The Islanders

Yannet DARK GREEN / SIR THE DESCANT

Two people came to the small island of YANNET — a woman and a man. They both had curious names, and the names were curiously similar, but until they went to Yannet the woman called Yo and the man called Oy had never met in person.

They were both aware of each other. Yo and Oy were artists, conceptual creators of installations that were misunderstood by the public and condemned by critics. Both artists were harassed and had their work suppressed by the authorities. Neither of them cared. They thought of themselves as art guerrillas, one step ahead of their antagonists, always moving on from one installation to the next. As people they were otherwise unalike.

Yannet stood at a sub-tropical latitude in the midst of a cluster of islands known as the LESSER SERQUES. It was politically little different from most of the other islands in the Archipelago, in that it had a feudal economy and was governed by a Seignior in name and the partially elected Seigniory in practice. There was only one main area of population: Yannet Town itself, the capital and port, situated at the southern tip of the peninsula the islanders called HOMMKE (rendered in patois as ‘dark green’). The town was a place of light industries, electronics studios and games developers. Many highly paid jobs were to be found in Yannet Town.

The woman, whose full name was Jordenn Yo, was the first of the two artists to arrive. On disembarkation at the port she told the Seigniory officials that she was a geologist, taking up a freelance position. That was untrue. She was also travelling under an assumed name, and produced forged papers to back up her story. She told the customs officers she would be importing certain items of unspecified machinery for a geological project. She requested an open manifest, to avoid having to go through the bureaucracy every time, but at first the officers were reluctant to grant it. However, Yo was well experienced in dealing with these situations and soon obtained what she wanted.

She found and rented an apartment in the centre of Yannet Town, one with a small building attached that she could use as a studio. Once established she began her work straight away.

Outside the Hommke area Yannet was sparsely populated. Along the coastal plains to the north there was some farming, but most of the island was covered in dense tropical forest, a deep natural resource, protected from loggers and other developers by island ordinances, and managed as a wildlife preserve. The coastline of Yannet was untamed. There was broken water at all levels of tide. There were few historical or cultural associations and because of this tourists on Yannet were scarce.

Then there was the mountain, known locally as Voulden (whose patois meaning is ‘sir’. Apart from a few low foothills Mount Voulden stood alone, an asymmetrical cone rising out of the forest at the northern end of Hommke. Trees grew on its lower slopes, but higher up it was covered in coarse grasses or was bare rock. There were no obvious paths to follow, so although the climb was steep for only part of the way it could be a challenging ascent.

The whole extent of Yannet could be viewed from the summit of Voulden, as well as a glowing panorama of other islands in the vicinity. The sea was silver and sapphire blue in the brilliant sunlight, the islands hommke green, dark and intense, fringed with white crests of breaking waves. Shadows of light clouds scudded over the choppy sea.

To this summit one day came Jordenn Yo. She had climbed without looking around her any more than she had to, determinedly saving the view for when she reached the summit, trying not to preview or glimpse it, but holding on to the paths and boulders as she scrambled up.

At first, recovering her breath from the long climb, she sheltered behind some rocks to stay out of the wind. It surprised her how cold it was on the top of the mountain. But the view exhilarated her. She gazed around at the islands. They were impossible to count — the sea was choked with many small tracts of hilly land. The light was bright, unyielding. She gulped in the view, trying to fill herself with it or the sense of it. She watched the traces of the wind on the surface of the sea, the overlapping hatch of vee-shaped rippling wakes from the ferries, the way the clouds took shape and shifted over the islands, drifting out over the sea on one side, others forming to replace them to the windward.

She took many photographs, turning through three hundred and sixty degrees, high and low, records of Yannet’s own landmass, of islands and sky and sea. Then she began to contemplate her real work with Voulden, the mountain.

She measured the wind pressure that day. During the course of a year three winds prevailed over this part of the Archipelago. There was a mild westerly wind known as the BENOON, warm with rain, intermittent, most often felt in the spring, one that she could make allowances for, but not depend on. The other two winds were from the east. One of these was called the NARIVA, a hot wind that circled the southern horse latitudes then crossed the Equator and swept across this part of the Archipelago. The third was known as the ENTANNER, a steady flow from the mountains of the northern continent, bringing cooler evenings at the end of the long island summers.

Yo tested the wind that day with the portable anemometer she had brought, noting not just the direction but also the pressure — today was an easterly wind, too cool to be the Nariva, but maybe a spur from the Entanner? She needed more familiarity with the winds before she could be sure she knew them. There was never a day anywhere in the islands that experienced a typical wind, so she would have to work with a median, perform endless calculations about force, frequency, direction, and always make those necessary allowances for the irreverent variables.

