Wall of Days

17

I have been left alone here. No one ventures far north or south.

Bran is to the west, Axum to the east. The borders of the two settlements, themselves islands, though much larger than this one, are not patrolled. We did not have the resources and probably do not now either and when I left there had been no intrusions into our region for years. The two factions left each other alone. We left each other to get on with it. For a time there were ambassadors sent to each other’s regions to ensure the Programme was being carried out in accordance with the terms of the peace agreement.

Gradually though, as it became apparent how well the Programme was working, how good it was for both groups, there was no need to monitor each other.

That was a long time ago. As I sit here fishing, the rain falling softly on my waterproof cover, I feel it may as well not have happened at all.

The rain on the plastic is a sound that is comforting. I am warm, I have food, I have found a way to live.

I picture myself here as if from a distance: a man crouched on a wet rock, under a yellow tarpaulin, a fishing rod reaching out into the sea.

Behind him the sand, the crumbling cliffs, grasslands and an immense expanse of grey sky. I’m standing on the cliff, looking down at me, looking out at the ocean, and this is what I see.

There is a tug on the line and I am back, flying over the edge of the cliff.

The fish is a strong one. It will be all I need for two days. I reel it in, take a rock and hit it on the head. I gut it there and then, placing my knife just below its jaw and slicing down with a single movement.

I have done this many times before. The innards I pull out with my 18

fingers and fling to a lone seagull perched on a rock. I wash the cavity in the sea and place the fish in my bag.

As I stand up and turn towards the path leading up the cliff, something catches my eye. I see it disappear behind the ridge. For a few seconds I am startled and think I have seen a head. It doesn’t last long. I realise I am not sure what I saw, whether I saw anything in fact. There have been other times like this. I’ve seen things. They’re becoming more frequent. But it must have been grass blowing in the wind, a gull, or simply an old man’s fading eyesight. I set off up the path to the cave.

At night I think back to the creature on the ridge. It changes at night. It always does. The head becomes a face, a face with bones visible through holes in the skin and drawn teeth.

I do not sleep and wait for dawn. It is one of those mornings when it is lighter than usual. Each day is a shade of grey. It can range from near white to almost black. I have not seen the sun for ten years but every now and then I can see a flame-white disc through the clouds. Today is one of those days. I swim, I eat, I pull on my coat and head off to gather fuel.

The coat, spare clothes, a knife, a length of rope, waterproofs, fishing line and hooks, a tarpaulin used for a sail, water containers, biscuits, some twine, a spare set of boots, a spade, an axe, my writing materials, a compass and an old chart of the ocean. This is what they allowed me. This is what I brought to the island and what I have with me now, some of it repaired several times.

I had to replace the handle of my axe a few months after I arrived.

The original broke while I was chopping down a tree. It didn’t splinter.

19

It snapped clean in two. My hand, carried through with the movement of my arm, scraped against the broken shaft. It cut deep into the tops of my fingers. I held them up to the light and for a second could see bone before the blood came. I bled profusely and watched as it dripped into the earth. There was nothing I could do. A needle and thread were not on my list of provisions. I was surprised at how much it bled. The dark forest closed in, I smelled the damp pine needles, the fresh wood, heard my own quickened breathing, the silence, felt the warmth of the blood on my skin. There was nothing I could do to stop myself bleeding to death, nothing I could do to live. But it was a cut across the fingers and no one has ever died from that. I tore a strip of cloth from my shirt and wound it round my hand.

After the bleeding had stopped I walked to the shore and washed the wound in seawater. It stung for a bit but not much. I sat on the rocks for a long time, staring out to sea. I was thinking of how I had reacted. Even if only for a minute I was afraid. When I first set foot on this shore I set to work straight away. I knew what I had to do and I did it. I knew the island could support me and the thought of a life without other people was something I had already had some time to get used to. And I was never a sociable person. But this, now. I did not know what to think. It was then that I stopped talking to myself, then that the island became quieter. Long ago, in island time.

The handle I fashioned has worked a charm since then. It is perhaps not as smooth as the first, not as easy to grip but it is mine. It is now worn to my touch and feels right in my hand. Every time I use it though I remember the day the first one broke.

The forest is not my favourite place on the island. Everyone has a place like this in the areas in which they move. No matter how 20

much you love where you live there is always a dark corner, always somewhere you would prefer not to go. I have my head down, breathing heavily, the thud of the axe echoing around the pines. I feel out of place. I feel surrounded. The noise of the final splintering of the trunk always takes me by surprise. I glance around whenever a tree falls as if I think someone is watching. I look up to see if there is a body in the branches. But I know there is no one to watch me. If I close my eyes in that place, shapes appear behind my eyelids. When I leave the forest and step out into the light I feel the breeze drying my sweat. It makes me shiver.

At the end of the day, I draw another line on the wall.

When I first arrived I toyed with the idea of naming the island, of putting up a sign facing out to the ocean in case someone came looking for me. But I gave up on the idea. It is better off without a name. And what would I have called it anyway? A name for a place without a history would be pointless.

It is raining heavily when I make my way down to the shore for my swim. I take nothing with me and I walk down the cliff path naked.

When I first came here I felt self-conscious about doing that. Now I don’t think much about it. It keeps my clothes dry and, besides, it is never unbearably cold here. My feet have toughened up and I don’t feel the small stones under my soles.

There is a reef about half a mile out and it is to there I swim, to where I can feel the spray from the breakers on my face. The spray and, in between, the drops of rain. The ocean is warm, the rain cold. I float in the water on my back, tasting the salt, before starting slowly back.

