The Islanders

by FJ Campbell

  Guy rolled his eyes. ‘Just saying.’

  But they all ignored him. ‘Seriously, that sounds brilliant, Beth, you’d be so good at that.’

  Relieved that they hadn’t laughed her out of town, she went on, ‘Actually, I wanted to ask if it would be possible to direct a play here. How would I do that? Is that something I can do? I’d really like to.’

  Livvy and Henry told her how to go about it, and the others all said they’d audition. Their voices were enthusiastic, their faces eager to help. Beth glanced at Milo. He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck and she thought she saw him sigh. He stood up and left with BJ and Guy for rugby training.

  *

  She didn’t waste any time with her plans for the play. She went to see Mr Gifford, the head of English, who gave her a slot in the theatre at the end of the Easter term. She had to choose a play by Christmas, organise auditions in January, and rehearsals would be weekly at set times through the Easter term. Mr Gifford was her English teacher, so he knew she could handle the directing, but he dropped some heavy hints about her timekeeping and suggested she co-direct with someone a little more punctual. She said she’d think about it.

  So she started reading plays and trying to decide which one to put on. Shakespeare might be a bit much; she wasn’t into musicals; last year they’d done The Crucible so that was Arthur Miller out of the running. She considered something from Eastern Europe, Václav Havel perhaps, what with the Berlin Wall falling a few days before. She couldn’t decide.

  In the end it was Milo who gave her the best idea. She found him one day, sitting alone in the main corridor, reading a book by Stella Gibbons that she’d loved when she’d read it a few years ago – Cold Comfort Farm.

  ‘Give me that,’ she said as she crashed down on the seat next to him and shoulder-bumped him. ‘This is perfect, Milo, we have to do this – we have to adapt it into a play.’

  ‘You could ask your uncle to help,’ he suggested in a quiet voice.

  ‘I don’t need his help, I can manage quite well alone, thanks. It can’t be that difficult, adapting a book into a play. If the dialogue’s good enough, and funny enough, and the actors know what they’re doing, it’s a cinch.’

  Milo’s face was doubtful, but he said, ‘I could read it through if you want? Or if you need someone to do rehearsals or whatnot?’

  ‘Don’t you want to be in the play?’

  ‘I can’t act to save my life. Must be because I’m too honest or something.’

  ‘And so modest, too.’ Beth thought about it. She had wanted to do this by herself, but maybe Mr Gifford was right; maybe she needed someone to assist. And Milo would be perfect, actually; he wouldn’t try and take over. ‘OK, you’re in. First thing we have to do is get this book written into a script. Let’s meet every week and I’ll have a few scenes ready for you to check. You’ll be my editor. Let’s see…’ She flicked through the pages to the back of the book. ‘Twenty-three chapters. I’ll write it in three acts: the first in London; the second at the farm, ending with Aunt Ada Doom’s appearance; and the third from there until the end. Piece of cake.’

  ‘It’s a lot to do before Christmas.’ The voice of reason.

  ‘Well, I’m sure I can do it. In the meantime, you carry on looking for plays if you like. We won’t find anything better than this. I can already imagine some of it. I wonder who’ll audition for the main parts?’

  ‘You’ll have a lot of trouble finding anyone in the school who doesn’t want to audition.’

  ‘Except you.’

  He laughed. ‘Especially me.’

  But all the while that she was dreaming up ideas and writing and meeting with Milo, Beth was thinking, There’s another person who won’t audition, and it was bothering her. To everyone else in the school she was Somebody; it was flattering and she lapped it up. They were like sheep, copying the way she dressed and wore her hair. She couldn’t help noticing how some of the girls had been shopping during half-term and had come back with new clothes exactly like hers, and was relieved that she’d been shopping too, to stay one step ahead of them. But the more attention she received from everyone else, the more noticeable was Edward’s lack of interest in her. She couldn’t understand it at all. Maybe it was an act, or was he gay, or did he have a secret girlfriend? The more she thought about it, the more important it became, and she was determined to find out the reason if it was the last thing she did.

