The Soldier's Wife (9 page)

Chapter 14

I
WALK HOME THROUGH
the summer morning, feeling so sad for Angie, thinking how lost she seems, how much she has aged. Wondering what I can do to help her. I'm not really looking around me. I'm in a trance, abstracted, like when I was a child and didn't come when I was called, and Aunt Aggie would shake her head at me: “You're such a dreamer, Vivienne. You're always off in cloud-cuckoo land. You think too much, you need to live in this world.”

If I hadn't been so preoccupied, maybe I would have noticed the car in the lane; maybe I would have turned in time, and made for the track through the fields, and come home by the back way. But I've almost reached the car before I really take it in. It's not an army vehicle, but a big black Bentley, drawn up on the verge outside the gate of Les Vinaires. I recognize the car. It used to belong to the Gouberts; they lived at Les Brehauts, an imposing whitewashed house near the church, before they went on the boat. The Germans must have requisitioned the car—which, as Angie says, means stealing.

The hood is open. One of the men from Les Vinaires is there, the scarred man I saw in the window, peering under the hood. I see him too late. I'd have done anything to avoid him, but I can't turn back now. It would look like cowardice and I'd hate him to think I was scared. He's tinkering with the engine, muttering under his breath, then he opens the door, climbs in, and tries the ignition—still with the hood up. The engine turns once, splutters, dies. He gets out, kicks a tire, and swears, a rushed volley of German expletives. With a part of my mind, I'm thinking,
Good
.
He may have stolen the car, but at least he can't make it go.
But I'm frightened too, and the prayer that Angie quoted to me slides into my mind.
Oh Lord help me . . .
I stand there, uncertain, apprehensive. I have to walk past him to reach the gate to my yard. I'm wishing more than ever that I'd thought to come back through the fields.

He turns, sees me. He has a shocked look: he stares, as if I am a ghost or apparition. As though
I
am the one who is out of place, who shouldn't be here. The scented wind blows about us; it billows my skirt, then wraps it back against my body, and pushes a strand of unruly hair into my mouth. My face feels hot; I know I've gone red, and I hate this. My heart stutters. I think he is going to shout at me or threaten me.

“I apologize,” he says. His English accent is very good, as good as Captain Richter's. His face flushes slightly, almost as though he's ashamed.

I don't know what to say. I feel stupid, wrong-footed—clumsy, as though I use up too much space, as though my feet and hands are too big for my body.

“That's all right, it doesn't matter,” I say—the automatic response. Then I feel my hand fly to my mouth, as if to stop myself from talking.

He inclines his head in a little bow, and turns and goes into the house.

There's a small scolding voice in my head: You're letting the side down, you handled everything wrong. You shouldn't have said it didn't matter—you shouldn't have spoken at all.
Everything
matters,
nothing's
all right. It comes to me that this will be the shape of it, of our new life under the Occupation: always these troubling, frightening encounters, leaving you feeling that you've transgressed and given something away.

Later, from my bedroom window, I watch as the scarred man comes out with one of the younger men, the one who has the kind of skin that peels in the sun. The young man has a tool box. He mends the car—deftly, with no fuss. The scarred man climbs in and turns the ignition: the engine starts up. Through the car window, I can see the ironic smile on his face. The thought ripples in me that I know certain things about him. How he loathes machines, feels they oppose him, will never do his will; how this helplessness makes him angry. How he can lose himself in reading a book or a letter—frowning, running a finger absently over his brow. I know the look he has when he thinks that nobody is watching, how he will light a cigarette and leave it lying there and roll up his shirtsleeves, doing these things unthinkingly, unaware of what he is doing. This knowledge makes me uneasy. It's as though I am party to a secret that I never asked to be told.

Before the man drives off, he glances up at my bedroom window. Almost as if he knows I am looking, expects me to be looking. My heart thuds. I draw back into my room.

Chapter 15

A
UGUST. THE ISLAND
has never been lovelier, all our gardens lavishly flowering, the sky high and bright, a fresh salt wind off the sea. The Belle de Crécy roses are blooming in my back garden, drowsy with bumblebees, the flowers opening helplessly wide and spreading out their perfume.

Before the war, on such beautiful days I'd have taken the girls to the beach—perhaps to Petit Bôt with a picnic, Millie perched in my bicycle basket. Blanche and I would cycle down the lane that leads to the shore, a lane that is shadowed and secret with branches that meet overhead and musical with the singing of the streams that run down to the water there; and then suddenly we would come out into light at the end of the lane, to the beach that is held between tall cliffs like a jewel cradled between cupped palms, to the sleek wet sand and the glistening jade-green clarity of the sea.