21

Today when I reach the shore and am standing catching my breath I see something further down the coast. Nothing has ever washed up here, nothing besides dead fish and birds. I can’t tell what it is but it is a dark red colour and looks out of place on the grey sand. I walk over and as I get closer I realise it is a coat, a man’s coat, soaked through, torn and covered in marine snails. I shake them off and hold it up to the light.

I go through how this could have appeared. I have gone so long without seeing anything washed up and then this, so out of place. The routes we once sailed on our way to war were far to the north and, since a couple of years after the peace, were unused. No one bothers to try to fish from boats anymore. What little fish there are gather mostly round the shorelines. A man can be in a boat for days and not catch a single fish. I was lucky to catch a few on the way over here. When I left Bran we had been talking about sending ships on exploratory voyages, looking for regions we had forgotten about, regions whose climate had changed for the better. Perhaps these have begun. But here? Sailing so close to Axum is tantamount to a declaration of war under the terms of the Peace Treaty. Perhaps a ship was lost, the crew hungry, its captain uncertain and losing influence. There was a mutiny, the captain hurled overboard, his possessions shared amongst the men. Except for the coat, lost overboard in a scuffle.

Or is this the remains of another exile? A piece of flotsam from a forgotten world.

I shiver. I look around me. I don’t know if I expect to see someone.

I think of the shadows over the horizon, the eyes staring after me. I watch the mist rolling in. A gull calls.

Suddenly I am flying again. I look down on a man clutching a red coat. I scan the island. The higher I am the more of it I can see but the 22

less detail I can make out. Is that a rock or a man in the shadows of the cliff face? A dip in the grass or a body pressed down to avoid being seen? I cannot tell. It grows darker and the figure with the red coat on the shore fades with the mist and the last of the light.

23

2

In the cave I spread the coat out on a rock. I sit opposite it and pick at my food. I have not dried myself.

The coat looks like it is part of a uniform. Stained red. Metal buttons. It is not from Bran. It is not something one of my people would wear. The uniform of our soldiers was brown.

It takes me back.

I remember killing a man. A man who wore a coat like this, though plainer, less well made. I remember killing many, both as soldier and later but this one in particular. We had surrounded a house in a burnt-out settlement. Whether it had burned in recent fighting or decades before I don’t know. We had tracked an enemy platoon which was taking cover in the ruins. Our orders were to storm the house where the soldiers were hiding and kill the occupants. We were not able to look after prisoners. Our charity extended to refugees but not to the enemy.

I went in through the front door, others went in through windows, through gaps in walls. They did not stand a chance. The enemy got off three shots. Three between seven of them. One was too scared to shoot. He stood in the corner, still holding his rifle but flinching at the 24

sounds of the shots. No one but me seemed to notice him. I kept an eye on him during the few seconds of fighting. When the others were dead I shouted to stop firing. I walked up to him. He was a boy. He was not crying. His body was turned slightly away from me, fearing a strike.

He fixed his eyes on my chin. My gun was aimed at him. I flicked my head at him, meaning he should turn around. I watched his breathing slow down and he nodded. He understood. That stayed with me and I saw it many times after that. I told him to kneel. With my gun still at his head I reached down to his belt. I took his knife from him. We were not allowed to waste bullets. If you could you had to kill people in other ways. I holstered my gun. I took his forehead in my left hand.

With the knife in my right I drew a line across his throat. I did it rapidly but I felt each tendon, felt each muscle sever. He did not make a sound. I let him go and he fell to the ground. The rest may have been slightly different but the nod I remember. The moment fear turned to acceptance. I kept the knife. A lifetime later I still have it.

That was early on in the wars, which would drag on for another eleven years. By the end I was leader of the entire force: a thousand men.

The wars largely fought themselves out. We kept on killing each other, kept on dying, until our populations were reduced to a level where the land could begin to sustain us all. We negotiated a peace, the terms of which ensured sustainability. I say ‘we’; it was I who brokered the peace, along with my counterpart from the other side. It was a tense peace and not without sadness, not without consequences, but peace nonetheless. It lasted until I left and probably beyond.

I remember saying goodbye to Bran. A few people had accompanied the soldiers and me to the coast. There were a few civil servants, the 25

judge, my neighbours and of course the new Marshal, my successor and protégé, Abel. My lover was there too, though by that stage I could not call her that.

The Marshal would not look me in the eye. Instead he looked over my shoulder. His lips were a thin line. I remember the touch of his hand as he briefly shook mine. It was soft – the grip, the skin. No doubt mine was too. The life of a Marshal in our outpost was not a physically demanding one. In years gone by we were fighters. But peace made us softer. It gave us more time for contemplation, more time to consider what we did.

I imagine the people on the mainland, those I have left behind.

They stand on the rocky beach in the sun staring out to sea, the waves lapping at their feet. I wonder what they might be thinking. I wonder, if we could see far enough, if we would wave to each other or whether we would simply stare in silence. But no one can see that far. I was on the raft for three weeks before putting to shore here.

Many of my people I can no longer picture. I have memories involving them but their figures are a blur, fading pictures, ghosts. They talk, they gesture but I cannot see their eyes.

The woman though, her I can remember. She was not particularly beautiful. She was thirty-five when I left but looked older. I think we all did. A lifetime working in the kitchens, washing up, standing for twelve hours a day had aged her. She had hands that were callused and dull skin. Her eyes though, when she looked at you, stared through you. There was no hiding from her. To have someone truly know you is to be complete no matter what it is they know, even if what they know is the darkest thing of all.

