by Molly Flatt
Other search results for GCAS had been dominated by various engineering, accounting and automative firms that happened to share the same acronym. She’d only managed to find one mention of the European Chapter in social media, buried deep in the postgrad section of a student chat room. A member called anniem411 had started a thread called ‘Help! Opportunities in GCAS Orkney – advice?!!’, asking, ‘any of you know about “GCAS” in Orkney nr Scotland? Phd w/specialism in critical theory, narrative & psychology looking for research job, having trouble finding application info for this place??’ A lone reply from someone called smilenthwrld said, ‘seem to be local offshoot of some kind of international NGO. prob cherrypick from other courses/places. looks residential only tho, sure u want to be middle of nowhere?’
As for Iskeull, a Wikipedia entry confirmed that it was the northernmost island in Orkney and the second largest, at 170 square miles. It added that it was three miles away from its nearest neighbour, North Ronaldsay, and had an estimated population of 8,000. There then followed three stark and distinctly familiar sentences:
Iskeull is a privately owned and funded microstate, independent of the British government and unserviced by public transport. It is home to the European Chapter of the Global Centre for Autobiographical Studies (GCAS) and provides a protected environment for the preservation of ancient native ecology. Members of the public are permitted to visit the island by private appointment only.
The only other mentions she had been able to find were cut-and-paste jobs on travel sites, reproducing the same few lines of text.
The other islands that made up Orkney, however, were another matter. Alex scrolled through page after saved page of Historic Scotland PDFs and websites of ‘world-renowned’ distilleries and fisheries. She jumped from ugly local domains compiling legends and dialects, to unwieldy art-festival microsites. She skimmed articles on Bronze Age archaeology, articles on Viking DNA, articles on World War wrecks. And then there were the photo galleries, featuring thousands of shots from professional photographers and tourists alike. It was standard northern-idyll stuff: rainbows arching over glistening heather, dramatic rocky crags, weird Neolithic grassy humps and freezing-looking beaches. Alex imagined the selfie she would send to Harry, featuring her pink-cheeked, clear-eyed, internationally-enlightened self standing on the edge of a cliff beside a bunch of earnest academics. Wild sunset, check. Rune-covered monolith, check. Soaring eagle, check-check-check. No bloody filter required.
She checked her messages. Nothing. But then he was probably in a meeting. The sort of meetings in which highlighter-woman spent her days. The sort of meetings in which Alex had once frittered away her life, before she broke free. Poor Harry.
She returned to her iPad and opened the file containing Director MacBrian’s instructions. She was to catch the ferry from the mainland, arriving late that evening into Kirkwall. This was the capital of Orkney, located on its largest island – which was called, confusingly, Mainland. Alex would then be picked up by one of MacBrian’s colleagues and taken to a nearby B&B. The next morning, weather permitting, they would fly to Iskeull by private plane. Alex would stay over on the GCAS (European Chapter) campus, and then they would fly her back to Kirkwall for her return journey, weather permitting, on Sunday night.
When they’d spoken on the phone, MacBrian had seemed gratifyingly eager to get Alex onto the island, if somewhat lacking in the niceties of social intercourse. She had repeated the offer in her email that Alex should stay as long as she could. Alex had repeated in turn that, with Eudo at a crucial point in its growth cycle, even a weekend was pushing it. Two days would provide plenty of time to fill her lungs with fresh coastal air and her soul with a fresh contribution to the global community. By Monday, she’d once again be the woman that her mother approved of, her father adored and Harry wanted to marry. Just without the crap job, the emotional constipation and the hopeless hair.
She wondered, frankly, if they had forgotten quite how hopeless she had been. Against her better instincts, she opened her photo library and scrolled back past six months’ worth of design mock-ups, whiteboard captures and publicity headshots to the first pre-Eudo photograph. Back then, Alex had hated having her photo taken, which was obvious in the image she now made full screen. The scene was New Year’s Eve in her parents’ kitchen. Harry must have been behind the camera. Her mother was in the middle of the frame, her red-cardiganed back bending to take a dish out of the oven. Her father was on one side, wine bottle in hand. Alex was on the other, already heading out of shot with a saucepan lid and a novelty dishcloth.
