Islands: A page turning story of love, secrets and regrets

by Gwyn GB

  The television news has left her with an uneasy feeling, a tight knot in her stomach and a sense there’s a shadow just behind her shoulders. Her brain is searching for something, anything which could link her Jersey to the one in the news report. She drinks a glass of wine, then the rest of the bottle. It doesn’t help her sleep well that night.

  Next morning the news from Jersey is the first thing to enter her mind when she wakes up. She lifts her head to look at the clock. It’s early, only half six but she’s restless. She decides to get up and go to the newsagents, find out if the papers have picked up on the story.

  It is a bright dry day, although the February chill sharpens the air as she steps out of her front door and pulls it shut quietly behind her. The tiny mews is deserted except for a neighbour’s fat tabby cat curled up on the doorstep of its home waiting to be let back in. It half lifts its eyelids as she walks past, but doesn’t deign to offer her any further recognition.

  The mews is on the outer edges of London’s West End. Not too far away the hum of Tottenham Court Road can be heard, which even at this early hour on a Sunday, is filled with traffic. Memories of Jersey’s quiet roads and peaceful countryside trickle into her mind. The sunlit, narrow green lanes in her head contrast with the wide, drab, brick and concrete thoroughfare in front of her.

  When she reaches the small newsagents it’s already full of people. The tiny shop’s walls heave with shelves of newspapers, magazines, comics and trading cards; a sea of words and pictures crammed in, all competing for the eye’s attention - broken only by heavily populated racks of confectionery and cigarettes. Stacked on the floor are the British Sundays, swollen with their supplements and advertising brochures.

  Katherine quickly scans the front pages. The story hasn’t made it there yet. It doesn’t take her long to find it inside. “Body found amid fears of child abuse ring on Jersey,” The Independent on Sunday’s headline snarls at her. She gathers as many papers as she can carry and shuffles forward in the crowded shop, repeating ‘Excuse me,’ over and over to everyone she has to push past to reach the queue. As she waits she reads on, “Detectives said they expected to discover more bodies at the former Haut de la Garenne home in St Martin.”

  She hears the man in front order some Dunhill Lights with his tabloid. Katherine stops reading, it’s made her feel sick. She’s shocked to the core - that something like this could have happened just down the road from her home. She fumbles in her pocket for her purse, desperate to leave the shop as quickly as she can. It’s almost like she’s guilty by association; at any time she might feel a tap on the shoulder and be asked questions. The tone of the reports in the papers are all accusatory; insinuating everyone in the island had been in on this terrible secret, hiding the abuse, allowing it to continue. She was there at the time but she knew nothing. How could a child, let alone several children, have gone missing without anybody noticing; without somebody querying where they’d gone? Surely there must be records, even if many of the children at Haut de la Garenne came from troubled homes?

  Katherine’s thoughts turn darker still as she searches her memories for any signs of this ‘hidden’ abuse. If it’s all true, could people she knows be involved? Somebody she’s trusted? Still trusts? As she walks home, burdened by more than just heavy papers, faces rush in and out of her memory: challenging, taunting.

  If she hoped the newspaper reports would ease the disturbed feeling she’s had since last night, then she’s disappointed. The Sunday Times gives the island as bad a press as all the rest of them, “Parts of a child’s skeleton have been found buried under concrete,” it adds, “The body is believed to date from the 1980s.”

  She devours all the papers re-reading and cross-checking, and then sits almost motionless thinking about what she’s read, about growing up, about all the people she’s left behind.

  Her living room is silent, the only noise in the house an occasional clunk from the heating pipes or radiator. The double glazed windows don’t allow the outside world to seep into her still existence. She becomes aware of the silence and strains to hear something, anything. The effort almost makes her ears ache with the overwhelming white noise of nothing; the sound of the newspaper pages turning a welcome relief.

