A Place of Hiding

“I never...!” Graham took a step towards him, his hands balled into determined fists. “People died, you bastard. Good men—better than you could ever be—went to their deaths ’cause they wouldn’t submit. Oh, they were told to, weren’t they? Cooperate, keep the upper lip stiff, soldier through it somehow. King’s deserted you but he cares, he does, and someday when this’s all over, you’ll get to see him doff his hat your way. Meantime, act like you’re doing what Jerry says to do.”


“Is that what you told yourself? You were just acting like a bloke who’s cooperating? Turning in your friends, watching their arrests, going through the charade of your own deportation when you knew all along it was just a sham? Where did they actually send you, Dad? Where did they hide you for your ‘prison term’? Didn’t anyone notice when you got back that you looked just a little too well for a gent who’s spent a year in gaol during wartime?”

“I had TB! I had to take the cure.”

“Who diagnosed it? Not a Guernsey doctor, I expect. And if we ask for tests now—the sort of tests that show you once had TB—how will they turn out? Positive? I doubt it.”

“That’s rubbish, that is,” Graham shrieked. “It’s rubbish, rubbish, rubbish. You give me that paper. You hear me, Frank? You hand it over.”

“I’ll not,” Frank said. “And you’ll not speak to the press. Because if you do...Dad, i f you do...” He finally felt the full horror of it all descend upon him: the life that was a lie and the part that he’d inadvertently but nonetheless enthusiastically played in creating it. He’d worshipped at the shrine of his father’s bravery for all of his fifty-three years, only to learn that his religion of one knelt before even less than a golden calf. The grief of this piece of unwanted wisdom was unbearable. The rage that went with it was enough to engulf and fracture his mind. He said brokenly, “I was a little boy. I believed...” and his voice cracked on the declaration.

Graham hitched up his trousers. “Wha’s this, then? Tears? Tha’s all you got inside you? We had plenty to cry about, we did, back then. Five long years of hell on earth, Frankie. Five years, boy. Did you hear us crying? Did you see us wringing our hands and wondering what to do? Did you watch us waiting like patient saints for someone to drive the Jerrys from this island? It wasn’t like that. We resisted, we did. We painted the V. We hid our radio receivers in the muck. We clipped telephone lines and took down our street signs and hid slave labourers when they escaped. We took in British soldiers when they landed as spies and we could’ve been shot at a moment’s notice for doing it. But cry like babies? Did we ever cry? Did we snivel and pule? No such thing. We took it like men. ’Cause that’s what we were.” He headed for the stairs.

Frank watched him in wonder. He saw that Graham’s version of history was so firmly rooted in his mind that there was going to be no simple way to extirpate it. The proof Frank held in his hands did not exist for his father. Indeed, he could not afford to let it exist. Admitting he had betrayed good men would be tantamount to admitting he was a homicide. And he would not do that. He would never do that. Why, Frank thought, had he ever believed Graham would?

On the stairs, his father grasped on to the handrail. Frank very nearly moved forward to assist Graham as he always did, but he found that he couldn’t bring himself to touch the old man in his usual manner. He would have had to place his right hand on Graham’s arm and to wind his left arm round Graham’s waist, and he couldn’t bear the thought of that contact. So he stood immobile and watched the old man struggle with seven of the steps.

“They’re coming,” Graham said, more to himself than to his son this time. “I rang ’em, I did. It’s time the truth was told right and proper and I mean to tell it. Names’re being named round here. There’s going to be punishment meted out.”

Frank’s was the voice of powerless childhood as he said, “But, Dad, you can’t—”

“Don’t you tell me what I can and I can’t!” his father roared from the stairs. “Don’t you bloody dare ever tell your dad what his business is. We suffered, we did. Some of us died. And there’s them that’re going to pay for it, Frank. That’s the end of it. You hear me? That is the end. ”

He turned. He gripped the rail more firmly. He wobbled as he lifted his foot to climb another step. He began to cough.

Frank moved then, because the answer was simple, at the heart of things. His father spoke the only truth he knew. But the truth they shared—father and son—was the truth that said someone had to pay. He reached the stairs and sprinted up them. He stopped when Graham was within his reach. He said, “Dad. Oh, Dad,” as he grasped his father by the turn-ups of his trousers. He jerked on them once, swiftly and hard. He stepped out of the way as Graham crashed forward.

The crack of his head against the top step was loud. Graham gave a startled cry as he fell. But after that he was completely soundless as his body slid quickly down the stairs.





Chapter 21