We had been seeing each other for twelve years. We would spend 26

Wednesday nights together, her night off. That was almost the only time we could see each other. I worked during the day, she finished late at night. We missed only two Wednesdays during those years. The first time was my fault, although there was little I could do about it. I was at a peace conference with the leader of Axum – there were plenty of men there in coats like this – finalising the details of the Programme.

The second time was because of the death of her mother. She told me she needed some time alone. I did not expect to see her again. I thought that what I had done might preclude this. But the following week there was a knock at the door at seven, our time, and it was her. I could tell she was sad and she was distant from me but to see her back made my heart leap. I could not share this with her. I could not. How could I?

She stood in the doorway, would not look at me and said simply, ‘We will not talk about her.’ I nodded. And we did not.

The woman’s name was Tora. She lived in a flat close to the kitchens.

It was small, basically furnished but always clean with nothing out of place. In her bedroom there was a bed, a dark wooden wardrobe and a dresser. I do not know whether she cleaned the flat when she knew I was coming or whether it was always tidy. I suppose I will never know.

Two years into our relationship I asked her to move in with me and to make it official. She refused. I did not understand why at first. She said it was unnecessary. I never asked again and I grew to understand what she meant. We had all we needed and all we wanted. Any more would have thrown the balance out. She was a level-headed woman, a quality I admired. She did keep me at a certain distance throughout but perhaps the pressures of our time meant that very few people were capable of deep feeling.

27

When we were together in bed she would close her eyes and bite her lower lip. The final time I closed mine too as I could not bear to look at her, as I could not bear to look. There was a chasm between us.

I did not know for certain it would be the last time but the trial had not been going well and I was expecting it not to go my way. In the end the sentence was not death but worse. It was banishment for life, a death in life. A life in death.

And she was no longer completely with me by then.

I suppose I had my standing to thank for not being executed and perhaps a sense of complicity. When I left, sailing away from the beach, I fixed my eyes on them willing them to look. Very few of them did. A minor triumph.

My relationship with Tora, while not exactly frowned upon by the townspeople, was viewed as unconventional. But it did not cause many problems. The rest of my life was conventional. I performed my duties rigorously, kept in touch with my lieutenants, wore my medals on the anniversaries of key battles and the peace agreement and saw the same woman for twelve years at the same time in the same place. I had routine.

I cultivated the aloofness that people sensed. With the role I had to fill it was a necessity. Even when I ran for the position of Marshal on the back of the Programme, the big idea, and I managed to persuade three-quarters of the population to back me, I knew that it was not me they were voting for, it was not me they were following. It was the order I could bring, the promise of an end to needless killing.

I was never a man of the people. Even Abel, the person I spent most time with, I kept at a distance. I think he preferred it that way though.

He was not exactly jovial either. I went to his house a few times on 28

social calls but not many. I introduced him to Tora. We were walking by the kitchens, Tora was outside sitting in the sun. It was early in our relationship. I went up to her and kissed her. I was uncertain what to do, I will admit, with Abel looking on. She leant away from me a little.

I introduced her to Abel and we went on our way.

Once after this he asked me if I would like to bring someone with me when I visited him. I said no. We did not mention her again.

On the beach that day I kissed her again. Everyone was watching.

There was no noise from them, no disrespect. They just watched. My going was a quiet affair. Everyone wanted me gone but everyone knew the role they themselves had played. For the most part people stayed in their houses, stayed in the town, while the old Marshal was put on a boat with the most basic of provisions and implements.

I kissed her. This time she did not pull away. I am still grateful.

About half a mile off the coast I looked around at them for the last time. The two of them, Abel and Tora, were left. They had half turned towards each other. They may have been talking. I still wonder what they were saying.

When I kissed her she smelt of the harsh soap they used on dishes.

I can smell it now.

I wonder if the townspeople would recognise me. I have a beard and long hair. I cut the hair occasionally but it is impossible to get a close shave using just a knife. I am also brown, like the island, and lean.

Though I eat regularly it is not the sort of food that puts meat on your bones. In Bran I grew pale from a mostly sedentary life and slightly overweight, a flabby man living a soft life. Though we did not have much food, it was often very fil ing. Now though, I have broader shoulders, strong legs and carry no extra weight. Altogether a fitter man.

29

They might have wanted me to die on the way here. There is no guilt if a man drowns alone miles from anywhere. But I didn’t. I survived.

I drank dew and rainwater. Ate seaweed. I caught some fish. Once I pulled a dead one from the surface of the barren ocean. I arrived on the island and have eked a living from it. Alone. I imagine people. I imagine others. Faces of others. Voices. But I know they are not real. I know they are not alive.

But now this coat. It has been worn recently. Food and fuel will have to wait today. I must set out on a tour of the island. I have to check if I am still alone.

I have been sitting in the cave for a long time and it is afternoon by the time I set out. After just over an hour of walking the cliffs come into view. They would be close enough to see from much further off but you have to round a bluff. It is an impressive sight, at least by the standards of this island. They stand vast, grey and crumbling, like a derelict monument to a forgotten leader. Though their decay represents the erosion of my time here, I feel awe, not trepidation, when I’m near them. The sea around the cliffs is tainted with the mud and is always rough. I sometimes think it looks like blood.

The tide is out today. The sea has retreated leaving a long strip of grey beach. The tides are extreme here. In a few hours the waves will be beating against the cliffs from below, the rain more gently from above.

