The Dream Archipelago

by Christopher Priest

  The chapel itself was surrounded by a graveyard, again a fact that did not give any hint that something unusual was about to occur. The short funeral service also seemed unexceptional to Sheeld, given that he had only ever been to two funerals before and that this one was conducted in a language he did not speak. The significance of the words, the general mood of loss and mourning, were comprehensible to him.

  As the tributes came to an end he supposed a graveside ritual would follow. Instead, the casket was wheeled out on a large trolley and taken to an unobtrusive building a short distance away, set discreetly among ornamental trees. The mourners followed in a quiet, straggling line, then stood in silence for a while in a paved yard outside the louvred doors. Soon, the casket was taken inside the building and the doors were closed. After a few more moments of contemplation the funeral party began to disperse and moved across the grounds to where a line of carriages was waiting.

  The whole event was another reminder to him of the differences between his old life in the Federation and his new one as an expatriate in the Archipelago.

  He felt isolated and cast adrift in the islands – he was missing his family, his home, his friends, and regrets about his move were for the time being predominating. Everything in the Archipelago seemed exotic and difficult, riddled with rules where none seemed necessary, yet almost anarchic in other ways. Every social contact, every business meeting, every venture into a restaurant or visit to a shop, was fraught with potential for misunderstandings, actual as well as imaginary. Although he had started to adjust to the way of life on Foort – the island where he had settled six weeks earlier – this first real visit to another island, other than short transits while on ferries, had revealed to him the diversity and complexity of life on the hundreds of inhabited islands. He had only been here on Trellin for a few hours but he was already suffering from culture shock.

  For instance, when he arrived at Corrin Mercier’s substantial residence that morning he had been disconcerted to discover that most of the other guests, as well as all the members of the family, spoke to each other in island patois. He had been introduced to a few of Mercier’s close family – his widow Gilda, his young adult sons Fertin and Tomar – and they had spoken to him politely in his own language, but immediately afterwards Tomar Mercier had taken him aside and explained that at funerals on Trellin the mourners were expected to speak the language preferred by the deceased. ‘It is difficult even for us,’ Tomar said apologetically, but soon afterwards Sheeld heard him speaking the patois fluently to someone else.

  There were no flowers, because in certain cases, of which Corrin Mercier’s death appeared to be one, flowers were deemed to be in bad taste. Sheeld had been asked to put the offering he had brought at the back of the house, out of sight. None of the many servants was prepared to handle the flowers. No one, man or woman, sat down either before the funeral or during the service. Everyone wore black clothes – at least he had got that right – but also covered their heads. Sheeld had been lent a scarf of dark, heavy material by one of the dead man’s sons before they departed to the chapel. He was still wearing it and intended to go on doing so until he saw other men remove theirs.

  Now as they drove back to Mercier’s house in a long slow procession of carriages, Sheeld was wondering how soon he could depart without giving offence to anyone.

  He had been given a place in one of the leading carriages of the cortège. When they returned to the Mercier house Sheeld and the handful of elderly mourners with whom he had travelled walked through a series of open rooms – the expensive furniture set back in areas behind ropes, as if in a palace temporarily opened to the public – on their way to the rear of the mansion. Here the grounds consisted of a wide expanse of parkland created by reclaiming part of the rainforest, which otherwise covered this part of Trellin. The grounds were landscaped in the immediate neighbourhood of the house into a series of large ornamental gardens and shallow lakes, but looked less formal further away. There was little time to admire the view. The servants politely but firmly indicated that everyone should walk along a gravelled pathway that ran through a rose garden, then alongside a small lake, to a walled garden some distance from the main house. Here the servants had set out a feast on three long tables on the lawn.

  The garden was a sheltered, oppressive place, surrounded as it was on three sides by high walls overgrown with climbing plants. On the fourth side the garden was unwalled but met the dark crush of trees of the tropical jungle in a sudden transition to the wild.

  There had been a heavy, drenching rainstorm while they were at the service, but now the sun was beating down from a cloudless sky. As the ground quickly dried the air was moist and sweltering and Sheeld felt over-dressed in his formal suit. Beneath the thick scarf he could feel his hair pressing down wetly against his scalp. Sweat ran in tiny streams from his temples. While he waited for the rest of the funeral party to arrive he walked slowly around the garden, trying to look more at ease than he felt.

  Alongside one of the walls there was a raised, balustraded verandah, with vines growing on an overhead trellis. Sheeld stood there for a few moments, grateful for the shade, until one of the servants handed him a glass of white wine and requested him to wait in the centre of the garden with everyone else.

  Fertin and Tomar Mercier eventually arrived, sweeping off their head-coverings with evident relief. Fertin shook his head and scrambled his fingers through his curly, sweat-matted hair. Sheeld thankfully removed his own scarf and laid it on the floor in the corner of the verandah. He mopped his face.

  Most of the mourners were middle-aged or elderly, apart from Mercier’s sons. But there was one other conspicuous exception. Sheeld had noticed a certain young woman during the service, or more accurately, he had felt himself being noticed by her.

