The Collaborator (18 page)

D
ecember. I have lit a good fire in the living-room grate, and we sit on the hearthrug and have our story by the light of the flames. Alphonse is sleeping beside us, his curled-up body moving with the rhythm of his breath, and the room has a friendly smell of warm wool from the clothes that are drying on the fireguard. Outside, rain lashes the window: there’s a storm blowing in from the sea.

I read from the book that Angie gave us; about a ghostly funeral that winds its way down the lanes; about a reef in Rocquaine Bay that is haunted by an unnatural beast, whose roar can be heard when storms approach; about the old road that runs between St Saviour’s and St Pierre du Bois, a road that is known as La Rue de la Bête, where lonely travellers have met a supernatural creature. Millie sighs with pleasure.

‘I like ghost stories, Mummy. But Blanche is really frightened of them.’ She grins smugly. Blanche’s mouth tightens briefly. ‘Millie, you talk a load of nonsense,’ she says. Blanche is sewing—letting down the hem of one of her skirts.
She’s growing so fast at the moment, growing out of her clothes, her limbs gazelle-like and angled, so she seems at once gawky and graceful. She holds up her needle to thread it: it has a brief dangerous glitter in the light of the fire. ‘Read me another one,’ says Millie.

I read about Portelet beach, where at dusk you may meet a little hunched woman all wrapped up in a shawl, who is said to be searching and searching for the son she has lost.

‘Is that
really, really
true?’ says Millie.

‘No, sweetheart. It’s just a story …’

There’s no sound in the room but the stir of the fire and the rush of rain at the window. A log in the grate collapses inwards and sends up a fountain of sparks.

Millie frowns.

‘Why do people tell ghost stories? If ghosts aren’t really real?’

I wonder what to say. I could give her the obvious answer— Because the people who first told the stories believed that ghosts were real. But then Millie would say, Well, maybe they were
right,
Mummy—and I don’t want to mislead or frighten her.

‘I think they do it because they’re afraid of the dark,’ I tell her.

‘I’m
not afraid of the dark,’ she says.

‘No. But lots of people are. I was very afraid of the dark when I was little …’

I remember the time that Iris shut me in the coalshed. How I had my eyes wide open, but there was only darkness. I shudder even now, thinking of it.

‘I’m
not, Mummy,’ she says. ‘I’m nearly five, and I’m not afraid of the dark.’

I move the clothes round on the fireguard, so the warmth will reach the damper parts. Raindrops are blown down the chimney and hiss and spit in the flames. The cat shifts and yawns and burrows more deeply down into sleep.

I turn back to the storybook, turn the page.

There’s a story that tells how some island people have fairy blood—the blood of fairy invaders. These fairies came from their far-off homeland and over the sea in boats, which were craftily made, with spells woven into their sails. As the fairies drew nearer and nearer to land, the boats became smaller and smaller, until when they finally beached them, the boats were tiny as pebbles or the delicate bones of a bird. The fairies were beautiful creatures—both men and women—looking human, but lovelier; and sometimes they fell for island people, and married and set up house with them. But however happy they were on Guernsey with their loved ones, they were obliged to return eventually to their homeland—under a contract written in blood that could not be disobeyed. Sooner or later they had to leave the people they loved and sail away.

‘Is that the end of the story?’ says Millie.

‘Yes. That’s all the book tells us.’

She frowns. The fire shuffles softly; tiny flames red as poppies dance in the dark of her eyes.

‘I don’t like the ending. It’s sad. It’s not a good ending,’ she says.

And I think just for a moment that, yes, that was sad, and how could you live, not knowing when the one you loved would leave you. And then think that it’s always like that.

O
ne day I ask about his wife: I feel an intense, feverish curiosity about her. ‘What is she like? Could you tell me something about her?’ I ask boldly.

‘Ilse?’ He hesitates. ‘How do you sum up a person? She keeps the house well. She holds everything together.’ Ilse must be a strong woman. I can sense that. ‘She gave me safety, for a while,’ he tells me. ‘Yes,’ I say: understanding how that would matter to him—to have a safe place, a place to retreat to. That need is one that we share.

‘And she is a good mother to Hermann. But it was a difficult birth, with many complications. She decided she would never have another child. That part of our life is over for us. It has been over for a long time.’

I feel a quick illicit happiness, when he says that: because it takes a little of the guilt away from me. Then feel guilty again, that I felt that.

‘Show me,’ I say. ‘You must have a photograph. Show me.’

As he pushes back the covers, goose-bumps come up on my
arms. It’s chilly in my bedroom tonight: a bitter wind rattles the windows, and the candle-flames dip and tremble in the draught that sneaks under the door.

He goes to the pocket of his uniform jacket, pulls out a photograph, brings it to me. It shows the three of them together.

It’s unnerving—this image of his other life that I know nothing of: his real life. His life of family, country, duty, obligation. I am looking in on a story that has nothing to do with me.

The first thing I notice is how much younger he looks in the picture—how the years since this was taken have written on him and marked him.

‘You seem so young in the picture,’ I say.