Alex studied the Alex in the photo with appalled fascination, feeling the familiar sickness start to rise but unable to pull back, like a child probing a wobbly tooth with its tongue. Startled by the flash, her eyes were the reflective red discs of imminent roadkill, her mouth half-open in a grimace of surprise. Her mousy hair, sans highlights and lob, straggled around her shoulders, limp with cooking steam and crowned with a lopsided paper hat. She was wearing an unflattering navy jumper that she had owned since sixth form, and which she’d recently dumped in a clothes bank.
Twelve or so hours later, Harry would propose to that creature. God, she had been lucky. What had he seen in her? Why hadn’t she booked the venue there and then? What on earth had been going on behind those scared scarlet eyes?
And then the sickness intensified, and the vertigo rolled in, and beneath them she felt the void crack open its shadowy maw and wait for her to slide, slide, slide . . .
NO. Alex snapped shut the cover of her iPad, took a deep breath and refocused on the window, which was now unspooling twiggy brown parcels of scorched countryside. Enough. Last night, in her bracing state of self-scrutiny, she’d promised herself that she would stop pretending the episodes weren’t a problem. It was time to tackle this psychosomatic crap head-on.
She unpocketed her phone again – still no message from Harry – waited until it found a couple of blobs of signal and speed-dialled Chloe. To her relief, Chloe answered after a couple of rings.
‘Alex!’ The soft voice wafted into her ear. ‘Namaste!’
‘Chloe,’ Alex said, eager to get to the point before she lost her blobs. ‘Is this a good time for a quick chat?’
‘You’re paying for 24/7 remote support, Alex,’ Chloe replied, with a fluting laugh. ‘My time is yours. But I’d like to stop you for a moment before we continue. I can hear quite a lot of tension in your voice. May I ask you to sit and breathe? Reconnect? Where are your shoulders right now, Alex? Where are the soles of your feet?’
Alex closed her eyes. She located her shoulders. She located the soles of her feet. ‘The thing is, Chloe,’ she said, opening her eyes again, ‘I’m a bit short on time.’
‘As Jim Rohn said, Alex, either you run the day, or the day runs—’
‘Indeed,’ Alex interrupted, hearing the connection crackle. ‘And that’s very true. But I need your help with something specific. Can I run it past you?’
A zephyr of a sigh. ‘Of course, Alex. But don’t forget, all I can do is guide you to unlock the potential you already possess to empower yourself.’
‘Absolutely. Great. Okay. So, I know we’ve talked a lot about the challenges that going through a personal transition can bring, but there’s one thing I haven’t mentioned. The fact is, Chloe, my memories appear to be making me sick.’
There was a long pause. Alex was just checking the signal when Chloe said, softly, ‘Wow, Alex. That’s a very powerful image.’
Alex checked that the suit in the seat opposite was still asleep and that highlighter-woman was still absorbed in her printouts. ‘That’s the problem,’ she said in a low voice. ‘It’s not an image. It’s a physical reality. Whenever I remember anything that happened before I . . . became my true self, it makes me feel ill. Not just nauseous, but really weird, unbalanced, dizzy, like I’m skating on ice. And if I try to hold on to the memory for too long, I feel the ice crack and I . . . I don’t know. I start to fall into a . .
. I start to fall.’ She paused. Silence. ‘It’s been going on ever since the night I started to change,’ she admitted. ‘The night after our first session, back in February. For a while I put it down to overwork, but recently it’s been getting harder to avoid. Whenever I spend time with my family, old friends, even with Harry – anyone who reminds me of my old life, really – the worse it gets. It’s starting to become a real issue.’ Silence. The signal was fine. ‘Chloe? Is this normal? What should I do?’
At this, there came another sigh, feather-light. ‘You know what to do, Alex.’
‘That’s the problem, Chloe. I kind of don’t.’
‘When the caterpillar becomes a butterfly,’ Chloe said, ‘do you think he feels no pain?’
‘So this is normal?’
‘What we’re witnessing, Alex, is your old normal battling with your new normal. Have you heard of cognitive dissonance?’
‘Isn’t that like – when you say you love animals, but you eat meat and squash flies?’
