Sunset, peacock-proud in its best autumn orange and vermillion, poured indiscriminately through my viewing bulb and coloured me psychedelic against the prosaic silk upholstery of the chaise-longue which belonged on that spot and nowhere else. While my right hand flipped over a roughly-cut page, the left reached lazily for the glass of Centenary. As it would turn out, I was to drink other beers later in my life, although at the time I hadn’t considered that a possible future for myself.

Upon leaving the Brewery, and Shaun, I knew I had but one destination. A short walk along the wide grassy path, across the top of the lowlands, took me right to The Griffin. A young man, he must have been around 21 or 22, slouched behind the bar, taking no significant part in an involved conversation with two of his customers. A further two or three were spread around the room, singly.

Before closing the door, I took a long look around and attempted to form a view of the place, one that I could store safely and refer back to. To all intents and purposes it was a single rectangular room. The long straight bar, in front of which I found myself, ran almost the whole width, squeezing the middle section thinner between the bulbous ends, like a giant telephone handset. A fireplace stood central on each wall, left and right. Behind the bar, at the backs of the thicker square ends, windows faced northwest. The unadorned granite landscape gave onto the soft rise where the church stood. There was no part of the pub from where that church was not visible.

The view of the inside was as timeless as any, yet I was struck by a sense of newness. Under my feet, the carpet gave gently and accommodatingly and it was obvious that being walked on was still a novelty for it. From the disturbed fibres, the singular smell of carpet tape and Stanley knife escaped and drifted into the air. The varnished wooden bar reflected back the weak daylight that had made it through the leaded windows, and the window frames glistened with a new-born sheen. Memories of previous seasons were reserved for the animate in here.

The door clicked comfortably as I pushed it to. The barman broke off from his non-conversation to check out the new arrival. Once he set eyes on me, he stood up straight and brushed himself down with the nearest metaphor he could find. He made a surreptitious check of the bar area, but he needn’t have worried: everything, including hisself, was spotless and in order. I gave him a smile and walked slowly around behind his two buddies, who had carried on regardless.

Everything exuded the same naïve unsoiled aura, and I felt sorry for it. I came to the end of the bar itself and through the open hatch. My first conversation in here was going to take place on my side of the counter.

The young man was Johnny McGovern. His Dad, John, I learned, was one of the livestock farmers on the island, and a regular of my pub. Johnny would be taking over a small corner of that operation as soon as he could get out of The Griffin. He had been drafted in as emergency cover towards the end of spring, and it seemed he had done a fair job of keeping the place in one piece. Summer was always quiet, he conceded modestly, but I had to give him some credit for overseeing the annual rebirth he talked me through. The regulars at the bar had been among the small team who had lent their weight to the effort, but they refused to deflect any plaudits from young Johnny. Their generosity was matched by their wisdom: I couldn’t have hoped for a smarter pub to take over.

It was to be his last day behind the bar, I told him. He was happy to see the day out, while I made my final preparations. Before we concluded our business, he disappeared into what he referred to as the office.

‘You should take this now,’ he said as he re-emerged, handing me what I took, at first sight, to be a beaten-up leather box. I held it. It was heavier than I had expected. A cursory investigation showed it to be no box, but some form of a book, bound by a drunken butcher. The embossed leather covers lent a superficial air of gravitas, which evaporated as soon as I caught sight of the ragged pages they held in their grasp. Whole sections appeared to be consistent in terms of page size, shape, paper colour, accuracy of finish, and so on, but it seemed the reader was never far away from hastily inserted jagged-edged pieces of coloured card, or a wispy and delicate scrap of flyaway tissue. The whole thing gave the initial impression of a round-robin story told by a group of Andean plane crash survivors.

‘Thanks,’ I thanked Johnny for his gesture, which I presumed was symbolic in some way, as well as practical. ‘Mind if I ask what this is?’

‘It’s the Book?’ he replied, nonplussed. I supposed if that was his best answer then the question had been quite ludicrous.

‘The book?’ I asked. He nodded. ‘I can see it’s a book, sort of, but if it’s the Book, that’s a different matter altogether. Umm, what’s in it?’ I was actually afraid to open it and test the quality in the binding of all those dissolute pages to the aged spine. It seemed safer to get a synopsis from Johnny, since he hadn’t yet gone anywhere.

‘Everything’s in it,’ he shrugged. ‘It belongs to the landlord. That’s you. It’s your book. Ain’t my place to tell you what’s in it.’ He giggled a little nervously and looked at the regulars on their stools for support. They clearly concurred.

I looked back at the closed book in my hands. It did seem to have quite some content, although whether or not that accounted for “everything” was debateable.

‘Have you read it?’ I asked him.

‘No! Course not,’ he replied defensively. ‘It’s only for them that get chosen as landlord. I wouldn’t understand it, anyhow. Even if I was to look in there, which I haven’t.’

‘Oh, ok. Well, I think I’ll take it home with me and have a look tonight. Bring myself up to speed. It’s a bit unwieldy to carry, though. Has anyone got a bag I could put it in?’ I looked around the three of them. Johnny responded first.

‘There’s a backpack in the office that Mr Ri…….., errr, that should fit it in. The Book’s not supposed to leave the premises, but they all take it home every now and then. Don’t do any harm, as long as it’s just a night. No-one kicks up a fuss. Not even The Child. I’ll get it for you.’

He came back presently with a beaten-up old khaki backpack. The book slid perfectly into its chamber. I tied it safe and pushed my arms through the sturdy hessian straps.

‘Thanks, Johnny. You’ve done a fine job. The place looks a picture. Come back when you can and I’ll get you a drink.’ I took my leave of the various punters, promising to see them the next day. Something gave me the distinct impression they would return then, and nobody suggested otherwise. I looked back after a minute or two down the riverside path which led towards the Mountain. The place looked so benign in that light. The early evening sun was singing in staccato bursts through the skidding cloud. The church smiled its patronage down at the pub, just like in a thousand or more villages across the country at the very same moment. What on Earth was there to be afraid of?

 

It was, of course, that book I was later to be found propping against bended legs on the chaise, sipping at my second bottle of Centenary. Ostensibly it was no more than a user’s manual for The Griffin. Whoever had started it had done so with all the right intentions, I was sure. There were clear early sections, immaculately laid out on high-quality paper, on statute-related subjects such as opening hours (which seemed to be flexible), house rules (ditto), preferred serving temperatures of the various beers (prescriptive), and so on. Plumbing and management of storage areas were covered in impressive detail.

The subject matter altered in tone as the physical paper and ink altered in form. From the informative yet dry practical foundations of my education, the pages descended into what could only be described as free-form dollops of consciousness. Not just one consciousness, either: handwriting, typeface, style changed page by page, although in my progression through the volume I came to recognise some as they reappeared. One section, scrawled in a hand I couldn’t place, on what looked like a piece of carbon paper, yet perfectly bound to the spine, expounded on the age-old problem of how to deal effectively with difficult customers:

Dealing With Difficult Customers

There is an undeniable hierarchy inside this pub. Don’t ever pretend there isn’t, because you’ll only be fooling yourself. The good news is that you sit at the top of it. If you think that gives you an advantage, you’d be right, in some ways. But here’s the bad news: in other ways you’re wrong, and those ways are more important.

I’m writing this because I can’t believe I need to write it, and I want to stop you having to. I was born on this island. Not all landlords are: my predecessor, for example. He was a migrant. They say the migrants come here “to die”. There’s some truth in that, I suppose: everybody dies one way or another, but I wouldn’t want to suggest that is foremost in the minds of the people who choose to come here and live. There you are! I said it myself: they choose to “come here and live”. The fact that they come here and one day die is not strictly relevant.

But the point is that I was born here, and now I sit proudly at the top of our unspoken hierarchy, so you’d think I would be better placed than anybody else to understand what goes on. That’s why I’m writing this, because I don’t understand, not one little bit.

Some customers, even in The Griffin, can get difficult. I’m sorry to have to break this to you. For all I know, you might already be well aware of it, depending on when you’re reading this. By “difficult”, I mean argumentative or surly or obstructive or non-cooperative. It’s not the worst thing in the world, but then “difficult” isn’t the strongest word, so it’s probably just about appropriate. You wouldn’t have thought – I certainly didn’t – that there would be any call to become, as I choose to put it, difficult. Not here, on our island, where migrants are welcomed like long-lost cousins. What is there to be difficult about? There is no governing body, no police, no currency, no personal ownership; nobody forces anybody else to work for their survival, there is no nagging from partners; the beer is the best in the known Universe. Above all, nobody is affected by a conscience: there is simply no need for one. Why?, then, is the question. What is it that sends us down avenues of emotion which really ought to be solidly bricked up, so as to prevent intentional or unintentional thoroughfare?

Where I’m trying to get to is this: don’t underestimate the power of our Winter. Even I, a veteran of more seasonal changes than I care to remember, have been guilty of that up until the present, the time when I have been moved to sit up late in an almost empty Griffin and write these words. It would be foolish to contend that the time is characterised by the cold and the dark and the snow: that much is clear even to a small child. But it’s a good enough starting point. More relevant, I believe, is that the cold, dark, snowy time can never be said to belong in any meaningful way to any of the individuals here. Nobody knows when they will be called upon to perform their duty. As you know, this is not the duty of the spring or summer, or even the autumn, which free will has kindly provided for them. It is an altogether more sinister and debilitating duty.

If it isn’t already a truism, then it surely will be before long, that a man drained of his lifeforce can act in unpredictable, inhuman ways. I have seen, first hand, any number of examples to support my point. In the most extreme of those examples, even our beer hasn’t proved sufficient for a full restoration of mojo. Yes, the irreproachable ambrosia crafted lovingly and expertly by careful combination and treatment of specially chosen organic elements of our singular island does have its limitations. And that is where you, the landlord, come in. You are the top of their hierarchy, and never more so than when the despair threatens to blank out everything else. The pecking order stands like a beacon amidst the gloom. We all know that spending so much time, intimate time, with our womenfolk is ill-advised, but there is nothing to be done about it. That is the destiny of our race. Add to that simple anthropological problem the frisson of the complete lack of control: anybody can be called at any time, regardless of their last summons, and is it any wonder that, from time to time, our brothers find it, frankly, all a bit too much?

I apologise if you are reading this and looking for guidance on how to assist your compatriots during these hard times. You will be disappointed. But you don’t need me to tell you how to act. Remember: you are at the top of the pile. There is a reason you have been granted the position you find yourself in, even if you’re not totally aware of it. You will find a way to help, and whatever way that is will be yours and yours alone. I congratulate you. I envy you. I was once like you. It seems odd to be writing these words when I still hold the position I covet so much, but I know enough to understand that anybody reading this will be doing so over my dead body. Don’t worry: it’s not such a bad thing. In fact, it’s remarkably similar to being alive, except you feel the cold more.

