The Sailor problem

I was woken early one morning by a hammering on my back door. I quickly dressed and rushed downstairs to find Alun in an agitated mood.

 

“What on earth is it?” I asked, “It’s barely six o’clock, the boatman hasn’t even been yet, why are you waking me at this ungodly hour?”

 

“I’m pining for my love Jed,” he said.

 

“Are you sure?” I said. It seemed unlikely. “When I saw you last night you were as single as I am, and I’m the only other inhabitant of the island.”

 

“I woke early Jed, I couldn’t get back to sleep so I went for a walk, and I saw a boat docked in Boatdock Bay.

 

“A boat, docked here?” It seemed highly unlikely. Mainland ships tend to steer clear of us, only the boatman ever visits.

 

“There was a sailor walking around the bay, so I asked her what she was doing.”

“And what was she doing?”

“She was lost Jed. She’d been looking for Slightly More Interesting Island, but had got docked here by mistake.”

 

“So what did you do, did you give her directions?”

 

“No Jed. I showed her round the island, I told her that Happy Island was just as interesting as any other island on the archipelago.”

 

“That was a lie!” I said, shocked. I would never claim that Happy Island was anything like as interesting as Slightly More Interesting Island. Even Dull and Unimaginative Island has considerably more attractions that we do.

 

“I know Jed, but I was already infatuated with her. She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. She has blonde hair, blue eyes and a figure like a movie actress.”

 

“So what sights did you show her?”

“I took her to Refrigerator Bay, to watch the sun rise above the abandoned fridges.”

 

It is undoubtedly a beautiful sight, the first fiery rays of dawn glinting off the rusting metal of over two hundred abandoned fridges.

 

“And what then?”

 

“I showed her Elephant Mountain, where the miniature elephants roam wild. We took them some lettuces.”

 

“Gosh, is it lettuce season already? I lose track.”

 

“She giggled at the sight of the elephants munching away on early-season lettuce and in that moment we kissed.”

 

“Good lord, that was forward. What happened next?”

 

“We went back to my place Jed. Well, there’s nothing much else to do here, and then we kissed again, and, well one thing led to another and now we’re engaged.”

 

“Engaged?”

 

“Well, the relationship had reached that stage Jed. At first we were friends, then we become lovers, then, just through spending time together, the relationship became serious, much more than just an affair.”

 

“You managed to meet someone, become lovers and then develop the relationship to a more serious level before six in the morning?”

 

“I always say that if you lay in bed you waste the day, Jed.”

 

“And I always say that if you get no sleep at all you’re prone to making rash decisions. Does she even have a name, your fiancé?”

 

“She’s called Jess, Jed.”

 

“Jess?”

 

“Yes, Jed, Jess.”

 

“And when are you seeing her next?”

“That’s just it Jed, I don’t know. She’s at the whim of her commanders, and the ocean.”

 

“Honestly Alun, how could you fall for a sailor like that? You know she probably has an Alun on every little island she’s visited.”

 

“It’s not like that Jed. This is true love. I know she’ll come back, it’s just that she didn’t say when.”

 

The next few days were dominated by Alun’s constant pining for his lost love. Alun would wake me early, having been out at all hours looking for her boat, and he would interrupt me constantly during the day.

 

“My heart feels numb, Jed,” he said to me one day. “I fear that Jess may never return and that I’ll never encounter love again.”

 

“Nonsense, I said. You’re bound to meet someone else. There are plenty more fish in the sea.”

 

“No there aren’t, Jed. Not a single woman lives here, there aren’t any eligible women in the entire archipelago and Jess is the only woman to have visited us in years. If I wanted to get married the choices would be to you, one of your geep or a miniature elephant.” The marital laws on Happy Island are slightly more flexible than mainland laws, which is how we’ve managed to remain inhabited for so long.

 

My sleep suffered as a result of Alun’s constant moaning and visits at unusual hours. Unable to sleep I went for a late night/early morning walk along the beach. One of the joys of living on an island such as ours is that you have the sea to yourself whenever you want it.

 

However, I was most surprised to see a boat docked in Boatdock bay. Ships and boats usually pass our island by, was this the famous Jess, returned from wherever it was the winds had taken her? I rushed down to take a closer look, and there indeed was a young sailor girl, just as beautiful as Alun had described, though her hair was raven in colour and her eyes hazel.   

