The diesel engine sputtered into life and the propellers gradually gained some traction on the disinterested water; the brawny man on the jetty hurled the coiled hawser to his burly mate at the bow. Burly stowed it carefully in the cubbyhole, leaned on the gunwale and shouted a barely discernible obscene observation across the few feet of foaming sea to Brawny, accompanied by appropriate hand motions. They both laughed like psychopaths.

He turned to go back inside the deckhouse and saw me, already settled into my pew.

‘Not much weather to be outside,’ he said with an incredulous look in his eyes. ‘Plenty of space in there, you know!’

‘I know. Thanks, but I’m happy out here.’ I felt a bit ridiculous even while the words were coming out. It was blowing a minor gale and rain was in the air. The fact that the weather could change in a split-second around here didn’t make any difference: this was undeniably a bad time to be out on deck. At least I was wrapped up appropriately – a new lightweight waterproof jacket, snood and mountaineer-inspired gloves were the salient purchases I’d made during my short stay on the mainland – so I didn’t come over a complete fool. That’s what I told myself, anyway.

‘Suit yourself,’ he didn’t think me worth any more of his time. I might not have been getting back in to the warm, but he was. He didn’t plan on re-emerging until the other end of the hour-long crossing.

The bow yawned round to the right and, as we turned, it appeared that I wasn’t the only fool who was braving the elements. Just as the sailor had grumpily disappeared, two other hardy souls fought their way along the deck to sit down just in front of me. There were five rows of seats on this foredeck, and the forwardmost two rows had just two-man benches on each side of the central gangway, such was the taper toward the prow. I was installed in the second of those rows, in the starboardmost spot. These two filed into the short row in front of me.

There was a boy, who must have been around nine, and a man I took to be the boy’s father. They settled in, and I think the youngster must have been a little nervous, because he wouldn’t let go of his Dad’s right arm. Certainly, it was already getting a bit too rough to be comfortable out here, and I was surprised to see them.

I must have betrayed that surprise, because the father turned around to look at me. ‘I know,’ he said, ‘but he’s adamant he wants to be the first to see the land. We have to do it every time, fair weather or foul. Not even sure we’re going to see anything at all until we hit the jetty at the other end today, but he won’t take that chance!’ I returned his smile and thought about muttering something non-committal, but it died before it even made it out of my lungs. He had turned back by then, anyway, and was trying not to fuss over his boy. Once he got him comfortably wedged into the corner, he was pretty well set.

I watched them a few more seconds, then let my gaze float away: over the glistening and oft-reapplied blue of the aged gunwale; past the frisky foals foaming on the surface of the sound, now that we were past the harbour wall; way up beyond the wheeling gulls screeching their danger at the uninitiated; to God knows where.

Anyone just dropping into my life for the first time right now wouldn’t have been be hugely envious, I thought. Alone on a peeling bench for two, rudely bolted to a 40-year-old ferry making its afternoon crossing to one of the most desolate islands our country has to offer, weatherbeaten by the usual gales and rains and about as far from romance or glamour as you could ever hope to be. A couple of tired-looking holdalls full of my worldly possessions and top to toe in a full brand new set of windproof hiking gear, I must have cut a pretty pathetic figure.

None of that bothered me, of course. I wasn’t dropping into my life for the first time, and I knew better. I wasn’t even overwhelmed by the sheer weight of the unknown awaiting me. It’s fair to say that it would have been difficult to see how my new life could bear any relation to the old, but that didn’t cause me any concern. I had never been that sort of person. Even amongst more familiar surroundings, I had been mostly self-contained. I was no hermit: I had had my family and friends, of course, but I didn’t ask much from society as a whole, and was even less willing to put in the effort to contribute to it myself. To put it crudely, I didn’t exactly feel as if I was leaving very much behind.

Where I was going, there was precious little society to add to or take from. My self-containment would provoke no reaction nor seem in the slightest bit out of place, I was expecting. That left just my employment to worry about, and I was confident enough in my own abilities to be unconcerned on that front. If nothing else, I was organised, thorough and responsible. That would be enough to see me through, at least for the period while my inexperience remained a relative disadvantage.

