Compulsory Games

by Robert Aickman

  Timo, indeed, had been the worst problem of all. Lydia had travelled abroad with him several times, but only to places where life was, and was meant to be, a dream. The new difficulties brought back to her the disadvantages of marrying a foreigner (who, moreover, could not speak any foreign language that was of the slightest use). Timo really did lose his head and his temper when meeting the incessant small injustices, and was always being made to explain more than had been asked at the outset. Even to her, his explanations of quite simple facts seemed thinner and thinner. However absurdly, she began to feel that there really was something hidden, including from her. She realised that all their years of fretting and fighting in London had been play, and that she had never seen Timo compelled to deal with real difficulties, perhaps with real life, whatever that was. And certainly she could contribute little herself beyond, she was ashamed and alarmed to note, an increasing, very English, snappiness.

  The mud road traversed a sequence of mountain ridges; slowly up, very bad jolting at the top, where storms had washed out the surface packing, even more slowly down, with Timo leaning on the brake. The poster route with its holiday traffic was far behind. On the mud road there was nothing, beyond a very occasional dirty cart, laden with inexplicable oddments, slowly dragged by a lean mule, the counterpart of its ragged driver. On each ridge was a crucifix, very fierce and bleeding; usually also far gone in rot and ants, and seeming to be little regarded. At the top of the fifth or sixth ridge, the other coastline came into sight, a fine wide panorama, though still sad, Lydia thought; with their house a half-mile or so below in the hot centre of it. To the crucifix here, in the savage heat, hung a woman, with her arms tightly round the post, her greying hair loose and wild, her face pressed into her torn black dress. Her bare feet were dark brown and very large, dabbed with browner blood, and with stumpy, almost invisible toes. Big drab moths rammed and battered at her head. The woman made neither sound nor movement, and Lydia looked away, embarrassed by her own agnostic apathy, deprived of unknown but presumably potent comforts, comparable perhaps with Paca’s dead rose. Cicadas roared inhumanly, as if about to take over the world.

  And then, of course, they arrived, mopping their brows and necks on damp handkerchiefs from Woolworth’s in Notting Hill. They had collected from the businessman the keys of the gate and of the little slab house. Timo soon proclaimed that the lock on the wooden gate was rusted up and immovable. The gate was topped by wooden arrowheads, quite sharp, so that they found it simpler to climb the stone wall.

  “The gate may be difficult to bust open without my tools,” remarked Timo.

  Their ankles pushed through the rough grass, making no difference to the noisy cicadas, one way or the other.

  The house was almost an anticlimax, after Lydia’s formless but mounting apprehensions. It was nothing but a mass-produced and in every way standard shack, of a type now to be found all over southern Europe. Indeed, the previous occupant might well have been English, as in three of the four rooms there were empty packets of Player’s cigarettes, in various states of desuetude. The place was full of small buzzing insects, but no other wildlife had gained entry. The only real furniture was a large but flimsy wooden bed with one leg broken off, possibly in the process of moving out. The leg lay on the dusty floor, awaiting attention. The heat in the house was intolerable.

  “What about sanitation?”

  “We shall have to make do. Nugent shall design us a new house as soon as possible.”

  “But there must be water.”

  Timo set out on a small hot journey round the estate.

  “There’s a well,” he reported on his return. “Against the wall facing the sea.”

  “Is there water in it?”

  “That will take time to find out. I wish I hadn’t lost my tools.”

  “Isn’t it the first thing?”

  “The first thing tomorrow, perhaps. Now we just unload, and go back to Nugent and Paca.”

  It had been the agreed arrangement because nothing else seemed practicable, but Lydia had never really approved of it. She felt that the depression and sense of error that had been slowly growing in her since about halfway through the difficult journey from England, would be considerably intensified by every further hour in that guest house, with its low sense of urgency but intense preoccupation.

  “Couldn’t we stay here, now that we’ve got here? There’s food and bedding in the van, and all we’ve got to do is to get up some water. It’s going to be a lovely sunset,” she added hopefully, and, indeed, there was no doubt about it. There was a lovely sunset every night.

  “We’re committed. We told Nugent and Paca we were coming back.”

  “They’ll hardly notice whether we’re there or not. I just can’t face that road again, and we haven’t even begun to unpack the van.”

  “You wouldn’t speak like that if Nugent and Paca were your friends.” He climbed back over the wall, and began to grapple with the van’s back doors.

  “In this heat it’s absurd to grind along for any more miles in that closed van unless we have to.”

  Timo was bashing and rattling at the back of the tinny vehicle, making a quite disproportionate noise in the quiet place, otherwise stirred only by torrid, shouting insects.

  “I’m going to try the well,” said Lydia.

  Timo just went on making a useless noise, and said nothing. Both of them commonly dealt with small oppositions from the other by silence.

  Lydia ploughed and sweltered across the grass. When she reached the well, with its penthouse oddly significant in the middle of the empty grassland, she shouted back.

  “What’s all this wire?”

