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The Jersey Evening Post reported the facts of the trial without taking sides. The tabloids, with their CRIME PASSIONEL headlines and their imperative for a villain and a hero, crucified Steve and all but canonised Tony. Only Tony, Elaine and myself knew the truth and we each had our own reasons for keeping quiet. I thought I could live with the consequences of that, but I was wrong.
oooOOOooo
Of the Channel Islands, Jersey is the Mecca for hedonists. Tax-dodging millionaires abound, but are seldom seen. For holidaymakers it's Spain with English food, while for the male seasonal migrant worker it's easy living, plus an ever-changing selection of sun-seeking single girls.
More than a dozen of us hung around together that first summer, all single, willing to take any job available and dedicated to boozing, rock and roll, sunshine and random sex. At a time when the contraceptive pill was mainly available only to married couples, copulation was like Russian roulette. But cheap drinks and the holiday island feel-good factor, meant that hangovers were more common than hang-ups. We were a motley bunch of dropouts from various parts of the British Isles, most of us with vague plans to move on to the continent.
Tony from Southampton just needed to feel he was one of the boys. He introduced himself at a pub in St. Peters Valley, where the only cabaret consisted of the landlord and his wife throwing things at each other. I recall him telling me about the German Underground Hospital, a relic of the world war two occupation. He seemed to have a thing about local history and military artefacts, and mentioned that he was arranging to buy an old Luger pistol from the elderly drunk sitting next to him. The Jerseyman was spouting about wartime collaboration involving the island's landed gentry. It was all too heavy and I slid away to feed the jukebox, but when I returned Tony had bought us a round of drinks. He just tagged along after that, like a benevolent Jonah.
Bricklayers like Steve were as much an endangered species on the island as the animals at Gerald Durrell's Zoo, whereas there was no call for whisky blenders like myself; so each time Steve went to a new job I was part of the package as his labourer. We were both in our early twenties, but Steve had the edge on me in life experience and I respected that at the time, especially where girls were concerned. He was tall and lean, with a ready smile and could jive better than most. Original chat-up lines came easy to him, but what I admired most was his discretion. He never spoke, even to me, about his conquests, just moved on to the next, a rare trait amongst our age group. At the time I thought of him as invincible, but he was just being lucky.
The defence lawyer called him a deceitful man, lacking in moral fibre, but he was talking about society's code of conduct, not ours. Steve was guilty of negligence, but there's nothing unique in a man being influenced by his groin rather than his grey matter. And when his life, as well as his partner at the time, went pear shaped, he didn't try to flee the consequences - like many would have.
Being of an entirely different calibre, Tony seemed to tolerate rather than enjoy our escapades. He would go with the flow, but he had to work at it. He once made a citizen's arrest on the beach at St. Brelade. It transpired that the man, from Portsmouth, was heavily in debt to the car exporting company Tony worked for in St. Helier. Although such detention was legal under an obscure local law, he missed the important paragraph that said he would have to pay for the debtor's board and lodging while awaiting trial. And prison accommodation doesn't come cheap.
Having gone our separate ways for the winter, most of us met up again at our favourite haunts in the spring. Tony surprised us all by turning up with a lovely wife named Elaine. They had been childhood sweethearts, he said, and had married in their hometown, over Christmas. They'd rented a cottage near Gorey Castle and planned to live on the island and raise a family.
By the end of our second summer most of us had steady employment and self-contained accommodation on the island. We even formed a club whereby we each hosted a party at the weekends. Elaine was enthusiastic and persuaded her reluctant husband to join in.
Our close comradeship continued and the circle widened. Soon we were mixing with staff from the airport, including aircrew, as we became aware that winter on the island could be as much fun as in the summer season. While the island hibernates, a small subculture of foreigners continues to flourish within the community, happily co-existing with local people, though their paths seldom cross. We were gathering moss, getting involved; something only Tony had ever planned to do.