  She skip reads the latest on the search for missing nine-year-old Shannon Matthews in Dewsbury. Police have widened the search and are now looking in ponds and sewers. The only headline she wants to read in this story is she’s been found. The television images of her distraught mother’s anguish have already upset Katherine with unsaid fears of what fate could have befallen the little girl. She can’t know that in just a few weeks’ time Shannon will be found safe and well with a relative, and her mother’s crocodile tears will turn real as she’s arrested by the police.

  It suddenly dawns on Katherine she misses Jersey. She looks around at her little house seeing it afresh. There’s nothing holding her here, no pets to worry about, no cat or dog, not even a goldfish. After John left she’d avoided becoming attached to anything, or anyone for that matter. What is she still doing here? How has she ended up staying in London for so long? At first it helped ease the pain, distanced her from the constant reminders, but then? Then it probably just became habit. At least she’d like to think that was it, rather than she was scared to return, scared to go back and face up to things. Surely enough time has gone by now, all wounds healed, scar tissue barely noticeable. She can return to Jersey with her head held high - a success.

  Only something holds her back. She can’t quite put her finger on what it is, but it is there in the background holding on to her. Until she can figure it out she can’t possibly hope to set herself free.

  The Monday morning post brings the unexpected catalyst for her return. When Katherine steps through her front door after work, the initial surprise is seeing the Jersey stamp on the envelope at her feet. She scoops it up and immediately opens it, disgorging its inner secrets in her Farrow & Ball Oxford Stone hallway. Pulling the letter free she is taken unawares by the stale odour of cigarette smoke. Seeing the signature of her dead friend’s mother at the bottom makes her heart lurch and causes her to dump her handbag and keys unceremoniously on the floor.

  “Dear Katherine,’ it begins, ‘I hope this letter finds you, and when it does, it finds you well. I am not so well. I’m told I have just weeks remaining. There are things I need to tell you, things which should have been dealt with many years ago in relation to the events in the summer of 1976. I know you have no reason to show me mercy in my final days, but if you could find the opportunity to visit me there are things I know Anne would like me to have said to you. I await your decision. Yours sincerely Elizabeth West.”

  Elizabeth West. She hasn’t thought of that name in years. To see Anne’s mother’s name on the letter in front of her makes her head reel. Katherine believes there are only two living people who know the truth about Anne’s death - herself and Anne’s mother. Now she is dying and wants to talk. The decision to return to Jersey is made.

  4

  June 1976, Jersey

  Katherine is so close to finishing, or should that be starting? One more exam and that’ll be it. She’ll be an ex St Helier Girls School student and a grown-up, ready to work and take her place in the world. She is sick of revising, sick of sitting at her tiny desk in her bedroom looking out over the same boring fields. There has to be more to life than this, more to fill her days than schoolwork, or hanging around the house.

  Her bedroom walls are covered in a multitude of distractions: posters of Donny Osmond and David Essex, plus an underground map of London which she’s virtually memorised. There is a sheet from “Jackie” showing twenty different styles to try with long hair. During the weeks of revision Katherine has experimented with every single one of them, plus a lot more variations besides.

  Where there aren’t posters there is her wardrobe - a big, double-doored mahogany beast of a wardrobe which dominates the room. She wants to paint it, brighten the place up a bit, b
ut her mother won’t let her.

  ‘It’s been in the family for generations, you’ll ruin it,’ she’d said.

  ‘Exactly mum, it’s time for a change, a bit of modernisation if you ask me,’ but Marie hasn’t asked her and so the wardrobe stays its natural dark reddish-brown. The doors of the wardrobe never close - not for any mechanical reason but because of the mass of cloth intestines which hang from its gut, spilling out onto the floor and spewing over its door handles. Katherine likes to think the mess in her bedroom is another trait she’s inherited from her father - his maverick style of order.

  From Katherine’s window the fields all around are multi-coloured greens and browns, broken only by the smattering of white hogweed heads or yellow clusters of buttercups. To the right a darker, more sombre, green of potato plants. In front is a bright summery emerald sea of lettuces and to the left a chocolate brown expanse stripped of its fruits which are already sailing across to England labelled “Jersey Fresh”, destined for the shelves of a chain of greengrocers.

