I had been a resident of the island for four complete days by the time I ventured out of my front door again. The weather outside had continued to turn, although not as quickly as I had feared. The wind blew in the mornings, arriving from the north-east, and, by my standards, pretty wild. The sea was considerably more active, and I noticed the ferries only ran in the afternoon, by which time conditions had usually calmed.

More noticeable than anything was the cold. Having the charcoal to fire my range was a godsend. I regularly reminded myself that I owed the old girl a serious debt of thanks. It effectively heated the whole house, or at least the parts where I had been spending the majority of my time, and a happy side-effect was that I used far fewer logs than I had calculated I would need. My original estimate of two months’ supply in my store had been revised to around six. Maybe still not enough to last the whole winter, but a bonus, nevertheless. To be honest, the major function of my fireplace had become entertainment rather than heating.

But what had kept me indoors those 60 hours or so was the fallout from my discovery in the cellar. A vast space, seemingly stretching out under the whole ground area of the cottage, it was almost completely taken up with furniture. Chairs, sofas, tables, dressers, shelving, even beds. I had entered some kind of Aladdin’s cave, although the jewels on show were of the wooden variety.

I wandered open-mouthed among it all, every now and then nervously sticking out a hand and feeling for a piece, before withdrawing it guiltily on experiencing the disturbingly organic velvet touch of the finish. Like a teenager given free run of a brothel by an indulgent uncle. Was this mine, or was it not? There was nobody here to stop me, or take it away from me. Finally, I sat in one of the chairs. The pieces were in my cellar. They obviously had not been touched for some years. Did others on the island lay any claim to them, or even know of their existence? If they did, surely they would have cleared them out before I moved in. I thought long and hard about the ethics of ownership. Clearly, I had not been on the island for long, otherwise such thoughts would never even have crossed my mind.

In the far corner, underneath what I calculated was the living room, to the left of the fireplace, a large square space was left free of any of those wonderful items. Beyond it, an impressive array of tools was stacked, hung, or generally neatly tidied away. Workbenches were folded against the wall. I turned slightly to check out some of the larger pieces, and looked back at the narrow, steep staircase I had descended with my candle not so long before. It became clear to me. The majority, if not all, of the masterpieces I sat amongst must have been made right there in the cellar. And there was absolutely no way most of them would ever be leaving. Not unless there was another way in, or, more to the point, out.

The spectre of Santino, the cottage’s previous owner, taunted me from within his perfect creations. Why would he craft such masterpieces that could never see the light of day? What benefit was there to be had by orphaning the creative process, leaving it with no audience and no context? I simply could not process the ideas within my limited philosophical armoury.

And so I resolved to positive action; the only recourse I knew. I started with some of the smaller pieces, the ones I could immediately tell would make it through the gap: plaques, footstools, boxes, benches; small, portable, modular storage units. Some of them were as basic as the rougher pieces I had discovered on my first exploration of the cottage; others as breath-taking in their purity of form as my sleigh bed. I gathered that his skill had grown over time, and I had inherited a life-sized autobiographic animation of his carpentry career.

Once the smaller examples had been liberated and new homes found, I attacked some of the more challenging ones. The cottage had already lost the echoing melancholy of my first couple of days, but my view was that it was my responsibility to expose as many of these works to the world at large, or at least get them out of that cellar.

Not for the first time since I arrived, I was amazed at what was possible. Not only at what I was able to shoehorn through that narrow and awkward opening into the hallway, but also at my own strength and nimbleness and stamina. Sideboards, love seats, ottomans, gliders and even chaises, deliberately and carefully end-over-end, all made it to the surface with relatively little ado, and each found a suspiciously snug-fitting home.

I worked for hours that afternoon and all the next two days bringing up and arranging my new furniture, only stopping to light the range and when I could physically bear no more without food. I would break every now and then to survey the worsening weather, generally from my viewing bulb.

I wandered around like a visitor in my own gallery, admiring my work. Not that I could take any credit for the manufacture of or even the presentation of any of the exhibits: they all demanded a particular resting place and, once there, it was impossible to imagine any of them anywhere else. The whole interior suddenly looked complete. An empty shed had been transformed into a magical home. Even the lack of carpets and effective curtains ceased to be of concern. It was perfect.