Finally, she lay down on the rocky surface of the summit, feeling herself pressing against the peak of the mountain. While the cold wind blew, lifting her inadequate clothes and chilling her, she shivered and planned, but in the end she cried a little. Already she loved Mt Voulden, loved its height, its eminence, its grey solidity. Voulden was a calm mountain of strong, stable strata, hard but safe to drill through — now she was learning the winds that made it breathe.

She returned to her studio before nightfall, exhausted by the strenuous climb and by feeling the extremes of temperature between the windblown mountain heights and the sultry plain below. Her plans for the mountain were taking shape. Within twenty days she had completed her surveys and sent out her orders, instructing that the earth-moving and rock-drilling plant should be made ready.

While waiting for the massive equipment to be shipped to Yannet she made other preparations.

Meanwhile, there was Oy.

At this time Oy was engaged in a small but exacting installation on the tumultuous shores of the island of Semell. Yo and Oy were still more than four years away from meeting on Yannet. Semell was in a distant part of the Archipelago called the Swirl, a system of more than seven hundred small islands and atolls in the southern hemisphere.

Oy’s full name was Tamarra Deer Oy, but he had become known by his surname only. A conceptual and installation artist, he had spent the years since leaving college touring the Swirl, searching for suitable islands. He experimented with his techniques and materials on every island he visited, using local aggregates to mix with resinous cements, seeking the hardest and smoothest compounds, ones that would withstand not just time and the elements but the inevitable attempts by others to destroy or damage his works.

Like his near-namesake Yo, Oy was often unwelcome in the places he visited. He had been forcibly expelled from half a dozen islands, although so far he had managed to avoid prison. Also like Yo, as his reputation spread he too was often obliged to enter islands incognito and work fast, completing as much as possible before being discovered or exposed, having to leave his work unfinished.

His first complete work, uninterrupted, was on the island of Selli, a fiercely hot tourist island with immense bays and beaches, and a legendarily exuberant nightlife. Oy arrived out of season on Selli, and soon discovered two holiday-let cottages built close together on a shallow pine-cooled slope overlooking one of the beaches. The trees helped screen him as he worked. He began on both cottages, first sealing them up with thick layers of cement on the inside, leaving the exteriors unchanged but the interiors no longer accessible. He and his artisans then set about erecting a conjoining piece, simulated walls and a roof, making the two small houses into three, or one, or none. Using carefully matched washes he painted the exterior of his installation in several coats of island whiteness.

He paid off his artisans and departed Selli before the artwork was discovered. Before he left he gave the installation a good and approving kick with the flat of his foot.

Other forays into the inhabited Swirl islands were to prove more difficult, but he managed to seal the main street of a village on the island of Thet, and converted a small church on Lertode into an aesthetically satisfying, impermeable egg-shaped dome, painted matt black.

His first shoreline piece was a stretch of rockfall at the foot of chalk cliffs on the island of Tranne. Working in the ebb tide, Oy smoothed and levelled the rocks and their pools by infilling with cement. It was an isolated, unvisited expanse of coastline. Few people ever wandered by or saw what he was doing. At first he worked alone, but the sheer size of the installation made it necessary to hire artisans from the local villages.

Within three months most of the installation was complete. The area of broken rocks had been converted to a white plain, so smooth a ball could be rolled across it, and so uniformly flat that not even the most sensitively calibrated spirit level could detect a slope.

Satisfied, Oy discharged the workers and spent a few days working alone on the final details. Two days later, as he was preparing to leave Tranne for another island, a large fall of rock from the overhanging cliff covered or destroyed everything he had done. He went to see the damage for himself, but left Tranne immediately after.

It was Oy who made the first personal contact. He had long known of Yo’s reputation, of course, but they had never met. Then one of the trustees at the Muriseay Covenant Foundation mentioned her and gave him a contact address. A few days later he messaged her:

hi yo, i’m oy, i know your stuff and i bet you know mine, we should get together and try something, how about it?

Yo did not reply at once. About six weeks later she messaged him:

I’m busy. Fuck off. Yo.

At this time Oy was working on a large, curving staircase he had chanced to find in an apparently disused part of the back of the Metropolitan Hall, in Canner Town. He was converting it to a flight of irregular steps that could only be mounted from below, using ropes, and in a horizontal attitude. He filled in the former stairs above to make a smooth descent. It was a challenge of great intricacy, and every day he worked there he expected to be discovered by the Metro officials.

Then a second message arrived from Yo, a few days after the first:

You are anathema to me. I loathe and despise what you do. You are a NON ARTIST. I hate everything you conceive or draw or build or fill in or cover up or make smooth or correct or stand near or pass by or breathe in the locality of or EVEN FOR A MOMENT THINK ABOUT. What you do is anti-art, anti-beauty, anti-life, anti-anti. Your so-called work is an abomination to every artist who has ever lived, or whoever will live. I have nothing to ‘try’ with you, except I would like to spit on you repeatedly. Yo.

