In the latter years of the war, there is a tale told about the northern part of the newly named Chapel Island, where it is rumoured that a selkie lives with her mate – somewhere within the land. There are tales told: that she has taken him into the sea with her and taught him to swim, which is not the usual way of things. Sometimes, on a clear night, people walking across the barrier towards the island have heard splashing and shouts of laughter. A child, wandering too far north, says that he saw two people swimming in the sea, like seals – his mother scolds him for stirring the gossip pot, then passes on the story to all of her friends.
A tradition quickly grows: it is good fortune, people say, for those who are in love to walk across the Churchill barrier early in the morning, before the sun is up or when it is still low in the sky, and the sea mist still swirls around the islands. You must travel northwards with your beloved, past the old camp and the Italian Chapel, and you must lay an offering of food on the furthest tip of the island. Then you must both walk away, holding hands, without looking back. By the next day, the food will be gone: this is a sign of the blessing on the couple in love, who have travelled on this journey together.
Afterwards, the couple must go into the little Italian Chapel and kneel. They will listen to the hush of the sea, with its secrets; they will look at the chapel walls and they’ll marvel at the beauty of it all. They will press their fingers to the metal heart in the chapel floor and they will hope.
They confess their sins; they beg forgiveness; they vow to change. They promise to be faithful and true. They think of the terrible acts that people commit, during war and peace, and they promise to hold their loved ones closer. They promise to make every breathing moment an act of worship.
Then they walk out into the sunlight and they feel the blessing of the sky and the sea all around them. And they thank whatever god they believe in for the prisoners who conjured hope from war.
September 1942Dorothy
It takes me less than an hour to reach the northern tip of the island. On every step, I feel torn between anticipation and terror. What if he isn’t here? What if he has been carried far out to sea? What if the storm has left his broken boat and shattered body lying on the jagged north rocks?
It is a place of swelling hills and serrated cliffs, with a freshwater loch nearby. There are rumours of a great snake that twists in the depths. It’s not an area that anyone visits often: when Con and I were much younger, we used to sneak up here with some of the other children – sometimes with Angus MacLeod – but then one of the boys fell down a gorge and cracked his skull. He lived, but he was never the same afterwards, and no one liked to go too far north after that; the boy’s friends said that the gorge had appeared out of nowhere, as if the ground had opened under his feet.
Slowly, the myths about the place grew, and it had been years since anyone had visited here – anyone except me and Cesare.
I walk up the path – my feet know the way, each step in my bones from the number of times I walked this path with him, my hand clasped in his.
I imagine Con alongside me, walking in easy silence, her hand in mine, or my arm around her shoulders. I have trodden the same ground as her for so long, breathed the same air, I don’t know how to continue without her.
My heart is flesh. It will not melt or crack or rust. It throbs onwards. My lungs take in air, my blood circles my body, my legs drive me forward and upwards.
Con. Con. Con.
I am not whole but I am not broken. Part of my life is lived for her.
I miss her the way a tree misses last year’s leaves.
I walk towards a mound that is surrounded by reeds and bog on one side and the cliff face on the other. Only if you know the way is it possible to pick a path over the safe patches of grass, to a rocky overhang. Even then, until you crouch by the rock, the mound looks like any other.
But behind the rock, hidden from view, is the tunnel into the mound. Thousands of years ago, people might have worshipped here, rising each morning to greet the sun and the sea that gave life. Or perhaps they buried their dead here and visited once a year, to remember the people who shaped them and made them who they were. Grief can feel like worship.
The grass has recently been crushed underfoot, and there’s the faint smell of a fire burning, or perhaps that’s just my imagination.
My hope rises.
I crawl through the tunnel on hands and knees. Con and I used to lie in the tunnel, planning what we would do when we left the islands. We talked about which countries we wanted to see. The world seemed so bright, from the close darkness of that tunnel. If I laid my head on the stones now, perhaps I would hear the echo of her laughter. Perhaps these stones hold the warm memory of her skin still. I run my fingers over the smooth rock and whisper her name, like a prayer.
Then I whisper his name, under my breath – I don’t have the courage to call out for him.
Everywhere, people believe in things they cannot see.
Please, I think. Please, please.
The main chamber is lighter than the tunnel and, for a moment, I think everything is just as we left it when
