The Island at the End of the World

by Sam Taylor

  The further in I go, the more pages I skip each time, so that moons wax and wane, first slowly and then in a blur of speed, through my fingers.

  … rain finally stopped sometime last night. It was weird, not hearing that snaredrum rattle on the roof for the first time in, what, a month? I hadn’t even been outside for about a week, because the storm was so torrential. It wouldn’t have surprised me if there really HAD been a flood, and that the whole world were drowned except us. But so I went out this morning, at first light – the sky white, the air fresh and warm – and walked around the gardens, checking all the plants. Most of them were dead of course, tho the saplings and potatoes are OK. Then I walked over to where I dumped all that sand, and … found myself looking out across an apparent infinity of water, reflecting and meeting the sky in an invisible line. The HORIZON. I stared at it in disbelief and euphoria for like an hour. Even now the thought of it makes me laugh with triumph. I’ve done it! I’ve built an ocean! An island at the end of the …

  … love to Mary last night, but it didn’t work. She was dry and then, when I was finally inside, she started crying again. I asked her what was wrong and she wouldn’t speak, so we had another like hourlong Q&A at the end of which she finally confessed that she was depressed because she was dreading the coming winter. I mean Jesus fucking Christ it’s the middle of the summer! The sky’s permanently blue, the air’s warm and smells like heaven, everything we’ve planted is in bloom, the children are happy … all’s glorious. It’s fucking wonderful, but Mary says she can’t forget the ‘horrors’ of our first winter. God I love her – I do – but if she doesn’t snap out of this soon, it’s going to …

  … fell asleep as the sun came up, with nothing resolved, and I kept the kids out of her way all morning so she could rest. When she woke, I thought, she would know what she was going to do. But she didn’t. She was still as lost as ever. So finally I told her she had to make a decision: stay forever or go now. She nodded when I said this, looking almost relieved, but she didn’t say anything else about it. I made dinner in the evening, and she sat with the kids in the fire room, hugging and kissing them. She sang them a lullaby at bedtime, and then she went to our room. I could hear her crying softly through the door. An hour or so later, she came to me and told me she’d made her decision. I didn’t have to ask what …

  … told her which path to follow, how to cross the valley and where to go after that. I would guess, if she can hitch a ride, that she’ll be back in LA by tomorrow. She’s got a loaded pistol in her bag, and more than $2000. I have no doubt she’ll make it back safely. Whatever weaknesses she may have, if Mary truly wants something, she will walk through fire to get it. I know – I saw her give birth.

  I hesitate to write this, but I must confess it crossed my mind at the last moment to end it, then and there. A gentle push is all it would’ve taken, and … well, if she ever changes her mind, if she ever breaks her promise, she knows our location – that’s the trouble. That’s what scares me. It gnaws at me already, the regret. A hand on her back, the abyss below, and all our fears would have been over. But I couldn’t. I just couldn’t …

  … goodbye ceremony was nearly two months ago. Since then, we’ve had the daily silences and prayers for Ma, and a couple more rememberings. Only Alice weeps now. Finn’s sad when he thinks about her, and sometimes he cries out in his sleep, but he’s forgetting her already, I can tell. I sing songs and tell stories about her drowning in the sea, falling from the ark. Alice hated this to begin with, but tonight, for the first time, she didn’t say a word, didn’t argue. It’s hard, of course, lying to your children – it makes me feel bad. But you can’t live in paradise with the stains and burns of hell still clinging to you. You have to wash yourselves clean, to grow a new skin – you have to bathe in the waters of Lethe. And in a year or two, I believe, perhaps even Alice will …

