Island (28 page)

A couple want a child, but the husband cannot father one. They love each other, on cold nights they curl around one another for warmth, their gentleness and kindness together feathers their bed like swansdown. But there will be no child.

They grieve, each for the other’s loss. When he sits on the cottage step in the evening, staring out to sea, she watches his face and her heart weeps for him, because she knows he is thinking of the child he will not have. She loves him. She thinks of a plan.

When he is out in the boat one day she takes herself to his brother, who is home waiting for the cow to calve. She tells him her problem and her plan, and she gives him a cheese she has made, in exchange for what she needs from him.

And as the months go by she barely conceals the swelling belly, she almost flaunts her new self to her wondering husband, who strokes her soft flanks with timid, gentle hands, and wonders but does not question, because he loves and trusts her.

When she delivers the child she lays it on Table Rock. He’s a good man, he will look for it. When he comes in from
fishing he will find it there.

And when he comes in that night to the neighbouring bay, because he had a catch to deliver there, so doesn’t pass by Table Rock, she bites her lip till it bleeds but says nothing. He is a good man and she must let him freely choose. She trusts him.

He takes in her face, her body, looks into her eyes. They do not speak. After his meal he leaves the table almost hurriedly – glances back at her where she sits in the shadow, looking after him. Outside he raises his face to the evening breeze, sniffing like a dog. Hurries, stumbling, down the cliff path, until he comes in earshot of the sound his ears have hunted – wades, splashing and nearly falling in his eagerness, out to gather up the child. And as he makes his way back to the cottage the questions he did not formulate, because he loved his wife, are answered. He sees what she has done and why, and his heart swells with love of her. He gives her the baby as a gift of the sea, as she has given it him.

Closer to home there’s another story. A woman who abandons her daughter and keeps her son, and ends up being murdered: Phyllis’s story.

An unhappy woman was once cruelly treated by her parents. She was impregnated by her father and gave birth to a daughter. Her mother told her that this baby, fruit of an unnatural and shameful liaison, had died.

The woman moved far away from her parents and began a new life. She met a man and gave birth to his son. She lavished upon the boy all the love she had been unable to give her daughter. For a while she was happily married, but then
her husband died. Although she loved her son she found herself haunted by guilt and sorrow over her lost daughter, she became increasingly withdrawn and unhappy. She told her son about his sister who had died so terribly young. She was fearful for the boy and tried to keep him close, she wanted to protect him from danger but she hurt him by taking away his independence.

When he moved away from her she tried to kill herself. He saved her life. Her sense of guilt and shame was doubled, as she realised the burden she had become to this boy whom she loved so intensely.

A young woman came to the island where they lived, and rented a room from the mother and her son. The girl paid great attention to the son, walking and talking with him for hours, until the mother became convinced the girl was trying to steal her beloved boy.

Then the girl confronted the woman and announced she was her long-lost daughter. The wretched woman was overwhelmed by conflicting emotions. She had believed the story that her baby was dead so the girl’s claim was as shocking as the appearance of a ghost. She wanted to believe but she did not dare; she wanted to laugh and rejoice and hug the girl but she was petrified of this dead person who’d suddenly come to life. She was afraid that the girl still had a plan to take her son away, and that she might be mad. The girl was furious with her mother for abandoning her and warned her that she was going to kill her. When the girl stormed out the mother collapsed in terrible distress, not knowing which way to turn. It seemed to her that the girl was strong and would survive, that the girl was like herself and could endure as much as the mother herself had endured (which seemed to her to be a great deal – an infinity of suffering). Whereas the boy was different, more vulnerable. He was the one she must protect.

Soon after, her son came to see her and
confirmed his mother’s worst fears by announcing that he wanted to marry the girl. The mother spilled out the whole sorry story to him. But her son, instead of sympathising, grew angry with his mother for lying to him about his sister’s supposed death. If the girl was his sister, as his mother claimed, then he could not marry her. Thus his mother would prevent him – as she had done all his life – from doing as he wished. In his rage he grabbed the nearest thing to hand and hit his mother, killing her with one blow.

Then there’s Nikki’s story, another way of seeing it.

A young woman gave birth to a daughter whom, through no fault of her own, she could not keep. The daughter grew up bitter and twisted. Everywhere she looked she saw cruelty and selfishness and she reflected this back in her own spiteful nature. She could neither love nor be loved; she was petty and vicious and destructive, she was cowardly and terrified of shadows. She had no lasting friends, no real pleasures, no hopes or ambitions, no faith in herself. Unable to shoulder any responsibility for her misfortunes, she laid the blame on her absent mother. She decided to visit her mother on the island where she lived and kill her.

To her surprise she discovered she had a brother who lived on the island with their mother. The brother was as sweet-natured as the girl was cruel; he loved the world around him and didn’t know what fear was. He knew the stories of past islanders and they were still alive to him. He collected lost fragments of their belongings and their homes, and treasured them. He liked the girl but he didn’t know she was his sister, he thought he would like to marry her.

The girl revealed her
identity to her mother – who denied it, because she had long believed her daughter to be dead.

In the morning the girl discovered her mother’s body and believed that she herself was responsible for the murder. She did not find any relief in the mother’s death, and so resolved to drown herself. As she was walking into the sea her brother came running down and pulled her from the water. And then …

Well, well, well. You know this story, I’ve told you everything. The only question is where does it end. Here? Here?

Here?

We are living like castaways on the edge of the world but we live in peace. I have no Fear. I have escaped the terrible loneliness of hating everyone around me.

I could tell you how I’m starting work for my friends Sally and Ruby, who took Calum under their wings during my imprisonment. I could tell you that one day I’ll go back to the mainland, as Freya stepping into the bright keel. I could tell you Calum and I have spoken to a museum curator at Fort William who is next month coming to look at some of Calum’s treasures. But all these things spoil the shape of the story.

I could tell you I am here.

Think of me here, on this island, now. I am safe.

PRAISE FOR

I
SLAND

“A brooding, furiously powerful tale… of a madness as terrifying as it is logical, simple and classical in its tragic lines, is also a complex rendering of the art of storytelling.”

—
Kirkus
(* starred review)

“The narrative rushes headlong through comedy, tragedy to regeneration, but that is not where its strength lies, nor why I said ‘Wow’ at its finish. This book reminds us of the power of stories, of their possibilities. It is the song which Jane Rogers sings, and it is triumphant.”

—
Sunday Telegraph

“Like many of the finest novelists of her generation, Jane Rogers has a way with myth. She manages to combine lightness of touch with moral weight… to produce a simple narrative of… force and momentum.”

—
Times Literary Supplement

“
Island
is a fable which works in the way that a fairy story works. It takes you into the heart of a dark wood, where there is no hope at all, and brings you out the other side, ready, if not to live happily ever after, then at least to begin to live.”

—
Guardian