On the Island by Iain Crichton Smith Read Free Book Online

away to a clothes shop where they had to stand for hours among mirrors while she studied a black hat which at the end of it all she didn’t even buy; and all the time as she turned the black hat over and over in her hand Iain could see through the shop door the people passing, the seagulls flying, and the castle towering and white in the distance across the river.
    It was about midday when Kenneth saw the toy horse in the window. It was large, shiny and brown, with brown tassels for reins running along it. It stood lightly in the window as if it were ready to set off somewhere, completely on its own, riderless and free, its head raised proudly, even though the bit was in its mouth. The light of the sun shining directly on it made it appear fluid and animated, as if it were composed not of wood but of a powerful energetic substance akin to light itself; and its hooves hardly seemed to touch the wood on which it rested among the dolls, the teddy bears, the squirrels, all dominated by its playful hauteur.
    â€œI want it,” said Kenneth, standing at the window and dancing up and down. “I want it. I want the horse.”
    His mother tugged at his hand, looking round her in embarrassment and then leaning down to speak to him in a fierce whisper.
    But Kenneth was pressing his nose against the window, his little body trembling with rage and greed, while some of the passers-by looked at him in amusement, and his mother felt more and more conspicuous.
    â€œYou can’t have it,” she told him in the same fierce whisper. “It’s too expensive. We can’t afford it.”
    But Kenneth kept on shouting, “I want it, I want it. It’s mine,” while his face grew redder and redder with rage. It was as if he could see himself already riding the horse to some secret destination of his own, while his mother was unfairly holding him back with her black gloved hands.
    â€œYou can’t have it,” she insisted, trying to drag him away, but he was so fierce and strong that she could hardly move him, and when her effort to pull him raised him slightly in the air he was kicking his heels as if he were a fish struggling at the end of a rod.
    And at that moment Iain had a strange vision. He saw his mother dressed in black wrestling with his brother and he realised as if for the very first time that they were poor, that they were really poor, and as if with horror and embarrassment he saw his mother’s worn black gloves, with a darn on the right one, and he wished that he could run away and hide. But also as he looked at his mother’s agonised embarrassed face, its thinness and its pallor, he was moved by such intense pity that he turned to Kenneth and said angrily, “You shut up. You can’t have it. Don’t be such a fool.” Kenneth looked at him open-mouthed as if the criticism of his behaviour were coming from a quarter that he couldn’t at first identify, and then he burst into tears of rage and madness which were only relieved by a man stopping and giving him sixpence. Then the three of them walked on in silence, their mother now and again saying, “This is the last time I’ll take you to town. I’ve a good mind to take you home on the one o’clock bus.” But they didn’t go home on the one o’clock bus though the threat seemed powerful enough to quieten Kenneth at least for that time.
    In fact after they had had their lunch in an Italian café, the two of them went to the cinema, leaving their mother to wander round the shops. They paid their money at the desk and walked together into the blackness which was only illuminated by the usherette’s torch. Finally they found themselves side by side among others of their own age gazing at the screen which was showing the title of the film as they entered, written as if on a certificate.
    It was a Western and they watched in wonder as the cowboy rode over the hill into the town, hitched his