The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer
Dear Juliet,
It will soon be rime for me to collect Remy from the hospice, but as I have a few minutes, I will use them to write to you.
Remy seems stronger now than she was last month, but she is very frail yet. Sister Touvier took me aside to caution me—I must see to it that she gets enough to eat, that she stays warm, that she’s not upset. She must be with people—cheerful people, if possible.
I’ve no doubt Remy will get nourishing food, and Amelia will see to it that she’s warm enough, but how am I to serve up good cheer? Joking and suchlike is not natural to me. I didn’t know what to say to the Sister, so I just nodded and tried to look jolly. I don’t think it was very successful, because Sister glanced at me sharply.
Well, I will do my best, but you, blessed as you are with a sunny nature and a light heart, would make a better companion for Remy than I. I don’t doubt she will take to you as we all have, these last months, and you will do her good.
Give Kit a hug and kiss for me. I will see you both on Tuesday.
Dawsey
From Juliet to Sophie
29th July 1946
Dear Sophie,
Please ignore everything I have ever said about Dawsey Adams.
I am an idiot.
I have just received a letter from Dawsey praising the medicinal qualities of my ‘sunny nature and light heart’ A sunny nature? A light heart? I have never been so insulted. Light-hearted is a short step from witless in my book. A cackling buffoon—that’s what I am to Dawsey.
I am also humiliated—while I was feeling the knife-edge of attraction as we strolled through the moonlight, he was thinking about Remy and how my light-minded prattle would amuse her. No, it’s clear that I was deluded and Dawsey doesn’t give a fig for me.
I am too irritated to write more now.
Love always,
Juliet
From Juliet to Sidney
1st August 1946
Dear Sidney,
Remy is here at last. She is petite and terribly thin, with short black hair and eyes that are nearly black too. I had imagined that she would look wounded, but she doesn’t, except for a little limp, which shows itself as a mere hesitancy in her walk, and a rather stiff way of moving her neck.
Now I’ve made her sound waiflike, and she isn’t really. You might think so from a distance, but never up close. There is a grave intensity in her that is almost unnerving. She is not cold and certainly not unfriendly, but she seems to be wary of spontaneity. I suppose if I had been through her experience, I would be the same—somewhat removed from everyday life.
You can cross out all the above when Remy is with Kit. At first, she seemed inclined to follow Kit with her eyes instead of talking to her, but that changed when Kit offered to teach her how to lisp. Remy looked startled, but she agreed to take lessons and they went off to Amelia’s greenhouse together. Her lisp is hampered by her accent, but Kit doesn’t hold that against her and has generously given her extra instructions.
Amelia had a small dinner party the evening Remy arrived. Everyone was on their best behaviour—Isola arrived with a big bottle of tonic under her arm, but she thought better of it once she saw Remy. ‘Might kill her,’ she muttered to me in the kitchen, and stuffed it in her coat pocket. Eli shook her hand nervously and then retreated—I think he was afraid he’d hurt her accidentally. I was pleased to see that Remy gets on well with Amelia—they will enjoy each other’s company—but Dawsey is her favourite. When he came into the sitting room—a little later than the rest—she relaxed visibly and even smiled at him.
Yesterday was cold and foggy, but Remy and Kit and I built a sandcastle on Elizabeth’s tiny beach. We spent a long time on its construction, and it was a splendid, towering specimen. I had made a Thermos of cocoa, and we sat drinking and waiting impatiently for the tide to come in and knock the castle down.
Kit ran up and down the shore, inciting the sea to rush in further and faster. Remy touched my shoulder and smiled. ‘Elizabeth must have been like that once,’ she said, ‘the Empress of the seas.’ I felt as if she had given me a gift—even a touch takes trust—and I was glad that she felt safe with me.
While Kit danced in the waves, Remy talked about Elizabeth. She had meant to keep her head down, conserve the strength she had left, and come home as quickly as she could after the war. ‘We thought it would be possible. We knew of the invasion, we saw all the Allied bombers flying over the camp. We knew what was happening in Berlin. The guards could not keep their fear from us. Each night we lay sleepless, waiting to hear the Allied tanks at the gates. We whispered that we could be free the next day. We did not believe we would die.’
There didn’t seem to be anything else to say after that—though I thought, If only Elizabeth could have held on for a few more weeks, she could have come home to Kit. Why, why, so close to the end, did she attack the overseer?
Remy watched the sea breathe in and out Then she said, ‘It would have been better for her not to have such a heart.’
Yes, but worse for the rest of us.
The tide came in then: cheers, screams and no more castle.
Love,
Juliet
From Isola to Sidney
1st August 1946
Dear Sidney,
I am the new Secretary of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. I thought you might like to see a sample of my first minutes, being as how you are interested in anything Juliet is interested in. Here they are:
30th July 1946, 7.30 p.m.
Night cold. Ocean noisy. Will Thisbee was host. House dusted, but curtains need washing.
Mrs Winslow Daubbs read a chapter from her autobiography, The Life and Loves of Delilah Daubbs. Audience attentive—but silent afterwards. Except for Winslow, who wants a divorce. All were embarrassed, so Juliet and Amelia served the pudding, a lovely ribbon cake, on real china plates—which we don’t usually run to.
