Read the first six chapters of Against All Odds, the Orkney love-triangle romance with a big twist!

The text might contain language or sexual references unsuitable for under 18s.

© Annie Holder 2017

Escaping the past is never easy…

Neglected and heartbroken, Grace Radley flees London and the humiliation of her husband’s serial infidelity…but escaping her past proves far from easy.

On the windswept deck of the Orkney ferry, she strikes up an unlikely friendship with desperate Sonia Flett, who’s running home from the mess she’s made of her own London life.

Workaholic musician, Vidar Rasmussen, is also on his way from London to Orkney.  Approaching fifty, increasingly dissatisfied with the enforced isolation of fame, Vidar is longing for companionship to lighten his lonely middle-age.

Captivated by the vivacious Grace, Vidar falls instantly and passionately in love.  It seems nothing can upset the perfection of their union…except Sonia Flett.  She’s Vidar’s former lover, she’s pregnant, and she won’t say who the father is.

When Grace’s abandoned husband arrives in Orkney to fetch her home, both Vidar and Grace are forced to confront their past mistakes, and justify the lies they’ve told.

Against all odds, can their love survive?

AGAINST ALL ODDS by Annie Holder

ONE

The text messages were puerile, obvious to the point of insulting.  It seemed her husband liked his girlfriends short on brains, long on patience, as his replies were rare despite their persistence, unless availability collided with inclination, prompting a rush of hurried and clumsy sexting culminating in an arranged assignation.

Being forewarned enabled Grace to throw away fewer uneaten dinners.  It had been going on for so long she now checked his ‘phone as a matter of course, to give her half a chance when diary planning.  No point agreeing to a meal with friends if Dominic had pencilled in a more tempting morsel for the same evening.

Her husband left his ‘phone lying around with the casual confidence of one who considers his security measures quite sufficient for the threat level posed.  The fact his chosen PIN was their wedding date, and the risk of his wife decoding such a cypher was correspondingly quite high seemed never to cross his mind.  Grace wasn’t certain whether she found it hurtful to be credited with so little gumption, or if it was simply laughable that her husband had room in his head and bed for myriad woman, but only sufficient remaining space for the same four digits to cover all other eventualities.

The regularity of his philandering had gradually rendered the reading of the ‘phone a nightly necessity, just to keep up, like a devotee of a Dickens serialisation or an avid ‘Archers’ fan.  While he was in the shower or on the toilet, Grace would flick through the daily record with detached interest.  She’d long since given up feeling anger at the women registered only as single letters in his telephone contact list.  The anger she directed at herself, for her spinelessness.  The tone of the messages made them seem young, keen; desperate to please with their promises and declarations.  Perhaps Dominic’s approbation was necessary for a promotion or pay rise, and doubtless none of them knew he was married, as he’d never worn a ring.

Once Dominic had departed for work, Grace tidied up the breakfast things, showered, dressed, and stared searchingly at her reflection in the hall mirror for a long time. 

Eventually, she slunk out of the flat, closing the front door diffidently and taking the back stairs to avoid the neighbours, creeping as close to the walls as pedestrian traffic would permit up the Clerkenwell Road to a coffee shop she’d never visited before.  It wasn’t that she was meeting anyone, or wanted to sample their coffee, but had decided an appearance in public would force respectable behaviour.  If she was really about to go as mad as she feared, who in the middle of London on a normal weekday would even notice if she threw a cardboard cup with a plastic lid and ranted an expletive or two at the drizzling sky?

She purchased a coffee and hauled what was left of her almost-vanished self to an alcove in the very back corner.

‘It must be today.  For our future.’

A regular contributor to the Inbox of Infidelity for more than three years, and more articulate than most whose prose frequented the little green on-screen boxes, the woman in question nevertheless entered as energetically as any of her peers into the demeaning displays of digital devotion.  Did they realise they were competing, hawking their wares like market-stall traders with perishable stock and a limited time to shift it?  By the tone of their words, each considered herself the only one – and that was what made it so pitiful.  None of them were the only one, because of her – the wife – the only ‘only one’.  But what did the long-ago-devalued title of wife matter here, when contrasted with such passionate urgency, the vital importance of their future, which it seemed would begin today, whatever his helpless, hopeless wife felt about it.

Grace stared at the table top, her unseeing eyes picturing only the message encased in its jokey, non-threatening, over-designed little iBubble of quirky coolness as if it was saying – ‘Hey, don’t mind me, I don’t mean any harm.  How could I possibly hurt y’all, looking as cute as I do?’ – all the while creeping up and slicing her in two like a battle-axe through the spine. 

Could she really place at the blame at Dominic’s door?  Their married life was now so routine, so one-dimensionally distant from its whirlwind beginnings, it was hardly surprising he was seeking excitement elsewhere.

Dominic liked life to sparkle and shine, to impress and entertain, to push his buttons and fire his imagination.  At first, boarding the rollercoaster beside him had been an adventure, a rush the like of which she had never experienced, but it didn’t take long to become exhausting.  There was never a day off!  Dominic kept up the punishing pace until Grace found herself wishing for the ride to stop, the stress to dissipate and the over-stimulating world to cease whirling on its axis long enough for her to retain the stability she craved.  The longing for quiet, predictable routine, time to catch her breath and shuffle her jumbled thoughts into order, became all-consuming.  She began to take steady steps backward out of Dominic’s spotlight, so imperceptibly neither noticed at first, until one day Grace realised he’d gone out without her, and she was indescribably relieved to have been left behind.  Neither discussed the seismic shift in the tectonic plate beneath their marriage, but both understood it had warped irreversibly, and fell into the outward pretence of continuity, whilst enjoying anything but. 

Grace came to understand Dominic had married her money and social position; she, his dashing persona, the idea of him, the kudos of snaring and taming such a prize.  From Dominic’s point of view, enduring the irritation of life with Grace for the compensation of her sizeable inheritance soon lost its appeal.  If forced to tolerate her in exchange for the cash and the connections, Dominic considered himself well within his rights to make his tiresome wife a less maddening encumbrance with whom to cohabit.  He thrust her into the fly-trap clutches of Fenella Dalrymple, a past conquest.  Worldly wise, suitably-connected, acerbically honest when the occasion required it, Fenella was just the person to whip Grace into suitable shape, stamping with stiletto-shod sharpness on every one of her artlessly-romantic notions. 

Grace had to admit she’d learned some valuable lessons from Fenella, not least the efficacy of turning the other cheek.  It enabled her to desensitise herself to the continued betrayals, preventing her from feeling anything more than a dull ache in her insides, like a slowly-recovering muscle-pull, every time she discovered a fresh initial saved in Dominic’s contact list.  Fifteen years ago, she would have shared her anguish with anyone fool enough to ask.  Now, she understood if your own husband didn’t give a shit about your feelings, virtual strangers at dinner parties definitely wouldn’t.  It was better to use occupational therapy to quiet the swelling internal scream.  She rearranged her wardrobe regularly.  She ironed socks and underwear.  She rotated the crockery sets so all got equal use.  Whenever she felt as if she might toss each plate across the room at the far kitchen wall like a Frisbee as she emptied the dishwasher, she did deep breathing until the moment passed and then concentrated on an hour or two of yoga.  She found learning control of her body and mastery of her thoughts addictive; plus, standing on her head became an excellent distraction from the temptation of taking a tennis racket to the Wedgewood on the dresser.

Once it became obvious Dominic’s behaviour would not be altered by Grace’s increasingly futile self-sacrifice, she withdrew, leaving him at leisure to take unchallenged advantage both of her fortune and her fear.  Grace would rather pretend everything was satisfactory than admit she had chosen unwisely and seek to stand alone.  At their age, in her situation, where on earth would she go, even if she had the guts to leave? 

Grace sipped at her coffee.  The oddly-shaped hole in the plastic lid released a large glug of near-boiling liquid into her unprepared mouth.  She couldn’t spit it out, so had to swallow it.  At least the burning sensation seared all else from her mind for a second or two and returned her to her surroundings with a muted gasp.

An expensively-tailored woman advanced towards her alcove and Grace found her heart fluttering between anticipation and terror.  Was the woman coming to speak to her?  Might it be nice to speak to someone…but maybe not today, when she could think of nothing by way of small talk but ‘My husband has his future planned with another woman.  Something’s going to happen today.  By tonight, I might not even have a husband – and then what will become of me?’

As a precaution against even accidental eye contact, she took rapid refuge behind a newspaper abandoned on the table by a previous customer, but of course the woman wasn’t coming to initiate conversation with her – this was London, for God’s sake!  Besides which, she was invisible.  If your own husband barely noticed you, strangers definitely wouldn’t.

What the woman wanted was not a cosy chat, but the table opposite hers in the alcove, and took her seat without even acknowledging Grace’s existence, let alone passing the time of day.  To prove she was just as normal and downright rude as everyone else in this town, Grace expended some effort in attending both to her morning edition and her Latte Macchiato, whilst in her mind’s eye the green boxes of the text messages swirled over the top of the newsprint until she wanted to screw them up inside the paper and hurl the whole bundle across the room. 

The more Grace concentrated on not making an unhinged exhibition of herself, the more aware she became of the other woman and how distracting she was, slurping her drink loudly through the slot in the lid, and dividing her attention between tapping her false nails on the screen of her tablet and flicking with exaggerated impatience through a glossy magazine as if she was performing to entertain Grace.  At length, as Grace was beginning to feel she would like to bunch up the newspaper and throw it at the woman instead, her ‘phone emitted an ostentatious bleep and she snatched it up, let out an exclamation of annoyance for the benefit of her audience, and bustled hastily out, leaving the magazine.  The lure of the glossiness proved irresistible to Grace, and it was the work of a moment to spring up and pilfer it, charitably swapping it for the paper.

Across the cover was a wide stretch of white sand meeting a clear sea, rippling waves criss-crossing one another on the ebb tide, exposing only the odd stone or trail of weed to blemish the otherwise perfect expanse as the tide edged out.  The sky seemed endless, colour deepening from near-white at the horizon, through grey, to pink, and finally blushing out to a rich lilac at the page’s perimeter.  The whole image was so vivid she almost believed it possible to reach in a hand and trail her fingertips through the bubbling edge of one of those receding inch-deep waves. 

