I am grateful for the help Fola now provides with collecting the stores of wood that keep my fire burning through the winter nights. Loading the dried wood into the makeshift saddlebags takes practice. The weight distribution is important. We make several journeys every day, walking from the woods up to the hills above the loch. The gorse is on an opposite hill. It blazes a golden trail across the hills when all is bare: a symbol of hope. It is remarkably adaptable to its environment and throws its seeding flowers away from its parent plant in order to ensure independent flourishing and self-sufficiency. The prickly spines are too sharp and unwieldy to load into the sacks, so I pick the bright gold flowers to suck. They taste of sunshine, bitter almonds and honey. Later, on the hill, I will boil hot water in the kettle and infuse some into a delicious tea.
I build a fire on the hill. I am practising building different types of fires, and I am planning to spend a full night awake out in the open, watched over by the stars. Coaxing that first spark to catch can be tricky, especially if the day is damp, so I come ready prepared. My pockets are full of dried tinder, moss, lichen, birch bark, twigs, dried grass and straw. When you peel wood thinly with a blade, it curls back in springy curves and smells delicious, like vanilla essence mixed with fresh leaves. I shave away the inner bark so that what remains peels into tiny shreds that catch alight more easily. Birch curls inwards when it is hot, and its flame can quickly extinguish itself, so I flatten it and fold it like a fan, edge over edge, to extend the life of the flame. If Maude is shedding her coat, her thick fur can be rued like sheep’s wool by gently tugging at the loose pieces that fall easily into your hands. I gather these into a handful and roll them in my palm to make a small ball that sparks and crackles alight, even in wet weather, with a couple of strikes of my fire-steel flint.
The ability to create fire is an important skill and is a sure way to make yourself feel capable of and ready for anything. I am growing more competent at it and trying out different types of fire constructions. I am also developing my skills in building shelters. It all helps me to think on my feet, and to be adaptable and responsive to my surroundings. It promotes an ingenuity and openness of thinking that builds up practical as well as mental stamina and engenders trust in the world around you, self-assurance and confidence. When you are able to live comfortably in your environment, wherever you are, you can have faith that whatever happens to you, you will be OK.
In the mornings, I light a candle and express my hopes and plans for the day. It makes me aware of my own silence and invites me to break it with sound and movement. I spin round, weaving my body, using my arms to lift and turn. It is liberating to see and feel your body moving freely, exploring a full range of expression and movement, and it feels wonderful. It consolidates the intentions to which I have just given voice. I grow bolder as I experiment with ways to strengthen myself through the daily ritual of forging my own traditions harnessed to work and play.
Each night I walk, in moonlight and darkness, testing my night vision, an exercise that forces me to step out of my comfort zone. I purposely keep away from the isolated twinkling lights of the island as my footsteps tread the dark hills and fields beyond the croft. It helps me to familiarise myself with the island at night, to feel self-reliant and safe wherever I am. When I reach a favourite place I settle. I do not take a torch or other battery-operated beam. I prefer to use natural illumination, such as a lantern, which casts a softer light and allows my eyes to pick out shapes and shadows. It also makes the small wild animals less wary. I listen to owls and geese in the darkness. I am as quiet as the deer.
One day I wrap old cotton rags and lint tightly around thick branches, dowse them with paraffin and lightly spray the fabric with alcohol. That night I set them alight and walk the march lines and perimeter of the croft with a burning torch. There is something wonderfully primitive about carrying raw flame. Its glowing beacon is gloriously anachronistic. It anchors my feet to the soil. It binds my eyes to light. It keeps my heart reaching out into the darkness.
I walk across the croft, burning flames over the land. ‘This is my home!’ I call to the wind. That night, the fire burns away my fear. There is something I need to confront and I know it is time I did. I know now what I have to do.
The next morning at nine o’clock I knock on a door. My heart is hammering in my chest. I tell myself fiercely to keep the flame in my heart burning. I do not want to do this. But I know I have to.
