The Island at the End of the World Read online

  Tell me the secret or I’ll find out for myself.

  (anger, bottled)

  What do you mean by that, Alice?

  You know what I mean.

  If you’re talking about going into the Afterwoods, I must warn you that

  It’s very dangerous, I know, you’ve said.

  The consequences of such an action would be.

  (her vile smirk, I lost the thread of my thought, spoke louder)

  You ever do that and your life won’t be worth living, young

  My life ISN’T worth living!

  Don’t ever say that.

  I just did. What are you going to do about it, father?

  (the last word hissed sarcastically, red lights blurring my vision, my muscles hardening, and)

  You were asking for that.

  (her on the floor, sobbing softly, unconsolably, like a baby, the tender welling of remorse in me, but also righteousness, power, the restoration of order to the universe)

  I didn’t mean to hurt you but. You shouldn’t talk to me like that. I’m your father, Alice, I deserve your respect. Chrissakes we’re not living in Babylon now, how can you. Look. I’m sorry. But you drove me to it, didn’t you? Almost as if you wanted me to. Come on Alice, that’s enough. Here, dry your eyes, blow your nose. Show me where it hurts. Alice … take your hands off your face and

  (I peeled her hands away, expecting regret, humility, littlegirl love, and instead saw her eyes, one rimmed with a livid red handmark, both blazing)

  (fear gouged inside my guts)

  I HATE you.

  Alice …

  I killed the snake. They weren’t hurt, only frightened. All the way there I swear I thought of nothing but their safety. But, coming back, knowing they were fine, my imagination went wild on all they might have discovered. Maybe it’s already too late and they KNOW?

  But no (drink more wine), no, I don’t think so, I’d have seen it in their eyes. But it’s coming. That which is coming cannot be stopped. Coming with the inexorable slowness of that winedrop: the dark mark growing bigger, closer, every day. Always there, and coming.

  Briefly I wonder if the stranger might not be a stranger after all, but someone I know. Someone who knows me. Could he have been SENT here? Fuck, I knew I should have. But these thoughts get me nowhere, what’s done is done.

  I drink more wine it drowns the dread numbs the fear.

  Knew I should have ended it when I had the.

  Drinkmorewine and drinkmore.

  But I

  I could kill him. Yes I could. I warned him if he came any closer, and. And soon he’ll be in range. Nobody would know. Would they? I could actually.

  But would IT stop?

  Drinkmorewine.

  Or would IT change form and keep coming, coming, inevitable as nighttime? IT’s not even him, I see that now. IT’s Alice. Alice changing, Alice scenting, Alice asking, Alice wanting yearning needing to KNOW.

  Much wisdom is much grief, Alice. He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.

  You promised.

  I did not promise, I said maybe.

  You said on my next moonday you’d take me to the Knowing Tree.

  O why did I ever tell her?

  We remember it differently, Alice. There’s no point.

  The point is you promised, and now you’re breaking your promise.

  Why? She kept asking and asking and asking about her mother, kept questioning over and over. She missed her so much she was older than the others it hurt her more disturbed her. Finally one night I was so tired so sorry for her I gave her what I thought was a crumb of hope. I said You’re not old enough to know the whole truth but, and told her about the Tree of Knowledge. A mistake. THE mistake. Fatal I should never have mentioned it. Because that crumb was not a crumb it was a seed, and it’s been growing ever since, growing roots and leaves, stronger and longer and now has flowered. For I have sown the wind and I shall reap

  We’ve been over this a thousand times.

  the whirlwind

  I won’t forget about it, you know. I will keep asking until you keep your promise. I need to know.

  Why?

  I want to know.

  What?

  I remember her.

  Who?

  My mother.