  Katherine isn’t looking out of her window. She’s managed to find a welcome distraction from revision in the form of a fashion catalogue she discovered buried underneath her desk. She’s already spotted an outfit she knows Anne will love so she’s torn out the photo to show her, folding it carefully and putting it in her school bag which sits under her desk ready for the morning.

  A fly finds its way in through the half opened sash window, then begins banging and buzzing at the glass to get out. Katherine stops to watch it, wondering if it feels pain each time it knocks itself. What goes through its tiny mind as it repeats the same action over and over again? Does it have a mind? She toys with the idea of rolling up her catalogue and squashing it but she begins to feel empathy; both of them trapped inside her bedroom, desperate to escape into the big wide world. Instead she uses the catalogue as an escape aid, guiding him up the glass and over the wooden frame to where fresh air and freedom await. For Katherine, escape isn’t so simple. For her there are only the history revision notes on her desk.

  Finishing her last exam is nothing compared to how excited she is about going to Sands. Rumour is Darren and Mark go there every Friday and she’s not about to let this opportunity to impress them go by without a mammoth effort. She’s raked through her entire wardrobe checking every single hanger, picking up all the stuff from the floor where dresses and tops were enmeshed with shoes and handbags, most of which are now piled on her bed. She has finally chosen the perfect outfit. There’s a buzz inside of her. Life is just about to start. Just around the corner she can feel excitement and adventure waiting. She is so ready for it.

  5

  Feb 28th 2008, London

  ‘Margaret, it’s Katherine.’ There’s silence for a second or two. Katherine pushes the phone closer to her ear straining to hear something.

  ‘Katherine! How are you? ...It’s been a while.’

  ‘Yes I know. I’m sorry.’ More silence, the nature of their adult conversation. Katherine grinds her teeth; the habit her dentist has tried desperately to stop. ‘How are you all?’

  ‘Oh we’re fine, we’re fine. I suppose you’ve seen the news?’ her sister asks.

  ‘Yes. I can’t believe it. Is it really true?’ Katherine momentarily forgets to be defensive.

  ‘Well, the Independent reckons they’ve found the body of an eleven to fifteen-year-old. It’s just awful. Everybody here is so shocked, I can tell you,’ Margaret’s voice falters.

  ‘I was too. I mean I just had no idea anything like that could have been going on. They’re talking about possibly seven children being buried there. How could nobody have missed them? Children can’t just disappear like that surely?’ Katherine asks her sister but doesn’t expect the answer.

  ‘I don’t know Katherine; I really don’t know...Is that why you called?’

  ‘No. Actually I was calling because I’m coming over to Jersey,’ Katherine feels the common ground slip away. Returning to her defensive position she waits for her words to create their impact.

  ‘Really?’ Margaret sounds genuinely surprised, ‘Great...work is it?’

  ‘No. Not work… I’ll tell you about it when I come. My flights are booked, next Monday. Don’t worry I’m not expecting you to put me up or anything, I was going to book a hotel...’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Margaret jumps in, ‘Are you not staying at yours? With John?’

  ‘No, I thought best not to.’

  ‘Well, you must stay with us, this is as much your home as it’s mine after all. You don’t really want to stay in a hotel do you, away from us?’

  Katherine thinks the idea is more than just a tempting one, but she’s boxed into a corner. She should have said it was work and then Margaret wouldn’t have pushed her so hard to stay with them.

  ‘Only if you’re sure Margaret,’ she replies, ‘I wouldn’t want to cause any trouble.’ Her sister hesitates at this, and Katherine wonders what’s going through her mind.

  ‘I’m sure. What time do you get in?’

  ‘Monday morning at eleven.’

  ‘OK I’ll be at the airport to get you.’

  ‘Oh you don’t need...’

  ‘No arguments. Eleven o’clock I’ll be there.’

  Katherine and Margaret speak little, but scale a mountain of emotion.

  There have been so many reasons for Margaret to be annoyed with Katherine over the years, and she knows it. She’s been a rubbish auntie, a crap sister, a negligent daughter and then there’s John. So many reasons not to return home.