  *

  Milo and Beth spent all their spare hours together, working on the play. Through November, as the days grew shorter and darker, they huddled together in the library or the common room or wherever they could find a quiet corner. She was right about one thing: Milo was the perfect person to help with the play. She wrote and wrote all week and whenever he wanted to suggest changing something, it always made sense and, because it was Milo, she never felt like it was a criticism. Beth hated criticism.

  Most afternoons, she had squash and Milo rugby practice, so they met afterwards. Beth wouldn’t have been seen dead without showering after sport, but Milo couldn’t care less. Sometimes he showered, but mostly he just turned up in his old tracksuit, smeared with mud or blood, bruises on his face and arms, his hair sticking up in all directions. Despite the battering he was taking at the hands of his so-called teammates, he was at his most mellow and cheerful after rugby.

  ‘What’s the big deal about rugby, anyway?’ she asked him one day as they were on their way back from the tuck shop with Coke and crisps. ‘What’s so great about it?’

  Milo did his usual thing, taking his time to consider his answer. ‘Umm, I suppose I like the rhythm of the game, you know, how it flows, sometimes slowly when we’re in the scrum, and then the speed when the ball is up or when the wingers have it. It’s really exhilarating, the power and the speed and the skill. You should come and watch sometime. But I guess what I really like the best is the feeling of belonging to a team – we all rely on each other; we’re nothing without each other. When all fifteen of us are playing well together, when it clicks, it’s a great feeling.’

  They were walking along the main corridor, where old photos of sports teams lined the wood-panelled walls. The faces stared out at them and Beth looked at them sceptically.

  ‘You see, that’s the bit I don’t get. Why would you want to be reliant on all these other people? It’s not real, is it? In real life, it doesn’t work that way. After school, you’ll all go your separate ways and you’ll never see half of them again. You’re always on your own, in the end. I never want to feel that I have to be responsible for anyone else. I want to be alone and take care of myself.’

  ‘Like an island?’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose so.’

  ‘But no man is an island, as someone once said.’

  ‘Well, it’s lucky I’m not a man then, isn’t it?’

  *

  Livvy and Henry were organising the sixth-form Christmas party and by the end of November it was all Livvy could talk about. The party, Henry, Henry, the party. They had all sorts of outlandish plans to decorate the dining hall, and someone’s older brother was coming from London to DJ. It was Livvy who came up with an idea to get Edward’s attention.

  ‘Let’s make it a proper ball, where you have to invite someone. Then we’ll give out the tickets in pairs and you have to be collected from your house by the boy and you come together.’ She saw Beth’s frown and added hastily, ‘Or the other way round, the girl collects the boy, but the point is you have to have a partner. You invite Edward, he’ll have to say yes. Nobody else will dare to ask him.’

  It was a stupid idea, Beth thought right away; typical of Livvy to dream up something like that. But she hadn’t had any other ideas up until then about how to approach him without making a fool of herself. Could Beth pull off what nobody else in the school had managed? Edward was head boy, a scholar, the most handsome boy she’d ever seen. He – and only he – was the one she’d made up her mind that she wanted. So they wrote a poem to Edward and
put it in an envelope, planning to leave it in his house postbox. But then Beth had second thoughts.

  ‘I don’t know, I’m not sure about this… it seems so silly. I don’t like the idea of it.’

  Livvy sighed. ‘What idea don’t you like? It’s fun, it’s a laugh. I think it’s perfect.’

  ‘But it’s not really my style.’

  ‘What, fun? Fun is not your style? Look, just relax. This is meant to be – you and Edward are meant to be together. It’s fate.’

  ‘Livs, do you even know what fate is?’

  She looked hurt. ‘Of course I do. Fate is the predetermined power that controls all of us, independent of our will or actions.’

  Beth blinked, taken aback by the sudden outburst of philosophy from her friend. ‘Ahem, OK, well, thanks for that. But wouldn’t you say then that – if you believe in fate – I shouldn’t send this letter? Surely that would be trying to change my fate?’

  ‘No, you don’t get it, do you? You and I were meant to be friends, I was meant to organise the party, I was meant to have the idea to invite partners – so you and Edward can be together. It’s fate, see?’