I’m not joking: they all believe in you.

Well, so much for sage advice on restoring order or heading off a fracas. I read it twice, the second time no more productive. I swigged my Centenary and considered the message, such as it was.

Was it true that my position as landlord set me above the rest of the community? I found that difficult to believe: I was a total newcomer, and notably ignorant of their ways and histories. Having said that, I had been received particularly well by all those who I had directly encountered, and my very presence appeared absurdly significant. Just like me, I pondered, to have summoned up the courage to walk out on a life I had long been pitifully unable to grasp, only to find myself landed in an equally unfathomable soup. I laughed. My guess was that, no matter how many times I might replay my life, I would always find ways of ending up in an identical conundrum. At least here the people were more pleasant, and the beer was heavenly.

I flicked through. The content was varied, to say the least. It had been a long, tiring day and my concentration was frazzled. The book continued as a mish-mash of styles, physical media and subject matter. I got the sense that some effort had been made by the various landlords to keep similar subjects together. Guttering and damp-proofing sat alongside an involved essay on chimney sweeping and annual fire-related management. A thick, multi-coloured section dealt with spillages. With a bit of background knowledge, one could accurately date the first appearance of each offending fluid, based on the hand and the type of paper used. Sadly, I was not privy to that background knowledge, and the majority of the entries were unsigned, so I had to create personas in my own head.

The last 30 or 40 pages, though, were clearly products of the same author, and I knew who that was. They were, without exception, signed and dated, unlike all the others. Mr Rimmer had, by the look of it, begun on some kind of formal journal almost as soon as he had arrived. Thinking back to my conversation in the Old Lighthouse on the mainland, I knew he had appeared around two years earlier, and the first entry was dated July of that year. It was September outside as I was reading.

I tackled the early entries with great interest: this was a man who had been in an identical situation to the one in which I now found myself. Were my experiences normal? This evidence from the horse’s mouth was as close as I was going to get to an answer. Even if I managed to ever find him, which I considered unlikely, his memories would be contaminated by the time that had passed.

Nobody else had written in the form of a journal. Most of the other content was informative about practical matters only, and infinitely less engaging for that. Rimmer’s work began with a prosaic enough account of his tribulations on arrival, many of his stories mimicking my own tentative steps towards acclimatisation. I learned a little about his history as a lecturer in biology and an avid birdwatcher: his transfer to the island had more to recommend it than did mine, I had to admit.

His background reminiscences meandered through the remains of his first summer: it occurred to me that he had had more down time at his disposal than I had, before Winter kicked in. But the gently reflective mood of the summer soon gave way to more immediate and darker concerns as Winter approached. I noticed it first in an entry that followed a few days’ silence:

September 28^th

Landlords of this pub are always appointed from off-island. Didn’t always used to be the case, but they are now. I’m the 4^th migrant in a row, and I know for sure they’ll never go back to internal appointments. They made that clear enough to me. All you need to do is to look around at them in here. Winter’s been here for two days, two nights, now and already I’m drowning under the weight of unspoken vendettas and agendas. I read in this book (you might have done, too) about the hierarchy. Well, I certainly don’t feel like I’m at the top of that hierarchy, and I’d be interested to see the responses if you were to ask ten different people draw it out. My guess is that you’d get ten very different pictures.

Some of the power struggles must be older than the characters themselves. There are unsettled scores even older than this pub. That’s another thing I can’t get a straight answer on: how long has it been here? I wouldn’t bother asking if I were you. Not unless you like riddles, and can’t find anything better to do.

But that’s the point: any new landlord who comes weighted down with that sort of history would be an unmitigated disaster. The only thing they can do is introduce a brand new face. I can’t tell, at this stage, whether that’ll turn out a good thing or not. I suppose you’re more likely to know that than I am.

Updates through the Winter alternated between informative and uninspired – I got the distinct impression that many days were well-nigh indistinguishable from their neighbours – and a more thoughtful, inquisitive form, as in the extract I had highlighted. Rimmer struck me as an intelligent, sensitive observer and extremely well suited to his role as landlord-cum-head of the hierarchy. Of course, I only got his own view of his history as it unfolded, but the story was one of a detached personification of benevolence, piloting his flock through what appeared to be, at times, treacherous and wolf-ridden waters. He was at once totally unqualified for and completely unsurpassable in the role. His authority appeared to be unquestioned.

The journal confirmed what I had heard: during that first Winter he took various opportunities to travel back to the mainland. Entries described his regular visits to the shipyard, to which he looked forward immensely, and his birding discoveries. I skipped over those for the most part, the narrative being too involved for my stunted scientific and zoological intellects. Still, I grew more and more intimidated by his effortless mastery of the complex society he illustrated within the four walls of my immediate concern.

His initial Winter passed off with precious little incident, which I took to be a minor miracle. Even behind the sure-footed commentary, appearing twice- or thrice-weekly, the grinding of the individuals against each other within a snowbound siege mentality came through loud and clear. It was no wonder they welcomed outsiders: any unadulterated populace such as that would surely have torn itself apart amidst the flashing blades of its internal conflict.

The tone of the journal was difficult to define. I sensed growing confidence and familiarity in much of Rimmer’s reportage, yet his more personal entries betrayed a feeling of uncertainty that hardly broke down at all as his time progressed. That feeling became stronger as the Winter drew to a close.

It had been a harsh season, by all accounts, as such seasons go here, but expertly handled by the new landlord. Nevertheless, its end was eagerly awaited by all. A rota of youngsters was drawn up (it was the landlord’s job, too) to keep watch over the White Nile, high up on The Mountain, and report on its thawing. That would signal the return of spring.

Presently, to general euphoria, the season changed. The Griffin became a carefree men’s club once more, for a short period, before the real work of the year came to dominate thoughts. Rimmer would spend more and more time on his jerry-built porch, drinking in the honest industry in the fields and in the streets around him, recording it all faithfully with all the premature pride of a new father.

In the back of his mind, though, and at the back of each entry, the rebirth loomed like a dormant aneurism. He had witnessed the tail-end of the previous year’s, but had had no operational responsibility for it. It was clear from his narrative that his focus had been squarely on surviving the Winter, and well it might have been, I thought to myself.

The result was that he had developed no conception of the significance of the annual rebirth for which he was now unavoidably responsible. I picked out one particular late-night musing:

June 12^th

Or is it the 13^th by now? Who cares. I haven’t worn a watch for months now.

Returned from the mainland today. I needed some respite. I didn’t even take my binoculars. I just had to get away from the rebirth. It’s not the same as the Winter coming: that’s like an enormous bird of prey’s shadow swooping across the sea to come and swallow you up, and there’s no avoiding it. You won’t find another topic of conversation, everyone is busying themselves with their preparations and there’s a collective air of Armageddon. This couldn’t be more different.

The rebirth is my own problem, and it’ll be yours. It’s not shared with a single other. I’ve scoured this bloody book night after night for rules, for structure, for hints, oblique references, acrostics, anything. Nothing. There’s almost nobody left in the pub now to sound out, and I didn’t get much from them before the Winter ended. Just a feeling that it’s the single most important outcome of the whole summer. I thought summer was the quiet time around here. No such luck.

This is what I know (I’m making this list mostly for my own benefit, but please, my successors, feel free to take whatever inspiration you can from it):

1. It’s my job to “rebirth” the pub ready for the next Winter. This is what I’ve picked up. Nobody has approached me direct to charge me with it.
2. There are no rules, and presumably no limits on how I choose to achieve that
3. Winter can return any time from the beginning of August, although it’s more likely to be some time in September. Having said that, being late for the start of Winter is not an option. August 1^st is the only sensible target.
4. The concept of rebirth is an impossible one to define. Some have mentioned they want to be walking into a new pub. Others, especially as the last days of Winter dragged out, started to wax lyrical about the erasure of all the unpleasant memories that had been etched into the fabric of the place.
5. They all seem as excited about it as children and Christmas (you’re from the mainland, you’ll understand what Christmas is).
6. Despite number 2, I don’t think I can knock the place down and start again. I’m going to have to be creative with the physical raw materials at my disposal.
7. Everybody has offered an unspecified amount of help of the practical variety. Nobody has suggested they can assist me in the creation of the blueprint.
8. How do you make a pub look brand new to someone who has spent around 50% of his entire adult life sitting inside it and drinking its beer? Do I paint the walls? Move the pumps? Reupholster the furniture? Reorient the bar? What do they want from me?
9. Fuck the Winter. I could handle that. This is much more serious.

I need to sleep. I get the feeling this isn’t going to go away. Tomorrow is time for action. But what action?

This was news to me. Like Rimmer, I had arrived at a time of year when thoughts were turned only to the oncoming Winter. I had assumed survival of that harsh season to be the most challenging of the landlord’s tasks. It was late, but I had to read on.

The month of June turned out to be a lonely one for him. Physically, as his Winter custom went about their business in their own corners of the island, and spiritually also, as he struggled with even the most fundamental aspects of his grand scheme. With no effective sounding board, he found it impossible to strike any kind of balance between meaningful change and the retention of the place’s quintessence.

Like any form of madness, I read painfully through its tragic solitary spiral towards oblivion. More and more impractical and, frankly, lunatic ideas came and went, although he maintained enough sanity to ultimately see them for what they were. Towards the end of the month, he hit upon a theme that seemed plausible: light. You change the way the light hits something, you can make it look like something else altogether. Or so he believed, and I found myself nodding in agreement as his thought process unravelled into real solutions.

First things to go were the leaded windows. In fact, Rimmer had been so impressed with the transforming effect that had had on the place, he even considered stopping there. But it wasn’t enough for him. He convinced one of the temporary migrant builders to cut him a skylight in the roof, on the right hand side as you entered. The result was sensational, he reported. The summer sunshine warmed and gilded the whole interior. He basked in the glow he had conceived.

The confidence he gained from this simplest of achievements changed the tenor of his entries to something approaching hubris. Early July saw him redouble his efforts. I flicked past, with mounting trepidation, reports of restaining all the woodwork a light oak, an accent wall behind the fireplace, the introduction of glassed-in taxidermy: his beloved puffin was to share his Winter.

I paused and reflected. I could recall no evidence of any of the chronicled changes from my short visit to The Griffin earlier that day. Over the following few days I was able to confirm that. Not a single sign. If it hadn’t been for the euphoric journal entries, there would have been no reason to believe they had ever happened.