In that moment, she thought nothing of the text messages, or even of Dominic; nothing of the burnt roof of her mouth, the reprieved crockery, or her lifeless eyes reflected in the hallway mirror.  She desired only to place one foot in front of the other into the smooth and sinking sand where shallow sea met exposed beach, adding her imprint across the otherwise untouched surface, leaving a mark somewhere in the world instead of fading away.

She would neither explain nor inform; no more would she leave a note exhorting him not to worry.  In fact, she would extend him the same courtesy he showed her; namely, none whatsoever.

Wherever that beach was, she would go to it, and everything else that was supposed to matter could take a running jump.

 

TWO

The call was answered so fast Fenella must have been sitting on the ‘phone, “I wondered when you would join the party!  Where the hell are you?”

Fragments of raised male voices stabbed between the clipped ice.

“What’s going on, Fen?  Is that someone shouting?”

“’What’s going on?’  As if nothing whatever has happened in the world!  Whom do you think might be shouting, Grace?”

“I don’t…is that Toby shouting at someone?”

“Yes, he is, as a matter of fact, Grace.  Yes.”

“What – “

“Your husband is in my kitchen shouting at my husband, accusing us of being in on some conspiracy against him with his crackpot wife, who’s decided to take herself off without leaving as much as a Dear John on the mantelpiece by way of explanation!  Answer me this, Grace, what exactly are you trying to achieve?  If you wanted him to pay you a bit of attention for a change, flouncing out in a sulk won’t get you anywhere.  I’ve always found a negligée and a blow job much more effective.”

Grace was peremptorily silenced, as if Fenella’s beringed and manicured hand had shot out of the receiver and slapped her across the face.  She always did this, effectively neutralising all Grace’s attempts at independence with a splash of well-aimed acid, stinging with targeted accuracy.  She was tempted to cut the call, switch off Fenella and the discomfort of her judgemental, penetrating sarcasm…but what if something happened?  She was the furthest she’d ever been from home alone.  What if she were taken ill, or attacked, or murdered?  If she told Fenella where she was, at least someone would be able to identify the body. 

In a small voice, she stated, “There was a message, Fen, on his ‘phone.  Different from the others.  This one was about the future; ‘our future,’ it said.  Done and dusted.  He’s leaving Fen, so – “

“So, you thought you’d steal his thunder and do it first.”

“No, no…I didn’t want the conversation!  I didn’t want to have to stand in front of him, hearing him say it, so I just decided I wouldn’t be there.  He can leave and I can just…not know…”

“Let me get this straight, you both respectively pack and leave, and your prime central London real estate is abandoned to the spiders while you each sit in hotels waiting for the other to make the first move…?  Honestly, Grace, I’m not entirely sure you don’t have a screw loose, darling.  I don’t know how you cook up these flights of fancy, but he’s not going anywhere.  He’s beside himself because he hasn’t seen you since yesterday morning!  You do know the usual form is to have a plate-smashing humdinger of a row to leave him in no doubt of your departure and your reasons whereof, darling, not creep out incognito like the Scarlet bloody Pimpernel and not tell a soul.  He could have reported you missing!  Half the Met might be out now turning the place upside down trying to find you, thinking you’ve been kidnapped or something.  It’s utterly irresponsible, Grace!”

“Oh, but having affairs left, right and centre is perfectly ok, I suppose?”  Wow, where had that come from?  She’d never have the courage to say any of this to Fen’s face.  Thank God for the nine hundred miles separating her from the queen of the icy glare and pithy put-down.

Surprisingly, uncharacteristically, Fen let the retort go, instead crooning, “Sweetie, where’s your common sense?  Have you learned nothing these twenty years?  You don’t get mad, darling, you get even.  Every time they do something you find less-than-acceptable, you hit ‘em where it stings the most!  The Louboutin shoes, the Chloe handbags, the remodelling at home, the very best schools for the children, the new car once a year.  When you want something, you have it!  The thirty pieces of silver; the price he must pay for having his cake and expecting to be able to eat it too.”

“I’m sick of it, Fen!  I don’t want another handbag.  It’s all so wasteful.  I don’t want my whole life to be a constant cycle of scheming and revenge.  I want to be with someone who’s delighted by my company, without it having to be some business transaction designed to pierce his wallet every time he pokes his latest mistress.  I don’t care.  I want it to stop.”

“Gracie, you’re having a tantrum, that’s all.  You’re doing something extreme so everybody notices you.  It’s childish.”

“Fen, I rang you because…”  Why?  Why had she rung Fenella?  Was it only so someone would know where she was, or had it been to obtain Fen’s blessing for her actions, just to convince herself she hadn’t completely lost all reason?  What rational person left security, status, comfort, routine for the urge to make the perfect footprint on an empty beach?  Was that the act of a reasonable individual or the hare-brained, half-baked lunacy of an idle dreamer with nothing better to do with her life than navel-gaze her way into self-pitying depression?

Fenella treated the sudden silence on the line more as invitation-to-continue than cause-for-concern, reiterating, “Honestly, Grace, I’ve always thought you were a little bit ‘out there’, darling, but this takes the cake!  Kooky is endearing.  Ga-ga is not, frankly.” 

Grace could picture Fenella’s lip curling as she passed judgement.

The ferry engine started up with a cough and roar which surprised Grace.  She’d quite forgotten where she was.

As the boat began to move away from the dock, the motion and vibration set off several alarms on the open car deck below. 

“Grace, where are you?”

She toyed with the idea of making something up, but knew she wouldn’t.  She had to tell Fen where…just in case…

“I’m on the ferry.”

“To Calais?”

“To Orkney.”

“Whaaaat?”  Fen screeched, losing all poise in the face of such rank idiocy, “Well, that settles it; you have completely taken leave of your senses!  What possessed you to go there?  I don’t think they even have Waitrose.”

To Fenella, this one fact negated the requirement for any other proof to support her assertion of the total absence of civilisation.

Grace felt her plan seemed even more crackpot when subjected to Fenella’s withering scrutiny than it did within her own, reeling head.  She began hesitantly, “I wanted to go to an unsullied place, to…erm…to make a mark…”

“Leave a stain, more like.”  Fen was right, it was insane!  She was standing on this dirty, windswept deck, freezing her arse off, spouting utter crap!  Watching the Scottish coast recede made her even more unsure of herself.  Was she stamping her feet and flouncing out like a teenager in a huff, slamming every door on the way to ensure no one could ignore it?

“You know I’m going to tell Dom, don’t you?”

“Oh Fen, I thought you’d be on my side!  You’re supposed to be on my side!”

“Says who, darling, the United Nations?”

Grace felt humiliated, hurt, alone and very, very scared, so she snapped, “Oh, tell him what the hell you like, Fen, as you’re so concerned with placing his welfare before mine!  If…if…anything happens…I’m staying at a house called Somerled in a place called Birsay.  I just thought someone should know, that’s all…but don’t worry yourself.  I’m sure I can cope quite well without your kind concern!”

Grace whipped the ‘phone from her ear and stabbed frantically at the off button.  Denying Fenella the chance to have the last, scathing word was empowering, and Grace toyed with the idea of dropping the ‘phone into the boiling, churning wash beneath her feet, but didn’t do it.  That was best left to heroines on gritty tv dramas.  Terrified, overwrought women making grand gestures like leaving not only their husbands but mainland civilisation to boot, might be grateful for the practical application of a smartphone in their hour of need.

The strengthening wind buffeting insistently at her back made her glad of all the layers she’d elected to wear on rising from her B&B bed to the chill of the early Highland morning.  Spats of November sleet persistently peppering her windscreen as she’d notched up the northbound miles made her wonder why she was sticking so resolutely to this stupid plan, the thrill of sticking a metaphorical pin in a map and discovering salvation at its apogee.  If she’d any sense, she’d go straight to the return ferry queue as soon as she arrived, and dismiss the whole, sorry mess as a moment of madness…but she was tired of being the Grace who resolutely kept her seat on the ridiculous carousel of self-delusion.  Foolish she may well be, but the humiliation of having to creep home and placidly accept the continuing disrespect was more crushing than pushing onward.  Intentionally or not, by ringing her so-called friend, she’d ensured the die was cast.  It had now become a question of pride to see this through, whatever it was.

 

THREE

The going became unsteady as the ferry hit choppier open water, and Grace was startled to be bumped against by another body.  Her London senses barked ‘beware!’, and she clutched her handbag close – were there pickpockets on ferries like there were on the tube?

Instead of a hard-faced ne’er-do-well with five o’clock shadow and darting eyes, Grace beheld a young girl with vivid auburn hair falling in careless ringlets around drawn, pale cheeks.  The girl’s Scots accent was broad, but not unintelligible to Grace’s untuned ear.

“Och, I’m sorry…I’m...”  The girl staggered again, eyes glazing, freckles standing out prominently against the stark pallor of her pretty face.  She swayed alarmingly, and would have fallen to the deck had Grace not lunged instinctively forward to grab her, easing her gently backwards onto the closest metal bench and squatting in front of her, holding her knees to prevent her slipping forward, pickpocketing paranoia forgotten in the rush of genuine concern.

The girl slumped, hands to her temples, drawing the thick curls away from her face and managing a few deep breaths.  One palm pushed firmly against the knees of the girl, convinced even slightly releasing the pressure would see her slide from bench to deck, Grace managed to fumble a bottle of mineral water from her handbag with her free hand, clumsily wrestle off the plastic anti-tamper film, and use her teeth to tear off the strip of plastic to open the cap, “What a performance…here, have some of this.”

The girl was too far gone for politeness, snatching the bottle and squeezing large glugs of the cold liquid into her mouth, swilling it around before swallowing, nostrils flaring.  She took in gulp after gulp and belched twice with no attempt at restraint and no apology extended.  Somewhere quite near the surface, in the shallow Fenella-influenced part of herself, Grace found the primal nature of the girl’s need rather distasteful, and decided she didn’t want the water back.

