Island Madness

by Tim Binding

  “I see you work under the royal warrant,” Molly observed and Veronica gave such a good impression of Her Majesty that Molly laughing added, “You should go on the stage. Come round to the Society one night. Up above the police station. We need some new blood. See if you like it. Only keep that one under your hat. Marjorie holds the purse strings.” And so she did. She was good. She had the mouth and the bottle for it. She could sing too. Every now and again she could hear Tommy’s laugh rise up through the floors. She still liked him. They started up again, unofficial. Nothing special. He’d been seen walking out with Elspeth Poidevin but had dropped her without warning. Rumour had it he was the father of her child, but it didn’t seem to bother either of them. When he was free he’d come round Tuesdays and Thursdays, just as was she was about to lock up and as often as not she’d turn the ‘closed’ sign, lock the door, pull down the blind and bounce that chuckle out of him again. She looked forward to it. Better he should be like this, hardly drunk, grateful and grinning, than stumbling into their marriage bed late at night with only the curse of failed expectation to embrace. The evenings were different. She’d started going out with a different set. Molly’s crowd. A bit more class than she was used to. She was earning a little money too, especially in the summer months. It was curious what people found under their socks when suddenly exposed to sunlight. She had a trickle of holiday-makers who came in the second or third day, their feet twitching on her carpet like flat misshapen creatures hauled up from the bottom of the ocean floor. And then she found another man. Son of a solicitor. A little dim but good-natured enough. Fancied himself as Guernsey’s answer to Noel Coward, all cravats and cigarette holders and tennis racquets. He taught her how to play croquet and mix Pimm’s No. 1. She learnt quickly. She began to read Country Life, Picture Post. She took the lead in plays by Agatha Christie. She acquired manners. Her voice changed, losing that slow insular edge she could hear in her parents and Tommy and all the others she had known. She could say wittier, nastier things. She saw people in the long term, what they could do, where they might be going, how she might be a part of it. She didn’t want the likes of Tommy any more. She was on her way to becoming a young lady now. She began to leave her surgery early, so that Tommy would arrive to find it locked and her gone. For three weeks it worked and then he caught her halfway up the police stairs on her way to a read-through of a new murder mystery. She was going to get strangled in her nightdress. She was looking forward to it.

  “Been round a couple of times. You’re never there,” Tommy complained, his bulk filling the first-floor landing.

  “I don’t open up for just anyone any more.” She smoothed down the folds of her dress and waited. She knew what she had said. She found it rather clever.

  “Not even for old Tommy?” he asked.

  “Not even for old Tommy,” she repeated.

  “Made you something. For the shop.”

  Veronica flinched. How she hated that word.

  “It’s a surgery, Tommy, not a shop.”

  He reached under his coat and drew out a carved wooden foot, with toes and toenails and a perfectly arched instep.

  “It’s a foot. See? You could hang it outside above the pavement. Like a chemist’s.”

  “Very nice.”

  “I could help you hang it, if you like. Come round tomorrow say, after lunch.”

  “I’d have to ask Mr Underwood’s permission first. They’re his premises, after all.”

  Tommy nodded. They both knew full well she had no intention of hanging his handiwork anywhere. He looked angry.

  “How’s the acting going, then?”

  Laughter came from above. She looked up, worried she was missing something.

  “Swimmingly.”

  “Swimmingly! What sort of word is that?”

  “Just a word, Tommy, like any other.”

  “Well, I’ve never heard it before.”

  She looked down.

  “Well, pardon me for talking.”

  “I better let you get on with it, then, if it’s going swimmingly.”

  He turned to walk back down, and then called up again, in one last attempt.

  “Your ma all right?”

  She felt for him then. He had been good to Ma. More than good. He had been generous and kind.

  “As well as can be expected. Come round and see her if you want. She’d like that.”

  “When?”

  “Whenever you want. She’s not going anywhere. I don’t have to be there, do I?”

