A Place of Hiding

Frank desperately wanted the man to be gone, but Langlois prattled on, telling him what he least wanted to hear: that the mould into which such men as Graham Ouseley had been poured at birth had long since been broken; that Frank should rejoice at having had such a father and for so many years, indeed into his own senior age; that Graham had been proud of having such a son with whom he could live in peace and harmony even unto death; that Frank’s tender and unceasing devotion had meant much to Graham...

“Treasure that,” Langlois told him solemnly. Then he’d gone, leaving Frank to climb the stairs to his room, to sit on the bed, to lie on it eventually, and to wait dry-eyed for the future to arrive. Now, having reached South Quay, he found himself trapped in St. Sampson. Behind him traffic from The Bridge was backing up as shoppers left the commercial precinct of the town and headed for their homes while in front of him, a tailback extended all the way to Bulwer Avenue. There, at the junction, an articulated lorry had apparently made too sharp a turn into South Quay and was jack-knifed in an impossible position with too many vehicles trying to get past it, too little space in which to manoeuvre, and too many people hanging about offering advice. Seeing this, Frank jerked the Peugeot’s wheel to the left. He eased out of the traffic and onto the edge of the quay, where he parked facing the water. He got out of the car. The dressed granite of the harbour walls enclosed few boats at this time of year, and the December water that lapped against the stones had the advantage of being free from the petrol slicks of high summer left by careless casual boaters who were the constant bane of local fishermen. Across the water at the north end of The Bridge, the shipping yard sent forth its cacophony of pounding, welding, scraping, and cursing as craft brought out of the water for the winter were overhauled for the future season. While Frank knew what each sound was and how each related to the work being done on the boats in the yard, he let it stand in place of something else altogether, transforming the pounding to the steady march of jackboots on cobblestones, the scraping to the rasp of a slide arm as a rifle was cocked, the cursing to the orders given—understandable in any language—when it was time to fire.

He couldn’t rid his head of the stories, even now, when he most needed to: fifty-three years of them, told over and over but never worn out and never unwelcome until this moment. Yet still, they came on, whether he wanted them or not: 28 June 1940, 6:55 P.M. The steady drone of approaching aircraft and the steadier rise of dread and confusion in those gathered at the harbour in St. Peter Port to see the mail steamer off, as was their simple custom, and in those whose lorries were queued up to deposit their loads of tomatoes into the holds of the cargo vessels... There were too many people in the area and when the six planes came, they left the dead and the wounded behind them. Incendiary bombs dropped upon the lorries and high explosives blew them into the sky, while machine guns strafed the crowd without regard. Men, women, and children. Deportations, interrogations, executions, and enslavements all came after that. As did the immediate winnowing out of drops of Jewish blood and the countless proclamations and mandates. Hard labour for this and death by firing squad for that. Control of the press, control of the cinema, control of information, control of minds.

Black marketeers rose up to make a profit from the misery of their fellows. Unlikely heroes developed from farmers with radio receivers hidden in their barns. A people, reduced to scavenging for food and scavenging for fuel, marked time in circumstances that seemed forgotten by the rest of the world as the Gestapo moved among them, watching, listening, and waiting to pounce on anyone who made a single wrong move.



People died, Frankie. Right here on this island, people suffered and died because of the Hun. And some people fought him only way that they could. So don’tyou ever forget that, lad. You walk proud. You come from stock that knew the worstof times and lived to tell about them. Isn’t just any lad on this island can say thatabout what happened here, Frank.



The voice and the memories. The voice continually instilling the memories. Frank could shake neither one, even now. He felt he’d be haunted the rest of his life. He could drown himself in the Lethe, but that would not suffice to wipe clean his brain.

Fathers were not supposed to lie to their sons. If they chose to become fathers in the first place, it should be to pass along the life’s truths that they’d learned at the knee of experience. Whom else could the son of a man trust if not the man himself?

That was what it came down to for Frank as he stood alone on the quayside, observing the water but seeing instead a reflection of the history that had ruthlessly moulded a generation of islanders. It came down to trust. He’d given it as the only gift a child can ever give to the distant and awesome figure of his parent. Graham had taken this trust happily and then abused it mightily. What then remained was the frail latticework of a relationship built of straw and glue.