Dr Jackson
St Helier, September 1943
We had just finished dinner, and I was pouring Aoife some Armagnac when she leaned across the table, took my hand, and, not taking her eyes off my face, began singing a song I’d never heard before. It was an Irish air called ‘Down by the Salley Gardens’, and the simple beauty of the tune and its haunting lyrics entranced me. Spellbound by her low, melodious voice and the poignant story of love lost, I was intrigued. Why had she chosen to sing this? I supposed it evoked memories for her, the way poems and songs do when we hear them in childhood and respond to tantalising emotions we have yet to experience.
Once again, I realised how little I knew about her, and how little I cared about her past. As she had once pointed out, the only thing that mattered was the present, and what we shared right now. The past was over, the future was imponderable. When she had finished singing, she squeezed my hand while I stayed motionless, as if in a dream. Then, although it was a warm evening, I shivered as if someone had walked over my grave.
‘I wonder what caused that,’ I said.
‘Ah, ’tis the little people!’ she laughed, and added, ‘Or the magic of Yeats, maybe.’
I left it at that, because we had finished the Armagnac and I could hardly wait to take her upstairs so that we could create some magic of our own.
Several days have passed since then, and I have re-read the previous sentence several times, uncertain whether to delete it. Ever since Aoife and I became lovers, there have been times when this journal of war experiences intended for posterity has crossed the line from the historical to the personal. What started off as part of a Mass Observation project has become a record of my intimate feelings, one that I certainly would not want others to read. And yet these emotions are an integral part of my war experience and omitting them would not feel honest. I must admit that unloading everything on paper at the end of the day has been therapeutic. Compulsive, too, which surprises me, as I have never been given to analysing my feelings. I’m like the woman who once said she doesn’t know what she thinks until she hears what she says.
So perhaps I should continue writing it all down, without censoring anything, and when the war ends, which surely it must before long, I will go over the entire journal and then decide what to omit. Who knows, perhaps one day I’ll write a novel that illuminates a doctor’s dilemmas, like Cronin did.
I was still under the spell of Aoife’s song the following morning, and I think I was humming it under my breath when my first patient walked in. Before sitting down, Brigid Murphy glanced around several times as if to ensure that no-one had followed her.
She wasn’t afraid of confronting Germans. When they recently questioned her about escaped slave labourers, she told them indignantly to concentrate on catching criminals instead of harassing a law-abiding woman, so her nervous demeanour that morning was totally out of character.
When she was satisfied that we were alone, and no-one could overhear our conversation, she drew her chair closer to my desk, leaned forward, and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper.
‘Yesterday afternoon, I overheard two women talking in the library yesterday about a woman in St Helier who was hiding an escaped slave labourer in her home,’ she began. ‘It’s a disgrace, her keeping him there and putting us all in danger like that, one of them said. Something should be done about it. She didn’t mention any names, but from the way her eyes narrowed when she spoke, and the knowing look in her companion’s eyes, I could tell they both knew who it was. Of course I did too. The woman doing all the talking is a nasty piece of work who is likely to make trouble, so I thought you should know as soon as possible.’
I had no doubt that the woman they had been discussing was Mrs Carter, who still had Sasha living with her. Whenever I dropped in to visit them, I could see how splendidly things were working out. It was as if Sasha was the son she had lost, and she was the mother he missed, but on reflection I have to admit that not many of the mothers and sons I come across live together in such harmony.
So the possibility that someone in our community might consider informing on this wonderful woman, and exposing an innocent young man to the cruelty of Organisation Todt, made me angry. What’s more, it worried me. I knew that this ideal arrangement would have to end, as we couldn’t risk leaving Sasha there any longer and exposing them both to such danger.
That afternoon, I dropped in to see Mrs Carter, who was giving Sasha an English lesson, and it was a pleasure to see the progress he had made. Instead of the few hesitant words spoken in a thick accent when I first placed him there, he greeted me in reasonably fluent English. Mrs Carter beamed like a proud teacher when I praised his English, but I hadn’t come to pay them compliments.