  “Suppose not.”

  “Just as well if I wasn’t. Don’t want to get your hopes up, Tommy.”

  “You saying there’s no point in me calling round, then?”

  “Not on my account.”

  “Not even if my poor old feet need attention?”

  “A tank couldn’t harm your feet, Tommy. Not in those boots.”

  He trod heavily down the stairs, looking back once in the hope that she would be standing there, looking down, ready to rush down those guilt-trodden stairs into his burly arms, but she was gone. Upstairs she read her lines and placed her white-powdered neck in Gerald’s trembling hands. It was marvellous. He could hardly get his words out he was so excited. Every time she slid to the floor, his hands travelled down the sides of her body a little more slowly, and when he crossed the stage to make his telephone call he held one hand in front of his trousers in the hope that no one would notice. She did, lying on the floor looking up the length of his leg, and so did Molly, winking at her from the sidelines. There was an advert she’d seen in the Picture Post recently from some undergarments manufacturer which ran ‘The Less a Man Feels of His Underwear the More He Likes It’. Well, Gerald was feeling his by jingo and didn’t seem too upset. God knows what he’d be like when it came to the dress rehearsal. She was going to wear her new nightdress bought from down below. Just like silk it felt, made from this new stuff, Viscana, with a satin collar and blouselike bodice, tucked in at the waist and all smooth and showy at the front. Once he’d run his hands over that it’d stick out so far he probably be able to hang the receiver off the end. She started to shake with laughter. “Keep your bust still, V,” Mrs Hallivand complained. “You’re a corpse, girl, not a badly set blancmange.” Afterwards she led him outside and with her hands set primly in her lap listened while he declared his intentions, listing his prospects, his father’s business, the plot of land they owned by the golf course and the hotel he planned to build. Give me six months, he promised, and I’ll be able to go to your father. You can go to my father right this minute, sweetheart, she wanted to tell him, he’s not waiting on anything, but she held her peace, told him how thrilled she was (and she was, there was no doubting it), went home, and lay in bed thinking of the house she and Gerald would live in one day over at St Martins or the posh bits of St Peter Port, and how she would wake in the morning to a clear open window and a garden beneath and the sound of Gerald going off to work. He’d be no trouble, at least not to begin with. Spunk in her hand, that’s what he’d be. And then, what, two months later, he was gone, not just Gerald but every man jack of them, across the water to join up. She’d been horrified. It won’t be for long, darling, he assured her, it won’t be for long, scrambling out of his flannels for the first and last time (a calculated surrender disguised as girlish trust), and what happens? Gerald gets washed overboard and drowns while on training! All those months wasted. Tommy imagined he could win her back with him gone. She’d seen him at Ned’s father’s funeral, and thrown him a discreet, affectionate wave, but the trouble was her tastes had changed for good by then. Gerald might have been a bit of a fool, but at least he had aspirations, at least he had prospects. Ned was there, home on compassionate leave. She understood him now, why he had left. They made a promise to have a drink together, the day before he was due back on the mainland. The next day the Germans came. It was bad for her at first, for she had cut loose so many boats by then. But unlike all the other men she had ever known, the Germans to
ok care of their bodies; they liked them, liked the look of them, liked the feel of them, wanted to understand them. They were like women in that way. She learnt to adapt her practices to their requirements, just like the town’s barbers. Business boomed. And as for the Guernsey Society, they had never been in greater demand. She was getting the best of both worlds. Not like poor Ned. The islanders expected him to protect them from the Germans and the Germans demanded that he enforce their rules. There he was, caught in the middle, viewed with suspicion by both sides. And how were he and Tommy getting on now, she wondered? She never had worn that nightie.