There was another pause. Alex was about to check the signal again when Chloe proclaimed: ‘In psychology, cognitive dissonance is the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas or values at the same time. Or they might perform an action that is contradictory to one or more beliefs, ideas or values. It also occurs when the individual is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas or values.’
‘Oh,’ Alex said. ‘Right. I—’
‘Leon Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance focuses on how humans strive for internal consistency. An individual who experiences inconsistency – dissonance – tends to become psychologically uncomfortable. They will become motivated to reduce this dissonance, as well as actively avoid situations and information that are likely to increase it.’
‘Wow,’ Alex said, after a moment. ‘Okay.’
‘In short, Alex,’ Chloe said, ‘your brain is struggling to assimilate your new belief system. Feel the conflict. Feel the conflict, then let it go. I suspect that you’re not so much afraid of giving up your outgrown self, as scared that she’ll come back. But all you need to do is trust, Alex. Persevere. Be strong. Keep gathering evidence that refutes your old, limiting beliefs. After a while your brain will realign. You’ll be able to look back on your memories with the fondness of a wise mother for an ignorant child. You’ll become more powerful than ever before.’
‘Wow.’ Alex blew out a breath. ‘That’s . . . extraordinary.’
‘No, Alex,’ Chloe said. ‘The world is extraordinary. It’s so much bigger and stranger than most people want to believe. And you’ve become a true part of it now, Alex. You’re extraordinary. I’d like you to say it to me.’
‘What?’
‘I’d like you to say that you’re extraordinary. Out loud.’
‘Oh.’ Alex glanced around. ‘This isn’t really the—’
‘As Brené Brown said, Alex, shame erodes our courage.’
‘Okay, okay.’ Alex lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘I’m extraordinary.’
‘Alex.’
‘I’m extraordinary,’ Alex said.
‘Alex . . .’
‘I’M EXTRAORDINARY!’ Alex bellowed, making the suit jerk awake with a snort and highlighter-woman send a great arc of green skidding across her page.
Three and a half hours later the train pulled into Edinburgh. Alex, given a wide berth by everyone in her carriage, stepped stiffly onto the platform. Across the bustle of the concourse she spotted the awning of a Caffè Nero and broke into a jog. Having secured a chair beside a power point, a triple flat white and all the signal a civilized human being could desire, she spent forty-five glorious minutes fielding emails and delegating tasks to the office.
And, finally, a message popped up.
Sounds interesting. Hope it’s rewarding. H
No x. No x? Really? Okay, Harry. If that’s how you want to play it.
Thx. Think it will be. Sounds like a great bunch of blokes. Hoping to forge some lasting relationships. Prob won’t be in contact. Signal likely to be bad. A
One minute passed. Another minute passed. Then:
What sort of blokes?
Alex counted out a minute.
Brainy but outdoorsy. Top academics, gifted students, passionate young conservationists. Think they’ll really help me reconnect with my true self.
Thirty seconds.
Okay. But watch yourself. I’m positive they have their own agenda.
Oh no. They just sound super-excited to meet me & explore my journey. Have to throw myself into this wholeheartedly if I’m going to make the most of it, after all. You were right. I’ve been too wrapped up in myself. It’s time I took an interest in others for a while.
Ten seconds.
Don’t go out of contact entirely, though. Not safe.
Alex smiled. I’ll do my best.
Speak soon? x
Of course. xx
Spirits back in full sail, Alex closed the thread and allowed herself a quick dip into the frothing rapids of Twitter. She had just tweeted a pithy comment about haggis and Harry Potter when a re-tweet from a foodie blogger caught her eye:
Wasn’t me I promise!! RT @LifeandStyle Helena Pereira stalker detained outside L’Antiga Capella yesterday: http://bit.ly/1qgyKsj
Alex clicked on the link:
STALKER DETAINED IN SKIRMISH AT A-LIST EATERY
A man has been detained on suspicion of stalking the model and jeweller Helena Pereira after a fight broke out outside Marylebone restaurant L’Antiga Capella yesterday evening.
Pereira was dining inside when doormen became suspicious of a young man acting strangely, as he waited for over an hour near the restaurant’s steps. The model has been dogged by similar troubles with ‘superfans’ in the past.
