The Book of Ebenezer le Page Page 23

  I am but a stranger here:

  Heaven is my home,

  I am saying under my breath:

  I am but a stranger here:

  Guernsey is my home.

  I will never, never feel at home in England! Never! I look at it; but I don’t see it. It isn’t real. It’s a dream. I wake up when I get back.’ Well, I thought, if you let off steam on those in the college the same as you do on me, they will very soon bundle you back to Guernsey.

  5

  There is a story in the Bible about a man who buried his talent in the ground. I think he came to a bad end. Well, I am that man, I reckon. I don’t know what my talent was exactly, but I do know I have done nothing in my life to shout about, except win the leg of mutton off the greasy pole. Otherwise, I have only managed to make a living and pay my way and save a bit and pass for being respectable, even if I haven’t always been. At least, I have kept out of jail; but more by good luck than good management. I might easily have landed myself in there once or twice. Nor have they got me put away in the Country Hospital yet, which I suppose is something; but there are some people who think that is where I ought to be. I am not so sure that I don’t agree with them. I wasted the best years of my life waiting and hoping to marry that Liza. I must have been mad.

  It’s true my mother was getting steadily worse; but that wasn’t the reason stopped me from marrying Liza. La Tabby was quite willing to leave the Priaulx and come and live at home and look after my mother. I didn’t ask her: she offered without me having to ask. She always seemed to know what was going through my mind, my sister. I could have afforded to have a little house built and there was a patch of ground next to ours I could have bought; but I wasn’t going to launch out without some encouragement from Liza, and I got none. She said she couldn’t leave the old lady. Lady Carey was now getting on in years and wasn’t very well; but, as far as I could make out, all she suffered from was the rheumatics. I reminded Liza of what she had said about the healthy looking after the sick. ‘Ah, but that was different,’ she said, ‘men are such babies when they’re sick.’ What Liza seemed to forget was that she was getting older as well. For ten years or more she didn’t look a day older than twenty-six, and people said I looked young for my age. When I got grumpy and quarrelsome, she would laugh me out of it. ‘When we are dead and gone, we’ll be a legend in Guernsey,’ she said. ‘Ebenezer Le Page and Liza Quéripel who was lovers to the last day of their lives.’ The trouble was we wasn’t lovers.

  By some miracle, I managed to keep myself from chasing after other girls. It was fat legs made me think of higher things, and now and again I would see a girl with fat legs and lust after her, but it was only with half an eye, and I would think to myself I’ll only be tired and fed-up after, and didn’t bother. I don’t think Liza would have cared if I had. She caught me at it more than once, as I often caught her measuring up any big, tall bloke she happened to see. Once when we caught each other looking at a couple going into Gardner’s Royal, she burst out laughing. ‘My dear, you and me are tarred with the same brush,’ she said. ‘Shall we go in and have a drink and introduce ourselves?’ ‘Of course not!’ I said.

  I was being made a fool of. For years I was at Liza’s beck and call. It wasn’t she allowed me to see her so often. Sometimes for two or three weeks she would say she couldn’t see me. The old lady always came first. Sundays she didn’t come out with me once. Saturday evenings she came to Town with me a few times; but Saturdays she preferred for me to have tea with her in the afternoon at Castle Carey. She had two rooms of her own there and it was very comfortable and nice; but we was waited on by a servant and I don’t like being waited on by a servant, when I know I am no better than she is. Those evenings Liza would have dinner with the family and, if I wanted to go to Town, I had to go on my own. It wasn’t one thing, or the other. To make it worse, she never knew if she was going to be free the next week. She would let Ada know because Ada had the telephone; and poor Ada had to come all the way from the Marais to tell me. She made a servant of Ada, as well as of me. Thursday afternoons was when she liked going out; and I had to ask Mr Dorey for the half-day off. He let me have it; but I wasn’t paid, as I was having the Saturday afternoon in any case. In summer what she enjoyed most was going for a picnic to Fermain Bay. It was the nearest bay to Town and there was plenty smart young Townies there to admire her. I carried the basket of food. I was the perfect little gentleman.

