The Book of Ebenezer le Page (61 page)

The worst nuisances of all was a married couple. They hadn't been married a year, but they fought like cat and dog day and night. I thought by the end of the week they would have murdered each other; and every morning I woke up expecting to have a couple of dead bodies on my hands. Frank and Dorothea. I forget their other names. They are two I never get a Christmas card from. As a matter of fact, I didn't think Frank would have been such a bad chap, if he had been on his own. He was in the Police Force before he married her and was a fine built fellow, if wooden on top, but all right for a policeman; only her family owned a cotton-mill in Bolton, and she made him resign from the Police and take on a job as manager. Goodness knows what he saw in her. She was all skin and bone. She was for ever saying how sensitive and artistic she was; and went about in sandals and wore clothes like Joseph's coat of many colours, and long green ear-rings and a green bandeau round her hair. She looked like something come out of the rag-bag.

I tried my best to make peace between them; but I don't know that I did much good. One morning after a night of battle had woke me up several times, they was carrying on in the kitchen when he made a dash for the bedroom to get a revolver from his trunk and shoot himself. She clung to him then, and cried, ‘Oh, don't do it, darling: I love you so much! I can't live without you!' ‘Let him do it, you fool,' I said, ‘if he want to!' He turned on me and wanted to know what the hell I thought I was up to, coming between husband and wife. He forgot all about the revolver. Another morning he went off in a huff for a swim. He was a powerful swimmer. He swore he couldn't bear to have to sit face to face with her across the breakfast table at Timbuctoo. Whereupon she grabbed my Woolworth's bread-knife and was going to stab herself. ‘This will make him sorry!' she said. ‘I wouldn't do it with that knife, if I was you,' I said, ‘it have a blade like a saw. Try the carving knife: it is sharper. Or better, the skewer: it will go in easy.' She threw the bread-knife on the floor at my feet and said I was a brute and a beast and as insensitive and unfeeling as he was! I thought they might make it up the day they went to Sark, since Raymond said Sark was heaven on earth; but it was rough coming back and she was seasick all over him.

There was two I did like; though perhaps I didn't ought to have done. They was two young chaps, and Miss Hocart said she hoped I didn't mind them sharing a room; but I didn't see nothing wrong in that. Geoffrey and Tony was their proper names, but they called each other Gib and Tib. What I liked about them was they didn't make out to be something they wasn't. Over in England they was only painters and decorators working on their own. They had been working in a factory making match-boxes when they got to know each other, but they didn't like being shut in all day long; so they decided to buy a van and a few things between them, and go round the country parts doing odd jobs. They had done well enough the last year to be able to afford a holiday in Guernsey. Geoffrey was dark and ugly, and reminded me of Jim's Victor; but he was quiet and a chap could be trusted, I thought. Tony was fair and good-looking, and reminded me of the young German Raymond was friendly with. He was the lively one; but was moody sometimes. Geoffrey thought the world of him.

The Friday morning while they was staying with me, I was coming out of the States Offices from getting my pay when I ran into big fat Le Bas. I had been having a heart-to-heart talk with my girl in the pay-desk. She really is a fine girl, that. She reminds me of Tabitha when she was young. She is neat and small with a round face and a smile for a joke; and is no silly miss by any means, but looks at you with straight honest brown eyes. I said to her that morning, ‘It is much too fine for you to be indoors: you ought to be out in the sun.' ‘I wish I was,' she said. ‘Why on earth do you work in an office?' I said. ‘Needs must when the devil drives,' she said. I said, ‘What would you really like to be doing?' ‘Looking after a husband, and a home and a family,' she said. I wasn't sure I liked the idea of a husband. He would never be good enough. I said, ‘Well, that won't be difficult to get for you.' She made a face. ‘I don't know about that,' she said. ‘It is the husband. He has to be who I want; or nobody.' ‘The fellow must be a born fool if he doesn't want you,' I said. ‘He is anything but a fool,' she said, ‘I can only keep myself available; and hope.' ‘I will hope with you,' I said. I thought well, I can leave you a house but I can't leave you a husband, I am afraid; and you don't want an empty house.

