The Island

had been cast and time would reveal the outcome, good or bad.

  Strangely enough the same considerations could be applied to my tryst with Maria but I knew that she was in control of her sexuality. Even in the worst case that she had made an error, I could live with the consequences. I knew that Molly was a different case. Her sense of recklessness meant she threw caution to the wind. I knew deep down my fears were well grounded.

  At times like this, the urge is to flee. I could easily have my things packed up and be on the next ferry out from the island. No-one knew who I was, other than a bare name. I could disappear into the mainland, never to be seen again. This course of action looked good at first glance. No great harm done. It would soon blow over for Molly. The chances are that she is not pregnant and with her unsound mind she'd quickly forget all about me. The past would shroud over everything and it would disappear from the spacetime record.

  The fact that she was unstable made me check myself from immediately taking this, admittedly, cowardly course. If she took umbrage as undoubtedly she could, she might make spurious allegations about the event. She might contrive that she was raped. She had some bruises from when she fell backwards. That could be evidence of a struggle. It would be my word against hers. The nightmare deepened. I couldn't run away. It could be evidence of guilt. I had to stay and humour her as much as possible. Then bide my time and leave with as little fuss as possible. The thought of being accused of rape made the prospect of pregnancy seem a much smaller problem. I now began to feel that leaving her, even if she were carrying my child, was a real option.

  My child? I had no children. Sorcha and I never managed to start a family. It might have saved us. I had often since felt that I was missing out on not having children. At times I felt an intense loneliness, that I was living my life alone, without the intense love that I knew I'd had for my own parents. At times I was grieving for the children I'd never had or never would have. I would die a lonely old man - unloved by anyone. I thought to myself that even now I lived in a love desert. There was no-one I could name who loved me. My parents were long dead. My siblings never really kept in touch and there was no real love there. In fact I couldn't think of a single person in the world whom I could claim to love. What a sorry person I am - a solitary unloved man in a loveless barren world! A deep wave of self pity flooded over me and I felt like crying. The tears welled in my eyes but didn't flow. My heart was too cold. I felt too remote from all feeling to let my inner sensibility as a person to come out. I was full of self loathing.

  There are points in your life when you know that you have reached a turning point. The nadir, the trough, the minimum of the function. Tumbling towards that point you fall at a deterministic rate that propels you downward along the graph, until nature and the physical laws dictate that the absolute bottom, the functional minimum is met. And it is there, that nature and the laws throw a lifeline, because it is determined that after a minimum there must be a rise - a rise from the depression. The rate is infinitesimally slow at first but soon the dynamic takes over and the rate increases pulling you away from the pit and reaching off hopefully for a bright future. But there can be a false minimum where the function appears to bottom out but merely plays with you . The rate of change goes to zero giving you the impression that the bottom has been reached but instead of starting to increase the function continues on its downward spiral but at a slower rate of descent. The pain still exists but the increase in intensity is abated. The problem with the latter function is that there is no bottom - just an ever increasing pain to infinity. It is in such situations that utter despair sets in. I knew that I was at a transition point but did not know if it was a minimum or just a rate change point of inflexion. I had to believe that the future had hope. I had to claw my way back from depression. So I made a leap of faith and convinced myself that I had reached the bottom and that slowly, ever so slowly things would improve.

  The memories kept replaying their terrible reality. Each re-run cementing the neural pathways of despair. I had to get my conscious thoughts to struggle with the unconscious rewinding of the film. The unconscious projector had to have its endless cycle interrupted. I vainly tried to push back, suppress the unsavoury, but each time I heard her taunting words. I imagined their threat. I sensed the real fear of being inescapably embroiled. I knew I had to take control and that the only way to do this was to physically confront the fear. Mental stratagems were powerless. I had to take action to bring about change and hopefully resolution. Otherwise my fears were running away with themselves and casting adrift me in a dark place, a place I yearned to avoid.