Beneath that, where the essence of the real Grace still dwelt despite everyone’s best efforts to eradicate her, swirled a maelstrom of concern and curiosity for this wild, Pictish beauty with her curls of fire and air of desperation.

Quietly, as if she couldn’t believe she was conversing so directly with a stranger, Grace managed, “Can I fetch someone for you?” waving an explanatory hand towards the steps leading to the warm interior seating area, where anyone with an ounce of sense would be.  Only seasick, tragic heroines, lunatic women on the run, and determined whale-spotting tourists graced what had been optimistically christened ‘the sun deck’, as snow crystals whipped past them on the prevailing wind.

The girl belched again and shook her head.

From her pocket, Grace took a packet of Polos and eased the first one away from its fellows, proffering the pack, “Mint?  Very good for motion sickness.”

The girl regarded her sharply and Grace’s hand wobbled hesitantly.  What had she said?  The girl’s bottom lip trembled and her mouth pulled downward, eyes blinking rapidly.  She whispered, “How are they for morning sickness?” and fixed Grace with an anguished stare like a shout of pain.  Grace gasped before she could stop herself and whinnied a nervous, high-pitched giggle to cover her confusion, “Can’t say I’ve tried them for that, personally…”

She remained holding out the Polos for what felt like months, too polite to withdraw them lest it be viewed as a judgement, until the girl put her out of her misery and inched the mint from the pack, pushing it cautiously between her lips as if she’d been ordered to ingest a cyanide pill.  After a second or two of experimental sucking, she volunteered, “That is better.  Takes the horrible taste away.  You know, weeks now, I’ve had this taste…like metal in my mouth, and nothing I eat or drink’ll get rid of it.”

Grace, unsure what she could contribute, again tried, “Isn’t there anyone I can get for you?  Someone sitting downstairs?”

A sudden potential sighting sent a surge of the cagouled binocular-wielders to starboard.

“Might be dolphins,” said the girl, “Don’t you want to see?”

Grace wrinkled her nose, “I’ve swum with dolphins in Florida.”

The girl appraised her, nodding slowly, taking in her diamond earrings, Omega watch, thick Barbour jacket and designer handbag, drawing her conclusions. 

“Nice.”

Grace fidgeted, “Not really.  It was all rather staged.  I felt sorry for the dolphins, as if they were being used…which, of course, they rather were…  I found I didn’t like it.  I felt guilty being there.  My approach now is just to let nature be and not try to impose myself upon it.”  She stopped abruptly, “Sorry…what do I sound like!  Silly pretentious, sanctimonious rubbish!”

The girl smiled, the rush of preconceptions blowing in all directions like the snowflakes round their faces, “Please can I have another mint?”

Grace pushed the packet into her hand, “Take them.”

“Thanks.  I don’t feel so sick now.”

Grace eased herself up onto the bench opposite the girl, straightening her stiffening legs.  She could feel the cold of the metal through the fabric of her jeans.

“Look, I’ll freely admit I don’t know the first thing about being pregnant, but my friend who’s had three says it’s better to keep your tummy full to stave off the nausea.  She used to eat porridge and custard…things that go down easily and don’t burn on the way back up, or something…sorry…”

The girl was taking quick sips and deep breaths again.

“I shouldn’t have mentioned eating…or being sick…sorry…”

Gulp. 

Gulp. 

In. 

Out.

A sigh.

Another Polo.

Grace put her hand on the girl’s arm, feeling responsible, “Is there someone downstairs who’ll be worried?”

The girl looked at the floor, “No.  No.  You’re very kind, but no…there’s no one…”  Her voice faded to a whisper as if it had run out of energy on a long journey, and several tears dripped in quick succession onto the dark toes of her canvas pumps.  Grace, hand still resting lightly against the girl’s sleeve, squeezed the thin arm and searched for a way to reassure her that everyone faced trials in their life, and she could get through this challenge if she was brave and resolute.  It would doubtless have been very beneficial for the girl to hear the motivational speech Grace was rehearsing in her head.  Unfortunately, when she opened her mouth, what actually tumbled out was, “I’ve left my husband,” as if no one else in the history of the world had ever done such a momentous thing, “and my friend, whom I thought would support me, seems to have taken his side…and there’s no family…no one with whom to…” except Fenella, and it turned out whatever she’d shared with Fenella was simply grist to the gossip-mill, “It seems they were all laughing at me behind my back, as if I never fitted in with their stupid herd…”  Grace was shocked by how venomous her tone became at the sudden recollection of every humiliation suffered at the hands of Fen, of Dom, and all their ilk.

The girl nodded, offering back with feeling, “Believe me, I get it.  I know how it feels not to belong anywhere…  I know how hard it is to keep your head up when you’re certain you’re the local laughing-stock.”  She sucked in another Polo through pouting lips and watched Grace intently with her vivid, green eyes, so bright they seemed to glow despite the insipid, grey daylight.

Grace’s heart began to flutter in her chest.  She usually only had frank, open conversations with her reflection.  She avoided prolonged contact with everyone else because their scrutiny made her feel awkward, foolish, worthless.  Talking to Dominic was pointless, as he ignored everything she said.  Talking to Fen brought either a salvo of supercilious scorn, or saccharine-coated sarcasm.  Talking to strangers normally resulted in the embarrassment of mutual incomprehension.  This was different, exhilaratingly so!

The girl crunched the Polo in her small, even teeth, tongue chasing the fragments around her mouth as she muttered, “I tried to make a good life for myself, but I just couldn’t get it right.  I ended up feeling utterly hopeless, as if everything I touched turned to crap.  I’d always been sure of myself, convinced I could do things if I put my mind to them…and all that disappeared so rapidly I was floundering, afraid all the time.  I felt as if I was being slowly suffocated, all this weight pressing in on me from every side, trying to squash me flat for being presumptuous enough to have a crack at making it in a world where I didn’t belong.  I had a basement flat and I could feel the other three floors pressing down on me when I was lying in bed.  I’d go on the tube and be convinced the tunnel would fall in and crush my carriage.  I worked in this great big tower block and I could feel all the floors above and below pressing together so in the end I’d be squashed flat between them.  I would get panic attacks and be walking the streets at five in the morning because I was too scared to stay indoors in case the house fell down.”

That was it, exactly!  Slowly suffocated, as if all the life was being squeezed out of her by a force she couldn’t define, leaving her dead inside.  It took every ounce of Grace’s self-control not to leap from her bench and cling to the girl in a sudden embrace.  She felt the same!  Someone else understood!

She tried to suppress the delight in her tone as she cried out, “You don’t realise how much better this makes me feel!  I understand exactly what you’re going through!  I was married to this completely hyperactive guy who just wanted life to be a thrill-ride all the time.  I’m not like that.  I’ve discovered I greatly enjoy peace, calm and solitude.  I felt as if I was suffocating too, and losing sight of who I really was…who I’d been before I got married.” 

“Where did you live?”

“Clerkenwell – in London.”

“Trendy!”

“A nice, top floor loft in a converted warehouse building, with big windows, high ceilings, a roof garden…I’m an artist, you see.  I paint...” Grace thought if she said it aloud that might make it true: I’m an artist.  Not, I’m pretending to be an artist, or, given the universal derision of my husband and friends, I’ve hardly created a thing since my degree and now seriously doubt I’ll ever have the confidence to do so again.

“I need the light.  For my work.”

Oh, she sounded ridiculous again – haughty, superior, full of herself!

Fenella; I sound like Fenella.

The girl belched again, and took a shuddering breath or two, eyes briefly closing, weathering another wave of nausea.

To distract her companion from her obvious distress, Grace exerted herself to continue the conversation.  Dominic discouraged her from speaking to anyone, leaving Grace unsure of herself in most social situations, but she’d attended enough tedious cocktail parties in her time to feel content with a banal enquiry or two, “You know London?”

“Aye.  I lived there for a wee while.”

“Whereabouts?”

“Pimlico.”

“Ooh, a good area,” Grace nodded like an estate agent touting for business.  The girl responded bitterly, “Is it?  Can’t really comment.  Never went out except to go to work.  You know, moving to London I thought I’d have the kind of social life you read about in magazines or see on the telly.  I imagined me and all my cool workmates meeting up for shots in trendy bars and sloping home laughing from clubs, watching the sun come up over the river…but none of that ever happened because I was Northern, and poor, and I hadn’t gone to the right school or the correct University.  My Dad didn’t play golf with politicians or sit as a Director on the requisite number of Boards.  He doesn’t have time, you see…he’s got sheep to shear, cows to milk, shite to shovel…”

Grace, whose own father had counted many politicians and peers within his social circle, and held more Directorships than Grace could tot up, found it wise to remain silent.

“It was just me, in my grubby pyjamas in front of the telly in my overpriced basement, trying to be something I wasn’t and making a conscious effort not to think about those floors above me, pressing down…”  The wind blew a ringlet across her face.  Irritably, she pushed it aside with a gloved hand.  A couple of loose strands of glowing copper caught on the wool and whirled away as the wind gusted again.  Bewitched, Grace watched them for a moment, catching the light, contrasted against the grey of the sky.  Isolated for so very long, Grace was impossibly fascinated by the tantalising glimpse into another life, as if she was peeking through the keyhole into an adjoining room, desperately trying to see beyond the limiting edges of the circular tableau.

Venturing far beyond politeness, Grace surrendered to naked curiosity, “What about…your baby?”

The girl scowled, “I screwed up there and no mistake…chased a fairy tale that turned out to be a horror story.  By the time I came to my senses, it was too late.  Och, I was so stupid!  I’d tell myself I could finish it whenever I chose.  I was the one using him and not the other way round.  All bullshit, of course; all lies I told myself because I wanted to be with someone – anyone – rather than being alone.  Does that make sense?”

“Of course – perfect sense.”

