When the Sky Fell Apart (2 page)

‘Can you hear me?'

Dr Carter's voice was kindly, his manner gentle. Claudine wondered why none of the islanders liked him.

‘Monsieur Hacquoil,' Dr Carter said, ‘I'm here to help you. You are in enormous pain, which will only worsen once we attempt to move you. So I am going to give you an injection. To make the pain go away. Do you understand?'

Clement screamed. Blood and spittle sprayed across Dr Carter's glasses.

Claudine held Francis close, but he seemed less distressed than she was, and watched with wide-eyed bafflement.

Dr Carter filled the syringe with a clear liquid that looked like water and stabbed the needle into Clement's arm. His face immediately changed: like ice melting, all the hardness went out of it. His breathing sounded less jagged.

Dr Carter took a deep breath too. ‘You should be feeling more comfortable,' he said. ‘That's a good man.'

Clement made no noise at all. No movement.

‘Oi, Doctor!' Monsieur Fauvel shouted. ‘He's not breathing. You've gone and killed him. By
Crie
, he's only bloody gone and killed him, hasn't he?!'

Claudine's stomach lurched. But it was true: Monsieur Hacquoil had slumped forward so his cheek was resting in the sand. His eyes were half open and cloudy.

Everyone rushed forward.

‘Throw sea water on him.'

‘Don't be a fool, Marian, do you want to drown him?'

‘Tickle his neck.'

‘What good is that going to do? Blow smoke up his backside, that'll have him going again. Who has some bellows?'

‘Don't be disgusting, Fauvel.'

‘He hasn't killed him at all!'

It was Edith, shouldering through the crowd.

‘Look, he's still breathing. Dead indeed! For goodness sake! Out of my way, if you please. You too, Doctor. Come on, chop chop!'

Claudine remembered that tone: it was the exact same voice she'd used to usher Claudine into bed when she was being
overexcitable and giddy.
Claudine almost smiled to see the grownups jumping out of Edith's way exactly as she used to herself.

Edith drew a glass jar of liquid from her apron pocket, and a handkerchief, which she soaked in the liquor from the jar. Even in the open air with a strong breeze, Claudine could smell the sharp tang of soil and onions and herbs. It was a smell Edith always had about her, in varying degrees, and it reminded Claudine of comfort and warmth, even as it made her eyes water. The grown-ups took another step back: Edith's potions were legendary.

She held the soaked handkerchief under Clement Hacquoil's nose. After a breathless, silent few seconds, his eyelids began to flutter and he gulped a deep lungful of air.

Everybody began to clap, but Edith waved her hand in the air impatiently. Cradling his head in her lap, she pressed the glass jar to Clement's lips and said, ‘Come along, then. Down the hatch!'

Clement drained the jar, and within a few minutes he was breathing evenly, as if he was sleeping, wrapped up in his own bed, with his skin in one piece.

Claudine was used to seeing Edith work her magic, but even she found herself staring, open-mouthed.

EDITH could hardly credit the dilly-dallying and fussing.

Once poor Clement was breathing again, everyone stood gawping. Did they expect him to jump to his feet and dance a jig? Even that English doctor, who'd seemed an unflappable sort—even he was gaping at her.

She clapped her hands together, as though she was shooing her chickens into their coop. And in less time than it took to skin a rabbit, Clement had been laid out on a bedsheet and then carried up the beach to the tractor and trailer, which would take him to the hospital. Everyone followed, chattering and gossiping, like children at a saint's day feast.

Dr Carter waved at Edith to follow him up to the trailer. Those big eyebrows of his were drawn down and his lips were pressed into a thin line. It crossed her mind that perhaps she had trodden on his toes a little, swooping in like that and taking over. Still, Clement hadn't been breathing, and she was jiggered if she was going to stand and watch a man die purely because she wanted to show good manners and kiss the English doctor's proverbial backside. So she frowned right back at him, ready to give him an earful if he so much as blinked at her in that know-all way that doctors have.

Instead, he coughed. ‘A fine job there,' he said. ‘Quite miraculous, really, reviving the fellow like that. I'd have expected to perform some sort of forced respiration—what you might call mouth-to-mouth, if you understand me?'

His words were all rounded vowels, like listening to a BBC News broadcast. He was still frowning, but perhaps that was just his way: some folk have faces that'd look glum even if they found a ten shilling note in their breeches.

Edith tried not to grin too widely.

Dr Carter continued. ‘It was most impressive, I must say. What exactly was that concoction you administered? I'd like to procure some for my own practice.'

She blinked. There must have been a question somewhere in that jumble of gibberish.

‘Forgive me,' he said. ‘I'm being terribly rude. Timothy Carter. I shouldn't expect you to offer up your miracle cures to virtual strangers.'

He smiled—like the sun coming up—and held out his right hand. With his other hand, he checked Clement's pulse. Gentle hands, she could see that.

She smiled back. This was something. The last doctor had called her a witch—told all his patients that they shouldn't go to see a charlatan. But this one seemed…amiable.

‘So, what was it? Or is it a secret?'

‘Beg your pardon, Doctor?'

‘What miracle concoction did you give the chap to bring him round?'

‘Oh,
that?
'

The cart jolted forward. She sat down next to him.

‘Simple enough, really. Only some mint, rosemary and pepper with a touch of vinegar. Oh, and a drop of honey to take the edge off it: burns something awful otherwise. It's a job convincing folks to drink it without the honey—they sick it straight back up. And that doesn't do anyone a bit of good, particularly not if it's on my house shoes, which has been known.'

‘Just a few herbs and some vinegar! Is that all?'

‘And a little onion juice, of course. Gets the blood going; works a treat.'

He shook his head. ‘Well, I never.'