But now the beaches are forbidden to us. They're mined by the Germans, in case our army comes to take our island back—something that none of us thinks will happen. Our island is a prison.

Every evening I turn on the BBC news on the wireless, listening with a weight of lead in my chest—the news is all terrible. The Luftwaffe are bombing English airfields. Churchill calls it the Battle of Britain: he says that the Battle of France is over, and the Battle of Britain has begun. Evelyn listens with me, though I don't know whether she understands. Sometimes as she listens her face seems to melt and tears spill over her face. Her emotions are always so near, as though with the passing of the years some defense she had, some outer protective shell, has been scoured and worn away in her. “That's terrible, Vivienne,” she'll say. “Yes, I'm afraid so,” I tell her. “But we mustn't give up hope.” I don't know why I say that, when I have given up hope myself. Sometimes in the evening we hear the Nazi bombers coming over from France, and then their fighter planes going up from the Guernsey airfield, to escort the bombers over England. When we hear them, I think we all send up a quick, fervent prayer for our air crews who will meet them—even those of us who'd never normally pray. Will they hold off the Luftwaffe? How long can they hold out against the invasion of England? How long before Hitler crosses the Channel? We know it must happen sooner or later. It's only a matter of time.

Often I think about Eugene, wondering where his division is, praying that he'll be kept safe. But at these times when I think of him, he feels almost a stranger to me. I tell myself it's because he's so far away now, and because we don't receive any letters or any news of our men. Most women with husbands at war must feel this—the sense of distance, of separation. I don't entirely acknowledge, even in the deeps of my mind, that it was like that when he lived here too. When he'd sit at the breakfast table fenced off behind his newspaper, as though I were nothing to him, as though I didn't exist. When he'd say, We're rehearsing tonight, don't wait up, I could be home on the late side. . . . Sounding so easy and casual, yet I'd sense the sharks darkly circling under the surfaces of his words. When he'd lie in our bed, turned away from me, never touching. I don't admit that we were strangers long before he left.

MILLIE SEEMS MOSTLY
unbothered by the Occupation, though sometimes I hear her reprimanding her rag doll: “If you're naughty, I'm going to tell the Nazis. And when I tell them they'll come and bomb you to bits.” But Blanche is still unhappy that we didn't go on the boat. She spends too much time in her room. Mostly she listens to her Irving Berlin records, but one day I go in and she's just sitting there, pulling at a fraying thread on her cuff—not doing anything, just staring blankly in front of her. A sudden sadness tugs at me, grief for the things she is missing out on because of the Occupation—dressing up, being taken to dinner, being bought flowers, that whole gorgeous charade of courtship. She worries me. Sometimes I almost wish she were little again, like Millie. When they're small, it's so simple: you only have to buy them a bun or some aniseed balls, and they'll be content.

One day at the end of August, she does some shopping for me, at Mrs. Sebire's grocery shop, up on the main road near the airfield. She comes home bright-eyed, hair flying, a smile unfurling over her face: everything about her is smiling.

“Mum. You'll never guess what happened. Mrs. Sebire wanted to know if I'd like a job in her shop!”

“What did you say?” I ask her.

“
Yes
. I said
yes,
of course. That's all right, isn't it? She was really pleased. Since her daughter left on the boat, she said it's been a struggle, and she's sure I'll be good at the job.”

“That's wonderful,” I tell her.

It's not what I'd once have hoped for. When Blanche was younger, before the war began, I'd hoped she'd go to the mainland to study—perhaps to train as a teacher. But for now, with everything in turmoil, this offer of work is a gift.

Her face is lit up; her hyacinth-blue eyes dazzle.

“I'll be like Celeste now, won't I, Mum?” she says.

Blanche has always seen Celeste's job at Mr. Martel's watch shop as the height of glamour.

I'll miss having her around the house during the day. Evelyn seems so fragile now, so confused, that I sometimes worry about leaving her and Millie together. But it's lovely to see Blanche happy again, and her money will certainly help. We're just about managing for the moment—I have a little money saved, and Evelyn pays some of the bills. But every penny matters.

She starts work on Monday. She gets up early, puts on a crisp gingham Sunday-best frock and some of the lipstick I bought for her. She comes home tired but pleased with herself, with a bag of overripe peaches that Mrs. Sebire had decided were a little too bruised to sell. We eat the peaches: they are delicious.

“I'm glad you got that job,” says Millie, the sweet juice dripping down her chin.

We are all glad.

