“We have the cure for all your ills.”
“Not this one,” I yelp, “now step aside, please. I want to swim.”
“Back to the foetal fluid, huh? I always reckoned you were a mother’s boy at heart, Timmy.”
“Leave my feet and my mother out of this,” I tell them sharply – you can take so much, can’t you? – “I’m a sick man.”
“Only because you are burdened by so many bourgeois hang-ups. You want to make love with us, don’t you?”
“No, no!” I howl.
“Of course you do. Don’t fight it. Let it all hang out.”
“I wish you wouldn’t keep saying that. Look, I’ve told you once, I had a bad night, I’m tired, I’m ill. I just want to swim. Now, please! Be good girls and let me get on with it in peace.”
They consider me for a moment.
“Maybe he’s a repressed homosexual.”
“I’m not repressed,” I say, taking umbrage immediately.
“But you are a homosexual.”
“No. No!” I shriek.
“Come on, admit it. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. You can have relationships with girls as well, you know. Just try and imagine that we’re a couple of fellahs.”
“I could never do that, even if I wanted to. Honestly, please believe me. I am not bent. I am just tired, knackered, bushed, whacked!”
“Why do you hate women so much?”
“Me, hate women? Don’t make me laugh. Some of my best friends are women. My mother for instance.”
“Did you hear that, Nan? Back to the womb again.”
“Oh, forget it.”
I start walking into the sea. Maybe if I walk far enough I can end it all.
“Don’t worry, Timmy.” Nat’s hand slips through my arm.
“We’re going to help you.” Nan has grabbed the other one.
“Now listen girls—”
“Chicks aren’t so bad, Timmy.”
I am now sandwiched between them in two feet of water. You may have seen something like it on the front cover of Funfrall Continental’s brochure. Something. “Once you get used to them.” They are beginning to nibble me and do indescribably naughty things with their hands. They must have been swimming already because there are small drops of water glistening along their firm brown shoulders.
“Look, Nat,” says Nan. “He’s crying.”
“You pull the knob behind the seat,” says Ted.
“Oh, I thought you pushed it,” I say.
“Yeah, so did the last eight blokes who were in my place, I reckon. Blimey! Talk about pong.”
We are discussing the toilet arrangements which are decidedly “traditional”.
“They ought to print some instructions in English.”
“It wouldn’t make any difference if they did. My inheritance still hasn’t moved and the flies are standing three abreast on each other’s shoulders. What time does the water go on?”
“I dunno. I just work here.”
“You must be the only thing that does. What a carve-up. God knows what it’s going to be like when the paying customers arrive.”
We are sitting on the verandah of the Candelight Casino to which I have fled after the Deadly Duo have finished “liberating” me. That was their word for it, anyway.
“You alright?” says Ted. “You’re looking a bit pale.”
I laugh hollowly and continue to flick through my cornflakes in case there are any more ants lurking there. The tinned milk failed to drown the first three hundred.
“I didn’t sleep very well,” I say.
“Hot, wasn’t it?”
“Very.”
“Still, I suppose we’re going to get used to it.”
“I hope so. Oh, by the way, Ted, what does Isla de Moscas mean?”
“‘The Island of Flies’. Why?”
“That’s what they used to call this place.”
“What do you mean ‘used to’? Have you seen my bathroom? Blooming heck. I’ve heard of Spanish Fly – this place ought to be called Spanish Flies.”
“That’s very good, Ted.”
“Thank you, Timmy. Flattery will get you anywhere with me. Incidentally, who’s been filling you in on the local history? I heard you were giving a Tupperware party in your room last night. Was it one of your guests?”
“There was only one.”
“That’s not what I heard. They reckoned you were breaking in wild horses later on. Don’t tell me you’ve started indulging in the dreaded hanky panky already?”
“No, Ted, I was moving the furniture around.”
“Sounds an interesting way of doing it.”
“Yes. Look, Ted, talking of ‘hanky panky’. Who’s the Francis figure round here?”
“A bloke called Grunwald.”
“I haven’t seen him since we got here.”
“You won’t, either. Not until he’s finished the three bottles of brandy he took with him when he locked himself in his bungalow.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Nothing. Nobody else is going to do anything. I’ve checked the kitchen and we’re alright for potatoes and tinned milk. There’ll be no shortage of tea and chips. I’m not a plumber or a can of fly spray so there’s bugger all else I can do.”
“But hadn’t we better do something to get the place organised?”
“Organised!? Listen, mate. This is Isla de Amor: Love Island. You don’t have to organise anything here. Just let ’em get on with it; it sounds as if you were setting a very good example last night—oops! Talk of the diablo. Look who’s coming.”
I follow his eyes and there is Carmen padding towards us carrying a piece of paper in her hand. “You sweem long way,” she says to me reproachfully. “I have flushed out toilets and got more stomach powder for you.”
“Very kind of you, but I don’t have a stomach ache.”
“Soon,” she says, nodding wisely. “Soon.”
“Cheerful little darling, isn’t she,” says Ted. “What have you got there, love?”
“Telegram for Senor Grun—Grun—you look.” She hands the paper to Ted.
“Telegram! My goodness, what next? I thought a bloke ran out of the rocks with a message in a forked stick. Now, let’s see. ‘Arriving Island 14.30 hours. 7–7–72. Noggett’.”
‘I give telegram to Grun, Grun …” Carmen extends her hand.
“Don’t bother, darling. I think we’d better call his room the Sick Bay from now on. Take him some chicken broth about dinner time.”
“I no understand.”
“It