Stranded by Sarah Goodwin

Author:Sarah Goodwin [Goodwin, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollinsPublishers
Published: 2021-07-20T17:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

The day of our departure dawned bright and clear as glass. The sky was a pure, open blue and any scrap of heat was sucked up into it as soon as it was exhaled. The snow was blinding and newly fallen. Every breath was like drowning in a frozen sea. I catalogued each sensation, knowing I would probably never experience this again.

I’d cried on the last night. Alone and thinking of the long journey back to normality, I’d let the tears fall and put my hands on the dirt floor of my tipi, as if to tell the island I would miss it. The previous day I’d found a holed stone on the beach, tumbled smooth as an egg. I wore it now around my neck, on a strand of grey wool pulled from my jumper. A keepsake from Buidseach. A reminder of who I’d been.

We were to be collected around midday at the point at which I and the rest of the women had been deposited. It was strange, remembering how we’d arrived as boys and girls. There were of course still two groups; only I was the entirety of mine.

With no clock I busied myself cleaning up my camp and packing my things, keeping an eye on the sun as it rose higher in the sky. I had considered dismantling my tipi but that hadn’t felt right. Instead, I swept out the fire hole and laid a new pile of logs and tinder. I’d read once about Alaskan trappers who left their little shelters ready for anyone who might come along, in need of warmth or food. Although it was unlikely that someone would stumble on my tipi, it felt right to leave it ready.

I took my bags to the beach we’d been set down on, all those months ago. There I lit a small fire to keep me warm and settled myself on my rolled-up bedding, waiting for the boat to come. I was once more wearing my camera. I felt by turns as if I was waiting for rescue, or a prison ship. There was little I could do to change things though. It was time to go.

The others arrived shortly after I’d made my little camp on the beach. I’d not seen or spoken to any of them since Christmas, over a week ago. Even then it had been dark enough that I’d not had a good look at them. In the clear light of day, they were a ragged bunch. I imagined I looked much the same. The men were sporting beards of varying thickness, and had oily, unwashed hair grown overly long, held back in buns or shoved into a hat. All of us had been wearing and re-wearing the same three or four sets of clothing for eleven months, washing them by hand. There were holes and frayed, faded seams all around. We were all thinner, hands calloused with burst blisters and burns, but all of them seemed happier than I’d seen them since we first arrived.

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