Ahead of us is the hill that slopes down to the beach. There’s a figure walking across the sand, a dog leaping ahead of them. Gulls rest at the waterline and bob like buoys on the surface of the sea. I run my hands along the wall where we sit, lichen and moss clinging to the stone and wildflowers growing between the cracks at the bottom where stone meets grass. Suddenly I feel wracked with nerves. I’d been so certain about the need to talk to my brother, but now it feels impossible to know where to start.
‘So how do you even build a drystone wall?’
Jack glances at me, his grey eyes flashing in the sunlight. I hold his gaze. He tilts his head slightly, examining the stones at his side. He coughs.
‘Well, you have to start by sorting your stones.’
‘Yes?’
He glances at me again.
‘You need a mix of sizes and shapes. Then you mark out where the wall is going to be and build some sort of frame – you can use wood, metal or string to mark it out.’
‘And then?’
He takes a breath.
‘And then you get building.’
‘It must take a long time. It’s so intricate.’ I run my fingers over the mismatched stones that make up the wall beneath me. They are all sorts of shapes: smooth and round, sharp and jagged, some almost perfectly spherical, others flat and thin.
‘The trick is not to rush,’ says Jack. ‘You need to keep the wall level, so it can take a few goes to select the perfect stone. It isn’t the quickest way to build a wall but once it’s built it can last for years.’
‘Really? I never understood how they managed to stay up like that. I mean, this feels so strong but I can’t get my head around the fact there’s no cement or anything holding it together.’
‘You don’t need cement – the wall holds itself together. It’s strong, if you take the time to make it right. Aye, a section might fall down in a storm but you just build it back up again using the same stones. A wall is never totally broken as long as you still have those stones. You can always build it again.’
I blink quickly, imagining my brother building this wall with the help of the islanders.
‘It’s beautiful.’
A faint smile spreads across his face.
‘I think so. I’ve always thought it’s not just a wall, it’s part of the landscape. These are local stones, they’ve been on this farm for generations. They belong to this land.’
I look at my brother leaning against this wall he built himself, dressed in his mud-stained farming clothes, his arms tanned by the sun and his eyes the same shade as the stones that form this wall. He belongs to this land too, I can see it now. I might have dreamt of him leaving with me for London when we were young, but seeing him here I understand why he didn’t want to leave. It wasn’t just because of our parents and a sense of duty, although I’m sure that had its part to play. He is part of this place. He fits here like the stones that lock together to form this wall.
‘This section here is actually the first I worked on,’ he continues. ‘Most of the walls on the farm had fallen down when we started doing the place up. Sarah’s father Doug showed me how to do it. We rebuilt this whole bit together.’
I picture the two of them kneeling in the grass, arranging the stones by size. I imagine Jack would have looked incredibly serious as Doug passed on his wisdom, his face scrunched as he tried to remember it all.
‘Well you were clearly a good student.’
He shrugs.
‘I guess the stuff I learned at school and in books never really meant all that much to me. Aye, I learnt the facts but I never felt a connection to them. But working here … It made sense, that knowledge passed on from person to person. There were no books, just listening, watching, making mistakes and learning from them.’
We all make mistakes. I’ve certainly had my fair share of them. Have I always learnt from them though? I don’t know. But I’m trying.
‘You’ve done an amazing job here, Jack,’ I say, shifting so I’m half-looking at him, half-looking ahead at the fields that surround us. ‘With the farm, with Molly …’
He laughs quietly, the sound warming me like the flames of a log fire.
‘Aye, she’s a good lass when she’s not coming up with crazy schemes.’
‘How long do you think you’ll ground her for?’
‘I don’t know, the house is looking pretty clean, there’s only so many jobs left that I can think of for her to do.’
