The Islanders

by Christopher Priest

  The atmosphere of Goorn was all too chillingly familiar. The days were short, the skies permanently fuliginous, the temperature icy. Sooty clouds scudded across from the north-east. I had already lived in the subtropics long enough to wish I could be there all the time. Goorn and its constant wind depressed me. I glimpsed other people about the streets, not many, but the few who ventured out huddled against the wind, huddled against their own thoughts and, I supposed, their pagan fears. Cars went by slowly, the sombre light reflecting ominously from their windows. I felt crowded in by the ignorant beliefs I discerned, but also lonely because of them.

  In this state of suspense, trying to complete my parents’ affairs was all but impossible. The bank staff, the lawyers, the Seigniory Estates Commission either did not respond to my enquiries or they made excuses or they sent the wrong paperwork. Almost nothing was being done.

  After a few more days I realized I was wasting my time until the Goornak ceased. I decided to travel back to Ia, where at least I could see my friends and find out the facts about my job. I would have to make the long return journey to Goorn when summer came. I began packing.

  Seeing Alvasund Raudeberg again changed everything. She came to the house on the morning of the day before I was due to catch the ferry. I was not only surprised to see her, I was pleased and intrigued that she had sought me out. I had always rather fancied her when we were at school together. She entered the house in a flurry of fine blown snow.

  ‘I realized you must be back, Torm,’ she said. ‘I was sorry to hear the news about your parents.’

  In the house I made her a hot chocolate and we sat side by side at the scrubbed-deal table in the kitchen, sipping at our drinks, our shoulders touching companionably for warmth. The eaves of the house groaned and sometimes shrieked as the hostile wind blustered through the town. The outer door was creaking and the house felt cold.

  ‘Tell me what you’ve been doing since school,’ I said to her. ‘Did you go away to college?’

  The morning passed. We each had our stories to tell, catching up, but in a sense they were similar. Like so many others we had left Goorn to escape – we had both been forced to return. Neither of us had clear ideas about what we should do next.

  Alvasund told me she had been living on Muriseay until recently, but she had lost her job and could not find another. She had returned to Goorn because her sister had just given birth to twins, and most of the family were there to celebrate. She seemed restless and anxious to leave. I mentioned I was about to head back to Ia, suddenly realizing how much I would like Alvasund to travel with me. I could not stop thinking about her, how much we had both grown up, that I had always liked her, the possibilities that were gathering. But after I had mentioned Ia a few more times, trying to make it sound interesting and attractive, I realized that it was not an option for her.

  ‘I’m heading up to the Tallek region in a day or two,’ she said. ‘Do you know it?’

  ‘I was there with my parents, when I was a kid. Just a couple of days.’

  ‘Do you remember much about it?’

  ‘A lot of mountains,’ I said, wishing I could elaborate more. ‘A constant smell of fish and smoke. I was cold all the time. Just like this, but I was there in the summer so I guess the Tallek is cold all year. Why do you want to go there?’

  ‘Various reasons.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘I’ve never seen the fjords.’

  ‘It must be more than that. It’s so hard to get there.’

  ‘It’s all a bit vague. There’s the possibility of a job, but I need to know more about it. And the other day I found out there’s a Yo tunnel in the Tallek somewhere.’

  ‘I didn’t know she came to Goorn,’ I said.

  ‘She wasn’t here long. They threw her off the island when they caught up with her, but apparently she was in the Tallek long enough to drill most of the way through one of the slopes. She never finished, which is why it’s interesting. Anyone can go in and explore.’

  Alvasund suddenly changed the subject and talked about her course. She had studied stagecraft, gaining skills in computer-generated three dimensional sets, perspective building and subjective animatronic modelling. She said it was called active intelligence, because stages dressed in this way were capable of responding, not just to the actors’ lines but to the reactions of the audience. It was still a new technology, and many theatre managers were conservative about stage techniques.

  Once she had gained her degree she discovered jobs were hard to find. She worked for a while for a TV company. They had sent her to a regional studio on Muriseay, but that job expired when the studio closed. She was unable to find work in any of the theatres on Muriseay.

  Now she was planning to visit the north, before she went back to Muriseay.

  ‘Would you like company on the trip?’ I said suddenly, trying to make it sound spontaneous.

  ‘I thought you were returning to Ia.’

  ‘No urgency. I just don’t want to be in this house any longer.’

  ‘Can you drive a car?’ Alvasund said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That would solve a problem for me. If we rented a car together, would you be willing to drive?’

  ‘Where would we stay, what would we do?’

  She looked gravely at me – a sudden reminder of her intriguing seriousness in class at school. ‘We’ll work something out, Torm.’

  Then she laughed, so I did too. There was now a prospect of intimacy, alone with her for some days. She told me there was a house she could stay in, something to do with the job offer. She wasn’t clear about that. ‘No one else there now,’ she added, and laughed again.

  She left soon after that, but she came back the next day and we discussed practicalities. I cancelled my ferry ticket, obtained a refund. She had located a car rental firm that was not expensive. We looked at maps of the fjords, picked out the places we might pass through.