I didn't like fat Le Bas: he was like a big slug; but I was feeling so good, I stopped and spoke to him. I asked after his old mother he lived with, who was as cantankerous as the day is long; and it happened while we was talking Geoffrey and Tony passed on the other side and waved. I knew they was going to Herm for the day; so I shouted, ‘Got your passports?' They laughed. ‘Goodness, you don't know those two, do you?' said fat Le Bas. ‘Can't you see what they are?' It is true Tony was happy, and walking along rather as if he was dancing. I said, ‘Yes, I know them well. They have been living in my house for a week.' ‘Their sort ought to be shot!' he said. God, coming from him, it made me go hot under the collar! I don't say he had been caught doing anything wrong; but everybody knew he had been warned off time and again for hanging round the schools, when the children was coming out, with bags of sweets to offer to the little girls. I said, ‘It take all sorts to make a world, my boy; or you, for one, wouldn't be allowed to live in it.' He shuffled off without saying another word. I bet he have been saying plenty about me since.

I did wonder if perhaps he was right about Geoffrey and Tony; and, if so, I was sorry. I have never liked the idea of that sort of thing; yet the way he spoke about them made me want to stick up for them. That evening when they came in, I went out of my way to make it pleasant for them. I don't keep beer in the house, as a rule; but I got in a few bottles from the off-licence on the Bridge, and we stayed up talking and drinking until midnight. They said Herm was absolute paradise. It was funny to think I had never been there, yet had seen it all my life a few miles across the water. I told them some of the things I had learnt from Raymond about Guernsey as it used to be; and Geoffrey was like Raymond, and thought it must have been grand to be living here in those days. ‘Turn back the clock and we'll come again!' he said. When they went to bed, they both said they was sorry they was having to leave in the morning.

They was having breakfast at Timbuctoo and going straight from there to the boat; and when I saw them packing their things, I gave them a couple of ormer shells to remember Guernsey by. I gave one to each, and I didn't think I had chosen one better than the other, but Geoffrey gave the one I had given him to Tony, and Tony gave his to Geoffrey. I said I had a whole basketful they could choose from, if they didn't like the ones I had picked out; but Geoffrey laughed and said it wasn't that at all: they exchange everything they have, and even wear each other's clothes sometimes. I said, ‘That's all right then.' When they shook hands and wished me goodbye, Geoffrey said I couldn't know how much it had meant to them to have a friendly face to come back to every evening, and Tony said I had made their holiday. Ah well, I suppose I could have done worse. I got a nice card from them the next Christmas, and written on it ‘For two ormer shells. From Gib and Tib.' I was glad to know they was friends yet. I haven't heard since.

There was one old couple I liked a lot: a Mr and Mrs Jones from Wales; and I get a letter as well as a card from them every Christmas. They was another pair who didn't put on airs. I expect Miss Hocart thought they was not quite the right class, and that's why they was sent to me. He was a coal-miner until lately; and was now on his old-age pension. I imagined a coal-miner to be a big and burly chap; but he was short and wiry and spoke in a high-pitched voice. She was a bustling lively little woman, who talked very quick, and I didn't always know what she said. They had children and grandchildren they could have spent their holiday with; but she said the old people are not really wanted, and quite right too. Instead they decided to have a second honeymoon. Well, I can say I have never seen any young honeymoon couple be so happy, or enjoy themselves so much. They went somewhere different every day; and in their eyes everything was perfect. They was strict Chapel; and Sundays went to the Capelles for morning and evening service. When I said I was Church but didn't go, she wagged a finger at me, as if I was one of her grandchildren. They stayed a fortnight; and I would have been glad for them to stay longer.

Mr Hungerford Smith was a widower; and I am not surprised. The only thing his poor wife could have done of her own free will was to die. He had to have his own way in everything, and he was always right. He was the last visitor I had to stay with me; and when he had gone, I swore I would never have another. He gave me to understand he was a very important person; and he may well have been. I don't know what the Archbishop of Canterbury looks like; but Mr Hungerford Smith looked what the Archbishop of Canterbury ought to look like, even if he don't. He sat himself down in my armchair as if he was the Pope and spoke with authority. I didn't understand exactly what he spoke with authority about, but it had something to do with stocks and shares. He wanted to know all my money business from the year dot. He asked if the house was mine, if there was anything owing on it, if I had any relations I must leave it to, and if I had any investments or money in the bank. I answered him yes, or no, quite truthfully; but he didn't guess the truth. He thought I was poor. He said he could be of great service to me. He would allow me to sell him my house as it stood, and all ground and outhouses attached thereto; and when he reached the age of retirement, he would have a place in Guernsey to retire to. I said selling wasn't as simple as that over here. He said he knew the law. I am not going to say how much he offered for my small property; but he must have wanted it bad, because it was thousands. He said until the time came for him to come into residence, I could go on living in it; and pay him a nominal rent. He didn't say how much.