Out along the strand I see a much paler object, so pale it is almost white. A rock perhaps. But it is different to any I have seen on the island before.

I begin the climb down to the beach.

A few minutes later and I am closer, my eyes fixed on the object.

30

I slow down, stop walking. I know what it is now. Now I can hear only the wind. The wind and the waves. Everything has slowed down.

Stopped. I breathe in, which seems to take minutes. I pick up a rock and I am moving again. I run towards the mound. Stop again. Run. I veer off towards some boulders and crouch behind them, my eyes still fixed on it. My breathing is quicker now. It comes in rasps like it does when I have been chopping wood. It does not move.

I watch for minutes. The rain falls in swathes along the beach. I feel it run into my eyes and down the back of my neck. The rain is heavy and sometimes he disappears behind curtains of water. I have to wipe the rain from my eyes to see him properly.

It is the first person I have seen for a decade. He is large, bulging with fat. Not a working man. His face is turned away from me. He is lying on his stomach, feet turned in towards each other, his palms upwards. He has no hair. A white whale, and possibly a dead white whale.

The coat must belong to him.

In the last ten years I have seen only shadows. This is different, so solid, so unlike a mirage. I blink, holding my eyes closed for seconds.

Each time I open them he is still there.

I walk out slowly from behind the rocks. I open my mouth to speak.

No words come. It is as if I have forgotten how. I try again. This time it is a breath, just louder than the wind. I swallow and try once more.

Finally the word comes out. ‘Hello.’ It is a whisper, a croak. Again. The word is no more than a grunt. It still does not sound like the word I know it is. He does not move. I am now three metres away from him.

I walk in a circle around him, keeping the same distance, my hand still clutching the rock. A dog with its prey. I can see only part of his face.

31

He is clean-shaven with heavy jowls and a double-chin. His eyes are closed. From his face I know he is not dead.

I crouch down on my haunches and watch his face closely. He is breathing. His bulk rises every few seconds and his lips part when he exhales. He seems peaceful. A man dozing on a beach.

His fat fingers rest on the sand. White worms in black mud. He is covered in drops of water, the rain or the sea. They glisten in the last of the light.

I raise myself, walk up to him and prod him in the ribs with my foot. He does not move. I lean down and shake him roughly by the shoulder. He is as cold as stone. His eyelids open. The eyes are red, the irises dark, almost black. For a few seconds he does not move. Suddenly he takes fright, tries to shuffle away from me, using his arms to shift his bulk. He cannot lift himself. His breathing quickens. I hold up my hands to show I mean no harm and take a step back. I do not speak.

Instead I crouch down again so I don’t tower over him. This seems to relax him slightly and his breathing becomes more regular. We look at each other. I can still only see half his face.

After a few moments I say again, ‘Hello.’ I can recognise the word now but my tongue feels thick in my mouth. He does not respond. I introduce myself. I do not know what name to give myself, my military title or just my birth-name. I decide on both. ‘I am Bran. Marshal. I live here.’

I realise I am speaking in short bursts. I have to get used to talking.

His eyes give nothing away. I am not sure he has even heard me. I try again. ‘Where are you from? Axum.’ It is more a statement than a question.

Still nothing. ‘You are safe. Talk.’

32

The man closes his eyes. He may be in shock. I have no idea what he might have endured. I place my coat over him to keep him warm.

As I lean closer I catch his scent. He smells of the sea. Not the pleasant smell.

We do not have much time. The tide is out but there are just a couple of hours before it comes in and if we are caught here we would both drown. And the light is fading. I can let him sleep for just a short while before we need to start walking back the way I have come.

There is accessible higher ground half a mile away. I know I will in all likelihood have to half carry him as he looks weak. I set off for the higher ground taking my bag with me so I will have nothing else to carry when I return.

When I do it is dark. I find him in the same position. I wake him again. ‘You will drown here.’ Though he does not reply he seems to understand and tries to lift himself. I place my hand under his arms and haul him up. He stumbles against me, his legs without strength.

He makes me think of a white grub, one whose only purpose in life is feeding. I ignore my distaste and place his arm across my shoulders and my arm under his. Like this we walk slowly along the beach. At one point I smile to myself at the picture we make. To a creature flying above us, or staring down from the grass ridge, or pressed back into the black mud of the cliffs, we would make an odd couple indeed. One tall and stringy, weathered brown, half carrying the other, a stumbling and bloated man, in the dark, pale as the rain.

It is raining hard now. There is some light from the moon behind the clouds but it is faint.

I resign myself to a night of cold and wet. With no fire, no hot 33

food, it is simply a case of waiting out the rain, waiting for dawn.

I shuffle up the last section of the cliff and walk a hundred metres inland to a grassy area with the man still hanging on to me. I let him down. He now seems asleep or unconscious. My grip slips on his wet skin. He falls into a puddle and lands with his face in the water, mud splashing onto his cheek. An eye and part of his mouth are under water.

He splutters, tries to move but can’t shift his bulk. I watch him gag. I am breathing heavily from the strain. He lets out a gurgled cry. Not a mute then. I take his arm and turn him over. ‘I will build shelter,’ I say to him. ‘I have food. We will sleep.’ He looks blankly at me.

I spend the night shivering, clasping my arms around me, and sleep little. The man sits across from me leaning against a rock. He seems not to mind the cold and sits watching me, expressionless. When I wake, after drifting off for what seems like just a few minutes, he is still staring at me, his black eyes unblinking. It is dark but I am close enough to see his eyes. I can smell him too. It is not something I am used to, another human’s smell. The smell of wet grass, mud, rotting birds, pine from the forest, the sometimes dank smell of the peat smoke: these I am used to, these have become mine, my smell, a smell of an island man. But his, an odour of the decaying ocean, wet skin, almost sweet but distastefully so, his is alien.

