Tea at the Vilë Mashtrimi

Here roams the wolf, the eagle whets his beak,

Birds, beasts of prey, and wilder men appear

And gathering storms convulse the closing year.

Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Lord Byron

I was out in my garden pruning the roses in the early morning sun when I saw them. There were two of them, walking up the gravel track that leads to Villa Mashtrimi, my bolthole for too long. I thought about running inside and getting my gun. I could take one out easily, perhaps the second also. But I did not bother. If I dispatched these, then the next ones would not be so easily seen. And there would always be more. No, it was best to face fate full-on in the face with a smile and accept whatever it is she has written down for me. So, I continued with my pruning, but in that moment that twinkling Ionian, slender cypresses, and flawless Illyrian sky never seemed so beautiful, transfigured by circumstance.

“Simon Parkinson,” said the first man. He was wearing an anonymous but well-cut shirt and dark glasses.

“You know who I am,” I replied.

“We are…” started the second man, almost identically clad and as generic in accent and mannerisms as his companion.

“I know who you are too, and who sent you. Tea?”

They glanced at one another. Obviously, this was unexpected. “Why not?” replied the first.

“How do you take it?” I asked, putting the pruning shears down and removing the thick gardening gloves.

---

As I was making the tea, I thought of my last time back there. The raindrops slowly winding their way down the windowpane before dying a silent death on the sill. And beyond that pane, so grey, so utterly without hope. People walking the streets crouched beneath their umbrellas as if that thin dome of fabric could protect them from the woes of the sad world they lived in, from the debt and the hardship, the uncertainty of not knowing where the next payment is coming from, the weight of a glorious past on a forlorn future, the feeling of failure despite having no clue as to how it all came about to be.

The kettle boiled and I filled the pot, adding three cups and saucers to the tray along with a small jug of milk. I used the fine bone China that I use for special occasions. Perverse as it sounds, it was nice to be serving tea with milk in it for others. The first time in how long? These two visitors might not exactly be welcome, but hosting a stranger always contains a sliver of pleasure in it.

They were sitting out on the terrace as I knew they would be. No sign of any weapons, but perhaps these two did not need any. Perhaps they could do the deed with their bare hands? I handed them the mugs and they thanked me.

“This is a beautiful place that you have here,” said the first.

“Yes, it is rather. I first came to Albania in the nineties, when it was straight out of dictatorship. I fell in love then and so, when I needed a place to retreat to, I could think of no other.”

“The name, Vile Mashtrimi,” said the second, “what does it signify?”

“It is not ‘Vile’ but ‘Vilë’, the Albanian for ‘villa’. ‘Mashtrimi’ means ‘illusion’ or ‘deception’. I need not explain to you why I chose that. You are all too well aware of deception back home these days. Pray tell me, how goes England?”

“You know how it goes. The same as when you left, add ten years. Ten years that haven’t been kind.”

“Nor were they ever going to be, not with those in charge that you serve. But pray, tell me, what does this have to do with me? I am old news now; you must surely realise that.”

“When you last stood for election you garnered over eight percent of the vote.”

“And I would get less than one now. And eight percent, even in a free and fair election is nowhere near enough to get in.”

“It is something.”

“It is an irrelevance. Last week, over there, they had elections.” I pointed towards the green mass of Corfu floating in the Ionian haze to our right. “The KKE garnered eight percent of the vote as they usually do every Greek general election. No one even considered inviting them into coalition talks. As I said, an irrelevance.”

“With all due respect, Britain is not Greece.”

“With all due respect, Britain is dead. Have you forgotten the Scots voting to leave in 2023 and the Welsh doing likewise in 2027. There is still the rump state in Ulster I suppose, though from what I have seen on the news, most of them are desperate to leave too. How many dead was it last Saturday in Downpatrick? Loyalist gunmen apparently, unable to accept reality, that their dream is long lost.”

The men did not answer, merely sipped their tea. After he had done so, the first put down his mug and addressed me: “We have a proposal to make.”

“Does it involve me looking down the barrel of a gun?”

“If it had, we’d have made it before entering into your garden. Indeed, you would never have seen us approach.”

“So, you don’t want me dead then?”

“Quite the contrary. You are only of use to His Majesty alive, Simon Parkinson.”

Now I was the puzzled one. What on earth could they want with me?

I asked as much.

“Britain needs a new vision and someone to lead it. His Majesty believes that you are the ideal man.”

“Does he now? And what does the electorate say?”

“The electorate can be swayed.”

“On that we both agree.”

“We wish for you to return with us now. There is a helicopter waiting at Sarandë Airport that will transfer us to Corfu where there is a government jet waiting.”

“And why should I come?”

“Like I said, because we want you as our next prime minister.”

I gazed out at the twinkling blue sea, as serene as it always has been. Yet I knew that beneath that placid surface, fierce currents raged. Currents that can kill within seconds. It reminded me of these two goons, whoever they were. Wise men bearing gifts due to report back to Herod.

“You see that strait there,” I told them, pointing to the narrow channel of blue that separated us from Corfu. “You can swim it easily; at its narrowest point it is only two miles across. I met a man once, soon after I first came here. He was a border guard on these cliffs during the era of Enver Hoxha. People used to try to swim to freedom then. They were ingenious in how they did it. One ruse was to take a watermelon, chop it in half, and put it on your head. if the guard saw, they would assume that it was merely discarded fruit. But who discards fruit in a society like Hoxha’s? He described to me how the melon would explode when they shot at it, and then, seconds later, the corpse would float up. Countless died pointless deaths trying to swim to freedom then. No memorial marks their passing, nor the passing of their families who were sent to the gulag as part of a collective punishment for the attempt. Ten years ago, in far less dangerous conditions I admit, I too made a metaphorical swim for freedom by turning my back on my poisoned native land. It has not been easy here in exile so, pray tell me, why on earth would I ever consider going back?”