“I needed it to be real, because if it wasn’t, what kind of a life did I have?  No mates, naff flat, a job I hated with fake people I despised…but who I pathetically wished would like me anyway.  Prince Charming wanted Cinderella, and all she did was scrub the floor all day.  Why did it have to be something that happened to other people?  Why couldn’t it happen to me?”

Grace cooed soothingly, “So you tried.  You gave it your best shot.  You saw the man for you and went for him.  That’s brave!  A lot of women, me included, would wait for the man to come to them…and if he didn’t, would let the chance go.  Who can criticise you for having the guts to try?”  Grace patted the back of the girl’s gloved hand like a tiny puppy, “You didn’t bury your head in the sand for twenty years pretending your marriage was a roaring success when really it was a humiliating failure.  You’ve done nothing wrong in my opinion.  We all make mistakes.  It’s how we handle them that matters.”

The girl managed a weak smile, “Thank you.  You’re kind.  Somehow, I don’t think my parents will view it in such a positive light, as a triumph against adversity.  I think they’ll consider it more a life-ending disgrace.”

“So, you’re going home to have your baby…” Grace was starting to understand, and responded encouragingly, “I think that’s a very sensible thing to do.  You’ll need help.  It’s right to go where people can help you.  You seem a very level-headed person to me.”

“They don’t know, that’s the trouble.  I just said things had turned bad down South and I needed to come home for a wee while.  When it came to it, I wasn’t brave enough to come clean.  My mother thinks I should’ve stayed at home and made a life in Orkney.  She couldn’t understand why I was so desperate to get away.  She’s always trying to fix me up with local boys I’ve known my whole life; boys who’ve been born and bred to croft like their fathers and grandfathers before them.  Boys with no drive and no ambition beyond surviving on that stupid bit of northern rock…and I want more, I always have – but my stupid, overblown dreams have done for me this time.  My mother’s going to skin me alive for bringing disgrace upon the family.  At least I won’t be asking them for money as well as somewhere to live.  The good thing about several years of decent income and no social life is you do a heck of a lot of saving up.”

“See?  You are a very sensible girl!  You prepared yourself for whatever your future might throw at you.  You might have made one naïve decision, but you’ve covered your back, haven’t you?”

The girl scowled again and didn’t answer.

“It’s your home…how bad can it be?”  Grace pictured the now-deceased, doting parents no Disney Princess should be without, and couldn’t conceive of a situation where returning to the bosom of your family could be anything other than a positive experience.

The girl fixed her with a knowing look, “You’ve never been to Orkney, have you?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“A bit.  It’s not like London.  A single mum in London?  It’s no big deal in a place where the guy on the bus next to you has green hair and piercings on his piercings, but it’s different here, amongst my super-conservative relations.  Twenty-first century or not, when I come clean, they’ll see it as life over, prospects pinched, hopes dashed!  First, there’s the disgrace.  Then, there’s the burden I’ll become.  No one else will ever have me because the entire West Mainland will know I’m soiled goods before tea time tomorrow.  I’ll have to move to Shetland to get a husband.  Even that might not be far enough to escape the fall-out from my misdemeanour.  Maybe Norway?  Could be Russia or bust for me…”

Grace couldn’t help giggling, “Surely not?”

“Don’t even pretend to get it.  If I thought I was persona-non-grata down South, you just wait until I get home and tell my deeply-traditional, churchgoing parents that I’m a soon-to-be single mum and have expertly effed up both my future career and marriage prospects in one go, when they’ve spent most of the last decade boasting to whoever would listen about their world-beating daughter and what a success she’s making of herself.  The massive social climbdown this’ll mean!  The women my mother talked down to because their girls got married straight from school and had three kids before their 21st!  The humble pie she’ll have to swallow cold in kitchens up and down the district!  If I make it until tomorrow breakfast without being murdered in my bed, I’ll almost believe I’ve got away with it.  I can see the two of them conspiring to bash me over the head, bury me behind the barn, and just not tell anyone I ever came home…”

“You’re exaggerating.”

“Not as much as you might think.  This is Orkney, not Clerkenwell.”

“I bow to your superior knowledge.” 

“Why choose Orkney anyway, in November…it’s hardly a cosmopolitan getaway for someone like you?”  Grace wondered who ‘someone like her’ was, and stated cryptically, “Because of a beach, a picture, a stupid promise I made to myself to grow a pair…”

The girl looked pointedly – and with more than a touch of the Fenella Dalrymple’s about her – at the grey skies, the swirling ice-flakes, “It’s hardly beach weather.”

Something in her tone pricked Grace who, tired of being made to feel ridiculous, snapped before she could stop herself, “It’s about pursuing an ideal!  It’s about not settling for things any more!  It’s about perfection and a sense of place!”

The girl guffawed, making the dolphin-spotters turn and stare, “Perfection?  In Orkney?  Like I said, you’ve never been.”

Grimacing, Grace grunted, “You’re making me dread it.”

“Och, no!  It’s fine!  I’m teasing you, is all.”

“You’d better be.”

They exchanged quick looks, shy smiles, both simultaneously realising how much they’d shared, and how quickly, as if they’d only been searching for the smallest excuse to unburden their tortured souls.

“Where are you staying?”

Grace fumbled in her handbag for the email printout, “Had to do a bit of a lastminute-dot-com.  All I could get with forty-eight hours’ notice.  Seems a great big place just for me, but looks very nice by the photographs.  Bit Scandi-looking.  Quite modern…somewhere called Birsay?”

The girl’s nimble fingers were quick to snatch at the paper, hungry eyes scanning for information, “Scandi place you say?  Oh…”

“Oh.  Oh, what?  Do you know it?  Is it not good?”  Grace hung on the verdict.  The girl whistled.  Grace’s receipt was at the bottom of the printed sheet, “Pricey…”

Grace blinked, “Is it?”  It wasn’t ever a criterion she needed to consider, and was always a genuine surprise when brought to her notice. 

She stammered, “I’m not really sure what these things are supposed to cost…”

The girl tapped a knuckle onto the paper, “You can stay on these islands for probably an eighth of that price.”

Grace blushed, “Maybe they put the rental up because I did it in such a hurry?”

“No, I know that place.  It’s called Somerled after a Viking king.  It’s that expensive because it’s really nice.  You’ll like it.  It’s the most incredible location, superb view, swanky house.  If you’re looking for perfection, you’ll find it there.”

“Have you stayed there then?”

“Erm…” the girl’s reaction was interesting, frozen halfway between embarrassment she couldn’t control and pride she couldn’t conceal, “I have…yes.”

Grace teased gently, “You’re blushing…what’s the gossip?  You have to tell me – I’m going to be living there!”

“Erm…I…know…the person who owns it…”

“Know?”

“What?”

“The way you said ‘know’…”

The girl’s striking eyes alighted briefly upon Grace’s face, before dancing away to the far horizon as she mumbled, “I had a bit of a thing with the man who owns it…a wee while ago now.”

She put a hand to each cheek as if absorbing the heat of her sudden blush into the wool of the gloves.

“If you wanted a fairy tale, why not stay on Orkney with the man you loved in his big, expensive, perfect house?”

The girl frowned, “Because I wanted him much more than he wanted me,” She unconsciously brushed a hand briefly across her stomach, and Grace longed to know whether this was the far-from-happy ending, but wasn’t brave enough to ask. 

“It was…complicated.  He was much older than me.  It was just a silly schoolgirl crush…”

“But you still hold a torch for him!  The look on your face…”

“He’s famous – a rock star!  He used to sell out stadiums in the eighties and nineties…”

The girl spoke of the decades before her birth as if they were ancient history, and Grace rolled back the years to her teens and twenties with a secret stab of sudden longing to have her time over again, and live it very differently. 

“Wow!  What’s his name?  Would I have heard of him?”

“You might have done.  His name’s Vidar Rasmussen.”

“Hmmm…it does sound vaguely familiar.  Unfortunately, I was never really that hip, even though I went to Art School!  I was never one of the gang who was into all the cool groups.  I might recognise him if I saw a picture.  Was he in a band or something?”

“He had a band who performed with him, but I think he was the big name.  It’s quite a while since he’s toured and stuff…almost before I was born!  I guess it would have been a name of your youth.  Sorry, I didn’t mean that in a rude way.”

“No, no…no offence taken!  I suspect I had rather a lot of ‘youth’ before you were even a glint in your father’s eye.”

The girl smiled self-consciously.

“Will you see him when you get back?”

“He’s in America, as far as I know.  He can’t be in Orkney anyway, because you’re renting his house.  It gets rented out for him while he’s not using it.  Yet another way to make him even richer.”

“You sure the flame isn’t still smouldering?” Grace teased, “Fancy rekindling it?”

The girl grinned, “You mean would I like to travel round the world from one fancy mansion to the next, melting his credit card?  Course I would!  When we were together, the bit I enjoyed most was the showing off.  I could stick two fingers up to all the girls at school who’d picked on me.  They were stuck on a croft, married to a moron, up to their knees in dung with two kids and another on the way, and I was dating a rock star.  Who was the loser now?  He’s a nice guy and everything, but he works all the time.  I just had to fit in around what he was already doing.  He didn’t do it in a mean way, it’s just that his job comes first.  I suppose you don’t achieve what he has unless you’re dedicated.  I think he was entertained by me while he was here…but, once he left…?  He went to do a project in London and I thought it would be the cleverest idea I’d ever had to go there myself and, you know, we’d hook up – because, obviously, everyone in London knows everyone else, don’t they?  Our eyes would meet across a crowded bar.  He’d realise I was there and it was all meant to be!  But stuff never works out like the movies, does it?  My mother, needless to say, blamed him.  Truth is, I just wouldn’t leave him alone and in the end, he caved in – what bloke wouldn’t?  Some wee girly following them around offering it on a plate?  She thought he’d led me astray, put ideas in my head.  It took about two years for her to let him back over the threshold.”

“You’re still in touch?  That’s sweet…”

“He’s our neighbour, when he’s here.  He buys eggs from my Mam.  Somerled is up the lane from my parents’ farm.  You’ll be literally less than half a mile away.  If they do murder me and bury me behind the barn, you could be a witness!  If you see them digging, you raise the alarm, ok?”

