The Book of Lies Read online

  ‘We are going to show these Jerries that we are clean-living and respectable people,’ she said, holding her chin up high. ‘I’ll not let standards slip because of this.’

  She was a force to be reckoned with, that one!

  She still wanted me out the way, but the only boats bound for England now were to be loaded with tomatoes. That’s right, when we heard that our crops could be shipped out again we took it as a good sign. Of course, others weren’t so sure. I remember it was 28th June, a Friday, and I’d come with Pop into Town to hear the Bailiff give another address. La Duchesse was at home with you, and I felt bad that she was missing the excitement: the High Street and Smith Street were packed solid with bodies and everyone was talking with their hands, the way only Guernsey folk can. The Bailiff was big with his ‘no need to panic’ but the questions kept on coming.

  ‘The English sent us troops and arms, and then they took them back, and now they’re saying what? That we’re too small to matter?’

  ‘But they still want our tomato crops. What does it mean?’

  That very evening folk were gathering at the harbour to watch the tomato baskets get loaded up onto boats.

  ‘It is poltroonery,’ Ray said. ‘Whitehall should be sending guns. We fought for the British before, so surely they owe us something.’

  ‘There’s no point in getting angry,’ someone replied.

  ‘They have bigger problems than this little island.’

  ‘And they might be on their way now,’ I piped up.

  ‘A commando force to help us.’

  I thought I was being wise beyond my years and you know, Emile, there were commando raids before too long so it’s not like I was wrong. Even so, they laughed me down.

  ‘Quai bavin!’ Ray barked, ‘Are you the expert? Maybe you should be up there with the Bailiff. Come on everyone, let’s have another tall tale from our champion storyteller!’

  A few people were turning their heads and I shrank into my jacket, hoping the ground would swallow me up.

  ‘But—’ I started.

  ‘But nothing. Do me a favour and keep your big mouth shut. At least until you’re shaving.’

  There was a murmur of laughter, and the talking continued right over my head. Why did everyone treat me like a kid? Ray was looking down his snout at me, his hazel eyes twinkling. It made me so angry I had to do something.

  And I did.

  ‘Ow!’

  Ha-ha! I’d kicked Ray hard, square on the shin. Not big or clever, I know, but I didn’t half feel better as I burst through the crowds.

  ‘Here, you!’ I heard him shout.

  Even if I was just a kid I mattered enough for old Ray to give chase. But I hadn’t done much damage since he was hot on my heels and closing in. I didn’t stand a chance against those long legs. Still, you should’ve seen me, Emile, going hell for leather down the Esplanade, sending other folk flying, and just as I reckoned I was done for a great big shadow swooped over. I threw my hands up and spun around, fists at the ready. Ray had lunged at me and was grappling me down, and I fell on my back, hitting the ground hard with a thud. That’s when I saw it high above me. The swastika on a German plane, and a gunner standing at its open door, firing a machine gun.

  ‘Rat-tat-tat’ it went, like a child running a twig along some railings. ‘Rat-tat-tat!’

  Next thing I knew Ray was on the pavement, too. I heard him cursing so I knew he was alive. We had both rolled onto our stomachs. Then came a deafening bang. Then another. I thought we must’ve been killed or bombed, but I didn’t understand why I was still breathing. There was this buzzing in my brain and my ears felt like they was bleeding. I squeezed my eyes shut, pressing my face into the paving stones. Ray had turned around and was against the granite harbour wall.

  Neither of us had counted on a fleet of German bombers interrupting our scuffle, and we weren’t the only ones caught unawares. Mais nen-nin. The harbour was their target. They circled maybe three times in all. How many minutes I couldn’t tell you. Voomf! Bang! Crack! I swear the whole island shuddered but I clung tight to it still. I smelled the smoke, I heard sirens wailing. Then I felt Ray tug at my collar.

