Free The Summer Book by Tove Jansson Page B

Neighbour
     
     
    A BUSINESSMAN BUILT A HOUSE on Blustergull Rock. At first, no one mentioned it. They had developed a habit, over the years, of not talking about painful things, in order to make them less painful. But they were very much aware of the house.
    People who live on islands are always letting their eyes glide along the horizon. They see the lines and curves of the familiar skerries, and the channel markers that have always stood in the same spots, and they are strengthened in their calm awareness that the view is clear and everything is in its place. Now the view was no longer clear. It was broken by a big square house, a new and threatening landmark, a deep notch in the aspect of a horizon that had been their own for a very long time. The anonymous skerries that had been the island’s threshold to the sea had acquired a strange new name and closed their lagoons. But worst of all, it was no longer the family who lived farthest out.
    There was less than a mile between them and their new neighbour. The man was no doubt neighbourly, too. It seemed very likely that he would love company and have a big family that would kick the moss off the rocks and play the radio and talk a lot. That sort of thing happened all the time, all over, farther and farther out from the mainland.
    Early one morning, the workmen nailed on the tin roof – a huge, angry, glittering roof – under a cloud of screaming gulls and terns. The house was done, the men drove away in their boat, and there was nothing to do but wait for the arrival of the owner. But the days passed and he didn’t come.
    Towards the end of the week, Grandmother and Sophia took the dory out for a little row. When they came to the perch shallows, they decided to go on to Squire Skerry to look for seaweed, and once in the lagoon behind Squire Skerry, it was only a stroke of the oars to Blustergull Rock. There was no dock, only a big bank of gravel. In the middle of the gravel was a large sign with black letters that said PRIVATE PROPERTY – NO TRESPASSING .
    “We’ll go ashore,” Grandmother said. She was very angry. Sophia looked frightened. “There’s a big difference,” her grandmother explained. “No well-bred person goes ashore on someone else’s island when there’s no one home. But if they put up a sign, then you do it anyway, because it’s a slap in the face.”
    “Naturally,” Sophia said, increasing her knowledge of life considerably. They tied up to the sign.
    “What we are now doing,” Grandmother said, “is a demonstration. We are showing our disapproval.”
    “A demonstration,” her grandchild repeated, adding, loyally, “This will never make a good harbour.”
    “No,” Grandmother agreed. “And they have the door on the wrong side of the house. They’ll never get it open in a southwester. And look at their water barrels. Ha-ha. Plastic, of course.”
    “Ha-ha,” Sophia said. “Plastic, of course.”
    They went closer to the house and could feel how the island had changed. It was no longer wild. It had become lower, almost flat, and looked ordinary and embarrassed. The vegetation had not been disturbed; on the contrary, the owner had had broad catwalks built over the heather and the blueberry bushes. He had been very careful of the vegetation. The grey juniper bushes had not been cut down. But the island seemed flat all the same, because it should not have had a house. From up close, this way, the house was fairly low. On the elevations, it had probably been pretty. It would have been pretty anywhere, except here.
    They went up on the terrace. Under the eaves he had put up a plaque with the name of the house: VILLA BLUSTERGULL . It was fancily carved and resembled one of those fluttering geographical designations that are found on old maps. Above the door hung two brand-new ship’s lanterns and a grappling iron; on one side was a freshly painted red buoy, and on the other a bunch of artistically arranged glass floats.
    “It’s