Tim Binding - Island Madness

“You’d better come in and tell me what this is all about,” he said. Veronica stayed put.

“It’s not about anything,” she said. “Just a ticket for the show next month. Thought you might like to come along. For old times’ sake.”

Ned put his finger under the flap. Inside was a pink slip, smudged and badly printed. April Frolics , it read. Sparkling Wit, Excellent Vocalism, Vivacious Dancing, Mysterious Conjuring, and those Irresistible Coons, the Nigger Minstrels .

“What are you?” he said. “Vivacious Dancing?”

“And Excellent Vocalism,” she said. Ned nodded.

“Come in anyway. I wanted to talk to you about the party on Saturday. I didn’t know you mixed in such high-flown circles.”

She stood in the doorway, defiant.

“Don’t you start getting at me again! You can question me all you like, but I’m not having you looking down your nose like that.”

Ned sighed. “Sorry. Just tell me. I won’t jump down your throat, promise.”

“Scout’s honour?”

“Scout’s honour.”

“Go on then, make the sign.”

“V, I’m a policeman.”

“Not to me you’re not.”

“That’s the trouble with this place. I’m not a policeman to anyone. Albert thinks of me as his brother’s son, Mrs Hallivand thinks of me as her gardener’s nephew, Mum thinks I still wear short trousers and you…”

“I think you put on long trousers too soon.”

“Thanks!”

Veronica relented. “It’s not easy for either of us, Ned, seeing what we were. But what we were is what we were. Not what we are.”

She sat down. It was strange the two of them sitting opposite each other, him with his notebook, her with her hands folded in the lap of her buttoned dress. Time was when he had held her and kissed her, when they had leant back and whispered private things to each other that made thetn laugh. All right, he thought, be what you are, but whether you like it or not you’re also what you were. He leant back. He wanted to see her body relax and assume that volupruous familiarity his mother had found so disturbing. He spoke softly.

“Teil me about the party, then.”

“Nothing much to tell. Molly invited me. Said it would be fun. It was all right at first, down at the Casino, but as the evening wore on and Isobel didn’t turn up things went from bad to worse. By the end it was more like a wake than a party. Molly was all for sending the car over again, but the Major wouldn’t allow it.”

“Again?” Ned asked quickly. “He sent the car over before?”

“No. We drove past there on the way back to the Villa. Dr Mueller, one of the nurses in the front with the driver, and me and the Major in the back.”

“When was this?”

“Ten thirty, eleven, I don’t know.”

“And?”

“The house was in total darkness. I was all for banging on the door but he wouldn’t let me. Said she’d be up at the Villa. She wasn’t, of course.” She paused. “How’s he taking it?”

“Badly.”

“Do you think I should go round later, to offer my sympathies?”

Ned couldn’t help himself. “You’ve only just met him, V.”

Veronica rose to her own defence. “It’s not like that. We’ve a lot in common, that’s all. Singing. Music. Fritz Kreisler.”

“Who?”

“Fritz Kreisler. He’s a violinist. Jazz. Quite the rage on the Continent. The Major’s got all his records. He was going to lend me some for my routine. I’m getting quite popular these days.”

“On the stage, you mean.”

“Yes, Ned, on the stage. I got three encores the last time I sang Nanki Poo.”

Ned felt his displeasure rising. He’d always distrusted the exhibitionist in her.

“Don’t get me wrong, but it’s a very captive audience you’re playing to.”

“Ha ha very funny I don’t think.”

“Teil me about Bohde. He left the Casino early, didn’t he?”

“I don’t know, I wasn’t keeping an eye on him, the little creep. But he was at the Villa when we arrived.”

“And how did he seem?”

Veronica shuddered. “Horrible. He doesn’t like us English girls. He was giving me filthy looks all evening.”

“Lots of men give you filthy looks, V.”

“I don’t mean like that. I can handle those. No, this was like I shouldn’t be there, like I shouldn’t be alive. I put it to the back of my mind, but thinking about it now, and what happened…” She started to cry. Ned made no attempt to comfort her. It was his way of punishing her.

“And then this Captain Zepernick took you home.”

The cold formality of his question shocked her. She blew her nose and stood up.

“As well you know.”

“And how was the handsome devil?” He’d lost it now. He laid down his pencil and closed the notebook.

“He drives too fast.”

“You should have walked home with me.”

“I didn’t have a pass, remember.” She looked out of the window. “But I didn’t need one then, did I?”

Ned riffled a penny over the back of his fingers. It was a trick he’d learnt lying on his bunk in the section house. He looked up at her, swinging her bag back and forth. It hardly seemed possible that she was the same Veronica he had known before. She held herself differently, wore a different expression on her face. There was no peace to her.

“You’d better go,” he said.

The penny slipped from his fingers and rolled onto the floor. Her voice came cold and scornful.

“Can’t wait to get rid of me, can you?”

“I just don’t want you to get hurt, V, that’s all,” he said, bending underneath his desk. “They’re not what they seem.”

“Neither were you. Neither was Tommy. So what’s new.” Her voice seemed far away. He got up slowly, careful not to bang his head. But she had gone.

One foot on the stairs and Mr Underwood came running out.

“You have a visitor,” he warned her. “I had to unlock the door myself.”

Captain Zepernick was sitting in her chair with his boots on her desk, writing a message on the back of an envelope.

“Captain!” She looked back, afraid that Ned might have followed her. She hated it when he thought badly of her. “Is this official? Something to do with your feet?”

“With my feet, no.” The Captain swung his legs down onto the floor. “Tomorrow afternoon. I was hoping you might come for a drive.”

“A drive? What, just you and me?”

“Yes. That is not to your liking?”

“No, no, it’s just…what about Molly?”

He did not reply but reaching out ran his hand slowly up the back of her leg. It seemed to take a good quarter of an hour to reach its destination, stopping on the way, retracing its cruelly deliberate journey. His breath came quietly, intently. She did not move.

“You didn’t expect me again?” he asked.

“I didn’t know.”

“Good. I like that.” He stood up, his hand lifting her slightly. “I liked very much the other night. Very much.”

“Did you?”

“Very much? And you too, I think?”

“Yes.” A He and a truth in one word.

“It is unusual so early on. The way you…”

“Yes.”

“I will be here at four. If you sit by the window you will see when I arrive.”

“Will I?”

He stretched out a finger and traced the tremble of her lips.

“The mouth too next time, I think.”

“Really?”

“Yes. In my car perhaps, or a house I know. Maybe here.”

“There’s no telling, is there.”

She kissed him. Captain Zepernick stepped back and smiled.

“Till tomorrow, then.”

She felt was lost and afraid, the penny rolling over Ned’s cold hand. Her heart was leaden, her arms heavy by her side. She stood in dread of herself, of what she had become. She didn’t want to say yes. She couldn’t say no. She opened the door for him.