The Book of Lies Page 9

  And now I get to the bit where I say kids tell stupid lies because they don’t know any better, but actually I should know better, because of course I’ve read it all before.

  16th December 1965

  Tape: 2 (B side) ‘The testimony of C.A. Rozier’

  [Transcribed by E.P. Rozier]

  Pour continua, Emile. You know the story of the boy who cried wolf? He told so many lies nobody would believe him when he finally told the truth. I cannot excuse what I did but I shall say this: life under the jackboot was no picnic. We thought we’d be occupied for a few weeks and no more, then weeks turned into months and the months dragged on and on. Every day we printed out a new order, or an amendment to an old order, or an addition to it. They said they wouldn’t take our wireless sets and then they did, they said we’d be safe in our homes but they took the best homes for themselves.

  Seems the only thing they couldn’t own was the nonsense in my head. I’d lie awake each night, listening as the planes hummed overhead, and I pretended I was a pilot or a gunner. I felt the bitterest hatred for the first time in my life, and not just against the Hun. Certain Guernseymen, and I could name them, were only too happy to fawn over the Germans and treat them like brothers, and some of the womenfolk were worse, their heads easily turned by a man in uniform – it didn’t matter what uniform. It was more than shameful, Emile, it was treason.

  To me it was the end of Guernsey and the world itself, to see my own people acting so yellow. Of course it’s no excuse for what I did. I know I was wrong to lie, but lies were all I had since the truth was so stinking and rotten. Our father’s reputation, our family name, all was lost.

  Yes, yes. Now you tell me there were plenty of folk who were made to work for the Germans, but back then I reckoned on carrying the heaviest burden. I felt a hundred eyes on me when I went into Town and I was sure I heard whispers behind my back. Of course, it was all in my head, and the only trouble I had I went looking for.

  And by trouble I mean Ray Le Poidevoin.

  For a while I didn’t see him and I wondered if he’d got away to France or to England, and was off on some adventure. No such luck, I’m sorry to say. Not long after the Germans arrived he’d been sent to Alderney – earning himself five months’ hard labour for stealing groceries. That must’ve been a shock, as I’d see for myself soon enough. When we met again his young face had new lines and there were shadows beneath each eye. With his dirty hair and clothes he looked a bit wild to me, and I would’ve turned on my heel if he hadn’t spotted me first.

  ‘Well, well, if it isn’t our new minister of Nazi propaganda!’ he called out. ‘The last time I saw you, you were running away and it looks like nothing’s changed. Do you remember? It was after the air raid on White Rock. There were wounded and dying everywhere and where did you get to, eh? You ran like a coward.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ I stood firm. ‘We both know it wasn’t like that.’

  Ray pointed a finger toward me. ‘Je n’sie pas si cuite comme tu crai! Tu es caouard! You did what your dad said, and we all know he’s a Nazi-lover. He even speaks the lingo.’

  I felt my pulse quicken. ‘There’s no point in lamming into me. We’ve been forced to work for the Germans and we don’t get treated any better for it. I hate those stinking Slugs as much as you.’

  ‘You are all bluff,’ Ray shook his head. He turned to the lads gathered about him. There was Jim Collard, Colin Turrell, Greg Mauger, all of them as tough as nails. Jimbo would trot after Ray like he was his pet spaniel. He later joined the army, he liked taking orders so much. Colin now works for the States. Greg Mauger died of typhus before the Occupation was out. They all enjoyed watching me squirm.

  ‘I don’t know why you think you’re so much better than us,’ I replied. ‘What are you going to do now?

  You’ll have to work for the Germans like everyone else.’33

  Ray glowered at me. ‘Death before dishonour. Ray Le Poidevoin works for no one.’

  Jim and Colin nodded.

  ‘We got plans,’ one of them said.

  ‘I could help,’ I offered quickly. ‘I’ve got inside knowledge on the Germans. I know their new rules and regulations before they even happen.’

  Ray eyed me up and down like he was measuring me for a coffin.

  ‘I was going to box your ears the last time I saw you and maybe I should do it now. What do you reckon, lads, is he worth it?’

  They laughed.

  ‘Run along back to your pop,’ said one of them. ‘You Roziers are yellow!’

  I was furiously angry.

