Dr Jackson
St Helier, May 1943
When I glanced at the calendar this morning, I was startled to see that almost half the year has gone, and even more shocked to realise that I have neglected my journal for so long.
It has been a long and cold winter which brought with it more than the usual number of outbreaks of influenza and various respiratory ailments, some of which have necessitated admission to hospital. With the lack of fuel to keep warm, and the strict rationing and shortage of food, it’s no wonder that those who can’t afford to buy supplies on the black market go hungry and succumb to infections.
When I look at my patients, most of whom were well-dressed, rosy-cheeked and robust before the Occupation, I’m distressed to see how their health has deteriorated. It’s eerie to see all the shops so empty, something I could never have imagined. Those who are handy with a needle and thread have managed to mend, turn, remake or refashion their clothes because new ones are not available. Shoes are a big problem. I’ve had to repair the soles of my shoes with pieces of ugly black rubber, and just this week I took some shirts to a seamstress so she could turn the collars, but I know this is trivial compared to the privations most people are dealing with. Just as a matter of interest, I’ve had to resort to making bicycle tyres from garden hoses as new tyres are more scarce than hens’ teeth! As I’ve mentioned in previous entries, this situation has forced us all to improvise to a degree I never thought possible.
Keeping warm during power outages is another challenge. Although it hurt me to do it, I’ve had to cut down some of the trees in my garden and chop them into firewood. This, like almost everything else these days, is forbidden without official permission, which is usually denied, so I’ve gone ahead and done it anyway.
As I’ve shared my firewood with neighbours and needy patients, I don’t suppose any of them will report me. When I get home on a cold night, it’s wonderfully indulgent to sit by the blaze of my open fire sipping Armagnac and listening to the Mozart Clarinet Concerto, which transports me to another world. At such moments, my thoughts drift to happier times and I almost forget our humiliating and precarious situation at the mercy of the invaders.
Of course there are those among us who lack for nothing, women whose German lovers keep them well supplied with nylon stockings, ankle-strap shoes and French perfumes, but the less said about them the better. I suspect they are being watched by people who are silently keeping score and biding their time until they can wreak revenge.
In all fairness, however, not all the liaisons between local lasses and German soldiers are mercenary affairs. I’ve observed several instances of what appears to be genuine attachment. Although I detest the occupiers, and every time I see one of our policemen saluting them or obediently stepping off the pavement to let them pass, my stomach turns over, I have to admit that some of the soldiers are courteous young men who miss their homes, and are probably no different from our own soldiers. With most of our young men gone to fight with the British army, it’s no wonder that some of our girls have been attracted to the Germans, who are polite and attentive. I gather that being sent here instead of being sent to fight on the Russian front is like winning the lottery, and most of them try to keep us on-side.
But although these young couples are discreet and avoid displaying their affection in public, in a small community like this it’s hard to conceal liaisons with the enemy, especially from eyes sharpened by envy and malice.
I’ve been alerted to the extent of malice in our community by Mrs Latimer, who works at the post office. When she came to see me a few months ago about her varicose veins, she confided that whenever they receive anonymous letters addressed to German police headquarters, they steam them open. If it turns out their suspicions were correct, and the writer was informing on someone, they just tear the letter up and warn the intended victim.
‘Doctor, you’d be amazed at the petty things people denounce their neighbours for,’ she told me. ‘Someone has more anthracite coal than they have, someone has a pig they haven’t registered, a neighbour has been listening to a radio and so on.’
This shocked me. Disasters are supposed to unite people in common suffering, not turn them against each other. But I can understand the resentment people feel towards the black marketeers, and that brings me to a sensational event that took place recently, one I’m still reeling from. The whole island is buzzing with the news that my young patient Tom was captured by the Germans while trying to escape from Jersey in a boat.
As soon as I heard about it, I felt sick. The last time I saw him at my surgery, I could tell he had something on his mind but I remember being called away to the hospital for an urgent delivery before I had a chance to find out what it was, and to my shame, I didn’t follow up on his visit. Perhaps he would have confided in me, and I might have been able to dissuade him from a course of action that was doomed to fail. It was only after I heard about the disaster that I recalled the admiring way he spoke about Dennis Vibert, the fellow who escaped to England, when he came to see me last year. It hadn’t occurred to me that he might be planning to emulate him.
From the gossip around town, it sounds as if he and two friends had secretly got hold of a boat, which they launched from a particularly treacherous part of the coast.
When I think about it, I’m torn between admiration for their courage and horror at their foolhardiness, especially as one of the lads couldn’t swim and drowned in the wild seas when the boat capsized. Apparently the lad’s parents are blaming Tom for the tragedy.
As for Tom, he and his other friend are locked up in police cells at the moment, and no-one knows what their fate will be. As far as I know, nobody is allowed to visit them, not even their parents, which is very unusual, especially as they are so young. But the behaviour of our occupiers is impenetrable and their orders even more so.
Given that they’re being held in isolation, I can’t bear to think what will happen to them. The Germans regard attempting to escape as a serious crime which they punish severely. I can’t stop thinking about Francois Scornet, the brave Frenchman they stood against a tree and shot for exactly the same crime.
