Read On the Island for Free Online Page B

the money which had been given him was still there. He also had two shillings which had been given him by Mrs Macleod who stayed next door to them and for whom he often ran messages.
    The bus lumbered on, the driver now and again leaning sideways from his seat to accept parcels from people who appeared at the side of the road, spoke to him a little and then disappeared as quickly as they had come. Iain thought that the driver was like a god looking down at them from his throne, dressed in his navy blue uniform. He always eased the clutch with such royal confidence, not looking down at all, but merely gazing ahead of him through the window. Iain wished more than anything to be like the driver but knew somehow that he would never have that confidence, that careless smiling poise. An old woman with parcels appeared beside him and he moved closer to the window, through which he could see Kenneth peering. Their mother, however, clutching her handbag, stared straight ahead of her without moving, only now and then telling Kenneth to be still.
    Hurry up, hurry up, Iain was telling the bus in an undertone, almost as if it were a huge awkward animal that could understand what he was saying. But the bus kept to its stately pace, often stopping while more and more people climbed on, and through the window Iain could see men with scythes making their way down to the fields. Sometimes they would turn and wave and their scythes would flash in the sun which was now glittering on the window panes.
    Finally, Iain knew that they were approaching the town, for there were more houses, there were fewer fields, and he could see tall dirty buildings belching smoke, and smell odd smells which he could not identify but which were very strong. They were like the rotten smells from old fish which were decaying in the middle of the smoke. They passed what looked like a school though the playground was empty as it was a Saturday; and then the bus had turned a corner past the cinema and it was moving slowly and steadily to its resting place on the pier. And there was the town in front of them, with seagulls flying above it, and the multitude of shops, and the sea with its fishing boats.
    Soon the three of them were standing on the stone pier and Iain and Kenneth, their mother close behind them, went and looked at the fishing boats whose masts were like a forest of trees climbing out of the sea. They read the names of the boats rapturously, the Sea Eagle , the Swallow , the Good Hope , the Water Baby and saw these reflected swayingly in the water as in a continuously moving mirror. They saw too the slim masts and the ropes reflected, and on the decks they saw the orange buoys and the green nets. On the pier were boxes of fish and standing beside them, now and again pecking lazily and absent-mindedly at the bones of herring lying on the quay, were the seagulls, some of them with red spots on their beaks like drops of blood. Across the water they could see the castle standing among the woods with its white stony towers.
    â€œCome on,” said their mother, and they set off for the town.
    There were so many people on the pavements that at first Iain and Kenneth stayed very close to their mother, but as time passed she would have to stop now and then in order to tell them to hurry up. They found themselves in shops where the smell of apples was almost overpowering as they nestled redly, in their boxes, among straw. They were each given an ice-cream cone whose coldness froze their teeth with the most delicious pain. They stood impatiently beside their mother as she stopped and talked at what seemed interminable length to friends of hers whom she had not seen for years, themselves in from the country for a day, and all of them wearing black coats and black hats. They peered in at the windows of the toy shops and once Iain found himself in a bookshop where he would have stayed for a long time reading Answers and Titbits , if his mother hadn’t pulled him