Gabriel Noguerra, the doorman, was injured after the man ignored repeated requests to leave. ‘This guy looked like he was high,’ Noguerra told The Guardian. ‘He was sweating, shaking, mumbling some s**t about libraries, freaking out every time a car came past. When I put my hand on his arm he reacted like a wild animal. He started yelling that he needed more. I guess he meant drugs. It took four of our guys to pull him away.’
Both the police and Ms Pereira’s press office declined to comment on the incident. But this is not the first time the critically acclaimed restaurant, which opened in January of this year, has faced controversy . . .
Alex returned to the photo gallery beneath the headline. The first image was a glossy press shot of a naked Helena Pereira crouching beside a panther, draped in strategically positioned ropes of her own jewellery. The second showed the top of Pereira’s bowed golden head, glimpsed behind the outstretched arms of two burly assistants. They were hurrying her down a set of broad stone steps towards a black car. Studying the white-shirted figure framed in the arch behind them, Alex recognized the open-mouthed face of L’Antiga Capella’s maître d’. The third and final image was smaller and blurrier, and it showed two policemen bundling a man into the back of a van. The stalker’s features had been swallowed by the dim interior and his body was little more than a grainy hump. But Alex could just about make out the detail of one distinctive calf-length lace-up boot, bracing against the ledge as they pushed him in.
She looked up from the screen, feeling as if her ears had popped. She scanned the people in the café around her warily. No hot-ugly man-boys. No grungy boots.
Catching sight of the clock, Alex suddenly realized that she only had three minutes before her connection left. Thrusting her iPad and phone into her bag, she sprinted towards platform seventeen. For the second time that day, she jumped through train doors moments before they shut. She slumped into a seat as the train jolted away from the station, her heart thumping, and told herself to get a grip.
London was full of people wearing the same shoes. London was full of weird and violent men. The moment she started linking everything that she saw back to herself was the momen
t Harry would be right, and she really would have disappeared up her own backside. She was extraordinary, she reminded herself. No tears and no irrational fears.
Not any more.
She pressed in her earbuds and cued up the music she had downloaded last night: Peter Maxwell Davies’ first symphony, apparently composed on the Orkney island of Hoy. The Scottish Rail train was small and rickety, the landscape now properly coastal, with scrubby banks giving way to vistas of glittering, white-tipped grey. As glockenspiel tinkled and woodwind squawked beneath a surge of violins, Alex watched surf explode over coal-black rocks and gulls pick their way across pipe-and-rope strewn pebble beaches under a flat, hot sky. She whispered the names of the stations as they stopped, then shuddered on – Inverkeithing, Kirkcaldy, Leuchars. By the time the train squealed to a halt, her carriage was empty and her mind was still.
Seven and a half hours after she’d left London, Alex fed her ticket into the barrier and stepped out into a shopping centre. She spent a bleary hour wandering round the outlets buying vitamins, antibac gel and a bright yellow fisherman-style anorak. Then she used Google Maps to navigate across the small patch of concrete that separated the mall from the ferry terminal.
By the time she’d squeezed through the ticket-check bottleneck, all the seats were taken. Who cared? Now that she was seaborne, her hard-won Zen was starting to segue back into excitement. Alex decided to celebrate her voyage with a drink. She pushed her way to the bar and ordered a double gin and tonic, which cost more than it would have in Soho, then made her way onto the deck.
Spray and rain pricked at her face and, as she watched the navy waves churn, she felt cool and fresh for the first time in weeks. The moon was already up, a pale nail-paring in a vast paler sky. She stared romantically at the water, sipped from her drink and once again indulged in the Highgate daydream. She imagined the gleaming glass-fronted kitchen, the tousle-haired toddlers, the garden-facing study where she could work on Eudo – home-mixed martini in hand – once they had gone to bed. Her memories might be broken, but at least her vision of the future was as crisp as a salad from the local farmers’ market, and dewy with emotional verve. Alex knew that if other people could see it, most of them would tell her she was unrealistic, that real life didn’t work like that. She didn’t care. After all, six months ago she would have said it was unrealistic for her to imagine that she would be here and unafraid. She’d never have guessed she’d be at the helm of her own business and on a trip through unknown waters. But here and unafraid she undeniably was.