‘We need to talk,’ I say quietly as the door opens.
There is a silence for a moment.
‘There’s nothing to talk about,’ a gruff voice pushes back eventually.
‘I wish there wasn’t, but we both know that’s not true.’
And then I say his name. The man looks at me closely, and incredulity flickers in his eyes. But he does not hold my gaze, so I feel his embarrassment. I wish I did not. Embarrassment is dangerous. It lives next door to pride. You can restrain a fire by building walls and creating barriers. I know my flame will be stifled unless I can dismantle those walls quickly. Very gently, I rest my hand on his arm.
‘Please,’ I say. ‘It has to stop.’
And then I see the fear enter his eyes. ‘Ach, to hell with it. I’m not talking to you.’
‘I am not leaving until we shake hands,’ I say calmly. ‘I barely know you. I live on my own. I have no one to do this for me. What if someone, a man, was fighting like this with your daughter? You would want that quarrel over.’
He looks at me sideways. And then slowly he rubs his face.
I keep my heart steady. This is just one door. There will be others. But it only takes one to open to start a wave of change.
‘I am not leaving,’ I say again, ‘until we sit down and talk over a cup of tea.’
I wait. I am trembling. It could go so horribly wrong any second. I want to run away. I want to be anywhere else but here.
‘Please,’ I say.
And then a miracle happens. He shrugs. The door opens and he steps back to let me inside. ‘Well, if you’re not going, you’d better come in,’ he says. ‘The last thing I want is a scene.’
‘Thank you.’
And I follow, my legs still shaking.
Fire has to flare before it dies. Hatred is like a fire that smoulders and then spontaneously combusts. It is terrifying when it is directed at you. And its heat burns. Over the years, I have tried to avoid this man and those close to him, but it is hard to do this in such a small place. There are times you have to cross each other’s path. Every time you meet hatred but do not confront it, it becomes more difficult to act naturally. It thrives on hard walls, separation and difference. It beds down with fear and fear of change. It baulks at the close touch of kindness. But its heat can dissipate if you quench it with understanding. I tell myself to seize this moment and keep talking, that there is nothing to be afraid of. I trust in that bright flame of truth in my heart.
‘You think you’re better than me,’ he tells me, just as he did the night he lunged at me and tried to knock me down. I do not mention that night. I know not to because it will close down our conversation.
‘I am listening, but I need you to help me. You keep saying this, but I don’t know why. Help me to understand how I have offended you.’
‘You ruined the show with your tup,’ his voice rises angrily. ‘You’re a liar, claiming to have won prizes you did not.’
‘But the judge awarded the prizes. I didn’t make up the scores.’
‘Not the first reserve,’ he growls. ‘You stole that prize, you selfish bitch.’
‘But I have the certificate,’ I say, and I show him a photograph of it on my phone.
He stares at it and then back at me. ‘How did you get that?’ His eyes gleam with resentment.
‘There was a lot of whisky drunk that day,’ I suggest. ‘Perhaps some things were forgotten along the way.’
‘You’re a selfish bitch! Say what you like, but you didn’t win it.’ And then he folds his arm
s. ‘Always got something to say, haven’t you? That’s why you get everything else you ask for here.’
My heart falters. I swallow. My palms are sweating. ‘Please hear me out. All I did was to turn up, support the event with my livestock and take part in good spirit. I didn’t have to come, but I did because I wanted to show willing and to participate.’
‘You wanted to win,’ he says furiously.
‘And what if I did?’ I retort. ‘So did you, and everyone else who took part. I worked hard to be able to handle my tup. I entered him as a way of proving to myself I could handle him. You didn’t know that, did you? That I was getting hurt, getting knocked over on to the ground?’
He does not reply.
‘All the good it did you now he’s dead,’ he says finally.
I look at him squarely. ‘Yes, he is dead. And I wish I had never entered him.’
Our eyes lock. I feel cold and sick, and the room is closing in on me, but I force myself to hold his gaze.