Grace smiled broadly, amused by the frankness of her manner, and intrigued by all she’d left unsaid.  How exciting to share even a titbit of this interesting life!  This girl was entertaining, quirky, forthright, and open – such a liberating antidote to the subjugating poison of life with Dominic that Grace was tugged towards her like a magnet to a pole.  Even Grace was sensible enough to understand the exchange of a few clumsy confidences did not a lifelong friendship make, but it nevertheless felt as if she already had an ally here.

“Small world eh?”  The girl could see how cheered the woman was by the revelation they would be neighbours, and was flooded with gratitude.  It had been so long since anyone had displayed obvious pleasure at her proximity.  She pushed in another Polo between dry lips.  The sharp taste of the mint suppressed the nausea.  It was freezing on this deck, but the fresh air on her face removed the unpleasant sensation that preceded a fainting fit, and she needed to get used to the cold again.  She was back in the land of Weather; no more fuggy, city days where the vagaries of climate barely made an impact within the man-made, centrally-heated, artificially-regulated world.  Here, the wind whipped hard and strong across the bleak, treeless landscape, cutting through all but the thickest layers, scouring even the hardiest cheek, and snatching away words the second they passed your lips.

She’d had to come home.  There was no other option.  She couldn’t stay in London with no job – and the city had lost its sparkle, if it had ever had it in the first place.  Perhaps the only place it had really shone like a beacon of hope was inside her own deluded head? 

The steadily-worsening sickness owed its origin more to fear than physiology, knowing she’d have to face parents, siblings, relatives, erstwhile friends, and admit her naivety where once she’d lauded her superiority.  Too soon she’d be plain old ‘Ginger’ Flett again, vilified for her self-importance, knocked right back down to size, and no one to blame for it but her stupid, stupid self.

To take her mind off the coast creeping ever-closer, the girl enquired, “How long are you staying?”

“I don’t know.  I haven’t made any firm decisions…about anything.” 

“What are your plans while you’re here?  Birsay’s dead quiet.  The Wild West – just farms and wetlands and a load of sheep, birds, rocks and nothing but ocean until you hit Canada…and winter’s coming.”

“Don’t become a tour guide, will you?”

“Don’t get me wrong, it’s beautiful in its own way, but it’s empty and it can be pretty bleak.”

“And yet you want to have your child here?”

“I don’t have much choice as I’ve nowhere else to go, and…it’s home, it’s what I know.”

Grace turned and beheld the low, brown landmass in the distance.  No obvious structure disturbed its undulating silhouette.  Her mind had been wholly occupied with the monumental act of leaving Dominic.  She hadn’t given a moment’s thought to what she might do upon reaching her destination, beyond visiting the beach that had started all this madness.  The sound of securing chains clanking on the open car deck below distracted Grace from her anxious observation of the approaching archipelago.  Peering over the railing, she saw the overalled, hard-hatted deckhands starting to unchain the cabless lorry containers from their deck fixings.

“It’s quick.”

The girl shrugged, “It’s only eight miles.  In my opinion, it’s slow – an hour to do eight miles?  They should dig a tunnel.”

Grace was petrified.  They were here!  They were moments away from docking! 

“Are you driving to Birsay?”

“No, foot passenger.”

“Is someone coming to get you?”  Grace knew it was rude to ask so many questions that were none of her business, but her mouth seemed utterly disengaged from her brain, leaving her powerless to control what blurted out of it.

“No.  They know I’m coming, just not the date.  When it came to it, I wasn’t brave enough to let on.”

“Well, I think you’re very brave.  I think they’re your family.  I think it will be ok.”

“I wished I shared your optimism.”

The girl’s face looked pinched and cold as she turned it away from Grace to observe the dockside of St Margaret’s Hope fast-approaching.

Grace went for it, “I’ve got my car.  I could give you a lift.  That way, you could direct me and I would have the peace of mind of knowing you got home safely…given you aren’t feeling your brightest.”

The girl sniggered, “You’re so tactful.  Do they teach you that at private school?”

Grace’s expression darkened and the girl quickly jumped in, “Sorry, that sounded bitchy.  It wasn’t meant to be.  It’s just you have a way of saying things that sort of…gets me out of jail.  ‘Not feeling my brightest’ is the polite way of saying ‘galloping morning sickness caused by your unplanned pregnancy’.  I would never be able to put things as gently as you do.”

“You’re very hard on yourself.”

“So would you be, if you’d royally effed up your entire future.”

“They might be so pleased to see you home and safe that nothing else will matter.  They might be delighted to be grandparents!”

“I feel sick again.  I think it’s terror.”

“Shall I take you home?”

“Yes…please.  You’re very kind to me.  Thank you for not treating me like a pariah.”

“No, no, not at all, don’t mention it…” 

A two-tone electronic bell sounded, followed by an announcement that drivers should return to their vehicles.  Grace helped the still-unsteady girl to stand.  She seemed weak and grateful for the support of Grace’s arm.

“It’s none of my business and I know you feel really sick, but you should eat because you seem very faint…”  The woman clucked over her like a mother hen all the way down the two flights of stairs to the car deck, helping her carefully into the passenger side of a very smart four-wheel-drive as if she was an invalid. 

She’d felt the familiar sensation again on the ferry, that she had to get outside before the decks above collapsed in upon themselves and crushed her flat.  She’d been just about to fall to the floor under the weight of the burden she carried, when the surprisingly strong arms had caught and supported her, and something long-dormant had awoken to the agitation of hope that all was not as grim as it had begun to seem of late.  The girl sank gratefully onto the heated leather, wondered who this providential stranger was, and why Fate had decided to place their paths in such direct convergence. 

FOUR

It was easier than she’d foreseen to distract herself on the car journey, answering the woman’s many questions about the areas through which they passed as they drove towards Kirkwall from the ferry dock.  She directed the woman to the supermarket to stock up on provisions for Somerled and elected to remain in the car, hunkered down in the seat, coat hood up to conceal her distinctive hair. 

Mercifully, the cold wind and uninspiring surroundings kept everybody’s heads down and their progress to and from the store rapid and incurious.  She recognised familiar faces, but they did not see her, which was all that mattered.  The woman returned after twenty minutes, and they resumed their journey.

It was odd to be back after all this time away.  If anything, the place appeared more bleak and desolate than she remembered it, the colours even more muted than memory had reproduced.  The scouring wind thrust grey ripples of thicker cloud across an already-darkening sky.  Even the green of the grazing pasture looked muddy and heavy with the moisture of rain, sea mist, and early snowfall.  The brown slashes of dead heather cut across the low, rolling hills as if reflecting the passage of the threatening ribbons of loaded snow-cloud above.  Trails of shredded black plastic from the hay bales caught on the barbed wire fencing, gyrating crazily in the wind, desperate to free themselves.  Wound alongside, in monochrome contrast, fluttered long strands of sheep’s wool, bleached white by exposure.  The girl’s brain struggled to accept the emptiness after so long amongst the hectic bustle, and wondered what the woman must be making of her choice of winter getaway.

“I told you it was bleak.”

“It’s striking,” said the woman, uncritically, “It’s the emptiest place I’ve ever been!  Look!”  She pointed from left to right, “There’s just no one around!  No people out walking, no one in their gardens, not another car on the road…”

“I did say it was the Wild West.”

“I like it,” decided the woman, “I like how different it is to everything I’ve ever known.”

“Yeah, the novelty might wear off in a couple of hours when it’s still freezing, there’s no Wi-Fi, you’re sick to death of the noise of the wind howling and it’s pitch black before tea time…”

“Stop being grumpy.  You may not wish to be here, but perhaps I might find it nice to curl up before an open fire, catch up on my reading, enjoy the peace and quiet of having no demands placed upon me but the onerous task of pleasing myself – seems quite attractive to me!”

The girl thought, when put like that, it seemed quite attractive to her too, but was too proud to admit it,

“You need to take this lane left, by the Church.”

“Ok.”

“They’re mostly single tracks here, with passing places, so you need to be careful.”

The woman observed the narrow road meandering into the faded, watery landscape like a brush-stroke in an Impressionist painting, “You can probably see two miles.  If I can’t prepare for an oncoming vehicle at that distance, I deserve to crash.”

The girl grinned, “At the end here, you’ll get to a junction.  Turn immediately right and that’s my house.  Next right is a gate and a track that goes up to Somerled.”

“Look at all the birds here!”  The woman craned towards the passenger window, trying to observe the many seabirds clustering on the islands of tufted brown grass dotted across the wetland.

“Twitcher heaven.  Come proper breeding time, hordes of them descend on this dump, binoculars clamped to their faces…”

“Not a bird watcher?”

The girl wrinkled her nose, “You’ve seen one Puffin, you’ve seen ‘em all…and their fancy beaks drop off when they’ve no females to impress.  Then they become very ordinary…”

The woman narrowed her eyes suspiciously, “You’re making that up!”

“No!” the girl declared, “You Google it!”

“Can’t,” rejoined the woman with a glint in her eye, “No Wi-Fi in this dump, apparently.”

The girl grinned despite herself, “All right, very funny!  This is me here.  You can drop me at the gate if you want.”

The woman slowed the car to a crawl, took in the ramshackle farm buildings, rusting machinery, tumbledown cottage with aged pick-up parked outside, plastic-wrapped hay bale in the back, and said, “No, I think I’ll see you inside, if it’s all the same to you.  For my own peace-of-mind, you know.”

Initially relieved not to be abandoned, the girl suddenly realised what ‘seeing her inside’ would mean.  The idea of this impeccably-dressed, elegant individual coming into direct contact with any members of her family or the questionable hygiene of the cottage interior filled her with apprehension, “Erm…it could all go banzai the moment we step through the door…”

“Exactly why I suggested coming in with you.  Having a visitor in the house might keep everyone on best behaviour until the dust settles a bit.  By the time I’ve been there ten minutes, the initial shock will have passed and you should all be able to discuss it a bit more rationally.  Just think of me as a decoy, drawing the heavy fire.”

