Allow yourself to get comfortable.
However you're lying.
However you have arranged yourself for the night.
And let the day you've had begin to settle out of you,
Slowly.
The way fine sand settles down through still water.
Without any effort at all.
And without you having to do a thing about it.
There is nothing to do now.
Nowhere you need to be.
Nothing that is to be decided tonight,
Or thought about,
Or carried any further.
If your eyes are still open,
You can let them close.
And if you drift off somewhere in the middle of this story.
.
.
Never hear how it ends.
And that is exactly as it should be.
Nothing is going to happen that you need to be awake for.
This is a story about a place where almost nothing happens at all.
And where nothing has ever happened quickly.
So let's take one slow breath in.
Let it go.
Long and easy.
One more,
Breathing in softly.
And letting it out,
Slower still.
And now.
Let's go a long way out to sea.
Far out in a warm ocean.
Further out than you and I care to roam.
Further out than the shipping lanes.
Out where the water is deep and dark.
Blue.
And very clean.
There is a small green island.
Is not much of an island.
You could walk from one end of it to the other.
In the better part of an hour.
If you took the coast path and didn't hurry.
And nobody here hurries.
At one end there is a high headland with a little bronze bell under a roof of grey driftwood.
The other,
The land slopes down and away into a shallow bay.
Where a handful of small boats lie pulled above the waterline.
With their bellies to the sky.
Between their terraces and low white houses.
And footpaths worn smooth and pale by two hundred years of bare feet.
There are perhaps a hundred people living there.
There are goats.
There is a great deal of sky.
The island is alive.
It is not a wrong.
And I never was.
It is a creature.
Very old ones.
And a very large one.
By any means measure you care to use.
A very slow one.
The green is the moss and the grass and the good deep soil that has gathered on its back over a length of time that nobody can really hold in their head.
The white houses are built on it.
The paths are worn into it.
And the people who live there have known this for as long as there have been people there.
They find it no more remarkable than you find the ground outside your own window.
It is swimming.
It has always been swimming.
It swims at the pace of a person,
Strolling along a shoreline with their hands behind their back.
Thinking about nothing much.
And it does not vary.
And it does not stop.
Crosses one wide ocean in the course of a human lifetime.
A child born on the island will grow old on it.
Somewhere out in the middle of the same warm sea.
Having travelled in all those years about the distance a fast ship would cover in a fortnight.
Nobody steers it.
Nobody knows where it is going.
And nobody is ever needed to know.
This is the important part.
Nobody minds.
It was going there long before there was a village on its back.
And it will go on going there long after tonight.
And the not knowing is simply one of the comfortable facts of life out there.
Like the salt in the air.
Or the warmth of the ground.
Because the ground is warm.
That is the first thing anyone notices.
The shell of his back.
That's what they call it,
The shell.
Though it is smoother than shell and paler,
Something between old ivory and weathered stone.
Holds warmth the way a hearthstone holds it.
All day it takes in the sun.
All night gives it slowly back.
And underneath that from somewhere far down inside.
There is a deeper warmth still.
Its own.
Which never fades at all.
So the paths are warm underfoot at midnight.
The walls of the houses are warm to the palm of your hand.
If you sit yourself down on a bare batch of it.
Anywhere on the island.
Go quiet.
Can feel coming up faintly through the warm,
Pale stone.
One slow beat.
And then,
After a long while.
.
.
And number.
But that comes later.
For now,
It is evening.
The sun is going down into the sea.
And around.
Is about to begin.
The light out here at the end of the day is long and cold and gentle.
It comes in low across the water.
So that the whole surface of the ocean is beaten copper all the way to the horizon.
Moving slowly.
And every blade of grass on the headland is lit from the side.
Throwing a shadow twice its own length.
The air has begun to cool,
Just slightly.
The heat is going out of the day.
But not out of the ground.
And that is a particular pleasure of this place.
Cool air.
Warm stone,
And the smell of dry grass and salt.
And very faintly.
Somebody's supper starting somewhere down in the village.
On the high headland at the top of the island.
A low white house sits behind a wall of piled stones with sea thrift.
Growing out of the gaps in it.
And the door of it opens.