  I remember her too, Alice. Wish wood were flesh. I drink more wine it moans the bed

  I remember her too. Mary. The first day I ever saw her, she wearing that white dress, those pearls, her hair deep brown and done up like that actress’s whose name I don’t, but O the expensive perfection of her (skin eyes scent breasts hips voice smile) like a CELEBRITY. Out of my league, I thought then, and I was right, but money money money answereth all things. When I saw her again, five years and two thousand miles and one point five million dollars later, it was different. I rang Christian first, her brother: I’d just moved to the Palisades and he was the first Highfield I found in the listings. I told him I was an old college friend of Mary’s who’d lost touch. He was cagey, suspicious, till I mentioned the company where I worked, my position there, how good business was. And then: Christian’s voice changed. I could almost hear him sit up to attention. Next night in the revolving bar atop the Tallis Hotel we got drunk on margaritas, Christian all charm, the two of us talking MONEY that warmth between us that connection. I hated him later, maybe more than I’ve ever hated any man, but that night we were like longlost friends, and I told him everything. Silence, the O of his lips when I confessed I didn’t know Mary, that I’d fallen in love without ever having spoken; silence, and then that vigorous nodding, the dealmaker’s smile, and telling me not to worry, he’d take care of everything. And how he did. Mary Highfield, the faded goddess. I, the risen commoner. Touching the untouchable. The first-date kiss on the steps of her house (lowered lashes afterwards), the second-date blowjob in the warm ocean-scented darkness of my garden (the rustling of silk, the saliva-filled mmm, the bobbing obedient brunette head), and the third-date fuck in room 601 at the Tallis (stripping off those hundred-buck panties and watching that perfect expensive PEACH of

  I drink more wine, swallow. Fuck. Drink more wine it bones the spread stop groans the head stop

  of an ass upturned, face buried in pillows, so trusting so vulnerable carnal the lips stop drip stop between her stop stop STOP.) More bitter than death the woman, whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands, and her lips as metal traps.

  But it is not good that the man should be alone. O no, woe to him that is alone. If two lie together, then they have heat, but how can one be warm alone? How? O

  fuck I’m fucked.

  I finish the glass and stand up, leather gloves gripping the table’s edge till the swaying stops. The kitchen’s shivering in the blazing candlestreaks. Half-blind and dizzy I hold on to the table and walk slowly over to the sink drink water from the jug splash some on my face, and breathe breathe blink breathe.

  I tell myself it’s time to go to bed but my heart taketh not rest and I move into the corridor, hesitating outside their room, the candle in my hand. The door’s closed and sprayed with warm light. In my mind flashes a sudden vision of the beds empty abandoned my children gone, but I open and walk through, stumble, mumble (fuck), catch myself, and look round in the halo of candlelight and there they are. Silence, only breathing. Behold, I come as a thief. They there are. Each bed filled with preciousness. O my flesh and blood.

  Daisy, little Daisy, in the lower bunk, her body laid out, arms by her sides, rigid and motionless (like a corpse) her face blank and whiteskinned, eyes closed (like a corpse) her I reach down suddenly spooked and hold a fingertip under her nostrils, feel the warm air and swallow. Thank God. THANK GOD. Her breathing’s regular, calm, and perhaps there’s the faintest of smiles on her lips. I wonder what she’s dreaming. When I ask her in the mornings she never remembers, or never tells, or never dreams (like a corpse). Daisy Daisy, I’ve gone crazy. No. Daisy Daisy, sweet and lazy. O Daisy little Daisy her face and body still roun
dish fleshy huggy as a baby saying Pa I love you I love you Pa I love you. And when the tears come, Say there there Pa say there there. How I love her smile. And her tears, even if they break my heart.

  Above her, Finn the son dishonoureth Finn his body writhed in the shape of a backwards 2, face pressed against the wooden wall his blankets bunched up round his neck and calves exposed. I lift the blanket, pull it down to cover his feet, and touch something hard with my hand. What is it? I hold the candle close and see THE BIBLE. He must have been reading it before he fell asleep. I place it on the table near the window and Finn groans, speaks, his voice loud but incomprehensible, like he’s talking in a foreign language. Speaking in tongues. Emlliktnodesaelp. The sound of fear in his throat and a thrashing of limbs, like he’s fighting off a creature in the darkness of his dream. The snake he saw in the forest? I stroke his back through the blankets and say ‘There there, Finn, it’s only dreams.’ He calms, mutters something, then smashes his forehead into the pillow. His body goes limp. Where are you, my son? Somewhere I can’t find you, somewhere beyond my reach. Somewhere in the darkness where we all go, into which we are all headed. Inevitably. Finn Finn, the world’s all sin. Finn Finn, come back in. Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun. But if a man lives many years, and rejoice in them all, yet let him remember the days of darkness, for they shall be many.