  Of course, everybody thought we was engaged. When Prissy came to see my mother, it was always ‘Is it that son of yours isn’t married yet, then?’ My mother would say, ‘Mais ils ne sont pas seulement engagie!’ Prissy would then bring up about this one and that one, who had been going about together for twenty years and wasn’t married yet, and never would be. ‘It don’t do to know the one you’re going to marry for too long,’ she said, ‘or nobody would get married at all. That’s why I’m all for boys and girls marrying young; before they find out their mistake.’ She was hoping Horace would marry a rich American girl and bring her home; but he said he had too many over there to choose from. He was travelling all over the States for the company he worked for. They was doing a roaring business since the War.

  La Prissy was one of the first to take regular summer visitors; and, in fairness to her, I must say she fed them well and didn’t charge them much. Anyhow, they must have been satisfied, because the same ones came again year after year. Prissy was happy to have the company, and it kept her off the drink. My Cousin Mary Ann didn’t go near Timbuctoo during the summer months. Myself, I was getting so desperate, I was working out mad schemes in my mind to go to America. I wasn’t going to tell Liza. One day when Ada would come with a message, I would be gone, and Tabby would be looking after my mother in my place. I thought perhaps Liza would be sorry when she heard. I didn’t go, though. Instead, whenever Ada did come with a message, I would start cleaning my hands with pumice-stone and put on my best suit and follow at Liza’s heels like a little dog. I could kick myself now.

  I went round with the boys on occasion, when Liza didn’t want me. It was the same old gang, what was left of it; and when I’d had a few drinks, I’d open my big mouth as I used to about things I knew nothing about and cared less. One night I was in the Caves de Bordeaux with much the same crowd as the night we got chucked out. Eddie Le Tissier wasn’t there; and old Wally Budden was gone to be with Prince Albert the Good. Jim Le Poidevin was there with his one leg, and Jim Machon coughing up his guts. He wasn’t supposed to drink, according to the doctor, but he said if he couldn’t have a wet now and then, what was there to live for? Amos Duquemin was there, knowing the rights and wrongs of everything, as he always did. All the talk that evening was about the money the English wanted the States to pay. The English wanted thousands from us every year to help them to pay for the War. The States was hm-ing and ha-ing in their slow way as usual, but they wasn’t paying up. In the end, they agreed to offer a lump sum once and for all; but the English didn’t want that, and wouldn’t accept it. After a few years they had to, or they wouldn’t have got nothing. I was arguing the States didn’t ought to pay a penny. I made a nice long speech and everybody agreed with me, except Amos Duquemin. He said the English and the Canadians and the Australians and the New Zealanders and God knows who else was all one big family with us, and we ought to help to pay each other’s debts. I don’t know where he got that daft idea from. Mess Fellerah said I ought to be on the States.

  The King and Queen came over to Guernsey in their yacht, the Victoria and Albert. It was a lovely yacht. Liza was invited with the Careys to a Garden Party to meet the King and Queen; but I was grumpy and angry about everything, and swore I would keep out of their way. I said to Liza, ‘Those sort of people only come to Guernsey when they want something.’ It was a big holiday for everybody on the island, but I worked at home all the morning, and in the afternoon I thought I would go and see Jim Machon. He was getting so much worse he couldn’t go out. I knew the King and Queen was going to d
rive from the Town Church along the Banks and round Bulwer Avenue to St Sampson’s. Jim Machon lived at the Grandes Maisons, so I thought I would dodge their Majesties; but I had just come down Delancey Lane and was standing at Luff’s Corner, when who should I see coming along the road in a motor-car but the King and Queen. There was two other cars behind with some nobs of the States; but nobody put me in the road. I heard after that they had been held up in Town by the people cheering and therefore had to give Bulwer Avenue the go-by and cut in at Pike’s Corner, or they would have been late according to the programme. There was another colossal crowd waiting to cheer them on the Bridge. I was caught. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t have a hat on, so I couldn’t take it off. I just stood to attention at the edge of the kerb. The Queen was a fine figure of a woman with a bust, and wore a round hat like Liza’s. Her face looked as if it was made of enamel and she couldn’t smile, or it would crack; but she bowed stiff from the waist up. She didn’t look to see who I was. The old King did, him, and put up his hand and smiled. I forgot myself. I waved and shouted, ‘Warro, George! Good old George!’ He looked back over his shoulder and laughed. God, he was a nice chap, that!