 

“Hello,” she said, “is this Slightly More Interesting Island?”

 

“No,” I said, “I’m afraid not, this is Happy Island.”

 

“Oh, right. Only I’ve a few hours left before I have to set sail again and I was hoping to have some fun.”

 

“There’s no fun here, I’m afraid, Just me, my pet geep and my friend Alun, who’s asleep.”

 

“Geep,” she said, “what are they?”

 

“They’re sheep/goat hybrids. They’re unique to our island.” This is of course not entirely true, but I was trying to make Happy Island sound more interesting than it really is.

 

“Can I come and see them?”

 

“Of course,” I said. “I’m Jed, by the way,”

“I’m Elaine.”

 

I showed Elaine my geep, then we visited the miniature elephants on Elephant Mountain, stealing lettuces from Alun’s garden to feed them with, then we watched the sun rise above Refrigerator Bay.

 

“What do you do for a living?” she asked. “There can’t be much work here.”

 

“I write New York crime thrillers,” I said.

 

“New York? I thought writers were supposed to write about what they knew.”

 

“Well I can hardly write about two people living alone on an isolated island. Nobody would read that.”

 

Elaine nodded agreement and we sat in silence, watching the fiery rays of sun glinting off rusting metal of the fridges, as the sea breathed in and out around us.

 

“I love the sea,” Elaine said. “It’s why I became a sailor. I could spend days just watching the ocean, though my favourite thing in the wide world is the sound of whalesong.”

 

“Whalesong, that’s nothing,” I said, “you should hear the sound of whalesong accompanied by banjolele, it’s the most beautiful music in the world.”

 

“Really?” she said. “I never knew.”

 

“I’ll fetch my banjolele and show you. The whales round here love singing along.”

 

It’s amazing, although whales are mammals and therefore relatively close relatives in our evolutionary family, they’re completely different to us in that their singing is actually improved by banjolele accompaniment.

 

I quickly fetched my banjolele from the house and started playing. As predicted there were several whales hanging around the bay on the off chance and they immediately started to sing along.

“That is so beautiful,” she said.

 

“You’re beautiful too,” I said, and we kissed. 

 

“It’s so romantic, just sitting here, listening to you strumming your banjolele and the whales singing along.” We kissed again, for a long time.

 

“If you think that’s romantic,” I said eventually, “you should hear us do our Barbara Streisand covers.” I broke into a medley of Streisand hits and the whales sang along. It truly is the most wondrous sound in the universe.

 

It proved so romantic, in fact, that Elaine and I hastily retired to my house and took the whole romance thing up a level. By the time she left later that morning we were engaged to be married, and I was completely head over heels in love.

 

Alas we had to say farewell all too soon, but she promised to keep in touch and to return as soon as she could, although she was unable to say exactly when that would be, because of the demands of her job and the fickle nature of the ocean.

 

“You fool Jed,” Alun said when I relayed the morning’s events, “getting engaged to a sailor. She’s probably got a Jed on every little island she’s visited.”

 

Life on Happy Island took a forlorn turn, as Alun and I would spent much of our days walking to the coast, hoping (in vain) to see a ship that would herald the return of our love.

 

Alun was not his usual self, even letters from the mainland council made his less than 110% irate, and the regular letters of complaint he wrote to the council became almost legible, so tamed was he by unfulfilled passion.

 

“Oh what a fate to be engaged to a sailor, Jed. What sort of life we lead, never seeing our love but always expecting them, rushing to the sea as soon as we wake every morning, full of anticipation, only to find the bay empty and our hopes dashed.”

 

“I know,” I said, “365 days a year of unfulfilled hope.”

 

“366 days on a leap year.”

 

“And next year we’ve got 393 days,” I reminded him. Happy Island is finally catching up with the mainland calendar. Hopefully this will avoid a lot of confusion, though it does mean the year will drag somewhat. It’s going to be the longest November ever.

 

It’s been over a year now. Neither Jess nor Elaine has ever appeared again, indeed bar the regular boat from the mainland ships still steer clear of as, as they have always done, as they will always do.

It doesn’t stop Alun and I making regular trips to the bay, staring out to sea, wishing that every ship we see in the distance will turn and bring our girl to us. But it is not to be.