As it grows lighter and his face comes into focus, I have a feeling I recognise him. I search my memory. I cannot place him.

‘Hello,’ I try again. My voice is coming back. ‘I am Bran. I live on this island. What is your name?’ He is still looking at me but says nothing.

‘Who are you? How did you come here?’ I feel myself growing annoyed at the silence.

34

‘What are you? Axumite?’ I ask again. ‘What were you there?’ I sigh when he still does not respond and look away through the opening of the tent.

‘You have had a hard time. I understand. You do not have to talk to me now.’ I am annoyed but I have a duty to this man. He is on my island. He is my responsibility. ‘There is a cave on the other side of the island. It is where I live. It is warm. I can make a fire and cook. We must go now. It will take hours to get there.’ I know this will be a difficult trip back. I now have all my gear to carry and can see that he is no stronger than yesterday so I will be supporting him as well.

I get to my feet and begin to gather up the canvas. He does not move and I drag it over him as if he wasn’t there. I put the bag on my shoulders, walk behind him and, without a word, lift him up from his armpits. He is a dead weight and when he gets to his feet he totters unsteadily. I hold him by the arm. ‘Can you walk?’ At that he tries to walk, takes a few steps but his legs shake and I take him by the arm again.

Like this we make our way slowly back to the cave, stopping every few minutes to rest. I am tired too, having barely eaten for two days. By the time we make it back it is early afternoon. I have to forego collecting fuel. There is a small store of it but it won’t last long.

In the cave I look again at him. I search my memories. Something there I cannot find.

I build up the fire, place him on my bed, take my fishing gear and head off down the path, closing the door behind me.

My mind wanders as I fish. I almost miss a tug on the line. I find my self making up stories that could explain this man’s presence. An 35

ambassador from Axum sent to re-establish contact with Bran. A refugee. A man from an undiscovered part of the world, a place lost for centuries, untouched by our wars, our famines, our destructive climates. A place of dragons and legendary kings. He has walked up from the bottom of the ocean, half man, half fish. Buried in the mud of the cliffs for ages, released now by the waves, he has been brought back to life by the warm rains. My imagination knows no bounds. A killer.

A man from who knows where driven by vengeance and greed and lust for death. A silent man, plotting even now to take over my island. Or, like me, an exile, a visionary, a leader of men fallen foul of changing sentiment, banished to take his chance on the high seas. More sinned against than sinning. I allow my mind to wander too much.

Considering his size, the coat, the softness of his flesh, he is most likely a senior figure in Axum.

Perhaps still a criminal though. But then I too, in law, am one.

I think about him in the cave and wonder what he is doing. My back is to the cliff. I begin to feel his eyes staring at me from the ridge.

I look around quickly. There is nothing to be seen.

And then I know.

And then I know who he is. It comes to me. It has been over twenty years since I last saw him and he has changed so much and I hadn’t got a clear look at him until this morning. That is why it has taken me so long. I jump up, turn as if to run to him but sit down again. There is no reason to let him realise I know who he is just yet. I need to see if I can discover his intentions, to see if I can make him talk.

His name is Andalus. He was ruler of Axum. A senior leader indeed.

He is the man with whom I concluded peace for our territories, the man with whom I formulated the Programme, though it was mostly 36

my idea. I am surprised he is here. Very surprised. It is potentially a bad omen. I will have to find out his story and to do that I will have to keep my knowledge of his identity secret and hope he doesn’t recognise me.

I hook a second fish. They are both small but enough for one night.

At the cave I cook them with some roots I place near the fire. The outside of the root becomes charred but the inside remains soft. I don’t know what it is but it tastes like sweet potato. When I give him the food he eats hungrily, quickly. It is the quickest I have seen him move since I found him. I am surprised he does not burn his mouth. He finishes long before I do and I give him some of mine. While he eats I watch him and the memories come back. Beneath the bulk, somewhere within this fat grub of a man is my enemy, my enemy who became a friend, of sorts. Under a changed skin is a link to what I am, to what I was.

We eat all the food and by the time we finish it is dark again and we settle in for our second night.

He is still sleeping when I leave the cave the next morning. He lies on his side, curled up like a baby. I am concerned that my routine has been put out. If I am to feed him I will have to collect more fuel and harvest or catch more food. I will have to work more quickly. I take my clothes with me when I go swimming and head straight to the peat beds from there.

When Tora came to me on that Wednesday evening after the death of her mother, I knew then that we would last. And we did; until near the end. As I held her – she did not then hold me back – I had to take a couple of sharp breaths to avoid making a sound. I don’t know if 37

she felt these. I knew because if a relationship can survive that it can survive almost anything. I did not think of asking her to join me in exile. I suspect Abel would have vetoed it but it was not a question I would have asked. For all I knew when I left the settlement I would be dead in a matter of days. No, I did not want Tora with me. I do wonder what she would have said but, truth is, she most likely would have said no. She had moved on, though I suspect she still harboured feelings for me. I have no regrets. If she had been here the supplies would have to be divided in two, making our time together shorter. And if we had had a child it would be shorter still. There comes a point at which, if I had been a patriarch with a content wife and several children, the birth of a further child would cut our time down to hours. Perhaps even, though this is mathematically impossible, a birth would cause time to regress, to go backwards and we would already be dead. We would never have existed.