‘It's the shock of it, you see, Doctor. I don't know if you caught a whiff, but the stuff stinks to high heaven. Stick it under your nose and it'll make you gasp. Gives you a real kick up the backside. Let my cat sniff it one time. The poor thing ran around in circles, yowling like he was being chased by the devil himself.'

When Clement groaned, Carter squeezed his hand again. ‘Steady now, nearly there,' he murmured. ‘Good fellow, well done.'

Edith watched. He was kindlier than folk had described him. And there was a calm intelligence and wisdom behind those blue eyes, despite his manner of frowning when he spoke.

‘So,' she said, pointing to the sky. ‘Do you think we can expect more of this, then?'

‘I don't know, Mrs… Please forgive me, I don't know your name.'

‘Edith Bisson.'

‘Mrs Bisson, I really couldn't say. I can't see any particular advantage to the Germans in wiping out the lot of us. But, then, why bomb a defenceless island in the first place? It's crossed my mind that I should have evacuated while the opportunity was there.'

‘You should have, Doctor. English by birth, aren't you? So you've no loyalties here. And the rest of your lot went last week. You didn't think to go with them?'

‘No, not really. I haven't much to return to back in England. Only Father and…' He busied himself checking Clement. ‘I felt, well—it didn't…sit right with me, the thought of leaving.' He kept his eyes down.

What are you hiding?
Edith wondered.

But she nodded along as Carter continued. ‘We've no idea what medical care will be necessary if they do invade. Leaving would have seemed, well—I almost said
traitorous
, but perhaps that's a foolish term to use.'

‘I heed you, Doctor. You wouldn't catch me leaving, either. But then I'm rooted to this soil—years of my blood in it. I just couldn't understand it, folk upping and leaving like that, thousands of them. Rats from a sinking ship.'

‘Well, there will be no more of that—the chap who fetched me said that there's more smoke over St Helier. Rumour has it they've bombed the harbour.'

Edith felt a fluttering of fear. ‘
Bombed
the harbour? By
Crie!
They mean business then?'

He gave a thin, humourless smile; he really did have a kind face, and a sort of sadness in those eyes.

‘It would seem so,' he said. ‘We're entirely isolated now.'

‘We've been cut off for two weeks already, Doctor, what with England leaving us to our own devices. Demilitarisation? A fine name to pretty up leaving your dependants to be blown up and invaded, don't you think? We're supposed to be under Crown protection. The English took every single one of their soldiers. The Germans could come and butcher the lot of us, for all they care.'

Carter blinked. His eyes were red-rimmed from the smoke or exhaustion. It hit her, for the first time: the weight of responsibility on this man's shoulders—English doctor in a land far from home, during a foreign invasion. Why would any soul make that choice? What must his family think?

He sighed. ‘Yes, well. On some days, I'm ashamed to call myself English.'

‘Now, Doctor. The shame isn't with you. It's those politicians sitting in London, smoking their cigars and drinking while other people—good, honest people—die for them. Seems they could drop bombs on us until we're nothing but a crater in the sea and the English wouldn't shift a muscle to help us.'

‘If it's any consolation, Mrs Bisson, I can't see that happening. There's little doubt the Germans will invade now. But there oughtn't to be any more killing. What would be the gain for them, murdering innocent people?'

Edith felt a jolt of irritation: why didn't he understand the danger they were in? Where was his fear? His rage?

‘What about what they've done in France then, eh?' she demanded. ‘Burned farms to the ground, killed whole families, raped women… What makes you think it'll be any different here?'

‘It
has
to be.'

‘And why is that?'

He was quiet a while. Just the creaking of the cart, the soft wheeze of poor Clement's ruined lungs. The seagulls screeing in the open sky above them and the sea breathing behind them, inhaling and exhaling, mumble-mouthed over the stones. Some things remain the same, even when the sky over your head is ablaze.

He sighed. ‘Because…because I have to
hope
it will be different.'

No answer at all. Once again, Edith was struck by the thought that Dr Carter was hiding something, or perhaps hiding
from
something.

The cart creaked over their silence. She turned to look at the sea. Flat stretch of water, blank and blue as the sky above. Pretty as a picture, except with black and grey craters where the bombs had fallen: as though some thuggish child had scrawled all over the picture out of spite alone.

And Dr Carter thought this time would be different? He was naïve, too young to remember the Great War, the way it ripped apart people and land and time. Still, no gain in making him fret over what couldn't be changed. Another few minutes and she would get off and leave him to travel the mile to the hospital. She hoped Clement would last the journey.

Near her fence, Edith called for the cart to stop. She turned to Carter.

‘I must be off now,' she said. ‘I live on that hill.'

‘Of course. Well, very pleased to have met you.'

‘Likewise.' She paused, put her head to one side. How far could she trust him? ‘You were saying before—about the harbour being out. Not being able to leave. Were you looking to go yourself, after all? There's none would blame you. You've no ties here.'

A momentary flash of a haunted shadow in his eyes, and then he smiled and his professional briskness was back.

‘I'm staying,' he said. ‘It's only that I've some patients who would do well from receiving more specialist care on the mainland. But, of course, that's out of the question now…'

‘I might know a way, Doctor, if you can be at La Rocque pier tomorrow morning. I've heard tell there's one last boat leaving. Mostly women and children, a few fellows set on fighting. Only a small collier, you understand. But it might do for those strong enough to stand a slow trip across the channel.'

He stared at her, hard, eyes narrowed. For a moment, her stomach dropped. Perhaps she had him all wrong?

But then he said, ‘Very helpful, thank you, Mrs Bisson. I shall see you there tomorrow.'

He smiled, his longish nose pinking under the sun, like a tourist's.