On a Similar Note (eBook)

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JV on Beginnings

Where to begin? I thought I’d start here with the exotic island paradise of Barbados. I have been fortunate enough to visit this fascinating, charming, and exceedingly beautiful island a couple of times. The first occasion was for work, and I returned a few years later with my lovely wife, Sue, to celebrate our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.

The first time, I was in a two-handed opera composed by Stewart Copeland – the drummer from the band The Police. Based on The Cask of Amontillado – a story by Edgar Allan Poe – it was included in the Holders music festival of Barbados. It was not a bad gig, considering that we rehearsed for two hours a day for two weeks, and then had one performance.

The rest of the time was ours to spend as we wished… and as our hotel was situated right by the sea, that might well mean lying on the beach! It was tough but someone had to do it. Sue was not too chuffed, but she had no idea how I suffered for my art in this desert of a place. What was there to do but swim, eat, and sunbathe – it was truly awful.

Sunbathing is something that many of the European visitors to this glorious island spend an inordinate amount of time doing, and people can be very silly about this. Sunburn is a terrible thing. My own painful experience came when I visited Canada in 1979 and spent the driving heat of a hot Canadian summer with my cousin. The excruciating result has led me to be just a little bit cautious – even with my colour skin.

I had been out fishing all day on my own, on one of the lakes in Canada, and had caught nothing. Not even a nibble. I was quite severely dehydrated, but didn’t recognize that because I was fixated on catching something to take back and show with pride. Fishing is clearly not one of my strengths. What I did catch was a severe case of sunburn. I felt ill for three days and my hosts had to put cold compresses all over my body, fearing that I would have to go to hospital as it was so bad. I returned to the UK absolutely black, having left looking moderately brownish. Even my parents didn’t recognize me!

So I am wary – unlike the nice blond German guy with skin so fair that it was practically translucent, who turned up at our beach hotel in Barbados during my trip. He got straight off the plane, checked into his room, donned his colourful (and slightly inappropriate) swimming trunks and, at about 2:30 in the afternoon, ran out of his room and plonked himself on a beach lounger in direct sunlight.

He had not put on any suntan cream and refused all advice to do so. The proprietors even asked me (why me?) to warn him of his impending doom. I speak a little of his language, but most of it would be nineteenth-century poetic German from opera – which strangely enough doesn’t often contain the words: “Please remove yourself from the sun or you are going to get sunburned.” He refused my counsel, saying,

“Nein, nein, nein – alles gut.”

Within three hours he was admitted to the hospital with third-degree burns. I never saw him again – he was probably medevaced straight back to Berlin.

On day two of my sojourn in the wilds of Barbados (St James – the luxury bit), I received a knock on the door to my room. A very polite Canadian gentleman stood there and asked me if I would swap my first-floor sea-view room with his ground-floor garden-view room. He was about five feet ten inches tall, blond-haired, and had a slight paunch – about mid-forties with a moustache that was ever so slightly wonky. He wore aviator sunglasses, which meant I couldn’t see his eyes – always a dangerous thing as far as I am concerned. His thin, hairy white legs stuck out from cheap shorts that had seen just a little too much wear, and his feet were covered in black socks and encased in well-worn sandals (in 85-degree heat!). He clearly didn’t have anyone to advise him on how to dress. His voice was slightly high-pitched and whiny.

I should have been at least a little suspicious – who wears socks in sandals in 85 degrees? And I was a bit taken aback when he asked to swap rooms with me.

“Thank you very much, but I am very happy with my room,” I replied guardedly.

At this point, he produced an overstuffed wallet, from which he pulled out some notes from a wad of American dollars.

“Would $50 do it?”

The Portuguese shopkeeper genes within me arose from the depths. If he was offering $50 then he must be willing to pay a whole lot more – which would be a welcome addition to my fee. They were cash-strapped days back then, in 1994.

“Thank you very much for your very kind, and unexpected, offer,” I said in my best Surrey brogue. “But I am very happy here with the view and the room. And did I mention – I really am very fond of the view?”

I paused and waited the appropriate amount of time before I went to shut the door, hoping to make him blink first and stimulate his right hand to slide across a few more greenbacks.

“Would $100 do it?”

I gave an almost French shrug of my shoulders with pursed lips and more silence.

“OK, $200 – and that’s my final offer.”

I did a quick calculation in my head and realized that, with the current exchange rate I had almost increased my fee by a third. I felt very pleased with myself.

After a pause of a millisecond while I looked at him, he looked at me, and then I looked at the money, I responded, “Give me thirty seconds to pack!”

The garden room was nice too, but once I was in place there I started to think. What was going on? Why did he want to have my room so desperately? Was there something in the room that he needed? Why hadn’t I asked more questions?

I found out the answers to my questions on the last day that I was there. I hadn’t seen him since the $200 transaction, but he suddenly approached me in the restaurant, late one night. The cicadas were “cicadering”, the mozzies were “mozzying”, and the barbecue was about to be consumed.

As I sat eating, the tall Canadian with his handlebar moustache and dark glasses suddenly approached me.

“Hi, Jon,” he said.

How did he know my name? It had never occurred to me to ask his name.

“How do you know my name?”

“Well – that’s the thing. Have you got twenty minutes?”

Feeling ever so slightly worried that I was becoming embroiled in some weird CIA plot to depose the Premier of Barbados or something worse, I gave him a wide berth and let him go first. I looked around to check that I was not being followed and there weren’t any agents lurking, ready to bundle me into a black van with a sliding door. (Clearly I have been watching too many American films.)

Once in his room he said, “Please sit down. I have something to show you.”

This was now definitely an “oo-er” moment.

What was I getting into here?

Where was the British Embassy based?

Could I jump out of the first-floor window and land safely in the swimming pool?

Would I be able to withstand torture?

Should I just get a grip and see what he wanted?

My senses were tingling as he picked up a large, reinforced silver case, placed it carefully on the bed, and opened it slowly to reveal – amongst other things – listening devices, video equipment, and the general paraphernalia needed by a private detective. Because that was exactly what he was. (How do I end up in these situations?!)

“Er… umm… What exactly am I doing here?” I asked, checking where the door was situated and planning a hasty retreat.

He grinned at me, obviously enjoying my discomfort.

“So what is it you want to show me?” My mouth was dry with anxious anticipation.

“Well, Jon,” he said, with that easy North American overfamiliarity (over in Blighty, we would say Mr Veira), “I needed your room because I needed to keep that hotel under close observation for two weeks.”

He pointed to a rather grand hotel over the road – certainly a lot grander than ours.

“Ah,” I said. “Now I understand.”

I didn’t understand a thing, but I was trying hard not to look like an idiot. Clearly I would never make a private detective as I hadn’t yet got a clue what he was talking about.

He sighed heavily, as though asking, “Do I have to spell it out?” Yep. He had to spell it out for me.

“In that hotel, Jon, is the wife of my client. Unfortunately, she is not on her own and the client – her husband – is still in Canada. Do you get my meaning? I have been filming her and her companion, and collecting the evidence for my client. I have plenty of footage which I guess means it is goodbye for them and their marriage.”

I sat for a moment trying to take in the enormity of what was going on. Slowly I realized, with horror, that I was involved in something that resembled an awful reality TV programme. The words “Cheating wives!” (said in a deep American voice) flashed through my mind. The sort of thing we watch with such malicious enjoyment of another’s suffering; Schadenfreude (literally harm-joy) as the Germans put it so succinctly. Why do we so enjoy seeing other people caught out? We love seeing the CEO of a company or an...