THE ISLAND IS
filling up with soldiers. When I cycle into St. Peter Port to change my library book, I find there are swastikas everywhere, and German newsreels at the Gaumont, telling of Nazi triumphs. There's a lot less food in the shops. I have to queue for bread, and there are no sweets for the girls, and I can't find coffee anywhere. As I walk back to my bicycle, a German brass band starts marching down the High Street, past all the familiar shops, past Mrs. du Barry's and Boots. I hate to see this. And yet the sound of it stirs me, as martial music always will, regardless of who is playing it: there's a glamour to it, an urgency, it always makes your heart pound. I find I am walking in time, my body responding to the beat, and this troubles me, as though I am conceding something.

On the way back from town, I drop in on Gwen at Elm Tree Farm.

We sit at her wide scrubbed table. Her kitchen has a scent of baking, so warm and welcoming, like arms wrapped around you. On the table, there are sweet peas in a white china jug; the flowers are almost over, and the jug stands in a lapping pool of silken fallen petals.

We drink tea and eat Gwen's homemade gâche, which is stuffed with sultanas and candied peel and has a thin, glittery crust of sugar on top. Every Guernsey housewife makes it, and I learned how when I came here, but my gâche has never tasted half as delicious as Gwen's.

I lick the last trace of fragrant sugar from my hand.

“Mmm. That's so
good
.”

“Make the most of it, Viv,” she says. “There won't be all that much more of that, I'm thinking. I had to queue for the sugar. We'll all have to tighten our belts.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

I haven't really thought this through—where our food is going to come from. But there are no boats from England, and twice as many people on our island now.

“I suppose they'll have to get in supplies from occupied France,” she says. “But the Germans will take all the best stuff, you can be certain of that. Anyone with a bit of land is lucky—it's the folks in the town who will suffer. You'll be in clover, Viv, with that nice big garden you've got.”

“Yes. I suppose I ought to start working on it.”

I think of digging up my roses and planting parsnips there. A little sadness catches at my sleeve.

We talk about our children. I tell her about Blanche's job with Mrs. Sebire, and the peaches.

“That's a really good place to be working, for the times that are coming,” she says.

“And what about Johnnie? I know you were worried,” I say.

“Oh, well. You know . . .” She smiles, but not with her eyes.

“Gwen, tell me.”

She gives a slight mirthless laugh. “You always know what I'm thinking, Viv.”

There's a thread of disquiet wrapped around her voice. Anxiety snags at me. I wait for her.

“The thing is—he spends an awful lot of time with that Piers Falla,” she says.

I feel a rush of relief, that it's nothing worse than this. Piers Falla is an odd, awkward lad; I remember him from church, when he was younger and went to Matins with his parents. I think of his face, which has the sharpness of a kestrel, his gaze, which looks right into you, and his twisted body, the way he drags his right foot. When he was little, he got in the way of a scythe; they said he was lucky to live. I don't understand why his friendship with Johnnie should be so troubling to Gwen.

“He's a funny lad, Piers. To be honest, I don't quite like him,” she says.

“I don't really know him that well,” I tell her.

“He's too intense,” says Gwen. “He seems too old for his years.”

“I suppose his life hasn't been exactly easy,” I say.

“Well, you've got to feel sorry for him, of course. And I know he's really angry that he couldn't join up. I mean, he tried, but they wouldn't consider him. He's old enough—he's that little bit older than Johnnie. But I think they just took one look at him. Johnnie said he was distraught.”

“Yes. Poor lad. He would be . . .”

We sit quietly for a moment. A fly crackles against the window, with an ominous sound, like a pan on the stove boiling dry.

Gwen stirs.

“You know what I think, Viv,” she says. “This Occupation is really hard on the men. The young ones especially—like my Johnnie and Piers, who'd want to be off fighting. I mean, we women just get on with things, don't we? We wash and cook and all that, we still know what we're meant to be doing. But it's terrible for the men, to be invaded like this. To have to just let it happen. Not to be able to do anything about it.”

“Yes, it must be difficult.”

But I live in a house of women; this isn't something I see.

“It's why I worry so much about Johnnie,” she says. “These young lads wishing that they could fight, all stuck here kicking their heels. It's a recipe for trouble.”

I have a slight sense of disquiet when she says that.

“But they won't do anything, surely,” I say. “How could they? It's such a little island—there's nowhere to hide.” I think of the German brass band marching in St. Peter Port, of the swastikas, the German presence everywhere. “I mean, there are so many of them—they're everywhere you turn. . . .”

“You're right, of course,” she says. “I'm probably being silly. They'll see that, won't they, Viv?”

“I'm sure they will,” I say.

But, cycling home, I have an uneasy feeling—just a flicker of apprehension, like some dark-winged thing fluttering in a recess of my mind.