But an hour later the same day her third message arrived:

Pls send two photos of you, one of them naked and from the front and close up, but not your face. Yo.

Moments later came the fourth and last message from her:

Come and see what I am doing, Oy. I am not mad. I am on Yannet. Yo.

He sent some photographs, more than two, later that day. Yo never acknowledged them.

It took Oy the rest of the year to complete the horizontal staircase, and he left at once before he might be discovered. He travelled across the Swirl to the island of Tumo, where after a boisterous holiday he began to contemplate his next work.

The horizontal staircase was opened up by Metro officials. It became apparent they had known all along what Oy was doing. Inferring who he was they had made an unannounced and enlightened decision to allow him to finish. They mounted the staircase as a permanent installation in an exhibition of modern art that was created to occupy the rear area of the Metropolitan Hall. Although it was excoriated by the first critics who reviewed it, the staircase quickly became popular with the public and within a year people were travelling from all parts of the Archipelago to see it and to try climbing it. Oy’s financial support from the Muriseay Covenant Foundation was substantially increased.

Yo was being delayed by Seigniory officials who objected to the two huge pieces of tunnelling equipment, currently in the hold of a freighter impounded in the port. Her open manifest had no apparent influence on their objections.

While trying to resolve this she managed to get several of her smaller earth-movers and bulldozers secretly ashore on a remote part of the Hommke peninsula, by using beach-assault landing craft she hired from the Faiand base on Luice. This operation used up most of her remaining money, so there was a further delay while she applied to the Foundation on Muriseay. By the time the new grant came through, which was much less than she had hoped for, she had solved the problem of the tunnelling equipment.

To the Seigniory assay consultant, a retired gentleman who held the post as an honorary appointment, she produced several examples of valuable mineral ores, explained that Mt Voulden contained so much wealth that life on Yannet would be transformed for ever, and pointed out that for obvious reasons her work must remain secret. She contrived to leave a small nugget behind on his desk, when she left his office.

The tunnelling equipment came ashore shortly afterwards. Soon she was training two teams of artisans for the work that lay ahead. Her location for the installation had been identified for months, so the teams moved to opposite sides of the mountain without delay. Working under Yo’s detailed and strenuous instructions they prepared to chew their way mechanically through the rock towards each other.

This was for Yo the most stressful and exacting period. Every day she had to make repeated visits to each side of the mountain, measuring the orientation of each machine, checking and confirming the quality, accuracy and angle of the workings. Numerous test and access shafts had to be drilled. At first progress was infinitesimally slow — three months after she had employed the teams they were still mostly idle. They crept forward with immense caution, each making preparatory drillings, but both machines remained visible outside the mountain.

However, she was eventually able to give her orders to start drilling in earnest. Both sides moved forward into the mountain itself, the great circular drill faces grinding slowly through the rock.

It was not long before a familiar but major problem emerged, which was how to dispose of the broken rock that was removed as the tunnel progressed. Yo’s first remedy was a method she had used on other projects in the past: she paid an off-island contractor to take away the tailings. Several large loads were disposed of in that way. She discovered, though, that the movement of the heavily laden trucks through the town, and the effect they had on the loading of the ships, was attracting unwanted interest in what she was doing. She soon cancelled the deal and paid off the contractor.

She calculated the likely size of spoil heaps, chose places where they might be positioned and soon the tailings began to pile up in the foothills around Mt Voulden. Yo decided against trying to landscape them. She thought that slag was something Oy might deal with for her, should he ever turn up.

The work went on slowly, with more than three years of drilling necessary.

While Yo tunnelled, Oy was moving almost as slowly through other parts of the Archipelago. He went to several islands, but either could not find a subject that engaged his interest or stimulated his imagination, or he had to move on when local people recognized him.

He managed to complete some pieces successfully. He went to the island of Foort, a dry, rocky island, which initially he thought uninspiring, but he was able to go ashore, find somewhere to stay and then to move around freely. Either they did not recognize his face or name or reputation on Foort, or they did not care.

On one of his travels around Foort he went to the low eastern end of the island, where the coastline was defended by ranges of huge sand dunes. The sharp contrast between the deep blue sky, the ultramarine of the sea and the dark dampness of the creeping sands at low tide captivated him immediately. For a week he returned daily to the dunes and sweltered under the relentless sun, clambering across their shifting heights, blinded by the dazzle of the sun, scorched by the dry exposed sand and its coarse grasses.

He went to work. He had never liked a hot climate so he planned to work swiftly, make a minor installation that would require only a few assistants.