He smiles a rueful smile.

‘You mean, I look much older now,’ he says.

‘I suppose I do … I reach out my hand and trace out his face, the strong bones under the skin. ‘But I love the way you look now …’

Then I turn from him, stare at the other people in the picture.

Ilse is small, with high cheekbones and faraway eyes. Her hair is pale—maybe blonde or grey—and coiled in a plait round her head. Her expression is diffident, earnest: I picture her lying awake in the night-time, worrying, weaving the disparate strands of her family’s life together—struggling to make it all work out; adding everything up. Their son is maybe twelve in the picture, and very fair and freckled; he has his mother’s expression, eager for approval. He is wearing some kind of uniform.

Gunther watches me as I study the photograph—trying to read what I think.

‘We would have very much liked to have another child,’ he
tells me. A little yearning creeps into his voice, when he says that, and I can tell that this has been a source of sadness for both of them. ‘But life doesn’t always give you what you want,’ he says. His eyes on me. ‘Well, most of the time it doesn’t.’

I turn back to the photograph, feeling the heat of his gaze.

‘He looks too young to be in uniform,’ I tell him.

‘We have a movement for young people—the Hitler Jugend,’ he says. ‘Hermann was very keen to join. He did get very involved. I was not entirely happy.’ His face is still, contained, giving nothing away. ‘My wife was happy, but I was not happy. They go too far,’ he says.

‘So why did you let him join?’ I ask.

‘You have to be careful, you don’t want to step out of line,’ he says. ‘And before Hermann joined the Hitler Jugend he was a wayward boy. He kept bad company. The movement gave him a sense of purpose. My wife says that is good, that life is nothing without purpose … My son is in the party now.’

I feel a little shock of cold.
My lover’s son is a Nazi.

‘So you couldn’t stop him? You think they go too far, but you couldn’t stop him?’ I say.

He shakes his head.

‘It would be unwise to do that,’ he says, carefully.

I think of the things we have heard—of the burning of synagogues, Jewish businesses stolen, the broken glass, the insults, the beatings on the street. I don’t say anything.

But he hears my unspoken question.

‘You have to understand this, Vivienne. We couldn’t go on as we were. Germany was on her knees. The Depression was terrible for us. Our world was made of hunger and emergency decrees. We had nothing.’ He’s not looking at me any more:
he’s staring into the darkness in the corners of the room, as though he can see those years spooling out again in front of him. ‘The habits you learn then stay with you. Ilse still has her biscuit-bag—a bag for broken biscuits and crusts that hangs on her cupboard door: nothing could be wasted. Something had to change,’ he says. ‘At first we welcomed Hitler. We felt that his arrival was like a glimmer of hope. Before Hitler, we didn’t eat: once Hitler came, we could eat … But there is much that they do that seems wrong to me,’ he tells me.

‘So—if you could choose, you wouldn’t fight this war?’

Then I wish I hadn’t expressed it like that. I’m putting words into his mouth.

‘Which of us would choose war? To have our lives torn apart like this?’ There’s an edge of anger in him, that I could even ask the question. ‘But I would never say that anywhere else but here. You have to think always of the safety of your family,’ he says.

I think what I said to him before—when he told me how he was beaten, how he should have fought his stepfather:
What choice did you have?
I think, What choice do we have, any of us? But I can’t answer that question.

He puts the photo away in his pocket and gets back into my bed. I can hear the wind howling around my house, like an animal, hunting, predatory: how it seeks to find its way into my house through the least little fissure or crack.

F
ebruary. Johnnie comes with a gift for me, all wrapped up in brown paper. He puts it down on the kitchen table and starts to peel off the layers; inside, there’s greaseproof paper, which is red and shiny with blood.

‘There you go, Auntie. A present for you,’ he tells me. It’s a whole dead rabbit. Gwen has skinned it for me, so you can see the pale mauve flesh, but it still looks very rabbit-like. Once, not so long ago, I found the sight of dead animals saddening. Now, I’m just thinking how I will cook it, with some sprigs of thyme and rosemary; how rich the gravy will be, how very good it will taste. Though I wouldn’t want Millie to see it.

‘Your mother’s an angel,’ I say. ‘But are you really sure you can spare it?’

‘Don’t you worry, Auntie. Those rabbits breed like—well, you know what they say.’

I make him a cup of parsnip coffee. I’ve learnt how to do this—grating the parsnips, roasting them just the right length of time, till they are a rich brown colour like wood shavings, then infusing them. It’s better than nothing, but it always has that burnt taste.

‘Don’t feel you have to drink it if you don’t like it,’ I tell him. But he drinks it rapidly.

The clear white light of early spring spills all over my room—that searching light that shows up the dirt where you haven’t cleaned for a while, all the cobwebs and dustballs you missed in the dull veiled days of winter; and it falls all over Johnnie, his vividness, his restless hands, his eager nut-brown eyes. I watch him drinking his coffee, and think how fond I am of him.

‘So what have you been up to, Johnnie? Still painting V-signs?’ I ask.