  … drunk and I can’t stop crying Ive been crying all damn night it was so good this evening I roasted a chicken for the moonday feast and we ate it with green beans and potatoes from our gardens and god it tasted so good! Three years we’ve been here now. Three years! Mary died nearly two years ago and we still sing and talk about her everyday. Shes a heroine now a legend she should be grateful. So we sat round the table watching the sunset over the Afterwoods God it was so BEAUTIFUL and then we sang I played the guitar and Alice played Morning Has Broken on the violin I was so proud of her I hugged her tight and I read em a fairytale at bedtime – Alice still likes hearing em even if shes read em all herself and now shes started reading the bible shes so clever such a smart girl. And but I read the story and kissed em goodnight and I was about to leave when she called me back and said ‘I miss Ma’. So do I honey, I said. ‘I wish she werent dead’ she said. And jesus the GUILT but theres no reason no reason I only told em those stories to make their lives better safer freer more beautiful I swear …

  As I turn more pages, something falls from the book into my lap. I pick it up – a piece of paper, half-burnt. It is filled with a different handwriting, the letters larger and rounder than my father’s, and it begins with the words ‘My darling children’. Instantly I scan the bottom of the letter for the signature and there see the word that stops my heart: ‘Mom’.

  Inbetween it says:

  This is the hardest letter I’ve ever …

  I’m not good with words so I’m s …

  you all how much I love …

  I’m leaveing because I can’t …

  can’t. I wish I could take you w …

  would be selfish and unfare of …

  and I know he’s right, you all …

  of the fresh air, country side etc …

  what else to say.

  I’ve promissed I will nev …

  you but I hope maybe one …

  show you how much I lo …

  Be good for your …

  remember me.

  With all my …

  ‘Alice?’ I look up from the book, and Will is staring at me, his face gentle, concerned. ‘Are you all right?’

  I nod, and he wipes the tears from my cheeks. I look down at my hands, which are stained black from the burnt edges of the paper.

  ‘She promised your father she wouldn’t do anything to … but she missed you all so … in the end it was …’

  ‘Later,’ I whisper. ‘Tell me later. Not now.’

  I put my head on Will’s shoulder and he holds me.

  ‘It looks like the mist is clearing,’ he says. ‘Do you feel ready to go on?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Yes, I’m ready.’

  XXX

  Up the last slope I go, holding on to low branches as I climb, twigs cracking under my feet. The mist is clearing now. Thin wisps of it break up and dissolve as I move through. I reach the plateau and pause again, then walk between the redwoods until I am standing by the great tortured roots of the Tree of Knowledge. There I rest for a moment, looking up as high as I can. This ancient being whose head is pure wisdom, even she begins in earth, all dark and twisted and desperately clawing, like the men who seek to climb her. I see the boughs tremble in a gust of wind. At least, up there, I will know the truth. If they have fled the island, I will see them. And then I can.

  And then I can what?

  Follow them?

  Forget them?

  Kill them?

  I don’t know I don’t know but I at least I will I suppose I if nothing else I will KNOW. (Sometimes it is better not to.)

  I climb the ladder, pausing for breath at each platform. I do not look down. When I reach the top I lie flat on the platform for a while, breathing in and out, in and out, in and out, and counting my pulse as it slows.

  And I shall know the truth, and the truth shall make me free.

  I touch the field glasses to my eyes and look east, west, south, north. Nothing but the blank circling horizon, the sky and reflecting sea. The endless, waveless blue.

  I sigh. So they have not gone. But in that case where are.
r />   I hear something and hold my breath.

  ‘Don’t look down.’

  It’s HIM. Talking to HER.

  Why is he bringing her here? How dare they come to this sacred, forbidden place? But of the Tree which is in the midst of the garden, I have said, Ye shall not climb it, neither shall ye look from it, lest ye DIE. But the serpent said to my daughter, Ye shall NOT surely die. For your father doth know that in the day ye look from this Tree, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall KNOW.

  And I shall know the truth, and the truth shall make me mad.

  Her head appears through the hole in the platform and I hide behind a branch. She walks to the edge of the platform and looks down, out, across. She sees. She knows.

  Behold, the girl is become as one of us.