Miss Minor then rose to ask if we were going to start being our own authors, could she read from a book of her very own thoughts? Her text is called The Common Place Book of Mary Margaret Minor. Everybody already knows what Mary Margaret thinks about everything, but we said ‘Aye’ because we all like Mary Margaret. Will Thisbee ventured to say that perhaps Mary Margaret will edit herself in writing, as she has never done in talking, so it might not be so bad.
I moved we have a specially called meeting next week so I don’t have to wait to talk about Jane Austen. Dawsey seconded! All said ‘Aye’. Meeting adjourned.
—Miss Isola Pribby, Official Secretary to the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.
Now that I’m Official Secretary, I could swear you in for a member if you’d like to be one. It’s against the rules, because you’re not an Islander, but I could do it in secret.
Your friend,
Isola
From Juliet to Sidney
3rd August 1946
Dear Sidney,
Someone—and I can’t imagine who—has sent Isola a present from Stephens & Stark. It was published in the mid-1800s and is called The New Illustrated Self-Instructor in Phrenology and Psychiatry: with Size and Shape Tables and Over One Hundred Illustrations. If that is not enough, there’s a subtitle: Phrenology: the Science of Interpreting Bumps on the Head.
Eben had Kit and me, Dawsey, Isola, Will, Amelia and Remy over for supper last night. Isola arrived with tables, sketches, graph paper, a measuring tape, calipers, and a new notebook. Then she cleared her throat and read the advertisement on the first page: ‘You too can learn to read Head Bumps! Stun Your Friends, Confound Your Enemies with Indisputable Knowledge of Their Human Faculties or Lack of Them.’
She thumped the book on to the table. ‘I’m going to become an adept,’ she announced, ‘in time for Harvest Festival.’
She has told Reverend Elstone that she will no longer dress up in shawls and pretend to read palms. No, from now on she will see the future in a scientific way, by reading head bumps! The church will m
Will said she was absolutely right Miss Beddoes wasn’t a good kisser and he for one was tired of kissing her, even for sweet charity’s sake.
Sidney, do you realise what you have unleashed on Guernsey? Isola’s already read the lumps on Mr Singleton’s head (his stall is next to hers at the market) and told him his Love of Fellow Creatures Bump had a shallow trench right down the middle—which was probably why he didn’t feed his dog enough. Do you see where this could lead? One day she’ll find someone with a Latent Killer Knot, and he’ll shoot her—if Miss Beddoes doesn’t get her first.
One wonderful, unexpected thing did come from your present After pudding Isola began to read the bumps on Eben’s head—dictating the measurements for me to write down. I glanced over at Remy, wondering what she would make of Eben’s hair standing on end and Isola rummaging through it. Remy was trying to stifle a smile, but she couldn’t manage it and burst out laughing. Dawsey and I stopped dead and stared at her! She’s so quiet, not one of us could have imagined such a laugh. It was like water. I hope I’ll hear it again.
Dawsey and I have not been as easy with each other as we once were, though he still comes often to visit Kit, or to bring Remy over. When we heard Remy laugh our eyes met for the first time for a fortnight But perhaps he was only admiring how my sunny nature had rubbed off on her. I do, according to some people, have a sunny nature, Sidney. Did you know that?
Billee Bee sent a copy of Screen Gems magazine to Peter. There were photographs of Rita Hay worth—Peter was delighted, though surprised to see Miss Hayworth posing in her nightdress! Kneeling on a bed! What was the world coming to?
Sidney, isn’t Billee Bee tired of being sent on errands for me?
Love,
Juliet
From Susan Scott to Juliet
5th August 1946
Dear Juliet,
You know Sidney doesn’t keep your letters clasped to his heart; he leaves them open on his desk for anyone to see, so of course I read them.
I am writing to reassure you about Billee Bee’s errand-running. Sidney doesn’t ask her. She begs to perform any little service she can for him, or you, or ‘that dear child’. She all but coos at him and I all but gag at her. She wears a little angora cap with a chin-bow—die kind that Sonja Henie skates in. Need I say more?
Also, contrary to what Sidney thinks, she isn’t an angel straight from heaven, she’s from an employment agency. Meant to be temporary, she has dug herself in—and is now indispensable and permanent. Can’t you think of some living creature Kit would like to have from the Galapagos? Billee Bee would sail on the next tide for it—and be gone for months. Possibly for ever, if some animal there would just eat her.
All my best to you and Kit,
Susan
From Isola to Sidney
5di August 1946
Dear Sidney,
I know it was you who sent The New Illustrated Self-Instructor in Phrenology and Psychiatry: with Size and Shape Tables and Over One Hundred Illustrations. It is a very useful book and I thank you for it I’ve been studying hard, so now I can finger through a whole headful of bumps without peeking into the book more than three or four rimes. I hope to make a mint for the church at Harvest Festival, as who would not desire to have their innermost workings—good and rotten—revealed by the Science of Phrenology? No one, that’s who.
