‘What if they’re caught by a patrol if they do actually make it out to sea? Do we just leave them to rot alone?’
‘We won’t be able to do anything to help then,’ Persey said quietly.
Dido swallowed. ‘They’re going to arrest you and I anyway by the sounds of it. And the Durands.’
‘No one need ever connect Lise’s absence on the island with the help of the Durands.’
‘They will if Lise talks?’
‘She won’t and you’re talking as if they might not get away,’ Persey said.
‘They might not,’ Dido cried.
Stefan had returned from his work later than expected. Dido and Jack were in the kitchen discussing the now-accelerated plan. Jack had taken it well, which Persey had expected, enjoying the thrill of the adventure. And when she’d told him the woman he was taking to England with him was Jewish he had laughed gleefully at her story of keeping Lise hidden from the Germans for so long. ‘Anything to get one over on the greenfly,’ he had crowed. ‘You’ve got her this far, Persey; I’ll get her the rest of the way.’ Secretly Persey was relieved that Jack wore his hero complex for the world to see. His bullishness would provide Lise with the confidence she needed to board the boat.
While they waited for the darkness of night to fall, Stefan returned and she told him her plan. She spoke in a no-nonsense fashion, refusing to even consider repeating her words of affection now. She could not take the sting of refusal one more time.
‘What can I do?’ he asked after he had got over his initial shock.
‘Nothing,’ she replied, hating how much she loved him all the more for asking to help instead of telling her she was mad. She had told him she was going to escort Lise down to Jack’s waiting boat and keep watch, then she would return when she’d seen them get away.
Stefan frowned. ‘It won’t be that simple,’ he said worryingly. ‘Before, you told me you’d tried to get Jack off the island. But that was in the early days. There are more sentries now. And mines on beaches. You have to know where you are going to avoid them. And there may be barbed wire to cut.’
‘I know,’ Persey had said. ‘Jack knows. We’ll be careful.’
Stefan looked uncertain. ‘I cannot let you go alone.’
‘I won’t be alone. I’ll be with Lise and then—’
‘And then, after they have left, you will be alone. No, I willcome with you. Then if you are stopped, I will be there. They will leave you alone if you and I are together.’
‘But you can’t come in your staff car,’ she’d replied. ‘You can’t park your staff car at the top of the cliff. It will draw attention.’
‘I will come with you on my bicycle and I will keep watch for you from the edge of the beach.’
Persey wasn’t sure.
‘Please, let me help you, Persephone. You cannot do everything alone.’
As Persey helped Jack pack a few essentials she wondered if they were alone in doing what they were doing – the household of Deux Tourelles wrapped up in their own version of resistance, retaliation, escape. Were others across the island engaging in frightening escape plans, other ways to disturb the Model Occupation? She hoped so. And for the Islanders’ sakes when it came to reprisals if discovered – she hoped not.
‘After the war is over,’ she whispered to herself, ‘will Stefan and I be together? Can we be together?’ She had to believe it would happen, although not now. Too much had been unsaid before. And now everything had been said and it still wasn’t enough.
She grew maudlin as she started to think about Dido. What would Dido do after the war? If this blasted war ever ended. Was Dido wondering the same sort of thing about her German boyfriend? How serious were they about each other? Would he come back for her? Or would she go to Germany with him? Dido would. She knew that. Dido fell in love hard.
And then there was that letter. The one that would condemn both her, Dido, and Lise. The three of them exposed in one fatal blow, even though it had nothing to do with Dido. She could make no sense of what drove people like Mrs Renouf to do such terrible things, to inform, when doing good things was so easily within grasp.
Chapter 31
2016
The elusive Persephone really was elusive. She didn’t even have a grave. Maybe she didn’t die in Guernsey, Lucy thought. Maybe she was sent to the camp? They’d been so focused on her during the war it didn’t occur to Lucy to question what Persephone had done after, where she had gone, how long Dido had been alone at Deux Tourelles, and where Persephone was buried.
The next afternoon, Lucy stood in the kitchen and made coffee, absent-mindedly pouring in far too much milk. She’d been busy packing up Dido’s clothes, as instructed by Clara. She’d put on the record player, listening to old jazz music that she was slowly falling in love with. Its timelessness provided a suitable soundtrack to her sad task, but in the end she’d had to switch off the record player and plunder on upstairs in silence. After she was done, she began bringing the bags downstairs. She felt awful as she looked at the recycling sacks lined up in the hallway. This was someone’s life, reduced to sacks.
There was some small level of comfort knowing that a charity shop would make money from these when they sold them. And that the women who shopped in the charity outlet she was dropping these into would find some beautiful treasures to love and to wear.
But still it didn’t alleviate the sadness. She looked down at hermug with dismay, the pale coffee looked almost undrinkable, but she was spared drinking it by a fast rap at the front door.
