A Declaration of Independence

My mother lived in a pebble-dashed semi on the edge of town that overlooks fields that run down to the sea. It's where I grew up. She still worked back then and pursued the sort of social life that would've worn me out. She worked out, ate sensibly, and did her best to maintain an image of herself as a woman perhaps five years younger than me. She was direct in the way she talked in the way people are who are always on the go, rushing on to the next thing. She greeted me as if she'd been expecting me. She more or less said so: her reaction was not unlike Bob's.

“Well, you know where your room is,” she said.

She'd not been in long, she added. She was meeting 'the girls' in half an hour and was just grabbing something to eat. There was a pot of curry in the fridge if I wanted something once I'd got things sorted out.

I took my things upstairs and unpacked. My room's quite small, but I didn't mind that. After the chaos of life with Toby it was quite reassuring to be back there. I put my clothes in the wardrobe and the drawers and my books on the bookcase. There were still a few children's books there from years ago. I took them off, to make room for the ones I'd brought, and put them in one of the suitcases. I pushed the suitcases under the bed. I had a curious feeling that all the time I'd spent since I'd last lived there – about ten years – had suddenly evaporated, as if I'd dreamt it. The view from my window, of the fields and the sea, was much the same. There were still tired-looking horses standing about in their coats in the field across the road, with it's overgrown hedges and ramshackle fences. The only obvious difference was that, along the coast, where there had once been a promontory, there was now an island. If you tried, you could just make out Toby's house, on the hillside there. I tried not to. I discovered later, though, that, once it got dark and Toby turned the lights on, it was impossible not to see it.

I lay down on my bed, took out my phone, and checked my email. There was one from Toby. It was written as if nothing were the matter at all.

Hi Pips,

I take it you've left the boat moored on the mainland? I've called my old chum Butler. Says he's coming up from London to see us. Says he'll row over with the boat, so no worries there. I guess you've gone to see your mother?

Love,
Toby xxxxxxxxxx

I noticed his use of the first person plural. I wasn't sure if he was assuming I was still part of his life or if it was it a case of the 'royal we'. Knowing Toby, either or both were possible. I'd never met Butler, though Toby had talked about him often. They'd been to school together and he, like Toby, had done a stint in the Guards. It was hard to imagine Toby in the army, which probably explains why he'd got out.  From what he'd said about his chum, I could imagine him getting on better with Butler than with me.

Under Toby's name and all the kisses, there was a link to a website. My instinct was to delete the email – Toby was no longer part of my life – but I couldn't resist clicking on the link. It took a while to load. WELCOME TO THE ISLE OF CUNA  it said. The name was familiar to me: it was that of an island in a story by John Buchan, one of Toby's favourite authors. At the top was the flag Toby had designed while I'd been out shopping. The rest of the site was all done out in the same garish colours. Electronic brass band music began to play, the national anthem of the Isle of Cuna it said, no doubt composed by Toby himself. Photographs of the beach down the road from Toby's house materialised on the screen like slow-motion bubbles. Underneath all this was a link: BECOME A CITIZEN OF THE ISLE OF CUNA. When you clicked on it, you discovered you could acquire a virtual Isle of Cuna passport for a direct debit payment of twenty pounds a month, valid for as long as you kept up the payments. Alternatively, you could take out life-citizenship for a single payment of two thousand pounds. Life-citizens would receive, free, a set of Isle of Cuna coinage (£4.99 plus postage to everyone else), each coin embossed with a scene from the island. It said they were 'minted in pure proof silver, to traditional specifications', whatever that meant. The Isle of Cuna equivalent of the 50p piece bore an image of the cluster of Scots Pines which stands on the highest point of the island, just up the track from Toby's house. The reverse side of all the coins bore an image of Toby's head, in profile. Round the edge ran a Latin inscription which I couldn't understand. I wondered if Toby did. SATINE CALORIS TIBI ES. He was always going on about how he'd done Latin at school, but I got the impression he was no good at it.

It could've been a difficult time for me, but I can't say it was. It was a relief to be away from Toby. I'd no idea what I was going to do with myself, but told myself there was no rush. My mother was happy having me around and I was happy being there. I'd every reason to spend a few weeks just chilling out. After that, I could get on with the rest of my life. I read books, went for long walks. Once, my mother persuaded me to go out with her and 'the girls'. The trouble was, they were all a lot older than me, all of them drank more than I did, and I didn't really have the clothes for it.

One morning, a few days after I moved in, I was woken by my mother tapping on the door, softly, as if she thought I might still be asleep. I called for her to come in. She looked worried. She said there were two policemen downstairs who wanted to see me. I dressed quickly and went down. They were waiting for me in the living room, one, the younger of the two, was sat on the settee, the other was standing, looking out of the window, his hands in the pockets of his overcoat. He turned round as I came in and introduced himself as DI Watkins. His younger colleague, he introduced as DC Bailey.  All I could think of was that something had happened to Toby, but, instead, they asked me about the parcels I'd collected from the post office. They explained how the postmistress had seen me getting into Bob's taxi. From there it had been easy to trace me. They wanted to know where I'd taken the parcels and what they contained. I told them I'd taken them back to the island and given them to Toby and that I had no idea what was in them. All I could tell them was that they all had a Birmingham postmark and that Toby had taken them up to his study to open them. They looked at each other knowingly when I mentioned the postmark. I said I thought it was all a bit strange, but, Toby being Toby, I'd thought no more of it. I explained how intolerable my life with him had become and how, a few days after the business with the parcels, I'd packed my bags and left. Bailey turned to Watkins and raised his eyebrows. Watkins, hands still in his pockets, shrugged.

“Would you mind telling me what this is all about?” I said, looking from one to the other. The two policemen exchanged looks.

“I'm afraid we can't,” said Watkins. “Not at this stage.”

It was like I was watching myself in some cop show on TV. And I didn't trust them. I couldn't help but wonder what they thought was in Toby's parcels: drugs, weapons, explosives or a combination of all three? Knowing Toby, it was more likely to be toy soldiers or model trains. I could imagine them constructing some sort of arcane conspiracy and pinning it on Toby, Butler and myself. 

As they left, the younger man turned to me. “We'll be in touch,” he said. “Don't leave town.”

I always wondered if they really said that to people. Now I knew.