Sure enough, it turned out to be something of a high-water mark in Rimmer’s mood. The onset of his second, and final, Winter presaged a disturbing decline in his written coherence. His changes to the place had not been well received. The regulars had ways of making themselves very clear without an overuse of words. Slowly but surely, the landlord’s position slipped from the privileged symbiotic detachment of his first Winter into a more marginalised isolation.

Evidently it had been The Child’s displeasure that had had the most damaging effect. Only mentioned in passing during the earlier chapters, Rimmer’s personal feelings towards the icon rose regularly out of his increasingly random outbursts. The Child had made his views known. Winter, he contended, was harsh enough on all the inhabitants of the island, not just those confined to The Griffin. It was something to be shut out of the consciousness, not showcased in vast virtual display cabinets. The prevailing opinion clearly followed in his slipstream. Rimmer read and re-read the part in the Book about sitting atop the hierarchy. It became his nemesis.

October 23^rd

A ridiculous evening. Many more like that and I won’t be responsible for my actions. They’ve got it all choreographed, all synchronised perfectly, and he’s like Busby fucking Berkeley in his corner, pulling the strings. Fucking Pinocchio, it’s like. Strings and noses. His nose. His fucking nose.

“They believe in you” it says. Who wrote that horse shit? They don’t believe in me. They don’t believe in you. They believe in what they are. You’d better believe it.

Brian and Joshua again. I’ll sit and stir the ashes in the fire and ask who’s to go first when the day comes. Both of those cancerous old gits show up as often as that fucking Child. There’s your pecking order, standing like a beacon amidst the Winter’s gloom. I’m not at the top any more. That pile has been inverted. Sandcastle. Do they even know what a sandcastle is? I might ask, except nobody would listen.

What was it this time? Something about the remedies. Who was he pushing something on this time? It was probably Tony. I wish he wouldn’t come over and stir things up. Why can’t he stay on that fucking rock of his? He’s got his birdnests and he’s got his missus. Isn’t that enough to keep him busy at this time of year? I can’t stand the way he wheedles around. Mostly around The Child, thank fuck. Welcome to him. He’s like a fucking untied balloon, pissing its air out and sticking to your arse, doesn’t matter which way you turn. Shit. I can’t even bar him. Nobody even knows what that means here. Can’t send him down The Heretic for the fucking Winter. Fucking place. Give me rules. Rules of the game. It’s a fucking game, isn’t it.

Never mind Tony. It’s not about him. So, Joshua is pushing his latest wonder of nature on Tony, who is the last person that needs encouragement on that front. It’s probably his missus who sends him out just before the tide comes in. He’s the only bloke here who has a bigger sex drive in the Winter than the women. His dancing snow-capped cock doesn’t do him any good, though. Hasn’t fathered any children for years, they all say. I don’t fucking know. What would I know? I’m not one of them. So he’s talking to Joshua, unloading all the details I don’t want to hear. The old man is fucking lapping it up, and he gives him something that he knocks back right there at the bar. The Child doesn’t even pay any attention. Not that he’s interested in any of that stuff.

Brian’s by himself. As usual. He’s been worse than he was last Winter, but not as bad as the rest of them. He couldn’t give a shit about the skylight. Doesn’t even hate the Winter like the others. He’s got a new wife, though. Young enough to be his daughter. I suppose it’s less of a chore that way.

He shouts something across to Joshua. I don’t know what it was, but it’s about the old fart’s remedies and how they’re totally fucking useless. His evidence is all around us, he says. Where are the children? What’s going to happen to the island? He brings up Joshua’s exemption. That didn’t get raised until January last time out, and that had been after a hard few weeks. What’s the point of being exempt from the grunt work on the basis of alternative important contributions, when those contributions amount to nothing? Joshua goes mental. He gets like a fucking honey badger when you start to question his concoctions. To be honest, it’s all crap. Brian’s got a point. I can’t see any benefits of whatever it is people are taking. From what I could tell, there was one baby born this summer. And it’s not well now, they’re saying. These dickheads are watching their sub-culture slip away before their eyes.

Anyway, Brian goes too far. He starts to bring up the last 2 Winters and summers. The record is pretty horrendous. Only 3 kids, and none of them look like they’ll make it through to full-grown. It’s bad, but it doesn’t matter. You don’t talk about the seasons that are gone. That’s the rule. Everyone looks at me, apart from Brian and Joshua, who are tearing strips out of each other across the bar. I’ve got to do something. Fucking spineless, the lot of them. Won’t give me the time of day since they started to get poisoned by that crazy old flake, but now I’m their knight in shining fucking armour.

They’re right. I hate them, but they’re right. It’s my job to sort it out. I go for Brian. If anyone’s left with even the edge of a foot on my side, it’s him. And it’s him that’s stepped over the line. I can make myself heard over Joshua’s raving. Brian just looks at me. Cold, like a tit on a dead woman sticking out of the snow. Joshua is still going on. I can’t move. I can’t back down. What becomes of me if I back down? Brian turns to return a volley of abuse at the insane remedist. It’s not the worst outcome for me. A long stand-off might have been worse. I try the older man. He gives me nothing, not even the ice I got from Brian. I’ve got no control and I’m buggered if I know how I’m going to get some. I’ve done nothing to prepare me for this. I know this is the end for me. You can’t come back from this.

Here’s a thing. My saviour comes in an unlikely shape. Like they used to say… all shapes and sizes. Nobody here has seen that film, so it means nothing to them. The Child has been sitting there, round the corner, all the way through. Sipping his beer, looking anywhere but at those two fruitcakes. No fucking worries for him about how to regain control of a situation that’s going to have him for breakfast. ‘Mr Rimmer, I’m bloody freezing,’ he says. He doesn’t raise his voice, just wraps his arms around himself and tells me he’s freezing. He’s got a massive angora coat on. The fire’s screaming in his ear. Another is doing the same on the other side of the bar. Nobody else is wearing a coat. But it’s a point of order. I have to make sure my punters are comfortable. Fucking comfortable? Joshua and Brian have stopped now, too. ‘It’s that skylight,’ he goes on. I know where this is going. ‘I can see the snow settling on top of it. I can feel the cold of it through the glass. Same goes for those windows. One look at the drifts piling up against the outside walls and I start to shiver, like I was buried under there myself.’

You can bet he knows a thing or two about bodies buried under the snow. It was no fucking coincidence that it was me who found Izzy’s naked frozen tits down by the river. And the rest of her, underneath them. Not that I know what’s going on, but there’s always something where he’s involved. I know all about her sister – smart girl, legged it when she could with one of my predecessors. She’s safe now, although I wouldn’t want to be stuck over there at the arse end of the mainland. All the disadvantages of being here and none of the perks.

Anyway, I go and sling more wood on the fire. I’m like a puppet. He knows I’ve got to do it. If enough people say they’re too hot, I can get out of it, but that’s not going to happen. Fucking hierarchy. See where it gets you. I’m almost out of wood, and I don’t just mean in the baskets in the bar. I mean there’s almost nothing out the back either. He’s had me running both of the fuckers at full blast non-stop since the snow started. He knows I’m going to run out. I hope he knows what I’m going to do once that happens, because I haven’t got a fucking clue. I know, I’m going to have to get some more from somewhere, but where’s the somewhere? I haven’t got anyone left who’ll help me out. Santino says he can get me some from the Sanctuary, and the Child couldn’t do anything about that, but I can’t rely on him for the whole Winter.

And then they’re gone. Both fires are blazing, and he ups and leaves. Within 10 minutes everyone else has fucked off, too. The atmosphere wasn’t great even before Brian and Joshua’s performance, but I’ve never seen the place empty out like that. It’s not even midnight and I’m all by myself. I might even get a decent night’s kip.

Except I can’t. I can’t move from here, and I’ve got to write. I need to fill this Book up with truth, redress the balance. I’m not allowed to take anything out, and I wouldn’t dream of it. What is it they wrote earlier? “Even the irreproachable nectar….has its limitations.” Well, I can second that. I’ve taken double doses for as long as I can remember now, and things aren’t getting any better. I’ve lost my pub while I’m still standing inside it. Tonight’s pantomime might happen more and more and there’s nothing I can do about it. All I wanted was light.

It’s all over for me. I’m finished. I need to formulate an exit plan. I know Mick and Ronnie managed it. Fuck knows how, but I’ve got to take a leaf out of their book. No way is there going to be anything for a while. The weather’s set in, it looks like. I might as well resign myself to a whole Winter and get out of here in spring. Nobody down at the ferry will have an axe to grind with me. Might even be able to lie low with Bobby for a bit. I feel like the fucking Pope. There’s no law against resigning but you know you can’t do it. And when you do your life might as well be over.

Fuck it. Fuckitfuckitfuckitfuckit. Who sent me into this darkness? I can’t escape. I don’t rate my chances. And I should be sleeping now. Instead, I’m just going to prod the fires for a while, see whose faces come out. Oh shit.

It was far from the last entry Rimmer had made. From that point onwards his story continued unabated, occasionally reaching a similar crescendo in the midst of crushing defeats of his spirit. His minuscule victories, however hard-earned, were reported as plain fact, with no sense of pride. It was tear-jerking stuff.

 

Towards the middle of the Winter, early January, a new muse arose, to which he dedicated a whole 36-page chapter, lasting until the end of March. Nothing else occupied his thoughts, or his reported thoughts, at least.

I knew of the cribbage league: the background and constitution had been thoroughly explained much earlier in the Book, and the full set of results and statistics had been inserted in the appropriate section, but it had only just become relevant to Rimmer.

The league itself was the focal point of Winter across the island. Winning the title appeared to be the next most important thing after survival. It had struck me as incongruous, given the generally uncompetitive and co-operative environment I had so far experienced. But I supposed these people were human after all, and as vulnerable to human weakness as anybody else.

The island supports twelve six-strong cribbage teams. Each pub, apart from The End of The World, hamstrung by its size and catchment area, provided two. The docks managed the same. The prison could only raise one. According to Rimmer, and I didn’t backtrack through the book to check, The Griffin had always been completely hopeless. Neither of its teams had ever seriously challenged for the championship, in all the years since its conception. Once, the ‘A’ team had finished a distant third behind both Shipbuilders teams, but that was as good as it had ever got. Nobody even thought that relatively successful campaign worth their nostalgia.

But this Winter, Rimmer’s second and the last before my arrival, everything had changed. Slowly, but surely, it had become apparent to a distracted Rimmer that the teams were performing rather noticeably well. As January came around, the ‘A’ team was lording it, unbeaten, over the rest; even the ‘B’ team was sitting in an unaccustomed third place. It was the only thing keeping the mood of the place up, and it threatened to overshadow the malaise.

