The Island at the End of the World Read online

  The wheel in my mind has stopped rolling. It’s stuck on Fear.

  I drink more wine. It numbs the pain, it dulls the dread. A little.

  I kiss Finn and Daisy goodnight, then Alice follows them into the bedroom. She looks as nervous as I feel.

  I turn to Will. ‘Come on then. Let’s go through to the music room.’

  And face the music.

  I offer him wine, but he refuses so I pour myself a big one and drink it as I listen. As I listen to him talk.

  The excuses. The preliminaries. The throat-clearing. The due respect paid to my position as blah blah blah. Get to the fucking point you fucking. Drink more wine it calms the wasps it numbs their stings. His face fades in and out of focus I’m falling asleep here get to the.

  ‘OK. This is my point. Alice deserves to know. If you do not tell her tomorrow, I’ll tell her myself. I just thought it’d be fair to warn you in advance, to give you the chance to …’

  ‘Deserves to know WHAT? Tell her WHAT?’

  ‘About her mother.’

  They must never never

  ‘WHAT about her mother?’

  ‘She deserves to know her mother is alive.’

  ‘Keep your voice down you fucking.’

  ‘What? I’m not the one who’s shouting.’

  ‘Her mother is dead.’

  ‘You know perfectly well that’s not

  Her mother is dead she drowned beneath the waves saving baby Daisy when in the storm the great flood when we were in the ark I was inside with Finn and Mary Mary (quite contrary) was out on the deck with Daze in her arms because she wanted to get some fresh air and but the wind was blowing strong still and the waves were crashing high and and I guess she musta let Daisy slip somehow and O God I can imagine how she musta felt like how I felt when I saw her golden hair on the lake’s surface and thought O my daughter Daisy O my daughter and but she was brave Mary yes she was she proved it then she dived in into the sea and swam down and somehow musta grasped hold of Daisy and pushed her up up above the surface so she could breathe again and I I was on deck by now because I’d heard her screams and I saw my baby lifted up above the waves and I tied myself with rope to the ark because no I wasn’t a coward Father no I wasn’t I was thinking clearly not panicking because I knew the sea was so strong filled with the wrath of the Lord and if I drowned who would look after Finn and Alice who would watch over them they would be and I tied myself to the ark and dived into the sea and took Daisy from Mary’s hands and clambered on deck and slapped her back and seawater came pouring out her mouth and she screamed and I knew (O God the relief) she was alive ALIVE and don’t interrupt me you fuck and I I searched the waves for my wife for Mary but I couldn’t see her anywhere and no I didn’t give up I am not a coward I jumped off the ark making sure the rope was fast and dived down as far as I could into the water and looked for her but she wasn’t there wasn’t anywhere and I knew she musta stop interrupting me I’m talking here you fucking and I knew she musta just let go that she was too weak to keep swimming against that great tide but she knew she’d saved her child and that was enough and she’d just let herself go beneath the waves and we all love and remember her she will always be their mother but she is DEAD.

  He stares at me open-mouthed. ‘You can’t believe that, can you? You can’t believe your own lies.’

  ‘I am not the liar here!’

  ‘Aunt Mary is not dead. She’s alive and well and living in.’

  ‘Keep your fucking voice down.’

  ‘I’m talking normally. You’re the one who’s shouting.’

  I move my face close to his and hiss: ‘You are not going to tell my daughter those lies.’

  He pulls his face away. ‘Your breath stinks. You’re drunk.’

  Hissing in his ear: ‘You tell Alice those lies and I’ll fucking kill you you fucking.’

  ‘Surely you don’t really.’

  ‘Mary is dead and you will be too if you.’

  ‘She’s alive. Who do you think sent me here to.’

  ‘What the HELL gives you the right to come here and spread your lies your poison your contamination you fucking.’

  ‘I think what you’ve done is morally wrong and Alice deserves to.’

  ‘How the fuck can you DARE YOU talk to me about morals when your own fucking father was.’

