The Girl from the Island

Dido pulled the stopper off the decanter and poured a brandy. ‘God-awful day. The worst. Want one?’

Persephone shook her head as she moved towards the fireplace, even though it hadn’t been lit that day. It was June, but no matter the time of year, the room was always cold. Wrapping her dressing gown around her she wondered what her sister was thinking. ‘I can’t drink. Not at this hour. I’d like some tea but I daren’t go in the kitchen. I thought Mrs Grant would be pleased to see him.’

‘Did you?’ Dido replied. ‘Really? Jack’s risked his life to spy. Of course she’s angry. The first war killed her husband, after a fashion. And if he’s caught, this second one will take her son. It really is rather stupid of him to have come back.’

‘What would you do, though, if asked?’ Persey suggested. ‘If you were in England and you’d joined up even though, as an Islander, you didn’t have to? If you thought strongly enough about this war to actually do something about it, and then you were offered the chance to return home, do something about knocking the Nazis off your very own patch of soil … what would you do?’

Dido made a show of thinking, which made Persephone half smile. ‘I’d tell Churchill: Not on your nelly, Winnie.’

‘I don’t think you would.’

Dido poured a measure of brandy and held it out to Persey. ‘No arguments. Just drink it.’

Persey breathed in deeply and took the smallest sip of alcohol. Then the inevitable knock at the sitting room door came. Jack opened the door and looked as if the ordeal of landing back in occupied Guernsey was nothing to the verbal hammering his mother had just given him. He sat on the settee, looking pale.

‘You’re still in your wet things,’ Persey said, handing him her glass.

‘Mother thinks I shouldn’t have come.’

‘We could hear,’ Dido said, perching on the arm of the settee opposite.

Jack smiled. ‘It’s only a week. I’ll be picked up by the navy and then …’

‘And then you leave us to it?’ Persey questioned. ‘To the fates?’

Jack looked sheepish and sipped Persey’s brandy.

‘Well you’d better not get caught then,’ Dido said. ‘Because, if you do, you’ll bring us all down with you.’

Jack went to get some rest and they were to convene with him at breakfast. Dido asked to sleep in with Persey and the two pulled Persey’s blankets up underneath their chins, staring at the ceiling in the darkness.

‘This is a bit like when we were children,’ Dido pointed out. ‘When I used to have nightmares and climb in with you.’

Persey nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said absently.

‘I feel numb. Don’t you?’ Dido continued.

‘Yes, I suppose I do.’

‘Mother’s gone.’

‘Yes,’ Persey replied. Perhaps it was the shock of it all but Persey had run out of emotion, anaesthetised by the day’s events, and could say no more on the subject.

‘And now Jack,’ Dido lamented.

‘And now Jack,’ Persey repeated. She thought about what Jack had asked her to do, spying at the airport. Would it really be so very different to cycling past, as she often did, but to pay proper attention? Count the aircraft lined up near the landing strip? Take in how many men appeared to be onsite? Perhaps see if any guns had been set up already and whereabouts? Where was the harm in just looking? As long as she didn’t get caught. And why would they arrest her just for cycling past the perimeter fence? As fragments of early morning sunlight broke through the fine gap at the end of the blackout blind she’d replaced in the night, she eventually drifted off to sleep.

If she had expected to dream of anything she thought it would have been about her mother or of Jack being arrested by the Germans. But instead it was half a dream, half a memory that filtered in and out of Persey’s foggy mind. There had been four of them on the cliffs, much younger than they were now, perhaps she had been fifteen or sixteen years old. Jack had challenged them all to a race on the precarious path as they walked the cliffs towards Fermain Bay, drawing a start line in the gravel with the heel of his shoe.

‘We’ll go in teams,’ Jack had announced, looking at his watch as the four stood on the cliff path.

Persey peered over the edge while Jack spoke. Below them the waves crashed loudly against the cliffs, white horses galloping towards the rocks. Not a soul to be seen.

‘I’ll time us. Dido and I shall go first,’ Jack continued. ‘Too narrow for us all to go at once. Two minutes later, Stefan and Persey will follow on. We’ll see which team gets to the bay in the fastest time. Every second counts. Stefan, let’s check our wristwatches.’

Persey glanced at Stefan, blond, tall … taller than he had been last summer certainly. He moved toward Jack to ensure their watches were in synch. The atmosphere between the boys was jovial but there had always been that barely noticeable undercurrent of tension. Jack, the dominant surrogate older brother to the girls, was quick to laugh at Stefan if he mispronounced something. It was one of Jack’s less fine qualities, although if Stefan noticed, he failed to react.

She wasn’t quite sure she wanted to be alone with Stefan for two whole minutes while they waited their turn. What would they talk about? And then to have to run with him along the narrow path. At least she wouldn’t be expected to speak then. She gave Jack a look that suggested she was less than happy about this. But he didn’t see.

