Christopher Priest - The Islanders

‘Art isn’t just about pretty views. There’s no sound from the view, for one thing.’

‘There’s the wind. Why don’t we build a virtual tunnel? You drill it, I will fill it in. All at once. It starts here where we are now, it comes out on the other side of the ridge. You know what you will do if you drilled it, I know what I could do if I repaired it. We achieve parity. That’s what real art is. Parity! Now shall we go back down before I get frostbite?’

‘What about the descant? I need that now.’

‘There are other ways.’ He leapt down from the boulder, narrowly avoiding turning his ankle on the hard and uneven ground. ‘You’ll think of something. I’ll be back in a year or two, to see what you have come up with.’

But ten days later he was still restlessly there. Yo kept finding things she needed to do in the tunnel, and thinking up ways of making him work with her on them. In one sense it suited him, as he had a destination in mind, but the particular ferry he needed to catch to Salay had sailed a couple of days before. Another was not due for a while.

Mt Voulden now played its bass song every night, in low winds and high. Yo declared herself dissatisfied with it. She wanted to keep tuning and adjusting the baffles, but the reaction against the booming music from people in the town was growing more vehement every day. They both knew it was time to leave, time to start other projects.

Irrespective of what Yo herself might be planning, Oy was intending, no matter what, to catch the next ferry to Salay. It was due to dock in the harbour in the morning. He packed his stuff as unobtrusively as possible while Yo was showering.

When she emerged, hair wet and with a towel plastered around her body, Mt Voulden began to drone its tuneless music. Yo abruptly turned on Oy, shouting that she knew he was about to abandon her. She accused him of betraying his own art as well as hers, of selling out, of trying to destroy what she was doing —

It was the familiar overture. This time, knowing it was to be the last, Oy did not allow her to pull him down on the bed. He stood up to her, yelling back. It was anger in the cause of expression, not real anger, but it was verbal slaughter. He gave as good as he had ever got from her, and more. She hated that. She spat at him, so he spat back at her. She punched him, he punched her.

Finally he allowed it to happen and they sprawled together on the bed. Her towel had been knocked aside while they fought, but now she tore off his clothes. It was aggressively passionate, lust not love, but as before it was all the action of hands and mouth. Mt Voulden roared anew. A wind-borne scale began, a slow tonic progression.

Yo suddenly yelled, ‘In me! Do it!’

She guided him so there was no misunderstanding what she meant, and at last he entered her. She gasped aloud, a rasping shriek beside his ear. Her fingers and nails dug into his back, her mouth pressed hotly against his neck, her legs clamped around his back and buttocks.

The tunnel through the mountain attained the top of the scale, and the great interminable note began to grow louder. Yo climaxed with it, screaming, shrieking, the highest music of sexual pleasure.

Oy slumped over and across her but she continued to release her noise of pent-up passion. Every breath she gave was another note, sweet and high. She was waiting for the sounds from the mountain now, listening for its cue, breathing with it, harmonizing, a tuneful descant, a melody of the air and sky, of the winds that curled through the tuning plates and fanned the vents and crossed the seas and islands. Her voice was surprisingly pure and innocent, untouched by her violent moods and mercurial nature. She was at one with the music she created, and now she sang the wind.

Out there in the ocean of islands the winds that sifted the sand on the beaches, guided the currents and stirred the forests had their source. They arose from the doldrums, from the cooling impact of snow and the calving of bergs in the glaciers of the south, from the unpredictable high pressure systems of the temperate zones, the calm lagoons of humid air across the tropics. They followed the tides, swooped around the heights of mountains, changed the moods and hopes of the people they touched, brought rain and cleansing air, created rivers and lakes and refreshed the springs, they ruffled the seas. Nariva, Entanner and Benoon. Beyond them a score of others, trade winds and gales, hurricanes and monsoons and tempests, cooling squalls and the lightest of breezes, the warm winds of dawn, circling the globe, raising dust, making rhythms in memory, turning wind vanes and filling sails, inspiring love and windows and rattling doors. The winds of the Dream Archipelago blew wild and parching across barren outer cays and crags, enlivened the humid towns, watered the farms, swept deep snows into the mountains of the north. Yo’s clear soprano voice tapped this source, gave it a shape and a sound, a story, a feeling of life.

As the note from the mountain lowered in pitch, became quieter, then ceased, Yo’s singing ended. She was breathing quietly, regularly, and her eyes were closed. Oy extricated himself from her embrace, levered himself away from the bed, walked unsteadily to the open window.

A soft breeze was moving through the town. He rested his hands on the sill, leaned forward to take the warm air. His hair was matted to his head, his chest and legs were sticky with sweat. He breathed deeply. The breeze had come in from the sea and the islands, across the land, around and through the mountain, down into the clustered streets of the Old Town. It was the middle of the night, the early hours, long before dawn, still warm from the day, anticipating the next.

The street below the window was full of people. A crowd had appeared in the area outside Yo’s studio, spilling out along the street in both directions. More were coming from the houses and apartments close by, their faces turned up towards the distant mountain, a deep shadow against the night sky. They were listening for more of its music. A group of women were laughing together, children had come outside with their bedclothes clutched around them, lanterns flickered in the breeze, several men were going around with casks, pouring drinks.

Behind Oy, on the bed, Yo had fallen asleep. Her face in repose was unguarded, undefended by pride and ambition, now just exuding modesty and in a way he had never seen before, kindness. She breathed steadily and calmly, her chest rising and falling in a gentle motion.

Oy sat beside her until dawn, watching her sleep, listening to the happy crowd outside as the people slowly dispersed. The mountain was silent. As the sun came up Oy dressed, then walked down to the harbour. He did not wait for the Salay boat to come in, but caught the first ferry of the day, heading nowhere that he knew, out into the endless sprawl of lovely islands, down into the Archipelagian winds.

Fugue for a Darkening Island

Inverted World

The Affirmation

The Glamour

The Prestige

The Extremes

The Separation

The Dream Archipelago