  Beth still wasn’t convinced. Livvy was so full of shit. Beth’s will was stronger than any pre-bloody-determined power, and there was no way Livvy would ever convince her otherwise.

  ‘OK, I’ll prove it to you,’ Livvy pressed. ‘Let’s flip a coin. Heads you send the poem, tails you don’t. I know it’s going to land on heads, because it’s predetermined. Agreed?’

  By this time Beth was thoroughly fed up with the whole conversation and so she agreed. She fetched a coin from her drawer and threw it up in the air.

  It landed on heads.

  CHAPTER 6

  The following day, on his way to breakfast, Edward checked the post table by the front entrance of Shottsford House. He saw two letters addressed to him. The first was in Bonnie’s scrawl; the second had no stamp and the writing was unfamiliar to him. He tucked it into his pocket for later, eager to hear from Bonnie. As he walked down the hill towards the dining hall, he opened her letter and began to read. It was, as usual, a mundane letter about the news from home, his parents, their jobs, Bonnie’s new school. Nothing about her own feelings. Nothing about what had happened last year. So he was still in the dark.

  Bonnie had enclosed another letter this time; she had addressed it to Milo West and had asked her brother to pass it along to him. He paused on the road in surprise. He would have immediately suspected Milo to be the boy with whom Bonnie had been involved, but somehow it was unlikely. Edward knew Milo and liked him – he was a decent, honest bloke, trustworthy, and shy with girls. Plus, he’d had a tough few years and Edward couldn’t imagine that he’d have been chasing girls while his mum lay dying of cancer. Unless he had made a substantial error of judgement about Milo West, he couldn’t possibly be Bonnie’s boyfriend.

  Edward continued towards the main school. It was Saturday, so either Milo would be at breakfast, or Edward could walk down to his cottage this morning and give him the letter. He could ask Milo for a quick game of chess; he liked to play before a rugby game, it took his mind off his nerves. After lunch, Edward’s father was collecting him in his car on the way home from Westminster to take him home to Cornwall for the night. He remembered the other letter and pulled it out of his pocket. It was a small, square envelope and inside was a folded letter. He read it, turned the paper over and frowned. Was this really for him? He read it again, and a third time. What a strange little note.

  I think about you all the time

  I am in your thrall

  I’d like to ask you to be mine

  And to take me to the ball

  B. A.

  Edward couldn’t see Milo at breakfast, so he found a table that was reasonably empty, sat alone at the end of it and wondered about the poem. He only knew one sixth-former with those initials – a new girl in the year below him, Beth Atkinson, Norcombe House, long dark hair. Other than those details, he didn’t have a clear picture of her in his mind. But why would she send him this poem? Was it some sort of a joke?

  He ate his breakfast more quickly than usual, returned to his room in Shottsford House and sat at his desk. He opened the poem and read it out loud. ‘I think about you all the time… be mine.’ The words twisted themselves around in his head, making no sense at all. His hand trembled as he checked the envelope again, in case he had missed something important. It affected him more than he could have imagined. It was the first time that he had ever received something like that; a love letter, he supposed it was.

  Edward glanced out of his window and then remembered Milo. He reached into his wardrobe to find a coat and saw his reflection in the mirror on the inside door. He stared at himself, curious to see what others saw, and felt a familiar sensation of everything slipping away from him. His eyes were dark like bruises as they glared back at him, his mouth tense, a thin line. He blinked, frightened to look deeper inside himself and find nothing real there. He slammed the wardrobe door and left the room.

  His housemaster was in his office, and Edward asked him to sign a permission form to visit Milo, which was no problem as his housemaster was also Milo’s rugby coach. Edward knew where the cottage was because the headmaster had briefed him about Milo’s situation in their start-of-term meeting.

  The walk lasted half an hour and Edward took his time, enjoying the peace of the morning, weak November sunshine filtering through the tall trees, a sharp edge to the cold that he found refreshing after his stuffy room and his oppressive thoughts. The damp leaves that he kicked through smelt musty and earthy, and reminded him of walking the dogs at home.