  ‘Pop’s not yellow, he’s a braver man than all of you.

  It’s not what it looks like. He’s – he’s not what you think.’

  Jimbo and Colin shook their heads and turned to go, Ray alone was listening.

  ‘What’s the old man up to then?’

  I backed away. ‘I – I’ve said too much already.’

  Ray nodded. ‘If your father is a spy then you’ve just blown his cover.’

  ‘Tais ta goule!’ I said, keeping up my bluff. ‘You cannot tell anyone. Pop is gathering information for the Allies.’

  I know I was playing with fire, Emile, but you must understand, I was sick of these days without history, where history was being made somewhere else. I was sick of doing nothing and feeling nothing. I thought that if I said these things then I’d make them true, and my life wouldn’t feel so shameful.

  Jim and Greg were waiting on the corner but I wanted to keep Ray there. I told him that I was a loyal patriot and could easily prove my worth. I said I was prepared to do anything for the War effort. But he shook his head.

  ‘I’m not ruining my good name mixing it up with the likes of you.’

  I was boiling up with rage. I pulled that little knife he’d given me from my pocket and lifted it towards him, but quick as lightning he’d grabbed my arm and twisted it behind my back.

  ‘I don’t need all this strife from a little kid like you. Where’s your pop, now, eh, the war hero? I’ve seen him in Town, skulking about. He’s no spy and you shouldn’t say such stupid things. Je ne sais pas, maybe I should cut your throat now – at least it’d shut you up.’

  ‘Fine!’ I choked. ‘Do that.’

  But he let me go, throwing my knife onto the paving stones.

  ‘You’re wasting my time!’

  I was sick of Ray and his swaggering ways and his motley crew of no-goods. What made them think they were better than me? I picked the knife off the ground and, without even thinking, pressed the blade to my arm.

  ‘Tu cré chuq t áeme à créer! But I’ll show you the colour of my blood and prove it’s not yellow.’

  I dug in deep and the blood ran to my wrist.

  ‘You got a screw loose?’ Ray spluttered.

  Tears had sprung up in my eyes.

  ‘You won’t think that when I’m gone.’

  I met his gaze. He cocked his big head slightly. It was like the world had stopped turning on its axis.

  ‘Eh? Oueq vas-tu, man amie?’

  I waited a good few seconds before answering.

  ‘Why do you care? I’m the big liar, remember? So I must be just imagining that boat that I’ll soon be away on. Think what you like, man amie, but I’ll be leaving you to rot!’

  Mais vère dja donc, Emile, and so it is with that boy who cries wolf: he lies once, he lies twice, but when he finally tells the truth he’ll get the punishment he deserves.

  16TH DECEMBER 1985, 11.56 a.m.

  [Unit 4b, King’s Mills. (Mum is making me sit in the office because she doesn’t trust me to be in the house on my own.)]

  ‘Doctor, doctor, everyone thinks I’m a liar.’ ‘I find that hard to believe.’

  It being a Monday I was supposed to be going to school, but then I nearly lost a finger. I was washing up the breakfast things and smashed a glass beaker in the sink. There was blood everywhere so Mum took me to Grange End surgery.

  ‘You should’ve been mor
e careful,’ she said, bundling me into the car. ‘And after our conversation last night I can’t help but wonder if you did this on purpose.’

  Perhaps I should mention that last night I told Mum I was too sick to go to school. Trouble is, I’ve been (ab)using that excuse a bit too much just recently.

  ‘You should see Roger,’ said Mum, as she pulled out of the driveway.

  (‘Roger’ is Dr Senner, by the way.)

  I wrapped the tea towel tighter round my finger. ‘Maybe I’m anaemic – I felt dizzy before it happened.’

  The windscreen was all frosted up so Mum leaned forward, frowning over the steering wheel.

  ‘Maybe. But last week you said you had glandular fever. I don’t know, Cathy. You’re not eating properly, so perhaps that’s it. And it doesn’t help that you’re always locked in your room, scribbling away. I don’t know what you find to write about.’

  I stared out the car window. Guernsey’s so small but everyone drives everywhere.

  ‘There’s only a week of term left, so no one will be doing any work,’ I said. ‘Can’t I just stay off until next term?’

