a secret. Such an accusation from R.L.P. seems grossly unfair, especially considering the comment three paragraphs later where R.L.P. deigns to thank his ‘little friend’ for enduring hours of Nazi interrogations but still withholding any information regarding the boat.
To speak plainly, Charlie Rozier might have started the War as a ‘puny kid who told tall tales’, but what he ultimately had to endure would have broken the spirit and will of any full-grown man. Despite repeated beatings he stayed loyal and true to both his friends and his relations.
The pain and suffering these articles caused my brother is inestimable but he remained silent out of respect to his mother. However, I am greatly vexed by what effect the publication of a new book would have on his fragile health. Whilst he is alive you have my assurance I will do everything in my power to ensure Ray Le Poidevoin’s story is never printed in its current form.
Yours sincerely,
E.P. Rozier
Manager/Editor of The Patois Press
Sans Soucis
Village de Courtils
St Peter Port
20TH DECEMBER 1985, 9 p.m.
[Sitting-room]
Dad was cremated, in case you ever wondered. So was Uncle Charlie. I don’t like the idea of incineration so I’ve planned my funeral carefully.
I did it during my Long Summer of Torment. I’d spend hours in my bedroom imagining how my classmates would be devastated by the shocking news of my death, and would write poems in my memory. They’d bind them in an album to be read at my graveside but the rain would smudge the ink (because it would be an open-air service). There’d be a trillion different-coloured freesias on my antique mahogany coffin, and Vicky would probably faint from grief and fall into my grave. I was going to be buried in the Military Cemetery with trumpets and cannon-fire and Donnie leading the tributes. He’d have named a rose after me and would be holding this great, big wreath with the thorns digging into him, dripping blood. Then he’d put on a Miles Davis record and everyone would be amazed to find out that I liked jazz. After that we’d play Tears for Fears (‘Mad World’) to symbolise my tragic waste of life, and then would come the Elaine Paige/Barbara Dickson classic ‘I Know Him so Well’, just to make sure everyone cried. Nic would weep uncontrollably and maybe sing along and then tell Mum how sad she was that we’d not had a chance to make up. Mum would say amazing things about my wit and intelligence (which had been so unfairly overlooked).
Let me tell you, it was B.R.I.L.L.I.A.N.T, far better than my miserable reality, which involved leaving my bedroom every two days to mooch into Town and hover outside Etam, looking for but avoiding Nic and her cronies. I was now a vast size 14 and needed some new clothes, but the idea of facing Nic in a public place made me melt like ice cream. In the end I stayed indoors and watched repeats of Dallas, specifically the episode when Bobby Ewing is run over by a car.
Then I found out from Bridget Falla (the biggest mouth in the Sixth Form) that Nic had gone to France for the whole entire month of August. I was upset for all of five seconds, then came this tidal wave of relief. It was a temporary solution to my problem. I knew I wasn’t totally off-the-hook but then I had a new daydream of how I could be: all Nic had to do was die. I imagined she’d fallen off the ferry to France, or been run over on a French motorway.57 I visualised her death in various excellent ways and picked out flowers for her funeral. Does that sound so awful? I suppose it was quite morbid, but I’d often imagined that Dad was going to die and then he did. So surely it could happen again, and to Nic.
Death was something to take my mind off the summer, which, unlike every other Guernsey summer since 1940, was horribly hot. I don’t like sunny weather one bit. This is because of my vast acreage of Persil-white skin, which has been known to reflect the sun and blind people. I could be a super-hero, only I burn and bruise easily, plus I’m too wobbly for Lycra. I don’t know if I ever got as fat as I felt, but after Nic’s Cold Shoulder/War Treatment I was eating and eating and eating. I had to ask Mum to ration my food.