Ruby #2
I heave my case into the back and climb into the passenger seat. “Thanks for coming to get me,” I say. “Do you live near Mrs. Williamson?”
“I’m a neighbor. You’ll be staying in the byre, so I’m told. Be nice for you to have your own space and leave Hanna to hers.”
It sounds like a warning. I nod, not sure what else to say, and he’s clearly no conversationalist. When I steal a look at him, he’s concentrating on the road as he drives, his profile outlined against a pearl-grey sky.
Catching my glance, he smiles briefly but makes no further attempt to chat, so I watch the land unfurl before us as we travel up the eastern side of Mainland, as this island is confusingly called.
In the fields, newborn lambs are as white as the tufts of bog cotton blowing by the roadside.
We pass a marker for the line of sixty degrees latitude, but while Shetland is on the same latitude as parts of Alaska, I’ve read it’s a warm current that keeps the islands mild and productive so far north.
Directly to the east lies the Norwegian coast. These islands are closer to Bergen than they are to Inverness.
It’s early evening, but the sun shows no sign of setting. In a month’s time, it’ll be the solstice, and this far north, the summer days are so long that night seems a fleeting irrelevance. They call it the simmer dim here, twilight at midnight.
At last, we take a left turn and meander upward into folds of moorland.
As the road descends toward the Atlantic, the land seems even bleaker, fully exposed to the ocean.
Storm-toughened mounds of heather hug the peaty ground, shorn close, like the fleece of summer lambs.
The sea soon appears again, and the road begins to dip farther westward, curving around bays and inlets, crossing a tumbling burn by way of an ancient bridge, its stones blotched silver with lichen.
White cottages are dotted here and there, scattered along the single-track road, and sheep graze in the fields between the houses, cropping the grass to a rough nap.
Every now and then, Jamie slows the car as a ewe lumbers into the road, a couple of lambs trotting at her heels, in no great hurry to move aside as we approach.
He pulls up in front of a whitewashed farmhouse.
“There you go,” he says. “Welcome to Igdrasil. Hanna said you should go straight to the byre across the pasture there, get yourself settled in. She’s put a few bits and pieces in the fridge for your supper.
She’ll be over to say hello in the morning.
That’s me, the wee bod down there beside the beach. ”
Although I’ve not heard the word before, I assume that bod must refer to the low-built bothy that crouches just above a crescent of pebbles, with a boat pulled up beside it.
A small island lies a little way offshore, connected to the beach by a rough causeway of rocks.
I can see it must be possible to walk across it at low tide, but the waves are already lapping over the stretch of stones, cutting it off.
The islet is little more than a grassy knoll, with a circle of ancient stones sitting atop it—an old sheep fank or something, I suppose.
I turn my attention back to my new home, which is exactly as I’d imagined it.
Bathed in the summer’s evening light, the tiny byre huddles between the broad brushstrokes of the sea and the sky.
A barely trodden path leads across the grassy field to the door, and the slowly setting sun is reflected in the deep-set window facing the road.
Beyond its grey stone walls, there’s a meadow, a drift of grass awash with wildflowers, fenced off from marauding sheep.
I drag my pack from the back of the car and swing it onto one shoulder. “Thanks for the lift, Jamie. I appreciate it.”
“No bother. I’ll be seeing you around, then.”
The windows of Mrs. Williamson’s farmhouse stare blankly back at me. I guess she may well be out, still seeing to her animals.
Jamie drives off without a backward glance, and I’m surprised by a twinge of regret. I’d like to get to know him—I have a feeling there aren’t many people my age in this tiny community. But there’s something reserved about him. Perhaps he prefers to keep himself to himself.
As the sound of the Land Rover’s engine fades away down the road toward the bothy, I stand for a moment, taking in my surroundings.
A lone figure in a lonely place. But it’s what I’ve been yearning for.
Because I think here, at the very edge of the world looking out onto the great nothingness that lies beyond this land, there might just be enough space to accommodate my sorrow.
*
The byre—my new home—is as tiny as Mrs. Williamson’s son had said during my interview, just two rooms with a narrow shower room squeezed between them and a lean-to galley kitchen.
It looks as though it’s been converted fairly recently, because the fittings are up-to-date and the roughly plastered walls have been painted a fresh primrose yellow that glows in the clear light of the evening.
The sitting room houses a sagging sofa and a table just big enough to accommodate the two spindle-backed chairs that flank it.
A cast-iron stove suggests it would be a cozy place to sit in the winter months, and a rug woven in all the colors of the sea softens the wooden floorboards.
The other room is similarly simple, with its old iron bedstead and a lime-washed chest of drawers.
There’s no space for a wardrobe, but I have only one dress with me, which Mum suggested I should pack “in case the old lady ever expects you to help her with a lunch or something.” I’m not getting the impression it’ll be needed.
My elusive new companion doesn’t seem to be the social type.
I shake out the creases and hang it on a hook on the back of the bedroom door, then stash the rest of my clothes in the drawers, which smell faintly of pine resin.
In the kitchen, there’s a loaf of bread and a painted pottery bowl containing four eggs, one with a wisp of down clinging to the shell.
The fridge beneath the counter holds a pat of butter and some milk, and there are tea bags and coffee in the cupboard.
These little touches feel thoughtful, even though there’s no note of welcome accompanying them.
But I’ll meet Mrs. Williamson tomorrow, as Jamie said.
And I’m sure there’ll be time enough for us to get to know each other, since space and time seem abundant resources here.
I check my phone. One bar of signal flickers on, then disappears again.
I walk to the window, set deep in the thick stone walls, and hold the phone toward it.
The faint signal reappears just long enough for me to send a quick text to my parents, letting them know I’m fine and I’ve got here safely.
As I press send, I reflect that really none of us is at all fine, these days, but it’s the word we use to mean we’re getting by, putting one foot in front of the other, still breathing in and out.
The signal fades again. I prop my phone against the window’s wooden sash, so it’ll pick up anything that manages to trickle in when my parents reply.
I take the last of my belongings from the bottom of my pack and set them on the windowsill, too.
The neat set of watercolors, a sketch pad, and some sticks of charcoal were a gift from Mum, typically thoughtful of her.
She’d set them on my bed in the flat, alongside the clothes I’d folded ready for packing.
“Just in case you feel inspired…. You’ll probably have the time on the islands.
” Then she’d enveloped me in a hug that said all the other things, the ones we had no words for, giving my hand a quick squeeze as we finally let go.
The sight of her gift in this new space brings tears to my eyes, with a surge of longing for home and family, but I dash them away with my sleeve and busy myself in the kitchen making something to eat.
As usual, I’m not that hungry, but I promised Mum I’d look after myself, and eating proper meals is part of the deal.
The eggs have the yellowest yolks I’ve ever seen, the same rich gold as the square of cadmium yellow in my box of paints.
I toast a couple of slices of bread, spreading them as thickly with butter as my dad would, imagining the corners of his eyes crinkling in approval.
After I’ve washed up the egg pan, my plate, knife, and fork, I go and stand outside again, drinking in the strangely luminous night.
The soft hush of the waves is carried on the wind from the beach, beyond the little bothy where Jamie’s Land Rover sits parked.
It’s been a long day, and I know I should probably go to bed, but the light makes me feel wide awake.
I go back inside and pull one of the chairs up to the sitting-room window, where I sit and sketch the landscape framed there.
It’s getting on for midnight and I’m just shading in the last of the shadows on the meadow, as the sun finally starts to slip below the horizon, when my attention is distracted by a flicker of white in the dusk. I set down my sketching things in amazement, watching the apparition before me.