And an old woman comes out into the evening.
Her name is Mara.
But you don't need to hold on to that.
She keeps the bow.
She keeps the water.
And in a village of a hundred people,
Almost everybody keeps two or three things.
She is not in any hurry.
Because she has done this every evening for a very long time and her body knows the whole of it without being asked.
She pulls the door to behind her.
Doesn't latch.
Never has.
And there's no reason it should.
She looks out at the water for a moment.
And she walks the few steps up the slope to the bell.
It hangs from a crossbeam of grey driftwood.
Under a small,
Hitched roof.
To keep the rain off.
And it is about the size of a bucket.
And green gold with age.
The rope is soft and pale from long handling.
She stands beneath it.
And she watches the last of the sun.
It goes down slowly.
It always goes down more slowly than you expect out here.
Where there is nothing at all in the way.
Whole red weight of it settling into the line of the sea.
And flattening there.
And sinking.
Unhurried.
Until only a thin,
Bright edge.
Is left.
Then.
That too is gone.
As she pulls the rope once.
And the bell rings out over the island.
One long bronze note,
Warm and low.
Rolling away down the slope.
And over the white houses.
And out across the darkening water.
Taking a long,
Long time to fade.
Thinning and softening as it goes.
Until you can't quite say whether you're hearing it or only remembering it.
Nobody stops what they're doing.
That isn't what it's for.
It is not a summons,
And it never has been.
It is only there so that the day has an edge to it.
So that everyone,
Wherever they are,
Can hear the same soft note at the same moment and know without thinking about it.
That the working part of the day is over now.
And the quiet part has begun.
Far below in the terraces,
A woman straightens up with her hand in the small of her back.
And looks up at the headland.
Down in the bay,
Someone lifts an oar out of a boat.
And rests it on his shoulder.
In a doorway,
A man goes on braiding rope without pausing.
And hums.
And the note fades out over the sea.
And the island goes on.
Nobody.
Has to do anything about it.
Mara lets the rope go still.
She starts down the path.
The path from the headland runs down through the growing terraces.
Growing terraces.
Of the loveliest part of the island,
In the last of the line.
They lie in the wide,
Shallow hollows of the shell.
Where over generations the soil has been carried up.
Basketful by Basketful.
And works and fails.
Until it went dark.
And so.
.
.
And sweet.
There are five of them.
One below the other.
Each one held by a low wall of stacked stones.
So that from below.
.
.
The whole hillside looks like a set of broad,
Green steps.
Going up.
Into the sky.
Beans climb the frames on the top terrace.
Squash,
Sprawl,
Fat and dusty across the second.
Below them there are onions and the low grey-green herbs that grow well in salt air.
And a whole terrace of nothing but potatoes.
Which are dull to look at.
And very much love.
The gardeners are finishing up.
There are three of them this evening.
Moving between the rows.
And they work the way people work.
When the work is nearly done.
And there is no one waiting on it.
One is unrolling long woven mats over a bed of seedlings.
Keep the cool night off them.
Awaiting the corners with smooth stones from the wall.
Another is going along the row with a wide watering can.
Tilting it slowly.
So the water goes in at the roots.
And doesn't splash.
And the sound of it.
Is one of the good sounds of the evening.
Soft,
Steady pattern.
Into dry soil.
And then the smell that comes up afterwards.
Dark and cool and mineral.
Mixed in with the soul.
The third is simply pinching out side chutes as she passes.
One after another.
Dropping them into the pocket of her apron.
In no particular order.
And no particular rush.
Mara comes down through them and stops for a while at the wall of the second terrace.
And leans on it.
And they talk about nothing much.
Around the beans.
About whether the wind will come round in the night.
Out somebody's shoulder.
Which is better.
The conversation has long pauses in it.
And nobody feels the need to fill them.
As they will all see each other tomorrow.
And the day after.
There is no shortage of time here for anything.
Then she goes on down,
And behind her,
The watering can tilts and patters and empties.
And the mats go down over the ceilings.
And the terraces settle into the dust.
Below the gardens,
The path bends around the shoulder of the hill.
And the great riches begin.
These are the long,
Low ribs of the shell.
Running away down the flank of the island.
