Blog Tour: Mr Peacock’s Possessions by Lydia Syson

Mr Peacock’s Possessions, Lydia Syson’s first novel for adults, will be published in the UK by Zaffre on May 17th. You might think of it as a cross between Lloyd Jones’s Mister Pip and Lucy Treloar’s Salt Creek. Set in the late 1870s in New Zealand and Oceania, it’s the story of the Peacock family, who settled on Monday Island two years ago, believing it would be their own “piece of paradise.” Mr Peacock is a self-assured man of many schemes. One day fifteen-year-old Lizzie spots a ship, and a Pacific Islander jumps off it and swims ashore. This is Kalala, who learned English and gentlemanly manners from “Mr Reverend” and narrates his chapters in a charming patois. He’s here to help with manual labour, but Mr Peacock unsettles him: “he goes from light to dark like a forest walk,” as his family knows all too well. The novel is based loosely on Syson’s husband’s family history.

Today as part of the blog tour I have an extract from Kalala’s narration as he approaches the island.

 

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In water once more, all my limbs are joyful, and my ears too, joyful with bubbling whoosh, all sluice and surge and flow, a dulled and busy quietness which is never silence. Eyes open in infinite blue. A slow-winging turtle rises. I rise myself, for air, and sink again. The sea argues: back and forth, it tests me sorely – but I know these tricks and tumbles, and I have power enough in mind and body to work these waves to my delight.

Head up and out.

The shore approaches.

I am down and under, and now give way and let the water roller me in – the rocks cry out a warning – I swim sideways with all my ebbing strength – so fast so fast – and then a mighty power throws me down, hard, in whiteness. Yet I claw for life with so much longing that nothing can pull me back. Fiercely I fight – my enemy, my friend – the suck of it, guzzling and gulping at my legs. Ploughing and pushing, now in air, gasping, now under foam, I launch my body and dive for land.

My bellowing back ups and downs, unasked. My chest is first fast and roaring, then slower and slower still. Smallest of stones print my face, embed their heat in all my body. Ears whine and sing. Foam flicks and waves reach, rush, drag at my feet, trying to lure me back into water, over and again, but I resist the sea’s entreaties, crawl from its hungry reach. My head hammers and hums and stars whirl brightly in my closed eyes. I wait for all to slow, for glow to dim, for land to cease its tipping.

And then I raise my head and look up and down the beach. Nobody. Spume slides slowly on flat wet sand where sky and clouds lie spread and wrinkled. Some scattered rocks. So much sand. On and on and on all along the shore. Out of the sea’s reach, the land dries and lightens, stretches up to a wall of rock, grass at bottom and green bushes tipping from on top. Not so high you could not climb it. There will be holes for fingers and toes in the red-brown lumps and chunks. Or I will find another way to reach the houses and the children. When I can breathe. I hardly can hold my head up yet.

Thud. Thud. Thud. As this thumping lulls in head and heart, I gather strength. Here I am, Monday Island. I have come as commanded. Now it is for you to make good your promise.