The first stage was to excavate and remove one of the existing dunes to make room for one of his own. The vast amount of sand and gravel that had to be shifted was distributed as unobtrusively as possible amongst other dunes. With a patch of rocky base finally exposed, Oy’s artisans drilled solid foundations, then built and raised the wooden framework of the new dune. The timber Oy was using had to be specially imported from another island, and every exposed part of the wood was treated with fungicide and several coats of insecticide.

The outer integument was moulded from the toughest kind of plasticized sheeting, guaranteed by its manufacturer to be almost indestructible. Oy tested it with fire, rifle bullets and diamond-bit scalpels, and only the last managed to break through the tough fabric.

The false dune was then coated with sandlike carbonized fragments, pigmented to appear identical to the real dunes all around.

When the artisans had been paid off, Oy settled down alone to the intricate work of setting and adjusting the electronics. Firstly, the dune had to be sand repellent. The wind always blew, and the sand around the installation was constantly drifting. He did not want real sand on his dune, so he devised a mineral loose-body repellent which temporarily polarized and repelled any grains that came close to the integument.

On the windier days his dune was surrounded by a whirling cloud of polarized quartz crystals, shot up into a funnel of stinging sand.

Finally, there were two extra features inside the dune, powered by a bank of rechargeable batteries and solar panels concealed near the apex. One was a sonic generator, which was designed to emit a terrifying electronic howl at random moments. The other feature was an array of internal lights which would switch on automatically every evening at nightfall, making the dune’s integument glowingly visible all over that part of the island.

He tweaked and adjusted the dune until he was satisfied, finally sealed it up, and left. As he waded through the deep, loose sand of the nearest genuine dune, his sonic generator kicked in with the first-ever random electronic howl. It was so loud and unexpected that Oy fell face-down with surprise into the sand, and his unprotected ears rang for days afterwards. He was pleased.

Next to Ia.

Here he set about duplicating the work that had been spoiled by the rockfall on Tranne. He found a stretch of wild coast where there were many outcrops of rock, with shallow pools and dangerous escarpments at the bottom of the cliff. He worked swiftly, and soon the section of shore was smoothed in many places to a hard, level surface, with softly rounded mounds where the taller rocks had been covered. However, he had always disliked repeating himself, grew bored with filling the coast and left with the work only half completed.

He travelled to Himnol, where to his surprise he found the local officials sympathetic. They encouraged him to work on the broken wall of an ancient castellated fortress on a high hill overlooking the town. Oy soon sensed that they saw in him a means by which the failing structure might be inexpensively shored up with his infilling. Instead, he began to construct a mirror and glass maze in one of the dungeons, using high-definition cameras and concealed lights to distort perspectives and angles. He found this an involving challenge, but his work was interrupted by an unseasonable storm and the dungeon was flooded overnight.

Disillusioned and feeling frustrated, Oy decided at last to go to Yannet and try to find Yo.

The main tunnelling of Mt Voulden was complete. Yo had sold all but one of her tractors, but the two immense tunnelling machines remained without buyers. Now that she was past the burrowing and earthmoving part of her work, Yo had lost all interest in that. The finishing absorbed her, and the complexity of her tunnel was a thrill that coursed through her whenever she entered its mouth.

The tunnel was straight. It was in theory possible to see daylight from one end of it to the other, and she had viewed and measured it so, but for the time being she placed heavy shrouds across both entrances. When she turned off the access lighting, the darkness of the tunnel was profound.

She had completed the final grouting and polishing of the tunnel walls. Much of her everyday work now consisted of almost obsessive checking of the smoothness of the reinforced walls, and detecting and repairing any leaks or cracks that might appear. It was several weeks since she had found any of these, but she continued to check anyway. Art should not have to be maintained, once installed.

Three areas of the tunnel floor were flooded with polymerized fluid. In these sections of the tunnel, towards the eastern end, an added layer of false roof could be dipped from full height to a narrow slot above the level of the liquid. Here the fluid level could be adjusted so as to tune the wind as it passed through the aperture between the steady surface and the low apex of the roof. A system of ancillary vents gave extra flexibility with tuning. The physical barriers acted like reeds and they would harmonize once the tunnel was finished.

One evening, hungry and thirsty and covered with grimy sweat, Yo drove her one remaining tractor to her apartment and went to her studio.

A man was waiting outside the building, lurking in the twilight shadow thrown by the high wall. She recognized him at once and walked over to stand directly before him. She was taller and more heavily built than he was, but she guessed he was a year or two older. He had the wiry, muscular appearance that she had stared at covetously in the photographs he sent her.

‘I’m broke,’ Yo said, looking him up and down unashamedly. ‘Have you brought me any money?’

‘No.’

‘Do you have any money at all?’

‘Not for you. Just mine. I’m Oy, by the way. Pleased to meet you at last.’

‘Can you drive a tractor?’

‘No.’