  I cross the room. The candle shakes when I move the flame gutters a drop of wax lands on the back of my hand briefly burns goes hard and cool. Fuck, I whisper. For a moment I see her eyes open. But when I get closer I realise it was only a trick of the light. She’s lying foetal, fast asleep, blankets tight to the shape of her. I move closer and hold the candle above her face. Hold it tight so it doesn’t drip. Hold my breath so she doesn’t hear. My beautiful daughter, my firstborn. Alice Alice, her smiling malice. HOW COULD YOU? To be betrayed by someone I have loved so much. Alice Alice, the poisoned chalice. Alice, my daughter, thou has brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me.

  You’ll kill me one of these days Alice.

  Don’t be ridiculous. I’m only asking you to

  Every time you ask, it’s like a knife inside me.

  Yeah? Well, each time you don’t answer it’s the same for me.

  You were my little girl, don’t you understand?

  Oh forget it, you’re drunk

  Yes, I was drunk. Am drunk. Always drunk. And always, since the day I raised my hand to you (sorry I’m fucking sorry what do you want me to) the same contemptuous pucker in your lips, the same cold knowing gaze whenever you see me. As is the mother, so is her daughter. O you loved me once and looked at me the way Daisy does now. Didn’t you? Didn’t you? You did, but you don’t remember …

  I remember. I remember you before. I remember the night you were conceived (tenderness and tears after months of jealousy, the relief of being loved after all). I remember the first time I touched you (through the skin of your mother’s belly, the soft kick and roll, our shared wonder). I remember the first time I saw you (bloodsmeared and loosenecked, how I feared you were dead) and the first time I woke, the next morning, to discover you between us in bed (the almost shock of you not being a dream). I remember your laughter, the smell of your hair, the lovely weight of you sleeping on my shoulder. I remember the bleary five o’clock breakfasts, wheeling you in the buggy down the hillside from our house, the dawn grey, and the blissful silence of your drifting back to sleep as I reached the beach and the waves shone silver. I remember driving home from work and the two of you opening the door to me, arms wide, smiles serene, you and your mother, Alice and Mary, the loves of my Jesus Fuck why is my pain perpetual and my wound incurable which refuseth to be healed?

  I am kneeling now and I am crying, the tears falling into darkness and making no sound, as if this room were a bottomless well and I stroke your back your hip through the blanket, warm like your mother’s skin when you were smaller than my hands, inside her. How I’ve loved you Alice, from that first moment. You have no idea how. And now. You moan softly, a sound I recognise with horror. I take my hands away, suddenly fearful that you will wake and turn your cold knowing contemptuous eyes on me, see something evil in a touch of pure love. And then. She moans and moves beneath the blanket, back arching, legs sighing against the sheets, MY DAUGHTER, and I stand up, step backwards, heart throbbing and candle tipping and wax hot cool on my fingers thumb wrist. She groans like the Devil’s fired her yearnings and I know she’s LOST to me that she’s entered a place where I dare not follow. Like Finn, she is disappearing inside the darkness of herself. His fear, her desire. And I, forbidden, a stranger, am left outside, alone.

  At the door I hold the candle up high and look once more at my children, sleeping. I would write their father’s name in their foreheads if I could, but the time for that is surely gone. The clay is no longer soft. They have forgotten me days without number, and each new day they forget me ever more.

  Go to bed, I tell myself. You’re drunk. Go to bed and sleep, you

  Fuck.

  VIII

  First I hear a gunshot then I open my eyes. The rooms full of silvergrey light an my sisters are a sleep. Pa must be hunting deer in the Afterwoods I think an straighter way taste the vensun stew in my magination. Ahm hungry. Theres been no meat since the cockrel we kild nine days a go. Pa an Alice an Daisy say theyve got no apper tight in this heat but my belly feels like theres a deep dark hole in it. Some times it gets so bad I have to dig my nails in my skin to stract me from the hollow ness inside.