He listened more closely to the cribbage-related conversations, and a giant smiling dawn appeared to him from behind the animated bobbing heads comparing their tales of invincibility. This year, for the first time ever, The Child had handed over the reins of the teams to Kev. Since anybody could remember, and despite the pitiful record, he had practiced hegemonic rule over the whole setup. Eventually, he had decided that enough was enough. He had even stopped playing, which allowed Santino to team up with Joshua. As a pair, they proceeded to go through the whole of the first round of games unbeaten. The rest of the team had followed their lead almost as flawlessly.

Rimmer was incandescent with excitement, and it was clear through the obsession in his pages. There was an undeniable direct link between the demise of The Child and the resurgence of the team. No more was he forced to dig out facile pyrrhic victories from the embers of a bad-tempered exchange, this was something tangible he could hold onto. The teams became the focus of his attention, and the community gradually began to draw him back into their circle. Flattery is foolproof the world over, he commented in his pages.

The dream continued through January and, when the ‘B’ team’s performances dropped off, life got even better for Rimmer. Old John McGovern had been having one of the most demanding Winters of anybody. His wife, veteran of four almost fully grown-up children, had come out of retirement at the request of the Women’s Guild, and she meant to do her bit. She had even enlisted an inexperienced young cousin of hers as backup. John was a strong man, but he was noticeably wilting under the onslaught. He was becoming less and less available for the team, and when he did show he was prone to dozing off. In the end Kev was forced to draft in another player, mid-season. It was permitted, under the rules. John’s son, Johnny, stood in behind the bar during matches.

Cribbage-related entries became more and more detailed for the remainder of the season. Rimmer turned out to be a fine player: his overall record for the season was considerably more impressive than John’s career figures. I confirmed that claim by checking back through the chronicles of the previous seasons. It took me time I didn’t have the luxury of, but it seemed to matter. I was more delighted for him than I thought possible.

Delight was not confined to me, reading of the redemption those six months or so later. Rimmer’s mood lightened along with that of the entire clientele. References in the journal to The Child petered out as the ultimate victory was won. The disastrous rebirth of the summer had been consigned to ancient history by a Winter to remember. It was just what was supposed to happen, only in reverse. Was that another reason why they insisted on appointing migrants to this post? I tried to imagine an islander getting something so wildly wrong and incurring such intense distaste from the closed community around him. It would have taken more than cribbage for that to have been forgotten. The poisonous atmosphere would have been a perfect breeding ground for old festering sores to bubble to the surface once more. With Rimmer, there had been no weight of history to add to the momentum, and eventually the hate died.

Interestingly, given what I “knew” from the gossips over the water, I found not a single further mention of Tony, the north-east rock keeper whose gruesome death had been linked to Rimmer’s disappearance before I had even arrived. If there had been some kind of disagreement, it was not apparent within these pages. And I had witnessed no evidence of him holding back his emotional current from the written word. That, of course, was proof or otherwise of nothing, but I made a point of looking out for anything. Nobody could tamper with this sacrosanct telling of the truth. I wondered if anybody knew quite what heights and depths the content touched.

The last updates, late in April, were poignantly upbeat. He had learned his lesson from the previous year’s tribulations and was looking forward to putting things right. His idea was to put everything back how it was the previous Winter. That would surely meet with approval, and would buy him another year. Young Johnny McGovern thought the approach a stroke of genius. No more was written.

 

It was almost daylight when I finally put the Book down. I had spent more time in one night reading that motley collection of simmeringly half-drunken ramblings than on Fathers and Sons in the previous seven days. I was too embarrassed to even mention Turgenev’s name in my own presence. I felt it had prepared me well enough for my first day, though.

Two hours of fitful sleep was all I managed, the sun banging impatiently on my window, diverting my view towards the Mountain, where a narrow finger of snow hung like a giant meathook over the overhang.

Six miles or thereabouts, I reckoned, to The Griffin via the least perilous and most picturesque route. I was about to find out for sure. My hands trembled visibly as I packed what I needed into the backpack. The Book slid in happily, and I padded it out with a change of clothes – there was no way I was opening on my first day in running gear – and some basic toiletries which I would leave there. I knew, from my conversations during the appointment process, of the rudimentary living arrangements in the pub itself, including a bathroom and a camp bed. That would be fine.

The run itself was more challenging than I expected. The wind was coming straight into my face, down from the north; the horizon was looking threatening already; and my heartrate was higher than ever. The previous few days had been instructive and necessary, but now I was stepping into island life proper. My legs laboured over the damp ground.

Johnny wouldn’t be there when I arrived. I had told him to lock up when he was done the night before, and go back to the life he was born to. I knew he couldn’t help me. I had known that before reading the Book, and I had known it even more afterwards.

It was quiet all around when I arrived. Six and a quarter miles. I opened up with the keys I had taken the previous day. I propped the door open and walked around slowly. I was still out of breath. I couldn’t remember the last time as short a distance had left me so drained. The Child’s moonlit words came back to me: I ought to have been on top form from the very beginning. Now, there I was, less than an hour away from serving my first customer, I had had two hours’ sleep and was sweating like a carthorse.

I touched all the furniture. It was solid and honest. It was mine. The whole place was mine. A few days previously, I had done the same with Santino’s in my basement and felt guilty.

It seemed that Johnny McGovern’s widely acclaimed rebirth had consisted purely of undoing what Mr Rimmer had implemented a year ago. As per Rimmer’s own plan, in fact. There was no sign of a skylight, the windows were pointedly leaded, the bar and the furniture were stained a deepish shade of oak, deeper than one might be used to, if not quite a mahogany. Those reversals, a new carpet and a lick of paint had done it. I giggled at the lunacy of it and disappeared to the living quarters for a shower and to change.

The shower worked on the same basis as my own at the cottage, and was an equally consummate sensation for my skin, the largest and most sensitive organ. I was glad to know the place held some home comforts.

I dressed in my choice of first-day clothes. Simple, working clothes, but clean and free from holes. About as good as it was going to get. My shoes were spotless but didn’t shine. I looked fine. I hadn’t shaved for a while, but a light beard suited me and I smartened it up around the edges. My hair was turning grey but at my age it was a look to which I didn’t object.

Right on cue, here was a man sporting a rudely healthy head of hair, totally white. He was in the process of springing up to his bar stool as I emerged into the bar area. I was mildly shocked, and stopped to watch him complete his manoeuvre. He caught me watching him and smiled.

‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘Excuse me for wandering in so early, but the door was open. Are you ready to start?’

‘Good morning,’ I replied, finding my feet exactly where I’d left them, and approaching him from my side of the bar. ‘I wasn’t expecting anybody for a while, but I can be ready, as long as you are!’

‘Oh, I woke up ready,’ he said with an open and generous smile. ‘I’m Brian, by the way.’

We shook hands warmly and I learned my first regular’s usual tipple. I guessed that would be a piece of knowledge I wouldn’t lose in a hurry. The stool looked so much more at home with him in it.

‘Happy with the place?’ he asked after the first half-pint had disappeared in a silent ritual that looked delicious.

‘So far, so good,’ I said. ‘It’s probably a bit early to tell, but it looks great and I’ve managed to find where everything is, so far. Everything sort of makes sense. I feel I belong, almost as if I’ve been here before.’

‘Have you? Been here before? Can’t say your face rings a bell,’ he looked at me more intently.

‘No, not to my knowledge,’ I grinned.

‘Not the sort of thing you’d forget,’ he muttered, almost chewing on his beer. One of the monstrous seabirds from the North-east Rock landed on the gatepost outside and made itself comfortable. It scanned the immediate area closely. I had never seen a bird so enormous and man-like. Its face was wrinkled like a chimp’s, its eyes shifty and mammalian. The stubby feathers on its head and neck gave the distinct impression of a winter coat of fur. If you took the beak away you would never have guessed. Even its robotic wings were tipped with five protruding feathers of a slightly brighter white than the otherwise dusty complexion. I had the vision of it sitting in its nest, knitting gloves for its chicks while they practised their scales on the piano. Brian had finished his pint.

‘Same again, Brian?’ I prompted. Soon I would stop that altogether. I poured it with precision.

‘Not joining me?’ he asked.

‘I might later,’ I said. ‘There’s so much for me to think about today that I need to keep a clear head. Got names, drinks, likes and dislikes to remember. I don’t want to be mixing those up, not when I’ve only just got here!’ Had I just accused him of rampant alcoholism without really saying it? I laughed far too much, in an effort to disguise the insult.

‘You’re probably right,’ he nodded thoughtfully. ‘There are times when a clear head is more use than a cloudy one. Thankfully, those days are gone for me now.’ He took an enormous sip of his beer. It really was an outstanding brew and I fancied one.

I changed the subject. ‘I’m pleased with the work Johnny has done on the rebirth. He’s worked hard, I’d say.’

Did his expression change when I mentioned the word “rebirth”? Maybe I imagined it, but his eyes certainly met mine over the silver rim of his tankard. ‘He’s done a fine job. Just like it’s supposed to be. Difficult thing to get completely right, the rebirth. Lots of people here to please, and you’re not going to get all of them at the same time. Got to get the balance between new and familiar, and there are rules that you just can’t break. Most important thing is that nobody comes in here and gets reminded of the previous Winter. He’s got that spot on. Good lad. Tough job, especially this year. Nobody wants to be reminded of last Winter. One of the worst.’

He offered no more than that on the subject of the previous Winter. I knew enough already from Rimmer’s journal, and decided not to poke around after more. I asked what Brian’s views were for the coming season.

‘No point asking,’ he dismissed the question. ‘Nobody can tell. There’s no indicators: doesn’t matter what day the snows first come, what the weather does for the first week, what the summer was like, what the plants are doing, how many babies are born; nothing. The only thing that’ll tell you is the Winter itself. We’ll all find out in good time. Meanwhile we’re kept busy enough,’ he told me through a humourless grimace. ‘But let’s not think about that. Plenty of time to worry on that front. How about you? How are you settling in? How long you been here? A week now? It must be a change for you.’

‘Yes, about a week,’ I supposed. ‘I’m doing well. My cottage is looking great, I’ve met a few people. It’s a far cry from my previous life, but I feel very at home. I’ve even got donkeys to keep my lawn under control. Couldn’t ask for any more than that.’

‘Bloody donkeys. Eat anything, they will. Whoever first called them asses knew what he was talking about.’ He drank. ‘Run all the way here today, did you?’

I confirmed his suspicion. I supposed he had seen me arrive.