  We helped each other up, taking a minute to get our balance. It was like my ears were blocked but I could see the fear in Ray’s eyes. So he’s human after all, I thought. Then I turned my head and saw the blaze on White Rock. Hé bian, Emile, it was a terrible thing. People have forgotten about a lot of things the Germans did, but they’ve never forgotten White Rock. Nothing much had ever happened on our little island until that day. Lots of places got hit and lots of people, too. The tobacco factory near the bus terminal was up in flames, but it was the docks that got it the worst. They’d flattened the tomato trucks that had lined up along the Weighbridge and machine-gunned their petrol tanks so everything was in flames. There were thirty dead, if I’m right, but you should check that.22 Without saying a word to each other Ray and I headed straight for the smoke and the flames. Of course, everyone else was running in the opposite direction, crying out in shock and pain. I remember a woman clinging to an older man who was holding a bloody handkerchief to his eyes. Lots of people were cut from broken glass or had been peppered with shrapnel, and an ambulance had been blown to bits. The heat and the smell is what I remember the most, and the blood on the road. Well, I thought it was blood but p’têt it was toms. Dozens of crates were smashed open. The boats were on fire as well. What a scene of dereliction! One man had had his toes blown off and was staring down at his feet with this puddle of red spreading outward. I went towards him, then I realised Ray had left my side and was heading down the harbour steps.

  I would have followed – I swear it on my life – but there was a clammy hand laid on my arm.

  ‘How did you get here?’ I’d never seen Pop so wild-eyed and anxious. ‘Come. We must get home.’

  I thought I hadn’t heard him right, but he told me again that we had to get home.

  ‘The bombers will come back.’

  ‘Wait.’ I looked about. ‘Shouldn’t we help?’

  His bony grip tightened. ‘No! There are police and wardens for that. What about La Duchesse and Emile?’

  His voice was near to breaking. He tugged at his shirt collar, choking from the fumes.

  A policeman appeared at my side. ‘Get the old man home . . . it’s not safe,’ he told me.

  I nodded, looking back at Pop. He was coughing and there were tears in his eyes as he turned his head away from me. He bent over, and I checked his back for shrapnel, wondering if he’d been hurt.

  ‘Pop,’ I said. ‘Are you all right?’

  He shook his head and wouldn’t answer me. Then I looked again at the flames, the bodies, the dying and injured. I realised this was why he wept. I gently took his elbow, steering him towards the bus shelter.

  ‘We’ll go,’ I said.

  He’d covered his face with a handkerchief.

  ‘La Duchesse,’ he wheezed. ‘Don’t tell her what you’ve seen.’

  And to this day, Emile, I don’t know if he meant that I shouldn’t tell of the men and women burned alive, or of our father weeping like a child.

  But either way I never did tell. How could I tell our mother that?

  15TH DECEMBER 1985, 7.32 a.m.

  [Sitting-room, watching breakfast TV]

  Of course Mum wouldn’t like me talking about her, so it’s better if I talk about Therese. Nic said Therese only cared about what men thought of her, but as far as I could tell Nic was just the same. I thought Therese Prevost was The Perfect Mother as per the Fairy Liquid commercials. Nic called her pathetic and sad, but I’m guessing she was mostly lonely. Mr Prevost is the manager of Lloyds Bank so he was always working/entertaining clients with or at his golf clubs, leaving Therese to comfort shop at Little Red in Smith Street – Guernsey’s most-expensive-ever shop. But half the clothes Therese bought she never even wore. They were hidden away in the spare room, which is where Nic always found them. I remember one Sunday
afternoon I was gluing together my toenails with Nic dancing about in a slinky blue jersey dress.

  ‘How old do you reckon I look?’

  She pulled up her hair like she was modelling for a magazine. I pretended to take her picture and told her she looked old enough for anything, which was worrying but also true.

  She leaned back against the window ledge, stuck out her little boobs and stretched her swan-like neck. I thought this new pose was for my benefit until I turned to see Therese behind me, wincing microscopically.

  ‘Don’t you look glamorous! But take it off now. You’ll stretch it out of shape.’

  Nic didn’t budge. ‘I thought I’d wear it today. It’ll look wicked with my denim jacket.’

  ‘No, darling, it’s too old for you.’

  Nic had various ways of tormenting her mother. This time she pulled herself upright and stared hard at her reflection in the floor-to-ceiling mirror. Then she started fiddling with her hair. Therese repeated her request and Nic continued fiddling. (She could stare at herself for hours.) I sat in between them and tried not to breathe. Nic muttered something about someone else not dressing their age. I watched Rimmel-Peachy-Cream-Ninety-Second-Nail-Varnish drip onto the arctic-white shag-pile.

