Pig Island Read Free Page B

back.”
    The most important thing about me and my marriage was I didn’t fancy my wife any more. I’d known it for months and done nothing about it—it’s one of those things you can stick in the back of your mind and ignore if you’re clever enough. But, and this is true, I cared about her. Weird fuck I was, I did still care for her. And I cared, in some rusty old-fashioned way, about fidelity. Back in London half my friends were already blasting their way through first, second divorces: I was the sanctimonious one, believed in thick and thin, wasn’t going to end up in a frigid, three-minute-egg of a marriage. Touché, Joe Oakes, you pious arse. This’ll teach you .
    I stood slowly and went to stand in the kitchen doorway, looking at her. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I am.”
    She didn’t move for a moment. Then her shoulders slumped and she let out a sigh. “That’s OK,” she said, shaking her head and holding out the rucksack to me. “It can’t be easy, giving up.”
    “No, but I’m working on it.” I pulled on the rucksack. “Believe me.”
    She forced a smile. “I’ve put some water-bottles in, at the bottom, and some factor ten.” She smoothed down the rucksack straps across my chest and, finding an imaginary stain on my T-shirt, wet her finger and rubbed at it. A compulsive neatnik, Lex, this grooming, this shrimping, was her way of showing I was forgiven. “Now,” she said. “I know it’s your turn to cook tonight, but you’ll be exhausted, so I’ll do a pasta salad. Avocado, bacon, olives. It’ll save if you’re late.”
    “Lexie,” I said, “I told you. Didn’t I? I said I didn’t know if I’d be back tonight. I told you this. Remember? I said I could be out there a few days.”
    She bit her lip. “A few days?”
    “We talked about it. Don’t you remember? I said I’d probably have to stay over and you said you’d be all right on your own.”
    “Did I? Did I say that?”
    “Yes.”
    She shrugged. “Well, don’t worry about it. I mean I’d‘ve loved some time with my husband on our holidays, and obviously I’d rather not be in this place on my own.” She opened her hands to indicate the bungalow. She’d hated it at first sight. She’d booked it but turns out to be my fault it was so shitty. “But, don’t worry, it’s all right, I’ll be all right.”
    “Lex. I said it was work, remember?” Remember how I said it was—‘
    ‘ Please !“ She cut me off, holding up her hand in the air. ”Please don’t. Please just go. I’ll be fine.“
    “I’ll call you. If there’s a signal out on the island I’ll call you. I’ll tell you how it’s going—when I’ll be back.”
    “No,” she said. “Don’t. Really—don’t. Just… just go. Do your thing.” She drummed her fingers on the table, not looking up at me. “Go on,” she repeated, when I didn’t turn to go. “Just go.”
    I sighed and touched her shoulder, opened my mouth to say something, then thought better of it. I tightened the rucksack and left, not bending to kiss her goodbye, quietly closing the kitchen door behind me. That was how it went, these days. Outside I stopped. At the end of the bungalow’s long, rhododendron-crowded driveway the land opened into a funnel. There, basking in the glittering sea, was Pig Island.
     
     
     

Chapter 4
     
     
‘Rage against the Philistines of science. Do not allow the arrogance of the medical community to rape and subdue your natural self-healing powers. Wrest control over your life.“

The Psychogenic Healing Ministries, volume 14,
chapter 5, verse 1
     
     
    The Psychogenic Healing Ministries would say my problems with Lexie were all about my godlessness. They’d say that if I only opened my heart to the Lord, that if I’d only grow towards his cosmic love, in no time I’d find myself growing back towards Lexie. And she’d grow towards me too. I’d never been to the Positive Living Centre on Pig Island, but I knew more than I needed about