The fire has burned down to a low amber glow, and Selkirk’s flask sits between them like a small,
dented witness. Defoe turns it gently with two fingers, studying the scratched verse as though it were a clue to the man himself.
He clears his throat softly.
Defoe: “You know, Mr. Selkirk… I have friends who talk a great deal. They say you were married once, in Scotland. A young woman. And that you willed her your property before you sailed. Yet when you came back to England, you married again in Portsmouth, just before leaving for Africa.”
Selkirk’s jaw tightens, not in anger but in the way a man braces himself for a question he has heard before.
Manley leans in, her voice warm but edged with curiosity.
Manley: “After having no wife… and only goats for company… did you truly marry twice?”
Selkirk lets out a breath that is half‑laugh, half‑sigh.
Selkirk: “Aye. Twice. The first was before I knew myself. The second was after I’d forgotten myself.”
He rubs the flask with his thumb, as though smoothing out a memory.
Selkirk: “The lass in Scotland… she was kind. Patient. I was not. I loved the sea more than I loved the hearth. I thought leaving her my bit of land would make up for leaving her my absence. Foolish thinking.”
Manley watches him closely, not judging, only listening.
Manley: “And the second?”
Selkirk shakes his head.
Selkirk: “Portsmouth was noise and drink and the smell of tar. I’d been four years without a voice but my own. When I came back, folk pressed in on me. Wanted stories. Wanted the man who’d lived like a ghost. I married quick. Too quick. A man fresh from solitude shouldn’t make promises.”
Defoe nods, sympathetic.
Defoe: “Solitude changes the scale of things.”
Selkirk’s eyes soften.
Selkirk: “Aye. On the island, I had no need for promises. No need for speech. The goats didn’t care if I was a husband or a hermit.”
He sits back, remembering.
Selkirk: “The first weeks ashore… I was half‑mad with the quiet. I walked the ridges till my legs bled. I shouted at the sea, thinking Stradling might hear me. But the sea doesn’t answer.”
He gestures with one hand, describing the island’s shape.
Selkirk: “Then I began to explore. Found figs, plums, berries. Found the goats — quick devils, but good meat. I learned their paths, their habits. Learned the island’s moods. The spring that never failed. The caves that stayed warm. The winds that changed without warning.”
Manley’s voice is soft.
Manley: “You made a life.”
Selkirk nods slowly.
Selkirk: “Aye. A simple one. No drink, no quarrels, no captains. Just the work of living. I slept when the sun went down. Rose when it came up. Ate what I caught. Drank what I found. And after a time… I forgot the world.”
Defoe studies him with a kind of gentle awe.
Defoe: “And yet the world remembered you.”
Selkirk gives a small, crooked smile.
Selkirk: “Aye. And dragged me back. And once I was back… I drank again. Married again. Tried to be the man folk thought I was.”
Manley’s gaze is steady, perceptive.
Manley: “But the man you were on the island… he still sits inside you.”
Selkirk looks into the fire, and for a moment his face is lit with something like peace — the peace of a man who once lived without clocks, without taverns, without the weight of other people’s expectations.
Selkirk: “Aye. He does.”
The three of them sit in the warm hush of the coffeehouse, the sailor’s voice carrying them back across oceans and years, to the moment when a man learned to live alone — and learned, perhaps, that solitude had shaped him more deeply than any marriage ever could.
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