  ‘You’re going to wake up the children, you know. Is that what you want? You want them to find out the truth like this? I really think you should calm down now, so we can.’

  I’m not going to fucking calm down you patronising snotnosed son of a fucking bitch you come here bringing lies and poison and contamination and you worm your way into my trust by lying and lying and then you have the nerve the gall to strip to seduce my daughter to take advantage of her vulnerabilty and I have used thee filth as thou art with human care till thou didst seek to violate and you break into my private cabin that belongs to ME and you steal my fucking guns you fuck and now and now you come here and talk to me about morals and you want to lie to my daughter to fill her head and heart with false hopes dreams delusions yes that’s what they are and you want to take her away from me back to your foul and bloody Babylon well I will never let that happen do you understand me I thought you understood me the first time but O no thou hast fenced up my way that I cannot pass and thou hast set darkness in my paths thou hast stripped me of my glory and taken my daughter from my side thou hast destroyed me but NO I will destroy you instead you fucking eye for eye tooth for tooth hand for hand burning for burning wound for wound blade for blade and the wages of sin is.

  He’s up against the wall, in the corner of the music room, his O so handsome young face turned grey as a cloud, his eyes no longer smiling but half-popped out with terror. The words keep pouring out my mouth

  XXV

  Something flickers in the corner of my eye. I squint. And between trees I see it, running through the woods. A deer

  Will and Finn carried it back between them, that poor sweet beautiful beast. They heaved it to the floor of the kitchen, on top of the old bloodstained sheet, and began slicing it open. I couldn’t watch. But they were so happy with their kill, so proud

  Will made the venison stew that evening. It cooked all night on the range. I sweated in my dreams

  We ate it the next day, at lunch. The day before yesterday. Daisy was in her room; we could hear her coughing. I played footsie with Will under the table. Footsie: he taught me that word. Strange to have a word for something so secret

  When the tyrant was safely asleep, Will asked me if I wanted to go to the field. I said no, let’s go to bed

  But Daisy

  She’s feeling better. Aren’t you Daze?

  She coughed, nodded

  I don’t know, said Will. Come to the

  No. Look

  I took Daisy by the hand and told her to get in bed with Pa if she was tired. But don’t wake him up, I warned

  Will frowned

  Come on I hissed, and pulled him through the door

  What if your father

  Push the dresser against the door

  I’m really not sure this is a good idea Alice. But he did what I told him

  I took off my white dress. It lay on the floor like milk. We kissed, and we kissed, and

  ‘Shall we rest here for a minute?’

  We stand beside the roots of a thick, old oak tree. The air is warmer now, or perhaps it only feels so because we have been walking. The sky is hardly visible through the canopy above us, but the little I can see looks clouded and grey. I remember flashes of the words I read in my father’s journal, but it is all so strange, so hard to understand, that I push it away. Later; I will think about it later. For now, I stand, eyes closed, and listen to the silence, the way our father taught us all to do. High up, the leaves are whispering, though down here there is barely a breath of air. The birds are quiet, or far away. Only one call splits the stillness: a harsh, repetitive hoo-hee. It sounds like a question to which the caller k
nows there can never be an answer. And yet it goes on asking, over and over: hoo-hee? hoo-hee?

  ‘Anything wrong, Alice?’

  I open my eyes and he is looking at me, his eyes narrowed.

  ‘Are you feeling unwell or?’

  ‘No. Just listening.’

  There is a distance between us today which I have not felt since the beginning, since that first kiss. What is it that has set this huge mountain ’tween our hearts and tongues? It’s the not knowing, I suppose: the event on the horizon, still invisible, at least to me. I begin to guess where we must be headed, but still I don’t know why. Hope, Hope, and, like a shadow issuing blackly from its heels, fear.

  But if Will is truly leaving, if all this is his long goodbye, then we should not be as we are today. I do not wish my last memory of him to be so sad and estranged.

  I think of all the questions I’ve never asked him – because I was too shy, because I feared the answers, because I felt there would always be time, later – and they prick me with regret.