Just one conspicuous space remained: no desk in my study. Clearly my predecessor here had not been the sort to sit behind one and work. I would rectify that omission myself before long, I vowed.

I knew I would eventually have to tear myself away. My home might have looked perfect to me, but the fact remained that my container had still not arrived and the weather was degenerating steadily. That fifth morning, the rain was speckled with wet flakes of snow and the wind was teasing the sea into quite a frenzy. I had to go into town and see if I could find out what was happening. I also needed to pick up some provisions, as I had been existing on my own stash all that time and it was starting to run dangerously low.

 

I almost trotted down the lush path to the town. On the way, as I caught sight of the old lady’s cottage, I thought I saw someone moving around in her garden. Digging up vegetables, it looked like, although it was impossible to be sure from that distance. I would stop on my way back from town, check she was alright, although I supposed that if she was working in her garden she must have been better. There was no way the frail old bird I had left could have been wielding a pitchfork in the bitter easterly into whose teeth I was striding.

When I reached the town everyone was opening up. It could have been a high street almost anywhere else, except for the complete lack of any external marketing materials. Brand was not a big concept here, I figured.

The butcher was just opening his door and taking his place in a chair outside it as I walked past.

‘Good morning,’ I called, and approached him. He stood and extended his clammy hand.

‘Good morning to you,’ he spoke warmly, which was just what the weather, and his hand, called for. He checked me over carefully. ‘I thought maybe you were one of those vegetarians.’ He caught himself abruptly. ‘You’re not one of those vegetarians, are you?’

For the first time since I landed I felt like I would have been justified in laughing at somebody else’s expense. The look on his face was one of abject horror: whether that was at the thought that he had offended me, or that I actually was a vegetarian, I couldn’t tell. But, whichever, everybody had been so kind to me that I had to put him out of his misery as soon as I could.

‘No,’ I reassured him, ‘I’m not a vegetarian. Why do you ask?’

‘Thank the Lord for that. Last thing we need. I couldn’t work it out – you’ve been here five days already, near enough. And no sign of you in these parts.’

‘Oh, I see!’ I hadn’t realised everyone was taking such a keen interest, but I supposed it was rare for somebody completely new to come and live here. ‘I got a bit caught up with my cottage. You know, just getting it straight, organising things how I want them, working out how to switch on my electricity, that sort of thing.’

He grinned. ‘I heard about that. Good old Santino, always causing trouble, even when he’s not there any more. Still, there’s a few of his pieces there you’ll like. You come across them yet?’

‘You could say that,’ I kept my tone deliberately understated. I had no idea how much people knew, if they had any idea of the extent of his output. ‘I’ve got the place looking very homely. I love it.’

‘Glad to hear it,’ he sounded genuinely happy for me. ‘Now let’s see if we can’t make you feel even better about life. I’ve got something else you’ll like.’ He went into the shop and beckoned me to follow him.

The butcher’s shop was faintly recognisable as such, but it bore no close relationship to others I had known. There was a practical expanse of solid stone work surface, as you would expect, atop a huge central island, and the irremovable aura of slaughtered beast, but, apart from that, no other indicators. There was no actual meat on display. Any sense of commerce was superfluous, and marketing-inspired touches were eschewed. Knives, cleavers, saws, tenderizers all hung on walls behind the island. It was, despite the inevitable stench, completely spotless. Not just first thing in the morning spotless, but spotless like it had never been sullied. The butcher flicked on a tap of what looked like boiling water and cauterised his hands under the running water. His face didn’t flinch a bit. He dried them on a white towel.

‘Just cut these off this morning,’ he said proudly and reached around the side of the island. He pulled out a drawer, from which fresh cold air escaped into the outside world, and held up out two mighty generous slabs of beef. ‘Best sirloin. Beautiful this year, it is. Look at it! Mouth-watering, even in this state. Just what you’ll need at the moment, especially if you’re going to be busy with all that chopping and the running around the island. Last for around 3 days in your cold store, so don’t let them spoil.’

