When Iona gets off the ferry, the afternoon light is already waning. She carries her bag and her Chinese vase across the evening moorland. The earth is wet and spongy and her shoes sink into the muddy ooze. Her trousers get spattered. It must have been raining yesterday. She gazes at the clouds. The landscape seems already paralysed by the autumn chill. The grass is grey-brown, the island static, suspended in a gloomy blue-grey. In the near distance she can see a few cows in front of her parents’ stone house, silhouetted against the grey sky. Then she sees the old pine tree in front of the house.
It’s a black mountain pine, producing plenty of cones each year. She used to climb this tree when she was a moody little girl. And she would sit on the branches for a long time on summer afternoons; through the foliage she could see the sea, and in the distance the small island which bears her name: the Isle of Iona. And then she would speak to herself, to the little Iona inside her: “I want to see the world, I want to know everything about the world!”
Iona’s mother has prepared a familiar family dinner. Steamed broccoli, roast potatoes and roast beef. Her father is not at home. “He went to the Beak,” her mother says lightly. The Beak is Swan’s Beak, their local pub down the valley. It has been going strong for decades, a local haunt, and her father has frequented it since long before Iona was born.
“Is Nell not coming tomorrow?” asks Iona, noticing the kitchen is dim in the minutes before the last of the twilight fades to dark.
“She’s just too exhausted with the twins … and Volodymyr can’t get time off work this week …” Her mother looks a little despondent. “I’ll miss having the boys this year.” She staggers to her feet and seems about to trip, but steadies herself.
Iona notices her mother’s hand shakes a bit when she tries to open a bottle of whisky. She feels panicky—early symptoms of Parkinson’s disease? She says nothing.
The wind penetrates the windowpanes and agitates dust on the slate floor. It is only late October but it is freezing cold, though the heating is on and the fire is lit. Iona takes off her muddy shoes and sits beside the fire, adding more wood.
“Have you been to see the doctor recently, Mum?” Iona asks.
“I went last week. He said my arthritis is stable—no worse, no better. I just need to learn to live with it … and he gave me some sleeping pills.”
“Sleeping pills? Is that all he gave you?”
“Well, you know how it is; there’s not much to be done about my legs.”
Her mother takes another sip of whisky, her hands steadier now.
“Maybe you shouldn’t drink so much,” Iona says with a frown.
“It’s good for my joints and my blood,” her mother insists, as she always has done.
As usual, they don’t wait for the old man before starting supper. The three of them will have a big birthday breakfast tomorrow anyway. The two women sit at the kitchen table thoughtfully, the silence punctuated by windy shivers and the sounds of their eating. Iona adds some salt to her plate. The broccoli is hard, zesty, but too simple for her. She begins to feel they are goats feeding on roots on a rocky clifftop.
“Hmm, I steamed the broccoli, but it is still rather firm,” her mother mumbles apologetically. More silence and more chewing follows. The beef has been carved from a plate with a bloody pool of gravy. It has a real country heartiness, but there is no garlic, no spice, something Iona craves.
Outside, the highland world is quiet but for the wind and the occasional animal cry. As she watches her mother eat, a sad tenderness colours Iona’s heart. Iona remembers flavours from her childhood—strong, pungent, full of spice—and the energetic mother of those years that this unhappy woman before her once was. When she was very young, her mother read her and her sister The Little Mermaid. She had cried when she learned that the mermaid had to cut off her exquisite tail to become a human so she could love a prince from the human world. And in the end the prince marries a human princess, leaving the little mermaid with her anguished heart and bleeding body, alone. Some years later, when Iona had her first period—the painful twist, like a screw inside her, bringing her to womanhood—she remembered the story again.
“Seeing any nice boys?” her mother asks, liberally sprinkling salt on the potatoes. They are a rich golden brown, crisp and buttery.
“Not really … I have met someone, but he’s a lot older … so, I don’t know.”
“Well, as long as he’s not your father’s age …” Her mother looks at her quizzically.
“No, not that old, Mum!” Iona feels anxious, a pause, she adds, “But I think he might be married.”
“Then you must get over him.”
“It’s not like taking an aspirin, you know.” Iona doesn’t even know what she feels for Jonathan exactly, but she won’t be told how to behave.
“Tell me, Iona, what is it?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I’m talking about. What is it you’re after?”
“I don’t know …” Iona tries to think of a word. “I feel like I’m looking for something—a certain aliveness.”
“Aliveness,” her mother murmurs, then sighs. It is not the first time the older woman has heard this curious term on her daughter’s lips. “That might have meant something to me once. At the moment, I’m just happy enough getting from one day to the next.”
“Oh, things aren’t that bad, are they?”
One, two, three, four, five, Iona counts, as she eats each potato. The rain is starting outside, carried by the sea wind. Her father is still not back from the pub. Iona remembers that when she was here having dinner with her mother last time, she also had a plate of crispy roast potatoes. Next day, right after her morning porridge, she took the first morning ferry and got the train back to London.
“Mum …” Iona wipes her mouth and suddenly has a totally spontaneous idea—something grows from her guilt with this old farm and this old family. “You know what? Let me take you and Dad on holiday.”
“What?” Her mother’s eyes are wide open; she turns her head aside, thinking she might be mishearing words. “What? A holiday?”
“Yes, a holiday, Mum, you deserve a holiday, I want to arrange that for you and Dad …”
Her mother hasn’t left the island for a long time. “Really? Well, I don’t know, darling.”
“You could go somewhere warm and sunny.” Iona thinks, and improvises suggestions. “Crete, Mallorca, Cyprus … We can ask Dad when he comes back.”
Her mother smiles gently, as if listening to a radio programme she likes. It seems she doesn’t really mind whether it happens or not; just imagining being on holiday with her daughter is in itself a wonderful gift on her sixtieth birthday.