When the Sky Fell Apart (9 page)

He laughed. But when he saw she was serious, he fell silent. She carried on digging while he stood staring out over the sand dunes and towards the sea.

The island was like a beautiful jewel: formed by years of pressure and compression, shaped by the elements and then constrained and combed and ordered by the metallic tools of man. The result was a savage, wild and rugged land with the long grasses gusted about by the wind, toothed rocks jutting from the soil, crusted with lichen: thousands of attentive gold and black ears, gaping at the slightest whisper of the wind.

Further inland, the precise hedgerows and straight lines of the farmer's fields, geometric crafting of grass and plough. And then the sea, the endless, gasping sea: when the tide swept away, the rocks jutted out of the mud like teeth from a smashed mouth. Stippled in limpets and winkles, heaving with seaweed: rock pools bubbling with life. To the east, picture-perfect houses, like clutches of crafted eggs, nestling by the golden beaches. To the west, the vast mudflats where children could pour salt into a hole in the mud and a razorfish might pop out like a conjuror's trick. The steady breaking and wombing of the sea, metronomic measure of seeping time.

But nothing ever the same: everything sharp and fresh, as if it had been cut out of paper new each day.

Now the land had Germans swarming across it, hacking into the landscape, roving over the hills, lounging on the beaches. The islanders didn't look at them, if they could help it: Edith had seen the way everyone's eyes slid from the soldiers practising their marching drills on the beaches where tourists usually sunbathed.

Edith liked to gawp at the scenery as much as the next person, for all she'd lived on the island more years than she'd care to count. But Dr Carter's eyes had a glassy look about them.
Away with the fairies,
Edith's mother used to say, and she'd give her a smart clip around the ear to bring her back sharpish.

‘What do you want from me then, Doctor?'

He pulled his eyes from the view. ‘Nothing in particular. That is to say, I don't know what I need, really.'

By
Crie,
by the time the man had come around to saying his piece they'd both be dead and buried.

‘Well, Doctor, I can't help you then.
À bétôt
.'

She made a great show of struggling to heft her basket again.

Carter took it from her. ‘Please. Allow me.'

He fell in beside her as she walked. She set off, briskish, said not a word. Most folk would crack and say
something
in the end, given long enough in silence with a stranger.

Carter was no different from anyone else. ‘So, what is your opinion then, on our current situation? Our visitors, I mean.'

‘I'm not sure I can say, really. It's only been a week or so. Wretched situation—that goes without saying. But one foreigner is like any other to me, and at least it's not the bloody French, or the miserable lot from Guernsey invading us.'

‘I've been unpleasantly taken aback by the Germans, I must admit,' Carter said. ‘They don't seem to intend to be terribly
agreeable
.'

Laughter swelled. ‘Agreeable?' Edith barked. ‘Why ever did you dream they would be
agreeable?
We're the enemy. Makes no sense for them to be anything but downright unpleasant, if you ask me. And I imagine they want to make their mark. It's a war that's dropped on to our doorstep, remember. A
war
. They're not here for the sun and the fishing.'

‘That's more or less what the Commandant said. I asked him, you see, if we could evacuate Clement to the mainland. Without the right treatment I'm convinced that he will die, slowly and painfully, I'm afraid—and soon.'

‘The Commandant said no, of course.'

Carter nodded grimly. ‘He seems to think the whole situation a terrific joke. It's horrendous.'

She was puzzled by Carter's bewilderment—not expecting such naïveté from an intelligent man. She stopped and put a hand on his arm.

‘How old were you in the last war, Doctor?'

He stared at her hand, frowning. Then mumbled: ‘Fifteen when it ended.'

‘You've no memory then? How cheap men's lives can be.'

‘I know of the terrible numbers of deaths and casualties.'

‘Of course. But at the time, it didn't matter if five thousand men died, or five thousand and ten. Those ten men. What were they? Nothing. Not in the grand scheme of things, anyway. Only to those who loved them. Felt their absence like a lost limb.'

‘But this is an entirely different situation—'

‘Of course it isn't!' The sweet bafflement on Carter's face baffled her, almost irked her, but Edith softened her voice. ‘What does it matter to the Commandant if ten men died in that bomb attack, or eleven? That extra man makes not a blind bit of difference to him. Only to Clement's family. Those of us who know him.'

‘That's a
ghastly
approach to human life.'

‘Right you are. But, Doctor, we are at war.'

‘Even so…' He scrubbed his hand across his forehead and, for a moment she saw him for the kind-hearted, guileless boy he must have once been—and still was, in some ways.

‘I simply cannot fathom it,' he said. ‘A life is a
life
, after all, is it not? Would you justify letting a man die, simply because he was born in a different house to you?'

He didn't wait for her to reply but charged on, his words an urgent torrent.

‘No, of course not. Why, then, let him die because he harks from a different town? A different country? I
cannot
grasp it…'

His eyes were wild and he was as impassioned as she had ever seen him.

‘Not everyone has your heart, Doctor,' Edith said, gently. ‘It's a noble thing: seeing the best in people, suffering to help them. It takes a great man. But it's a damned gallant fool who imagines that every other man feels anyone else's pain half as deeply as he does.'

The wind whipped through the long dune grasses and blew up flurries of sand. They squinted at the sensation, like needles on their faces. Out above the sea, hungry gulls were wheeling.

Carter fiddled with the plants in the basket. ‘Found some fish, I expect.'

‘Mackerel, probably.'

They watched them shrieking and diving again and again. Each gull filling his own belly and to hell with the rest of them.

