Tim Binding - Island Madness

Zep was on top of her now, fumbling with his buttons. She could hear his boots trying to gain purchase on the road. She raised her hips but it didn’t seem to help. This was no good at all.

“It’s bloody draughty in here,” she complained.

“Where, then?”

She pushed him off and stood up. He pressed her against the car and put his hand inside the greatcoat. She flinched. His hands were freezing.

“No,” she said. “This way.”

She took his hand and led him round to the end house. Down the path stood her father’s shed. The lock had been broken so many times they hadn’t bothered to replace it any more. At the back was a small window with a workbench running off to one side. The moonlight feil upon the pitted surface and a row of chisels above. Zep stood in the doorway, looking in, as if he were a guest being shown round a hotel.

“There is no room to lie down,” he said. She sat up on the bench, put her bag to one side and leant back against the wall.

“Pretend you’re on parade, then,” she said. “Stand to attention,” and she pulled him towards her. It was an awkward posture, where movement was dictated by the needs of balance rather than desire, hanging on the side with one hand, looking over his shoulder, hoping that they weren’t making too much noise, wondering whether this was a good idea. It was why she had gone to the party, wasn’t it, to bag a decent Jerry? Moving back to step out of his trousers the Captain banged his head on something hanging down from the rafters.

“Careful,” she said and reaching up took it down from its hook.

“What is it?”

She held it out at arm’s length. “A carving,” she said, “nothing much.” She cast it to one side. “You can come back now. It’s quite safe.”

He moved up again and undid her few remaining buttons, examining what he found.

“Beautiful,” he said, meaning it.

She kissed him gratefully.

“You should have seen them when I had a bit of weight on me. Your rations have half done for our figures.”

Romulus and Remus, that’s what Tommy used to call them, ‘each one a helmet’s worth’. That first afternoon had been typical Tommy, shrugging off his duties without a moment’s thought, sitting up at the bar, enjoying his steady consumption, heimet planted on the counter, her legs swinging back and forth. Whenever the connecting door opened, he would place the heimet solemnly over his glass, not because he was worried he might get caught (Tommy had been caught dozens of times—fined but never dismissed, for he was fearless when it came to fighting) but because it amused him to lift his hat of high office and feign astonishment at what lay underneath. There was a playfulness within Tommy that cut away his years, an irresponsibility that captured her utterly, though the news that Ned had upped and joined the English police and could be seen swanning about Dorchester High Street in a uniform one size too large for him had helped. So it was Tommy who she walked out with against her father’s wishes, Tommy with his unquenchable thirst and huge hands, Tommy with his delicate wood carvings and his roving eye. And for a while it worked. She thought that given enough solid sustenance ‘from her, she could wean him off his flights of fancy. She didn’t give him time for anyone else. By the time mother took ill and she was needed more at home it never occurred to her that he might return to his old ways, for it was Tommy who carved the Virgin Mary that her mother kept on her sickbed beside her, Tommy who carried her downstairs so that she might be near her garden, Tommy who pushed her along the Esplanade every Sunday, but despite all his kindness, stories came winging back of Tommy here and Tommy there, and did you see him walking out of the Normandie, one on each arm? She might have turned a blind eye had she not come across him, waiting for opening time, sitting on the stone wall carving a little lighthouse with ‘To Mary-Ellen: Guernsey Memories’ carved upon it. Though he promised to mend his ways, even as he was saying it his eye flicked across to a couple of trippers sauntering down the opposite road, skirts billowing in the wind. He winked at them. Just couldn’t help it. So she chucked him there and then, him and his ring, and spent her time looking after Mum, cooking for Dad in the evenings and pruning leathery feet every morning from ten to twelve thirty and on Wednesday afternoons from half-past two to half-past four. She had some regular clients then, some of the island’s real toffs, even Mrs Hallivand. And then Molly had arrived, right after one of Mrs Hallivand’s imperial fortnightly visits. Veronica knew Molly slightly. “Ideas above her station,” her mother used to say. “With a figure like that she can afford them,” her da would reply. Molly had come about an ingrowing toenail, and they both stood by the window watching Mrs Hallivand sail down the street distributing nods and pleasantries to those who deserved them.

“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.