Free Blessed Isle by Alex Beecroft Page B

octopus tentacles, the other with leaves that turned round as buttons where the saltwater dashed against them. In one sheltered spot, the trees grew to eight feet in height, like honest, decent English trees. Beneath these, we made our camp. But the majority of the forest, though composed of the same species, was stunted by constant storms and spray.
Both kinds of tree bore leaves which, we discovered from experimentation, might be eaten, though those of the button plant needed to be stewed first. And both sorts provided wood fineburning for fires, and heavy and durable as iron for tools.
Birds nested everywhere. Grey birds nursed their eggs in shallow scrapes beneath the trees. Black-plumed seabirds dozed on the sandbanks in raucous chattering heaps. Among the branches of the trees darted slender white birds with sloe-like black eyes, like ghostly crows. And all of these were innocent, trusting creatures who never learned to flee at our approach. Good eating.
I suppose you think we did nothing but eat and fuck the whole time. Hah! Well, that wouldn’t be so far off the mark. Yet we did improve our domain. Once I had recovered from my fever, and my leg so far improved that I could limp and swim, we returned together to where the boat had gone down—one of us to retrieve what could be salvaged, the other to keep the sharks away.
This, I loved. You have to picture it: the water is clearer than glass, its depths turquoise. Little fish swim about us and we have not troubled with clothes. Harry swims like a merman, all of him tanned light biscuit brown. I’m looking up at the shafts of light through a silver dancing roof and watching them slip like tongues over the planes of Harry’s chest and belly and privates.
And then the shark comes, and it’s all a game of speed and teeth and death. Can I strike him in the gills strong enough, hard enough, to deter him while I go up to breathe? Will he turn and tear my arm off? Well, as I am here writing this, I think you can guess the answer to that.
In this way we salvaged the tarp and the sail, the marlinspike, bucket, empty water barrel, and numerous ropes. Our campsite in its hollow became positively civilized as we rigged the sail for a joint hammock and the tarp over it for a roof. We used the bucket to boil things, warming stones first in the fire and dropping them in. The resultant stew inevitably tasted of ash, but one got used to that.
Water was our greatest physical problem. When we first crawled ashore we found numerous pools of it, but over the next few weeks they gradually dried up. We realized then that there was no source of water indigenous to the place. Yet even this was not a great trouble (except on one occasion I will detail below), for in general rain came at least once a fortnight and replenished our pools, our barrel, and our rudimentary well.
Thus in every bodily sense we were provided for. Indeed, our cups ran over with plenty. Plenty of food and drink, though not very fine. Adequate sunshine and shelter and firewood and peace and liberty to indulge our natures with no condemnation and no risk.
Harry spoke of it as a Blessed Isle, like Avalon. His face would shine, and everything braced in him would soften, until he looked as though he had indeed regained his youth. And when he did so, an unnamed emotion would slither in my breast like an adder, poisoning my mood for days. I began to feel a sympathy for all those poets who have written about spleen and black bile and the dark hound that sits at the door of the soul, gnawing away at its joy.
Though it grew from day to day, I did not speak of this to Harry. It would have been like snatching the slice of birthday cake from a child’s hand and stepping upon it. But the melancholia would not be ignored. I took to wandering off in search of solitude, having to suppress violent anger when he sought me out. There was no place in the tiny speck of land to which one could withdraw and be certain of remaining