On the Island by Iain Crichton Smith Read Free Book Online Page B

which prickled their nostrils.
    â€œHey,” said Daial, “look up there.” When Iain looked up he was gazing straight at the sky, for much of the roof had gone and all they could see were ancient planks and rafters that seemed half burnt.
    In the sky he could see the white clouds moving. The old house with its smell of smoke and straw felt weird as if part of it remained alive though it appeared dead and desolate, and once Daial had a great fright for when he thrust his head through a paneless window he found himself staring straight at a cow which was placidly gazing into the room, while chewing grass in its brown jaws.
    â€œWhoosh,” he shouted in a high voice. “Whoosh,” and the cow withdrew its head and ambled away, its tail swinging lazily.
    They found a jam jar, an old blue plate, and a box in which there was a variety of nuts and bolts in which Iain wasn’t interested, though Daial was, for he had got himself a new bicycle which he had left leaning against the stone wall of the house. After a while Iain got bored and left him kneeling in the room, his small black head bent over the box, rummaging among the nuts, while he himself pushed aside the torn drape that separated the two rooms of the house and entered the bedroom.
    In this room there was an old bed with clothes on it that had once been white but which were now damp and mouldy, shining faintly in the twilight created by the torn curtains.
    Iain stood uncertainly in the middle of the room and gazed at the faint white pillows and faint white sheets in a silence that lapped like water round the cracked mirror and the one chair and the ancient dressing table which was sunk into a hollow of the floor. It was as if he had found himself in an underwater cave far from the traffic of the world, noiseless and eerie. As he turned and looked in the mirror which was on a wall facing the bed, a strange thing happened. In the cracked glass he saw a face which was not his own, and this face, broken and grained, was the face of an old woman with no teeth. Iain swung round, unable to speak or scream, and there, sitting upright in the bed, in a veil of cobwebs, her grained hands on the sheet in front of her, was a very old woman, so old that her face seemed hardly human. She wasn’t looking at Iain at all, but down at the bed as if she was holding in her hands a plate which was invisible to the frightened gazing boy.
    And then out of the silence she began to speak, her mouth making hissing sounds because she had no teeth, her bald head thrust out of her ragged nightgown.
    â€œMy food,” she was saying, “my food. Where is my food? No one brings me any food. You want me to die. That’s why you don’t bring me any food. I want my food. I used to bring you your food but you don’t bring me any. Do you remember when you were young I would bring you your food. Why don’t you?” And it seemed that tears coursed down her face, as she wove her hands together. “I wouldn’t do this to you. When you were young I brought you your food but you want me to die. Well, it won’t be long now. And you’ll suffer for it. I hope you suffer and rot in hell.” And her hands came together as if she were squeezing something to death, a network of blue veins standing out on them, hard and coarse.
    â€œI hate you,” she said in the same hissing voice. “I hate all of you. I told you not to marry him. I told you he was a drunkard and a waster. But no, you wouldn’t listen, would you. You knew best, didn’t you? And now he won’t give me any food, he says he has no money. You should make him. But he’s stronger than you. He’s stronger than us.” And her voice changed and became pleading like that of a child, monotonous and peevish. “Please give me my food, my tea. He won’t know. Don’t be frightened of him. God will look after you. You’re my daughter, aren’t you.