  ‘I said take it off.’

  ‘Why should I? I need some new clothes and you’re always buying stuff you never wear – or at least, I never see you wear. Who’s it all for? Who do you need to impress?’

  ‘That’s not true, I . . .’

  But before Therese could finish her sentence Nic was out on the landing and running downstairs.

  ‘Let me show Dad.’

  I jumped up to follow them but had to balance on my heels on account of The-Peachy-Cream-Peril. I was therefore quite slow. All I saw was Therese at the bottom of the stairs, still clutching the banisters, with her knuckles turning white. She told Nic to stop making a scene just as I heard Mr Prevost do a wolf whistle. I’m not sure if it’s right for a father to wolf-whistle his daughter, but Mr Prevost had recently drained the bar at the Royal Hotel.

  He was standing in what I called the sitting room but they called the lounge, holding a glass of brandy, and he grinned when he saw me.

  ‘Look at my two gorgeous women, am I not the luckiest man alive?’

  Therese was standing next to Nicolette, staring down at her naked legs.

  ‘Darling, you don’t have to try so hard.’

  ‘What, like you, you mean?’

  I can’t be sure what happened next because I was worrying about my toenails, but I think Mr P. told Therese not to fuss. Then he reached into his wallet and suggested that Nic and I go for a walk so he could spend Quality Time with his beautiful wife. Mr Prevost was always wanting sex in the middle of the day because Therese was too tired at bedtime. According to Nic they were both having affairs, which must’ve been exhausting.

  ‘It’s no big deal,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing else to do on this pissy little island.’

  Funnily enough, Dad had said something similar in a much more elegant way.

  Three years back there’d been this big fight on White Rock one Sunday. It was between two rival gangs of boys from the Grammar School. The Press had printed a long article about The Vacuum of Authority and Dad had written a response, which they’d even-for-once published. Dad had said that the restlessness and frustration felt by young people on the Island was totally understandable, since it was an echo of what happened during the Occupation, when so many children were evacuated from the Island never to return, and those that stayed found it difficult to relate to their parents’ passivity in the face of the enemy. Dad claimed that the Occupation had left A GAPING WOUND between one generation and the next. A lot of people disagreed and there were more letters saying so, but Dad was right as per always.

  It’s why we went to Pleinmont.

  Pleinmont was important to the Germans because it’s at the rocky southwestern tip of the island, which is why they built bunkers and gun placements and a watchtower23 thingy that’s as ugly as most Modern Art. For a while this was where all Guernsey’s Dispossessed Youth™ did their dispossessing.

  We used to meet in the car park every Sunday and wander up to the watchtower, which is over 50 foot high. It has rubble-filled corridors and dark narrow stairs up to the first floor, but after that there’s just a rusty ladder and a strong smell of pee. The nearby bunker is for glue-sniffers and used condoms. It doesn’t sound very glamorous and believe me it wasn’t. The only thing that made it interesting was the graffiti, from which I learnt some intriguing new words.

  There’s no point in mentioning names, but Jason Guille and Pete Mauger are important to this story – Jason is in the Sixth Form at the Grammar and has half a finger missing, Pete’s his best friend and is missing his whole brain. There’s also Marc Le Page and J-P, although they matter less. Pagey now works in a bank and wears leather ties, J-P is a stick insect with no obvious eyebrows. They don’t talk to me anymore and I can’t pretend to care. They probably still light their own farts and find it funny.

  Nic and I would sit in the car park and watch them do wheel spins on their motorbikes or handbrake turns in their cars. It’s funny, she had no interest in engines or electrics but when it came to boys she was a brilliant mechanic. She knew just what knobs to twiddle.

  She liked Pete Mauger the most at first. His dad worked in the off-licence on the Esplanade, which meant his car boot was often full of cigarettes and cut-price booze.24 Nic preferred Silk Cut Purple because she could also steal them from Therese. Therese only smoked three-a-day-on-the-patio, but Nic could smoke a whole packet in an hour. Pete said it was like kissing an ashtray but obviously didn’t mind. Nic would smile and pull herself close to him and blow smoke right into his mouth. She could be quite slutty like that. I’m sure that makes me sound spiteful and jealous, but I never tried to compete with Nic, I just sat in the corner and drank/talked a lot. Maybe it was because of the drinking that we first fell out. Or maybe it was because of tomatoes.