‘You might struggle to keep that up. Snow boots might be more appropriate,’ he nodded towards the rear windows. I turned to look. The church stood superimposed on its mound, the sun picking it out against the blackening background. The snows were coming from the north-west. That much was clear even to a newcomer.

‘Are the clouds always that dark?’ I asked him.

‘Mostly,’ he said. ‘Difficult to argue with them, isn’t it?’

Impossible, I thought to myself. I would need to get a fire going soon. I could already feel the chill under those looming snowfactories.

My attention was taken by the opening of the door. Brian didn’t move a muscle. A muffled figure blocked out the sun, which was trying to shine, uninvited, through the open doorway. He shut the door behind him with a small slam, and the sun slunk away. It satisfied itself with caressing the roof of the pub on the way to its defiant soaking of the churchfront. The inevitability of the snowclouds had no effect on it.

The figure in question wore a thick woollen hat, and wisps of his dark thatch escaped at the front and sides. His eyes were weak and watery, but I couldn’t make out the colour, if they even had one. They lived close together, tight either side of a small and pointed nose amongst a copious nest of beard. The rest of him was a mystery, covered as it was under an enormous army surplus greatcoat. If somebody had told me it did actually date from World War II, I would have believed them.

He walked around to the right, the other end of the bar from where Brian was installed. Slowly, he removed his hat and hung it on a hook that I hadn’t even noticed earlier. The same with the all-encompassing coat. The hook was strong and didn’t flinch.

His limbs were thin, I could tell that much, but they moved gracefully and noiselessly. I couldn’t see how they would ever wear out. He covered the ground like some kind of semi-solid reptilian alien from a horror film, and I probably stared too much. But what did he expect? He slid into his stool and fixed me with an inquisitive gaze.

‘My name is Joshua,’ he said.

‘I’m very pleased to meet you, Joshua,’ I started. I introduced myself and held out my hand for a thin handshake. His fingers were mostly black. From the charcoal, I surmised.

Brian had not even made eye contact with him. I picked up some animosity from Rimmer’s story, but it was still early: early in the day and in the Winter. If this was how they started, I could only see it going one way.

I chatted briefly to Joshua, about charcoal and Evie, our mutual friend. He was considerably less garrulous than Brian and I found it relatively awkward. After each of his sentences, I was left with the definite feeling that he had just told me one thing and actively not told me four or five others. I tried not to judge him too harshly: after all, everybody had their own style.

The awkwardness was thankfully short-lived. Two youngsters strode in. One of them was Johnny McGovern; I didn’t recognise the other. Johnny approached the bar confidently, more confidently than he would have done at the same stage last Winter, I suspected. I greeted him like an old friend and got him his first drink. Of course, on the island no money changed hands, but this one was most certainly on me. I placed his friend’s pint next to his.

‘I didn’t think I’d see you today, Johnny,’ I said. ‘Have you not got urgent things to do before the snow?’ I glanced over my shoulder to the view of the church and beyond. The other colt was silent, and tried not to breathe too much. He was sitting at the bar and his friend was yakking away with the landlord as if he were an old timer.

‘Well, I have, really,’ Johnny admitted. ‘But Dad’s given me the day off today. All the livestock I’ve got to look after can be sorted in the next few days, before it gets bad. A day off won’t hurt anything, he says.’

‘Are you sure?’ I blurted. ‘Have you seen what’s coming, over the church?’

He smiled indulgently at me. He really had graduated from childhood during the summer. I could almost taste the pride on his mate’s face. ‘It’ll be fine. It’s always a couple of days before it really settles: it’s not cold enough yet. You’ll be alright to run here for the next five or six days probably,’ he gave me a small wink over his glass.

I loved him. I played to his new-found sophistication, to see if I could send his friend into genuine raptures of veneration. ‘Well, I’ll take your word for it. You’re the expert,’ I began. ‘Busy Winter for you, though, now you’ve got your own beasts?’

‘Yeah, it’s going to be hard. I’ll do as my Dad says, though. Can’t go wrong.’ He sipped his drink and shot a quick look at his companion, whose eyes hadn’t left Johnny’s face or blinked since the conversation had started. He swallowed the beer. ‘I’m going to take Sally off my Dad’s hands, too.’ I heard a light choking from near my left shoulder, and a few sprayed drops of beer hit my chin before they knew what was happening to them. Johnny’s mate’s face looked like it had been cursed by a witch-doctor, or attacked by a new bovine virus, one that opened every orifice as wide as it could go, and then some more. Beer dripped lightly from his smooth chin.

Sally, he explained, was his mother’s second cousin. She was the young woman the McGoverns pressed into service the previous Winter. I had read about it in Rimmer’s account. And the reason she was now being passed on was a notable one: Johnny’s mother, Jenny, was pregnant. Fifteen years after her last child was born, she was preparing another, due within the month. She and Johnny’s father were now local celebrities. It had been a desperate move to put her back into active service, at her age, but it had paid off. Old John could look forward to a quieter Winter, it appeared. His old place in the cribbage team was also available once more, I reminded myself.

The pressure of being a son following a famous father sat lightly on Johnny’s shoulders. What does he know of expectation, that only expectation knows?

 

And so the day progressed. I made formal acquaintance with many of the main characters, the pace of life in this cusp-of-season interlude, and the relaxed attitude to opening hours that had previously only been anecdotal. There had been no need for a fire on my first day, but I looked forward to building one before the next was out. I locked the door after the last customer, straightened things out and pulled my running gear back on.

The trip home took a good ten or fifteen minutes less than its morning counterpart had. The wind was with me, but it was dark, and the snow fell in flakes the like of which I had never seen before. Some were the size of my hand. Johnny was right, though: they were still a bit damp, and the ground a little warm, to settle. Still, I covered the ground like an Olympic athlete. I was so stuffed full of adrenaline that I could have vaulted the Mountain. I arrived home, showered and fell asleep within seconds.

If my first day had rushed past as if it was trying to leave no footprint on my memory, the subsequent ones came pell-mell, from every angle, and appeared to be using a smokescreen tactic. Thick and fast, they mimicked the snowfall, which had set in with a permanence I was starting to understand.

Running was soon out of the question. The ground became treacherous, and I was forced into my thick boots earlier than I had anticipated. The daily commute grew longer, but through each journey I took the opportunity to reflect on what I had learned. There was always something; a survival tip, an inadvertent hint of local history, advanced cribbage tactics, some fundamental human truth that I had either forgotten, in my carelessness, or never considered. What I loved most about The Griffin was that there was hardly a wasted word. Small talk was pointless, and nobody even knew how to do it. If there was nothing important to discuss, nothing was said. But there always was.

I spent more and more nights in the tiny back room on the camp bed. After the later evenings that inevitably came as Winter deepened, it was simply impractical to schlep all the way home, just to grab a couple of hours’ sleep before heading back north. When I did make it to my cottage, I could feel, from the depths of the cellar, a half-finished desk in an eloquent limbo, as a reminder of my rapidly drowning ambitions. It made me slightly uneasy, at least while I allowed it to occupy my thoughts. Fortunately I had everything I needed from my regulars: wood, charcoal, practical skills, transport to and from the brewery when required. And I had set up my living quarters just as I liked them. I was even getting through Fathers and Sons, which I had smuggled into the pub under cover of the morning darkness. What they didn’t know couldn’t hurt them.

Weeks passed in the certain knowledge that they would soon graduate to months. Business was booming, and I had been keeping my head above water. I felt pretty good about myself. But, as the months got into their stride, something was nagging: mere survival wasn’t enough. Obviously I hadn’t yet become a true islander. I would lie on my thin mattress, listening to the creaking of the settling flakes, flawless novel resting, flawlessly, under my folded hands, and consider my lot.

It was true: the boundaries between days really were blurred. Time had been reduced to the most basic variables: dark or light, most of the time dark; open or shut, invariably open; Winter or not, always Winter. I was a constant whirl of motion and I needed more of a flipside.

The solution was simple, or at least it would have seemed simple in my earlier life, on the other side of the Sound: get some help. Many hands make light work. The difficulty was identifying where that help might come from. The most qualified, Johnny, was fully occupied, and he made no secret of it. His braggadocio was beginning to grate, not just on me but on others. They had seen it all before, of course, and it wouldn’t be long before he witnessed just how they dealt with that around here. Anyway, he wasn’t available to me. Nobody else had any spare time, either: the two pregnancies from the Winter gone (Kev’s wife had also hit the jackpot and was only weeks behind Jenny, who had already given birth to a boy, as yet unnamed and unseen, at least by me) had inspired the women and they were setting a frightening pace. Kev and Old John found it all highly amusing as they busied themselves with the more mundane sort of Winter husbandry: livestock; running repairs on public buildings, including my pub, which was as prone to the weather as anything else; cribbage. Nobody got the Winter off completely.

 

My coup came out of nowhere. I would never have predicted it, right up to the moment that I, myself, brought it to fruition. On top of the regulars, The Griffin hosted a generous array of tourists. That simply meant those who didn’t live north of a line drawn through the Mountain. Shaun, from the Brewery, regularly visited, mostly after work although occasionally for a lunchtime tipple. Sometimes others from that establishment followed him along the snowy path. It was good to see them all, especially Shaun. They brought some perspective with them, and were a living, breathing reminder of the origins of the nectar we all were in danger of taking for granted.

Neville the lighthouseman made sure to come once a week before the snow got too bad. After that, he still managed to fit in the occasional visit, even if only as a part of The Heretic’s cribbage team. His sons would fill in for him in the lighthouse when he wanted an evening off. His presence prompted in me vivid flashbacks of the balmy, sputtering end to summer’s autumn, and the incomparable views he had gifted me of the vast island, now shrunk to a tiny kernel as far as I was concerned.

Most relevant of those tourists, however, was my oldest friend on the island. Bobby had shown up on my first day, and came several times a week without fail, staying all evening normally. Whilst officially a tourist, he integrated like a true local. His status as a Robertson gave him a free hand, socially. Not that nobody else was free to go where they wished on the island, but Robertsons, and Donalds, transcended even the invisible social barriers that others inevitably carried. He made full use of that privilege.

I ribbed him regularly on his excessive absence from his own pub. Did the Shipbuilders not need his guiding hand? If it was anything like The Griffin, it surely must have done. He was relaxed: the situation in the south was very different from up here, he explained. Some areas of commerce were in their Winter hiatus, particularly the sponge diving and most of the vegetable-related activities, but other facets of life went on. Even the port was still open: ferries might be suspended for now, but it was a full-time job making sure it kept ticking over. If they weren’t ready to react to improving weather conditions, there would be awkward questions to answer. It was also mating season down there, but the pressure was nothing like it was in the north. The birthrate was of less concern, and people continued on their way as they might have done at any other time of year, except with more, and thicker, clothes.