  Home. His attention strayed from the mystery of the poem to the mystery of his sister, as it often did. He loved Bonnie so much, they were very close, but he felt her beauty was too dangerous. She was only fifteen years old and yet she looked a lot older, and he hated the way that the boys in the school had ogled her. He had overheard some indecent remarks last year and had ticked off the boys so badly, they still cowered every time he came near. She was a lovely girl, very sweet and kind, with a mane of blonde hair and blue eyes. It pained him to think that one of these crude boys had got his filthy hands on her, and things had gone so far that it had made Bonnie ill.

  When Edward and Bonnie had been collected from school at the end of the summer term, not by the family’s driver but by their father, there had been a meeting between Mr Markham and the headmaster, his father uncharacteristically ruffled and angry. He drove them back to Cornwall in silence and they waited, Bonnie trembling and pale-faced, as he spoke in hushed tones to their mother upstairs.

  When their parents finally reappeared, they had made a decision. Bonnie would not be returning to Weatherbury Hall after the summer holidays; they would find another school for her, a day school, so she could live at home. Bonnie broke down in tears and was whisked away by her mother. The family holiday to their cottage in Scotland was cancelled – instead, Bonnie went with her mother to an aunt in Stockholm, and Edward spent a long, lonely summer at home, walking the dogs and reading books, occasionally going with his father up to London to an art gallery and to see Hamlet at the National Theatre.

  He had had mixed feelings about school. He was head boy now, and had finished his university application to study law at Cambridge University; Corpus Christi College, like his father. He loved The Island, but without Bonnie there, it would be different. The light she brought to his life, every day when they greeted each other at breakfast, and the other times they managed to spend together, walking, talking; he cherished them and he knew she was a good influence on him, calming him and grounding him, teasing him if he got too pompous, reminding him of their mother, so sweet and lovely.

  But neither his parents nor his sister had told Edward the details of Bonnie’s romance. He had never seen her with one boy in particular, and what was the illness that presumably they were treating in Sweden? Edward dreaded to think that Bonnie might have been pregnant; t
he thought wouldn’t focus in his brain because he found it so horrifying. She was so small and young. Whoever could it be? He had racked his memory, and had made a list of all the boys in the fourth, fifth and sixth years, keeping it in his desk drawer, crossing each name off the list when he was sure that it couldn’t be them. Milo’s name was crossed off.

  Without noticing where the time had gone, Edward had reached the school gates. There was Milo’s cottage, set back from the path along the wall, with a well-tended garden, a vegetable patch, a small lawn and some fruit trees. Milo’s bike leant against the wall near the front door. Edward knocked and Milo, dressed already in his rugby tracksuit, his hair still messy from sleep, opened it and looked rather startled to see Edward standing there.

  ‘Hi, Edward, everything OK?’

  ‘Yes, good morning, may I come in? I’ve brought you some breakfast, in case you hadn’t had any yet.’ He held up two croissants, wrapped in a paper napkin he’d saved from the dining hall.

  ‘Wow, thanks, I’m starving. I’ve got the kettle on. Um… would you like a cup of tea?’

  Edward sat down at the small pine kitchen table, waiting for Milo to make the tea. He served it in a white teapot covered with delicate orange and yellow flowers, with proper cups, saucers and a matching sugar pot and milk jug. In Milo’s hands, it looked like a girl’s toy tea set, and Milo saw him staring.

  ‘It was my grandmother’s,’ he mumbled.

  When Milo sat down, Edward brought out the letters from Bonnie; the one to him and the other addressed to Milo. He handed over Milo’s letter with a quizzical look on his face, but he saw that Milo was as surprised as he was. Milo considered the envelope, turned it over in his large hands, bent it backwards and forwards a little.

  ‘There’s something hard in here, a card.’ He carefully slit open the top of the envelope and upturned it onto the table. A letter, and a phonecard. A light dawned in Milo’s face. ‘Mystery solved. I lent her a phonecard last term. She promised she’d pay me back. I’d forgotten all about it.’