  XXXI

  The trees, ever taller, lean into the hill. They grow so close together here that we are able to pull ourselves up on their branches and trunks. Halfway up the slope we rest for a moment, both of us breathing hard, and I look up to the sky and see only a high ceiling of leaves. The mist has cleared, and we are nearly there

  damn Mary digging this endless fucking moat as if there really had been a flood I’ve built an ocean an island at the end of love to Mary the children are happy but Mary says God I love her I love her but she sang them a lullaby crying softly her decision if Mary truly wants something she will walk through fire a hand on her back the abyss below only Alice weeps lying to your children I was so proud of her I hugged her tight lying to your children shes so clever such a smart girl I wish she werent dead wish I could take you all with me lying to your children to make their lives better safer freer more beautiful lying

  ‘Steady, Alice.’ His hand gently crushes mine. ‘One more step.’

  The ground beneath our feet falls away. I look down, puzzled, afraid, and discover that the earth is flat. Instead of rocks and roots, there is grass, dry leaves. The air is cool and silverish, and smells of lemons. The spaces between the trees are vast and the trees themselves are higher, grander than any trees I have ever imagined. The turmoil in my head is silenced for a moment.

  ‘They’re redwoods,’ says Will. ‘More than a thousand years old.’

  He takes my hand, and we walk through the golden spaces. It is like a palace, this hilltop, the trees as pillars holding up the firmament.

  We come to a tree so magnificently huge, you could lose yourself in the tangling folds of its roots. ‘This is it,’ says Will. ‘The Knowing Tree that your father told you about.’

  I look up its trunk, which climbs smoothly, branchlessly, higher than the top of our pine, and then continues way beyond that, almost to the point of invisibility.

  ‘But I can’t … I can’t climb that.’

  Will takes me by the hand and leads me round to the other side of the tree. ‘Look.’

  There is a ladder – like the one next to the wine barrel, but ten times longer – nailed to the trunk of the tree. I crane my neck. At the top of the ladder is a platform and, from there, another ladder leads even higher up the tree … to another platform.

  ‘Don’t be scared, Alice. You go first. I’ll come up behind you, just in case.’

  I swallow.

  ‘You’ll be fine, honestly. And the view is worth it, I promise.’

  The view?

  I put my hands on the first rung. They are so drenched with sweat, the wood feels like a snake’s body slipping and squirming through their grip.

  I count the rungs as I go. The numbers, big and simple, fill my mind, pushing away all hopes and fears, all daydreams and distractions, all memories and premonitions. The first ladder has forty-eight rungs. I emerge through the hole in the platform and stand upon it, holding the trunk like I must have held Pa when I was a little girl, when I loved him and this island was the world to me. Clinging to him. While he lied to me.

  The second ladder has forty-two rungs.

  Strangely, the higher I go, the less frightened I feel. The ground is so far below now, I sense I would have time to die and be transformed into a bird before I even hit the bottom.

  The third ladder has forty rungs.

  The view on the third platform is obscured by branches and leaves. There is no sense of elevation at all.

  The fourth ladder has forty rungs.

  As I stand on the fourth platform, I think of Finn and Daisy, my brother and sister, both of them down there, somewhere below me. I remember their faces, moments together. And then I think of my father. The tyrant. The liar. Pa. I can feel nails being hammered into my stomach.

  I feel

  I feel as though something precious has been stolen from my life, and I am about to steal it back.

  I look at the cluster of bright leaves that surrounds me and remember my mother. Mom. The pictures of her in my mind are so much briefer, more faded and elusive, than those of my brother and sister and father. She is less real to me. And yet she is the one I dream of, yearn for, believe in. I would discard them all for her. In spite of her decision. In spite of my guilt. In spite of the nails in my stomach.

  ‘One more ladder to go.’

  I nod, and begin to climb.

  The final ladder has thirty-nine rungs.

  When I reach the top, I hear Will’s voice call out, ‘Don’t look down.’ He sounds like he’s a long way below.