He doesn’t answer at once. In the silence between us, I sense something shifting, rearranging itself. His throat moves as he swallows.

‘I wanted to tell you, Auntie. We’ve got a new thing going, me and Piers Falla,’ he says.

But he doesn’t sound very buoyant, and he isn’t meeting my eye.

‘He was going to come here, Piers was,’ Johnnie tells me.

There’s something halting in his voice. I don’t understand what he means. I can’t imagine why Piers would want to come to Le Colombier.

‘I told him not to,’ he says.

Alphonse slinks into the kitchen, lured by the smell of raw meat. He circles the table, mewing loudly, then crouches, poised to leap up. I grab him, put him into the hall, slam the door on him. He scratches at the door and wails: the sound is unnerving, half human, like some uncanny hybrid thing.

‘You see, the point is, Auntie …’

Johnnie isn’t looking at me. He puts out one hand in a small helpless gesture, and knocks his coffee cup over. The dark sludgy
liquid left at the bottom spills out. He straightens the cup, but he doesn’t notice the spill.

I know I should get a wet cloth: but my legs are suddenly shaky and I don’t trust them to work.

‘The thing is … His gaze slides past me. ‘The thing is—there are women on Guernsey who are doing what they shouldn’t. Being a little too friendly. Letting the side down. You know what I mean.’

He flushes—all over his face and his neck, a flush as bright as strawberries.

My heart starts pounding. I wonder if he can see its pounding through my blouse.

‘I’m sure there are.’ My voice casual, light, as though this is nothing to me. ‘Men and women together—you know how it is.’

Then I wish I hadn’t said that. I hear the whine and scratch of the cat on the other side of the door.

‘We’ve had a few tip-offs—we know all their names, where they live. We aren’t going to let them get away with it, Auntie,’ he says. ‘We’re going round painting swastikas on their houses. To show them we know. Show them they should be ashamed.’

‘Johnnie. What good will that do? You’ll only get into trouble.’

‘You do what you have to do,’ he says.

It’s what he told me before. But there isn’t that bright certainty that I used to hear in his voice.

‘Have you told your mum and dad about this?’ I ask him. ‘Not exactly,’ he says.

I think—
So why are you telling me, Johnnie?
The unspoken question hangs in the air between us. The words seem so solid, like tangible things—you could put out your finger and touch.

Johnnie is studying the table, as though a secret were written there, some code in the grain of the wood.

‘Piers says—he says there are rumours about you, Auntie.’ His voice so quiet I can only just hear. ‘About you and one of the Germans at Les Vinaires. Piers wanted to paint a swastika here, on the wall of Le Colombier. I said, no, of course not. I said of course he was wrong.’

But there’s a question in his voice.

A pulse is hammering in my throat.

‘Johnnie—you shouldn’t listen to rumours.’

‘Auntie. He says that you were seen in a car with one of them,’ he tells me.

I feel a rush of relief—that this is all he knows.

‘Oh, that,’ I say. ‘Well, that’s true enough. The man gave me a lift. It was raining. I had a puncture.’

He glances up at me. He has a bleak, desolate look.

‘It was raining, and I needed to get back to Millie.’ I hear the pleading note in my voice. ‘Her grandma isn’t so good at looking after Millie now. Her grandma isn’t quite all there … I don’t like to leave them for long …’

He’s still looking at me so sadly, as though I have disappointed him. I hate this: I want to be good in his eyes. I don’t want to lose his respect. He doesn’t say anything.

‘What use would it have been, to walk all the way back in the rain?’ I’m protesting too much; but I can’t stop. ‘I don’t see how that would help anyone …’

He shakes his head a little.

‘You shouldn’t have done that really, Auntie. It wasn’t sensible. People could jump to the wrong conclusions,’ he says. We are edging towards safety.

‘You’re right, it was a really bad idea,’ I say. ‘But it was raining so heavily …’

He lets out his breath in a little sigh, as though he has decided to accept what I’ve said.

‘I told him,’ he says. ‘I told him you’d never dream of doing anything that you shouldn’t. I said, You do realise, this is my Auntie Viv we’re talking about.’

We sit silently for a moment. The smell of the raw, bloody meat is sickening. Nausea rises in my throat and I try to swallow it down.

‘So who spread the story?’ he asks me. ‘That there was more to it than that?’

‘I don’t know, Johnnie.’

‘Is there someone who’s got it in for you? Someone who wants to get their own back for something they think you did? Someone with a grudge against you?’

‘Not that I know of.’

He’s still waiting. Waiting for a lifeline—something to haul him in to shore. I have to give him more than this.

‘But of course there might be,’ I say. ‘There might be someone with a grudge. You know what island folk are like. People do hold grudges round here.’

‘That’s probably it, then.’ Persuading himself. ‘Somebody with a grudge against you, Auntie.’

‘Yes, I expect so.’

‘I told Piers you weren’t like that,’ he says. ‘That you’d never let the side down. I said, She’s my
auntie …”

When Johnnie has gone, I scrub and scrub at my kitchen table, but I can’t get out the stain from the coffee he spilled.