The Island at the End of the World Read online

  What about it?

  Well in Shakespeare the sea’s always moving. There are waves and tides and tempests and

  And our sea is so calm and still?

  Yes, and in Shakespeare it has a special smell, it makes a special sound

  I know, Alice, I remember it well. It smelled of salt and iron, and it made a sort of gigantic shushing noise, like a thousand rivers in chorus. The waves came in and went away, all the time. It was beautiful, the sea

  My father’s eyes had a kind of rapture in them

  So why isn’t ours like that?

  It’s because of the flood, Alice. The sea’s never been the same since the flood

  For a second I didn’t know what to say

  Is that what you’ve been getting so

  Pa (a far-off voice). Pa, what’s Daisy doing?

  He sighed and stood up

  Damn Daisy, I said, I want to

  He screamed, and ran towards his drowning daughter

  I walk round the lake until I reach the edge of the forest. I find our pine tree, the one we engraved. It was here that he told me to meet him. I will, Will, I will. At dawn, he said. The air here is dark but when I look up at the sky I can see it has grown lighter.

  Will isn’t here.

  I sought him, but I found him not.

  Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter: in sleep a queen, but waking no such matter. Is he truly gone, then? What, will I never see him again?

  You don’t know what he is Alice I know you love him but you shouldn’t put so much he’s not to be trusted he’s not what he says he is I fear you’re going be hurt if you

  I close my eyes then look once again at the horizon. It really isn’t dawn yet. Still there is not a single colour in the landscape, and that brightness has barely begun to spread. I am early; that’s why he isn’t here. I have only to wait.

  To wait, to wait, to woo.

  O my dove, that art in the shadows of the forest, in the secret places of the shore, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice.

  Where could he be? I walk through the long grass by the edge of the woods and down the slope towards my field. Yes, I will wait there and dream of him; the edge of the forest will be visible from there. No not here, come, I know a better place

  Their faces are all turned away from me. They, like me, are watching the eastern horizon, waiting for their master to come and cover them with glory. Their heads still droop at this hour, as if they are sad. I touch the slender stalk of one near me. He is smaller than his fellows; he comes up only to my thigh. I stroke the petals from behind and, crouching, turn his face to mine. Trace the invisible spirals with my fingertips, breathe in the sweet delicate scent and put the face to my lips. Sunflower kiss. I pluck a petal from the outer ring and whisper

  ‘He loves me.’

  I drop the petal to the ground and pull another.

  ‘He loves me not.’

  A game my mother taught me. The memory flickers for the briefest moment in my mind, is whole, and then dissolves, so that no amount of wanting will restore it. I sigh. Did she truly teach me this? Well, who else could have done? But here … was it here? Soon, Alice. You’ll know soon. If.

  ‘He loves me’

  Alice can we go somewhere quiet, somewhere we can be alone?

  Of course, do you

  In here? The corn’s grown so tall, nobody will see us

  No not here. Come, I know a better place

  The sunflowers, I never thought

  You have to crawl down here, but they grow taller in the middle, you’ll see. I come here all the time to be alone. Used to

  These flowers are incredible. They’re just huge how did your father

  They’re not his, they’re mine. I ploughed the ground and I planted the seeds and I water the soil. He makes the oil afterwards, but the flowers are mine. The field is mine

  They’re beautiful Alice

  I love them too, especially when they’re young and they still turn their heads to the sun. The way they follow it across the sky. When they get older the stems go hard and they just look east all day

  I never knew that

  his face close to mine, our breaths merging, in the shadows, amid sunflowers, in the shadows of their stalks and

  I read a story when I was young, about a girl called Clytie, who fell in love with the god of the sun, his name was Apollo, and all she’d do, all day, day after day, was watch his golden chariot move through the heavens

  his eyes, the pupils huge, the air cool and scented, amid sunflowers, in the shadows, his fingers brushed linen and I

  From east to west, day after day, watching it cross the sky, until after nine days she was turned into a sunflower