  I do not want him to go. I will not let him leave me behind. Whither thou goest, I will go. Where thou diest, will I die.

  ‘Hold me, Will.’ My voice comes out as small as Daisy’s. And as childish, as needy.

  Will smiles as though remembering something and moves toward me. I squeeze him with a sudden desperation.

  ‘Gently, Alice,’ he says. ‘My ribs, remember?’

  ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘You can hold me though, can’t you?’ He does, and I feel so relieved. Tighter, I want to whisper, but soon, too soon, his muscles relax and I sense his mind is elsewhere. I look up at him. I see first the finger-shaped bruises on his neck, and then his face, turned upwards and away. He is staring into the distance, or perhaps only thinking.

  ‘Come on,’ he says, ‘let’s eat and have a rest. After that we’ve got to get going again.’

  He takes a blanket from the rucksack and spreads it on the ground, near the roots of the oak. The two of us sit down. The sudden smell of wild mint: I must have crushed some with my hand. I look around and see a cage of trees, leaves, nettles, bracken, the odd bar of sunlight. Our hands touch

  We kissed, and we kissed, and we

  Bang bang bang

  His tongue poised over me, warm air on my thighs, the wanting like a wound. Please please please

  Just a minute said Will, to my father’s rude knocking.

  Knock knock knock who’s there in the name of Beelzebub?

  I laughed and whispered Please

  Knock knock, never quiet

  Open the fucking door yelled the tyrant

  Just a minute

  But we wouldn’t couldn’t have a minute longer, just a minute longer to

  Bang Bang Bang

  The pressure left my thighs and the bed sprang up beneath me as Will stood and began putting his clothes on. I looked across at my dress, my white dress, spilled over the floor. Like milk, I thought, and laughed again

  The door moved

  Stop laughing, Will hissed. What’s wrong with you?

  He threw the dress to me and I frowned, smiling, at his incomprehension

  Open up or I’ll fucking kill you

  I stood up then, frightened, and quickly dressed. No underwear: my little invisible rebellion against the tyrant. His voice though … it was rawer, more rageful than I had ever heard it. I put my hand on Will’s shoulder as he stood watching the door. Be careful, I said, suddenly afraid of what my father might do

  He glanced back at me, over his shoulder. Stern and handsome. The slightest of nods

  The door thundered again and he stood there, shaking, red-faced, wild-eyed, staring at us, mad as Lear

  You did this you did this it was you who

  ‘Aren’t you hungry Alice?’

  On the blanket are a bottle of water, a loaf of raisin bread, some goat cheese wrapped in fig leaves, and four apples. We eat and drink in silence. When I’ve eaten enough, I lay back against the tree’s roots and close my eyes

  I was in the bedroom, listening at the door. Outside the thunderstorm had moved off but the rain continued, relentless. We children had been sent to bed so that the men could talk. My body still itched with lust, my mind raced with images of how close we had been, that afternoon. And now the desire was mixed with fear. What was happening, in that room? I yearned to slip through the door, to listen at the threshold of the music room, but if my father found me, he might

  And so, here I was, standing, knees bent, my ear to the keyhole, listening. I had been standing in this position for an hour or so, but their voices had been low and I had hardly caught a word. And then

  The tyrant shouted so loud that I feared he would wake the spy

  the hell gives you the right to

  Then there was quieter muttering and again, drunk, enraged, the tyrant yelling

  talk to me about morals when

  then a few indistinct words, and

  going to fucking calm down you patronising

  Then it went quiet. Eerily quiet. I held my breath and tried to listen harder, but all I could hear was my own pulse, hard in my throat and ears

  Oh God oh please don’t let him hurt my Will

  Soon after that, a door slammed and there was silence. Who had left? Will or my father? Or both? I listened, desperate to open the door and discover the truth. But some instinct held me back. Then I heard more noises, guttural, wordless, and then the outside door opened and closed again. So they were both gone. I waited a few seconds, then opened the door and slipped out into the corridor.