  Zep put his hands under her, drawing her buttocks out into the air, sending her sprawling further back. Her head started to bang against the wooden frame. The chisels began to dance. He was in a hurry now. Putting her hands round his neck, she managed to haul herself up. It would be over soon, and he would be gone. In the few minutes left it would be important to impart to him something which he might not expect, which on reflection would remind him not simply of the fleeting desire Ned had provoked, but of a particular attraction which she alone might possess. What, though? And how to deliver it? A word, a gesture, a promise of things to come? Would the prospect of regularly betraying Molly be sufficient for his ego, or would the picture of her elegant painted face, set hard against their departure, be precisely the image to turn him against her? She pulled him close. Over his shoulder, to the side of the door, behind a pile a boxes and glass frames and old sacking she saw two boots glinting in the wan light. One of them moved cautiously. She gasped.

  “You like this?” the Captain demanded.

  She starled to tremble, sweat breaking out.

  “Yes?”

  “Yes,” she said, staring hard. “It’s gut. Sehr gut.”

  She pressed his head into her, wondering who could it be; not her father, surely. Please God, not that. Another thought brought a shudder to her. Tommy. The boots were big enough. How many times had she felt his uniform on her like this, inhaling the sour smell of sweat and spilt beer mixed with the sweet tang of wood shavings? This uniform had been dipped in a different brew altogether, cigar smoke, brass polish and on the shoulders and lapels and the collar of his shirt the scent of Molly and Molly’s perfume, a cocoon of desire. That wouldn’t protect him. Tommy would step out and split his skull open like a walnut, and they would have to drag the body away and bury him in some faraway field! The island would be turned upside down in the hunt for him. And Lentsch knew the Captain had left with her! She would be the first person they would interrogate. This could be the end of her life! She began to shake uncontrollably, in her thighs and her arms and the muscles deep within her belly. The Captain lifted her clear and grinning, urged her on.

  When it was over he stood still, breathing hard. She did not know where to look, what her eyes might tell him. He was watching her closely. He had expected something more perfunctory. He was impressed.

  “I must go,” he said eventually. “They are waiting for me.”

  She jumped down and held the coat open against him, terrified he might turn around.

  “Gruss und kuss Veronika. Remember?” she said, propelling him gently backwards, holding him fast with her mouth and body. She could hear breathing now, she was sure of it. She reached round and pushed open the door. He was out onto the path.

  “Do you like horses?” he asked. “Riding?”

  She had never been on a horse in her life. They frightened her.

  “Love it,” she said. “Anything outdoors.”

  “I will send a message perhaps. To your shop.”

  “Gut. Sehr gut.” She took his hand away from her. “Now let me get some beauty sleep.”

  She stood in the doorway as he walked back, hearing the soft clip of the door and the whine of the engine as he pulled away, remembering too late the clothing that lay on the car floor. Back in the shed she picked up a spade and held it across her chest, like a rifle at port arms.

  “Is that you, Tommy?”

  There was no sound. The breathing had stopped. She jabbed at the dark.

  “Come on! Come on! You can show yourself now!”

  She stabbed at the black air again, and this time made contact. There was a squeal and the boxes fell in front of her. She jumped back in fright. She didn’t care who she woke now.

  “Come on! Out with you! He’s coming back, you know!”

  A figure came out from behind the fallen pile, small and pale. She could smell him even in this wind.

  “Pliss!”

  She didn’t recognize the accent but she knew who he was, or where he came from. One of the Todt workers. He stood there, uncertain, ready to run. They saw them only at first or last light, standing in the backs of lorries, or shuffling along the road with picks and shovels slung over their shoulders. Most of the time they were in the forbidden zones, building fortifications. The islanders tried to take no notice of them. They were nothing to do with them, after all. Who in the world had seen anything like them, with their gaunt stares and dark faces, thinking incomprehensible thoughts? They looked barely human as it was. Molly had told her that half of them were from asylums, the others bad people, Communists and the like. When they weren’t locked up in their billets they were prowling about the countryside lifting whatever they could lay their hands on. But this one didn’t look so terrible.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, as if she didn’t know. He said nothing. She stood in the doorway and pointed to her mouth.