I was tempted. It would be a great load off my mind not to have to worry any more about who I was going to leave it to. I could let the greenhouse and the ground; and take things easy for the few years I had left. As it was, I wasn't doing much. I planted and watered and trimmed the tomatoes, and pottered around outside; but it was young Bill Ogier did the heavy work, and his wife the picking and packing. They might just as well do the lot, and make what they could. If his nibs wanted to live in the house before I died, I could move into a guesthouse and be waited on. I would have enough. I had it on the tip of my tongue to say yes; but when it came to the point and I looked at him, I said, ‘Thank you, but I am not selling. At any price.' I didn't want his sort settling on Guernsey.

I thought of young Lihou. I had kept in the way of going to see how he was getting on; but I had never thought before of leaving him anything. He wasn't a relation. It hadn't occurred to me it didn't have to be a relation. I had cousins; but no next-of-kin. I could go out into the highways and byways and pick on anybody I liked. He had done well for himself and he had worked hard for it. He owned his own bungalow and the last time I had a chat with him he was going to have three hundred feet more of glass put up. He had been very straight with me and offered to let me have back what I had let him have to get started. I told him I had given it: I hadn't lent it. I have always been firm about that. I either give; or I keep for myself. Lending is having it both ways. I would rather go without than buy a thing on hire-purchase.

The youngest of his children was just left school. I had seen it in the
Press
. She had passed high up in her exams at the school at Beaucamps, and was going to be an air-hostess. I couldn't see what she wanted all that education for to be an air-hostess. I would have thought all she needed was to know how to smile. The two boys was working for their father. I don't think they was bad boys really, but they was mad about motor-bikes. I had seen the younger one, when he couldn't have been more than fourteen, riding a big red motor-bike on which he could hardly reach the handlebars. It was no use me telling his father the boy would kill himself, for it was from his father he got the craze. Edith, the wife, said she was sick and tired of her husband's everlasting motor-bike; and I never went round to see him but I found him down on his knees worshipping it, like a heathen down on his knees worshipping his idol of wood and stone.

Anyhow, I thought I would go and see him, and make up my mind. He was more to my taste than Mr Hungerford Smith. I found him down on his knees as usual; but this time it was in front of a motor-car. He jumped up when he saw me and was as delighted as a boy to explain to me all the miracles of his new car. I listened but I didn't understand a word of what he was talking about. As far as I am concerned, cars are wild animals I do my best to keep out of the way of; and I don't know the difference between one breed and another. I asked him how Edith was, and he said, ‘Aw, she's all right,' and went on talking about his car. I don't expect he would have even bothered to take me in to see her, if she hadn't called out tea was ready.

I had never liked Edith much. She was a Keyho from the Vrangue before she married young Lihou and didn't think much of the Le Pages from Les Sablons. She may have been right at that; for my little grandmother's family didn't seem to have come to much. Edith's modern bungalow was very different from Les Sablons. It wasn't a sanded stone floor in the kitchen, and a terpid on the hearth. She had a fridge and an electric stove and an electric iron and a hoover; though I do know the old willow pattern china on my grandmother's dresser was better than the crockery she had bought from Woolworth's. Now that is a shop I don't like. It is supposed to be cheap, but when you work it out, it turns out to be dear. I never go in but I come out with a lot of things I didn't even think of buying. Edith was civil to me, if nothing more; and couldn't very well help inviting me to stay to tea. Over tea he talked about the improved method of packing tomatoes in trays and having them sorted out and sent off by rote from the Depôt in Bulwer Avenue. He thought it was a good idea. I didn't. I like to know the man who my crop is going to.