‘It doesn’t matter. You’ll learn. What else can you do?’

‘What do you need?’ said Oy.

‘Ah,’ she said. ‘We have common ground at last.’

She took him into her apartment and they went straight to bed. They made love on and off for five days, stopping only to sleep, or to find food and drink, or occasionally to take a shower. They were uninhibited lovers, but Yo had one rule: she would never let him penetrate her. She aroused him and satisfied him with her generous hands and mouth, and there were no other restrictions, but he was not allowed to mount her. She did like to spit on him.

Soon the bed was sticky and crusted with spilled juices.

Near the end of their marathon session, Oy said, ‘I think I know how to drive a tractor now.’

‘I need to show you my tunnel.’

‘I thought that was why you wanted me here.’

‘Yes, that too,’ Yo said, and once again spat deliriously on the ridges of his well-tuned abdomen.

Eventually she drove him up to the western entrance to her tunnel, making him cling precariously to the back of the tractor. She unlocked the chains that held the shroud in place and they walked into the tunnel mouth. It was totally silent inside, with not even echoes of their footsteps or voices. The air was stilled and cool. She powered up the generator, breaking the silence, and after a few moments the access lights came on, stretching away into the far distance.

The tunnel was painted white, a smooth glossy coat. Wooden acoustic baffles were placed along both sides of the tunnel wall. There were dozens of these close to the tunnel mouth, but deeper into the mountain their number rapidly declined. For most of the length that Oy could see there was none at all. He stared down the perfect perspective for several minutes, unmoving, beginning to understand. Yo was behind him.

‘What do you think?’ she said.

‘I think I’d like to fill it in. You’ve left all those tailings—’

‘You bastard!’

‘It’s what I do. I find holes and fill them. If I can’t find a hole I make one.’

‘That’s the same as what I do. I made this hole.’

‘How long has it taken you?’ Oy said. ‘Three years, four? And still not finished? I’ve made a dozen pieces in that time.’

‘This is almost ready. What’s the damned hurry, anyway. And who the fuck are you to criticize me?’ Her eyes were flared wide with anger. ‘I despise your attitude, the stand you take against art, your—’

Oy seized her violently, and took her neck in the crook of his arm. He silenced her by clamping a hand over her mouth. He had learned a lot about her in the last four days. At first she struggled and bit him, but then she licked the palm of his hand, nuzzling her face. He held her like that for a while longer, pressing his body against hers, then he released her.

‘I’m not mad,’ she said, moving away from him and wiping her saliva from where it had smeared around her mouth. She took a deep breath. ‘Many people think I’m mad —’

‘Not me,’ Oy said. ‘I did think that, but not any more. You’re just weird.’

His fingers and palm were bleeding. He wiped the blood on his shirt, then gripped his wrist to staunch the bleeding.

She showed him the little electric trolley she used for her inspection runs through the tunnel. He took the controls and drove slowly to each of the particular points she demanded. At each one she made a close and prolonged examination of the quality of the smooth surface, and tested the seals.

Towards the far end of the tunnel they came to the first of the three places where the roof angled down towards the channel of polymer below. Yo pointed out the system of software-controlled adjustable vents and ducts that were designed to ease the airflow and enable tuning of the reeds. Oy examined everything alongside her, feeling admiring of her and trying not to sound grudging.

In truth he was thrilled by what she was showing him. He sensed a new standard was being set here on Yannet, but Yo’s arrogance and violent disregard for anyone’s work but her own made it impossible to discuss it with her.

With the inspection completed, Yo took over the driving of the trolley and they returned to the western end. She shut down everything, closed and secured the huge shroud, then drove back to her studio. As soon as they arrived she took him to bed again, and a night and a day passed.

One morning, some time later, Yo drove to the mountain alone, refusing to allow Oy to accompany her. She was gone all day. When she returned late that evening she was exhausted and dirty but in an exhilarated mood. She answered none of his questions. She showered alone, then insisted that Oy should take her into the Old Town for a meal.

Afterwards, they walked from the restaurant through the narrow streets to the port.

There were two ferries moored at the quay, with the usual noise and confusion of winches and cranes, the loading and unloading of cargo, the boarding of passengers and cars, and a stream of loudspeaker announcements about sailing times and import restrictions. They walked away from this hubbub and the floodlit apron, down one of the long jetties and into darkness. They stared across the sea towards the dark bulk of the closest neighbouring island. They could see tiny lights across its heights. Yo had said little all evening, and still she said nothing. She stared down at the waves as they broke against the rocks at the bottom of the jetty wall. Several minutes passed.

‘The wind’s getting up,’ Oy said.

‘So now you do weather forecasts?’ she replied.

‘I’ve just about had enough of this. I’ve got better things to do than hang around all day, waiting for you. I’m going to move on soon.’

