makes it exciting. Real-life fights are very brutal. I tried to kick Pete and then Jason grabbed me round the waist so I elbowed him in the teeth. The next minute I was on my knees and I saw Michael flip Pete over. There was a cracking sound and I thought Pete’s spine had snapped in two. Michael kicked him once and he yelped, curling over and calling out the ‘C’ word. People were spilling out into the garden to watch but Michael staggered back, his breath and spit suddenly lit up by the house lights.
I suppose that’s one good thing about boys: they get their fights over and done with quickly. With girls it’s always longer because they fight dirty, and use their nails and teeth. My last fight with Nic was like that. I didn’t have any secret manoeuvres like Michael, and I hadn’t done any weight-training like Pete, but I still managed to fight Nic to the Death. I never did bludgeon her, though. I only said that because I wanted to sound like Stephen King.
Dad had always warned me about this, of course. He used to say that if I was exposed to the language of sex and violence then I’d suck it up like a sponge. That’s why he vetted my library books and threw the TV out and banned me from visiting Beau Sejour after dark. It’s like he knew all along I’d eventually turn evil. It was only a matter of time. At least I’ve proved him right, and he did so like to be right.
16th December 1965
Tape: 2 (B side) ‘The testimony of C.A. Rozier’ [Transcribed by E.P. Rozier]
Was I born rotten or did something make me bad? I never will know, and now it’s my body that’s rotten through and through. My kidneys are gone and my heart will be next. There’s a weight pushing down on my chest so hard I cannot breathe. I can’t even see right because of cataracts. Still, I’ve seen enough things that I can’t forget. Men being beaten like animals, their legs twisted round and their skulls smashed open. Every day I watched men dragged off at roll call never to return, and then I dug their graves. Emile, tchi que je vis te baillerais de mauvais saonges. Once violence enters the mind it never leaves.
The blood stains on my shirt were a warning to our mother.
‘You have been fighting!’ she cried. ‘Is this how I brought you up? Why don’t you listen?’
My eyes were red-rimmed from crying and I hung my head as she bandaged up my arm. I promised her I’d be a better son and behave myself in future. I honestly thought I meant it, too.
‘If you get hurt again there won’t be no fixing you,’ she replied. ‘It’s enough with one invalid amongst us.’
It was the first time she’d mentioned Hubert’s health, and now the cat was out of the bag. I watched as she sucked in her lips.
‘He won’t go to the doctor,’ she told me. ‘He seems to think that what medicine there is he does not deserve.’
The winter months had taken a toll on all of us, it’s the truth, but Pop had a terrible rattle in his throat and it wasn’t getting better. When I watched him shuffle round the house I should’ve felt bad for him, but instead I felt the old resentments stir anew.
La Duchesse put on her armour plating and told me I was man enough for both of us. I tried to be, I really did. After that I pushed all thoughts of Ray out of my head and got up at seven each morning, so as to be in the office early, setting the inks. I resolved never again to go out at night or get into any fights. I even stopped giving lip to Vern and learned a little German. That stopped La Duchesse from quacking like a duck, and we all got a bit of peace.
The summer came and went, and then we faced another autumn. More and more slave workers poured onto the island so there was less of everything to go round. You cannot imagine how bad it got, Emile. I didn’t feel like I was getting much reward for being good, as I sat in that office day in and day out. Vern was always watching me, whilst Pop hid away in the spare room, a shadow of the man he was. I hated Vern for taking