  The town we were going to was called Ørsknes, close to where Yo had been drilling. The absence of markings on the map of the surrounding terrain gave a chill impression of bleakness, windswept peaks. We packed warm clothes, bought food and drinks, and agreed to set out the following morning. I offered to walk with her back to her sister’s house, but she said no.

  * * *

  North of Goorn Town there is almost nothing of scenic interest, and the road is straight. The car was buffeted by gusts of wind. We drove all day, stopping for a rest and a brief lunch, neither of us sure how long the whole journey might take. We did not want to be driving through the mountains after dark. We could see them ahead of us, a dark range capped by many snowy peaks. Although the car was a recent model the heater did not work well and the further north we drove the colder we felt. Alvasund wrapped her legs under a travel blanket, and I halted the car long enough to pull on my wind-cheater.

  It was late afternoon when we climbed towards the first pass, finding the road ice-covered and treacherous in places. A heavy snowstorm started, whiting out visibility. It did not last long, but it was concerning. Old snow was already piled on both sides, and the fresh fall was settling on the paved surface. When about half an hour later we saw a small hotel set back from the road, we immediately turned in to stay the night.

  * * *

  We drove down from the high pass into Ørsknes. It was close to midday. The sun was low in the sky but brilliant, the sea was deep blue but troubled with many flecks of white, the mountains hung above us, snow-covered, perilously steep, rocky. There were signs of rockfall near the bases of some of the mountains, close to where the road ran alongside the fjord. Using a small, hand-drawn map, Alvasund directed me to the house we would be staying in. We climbed out of the car, assailed by the freezing wind. Small white clouds raced overhead. The streets looked deserted. The curse wind was felt here too.

  The house was built so that it backed on to the first elevation of a slope, which rose steeply from a tiny yard at the rear. Alvasund walked quickly to the main do
or of the house, produced a key and we were in. We carted our bags into the house, our breath blowing white around us, even in the interior.

  It was an A-frame building, furnished minimally. The large street-level floor was dominated by a wood-burning stove, with neat stacks of logs placed alongside the stone wall. A long couch and a hide rug were in front of the stove. There was a kitchen and bathroom. Everything was clean, tidy, functional.

  The upper floor was a mezzanine, attained by narrow wooden steps. Beneath the sharply-angled roof a large, thick mattress lay on the floor, with quilts and bolsters folded neatly on the top.

  Two hours later we had the place habitable. The stove was alight, filling the house with the sweet scent of burning birch, and the water jacket around the firebox was piping heat around the house. Alvasund warmed up some canned soup and we drank it sitting together on the couch, staring into the glowing fire.

  We had found some maps of the fjord which showed that Ørsknes was a distance inland from the sea, with another fishing settlement called Omhuuv lying further along the same shore, closer to the mouth of the fjord. A larger-scale street map revealed that it was probably not going to take long to explore the town. There were just the two main streets, with a compact maze of side streets like the one where the house was situated. The harbour and wharf buildings ran for most of the length of the waterfront. We could hear the winches and cranes, even through the stone and doubly insulated wooden walls of the house.

  We walked around the town before sunset, wrapped up against the icy north-east wind. It seemed to gain strength as it passed along the narrowing fjord. Alvasund showed me the building where she believed Yo had kept her studio – it was now a net store – but many decades had passed since the artist had been there. Her studio could have been in any one.

  As we walked back towards the house we spotted a restaurant close to the wharves. The place was open, so we ate dinner there. Some of the other customers looked at us curiously a few times, but there was no hostility in their interest. Alvasund and I were learning to relax with each other, and several times we stopped talking and sat and ate in silence, glancing warmly at each other across the table.

  Afterwards, we returned through the now dark streets, looking for the house, hearing our own footsteps echoing in the deserted streets. We glimpsed dim lights behind the curtained or shuttered windows of many of the houses, but there was little other outward sign of occupation. It was starting to snow, a thin, cold downfall, blown along on the turbulent Goornak. We leaned against each other, holding on as we slithered along the increasingly slippery paths.

  * * *

  I was assuming nothing about what might happen when we went to bed, but the knowledge that there was only one bed in the house had quietly illuminated the evening for me. I could not forget Alvasund’s unexpected laughter when we first discussed this trip, the smiling implication of us travelling together, and the easy affection we had shared in the restaurant.

  But the night before, when we stopped at the hotel in the mountains, had been a surprise if not a disappointment. The moment I switched off the car’s ignition Alvasund had leapt out and run through the swirling snowstorm into the building. She returned with the news that we could stay, and started pulling her bags out of the car. Once inside the building I discovered we were to be in separate rooms, but I did not ask, and Alvasund did not tell me, if this was at her own request or if those were the only ones available. That is how I had spent the previous night, comfortably enough, warmly enough, but alone in a single narrow bed.

  Now we were in Ørsknes, in a house where it was plain we would be sharing a bed. Once inside the house, with our warm outer clothes removed and the fire stirred up into a burst of new radiance, we made some tea. We sat together, as before, staring at the fireglow. Alvasund had picked up a tourist guide in the restaurant so we now knew where the Yo tunnel was located and how we could find it. We made plans to visit it the next day.