  Jim Le Poidevin was the last of the three Jims; and lived for many years after Jim Machon died. He wasn’t as big as my Jim, but slim and well-built when he was a young chap; and, before he went to France, used to go to dances a lot. He was engaged to Etienne de la Mare from the Vauquiédor and, when she heard what had happened to him, she said she would marry him if he had lost both legs; but he hadn’t been back a week before the engagement was broken off. It was him did it. He was blamed by many people and he let them blame him, but I think he did right. He told me that once, when she was all soft and loving, he said to her brutally ‘How are you going to like having a stump in your bed?’ and he saw the look of disgust pass across her face, before she could say ‘Darling, it don’t make any difference.’ ‘I wouldn’t put any girl through that,’ he said to me. I don’t know what happened to her in the end. I know she went round with Gerald Mahy for a time. Young Gerald came back as cocky as ever and went to work again in the Old Bank. He was waiting for his commission in the Flying Corps when the Armistice came. He was disappointed the War didn’t go on longer.

  Jim Le Poidevin could have got an artificial leg and pottered about at home. His people was growers and quite well-to-do; but he said he didn’t want to be dependent on them for the rest of his life. He made up his mind he would learn a trade and decided to be a cobbler. Clarrie Bellot from by the Tin Church, who was a sapper in France all through the War and came back without a scratch, taught him for nothing: which is just the sort of thing Clarrie would do, though it might mean less business for him. I’m glad to say it didn’t, because he was such a steady chap and so much liked he always got more work than he could do. Jim Le Poidevin had a small pension and the Government bought him a machine; and he got a wooden hut built for himself at Port Soif, before you get to Gran’-Rock. It was only two rooms: one where he slept and cooked his food and ate; and the other was his workshop. He lived there on his own for years, winter and summer. I took him all our boots and shoes to mend. He had plenty of friends. It didn’t matter when you went in the shop there was some fellow yarning with him, while he was doing his work. As the years passed he got fattish and broad in the beam and a bit of an old woman. He got to know everything there was to know about everybody. When the Germans came and it was every man for himself, he suffered more than most, and the last year of the Occupation, nearly starved. A few weeks after the Liberation he was found dead in his bed.

  Monsieur Le Boutillier’s house got built at last. Harold and Percy and a couple of chaps was on it for months, on and off. It wasn’t a bad little house, come to that, but not to be compared to Les Moulins. They wasn’t building solid houses then, like in my grandfather’s time; and it cost over a thousand. It was stone under the plaster, but not the good blue granite; and while the gables was left white, the front was daubed a pale yellow colour. I didn’t like the colour myself. It was a two-storey house with three windows upstairs and a window each side of the door down. Percy got his way and put on fancy chimney-pots; but the first rough night one blew down and broke some of the slates, as I knew would happen. I watched the goings-on. It was stout chimney-stacks was needed for our windy corner: as those who built Les Moulins knew. The new house was the other side of the gully, thank goodness, and with the gable towards us. That was as it should be. Monsieur Le Boutillier was a Jerseyman. I couldn’t imagine what that girl Ozanne from the Friquet, who I had always thought was a sensible girl, could have been thinking about to marry a Jerseyman; but she met him when she went over one year for the Battle of Flowers. They hadn’t been married long, and was living with her people at the Friquet while the house was being built.

  I made up my mind I would start off as I meant to go on, and let that Jerseyman know we wasn’t going to be running in and out of each other’s houses. He had to pass our front gate to get to L’Islet, and seemed quite ready to stop and have a chat. I was civil and passed the time of day; but no more. I wasn’t going to let him know my business. I didn’t want to know his. He got three vergées of ground and was going to grow potatoes and outdoor tomatoes, so he thought; but he soon found out his mistake. His potatoes didn’t do too bad, but this wasn’t Jersey. There where it faces south it is easier to grow tomatoes out of doors. He was now living facing north and learnt he would have to grow tomatoes under glass, if they was going to be early enough to make any price. He had to have a greenhouse put up.