  Outside its hot all ready an the skys wite. The erth I walk ons iron hard the grasses parcht. I let out the chickens an clect ten eggs from the nest. The chicks are all ready half grown up not cute any mor but scrawny an hated by the other hens. I boil three eggs an eat em an the groaning mouth in my belly quitens down for a wile.

  Alice an Daisy still hant stirrd so I walk up past the field of corn whiches up to my neck now an thru the orchard to the river. I wash an drink an all the rest then go on round the lake into the shade of the Afterwoods edge. Ahm thinking I might see Pa come out carrying a deer. I close my eyes an listen close but I cant hear Goldys waf-waf over the summer hum an buzz.

  Slowly thru the shadows I walk checking the traps an thinking bout Snowy an God. I miss Snowy worsen ever. I dont no how many days are past since he died I lost count but I guess it must be moren a moons worth. An ever since the last moonday wen Alice an me went in the Afterwoods Ive felt lone some an fused. All these questions growing in my mind an no body to talk to bout em all. Pas gon real silent hes all ways spearing wile Alice jus nores me if I ask her bout that day like shes shamed or some thing. Daisys too young she dont no any thing. I used to tell Snowy all my fears an maginings it helpt even if he never said a word back only yowld an purrd. Theres jus some thing bout saying the words out loud that seems to make the worries smaller an I miss that. So Ive had the I-dear of go-ing to Snowys stone an talking to the buried mains of him. It wont be the same I no but its a peace full place maybe itll help.

  Rounding the rocks I look out to sea. It shines all over like its mercry not water an the risings like a thick black line tween the silverwite sky an the silverwite sea. Ive never seen it so wide befor. Its like sted of touching as they normly do the sea an skyve been puld a part an the blacks the emty space you can see in tween em. See-ing it makes the black bird flap inside my chest tho I dont no wy.

  I find the path that goes to the spinny an sell down there shaded nex to the stone with SNOWY ritten on it. Theres no flowers I guess Pa never planted em. Or maybe he did an they died cus I never watered em. Any way I sit there for a wile eyes closed membring my cat how he wer his fur an tail an the way hed jus clapse on to me some times. He loved me I no he did it wernt jus cus I fed him like Alice said. I sit there for a wile thinking like this then it curs to me I came here to speak. So Snowy I gin feeling a bit barrast bout talking to a stone but siding to keep on an not think wat any body else might
say if they saw me.

  So Snowy I say youve been dead for a hole moon now an I realy miss you.

  My throat kinda swells an I have to stop talking. I dont want to cry but the tears come any way an then I think maybe I need to let em out. So I peat

  Snowy I miss you. I loved you Snowy an now yer gon I feel real lone some an lost an fused.

  The tears are raining out my eyes now. My voices gon crowky but I keep on the words come out in a flood I say

  I dont no wats go-ing on now Snowy its like evry thing I thought wer true maybe int but I dont no for shure ahm only guessing. Wud Pa lie to us Snowy wat do you think. Hes acting so strange an distant. An that look in his eyes. Wats he scared of. Ive never seen Pa scared befor an him be-ing scared scares me. I keep thinking bout God an how maybe Pas been talking to Him an Hes telling Pa hes gotta sakry fice me or maybe Hes telling him theres a nother flood coming or Hes go-ing to smite us cus weare wicked in His eyes. I dont no an but then I think Gods ment to be good so maybe Hes go-ing to send us an angel or a mirror cull. But then wy wud Pa be fraid I dont stand.

  The words run out then an I sigh. I spose I do feel a lil better. The tears have stopped raining too I wipe em off my face with the backs of my hands an look down at the stone. SNOWY it says but no thing else. No yowls or purrs. I touch the stone like stroking but its jus stone. Its kinda warm but it dont feel any thing an it dont spond. Snowys dead. Ahm a lone. I stand up saying Goodbye Snowy an stare at the mercry sky. Its like the face of God up there. Blank an spression less an terrible bright. Wats go-ing to happen I ask my self. But my self dont no. Only God noes. I stare up at the sky an think maybe God needs to cry. His tears need to rain down. If they clean us or if they drown us I dont no but some things gotta happen.