This man I have found, he will cut down my time here but at least it will end there. At least he is only one variable.

Back in the cave I find he has not moved.

I address him: ‘Are you ready to tell me why you are here?’ His eyes are open but he is unblinking. He has shown no signs of recognising me. ‘I will need help collecting food and fuel.’ He does not reply. I am beginning to grow impatient but I will give him some more time. He is a guest after all. And an acquaintance. Through the war and beyond we Brans maintained a spirit of generosity, though in the time of the Programme it had little chance to show itself.

In spite of having little food we always catered for refugees who continued to trickle in during and after the war. We absorbed the 38

healthy ones into our society where we could, absorbed them into the rationing system. The populace weren’t allowed food in their homes since communal cooking cut down on waste. So we would stand in a queue with these refugees, these people who had given nothing to us, and they would be fed the same as everyone else, the same as the healthy at least.

I decide to head back to the beach to fish instead of collecting grass seeds and roots. Fish will help Andalus get his strength back more quickly.

The seeds I mash and boil into a gruel of sorts. It is less appetising than fish but if I am to eke out every moment of the island’s life I need a balanced diet. I look after myself in this way. I fear there will not be enough time to collect seeds if I have to catch twice as many fish. If I fall behind and cannot collect enough food I will lose strength and grow weaker faster and I might never be able to get out of the spiral.

The balance would be thrown out.

I have been able to smoke fish but in the damp it is difficult to store food and the worms and insects seem able to find whatever I leave out.

I have tried eating these worms too but they are vile and I would rather eat the food that attracts them.

I could keep a fire going in the cave. Eventually the moisture on the walls would go and it would be dry but to do that I would exhaust my fuel supplies very quickly.

I catch four small fish this time. They are like the ones I used to enjoy as a young man but have a sharper nose and a slightly gamier taste. I call them Species Three as they are the third variety I caught. The task of naming I leave to others. I check my crab nets, which are located nearby.

One contains a couple of crabs and I remove these careful y.

39

Andalus is sitting on the floor when I get back to the cave. ‘Who are you?’ I ask. He does not speak. I walk up to him. He has his back to me. I whisper, ‘Who are you?’ I bend down and whisper even more softly in his ear, ‘I can guess, if that’s the way you want to play it. I can guess your name.’ He does not move. He still appears not to recognise me. I step away and walk round to face him. I hold up the fish. ‘Do you know what to do with these?’ I have not yet gutted them. ‘You can nod or shake your head. You do not have to talk.’ He does not move. ‘I will give you a knife. You place the point here,’ I show him where I mean,

‘and draw the blade downwards like this. You must do this so we can eat.’ I realise I am talking to him as if to a child.

I place the fish on the ground, take his hand and wrap his fingers round the knife handle. He grips it tightly but makes no move to take the fish. I notice his knuckles grow whiter. I step away from him. I am not afraid. Though he is bigger than I am, he is slow and weak and as a former soldier I am used to hand-to-hand combat. I am in fact intrigued to see what he will do. But he makes no effort to get up and after a minute loosens his grip. The knife slips to the floor. As he drops it the blade slices one of his fingers. A drop of blood falls onto the fish.

‘Hold it up,’ I say. ‘It will stop soon enough.’ He obeys. As I sit in the entrance to the cave gutting the fish I am aware he does not lower it.

He looks as if he is frozen mid-sentence emphasising a point. I smile to myself.

Tora’s mother was sixty-eight when she died. It is a good age. She kept working until the end, maintaining a small garden adjacent to the city walls. One day she did not get out of bed. When Tora found her later that evening she was barely able to move or talk. It was a death 40

sentence. Her garden was taken over, she said her goodbyes and Tora moved on. There was little time to grieve.

I knew her mother quite well. I assigned her the garden, which she loved. It was a tiny patch but was managed efficiently and everyone had to do something. She grew potatoes, squash and had a small orange tree. She would sit out of the sun under the tree at the end of the day talking to her neighbours, her fellow gardeners. I would pass by on occasion and exchange pleasantries. I suspect she did not like me very much. She was always polite, given I had procured this work for her, I was seeing her daughter and I was Marshal, but we never progressed beyond conversations about her vegetables and the weather. We never spoke about Tora.

I miss her more than some of the others, it must be said. I think of her often. She is a symbol of what I might have become. I would have enjoyed retiring, spending my afternoons in the sun, tending my vegetable patch and thinking of the past only to reminisce with acquaintances. It is the sun I miss most, falling asleep in the late afternoon to the sound of bees in the orange blossoms. An idyll I was denied. Still, I could have chosen worse places to be exiled. It has been a struggle here but with hard work and careful planning I have made a go of it. Sent away as a disgraced leader and now, ten years later, once again I have shown them how to survive in a world where survival might not seem possible at first. But they are not here to see that.

Over the meal at night I fix him in my gaze, which he does not return. Again he eats hungrily, quickly. It reminds me of how we all used to be. We all ate quickly out of necessity. I remember him eating like that before. I watched him over a meal. He did not look up once, 41

only when he had finished every last scrap. He even licked his fingers, which I found distasteful.

‘Tomorrow you will come with me to the forest,’ I say. ‘You can help me bring back some wood.’ I do not think he will be of much use but I’m sure by now he can walk properly and he has to start getting his strength back if he is to earn his keep.

