take all the glory?
‘No, no, I want to come,’ I remember saying. ‘I stand by my word.’
But later I got so worked up I made up my mind to stay. I was battling so many emotions, turning this way and that. If I’d had more time to think on it, if I’d known how it would end, I’d never have done it. Trouble is, I’d made a pact with the Devil himself.
Who knows what would’ve happened if the 12th had ever come like we’d planned it. But it was just before eleven o’clock at night on 9th December, year of Our Lord 1942. That’s when the Feldgendarmes came to our house, kicking in the door with their rifles.
Je m’en fou! For years I went over this stuff, again and again, Emile. I blamed myself and so did everyone. Guernsey was and is my world, but they still think I’m that silly boy whose father died instead of him. But I say to them now, sometimes the wrong folk get the blame and sometimes the blame must be shared. After our so-called glorious Liberation there were unanswered questions going round my head. When the Krauts came to our house they knew just where to look – how is that? Who told them? I’ve been fed all sorts of lines by them in the States who keep a tight hold over those secret German records. I know you’ve tried to get them opened, Emile. Perhaps they’ll listen to you. I want to see those files, the names of those low-life informers. You say there’s a Human Rights Law that says we’re not allowed to. What about my rights, eh? How come the low-life who informed on me gets away with murder?
And it is murder.
Es-t à écoutaïr, Ray Le Poidevoin? Jean-Pierre has paid his price but when will you tire of the hero act? You were no brother to me. You hung me out to dry, you did. Hypocrite! Traitor! I’ve been over it enough: who else knew where I hid my precious notes? I told you because I trusted you, but you gave me up to the Germans all the same.
The Bible is wrong, Emile, it isn’t the sons who pay for the sins of their fathers, but fathers who pay for the sins of their sons. How else could it be, when the Germans went straight to our father’s room and ripped up the floorboards? They knew what they were looking for and they found it, soon enough.
18TH DECEMBER 1985, 5.30 p.m.
[Sitting on soggy deck-chair on patio, hypnotised by fog]
I didn’t know what I was looking for when I first went into Dad’s study. I suppose I wanted proof, and I don’t just mean proof that he was dead. I needed proof that he’d lived at all. Don’t get me wrong, he’d definitely been here – all flesh and blood and hair – but he’d also never been here. I was sure he was always meant to be somewhere else, which is why I’d dreamed that he was dying and/or dead. Maybe that’s why I didn’t cry when it finally happened.
I wonder if some people are dead before they’ve lived. These are the same people who won’t play Snakes and Ladders because it relies too much on chance, and have to colour-code the contents of the fridge, and insist that cucumbers should be peeled.
It was when I was searching through the drawers of his desk that I found the bottle of Glenfiddich. I’d never had Dad down as a drinker, but then I found another bottle in his filing cabinet – this was Famous Grouse. I remember the first time I unscrewed its top and sniffed it. Before then I’d thought all stubble smelled like whisky.
It’s funny, when Dr Senner drinks he tries to hug and kiss everyone, and once I saw him cry, but Dad was never like that. He hated going to parties and the few times we got invited to any he’d hover by an exit, ready to make his escape. He wasn’t like other drunks – he never told rude jokes or fell over – he’d never be caught out.
Although there was that one time at White Rock. I’ve mentioned Dad’s (Un)Official Occupation Memorial, but not its grand unveiling, which was a disaster. Dad had lobbied the States for centuries (almost) to get them to approve of this plaque. It listed the names of islanders who’d been accused (rightly or wrongly) of misconduct under the Germans, and