The Soldier’s Wife

‘Oh. You and your neighbours.’

She takes up her knitting again.

CHAPTER 11 (#ulink_e86c66b5-0b7a-53a0-bcf6-62b3c102ef2f)

As darkness falls, I go out into the yard to take some vegetable peelings to the compost heap. Out there, I pause for a moment, breathing in the night air, all the sweet mingled scents that bleed from the throats of the flowers. I can smell the flowering stocks in the borders in my back garden, and the perfume of my tobacco plants, which always seems richer at night. The sky is profound, the shadows are long, everything turning to blue. From the Blancs Bois, where the entangled trees are drawing darkness to them, I hear the call of an owl-shivery, like a lost soul haunting the wood: unworldly.

There’s a table-lamp lit in the kitchen of Les Vinaires, and the blackout curtains aren’t drawn yet. Lamplight spills across the gravel of my yard, leaching the colours from everything it falls on, so the petals of the geraniums in the pots beside my door are a sickly amber, without brightness. I look in at the window, see the man who is sitting there, at Connie’s kitchen table. He’s in his shirtsleeves, he has his top shirt button undone. At first glance I think it’s Captain Richter, who came to our kitchen door: but then I see it’s the other man, the scarred one. The lamplight falls on him, illumines one side of his face. I can see his scar quite clearly, the jagged line of it, the pink, frail tissue that doesn’t match the rest of his skin. He seems different from when he came in the vehicle, sitting there alone in the light of the lamp—pensive, less authoritative.

As I watch, he pushes up his cuffs—mechanically, not thinking about what he’s doing. His mind is somewhere else entirely. He’s reading something—a book, a letter; I can’t see what it is, the table is just below the level of the windowsill. I think it must be a letter: only a letter could hold him as this does—for whatever it is, it takes all of his attention. Some new expression flickers over his face: there’s something there that displeases him. He frowns; he runs his finger abstractedly over his brow. I think, This is how he looks when he’s concentrating. Blue smoke from a cigarette resting in an ashtray wraps around him and softly curls and spirals in front of his face. He’s alone; and I know he feels alone: he is utterly unaware of me watching him. He has the look of a man who doesn’t know he is looked at.

I feel a sudden curiosity about his other life—the life he has when he isn’t being a soldier: his home, the people who matter to him. I wonder what it is like for him to be here—with all around him the unfamiliar island night. Landscapes are most themselves, most separate from us, at night: and even to me, who has lived so long in this secluded valley, the Guernsey night can feel a little alien—the cry of the owl so lonely, the dark so dense and deep. I wonder about him—where he comes from, what he longs for. Is he a little homesick, as I was when I first came here? It’s a word we use so lightly, but I think of what I learned then—that homesickness is a true sickness, a longing like grief, for what has been lost or taken away. I can still feel it from time to time, just a trace of that yearning: it comes with a memory of lamplight, of pavements under rain, of the scorched smell of the Underground—all the scents and sounds of London, its humming, sultry energy. I wonder what he longs for.

I stand there watching him. I will him to look up, to look out of the window at me. It’s like a child’s game—as though I could make him see me, as though he is my puppet. I have the power now, in this moment—just the tiniest sliver of power. Because I am looking in on him, and he doesn’t know, doesn’t see me.

But he doesn’t move, doesn’t stir, his eyes are on what he is reading. I slip back into the house. I feel troubled, but in a way I couldn’t put into words. As though things are not quite as I thought they were.

I go to bed, but for a long time I can’t sleep.

PART II: (#ulink_7f0790b7-da07-500e-922c-5f1b2ca81bc3)

JULY – OCTOBER 1940 (#ulink_7f0790b7-da07-500e-922c-5f1b2ca81bc3)

CHAPTER 12 (#ulink_79f04d05-f033-5081-8e11-aa4b34f4707a)

My mother died when I was three. I remember how we were taken into her bedroom to say goodbye—me and Iris, my big sister. The room smelt wrong. Her bedroom had always had a scent of the rosewater she wore: but now it held a harsh, sore-throat smell of disinfectant. And my mother looked strange, somehow blurred, as though her face were made of wax and had started to melt. I was a little frightened of her. I wanted to leave the room, to be anywhere else but there. And she gripped my hand too tightly, and she was crying, and I didn’t like that.