  With the tea finished Alvasund stood up quickly, said she would like a shower and asked me if I wanted to take mine first or after her. I opted to go first.

  Afterwards, I went up the narrow steps, crawled on to the mattress, and pulled the quilt around me. I was full of anticipation, my senses tingling, my appetite and readiness for her growing. As soon as I was in the bed she came up the steps to join me. She was still in her clothes and stood where I could see her. She undressed with her back towards me, stripping unsensationally to her underwear, then pulled on a wrap and went downstairs to the cubicle. I could hear the water flowing through the pipes, the shower running below, the sound of the splashing changing as she moved around. I stared at the small pile of clothes she had left on the floor beside our bed.

  After a silence I heard her do something to the wood-burning stove, then she turned out the lights on the ground floor and came back up to the bed. She was wearing the wrap, with her hair hanging damply about her shoulders.

  She kneeled forward on the edge of the mattress, pulled out the bolster from where it had been laid, and placed it along the bed, down the middle, dividing it in two.

  ‘You understand, Torm, don’t you?’ She was patting down the long, heavy pillow, making sure it extended the full length of the bed.

  ‘I think so,’ I said, kicking the thing where it had rolled against me. ‘I can see what you are doing. Is that what I have to understand?’

  ‘Yes. Don’t touch me. Imagine there is a sheet of glass between us.’

  She towelled her hair briefly, then slipped off the wrap. For a moment she was naked, standing there, within my reach, but she was already crawling forward, sliding under the quilt beside me. The bolster lay between us.

  She turned out the light, pulling on the cord that dangled from the rafter above.

  I turned it on again and sat up. I leaned over towards her. She was already lying with the quilt pulled tight up to her face. Her eyes were open.

  ‘Torm –’

  I said, ‘I wasn’t assuming anything, but you’re acting as if you think I was.’

  ‘It’s obvious. What you’re expecting.’

  ‘Everything we did today – was I wrong?’

  ‘We’re just friends, Torm. That’s how I want it to be. If you assume that, that’s OK.’

  ‘What if I want that to change? Or you do?’

  ‘Then we’ll both know. Please, for now just treat me as if we have glass between us. Everything is visible, but nothing can be reached. This was something I learned at college, about an audience and a stage. There’s an invisible wall between the actors and the audience. You look and you see, but there’s no real interaction.’

  I said, protesting, ‘A stage effect isn’t the same thing at all!’

  ‘I know. But for now, just for now, for tonight.’

  ‘You want me to be your audience.’

  ‘I suppose so, yes.’

  I thought about that. She suddenly seemed to me rather naïve, adapting a concept some drama teacher had explained, but applying it inappropriately. I reached up and turned off the light, aroused and annoyed. Moments later I switched it on again. She had not moved and her eyes were still open. She blinked.

  ‘You say I can look at you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Let me look now.’

  Amazingly she smiled at that and without another word pushed down the quilt to expose herself. I raised myself on my elbow again, stared at her lying there so close to me, her neat, compact body, quite bare, frankly naked to me. She kicked the quilt completely away with one of her feet, then moved slightly, revealing everything of herself.

  Almost at once it felt intrusive and somehow pointless to be looking at her like that, so I turned away. Still she did not pull up the quilt to cover herself but I turned off the light. Moments later I felt her move under the quilt again. She fidgeted a few times and finally lay still. I tried to relax too, lying back with my head on the large soft pillow. I was breathing hard but I tried to still myself, to be calm. The bolste
r lay between us.

  It was almost impossible for me to sleep but I think Alvasund did fall asleep more or less straight away. Her breathing was steady, almost inaudible. She barely moved.

  Of course what she had done had thrown me into a whirl of thoughts, desires, inhibitions, frustration. What was she up to? She appeared to like me, but somehow not enough. She let me look at her, seemed to invite it and even enjoy it, but I was not allowed near her, kept back in a kind of imaginary auditorium. I was dazzled and aroused by the brief glimpse I had had of her, the way she lay there close to me, relaxing her arms so her breasts were revealed, and parting her legs a little. She wanted me to see her, or at least would allow it.

  She was not the first naked woman I had seen, nor was she the first I had been in bed with. I assumed she must know that, or could guess it. During my four years away from home, growing up rapidly, enjoying new freedoms, I had had girlfriends and lovers, and there was Enjie, one of the students, a young woman reading Economics in another department of the college. Enjie and I had shared an enthusiastic physical relationship for several months. Nor was Alvasund an object of long-held desire, because she had barely been in my thoughts since I left Goorn. Her return to my life had been completely unexpected. However, she was attractive to me, becoming more so, I was enjoying being with her, and –

  There was a sheet of glass between us.

  I knew about glass, but the glass I knew about was not for looking through, nor was it a barrier. On the contrary it was a medium of transient, non-fixed effect, used to control or enhance an electronic flow at some frequencies, while at others it functioned as an insulator or compressor. Her metaphor did not work for me.

  I was awake for much of the night, sensing her physical closeness, knowing that were I to move just a short distance, or to throw an arm towards her across the bolster, or to allow one of my hands to slip beneath the damned thing, she would be there, close beside me, reachable, touchable.