The Islanders

Ferredy Atoll HANGING HEAD

Dear Sir,

I am twenty-one years old and I live on an island in the Ferredy group called Mill. I am here with my parents. I have just returned from university on Semell where I gained a First Class Honours degree in Island Literature.

I wish to inform you that during my three years at the university we were given many modern novels to study, and amongst them was your book Terminality. I was impressed by this novel and wanted to know a lot more about the other books you might have written, who you were, and so on. I spent a great deal of time trying to track down some other of your books, but unfortunately not all were available on Semell. I managed in the end to borrow three more titles, all of them apparently from your early career.

Let me tell you that I think they were very good. This led me to decide to specialize in your work, and my dissertation was on the subject of ‘literary stasis’, a phrase borrowed, of course, from your novel The Tour of Circles. I called my dissertation ‘The Enigma of Staying: Immobilization and the Static Values of Chaster Kammeston’.

I know you must be busy and the last thing I want to do is interrupt your writing, but I do have a simple question I should like you to answer. I want to become a writer, a novelist, and I wondered if you have any advice you would be willing to give me?

From a devoted admirer.

Yours sincerely,

M. Kaine

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your reply, which took ages to reach me. Living in the Ferredy Atoll has many disadvantages. I hope that the lateness of this letter does not make you think that I reacted badly to the advice you have given me.

Let me assure you first of all that I have honoured your request and have destroyed your letter by burning it. No one else was allowed to read it. I am sure you have good reasons for wanting that, but I wish I could describe my feelings about having to burn something you had written. Every word you write is precious to me. But I respect your wishes.

In answer to your question: yes, I did get hold of the books of yours I could not find at first. My tutor admires your novels and was able to lend me his copies of the ones I did not have. Regrettably I had to return them when I left university, but since I last wrote to you I have been searching the internet. The only copy I have so far managed to buy is a rather old and battered paperback of Escape to Nowhere. Clearly it has been read by many people before me, but I am extremely pleased to possess it. I have made a special protective cover for it. I have read it twice since it arrived here. I find it intriguing and beautiful. The end always makes me cry. I have a thousand questions I would love to ask you about it, but I don’t want to intrude on your time.

Thank you for the advice you offered me about becoming a writer. I must say it was not quite what I was expecting, and to be honest with you I found it disappointing. I intend to carry on in spite of your warnings.

May I ask: are you working on a new book now?

Yours sincerely,

M. Kaine

Dear Mr Kammeston,

I am so excited with the news of your new book! I can hardly wait to read it. Later this year I am intending to visit some friends who live on Muriseay, and I hope I will be able to catch up with all the books I want to buy while I am there. The Ferredy Atoll has only one bookshop. It is on the far side of the lagoon from where I live and it is not exactly what I call a bookshop: it mostly sells magazines and a few best-selling romances, which are always a year or two old. Without the internet I don’t know what I would do, but even the online dealers seem not to have heard of your books.

You say it will be another novel. May I dare to ask: is it another book in your ‘Inertia’ series? Can you tell me anything about it at all? I love everything you have written, but the Inertia books are special to me.

You want to know why I live here on Mill, and what it is like. I live here because I was born here and so it is my home. My parents are both social anthropologists. They came to the Ferredy Atoll before I was born to study and work with the indigenous people here. The Atoll is more or less untouched by the modern world and many of the tribal customs are unique. My parents have made several films about the people and they have written textbooks about the aboriginal culture here. My mother retired several years ago and my father now works mostly as a consultant, but they both love this place and don’t want to leave.

However, since I was at Semell Uni for three years, which gave me the opportunity to see many of the other islands while I was travelling around. I confess I am restless to see more. When I go to Muriseay I am hoping to take several detours to visit some of the other islands. I notice that your island of Piqay is not far from Muriseay, or at least it would take only a few days on the ferries to travel there. Ever since we have been in contact I have been wondering if I might call in at Piqay and perhaps visit you? I do not want to disturb your work or trouble you, so if it is inconvenient I will understand.

Returning to Mill, there is not much I can say about it as a place. It is murderously hot here most of the year. We have snakes, hostile bats and large poisonous insects, but you learn to live with them. The ‘winter’ is short. The only difference between that and the rest of the year is that it rains day and night for three weeks. It remains almost as hot and the humidity is awful.

All the Ferredy islands are small. They are considered uniquely scenic and unspoiled. We have a few hills, hundreds of beaches, long stretches of forest, few roads, no railways, no airport. Everyone gets around by boat. The lagoon is fringed with many tall trees. Because the place is so photogenic you often see photographers or film crews working around the lagoon. They idealize the place but they would feel differently if they had to live here. My parents’ house is in a shallow valley where there is a stream and a view of the lagoon. There is a small town on the other side of our island, with a dentist, doctor, a few shops, a hotel, not much else. I want to leave!

My first name is Moylita, and thank you for asking. It’s a family first name, back through at least the last two generations. My mother is also called Moylita. I do normally sign my name with an initial, but I have been wondering, should I get any of my work published, if I should stay with that or use my full name. Do you have any suggestions?

You see, I am determined to ignore your depressing advice about not trying to be a writer! I am going to make good.

Yours sincerely,

Moylita Kaine

Dear Mr Kammeston,

I am extremely sorry I suggested paying you a visit on Piqay. I realize how presumptuous it must have seemed to you, and I will not mention it again. I know how busy you must be.

Yours sincerely,

Moylita Kaine

Dear Mr Kammeston,

I cannot tell you how surprised and pleased I was to hear from you again.

