C.L. Taylor - Sleep

‘Wow.’ Alex looks stunned, as though the reality of what we’re doing has finally sunk in. ‘You’re not going to be here when I get back, are you?’

‘No.’ I look up at the ceiling and blink back tears.

‘Jesus.’ He looks me up and down, his gaze resting on my lips, the top button of my pyjamas and the chipped nail varnish on my toes. ‘I guess this is goodbye then.’

I nod, suddenly unable to speak.

‘One more hug before I go?’ He doesn’t wait for me to respond. Instead he pulls me into his arms, squeezes me tightly then lets me go. The embrace barely lasts five seconds.

‘Take care of yourself, Anna,’ he says as he walks out of the kitchen and into the hallway. He opens the door to the flat and steps outside without looking back. I have never felt more alone.

Saturday 2nd June

Day 1 of the storm

‘Anna. Anna?’

I turn and smile. Even after a week I’m still not used to the way David says my name. I feel as though I’ve been rechristened. Back in London I was Anna – An-na – emphasis on the first ‘n’ and the last ‘a’. Now I’m Ah-nah. My name sounds softer and warmer when David says it in his soft Scottish burr. For the first couple of days on the island my shoulders remained up by my ears, tight, knotted and wary. But I can feel them loosening; the tension that curled me into myself is fading away. I’m softening, just like my name.

‘Yes, David.’

‘Do you have the list of guest names?’

‘Yeah.’ I swipe a piece of paper from the printer under the desk and hand it to him.

I had my reservations about David when he interviewed me on the phone. He was direct, gruff and pompous, continuously referring to me as ‘young lady’ (even though I’m thirty-two years old) and repeatedly asked me if I was prepared to work hard and not moan. I pictured him as a tall man, broad shouldered, bearded, ex-military. When the ferry docked on Rum and I walked down the ramp and onto the quayside I passed the small, round, pink-cheeked man in a yellow waterproof jacket and bowled straight up to the bearded man in a flat cap, standing beside a large black Labrador.

‘Anna?’ I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned sharply.

‘David?’

‘Yes.’ He held out a hand. ‘How was your journey?’

He had told me on the phone that visitors weren’t allowed to bring cars to Rum, and I’d boarded the small boat with a dozen or so people who were also on foot. Half of them had bicycles. The rest wore bulging rucksacks on their backs. I was the only one dragging a suitcase behind me. I carried it up to deck three and took a seat next to the window. After a couple of minutes the ferry pulled away from Mallaig, the sea as grey as the sky. After about forty minutes we passed Eigg, to our left, rising out of the sea like the dark nose of a whale. If Eigg was a whale then Rum was a dragon’s back, curving out of the water. I thought I was prepared to see it for the first time – I’d watched and rewatched the Small Isles programme on iPlayer after David confirmed on the phone that he’d give me a three-month trial – but my breath still caught in my throat and my stomach tightened with anticipation. I left the lounge and stepped onto the deck, smiling as the wind slapped my cheeks then lifted my hair and wrapped it around my face. With the sky and the sea stretching for miles I felt as though I was being transported to another world, not a tiny community on the west coast of Scotland. I felt vital and energised, alive and free.

I didn’t tell David any of that. Instead I said, ‘Rum’s a long way from Reading. It took forever. But the ferry ride took my breath away.’

He smiled broadly, his eyes almost disappearing in the rise of his cheeks as he read the expression on my face. ‘Still gets me too, even after all these years. That everything?’ He gestured towards my suitcase and I nodded.

‘Okay.’ He picked it up. ‘This,’ he raised a hand in the direction of the dozen or so buildings surrounding us, ‘is what we call “the village”, by the way. We’re on the other side of the island – Harris.’

I climbed into his white Land Rover and for the first time in months I didn’t close my eyes after I fastened my seat belt. I still clung to the hand rest as the car climbed the hills, juddered over the stony roads and swung around tight corners but I drank in the view: the hills as grey as an elephant’s hide, the grass, the gorse, the sky stretching forever, the sea and the—

‘Ponies! Look!’

David laughed. ‘Yeah, there’s a few. Deer too.’

By the time we arrived at the Bay View Hotel, nestled into the side of a hill and separated from the rest of the island by a shallow river that we had to drive through, I felt drunk with happiness.

‘That’s the mausoleum, isn’t it?’ I said, pointing at the grey-brown sandstone building that stood incongruously in a field of green. With its pitched roof and imposing pillars, housing three granite tombs, it looked as though it had been dropped from the sky or whisked through time from ancient Greece.

‘That’s right.’ David nodded. ‘It’s Sir George Bullough’s family mausoleum. He’s buried there along with his son and wife.’

I suppressed a shiver, remembering the last time I’d been in a graveyard.

‘And who lives there?’ I pointed at a small cottage on the edge of the river; the hotel’s other neighbour.

‘Gordon Brodie. He guides the walks. He’s also the caretaker at the primary school. Part time.’ He laughed. ‘There’s only four children.’

‘Four children in the whole school?’

‘Five next year when Susi McFarlane’s little one turns four. There’s only thirty-one of us living here, remember.’

‘Can they not go to school on the mainland?’

‘The secondary school children do but there’s only three ferries a week at this time of year. Most of them can only come back every other weekend. They stay with relatives and what not.’

I stared at the darkening sky. ‘What if there’s a storm?’

‘Then there’s no ferries for a while.’ He shrugged. ‘We make do.’

Now, David scans the list of names on the printout in his hand, nostrils flaring as he runs a bitten-down fingernail down the page.

‘We’ve got seven. That’ll mean two trips in the Land Rover.’

He reaches behind the desk and slides the keys off their hook on the wall. He presses them into my hand. ‘There you go then.’

‘No.’ I dangle them from my thumb and forefinger like I’m holding a dirty nappy or a wet tea towel. ‘I can’t.’

‘What do you mean you can’t? You told me on the phone that you can drive.’

‘I can but I … I was in an accident a few months ago and I ended up in hospital. I haven’t been behind the wheel since.’

‘Well, you’ll need to soon.’ He snatches the keys back, shaking his head as he sidesteps from behind the reception desk. ‘Because I won’t always be available to fetch and carry the guests. I did warn you that you’d have to pull your weight— Oooh.’ He presses a hand to the wall, steadying himself.

‘David, are you okay?’

He waves me away. ‘Just a …’ He presses a clenched fist to his chest. ‘Just a bit of indigestion. Oh God, I thought I was going to be sick there.’

A bead of sweat rolls down his temple then gets lost in his stubble.

‘David, are you sure you’re okay? I could call someone.’ I touch a hand to the phone, prepared to ring the Small Isles medical practice on Eigg. There’s no doctor on Rum. One visits once a fortnight, on a Thursday, but today is Saturday. There’s a team of first responders though. The nearest is in Kinloch, which is a fifteen-minute drive away, on the other side of the island.