Lorna
It’s raining on the island again. Water stings my eyes. What’s rain and what’s the damp breeze whipped in from the sea? Impossible to tell. The wind sighs secrets in my ears. I lick my lips and taste the sharp tang of salt crystals.
I’m standing on the cliff looking out to sea, except I can’t make out much at all through the grey fog of rain that hangs over the water. The horizon has been brought right in close today. There’s no chance of glimpsing the mainland. Perhaps it’s disappeared altogether.
Shivering, I blink through the raindrops that sit heavy on my eyelashes. White-capped waves crash against the rocks below. A gull screeches, wobbling above me like a surfer clinging to a swell. I stretch my neck to watch it and feel a pain between my ribs as it hovers for just a second longer before curving away and out to sea. I have never envied another creature as much as I envy that gull. With wings you’re able to fly away.
I turn for a moment away from the sea. The lighthouse towers up into the grey sky and suddenly a beam of light catches me in its glare, dazzling me. Beyond the lighthouse I can just make out the peak of the mountain pushing through a low bank of cloud. Spreading around it is the rest of the island: the one road shiny with puddles, the scattering of houses and the dripping black pine forest.
And then something reaches me on the wind. The smell of smoke rising in the air despite the rain. It seeps its way into my mouth, down my throat, into my lungs. Smoke, and the smell of the sea. Below me, the waves batter the rocks. And I stand alone on the clifftop drenched by rain that feels as though it will never stop falling.
Suddenly the scene before me changes, washed away as though drawn back by the tide. I’m not on the cliff anymore but inland, facing a house that backs onto the pines. I’m aware of the sea behind me down the valley though, even if I can’t see it. The waves hitting the sand in the distance sound like a heartbeat.
The house in front of me is a large grey building with peeling green window frames and a black wooden porch. There’s a track leading up to the house and a fence with a gate encircling a small garden. But there’s nothing much in the garden apart from rocks and a wooden bench. Nothing grows here.
Behind the house is a backdrop of pine trees and above them the dark silhouette of the mountain. The light is fading and the forest casts long, dark shapes like the shadows of giants onto the grass. But just on the edge of the forest there’s a light. It’s dim at first but grows brighter as I watch it. As I take a step towards the forest I realise there’s a fire burning just on the edge where the grass meets the trees. The flames hiss and spurt. There’s a smell in the air of petrol and the stomach-twisting stench of burning. Suddenly I’m running past the house and towards the forest. As I get closer I can feel the heat of the flames hitting my face, making my skin tingle and burn. My throat fills with smoke. And yet I keep running, closer and closer towards the fire. Because I know at once what is burning there.
*
I wake suddenly in the narrow cabin bed, gasping for breath, the sheets drenched with sweat. It takes a moment to realise where I am.
It’s been a long time since I had this dream. There was a time when a version of it visited me nearly every night. The dreams were so realistic and left me so exhausted that they began to feel more real than my own life. During those days I functioned on autopilot, struggling to stay awake and feeling not fully aware of everything that was happening around me. It was like being drunk but without the warm buzz. At night I collapsed into sleep, unable to prevent the vivid nightmares that would follow me there. Then years and years passed without a single one.
A thin strip of sunlight glows around the edges of the blind. Its brightness tells me I have slept in later than I intended. It’s an effort to drag myself out of bed, my body exhausted. I pull on my clothes and check the top bunk. But it’s empty. The rational part of my brain tells me that Ella can’t have gone far – we are on a moving train after all. But my panic is not rational. Over the years I’ve found that so little of being a parent is. My emotions seem so often driven by a mix of fear and love that I have no control over whatsoever. Often, I feel like my life is one long drive in a car with no steering wheel.
Thankfully I find Ella quickly. She’s standing at the end of the train corridor, dressed in denim shorts and a faded grey T-shirt, leaning against the window, her camera held in front of her. The view outside couldn’t be further from the one we left behind in Euston. The train passes along the edge of a large loch, the water silver with liquid sunlight. Behind the loch are hills that arch into mountains in the distance. On the nearside shore is a pebbly stretch of beach where a few sheep pick their way between rocks.