  Across the grass beyond, impeding the access to the delectable private beach, was a wide entangled swathe of military barbed wire. It came from over the hillside to the left, crossed their little valley, and ascended the hillside to the right, where again it passed from view.

  “What’s this notice?”

  It constituted a second odd object in the middle of the dry grass: tacked inexpertly across the top of a thick stump, itself now sagging, it began, discouragingly, with a skull and cross-bones, limned by one with little training in the art of the perspective, and continued with a painted intimation in the language of the country, which neither of them knew.

  Lydia looked back and saw that Timo had succeeded in opening the van. He was taking things out, stacking them against the low wall. She waded across to him through the grass.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” she said. “Let’s stop unloading and go back to Nugent and Paca after all. With the things. We’ve been swindled.”

  “I’ve managed to open the gate,” remarked Timo. “Without tools.” The gate flapped uninvitingly.

  “We’ve been swindled,” repeated Lydia. “We must make a fuss.”

  “You can’t call it swindled. We don’t own the land on the other side of the wall.” He was still unloading.

  “But they could have told us what was coming. Surely they must have known?”

  “Of course they know. That’s how we got the place at all. That’s why we were asked to pay at once.”

  “Do stop getting all that stuff out, and let’s go straight back to Nugent and Paca.” Timo’s lack of surprise, let alone resentment, at the obvious fraud annoyed her. Timo was always shrewd in a way that became apparent only retrospectively, and therefore did no good, often indeed did harm.

  “The arrangement was that we should unload and then go back.”

  “I don’t think we should accept the property at all. It was sold to us on false pretences.”

  “We’ve paid for it. Or rather you have. Do you feel like trying your luck in the local courts?”

  “Didn’t you notice all that barbed wire when you went to look for the well?”

  “Certainly I did.”

  “You’re not suggesting that we can just stay here?”

  “It was you who was suggesting that.” He pulled out roll of linoleum, and the
n sat down on it, depleted by the extra exertion.

  “I didn’t know then. Now I never want to see the place again. It represents what I most hate in life: the trouble that always comes from doing anything you really want to do.”

  It was impossible to divine what Timo was thinking about it all.

  “And the money I’ve sunk in it,” continued Lydia.

  “Yes,” said Timo, still faintly implying wisdom he had earlier concealed.

  “I won’t just let the money go. If you won’t help to get it back, I shall have to do it myself.”

  “In the meantime,” said Timo, “we are bound to live here. It will be months before we can settle anything, even at the best, and we can’t live with Nugent and Paca for ever.”

  Characteristically, it was negative and joyless, but conclusive.

  Lydia began to take things into the house. After two journeys, she was so hot that she had to stop. In the end, they managed it between them; and the disposition within of the simple objects, the camp beds and the cultural mementoes, became almost diverting. Moreover, there was water in the well.

  They threw down rugs to flatten the long grass on the sea side of the house, and Lydia began to boil water for tea on their primus stove.

  “We’d better boil it thoroughly,” she observed.

  “I think it’s all right. It looks to me like a spring.”

  “I’m glad something’s gone right.”

  They sat gazing at the barbed wire beyond the far wall, and awaiting the primus.

  “If you’d like to stop here tonight,” said Timo, “I don’t really mind.”

  “It’s beautiful in spite of everything,” said Lydia. “Let’s just live for the moment. I only wish it wasn’t quite so hot.”

  “The sunset will start soon.”

  The cicadas clacked above the hissing of the stove. Ten minutes slipped by. Even the heat seemed less when one thought less. Then there was an interruption.

  “That’s a car,” said Timo.

  Already it had become an invader from another world. It drew nearer and stopped.

  “It’s stopped here,” said Lydia.

  “Probably the military come to intern us.”

  There was the usual bang of the door, but then silence. Lydia felt exaggeratedly alone, as with Timo she always did at moments of innovation. She noticed, however, that Timo was actually quivering, despite the heat. It seemed disproportionate, and again she wondered, but much more specifically, if Timo knew something which she did not.

  There was a sound of pushing through the grass, and the unexpected figure of a woman came round the corner of the house. She wore a very inappropriate black woollen dress, neglected flat-heeled shoes, and no stockings. She seemed to be about thirty, her fair hair was untended rather than natively wild, and her face was distraught and very pale, as if she had spent the long summer in a cellar.

  “Can you lend me some money? Ten crusadoes will do. I have to pay for the car. I forgot to put any money in my handbag. Please.”

  Not only did she speak English, but she spoke it in a particularly musical voice, as Lydia realised later.

  Timo immediately put his hand in his pocket and produced fourteen crusadoes, all he had; which he gave her. She disappeared.

  At that moment the kettle boiled over. Then the woman was back.

  “I gave him the rest as a tip. I hope you don’t mind? They don’t like coming all this way. And I have to keep him in order to go back.”

  “Anything for the sound of an English voice,” said Timo.

  “You feel it too?”

  “Homesick? Not yet. We’ve other worries at the moment.”