  “Food? You come to steal food?”

  He shook his head. As she moved to chuck him out he crouched down, raising his arm to ward off the blow. He could be no more than sixteen. Perhaps younger. It was difficult to tell with the foreigns. Must be starving to be out at this hour. She remembered the food table and how the girls had all crowded round it. They were no different, elbowing each other aside for the next greasy mouthful. It was all slave labour of sorts. She grabbed his wrist and dragging him over, pulled the cheese out from her bag.

  “Eat,” she said.

  He took it carefully, turning it in his hands.

  “It’s OK,” she said. “Eat. It’s good.”

  He held it up and took a bite. He found it hard to chew and swallow.

  “Drink?” she asked, tipping her hand. “Water?”

  He nodded.

  “Come on, then.”

  She led him along the path to the back door, where the cottage leant into the soil like an old farm labourer used beyond his years. She held her index finger to her lips.

  “Shh. OK?”

  The boy nodded.

  X

  Once in the kitchen she drew the curtains and switched on the light. The boy was white from head to foot, white on his long clumpy hair, white on his hollow watchful face and white on his anxious legs. Only the cut of his muddy jacket, of incongruous quality, gave him substance, that and the dark red well of his sunken eyes. Tied round his waist he wore a grubby pair of football shorts, and his feet were planted in boots three sizes too big for him.

  She cut him a thick slice of bread and poured him a glass of milk. She had always imagined the foreigns to be quick and furtive, but he took his time, eating slowly, pausing to swallow. He held the unfinished cheese between his knees. White cheese against white knees. White milk and white bread. She wished she could give him something with a little colour in it. They were long and thin, his legs, made for climbing cliffs and stealing gulls’ eggs and falling offbikes. Legs like Ned once had, legs for legging it. When he had finished he looked to the door and began to rub his calves.

  “You can’t go out like that,” she said.

  The boy did not understand.

  “Clothes,” she said, slapping her thigh. “Vêtements. You need more clothes.” She pointed to the floor. “Stay,” she commanded.

  In the front room lay a pile of pantomime costumes she had brought back to mend: a couple of pirates’ outfits, some fairies’ wings, and the clothes for the lost boys. There was a p
air of thick red flannel trousers in amongst them she had patched only the night before.

  “Here,” she said, coming back in. “Put these on.”

  He hesitated.

  She mimed for him again, tugging and straining as she tried to pull them over an imaginary pair of boots. His mouth flickered with laughter.

  “Go on!”

  As he took them her dad’s voice came floating down.

  “Veronica? Is that you?”

  The boy looked to run, but Veronica shook her head.

  “Who you got down there?”

  Footsteps came down the stairs. A short man in trousers and a shirt peered round the door. Since her mother had been bedridden, her father had taken to sleeping on the floor beside her in his clothes.

  “What in Christendom is that?” he demanded.

  “A foreign,” she said. “I found him outside.”

  “Trying to rob us, the little tyke. I’ll learn him.” He raised his hand. Veronica caught it in mid-air. There was no power behind it.

  “No, Da. Look at him. He’s starving, poor little mite.”

  “And you’re breaking the rules, girl. You know that. Go on, sling your hook.” He made for the back door. Veronica put her weight against it.

  “He’s not going till he’s properly fed,” she said. “And that’s that. Now get back to bed. What you don’t see you don’t know.”

  “Get us all killed,” her father complained. “Wake Mum up.”

  “How is she?”

  Her father looked at the boy, who was too frightened to move, and then at his daughter. He hardly knew her any more.

  “Restless. Small wonder with her daughter coming home at all hours.”

  “It’s all in a good cause, Da,” she said.

  “And what cause might that be?”

  “Survival. More grub.”

  The boy stood up and drew his jacket around him. He held his hands in prayer and bowed before them. He seemed agitated.

  “Lager Ute” he said. “Lager Ute.”