I don’t remember much from the weeks and months that followed—except that for the funeral I had to wear a stiff black dress that was made of some itchy fabric, and people told me off for scratching. After my mother’s death I was mute for a while, simply refusing to speak at all: or so I’ve been told, though I don’t recall that part of it. There’s a fog in my head when I think of those months—I don’t remember much at all from those times. Except for the music box that was mine to keep, that I would play for hours, the music perfumed with memories of her. And there are little images in my head of the house where we lived, off Clapham Common, at 11 Evington Road—a tall, thin, rambling house that was never quite asleep, that would go on settling and creaking all through the night; and the hidden, enclosed garden with whispery, overhanging trees and the leaves of years piled up under them; and the aunts who looked after us, Auntie Maud and Auntie Aggie, who were kind but weren’t my mother, so when they combed my hair it hurt. I always remember that—how they pulled too hard at the tangles, not gently easing out the knots as my mother had done.

I was a nervous, frightened child, frightened of so many things—thunderstorms, and the edges of railway platforms; spiders, even the tiny ones that ran all over the terrace at the back of the house, and, crushed, left a smear like a blood stain; afraid above all of the dark. I was always afraid of the dark. Once Iris and I were playing teacher and pupil. I was five, just a little older than Millie is now—and Iris was the teacher, and was very strict and stern, and she decided I’d been bad, and locked me in the coalshed. It was a concrete shed, no windows, the door close-fitting to keep the coal dry—not even a thread of light from under the door. I remember the darkness, sudden and absolute, the fear that broke over me like nausea, the rapid panicky skittering of my heart. It was so dark I thought at first I had my eyes shut—that they’d been stuck shut somehow—and I put up my hand and found my eyes were open, I could feel the bristly fluttering of my eyelashes. I learned in that moment that there are different darknesses. That there is ordinary darkness—like the night in the countryside, where even on a night with no moon, as you stare things loom, take form; or the darkness of your bedroom—like the flimsy dark of the room I shared with Iris, with the murky amber lamplight seeping in under the curtains. And there is another darkness—a dark so profound you cannot begin to imagine it, cannot conjure it up in your mind. A darkness that blots out all you remember or hope for. A darkness that teaches that all that consoles you is false.

I don’t think I was in there for long. Auntie Aggie realised what had happened; scolded Iris, came and unlocked the door. But I don’t remember that clearly at all—the moment when she let me out into the cheerful day again. It’s the darkness I remember.

How much did that loss of my mother shape the course of my life? Hugely, I can see that now—though it’s taken me years to learn this. Now I even wonder if that was why I married the very first man I went out with—whether my decision had something to do with that loss. Wanting to have something settled; longing for safety, wanting to keep things the same—so frightened of change and uncertainty.

I was nineteen when I met Eugene, and still living in the house in Evington Road. I was working as a secretary, in an insurance firm in Clapham. I met Eugene at a church social; he was a bank clerk with the National Provincial bank, living in digs in Streatham that always smelt of broccoli. He’d been excited to move to London, but had hoped for something from it that it had somehow failed to give. He was already longing to go back to Guernsey when I met him. There was a faint mothball scent of disappointment that hung about him, though at first I wasn’t aware of it. He was a good-looking man—clear eyes, symmetrical features, sleeked-down hair—a clean-cut face that made him seem much younger than his years. Our daughters have that face as well, that open, candid look. And he was always very well turned-out—his business suits pressed with a razor-sharp edge, his shoes as shiny as mirror-glass. ‘He’s so handsome,’ everyone said. ‘He looks just like Jack Pickford. Well, haven’t you done well for yourself?’ There was something reassuring about his effortless, practised courtship of me—the yellow roses, the boxes of New Berry Fruits—a feeling that I could leave it to him, that he would take control, make the decisions. What did he see in me, I wonder? I don’t know, can’t imagine now—though he would always be very flattering about my looks, my clothes. He knows how to flatter a woman. Maybe my rather French-sounding name reassured him in some way, suggested I would fit in on his island. That may sound rather fanciful, yet people will often let themselves be guided by such things, making a weighty decision because some small hand beckons: I’ve seen this. Whatever the reason—he couldn’t wait to gather me up and bring me back to Guernsey.

