Sixteen
Mayor Wilkes watched Victor Brodman from the apartment over the village post office. From a harsh blue sky the sun shone on the island ranger. For some reason he walked in the company of a short, muscular man who had skin the colour of cobalt – a striking blue-black. The stranger dripped water as the pair headed in the direction of the youth hostel.
‘Dear God.’ Mayor Wilkes shook his head in disgust. ‘Where does Brodman find these strays? It used to be just animals. Now he’s collecting people, too. Fishing them out of the river by the look of them.’ A middle-aged woman, sitting at a computer, began to answer but Wilkes spoke over her as if her presence in the room was merely incidental. ‘The times I’ve seen Brodman mooching across the island with some wretched beast in a cardboard box, because he was going to fix its leg or rub ointment into its rump ulcers. Now, it’s strangers. The sooner I get him replaced with our people the better.
‘I’ve had to endure Brodman for more than a decade. Victor-the-beasts’-guardian-Brodman. Do you know what it’s like to have that man on the island? It’s like walking with a thorn sticking in your foot. I’m trying to push forward plans, but I can’t because he’s making me limp along like a cripple. Conservation – it’s a mantra with the man. What really sticks in my craw is that the locals respect him. Dear God, I wish I could dynamite all their houses. Then we’d have real progress here. But you’re probably one of the Victor Brodman fans, too, aren’t you?’ He awarded the woman with a sneer.
‘You promised you wouldn’t hit me again.’ She pushed back a fringe, prematurely streaked silver. Her right cheek glowed an angry red.
‘Well, you promised not to annoy me again. You did, so you were the first to break the promise.’
‘I work for you. That doesn’t give you a right to knock me around.’ She touched her cheek. ‘It really hurts.’
‘Don’t expect me to kiss it better for you.’ He eyed her with disgust. ‘You’ve really let yourself go, you know that, don’t you?’
‘Bastard.’
‘Don’t push your luck, June.’
June pointed at her face. ‘I look twenty years older than I really am because of what you did to me.’
‘Did to you? I let you live in an apartment rent-free and pay your wages. That’s hardly an exercise in cruelty, is it?’
‘To think I lied to the police to save your neck. And you stood by and let me be prosecuted for fraud, when it should have been you in court. Not me.’
Wilkes shook his head. ‘Self-pity isn’t noble, June. Cry if you want but set up the meeting with the planning officer first.’
‘Why don’t you give him his bribe money yourself?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Wilkes turned back to the window to watch Victor again. Slapping June again tempted him more than words could say but there was no point in dispatching her on errands with her face puffed up. Besides, the woman was still useful to him. He had her in his pocket. Because she’d served time in jail for fraud she was unemployable. Charitably, he had publicly forgiven her for her wrongdoing. Then he’d offered her a home (as hers had been repossessed by the bank when she couldn’t afford the mortgage repayments). Now June did all those awkward chores that might expose him to criminal prosecution.
He realized June had still been speaking . . . well, bellyaching, he told himself. Maybe dealing her another stinging slap would be in order.
‘You know,’ she said, her voice faltering. ‘I don’t feel well. I’ve come over really hot.’
‘You do look flushed,’ he conceded. ‘You must be coming down with that ruddy bug everyone’s getting. Whatever you do, don’t give it to me.’
‘I’ve never met anyone as cold as you,’ she hissed. ‘Now I’m trapped in this . . .’ She grimaced. ‘Oh, no.’ Quickly she hurried to the bathroom.
‘It’s not all bad.’ Mayor Wilkes laughed. ‘The quack says that infection drives the body temperature up so much that people will have hallucinations. You might hallucinate that you’re sunning your old bones in St-Tropez.’ He wrinkled his nose as he heard sounds coming from the bathroom. ‘I’ll let myself out. Bon voyage!’