wrote to me, and I am sure you have long since given up hope of a reply. I thank you for the many pamphlets and journals that you have sent to me. It is clear to me that you have understood a great deal about your island’s history. However, it is your own family history that still troubles you, as I can well understand. You wrote to me in the hope that I might shed some light on the matter and I regret very much that I can. You are the person to whom I must explain things, but this will be a great burden for you. Perhaps you of all people can appreciate that there are more than two sides to any story. The truth is like a prism through which the light shines, but the patterns it creates can distract and confuse.
I am 61 years old – which is perhaps not old, but I have cancer. I am too sick to write, therefore a friend is typing what I speak, and by the time this reaches you I trust I will be dead.
What I would like to say first is sorry. I remember you only as a small child, and since that time you have known much loss. Your late brother endured great hardships and I can well understand why he resisted talking of his experiences for so long. I have often thought of him over the years. I am sorry he did not have children. I have three sons and I am very proud of the men they have become. I will miss them.
I will say what I have to say and no more. I do not like my memories, and my emotions become troubled when I think of your island. It is still beautiful, I have no doubt, but it was never a place I would wish to return to. When I was posted to Guernsey I felt differently; we were very impressed by the beauty of the cliffs, and we felt comfortable and fortunate. I personally did not want to be sent to the Front because I was not convinced by Hitler or his War. I was pleased to be but an administrator, and did my utmost to smooth relations with the local population.
Despite my being many years his junior your father had to work for me. He did so with grace and dignity. Perhaps it helped him to know that I did not enjoy giving orders. I often felt myself to be as unhappy as a great many of the islanders. I was a long way from home and I had never been away from my loved ones before. Hubert was a quiet, devout man, greatly troubled by the War. Early on, before wireless sets were confiscated, we would listen to the BBC news together. I made the excuse it might help me with my English. I noticed he often held his Bible close to his chest and he once told me he believed that God was subjecting all of us to a most gruelling test. I sensed a deep spiritual turmoil beneath his surface, yet I could not have predicted how events would unravel.
I must now confess to my own terrible weakness. I was a young man and very immature, inexperienced and easily swayed by my passions. I regret very much that I found myself falling in love, but that is precisely what happened. It was the kind of love I had never before known, a love that was doubtless intensified by the unusual circumstances. It became my great obsession. This is a secret that I have carried with me these years.
When I first learned of your mother’s death I was unable to write to you and tell you the truth of what happened because I did not want to tarnish the memories you have of her. She was an extraordinary woman. I was very much in love with her from the moment I first met her. She only once professed to feel the same and after all these years I cannot believe it was ever true. I am sure it pains you to learn of her infidelity, but please remember the confusion and uncertainty of the time, its humiliations and temptations weighed heavily on us all.
Quite what was between us is now so difficult to describe in words. I do not wish to cheapen it. I know now there were delusions on both sides: a false longing, a need for intimacy. Arlette