Mostly, I was looking forward to having the opportunity of time to myself. The island was tailor-made for my interests: I could read to my heart’s content; in fact one of my holdalls was filled with nothing but books and would keep me going until my container arrived; there were some challenging running routes over or around the mountain, and I had read that an entire circuit of the permitted part of the island came in at exactly 26.2 miles – a happy coincidence if I’ve ever heard one. But most of all I would have the time that I’d been craving to write. The removal of this, my final excuse for lack of output, was the cause for more trepidation than anything else connected with my move. I had placed solitude and long, dark nights firmly at the heart of my cure, and I expected them to work some kind of magic.

Time on my hands now, I made and re-made some half-hearted plans for the next few days, at least up until I started my new job, and paddled around respectfully in some partially-formed ideas for short stories I wanted to write. I wasn’t so deep in reverie that the sound of his voice startled me, but it certainly brought me back to the present in a hurry.

‘Look, Dad! The island! I can see the island! Was I the first?’ He was right. The cloud had thinned and was just starting to part above us. The wind had dropped and the rain had stopped altogether. It had never really got going like it had threatened to. Just at the edge of visibility, the rocky peninsula at the southeast corner was becoming clearer. I had never seen it for real before then. Above it rose the famous lighthouse, belted with its forbidding red stripe, waiting patiently for dusk.

Unhurriedly, the view stretched northwards along the coast. Slightly inland sat the school, squat and functional and still empty, although only for the last few remaining days of the summer holiday. A mile or two further on, teetering on the edge of the cliff, the prison cut a completely different figure. A masterpiece of architecture spanning almost the whole previous 120 years. Its copper dome above the vast main cellblock shimmered sea-green in the strengthening sun, and the geometric perfection of the later-built outlying blocks forming the western perimeter glistened silver with the recent soaking and spoke of an architectural inspiration totally absent from anywhere else in view. Pentagons, semicircles, oblique and parallel lines gave the impression of complexity (it was designed, I had read, to intimidate the inmates into compliance) whilst retaining their basic simplicity of form, which allowed for the maximum efficiency in terms of keeping watch and deploying sentinels, whether human, in the past, or the more common electronic type now mostly employed. Apparently it resembled a giant mathematical equation from high above, although few flight paths ever took in the view, and aerial photography was strictly forbidden. This was the highest of high-security jails.

‘Can I have my sheets now please, Dad?’ the boy asked, and took off his clumsy padded gloves. It really was warming up nicely now. His father pulled a sheaf of paper from an inside pocket and handed it to the boy. He immediately settled down to the content, completely engrossed. The man couldn’t help but stare at him, an indulgent smile plastered to his lips.

Eventually he stood, and joined me in surveying the unfolding view. I checked my watch: just over half an hour into the crossing; we would be closer to the island now than the mainland. We could make out the solar panels, self-conscious in their modernity, perched on the roofs of every last one of the ramshackle old buildings: cottages, communal halls, warehouses; nothing was exempted. The distant sails of the mighty wind turbines off the northern tip flashed regularly and silently. Behind the port, the industrious little main street was becoming clearer, buzzing with the afternoon’s commerce. I would soon learn that these spurts of activity were short and predictable and almost as depressing as the usual torpor, but that wasn’t the impression I was getting whilst approaching for the first time.

The clouds were mostly a recent memory by now, and the sun was getting into its stride, using the flattening sea expertly as a mirror to intensify its glare. Others started to join us out on deck. The man removed his jacket altogether. Sitting and folding it on the bench next to him, he pulled a small peaked cap from one of the outside pockets. He opened it out fully, reached one arm around behind his oblivious son and placed it gently onto his head. The boy carried on studying his sheets. It was as if nothing more weighty than a dandelion seed had floated half across the sound and chosen that very place to break its journey. I could barely believe that those stubby, calloused hands could be capable of such heartbreaking tenderness.

I caught the tear forming in my left eye before it had time to betray me. The boy’s father noticed my attention again. I think he was keen to talk.

‘He’s learning a song,’ he explained. ‘That’s the music and words he’s got there. Some German thing. He’s going to play it for his grandmother tonight on her piano. There’s nothing the old girl loves more than a singalong, and her musical talents completely bypassed my generation. He only took it up earlier this year, but it turns out he’s a bit of a natural. Got his mother’s beautiful long fingers, you see. Sam – show the man your fingers.’ The boy looked up from his manuscript. He seemed a bit embarrassed, but obediently held up his hands for my inspection. I must admit, his fingers were uncommonly long and slender. It wasn’t just his father’s pride blowing them out of proportion, like I had expected. They looked like they had music bursting out of them. I could well believe that he might be a prodigy.