But from our very first night together, it wasn’t as I’d imagined. I didn’t feel the way I knew I was meant to feel. I thought it must be my fault—that there was something wrong with me, something missing. Or, to put it more precisely, something misplaced. Because I knew I could feel these things—just not in bed with Eugene. I’d see a man—a stranger—loosen his tie, unbutton his cuffs, push up the sleeves of his shirt, and my stomach would tighten, I’d feel the thrill go through me. Or I’d dream a dream in which a man who stood behind me was brushing my hair, and I’d lean against him and feel the warmth of him pressing into my back, and I’d wake in a haze of longing.

Maybe he felt something similar—that sense of something missing. Because we made love only rarely, and, once I was pregnant with Millie, never again. We never talked about it—well, how could you possibly talk about such a thing? Slowly, insidiously, with a little shake of the heart, I became aware that there were rumours. Eugene loved amateur dramatics, and he joined a society that rehearsed in St Peter Port: he had a pleasant, eloquent voice, he loved to play a role. There was a woman there—Monica Charles—who sometimes played opposite him. Red hair, an abundant cleavage, pointy lacquered nails; and the plush velvet scent of Shalimar, which she always wore. She was rather outspoken—the sort of woman who seems to use up all the air in the room: she always made me feel somehow small and faded.

Gwen said once—carefully, with a slight anxious frown, not quite looking at me: ‘Does it worry you—Eugene being so friendly with Monica Charles?’

My heart lurched. ‘No. Why should it?’

‘I just wondered,’ she said.

‘He loves the theatre, he’s passionate about it,’ I said. Putting the words down with such care, like little stones, between us. ‘It’s good that he has something to do that he enjoys so much …’

‘You’re very strong—I admire you,’ said Gwen, and moved the conversation on. I closed my mind to what she’d said, careful never to touch on that conversation again—as though her words were sharp things that could cut me.

There was an evening when I took the girls to see him backstage. He’d been starring in Private Lives opposite Monica Charles. Millie was two; she was tired out after the performance, and heavy and warm in my arms. I knocked, he didn’t answer, I pushed at the door. The scent of Shalimar brushed against me, darkly velvet, insidious. Eugene was there with Monica Charles. She was standing with one foot on a chair, her skirt bunched up round her thighs: he was easing down her stocking, very slowly. There was a sensuousness in the caressing movement of his hand that was entirely unfamiliar to me. They looked up, saw me, moved apart. I saw the shock—then all the excuses, forming, hardening, in his eyes. I didn’t stay to hear them. Blanche was behind me, Millie was dozing. ‘He isn’t here,’ I said. ‘We must have missed him.’ I bundled the girls away, I don’t think they saw anything.

We never talked about it, just carried on as we were. But something closed in me then, irrevocable as the sound of the dressing-room door that I’d slammed shut behind me. Something was over for me.

Sometimes I’ve wondered about it—this thing that was so lacking in my marriage—this part of me that it seemed could never be expressed, yet could be stirred up so suddenly, randomly almost, by a dream or a glance at a stranger, or a stranger glancing at me.