  Mum watched me out of the corner of her eye. ‘I know you’re upset about what happened to Nicolette but I don’t think you should get special treatment. You weren’t even that close to her.’

  (That’s excellent proof how little Mum knows.)

  Perhaps if I stop eating I’ll get certifiably sick. During the Occupation a lot of people had weak immune systems because they were so undernourished, and once they got sick there weren’t any drugs left to fix them. There were outbreaks of Diphtheria, Scarlet Fever, Typhus, worms, and all sorts of yucky things. When the insulin ran out Diabetics died, and without disinfectant even the smallest of cuts would get infected and couldn’t heal. They became known as Occupation Ulcers and sometimes proved fatal. But, on the bright side, there were noticeably fewer cases of depression. Presumably this was because people had real problems to worry about and no real time to obsess. (Although they had multiple, massive nervous breakdowns once they were liberated instead.)

  Whatever the medical facts are, it would be best not to trust Dr Senner with them. He is The Most Crap Doctor in the Whole World (or Guernsey). I don’t know why Mum thought he could help me since it’s not like he helped Dad. The one time he came round to our house to see Dad they had a big argument and Dad was Horrified-and-Humiliated-of-St-Peter-Port (and went storming off). Dr Senner was useless then, and I don’t think much has changed. Besides, he’s already decided I’m trouble(d). He didn’t want Mum to leave us alone together, in case I accused him of sexual molestation.

  ‘There’s nothing physically wrong with you,’ he said, staying firmly behind his desk. ‘But obviously the mind is a powerful organ.’

  I shrugged. ‘Mum insisted I see you. She’s obviously worried because of what happened with Dad. You should do some blood tests, or something. I think that’d keep her happy.’

  Dr S. nodded absently, like he was playing along with a not-funny joke.

  ‘And what would you expect me to find?’

  ‘Hmmm, let me think,’ I tapped my chin. ‘Well, obviously not your homebrew since it all got drunk a few weeks back.’

  Dr S. pushed his thumb into the top of his pen. He must feel pretty guilty that his homebrew was ‘Exhibit A’ after they found Nic’s battered remains in the sea.

  During the War real alcohol was hard to come by, so people made their own, which was deadly lethal, and Dr Senner’s homebrew is no better. It was the first alcohol I ever tasted and I’m amazed anyone else would’ve willingly drunk it because it honestly tasted like vinegar plus floor cleaner. Dr S. let me try some when I was only 10 because he had this theory it would put me off for life. Dr Suck-It-Up knows alcoholism is a major problem on Guernsey, although Dad said the real problem was in Alderney.34

  Dr S. was watching me through the shrubbery of his eyebrows.

  ‘So you don’t want to go back to school? I know Nicolette was a friend of yours. What you’re feeling, we are all feeling. Vicky is devastated. You should talk to her. If you sat down with your classmates, you could talk it through together.’

  Talk it through with those cretins? I don’t think so.

  Dr S. twiddled his pen between his fingers. ‘Maybe you feel bad that you weren’t at the party, maybe you think you could have stopped Nicolette.’

  ‘No,’ I said firmly, ‘I didn’t care whether or not I was invited to the party. I feel sorry for Vicky, that’s all. Nic used her like she used me. She called Vicky loads of horrible things, and even made jokes about when she’d have to start shaving.’

  Dr S. frowned and I felt bad.

  ‘Sorry, but it’s true. I think it’s important to be honest since there’s been so much lying already. Nic used to make me lie. She was always egging me on to do bad stuff, and I know she was the same with Vicky.’

  Dr S. nodded. ‘You seem angry.’

  ‘No,’ I sighed, ‘I’m disappointed. I’m disappointed that people aren’t admitting what Nic was really like. At least now she won’t be around to cause more trouble and upset, and I’m just saying what a lot of people are thinking. You mustn’t go blaming Vicky for the party getting out-of-hand. It was Nic who invited half the island. And you should’ve guessed how it would end up. You are a grown-up, and grown-ups should know better.’

  Dr S. sniffed in all of his nostril hair and stared at his pens.

  ‘Does it feel better to get things off your chest?’

  I glared at him. ‘There’s a lot more I could tell you.’

  He opened his palms. ‘By all means. Whatever you tell me is in confidence.’

  How interesting. Dr Suck-Eggs-Know-It-All could keep all my secrets, just like he kept Dad’s secrets.

