Lorna Cook - The Girl from the Island

The policeman caught sight of Persey and nodded his head by way of a solemn greeting. The German men he had been standing with turned to look at her with interest. In fear of being noticed, she looked away, mounted her bicycle and pedalled until she had left the airport far behind her. When she was down the lane, Persey jumped from her bicycle and threw it down onto the ground. Its wheels spun wildly from the abrupt action as she bent down at the side of the lane and was violently sick into the hedge.

Persey caught Doctor Durand as he emerged from his patient’s cottage stepping towards his motorcar and he looked more than a little surprised to see her.

‘Persephone, are you quite all right?’ he asked. Doctor Durand was her father’s friend of old. The two had known each other since school, and while her father had gone into accountancy, his friend had chosen to heal. With her father gone, the doctor had always kept a considerate eye on the remaining inhabitants of Deux Tourelles.

‘The Germans are here,’ Persey relayed to him.

The doctor stepped away from his vehicle and closed the door. He took in Persephone’s face, which she knew must look pale. ‘Yes, I saw. Over at the airport. Hard to believe, really.’ There was momentary silence before he continued. ‘You didn’t cycle out here to tell me that, did you?’

‘No. It’s mother. She’s getting worse. Will you come and see? After you’ve seen your next patient of course.’

‘I’ll come now. I can’t get your bicycle in the motorcar though. All right if I leave you in my wake and see you there?’

Persey nodded.

‘It means you’ll have to ride past the airport again. Didn’t get any trouble from any of the Germans, did you? Not sure whether it’s a good idea you being on your own. We don’t know what they’re like.’

Persey also had no idea if it was a sensible idea being alone. ‘I’ll be fine. I’ll pedal fast. Just in case.’

She watched the doctor drive away in the direction of Deux Tourelles and stood watching aircraft stream in one by one overhead, descending towards the airport. Everything had changed. In just a few short days, their island wasn’t their own anymore. They had been bombed and now they were going to be … what, exactly? She didn’t know. The reports from other nations that the Germans had already steamrollered their way into had not been good, had not been complimentary about Nazi behaviour. What kind of fate were they all to suffer? And for how long?

When Persey arrived home she felt a sense of relief at seeing the doctor’s car parked in the sweep of the drive. Everything would be all right now. The Germans might be on the island in droves, her mother might be sick, but for the next half an hour or so Doctor Durand would know what to do; would administer medicine of some kind and Persey and Dido’s mother would recover. And then tomorrow would be another day. Or would it be the beginning of hell? The beginning of Nazi Occupation? She paused in the garage where she propped her bicycle in its usual space against the wall near father’s old Wolseley Series II motorcar. Other than Jack giving it a run around the island every now and again to keep the engine ticking over, it had been parked there ever since father’s death two years earlier.

That day, her father had returned home from the golf club in time for supper, muttering something about needing to pop into his study for just five minutes before they dined. It was only when the housekeeper Mrs Grant had finally sent Persey to fetch her father before the gravy congealed that she discovered he’d passed away, slumped at his desk, chequebook on the table, pen in hand. A stroke, Doctor Durand had said. No warning; he’d been in peak health until then, which was of very little comfort to anyone.

Persey reached out and touched the bonnet of the car before she left the garage, as if it would bring her closer to her father. But of course it never did.

From inside the entrance hall Persephone could hear the faint sound of someone weeping. She stood still and moved inside without closing the door and realised that it was two people weeping, not one. She was rooted to the spot, unable to move, unable to ascend the staircase; instead she stared up towards the wooden banisters of the upper landing.

Doctor Durand appeared at the top of the stairs and looked down towards Persephone. ‘My dear,’ he started. ‘I am incredibly sorry …’

Persey’s shoulders slumped. She knew what he wanted to say and she wouldn’t let him. ‘No.’ She shook her head, holding his gaze, daring him to say it. ‘No.’

The combined sounds of Dido and Mrs Grant crying drifted towards them in the silence on the staircase.

‘She’s not dead,’ Persey started. ‘My mother is not dead.’

‘I am afraid so. I’m so terribly sorry.’ He looked as if he wanted to say something else but closed his mouth, clearly thinking better of it.

In the shock that hit Persey she thought she knew what he’d been about to say: Why didn’t you telephone earlier? It was a question she now asked herself. She hadn’t been quick enough. Hadn’t seen the signs in time, had let the fever rage for too long. And now … if she stayed standing here and didn’t move, it wouldn’t be real. If she didn’t go into her mother’s room and see her, in bed, no longer breathing … it wouldn’t be real, wouldn’t have actually happened.

‘But …’ Sobs prevented her speaking until she eventually uttered, ‘But … I was only gone from the house for half an hour. An hour, at most. I think. She can’t … in that time?’

Doctor Durand was spared answering as Dido appeared at the stairs.

‘Oh, Dido,’ Persey cried. Dido stumbled past Doctor Durand and down the stairs towards her sister, who was still rooted to the floor, and the two embraced.

‘It’s my fault. I should have …’ Persey started.

‘It’s not your fault, Persey, it’s not,’ Dido said into Persey’s hair between sobs. Persey felt her sister’s tear-streaked face dampen her own.

Dido pulled back from her sister and looked past her towards the front door. But it was only when Persey caught Doctor Durand looking in the same direction that she felt compelled to turn and follow their collective gaze.

Her eyes were blurred with tears and so Persey wasn’t able to make out the features of the man standing in the doorway, or those of the two other men behind him. But the uniform told her all she needed to know. That dark jacket, belted at the waist, eagle insignias embroidered onto the breast and the peaked cap that shielded the man’s eyes. His head was tipped down as if … ashamed? No, Persey thought. But if not that, then what?

He spoke perfect English in a German accent that should have surprised Persey but didn’t. He was German. Of course he was. And he was in the entrance hall of Deux Tourelles.

‘I appear to have called at a difficult time,’ he said.

‘Yes, you bloody have,’ Dido cried. ‘How dare—?’

Persey grabbed her sister’s hand, clutching it tightly, stopping Dido from saying anything she shouldn’t in the presence of the enemy. But she herself was unable to speak, unable to save the situation. She blinked in disbelief at the past few minutes, at the sudden loss of her mother and the surprising arrival of the Germans not only on the island but also at her front door, their jackbooted feet on the welcome mat of their home.

She nodded, only able to whisper an almost silent, ‘Yes. It is a dreadful time.’ She gulped back tears. ‘We have had a death.’

‘Then I apologise at my poor timing.’ He looked behind him at the two men who had accompanied him, his face now cast in the shadow from the peak of his cap. ‘I will return tomorrow.’