He went to some pains to make it very clear to me that the Shipbuilders remained his baby and he considered it an honour to be landlord. Jobs like that were neither granted nor given away lightly here. But Winter was easier, in many ways. He had a manager looking after the place (succession planning was less of a problem in the south) and a couple of seasonal barstaff. The truth was, he was more in the way than anything else if he was hanging around there. Just as long as he checked in every few days and they could get a message to him in an emergency, one of which had never occurred, things were covered.

The idea began to form in my head the first time we had a conversation along those lines. It began life as a distant, unrealistic plan, but during quiet nights on my thin mattress its sinuous threads would swirl and gather into temporary drifts just like the snow that gave it life in the first place. I had never been very good at reading signs, but finally I took the action that had been tormenting me for weeks. One evening I asked Bobby if he would consider teaming up and assist me officially in my first Winter.

‘I thought you’d never ask,’ he smiled. ‘Of course I will. I’m here most of the time anyway. Seems stupid that you’re just about managing to keep yourself alive while I’m kicking back over this side of the bar. I’ve felt guilty about it for weeks.’

I could barely believe it. ‘You will?’ I stuttered. ‘You don’t mind? It doesn’t interfere with the Shipbuilders? I know that’s got to be your number one priority. I don’t want to be the reason a pub loses its landlord. That’s not what I’m after. You know that, don’t you?’

His look reassured me. ‘Go home early tonight and sleep,’ he said. ‘I’ll lock up and I’ll deal with tomorrow. You need a whole day away from this place. You’re starting to look haunted, and you didn’t even look like that when you first arrived! This place is having the wrong effect on you. I need to be at the Shipbuilders the day after tomorrow, but we can work out a rota.’ I poured us halves of the hole-black chocolate porter I reserved for the marking of special occasions and we drank to our alliance.

My bed welcomed me like a returning prodigal. My walk home had passed in a haze. I felt like somebody else, leaving The Griffin while customers carried on their evenings. The snow had stopped and the place was full: the women tended to relax in the breaks between snowfalls. I saw flickering lights through the plain southern transept windows of the church. It was possible they would be in there most of the night, especially if the cloud cleared enough for stars. The wind was from the east, blustery and raw.

Before I was fully out of range, I heard the door go once more and distant murmurs of easy bonhomie drifted across the silent snowscape. I didn’t even turn to see if it was somebody entering or leaving. I just savoured the remoteness for the fleeting seconds before it melted into the drifts on either side of the path.

I slept late. The cloud had not cleared like I had expected it to. My reading of the upcoming weather was still not as native as I had hoped. I reminded myself once more that a true native would never even bother with a prediction.

Pottering, my mother would have called it. I filled my curtailed day with jobs that cried out at me. I refreshed the charcoal in my range and chopped some more logs. My paths were already cleared of snow, for which I was grateful. I wandered down to the town, partly to replenish my store cupboard stocks, partly to treat myself to some different faces and conversations.

The butcher gifted me a cured ham. I managed to score some beetroot from Daniel and rustled up enough other essentials to convince me that the rest of the Winter would be a doddle. Commerce was brisk in the little high street and I felt renewed. I reckoned it was as close as I had got to the feeling I had been searching for. The easterly blew an unfamiliar thin, stinging snow in off the Sound, right up the hill away from the port. I had to fight against it to reach the Shipbuilders, where I stopped for a pint of Mainland. Bobby was right: the place was no busier than I had seen it in the autumn, and it was completely under control. I thought of how The Griffin would look now. It was difficult to know, exactly, but I imagined a busy day; the women were taking stock, or maybe a breather, and would probably be fussing in St Piko’s for the greater part of the day.

One pint was all I allowed myself. I wanted a good meal before setting off back to The Griffin to catch up with Bobby. The whistling wind almost blew me home. I considered stopping by to see how Evie was doing, but I didn’t want her to think I was checking up on her. We had a musical date set up for a few days’ time, anyway, I believed. She would keep until then.

I ate like I had never eaten before. A thin beetroot soup, ham, three eggs and crushed potatoes. Half a loaf of bread. I hadn’t been looking after myself properly at all, it seemed, and I vowed to not let it get so bad again. Bobby would make sure of that, anyway. I packed some fresh clothes and set off, radiating the warmth of a newly kindled and healthily stocked hearth.

The wind had remained in the east all this while, and it was not until I cleared the Mountain that it swung around back from the north, as was normal for Winter. The flakes bloated and slowed down. I could see each one settle on the crisp path.

The Griffin was almost empty. Two of the younger ones were leaving as I arrived. I wished them luck as they wrapped up and set off into the blizzard. According to Bobby, the weather had turned not an hour ago, and the phone had started almost straight away. Everyone had had a decent rest, apart from him; the previous night had been a late one as the men took advantage of the slackening. He looked drawn, but happy enough. I passed on news of the Shipbuilders.

‘I can’t tell you how much I appreciate what you’re doing for me, Bobby,’ I told him. ‘I feel like a new man already. A decent night’s sleep, a simple run down into the town, a few jobs completed back at home, without any pressure. Most importantly, I know it’ll stay this good for the rest of the Winter. That makes all the difference.’

The phone rang. Bobby spoke briefly to Kev, who was the last one there. He was learning from his table of probabilities: he would leave no stone unturned in his defence of the cribbage title. Winning was not enough for Kev – his aim was nothing less than the fathering of a dynasty. But he had been called, and he trotted off. The door closed behind him and left us alone.

‘Stop thanking me,’ Bobby started, once the silence had settled. ‘You’ve seen the Shipbuilders. This is a better use of my time, and that’s what we’re all about, isn’t it? Besides, I needed to get involved up here. There’s something been bothering me.’

‘What do you mean? What’s been bothering you?’ I asked. He checked the door and scanned the whole pub. We were definitely alone in there.

‘I’ll tell you, but I don’t want you getting unduly concerned,’ he spoke quietly, despite having established we were quite unaccompanied. The snow grew thicker and thrummed slowly on the windows.

‘I’ll do my best,’ I replied, ‘but the longer you draw it out, the more concerned I’m getting.’

‘Well,’ he started, ‘I don’t know how much you know about your predecessor?’

‘You mean Mr Rimmer?’ I prompted him. I thought it might give him the confidence to get on with things.

‘That’s him. What do you know?’

I gave him the rundown of all I knew about Rimmer. I began with the gossips in the Old Lighthouse and took him briefly through the journal.

‘Good,’ he said. He seemed relieved that I knew so much. ‘So you know the background and the basic facts. I’m not sure I know any more than that myself. And don’t totally write off those guys on the mainland, either. I admit, they’re mostly layabouts and gossips, even my cousin, but there’s a lot of truth in that sort of talk. More than I’d like to admit to.’ He sipped his pint and looked at me intently. He was trying to work out the best way to continue. I let the silence run. ‘I’m trying to not be too melodramatic,’ he started, ‘so forgive me if I’m a bit stilted.’ I made a face.

‘I have no idea what happened to Rimmer,’ he went on. ‘And I’m finding it impossible to think up a scenario that isn’t sinister. It bothers me. The only palatable outcome is the one where he flees the island before anything happens to him, but I can’t see that somehow. He would have made contact with his mates on the mainland. He knew as well as anyone that, even if things had gone horribly wrong over here, none of that enmity can survive the crossing. There’s no trust between the two sides of the Sound; he would have been perfectly safe over there, no matter what his status here. Even The Child has no influence there. Ignore what you might have heard to the contrary.’

‘So he didn’t flee?’ I asked, while he studied the wide grain of the bar.

‘I’m discounting it. I’m also discounting that he had anything to do with Tony’s death. I just can’t see it.’

I agreed with him. Without giving too much away, I filled him in on the last few weeks of Rimmer’s journal. How he had been happy, optimistic and ready for the summer. And how he had barely mentioned Tony, even during his difficult phase when he was tossing around various more or less feasible ideas for getting rid of certain individuals.

‘It’s also unlikely he’s been done away with,’ Bobby confirmed. ‘We’re too superstitious about that, especially this lot up here. There’s no way somebody can die without a full ceremony taking place. Even suspicious deaths. Santino would make sure of that. They’ll make up some story that becomes accepted, if they need to.’

‘This is pretty much where the boys on the mainland got to,’ I said. ‘So where does that leave us?’

‘I don’t know,’ Bobby grumbled. ‘And that’s why I’m here. I’m suspicious, but I haven’t got enough of a hunch, or any evidence at all, to suggest any potential explanations. Naturally, I was worried for your sake. I felt we had a connection when you arrived, and I was determined that nothing similar would happen to you. Best thing for me to do was to hand over the Shipbuilders for a bit. I might be clueless as far as Rimmer’s concerned, but you can be sure that nothing will happen to you while I’m around. I’m your guardian angel, if you like!’ he tried to force a smile.

‘I’m grateful,’ I replied, taken aback. I had no idea I needed a guardian angel. It had never struck me that Rimmer’s fate, whatever it might have been, could lie in wait for me. Bobby tried to calm my concern. It was the reason why he had said nothing up to that point. It was almost impossible to come out with something like that and not put the wind up someone. He was right about that.

 

Bobby and I continued to run The Griffin happily and effectively. We had an unspoken agreement not to raise the subject of Rimmer, although I suspected my partner of some ultra-subtle digging under the locals when I was not around. Such an approach seemed dangerous to me, but I said nothing.

The pub sailed through Winter like a dream, although the sheer volume of opening time, even with both of us available, effectively scuppered any of my planned extra-curricular activities. My desk progressed at a snail’s pace, and I even contrived an ironic celebration one night to mark the completion of all four legs. Milestones along the way had to take on the sort of significance normally reserved for a triumphal culmination.

Men were edgy. Their wives summoned them on an increasingly regular basis. Other men’s wives summoned them, too. It was permitted. The Griffin became a kind of dentist’s waiting room. An infamous dentist.

The best times were as the snow eased or let up for short periods. We would watch the women troop across the hazardous granite outcrop, up the hill to the church. The mood would lighten in the bar as soon as the convoy set off. Sometimes the services could last for 24 hours, before the inevitable recommencement of hostilities.

Tempers never frayed, all through the darkest days of Winter. I had been concerned after reading Rimmer’s chronicle, but it never got so bad. Both babies were growing healthy and strong, once again the cribbage teams were trouncing all before them, the new management structure was going down well. It was a good time to be a Griffin regular.

