From Mark to Juliet
You’d be surprised. See you tomorrow.
M
From Juliet to Sidney
22nd May, 1946
Dear Sidney,
There’s so much to tell you. I’ve been in Guernsey only twenty hours, but each one has been so full of new faces and ideas that I’ve reams to write. You see how conducive to working island life is? Look at Victor Hugo—I may grow prolific if I stay here for any length of time.
The voyage from Weymouth was ghastly, with the mail boat groaning and creaking and threatening to break to pieces in the waves. I almost wished it would, to put me out of my misery, except I wanted to see Guernsey before I died. And as soon as we came in sight of the island, I gave up the notion altogether because the sun broke beneath the clouds and set the cliffs shimmering into silver.
As the mail boat lurched into the harbor, I saw St. Peter Port rising up from the sea on terraces, with a church on the top like a cake decoration, and I realized that my heart was galloping. As much as I tried to persuade myself it was the thrill of the scenery, I knew better. All those people I’ve come to know and even love a little, waiting to see—me. And I, without any paper to hide behind. Sidney, in these past two or three years, I have become better at writing than living—and think what you do to my writing. On the page, I’m perfectly charming, but that’s just a trick I learned. It has nothing to do with me. At least, that’s what I was thinking as the mail boat came toward the pier. I had a cowardly impulse to throw my red cape overboard and pretend I was someone else.
When we drew right alongside the pier, I could see the faces of the people waiting—and then there was no going back. I knew them by their letters. There was Isola in a mad hat and a purple shawl pinned with a glittering brooch. She was smiling fixedly in the wrong direction and I loved her instantly. Next to her stood a man with a lined face, and at his side, a boy, all height and angles. Eben and his grandson, Eli. I waved to Eli and he smiled like a beam of light and nudged his grandfather—and then I got shy and lost myself in the crowd that was pushing down the gangplank.
Isola reached me first by leaping over a crate of lobsters and grabbed me up in a fierce hug that swung me off my feet. “Ah, lovey!” she cried while I dangled.
Wasn’t that dear? All my nervousness was squeezed right out of me along with my breath. The others came toward me more quietly, but with no less warmth. Eben shook my hand and smiled. You can tell he was broad and hardy once, but he is too thin now. He somehow looks both grave and friendly at the same time. How does he manage to do that? I found myself wanting to impress him.
Eli swung Kit up on his shoulders, and they came forward together. Kit has chubby little legs and a stern face —dark curls, big grey eyes—and she did not take to me one bit. Eli’s jersey was speckled in wood shavings, and he had a present for me in his pocket—an adorable little mouse with crooked whiskers, carved from walnut. I gave him a kiss on the cheek and survived Kit’s malevolent glare. She has a very forbidding way about her for a four-year- old.
Then Dawsey held out his hands. I had been expecting him to look like Charles Lamb, and he does, a little—he has the same even gaze. He presented me with a bouquet of carnations from Booker, who couldn’t be present; he had concussed himself during a rehearsal and was in hospital overnight for observation. Dawsey is dark and wiry, and his face has a quiet, watchful look about it—until he smiles. Saving a certain sister of yours, he has the sweetest smile I’ve ever seen, and I remembered Amelia writing that he has a rare gift for persuasion—I can believe it. Like Eben—like everyone here—he is too thin, though you can tell he was more substantial once. His hair is going grey, and he has deep-set brown eyes, so dark they look black. The lines around his eyes make him seem to be starting a smile even when he’s not, but I don’t think he’s over forty. He is only a little taller than I am and limps slightly, but he’s strong—he hefted all my luggage, me, Amelia, and Kit into his wagon with no trouble.
I shook hands with him (I can’t remember if he said anything) and then he stepped aside for Amelia. She’s one of those ladies who is more beautiful at sixty than she could possibly have been at twenty (oh, how I hope someone says that about me someday!). Small, thin-faced, lovely smile, with grey hair in coronet braids, she gripped my hand tightly and said, “Juliet, I am glad you are here at last. Let’s get your things and go home.” It sounded wonderful, as though it really were my home.
As we stood there on the pier, some glint of light kept flashing in my eyes, and then around the dock. Isola snorted and said it was Adelaide Addison, at her window with opera glasses, tracking every move we made. Isola waved vigorously at the gleam and it stopped.
While we were laughing about that, Dawsey was seeing to my bags and making sure that Kit didn’t fall off the pier and generally making himself useful. I began to see that this is what he does—and that everyone depends upon him to do it.
The four of us—Amelia, Kit, Dawsey, and I—rode to Amelia’s farm in Dawsey’s cart, while everyone else walked. It wasn’t far except in terms of landscape, for we moved from St. Peter Port out into the countryside. There are rolling pasturelands, but they end suddenly at cliffs, and all around is the moist salt smell of the sea. As we drove, the sun set and the mist rose. You know how sounds become magnified in the fog? Well, it was like that— every bird’s chirp was weighty and symbolic. Clouds boiled up over the cliff-sides, and the fields were swathed in grey by the time we reached the manor house, but I saw ghostly shapes that I think were the cement bunkers built by the Todt workers.
Kit sat beside me in the wagon and sent me many sideways glances. I was not so foolish as to try to talk to her, but I played my severed-thumb trick—you know, the one that makes your thumb look like it has been sliced apart.
I did it over and over, casually, not looking at her, while she watched me like a baby hawk. She was intent and fascinated but not gullible enough to break into giggles. She just said at last, “Show me how you do that.”
She sat across from me at supper and turned down her spinach with a thrust-out arm, hand straight up like a policeman. “Not for me,” she said, and I, for one, would not care to disobey her. She pulled her chair close to Dawsey’s and ate with one elbow planted firmly on his arm, pinning him in his place. He didn’t appear to mind, even if it did make cutting his chicken difficult, and when supper was over, she immediately climbed into his lap. It is obviously her rightful throne, and though Dawsey seemed to be attending to the conversation, I spied him poking out a napkin-rabbit while we talked of food-shortages during the Occupation. Did you know that the Islanders
