Island-in-Waiting Read Online Free PDF Page B

eaten its way through the underlying rock to form deep gorges displaying slabs of shining Manx slate and gradually as I drove the peaceful surroundings soothed away the stresses left by my nightly communication and I relaxed into contented acceptance. Perhaps this lovely little island, unknown to me but half-remembered, was where I was supposed to be. And here at last, spread out before me, lay the sea.
    It was a jagged stretch of coastline, with the water whipped into short choppy wavelets continually breaking and creaming against the rocks. I stopped the car at the side of the road and wound down the window. The air was alive with wheeling gulls and the haunting lament of their cries filled the vast spaces of sea and sky. I sat motionless for long minutes, letting the familiarity of it all sink into me. Could any forgotten childhood memory produce such total recognition?
    An old man was coming down the road towards me, a sheep-dog at his heels, but even as I watched him approach I was suddenly, inexplicably down on the sand far below surrounded by a throng of people laughing and jostling each other. Dotted along the shore were the remains of driftwood fires and round each one young people were clustering, darting their fingers into the warm grey ashes to retrieve round cakes of barley bread.
    Panic sluiced over me. What was happening? Was it a dream? Even the most vivid of them had never been like this. The sand was cold and ridged under my bare feet – bare? – and my nostrils were filled with the smell of charred wood mixed with a strong pungent odour of seaweed. Beside me a broad-shouldered young man was cracking open the shell of a baked limpet in his teeth.
    Barley bread? Limpet? No-one was taking any notice of me and now people were stamping out the last sparks in the dying fires and a few couples began to form into a chain, winding over the sand in a curious kind of dance. I turned to the young man beside me, wondering if I was expected to join in – and became jokingly aware of the steering-wheel biting into my clutching fingers. The old man and his dog were just coming abreast of the car. His face creased into a smile and he touched his cap. Somehow I managed to smile and nod in return. Then he had passed and I was alone again.
    Fearfully my eyes went to the seashore far below, but all I could see were the waves breaking endlessly over the pointed rocks. What had happened to the strong young man with his bare feet and coarsely textured jacket? Had he and his companions existed only in my imagination, or in some time other than my own? My rapid heartbeats made breathing difficult. It was a dream, I told myself urgently. That was the only possible explanation. I even knew from the old man’s approach the exact duration of it. But was it possible to fall so instantly and totally asleep and to waken again all in the space of two or three minutes? Before, my dreams had decently confined themselves to my sleeping hours. The prospect of their emergence into daily existence filled me with unease. And it had been so very real –
    Determinedly pushing all the speculations away I leant forward and switched on the ignition.
    It was only as I drew up outside the cottage, still dazed and bewildered by my experience, that I remembered my promise to see to the meals during my stay. It was obviously too late. Fiercely bubbling baked beans were sticking to the pan on the stove and a smell of burned toast filled the kitchen.
    Martha appeared from the hall, magnificently unperturbed. “Hello! Where did you get to?”
    Over our less than perfect lunch I told her the route I had taken, though I didn’t mention the ‘dream’. That, like my knowledge of the Sigurd legend, I intended to keep to myself for the moment. “If I were an artist I’d go mad with frustration!” I remarked lightly. “Absolutely everything cries out to be painted!”
    â€œIt is lovely, specially now the