It was no good. It had been my plan to try and hide my ignorance as much as possible, but the whole cellar thing had made me doubt the sense in that approach. ‘Cold store?’ I put on my best naïve voice and look.

‘Of course, Santino’s cottage,’ he replied with a roll of his eyes. ‘Look on the most northerly point of the building. It’ll be there. Obsessed with natural ways of operating, he was. Wouldn’t go in for mechanical refrigeration, that’s for sure. If I know him, it’ll be accessible from inside, and I’d imagine it’d be insulated from the ground, as well. Too much heat in the soil around here to make something like that plausible.’

I thought about where that could be. Logically speaking, the northernmost point of the house would be directly opposite the southern, where the glass bulb sat. That meant the far corner of the guest room. I would check in there as soon as I returned. While I was working that out, he had wrapped the steaks up in waxy paper and was thrusting them into my hand.

‘Thanks very much,’ I stuttered, ‘but I don’t have anything to give you for them. I haven’t sorted out any money yet. Amazing – I haven’t needed any since I got here.’

He placed a friendly hand on my shoulder. ‘You’ve come here to do a job, haven’t you?’

‘Of course,’ I replied. ‘I start when the winter begins. It looks like that might be sooner than I thought, too.’

‘You’re right about that,’ he reluctantly agreed and looked for a second, disapprovingly, through the window at the weather sweeping in. ‘So you concentrate on doing that, and I’ll concentrate on doing mine. And let’s have no more talk about money. I’d recommend you get yourself some cherries and courgettes from young Daniel a few doors down. He and his brother have worked miracles this year. And the plums look like they might be spectacular. We get about a two-week season for them, so enjoy them while you can.’

I took whirlwind leave of him amidst all the advice, and headed further down the hill. I was no longer the only punter on the street, and the few outlets were doing a roaring trade. I managed to score myself some cherries, which Daniel had held back especially for me, and he picked out the best of the plums for my basket while others stood back respectfully. The general store was the same, and before I knew it I had been loaded up with prize lentils, milk, cheese, laver bread, sea lettuce, a bag of wrasse (various colours), pepper dulse, which I understood was to be ground and used for seasoning, and a confusing variety of teas. My head stopped spinning a few minutes after I was ejected from the bosom of the high street and deposited at the harbour entrance.

Perfect. I was determined to find out the prognosis for my container delivery. I had seen conditions gradually worsen and, if the pessimistic pronouncements of the locals were to be believed, that was just the start of it. But, after the hustle of the main drag, the harbour area sat empty like a ghost town. The wind seemed reasonably light and unthreatening from where I was standing, but I could see the waves breaking over the harbour wall and behind me the gulls were cowering on the roofs of the most sheltered warehouses, cawing bravely at the persistent storm which was stirring up the waters of the sound like a fairground ride. Apart from me, they were the only life forms within the harbour complex. I guessed that the morning, at the very least, would be a write-off.

It was frustrating, although with the passing of each day I was finding myself infinitesimally less affected. The cottage was looking good, I had food, I had a fair amount of reading material, I hadn’t actually felt the lack of anything vital since arriving. I turned to traipse back up the hill. I would try again in the afternoon.

My mood was clearly not as dark as it might have been a few days earlier, since, approaching the Shipbuilders Arms and hearing signs of life inside, I decided to step in and pass some time. I expected Bobby would be there, having just opened up, and the general reception I had experienced from my new neighbours was so warm that I felt encouraged.

Bobby was behind the bar, as I had expected, and four men who I recognised from the harbour a few days previously were setting up a game of cribbage at a table by the fireplace. They all turned to greet me, politely but with no fuss.

‘Good morning, Bobby,’ I settled into the atmosphere perfectly as I took a seat at the bar.

