Fiat: dashed to the shops, sped off to see friends and family, collected Bobbie from school and delivered and fetched him for all his extra-curricular activites like football, cricket and music. And there would be more of the latter now, since he had decided to learn the oboe as a second instrument, having reached grade five on the piano. He was growing into a strapping lad, way larger than Roderick had been at his age. And so like his father: he had Stephen’s heavy black hair and grey eyes, and the same strong, square chin. He had lots of Stephen’s mannerisms, too, like holding both hands behind his back while talking to one, and combing his hair back off his face with an impatient run of his fingers. He was good at sport, much to his grandfather Greg’s delight, tennis figuring strongly as his favourite, probably because of the court in their back garden and the keenness for the sport throughout the family. He was fond of all types of music, from pop to classical, and it was not unusual to hear him switch over in his bedroom from Simon and Garfunkel to Gustav Hoist.