Like the folds in a heavy blanket.
And every one of them is a channel.
When the rain comes,
And out here it comes warm and heavy and straight down,
And it is over in an hour.
The water runs off the whole green back of the island.
And gathers into these channels.
And the channels take it down.
And down.
And into the systems.
There are three systems.
Rad-D.
Still,
Dark walls sunk into the hollows of the stone.
Roofed over with timber and turf.
Keep the sun out.
And the water in them is cold and clear and perfectly sweet.
And it is the second of Mara's two responsibilities.
She goes to each in turn.
And there is not much of it.
At the first,
She lifts the wooden hatch and props it.
And looks down into the dark water.
Where the last of the daylight makes a small,
Pale square far below.
Wobbling gently.
She lowers a marked stick on a string until it touches.
And lifts it.
And read the wet line on it in the dimness.
And it is where it should be.
She lets the hatch down again,
Softly.
At the second,
She opens a small sluice,
A quarter turn.
So that the water can move a little in the night.
Rather than standing.
Because standing water goes flat.
Moving water stays sweet.
The gate is all dark timber.
Smoothed by a hundred years of hands.
And the mechanism.
Is a wooden screw the size of a forearm.
It turns with a low,
Satisfied,
Creaking sigh.
And then there is the sound of water finding its way.
A small,
Clear trickle in the dark.
Starting up.
And going on.
At the third,
She does nothing at all.
Because it doesn't need anything.
She only stands beside it for a moment in the last of the light.
Listening to the trickle.
From the One Above.
Coming down the channel.
And to the wind moving over the grass.
And underneath both.
A sound that is always there on the island.
If you go looking for it.
Far,
Far below the stone she is standing on,
The water is moving.
A great deal of water.
Sliding steadily along the flanks of something very large.
That is going forward through it.
At the pace of a slow walk.
And has been all day.
And will be your name.
It is not a rushing sound.
There is nothing sharp in it at all.
It is the lowest,
Softest,
Most continuous sound you have ever heard.
And it comes through the shell into the soles of your feet.
As much as into your ears.
And underneath even there.
Coming up warm through the pale stone,
One slow beat.
And after a while another.
Mara puts her hand flat on the warm ridge of the shell for a moment.
The way he might put your hand on the flank of an old horse in passing.
And then she goes on down toward the village.
Where the lamps are beginning to be lit.
The village lies in the long,
Shallow curve of the island's back.
Out of the wind.
And it is a small place.
And the low one.
The houses are round,
Shouldered and whitewashed.
With roofs of grey driftwood shingle.
And they are built close together with narrow lanes between them.
So that the whole village feels like one thing.
Rather than a hundred things.
There are no straight streets.
The lanes wander and open into little squares for no reason.
And close again.
Every wall is warm.
The lamps here burn a clear oil,
Pressed from the seeds of a low,
Bushy plant.
That grows on the western terraces.
Burns yellow and soft.
And smells faintly of nuts.
And Asmara comes down into the first of the lanes.
The windows are coming alight one after another.
Small warm squares of gold appearing in the whitewash on the other side of her.
There is a smell of supper all through the village.
Fish and onions.
And something.
With a lot of pepper in it.
But it's somebody's grandmother's recipe.
And it's far too strong for anybody else's taste.
And gets made anyway.
She passes an open doorway.
Where two people are sitting on stools with a folded net across their knees.
Working the last of a repair by lamplight.
One holding the mesh open.
The other passing the needle through.
Over.
And under.
Without looking.
Their hands do it.
Their eyes are somewhere out in the lane.
They nod to her as she goes by.
Go on.
Over and under.
And over.
And under.
She passes a workshop where a man is sweeping shavings into a corner with a soft broom,
And the whole small room smells of cut wood.
And there is a half-finished oar.
Leaning against the bench.
With a shape already in it.
And only the smoothing left to do.
Which is tomorrow's work.
And will be a pleasure.
She passes a doorway.
Where somebody is playing an instrument.
Three notes.
Low.
Plucked slowly on gut strings.
Over and over in the same order.
Not quite a tune.
And clearly not meant to be.
Three notes.
But down.
Her down again.