I assumed I had mortally offended you, because your last letter, nearly three years ago, was so terse and final. It is wonderful to receive your latest letter, sounding so full of life and at ease with yourself. I know that many good things must have happened for you in the intervening period, and I am happy to respond to your friendly enquiries.

But let me say immediately that although your last letter did upset me for a while, I soon realized I was the one who had overstepped the mark.

I want to bring you up to date with what I have been doing, partly because you have so kindly enquired, but also because so many things have changed in my life.

Yes, I did travel to Muriseay as I had been intending. I stayed on for much longer than originally planned. While I was there I was able to buy copies of all your books, including Exile in Limbo, the one you told me you were writing. It is of course a marvellous novel, everything I had hoped. For me, reading it was even more thrilling than usual, having known just a little about it while it was in progress.

In addition, I found a job on Muriseay, I found a place to live and, after a few months of uncertainty about what either of us really wanted, a husband. His name is Rarq, he is a teacher, and although we live on Muriseay we recently travelled back to Mill because my mother has been ill. Your letter was waiting for me here when I arrived. We shall be staying for a while longer but if you choose to write back to me please send to the poste restante address at the top of this letter. We will be returning to Muriseay soon because Rarq has to start a new semester.

I do understand the explanation you have given me, in your most recent letter, about why you felt you had to pour cold water on my literary aspirations. You are completely right: I did half-expect you to write back, give me a pat on the head and tell me everything was going to be fine. I should have known that you of all writers would never do such a thing.

I could not say this before. When you tried to put me off I was at first saddened because I thought you weren’t taking me seriously. But then I realized what should have been obvious all along, that you could not have read a single word I have written. It must be what you say to all young people who ask you about becoming a writer. I imagine you receive many letters of the same sort as mine. Once I realized that what you said wasn’t personal I knew what I had to do. I guess now that it was what you intended all along. You made me think hard, made me consider my priorities, made me test my level of ambition and judge my ability as honestly as possible. In short you stiffened my resolve.

I am not yet a real author, in the sense of having a book published, but for the last two or three years I have been submitting poems and short stories to various magazines, and several of them have been accepted and printed. I have even made a little money. I don’t suppose you have seen them and I’m not hoping, by mentioning them to you now, that you will ask to see them.

However, I have also started a little book reviewing, and I am wondering if you already know about this? Was it this that led you to writing to me again, and in such a friendly way? Because (in case it did somehow elude you) one of the first novels I was given to review was Exile in Limbo! And the review was not for some small-circulation literary magazine, but for the Islander Daily Times. I could hardly believe my luck when they offered the book to me for review. I now have two copies!

I hope you have read my review. If not I will certainly send you a cutting from the newspaper. I want it to please you, although I am familiar with something you said recently in an interview, that you never read reviews of your novels. Perhaps sometimes you are willing to make an exception to this rule?

All the time I was reading Exile I wanted simply to lay it aside and talk to you about it. My review is of course quite restrained and objective, but perhaps if you were to read it you would realize just how important to me this book really was.

Finally, the news that is for me the biggest of all. I said that I am not yet a published novelist, and I am not. But I am just about at the point of completing my first novel. If I hadn’t had to visit my sick mother I should probably have finished it by now. I feel as if I have been writing it for most of my life.

I know I began it not long after our first round of letters, so you can see how many years it has taken. It is extremely long and fantastically complex. Sometimes I wonder how I managed to keep all the details of the story in my head as I wrote. It is largely based on the ideas and social theories of one of the people I most admire, Caurer of Rawthersay — I know you must know of her, because she has often cited your novels and your ideas in her essays and presentations. I have called her ‘Hilde’ in the novel.

Writers of course give invented names to their characters, but sometimes readers try to see through that. I’m aware that will probably happen with my book, but I hope and suspect that few people will be able to connect Hilde with Caurer. I genuinely believe I have assimilated Caurer’s work and created Hilde as an embodiment of her ideas, rather than giving her Caurer’s appearance or personality.

I feel safe in confiding this to you. I have always sensed that you are the moral and intellectual equal of Caurer.

Well, although I know nothing is certain, I am confident I will find a publisher for the novel. I now have a literary agent and she tells me she has already received enquiries from two companies in Muriseay. Naturally, I shall let you know the moment it becomes certain.

Meanwhile, I should love to know if you have ever met Caurer?

In closing, let me repeat how pleased I am to be back in contact with you. I loved receiving your letter and I have read it a dozen times already. I am sorry this reply is so long, but it is thrilling to me that we are writing to each other again.

We are both a little older than we were before, but one matter has not changed in any way. I believe you are our greatest living writer and that your finest work is yet to come. I am impatient to read it.

Yours affectionately,

Moylita K

Dear Mr Kammeston,

Nine months have gone by since I last wrote to you, and still you do not reply. I have learned from your unexpected silences that you are easily upset by the simplest or most innocently intended remarks, so I have to assume that something I said in that letter has offended you.

I have searched my conscience and scoured my memory, but I cannot think for the life of me what it might have been.

All I can say is that I am truly sorry, from the bottom of my heart. If I gave offence it was unintentional, or maybe just clumsy. I would ask your forgiveness, even though I realize that something complex and deeply personal has been disagreeable to you from knowing me. I have no idea what it might be.

If you feel unable to continue with this correspondence then I must of course respect your wishes.

I want to say in closing that I shall always treasure having exchanged a few letters with you. No matter what, I shall forever love the work that you do, and encourage other people to read it as intently as I always have.

Yours sincerely,

Moylita Kaine

PS: My publishers have just sent me my presentation copies of my first novel, The Affirmation. As it is dedicated to you I hope you will accept the enclosed copy, which I send in all humility and the hope you will understand everything that lies behind it.

MK