Island-in-Waiting (2 page)

“I do hope you'll make allowances for my cooking,” Martha was saying anxiously. “As Hugo probably told you, I flap around in an aura of burned pans and hard potatoes. He has lunch at college during the week, which has saved him from an ulcer so far, and luckily there's a good little restaurant quite near where we go if my attempt at dinner is a complete write-off.”

That she wasn't exaggerating was unfortunately soon apparent. The delicious-smelling casserole proved to be undercooked, the carrots hard and the meat stringy. Hugo and I chewed on stoically while Martha, almost in tears, kept up a stream of apology. Only when the plates had been cleared away and cheese and biscuits produced were we able to teeter back on to an even conversational keel.

“Any thoughts on the future, Chloe?” Hugo asked, handing me a cup of coffee. “How are you planning to make use of that impressive array of diplomas?”

“At the moment I haven't a clue.” But his casual enquiry was having the opposite effect from my parents' pointed questioning and already the first tentative ideas were beginning to take shape in my head. “I'd really like my own restaurant, but that's aiming rather high at this stage. Perhaps I might start as a free-lance chef, advertising my service for dinner parties and so on. There'd be no overheads and the pay should be good. I suppose London would offer the best scope.”

“Imagine cooking because you enjoy it!” Martha said wonderingly.

“It's the only thing I can do. Hugo must have told you I've no brains.”

“I certainly did not, nor is it true. Your talents are non-academic, that's all.”

“Tactfully put!” I set down my coffee cup. “I'm also quite a good non-academic washer-up, so –”

Martha shook her head. “Not tonight, Chloe. We can manage perfectly well and you must be tired.”

“If you're sure then, perhaps you'll excuse me. I'd like to do my unpacking, such as it is.”

When everything was put away and I was ready for bed, I drew back the curtains and stood looking out of the window. The wind had blown the rain clouds away and the night was fine and clear. A host of scudding cloudlets sailed quickly over the face of the moon and were gone.

Below me lay the neat little garden and beyond that what appeared to be a field, but the moon wasn't bright enough to show it clearly. A car passed along the road with a brief flare of headlamps. I could only guess that the dark mass which shut off the night sky to my right was one of the island's many hills.

Today, I reflected, had held its share of riddles. My thoughts went back to the tall, fair man who had seemed so much a part of me, though commonsense forced me to admit we had never met. And there was the same inexplicable sense of familiarity about this island which I had never visited before.

“Well, here I am,” I said silently to whatever or whomever might be listening. “What do you want of me?” Then, before any answer could come, I pulled the curtains back across the window and climbed hurriedly into bed. It was not a comfortable question to leave hanging on the night air, and ridiculously I wished I could retract it. The answer might be more than I was prepared to accept.

That night I had one of the ‘special' dreams which I had come to anticipate with an equal mixture of curiosity and dread. There was no easy definition of them, for apart from their brilliant clarity they had no uniformity. Some were long and involved and some over as soon as I registered them, a single blazing picture branded on my brain; but whatever their length or content I woke from them keyed to an unnatural pitch of excitement which lasted throughout the following day.

The dream my first night on the island belonged to the distant past, and holding my mind passive I went through the now-established routine of ‘playing it back'. The strongest remaining impression was of heat, a golden summer day with the sun directly overhead, its fierce glare glancing off the helmets and shields with an intensity which hurt the eyes. In the foreground a small oddly shaped hillock was peopled with important-looking men and on the topmost tier a man in rich robes sat under a canopy listening to a charge read in some language I couldn't understand.

And that was all; just the memory of sun blazing from a molten sky and the subdued excitement of a vast crowd milling round the foot of the mound.

The sound of running bath water filtered into my consciousness and I filed away the dream in the mental slot prepared for it and turned to more immediate matters. It was Sunday morning, my first day on the island. I swung my feet out of bed and went to the window. The rain had vanished, the wind dropped and the view before me was breathtaking.