‘Been shopping, I see,’ he replied, casting a critical eye over my basket. ‘Plums look good. I’ll have to get myself some of those. Can I try one?’ I picked one off the top and passed it to him. He bit into it and juice ran down his chin. He wiped it with his other hand and chewed happily. ‘Fabulous!’ he judged. ‘I love this time of year. Autumn might be only two weeks long, but it’s a flavour-filled fortnight, that’s for sure!’ And he finished off the plum with his second bite. ‘Mm, mm, mmmmmm. That’s perked me up. Thanks. Now, what do you drink?’

‘What have we got?’ I asked. I didn’t recognise anything I could see on the bar. Politically and geographically I was in the same country as ever, but that hadn’t counted for much since I had got here.

‘Well, we’ve got our own creation: Brunel. It’s a favourite here. I brew it out the back. Those fellas are on it.’ I took a look at the table where the four shipyard guys were playing cribbage. It was dark like treacle, but shivered delicately in the glass whenever somebody played a card with any force. They all sipped at it slowly and respectfully. ‘Then there’s the bitter and the lager from the brewery.’ I already knew there was a brewery on the island, but I hadn’t investigated further and wasn’t familiar with their product line. ‘It’s a bit more mainstream than ours. And we’ve got some of their bottled stuff too. Can be good – all depends on what sort of thing you like.’ The pumps simply read “Brewery Bitter” and “Brewery Lager”. Next to them, the furthest pump was labelled “Mainland”.

‘What’s that last one?’ I asked. I was surprised to see something that I presumed was imported.

‘Ah, that’s our special,’ he said, moving down the bar towards it. You ought to try it now, while you still can.’ He took out a glass and prepared to pull a pint. ‘Shall I?’ I nodded my assent. I was quite happy to be guided. Two long pulls on the handle and he had a crystal clear, golden glassful, topped with the lightest soufflé of head. He brought it back and set it in front of me. ‘As bitter as it gets, this. So many hops in it I half expect to see little white rabbits jumping out. Try it.’

I tried it. He was right: bitter and hoppy; and like nectar. As glorious in its own way as some of the works of art I had recently unearthed in my cellar. I almost spat it out; my mouth felt unworthy of it. ‘That is sensational!’ I sputtered. ‘But is it imported from the mainland? I was hoping to try something local.’

‘It is imported, it’s true, but its soul is right here. It’s one of my brother’s. He’s a brewer. Moved across to the mainland a while ago to try his luck. Wider range of ingredients, you see, and a different culture. Hah!’ he chuckled, ‘he’s taken them by storm. The revival in proper, locally-brewed beer has come at the right time for him. No way would he have been able to hack the corporate crap ten or fifteen years ago. He’d have been back on the next boat.’

‘Well, I’m no expert,’ I confirmed between sips, ‘but I’d say he certainly knows his stuff.’ I looked at the pump label in more detail. It was brewed no more than 20 miles from where I used to live, yet I had never even heard of it. That said something about both the volatile and explosive brewing industry and my lifestyle. How serendipitous that I had come all this way to find another roundabout link and rid myself of more ignorance. I sat back in my stool. ‘How do you mean, “try it while you still can”? Is it limited edition or something?’

‘Kind of. I’ve only got two barrels of it. I’d send for more, but it’s impossible to know what’s going to happen to the ferries. No point having this stuff sitting over at the port on the Other Side for weeks or months. I’d hate to deprive drinkers of it.’

‘So, do you think the crossings are going to be badly disrupted?’ I asked as nonchalantly as I could.

‘Can’t tell. Nobody can. It might let up tomorrow and we could have an Indian summer. Or it might carry on like this indefinitely.’

‘Indefinitely? That sounds a bit extreme.’

‘Like I said, you can’t tell. When I came over to live, it was the whole winter. Six or seven months, nothing. I came in July, was supposed to go back in early September. My crossing was the first one cancelled that year. My next chance was mid-March. Didn’t bother.’

‘So we could be cut off until spring?’ I asked incredulously.

‘It’s possible,’ he indulged my horror for a second. ‘It’s never been that bad since then, but all I’m saying is that it has happened, and could happen again, in theory.’ He paused while I tried to picture the slowly turning pages of the calendar. ‘Hey! Don’t look so terrified! Don’t think of it as being cut off. You, better than anyone else here, know exactly what we’re being “cut off” from. It’s not all that, is it?’

