Tim Binding - Island Madness

“We had the most wonderful evening last night, Albert,” she had said, starting up the careless humming again, and didn’t he know it, his bloody boxroom rattling like he was strapped to a tramline half the night. “Your birthday, is it, miss?” he had said, knowing full well it weren’t, and she had stood on her toes and yawned, “Oh no, not mine ,” smirking at him like she’d just won the pools. “Well, whose, then?” he had asked, irritated, not really listening to the answer, and she had come up close, closer than a woman should in that state, and tapped him on the nose. “Never you mind, Mr Albert Nosey Parker. You’ll find out soon enough.”

He knew all their birthdays, the Major’s, the Captain’s, Molly’s, Isobel’s. They all needed their little parties and their little birthday cakes, didn’t they? Molly’s twenty-seventh had been in June, a fancy-dress extravaganza down on the beach, with the lookout guards on the cliff opposite removed for the night so that they couldn’t tell their mates the fan and games that went on, Albert standing by the French windows with cups of hot chocolate as they fell in at three o’clock in the morning, drunk as lords and twice as randy. So whose birthday, then? Some special toff from France no doubt, with more raids slated for the Villa’s cellar. He’d thought no more about it, but later that morning, on his way to the barbers, he had passed by Hendy’s the stationers and there in the window was this dirty great painting of Hitler himself, sitting on a horse with a lance stuck in his mitt, dressed up like some knight in shining armour and underneath Mein Kampf in magazine form. In English. To celebrate the Führer’s coming birthday they were giving away ten complete sets. All you had to do was to fill in your name and address and wait for the draw. He had stopped and looked at the picture and the book beneath and thought again of Molly singing and smirking and Ernst’s and the Captain’s little huddles, one the man in charge of fortifications, the other in charge of security. If he was coming, that’s what he’d be doing, wouldn’t it, inspecting fortifications? He had walked into the shop and picked up the form.

“Never thought you’d be interested,” Mr Hendy had sneered.

“Aye well, might as well find out what the bugger’s on about,” he had replied. “When’s the draw, then?”

“When it says.” Mr Hendy was sniffy. “April 19th. Winners to be announced in the Star , though I wouldn’t like to find my name on that little list.”

“Many takers?” he had asked.

“Strangely enough you’re the first,” and folding his arms Mr Hendy had moved away to the back of the shop, where he glowered at him with displeasure. Albert had filled in the form and stuck it in the empty box.

Watching had been part of his livelihood, gamekeeper, gardener, gossip, they all needed sharp eyes and sharper ears, and since he has become their caretaker he watches all the time, keeping his face as natural as his masked duplicity allows. It does not do to be too stony-faced, for granite imposes a wariness on those in its presence, and above all he wants them to relax, to feel at home, to let their guard down. In that way the diary he has kept is an accurate portrayal of what they have done and what they have said, and such is the plasticity of his demeanour they rarely try to hide anything from him these days. He is wallpaper, he is furniture, he is part of the Villa’s bricks and mortar. Molly had guessed right that morning when Ned had been round, for before the bomb he had thought it important that someone should record these treacherous cavorting years. When the house feil quiet he would go to his room and describe as best he could the arguments, the petty jealousies, the brazen lusts that he had witnessed the day, the night, the week before, and leafing through his record he has discovered how very predictable they have become, how easy it is to foretell their hourly inclinations, and how he has become the conductor of this deranged and deluded orchestra. By mastering the art of anticipation he has acquired the ability to direct movement and though neither the Major, the Captain, nor Bohde (his most suspicious foe) realize it, it is he, their stubborn and trustworthy caretaker, who they keep up at all hours, who is forced to listen to their private worries, who bears their humorous entreaties of goodwill with a stok resistance which they can only admire, who runs this house, he who sets their rhythm and has them trotting up and down these stairs. He knows them all now, has learnt all their little secrets; alone in their rooms, dusting, shaking, sweeping, collecting their dirty washing, he has found them all out; the silver spoons and napkin rings that Bohde has tucked in amongst his underwear; the framed photograph the Captain has secreted underneath the lining of his sock drawer, of him in some vast American city, standing against a railing with skyscrapers in the background and a young woman leaning on his arm, confetti on them both and behind that photograph, a folded marriage certificate dated 1933 to one Marion Berger of Brooklyn Heights; finally there are the Major’s pencil sketches; Isobel lying naked on his bed, sitting with nothing but a shawl wrapped round her staring out of the bedroom window, and though he disapproves, his disapproval is nothing compared with what the Major’s superiors might think of the cartoons of their Führer and his leering cronies, drawings of what he takes to be the Major’s homeland with the dark shadow of the swastika racing over the landscape.

All these things he knew but until that moment when he returned to the Villa with an idea of who the birthday guest might be he had not gone on the offensive and that was what was needed, for a plan came into his head, a design of such diabolical ease it made him feel giddy, like he had just stepped off a boat. He stood stock-still in the drawing room, the name Lidichy ringing in his head, thinking how it could be done. Lidichy. Lidichy, the spirit of Lidichy. If that was what they did in memory of one of his favoured sons, what would they do to an island which tried to assassinate the man himself? Even if he did not succeed, even if he merely maimed him, or killed part of his entourage, what a cruel and merciless fury would be unleashed? But first confirmation was needed, confirmation that this was not the imagining of an enfeebled old man. It came in drips and drabs, nothing definite; the Captain being fitted for a new uniform, Molly in an almost permanent state of sexual excitement, a sudden surge of activity down by the harbour. It was seeing the soldiers unloading a large foreign car, seeing the sweat and muscle of them, with the crane swinging, men shouting, that finally drove him to action of his own. Coming back to the Villa and realizing that Molly and the Captain had decided to take an afternoon bath, he stepped into the Captain’s room and lifted his diary from the top pocket of his jacket, the sound of water gently slapping, the low mutter of voices, nervous assurance. Leafing through February and March, the pages were so thin he feared he might tear one in his haste, but then there it was, April the 20th, studded with exclamation marks, with a time, 11.30; the confirmation of his dreams. That was all he needed. He replaced the notebook quickly, unable to remember which way up it had been, and was halfway down the stairs before he remembered that he had not rebuttoned the pocket, shutting his eyes and pulling himself back up, only to meet the Captain coming out of the bathroom door.

“Yes?” The Captain held the towel tightly round his waist. It was a rule of the house that when they were there Albert did not use the main stairs.

“The water, Captain,” he said. “I was concerned that there might not be enough seeing as there are two of you in there. I was wondering if you wanted me to burn some more of our fuel. We’re quite low, though.”