Without beating around the bush, I explained that Sasha would have to move to another safe place as soon as possible. They were both extremely upset, but I told them there was no choice. I warned Mrs Carter to destroy every sign that Sasha had ever been there, and conceal any indication that more than one person had been living in the house, such as crumpled bedclothes in the spare bedroom or used cups in the sink.
Mrs Carter, who was usually very ladylike, let loose with a string of words I didn’t think she knew, and cursed anyone malicious enough to inform on her Sasha. ‘They’re Satan’s children and should burn in the fires of hell forever,’ she said.
Although Sasha probably couldn’t understand everything we said, he was a bright chap, and her expression and tone of voice would have made up for any words he lacked.
I drove away heavy-hearted, trying to comprehend the motives of people who denounced their neighbours. After all, hiding escaped slave labourers endangered only the people who sheltered them, no-one else. As I have come to realise, war brings out the best and the worst in us, and it’s a pity that some people allow the worst to triumph.
As soon as I returned to my surgery, I contacted Bob Blampied. ‘You told me you knew someone who wanted a cat. I’ve got one here. Could you come over and pick it up from my surgery this afternoon?’
‘Not to worry, I’ll be there in an hour or so,’ he said in his cheerful way, and, in case anyone was listening in at the exchange, he added, ‘I know a woman who wants one.’
He’s a surprising fellow. Despite his youth, he is a tower of strength, dedicated and reliable. Without the car he has at his disposal thanks to his position at the insurance firm, I don’t know how we’d manage to move the fugitives from house to house.
I heaved a sigh of relief when he contacted me that evening to say he’d found a home for the cat. Unfortunately, from now on we will have to arrange for Sasha to move to a different house every night, a distressing situation for Sasha and Mrs Carter, who will miss each other. But I know that they have both been enriched by their relationship, and Sasha has experienced human kindness for the first time in several years.
That evening when I went outside to feed the chickens, my gaze was drawn to an ant nest in the yard. Looked at superficially, ants seem to meander aimlessly in all directions, but from what I’ve read, there is nothing random or chaotic in the ant world. Each one has a designated role to fulfil, a kind of ant caste system, from which they never deviate.
In that world, the insects cooperate to ensure the survival of the entire community. Reflecting on the case of Mrs Carter, I was sad to think that among us were people whose commitment to their countrymen was so weak that they were willing to endanger them, and to jeopardise the moral integrity of our island by collaborating with the enemy out of self-interest, envy and greed.
While I’m on the subject of insects, I’ve just remembered an animal story, this time about pigs. It’s a good example of the ingenuity of our residents who try to circumvent the restrictive orders of the occupiers.
I can’t recall if I have mentioned that farmers are forced to register all their livestock. In the beginning, the Germans ordered that most of the farm animals had to be offered up for public sale, but they permitted farmers to retain a few for their own use.
As time has passed, however, they have tightened the screws, reduced the number farmers can keep for themselves, and enforced their regulations with frequent inspections.
I know from my patients Fred and Hazel Lowry that every litter of pigs has to be notified, and each piglet is then tattooed and registered. As all this has made it difficult for farmers to survive economically, some of them have found ingenious ways of overcoming this regulation. They either conceal their animals in barns that have been divided in half, or cover the pigpens under a bale of hay so that they can carry on their risky traffic.
In order to put a stop to this, the Germans have organised spot-checks on pig farms to catch out the law-breakers.
‘I had killed an illegal pig and hung it in the barn when our neighbour’s son raced in to warn us that an inspector had just arrived at their farm, and would soon come to ours,’ Fred told me.
‘We were petrified. Where could we hide such a large, unwieldy animal with the inspector about to descend on us any minute?’