Beyond the shining pathway of the garden and its tangle of dew-wet flowers lay a hedge of bright yellow gorse gleaming in the morning sunshine, while to the right the solid blackness of last night revealed itself as a hillside richly covered with multicoloured trees, a hundred varieties of gold and brown and different shades of green. In a corner of the field beyond the garden crouched another whitewashed bungalow and a plume of blue smoke was curling its tentative way into the clear air.

There was a tap on the door and Martha, swathed in a quilted housecoat, put her head round it. “I heard you draw back the curtains. Like a cup of tea?”

“I'd love one.” I slipped on my dressing-gown and followed her to the kitchen. “What a fabulous view! You must have painted it countless times!”

“But never to my satisfaction. Landscape isn't my strong suit, anyway.”

“What do you teach?”

“Life mostly. My colleague covers the rest of the field. He's incredibly good, not only as an artist but in the way he can put it over, though it hurts me to say so!”

“You don't like him?”

“Can't stand him – no-one can! But don't let's waste time talking about him. We were wondering if you'd like to come to the little local church this morning? We alternate between it and the college chapel. It's only about two hundred years old, but there are foundations of at least three ancient keeils in the graveyard, not to mention one of the famous Manx crosses which dates from about the sixth century.”

Hugo had wandered in, his hair curling from the steam in the bathroom. “Martha tends to forget that the facts she's dug up aren't all common knowledge,” he remarked, sitting down beside me. “If, as I suspect, you've never heard of the ‘famous Manx crosses', don't be afraid to say so.”

“Then I haven't, nor of a – keeil, did you say? What's that?”

Martha refilled my cup. “A primitive Celtic church built by Irish missionaries in the fifth century or so. They were very small and usually had a tiny circular cell alongside for the priest. If you're interested I can show you a good example at Lag-ny-Killey –”

“Oh darling, hang on! Not before breakfast!”

She flushed and laughed. “Sorry, I do tend to get carried away!”

“I'd love to see your keeil, Martha,” I said staunchly. “In fact, I hope to explore the whole island while I'm here. How big is it?”

“Roughly thirty miles by eleven, I think, at the widest point. Not large, but there's plenty to see: prehistoric burial grounds, standing stones, hill forts, runic crosses – you name it, we've got it! Our idea of a perfect weekend is to set out with a picnic lunch and wander wherever the mood takes us. Then we spend the evening checking what we've seen against Martha's reference books.”

Hugo cooked the breakfast that morning, mounds of crisply fried bacon, mushrooms from the adjoining field and farm eggs. I who had existed in France on
café filtre
and the occasional
brioche
ate hungrily and enjoyed every mouthful. In the end we had to hurry to be in time for church.

St Stephen's was as interesting as Martha had promised. The walls were of slightly porous Manx stone and there was a gentle air of decay about the worn, almost illegible epitaphs of long-dead Manxmen. The little congregation sang lustily, the curate preached an interesting sermon, and afterwards, back in the warming sunshine, Martha led me round to inspect the Manx cross.

“It depicts the legend of Sigurd and the dragon Fafni,” she explained. “There are several crosses dotted round the island with different scenes from the legend so that taken together they form a kind of stone story book. Admittedly the figures aren't easy to decipher, but this is supposed to be Sigurd's horse Grani – see? – and if you look carefully you can just make out the scales of the dragon down in that corner.”

“It's – incredible,” I said. I had a curious sensation of being drawn forward into the heart of the stone, and far from having difficulty in making out the representations carved on it, the details filled themselves in for me to such an extent that I could almost see the sweat on Grani's flanks and the blood spurting from the heart of the dragon. “Isn't that – a dwarf – down there on the left?” I murmured hesitantly. I had only just bitten back the name ‘Regin' and waited, scarcely breathing, for Martha to confirm it.

She bent forward excitedly, peering through her spectacles. “Do you know, I believe you're right! However did you distinguish that? It must be Regin, waiting for the chance to betray Sigurd.”

The stone blurred alarmingly and I put out a hand to steady myself, grateful for the reassuring grasp of Hugo's hand. “All right, Chloe?”

