The Gradual

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Book: Read The Gradual for Free Online
Authors: Christopher Priest
well. I was later able to measure this, when royalties from sales started to reach me. I was pleased and astonished but even more surprised to discover that a high proportion of the copies sold were within the islands of the Dream Archipelago.
    Denn Mytrie, who had returned to Muriseay after completing his exchange visit, wrote me several letters, sometimes enclosing reviews which had been published on one or other of the islands. We both exulted at our success, each generously saying how fortunate we had been to have appeared on the same record. In truth, I secretly believed that Denn Mytrie’s populist melodies were the magic ingredient in our sales mix, and that my more austere composition would never have appealed to so many people, but he would have none of that. We were both satisfied.
    I was going through a period of general contentment. I enjoyed being married to Alynna, and the first excitements we had for each other went on undimmed. I liked the feeling of being settled, of having a secure emotional base for my life. Alynna’s musical prowess was improving steadily and she was regularly invited to play: her session work brought money in reliably, and her occasional invitations to sit in with an orchestra or a smaller ensemble produced welcome cash bonuses.
    While Alynna played, I composed. I was working steadily, trying out new approaches all the time. The income from
Tidal Symbols
enabled me finally to leave my day job in the cost accounting department – I was now old enough to be low in priority for the draft, and so no longer needed the extra protection the job afforded me.
    I was never entirely free of dread thoughts about the draft though, because I could not forget the likely fate of my brother Jacj.
    A letter had arrived from Jacj not long after I married. It was sent to my parents, although I was named too at the top. It was on notepaper with the Battalion insignia printed as a heading, and although it was written by hand, for some reason Jacj had printed every word in capital letters. It was a short note in a mechanical style, as if he had been made to copy it from a pro forma, or someone had dictated it to him. It simply said that he was embarking on the great military campaign that would bring an end to the war, that he was travelling in the company of fellow soldiers he liked and admired, and that he wanted us to buy the war bonds sold by the government to protect him by helping to finance this great adventure.
    I imagine every family of every young recruit received a letter like this, and because we understood the way it was written and why it was sent, it was not in itself upsetting. However, from the date of the postmark it seemed to have been written not long after Jacj had sailed away, yet it had taken more than ten years for it to reach us. My parents, who were by this time moving towards old age, were upset by the thought that this letter had been lost or delayed en route.
    It had been sent from one of the islands: with a magnifying glass it was possible to read the faded red-ink franking on the front:
Island Protectorate of Winho
. Where was Winho? We had no maps, we knew no one who could tell us. Was it an island close to our shores, or was it far away on the other side of the world? This extra enigma only deepened the feelings we all had of worry, upset and apprehension about where Jacj was and what might be happening to him.
    I wrote to Denn Mytrie and asked him if he knew where the island of Winho might be. When his answer came, several weeks later, it was to say that he did not, but that people he knew on Muriseay believed it to be somewhere in the southern hemisphere. He told us that although maps were not forbidden in the Archipelago, it was always difficult finding any that depicted islands not in your own group or immediate area. He said that this was a problem throughout the Archipelago, and something to do with the gravitational anomalies. (He did not explain, and from the vague way

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