  To crown it all, he was a Roman Catholic. I would see him pass our gate early every Sunday morning on his way to the Catholic Church at Delancey. It was before breakfast. Those who went to Church or Chapel didn’t go at such an ungodly hour. Mind you, it didn’t worry me what church he went to. He could go to any church he liked, or none, as far as I was concerned: but it was too much for my mother. She believed the Roman Catholic Church was the Whore of Babylon. I don’t think she spoke a single word to Monsieur Le Boutillier all the time she knew him. When she died, he came across and offered his sympathy and I thanked him. I didn’t invite him to the funeral.

  Mind you, I am not saying I am proud of the way I treated Monsieur Le Boutillier when he came to live at La Corbière. When the time of the testing came and the Germans was all around us, it was Monsieur Le Boutillier who was a better and a truer friend to me than many a Guernseyman I could name. I honour the memory of Jean Le Boutillier. His son and daughter-in-law live at La Corbière now with their family, and there isn’t a day passes but one of the young ones come across to see if I am all right. I don’t blame my mother so much. She had her religion to consider. I have no such excuse. One live and learn.

  6

  I was beginning to get really worried about my mother. She had always been a big woman, but now she was having to let out her clothes and her face was getting puffy. It hurt me to see her dragging her great weight about the house. One evening I came in from work and found she hadn’t washed up the dishes from dinner; and I knew then there must be something very wrong. I said she ought to see the doctor. She said, ‘The doctor can’t do nothing.’ ‘He might,’ I said. She said, ‘It is the will of God.’ Whenever my mother said ‘Ch’est la volonté de Dieu,’ I knew it was no use me arguing. I have often wondered about my mother’s religion: how different it was from Tabitha’s. Tabitha went to Church with the Priaulx and to Service with my mother sometimes; but I am not sure she had a religion really. She had faith. I don’t know in what, or how. She suffered in her life, yet I doubt if she was ever truly unhappy. She seemed to know that underneath everything was good. I wish I could think the same.

  Anyhow, whether it was the will of God, or not the will of God, I went to Dr de Jersey at the Albion Terrace and asked him to come and see my mother. He wanted to know what was the matter with her and, from what I said, he thought it was the dropsy. If so, there wasn’t much he could do; but he would come and examine her,
he said. When I got back I was wondering if I ought to tell her where I had been, as I knew she would want to wash herself all over before he came; but I was no sooner inside the door than she said, ‘The doctor, when is he coming, him?’ If my mother wasn’t a witch, what was she? I was gone to work when he came; but she looked better for it, I thought. She said he was a kind man. He had told her what she ought to eat and not eat, and was going to get ready some pills and some medicine for her to take. I went to the surgery and got the pills and the medicine, and put them on the dresser; but I didn’t see them again. I found them after the funeral at the back of the top shelf on the cupboard, where we kept a bottle of brandy in case of sickness, and they hadn’t been unwrapped from the paper. I didn’t do no good by going to the doctor.

  At last she got it was so hard for her to walk, she couldn’t go to Service with the Brethren. It was the one thing she always looked forward to. There was several of the Brethren had motor-cars, but not one of them thought of fetching her from the house and bringing her home. Those people was as hard to each other as the Lord was to them. I was very angry about that. I reckon it is up to us to treat each other better than the Lord do, and teach Him a lesson. I thought the least I could do was to give up my job and work at home, and help my mother all I could. She had been used to dig the potatoes like a man, and fill and carry the bucket from the well, but now it was as much as she could do to stand by the fire and cook.

  I explained to Mr Dorey and he understood. He said he was sorry to lose me and would be glad to have me back at any time. Myself, I wasn’t altogether sorry to become my own master, though I knew it meant I wasn’t going to be so well off. However, I thought I would have a new end built on to my greenhouse and, what with doing more fishing, I would manage to keep going somehow. I gave the work on the greenhouse to Harold, and he made a good job of it. Also I paid him on the dot and he was delighted. He had bills owing to him all over the place. The new end he built was lower than the rest, but of wider span. It was his idea; and I have had some very good crops in it, and ripe early. I cut down the hedge was supposed to be my boundary and let Harold take in a yard or two of the land at the top of the gully. If it belonged to an old lady in Torteval, she must have died without heirs; for nobody have ever said a word.