Steve was the first to emulate Tony, to everyone's disbelief, by setting up home with his pregnant girlfriend Yvonne. It was a gesture of defiance because of her Jersey/French parents' disapproval. He told me he was also paying child maintenance to another young lady on the mainland. The warnings were plain enough, but we ignored them.
A virtual epidemic of pregnancies swept through our naïve little band that year, and few of us survived as bachelors. Plans to hike around the world were postponed indefinitely. My own marriage, also held in the shadow of the shotgun, was memorable only for the arrests that followed a riotous reception. Afterwards Mary's mother ran our affairs, including young Jason's birth, on the telephone from Yorkshire. I was superfluous.
Our party circuit prevailed, indeed flourished, into the third season, as we each pretended to be able to live with our involuntary grown-up status, without becoming boring. It was noticeable that the general level of alcohol intake was on the increase at these gatherings, particularly where Tony and Elaine were concerned. Sometimes, as visions blurred, so did the perception of who was with whom - and whether it mattered. On one such occasion, a tipsy Elaine was all over Steve like blossoms at the Battle of Flowers, but he appeared not to respond. Although Tony feigned indifference, his possessiveness showed and he stayed at home after that.
While his wife lapped up the sun and the nightlife, Tony became morose. All around him unplanned conceptions abounded, yet it was apparent that he and Elaine were unable to start a family. He joined a shooting club and used that as a reason for missing parties. Elaine would often arrive unescorted.
Their place at Gorey was the largest of the venues and Elaine was persuaded to continue to host a gathering in spite of Tony's disinterest and his rumoured fertility problem. That evening he was trying his best to be hospitable when, out of the blue, Elaine shocked everyone by announcing that she was expecting a baby. The news was greeted by the usual mumblings of congratulations, then a silence, broken gradually by a babble of speculative chattering that all but drowned out the music. Tony left the room hurriedly and didn't return.
Our next shindig was at Steve and Yvonne's bungalow overlooking the bay at Petit Port. A short, steep, unlit winding track, unsuitable for cars, led from the main road. Theirs was the most remote and picturesque of the party locations, although hardest to reach. Partygoers had to park up and climb a steep, unlit path for a hundred yards or more. Steve had never fixed the broken doorbell, so friends just walked in, while strangers hammered on the heavy cast iron knocker.
At least two people were later to testify that they heard knocking just before Steve, our host, disappeared from the party that night. Some of us stayed on till daybreak to help Yvonne search the surrounding terrain right down to the shore, to no avail. They had no near neighbours and his car hadn't been moved. The police were called.
Some suggested our friend had simply decided to make a dramatic exit and maybe caught a plane to London early next morning; but most of us knew that wasn't Steve's style. Besides, he didn't appear to be drunk and it was simply inconceivable that he would wander off alone from his own party.
His body was washed up near Corbierre Lighthouse a week later, badly marked and disfigured. In time the police interviewed as many of the partygoers as they could track down, while speculation mounted as to the cause of death. Since he had been a strong swimmer, there was no explanation that made sense. Then Tony was arrested.
When she had calmed down a little, Elaine told me how her husband had been moping around the house for more than a week, drinking heavily. One day he suffered a fit of remorse and told her how he had killed Steve. Stunned by the detail of his disclosure, she was unsure whether she felt anger or pity. By the time the police came to question him, he had been too distraught to offer an alibi. She immediately engaged a lawyer.
oooOOOooo
The media located the dead man's former girlfriend in England. As I remembered the young lady, she wasn't very bright, yet in print she was suddenly articulate, denouncing Steve as a worthless villain, in words she couldn't have known the meaning of.
Although he declined to take the stand at the trial, Tony was described as a pillar of the community. An unblemished employment record, an interest in Jersey and its history, a devotion to his wife and home, all served to confirm this. His statement to the police, confessing to his involvement the crime, was presented in a way that elicited pity. He had, he said, gone to Steve's home that night to challenge him, now certain that he and Elaine were having an affair. They walked down to the small harbour where a fight took place, during which Steve stumbled, hit his head on the concrete and fell into the sea. The defence lawyer went on to paint a picture of an honourable man driven to the edge of insanity by his wife's adultery with his close friend; a crime of passion.