There’s one aspect of this catastrophe that puzzles me: their capture. From what I’ve managed to piece together about the events of that terrible night, it seems that the three lads kept their plans secret not only from their parents but from all their friends. One of my patients, old Miss Valland, who lives near Tom’s uncle and loves to gossip, told me that they kept the boat on his land until they transferred it to Green Island, and not even he had any idea what they were planning. He thought they were going to use it for fishing, she told me, and went on to say that she had overheard Tom’s mother screaming at her brother that if he believed that, then he was an even bigger fool than she’d given him credit for.
So that’s what I can’t understand. As they kept their plans so secret, how did the Germans know what they were planning, where they were, and what time they were about to sail?
There have been various rumours, but nothing that makes any sense. In the meantime, poor Tom is in gaol, incommunicado, awaiting his fate, probably terrified and overwhelmed with guilt about his friend who drowned.
If the town gossips are right, Tom’s mother, who is one of the most active black marketeers in St Helier, is apparently excessively friendly with some of the members of the Water Police, so surely she will do all she can to pull strings on his behalf. But I recall that he came to see me that day without telling his parents, so their relationship may not be very close. Still, a mother is a mother. I don’t know anything about his father, but from what I’ve observed about married couples, strong women invariably marry weak men who rarely summon up the strength to oppose them.
I know that if Jamie were in trouble, I would move heaven and earth to help him, but as things are at the moment, he is almost three years old, and apart from a businesslike note and a photograph on his birthday, I haven’t had any contact with Margaret. I wonder if she has even told him about me.
And that brings me to the main reason I have been so remiss with my journal. For some time now, I have felt an increasing emotional disconnection from Margaret. Almost three years have passed with only grudging communication from her, and she has begun to recede from my thoughts, something I would never have suspected when we first parted on that sultry June day in 1940. I’m at a loss to understand why she persists in blaming me for being trapped here. You’d think I was personally responsible for the Occupation.
When I think about it, I don’t even know if she is aware of our precarious situation or the restrictions and shortages we suffer at the hands of this ruthless regime.
These restrictions extend to all communication with the outside world, from which we are completely cut off. The only news we receive is from clandestine BBC broadcasts that we listen to at the risk of our lives, and from rare Red Cross letters. Margaret never replies to my letters, so it feels as if she and I are living on different planets.
This longwinded preamble sounds like an excuse, but it is leading to something I find awkward to write about, not only because I’m not comfortable describing emotions, but also because of the confusion I feel. And confusion is another emotion I’m not familiar with. I’m used to being the one in control who dispenses wise counsel to others about overcoming life’s problems, not the one who is in need of advice. My father once said if you don’t control pride, it will control you, and I’m wondering if my attitude is a sign of professional and personal pride. And if it is, will this confusion be a lesson in humility?
Anyway, enough explaining and reflecting.
As I was driving towards the Maternity Hospital a few weeks ago, I felt a lightness of heart I hadn’t felt in a long time. It was a God-given spring day, with everything around me flowering and blossoming. Every turn in the road reminded me that, preoccupied with all our problems, I had forgotten how beautiful this island is.
It felt as if I were seeing it for the first time, the granite manor houses, the patchwork of potato fields, the hedgerows in full bloom, and the daffodils, primroses and bluebells sprinkled over the grass like a delicate floral pattern on emerald green silk. I could imagine painting it, and for the first time since the Occupation my fingers itched for my palette and paintbrush.
As soon as the stone hospital building came into view, I felt something akin to a mild electric jolt course through my body, and that’s when I realised why I felt so excited, but also unsettled.
Perhaps I was building castles in the air without any foundation. After all, I knew nothing about Matron O’Connor. It’s true that she always greeted me with a warm smile, and tried to detain me with cups of tea, but I couldn’t assume that this indicated anything personal. Perhaps it was just her friendly manner.
All this was going through my mind and I was arguing with myself as I parked the Austin and walked towards the hospital portico. Should I nonchalantly knock on her door and ask if there was a chance of a cup of tea? Or maybe just hurry past and look the other way to prevent making a fool of myself? Surely such an appealing woman wasn’t likely to be single. Even if she wasn’t married, she might have a lover.
The thought of someone making love to her made my heart beat very fast and that’s probably what propelled my legs towards her office before I even knew what I was doing or what I planned to say. I took a deep breath and knocked. Not too gently or assertively. A question mark rather than a statement or a demand.
She said, ‘Come in,’ but judging by her tone, she was distracted by something in her office, and immediately I regretted my decision. She was obviously busy and I didn’t have a valid reason to see her. I stood there feeling very foolish, wondering if I could slip out before she looked up.
But at that moment she looked up, and a brilliant smile lit up her face.
‘It’s grand to see you,’ she said, looking straight into my eyes. ‘You look bothered. Are you all right?’
She continued to watch me with her steady gaze as I mumbled something about being concerned about my patient Mrs le Blanc.
Then I stopped talking because, not taking her eyes off me, she got up and came over to where I was standing, close enough for me to breathe in the scent of her hair.
