‘No,’ he says, ‘No. I need you here. I can stop him. I understand that I need to stop him. But I need you here, to help me. To be waiting for me, after I’ve done this thing. Please.’
‘I can’t. Don’t you understand? I can’t be the victim at the beginning and the prize at the end of your story. There are things I need to take care of. The island needs me. There’s nobody there to run it.’
‘So what? Let it stop.’ He holds me, strokes my back through my dress and it feels so good. ‘We’re finally getting through this, all of this.’
‘No, David, we’re not. Trust me. On the island, things happened to me. My mother showed me a woman. A monster.’ I try to explain it, as best as I can, and I appeal to his bravery, to his desire to solve the problem. I do this deliberately, and not without guilt.
After I’ve finished, he says, ‘So you think I’m turning into a hero? A proper hero? Like in stories of old?’
‘You already are a hero in your own head. But I think that – if I don’t find a way to stop her – you’ll have no choice but to act like one all the time.’
‘So you’re trying to save me?’
‘Yes. Not just you. But mainly you.’
He kisses me. ‘Thank you, but I really don’t need saving.’
‘We might have to agree to disagree on that.’
‘A few weeks ago I would have assumed you’re having a breakdown, you know that, right? But something happened to me while you were away.’
‘Something… with Sam?’
He frowns, and says, ‘Sort of,’ and it hurts me so deeply that I can’t breathe. ‘She found me here, outside the library, waiting to kill him, that man who…’ He swallows, and continues, ‘I’d been in The Cornerhouse with Arnie, and they were playing a strange game. I had a… hallucination of some sort, and I was a hero in it, a knight, and there was a woman there, a… goddess. Like you described.’
‘A game?’
‘With four cubes, coloured cubes.’
I have no idea how this can be, but I’m already sure of the answer as I ask him, ‘Were they red, blue, green and yellow?’
‘How did you know that?’
So I tell him every detail of my week on the island, and he tells me about cubes, and the game, and the liquid he drank before he had dreams of Moira. We swap information, trade notes, and by the time we finally lock up the library, I think I understand the world a lot better.
We go home together, taking a slow walk, hand in hand. There is no reason to pretend that we can be together, no matter how much we might want that. We’re part of a pattern that must be played out. He will be the hero he was born to be, and I will attempt to find the monster from Skein Island.
PART FOUR
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
‘I was certain someone would come,’ says Inger. ‘I have to say, I’m surprised it’s you.’
‘Hello,’ I say. ‘I thought I’d be alone. I’m so glad I’m not. Can I come in?’
The light shining from her cottage window had been the first good moment in a terrible day. Packing, saying goodbye to David, driving for hours in heavy traffic on the last Friday afternoon before Christmas, and then arriving at Allcombe and having to find a fisherman to take me over to the island as heavy drizzle blanketed the Bristol Channeclass="underline" I had done all of these things, all the while thinking that an empty island would await me. I expected to sleep that night in my ancient threadbare sleeping bag from university. But in the shroud of late afternoon, the lights of the staff cottage had sung out to me. I had no hesitation in making for it.
Inger says, ‘Yes, come in, come in. I’m sorry, I’ve not seen many people for a while.’ She steps back and I enter. The heat hits me. It’s cosy inside, a tiny living space leading into a kitchen, much smaller than the guest bungalows. There’s a squashy white sofa, anglepoise lamps, and patchwork covers on the cushions. There is a pot-bellied stove in the hearth from which warmth is emanating at a ferocious rate. I put down my rucksack and strip off my coat, then my jumper.
Inger closes the door, and says, ‘I don’t really understand anything that happened. You’re Mrs Makepeace’s daughter, have I got that right? So that means you must own this island now?’
‘Yes, I, um, own it. I’m sorry, do you think I could have a coffee?’
‘Yes, all right.’ I follow her into the kitchen. She’s dressed in a grey tracksuit, her blonde hair scraped back. I watch her fill the kettle with water from the tap. ‘Nearly everyone left. There was no word about reopening, or getting paid…’
‘Do you have contact numbers for staff?’
‘They will be in the reception office. Why? Do you need to talk to them?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say.
Inger takes two mugs from an overhead cupboard and spoons in instant coffee. I can see she’s thinking hard. ‘I hope you decide to open the island again. I think it would be a good thing to do.’
‘Why did you stay? Even without pay?’
‘I was hoping that the island – what it stands for – could be salvaged. I’d like to help with that.’
‘Another thing that needs saving from drowning?’ I ask her. She smiles, and the kettle clicks off as the water boils for a furious few moments, then settles back down into stillness.
There are a hundred empty beds to choose from on this island, but I am glad to be on Inger’s sofa, listening to the crackle of the fire in the belly of the stove, feeling my body relax into sleep.
Inger has put up no Christmas decorations, and that is another thing I am grateful for. It reinforces my belief that this island is separate from normality, kept free of the usual demands that life places upon us. It is suspended in salt solution, an embalmed island in time, and the fight to keep it preserved in this manner is about to begin.
I wonder if David is alone in bed tonight. I hope so. Maybe it’s selfish of me, but I want him to spend at least one night missing me before he turns back to Sam for comfort. For some reason I’m certain that he will; it was a promise in his face when he talked of her. There is unfinished business to be taken care of between them, I think.
Since I’ve given up all rights to him, I shouldn’t mind. But I do. I do. So I allow myself to feel grief and guilt for a few minutes, safe in the knowledge that Inger won’t come down to ask what’s wrong, even if she hears me. She’s not that type of woman, not like Rebecca. Rebecca’s interest lay in examining problems, and Inger is interested in solving them single-handed. If she can’t do that, then she doesn’t want to acknowledge the problem in the first place.
But who am I to criticise her, or Rebecca, after all the things I’ve done? I wallow in self-loathing for a moment, like a pig in mud, and then I tell myself that I no longer have the luxury of hating myself because I have to be better than that. I have so much to do, and I don’t even know where to begin.
I am terrified. The basement will be excavated – I’ve paid a fortune for female workers to come here, claiming it’s in the spirit of the island, and I might find Moira waiting for me under the earth. If not, if she somehow escaped, as I suspect she did, then where do I look for her? How do I catch her when I know what she could do to me? She dismembers, she destroys. She is a monster.
Perhaps it’s easier to be a man. If I’d been born a hero, I would have no doubts now. But I’m weak, and scared, and still a victim.
But I’m also a survivor. It is a thought that comforts me and moves me towards sleep, further down, until I close my eyes and leave all the unanswerable questions until the morning.