Island (Lewis)

Tipping just under 82kg. on the discounted Aldi electronic machine, the girl was still unwilling to concede. Biggest Loser, done and dusted; there could be no quibble. Biscuits, muffins and crisps were to blame.

         It was somewhat irrelevant with the news now that the return home for a holiday was off. Yuan’s father had made the decision.

         There was too much disappointment to talk during breakfast.

         Had a return eventuated YuB’s mother and aunts would most certainly have busied themselves lining up the marriage prospects; after all the girl would shortly turn twenty-four. A shaplier figure would have been useful for the campaign.

         The two new housemates had brightened us up. Scotch-English, with the leaning to the former.

         Em had lived on Neil’s Outer Hebridean island of Lewis almost ten years. In her mid-teens her mother had suddenly announced one day to Emily and her siblings that they were off to an island in the Atlantic. A dash of wild romanticism and a number of settlement incentives had prompted the move from Milton Keynes.

         Neil was born on Lewis and apart from a term in Glasgow, had lived there all his life.

         “Black” houses, peat fuel for heating through winter (cut from their allotment of turf each year). A croft for their sheep and the Atlantic with its herring and cod pounding on the other side of the island four hour’s walk away.

         Neil’s grandfather had been a Norwegian—Norway was closer than London.

         A knock-out. Johnson and Boswell’s trip to the Western Isles of Scotland had been got down from the shelf for Neil. (Unfortunately, the two adventurers had only made it as far as Skye.)

         Em has enthusiastically claimed the island and Neil’s family history at the same time. 

         Even though she had wanted to visit Australia from girlhood—and the Ramsay Street  Neighbours place—shortly before departure Emily had wondered why she was leaving. So much did she love the island.

         The great fortune of loving one’s home shone brightly in Em. Emanated.

         Three or four generations ago the island had been owned by Lord Leverhulme (Lever & Kitchen &etc.), who built the manor house and the extensive estate. The fortune had been earned in the opium trade with the Chinese. One of the descendants subsequently bequeathed the island to the nation, manor house and all.

         Since the arrivals from the far north YuB. has encountered new struggles with the English language.

         Sitting around the big Times Atlas on the living-room floor the other night, some interpretation was needed—details on the English marauder among the rest. No hard feelings nearly 200 years later on Yuan’s side. (A local Fuzhou resistance fighter, Lin Zexu, gained fame in YuB.’s hometown by his heroics against the foreign devils and their iniquitous trade.)

         Em has told of birders up in the cliffs of the north climbing each spring for the nesting gugas, a local delicacy. The people in the settlements near the cliffs had long big toes, Emily had observed; and the toes all prehensily curved and curled. 

         Em loved to walk, loved the wind, winter and autumn. Em was curious, inquisitive, interested in the elderly and their tales. The profile of a kind of old retiree, she mocked herself.

         It would be interesting to see what Emily finds in the still, orange-tinged season ahead, the salmon and violet dawns and dusks, the leaf fall and fruits—prime time in this town.

         Neil liked the galleries here, the cafes, cinemas and the other entertainment. His girl’s enthusiasm for the harsh island on which he was born Neil countered with the dreariness and limitation that was part of the bargain.