It appears that with disaster looming, at the last moment his wife Hazel came up with a solution. She and Fred ran down to the barn, grabbed hold of the pig, wrapped it quickly in several sheets, and hauled it upstairs to the spare bedroom. They laid it on the bed and covered it with a white sheet, tucking it in securely to make sure that no part of the animal poked out. Once the pig was lying in state, Hazel lowered the blinds, placed a candlestick on the bedside table, and lit the candle. At the last moment, she whisked the family Bible off the shelf, placed it beside the candlestick, and left sachets of lavender on the coverlet.
They had hardly finished creating this dramatic scenario when the Germans stomped into the house. Hazel met them at the door in tears. A death in the family, she explained, trembling in obvious distress. She wasn’t playacting – she was terrified.
While she and Fred exchanged agonised glances, the Germans went through every room in the farmhouse with Teutonic thoroughness. They moved armchairs, lifted tables, and looked under couches as if expecting to see a pig hiding there.
After they had finished downstairs, they proceeded up the stairs to the bedrooms. With hands that shook so much she could hardly open the door to the spare bedroom, Hazel started sobbing. Pushing her aside, the soldier surveyed the dimly lit room.
He cast his glance at the body under the sheet, the flickering candle and the Bible, and with an embarrassed expression backed out of the bedroom, muttering apologies. A few moments later the front door closed behind the Germans.
Hazel was shaking with laughter when she told me this macabre story. ‘You should have seen the look on that German’s face!’ she said.
As for me, I didn’t know how to react. The Germans are literally taking the food from our mouths, so naturally I was delighted that they had been outwitted, but at the same time I had qualms about fabricating the death of a loved one using a pig and a Bible. But this illustrates the situation we live in, where we have to use our wits to survive as best we can.
Speaking of survival, I often wonder what has become of young Tom Gaskell. Months have passed, and still no-one knows where he is. It’s as if he has fallen off the edge of the world. It’s such a tragic story. The parents of the poor lad who drowned are distraught. I heard that his father went grey overnight. And the parents of the other boy are at their wits’ end trying to find out where he’s been taken, but their letters have gone unanswered, and their pleas for information from the Kommandatur have not yielded any results.
I would have thought that with her German connections, Tom’s mother would have been able to find out where her son was, but someone told me that her protector at the Water Police had been recalled to Germany, so as far as I know, she is also in the dark as to his whereabouts.
I was thinking about Tom as I drove away from the Lowry farm yesterday. I had gone there because Fred had offered to siphon some petrol into my tank, which of course is against the law. Petrol, like everything else these days, is rationed, but as doctors are only allowed three-quarters of a gallon per week, that’s insufficient for all my night calls.
The previous week, when I ran out of petrol, I had to do a house call at night on my bicycle. Suddenly a furious salivating dog rushed out of a driveway, making me swerve. When I fell off the bike, the wretched creature sank its fangs into my leg and ripped my trousers. This was extremely vexing as it is impossible to buy new clothes, and mine were becoming threadbare, to say nothing of the risk of contracting rabies. So I was determined not to risk that again, and when Fred suggested selling me some petrol, I jumped at his offer. Petrol is like gold these days, but a lot more useful.
That night the rain was pelting down, and, faced with the choice of opening the car window and getting soaked, or keeping it closed and continually wiping the steam off the windscreen with my hand, I opted for the latter.
Visibility was very poor, and as I was sitting forward, craning to see the road through my fogged-up windscreen as I drove home, I didn’t see the car parked on the curve of the road, and before I knew it, I heard a bang. I had crashed into it. Swearing, I got out to inspect the damage.
Thankfully there was none, and, wet through, I was about to get back into the Austin when a police car pulled up beside me and two officers jumped out, demanding to know why I had broken the curfew.
I explained that I was a doctor returning from a house call and assured them that there was no problem, but as luck would have it, I had just filled my tank illegally, and one of them decided to check that I hadn’t exceeded my ration of petrol for the week.