“Oh God…” The fear from the ferry resurfaced, along with the conviction she was about to be crushed by the roof of the car, or the weight of the heavy sky above.  The woman placed gentle fingertips on her arm, distracting her enough to manage a much-needed deep breath.

“I don’t think it’ll be as bad as you envisage.”

The girl smiled weakly, “And I know it’ll be much worse than you ‘envisage’…” She stopped herself, blushed, apologised, “Sorry, I get sarcastic when I feel threatened.”

“Let’s just give it a go, shall we?”

The woman drew the expensive car to a halt before the farmhouse.  As the girl opened the passenger door, she heard distant barking, growing louder by the second.  As the woman stepped from the driver’s side, she just had time to say, “You’re ok about dogs, aren’t you?” before the collies were upon them, leaping and turning in ecstatic, slobbering, mud-plastered delight, coating the two women in a scattergun pattern of paw-prints down their jeans and up their jackets.  The woman, laughing, tried to stroke them as they bounced, with the inevitable result that eventually all four clustered around her, panting with glee at having made such a receptive new friend, enthusiastically chewing at her fingers, the tails of her coat, and the inviting leather corners of her designer handbag with soft, gentle mouths.

“Get off, get off!”  The girl shoved them away with firm palms, “I’m sorry…it’s hard to stay clean here.”

“It’s a farm…anyway, I’m washable.”

The woman, trailing the curious dogs behind her, fetched the girl’s small suitcase from the boot of the car and wheeled it across to her, “Ready?”

“No…”

“Well, I, for one, am not standing out here in the freezing cold all afternoon.  You’ve been so brave.  Don’t fall at the final hurdle.”  The woman gestured towards the farmhouse door and the girl, the heaviness of dread settling in the pit of her stomach, advanced, stretching for the handle.  It opened before she reached it, and she found herself looking directly into the emerald eyes of her mother.

“Sonia?  You never said you were coming back today!”  Her tone was reproachful, as if she’d been caught out in some way.

“No, Mammy, I wasn’t sure which ferry I’d get.”

Sonia’s voice wavered, and her mother’s expression darkened, suspicious, about to unleash the barrage of questions she’d been saving up since Sonia’s unexpected letter, when she caught sight of the woman standing a few paces behind her daughter.  Long, glossy chestnut hair swirled in the trapped breeze circling the filthy yard.  Diamond earrings glinted.  A wide, friendly smile exposed straight, white, well-cared-for teeth.  Her jacket was thick and obviously expensive.  The blue of her jeans was rich and deep, just-off-the-shelf rather than faded from many washes.  Her shoes were unscuffed, well-polished and virtually untouched by the mud and slurry mix that eventually ruined all but the most robust footwear.  She stood patiently in the centre of the farmyard, thigh-deep in sheepdogs, beaming with pleasure and waiting politely to be introduced.

“Oh, Mammy, this is my…friend…from London.  She’s staying here and she kindly offered to drive me.  That’s why I came today.”  Turning to the woman, the girl’s expression beseeched her to play along, “This is my mother, Margaret Flett.  Mam, this is…”  Here, Sonia stopped, realising she didn’t know the woman’s name.  They’d already shared so much, and never bothered with introductions!

The woman rescued her, stepping forward with perfect timing and impeccable manners, “Grace.  Delighted to meet you, Margaret.  Your daughter is a darling.  She’s been so helpful to me.  I must say it’s lovely here.  I’m so fascinated by what an elemental and wild landscape this is…”

Grace managed to propel them all into the welcome warmth on a wave of enthusiasm, gazing about her in genuine interest and making artless comments about the rustic appeal of the vile farmhouse kitchen until the usually standoffish Margaret was so utterly charmed that Grace was gently divested of her jacket by reverent hands and most-solicitously helped to a seat near the stove, a slice of cake, and a cup of tea.  Sonia’s teenage sister, Lorraine, wandered in to investigate the unusual voices and beheld Sonia with some surprise, “What are you doing here?”

“And it’s lovely to see you too, Raine.”

“Lorraine,” said Margaret, in her very mildest tones, usually reserved for Church, “this is Sonia’s friend Grace, from London.  Grace, this is my youngest, Lorraine.”

“Lovely to meet you, Lorraine.”  Extending graceful hands towards the awkward, gum-popping, eye-rolling girl, Grace’s left arm was nearly wrenched from its socket by Lorraine grasping and yanking her wrist towards her, “Oh.  My.  God.  Is that an Omega, like Nicole Kidman advertises?  Oh My God!  It is!  Mammy, look, it’s got diamonds on it!  Is that real or a fake one?”

“Lorraine!” Margaret was mortified.  Sonia caught Grace’s eye and sniggered behind her tea cup.

Grace winked at Margaret to reassure her she wasn’t offended, and gently drew Lorraine to sit on the bench beside her, “It’s a real one.”

“Oh.  My.  God!”  said Lorraine again, theatrically, “Have you got one of those, Son?”

Sonia eased back the sleeve of her jumper to display the unbranded watch purchased by her parents for her eighteenth birthday, leather strap battered, hole stretching out of shape at the place where she always fastened it, “No, Raine…have you?”

Lorraine looked Sonia up and down like the piece of crap she clearly considered her, took a large bite of her slice of cake and airily questioned, mouth full, “What are you doing back here anyway?  Thought you were supposed to be too good for the likes of us now?”

Sonia’s eyes snapped down the table to her mother, who suddenly became very preoccupied with the strength of the tea, worrying at the bags floating in the pot with a stained spoon.  That pronouncement certainly hadn’t originated in Lorraine’s empty head.  Incensed, Sonia glowered at the table top, regrets at returning circling murderously.  The direction the reunion was taking seriously concerned Grace, disquieted by the dearth of demonstrative affection displayed by either Sonia’s mother or sister.  After a significant absence, she had expected bone-crushing embraces, tears of joy and an outpouring of such delight at her homecoming that Sonia’s revelation would arouse nothing more than mild consternation.  Grace was therefore completely unprepared for such a total lack of welcome – not even a peck on the cheek by way of greeting – and greatly discomfited by the prickliness of the atmosphere.  An air of unspoken accusation hovered over the table as if Sonia and her mother wished to say a great deal to one another that could never be articulated; recrimination simmering beneath the surface like a forgotten pot on the stove, bubbling benignly, but blackening underneath.  The silence lengthened, during which Lorraine chewed loudly, mouth open, Sonia stared fixedly at the table and gripped her mug in tightening fingers, and Margaret’s eyes flicked nervously between the bowed head of her eldest and the unreadable expression of her exotic, London friend.

“Margaret, I see Sonia has inherited your striking colouring.  Such a beautiful shade – a rich copper.  I’ve never seen anyone with hair such a vibrant colour that wasn’t out of a bottle!  Is that true Orcadian ancestry?”

Margaret flushed with pleasure at the compliment, patting her rather faded flame tresses – not as bouncing and shiny as Sonia’s gleaming ringlets – and almost purred her reply, “Well, they say that red hair and green eyes is true Scottish colouring…but I don’t know if it’s Orcadian.  A great deal of the ancestry here is Viking.  Lorraine, love, you did a project on it for school a wee while ago, didn’t you?”  Lorraine, desperately trying to Snapchat the photograph she’d surreptitiously taken of Grace’s watch before anyone noticed, glanced up and beheld all eyes upon her.  Shoving her ‘phone up her baggy jumper sleeve, she ventured, “What, Mammy?”

Sonia sighed in undisguised exasperation and the sisters locked eyes across the cake plate, Lorraine challenging Sonia to make that noise once more, just once more…and Sonia regarding her sibling with the contempt she felt her dimness deserved, turning to her new friend and explaining, “What apparently happened, Grace, was that the Vikings showed up, killed all the men and boys, co-opted all the women…so the female ancestry of the Shetlands and Orkneys goes back to the Neolithic, but the male genes are all Viking.  God knows how they work that out after a thousand years of interbreeding, but that’s the theory…ethnic cleansing, Viking-style.”

“How fascinating.  So, your lovely hair could be Viking in origin?”

“We’re more like the Highland Scots – “

Margaret interrupted, anxious to be part of enabling Grace to understand the culture, “Several generations ago, my father’s family came from Glencoe to croft here…and the family stayed.”

“And thrived!” beamed Grace, encouraged by the exertion of both mother and daughter to shared conversation, “Speaking of thriving families – “

Sonia shot her a warning glance of such potency that her shining eyes blazed, casting a silencing spell upon Grace.

“What brings you to Orkney, Grace?”  Margaret felt it wasn’t too intrusive a question to ask, “Do you have family here?”

For the first time since their arrival, a chink appeared in Grace’s impenetrable middle-class armour.  She fumbled for a strand of her hair and combed her fingers through it as if stroking herself to calmness with the gesture, “Quite the opposite, Margaret, I’m sorry to say.  I’m afraid my marriage has ended, and I travelled here seeking an unspoilt, peaceful place to take stock.  I’m not fortunate, like all of you, to have family around me.  I had an older sister, but she was handicapped and she died before I was born.  My parents are dead.  I haven’t been blessed with the joy of children…”  Here, Grace made sure she gazed pointedly at Sonia and Lorraine, who were engaged in trading venomous scowls of mutual dislike across the kitchen table.

“Very precious, family, isn’t it Margaret?”

“Oh aye.”

“I found so-called friends all took my husband’s side, because they’d known him before they knew me, and I was left quite alone…apart, of course, from Sonia.  She’s a real credit to you, Margaret.  Her kindness has been invaluable to me,” Grace stated in her straightforward way, as if she and Sonia had been mates for months, not minutes.

Again, Margaret absorbed the compliment with quiet pride and, Grace hoped, regarded Sonia with a rather-less-disapproving expression.

“Did the two of you work together in London?”

“No, Mam.”  Sonia was quick to cut off that line of questioning, “Grace is an artist.”