The prosecution was unable to challenge this account. With corroborative medical evidence, a sympathetic jury found Tony guilty, but on the lesser count of manslaughter.
oooOOOooo
What Elaine wanted most of all was to have a baby. When her husband refused to go for tests, she saw Steve, with his reputation for promiscuity, as the ideal person to father her child. It was to be a one-night stand with no strings. She didn't count on him turning her down, but he did. She spent the night trying to change his mind and drinking too much. There was a scene when she and Tony got home, during which he vowed never to be embarrassed like that again.
It was quite soon afterwards that Elaine propositioned me, knowing full well that I couldn't resist. Our affair probably started when we first met her. It was the secret, knowing look, the casual touching of hands, nothing more than that. There was an understanding, a respect, a promise, an arm's length intimacy. It was a flirtation, an unfulfilled dream. But I never considered being unfaithful, not seriously, until she asked me to share her bed.
I had kept it bottled up, but I didn't just fancy Elaine, I lusted after her. I struggled with my conscience, but not for long. I worked out the excuses and discreetly booked the hotel room. I realised Tony wouldn't thank me for the gesture, but in my mind I was helping him to kick-start his family, a labour of love - friendly fire.
oooOOOooo
I can't pretend to know what it was like for Tony. Since Elaine told me the pathetic details of his anguished confession - the true one - I have tried to understand, but I can't forgive.
He finally cracked, he told her, when Elaine announced she was pregnant. Having witnessed her crawling all over Steve that night, he just knew who had to be the father. It was a cruel injustice that people like Steve were scoring by accident, while he himself could only fire blanks.
During the journey to Petit Port his rage built up. He even wondered whether he had the courage to kill his rival. Although Steve was physically stronger, the loaded Luger tipped the scales in his favour. He would humiliate him, make him apologise and beg for his life, then decide his fate.
When the host answered his knock, Tony stuck the Luger in his ribs and forced him to walk ahead of him right down to the quay. The moon was nearly full. All the way down the path he subjected Steve to threats and verbal abuse, shouting down any attempt to reply.
He forced his captive to kneel on the concrete, holding the pistol close to his head. Then he told him to plead for his life. But Steve shocked him by denying that he had ever slept with Elaine and challenging him to pull the trigger, if he didn't believe him. Now Tony was wavering, losing the initiative and his nerve. In a last attempt to exert his authority, he pointed the gun towards the night sky and pulled the trigger. The pistol jammed.
It was breaking point. In a flash, all the anger and self-pity of the recent past came flooding into his brain as he reflected upon the injustice of it all. The citizen's arrest that cost him part of his salary for three months, the wife he brought over to impress, only to find he couldn't sire her children, the humiliation of Elaine's adultery, and now the gun that wouldn't discharge its bullet. A litany of impotence!
He turned the gun around, grabbing the barrel and bringing the butt down hard on Steve's temple. As his much stronger opponent struggled to rise, he repeated the action, then again and again until he slumped forward exhausted over the body of his one time friend. Then he rolled the lifeless form off the wharf and into the sea.
oooOOOooo
Of course our coupling at the Cote du Nord was never ever going to be a one-off, both Elaine and I realised that at the time. During and after the trial, we found it impossible to stay apart.
My own loveless marriage ended in amicable divorce. Mary remarried, but I keep in touch with her, and see Jason when I can.
Tony was released after serving three years. I told him about Elaine and I, and that I intended to tell the truth about what happened at Petit Port, to clear Steve's name. He didn't seem to care. He had decided to leave Jersey, he said, go abroad, maybe tour the world. I wondered if he could see the irony in that.
Our own girl, Laura, was the joy of our lives and we thought it would be nice to give her a little brother or sister. Elaine was broody all the time, but it just didn't seem to be happening for us. That's when she suggested maybe we should lighten up, start going to parties again. And she knew I'd do anything to make her happy.
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