  It was after five in the afternoon and as per usual we’d crammed into Jason’s car to listen to the charts. Nic was in the front on Pete’s lap and I was in the back by the only window that worked. I was trying to concentrate on the music but I wished it was just me with Nic, alone together. We used to sing along to all our favourite songs. I was also annoyed with Pagey, who kept moaning about how his dad made him work in his greenhouses25 after school. I know sons are meant to hate their fathers as per the Ancient Greeks, but I told Pagey to show some respect. I then explained to him (and everyone else) how the tomato didn’t arrive in Guernsey until 1834, and that it was initially grown as a decorative plant because people thought it was poisonous. How funny then, that it became our major export and a kind of national emblem. And how tragic when, on 28th June 1940, German bombers destroyed an entire crop that was being loaded onto the boats for Southampton. What made it worse was they’d done so by mistake, because the stupid British government had never told them that they’d demilitarised the islands, and the Germans had mistaken tomato trucks for boxes of ammunition.

  I told Pagey we should therefore hate the British and not our parents, but he didn’t agree.

  ‘That’s the most bloody stupid story I’ve ever heard,’ he told me.

  ‘It’s not a story,’ I replied, ‘it’s History.’

  I saw Nic roll her eyes in the mirror. ‘We aren’t here for a fucking lecture, Cat.’

  I was a bit offended and opened the car door. ‘Anyone fancy a walk?’

  Nic laughed. ‘It’s raining.’

  (I hadn’t noticed.)

  Pagey stuck out his Caveman-chin.

  ‘For fuck’s sake shut the door, you’re getting me wet.’

  I stood there, feeling Stupid. I had wanted Nic to make a choice but in fact she already had. Even if I was her best friend, boys mattered more. Back then I didn’t especially like boys. They were far too rowdy/interested in their own bodies. Of course, it was Nic who made them ro
wdy/interested in their own bodies. I suppose that means I saw them as a threat, but I never wanted to grope Nic or stick my tongue in her ear. I just wanted her to myself.

  Instead of getting back in the car I decided I’d rather be alone, so I grabbed my bag and a half-bottle of Unlabelled Sinister Import and walked off up the slope towards the watchtower. I don’t think I stormed off (like Nic later said) because it was a steep hill and I had to walk slowly.

  Although the tower was dark and smelly, I liked the sound of the wind whistling through the narrow windows. I could walk around and watch the rain and create my very own music video, and I was having a lot of fun before I noticed Michael Priaulx leaning against the entranceway. That was more than embarrassing. I know I’ve just said I don’t like boys but Michael is different, and you’ll see what I mean soon enough. He was wearing his usual black leather jacket that skimmed his waist and had padded bits at the shoulder and elbow, and his face and hair were glistening from the rain. His flames-motif crash helmet was tucked under his arm, and a shadow fell across his face as he walked inside. Some people think his head is too big for his shoulders, and that he’s slightly cross-eyed, but I swear he looks like Marlon Brando, even though I didn’t know who that was at the time. I tried to act all casual but my heart was doing bunny hops. I assumed that was because of the music video choreography (which, of course, I’d stopped).

  Michael didn’t come close, but turned and squatted down, leaning his back against the tower wall. Then he reached inside his jacket and pulled out a homemade cigarette.

  ‘It’s pissing down. Hope I’m not interrupting.’

  I realised his cigarette was not actually a cigarette as he lit it and blew smoke out towards me.

  ‘Those your mates down there?’

  I nodded and realised I should try to say something.

  I couldn’t.

  Michael reached into his other jacket pocket and pulled out a can of deodorant. I was quite excited because I’d heard how people had hallucinatory visions after inhaling deodorant (or Tipp-Ex). I was disappointed when I realised it was spray paint. Michael stood up and scanned the wall behind him. There was a large-ish bright-red swastika bang-slap in the middle. He shook the can and wrote ‘The Nazis Won’. Only once he’d finished did he turn back to me.