In the morning after I’ve returned from the beach and we’ve finished breakfast I throw him the coat I found. He grabs it. I’m certain now it belonged to him. He fingers the cloth, the brass buttons, his lips open slightly as if in surprise. He looks like a boy. ‘Put it on,’ I say. ‘It is yours, is it not? The coat of a General.’ I do not put this as a question. He shows no reaction. Instead he removes my coat, stands up and puts the other on. It fits perfectly. He adjusts the collar and straightens his back.

I watch with interest; he is like a soldier preparing for battle.

‘Come.’ I say, ‘We’re going to fetch wood,’ and set off down the hill. He follows me but leaves a distance of around ten paces. He has recovered some of his strength but still shuffles along as if each step is a great effort. I listen to his steps in the mud, the soft sucking sound they make. Every time I stop to wait for him the noise stops too. He never approaches closer than the ten paces.

In the forest, without a word I throw him the bag I use for wood, which he catches, and I unhook the axe from my belt. He walks round me in a circle, watching me all the time. He comes to stand in front of me. He’s on a little mound, the bag over his shoulder, his head held high, the coat like blood against his pale skin. As I chop down the tree and trim the branches he simply stands there, watching.

When I get out of breath I stop, bending over with my hands on 42

my knees. I say, ‘Your turn,’ and hold out the axe. ‘You can take over for a bit. I am tired.’ I straighten up and walk towards him, holding out the axe, blade first. He drops the bag and shuffles away from me, holding up his arms slightly. His feet make furrows in the pine needles. I stop.

‘What are you doing?’ I am curt. ‘What are you doing?’ I repeat. ‘Do you think I’m going to hurt you? Do you not think I would have done something by now if I was going to?’ He says nothing. ‘I rescued you, I have fed you, clothed you, why would I kill you now?’ I have raised my voice. It sounds strange in the silence. I think I can hear an echo.

I wave the axe in exasperation and turn back to the tree. He cowers, crouched down, his hands still over his head. Maybe I expect too much too soon.

The rain falls again now. I chop the tree into logs at a slow but steady pace. I can keep my breathing under control and still make good progress. Water drips from the end of my nose. I can also feel it running down my back. Steam rises from my body. The scent of wet pine chips fills the air. Andalus sits crouched under a tree, sheltering from the rain. He seems calmer now. In fact he might be asleep. From panic to sleep in a matter of minutes. I do not understand this person.

I wish he would talk.

Andalus used to talk all the time. In fact I often wished he spoke less.

We had different negotiating styles. He was all bluster, all promises, all camaraderie. This, however, overlay stubbornness and a determination to get his way. He came across as a fool but was far from it. He was a tough opponent and I came to respect him greatly. By the end of it, the time of the signing of the accord and the last official contact between the two groups, we formed something of a friendship. True, 43

it was based on grudging respect on both sides and not on any deep emotional bond but by the end I began to know the man behind the talk, the man who, like me, cared deeply for his people, cared deeply enough to stop the war, at any cost.

There was a moment in which he let his guard down. He sat across the table from me, his head in his hands. Our aides had left the room.

He did not move for ages. I thought he was asleep and was just about to get up from the table when he said to me, ‘What have we done, Bran?’ His voice was quivering. For a second I did not know what to say. ‘At what price?’ he went on. ‘At what price does a thing become a luxury we should not have?’

‘This is not a thing,’ I said. ‘This is not a luxury. This is peace.’

‘We’ve ended the war, Bran, we have not brought peace. There will come a time when the world will not be able to forgive itself, or us.

There will never be peace now.’

I said nothing. Instead I got up, went round to him, stood behind his left shoulder. His head was in his hands. I reached out my right hand and placed it on his shoulder. He gripped my hand. I felt his shoulder heave. I think he might have been crying. I could not tell. I was certain he was in turmoil though. I squeezed his shoulder, patted him on the back and said, ‘We have done a good job, Andalus. We have fought for our people, for our interests. And now we have secured a future for them. Do not fear the future. Once we were enemies, once we were warriors. Now we are friends and statesmen. We have earned our sleep tonight.’

With that I left the room. It was a brief moment of intimacy but one that I appreciated. Several hours later we met for the celebratory dinner and he was again his jovial self, though he avoided eye contact with me.

44

I walk over to Andalus and prod him with my toe. He looks up sleepily.

I give him a small bundle of wood to carry. He gets up and follows a few paces behind. Like a dog.

Later I collect some of the tubers and some grasses for a second bed, keeping their seeds to eat. I leave him in the cave when I do this.

As I walk out I ask him to build up the fire. He gives no indication of having heard. I do not ask again.

In the grasslands I start to feel out of breath. My arms also ache from chopping down the tree. I sit down on a rock. Providing for two has taken it out of me and I am beginning to feel my age. Still a fit man but there is only so much one can do. One man, flesh and blood, set against the rising waters, the creep of the oceans, the clutch of the mud. If I look too far into the future it can be daunting. Nevertheless, that is what I must do. I keep track of the loss of the island so I will know exactly when the time is up so I can be awake, so I can stand facing the wall of water when it comes. So I can die proud. Now that I have to work more on collecting food and fuel I have less time to work on my map, on my calculations, my annotations. I used to know exactly when the time would be up but now I am less certain. It has only been a few days and this man is my responsibility but he is a burden. Duty was never a burden to me until now. There is nothing to say I have to take care of Andalus, nothing to stop me sending him on his way. Though since he has nowhere to go that would involve killing him. There is no one to judge here, nothing to stop me getting rid of my burden. Nothing but a sense of duty, not born out of any trivial sentiment – long ago we did away with that – but out of necessity. We were dutiful because we had to be, because that was how we survived.