“Yes. Yes, thanks.” I wanted to run away but my legs wouldn't have supported me, to escape from my uncanny knowledge of the ancient Norse legend which, as we turned to walk from the churchyard, Martha was painstakingly relating to me. And I knew it, I thought numbly, I knew it all. I who at breakfast this morning had admitted my ignorance of the very existence of Manx crosses had become in the space of a drawn breath an expert on at least one of them.

The road down the hill was narrow and winding and it was necessary for Hugo to walk ahead of us. Beside me Martha's voice rattled on, about the Jurby cross which showed Sigurd slaying the dragon, the Malew one of him roasting its heart, and that at Andreas, on which Gunnar was being bitten to death in the snakepit. And the names of Jurby and Malew and Andreas, which surely I had never heard before, were not only familiar to me but conjured up an awareness of their individual locations.

We turned off the road at last into the lane leading to the cottage and the strangeness that had held me began to ebb away. Later, I resolved, I would tell Hugo and Martha about it, but first I needed to come to terms with it myself. I was not yet prepared to risk another breath-freezing plunge into the dark folklore of Scandinavia, and throughout lunch I chatted determinedly about my months in France.

“I'm delighted it turned out so well,” Hugo remarked complacently. “So when you leave here you're off to try your luck in the Big City? Hard on the parents; they've scarcely seen you during the last two years.”

“I don't think they'll shed any tears,” I replied lightly, and, at his raised eyebrows, went on quickly, “Oh Hugo, you know as well as I do that I'm an embarrassment to them! Once they realized I wasn't going to amount to anything they opted out. Or rather,” I corrected myself with a small laugh, “they simply didn't opt in! They'd no interest in us as young children,” I explained to Martha. “Esmé escaped at the earliest opportunity and left us to a string of nannies. I always felt I missed out on something and built up a positive barrage of inhibitions. It didn't affect Hugo, though. He slipped neatly into gear and fulfilled all their expectations and they were able to sit back complacently and applaud from the sidelines.”

Hugo said quietly, “I appreciate they were hardly doting parents, but I'd no idea you felt so strongly about it. Is that why you went to France?”

“Partly. Esmé obviously took my lack of achievement as a personal insult and I had the distinct impression that I was bad for business!” I glanced at him, noting his frown. “Don't look so worried, brother dear, I'm used to it now. All I was trying to say was that if I go to London there will be nothing but relief all round. I'm welcome at Oxford as a visitor, but that's all.”

Martha put her hand over mine. “You're welcome here, anyway, for as long as you'd like to stay.”

“That's sweet of you. Tell you what: you show me round the island and in return – if you'd like me to – I'll give you some tips on cooking.”

“Will you?” Martha's face lit up. “It's a deal!” She turned to Hugo. “Beloved, all is not lost!”

“Unfortunately,” he answered with a smile, “cooking requires a certain amount of concentration, and if your head is stuffed full of ship burials or you're worrying about the light fading before you've finished your canvas, the odds are you'll still end up with disintegrated potatoes, however well Chloe instructs you!”

“See the faith he has in me!” Martha said ruefully. “Still, I'm an eternal optimist and if I can just watch you preparing meals-if you wouldn't mind, that is – I'm sure I'll learn a lot.”

Hugo threw back his head and laughed. “Chloe, my sweet, that is my wife's way of informing you that you may take over the cuisine for as long as you're here!”

“Oh – I didn't mean –” Martha stammered.

“But I wouldn't mind, honestly. In fact it would ease my conscience over perhaps stretching my visit from one week to two, if that would be all right?”

“You heard what Martha said. We'll be delighted to have you for as long as you want to stay.”

After the meal, Hugo went out to the garden and Martha and I cleared the table. I was wondering with a touch of bewilderment why, entirely without previous thought, I had asked to extend my visit. In view of my experience in St Stephen's churchyard the more sensible course would surely have been to curtail it.

It was as Martha dried the last plate and I was rinsing round the bowl that she exclaimed suddenly, “Oh no! Not that!”