‘You ready, Di?’ Jack said as Stefan moved to stand beside Persephone. Stefan’s shirtsleeves were rolled up and his bare forearm – warm, tanned – touched hers and she moved away. He didn’t need to be that close, surely.

‘Ready,’ Dido announced, adjusting the laces of her shoes. At least they were flat, Persey thought, looking down mournfully at her own with their small block heel. Not at all suitable for running along a cliff path.

Jack spent an agonising time staring at his watch as Persey peered over the cliffs again.

‘Be careful, Dido,’ Persey said. ‘For God’s sake don’t fall.’

‘I won’t,’ Dido said in an annoyed tone. ‘Besides, Stefan will rescue me, won’t you, Stefan?’

‘No,’ he said without a hint of emotion. ‘I will be two minutes behind you. You will be dead.’

Persey covered her mouth with her hand as a laugh attempted to escape. Had he meant to be dry? Or was he simply being German? She glanced at Dido, who was frowning, looking put out; and then Persey stole a look at Stefan. The corners of his mouth were twitching. She looked away again, now even more unsure about him.

Persey woke up. She blinked as Dido switched on the bedside lamp.

Dido looked concerned and rubbed sleep from her eyes. ‘What did you say?’

Persey shook her head. ‘Nothing. I think I was dreaming.’

‘You were. But you said something and then you shot up and dragged all the blankets from me.’

Persey looked down. She was clutching the bedding and had pulled it all from Dido and had it in a heap on top of her. ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled as Dido took her half back.

Persey sat still and looked into her lap. Could her suspicions be correct?

‘What were you dreaming about?’ Dido asked as she lay back down and put her head against the pillow.

Persey paused a moment before speaking. ‘Do you remember those summers when Mother’s friend Agnes had her nephew to stay?’

‘No,’ Dido said sleepily. ‘Is that what you were dreaming about?’

Persey nodded and then switched off the lamp and lay back down. ‘Yes.’ She rubbed her forefinger along her lower lip as she thought.

‘Don’t you remember him?’

‘The nephew?’ Dido said sleepily in the darkness. ‘Not really. Maybe.’

‘Of course you do,’ Persey said. ‘Think.’

‘Persey, it was years ago.’

‘Over ten years ago, yes. He used to spend the summers in Guernsey with Agnes and her husband and then he’d return to Germany to his studies at the end. You must remember him.’

Dido rolled over. Silence. And then, ‘Johann? Was that his name?’

Persey smiled. ‘Stefan.’

Dido shifted position, onto her back. ‘Didn’t Agnes move back to England?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is that why he stopped coming?’ Dido asked.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Is it important?’ Dido questioned with a yawn.

‘No. Only I thought …’

But Dido cut Persey off. ‘She’ll be interned in England now, won’t she?’

‘Who?’ Persey asked as she tried to picture Stefan’s face from a decade ago – wondering what he would look like now.

‘Agnes. And her husband. She’s English but he’s German. They’ll be interned, won’t they? Or will it be just him? Enemy aliens and all that.’

‘I suppose so, yes. How horrid,’ Persey said.

‘If they’re German, they’re the enemy,’ Dido declared.

Persey thought about that for a long time, unsure how she felt, unsure how to respond. She wanted to ask Dido if she really thought that old friends could simply be the enemy because the government told you they were, but Dido was already breathing heavily, asleep next to her.

They had known to expect the return of the Germans to the house but none of them had realised it would happen so soon in the day. They had sat down to breakfast in the dining room, Jack waxing lyrical about the locations he needed to visit over the next week, the reconnaissance he was expected to carry out and the kind of help he might need if the girls were willing, when an efficient three-rap knock sounded at the front door.

They looked at Jack for instruction and Mrs Grant issued a startled noise.

‘Don’t panic,’ Jack said confidently. ‘Everyone knows the story … I’ve been here the whole time.’

Persey nodded, though her heart clattered in her chest.

The knocking sounded again but it was Dido who moved. ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, someone should answer or it’ll start to look suspicious from the off.’ She was already out of the dining room door.

Persey sat still, her plate of food uneaten. Jack carried on eating as if he hadn’t a care in the world, but as Persey looked closer she could see his hand shaking as he lifted his fork. She reached to still him and he put his fork down and swallowed.

There were only two men this time, led into the dining room by Dido. The men glanced around at the sage green walls and the antique furniture dotted around the room. Persey looked where they looked, an excuse not to look at the men properly, not to make eye contact.

‘Excuse me for intruding,’ the first said in perfect English. ‘You are eating. I keep invading when you are busy.’