I had to agree. Who cared? I looked around: barely a trace of anything that began life on the mainland. My pint was probably the most foreign thing in the pub, if you didn’t count my own view of the world. The brew itself was indescribably good, but, honestly, nothing would have stopped in this community were you to remove it. Something, though, struck me as peculiar about what Bobby had just said.

‘You said you came over to live here. Were you not born here then?’ Somehow I had assumed that everybody here was a native, and that I was the only outsider. Who said I hadn’t let my paranoia develop?

‘Ahhh, there’s a bit of a story. I was born here, as it happens,’ turns out I had been right about that, after all, ‘but my mother left with me almost as soon as she was back on her feet. She and my father had been having difficulties for a long time, she told me, and they hadn’t managed to sort them out. She was from the mainland originally, and they agreed she’d go back as soon as she gave birth. She left my brother here with my Dad. Someone had to carry on the family trade.’

I could barely believe that. ‘So your parents just split the kids, simple as that?’

‘Yeah. It was all pretty amicable. She understood my Dad’s point of view – you don’t get married to an islander unless you understand something about the way things work here – and it was her idea to have more children. Seemed to make sense to divide things up like that. It didn’t affect my brother or me too badly. We saw each other for a few weeks in the summer, sometimes more often than that, if he got a chance to get across to the mainland. When I finished school I came for a long break and to do a bit of work in the brewery. That was when we had that winter and I got stuck.’

So, it seemed I was the only one here who hadn’t started life on this rock, even if it wasn’t quite as detached from the mainland I had thought: movement to and fro seemed fairly commonplace – first the shipbuilder, now the brewing family. Not what the legends would suggest. Thinking of which, I had a legend I was keen to test out. It felt no more than gossip, but I considered Bobby might be the best person to run it past initially, on account of his less parochial background.

‘Talking of the mainland, I heard a few stories when I was preparing to come over here.’ I kept my voice low so that it wouldn’t reach the crib players in the corner. What I had to say was no big secret, but I didn’t want to give the impression that I had been listening to idle tittle-tattle. Which, of course, I had. Bobby’s face betrayed nothing: no special interest, no apparent disappointment at my line of conversation. I continued. ‘Mostly about a character called “The Child”. I couldn’t get my head around him. All sorts of tales, which could go back hundreds of years if you take them literally, and telling of mythical powers and the like. Can you shed some light on that? Is there such a person?’

He placed a fresh pint of Mainland down in front of me and looked blankly. Quite a poker player he would make, I thought.

‘I wouldn’t believe all you hear on the mainland. Most of that lot who like to gossip about the island are a bunch of drunkards with nothing better to do than put the creeps up an outsider with their ridiculous stories.’ His mood seemed to have hardened a touch. The humour had disappeared.

‘I’m sure,’ I agreed – my impression of them had been a similar one. ‘But is there an element of truth? Is this “Child” real?’

‘Real…… yes, he’s as real as you are, or I am. You’ll find out for yourself soon enough. Not sure you’ll see too much evidence of the mythical powers, though!’ He added that last thought as he disappeared off to the other end of the bar. The crib players had run dry.

Alone for a minute, I started on my second pint. I hadn’t even had any lunch. I put The Child out of my mind for a moment. It was stupid of me to have given that lot on the mainland any credibility at all. Even more so to have raised it here with Bobby. I felt a bit ashamed of myself. Instead, I pondered the implications of my container not turning up until March, which I had now decided was a real possibility. It took me a while to recall exactly what I had put into it. A few extra clothes wouldn’t have gone amiss, but beyond that I was struggling to miss anything.

The door shut behind me with a small thud. The wind was quite brisk, even in this sheltered corner of the harbour. I turned to see who had entered. To my surprise, it was the old lady – the shipbuilder’s mother who had given me my charcoal. She was moving with no problem – maybe my eyes hadn’t been playing tricks on me earlier when I saw a figure in her garden. She smiled me a greeting and drew up the stool next to me at the bar. She hopped into it like a teenager.