“Because change is always possible.”

I stifled a laugh. Such defiant words merely sounded ridiculous coming from a sheep like him.

“Albania changed,” added the second apparatchik. “Hoxha was toppled and look at it now!”

“Precisely, Hoxha – or at least, his successor – was toppled. The people rose in revolt and stormed the barricades. But no one is rising in revolution in England; they have forgotten how. Reports suggest the puppet master-in-chief is as popular as ever, buoyed up by his poisonous bile against… who is it these days…? Chavs and other low-class, workshy losers perhaps? Or maybe Travellers, or the Europeans who they tell us are still bitter because we left their prosperous club and impoverished ourselves? Or is it the Muslims, always good to lay one’s failings at the feet of, the Jews of the 21st century that they are. England is not Albania! They are not crying out for him to go! They sleepwalk in jingoistic apathy! Why would anyone want someone like me in his place, someone so dull, so blandly honest in place of that comedy and fraudulent showmanship?”

“What the people want is irrelevant. What we want matters, and we believe it is time for him to go. The experiment has failed.”

“The experiment was always going to fail! Did you honestly believe that you could build economic success on a model of keeping a populace indebted, with fifty-year mortgages the norm, salaries that are all bonus and no substance, vouchers instead of cash? And then there’s the lottery, who can forget that wonderful fake lottery which offers hope to the hopeless! No matter how much in debt you may be, win the jackpot and all your problems are solved! Yet that too is a lie like the rest!”

“The lottery is real. The prizes exist!”

“Fuck you! I’ve seen the classified reports. Yes, the prizes are real, but so too are the government financial advisors who support the winners, who get them to channel those winnings back into the system so that eighty-five percent of winners are indebted again within three years and ninety-five percent within five.”

The men did not answer.

“You’ve had no economic growth for two decades now. Your Neo-Liberalist dream has failed! They spirited all the money away and you’re left with the rotting corpse whilst they drink pina coladas in the Caymans and laugh at the rest of you.”

“Which is why you’re needed…”

“Who the fuck are you exactly? Not you two, but the ones paying you. Who sent you?”

“A group. Some Conservatives, some old Labour and Liberal Democrats and Greens. Moderates. We want to start again. We have support in the military amongst the generals…”

“… and the ordinary soldiers? Do they support you?!”

“They… they will follow. They are trained to follow.”

“And the King?”

“The King also follows. That is his job. But we do have people in the palace. There will be no objections from there.”

I put down my cup on its saucer and got up. I looked at the green cliffs dotted with slender cypresses, the azure sea and the isle on the horizon. This truly was paradise, and yet here they were trying to entice me back into hell. I let the silence take over, picked out the noises in the background, the hum of cicadas, the buzz of insects in the grass, the gentle lapping of the waves on the rocks far below.

“You have it all worked out, don’t you? You stage your coup, get rid of the clown and put a new puppet in his place. Well done! The chattering classes are pacified, but then what? It wasn’t him that created this, nor was it even his party. It was the foul economic doctrine that you all adhered to slavishly for over half a century. A doctrine of short-term gain over long-term stability that has now come home to roost. There’s no money left or possibility of generating any. All that anyone has in England today is debt. You cleaned out industry, savings, capital, the lot. The bank vault is empty now. So how do you think bringing me – or anyone else for that matter – in is going to change a thing? You are mad, all mad!”

“Have you a better idea?”

“It is not up to me to have ideas, remember? I’m the one that your papers branded a traitor in broad black headlines. No, fuck you, it’s not my mess!”

“Simon, we need thirty years. This is no short-term project. Like you said, short-term no longer works. We need thirty years to reign in the media and, most importantly of all, to education the population again. To show them the reality so the same delusions cannot be sold to them once more. We need a dictatorship. Studies show that benign dictatorships work better in third world countries than democracies. And Britain is third world in its education and attitudes these days.”

“Benign dictatorships can easily drift into harsh ones. Just ask the Albanians. They voted in Hoxha with cheering crowds at the beginning.”

“Which is why we need you. You are no Hoxha. You are our dictator.”

“Dictatorship is against everything I stand for.”

The men got up from the table. The first one shrugged and held out his hand. I did not take it. He shrugged again. We shall be waiting in Sarandë for the next two hours. You’ll find us on the terrace of the Hotel Butrinti.”

And then they walked off slowly back down the track from whence they’d come, the gravel crunching beneath their well-polished, Savile Row shoes.

I stared after them as the sound faded and they grew smaller, less distinct. To give up all I had, all I believed and take up their offer. They must be mad to think that I would do such a thing! Yes, the heart of an exile does yearn for their native land, but not at such a cost.

I walked over to the cliff edge and gazed down at the waters below. Floating in the blue abyss my eye caught something. It looked like a watermelon floating there. I imagined a desperate soul beneath, risking everything for a better world just across the sea.

Raising my hand, I tried to fire an imaginary pistol, but try as I might, I could not seem to pull the trigger.

Written 17-18/10/21, Smallthorne, UK

Copyright © 2021, Matthew E. Pointon