The Islanders

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.