‘No you’re not. I need you.’

‘I’m not just your sex plaything.’

‘Oh, but you are. Best I’ve had so far.’ She pressed herself against him, rubbing a breast against his arm.

He moved back from her. ‘I’ve my own work to do.’

‘All right. But not yet. I want you here for this.’

A big wave suddenly struck the rocks, throwing up a spray. The drops flew against them stingingly, borne on the warm wind. It was refreshing and stimulating in the hot night — it made Oy think of the way Yo liked to make love.

‘I read about the wind yesterday,’ Yo said. ‘This is the Nariva at last. It’s been expected for several days. Listen — can you hear anything?’ She was turning her head from side to side, as if seeking a sound. There was just the constant racket of engines from the harbour, the echoing of the loudspeaker voice, some shouting from the ferry marshals directing the traffic, the whining of a winch, the surge of the sea waves. ‘It’s too noisy here!’

She marched back along the jetty towards the town, with Oy following. The tide was rising and they were drenched by several more flows of windswept spray before they turned on to the apron of the main floodlit wharf, between the cranes, the lines of waiting traffic, the traffic marshals in their yellow jackets and shiny helmets, guiding the drivers and waving their torches.

Once they had reached the street where she lived, on the edge of the Old Town, the presence of the wind could barely be felt. They were sheltered by other buildings, but there were trees on one of the hills above and these were swaying darkly in the night. Yo was muttering furiously, striding ahead of Oy. Whenever he caught up with her she would shrug a shoulder angrily against him and increase her pace.

In the apartment, which was stickily hot after the long day, she went around and opened all the windows wide, bending her head beside each one, listening outside. Finally, she threw off all her clothes.

‘Come to bed!’ she said.

‘What were you listening for?’ said Oy.

‘Keep quiet!’ She crossed to him, sank to her knees and quickly undid his pants.

An hour later, lying naked side by side on the bed, listening to the peaceful sounds of the night-time town through the open windows, they became aware of a deep vibration, transmitted through the building.

‘That’s it at last!’ Yo said, sitting up and moving quickly to the window. ‘Listen!’

He went to stand beside her. The Nariva wind was blowing more strongly now, gusting across the town and along the streets, skidding litter around, but the vibration was rising through the ground. At first he could not discern any sound that was part of it, but soon he heard a deep, low rumbling, a constant note, a distant siren. The town remained dark and shuttered against the windy night. The droning note wavered with the gusting of the wind as it came down from the direction of the mountain, sometimes fading away but mostly gaining in strength.

After a few minutes of gradual crescendo, the note held at a steady volume, a loud, deep booming, basso profundo.

‘Ah,’ said Yo.

‘Congratulations,’ said Oy. ‘I’m impressed.’

‘Now that’s why you are here,’ she said, holding herself against his arm.

‘Just so you could show off to me?’

‘Who better to show off to than you? Could you have done this?’

‘I might have done it more quickly. But I fill things in. I would never have even started.’

He had rarely seen her smile before.

The immense bass note throbbed unendingly across the town. Somewhere in a street adjacent to theirs a car alarm, nudged into life by the vibration, began to screech. Another followed soon after. A policier car, or some other kind of emergency vehicle, rushed unseen by them through the town with its own siren suppressed but with its warning lights blazing and flashing. They saw the radiance reflecting quickly off the tops of walls and roofs, before the vehicle sped off in the direction of the port. After a few more minutes of electronic screeching the car alarms switched themselves off. Mt Voulden continued to moan its single, dark note.

The mountain fell silent an hour after sunrise, when the wind at last slackened. Yo had been euphoric throughout the hours of darkness, alternating between manic proclamations of her own genius, and bitter, lacerating attacks on Oy’s own perceived failings as an artist. He no longer minded her abuse, because he knew by now it was her way of working herself up into a sexual frenzy.

If he learned anything from that long sleepless night of the mountain’s deep roaring it was that the time had indeed come for him to move on. In some way he barely understood he knew he must have been useful to her, perhaps as a foil. Whatever it was, it seemed to be over.

Yo fell asleep soon after the mountain went quiet. Oy left her in the bed, showered and dressed and packed his few belongings. Yo woke up again before he could leave. She sat up, yawning and stretching, her face drawn with fatigue after the mostly sleepless night.

‘Don’t go yet,’ she said. ‘I still need you here.’

‘We agreed you were showing off. That’s what you wanted from me. What you’ve done with the mountain is good, it’s brilliant, it’s incredible, it’s unique. I’m impressed. There’s never been anything like it before. I couldn’t have built it myself. Is that what you want me to say?’

‘No.’

‘I really mean it.’

