Free The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

remain here was hers, and, as is proven by certain subsequent events (which I will not demean myself to mention), she is not the selfless heroine that some people seem to think.
    Furthermore, the so-called Literary Society is a scandal. There are those of true culture and breeding here in Guernsey, and they will take no part in this charade (even if invited). There are only two respectable people in the Society—Eben Ramsey and Amelia Maugery. The other members: a rag-and-bone man, a lapsed Alienist who drinks, a stuttering swine-herd, a footman posing as a lord, and Isola Pribby, a practising witch, who, by her own admission, distils and sells potions. They collected a few others of their ilk along the way, and one can only imagine their ‘literary evenings’.
    You must not write about these people and their books—God knows what they saw fit to read!
    Yours in Christian Consternation and Concern,
    Adelaide Addison (Miss)
    From Mark to Juliet
2nd March 1946
    Dear Juliet,
    I’ve just appropriated my music critic’s opera tickets. Covent Garden at eight. Will you?
    Yours,
    Mark
    From Juliet to Mark
    Dear Mark,
    Tonight?
    Juliet
    From Mark to Juliet
    Yes!
    M.
    From Juliet to Mark
    Wonderful! I feel sorry for your critic, though. Those tickets are scarce as hens’ teeth.
    Juliet
    From Mark to Juliet
    He’ll make do with standing room. He can write about the uplifting effect of opera on the poor, etc., etc.
    I’ll pick you up at seven.
    M.
    From Juliet to Eben
Mr Eben Ramsey
Les Pommiers
Calais Lane
St Martin’s, Guernsey
    3rd March 1946
    Dear Mr Ramsey,
    It was so kind of you to write to me about your experiences during the Occupation. At the war’s end, I, too, promised myself that I wouldn’t talk about it any more. I had talked and lived war for six years, and I was longing to pay attention to something—anything—else. But that is like wishing I were someone else. The war is now the story of our lives, and there’s no denying it.
    I was glad to hear about your grandson Eli returning to you. Does he live with you or with his parents? Did you receive no news of him at all during the Occupation? Did all the Guernsey children return at once? What a celebration, if they did!
    I don’t mean to inundate you with questions, but I have a few more, if you’re in an answering frame of mind. I know you were at the roast-pig dinner that led to the founding ofthe Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society—but how did Mrs Maugery come to have the pig in the first place? How does one hide a pig?
    Elizabeth McKenna was brave that night! She truly has grace under pressure, a quality that fills me with hopeless admiration. I know you and the other members of the Society must worry as the months pass without word, but you mustn’t give up hope. Friends tell me that Europe is like a hive broken open, teeming with thousands upon thousands of displaced people, all trying to get home. A dear old friend of mine, who was shot down in Burma in 1943, reappeared in Australia last month—not in the best of shape, but alive and intending to remain so.
    Thank you for your letter.
    Yours sincerely,
    Juliet Ashton
    From Clovis Fossey to Juliet
4th March 1946
    Dear Miss,
    At first, I did not want to go to any book meetings. My farm is a lot of work, and I did not want to spend my time reading about people who never were, doing things they never did.
    Then in 1942 I started to court the Widow Hubert. When we’d go for a walk, she’d march a few steps ahead of me on the path and never let me take her arm. She let Ralph Murchey take her arm, so I knew I was failing in my suit. Ralph, he’s a bragger when he drinks, and he said to all in the tavern, ‘Women like poetry. A soft word in their ears and they melt—agrease spot on the grass.’ That’s no way to talk about a lady, and I knew right then he didn’t want the Widow Hubert for her own self,