Bigot Hall

ISLAND

I told Billy Verlag I intended to explore the island at the centre of the lake and that I’d need him for ballast. Of all the territory bought with my Father’s forged money the lake was the strangest. It was rumoured to contain jet-propelled herring and trout which could imitate your facial expressions. But the island was a mystery.

‘Don’t ask me to take you there,’ said Father. ‘You’ll only start looking at the sky in a funny way and beg to go for a drive.’

Mutinous with curiosity, I peered through the telescope in Adrienne’s attic but could make out only a few shrubs. ‘You don’t want to go there,’ said Adrienne, lazily swinging one long leg from her sleeping-hammock. ‘Especially with little Verlag. I went, and may never understand what I saw.’

That was enough for me. One afternoon when everyone was off burying Nan, Billy hurtled over the perimeter wall and we went immediately to the lake, pushing out on a wooden palette. ‘Charon the ferryman did this,’ I said, pushing at the raft-pole. ‘Demanded hard cash though he was clearly nothing more than a skeleton. Must have been some tissue clung in that skull of his.’

There was a scraping sound under the raft, which Billy instantly attributed to a sawfish dragging its nose across the hull. ‘Nonsense,’ I said, and peered into the water. The lake was infested with boss-eyed cartoon characters which ghosted up, stared like lost souls and dipped away again. Inbetween were swirling volume levels and swarms of seahorses with tiny training wheels.

‘What is it then?’ asked Billy fearfully.

‘You’re right,’ I said, punting again. ‘It is a sawfish.’

Our dodgy vessel was tipping alarmingly and we were only halfway across. ‘Slow down,’ sobbed Billy.

‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘There’s no prejudice against fat little blighters out here. I reckon these strange fish will take to you like pigs to garbage.’

Billy released acoustically garish screams and I was soon vaulting through hoops to comfort him.

‘Think of the pirates,’ I said, kicking an errant moray into the depths. ‘They used to drag out eachother’s innards and set them alight.’

Billy calmed down, wiping his eyes. ‘Why?’ he croaked, sniffing.

I shrugged. ‘To make everyone’s existence a living hell.’

Billy bawled in horror and misery as we pitched through a frothing maelstrom of disquieting critters. The water was now too deep for the staff and we had to paddle our hands in the water. I had begun to wish I had gone with the others to sling some turf over Nanny Jack — then the water shallowed out and Billy’s screams began to echo from the bank of the island. Reaching shore, we dragged the raft onto the mud and gazed around.

The island was about sixty foot square and covered in the dullest bushes I had ever seen. ‘So what?’ said Billy, breaking a branch and tossing it away impatiently.

I tripped over and swore in a temple language known only to Adrienne and myself — I had scattered pieces of a kid’s fort built from lollipop sticks. Looking closer I realised it was a tiny wooden fence, extending parallel with the shore. ‘Is this yours, Verlag?’ I demanded, pointing. Billy looked at the little broken wall, waiting for a thought as for the second coming. We followed the structure a way — it seemed to encircle the island — and Billy started gibbering with an unaccountable fear. I tried to calm him by talking about the great explorers but he saw only the danger in the enterprise. ‘Verlag,’ I said, ‘yours is a narrow range of experience and in the age of exploration that’s the spice. The American Indians discovered America every time they glanced up. The Chinese found the environment too abrasive for homes of gum and wafer, which as you know were the farcical materials they favoured at the time. The Icelanders liked the place so much they never told anyone about it. But somehow everyone stumbled into it at one time or another. When Columbus finally got there he was mistaken for a god because he was the only person on Earth the natives hadn’t met. No wonder he became obsessed with spuds and —’

‘Sh-sh-shut up, laughing boy,’ stammered Billy plaintively, and pointed at the undergrowth.

In the centre of the island, hidden amid greenery, was a miniature house.

It was the Hall, surrounded by bonsai trees, next to an inland pool representing the lake. Billy and me spent ages exploring this tiny landscape, which seemed perfect in every detail — the little structure I had kicked through was the perimeter wall.

The pool even had an imitation island in the middle. Splashing over and crouching down, I was not a little amazed to see that this small island, too, bore a model reproduction of the Hall and grounds. This Hall was the size of a matchbox, next to a lake the size of a plate. At this lake’s centre was an even smaller island.

I stood, looking around, and underwent a sensation of telescoping vertigo — the Hall stood in the distance, tiny as a matchbox. I was trembling like a leaf. Billy was at my side, frowning down at the island with unusual concentration — his expression grew strained as the idea ripened. We looked up at the sky as one, to see if giant boys were frowning down at us.

I asked for the magnifying glass which Billy used to start fires, and focused on the plate-sized lake, the thumb-sized island. I heard Billy snuffling as the fish-eye blur zoomed into focus on a satellite-picture of a mini-house, a droplet-lake and a dot-island. We stood up from this diabolical micro-circuit. I had arrived ready for anything but the inconceivable. At what scale were we? Was the Hall a model ending at the perimeter fence? Where was the real me? ‘What level is this?’ I demanded, my voice cracking, and we began the sort of synchronised scream which children can do with such ease. My skull shrieked through my skin, like the Munch painting of that idiot screaming on Hastings pier.

Bats out of hell, we paddled away from the island, casting fearful looks at the sky.

When Father found us huddling in a ditch under a tarpaulin sheet he was instantly apprised.

‘Oho,’ he said. ‘So you went to the island.’

‘Take us to the village, Father,’ I begged. ‘Is there anything outside the fence?’

He laughed amiably and said he’d just been in the village.

‘How did you know we went to the island?’ asked Billy, blowing his nose.

‘It’s obvious,’ he said, and I thought he was referring to our shuddering fright. But he said he knew it as soon as he got back and saw a huge hole in the perimeter wall, and a log which appeared to have been snapped in half and tossed aside by a giant.