‘But it’s incomplete. I’ve hardly started. What happened last night — it was like someone picking up a musical instrument for the first time. Have you ever tried to get a note out of a trumpet? That’s all I achieved last night. I simply made my instrument sound a note. Now I have to learn how to play it properly.’

‘You’re going to teach the mountain to play tunes?’

‘Not straight away. But I can program a tonic sol-fa, at least. There are vents up there in the tunnel that will create vortices when I open them. One will release a torus of air. I’ve no idea yet what they will sound like.’

‘All right, but I’ve stuff of my own to do. Maybe I’ll come back and see you later, when you’ve taught it to play the national anthem. How long is that likely to be? See you in another five years?’

‘Don’t be a bastard now, Oy. I need your help. I really do.’

‘Anti-help, anti-art?’

‘Come to bed and put me back to sleep.’

In the end Oy agreed to stay on with her. Yo remained as she was, difficult and perverse, often yelling at him for doing something wrong, sometimes abandoning him so she could work on her own, but her reliance on him did appear to be genuine. Every day they worked together on the tuning vents inside the tunnel. Oy found this interesting, the endless range of settings and combinations, harmonizing as the wind shifted direction and pressure.

Soon the mountain was responding to the opening of the extra vents. A strong wind was no longer necessary to produce a note — Yo had installed a series of Venturi tubes that increased the local speed at which the wind stream passed through the tuners. One night they lay awake as the mountain groaned and curled its tremendous rumbling notes, fading away and recovering as the erratic Nariva swept across the face of the mountain. It was gaining a sort of ponderous, elephantine beauty.

But much as Oy admired her ingenuity he found the endless deep droning of the bass notes uninspiring. People in the town had started complaining too, but so far no one appeared to have worked out who was behind the all-pervading sound.

If Mt Voulden had been one of his own pieces, Oy would already have left the island. He disliked hearing comment on his work.

One morning at dawn, after another wakeful night, he said to Yo, ‘It needs a descant.’

‘A what?’

‘Another tunnel, shorter, narrower, at a different angle to the wind, playing a higher harmony.’

Yo said nothing but stared at him in silence, before she shut her eyes. Several minutes passed. He could see her eyes moving rapidly behind the closed lids. Her jaw was clamped tight and Oy could see veins in her neck, pulsing with pressure. He braced himself.

Finally, she said, ‘Fuck you, you bastard. Fuck you, fuck you!’

But this time her abuse did not lead to sex. She dressed in a hurry, went to the mountain alone and Oy did not see her again until the following day.

When she was ready she took him up the mountain, much higher than the main tunnel, to a place where she had found a long ridge on the southern face. The wind was keener and colder there and made its own harsh whistling as it scoured across the bare rocks and deep crevasses.

‘If I could somehow drill a new tunnel through this ridge, would you stay around and help?’

Oy was balancing on an exposed boulder, buffeted by the freezing wind. Far below them the first tunnel was moaning, but they could barely hear it up here.

‘If you could somehow drill it, I would somehow fill it in.’

‘Then what’s the point?’

‘Ah — that old argument about point,’ Oy said. ‘Art has no point. It only is. We could do both. You drill a tunnel and I’ll fill it in.’

‘I thought I was the mad one.’

‘Yes and no. That’s the other old argument.’

Yo gestured impatiently. ‘Then what the hell?’

‘What the hell what?’ Oy stared down at the astounding elevated view, the hommke islands, the seething sea, the white clouds and the shafts of brilliant sunlight. A squall of rain was distantly moving across from the south. Two white-painted ferries were passing in the narrow strait between two islands. ‘Some places don’t need art,’ he said. ‘Look at what’s here! How could you or I improve on that?’

‘Art isn’t just about pretty views. There’s no sound from the view, for one thing.’

‘There’s the wind. Why don’t we build a virtual tunnel? You drill it, I will fill it in. All at once. It starts here where we are now, it comes out on the other side of the ridge. You know what you will do if you drilled it, I know what I could do if I repaired it. We achieve parity. That’s what real art is. Parity! Now shall we go back down before I get frostbite?’

‘What about the descant? I need that now.’

‘There are other ways.’ He leapt down from the boulder, narrowly avoiding turning his ankle on the hard and uneven ground. ‘You’ll think of something. I’ll be back in a year or two, to see what you have come up with.’

But ten days later he was still restlessly there. Yo kept finding things she needed to do in the tunnel, and thinking up ways of making him work with her on them. In one sense it suited him, as he had a destination in mind, but the particular ferry he needed to catch to Salay had sailed a couple of days before. Another was not due for a while.

Mt Voulden now played its bass song every night, in low winds and high. Yo declared herself dissatisfied with it. She wanted to keep tuning and adjusting the baffles, but the reaction against the booming music from people in the town was growing more vehement every day. They both knew it was time to leave, time to start other projects.

