The last time Serrailler had come to the island, he had dropped down from the sky in a small plane. This time he approached by sea, on the regular ferry which brought him, a couple of other foot passengers and crates of supplies.
Taransay was mole-brown streaked with gold in the sunlight. He had forgotten how small the only village was, a huddle of low-built grey-stone houses facing the water. Behind them, the road out was a pale line for a mile before becoming a track that wound up and around and away over the hill, where there were isolated cottages and a couple of farms. Otherwise, this was empty wild land. A few buildings sheltered in the sandy bays had been turned into holiday lets but once September had gone, they were empty and the islanders closed in for another winter.
He sat on the deck. The sky was soft with cloud, but for once, there was only a breeze not a wind. If you wanted the exhilaration of gales, and to be brushed aside by their force, Taransay, with its neighbouring islands, was the place to come.
As they rode the slight swell coming in to harbour, he had a strange sense of re-entering his old life, as if then he had been another man. It was nearly six years ago and might have been six hundred. He had been young. He had been fit, hale, whole, but he was not whole now, though the physical effects of having lost a flesh-and-bone arm and gained a prosthetic one had been far easier to cope with than the psychological ones. He was haunted by the loss of his limb. He dreamed almost every night that it was still firmly part of him. He felt diminished even while he was gaining in strength and dexterity and getting used to finding new ways to do old things.
Seagulls formed a noisy, voracious pack following the boat as it turned in and began to nudge its way to safe berth alongside the quay. Simon stood up and stretched and then looked.
One tall man. One only slightly less tall woman. And one small boy. They stood together. The men from the stores and the pub would be down to start unloading, once the Bright Lass had tied up and the gangplank had gone down, to let off the passengers. Simon wanted to leap onto the quay. He also wanted to turn his back and hide below deck until the ferry was ready for the return trip.
Douglas had spotted him. Kirsty was waving. The small boy stood, hands in the pockets of his shorts. Looking.
Douglas was first, reaching for Simon’s holdall and slapping him on the back. Whatever had happened between them in the past was indeed past, and when Kirsty took him in a close hug, it was natural, it was heartfelt, but most of all, it was friendly, and gave no hint of what had been between them several years earlier. And it did not appear to trouble Douglas a jot.
‘This is Robbie.’
The small boy had mud-coloured hair, seal-grey eyes and a strong look of his father. He put out his hand and Simon shook it solemnly, aware of the boy’s close scrutiny.
‘Can I see your bionic arm?’ he said.
‘Robbie! What was the last thing I told you before we left the house?’
‘Not to ask him about his bionic arm, I know, but it’s too exciting.’
‘I’ll show you. Only not now.’
‘Why not now?’
‘Because my arm and I are exhausted after a very long journey by a car, two trains and a ferry.’
‘OK.’ Robbie climbed into the back seat of the Land Rover. ‘Only you will show me tomorrow, won’t you, when your bionic arm has had a wee rest? You promise?’
‘I do.’
Robbie buckled his seat belt with a small smile.
‘If it suits you to come and have tea with us, I’ll take you to your place later,’ Douglas said, turning the old Landy onto the track that climbed steeply uphill. ‘Or would you rather drop your things there first?’
‘He wouldn’t rather do that, he would much rather come to our house now.’
‘Robbie, you mind yourself.’
‘He’s right though. I’d like that first.’
The boy had not taken his eyes off him. He gazed at Simon’s left arm and hand, resting on the seat between them.
‘Look any different to you?’ Douglas asked, gesturing to the landscape.
‘Has it looked any different for a thousand years?’
‘Oh aye – a thousand years ago there were more people than sheep and crofts to match.’
‘It’s exactly the same as when I was last here.’
‘You haven’t seen our house yet.’
But the house, too, looked the same – from the front, a low, cream-washed bungalow with a field around it and the hills behind. Douglas had lived here alone then. But when they got out of the car and walked round, Simon saw an extension, with a dormer above, tucked into the back of the house overlooking the sea.
‘We finally finished it last month. You know how it goes up here.’
‘See that? Look, Mr Simon, up there – that’s MY window. To MY own room.’
‘Wow, Robbie, what a lookout! You could spot smugglers and spies as well as birds and seals.’
Robbie’s grey eyes widened. ‘Smugglers?’
