The Sanctuary by Andrew Hunter Murray

Author:Andrew Hunter Murray [Hunter Murray, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Random House UK

I was between one of the newcomers and Bianca that night. Pemberley had Angela Knight at his right hand and Munro at his left. I had no chance to thank him for the studio before the meal began, but he gave me a brief look and a raised eyebrow, as if acknowledging his sleight of hand.

From the lectern, he warned the assembled islanders to return tomorrow, adding that there would be an announcement made, ‘a substantial one’, about our future here. His closing refrain of ‘We’re building it’ was followed by a buzz of conversation. As he said those three words, I could have sworn he glanced at me with a flicker of delight, as if only he and I knew he might have been alluding to the studio.

I spent most of the meal talking to Bianca. In response to an enquiry about how she had spent her day, she replied vaguely that she had been doing some reading. I again received the strong impression that there was almost nothing here for her to do, and I remembered thinking the other day that her decision to spend time giving me a tour had mostly been a relief to her.

Not that she was difficult to talk to – quite the reverse. She had a powerful curiosity about my life on the mainland. How many homes there were in my building, and how many people in those homes; what my parents had done, how I had come to discover painting … on it went. She gave the impression she hardly knew how life functioned on the mainland – but as Pemberley’s child, of course, she could hardly be expected to know very much at all about normal life. Every so often I noticed Pemberley surveying us with amusement.

There was little group discussion tonight. The two islanders to my left sat enthralled, and said nothing unless spoken to directly. Knight stayed moody and silent. Only once did a single subject dominate the table, and when it came, it came in the form of a sentence spoken by Pemberley.

‘You don’t know that.’

The words were loud enough to temporarily silence all other conversation. He was addressing Bianca, who had clearly said something to displease her father. I had been speaking to one of the newcomers, and had missed the comment that riled him.

‘And even if you did know,’ he continued, ‘what gives us the right to wipe out every last fish and bird and mammal and crawling thing? What makes that the right thing to do?’

‘I simply meant it doesn’t seem likely to me that everything would be wiped out. You yourself said how resilient life is.’

‘Bianca, there is so little we know about the situation. You remember Cuvier? Angela, have I mentioned Cuvier at this table before?’

Knight nodded, surveying Bianca mildly as she did so. ‘I think you have, John.’

In that instant I saw Knight’s unforgiving side, the part of her that would earn and keep her place in Pemberley’s company no matter what it required.

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