  I emerge through a platform, larger than the others, in the crown of the tree. The platform is square, and has a barrier running around it so you can stand and look out, down, across in each direction. The branches have been cut so the view is clear. I stand up, and walk to the edge. What I see changes everything. My whole life. The whole world.

  The sea is not a sea. The island is not an island.

  I shudder, reeling from the shock – and the glory.

  A shadow moves across the platform. I turn, expecting to see Will, and

  XXXII

  In the gentle heat of these gloaming rays, it’s tough to believe I could feel the winter in my bones just a few hours ago. Could see the darkness of Doomsday approaching. Premature premonitions. O Lord I am sorry I ever doubted You.

  I pour another glass, the wine seethrough, aglow, redshadowing in the late sunlight, and shout for Finn and Daisy again. I’m sitting under the branch roof, halfway down my second bottle, and the morning’s mists are gone and forgotten. Less than a memory now, along with the morning’s fear.

  They’ve gone. They had to go. It was inevitable.

  The harvest is past, but the summer is not ended, and we are saved.

  ‘Finn!’ I yell. ‘Daisy!’

  I try to keep the impatience out of my voice. Damn kids, where are they? The smallest flash of panic in my chest, and then I hear their voices from the other side of the ark, and see Goldie chasing through the grass. He stops, grabs a stick in his jaws, and turns to run back the way he came.

  ‘Gold!’ I shout. ‘Come here, boy.’

  The slightest hesitation, and then Goldie ambles towards me, panting, cautious, the stick held tight between his teeth. His eyes are pools of black. They search behind and around me, sad and full of longing. ‘He’s gone, Gold, it’s no good looking for him. He’s gone and he’s never coming back.’

  I rub the dog’s head and he drops the stick, wet with drool, on my lap. I laugh. ‘Who’s your master now, hey, Goldie? Who’s your master now?’

  Woof.

  ‘Yeah, that’s right, boy. I am the First and Last.’ I squeeze his head between my hands and stare hard into those sad black eyes. And I whisper: ‘You ever betray me again, you son of a bitch, and you’ll be gone too. You understand?’ The dog whimpers, tries to retreat. I loosen my grip and rub his head again, smile. ‘All right, you understand. I can tell. Don’t worry, Goldie, everything’s going to be fine now.’

  A moment later, Finn and Daisy come round the side of the ark, both of them red-cheeked and smiling. ‘There you are, Goldie,’ shouts Daisy, and runs towards him. She strokes and hugs the dog, then looks up at me and smiles.
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  ‘We’ve been playing Fetch.’

  ‘So I saw. You too, Finn?’

  My son, embarrassed by his childish happiness, tries to bury the smile on his face, but traces of it remain, unhideable. He frowns, ‘Yeah.’

  I pick up the glass and pour more wine into my mouth. It’s soft and blackberryish on my tongue. And it dulls the dread, numbs the pain, turns the past to mere specks of dust seen in the slanting rays of sunset.

  Just dust.

  ‘Pa, where are Will and Alice?’

  I shrug. ‘No idea, Finn. Anyway, what shall we eat for supper?’

  Briefly, while we eat, I look in Finn’s eyes.

  ‘Don’t you think it’s strange they’re not here, Pa?’

  One woe is past; and behold, there come two more woes hereafter.

  ‘No, I’m sure they’ll turn up soon.’

  I look down at the food on my plate, and I know what I have to do. When I’ve swallowed the last mouthful, I look up and say, ‘Time for bed, children.’

  ‘But it’s still light, Pa.’

  ‘What about Alice?’

  I sigh through my nose. ‘Finn. Daisy. Don’t make me get mad. It’s Time For Bed, all right?’

  I tuck them in and kiss them goodnight, as I’ve always done, but tonight they are wide awake and insatiable, asking questions the way baby birds demand food. To calm them, I hang a dark cloth over the porthole and tell them to read by candlelight. But still the same damned questions keep repeating.

  Where’s Alice?

  When is she coming back?

  Why isn’t she here?

  What is she doing?