  My heart was beating wildly as I approached the cottage. There was no sign of anyone being up but I determined to continue. I was going to face the music and force the future to happen. I knocked on the door and waited. There was no sound. I knocked again, only this time harder. As the door opened my face drained. Molly just stood there in her dressing gown. There was no surprise on her face, only a barely concealed contempt. I couldn't get out any words being locked in a petrified state. What had I landed myself in? I wanted to flee but my legs refused to move. I just stood there like a child caught in the act. She just stood there and waited. She was waiting for my first move but none was forthcoming. The silence was heavy and threatening. It bore down like the heaviest burden I had ever carried. It pressed me into the ground, making me want to sink without trace. I did not know what to say. I had not planned it and nothing was forthcoming. I just knew I needed to be here to find some resolution.

  'So you're back for more.'

  Her words were not what I'd expected and I wanted to scream that that was exactly what I was not here for.

  'No,' I half stuttered.

  'Well, what do you want then?' Her tone was angry.

  'Breakfast,' I answered in confusion. 'Yes, I want breakfast.'

  The seeming excuse was lame but at least it had some saving grace.

  'Come in.' Molly ordered and opened the door fully. 'You're lucky my husband is still away or you might be staring down the barrel of a gun just then, calling at this ungodly hour.'

  Her words had the desired effect, making me shiver and chastise myself further for having undertaken this foolish precipitate folly. I sat down and tried to not look at her now loathsome body. She just stood before me and laughed maniacally. With a whip of her hand she had undone her dressing gown and was standing there naked. The sight of her white flesh in the dark room was like the worst of nightmares come true. I had to do something but as I rose, she pushed me back into my chair and stood aggressively over me.

  'You don't seem to like me any more, my little Dave,' she chided. 'Perhaps you didn't enjoy our little bit of exercise. But practice does make perfect you know.'

  I felt I was about to be raped but this was not a physical rape but a mental rape. She had power over me and was exercising it indiscriminately, almost with disdain. But she could never make me like her or lust for her. I had become immune to her physical beauty. It had been too polluted. It was now dirty, to be avoided. As she pushed herself on me, I knew I was being wronged. The physical movements were robotic and without emotion. I was a tired actor, playing a part I had not alone lost interest in but in fact loathed. The drama played out its sordid plot. There was no curtain call at the end. She lay there spent, unaware of my disgust.

  How cruel fate is. It throws up scenarios that run not just against the grain but against all that is fair or just. I was locked in a common destiny with this mad woman. I needed to extricate myself but the more I tried, the more entangled I became.

  She put back on her dressing gown and went out to the kitchen. I was tempted to get up and make a break for it but then my strategy would have been a complete fiasco. I waited silently, now and then staring out the small window to make sure no one was coming. Wild thoughts ran through my head. What if her husband came back suddenly? What if someone had seen me at her door? Lurid outcomes flashed before me and together with the immediacy of enforced physic
al contact, I felt like throwing up. The bile rose in my throat and I swallowed hard, my stomach burning.

  After what seemed like an age, she returned with a tray of breakfast. She laid it out on the table before me and then sat down.

  'Eat!' she commanded.

  I was vaguely aware that I had not had any food in a long time but my appetite would not make me open my mouth. I poured a cup of tea and stared at it.

  'You don't appreciate my cooking?' Her voice challenged me. It was only now that I noticed that she had dressed and was back in her denims. She looked more normal. Her hair had been done and she had put on some make-up. She would actually look pretty if I could exorcise the past. But the past painted her in a different, dangerous light.

  'No, it's fine,' I replied. 'I'm just not hungry at the moment. Look, I ought to be going. Your husband might come back.'

  'If he does both our gooses are cooked!' She laughed at the thought of it. 'He wouldn't take kindly to his wife being shagged by a stranger, would he? He's a suspicious man. You had better keep your distance from me for a while. Nothing goes unnoticed on this godforsaken island.'

  Her tone had softened and there was a sense of