  He laughs, looks puzzled

  I guess there are worse things you could turn into

  Yes. In my next life I’d like to be a sunflower. Only I wouldn’t want to grow old. Someone would have to pick me, kill me, before my stem grew hard and I couldn’t turn my face any more

  his lips opened slightly showing teeth then closed again the sound of his

  I’d like to be a bird one day too, one of the small birds, I love the way they dart between trees. I don’t think I could ever be sad if I had wings. Loneliness would just evaporate as you flew, don’t you think?

  breath and my own the feel of my pulse in my throat my tongue on my lips his

  Then again, the way they call to each other every morning and evening, they must sometimes feel alone. Would a bird still sing if it were the last bird on earth? That would be a sad sound. Even wings might not erase that sadness

  Alice, the way you talk sometimes it’s

  lips, O you the doors of breath

  It’s what?

  I don’t know, like a poem or something. I’ve never heard anyone talk like that before

  his fingers brushed linen and his lips opened the doors of breath our faces moving closer slowly so slowly

  I wanted to ask about before, about beyond, about the other people he had heard speak, about how they sounded, why they were different, was there something wrong with me, but I dared not break the spell. I kept silent, made my lips like his, felt myself slide forward, the two of us drawn together inexorably, like slow magnets

  O! a kiss. Stop his mouth with a kiss. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth. Then come kiss me

  amid sunflowers, in the shadows of their stalks and heads, my lips touched his and

  Thy lips, O my love, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue

  and his lips touched lips touched lips touched lips and I

  ‘He loves me.’

  The final petal falls to the ground

  XX

  Calm down, calm. I close my eyes.

  When I open them again, the fornicators have disappeared. Gone to the lake, I guess, or. No. I don’t want to know. Don’t want to think about it.

  I go into the kitchen and find Finn, gaunt-faced, sitting at the table alone, staring into thin air.

  ‘You want to help me make some broth for Daisy?’

  He looks up, then shakes his head wearily. ‘I’m going for a walk.’

  ‘Finn, you’re not going to follow them again, are you?’

  ‘No.’ He squints at me, miserable and defensive.

  ‘It doesn’t help anyone when you spy on them, you know. It only …’

  ‘I said I’m NOT going to follow them.’ Hostile now, he stalks off. Finn has changed this summer. Is changing. He has gone into darkness, just as I knew he would, and the darkness has gone into him.

  I make a broth for Daisy, clean the kitchen while I let it cool, then spoonfeed it to her in bed. Afterwards she smiles at me, then falls asleep. I stand there, stroking her hair, for what feels like hours. I am a good father, yes I am. And Daisy still loves and trusts me, even if no one else.

  I go back to the kitchen and pour some wine, take it outside and sit under the branch roof, watching the trees move slightly in the wind. I i
magine the fornicators in the sunflowers and sadness engulfs me. My face is foul with weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death. After two more glasses of wine, weariness creeps over me and I go to bed. Is death like sleep, I wonder.

  I have bad dreams. HORRIBLE dreams.

  When I wake up, the insides of my head are all twisted up like my sheets. I walk blearily through the corridor and into the kitchen, where I find Daisy sitting with the bucket between her legs, coughing, shivering, her face glazed with sweat. I touch her forehead: it’s hot again.

  ‘You should be in bed, angel. What are you doing out here?’

  She looks at me with dull eyes. ‘They wanted the room. I said you’d told me to stay in bed, but they said I could go to sleep in your bed if I was tired. But I went in your room and you were lying across all the bed so I came here instead.’

  There is no bitterness in her voice, only a sort of tired whine.

  I ask the question, even though I already know the answer. ‘Daisy, who wanted the room?’

  ‘Will and Alice.’

  The kitchen wall is red.

  ‘I’ll be back in a while, Daisy.’

  I touch her shoulder, then walk to the bedroom door. Knock three times. Hear a breath-held silence. Try the handle. The door’s blocked somehow. BANG BANG BANG the door with the flat of my palm. The door is red.