‘You’ll need a good pair of binoculars of course.’
‘Och, I’ve got those.’
‘And a telescope would be handy.’
The boy frowned. ‘I’ll have to ask about that. Anyway, it’s a good plan. If you like, you could be my assistant.’
‘Ah, Robbie, if only – but you need someone regular and I have to go back in a couple of weeks. I wouldn’t be much use to you.’
‘Still, while you’re here. We could –’
‘You could go and change your shoes and wash your hands before tea, that’s what you could do, Robbie Boyd. Away … go.’ Douglas was shifting a bag of gravel which had been left outside the door.
‘You’ve a fine boy there, Kirsty.’
She smiled. ‘Aye. And there’s another one coming in the spring, but we haven’t told him yet. He’ll have to be well prepared – he likes to rule the roost here, does our Robbie.’
Simon walked behind her into the house. Kirsty. She hadn’t changed. She was still the tall, friendly, careless young woman he had first known six years earlier, had a brief fling with, and taken Douglas’s crack on the jaw for his pains. Yet she wasn’t. She was a wife, a mother, an energetic member of the small community, all of whom relied on one another, especially through the long hard winters. She was no longer so fancy-free and careless, though she was still friendly, still had wild hair.
He did not wish that he had taken her from Douglas for good. Life on Taransay all year round was not for him and the smallness and inward-looking habits of the island would drive him crazy. He wished them well and was glad they were bringing up their family here, the place needed all the young blood it could get. But he envied them too. Home. Each other. Little Robbie. Another child soon. A steady, settled life.
He pulled off his boots before going into Kirsty’s snug new kitchen, with the sea beyond the window and the range sending out a comforting warmth. Even when the sun shone on Taransay stoves and wood fires were needed.
‘I’m sitting next to you, Mr Simon.’
‘Yes, Master Robbie and you mind your table manners and no cheeky questions or you’ll be away to your bed.’
‘Can you hold the fork with your bionic hand?’
‘Robbie …’
‘No, it’s fine, Kirsty. Yes, I can – I can do a lot of amazing things with this one, but in a few months I’m getting an even more amazing one and then I’ll be able to sew on buttons and scratch behind my ears.’
The prosthesis was as comfortable as it could be for now. He had had months of physiotherapy, and there would be more, plus lessons in how to use the state-of-the-art new one. In time, he would be fully accustomed to it, he had been told. It would be almost as familiar, and use of it as instinctive, as his right arm. Almost. He had been told something else. ‘It isn’t all about the mechanics of your limb,’ Alex, the physio, had said. ‘Or even about your brain training itself to cope with all the small differences between your own arm and this – which it will. It’s about mental attitude. Acceptance.’
‘Positive thinking?’
‘More a case of no negative thinking. It’ll come, Simon.’
And he knew that the process had begun. Physically, it had begun well. The psychological challenge was harder, as Alex had known it would be. He had worked with enough returning military, armless, legless, and all combinations thereof.
‘The body is willing. It’s far easier to work on than the mind, which often isn’t. And that’s not my area of expertise.’
He had been more than willing to work with Alex for as many hours as were needed. He had trained, pushed himself, been surprised by his own progress. But when it came to his mental attitude, he had resisted appointments with counsellors from within the police force, and from the rehabilitation team, though he knew he was wrong.
They ate grilled fish from that day’s catch, chips, and beans from Kirsty’s thriving vegetable garden. Fresh produce was hard to come by on the islands unless you grew your own – and growing your own was not easy, with a short summer, a difficult soil, and a more or less permanent wind off the sea.
Robbie grew very quiet, once the apple crumble had been eaten and the Orkney cheese and oatcakes attacked. He slid down a little in his chair and did not move.
‘Right, young man, I know your tricks. If you stay still you’ll become invisible. Ten minutes more. Simon, would you have a cup of coffee and a dram?’
The ten minutes passed, and Kirsty pointed at her son. Without a word, he got down and came round for a last, fascinating look at Simon’s limb.
‘Tell you what, Robbie. After school’s out tomorrow, why don’t you come over to see me and then I’ll show it to you properly and how it works – the lot? It’s good you should understand.’
The boy hesitated, then, instead of the handshake, gave Simon a hug, his touch as brief and light as a cat’s, and shot away to bed.