Алия Уайтли - Skein Island

The double doors slide open and the sound of her voice is cut off by the wind and rain. It’s so fierce that I can’t think of anything but the struggle to stand up, to walk forward, to make it back to the stillness of the bungalow so I can try to find the words for this evening, so I can try to understand why my mother left me for the sake of an old lady, a statue, and a scary story.

David woke up in a soft bed, a pastel blue duvet pulled up to his chin, the thick noise of rain on the roof overhead, and for a moment he thought he’d dreamed the boat, the quay, everything. But then the pain in his head stamped down and told him it was all true. It had happened.

He couldn’t imagine how he was alive. But he was, and so he tried to be thankful for the headache. Even so, he wanted strong paracetamol, and some answers. He threw back the duvet and found his boxer shorts and trousers, freshly washed and dried, on the end of the bed. The room was another one of those feminine sanctuaries, with cushions and mirrors and an embroidered throw arranged over a small chair. The wooden roof sloped, and a skylight overhead gave him a view of dark, fast-moving clouds. He dressed as quickly as he could, heard a sound at the door, and realised a blonde woman was standing there, watching him. She was very attractive in a serious kind of way, with a straight line for a mouth, and frosted pink lipstick. Her white T-shirt and navy blue tracksuit bottoms looked like a uniform.

She held out a glass of effervescing water and said, ‘Soluble aspirin.’

He took the glass and pressed it to his forehead. The icy touch of it made him gasp.

‘It works better if you drink it,’ she said, with her perfectly straight lips. So he drank it, the whole glass, in a few gulps, and then handed it back to her.

She nodded, and said, ‘You shouldn’t be alive.’

The phrasing was odd. Did she mean he was lucky to be alive? He said, ‘Yes. Where am I?’

‘Do you remember any of it? You were confused when I found you.’

‘On the rocks?’ he ventured.

‘Yes. You were on the rocks. I swam out to you, helped you to the beach. I saved you.’

‘Thank you,’ he said again.

‘It’s my job.’

‘Sorry?’

‘I’m a lifeguard. Here on the island. My name is Inger.’

He noticed she had an accent, and put it together with her height and her white-blonde hair. He didn’t understand what was happening, but at least he felt he had the measure of her. ‘I’m on Skein Island, then?’

‘Of course. You must be the first man to stand on this island for years. Although you shouldn’t be standing at all. After what happened to you. You look very… healthy.’

‘I don’t feel it,’ he said.

She touched his head with the back of her hand, like a nurse. ‘I’m certain you shouldn’t be walking around. I thought you had a concussion.’

‘I’ve got a tough head. Actually, I’m starving.’

She assessed him with her gaze, then nodded. ‘Come to the kitchen, then.’

He followed her out of the bedroom into an open-plan space, wooden and echoing. At the far end was a fitted kitchen and a rough oak table with two low benches. He sat on one of them, and watched her retrieve eggs from the fridge, and a saucepan from an overhead cupboard. Her capability, her economy of movement, was very calming. He could have watched her for hours.

‘How did you – you couldn’t have carried me?’ he asked her, once the eggs were cooking.

‘No, no, you were conscious when I found you. Just a little confused. You called me Sam.’

‘I’m sorry if I was—’

‘No,’ she said. ‘It was fine.’

He didn’t want to think about what it meant to have said Sam’s name. He hated that he could remember nothing about it.

Inger had somehow managed to deal with him, get him here, take off his clothes, put him to bed. ‘Did you call a doctor? There’s a doctor on the island, right?’

She slid his omelette onto a blue-rimmed plate, then took cutlery from a drawer and handed it to him. ‘Yes, there’s a doctor, but I—Men aren’t allowed on the island.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But… yeah, okay.’

‘I could get into trouble. For helping you. There are strict rules. I shouldn’t have touched you. But I had to help you.’

‘You’re saying you should have left me?’

‘I’m saying I know I couldn’t leave you.’ She enunciated each word precisely. ‘And you’re fine. Because I didn’t.’ She turned away and washed up the frying pan: the hot water tap, a squeeze of fairy liquid, the dishtowel rubbed around the pan in smooth, circular motions. He recognised her compartmentalisation – what she could handle, what kind of conversation she was prepared to have.

‘So what now?’ he said.

‘It’s getting late. Stay here tonight. Think about it in the morning.’ She dried her hands on the dishtowel. ‘But I think I might be able to get you on board the ferry on Saturday. There’s a half-hour window after the boat docks before the guests are taken down to board. I can probably sneak you on, if the Captain is amenable. I think he will be.’

‘To bribery, do you mean?’ He thought of his backpack, his wallet, lost to him. ‘I don’t have any money. Anything.’

‘I know. Don’t worry. I have.’

‘Why? I don’t understand why.’

‘Because I save people,’ she said, as if that made everything clear.

The greyness of the day had thickened into early evening. Before long it would be dark. It was difficult to see Inger’s expression clearly as he said, ‘I need to get to my wife.’

She turned to him. ‘Is that why you were out on the boat?’

‘She’s called Marianne. She’s here.’

‘Yes, of course. Marianne.’ She smiled. ‘So you both like the water, then.’

‘What?’

‘She comes to the swimming pool. Where I work. You’ll see her on Saturday.’

‘I need to see her now.’

‘That’s really not possible.’

‘Please,’ he said. He couldn’t take her objections seriously. ‘Please, if it could have waited until Saturday don’t you think I would have taken a rain check on jumping into the sea and getting smacked in the head by an enormous rock?’

‘That would have been the sensible course.’

Despite her resistance, David found he liked her – her calm way of handling things, thinking them through. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘I’m begging you.’

‘Perhaps I can persuade her to come here. In the morning. But only if she wants to see you. Now I think you should go back to bed and rest.’

‘That’s fine,’ he said. He got up, fought a moment of dizziness, then went back to the bedroom and climbed under the duvet without removing his clothes. He felt the need to be ready, ready for something. Sleep seemed like an impossibility. It was an unwelcome surprise to feel his body relax into the mattress so willingly.

He was woken, in the dark, by the sound of a shutting door, and wondered if Inger was on her way to find Marianne.

David turned on his side, felt the tender muscles contract, but even as he winced the pain lessened, faded away to nothing. What would Inger say to Marianne? Would she tell her that he had thrown himself into the water? He couldn’t imagine what words she would use.

His body was filled with energy, crackling, fizzing. He got up, stretched, walked around the bed, walked back. He had to do something. The thought that Marianne might refuse to come to him was unbearable; he had never even considered it until Inger had put the idea into his head. But now, for the first time, he wondered if he had really committed an act of intrusion, of violation. It was agonising to think she might consider this to be another example of the male need to dominate, to control, just like the attacker at the library. All he wanted was to hold her, to take her home. It was impossible to change his desire for her, and he couldn’t escape the thought that to come this far and not see her would damage him permanently. Making sense of everything depended on her – surely she would see that? And yet, Inger’s calm face would not stress the urgency of it. It would be easy for Marianne to dismiss Inger, to decide that real life could wait.