Keeping the World Away

by Margaret Forster

  Whatever her feelings, she was not going to let Lucasta Jenkinson or anyone else have it. It was hers, to make of it what she wished, almost a test of how she had changed.

  *

  Thankfully, there were no more letters from Miss Jenkinson. Weeks went by, and nothing came from her, and Ailsa’s anger faded. By October, the nights drawing in rapidly, she was almost ready to leave the island. Her tenancy had been for six months, with an option to renew for a year, but she had already decided that she had achieved what she had come for and would go before the winter began. The islanders, she knew, would see this as a defeat, but she didn’t care – it was enough that she herself would know that on the contrary it was a victory, over herself. She felt stable and confident, happy to have tested herself and not found herself wanting – the relief of not having needed anyone’s help was thrilling. She could have stayed on the island, though perhaps not in the croft, for longer, especially if she had increased her rare trips to the mainland and given herself some distraction. But she was proud that she hadn’t needed others, and she knew she had earned a small measure of respect, from those who observed her, for keeping away from the world so successfully.

  October was beautiful. The bracken and heather covered the hills in shades of bronze and purple which became startlingly bright in the sun. The constant change in the light towards evening was almost theatrical, as though the shafts shooting from behind clouds were deliberately directed by unseen hands. It was cold and misty in the mornings but the mist, clinging to every bush and shrub, was a home for diamond drops of water glittering along the paths. Never had she been so aware of nature’s beauty, and never more in awe. She wanted somehow to acknowledge and celebrate this feast, and what it mean to her, what it had done for her. Slowly, an idea of what she could do was growing in her mind.

  *

  MacPhail took her stuff to the ferry on the day she left the island. ‘Had enough?’ he said. She just smiled. ‘Knew you’d never last a winter,’ he added. She went on smiling – let him have his little victory. ‘Back to London?’ He was remarkably inquisitive for an islander all of a sudden. She nodded. No need to tell him of her plans – he wanted to label her as a townie, so let him. He put her bags on the boat, and she paid him, but he seemed determined to have a conversation before she left and went on standing there, staring at her and expectant. ‘Will you be back?’ he asked, as the boat’s engine started up. ‘Perhaps,’ she said, ‘one day, if I need to.’ He prepared to step onto the quay, then hesitated, and before jumping off the boat as the ropes tying it to the bollards were being released, he said, ‘You’ve done well, mind, managing.’

  All the way across to the mainland, she repeated his words to herself: you’ve done well. How well, she had yet to see.

  *

  The cab she’d booked to take her to the station was waiting beside the pier. She chose not to sit in the front with the driver, wanting to enjoy the scenery without any distraction. But the man persisted in talking, pointing out things on the road, and she thought how hard it was going to be to adjust to the society of others. She’d lost the knack.

  She wished, when they got to the station, that she did not have so much luggage. There were no trolleys at this local station and she had to ask the cab driver to carry the two heavy bags for her while she coped with the rest. He was not very willing – she should, after all, have talked to him – and she had to produce a five-pound note, an extravagant tip, surely. But he put everything on the train for her, and at last she was off, her journey home properly begun. Arriving in Glasgow was alarming. She stood on the platform, surrounded by her belongings, numbed by the noise, nervous of the crowds surging past as a train on the adjacent platform disgorged its passengers. She tried to take deep breaths, telling herself to keep calm, calm, willing herself to conjure up a vision of the island she had left. And then, behind her, a voice said, ‘Would you like a hand with all this, maybe?’ and she turned to see a young man hovering there, indicating her bags, his smile shy.

  He carried almost everything for her all the way to the main concourse – all she took was her shoulder bag and rucksack – and found a trolley for her. He was off even before she had finished thanking him profusely. Her mood was transformed. There was no need to fear returning to city life – among the formidable hordes of strangers there were people like that thoughtful man. Later, she supposed that was when she had begun to relax her guard. She put her shoulder bag and rucksack on top of all the other bags and pushed the trolley towards the platform for the London train. Her progress was slow, with the concourse packed, but she did not mind, there was plenty of time. She hardly saw what happened. All she felt was a bump as someone passed her too close, and then she saw her shoulder bag, whipped off the mound of luggage, in the hand of a boy running very fast. He was gone before she had managed any kind of exclamation. Gasping for breath, she tried to go after him but the weight she was pushing, and the throng she was trying to push her way through, defeated her.

  The station policeman was sympathetic. He took her to his office, leaving her luggage safely in the charge of someone else, and sat her down and gave her a cup of tea. He reassured her that her train would not be departing for another thirty-five minutes. It was only when he asked her to describe her bag and list its contents that Ailsa remembered it contained the painting. Apart from that, only some shells, a few birds’ feathers, and a bunch of heather she’d picked that morning. ‘So nothing of value, then?’ the man asked. ‘You have your money, your credit cards, cheque book, keys?’ Ailsa patted the zipped purse she had hanging diagonally across her chest and nodded. But then she began to say, ‘It’s just that the painting …’ ‘Yes?’ the man prompted. There was no way she could explain its significance. ‘Nothing,’ she said, ‘it’s just a little picture, of sentimental value.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘that lad is going to be a wee bit disappointed when he opens that bag – I’d like to see his face. He’ll likely chuck it away. If we find it, we’ll send it on, if you leave your address.’