It’s a real lightning bolt, this Science of Phrenology. I’ve found out more in the last three days than I knew in my whole life before. Mrs Gilbert has always been a nasty one, but now I know that she can’t help it—she’s got a big pit in her Benevolence spot She fell into the quarry when she was a girl, and my guess is she cracked her Benevolence and was never the same since.
Even my own friends are full of surprises. Eben is garrulous! I never would have thought it of him, but he’s got bags under his eyes and there’s no two ways about it. I broke it to him gently. Juliet didn’t want to have her bumps read at first, but she agreed when I told her that she was standing in the way of Science. She’s awash in Amativeness, is Juliet Also Conjugal Love. I told her it was a wonder she wasn’t married, with such great mounds.
Will cackled, ‘Your Mr Stark will be a lucky man, Juliet!’ Juliet blushed red as a tomato, and I was tempted to say he didn’t know much because Mr Stark is a homosexual, but I pulled myself together and kept your secret like I promised.
Dawsey up and left then, so I never got to his lumps but I’ll pin him down soon. I think I don’t understand Dawsey sometimes. For a while there he was downright chatty, but these days he doesn’t have two words to rub together.
Thank you again for the fine book.
Your friend,
Isola
Telegram from Sidney to Juliet
6th August 1946
Bought a small bagpipe for Dominic at Gunther’s yesterday stop Would Kit like one stop Let me know soonest as they have only one left stop How’s the writing stop Love to you and Kit stop Sidney
From Juliet to Sidney
7th August 1946
Dear Sidney,
Kit would love a bagpipe. I would not.
I think the work is going splendidly, but I’d like to send you the first two chapters—I won’t feel settled until you’ve read them. Do you have time?
Every biography should be written within a generation of its subject’s life, while he or she is still in living memory. Think what I could have done for Anne Bronte if I’d been able to speak to her neighbours. Perhaps she wasn’t really meek and melancholy—perhaps she had a screaming temper and dashed crockery to the floor regularly once a week.
Every day I learn something new about Elizabeth. How I wish I had known her myself! As I write, I catch myself thinking of her as a friend, remembering things she did as though I’d been there—she’s so full of life that I have to remind myself that she’s dead, and then I feel the wrench of losing her again.
I heard a story about her today that made me want to lie down and weep. We had supper with Eben this evening, and afterwards Eli and Kit went out to dig for worms (a task best done by the light of the moon). Eben and I took our coffee outside, and for the first time he chose to talk about Elizabeth to me.
It happened at the school where Eli and the other children were waiting for the Evacuation ships. Eben wasn’t there, because the families were not allowed, but Isola saw it happen, and she told him about it that night.
She said that the room was full of children, and Elizabeth was buttoning up Eli’s coat when he told her he was scared of getting on the boat—leaving his mother and his home. If their ship was bombed, he asked, who would he say goodbye to? Isola said that Elizabeth took her time, as if she was studying his question. Then she pulled up her jumper and unpinned samething from her blouse. It was her father’s medal from the first war and she always wore it.
She held it in her hand and explained to him that it was a magic badge, that nothing bad could happen to him while he wore it. Then she got Eli to spit on it twice to call up the charm. Isola saw Eli’s face over Elizabeth’s shoulder and told Eben that it had that beautiful light children have before the Age of Reason gets at them.
Of all the things that happened during the war, sending children away to try to keep them safe was surely the most terrible. I don’t know how the parents endured it. It defies the animal instinct to protect your young. I see myself becoming bearlike around Kit Even when I’m not actually watching her, I’m watching her. If she’s in any sort of danger (which she often is, given her taste in climbing), my hackles rise—I didn’t even know I had hackles before—and I run to rescue her. When her enemy, the Vicar’s nephew, threw plums at her, I roared at him. And through some queer sort of intuition I always know where she is, just as I know where my hands are—and if I didn’t, I’d be ill with worry. This is how the species survives, I suppose, but the war put a spanner in all that How did the mother
Love,
Juliet
P. S. What about a flute?
From Juliet to Sophie
9th August 1946
Darling Sophie,
What marvellous news—a new baby! Wonderful! I do hope you won’t have to eat dry biscuits and suck lemons this rime. I know you two don’t care which/what/who you have, but I would love a girl. To that end, I am knitting a tiny matinee jacket and hat in pink wool. Of course Alexander is delighted, but what about Dominic?
I told Isola your news, and I’m afraid she may send you a bottle of her Pre-Birthing Tonic. Sophie—please don’t drink it, and don’t dispose of it where the dogs might find it. There may not be anything actually poisonous in tonics, but I don’t think you should take any chances.
Your enquiries about Dawsey are misdirected. Send them to Kit—or Remy. I hardly see the man any more, and when I do, he’s silent. Not silent in a romantic, brooding way, like Mr Rochester, but in a grave and sober way that indicates disapproval. I don’t know what the matter is, I really don’t. When I arrived in Guernsey, Dawsey was my friend. We talked about Charles Lamb and we walked all over the Island together. I enjoyed his company as much as that of anyone I’ve ever known. Then, after that appalling night on the cliffs, he stopped talking—to me, anyway. It’s been a terrible disappointment. I miss the sense that we understood each other, but I’m beginning to think that was only my delusion all along.