“Do you need any exams to do that?”  ‘Being an artist’ looked lucrative from where Lorraine was sitting, if it clothed you in designer labels from head to toe and rendered you as preened and perfumed as a footballer’s wife.  Grace turned to her, enthusiastically enquiring, “Are you creative, Lorraine?”

Lorraine popped her chewing gum in silent panic and looked to her mother for assistance, while Sonia snorted sarcastically around the tiniest mouthful of cake she thought she could reasonably force down without puking, taking heed of Grace’s exhortation to get something in her constantly-churning stomach.

“I’m not working on anything at the moment anyway,” Grace clarified hurriedly, suddenly petrified her lie would be exposed, “I just need to come to terms with the last few weeks…  It’s hard to comprehend the enormity of beginning again in your forties, isn’t it?”  Grace fixed Margaret with a pleading stare, seeking her affirmation of the struggles of mid-life. 

“I am sorry to hear that, Grace.  Is there no hope of a reconciliation for you?”

“I don’t think so…and I don’t want there to be, really.  He’s been…unfaithful to me, you see.”

“Ah, I understand.”  Margaret reached forward and patted Grace’s hand condescendingly.

Sonia tried to ingest another morsel of cake, to divert suspicion about her uncharacteristic lack of appetite, but it wouldn’t go down.  She couldn’t swallow.  It was as if there was already a lump in her throat preventing it.  In the end, she had to sluice it past the lump by dissolving it in her mouth with a glug of lukewarm tea.

“Where are you staying while you’re here, Grace?  Do you have some accommodation organised?”

Sonia was convinced her mother was about to invite Grace to stay in the croft!  Where would she be expected to sleep, on the floor between their beds in the tiny room she had to share with Lorraine?  Being the eldest boy, Bobby got his own room in the attic.  Even if it was so narrow he could stretch out his arms and touch either wall, at least it was his and his alone.  It had been Sonia’s, of course, being the eldest of all, but she’d made the mistake of going away to University, and the vultures had descended in her absence, picking through the carcass of her room and possessions until what was left barely filled a shoebox under the ‘extra’ bed in Lorraine’s room.  Alastair and Andrew had to share, but they were twins, so no one considered they deserved their own space.  Lorraine, as the only remaining girl – as if Sonia had died some years before, leaving nothing behind but a graduation photograph on the mantelpiece that badly needed a dust – was obviously entitled to a room of her own, and would doubtless resent having to share it with her big sister.

At one time, as events progressed, Sonia had entertained hopes of being able to move into Somerled.  Its owner was certainly not averse to her presence – but on his terms, and certainly not on a permanent basis.  It had made Sonia feel as if she wasn’t really wanted anywhere, not in the bosom of her family or the arms of her lover. 

“Mammy, Grace is staying at Somerled,” said Sonia, quietly.

“Oooohhh,” Lorraine enjoyed the frisson of tension that rippled down the table as Sonia spoke the name of Vidar Rasmussen’s house.  Her mother sniffed and drew herself up in her chair, “Alone, I presume?”

“Oh aye, Mam,” Sonia reassured, “I thought I’d just bring Grace in to say Hello and then I’d show her up there…settle her in…”

“’Cos you know where everything is…” muttered Lorraine, not quite loud enough for her mother to hear.

Sonia didn’t want to be in the kitchen a second longer.  Remain here, and she might just have to squelch her whole slice of cake into her sister’s stupid, over-made-up face.  How was she ever going to share a bedroom without smothering her in the night?

“Have you finished your tea, Grace?  I’ll take you up to the house before it gets dark…”

Sonia pushed wearily to her feet and very swiftly turned her back on mother and sister to fetch the coats, struggling hers on in the chilly porch to provide greater camouflage for her body.

“It was so lovely to meet you, Margaret…and you too, Lorraine,” said Grace, sweetly, “You have such a charming home here, Margaret, and such beautiful daughters.”  Here, she touched one slim-fingered hand to Lorraine’s curly, dark hair and the other to Sonia’s shoulder, “You must feel very blessed.”

Grace was unaccountably relieved to see Margaret extend an arm and draw her youngest daughter into a casual embrace.  Lorraine rolled her eyes again, as if nothing was more embarrassing in all the world than to be loved, but made no attempt to pull away.  So, Mrs Flett was capable of showing affection, and of having it reciprocated, in its own way?  That boded well for the future, for Sonia, once she finally came clean.

“Oh aye, Euan and I are very blessed in our children.”  Margaret fixed Sonia with a look Grace couldn’t interpret, but which made Sonia shoot quickly out onto the doorstep, “Come on, Grace, it’s freezing!”

Grace clasped Margaret’s hand in both her own, as if they were old friends, “Thank you so much for the tea, and the welcome.  It’s so generous of you.”

“Any time.  You must come to Sunday lunch once you’re settled in…meet my husband and my boys…”

“That would be lovely.  You’re so kind…”

“Grace, come on!”

“Better go.  Need to empty the car and see how everything works before it’s pitch black!”  Grace unlocked the doors and Sonia clambered inside.

The big car purred powerfully away, leaving the newest two initiates to the Grace Fan Club waving adoringly from the farmhouse door.

Grace turned to Sonia, slouched sulkily in her seat, “Next right?”

“Next right.”

The four-wheel-drive surged up the loose shingle track, rounded a raised bank designed to cocoon the front of the house in sheltered privacy from prying eyes and sea breezes, and swung onto a circular flagstone driveway with a double-garage to the right and the front door and low, larch-clad eastern elevation of the house directly before them.

“Ooh, Sonia, this is very nice!”

“Told you.”

They parked, and Grace fumbled in her handbag for her booking confirmation, “There’s a code…to a key box…”

She pushed in the provided code to the secure box on the wall, releasing the flap which held a door key and an infra-red control.  Grace examined it, puzzled.

“Garage door,” Sonia clarified.

“Oh, I see.”

“If you leave your car out all the time, the salt in the air rusts the paintwork and then it looks as crap as all the other cars here.  Better to park it in the garage, particularly if you end up staying a while.”

“Right.  Now the alarm.”  Clutching her piece of paper, Grace unlocked the door and bustled to the alarm control panel, entering the code and silencing the beeping.

Sonia glanced around.  It felt funny to be here.  It even smelled the same – wood, polish, leather, the underlying hint of aftershave and washing powder…fresh, clean, familiar, evocative…and not a hint of cowshit.

Grace put down her handbag by the hall table and dropped door key, opener, and car keys into the Celtic-looking pewter dish provided for the purpose, flicking on the lamp and collecting up the small amount of post spread across the doormat.

“Looks like mostly junk mail.  Do you think we’re supposed to chuck it away?”

Sonia shrugged moodily, suddenly irrationally jealous of Grace for being able to stay here when she could not.  Not noticing, already turning away from her, Grace was through the hall door and into the living area beyond, exclaiming, “Wow!  This is lovely!”

Well-aware of how lovely it was, tempted to collapse on the floor and kick and scream like a two-year-old, Sonia steeled herself against the disappointment, and followed.

Grace turned, beaming with delight, “This is very smart, Sonia.  I can see why you liked staying here so much…”

Sonia sighed and flopped onto the steps leading to the sunken seating area.  Grace observed her utter dejection and promptly sat down next to her, putting her arm around the girl and drawing Sonia’s head to rest against her shoulder.  Sonia, who hadn’t been hugged for comfort in so long, couldn’t resist the urge to relax against Grace.  Grace’s other hand stroked her hair gently, “I’m sorry.  I didn’t understand there was some unfinished business between you and your Mum, not until I saw you together.”

“It’s my fault.  I should’ve warned you.  I didn’t know you were going to come in.  Everything seems to be my fault these days!  Before I left, we both said some things we shouldn’t have…and we didn’t patch it up, so it’s been there like a big boulder in the middle of a burn for five years, disrupting everything.  She called me a tart, a whore, a spoiled princess, and a lot of other things I didn’t want to hear from the mouth of my own mother.  For my part, I said she was a thick bitch, that she was jealous of me because I could leave and she was stuck here in her shitty life…and then I went, and I didn’t get in touch for five years – not as much as a postcard – until I wrote a couple of weeks ago saying to expect me back, and even then I never said when or why…”

“And you rolled up today with me in tow, and no one could say anything because we were all being on our very best behaviour!  Aren’t the British daft?”

Sonia smiled, enjoying the simple, sensory pleasure of the gentle stroking of her hair, “I’m jealous of you, being able to stay here.”

“You can stay here too, you know.  There’s more than one bedroom, isn’t there?”

Sonia sat up abruptly, before she was overcome by the temptation, gesturing in front of her with rigid palms, “No!  I have to sort this out – patch it up with my Mum, prove to my Dad I haven’t changed, find a way to get on with my brothers and sister, build bridges with all the people I was horrible to, accept it will be the single most humiliating thing I’ve ever had to do, and start again.  This whole, stupid mess is about having to start again.”

“We’re both starting again, and you’re doing it in a much braver way than I am.  I’m rooting for you, and your baby.”

Sonia felt her throat catch and declared with a rush of feeling, “I know.  I couldn’t have walked through that door this afternoon if you hadn’t been there, smoothing the way.”

Grace took her hand, “Nor I through this one.”

“Thank God for the ferry, eh?”

“Absolutely – a good job they’ll never dig your tunnel…”

They sat for a moment longer, side by side, holding hands, treasuring the silent solidarity.

“Let me show you where everything is before it gets too dark.”  Sonia pointed to the wood burner, “There’s usually logs and kindling for that in the garage.”

“Oh, it said in the details about the wood burner, so I bought a big net of each in the shops.  Very unusual to have that in the supermarket, don’t you think?”

“Not up here,” Sonia stood and snapped on the switch by the door, bathing everything in the subtle glow of artfully-placed lighting.  Grace looked around appreciatively, “It’s so posh.”

Quizzically, Sonia ventured, “Aren’t you used to posh?”

Grace chortled, “Different kind of posh.”

“It’s all way out of my league.  Sorry about my tacky sister, by the way.  She’s not too subtle.”

“She’s young.”