  All was black but for a rhombus of blue light

  XXVI

  The words keep pouring out my mouth, I don’t care how loud, I am dealing with the Devil here. The words keep pouring out my mouth as if God were speaking through me, the power of his wrath terrible to behold, and he puts his hand inside his shirt like he’s been wounded. The words keep pouring out my mouth, growing louder and more righteous, like a hurricane roaring from deep in my chest and up through my throat and out my mouth, blowing him away, burning his face in God’s wrath, and he takes his hand from inside his shirt and in it, trembling, is my pistol.

  ‘Don’t come any closer.’

  I laugh. ‘What are you going to do, boy? Kill me?’

  ‘I will if I have to.’

  I stare in his eyes, and take a step closer to the barrel of the gun.

  ‘Move back, I’m warning you.’

  I take another step closer.

  ‘Get back or I’ll …’

  A third step. My chest is touching the end of the gun now. It shakes in his hand. I make a sudden motion with my hand to grab it, and he smashes the gun against my face.

  Blinding pain, like fire. I stumble, fall to my knees.

  I open my eyes and the walls and floor are red. He is gone. Something is dripping, hot and wet, onto my cheek. I put my hand to the source of the fire, and feel ripped-up skin above my eyebrow. My hand comes back bloody. Eye for eye wound for wound burning for burning. I stand up and go out of the door, through the kitchen, out of the ark, into the thick, slashing rain. The sky is black and starless, the heavens turning a blind eye to this island. God leaving it all to me. Thunder rumbles, far off, and I listen to the silence that follows, hear his footsteps, his breathing, close by, and run in that direction, the fiery wheel in my mind stuck on FURY FURY FURY. I’m going to fucking kill you you fucking smell him I can smell him in the darkness in the rain fee fi fo fum I smell the blood of a Babylonian. Out I go by the vines but no he’s not there so double back and round the side of the chicken shed. I stop. I can’t see him but I can hear him breathing, panicked and ragged, beneath the RADTRADTRADTRADTRADT of the rain on the ark roof. Hiding from me. Afraid. I hold my breath and move, low down, stealthy, towards the heehawheehawheehaw of his breathing. Still it’s too dark to see, and then. The neon flash of sheet lightning strobes the whole scene, and. There. There. I see him standing, his back to me, peering round the side of the chicken shed, looking fo
r me. The world goes black again and I throw myself at where he stood. I haven’t tackled like that since high school. An unmanly yelp escapes his mouth and he goes down with a soft crump, like the cat when I threw it against the tree trunk. But HE’s not dead, O no, not yet. He’s thrashing away beneath me, but I crawl over his body and pin his arms to the ground, digging my knee in the small of his back. ‘Ugh,’ he says. I check his hands: no gun. It musta spilt somewhere in the night somewhere on the ground. Never mind. There are other ways of killing. Vengeance is mine and I will repay, saith the Lord. I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, and the wages of sin is DEATH. I punch him in the side of the head a few times, my fists sliding off him in the rainslick, then stand up and kick him in the ribs. He flips over, tries to escape, and I bring my heel down on his nuts. Screaming, he tries to trip me with his hands but I just come crashing down on him, knees first, and hear the crack of a rib or two. He punches me in the mouth, and again on the eyebrow, where my wound stings like fucking fire. But the wasps are asleep: I am cool and collected. He thought he was stronger than me, but now. ‘Get off me!’ he cries, and lightning illuminates his face again: the terror, the pain. ‘What do you want?’ Fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee. Thou camest in with vanity, and departest in darkness, and thy name shall be covered with darkness. ‘Help me!’ he shouts to the black night, but his voice is weak, the rain loud, the others all asleep. I straighten my arms, triceps tensed and bulging, feeling their still-immense strength, the power that comes from righteous FURY, and. There is no knowledge, no wisdom, no morality, nor love, in the grave, whither thou goest. And my hands, my vast ugly leatherskinned hands, tighten round his young slender throat, his lying contaminated poisonous throat, and. Fear God, and give glory to Him, boy, for the hour of His judgement is come.