The aged diesel engine sputtered into life. Gradually the propellers found some traction against 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 yelled a wind-battered obscene observation across the few feet of foaming ocean, accompanied by appropriate hand motions. They both laughed like psychopaths.

He turned and saw me, already settled into my pew.

‘Not much weather to be out,’ he said, with the calm authority which can only accompany utterly unimpeachable facts. ‘Plenty of space inside, you know,’ his eyes tracked to the little deckhouse behind.

‘I know. Thanks, but I’m happy out here.’ I felt ridiculous even while the words were coming out. A minor gale was blowing and rain was in the air. The fact that the weather could change in a moment made no difference. At least I was in appropriate garb – a new lightweight waterproof jacket, snood and mountaineer gloves were the salient purchases I’d made during my short stay in the port – so I didn’t come over a complete fool. Yes, that was what I told myself.

‘Could be well over the hour today,’ he screwed up his face at the sky, then lifted his right foot onto the seat opposite. A small silver charm, about the size of a five pence coin, was tied with a chain around the top of the boot. He loosened the laces very deliberately and set about re-tying them. The charm swung back and forth as his busy fingers brushed it.

‘You think so?’ I asked. ‘How long does the crossing usually take?’

‘Can’t say what’s usual,’ he continued to concentrate on the matter in hand. ‘Can do it inside of 40 minutes when the water’s flat. Like a stone skimming, we can be. And I’ve known it take two-and-a-half hours if a northerly gets nasty.’

‘Two-and-a-half hours?’ I said. ‘I had no idea. And you still make the trip even if the weather’s that bad?’

‘Never can tell in advance,’ he sniffed. ‘Calm as you like one minute, and then it blows in with no warning. The forecast’s never much more than guesswork. And these waters are deep. Much deeper than you’d think. Starts eddying, there ain’t much a boat like this can do to make progress of its own accord. No use fighting. We ride it out and start again from wherever it spits us out.’

His voice sounded like the sea: arbitrary and belonging to nowhere but itself. It had nothing in common with the accent I’d struggled among on the mainland. His eyes, though, looked like a hunted animal’s. I turned away, towards the sea, looking for what it was that he feared. That I failed to find anything specific I put down to my total ignorance.

I had always had an ambiguous relationship with the sea myself. From any distance it terrified me. Powerful beyond human comprehension, unpredictable, impersonally huge. The thought of it sent shivers down my spine. But then, the moment I stepped into the water, and this is true from as long ago as I remember, I felt calm and protected. There was no more fundamental primeval force, a giver of life. While the saltwater lapped around my shoulders or head and simultaneously sucked shifting sand across my feet, I understood perfectly from where I had come. I suppose that knowledge gave me a sense of invulnerability. As if I became a representation of the whole of life on Earth and ceased to exist as an individual, ephemeral human.

His boot was fastened, and yet he continued to finger the small charm. We were both silent but his lips moved.

‘Have you been on this crossing long?’ I asked. He smoothed down the leg of his oilskins and looked beyond me.

‘Mostly all my life,’ he said. ‘My Dad would bring me when I couldn’t sleep and Mum needed a break. Carried me in one of those Red Indian slings. Been working here on my own since he retired.’

I didn’t know what to say.

‘You coming in then?’ he asked again.

I looked at the sky. It told me nothing.

‘No, I think I’ll stay,’ I said. ‘I love the air.’

‘Suit yourself,’ he didn’t think me worth any more of his time. He left me alone.

The prow yawned round to the right – starboard – and we took up our direct course. It appeared that I wasn’t the only fool braving the elements: two other hardy souls fought their way along the deck to take their places just in front of me. There were five rows of seats on the deck, the two forwardmost being just two-man benches on either side of the central gangway, such was the tapering toward the bow. I had chosen the second of those rows, the starboardmost spot. There was a boy, who must have been around ten, and a man I took to be the boy’s father. They sat, and I think the youngster must have been nervous, because he wouldn’t let go of his Dad’s right arm. Certainly, it was already a little rough to be comfortable out there, and I was surprised to see them.

The man turned around to look at me. ‘I know,’ he said with a good-natured roll of the eyes, ‘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 landing jetty today, but he won’t take that chance!’ I returned his smile and thought about muttering something non-committal, but it died before it made it out of my lungs. He had turned back by then, anyway, trying not to fuss over his boy. Once he had him comfortably wedged into the corner, they were pretty well set.