‘Invading …’ Dido muttered with an arched brow.

Persey looked up slowly at the man and he looked back at her. She held her breath. She had known. Even though she had not been able to see his face fully under his hat; even though she’d had tears in her eyes, crying about her mother. She had known yesterday it was him. It was his voice.

The man looked lost for words, but eventually found his voice. ‘I apologise, but we need to look at the bedrooms.’

Mrs Grant spluttered, ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘This property is situated close to the airport and is of a substantial size. We have men we need to accommodate on the island.’

‘Here?’ Persey spoke sharply.

He looked at her. Those blue eyes. ‘Yes.’

‘We don’t have any spare,’ Dido said, folding her arms.

With Jack returning to claim his room, that left only one room vacant … their mother’s. They wouldn’t be expected to house a German in Mother’s room surely? Not when she’d been gone such a short amount of time. There needed to be some level of respect.

‘May we take a look, please?’ he asked.

Dido relented. ‘We only have one. It was our mother’s. Her things are … You might not want it.’

The German didn’t speak.

Persey asked, ‘Do we have a choice?’

‘I am afraid not.’

Dido sighed and looked to Persey for help but she knew there was nothing they could do. Persey nodded.

‘Thank you.’ The man looked at Persey again and then turned to follow Dido as she moved towards the stairs.

‘Should one of us go with her?’ Jack asked. ‘We’ve just left her alone with two enemy soldiers.’

‘Not you,’ Mrs Grant whispered to Jack. ‘You keep your head down.’

Persey pushed her chair back from the table but Mrs Grant had already made her intention to follow Dido clear and had left the room.

‘All right?’ Jack asked Persey.

She swallowed. ‘Yes, yes I think so,’ she said although she wasn’t fine really. Intense nerves made her voice shake. ‘I should have gone with Dido. Only I can’t seem to move.’

‘It’s actually more frightening than I anticipated,’ Jack said. ‘Isn’t it. Seeing them here. In that awful uniform and those boots. They look just like the photographs in the newspapers.’

Persey nodded but her stomach felt hollow through nerves and lack of food. Jack reached down and took her hand from her lap and held it, giving her a look of solidarity.

The men’s boots thudded dully on the stair runner and then they clunked noisily on the tiled hallway. Persey could take it no longer and although her legs felt wobbly she forced herself to follow them.

‘So …?’ she prompted as they made their way towards the front door.

The second man spoke. ‘You have one bedroom suitable for an officer.’

Her heart sank. She knew as much. But so soon?

‘You will need to start removing personal items—’

But the first man gave his colleague a sharp look to silence him. Why wasn’t he saying who he was? It poured doubt into her mind. Was she wrong?

He spoke softly. ‘My condolences to you and your sister on the passing of your mother.’

‘You don’t care,’ Dido said under her breath from behind Persey.

‘Thank you,’ Persey replied a little louder than she’d meant.

She looked at him and he looked at her before he gave a small smile and turned to leave. They closed the door behind them.

Dido and Mrs Grant entered the dining room first and resumed their seats although no one touched their food now.

‘They expect us to be grateful that they’re here? That we’re turfing Mother’s things out of her room? One day after her passing?’

Persey hovered behind her chair, clutching it, unsure if she wanted to sit or stand, unsure of anything.

‘And how presumptuous of him, just assuming we’re sisters. I didn’t tell him,’ Dido said angrily.

It was this that forced Persey into movement. She had to know now. She had to be sure. She let go of the chair back and turned, walking down the corridor and throwing open the front door. The men were already at the gate. Persey had expected to see a car but the men had arrived on foot.

‘Excuse me,’ Persey called. They stopped and turned back to her.

The first man looked at her and then turned to his colleague and told him something in German that Persey could neither catch nor understand if she had heard. The second man walked further on and waited at a distance.

Persey continued, gravel crunching underfoot until she stopped a few feet away. She glanced back to the house, sensing rather than seeing Dido staring after her from the dining room windows.

Turning back to him, words escaped her. It could be him, it really could. She could see familiarity but she wondered if she was forcing herself to see it. The last time she’d seen Stefan had been that day at the cliffs in August 1930. It had been almost ten years ago. They’d been so young and now they were twenty-five. If it was him. He had left at the end of the summer, returned to Germany. And then … nothing. Stefan’s annual visits had come to an abrupt end that summer. He had never come back to Guernsey despite his promises he would. Persey had often wondered why he never returned, why he never wrote to them. She had thought about it over and over and now … It was him. It had to be him.

She stood straight and searched his eyes. ‘It is you, isn’t it?’

Now she’d asked it, she felt mad and expected a rebuttal.

But the man smiled and there it was, that smile and the slight narrowing of the eyes that had always come with it.

‘Hello, Persephone.’

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