‘You've knowledge of health and medicine that supersedes that of many doctors I've seen,' Carter said. ‘The way you revived Clement was really, well, it was…extraordinary. And I've heard other tales of how effective and impressive your remedies have been, in so many cases. As you know, the medication we are giving Clement is having little effect. So I, ah, I came to ask if you would…treat his burns and his fever. Try to, well…help me try to keep him alive.'

So
this
was what he wanted.

Edith nodded slowly. ‘And if I can't?'

‘Well, you may not be able to help him, of course. But at the moment he's dead without your help. So anything you can do, anything at all, would be…'

‘Impressive? Extraordinary?' She grinned.

He gave a tiny smile. ‘Precisely, yes… So, will you help?'

She stopped walking. What to say? Of course she was happy to help; such things came naturally to her. And even being asked was a pat on the back for Edith and a knife in the guts of the island gossips: one of the devil's own, helping in the hospital, working alongside real doctors? The church prayer group would be spitting feathers and fasting for a week.

And then, of course, there was the chance to save Clement's life. She'd have felt a callous brute if she'd not agreed to help. But her maman had always told her that it paid to have people believe that they owed you something or other.

The world doesn't run on kindness, Edith. It runs on guilt and favours and credit.

With the war on, who knew what the price would be on kindness for herself or for someone else?

So she said, ‘I don't know, Doctor, I really don't…'

He had been smiling—so sure she would say yes. His face fell.

‘But why on earth not? You'd be saving a man's life.'

‘But that's just the thing, isn't it, Doctor: what if I don't? What if he dies? There's plenty of folk will be happy to think that I killed him off. The chap who was here before you
hated
me. He had everyone believing I was working hand in hand with the devil himself. And there's many were happy to believe it. If Clement died—well… They'd see me locked up for murder, I'm sure. Throw me in the sea to see if I float or sink.'

Carter tried to win her over to his way of thinking all the way back to her house, panting as he dragged the loaded basket. On and on and
on
he went. She let him talk. Folk always give more away when their thoughts run free.

By the time they reached her rickety old gate, he was begging and bargaining. He promised that he would do whatever he could to lift her good name with the rest of the islanders. To hear him talk, he planned to trumpet her praises at dawn from the top of Mount Bingham, whether Clement lived or no.

She took her basket back. The poor man was now quite exhausted.

Edith smiled. ‘Thank you, Doctor. Most kind of you; you've saved my back, really you have. So, what time shall I call at the hospital tomorrow?'

He was silent for a moment while her words sank in. ‘Then you'll do it? You'll help him? Wonderful woman, you won't regret this. You'll see! Thank you, you're a marvel! Thank you, bless you!'

And he actually kissed her on the cheek. Well, Edith couldn't help herself—she let out a shriek and a giggle and he chuckled right along with her.

Then he was suddenly serious. ‘Perhaps you'd be so kind as to help me with something else then?'

‘Try me, Doctor.'

‘My aim—that is to say, my intention—is to, well…' He swallowed. ‘To evacuate Monsieur Hacquoil. Medical equipment on the mainland so far exceeds our own. He stands a much better chance of survival.'

‘I see. You need me to make him well enough to travel.'

‘Precisely. And also—'

‘You want my help taking him from the island?'

‘Would you? I just wouldn't know where to start asking. For supplies, and the boat and so on. I don't want to risk asking in the wrong places. They're inclined to be garrulous, these island people.'

‘Noticed that, have you? But it'll be a risky business: evacuating someone. There's signs up that say they'll shoot those who try to escape—and those that help could be shipped off to Germany. To one of their work camps.'

‘You're absolutely right: it's too much to ask. Please forgive me and forget I mentioned—'

‘Now, don't get ahead of yourself. I haven't said no, have I? Although it would be a foolish undertaking. And I couldn't even think of leaving myself.'

‘No, of course not. But if you could point me in the right direction—'

‘I'm hoping I won't need to do any pointing. If we can nurse Clement back to health then we won't be talking about leaving at all now, will we?'

‘Certainly not. But—well, his condition is critical. It would be as well to have an idea of whom to ask if escape becomes our only option.'

‘Stubborn so-and-so, aren't you?'

Edith thought for a moment. It was dangerous, of course, but even the thought of it was thrilling: helping someone to escape, right from under the Germans' noses, and saving Clement's life. She recalled what Carter had said, the wild passion in his eyes when he talked about the impossibility and barbarism of letting a man—any man—die.

She spoke slowly. ‘I know a fisherman. He has a boat—unlicensed I suspect, so he doesn't have to give half his catch to the Bosche. He hasn't said so, but I'm sure he's anxious to be away from the island. I'll have a word,
if
I must. No guarantees, mind.'

‘Of course.' He grinned, his face suddenly bright and youthful.

As she waved him off and watched him trudge through the long grasses, Edith felt a prickle of excitement and dread: the same sensation which swept through her when she jumped from a high rock into the dark sea, unsure if the water was deep enough to cradle her from the teeth of the hidden rocks beneath.

AFTER the Germans came, Claudine's mother hardly left the house. She sat in her chair and smoked. When her cigarettes ran out, she had Claudine fetch her some nettles and dry the leaves for her. The smoke smelt sour and made their eyes water.

Coughing, Claudine asked, ‘What is the matter?'

Maman's eyes were dark and distant. ‘Nothing. I simply—I miss your papa.'

Claudine remembered being curled up in her bed, the night before Papa had left on the boat. The sound of shouting. Maman crying, ‘Why won't you stay?' Papa saying over and over that he wanted to fight. Saying that Claudine and Maman must stay to milk the cows and tend the chickens and keep the house from the German soldiers who might take it if it was left empty.