 

I had begun my tenure extremely wary of The Child. It was only natural, given what I had heard. And my first encounter with him, on the path under the full moon, had done nothing to disabuse me of his otherworldly reputation. Like the others, he showed up regularly in The Griffin, maybe three times a week. Unlike his neighbours, he was no big drinker. He would nurse a pint or two for hours, spending his time with a varying selection of other regulars. He seemed to have a lot of time for Bobby, but he was not alone in that.

We spoke regularly, and he seemed genuinely interested in how I was adapting to the life, and what my plans might be for the future of the place. I found him to be a delightful companion on almost every level. Soon my initial uncertainty faded away and he became simply a part of the bizarrely varied anthropological landscape the pub offered, no more and no less than anybody else there.

Still, though, I attempted to define him. Much more than I ever tried with anybody else. It bothered me that he blended in so well. I told myself I was picking up on Bobby’s paranoia, but I couldn’t help it. There definitely was something about him; an aura, a strength, a degree of self-certainty. It was incongruous that somebody so powerful would not stand out more. I would watch him in the background of an animated group discussion and ask him, under my breath, why he wasn’t running things. That a personality so dominant would choose such effortless mediocrity fired my suspicion.

He was there and not there. He was everywhere and nowhere. There was no need for him to be constantly physically present in the bar, yet there was no element of Griffin life that didn’t, somehow, bear his stamp. Even the rebirth of the cribbage teams originated through his incompetence, although that, naturally, was left unsaid.

I found no sign of the conflict that Rimmer reported in relation to The Child. Almost to a man, the Griffin’s customers showed him respect, bordering on deference, and he showed the same in return. The exception was Brian, who was openly aggressive in his dealings with The Child, which were kept to a minimum. The animosity was not returned. I had never thought to enquire after the source of the bad feeling, if indeed there was one: Brian appeared to have various axes, and was not averse to grinding them as and when he saw fit. I also found precious little in the way of mysticism. There was an aura, I was happy to admit, but there is a very thick line separating charisma and mystical powers.

Two conclusions I made about The Child. Firstly, somehow, more than anybody, he was an embodiment of the entire island. His spirit shot through everything and became part of its essence. Even his appearance altered with the prevailing mood. His hair, his countenance, the lines around his eyes, would take on the tenor of the whole place before anybody even noticed the change. I saw it happen several times. Perhaps the others were so used to it that they thought it unremarkable. And, secondly, he was undeniably a force for good. As his aura infiltrated every new original thought, it conferred a firm core and a belief in itself, like the unspoken validation of a father figure, a Godhead. The heroic reception for Old John McGovern at his head-wetting ceremony emanated clearly from The Child, and the whole pub was brought unquestioningly into line with his lead.

Maybe I had fallen under a spell, but I was beginning to think that Rimmer had been seriously unhinged. There was nothing to fear here. Even Bobby, my closest associate and my sanity preserver, worried me a little with the distrust he had freely admitted to me. All I could make out was a complex network of wisdom and truth, at the heart of which sat that preternaturally unobtrusive figure, whose name, age, background and identity was neither known nor sought.

I thoroughly enjoyed my trips along the spokes of the network, too. Brian was entertaining and challenging, intellectually, despite his shortcomings in terms of temper. Joshua was a revelation: I had expected a wizened old necromancer, speaking in riddles and arcane sententiousness, but I found a youthful-minded middle-aged true gentleman, only too aware of the shortcomings of his herbal remedies. He seemed fully cognisant of the trial-and-error nature of everything he produced, and modestly put his successes down mostly to luck.

The same experience repeated itself over and over again whenever I made a new acquaintance. I never once came away with the feeling that anybody wished me anything other than a carefree and fruitful life among them. As communities go, it was as close to perfect as you could hope to find.

 

Apart from Bobby, the closest bond I made, happily, was with the one man I had long been most intrigued to meet. Santino, as Keeper of the Sanctuary, was afforded almost the same undemonstrative public veneration as The Child. He spent more time in The Griffin, though. His duties at the Sanctuary were mostly ceremonial, and there were long periods of idle time. Every now and then he would trudge off to the General Gordon, but as a rule he would spend his spare hours on a stool a few feet away from me.

We talked of his sublime wooden creations, about which he was predictably dismissive. He even thanked me for dragging them out of the cellar and giving them a purpose again. I felt awkward being thanked for that. He gave me endless tips on practical topics, and suggested I find time to come down to the school for one of his sessions, which he was currently running weekly while it was quiet. I promised to do that. We spent far too long discussing the four legs of my desk. He was embarrassingly enthusiastic and encouraging for somebody who had not even laid eyes on the lifeless limbs in question. The fact of their creation was enough, he assured me.

He was less keen to speak about art in general. He denied vehemently that his furniture had anything other than practical significance. Their form was born of utility, not beauty, and any other interpretation was insane. He laughed at my attempts to draw him further on the subject. He accused me of being in league with Evie, who always tried the same trick with him, he said. It soon became a running joke with us; if he found it tiresome he didn’t let on.

An uncommonly quiet night saw us happily ensconced in another of our profound masterclasses on the subject of turning or chamfering or birdsmouth joints. Bobby sat nearby, filling Brian in on some of the less obvious brewing techniques used in the Brewery Snowstorm Blonde they were savouring. A tiny handful of resting regulars had been left unsummoned. Generally, they had congregated around one or other of the fires.

Those fires themselves were spellbinding. To me they were as integral to the place as any of the regulars. Bobby had built one and I the other. That was normal for those nights when we were both on duty. Friendly rivalry, we called it. I was savouring the florid blaze of my own work while filling my friendly rival’s glass, when the flame-licked hush was roundhoused to smithereens by the flying table directly to its right. Johnny McGovern and his young friend had been resident there for an hour or two, chatting in low tones as was usual for boys of that age. Something, though, had disturbed the peaceful tenor of their discussion, and it had resulted in Johnny’s mate leaping to his feet, bringing the table and their pint glasses accompanying his broken temper up and over his head. He screamed some words which I didn’t get, turned to look at me in horror for a second, then flew from the bar into the windless snow which had been falling for longer than I could recall. His path was picked out perfectly by a short trail of disturbed snowflakes, but it wasn’t long until the rhythm returned nonchalantly to its usual untroubled metre and the angry footsteps erased forever.

Johnny stood up, a grin, not as sheepish as I might have expected, on his face. He came to sit at the bar. The Child followed his progress from the fireplace with interest.

I let him sit, and poured him a fresh pint. He went to start it, but I placed my hand gently over the glass.

‘I think you need to tidy up a bit first, Johnny,’ I said to him, nodding towards the wreckage of his evening.

‘Nothing to do with me!’ he protested. ‘Harry’s the one who’s gone ape. He ought to be putting it straight.’

I looked at him, silently. It was clear to all present that Harry wouldn’t be returning any time soon. That left us in a situation that I found extremely simple to define, even though Johnny appeared to be having more trouble. I left my hand on his pint. It wasn’t much of a contest, no matter what he thought.

He relented and set right the table. He swept up the breakages and brought them back to me. Once things were shipshape I was happy to release his pint for consumption. He scowled as he broke into its foaming head.

‘What was with Harry anyway?’ I asked him. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard him raise his voice before. Come to think of it, I’m not convinced I’ve even heard his voice at all.’

‘Probably not. He doesn’t say much. Not to the likes of you, anyway. That’s one of the reasons I had to tell him the truth,’ he shrugged his shoulders.

‘What truth? It’s a bit early in the evening, not to mention a bit early in your life, to be dispensing truth, isn’t it?’

‘Not in my life, no,’ he replied. ‘That’s the point. I’ve moved on, He hasn’t. He’s nearly a month older than me, you know? And still he can’t look any of you lot in the eye. He still skivvies for his old man. He’s happier spending time with the kids in The General Gordon. And as for women, we haven’t managed to find one that’ll go near him yet. I stopped looking a while ago, to be honest. I’ve known him since we were born, and he’s always been my best mate, but I can’t give him any more slack. I’m moving on, and he’s still nothing. I’m not spending my time getting dragged down by him.’

‘You told him that, did you?’ I asked.

‘Course I told him. No point not telling him. He needs to know. Sooner the better, so maybe he can do something about it.’

I paused and allowed the agitated air settle for a second.

‘Don’t you need to stop and think for a minute or so, Johnny?’ I began. He looked at me as if I was a talking duck. ‘It wasn’t so very long ago you were in exactly the same position on the island as Harry is now. You’ve had things fall into your lap over the last few months: firstly your job here, which I admit you handled well, and earned you respect that you deserved; you were gifted a new baby brother, and as a result of that you’ve got a proper job of your own and even a woman thrown in. I know that my head would have been spinning if all that had descended on me like that at your age. I think you might need to catch up with yourself a little. You’ve gone some way to becoming a man without really knowing it was happening. Maybe you need to count your blessings rather than compare them with those of others.’

‘Blessings? This isn’t about luck. Me and my family have made our own luck. Hard work and focus on what’s important. You’re right about one thing: I’ve become a man. Harry’s still a kid. I’ve left him behind. From now on, and I told him, I’m going to be hanging out with Pete. That’s what I’m aiming at.’

He was referring to his oldest brother, whose exploits were well known. Of marriageable age, he flatly refused to get closely involved with any of the girls who seemed to crave his patronage, no matter at what cost to their emotional well-being. He split opinion in The Griffin: some thought he needed to be reined in, have his energies channelled more effectively towards to general good of the island; others recognised his charisma and his stamina, and overlooked his philandering on the grounds that it was good to let youth have its head, not to mention the fact that we needed children desperately – while he was putting in so much effort to provide, it seemed counter-productive to quibble over his less than ratified use of other men’s wives. And he produced some fabulous livestock and related dairy products.

To learn that Johnny was hoping to follow in his brother’s footsteps was more amusing than worrying. As far as I was concerned, he didn’t have what it took to pull off what his brother did on a daily basis. And I knew that the voice of the island would speak loud and clear if he ever tried.

‘Are you sure?’ I said. ‘Pete? I can think of more suitable role models. And, besides, he wouldn’t have much time to hang out, even with you. Don’t you think?’

‘Yeah, where is he now? Whose wife is he seeing to, eh?’ he looked around the pub. He had a point. There was a good chance that whomever was currently being serviced by his brother was represented by their other half in the bar at that time. ‘We’re doing our bit, us McGoverns. My Dad gets you all out of a hole, me and my brother don’t sit in here and whine about it, we do our duty. All my brothers do. Next one that comes out will be one of ours too, I’ll bet you!’ he was shouting now, to nobody in particular. Nobody in particular caught his eye. He asked for another pint.