I watched them for a few seconds, then let my attention float away over the boisterous sea, past the screeching gulls to God knows where. I had been promising myself this moment for months. Maybe years. Anyone dropping into my life for the first time right now wouldn’t be hugely envious. 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 imagine. 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.

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 in store. Even up to then, among more familiar surroundings, I had been mostly self-contained. I had had my family and friends, 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, I was expecting. That left just my employment to worry about, and I was confident enough in myself 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 disadvantage.

Mostly, I was looking forward to time in my own company. The island was tailor-made for my interests: long, rambling paths to plod at whatever pace I chose; long, rambling nights to fill with literature – in fact, one of my holdalls held nothing but books and would keep me going until my container arrived. I might even finish that novel, although the removal of my final excuse for lack of output was the cause for more trepidation than anything else. I wondered if my cottage had a desk.

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 starting to part above us. The wind had dropped and the rain had stopped altogether. It had never got going like it had threatened to. Just on the edge of visibility, the rocky peninsula at the south-east corner was becoming clearer and realer. Above it rose the famous lighthouse, belted with its forbidding red stripe, waiting patiently; first for dusk; beyond that, the winter.

The view stretched slowly northwards along the coast. Slightly inland sat the school, unassuming 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 architectures spanning a century and more, its copper dome above the vast main cellblock shimmered seagreen in the strengthening sun, and the geometric perfection of the later-built blocks on the western perimeter glistened silver with the recent soaking and spoke of a surprising inspiration. 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 maximum efficiency in terms of keeping watch and deploying sentinels, whether human, in the past, or the electronic type now mostly employed. Apparently it resembled a giant mathematical equation from high above, although commercial flight paths took a wide berth, 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 removed his clumsy padded gloves. It really was warming up nicely. His father pulled a sheaf of papers from an inside pocket and handed it over. He immediately settled down to the content, completely engrossed. The man stared at his son, an indulgent smile plastered to his lips.

Eventually he stood, like me 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 roof of every last one of the ramshackle old buildings: cottages, communal halls, warehouses; nothing was exempted. The sails of the mighty wind turbines off the far northern tip flashed regularly and silently. Behind the port, the industrious little main street was becoming clearer, buzzing with the afternoon’s commerce. In that sense, it could have been any other small town.

The clouds were mostly a recent memory by now, and the sun was getting into its stride, using the flattening sea as a mirror to intensify its glare. A smattering of other passengers started to join us out on deck. The man removed his jacket altogether. Folding it carefully, he pulled a small peaked cap from one of the outside pockets. He opened it out, reached an arm around behind his oblivious son and placed the cap 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 felt a tear forming in my left eye. I had been getting soft like that lately. A glove wicked it away before it had time to betray me, but not before the boy’s father had noticed my attention again.

‘He’s learning a song,’ he explained. ‘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 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 fingers, you see. Sam – show the man your fingers.’ The boy looked up from his manuscript. He seemed a little embarrassed, but obediently held up his hands for my inspection. I must admit, his fingers were uncommonly long and slender. They looked like they had music bursting out of them.

‘I see what you mean,’ 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. 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, 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. 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.

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

‘A boy, a little older than your son, and a daughter two years older than that,’ I tried to say it in such a way that he wouldn’t follow 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 slightly brusquely and looked away. As far as I knew, it was true. I hoped it was true. He got the message, and I wasn’t sure if I hadn’t done irreparable damage to my reputation before I’d even arrived.

We spent the final ten minutes of the crossing in a reasonably awkward silence. The boy carried on practising on his legs until the ferry had been secured to the 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.

‘Good 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. I wandered into The Shipbuilders Arms, as arranged, to collect my key, then followed the rocky path upwards.

 

It didn’t take me long to settle in and unpack the little I needed for my first night. I placed a few favourites onto the small corner bookshelf in the sparse sitting room and opened a bottle of Barolo I’d brought with me, with the idea of leaving it to breathe on the kitchen table 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 sea 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 wasn’t an animal’s call of any description. For a moment I thought of the distant turbines, but the direction of the wind was wrong and anyway it was far too tuneful. I breathed more slowly, shut my eyes and concentrated on the sound 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. Up here, on the edge of the world. I could almost picture his flawless 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 saw those cudgels of shipbuilder’s hands, cushioned by pure devotion, placing that cap on that delicate head and not disturbing so much as a single hair. I lay back, let the tears run unmolested down my cheeks and wished I had never come to this place.