Best British Short Stories 2020 by Nicholas Royle (best novels to read for students txt) 📕

Edward made a note to speak to Jack about his agricultural language in front of the tourists, and Marcia. He had never got round to that and he didn’t need to now, because there had been no tourists and very little contact with the mainland for some months.

When there had been visitors, Edward had done his best to intercept them before they could ask Jack and Denny any questions about the apes. They were both actually quite knowledgeable about birds.

– What do the apes eat?

– What I give them, Jack generally said, as though he was used to feeding them gravel.

– Hungry enough, they’ll eat it.

If they asked Denny, he would reply, cheerfully,

– Same as me.

That was close to being true, but as Denny was often eating a choc-ice, and spreading a great deal of it over his face, when he offered this answer, it did not give a good impression of the project. Although it was a fact that Grace would crawl through fire for a lick of Denny’s choc-ice.

Edward evaded the other favourite question, which was how many apes were there. He did not know. How was he meant to carry out a census with only Jack and Denny to help him and Jack more or less refusing to do it?

The apes ought to have been an attraction to tourists, but their behaviour was problematical. Certainly, Edward did not believe that the disappearance of the tourists could be attributed to anything the apes had done.

The orangutans had taken to occupying the stone structures on the island and they could be territorial about them. The visitors had to be warned off. But then the apes were curious about the tourists and were inclined to imitate them, following them about, looking at birds, pointing at seals, crowding round to listen to Marcia’s flirtatious conversation. When he saw the apes pretending to be human, Edward sometimes wondered whether they were only pretending to be apes.

They could be embarrassing. Occasionally, some of the young male orangutans became very interested in the sheep. Denny drew everyone’s attention to this whenever possible. Edward wondered what the apes thought about Jack killing the sheep. The young males would also masturbate in front of the visitors, and that was not something that anyone wanted to see on their holidays. Edward had once seen an ape hunched over in fervid concentration as he guided a party past the outskirts of the chambered cairn and had quickly ushered the group towards the cliff-top. In the poor light, Edward had not been sure that the figure had not been Denny. Denny learned from the apes.

Edward tried to keep the Nortons busy with rat extermination. This was a difficult task as the poison was a temptation to the animals. And he got the stockmen to show visitors the various plants that may have been brought over with the orangutans and which had made their own desperate adaptation to the changing Orcadian climate. Jack liked plants and was usefully succinct in the telling of his careful observation. Denny was good at finding the plants and sometimes at remembering where he had found them.

The truly disturbing thing had been the time when the visitor had been attacked. Against all advice, indeed instruction, she had stepped away from the main party near the chapel, what was now unwisely referred to as the ape village, and she had been knocked down from behind. Clothing had been torn and a bag taken, which, it turned out, had contained only sandwiches. She had been badly rattled and threatened to make a fuss back on the mainland, but she hadn’t, or, at least, if she had, no one had taken any notice. Edward had got that group off the island as quickly as he could. The assailant must have been one of the apes. Orangutans had once been famous for their gentleness, but they were animals and would behave instinctively under the right stimulus. Even so, Edward could not dismiss the suggestion, also not dismissed by Marcia, that the assailant had been Denny.

That had not been the last party of visitors, but one of the last. No tourists for a while now. No tourists and no supplies. If the food ran low there were the sheep, the rabbits, the seals, fish. Edward and Marcia would need Jack and Denny for that. No point in making enemies of them. It was not clear that they could easily leave the island. They had no seaworthy boat. Those were the arrangements.

Edward warned himself against paranoia. He had told Marcia how he had stepped out of the compound and seen two apes with their heads together and how they had pulled apart when they saw him, as though they had been talking about him. Marcia had laughed. She was too carelessly brave, Edward thought.

The four people were trapped on the island as though the subject of an experiment conducted by an unknown hand.

The summer heat was sweltering, but their thick-walled old stone house was quite cool. Edward did not think that it was necessary for Marcia to wear so little.

– What if Denny comes in? You know he never knocks. Or Jack?

– Oh, fuck Jack and Denny. I’m not living my life to suit them. It’s bad enough being trapped on this island at all.

She pulled Edward towards her by his orange tie, which he wore, loosened, despite the heat. She let it run through her hand. Grace and Charity pulled his tie too.

Once or twice, Edward and Marcia had made love outside, outside of the compound, like animals, when they had been almost certain that the Nortons were busy with their poison on the other coast of the island.

Edward’s opinion of Marcia as a scientist, as an oceanographer of a sort, was that she was bold, unpredictable and unorthodox. Sporadic in her efforts and that perhaps because she was suffering from a depression. What he most wished to