I had to think quickly. If they found that the tank was full, I’d have to pay a heavy fine, Fred would be imprisoned for selling it, and I’d probably have the Austin impounded. In a feeble attempt to play for time, I made a few inane comments about the rain while looking around in the unlikely hope of deliverance.
That’s when I noticed that I had parked my car on a blind curve in the road.
‘This road is dangerously narrow,’ I said. ‘I’d better move the car before it causes an accident.’
‘Ja, sehr gut,’ one of them said, nodding.
When I moved the car, I parked with two wheels partly in the gutter, so that it tilted to one side. When the officer plunged his metal measuring rod into the roadside part of the tank, the petrol level there was much lower on account of the tilt, and to my relief they got back into their car and drove away.
Several weeks have passed since my last entry but I’ve figured out why I’ve been so remiss. Ever since I started musing about the ultimate fate of this journal, and wondering what to delete when the time comes, I’ve lost my spontaneity. It feels as if I have a critic looking over my shoulder to check what I write. This is as inhibiting as trying to have a sincere conversation with someone you mistrust, when you have to watch every word you utter.
But when I don’t write in the journal, I feel something is missing. Patients I’ve treated who have lost a limb tell me that they continue to feel pain where that arm or leg used to be. It’s called a phantom limb. So perhaps that’s what I’m feeling – a phantom hand that longs to pick up a pen!
But there’s another factor that’s inhibiting me from recording the day’s events. The last conversation I had with Aoife has unsettled me.
I’ve noticed that she never talks about her life before we met. I never pry, but once, when I referred to her career before becoming matron at the Jersey Maternity Hospital, she kissed me and said firmly that there was no before, because she was reborn when we met. She said it in the teasing way she dismisses all references to her past.
It feels as if there’s an invisible but clearly defined line in her life that I am not allowed to cross. She is entitled to her privacy, but I can’t deny that her lack of trust bothers me. I don’t keep any secrets from her, and I wish she felt she could be open with me.
We were sitting on my sofa that evening, her head on my lap, and I was stroking her flame-coloured hair while I told her a little about my childhood here on Jersey. How I loved exploring the coves, climbing on the rocks and searching for birds’ nests in the woods. But when I asked about her schooldays in Ireland, her reply shocked me.
‘I never talk about that, so please don’t ask,’ she said, and changed the subject.
So to avoid that minefield, I told her I’d always wanted to be a doctor, and asked whether she had always wanted to be a nurse.
At that, she sprang up and said, ‘I’m tired, I think I’ll be getting back now.’ Before I could ask her to explain why she was so upset, she was gone. Bewildered, I sat on the sofa going over our conversation and her unexpected reaction to questions that hadn’t seemed intrusive.
What had I said to upset her? Was I being too possessive? Should I step back a little and give her more space? Perhaps it had nothing to do with me, and she was overworked and at breaking point on account of the strain of trying to run a hospital with ever-decreasing medications and ever-increasing problems?
Churned up and distressed, I put the Mozart Clarinet Concerto on the gramophone. When that was finished, I played the Beethoven Violin Concerto and closed my eyes while I listened to it, trying to imagine how a man who was deaf and disappointed in love had managed to compose such life-affirming music.
But as I discover every single day, the human mind is unfathomable. Take my patient Mrs Browning. I knew she was co-habiting with a German soldier while her husband, who had joined the British armed forces, was fighting somewhere in North Africa, but she amazed me this morning by confiding that every night, before getting into bed with her lover, she kneels on the floor and prays for her husband to come home safely. ‘Reinhard doesn’t mind,’ she told me. ‘He understands.’
I can’t judge her. We all need to be loved and understood.
That of course turned my thoughts to Aoife and her disturbing reaction to a simple question. I lay awake for a long time but instead of the melody of the Beethoven concerto, the lyrics of ‘Down by the Salley Gardens’ resounded in my head.