The way you might turn something small and smooth over and over in your fingers while you think.
She passes a house.
Where an upstairs shutter stands open.
And a low voice is talking on and on inside.
Gently.
Not saying anything you could make out.
And then a small light behind the shutter dims to nothing.
And the voice stops.
There is a soft creak of somebody standing up carefully from the edge of a bed.
And then quiet.
To the end of the lane.
A fat,
Brindled cat is lying full length along the top of a warm wall.
Exactly as boneless as cats get when the stone underneath them is the perfect temperature.
It opens one eye as Mara passes.
It closes it again.
Does not shift as much as a paw.
And the village goes on settling.
By Lamb.
Shatter by Shatter.
Voice.
By voice.
Out at the eastern point.
Where the land runs out into a low,
Flat shelf of bare,
Warm shell.
There is an old man sitting on a folding stool.
The slate.
Across his knees.
Is their most clear evenings.
And everyone knows it.
Nobody quite knows why he keeps it up.
Including him,
Most likely.
What he does is this.
He waits for the first stars.
When they come,
He mocks them.
Their positions above the horizon.
Measured out in hands and fingers.
Held at arm's length.
The way sailors have always done it.
And chalked onto the slate in his small square hands.
Once a month,
He copies the slate into a book.
And there are 30-odd of those books in a chest in his house.
His father kept them for him.
It isn't navigation.
Nobody is navigating anything here.
It is only that if you keep a record like that for long enough.
You can watch the whole sky lean very slowly.
As the island carries you south and west across the ocean.
And he can tell you.
And will.
If you sit down beside him.
The low,
Bright star he is looking at now.
Stood two hands widths higher.
When he was a boy on this same flat rock.
Watching his father.
Chalk the same slate.
Two hands.
In a whole line.
That is how far they've come.
And it is the only measure of it anyone has ever needed.
Mara sits down beside him on the warm shell.
And he pours a tea out of a battered pot he keeps beside the stall.
Into a cup.
With a chip out of the rim.
And it is far too strong and slightly stewed.
And she drinks it anyway.
Neither of them says anything for a long while.
The first stars come out over the water.
And more.
Than more than you could ever chalk onto a slate.
And out beyond the point.
The sea is gone from copper to grey.
To a deep,
Soft black.
Moving.
And the sky has gone the same.
And the line between them.
Has quietly stopped existing.
The path down from the eastern point runs along the top of the shell cliffs.
And then turns.
And drops.
In long easy zigzags to the bay.
But the bay is not really a bay.
As a wide,
Shallow notch in the flank of the island.
Worn Smooth.
And it makes a beach of pale grit and broken shell where a boat can be pulled up without trouble.
There are seven votes.
They are small and open,
And painted in colors that have all faded to about the same soft blue-gray.
And six of them are already up above the tide line.
With their hulls turned over.
7.
Is just coming in.
You can hear it before you see it.
Creak of the oars turning in their foal pins.
A small regular splash and pull.
On the hurry.
Coming in out of the dark.
And the shape of it.
And two figures stepping out into the shindy water.
And the scrape of the keel and grit.
And the low grunt as they lean into it.
And walk it up to the beach.
Turn it over.
And stand there for a moment with their hands on the warm,
Wet wood.
Saying nothing much.
They take up two shallow baskets.
And start up the path.
And their voices carry back down.
Quiet and unhurried.
Gradually further away.
Then the bay is empty.
And here down at the waterline.
Right at the edge of the great,
Warm creature's flank.
The sound of the water is at its loudest.
Which is still not loud at all.
It is a long,
Low,
Continuous,
Sidling hush.
Like a soft wind.
Through a stand of pines.
A valley away.
And it never breaks.
Never rises.
Never falls.
It is simply the sound of going forward,
Gently.
And it has been the same sound since before anyone here was born.
And if you walk to the very end of the beach and look back at the way the island has come.
There is a road.
That's what they call it.
On a dark night with no moon you can see it clearly.
A long,
Pale,
Glimmering track laying on the black water.
Stretching way behind.
Where the passage of something very large has stirred the sea.
Into a soft,
Cold light.
It is wide.
And slightly wandering.
And it fades as it goes.