  After the phone call Katherine sits for a while in her peaceful living room, wondering if she’s doing the right thing, conjuring up the landmarks of her childhood with all their resulting emotions. Their school doesn’t exist anymore. St Helier town is quite different with modern offices towering over the last of the family run shops and Havre des Pas is past its tourism prime; but around the island the beaches have stayed the same. The tide may shift the sands but essentially they don’t change. When she’d last been over to Jersey, for her mother’s funeral, they’d queued up for hot chocolates at Big Vern’s Cafe in St Ouen’s bay. Next door the Sands nightclub has gone, now self-catering apartments, but the setting was enough to turn the sweetness of the chocolate bitter in her mouth. It was tough being there, back where it had all begun.

  6

  June 1976, Jersey

  Sands is a white building set just off St Ouen’s beach. A fairly ugly building for such a beautiful setting. When Marie drops Katherine off for the evening she can see people have already spilled out of the disco onto the golden beach. Usually they’re not allowed to leave the club, but the slight sea breeze tonight has proven too much of an attraction for the groups of teenagers who have broken away from their dancing to pose and cool off outside.

  Katherine waves her mother off and then waits for Anne. Tonight is the culmination of a thousand teenage dreams. Her exams are over - that means the end of school and the start of a new life of independence. Together with her best friend she is about to embark on a voyage of discovery: boys, work, being able to make her own decisions about life. This night is the climax to all those months of revision, to all the plans and ideas she and Anne have talked about. They’re going to be on cloud nine tonight and nothing’s going to touch them - unless it’s Darren or Mark!

  Katherine’s early as she’s eager to ensure her mother has left before Anne gets there. The last thing she wants is a scene with her mother. She’s told Marie she’s meeting some girls from school - and she isn’t lying, not really.

  As it is, Anne is late. Katherine chooses a spot in the car park to wait where she can see all the comings and goings at Sands. The entrance to the club is seaward, but there is already a small queue forming to get in through the heavy wooden doors propped open for ventilation.

  She’s desperate to get inside and keeps checking her watch. It’s twenty minutes past their arranged time, and over half an hour since she arrived, before she s
ees Anne’s dad’s Volvo turn into the car park. Katherine watches as Anne gets out and walks towards the nightclub. She doesn’t look up as her father quickly reverses to leave. There is no wave from his daughter, her shoulders are rounded.

  ‘You’re late.’ says Katherine bounding up to her, waiting for an apology. She’s bursting with excitement expecting to see the same energy and enthusiasm mirrored in her friend. There’s no apology and no excitement. It throws her at first. ‘I thought you were wearing your new top?’ she asks Anne, trying to draw her out, but her friend just shrugs and looks down at the floor. ‘What’s going on, you OK?’

  ‘Yeah I’m fine,’ Anne replies.

  Despite the fact Katherine can see she’s anything but fine, she decides to ignore it. This is a night she has been looking forward to forever and no-one is going to ruin it. ‘Come on then, we’ve finished our exams, cheer up and let’s party,’ Katherine grabs Anne’s hand and tries to chivvy her along.

  Outside, standing under the surfboard sign announcing the Sands’ entrance, is a bouncer who looks them up and down. From inside comes the sound of Abba’s “Dancing Queen.”

  ‘You two eighteen?’ he asks with a gruff London accent.

  Katherine looks to Anne for one of her usual cheeky responses, but she says nothing. ‘Yeah, we’ve just finished our A levels,’ Katherine quickly replies with a confidence that surprises herself. There’s no way anybody is going to stand between her and the night out she has planned. He doesn’t look fully convinced but waves them in.

  A wall of sweaty heat hits them as they enter, it’s a dancing sauna packed with a couple of hundred young people. The two bars on their left are the main focus of the lighting - rectangular holes of bright white challenged by a multitude of bobbing heads trying to catch the bar staff’s attention. The dance floor at the back is marked by swirling coloured lights and it’s in that direction they head as soon as they get inside.