The power a letter held, the damage it could do. No, she knew she would never forget that.
Guernsey, Spring 2016
The short flight hadn’t been long enough to drink the miniature bottle of warm wine bought when the drinks service had eventually reached her at the back of the plane. Lucy had only drunk half of it by the time the captain told crew to prepare the cabin for landing, so she screwed the lid back on the bottle and put it inside her bag. She’d see her older sister Clara in a matter of minutes; she might need to save the remaining half for that ordeal.
It was only an hour in the air from London, but Guernsey felt a whole lifetime away. Perhaps that’s what being far from home did to you after years away – gave you a false sense of time and distance. It had been too long; she knew that. But there’d always been a valid reason why she couldn’t return, and on the occasions she had it had only ever been for a night, and then she’d always had to go back to the mainland the next day. Lucy thought back. Perhaps it had been three years, maybe four, since she’d been to Guernsey. Her niece’s christening – that was the last time she’d been back. And before that it was Clara’s wedding a few years prior. Although she’d seen them all when they’d come across visiting her on the mainland.
Only official events that came with expectant invitations attached had the power to draw Lucy back to Guernsey. But now, the reason to return was merely logistical: a funeral to arrange for an elderly relative Lucy barely remembered and an uninhabited house to sell. No matter how hard she thought back to family events over years gone by, memories would barely surface of her elderly first cousin once removed: Dido. Of course, Dido hadn’t been elderly when Lucy had been young, but she had always seemed it.
Once the upcoming funeral was over, Lucy, for once, wouldn’t be leaving in less than twenty-four hours. Clara had instructed Lucy to stay and hear the will read, help Clara sort out Dido’s affairs and get the house ready to go on the market on behalf of their father, Dido’s nearest relation, who would inherit the bulk of the estate. Then, and only then, according to Clara, was Lucy permitted to get off the island and return to the mainland.
Lucy’s mum and dad had hotfooted it to warmer climes last year, after retirement. They’d bought a house in Barbados, and kissed goodbye to the Channel Island where they’d lived their whole lives, which did rather leave Lucy and Clara to fend for themselves in this matter. When Lucy had joked to Clara that in their early thirties they weren’t adult enough to plan a funeral, Clara had replied, ‘Speak for yourself,’ and that had been an end to it.
The plane banked and Lucy glimpsed the island’s imposing, concrete fortifications on the coast before the runway came into view. To the uninitiated, the winding borders of grey concrete wall installed by Hitler’s war machine all those years ago must offer a surreal first glimpse of the Guernsey coastline. To Lucy, while it hadn’t always felt like home, especially recently, it had always been home.
‘Have you been waiting long?’ Lucy asked as Clara stepped forward to embrace her in the arrivals terminal. The sisters looked relatively alike. Brunette, brown eyes.
‘No, not long,’ her older sister replied, glancing down at Lucy’s holdall. ‘Is that all you’ve brought? One bag?’
‘Yes. I’m not staying long, I don’t think. And you’ve got a washing machine so I can just …’ Lucy stopped as she watched Clara’s look of horror.
‘Are you staying with me?’ Clara asked.
Lucy paused, unsure if her sister was joking. ‘Am I not staying with you then?’
‘Well, you didn’t ask if you could,’ Clara said as they left the terminal and walked into the bright sunshine towards the car park. ‘So I assumed you weren’t. I assumed you’d made other arrangements. A hotel or … something.’
How had it become like this between them? Not too long ago Clara would have thrown open her doors for Lucy but now …
‘I’m a freelancer, not a millionaire,’ Lucy started and then: ‘But it’s fine honestly, I’ll book into a hotel.’
‘No, I’m not saying that,’ Clara was quick to cut in. ‘Stay for a couple of days first to spend some time with your niece and then after that it might be easier if you find somewhere.’
Lucy smiled to herself and held her tongue, silently congratulating Clara on having won a game Lucy hadn’t even known they were playing.
‘Molly misses you,’ Clara continued in a softer tone. ‘She’s excited to cook you dinner. She’s just learnt to make fajitas at school and we’ve had them three nights on the trot. Tonight will be the fourth.’
‘I miss her too,’ Lucy said as Clara drove the car barely five minutes through the country lanes and down into the little winding valley in the Forest parish. And then: ‘Dido’s house?’ she asked as they passed crumbling plinths that should have held a wrought-iron gate. It was no longer on its hinges but placed upright inside the boundary. A sign that told visitors the name of the house – Deux Tourelles – was also no longer on the plinth but propped up against the front of it.
‘How long has it been since you were here at the house?’ Clara asked as she pulled up in the long gravel driveway, littered with weeds.
‘Not for years.’
The house was part French country house, part Georgian manor. At either end were tall turrets from which the house got its name. The double-fronted bay window frames were peeling paint horribly and layers of thick green ivy had blanketed over the grey brick frontage on one side. It looked rather pretty. In autumn it would turn a russet colour and for a reason she couldn’t pinpoint that comforted Lucy.
‘God, I hate ivy, don’t you?’ Clara asked. ‘It’s just the worst kind of weed. I don’t know what possesses people to grow it.’
Lucy smothered a laugh. ‘Why are we here?’
‘The undertaker needs a nice outfit in which to dress Dido.’
Lucy turned cold. ‘What was she wearing when she died? Can’t she just wear that?’
‘She died in her sleep. She was wearing a nightie.’
‘And it’s not all right to bury someone in their nightie?’
Clara adopted a horrified expression. ‘No, it bloody isn’t,’ she replied, battling with the key until the lock gave way and the door yielded to the pressure, swinging open slowly. ‘Someone needs to grease these hinges,’ Clara said absent-mindedly.
A strong smell of damp and dust penetrated Lucy’s senses and it took her a minute or two to adjust to the smell of the old property. Inside the blinds and shutters were closed, but early evening sunshine fell through the doorway onto a circular wooden table in the middle of the hall. An oversized, empty vase cast droplets of sunlight like a prism, offering a bewitching effect. Clara switched on the overhead light and the prism was gone. The empty vase was the only ornament in the entrance hall but a stack of mail had been placed on the central table. Nosily, Lucy picked it up but there was nothing of interest as she rifled through, just circulars, bills and parish newsletters.
Glancing into the two front rooms that led off either side of the hall, Lucy saw they looked equally sparse. Where was all the stuff? Why no plethora of ornaments out on sideboards? Why no bundles of family photographs on top of the mini grand piano that sat at the far end of the sitting room? Why was she here to help clear out all the knick-knacks if there weren’t that many to clear?
It really had been years since Lucy had been inside Deux Tourelles. She didn’t remember the interior layout at all, barely remembered the exterior