  While the chapel filled with mourners he had been looking curiously around, untouched by the grief that clearly consumed so many of the older relatives. The young woman had walked in unaccompanied. Sheeld had looked at her directly, and she returned his look with a stare of such shocking intensity and frank curiosity that he had turned away in confusion. A few minutes later, as the service began, he had glanced again in her direction and found himself still the subject of her forthright, unwavering scrutiny. It was the sort of look whose covetous meaning could not be mistaken. Coming from a complete stranger, in the subdued surroundings of a family funeral, it was at once incongruous, intriguing and dangerous.

  It was also, as far as Sheeld was concerned, entirely uninvited and unwanted. He had not run away from his tangled relationships with women at home only to walk straight into a new one. His short stay on Foort, a self-imposed exile into sexual abstinence, had already begun to pay rewards. Free of emotional demands he was feeling able to address his own future. Even the letters from the three lawyers who most persecuted him were beginning to take on a mollifying tone.

  Looking across at the young woman in the funeral chapel he sensed trouble, a familiar kind, the sort of trouble he had until a few months ago found irresistible. Even now, appraising the way she stood, and her physical stance, the way she held her shoulders and head, the physical invitation that seemed implicit in her behaviour, he felt a lustful craving for her. It was not only wildly inappropriate in these circumstances, but the social and cultural distances that stood between them made any contact with her all but impossible. He tried to ignore her. Afterwards, though, as they stood in silence around the furnace house, she had contrived to stand next to him. Although they had neither looked at each other nor spoken, Sheeld had perceived that she was in an almost tangible state of tension.

  He did not want her, did not want to get involved with anyone. But waiting there in the humid heat, while the unseen but enigmatic ceremony of cremation went on, Sheeld knew he was thinking about her and not about the man whose death he was supposed to be mourning.

  As they moved to the carriages, Sheeld had heard one of the older women speaking to her and he heard the name ‘Al
anya’.

  Now he walked slowly around the long tables on the lawn, inspecting the place cards beside each setting. He found his own quickly enough, in a suitably unimportant position towards the end of one of the smaller tables, but hers was on the head table. She was one more Mercier amongst many: Alanya Mercier.

  Sheeld drank his glass of wine quickly, then took a second from a tray being carried by one of the servants. He stood near the bottom of the verandah steps, watching as the other guests arrived back from the service. At last Alanya Mercier came through the gate in the wall, holding the arm of Gilda, Corrin Mercier’s widow. The two women spoke quietly in patois for a few moments, then separated to find their places at the tables. Alanya walked along the head table, peering down at the place cards. When she found hers she straightened and looked towards Sheeld.

  Once again he saw that disconcertingly candid expression and once again it was he who first averted his eyes.

  Sheeld could not help thinking that these direct stares from the young woman, intriguing as they were, only helped to cut him off further from the other guests. Already separated from them by age, language and culture, he suspected that if he were to show any response to her at all then his alienation would be complete. How could he, an outsider and intruder at this private celebration of grief, possibly meet and strike up some relationship with a member of the bereaved family? Even should he want to, which he did not.

  He tried again to put her out of his thoughts. He had no place in this tragic family gathering: he had been called upon at the last minute to represent his uncle, who had been at university with Corrin Mercier and who was unable to attend in person because of the wartime restrictions on travel from the mainland. Sheeld knew no one here.

  After the meal, during which Sheeld, against his own volition, had several times glanced again in the direction of the veiled young woman on the head table, the guests stood about on the lawn in small informal groups, chatting in patois. The mood was noticeably lighter than before. What Sheeld at last recognized as the usual social process of a funeral party was taking place as the sense of mourning adjusted. He stood alone, though, feeling conspicuous and nervous in his isolation. He had already made one effort to depart, trying to slip away from the garden purportedly to find a toilet, but one of the servants had pointed out that temporary facilities were available in a marquee in one of the corners of the garden. He had noticed how several of the servants were not actually involved in offering the guests drinks and canapés, but stood around not only by the gated entrance to the garden but at several strategic points inside. They were impeccably dressed, and their manner was quiet and respectful, but they gave off the aura of bodyguards or minders. His chosen alternative to leaving was to drink as much wine as he could, as quickly as possible and get through the rest of the party painlessly.

  Alanya Mercier was on the far side of the lawn, speaking to a woman Sheeld recognized as one of Corrin Mercier’s sisters. She was now appearing to ignore him altogether, which complicated the idea that she might have been sending him a message of some kind earlier, but it was nonetheless a relief.

  Time passed and he drank more glasses of wine. Once he thought he heard his name being mentioned, but when he turned to see who it was the two men conversing behind him were facing the other way. He wondered what the word ‘graiansheeld’ meant in patois and why they said the word or words so frequently.

  He decided again that it was time to leave and looked around for somewhere to deposit his empty glass. Alanya Mercier was no longer speaking to anyone, but walking with apparent casualness along the side of the table where he had been sitting. When she reached his seat she looked closely at his place card.