Survivors obeyed.

45

Duty is something I will never abandon. It carries me through, connecting my past with my future.

I have never planned a return to Bran. Surviving the voyage is not the issue. I have become adept at the tricks of survival. But I have been banished and respect that. It would be disrespectful of the laws I created. Andalus however, is a puzzle. What is the leader of the Axumite settlement doing in Bran territory? Either they have begun expanding or the old order has been overthrown. Mavericks may have taken over and begun to plan a resumption of the wars in an effort to win control of Bran and its resources. Though maybe he was simply sailing between islands and was blown off course in a freak storm. The stories can be made up in a number of ways. Whatever the stories though, the rules of the Programme have been broken and it should be my duty to report this. I need to try to find out more about him, more about why he is here. But it’s impossible if he doesn’t speak.

There is a myth in my land. One of the ancient gods – we no longer believe in gods – was banished by the council of the Heavens. His crime dissent. He sailed for weeks to the ends of the earth. When he finally found land he remained there for the rest of his days, hurling thunderbolts and storms at passing ships. When he died his petrified remains became a mountain on whose peak was engraved the visage of the god, serving as a warning, a curse, that all who gaze on it will too become stone in an unfamiliar land.

Another tells the story of a legendary king with the same name as mine. Fierce and always victorious in battle, at his death his countrymen cut off his head, drove a stake through it and placed it staring out to 46

sea. Thus they cast a protective spell over the country against invading armies.

Myths are made of memories and memories are fallible but these two were pillars of Bran. Though we had no religion and little sentimentality, these stories, still told sometimes, are indicative of who we are as a people; both our sense of duty and respect and our pride and determination never to be defeated.

They mean a bit more than that to me though. I’m aware of some parallels. They speak of rejection and of veneration, of how easily things can turn. Two faces staring out to sea. One will avenge, the other protect.

Perhaps the presence of Andalus means that I, once more, have a duty to protect. His presence might mean I need to leave the island.

When I get back to the cave the fire has died out. Andalus is lying on the bed with his back to me. He turns around only when I give him food some time later. I call him General again. I ask him about Axum.

But he does not look at me.

At first light I wake and look over and see Andalus has disappeared.

I jump up.

Outside the cave a warm breeze is blowing and the clouds are thin.

I cannot see him. I climb on top of the cave from where I can see more and scan the grasslands. But there is no sign of him. He cannot have gone far – in his shape no more than a mile or so. From the cave you cannot see the rocks where I fish and I think this is where he must be.

I head off down the cliff path.

Walking slowly to the edge I peer over. He sits with his back towards me, facing out to sea. He is not fishing, just sitting. I watch him 47

for a minute. His head begins to turn to the side slowly. It seems to turn too far to be natural. I crouch down, hiding. I do not make any sudden moves. I do not think he can see me but his head stays turned.

Perhaps he is looking at something else, something further along the cliff, something behind me. I look around. I lie down in the grass and roll onto my back. A gull circles overhead.

Tora did not want to hear about the fighting. She knew what went on – everyone did – but she did not want to hear about life as a soldier, about things I had seen. Not about the killing and not about the buried relics of a forgotten age. I wanted to tell her but whenever I tried she turned away from me. If we were in bed she would roll away and lie on her side with her back to me. I would stop, turn to her and stroke her thigh. I did not berate her for not wanting to hear and eventually I stopped trying altogether. I suppose she needed distance from that. A gentler person I had never known and for her, I always thought, that she shared her bed with a man who had killed was distasteful. She did not resent my previous life, she did not blame me for it but I knew that she did not approve. Perhaps my attempts at stories of what past worlds might have been she associated with killing, or at least with dying.

If that was the case though, why did she allow herself to be involved with one whose job entailed what it did? It was a mystery to me. There were many things I found mysterious about her. Perhaps, though she did not approve, she could see the necessity of the Programme. No one really could approve, besides madmen, but we all knew it was necessary.

This was another part of my life we did not talk about much. In spite of that she was a strength to me, someone I could count on, someone 48

whose feelings and reactions I could predict and trust. I suppose she felt that if someone had to do it, it was better that it was me, a man devoted to the ideals of fairness and duty.

She would have struggled to find a man who had not killed. That was what we did, what we had to do. She was part of that forgotten world she didn’t want to hear about, a throwback to a gentler age.

After a few minutes I get to my feet, return to the cave for my line and hooks and set off to join my companion. If I put a rod in his hands maybe he will take to fishing. It is not the right time of day but it is better than not fishing at all. I can sit him here every day and let him catch a few fish while I go about the rest of my work: gathering fuel, digging for tubers, harvesting seeds and furthering my survey. That could be the answer. I like fishing but if that is all he can do it will be better than nothing. It would free up more time to plan for the future.

He does not look around as I approach. I sit next to him, greet him, to which, as usual, he does not respond. I lift up his hands. I place the rod in them. He does not grip it. I stand up, taking it from him.

‘Watch,’ I say, and cast into the ocean. Again I try to make him take it.

‘This is your job. If you want to eat, you will catch the food. That is the way it shall be.’ Through this he watches me. Now though he turns his head away and stares out to sea. I raise my voice: ‘I am not your keeper.

I cannot provide for you as if you were my guest. You have to work if you want to stay here.’ I try again and this time he grips the rod, though softly. I decide to leave him with it in the hope that he will try when I am not there. I head off for the peat beds. There is no time for my swim.