Shining Sea by Anne Korkeakivi

Author:Anne Korkeakivi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2016-08-09T04:00:00+00:00

The sun is still high when he heads back toward the abbey, but a hazy pink film hugs the dark blue edge of the horizon. In June, the sun sets late up here. He passes the four pale green eider eggs, still unguarded. Perhaps a gull caught their mother.

Back in his makeshift bedroom, he lies down and closes his eyes, drawing in the day’s tender, salty scent of sea, the flinty embrace of the June sun, the hours of solitude. He falls in and out of sleep, but as peace grows within him so does a hollow feeling. He has no oatcakes left and no food in his room, and he’s told the Community he won’t be eating with them tonight. Neither of the women he’s befriended on the island has invited him around this evening.

On Iona, that doesn’t leave many options. There’s the Argyll and then there’s…the Argyll.

Fuck it.

He draws himself up from his cot and pulls his jacket on.

The air is silvery with the sound of singing from within the abbey. A lone cow lopes its way down craggy Cnoc Mor, the hill behind the tiny island school. He makes his way down and around the short row of waterfront houses. Inside the Argyll, Rufus and the two others are installed around a wooden table.

“Hello!” Rufus says, waving to him. “Sit down! I’ve already ordered for everyone.”

He slips into a chair at the table, checking to see who else is in the tranquil dining room, evening sun streaking its windows. No one tonight. A plate of mutton pie appears before him.

“What’s your name?” The girl in Rufus’s group has a slight accent he can’t place. She’s dark-haired, sleek, and good-looking in an unfrivolous way. “I am Ghislaine.”

She doesn’t offer her hand. He likes her matter-of-fact manner. “Francis.”

“Ah, Francis! And this,” Rufus says, introducing the thick-necked, flat-headed boy who completes their trio, “is Eamon. Eamon from Belfast.”

Eamon nods at him.

“So, Francis,” Rufus says, “you are wondering what we are doing on Iona.”

“No, not really,” he says, cutting into his pie. “Lots of people come to Iona.”

“Last December,” Rufus says, “right after the Harrods bombings, I woke up, made a cup of coffee, and thought: this is madness. We need to reach out across the water.”

Rufus stops and looks at him expectantly.

He swallows a forkful of warm, savory pie. It’s good—better than good. Surely worth having to sit through this.

“Across the water! We’re going on a mission of conciliation,” Rufus says, “one that we hope will be heard by both Protestants and Catholics, by both Ireland and the UK—by the world, even. Next weekend is the anniversary celebration of Columba’s arrival in Scotland. We’re going to undertake his two-hundred-kilometer journey in reverse, from Iona to Northern Ireland. The twist is that half of our crew will be Catholic and the other half Protestant. You see the symbolism, I’m sure. We’re pulling together. I’ve had an old currach shipped, refitted, and kitted out here on Iona, and we’ve been training in another one off the coast of Devon.

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