  He saw her onto the London train himself and stowed her luggage away for her. As soon as the train began to move, Ailsa closed her eyes. She told herself she had been lucky. Nothing important had been lost. Yet even as she was assuring herself of this, she felt uneasy. Wasn’t the painting important? It certainly had turned out to be important to Lucasta Jenkinson. She had begged for its return. But it was more than that. Over the last few months, Ailsa reflected, it has come to mean something to me, too. What, then? She wasn’t sure. It had become somehow symbolic, she decided, of what she had been trying to do on the island, which was to try to live independently and simply, as the painting suggested life should be lived. What would that boy see in it, though? Nothing. Would he throw it away? If so, who would pick it up and treasure it?

  Thinking of what might happen distressed her. She warned herself not to become agitated, and tried to settle into the rhythm of the train. She was almost asleep when the ticket collector came to tell her he had had a call from Glasgow Station saying that her bag had been found in a wheelie bin near the buffet, contents apparently intact. It seemed like such a happy omen for the future. Ailsa smiled, and fell into a deep sleep which lasted all the way to London.

  *

  Eight people she had had to talk to in the first twenty-four hours. Her sister Fiona, Cameron, James, Melissa, her neighbour Virginia, Virginia’s husband Morton, her cleaner Pat and Pat’s little boy, Ryan. Eight people, all of them demanding time and concentration and responses, all of them so kindly welcoming her, treating her as if she had recovered after a long illness. Their expressions of relief were various and hopelessly misplaced but all sounded undoubtedly sincere. ‘You’re back!’ they cried, in tones of congratulations, and she found it hard to bear. ‘Now you can start again,’ they said, and beamed at her. Start what? she wanted to ask, but knew quite well that they meant her life. Her old life. Her life as she had lived it with Paul – only without him.

  Fiona, in par
ticular, scrutinised her carefully. She had never liked Paul, who had patronised her and made her feel that her job as a social worker was a waste of time. Sometimes, Ailsa thought Fiona had suspected a little of what had happened to her sister’s marriage, but she had never asked outright what was going on and there had never been any temptation to tell her and seek advice or consolation. They were not close enough for that. But now, no longer concerned with keeping up appearances, Ailsa was more prepared to be truthful, so when Fiona commented on how well she was looking and wondered if this was just the result of a healthy, outdoor island life, she said, ‘No, actually. It’s the result of standing on my own two feet and not falling over.’

  ‘But you’re not the independent type,’ Fiona said, ‘you went straight from Daddy to Paul, looking for another strong man to adore you.’

  ‘That’s very bitchy, Fi.’

  ‘No. Just the truth. Men do adore you. They don’t adore me.’

  ‘Fiona, don’t be so, so …’

  ‘Petty? Pathetic?’

  ‘Don’t be so self-pitying. I never wanted to be adored, as you put it. I’d rather have what you have. You’ve got a career, you do something worthwhile, and what have I ever done?’

  ‘Worthwhile? Not what your late husband used to say.’

  ‘Never mind what Paul said, I know it’s worthwhile and I admire you.’

  ‘Rubbish. How can you? How can you admire me when I spend my whole time putting what Paul called sticking plasters over gaping wounds and watching them fall off?’

  ‘There’s no point in talking to you when you’re like this, Fi.’

  ‘No, there isn’t, but you’ve never wanted to talk to me, anyway, have you, not really talk, as sisters should.’

  ‘I don’t know about “should”. It would be nice if we could.’

  ‘Then why can’t we?’

  ‘There are two of us, Fi, it isn’t just me.’

  ‘It is. I don’t mind being truthful about how I feel – it’s you, you won’t share.’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘There, you see – the distaste on your face.’

  ‘It’s just the word …’

  ‘Then I’ll choose another word. You won’t open up, you won’t tell me, your only sister, how you’re really feeling.’

  ‘I’m feeling fine. Better than for years. There, that’s the truth, that’s being open and honest.’

  ‘It isn’t being open and honest enough. Why did you really go to that island? I don’t remember you loving it as a child, neither of us did, it was Daddy who did. You hated being made to go there when you were a teenager. You loved dancing and parties, don’t you remember? Why go there, on your own, now? Be open and honest about that, and I might believe you’re trying.’

  ‘This is very tiring, Fi.’

  ‘Honesty is tiring, it’s a struggle, but it gets easier, once you’ve got into the habit.’

  ‘And that’s irritating.’

  ‘So, evasive as usual, too frightened to let me see what worries you, why you’re so buttoned up, the perfect little wife and now the noble widow.’