‘I don’t know, Johnny,’ I kept my voice low and clear. ‘I’m not sure I appreciate your tone tonight. I think I’m going to have to make a stand if you’re not prepared to reflect on some of the things you’ve said.’ I had never slung anyone out of the pub before. I wasn’t even sure if it was allowed: I felt sure I had read about that in The Book somewhere. But this was my pub now.

‘What do you mean, “make a stand”?’ he spat, ‘Can I have a pint. Please. Guv’nor.’

‘It’s not really how I expect people to act in here,’ I continued, without moving to pour any drinks. ‘I appreciate I’ve been quiet on the matter, but it’s never really arisen until now. I expect respect for everybody and everything. It’s not enough to respect me, or Santino, or Brian, or The Child: it goes beyond that. I’m talking about the whole way of life here: it’s as delicate as any other community anywhere else in the world. You’re going to have to take my word for that, because I’ve got a bit more experience of it than you do. We have a balance to keep, and everybody is responsible. I would have thought your parents would have made you aware of that. People, all people, and things, everything, have qualities. They might not all look the same to you, but that doesn’t mean they’re any less worthy. I’m afraid if you can’t see that, you’ve got a lot more growing up to do than you think.’

Johnny looked absolutely livid. I didn’t expect for a minute that I had said anything that struck a chord, but I was still refusing to pour another pint for him.

‘I didn’t think you were such a soft touch,’ he drawled unattractively. ‘If you’re going to pander to Harry or these other losers,’ he waved his hand around in an all-encompassing circle, ‘you’ll only go the same way as the rest of them. And pretty soon, too. It doesn’t take long for us to find them out and see them off. I thought the last one was easy, but this could be an open goal,’ he stared at me, defiance written all over his face.

‘I’m going to let you go, now, Johnny,’ I said. ‘I’ve never doubted that you’ve got ability and that you’re resourceful, and that you’ll go a long way, but you’re going to jeopardise all of that if you can’t control your sense of yourself. This arrogance will sabotage your gifts. At least, it will here. There are places where it can fuel great and successful social reactions, but this isn’t one of them. And I don’t want to talk about it any more. The evening has become about us and our conversation, and that’s not right. You must go home.’

He didn’t move for a second or two, but I felt as calm as I had since I had walked down the gangplank at the port. He knew I meant what I said and he realised he needed additional muscle to take me on in my pub.

‘Brian?’ he pleaded with what was probably his only true ally in the place, especially after he had insulted the majority of them. ‘You heard what he said. He’s trying to throw me out of the pub. You know that’s not allowed.’ Brian turned away from him and emptied his glass. This time I jumped to it and refilled. The dawning of his imminent ignominy swept over Johnny like a thunderhead’s shadow in an autumn gale. He searched in vain for alternatives. Finally his gaze settled on the impassive figure of The Child, who had been watching with interest. A real man of The Griffin would have discounted asking him for help on the grounds that he would know it to be pointless. An adolescent would have been too timid. Johnny sat somewhere in the middle. He held The Child’s attention for a few seconds, torn between what he knew and what he sensed, mired in what he was yet to learn. His gaze fell to the floor.

The silence was like mourning. Santino rose from his stool. ‘I’ll take him home,’ he spoke softly and laid a hand on Johnny’s shoulder, as if to encourage him.

‘Hang on a minute,’ Brian appeared from behind his cloud. ‘Is that strictly necessary? Can’t the boy find his own way?’

The boy’s head remained drooped and incidental. ‘I don’t think so,’ Santino replied gravely. ‘I’d say he’s had a little too much. Best I take him.’ He stood, a study in calm patience, and waited for Johnny to leave his stool. Johnny stared at Brian once more.

‘Come on,’ Brian started once more, ‘the lad’s just got a bit excited and had a few too many. He’ll learn soon enough. Just send him home on his own this time.’

‘Santino will take him,’ The Child confirmed. ‘I think it’s safe to say that we’re all in agreement on that point, except for you, Brian, and there’s nothing new in that.’

Brian dropped his objection, or at least took it no further verbally. He refused to meet Johnny’s eyes as the misguided young man was escorted from the premises by Santino. A minute or so later he drained his own glass and left without a word.

‘Brian knows the score,’ The Child said to me once Brian had gone. ‘He might not like it, especially given the way things have gone in the last few years, but fundamentally, he knows what must happen. He’ll come around.’

‘I’m not following,’ I admitted. ‘He appears to be disproportionately upset. All I’ve done is chuck Johnny out, and rightly so. I can’t have that sort of attitude in here, not in the middle of Winter. We’ve got so much time left to spend with each other, I need to clamp down on it.’

‘You’re absolutely right. This is your place, your rules. Everybody knows that, although it doesn’t hurt to remind them once in a while. For what it’s worth, I agree wholeheartedly with you. Johnny overstepped the mark quite considerably. It’s unfortunate for him that he doesn’t appear to fully understand the powers he’s dealing with. Shame: on the surface, he had so much going for him. Brian’s also right: he’ll learn. Sometimes learning is more painful than it ought to be.’

With that, he pushed his almost empty glass away and rose. He retrieved his shaggy coat and bade me, then Bobby, a good night. He seemed to linger by the door and I imagined he took an extra look at me, although not in a suspicious way. But that was probably all it was – just my imagination. His eyes were black as holes.

The rest of the drinkers cleared out almost as soon as The Child had left. Bobby and I were alone for a minute or two. I sat on a stool behind the bar and sipped at my glass of Magic Sponge, an indulgence I reckoned I had earned. It had been a perfectly normal, if quiet, night up to the point that Harry had exploded. What had happened after that, I was still trying to put into context.

I asked Bobby for his thoughts. He seemed subdued, but made it clear he was behind me. Drinkers weren’t ever ejected from The Griffin, that much was clear to me, but the fact I had broken that taboo seemed not to be a very big deal. I sensed very great power as he tiptoed inexpertly around the whole issue.

Presently, Santino returned to the pub. He was covered with clammy snow, and clumsily attempted to shake himself clean. Its stubbornness in clinging to his clothing was surprising: I had thought of it up to that point as the gentle and undemanding, if prolific, sort. Eventually he gave up the unequal struggle, removed his coat and hung it in front of my fire. The snow stood no chance there.

He sat at his stool, I poured his pint, Bobby rose to leave. He would be opening up the next day, and we were expecting a busy one so he wanted to get a decent night’s sleep. It was fine with me; I expected Santino would stay for one more, maybe two, and then I could close up.

My sole customer looked at me, more seriously than ever before, I thought. I wondered if I had somehow offended him. It was slightly unnerving, and my previous confidence wavered.

‘What?’ I asked. ‘You’re looking at me in a way.’

‘A way? Sorry, didn’t mean to. Not in “a way”,’ his gaze eased slightly and a smile thought about turning his mouth upwards.

‘It’s ok,’ I assured him. ‘Just a new experience, that’s all. Everything alright with Johnny? You get him home in one piece?’

‘He’ll be fine,’ he replied. He waited, along with me. We both waited, and nothing broke the silence. Then his voice did. ‘Have you had much to do with death?’ he asked.

‘Um,’ I wasn’t sure exactly how best to respond. I was expecting him to grumble a bit about the snow that he couldn’t shake from his coat, or Johnny’s futile and maddening refusal to acknowledge the rules. ‘Death?’ I asked.

‘Yes, death,’ he said impassively. ‘Have you had much exposure to it during your time on Earth?’

‘Well, I’ve never died,’ I admitted, ‘but I’ve known my share of people who have. Family, friends, old people, children. Yes, a fair few. A variety of ways, too; some more naturally than others. Probably no more or less than most others of my age and social background, to be honest. But a reasonable amount. Why do you ask?’

‘That’ll become clear,’ he mused. ‘It’s not something we’ve really spoken about before, is it?’ I shook my head slowly. He was right: despite our many hours of private and communal discussion through the Winter, I couldn’t recall, even once, the subject of death arising. Even when, further back in my past life, I knew someone who had died, I didn’t think that death, as a concept, ever occupied my thoughts or those of anybody concerned. It never seemed to be appropriate.

Santino continued, while I was casting my mind back. ‘It strikes me that you have a pretty healthy relationship with death,’ he said.

‘Do I really?’ I replied. ‘I suppose I do. I’ve not given it an awful lot of thought, but it’s not something that I fear in the abstract sense. Clearly, I don’t want to die today or tomorrow, but I think I get the whole idea, up to a point.’

‘Yeah, I’d say that. Of course, it’s an important part of life to me. I’m immersed in the stuff. It’s only natural that I should have a more intense feeling for it than others. But I can spot when I meet someone who’s comfortable with it, too. It’s always a relief. If I sense a more strained relationship, I feel uneasy myself. It can never end well, that. I would have found it difficult to spend much time with you if I thought you suffered that way.’

It was one of the most peculiar compliments I had ever been paid, and I didn’t really know what to say to him. He wasn’t finished, though.

‘Thing is,’ he looked serious, ‘if you want complete mastery over it, you’re going to have to unravel yourself, you know. It’s all very well occupying the position you do here, and we’re all very happy you do, but if you’re going to go the whole hog, there has to come a time, and soon, based on tonight’s performance, when you let out your big secret.’ He looked at me. I was unsure of his meaning. And I told him so.

‘Big secret?’

‘Don’t play dumb,’ he seemed a touch irritated by my constant questioning. Maybe it was time for me to take over, but I had no idea how. ‘Nobody comes to live here for no reason. You’re not seriously telling me that you’ve always wanted to run a pub in the most remote corner of the most remote island this country has to offer. If this place is famous for anything, it’s for infamy. You know the reputation, the rumours. Don’t tell me you’re here on a whim, or you genuinely couldn’t find anything else that suited you. You’re here because you had no alternative. Just like all the others.’

He was right, of course. It didn’t take a genius, which was what he was.

‘So, when are you going to come out with it?’ he asked, his question fluorescent against the bottomless background of his eyes. ‘Haven’t you settled in enough yet? I’d say the others would think you have. You’ve become part of the fabric quickly.’

I thought for a while. I wasn’t deliberately hiding anything from anybody. If anything, I considered my history too inconsequential to be worth relating. But I supposed he was right: something that could precipitate such a drastic life change couldn’t be as meaningless as I was painting it, and I sensed a twang of guilt as I considered it. A dead giveaway.

‘I’m happy to tell you my story,’ I told him. ‘I’m not sure where to start, though.’

‘Why not start at the end?’ he suggested. ‘I’m presuming there was one particular event that led to your taking the plunge and finding your way here. Anything that happened before that is probably irrelevant. Everyone has things happen to them in life. Not everyone ends up here.’

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘You asked for it. I’d settle in if I were you,’ I grimaced. Then I poured us each a pint, pulled up a stool and began on my story.