‘I see what you mean,’ I said politely. I didn’t want to over-enthuse. This wasn’t a freak show. ‘I believe those fingers were made to play the piano.’ I smiled at the boy as if to confirm he could put them away now and get on with his study. As he read the sheets his hands and fingers moved side to side and up and down as if physically rehearsing.

‘Amazing really,’ his dad restarted on his train of thought, ‘when you consider mine.’ He held out his own hands for me now, although there was no need: the marvel of their unexpected gentility was still bright in my memory. ‘Shipbuilder, see? My Dad built this boat, you know. Not single-handed, of course! It was built in the yard on the island. When it was still there. Long gone now – that’s why we live on the mainland. His little sister, now,’ he jerked his head at the boy, ‘she’s got my hands. Poor mare. Cute as a button in every other way, but great big strong, thick digits like her Dad! She’s great with her little toolset. Loves it. You could say that the two of them were born into the wrong bodies. Or at least born with the wrong hands. Goes to show, doesn’t it?’

I agreed. It certainly went to show. I hoped he wouldn’t take it any further.

‘Got kids of your own?’ Oh God, this always happened.

‘A boy, about your son’s age, and a daughter two years younger,’ I tried to say it in such a way that he wouldn’t follow that one up. I really should have known better.

‘They not with you? Forgive me for being nosey, but you look like you’re on your own, and I’d heard that it was a solitary bloke coming across, not a family.’

‘They’re with their mother,’ I replied a slightly brusquely and looked away. It was sort of true. I hoped it was true: that was the only way I could deal with it, to believe that. He got the message, although I wasn’t sure if I hadn’t done irreparable damage to my reputation before I’d even arrived. That would have been just like me.

We spent the final ten minutes of the crossing in a reasonably awkward silence. The boy carried on learning his song and practicing on his legs until the ferry had been tied to the landing jetty, at which point he handed the sheets back to his father, who folded them once and replaced them in the inside pocket of his jacket. He turned to me as we disembarked.

‘Nice to have met you. Best of luck.’ He held out his hand.

‘Thank you. Nice to meet you too. I hope your mother enjoys the performance.’ It seemed I might still have a chance here. That was some kind of relief.

The pianist ran into the arms of his waiting mother, and the shipbuilder picked up his daughter and hurled her high into the air, which made her scream with pleasure. They all set off up the hill, heading for the very top, it seemed. I wandered into The Shipbuilders Arms, as arranged, to collect my key, then off up the rocky path.

---

It didn’t take me long to settle in and unpack the little I needed for my first night. I placed a few of my favourite books on the small shelf in the sparse sitting room, then opened a bottle of Barolo I’d brought with me, with the idea of leaving it to breathe on the kitchen top while I took a stroll. I wanted to see the sunset from the headland: the forecast for tomorrow was fine and there were just a few high clouds left in the sky. Perfect conditions.

The rain had already soaked in completely; it had been an unusually dry summer. I walked for 20 minutes or so until I found a suitable spot and sat cross-legged on the springy turf, a view of never-ending ocean whichever way I looked.

While I waited for the free show to begin, another of my senses was unexpectedly pricked. At first I couldn’t quite discern what the sound was, floating along the promontory on the light evening breeze. It could have been the distant turbines, but the direction of the wind was wrong and anyway it was far too tuneful. It wasn’t an animal’s call of any description. I breathed more slowly and quietly, shut my eyes and concentrated on what was washing through me, until I pieced together the strands into some long-distant memory of my own childhood. No doubt about it: this was the windblown remnants of one of Schumann’s lieder. I couldn’t be sure which, but there was no mistaking it. Up here on the edge of the world, I could almost picture those long slender fingers moving along the yellowed keys, and hear his snatched breaths between phrases.

More than that, I imagined his grandmother, in raptures, half-finished bottle of stout set beside her on the stained pine table; his silent sister, a little bored but reverently undisruptive; and his mother, dabbing discreetly at tears of pride. But most of all I pictured those cudgels of shipbuilder’s hands, cushioned by pure devotion, placing that cap upon that delicate head and disturbing not so much as a single hair. I lay back, wiped away a tear of my own and wished I had never come to this place.