‘Let’s end this now,’ I say. ‘There are no winners and losers. Not in this room, and not on this island. I live here, and I have lived here for fourteen years. You may not like me, and we may always have our differences, but let us try to show respect to each other. I have as much right to be here as anyone. I have no family and no one to stand in my corner. I may not be your friend, but we can at least be civil and bury this – all of this, the hatred and all of it – once and for all.’
He looks away and shakes his head. ‘Ach.’
I wait. I tell myself, don’t give up – not now, when you are so close. And then I do it. I hold out my hand.
‘Here,’ I offer. ‘A truce. Take my hand and let’s shake on it.’
We both look at my hand, perplexed. When he doesn’t take it I just leave it suspended in the space between us, my heart hammering in my chest as the moment drifts. It is excruciating. I wonder if I have compromised myself. It dawns on me that he now holds all the power in this exchange. If he shakes his head and tells me no, I am out of options.
I stand there, hand outstretched in a gesture of peace, trying not to think of all the years that have passed. I try not to think of that first visit to the croft, all those years ago, when two men fell drunkenly out of a tractor on to the ground and a brawl broke out in the yard. I try not to think of those eyes fixed with hostility on mine. I am scared, but I stand fast. I have spent fourteen years avoiding this conversation with this man and others. I have to see this through. I focus my energy and attempt to summon all the positive energy I can muster into this room. I imagine kindling a fire, with all my attention and focus. I breathe softly on that guttering flame.
‘Please,’ I say, ‘won’t you meet me in this? It is time for us to end this fight.’
Another minute passes. And then he shakes his head and stares hard at me. ‘All right, I will,’ he says, and at last he shakes my hand. I am nearly sick with relief. My heart is pounding, and I feel exhilarated by something I cannot quite name. It is a feeling not dissimilar to reaching the summit of a mountain: everything in you is exhausted, but your spirit is suddenly fired with an elation you never thought you would feel.
It has been a difficult reckoning and, for now, there is nothing more to say. In my heart, I am not sure if this will be a lasting truce. Anger can burn out, but only if friendship, or something like it, is nurtured in its place. As I leave, briefly we shake hands. It feels like hope, if not a promise. I tell myself, it is a start.
When I get home, I am shaking. I make some strong coffee and as I stand gulping it down, a thought comes to me with such clarity that I put down my mug. It is time to burn the past, I think. This year I do not want to wait for my ritual bonfire to mark the end of lambing. I feel an urgent need to cleanse the house, now, of all that is redundant. I wrench out a drawer and tip its contents on to the desk. It is full of letters I have kept that I wrote to Rab. They are filled with hope, hurt, love and betrayal. I read a few words, and then a few pages. And then I put them into a box.
I am ruthless, stripping the house. If an object makes me feel sad, angry or weighed down, I throw it outside. Soon there is a pile of old furniture, clothes, boxes of small items, files full of yellowing bills and paperwork. I do not need you any more, I think. It is strange how the weight of the past is suddenly so palpable. In the vacuum, the cottage feels lighter and emptier.
Afterwards, I burn sage and walk through each room, holding my smoking torch of herbs and smudging, or cleansing, the space. I load up the truck with all the debris outside on the grass, open the croft gates and drive across the fields, up a steep grass track, weaving amongst the exposed rocks and boulders, to the top of the hill. Tonight I will build my own fire with crackling gorse, brush and timber, and set it ablaze on the hill above the loch. I will sit with those flames, close to my favourite ash tree, until their embers glow bright in tomorrow’s dawn.
It is a beautiful night, clear and with a waxing crescent moon rising over the mountains. As I strike a match, the furze crackles and spits. Crouching, I cup my hands and breathe on its white flames. As gorse spines catch, the flames roar quickly. I pile armfuls of brushwood and broken furniture, letters and photographs on to its back. As the wind lifts, the pyre ignites. It burns with a blistering heat.