I remember a moment from long before, from when I first knew Eugene, when I was still in London. There was a man who looked at me as I walked along the Embankment by the Thames—who turned around to look at me. It wasn’t long before the wedding—I was on my way to meet Iris at the Lyons Corner House in Tottenham Court Road. She was going to be the maid of honour at my wedding, and I wanted to show her some fabric samples for her dress. I was wearing a neat navy suit, my high-heeled strappy suede shoes, my best silk stockings, the seams exact, a hat in dusty-pink felt with a petersham ribbon around it. I was a little late for our meeting—probably off in a dream as usual, perhaps with a line of poetry running through my mind—and I must have been flushed from walking in the chill autumn air. The man was older than me, and tall, with a rather worn, lived-in face. He had a serious look, no smile: a look that required something of me, a look beyond approbation or flattery. His glance felt as real to me as the touch of a hand. I felt the heat go through me, the bright thread of sensation passing down through my body, and all around the brown leaves fluttering, falling, the shining river surging: everything fluid, dancing.

I still sometimes think of that moment. If he had asked, I’d have gone with him.

CHAPTER 13 (#ulink_99713e16-e4d8-5555-8c89-a10b0f79a18d)

Thursday. I go up the hill to see Angie. I’m wearing one of my two best dresses—the everyday dress that I’d normally wear isn’t fit to be seen. It’s the one I wore on the day of the bombing, and I’ve soaked it again and again, but I still can’t get the bloodstains out.

This morning there’s no sign of the Germans at Les Vinaires: they must have gone to their work already. Though I can’t imagine what occupies them: it can’t be very strenuous, keeping our island under control. The weather lifts my spirits a little. It’s a bright, breezy day, the summer wind smelling of salt and earth and flowers. The hedgebanks are gorgeous with foxgloves and purple woundwort, and the stream that runs beside the lane is overgrown with green harts’ tongue fern, little cresses, mother-of-thousands. The thread of water that runs through the ferns squirms in the light like a live thing. Just for a moment I can dream that all is as it always was, that the Occupation hasn’t happened.

I’ve brought Angie a cake, and some blackberry jelly left from last year’s batch. Though I wonder if I’m bringing these gifts for myself as much as for her—feeling helpless, needing to feel I’m doing something for her. But she’s so grateful. ‘Oh, Vivienne, you’re always so thoughtful … And don’t you look lovely today? You’re a sight for sore eyes in that dress,’ she says.

‘Oh. Thanks, Angie.’

I smooth down the skirt. As she says, it’s pretty: the cotton has a pattern of flowers of many colours, yellow and cream and forget-me-not blue, like a blowing wildflower meadow. I don’t tell her why I’m wearing it.

She makes tea for us, in her big brown pottery teapot. Chickens scratch and bustle outside the open door.

‘So, have you seen much of them?’ she asks me.

I know she means the Germans.

‘They’ve requisitioned Connie’s place next door. There are four of them living there now,’ I tell her.

Angie snorts.

‘Requisitioned? They use all these fancy words, just to confuse us,’ she says. ‘Stole is what they really mean … But that’s rather close, isn’t it, Vivienne? You’ll be living in one another’s pockets. I wouldn’t like that at all.’

‘Well—at least they didn’t take our house …’

It’s her wash day. Her kitchen has a wholesome smell of laundry soap and damp linen. She’s nearly come to the end of her wash, she’s putting her clothes through the mangle before she hangs them out on the line. I see that she’s washing some shirts of Frank’s.

‘You wouldn’t mind if I just finished this off, Vivienne?’ she asks me.

‘No, of course not.’

She sees me noticing the shirts.

‘I thought I’d clear out his clothes,’ she says. ‘There’s plenty of wear left in them. I’m going to give them to Jack, my brother. He’s always grateful for hand-me-downs. They’re a bit hard-pressed, him and Mabel, with all those children to feed.’

I sip my tea, and watch as she moves the heavy arm of the mangle. Water flurries into the tray that catches the drips, in little spurts that fall in time with the rhythm of her movement.