  She knew he was watching her because she looked up. For an instant their gaze met again. She smiled briefly, then went across to him.

  ‘I’m going for a walk, Graian Sheeld,’ she said, without preamble. ‘As far as the Trellin cliffs. You’ve probably heard of them. Perhaps you’d like the chance to enjoy the view. There’s a private guesthouse we could visit, with an excellent position over the sea. We’ll be alone together for a while.’

  She turned from him before his astonishment could register and walked slowly down the lawn, apparently admiring the immense tropical blooms planted in the flowerbeds at the side.

  Sheeld stood for a few moments longer in an acute crisis of indecision: amazement at her effrontery, the general paralysis of his culture shock and social alienation, the intrigues of his curiosity about her and the unmistakable physical attraction he felt, the ambiguities of language, the uncertainties of meanings or customs or conventions, the slight daze of too much alcohol on a humid afternoon. All these were tugging him in different directions.

  He delayed still more, while she walked as far as the end of the lawn and stepped over the patch of uncultivated ground to the edge of the forest, then at last he followed. He walked across the lawn at the same easy pace as hers, admiring the same exotic blooms, trying to make it appear as if he was not following her.

  The forest was rich with the damp perfumes of the tropics. The sun which had blazed down on them in the garden was now filtered by the thick canopy of tree foliage and the lower leaves were still dripping after the rain of two hours before. A great warmth, sticky and sweet-fragranced, permeated the trees. Birds and animals clamoured invisibly around them.

  Sheeld found a well-trodden path that wound through the undergrowth and glimpsed Alanya Mercier in her jet-black dress a short distance ahead. She did not turn or otherwise acknowledge his presence, but she must have known he was behind her because it was difficult to walk without brushing noisily past the sprawling bushes and plants.

  In a while he caught up with her, but still she did not turn to look at him.

  Then she said, ‘Who are you?’

  ‘You looked at my place card and you know my name.’

  He could not help but admire the fullness of her figure from behind. He watched her hold the long black dress at the side to lift it away from the damp soil and so stretch the fabric across the backs of her legs.

  ‘What are you doing at our funeral, Graian Sheeld?’

  ‘I’m representing my uncle.’ He explained briefly about the telegram that had arrived two days before and how he had been travelling for most of a day and a night.

  ‘Graian Sheeld,’ she said. ‘That’s not an island name.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What are you? A draft dodger? A tax evader?’

  ‘Nothing like that.’

  ‘Fugitive from the law?’

  ‘There are other reasons for coming to the islands.’

  ‘So they say. Some of us were born here.’

  ‘I realize that.’

  All through the exchange she had continued to walk, without looking back at him. She was brushing through the thick shrubbery on either side and the droplets of rainwater that did not fly back at Sheeld attached themselves to her dress like tiny jewels.

  ‘Then you don’t know anyone here today?’

  ‘I’ve spoken to Mme. Mercier. And both of the sons.’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’ She looked back quickly at him over her shoulder and for a moment Sheeld glimpsed those eyes that earlier had sent such unmistakable signals to him. This time, though, it was a spontaneous, less calculated look. She had raised her veil and laid it across her hat and her face was pale and exposed.

  ‘Why should you think anything about me?’ he said.

  ‘I’m trying to find out something about you. After all, you seem anxious to accompany me to a private meeting.’

  ‘At your invitation. I shouldn’t have thought, under the circumstances, that knowing anything about me would matter at all.’

  ‘It always matters, Graian Sheeld.’

  She kept saying his full name like that, with a hint of parody in her voice. Was there some meaning in it, or was it simply her accent? Perhaps his name, fortuitously, sounded like something else in their patois – whatever
it was those two men had been talking about, for instance. More to the point, perhaps, what was she doing by leading him away from the main party and what had those looks implied, back there at the house? Suddenly, he wondered if he had misunderstood everything that had been happening that day. Perhaps it was not a funeral at all, he thought sarcastically, as he stumbled behind her, his foot stubbing against a half-buried root. What he had interpreted as a blatant sexual invitation, as blatant as any he had ever known in his life, was another misunderstanding, based on his ignorance of island manners.

  In the heat of the afternoon he began to regret having followed her into the forest, to be led along a winding path through encroaching vegetation while answering small-talk questions. In particular, he was growing tired of following her like a pet dog, unable to see her expression when she spoke to him. When they came to a wider stretch of the path he caught up with her and walked at her side. She did not even glance at him, but strode on. Ahead, the path narrowed again and Sheeld decided to stop walking. Alanya Mercier went on for a few more paces, evidently intending that he should continue to follow her, but when she realized he had no intention of going any further she turned to face him.

  ‘You’ve never attended one of our funerals before, have you?’ she said.

  ‘No. But I’ve been to others on the mainland.’

  ‘You’d never been to a cremation, though,’ she said. ‘I could tell. You didn’t know what was going to happen when they took the coffin to the furnace.’

  ‘That’s true,’ he said.

  ‘It was something of a novelty for us all. The whole family has found it an unusual experience.’

  ‘Then why was it done?’ Sheeld said.