up at the town, the shops and hotels along the waterfront, the small houses nestled together in the distance. Only a few months after the liberation of her island, she breathed in the cool air of the place she’d always called home. It looked so different now but so much was the same, since the Nazis came. Since the Nazis left.
She passed along the harbour. The swastikas were gone, along with the occupying force that had placed them there. The street signs – crude wooden structures, made to inform the Germans where things were in their own language – had been taken down. At first glance, it was almost as if the war had never happened on this small stretch of the British Isles, almost as if the Germans had never been here. Except of course they had. And what they had left behind were the enormous concrete fortifications – grey scars on the landscape – that stark reminder that the Channel Islands had been part of Hitler’s Atlantic wall, part of his island madness. But what the Nazis had left behind could never compare to what they had taken.
Passengers were disembarking from a ferryboat, tourists mostly, tentatively setting foot back in the Channel Islands; back for its famous sand, its enviable sun. She was pleased the Channel Islands once again might be seen as a glorious holiday destination, the memory of what had passed in the war bleached away with the sunshine. But that wasn’t what she saw. She wondered how long it would be before she could see it that way again – how long before she would forget.
There were some things she would never forget, such as the power of a letter. Such an innocent thing, a piece of paper, but it held so much power.
Others had written similar letters; she knew that. She’d heard whispers that during the Occupation the island’s post office workers had steamed open envelopes addressed to the Germans, knowing full well that what was inside would condemn someone: a note that there was a radio hidden under floorboards here, a gun stashed in an attic there.
The power a letter held, the damage it could do. No, she knew she would never forget that.
Guernsey, Spring 2016
The short flight hadn’t been long enough to drink the miniature bottle of warm wine bought when the drinks service had eventually reached her at the back of the plane. Lucy had only drunk half of it by the time the captain told crew to prepare the cabin for landing, so she screwed the lid back on the bottle and put it inside her bag. She’d see her older sister Clara in a matter of minutes; she might need to save the remaining half for that ordeal.
It was only an hour in the air from London, but Guernsey felt a whole lifetime away. Perhaps that’s what being far from home did to you after years away – gave you a false sense of time and distance. It had been too long; she knew that. But there’d always been a valid reason why she couldn’t return, and on the occasions she had it had only ever been for a night, and then she’d always had to go back to the mainland the next day. Lucy thought back. Perhaps it had been three years, maybe four, since she’d been to Guernsey. Her niece’s christening – that was the last time she’d been back. And before that it was Clara’s wedding a few years prior. Although she’d seen them all when they’d come across visiting her on the mainland.
Only official events that came with expectant invitations attached had the power to draw Lucy back to Guernsey. But now, the reason to return was merely logistical: a funeral to arrange for an elderly relative Lucy barely remembered and an uninhabited house to sell. No matter how hard she thought back to family events over years gone by, memories would barely surface of her elderly first cousin once removed: Dido. Of course, Dido hadn’t been elderly when Lucy had been young, but she had always seemed it.
Once the upcoming funeral was over, Lucy, for once, wouldn’t be leaving in less than twenty-four hours. Clara had instructed Lucy to stay and hear the will read, help Clara sort out Dido’s affairs and get the house ready to go on the market on behalf of their father, Dido’s nearest relation, who would inherit the bulk of the estate. Then, and only then, according to Clara, was Lucy permitted to get off the island and return to the mainland.
Lucy’s mum and dad had hotfooted it to warmer climes last year, after retirement. They’d bought a house in Barbados, and kissed goodbye to the Channel Island where they’d lived their whole lives, which did rather leave Lucy and Clara to fend for themselves in this matter. When Lucy had joked to Clara that in their early thirties they weren’t adult enough to plan a funeral, Clara had replied, ‘Speak for yourself,’ and that had been an end to it.
The plane banked and Lucy glimpsed the island’s imposing, concrete fortifications on the coast before the runway came into view. To the uninitiated, the winding borders of grey concrete wall installed by Hitler’s war machine all those years ago must offer a surreal first glimpse of the Guernsey coastline. To Lucy, while it hadn’t always felt like home, especially recently, it had always been home.
‘Have you been waiting long?’ Lucy asked as Clara stepped forward to embrace her in the arrivals terminal. The sisters looked relatively alike. Brunette, brown eyes.
‘No, not long,’ her older sister replied, glancing down at Lucy’s holdall. ‘Is that all you’ve brought? One bag?’
‘Yes. I’m not staying long, I don’t think. And you’ve got a washing machine so I can just …’ Lucy stopped as she watched Clara’s look of horror.
‘Are you staying with me?’ Clara asked.
Lucy paused, unsure if her sister was joking. ‘Am I not staying with you then?’
‘Well, you didn’t ask if you could,’ Clara said as they left the terminal and walked into the bright sunshine towards the car park. ‘So I assumed you weren’t. I assumed you’d made other arrangements. A hotel or … something.’
How had it become like this between them? Not too long ago Clara would have thrown open her doors for Lucy but now …
‘I’m a freelancer, not a millionaire,’ Lucy started and then: ‘But it’s fine honestly, I’ll book into a hotel.’
‘No, I’m not saying that,’ Clara was quick to cut in. ‘Stay for a couple of days first to spend some time with your niece and then after that it might be easier if you find somewhere.’
Lucy smiled to herself and held her tongue, silently congratulating Clara on having won a game Lucy hadn’t even known they were playing.
‘Molly misses you,’ Clara continued in a softer tone. ‘She’s excited to cook you dinner. She’s just learnt to make fajitas at school and we’ve had them three nights on the trot. Tonight will be the fourth.’
‘I miss her too,’ Lucy said as Clara drove the car barely five minutes through the country lanes and down into the little winding valley in the Forest parish. And then: ‘Dido’s house?’ she asked as they passed crumbling plinths that should have held a wrought-iron gate. It was no longer on its hinges but placed upright inside the boundary. A sign that told visitors the name of the house – Deux Tourelles – was also no longer on the plinth but propped up against the front of it.
‘How long has it been since you were here at the house?’ Clara asked as she pulled up in the long gravel driveway, littered with weeds.
‘Not for years.’
The house was part French country house, part Georgian manor. At either end were tall turrets from which the house got its name. The double-fronted
