The Soldier’s Wife. Margaret Leroy
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to leave.’
I walk with Evelyn to Angie’s house, up one of the narrow lanes that run the length and breadth of Guernsey, their labyrinthine routes scarcely changed since the Middle Ages. High, wet hedgebanks press in on either side of the lane; red valerian grows there, and toadflax, and slender, elegant foxgloves, their petals of a flimsy, washed-out purple, as though they’ve been soaked too long in water. I have Alphonse in a basket, and a bag of Evelyn’s clothes.
The climb exhausts Evelyn. We stop at the bend in the lane, where there’s a stone cattle-trough, and I seat her on the rim of the trough to catch her breath for a moment. Sunlight splashes through leaves onto the surface of the water, making patterns that hide whatever lies in its depths.
‘Is it much further, Vivienne?’ she asks me, as a child might.
‘No. Not much further.’
We come to the stand of thorn trees, turn in at the track to Les Ruettes. It’s a solid whitewashed farmhouse that’s been here for hundreds of years. There’s an elder tree by the door: islanders used to plant elder as a protection against evil, lest a witch fly into the dairy and the butter wouldn’t form. Behind the house are the glasshouses where Frank le Brocq grows his tomatoes. Chickens scratch in the dirt; their bubbling chatter is all about us. Alphonse is frenzied at the sight and smell of the chickens, writhing and mewing in his basket. I knock at the door.
Angie answers. She has a headscarf over her curlers, a cigarette in her hand. She sees us both there, and a gleam of understanding comes in her eyes: she knows I have made my decision. Her smile is warm and wide and softens the lines in her face.
‘So. You’ve made your mind up, Vivienne.’
‘Yes.’
I’m so grateful to Angie, for helping me out yet again. She’s always been so good to me—she makes my marmalade, smocks Millie’s dresses, ices my Christmas cake—and I know she’ll be welcoming to Evelyn. There’s such generosity in her.
She puts out a hand to Evelyn.
‘Come in, then, Mrs de la Mare,’ she says. ‘We’ll take good care of you, I promise.’
We enter the cool dark of her kitchen. Angie takes Evelyn to the settle by the big open hearth. Evelyn sits on the edge of the seat—tentative, as though she fears it won’t quite take all her weight, her hands precisely folded.
I put her bag on the floor. A chicken scuttles in and starts to peck at the bag. I keep tight hold of Alphonse’s basket.
‘I don’t know how to thank you, Angie,’ I say.
She shakes her head a little.
‘It’s the least I could do. And never doubt that you’re doing the right thing, Vivienne. With those two young daughters of yours, you don’t know what might happen.’ Then, lowering her voice a little, ‘When they come,’ she says.
‘No. Well …’
She leans close to whisper to me. Her skin is thickened by sunlight and brown as a ripening nut. I feel her warm nicotine-scented breath on my cheek.
‘I’ve heard such terrible things,’ she says. ‘I’ve heard that they crucify girls. They rape them and crucify them.’
‘Goodness,’ I say.
A thrill of horror goes through me. But I tell myself that this is probably just a story. Angie will believe anything. She loves to tell of witchcraft, hauntings, curses: she says that hair will grow much quicker if cut when the moon is waxing, that seagulls gathering at a seafarer’s house may presage a death … Anyway, I ask myself, how could such atrocities happen here, amid the friendly scratching of chickens, the scent of ripening tomatoes, the summer wind caressing the leaves—in this peaceful orderly place? It’s beyond imagining.
Maybe Angie sees the doubt in my eyes.
‘Trust me, Vivienne. You’re right to want to get those girls of yours away. She’s right about that, isn’t she, Frank?’ I turn. Frank, her husband, is standing in the doorway to the hall, half dressed, his shirt undone and hanging loose. I can see the russet blur of hair on his chest. I’m never quite sure if I like him. He’s a big man, and a drinker. Sometimes she has black eyes, and I wonder if it’s his fists.
He nods in response to her question.
‘We were saying that only last night,’ he says. ‘That you’d want to keep an eye on your girls, if you’d decided to stay. You’d want to watch your Blanche. She’s looking quite womanly now. I don’t like to think what might happen—if she was still here when they came.’
He’s looked at Blanche, noticed her—noticed her body changing. I don’t like this.
‘It would be a worry,’ I say vaguely.
He steps into the kitchen, buttoning up his shirt.
‘Vivienne, look, I was thinking. If it would help, I could give you a lift to the boat.’
I feel an immediate surge of gratitude for his kindness. This will make everything more straightforward. I’m ashamed of my ungracious thought.
‘Thank you so much, that would be so helpful,’ I say.
‘My pleasure.’
He tucks in his shirt. A faint sour smell of sweat comes off him.
‘The other thing is …’ I say, and stop. I’m embarrassed to be asking more: they’re already doing so much. ‘I was wondering if you could maybe look after Alphonse? I ought to have had him put down, but Millie was distraught.’
‘Bless her tender heart. Of course she would be,’ says Angie. ‘Of course we’ll take poor Alphonse in. He’ll be company for Evelyn, with all of her family gone.’
‘Thank you so much. You’re a saint, Angie. Well, I’d better be off …’
I go to kiss Evelyn.
‘You look after yourself,’ I say.
‘And you, Vivienne,’ she says, rather formally. She’s sitting there so stiffly, as if she has to concentrate or she might fall apart. ‘Give my love to the girls.’ As though she didn’t say goodbye to them just before we left. As though she hasn’t seen them for weeks.
I pat her hand, and thank Angie again, and hurry back down the hill. I can’t help thinking about what she said, about what the Germans could do. I tell myself she’s wrong—that it’s just a salacious story. In the Great War we heard that the Germans were cutting the hands off babies, but it proved to be just a terrible rumour.
Yet the pictures are there in my mind and I can’t push them away.
The streets of St Peter Port are quiet. Some of the shops are boarded up, and there’s a lot of litter lying and shifting slightly in little eddies of air. The sky has clouded over, so it has a smudged, bleary look, like window-glass that needs cleaning. It’s a grey, dirty, rather disconsolate day.
Frank drops us at the harbour, wishing us luck.
We see at once why the streets were empty: all the people are here. There’s already a very long queue of silent, anxious islanders, snaking back from the pier and all along the Esplanade. We go to a desk set up on the pavement, where a flustered woman ticks off our names on a list. She has a pink, mottled face, and disordered hair that she keeps distractedly pushing out of her eyes.
We join the queue. People are sweating in woollen coats too cumbersome to pack up: they take out their handkerchiefs, wipe the damp from their skin. On this clammy summer day, the winter colours of the coats look