Tim Binding - Island Madness

“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 took 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.