So that you lose it long before the horizon.
It is beautiful.
And it is nothing much.
Phosphor in the water.
Same as you get behind any ship.
But it is the only sign anywhere that the island is moving at all.
And what you can see of it from here.
Glimmering away into the dark.
Is about a week's worth of traveling.
Laid out on the water.
And a pale line.
Going quiet.
On the way back up.
The path passes the warm terrace.
This is a broad,
Flat apron of bare shell on the shattered side of the village.
For no reasons nobody has ever explained.
The warmth comes up stronger than anywhere else on the island.
Even at midnight.
It is like the floor of a bakehouse an hour after the bread has come out.
You can lie on it in your shirt sleeves in the coolest part of the night.
And be perfectly comfortable.
So in the evenings.
The old people sit there.
They bring cushions and blankets.
They mostly don't use.
And they sit in a loose ring on the warm ground.
With their backs against the low wall.
And they talk.
On and off.
About very little.
Somebody's roof.
The beams.
A boat that was sold 20 years ago to a man who has since become an anecdote.
The talk goes around slowly and stops for long stretches.
And starts again somewhere else entirely.
Nobody minds where it goes.
Mara lowers herself down among them.
And sits for a while with her palms flat on the warm stone on either side of her.
Above them,
The whole sky is out now.
Full dense of it.
Thick and pale down the middle.
More stars than dark.
The way the sky only ever is a long way from anywhere.
And it turns very slowly all evening.
And leans a little further west each year.
Two hands in a lifetime.
Below them the village has almost gone quiet.
One lamp still burning in the lane.
Then.
In a little while,
Not even that.
And under all of them.
Through the cushions and the blankets and the warm pale stone.
One slow beat.
And then,
After a good long while.
.
.
Another.
At the end of it.
Mara walks back up the hill to the headland.
She does not go inside.
She goes a little past her house.
To the bare shoulder of the shell above it.
Where the grass gives out.
And the stone is open in the sky.
She spreads out the blanket she has carried under her arm all evening.
And did not use.
She lies down on it.
On her back.
With her hands resting on her middle.
Plenty of people here sleep out on the warm ground half the year.
It is that kind of place.
In the sky.
Is enormous.
The island goes on.
Quietly.
The pace of a slow walk.
Out into the dark.
Exactly as it has all day.
And all the day before.
And all the years before that.
And now,
Lying flat on the warm shell with the whole weight of you resting on it.
Nothing to hold up.
Nothing to hold on to.
Now the beat.
Is unmistakable.
Comes up through the stone onto your back.
And into your shoulders.
And into the palms of your hands.
It is not Lau.
It is barely a sound at all.
Is more like a very slow,
Very deep pressure.
Arriving softly.
From a long way down.
And a long,
Easy,
Unhurried while.
And another.
Slower than yours.
Far slower.
Older and larger.
And completely without any kind of hurry.
Because there has never once been anything on this ocean that it needed to hurry for.
And you don't have to do anything with it.
But if you like.
You can let your own breathing drift toward it.
Not force it.
Just let it lean that way.
Breathing out a little longer than you breathed in.
Letting the out-breath go all the way to the end.
And waiting.
Without any effort.
For the next one.
To arrive on its own.
And down.
Long and soft.
And the beat.
Coming out warm through the stone.
And in.
And out.
And the bee.
And below the village is dark now.
Every lamp out.
Every shutter closed.
The cat asleep on its warm wall.
The boats turned over on the beach.
Mats down over the ceilings.
The water moving softly in the cisterns.
The bell hanging still.
And behind on the black water.
The pale road glimmers away.
Into the dark.
A week of gentle traveling going quiet.
And their head.
Wherever it is going.
Which nobody knows.
Nobody minds.
There is nothing but open sea and warm air.
A great deal of sky.
Nothing is coming.
Nothing is due.
There is nothing out here at all that anyone needs to be awake for.
So you can let go of it now.
All of it.
The island and the stars.
And the sound of the water.
And the last thin thread.
This voice.
Let it go all soft and dim and far away.
And just let yourself be carried.
Slowly.
The way the islanders carry.
Somewhere warm.
And dark.
Indeed.
In no hurry at all.