‘You’re looking right as rain now,’ I said cheerfully.

‘Never been better. Like a young girl, I am. I could give you lot a run for your money, and don’t you doubt it.’ She looked around confrontationally. Bobby gave a huge grin.

‘Can I get you something?’ I offered.

‘You’re an angel, I knew you were,’ she replied. ‘I see you’re on that mainland stuff. Better off drinking seawater, if you ask me.’

‘I can’t tempt you with a glass, then?’

‘Not likely. You keep it to yourself,’ she shuddered. ‘Port and lemon please, Bobby.’ He was already halfway through mixing it. He completed his work and placed it in front of her.

‘That’s number one, then, Evie,’ he smirked.

‘Cheeky bugger,’ she replied. And she raised her number one glass to mine. ‘Cheers! Here’s to you.’ No money had changed hands, yet it had most definitely been my shout. What a place this was.

‘No boats this morning then?’ she asked Bobby.

‘No. Forecast is better in an hour or so, though. We’ll get one crossing both ways today, I’d say.’

‘Can you get a message across for me?’ she asked him.

‘Course. What’s up? Nothing we can do?’

‘I wouldn’t have thought so, unless you’ve learned how to tune a piano?’

‘Can’t say I have,’ he admitted with dramatic melancholy.

‘I thought not. You lot here. No appreciation of musical art. Everyone so obsessed with what they can make or grow with their hands, no thought about what magic they can create by applying them slightly differently. Joyless philistines.’

‘No problem. I’ll send for him. Won’t get him today, though. You know he won’t come unless he’s guaranteed a trip back the same day?’

‘I know, I know. Blind old fool. He needs to wind his neck in. Won’t do him any harm to spend a few days here, not that he’ll listen to reason.’

‘It’s not him,’ Bobby came to the tuner’s defence, ‘it’s his dog. He doesn’t like it here. Something in the air, or the soil, that freaks him out.’

‘That’s what he says. Can’t see what it is though. There’s nothing here to worry a dog. Not even any other dogs, really. Sounds like a load of old pony to me,’ the old girl was clearly not convinced about the guide dog’s reservations, although I was unsure as to how she might go about convincing him otherwise. Dogs could be intransigent. Especially guide dogs.

But, strangely, dogs’ stubborn streaks were not what was foremost in my mind at that time. I piped up, as calmly as possible:

‘I’ve been wondering how I could pay you back for the charcoal,’ I started, ‘and I think I might have stumbled upon it.’

‘What do you mean, pay me back? Charcoal is for everyone,’ she corrected me.

‘Sorry. It’ll take me a while to get used to the way things work. What I mean is that one good deed deserves another.’

‘That’s more like it. Still got no idea what you’re talking about though. What good deed have you got in mind?’

‘I’m just what you need, in a manner of speaking,’ I added.

‘What manner?’ she sounded a touch suspicious.

‘In the manner that you need a piano tuner, and I’m a piano tuner!’

‘You’re a piano tuner,’ she looked at me as if I had told her I was Muhammed Ali. I nodded. ‘A professional, proper piano tuner?’

‘Yes. I never did it full time, but I’m a certified tuner.’

‘But you’re fully sighted.’

‘Being blind isn’t a pre-requisite,’ I informed her.

‘Well, blow me down,’ she puffed out her cheeks. I had to give her some credit for her broad-mindedness: that was clearly a long-held belief of hers and they can be difficult to shake off. ‘Can you come and see it tomorrow? I won’t be back until late tonight – got a few people to see – but I’ll be at home all day tomorrow. I’ve got all the gubbins you’ll need. All the hammers and mutes and stuff. The old blind man left it all over here ages ago. Means he doesn’t have to lug it over on the ferry, he says. Idle bugger.’

‘How about that?’ I said. ‘I’ll come over tomorrow morning then. Might take an hour or two. It’s been a while.’

‘Come at eleven,’ she said, and drained her glass. ‘I’ll do you some lunch, and we can have a proper chat. Maybe a sing-song.’

I trotted back home like I had just arranged a first date. She was 75 if she was a day.