Author’s note: To get the most out of this story, I recommend you first read the previous blog about the place. Thanks!
Diane sat on a wall bordering the family’s small vegetable plot, set on Tristan’s largest plain and wedged between towering cliffs and the ocean. The day was chilly and windy. Clouds had massed across the sky, but at least they released no rain. She wrapped her threadbare jacket tighter across her chest.
Half the family plot was devoted to potatoes, the other half to seasonal vegetables. Diane had just finished pulling up a basket-full of carrots — perhaps for the last time — and was resting before the walk back to The Settlement. She felt small in the face of such dramatic natural beauty, alone in the stillness of the moment.
Getting up, she crossed the mosaic of plots and headed for The Settlement. A figure approached her — Mrs. Green, hoe and bucket in hand, on her way to the Potato Patches. Oh dear.
“Morning,” she said as the woman passed. The woman looked the other way and didn’t respond.
Craig Green was her boyfriend – or had been until she told him she was leaving the island for a while. “You can’t do that,” he’d objected. “We’re going to get married.” Craig was a good person, but set in his ways, taciturn and resigned to the monotonous existence on a tiny island with fewer than 250 people and thousands of miles from any others. Well, she wasn’t.
When she announced her plan to spend a year in England, her family had reacted in predictable ways.
Her father had shouted. “You’re only twenty years old! I’m not letting you go alone to a country full of murderers and rapists. And what about Craig? His father and I have been planning your wedding for years. Not one pound of money will you get from me for this idiotic scheme!”
Diane knew the stories – the Glass boy who went to London and died in an attempted robbery; the Swain girl who came back after a year and was never again quite right in the head. But still, England beckoned, luring her with its unimaginable wealth of . . . of life.
Her mother had wept. “Why England? It’s half a world away. If you must go, why not just a month in Cape Town?” She glanced at her husband. “We could help pay for that.”
Her mother’s pleas made sense. There was no airport on Tristan da Cunha. To reach Cape Town, South Africa meant a six-day’s journey by ship. That alone would certainly be an adventure. To go on to England, she’d have to take a plane flight that lasted twelve hours. She’d never been on a plane. The journey was long, complicated, and expensive. She’d saved some money from babysitting and tutoring, but not nearly enough. If it weren’t for . . . no, she would keep the secret a secret, even in her own head.
Her younger brother had exulted. “Oh boy! Does that mean I get your room?”
Once in The Settlement, Diane turned down a road that led, not to her house, but to that of her grandmother. It was a small white-washed structure of volcanic tuff, wood trim, and a metal roof. Grandmother Repetto lived alone since the death of her husband ten years earlier. She seemed an aloof old woman, but she always welcomed Diane.
When Grandmother Repetto was Diane’s age, in 1961, a volcanic eruption on Tristan caused earthquakes and landslides and forced residents to flee the island by ship, first to Cape Town, then on to England. Two years later, most residents wanted to return to their tiny remote island in the middle of the vast South Atlantic. Her grandmother did not. Enthralled by shops and theaters, cafes and parks, and people of all descriptions, she’d begged her husband to stay in England. He refused. The rest of her life she told stories of her time in England to anyone who would listen. In recent years, the only listener was Diane.
When Diane entered the house, Grandmother Repetto hugged her, then stepped back and handed her a large purse bulging with pounds sterling. “Remember, dear,” she said, placing a finger against her spidery lips, “it’s our secret.”
With a nod, Diane held the purse and smiled, but her knees trembled.