  It was quite tempting, I’ll admit. I could’ve reached over the desk then and there, grabbed Dr S. by the collar and told him to listen carefully. Then I could’ve confessed to all sorts of grisly details about my big fight with Nic. I could’ve said that I’d followed her out of the Village after the party and watched and waited in the bushes. How I’d maybe LURED her away from all her little friends in the woods and made her come to the Batterie, before BLUDGEONING her to death with a bottle of homebrew, and pulling out some hair as a trophy. I could’ve claimed that I’d pushed her off the cliff on purpose. Yes. I could’ve invented any old detail knowing he couldn’t do a thing about it. Wouldn’t that have been something? To spill my guts to Dr Suck Eggs in his joy-of-beige office and then make him respect my privacy.

  But I didn’t, and actually I didn’t need to. After half an hour he was telling Mum it wouldn’t be the end of the world if I missed the last week of school. He said Vicky had been sent home twice already.

  ‘It’s nearly Christmas and maybe we should all take some time out,’ he smiled. Then he lowered his voice, ‘And I do think Cathy would benefit from some sessions with a counsellor. It would help her process things, most definitely.’

  Do you know what that means? I’ve got to go and see (drum-roll, please) Mrs Senner! Yes, Guernsey’s that small: our local loud-mouth is a registered psycho-whatsit and sits in a big room up at the hospital surrounded by abstract art posters and her certificates of depression. I was meant to go there once before to talk about what did or didn’t happen with Mr McCracken. Of course I got out of it, but afterwards Mrs Sigmund Suck Up was always round at our house, pursing her pink lips.

  ‘If you ask me,’ she’d say, ‘there’s no smoke without fire . . .’

  In point of fact you can have smoke without fire, although it’s more accurate to call it gas. Chlorine gas is greenish in colour and poisons the lungs. It was widely used in the First World War and nearly killed my grandfather. It’s a pretty dirty weapon to use, but we all need good weapons.

  I had to fight to keep Nic as my special friend, and I had Lisa, Anne-Marie and Shelley all yap-yap-yapping at my heels. Even Vicky wanted in. I always felt out-numbered. After the War was over the Channel Islande
rs were heavily criticised for not resisting the Germans. The thing is, people never realise how many Germans there were on the Island. In occupied Norway, there were about 1,200 Norwegians for every German occupier, and in France there was one German to 120 French people. In Guernsey the ratio was almost one to one! There was nowhere to hide or run to, and who was to know it wouldn’t stay like that for ever?

  I wanted Nic to stay my friend and I would’ve done anything for her. I’m not just talking about the shoplifting and the drinking. She said that if I was serious about Mr McCracken then I had to grow up and get some Experience. This meant doing things with boys, more specifically Marc Le Page.

  We therefore spent whole days at Pete’s house. It seemed so depressing to have the curtains closed in the middle of the day. Pagey and I would sit on the sofa and watch horror films while Nic and Pete disappeared upstairs. I generally liked horror films on account of the large number of cheerleaders who were beheaded. Pagey said he’d never met a girl who enjoyed scenes of dismemberment like I did. I suppose it took my mind off whatever was happening off the screen. I tell you, French kissing just shows what perverts the French are, and as for the rest of it, it was worse than P.E.

  I honestly cannot understand why God or Charles Darwin or whoever couldn’t have made the penis more attractive. Maybe given it bright feathers that fan out like a peacock, or made it a nice colour and gotten rid of all that hair around it (although in theory the hair helps to hide it). I’m amazed the human race hasn’t died out with penises looking how they do. I’m also amazed Marc Le Page doesn’t prefer to keep his hidden.

  Kissing him was like dunking my head in a puddle of spit. At least the sex part was over quickly, and sex was another reason why I started drinking more. Drinking helped me then like it helps me now, and if ever I drank too much I simply went to the bathroom and made myself sick. It seemed a whole lot easier to throw up and drink more than ever to have to stop. Dad always blamed Mum’s cooking when I found him in our downstairs toilet, making himself sick. Mum didn’t like being blamed, although she got used to it. She’d crack two eggs into a glass and whisk them with tomato juice, then she’d make him drink it down in one. I presumed that was her most ex-cellent revenge.