It did not take me long to work out there had been a violent death at the theatre where Chaster said he was working. He was thought to have been in the theatre at the time, or at least in the same town, but they were not sure. He (I) was no longer there, but they did not know when he had left. The death was caused by some kind of failure or accident with stage machinery or props: scenery was involved, or perhaps a trapdoor. Someone had died on stage but the officers were trying to find out if it had been a real accident or a deliberately prepared attack on the victim, disguised to make it look like an accident. Again, my brother’s role in this was uncertain.
The officers tried to lead me, implying that if I would only admit the whole thing had been an accident that would be the end of their enquiries. I said nothing. Terrified of saying too much I invented no details, did not depart from the broad outline of what Chaster had told me to say.
They went away at last, warning me that they might need to interview me again. They ordered me not to leave Piqay without informing them first. In fact, that interview turned out to be the end of the policier involvement, because I never heard from them again and neither, I believe, did Chaster.
He stayed away, sending only occasional messages that he was ‘about to return home’, and pleading with me once again to remain silent, or at least compliant to his wishes.
The problem for me was the fact that I had been forced to lie to protect my brother. Although the lies were minimal, evasive, partial, they were none the less lies, and clearly my brother had been mixed up in something serious. I brooded on this endlessly. With every day that passed I became more resentful of him and angry. Because he was not there I could not confront him, so the pressure inside me mounted.
I believed I could not live with him any more should he return to the island, so with my parents’ help I bought a small house in Piqay Town, well away from home. I moved in, settled in, began a life I hoped would be my own, free of Chaster and his moods and his way of manipulating me. Had I never seen him again that might well have succeeded.
But one day he did return, slipping in to Piqay harbour on a night-time ferry, then walking all the way to the house carrying his belongings in a bag across his back. He was found in the morning by one of the servants, sleeping in his own bed.
Curiosity, mingled with undeniable relief that he was home again, made me forget my decision not to see him. I went to the house later that day.
Chaster was a man transformed. He looked leaner and healthier, and his manner was calm in a way I had never known before. Although he was weary from the long shipboard journey he was in an expansive, friendly mood. He embraced me in his arms — something that he had never done before. I could smell salt and marine engine oil on his clothes. He complimented me on how well I looked, said how happy he was to be home again. He asked why I had moved out of the family home and said how much he’d like to see my new house.
We went for a long walk together, across the grounds and through the girdling woods, to the clifftop path high above the sea. There we enjoyed the views of the neighbouring islands in the emerald sea, the gleaming waves, the shining sunlight, the swooping gulls, all familiar as background to our shared lives, full of reassurance and memories, a sense of joining up the present with the past.
We walked and walked, not saying much, but that was because it was windy. The steepness of the path, as it roamed up and down the cliff peaks, made talking difficult. We came eventually to a place we had often rested in before: a small valley in the top of the cliffs, where a stream ran through then plunged out and down to the rocky foreshore below.
Chaster said, ‘Thanks for doing what you did, Woll. Getting the policier off my back.’
‘You never told me what you had done.’
He said nothing, but stared away across the sea. We were looking south-west and it was mid-afternoon, late enough for the sun to be throwing shadows of the islands. Whatever else happened in life, there was always this: the view, the gusting wind, the great panorama of dark-green islands, the slow ships and the endless sea.
‘I’ve made up my mind,’ Chaster said after a while. ‘I’m never going to leave again. This is where I’ll stay for the rest of my life.’
‘You’ll change your mind one day.’
‘No, I’m certain about it. Now and for ever.’
‘What happened while you were away, Chas?’
But he never gave me an answer, then or ever. We sat there on the rough clifftop rocks, staring down at the islands, a great unsaid thing hovering around us. Eventually we walked back to the house.
Chaster’s behaviour still made me nervous: I kept waiting for an outburst of his dark side. He had always frightened me when he was like that. In a sense it was more alarming when he assumed a pleasant persona, when he seemed to be approachable, because of the sudden way in which I knew he could change. That was how he was on his return to the family: he seemed reasonable, sensitive to the needs of others. It put me on edge. And because he would say nothing about the months he was away, I was still left with that unresolved sense of injustice, of having had to lie for him. Surely, at least he owed me an explanation?
I was not to receive that explanation for many years, and then only indirectly and not from Chaster himself.
His change in temperament on his return did appear to be permanent, though, and in spite of my initial nervousness I gradually grew used to the idea. If the darkness of his behaviour was still inside him, that was where he kept it and he did so for the rest of his life. Whatever else had happened while he was away, somehow it had led to that. He was a reformed character.
Something else had changed, too, but it took longer to become apparent. Because by this time I was living permanently away from the family home, I rarely saw him and so was hardly aware of it.
Chaster became contemplative, thoughtful. He read constantly. He took many long and solitary walks through the grounds of the house, and further, around the cliffs, into the town. At some point he began writing. I knew nothing about this, and I understood from Suther that he almost never spoke about it at home. She said he was always there in his room at the top of the house, a quiet presence, integrated into the various family events, but always retreating afterwards to be alone, wandering away up the stairs to the study from which a long silence then emanated.
He finished his first novel and sent it away to find a publisher. Some time later, maybe a year or so, it was published. He presented me with a copy, dedicated and signed on the title page, but I confess I did not read it.
A second novel appeared, then a third, then more. This was his new life.
I too had a new life: I had married my wife Hísar, and soon we had a young family and all the preoccupations that go with that. Suther also married, and she moved away to the island of Lillen-Cay. She too had children. Eventually our parents died, the house and grounds became our joint property. Chaster was the only one of us who remained living there, alone in the large house with a reduced number of servants.
My first realization that Chaster was becoming a well known writer was when I came across something about him in my daily newspaper. It reported simply that he had a novel due to appear later in the year. I found this mildly startling, that the mere prospect of a novel from him was considered newsworthy. By then he had written four or five novels, and from time to time I had even seen them reviewed, but this was a notice of something as yet unpublished. I cut out the item and sent it up to the house for him, because I was not certain he would otherwise see it. He never acknowledged it, but by then we hardly communicated about anything.
Another sign of the change in his reputation came when Hísar started telling me of some of the gossip she was hearing around town. I heard none of this myself — I assume people kept their thoughts to themselves when I was there because they suspected it would get back to my brother. But Hísar was different: she led a sociable life in the town, had friends of all types, often went with the children to other people’s houses, belonged to theatre groups, historical societies, a walking club, she worked one afternoon a week in a charity shop, and so on.