After that the story became still more cruel and still more sad. The girl followed him across the Atlantic a month or so later, but discovered that he had already gone from that place. He had taken work as a seaman on a ship sailing to the other side of the world. So she was told, and she was more lost and lonely than ever.
For the next fifty years, that was his life: making salt circles around the world, with no home anywhere. True, he studied, became a ship’s officer, and finally a captain. But the empty years became too long, too heavy. There is a time, when white hairs come, to turn your back on your life’s work. That is what the seaman did, and he came home to his island, hoping that fifty winters would be enough to bury the past in forgetfulness.
And so it was, or seemed to be. One or two people half-remembered him. The name of a woman who had been young fifty years before was not spoken, neither by him nor by other people. Her patents’ croft was hone, was now just a pile of stones on the side of the hill. He climbed up to it one day and looked at it coldly. No sweet ghost stood waiting at the end of the house, waiting for the evening call – ‘Sigrid …’
I collected my pension, and a basket full of food, in the village shop. Tina Stewart the postmistress knew everybody and everything; the complete family history of everybody in the island. I tried different ways of getting information from her. What was new or strange in the island? Had anyone been taken suddenly ill? Had anybody – a young woman, for example – had to leave the island suddenly, for whatever reason?
The sharp eyes of Miss Stewart stared at me long and hard. No, said she, she had never known the island quieter. Nobody had come or gone.
‘Only yourself, Captain Torvald, you have been ill in bed, I hear. You should take good care of yourself, you all alone up there. There’s still a greyness in your face …’
I said I was sorry to take up her time. Somebody had spoken a name to me – Andrina. It was not important, but could Miss Stewart tell me which farm or croft this Andrina came from?
Tina Stewart looked at me a long while, then shook her head. There was nobody of that name – woman or girl of child – in the island; and there never had been, she was sure of it.
I paid for my shopping, with shaking fingers, and left.
I felt the need of a drink. In the pub Isaac Irving stood behind the bar. There were two fishermen at the far end, next to the fire, drinking their beer.
I said, after the third whisky, ‘Look, Isaac, I suppose everyone in the island knows that Andrina – that girl – has been coming all winter up to my place, to do a bit of cleaning and washing and cooking for me. She hasn’t been for a week now and more. Do you know if there’s anything the matter with her?’ (I was afraid that Andrina had suddenly fallen in love, and that love now filled her life, leaving no time for small kindnesses.)