asked me if I thought it was weird, and I assured him that it was, but that everyone had different ways of dealing with death. I then explained how Mum hadn’t cried at all after Dad died, and how instead she’d acted like she was relieved.
‘Well, it is a burden,’ Donnie sighed, ‘caring for someone who’s unwell.’
I assured Donnie that Dad hadn’t been unwell.
‘Oh? Oh, I’m so sorry. I’m new here, remember.’
I then explained how Dad had an accident when diving off the Moorings and had cut his hand quite deeply, and how the cut became infected. I said Dad hadn’t noticed because he was completely focused on his (Un)Official Occupation Memorial, and unfortunately the infection spread quicker than malicious island gossip. It was the infection that most probably caused the heart attack. I also swore that it was true about the bodies buried on the cliffs and told him to be careful in his garden. Donnie just laughed and said Michael did all the gardening.
So I chatted more about Mum, and how she’d put all her energies into saving the family business, and how it was good for her to be busy and not have time to think. Donnie looking genuinely disturbed, which I enjoyed. I’m such a champion story-teller! He listened carefully as I wittered on about how Dad sacrificed his health for the sake of the truth and how Mum just did as he said, and how I never realised because I was at school.
I tried to remember all the facts just like Mum told me, and I think I gave an impressive performance. It’s weird how I can learn things off by heart and recite them like a parrot but still not understand them. Dad didn’t make it to my last prize-giving on account of him dying and I did start to wonder why I’d worked so hard. There’s no escaping death, not for any of us. With Nic it was over in a flash but at least when she was falling she didn’t know that she was dying. Dad maybe did know, and Mum did, too.
My conversation with Donnie went on for hours and I felt very special to have all his attention. He told me he loved the company of young people and that if I ever wanted to talk I could come and find him. I said that’d be great since Mum didn’t understand me and I wasn’t sure I could trust her. That was the first time I’d said it out loud, to anyone.
And then she was tapping me on the shoulder.
‘We should be getting home. Can you go and fetch Nicolette?’
I felt so ashamed and ran back into the house as quick as I could, grabbed Nic and dragged her outside. I was thinking I’d find Mum looking cross and apologising to Donnie on my behalf. But instead she was chatting to him about the joys of the Guille-Aillez Library. We said our goodbyes and drove Nic back to Les Paradis and I wanted to tell Mum I was sorry and that I honestly didn’t mean it. But she never said anything, so neither did I.
I suppose we were both trying to hide what we were feeling inside, although I don’t know for sure if Mum was feeling anything. She was always as cool as a cucumber, never complaining about how hard she had to work, or her useless daughter. Perhaps nothing was as grim as the thrillers she read, and they helped her cope.
And perhaps that explains what happened between me and Nic, sorry, Nic and I.
I did what I did because, like Mum, I knew I could hide it.
And, like Mum, I knew I’d get away with it, too.
15th December 1965
Tape: 1 (B side) ‘The testimony of C.A. Rozier’
[Edits from transcript compiled and corrected by E.P. Rozier]
There is plenty our mother won’t talk about, Emile. According to La Duchesse it does us all no good, this dredging up of what’s been said and done. She says if it is an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, then we shall all be blind with bleeding gums. She has a point, truly I see it well, but how can she forgive me?
She is a rare one, a rare and special case. You know what she did in the days before the Germans came? She put the whole of our house in order like never before. She cleaned the place from top to bottom and back again, she