‘Oh, so that’s why you came, is it? Because you’re worried about Mrs le Blanc?’ Her voice was low and teasing, and to my embarrassment I suddenly remembered that Mrs le Blanc had been discharged the previous week.
She was still standing close to me, still smiling up at me, and without thinking, I pulled her against me and kissed her soft lips and felt them part against mine. I was sixteen again, giddy with joy and desire.
‘Aoife,’ I whispered. It was the first time I called her by her name and I savoured the sound of it on my tongue. ‘Aoife.’
As I held her against me, under her starched uniform I could feel the curves of her body, and for one insane moment, I felt like throwing caution to the wind and making love to her right there in her office.
She pulled away and adjusted her veil, casting a quick glance at the door. ‘Not now,’ she said. ‘The hospital superintendent will be here soon. Come back this evening. I’m a terrible cook but I have a few praties and a bit of meat, so I’ll make us Irish stew for dinner.’
I was at the door when she said, ‘Oh, and don’t forget to look in on Mrs le Blanc on your way out!’
I could still hear her laughing as I walked down the corridor, but this time I was laughing too.
The rest of that day I was in such a delicious agony of anticipation that time seemed to have stopped. I kept looking at my watch but it was three o’clock when I last checked, and what seemed like an hour later, it was only five past three.
After filling in most of that interminable afternoon with house calls, I took a basket of eggs and a bundle of firewood to the Clarkes, whose five children look peaky and malnourished. Thank goodness our Russian escapees have avoided recapture so far. Sasha is safe with Mrs Carter, and our round robin method of sheltering Igor in various homes has worked most of the time, although there were a few nights when we were short of volunteers, and he had to stay several nights in the same house, endangering his hosts as well as the rest of us.
On this particular evening, however, there was no problem, and I picked Igor up from Bob Blampied’s house and dropped him at the Robinsons’ farm. Finally, finally, it was time to see Aoife.
I had a bottle of Chateau Margaux I’d been saving for a special occasion and I put it in the car and wrapped it in a few sheets of the Jersey Evening News, which is so heavily censored it’s best used in the lavatory. It reminded me of what Voltaire once wrote to a journalist he despised: I am in the smallest room of the house and I have your article in front of me. Soon it will be behind me.
Chuckling over his wit, I set off for the hospital. My excitement at the prospect of spending an evening with Aoife, and the thrill of discovering that she shared my feelings, led me to fantasise about how this evening might end. I was enjoying a delicious erotic daydream when a motorcycle pulled up alongside me, and a German Feldgendarm motioned me to pull over.
Taking off his goggles, he wanted to know why I was breaking the law by driving after curfew. Calmly I showed him my identity card and explained that I was a doctor about to visit a patient in the hospital.
But instead of saying sehr gut and speeding off as they usually did, he pressed his nose against the window and peered suspiciously into the car. I held my breath. Then I saw him point.
‘Was ist das?’ he barked. He was pointing at the bottle, probably thinking it was a concealed weapon. ‘Just some medicine for a patient,’ I said casually. But the wretch wouldn’t let it go at that and demanded to see it. There was nothing I could do to stop him. A moment later, he was tearing off the newspaper. ‘Ah-ha!’ His eyes gleamed as he examined the label. ‘Medicine for a patient, ja?’
I had to think quickly. I couldn’t bear the thought of giving away my Chateau Margaux but my choices were limited. Either I offered him the wine, or he would haul me off to the police station, and that would be the end of my idyllic tete-a-tete as well as the wine. It might also mean the end of my freedom for several months. Of course there was also the possibility that he would accept the wine and still arrest me, but I decided to take my chances.
‘Maybe you have a nice fraulein to share this wine with?’ I suggested with a forced smile.
He grinned and nodded, and I cursed as he sped away with my precious wine in his sidecar.
That incident was a bucket of iced water over my overheated imagination. What was I thinking? I wasn’t free to embark on an affair. I was a married man, a doctor in a community where I was respected. How would it look if people found out I was having an affair with the matron of the hospital? I decided I’d keep our arrangement for dinner, but leave straight afterwards.
After parking my little Austin in front of the hospital, I sat in the car for a few minutes, sadly contemplating the loss of my fantasy with Aoife. She would probably tease me about my sudden exit. Oh, of course, you forgot you were married, she would laugh. That’s a shame, so.
But she knew I was married. In fact she had praised me for staying behind to look after my patients. She wouldn’t laugh. She would understand.
I was almost at the entrance when I stopped walking. For three years I’d been living alone, abandoned by my wife who seemed determined to carry her vindictiveness to the grave. What kind of marriage was that? For three years I’d been dreaming of the day we could be reunited. Surely the war couldn’t last much longer now that such a large part of the German army had been defeated at Stalingrad, according to the BBC News. But even if the war ended tomorrow, what could Margaret and I say to each other after all this time? What connection would we still have? Would she ever forgive me? Would I ever forgive her?
Aoife opened the door, and before I could say a word, she was in my arms, holding me tighter than I’d ever been held before. I don’t know if her Irish stew was ruined, but we didn’t eat dinner that evening. I felt as if I had been sleepwalking all my life, and had just woken up and seen the world burst into dazzling colour for the first time.