  ‘Just a minute.’ Will’s voice behind the door. He sounds bored, irritated.

  My hands are red as they slam against the door again.

  ‘OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!’

  ‘Just a minute.’

  I take two steps back and ram my shoulder against the door. It gives a few inches and I look through the gap at the corner of the red bunk, the red floor, the red wall. My shoulder aches but I don’t fucking care I smash it into the door again, then push push push. He’s shoved the dresser against it the fucking I push and push until the gap is wide enough for my body to slip through. My shoulder is screaming with fucking pain. The fornicators stare at me through the bloodcoloured air. WHAT IS THIS THAT THOU HAST DONE? There’s silence except for somewhere the sound of Daisy coughing and crying. I stare at the fornicators. Are they embarrassed or angry? I can’t tell and I don’t fucking care. I yell in their faces, all the hatred and fury in my heart. I yell my fury that they kicked poor sick Daisy out of her bed so they could satisfy their endless foul lusts and why? Fucking why? I do not stop them kissing and laughing and rolling around naked in the dirt of the fucking sunflowers. I do not ban them from defiling the lake or the trees that encircle it. I turn a blind eye. I swallow my bile. So why why WHY must they come here, to the ark I built with my own hands, for the shelter of my family, and despoil it with their grimy panting filthy fucking urges the fucking whores? I kick the red beds punch the red walls as I rage and HE stands in front of her, like some kind of protector, but I am the protector you fucking son of a bitch. And she, SHE deserves whatever I yell at her whatever I do to her (I’m not sorry I’m not fucking sorry what the hell reason) and if thou say in thy heart, Wherefore come these things upon me? For the greatness of thine iniquity are thy skirts discovered and thy heels made bare. Because thou hast forgotten me, Alice, and trusted in falsehood. I have seen thine adulteries, and thy neighings, the lewdness of thy whoredom, and thine abominations on the hills and in the fields, by the lake and in the sunflowers. Woe unto thee, Alice! Wilt thou not …

  The wasps! I hold my chest, close my eyes, breathe slowly, until the blood drains from my vision and the hammering of my heart is no longer as loud as my palms banging on the door. Calm down, calm. Until the swarm inside me ceases its stinging buzz. Calm.

  I open my eyes.

  Their four eyes are cold and seething. Hatred pours from them, like pale fire. I feel weak, drained, empty.

  HE speaks, his throat tight with anger. ‘I want to talk to you alone. There is a conversation we need to have.’ His words vibrate. ‘Did you hear me? We need to talk.’

  ‘Later,’ I say, suddenly weary. ‘This evening, when the children are in bed.’

  He nods. ‘All right. But you ARE going to listen to me.’

  ‘Get out of this room now. Daisy needs to lie down in bed.’

  They look at me in astonishment, but I push past them. Then I see Daisy, standing in the gap between the door and the doorframe, her face streaked with water.

  ‘Daze?’

  Her lips wobble and she runs away.

  I go into the corridor.

  ‘Daisy? It’s all right. I was only angry at them for.’ Sorry I’m so sorry what can I. ‘Daisy, come and see Pa. Listen to me.’

  I find her in the music room, curled in a ball on my chair. She is shivering and sobbing, but very quietly, as though she doesn’t want to be heard.

  ‘Daisy, I’m sorry. I lost my temper, that’s all.’ I stroke her trembling shoulder. ‘There there, Daisy. Everything’s going to be all right. This is like the part of the fairy tale where everything goes bad. But the happy ending is coming soon. You know it is, don’t you?’

  I am bending down close to her, whispering in her ear. She looks up at me, with hope (fear?) in her eyes, and then flings her arms round my neck.

  ‘I was scared,’ she blurts, sobbing.

  ‘I’m sorry, Daisy, I’m so sorry I scared you. But it’s all right now. Everything’s all right now. There there, there there.’

  I tidy up the mess in her bedroom

  XXI

  The final petal falls to the ground. He loves me. He will come. I look up at the sky, which is milk-grey now, like snow on a moonless night, then I turn to the west, to the edge of the forest.