Once the flames die down, I nestle five thick logs into the centre in a star shape to construct a slower-burning fire on which to cook a pot of stew. As darkness falls and the skies deepen, I will position two longer logs, with a groove hollowed along the length of each, filled with dried wood shavings and crisp lichen, one stacked on top of the other, with both ends balanced on boulders to raise them off the ground. These will burn through the night. It is a beautiful way to keep warm without constantly having to refuel the fire. Away behind me, Fola glows pale in the darkness, cropping the grass.
At midnight, I open a small wooden box. Inside are two scraps of paper. I whisper their names softly. I read the dreams of long ago aloud. I kiss the shells. I close my eyes. I imagine tiny hands lifting to mine, and tiny sleeping eyes. ‘Goodbye,’ I whisper. ‘We were not for this lifetime.’ I stand and gently lift the box up to the sky. I watch as it falls into the flames and those dreams ignite. It aches to say goodbye to them, but it is strangely freeing. I stay with them, their bright gold flames flickering in my eyes.
As the sun rises, my blanket is white with frost. The fire is no more than smouldering embers now. I smooth it over and pile the embers into an old milking pail. I walk with those hot ashes, scattering their glowing life around the croft. I whisper a wish as each spark sizzles, smoking, on the glittering frost. The buzzards are calling in the high passes of the mountains. Their calls echo on the wind. It is the sound of sunlight and all the raw promise of the spring. I blow out clouds of frosted breath. I lift my arms and I let my voice sing to the wind. My heart is light as I call the sheep for feeding. I watch the sun rising in the east as the Morning Star burns bright in the sky.
3
Kin
As I tiptoe to the door, I hesitate. ‘Downstairs,’ I whisper to Maude, as she presses excitedly ahead of me. Her bright eyes plead with me, but I shake my head. Her paws skitter away down the wooden stairs. I hear her stop on the bottom step and see her turn around. She fixes her gaze on me and waits, a question in her eyes. This is an unusual experience for both of us: there is someone else in the house. I put my hand on the doorknob and softly push open the door. I don’t generally use this bedroom. It is where Rab and I used to sleep. It is my favourite room, in the oldest part of the cottage. Sometimes I stand at the window and gaze out at the garden and the sea. The croft feels so close here, as if the walls are thinner. You can hear every whisper in the low eaves.
Inside, it is sparsely furnished. The old chest with tiny mother-of-pearl flowers, given to us anonymously as a housewarming present, is dark against the peony walls. An elderly woman lies asleep on the bed. Her mouth is open and her long, white hair adrift over the pillow. It is my mother. She is older and more
fragile than I remember. She is almost eighty but, sleeping, she looks like a child. Gently, I tuck the blankets more closely about her. My eyes trace her face. It is hard to believe she is here. This visit is a rare occurrence. The last time my mother visited the croft was when my father was still alive, over eight years ago. I am holding my breath, willing time to slow. And then she stirs. I do not want to scare her on waking so I tiptoe back down the stairs.
The table is set with cups and plates, a milk jug and a sugar bowl. I have warmed the teapot, but then I remember that my mother does not like tea, so I put it away. She only drinks coffee. Dark, strong, thick as paraffin. ‘My father’s army brew,’ she used to laugh.
We only have a few days together. I am trying hard to make them memorable, meaningful. I want to fill each moment with a mesh of smaller memories that will bind these hours together and will never break. It is strange how love can run so deep and yet feel so fragile. It is like a thread that has worn, frayed fibres hidden on the inside. One minute you are holding it and the next you are left with two broken ends. I am still struggling to understand the thread that joins me and my mother. I have been struggling to make sense of it all my life. I have spent years trying to weave us closer to each other, but each time she lets go or the ends fray. Every time that thread breaks, I knot it together. ‘Here,’ I say, holding it out to her, ‘this is your end.’
I want to ask her so many questions while there is still time. It makes it hard to know where to begin. The realisation that it is too late only comes when it is too late. And it is harder to unravel a life when memory has its own mind.
I Am an Island Page 22