‘Morning, Mum!’ Ella says brightly, suddenly noticing me standing beside her. She gives me a kiss on the cheek. I smell washing detergent, the fresh scent of recently applied deodorant and something more unique to Ella too – the mix of her hair and skin that means I could pick out my daughter from a line-up of teenagers with my eyes closed and my hands held behind my back.
‘Isn’t this view amazing, Mum?’
We both look back out the window. The loch has passed by now and instead we’re travelling through a wide expanse of moor. Despite being simply a mostly grassy plain, the view is alive with colours. Vivid green and soft yellow where the grass is dry and pale. The dusty mauve of the heather, the grey of rocks rising out from the earth, rich reds and burnt orange bracken. It makes me think of an oil painting and the way the colours mix and blend together. It’s not often that I think of painting these days, but the conversation with Sarah last night has nudged open a part of my mind that I’ve kept shut for a long time.
We pass over a sudden ravine where jagged rocks rise sharply above a Coca-Cola black river. It gathers in tranquil pools before rushing over rocks further downstream and then plummeting into a waterfall. The shutter on Ella’s camera clicks as the train rocks its way across the countryside.
Yes, the view is beautiful. I know that. But I can’tfeelit. Because to me, it is tinged with apprehension. As the train moves I sense again that string that binds me to the island tautening. Reeling me in. I thought that by leaving I’d managed to sever that link entirely. But watching the mountains and the moor out the train window I realise these views and the connection to them have been inside me a long time, waiting. I was foolish to think they’d disappeared entirely. And after last night’s conversation with Sarah I feel more apprehensive about this visit. It was hard enough talking to her again after all these years – what will it possibly be like with my brother?
I turn away from the window.
‘I’m going to see if breakfast has arrived.’
Back in the cabin I find two small boxes and a cardboard drinks carrier waiting, left by the train attendant. I eat one of the lukewarm bacon rolls and drink my coffee sitting on the bottom bunk with the blind still pulled down.
Only when the train begins to near Fort William does Ella bound into the cabin. She eats her now cold roll in two bites while I open the blind and pull down our suitcases. Outside, modern housing estates and the bright light of a Lidl sign roll by, mountains visible on the horizon behind the town.
Stepping off the train together I look around, searching out Sarah’s face among the people pulling suitcases and carrying rucksacks on the platform. There are only twenty or so other passengers, the train having stopped at numerous stations overnight and throughout the morning. But I can’t see Sarah among them.
‘What are you looking for, Mum?’
‘Nothing.’
Where has Sarah got to? Did she race ahead of us getting off the train, or did she maybe get off a stop or two earlier? Despite how we left things, I can’t help but feel eager to bump into her again. She may have asked for space but Kip is a small island and we are bound to cross paths again before long. Maybe if I find the right words to tell her how sorry I am there’s a chance that we can get back what we once had.
But before reaching the island there is still more to our journey: another train and then the ferry. I sleep for most of the second train journey as Ella stands glued by the window, staring outside. As we disembark in the port town the smell of the sea is the first thing I notice. The salty tang catches in the back of my throat, its familiarity even after all these years grabbing me in the stomach and twisting like a knot being tightened. The air is loud with the screeches of seagulls circling the sky, hoping to claim discarded fish in the harbour. A sign points us towards the ferry ticket office. But I don’t need the direction. I know this place. It’s where I came whenever we visited the mainland. And it’s where I would have gone to secondary school, if only I’d been allowed.
There’s a small primary school on the island, but no secondary school. So from the age of eleven island children catch the ferry to the mainland school, staying in a youth hostel until the weekend when they return to their families. But my parents didn’t want me and Jack to go, so chose to home-school us after primary school instead. I remember the arguments about it well. I wanted to go to the mainland school just like Sarah and the other island children and pleaded with them to change their minds. The thought of the youth hostel, away from my parents and away from the island, seemed like a dream. At the time I never fully understood my parents’ decision. But looking back, I think it was one of many attempts at controlling us. The closer we were, the easier we were to hold on to. At least, that’s what I think my father believed.
With each step I feel my anxieties rising. Once the tickets are bought we sit in the small waiting room. In the room with us are a young couple with matching rucksacks who look like tourists and a woman in her sixties with pink hair and a husky puppy curled up in a cardboard box on her lap.