  All is grey, empty, silent.

  I sought him, but I found him not.

  I call his name, softly, my voice rising as I speak so it sounds like a question.

  Will? Will? Will?

  Won’t. Shan’t. Can’t.

  Before I am even aware of having made a decision, my legs are striding along the edge of the woods. I watch my feet in the long grass as I walk: there are traps here, hidden, metal mouths waiting to spring shut. Now I hear the birds’ dawn chorus. When did they start singing? I move more quickly, away from the trees and the long grass, down the slope, towards the shore.

  I take the last path through the forest and follow its gentle curve. The shortcut. My brother and my father do not know about this path. Its entrance is concealed. It is ours. How many times have I walked its narrow, pine-scented length, almost floating with the joy of anticipation? Once, early on in the summer, a couple of days after that first kiss in the sunflowers, before the spy and the tyrant discovered us, I bumped into him here. No, not there, here, yes, just past that boulder

  Alice, I

  Hello Will

  I was just coming to see you

  I was coming to see you

  We laughed at the same time. I could feel his eyes moving over my legs and shoulders, which were bare, and my lips, which were scarlet and glistening from the berry juice I’d rubbed on them

  Hot day

  It’s cool in here though

  in the shadows

  That’s true. Do you want to

  Yes

  I mean, shall we

  Yes, Will

  You look different today

  I feel different

  Oh. What if your father

  He’s asleep. He won’t wake up till evening

  So you

  Yes Will yes yes yes

  The path leads to a scrubby clearing, from where you can see a small patch of sea. There is a kind of luminescence on its surface. Can that really be the sun? I look to the east, but my view is blocked by dark pine trees. The spy and the tyrant might be stirring now. I need to hurry. I cross the clearing and enter the stand of trees. I call his name.

  Silence.

  Make haste, my beloved!

  I call again, then push open the door of his shelter. The familiar smell of him. It’s dark inside so I crouch down and crawl across the earth floor, my hands stroki
ng, touching, expecting to feel, at any moment, the silky soft skin of his sleeping bag …

  There is nothing here but cold earth. His clothes have gone, his boots, his rucksack. There is nothing left.

  I have sworn thee fair and thought thee bright who art as black as hell, as dark as night.

  There is a terrible chasm gaping in my chest. Fear, Fear, and at its heels, like a tiny persistent dog, hope. Is it possible I have missed him? What if he went the other way while I took the path in the woods? But why would he climb over rocks on the beach, carrying all his belongings, when there was an easier, quicker way? Unless there were another shortcut. A secret. A secret even from me. Or what if he were already inside the forest? What if he were in there, even when I arrived, doing something, something important, and only came out at dawn, expecting to see me, and I were.

  I have been so stupid. Such an idiot.

  I emerge from the shelter and run back the way I came. Above the clearing the sky is pale blue, the pine needles all shine green. I am too late, the sun has risen, he is. Don’t think Alice, only run. Run along the path that he run past the boulder where I run out of the forest and along by the sunflowers where we

  I slow down as I reach the edge of the wood and stare at our lonely pine tree. The birdsong like a thousand knives being sharpened. The leaves on the trees so green they hurt my eyes. I am panting, my heart in my neck.

  He isn’t here. He isn’t coming.

  I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave no answer.

  I feel

  I feel like there is a hole in my soul.

  ‘I was wondering where you’d got to.’

  I turn and stare. He smiles. Am I dreaming? But no, there he is: true, solid, palpable. Will. Not gone. Will oh Will oh Will. I hold him so tight he gasps, then laughs. I kiss his lips, where they’re swollen and split. I kiss his neck, where it’s bruised. His eyes are as the eyes of doves, but one of them is black. I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him and would not let him go.

  I am shaking all over.

  ‘I went to your shelter I thought you were.’

  ‘I was inside the woods, hiding my things.’

  I remember the bare earth floor. ‘Why, you’re not leaving?’