  Looking at her sister, Ailsa thought it would be quite easy to say that she hated her and never wanted to see her again. She looked, as she always had done, manic, wild, not at all how a social worker should look – there was nothing calm and capable about her. Taller than Ailsa, heavier, with once red and now thick grey curls overwhelming her narrow features, she was alarming. Paul had said she looked madder than some of her mad clients, and the boys thought she looked like a witch. Her clothes added to this impression, always black or dark navy, always shapeless. She was, Paul had decided very early on in his acquaintance with her, ‘one unhappy woman’, and he was sorry for her husband. But Ailsa had spoken the truth when she’d said she envied Fiona’s career – she did. Whatever her sister herself said, however much Paul had mocked her ‘do-gooding’. Ailsa knew Fi was passionate about her job and that she was good at it. Unhappy she might be in her personal life, but she had a sense of direction Ailsa had lacked, and craved to have.

  ‘Maybe, Fi, I’ll learn to open up, but not today, some other time, I promise.’ Surprisingly, Fiona smiled and said she’d look forward to that, she’d hold her to it.

  *

  No one else directly challenged her. Her sons never asked a single question about her island life, seeming to regard her months there as an aberration, never to be referred to again. Virginia, who had kept an eye on the house, wanted to know if she had taken any photographs and was disappointed to hear that the answer was no. She’d brought some shells back, though, and gave them to Ryan, who clearly was not impressed, since they were very ordinary shells, not nearly as pretty as those his grandmother had brought back from the Caribbean.

  By the time she got rid of them all and went to bed she was exhausted. She’d lost the skill to relate to people and had practically lost the basic skill of conversing at all. Her long silences while she tried to think of how to answer the most straightforward questions puzzled people – she could see them wondering whether she had some kind of illness which made her so slow or whether she was being rude and ignoring them. Every innocent query seemed either too simple or too complicated to respond to. She had a blinding headache just from hearing all the voices, and when one by one they ceased, and her family, and Pat and Ryan, left, she could still hear them in her head, one roaring noise. Even when she was at last alone in her bedroom the silence was not complete, it was not the thick silence of the island. The noise of traffic was muted but it was there, and then there were all kinds of other sounds which once she had never noticed and now seemed so loud. The central heating sent a groan through the radiators at regular intervals which alarmed her, and there was a ticking somewhere, like a clock (but there was no clock), which she could not locate. When the telephone rang the shock made her heart race and she rushed to stop the hideous sound, then afterwards detached the instrument from its socket.

  Already, there were decisions to be made and her head had begun to whir with alternatives. Cameron thought she should sell the house. It was, he said, too big for her, and she would get a good price for it and could buy a flat and a cottage in the country and still have money left over. James thought selling the house would be a mistake and that instead she should let it out, for a fortune, something he had wanted her to do when she left for the island. Fiona telephoned, wondering if she would like her to move in with her. Her divorce had been fairly recent, she soon would have nowhere to go because her house was to be sold and the money split with her ex-husband. Ailsa didn’t want to have to think about any of this. There was no need. She could take her time, but no one seemed willing to allow her time. It was, she saw, to be the first test of her new self: to tell all these people to leave her alone without offending or alienating them. Thinking about it, she discovered that she did not really care if she did offend them – they, after all, were offending her by being so persistent, so sure that they knew what was best for her.

  She hung the painting at the end of her bed, on the wall facing it, where it immediately looked comfortable. This wall was not large – her bedroom was long but not wide and the end walls were narrow – and the pale grey patterned wallpaper suited the quiet picture. It did not look awkward, as it had done in the croft, and the light thrown upon it from the side window was flattering. She liked lying and looking at it in the morning, lit by this natural light, and at night the two lamps positioned either side were equally kind to the painting. She had begun to see the point of there being no overt human presence in that room – people were disturbances. It was only possible to be tranquil if there were no people around. But if that were so, in the opinion of the artist, she wondered how any kind of life could be managed unless one withdrew entirely from society. Not even on the island had she done that. Human contact had been minimal, and never meaningful, and perhaps that was the trick – but if so, was not existence rendered barren, loveless?

  In the days that followed her r
eturn, days she found a great strain, and each one of which ended with her in a state of turmoil over quite trivial matters, she thought ‘loveless’ might be the clue. She was not without love, of varying kinds and degrees, and it was love, bringing with it the need to show concern, that robbed her life of the tranquillity she had experienced on the island. She loved her sons. They were grown men who had long ago moved away from her emotionally, but she was still bound to them by love and could not expel them from her life. Cameron, the elder, in particular, exhausted her with his arguments and persuasion and insistence that she should take his advice. He was especially maddening when he brought his dead father into it. ‘Dad said I was to look after you,’ he told her, ‘see you didn’t get into any financial mess, and I’m telling you, Mum, you have to be sensible and sell the house and invest some money for your old age. It’s the sensible thing to do, trust me.’ She wanted to say to him that it was not a question of trust but of his wanting to take her over and command her as his father had done, and she was not going to have it. She was in charge, of herself, of the house, and would do what she thought fit when she was ready. But she couldn’t speak like that to him. He would be hurt. He wanted her to regard him as wise and responsible and knowledgeable, the very image of how he had seen his father.