Irrespective of what Yo herself might be planning, Oy was intending, no matter what, to catch the next ferry to Salay. It was due to dock in the harbour in the morning. He packed his stuff as unobtrusively as possible while Yo was showering.

When she emerged, hair wet and with a towel plastered around her body, Mt Voulden began to drone its tuneless music. Yo abruptly turned on Oy, shouting that she knew he was about to abandon her. She accused him of betraying his own art as well as hers, of selling out, of trying to destroy what she was doing —

It was the familiar overture. This time, knowing it was to be the last, Oy did not allow her to pull him down on the bed. He stood up to her, yelling back. It was anger in the cause of expression, not real anger, but it was verbal slaughter. He gave as good as he had ever got from her, and more. She hated that. She spat at him, so he spat back at her. She punched him, he punched her.

Finally he allowed it to happen and they sprawled together on the bed. Her towel had been knocked aside while they fought, but now she tore off his clothes. It was aggressively passionate, lust not love, but as before it was all the action of hands and mouth. Mt Voulden roared anew. A wind-borne scale began, a slow tonic progression.

Yo suddenly yelled, ‘In me! Do it!’

She guided him so there was no misunderstanding what she meant, and at last he entered her. She gasped aloud, a rasping shriek beside his ear. Her fingers and nails dug into his back, her mouth pressed hotly against his neck, her legs clamped around his back and buttocks.

The tunnel through the mountain attained the top of the scale, and the great interminable note began to grow louder. Yo climaxed with it, screaming, shrieking, the highest music of sexual pleasure.

Oy slumped over and across her but she continued to release her noise of pent-up passion. Every breath she gave was another note, sweet and high. She was waiting for the sounds from the mountain now, listening for its cue, breathing with it, harmonizing, a tuneful descant, a melody of the air and sky, of the winds that curled through the tuning plates and fanned the vents and crossed the seas and islands. Her voice was surprisingly pure and innocent, untouched by her violent moods and mercurial nature. She was at one with the music she created, and now she sang the wind.

Out there in the ocean of islands the winds that sifted the sand on the beaches, guided the currents and stirred the forests had their source. They arose from the doldrums, from the cooling impact of snow and the calving of bergs in the glaciers of the south, from the unpredictable high pressure systems of the temperate zones, the calm lagoons of humid air across the tropics. They followed the tides, swooped around the heights of mountains, changed the moods and hopes of the people they touched, brought rain and cleansing air, created rivers and lakes and refreshed the springs, they ruffled the seas. Nariva, Entanner and Benoon. Beyond them a score of others, trade winds and gales, hurricanes and monsoons and tempests, cooling squalls and the lightest of breezes, the warm winds of dawn, circling the globe, raising dust, making rhythms in memory, turning wind vanes and filling sails, inspiring love and windows and rattling doors. The winds of the Dream Archipelago blew wild and parching across barren outer cays and crags, enlivened the humid towns, watered the farms, swept deep snows into the mountains of the north. Yo’s clear soprano voice tapped this source, gave it a shape and a sound, a story, a feeling of life.

As the note from the mountain lowered in pitch, became quieter, then ceased, Yo’s singing ended. She was breathing quietly, regularly, and her eyes were closed. Oy extricated himself from her embrace, levered himself away from the bed, walked unsteadily to the open window.

A soft breeze was moving through the town. He rested his hands on the sill, leaned forward to take the warm air. His hair was matted to his head, his chest and legs were sticky with sweat. He breathed deeply. The breeze had come in from the sea and the islands, across the land, around and through the mountain, down into the clustered streets of the Old Town. It was the middle of the night, the early hours, long before dawn, still warm from the day, anticipating the next.

The street below the window was full of people. A crowd had appeared in the area outside Yo’s studio, spilling out along the street in both directions. More were coming from the houses and apartments close by, their faces turned up towards the distant mountain, a deep shadow against the night sky. They were listening for more of its music. A group of women were laughing together, children had come outside with their bedclothes clutched around them, lanterns flickered in the breeze, several men were going around with casks, pouring drinks.

Behind Oy, on the bed, Yo had fallen asleep. Her face in repose was unguarded, undefended by pride and ambition, now just exuding modesty and in a way he had never seen before, kindness. She breathed steadily and calmly, her chest rising and falling in a gentle motion.

Oy sat beside her until dawn, watching her sleep, listening to the happy crowd outside as the people slowly dispersed. The mountain was silent. As the sun came up Oy dressed, then walked down to the harbour. He did not wait for the Salay boat to come in, but caught the first ferry of the day, heading nowhere that he knew, out into the endless sprawl of lovely islands, down into the Archipelagian winds.

Fugue for a Darkening Island

Inverted World

The Affirmation

The Glamour

The Prestige

The Extremes

The Separation

The Dream Archipelago