  Lydia had completed the infusion. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

  “No, nothing thank you. I’m not very well. In fact, I’m at the end of my tether.”

  Lydia filled two cups. “Do you live on the island?”

  “Down in the town. I’m in an impossible situation. The other English here can’t help. They’re all the wrong type. I knew that you were different, from what the agent said. I hired a car and came out at once. I want you to help me. You’re the only people who can.”

  Timo was stirring his tea. The spoon rattled against the side of the cup. “What do we have to do?” he asked. He was not looking at her.

  “Basically, it’s only money, but it’s really so much more than that. May I take off my shoes?” She had dropped down on a corner of one of the rugs.

  “Please.”

  “My husband bought a house here. He sent me to live here; and without my two sisters. We don’t get on very well together, and he’s got his business, but he swore he’d let my sisters come.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “More than six months. I’ve never heard a word more.”

  “And now you’ve run out of money?”

  “Yes. But that’s not the worst thing.” She twisted right round and turned her back on them.

  “What is the worst thing?” enquired Lydia, as Timo seemed to have suspended the interrogations.

  “It’s the house,” she said, speaking so low that they could hardly hear her.

  “What’s the matter with that house?” asked Timo.

  “It’s haunted.”

  Lydia relaxed a little. “Before you tell us about it, are you sure you wouldn’t like a cup of tea? It’s tea from England.”

  She merely shook her head. “You don’t know what it means. No one can know.”

  Timo put down his empty cup. “No, I don’t know,” he said.

  “Tell us.”

  She twisted back again and faced them. “I can’t tell you. But it’s true. You’ll just have to believe me.”

  “Is there a ghost in white with clanking chains?” asked Lydia, refilling the two cups.

  “No,” said the stranger very seriously, and said no more.

  “Nothing to be seen?” asked Timo, again not looking at her.

  “Just a nasty feeling?” asked Lydia.

  “More than that.”

  “I don’t suppose the details are any of our business,” said Timo.

  “Where does the money come in?”

  “I must get away and I have nothing left.”

  Lydia noticed that the clear blue of the sky was turning to green, and that quite suddenly it was no longer so hot.

  “How much?” asked Timo.

  “Two hundred English pounds. I shall send it back immediately I arrive. If I ever do arrive, of course.”

  “Do you think this house is haunted?” Timo asked idly.

  “How can I tell? It takes time.”

  “I am very sorry,” interrupted Lydia, “but it is more money than we can afford. In fact, it’s more than we’ve actually got just at the moment—got to dispose of; I mean. We are not rich, and we have troubles of our own, as my husband said.” She noticed that Timo had looked away, and was staring out to sea, disregarding both her and their visitor.

  “I must have it,” said the visitor.

  “I’m sorry. A much smaller sum perhaps, if you are really in trouble, but I must say I cannot quite understand what the trouble is.”

  “She finds her house is haunted,” said Timo in ambiguous tones, and still staring at the sea. “It might happen to anyone. It might happen to us.”

  “I’m very sorry,” Lydia persisted. “We simply cannot spare a sum like that.”

  “You refuse to help me?”

  “We are unable.”

  Lydia noticed that on Timo’s face was an expression she had never seen there before.

  “I hear singing,” said Timo.

  The visitor moved not a muscle.

  Lydia listened. “I hear only insects.”

  Neither of the other two spoke or moved.

  Lydia flushed. “Do you mind going now? If you really need it, we can let you have a little money, another twenty crusadoes perhaps, and you needn’t worry about repaying it, especially if you are leaving the island. Have you thought of writ
ing to your husband, or even sending a telegram?”

  “Stop talking,” said Timo very softly but urgently. “Can’t you hear music?”

  “No,” said Lydia, at last too disturbed to recriminate. She tried to listen harder.

  “Do you know what it is?” Timo inquired of the stranger.

  She nodded.

  “Tell me.”

  “They say that few can hear it.”

  “Can you hear it?

  She nodded again. “It’s part of the reason why I must get away. Why I must get away,” she repeated hysterically.

  “It’s beautiful all the same,” said Timo, and somehow overturned his refilled cup. The tea soaked across the rug like the opening of a dark hole.

  “It begins by being beautiful.”

  “And it ends? Or shouldn’t I ask?”

  “They say it never ends.”

  “I can hear nothing,” said Lydia, “and I don’t believe that either of you can either.” She spoke quite pleasantly, considering how frightened she was.

  “I must explain,” said Timo to the visitor, “that my wife has all the money. I have none. I am not really even English. I come from a country that no longer exists.”

  The visitor rose to her feet in the sea-green dusk. She was looking upwards at the green sky. Timo had risen with her.

  “If you’re going, I mean back to England,” said Lydia suddenly, “I’ll lend you the money. As it happens, I have enough here. We have only just arrived, and hoped to be buying things.”

  She opened her handbag and gave up all the paper money in it. “I should not ask for it if I did not need it so badly,” said the visitor.

  Lydia looked away from her. “You mustn’t keep your car waiting any longer.”