“She’s fifteen, and I don’t think she’s ever read a book in her life.  All she cares about is make-up, hair, boys…”

“It’s what they watch on the tv, isn’t it?  Don’t be too hard on your sister.  I know people three times Lorraine’s age who consider little else.  Perhaps she doesn’t know any different?  You and I might be the first to say caring about appearance is materialistic, that it’s the definition of shallow…but did you notice how much better dressed we are than your Mum and Lorraine?  How much glossier is your hair than your Mum’s?  How much better manicured are your nails?  How much softer is your skin?  That materialism we profess to hate so much is woven into the fabric of our existence to the extent we no longer notice it.”  Grace pointed at Sonia’s clothes, “You’re wearing labels.”

Sonia nodded.  She decided not to tell Grace they were factory seconds from an outlet store.

“So am I…and I was on my way to being offended when Lorraine suggested my watch might be a fake.  What does it matter if it’s a fake, if I like it and it tells the time?  But that snobbery’s within me – I can’t help it.  I wish it wasn’t.  I hope by being somewhere like this, where that rot doesn’t matter, I will become the person I’d rather be.  It’s in you too.  You told me you sought it out, you wanted it…so don’t be quick to judge your sister for wanting it too.  Every young girl desires her rich, handsome prince, doesn’t she…and that fairy tale you chased all the way to London with such single-mindedness?”

Sonia acknowledged this truth pragmatically, “Aye, she does.”  She paused a moment, as if considering whether to share something, before saying, “Come in here.”  She beckoned towards a room to the right of the kitchen, “If nothing’s changed, I’ll show you...”

Intrigued, Grace stood and followed her.

The room in which she found herself was a large Master Suite, an American-style superking bed with huge headboard dominating the centre of the far wall.  The view matched that of the living room, with a wall of windows looking down over fields to beach and sea.  As in the living room, the floor level dropped away to take account of the hillside position of the property, and three shallow steps led from the raised area dominated by the massive bed to a reading nook down by the window, with oversized reclining chairs, arched lamp, and shelves displaying not only an eclectic collection of reading material, but various unusual ornaments, quirky bookends, and framed photographs.  Tripping lightly down the steps as if it was something she’d done many times before, Sonia urged Grace to follow and held up a picture, “You’re too polite to pry, but…here you are.”  She placed the frame in Grace’s hand, hanging over her arm and pointing, “That’s Vidar, who owns the house…who I…you know...  Those two are his brothers; Ragnar, who you probably dealt with about the rental, and Jannick, the baby one.”

Three tall, broad, ruggedly-handsome middle-aged men in dinner suits grinned from the photo.

Ragnar, on the left, was the stereotypical Viking, with fair hair, blue eyes, and blonde beard – the tallest and broadest of the brothers.  Vidar, in the centre, appeared older than the other two with greyer hair and more lines wrinkling around his eyes and across his cheeks as he laughed.  The youngest, Jannick, was dark-haired, brown-eyed, a direct contrast to the Scandinavian Ragnar, but all were unmistakeably related; the same easy manner, laughing eyes, strong jawline and broad grins radiated from all three faces.

“Good-looking boys.”

“Aye,” Sonia lingered over putting the picture back on the shelf.

“Can’t say I recognise him.  He does look a bit old for you, Sonia.”

She blushed, “He is basically Mam’s age, but…”

“But?”

“He was famous!  The idea of him was exciting…and I like older men, I suppose.  They’re just so much less dumb than fellas my age.”

Grace thought of Dominic, and couldn’t suppress an exclamation, “Ha!  Don’t you believe it!  They’re just dumb in a different way.”

Grace was surprised to notice a world-weary expression crossing Sonia’s face, temporarily ageing her youthful features, “I know what you mean.”

“Are you all right?”

“What?  Oh, aye…I’m tired is all…”  Sonia didn’t want to be inside Somerled any more.  She had no desire to return to the farm either, but that didn’t prevent her wanting to flee the comfortable warmth of the plush Lodge and the sudden sharp sting of memories, “Do you need me to show you how to work anything?  It’s all new and fancy and easy…you shouldn’t have any problems with it, but if you do, you can text me.  I’ll give you my number.  There should be a password for the Wi-Fi written down somewhere, but the speed’s shite.  No fibre-optic up here!  Don’t be in a hurry to download anything.”

Grace laughed, “I’ll be ok.  I’m not very techy.”

“Ok.  It’s getting dark.  I’m going to go before I can’t see to get back.  I should’ve brought a torch.”

“I could take you in the car.”

“It’s no distance!”

“If you’re sure…?”

“Positive.  I need ten minutes on my own to think.  There’s no privacy at home.” 

The two walked back through the house and out onto the driveway, exchanging ‘phone numbers.  Grace pressed the button to open the automatic garage door, which gradually lifted to reveal a Range Rover plugged in to a battery trickle-charger on one side, and space for her car on the other.  A large stack of logs and kindling stood along one wall.

“Excellent!  Could get snowed in and I’ll be all right.”

“There’s always a chance…winter’s nearly here.”

“I love the snow,” said Grace, dreamily.

“You’re boring,” said Sonia mischievously, “You just think everything’s great.”

Grace laughed, “I love the fact something new is happening to me.  Nothing new’s happened in so long.”

“I hate the fact something new’s happening to me…”

Grace stopped, horrified by her own tactlessness, turning and reaching for Sonia’s hand again, “I’m sorry Sonia – that was insensitive of me.”

“I’m joking!”

“Will you really be all right?  You’ll have to tell all soon.  It’s not a secret you can keep indefinitely!”

No, thought Sonia, not and share a bedroom with her eagle-eyed, image-obsessed baby sister, who would at first note gleefully how fat Sonia had become, and then how localised the weight gain…

She was heartened and emboldened by Grace’s concern, “Don’t worry, I’ll get it done tonight.  That’s why I want to walk back.  I want time to rehearse what my announcement will be over dinner.  They’ll all be there – one explanation will do the trick, and then at least that bit’s over.”

“I wish I could do something to make it easier for you,” Grace opened the car boot and lifted out her suitcase.

“You are doing something,” insisted Sonia, “You’re being on my side.  You don’t realise how long it’s been since anyone has fought my corner.

Grace smiled warmly, “Yes, I am on your side.  You know why?  Because it’s the right side to be on.”

Sonia grinned back, gratefully, touched by the unconditional support, “Any problems with stuff not working, text me.”

“I will. Thank you.”

Both shuffled their feet awkwardly.  The moment for leave-taking had come, and neither was sure how to approach it.  Supporters to friends in the blink of an eye, the passage of a thought, the fall of a tear, the blurting of a secret…but still strangers to one another, norms of behaviour far from established.

“See you.”  Sonia turned slowly away, unwilling to leave Grace’s reassuringly-optimistic company, frightened of having to sit amongst her own family and reveal her monumental mistake.

Grace’s voice stopped her, fearful of the girl’s departure, of being left alone without her indomitable new ally and the comforting distraction of her lively conversation, “Sonia, you won’t just go down to the bottom of the hill and never come back up?”

 

FIVE

The handshake was as firm as ever, the smile as broad, but there was something behind the eyes…Stewart couldn’t place exactly what about his friend’s demeanour made him uneasy, but there was an unmistakeable difference in him.

“Thanks so much for getting me, buddy, it was a last-minute change of plan.  Family ok?”

“They’re fine, fine…you all right?”

“What?  Oh yeah…ok…”  Vidar smiled, but it was a weak facsimile of his normal wide, beaming, twinkle-eyed grin which usually had the recipient of it helplessly gurning back like a baby in a bouncer within an instant of beholding it.

Vidar helped Stewart heft his two guitar cases and a suitcase into the boot of the doctor’s Audi.

“Nice car, man!  When did you get this?”

“Couple of months ago.  Wee fiftieth present to myself.  Went to Inverness and spent the day in and out of every dealership doing eeny-meeny-miney-moe until I’d made my decision.  Better than the other one ‘cos it’s a wee bit bigger.”

“Because, obviously, you need your car to be even bigger now your kids are away at College and you only have to take one little black bag and a teeny, tiny wife in and out of it,” Vidar teased, a little of the usual sparkle returning as he climbed inside and turned to wink at his friend.

Stewart raised one unimpressed eyebrow, adopting the tone and expression reserved for his student sons when they ridiculed him, retorting, “Having a dig?  Make sure you don’t forget the room for two sets of golf clubs…and it’s mighty handy when collecting disorganised friends with ridiculously bulky luggage from the airport at short notice…”

“Touché,” Vidar chuckled, sighed, and ran a hand through greying hair.

Stewart didn’t ever like to pry.  Vidar enjoyed Orkney precisely because it provided the antidote to the intrusive chaos of the rest of his existence; pursued by the press, followed by fans, his time and energy endlessly demanded in quantities far beyond the reserves required of any normal life.  That Vidar had the stamina to maintain it was testament both to his dedication to career at the expense of all else, and the conditioning of over thirty years spent travelling the globe, living out of his suitcase.  It must take a toll – you’d have to be superhuman not to feel the strain once in a while – and Stewart had witnessed Vidar’s exhaustion at first hand on more than one occasion, but his behaviour was different today from mere physical depletion.  Stewart couldn’t put his finger on quite what it was about Vidar, but if he’d had to give a professional diagnosis, he would chalk it down to nothing less than hopelessness, as if Vidar was sitting beside him in his comfortable birthday purchase and questioning the continuing point of it all.

As they drove out of the airport on the Kirkwall road, Stewart probed, “Things not go well in London?”

Vidar turned to him, surprised, “Why do you ask that?”

“You seem a wee bit out-of-sorts…”

Vidar tried a smile, but couldn’t summon it, “It went fine in London.  I just got sick of being trailed down the street by people with selfie-sticks.  I don’t know; it just seems wherever you go now there’s a camera in your face.  I’m sure ten years ago it wasn’t like that.  People just want a piece of you whatever you’re doing.  They don’t give a damn if you’re choosing groceries or buying socks.  They think they have ownership of a part of you, that they know you!  Oh, ignore me, I’m just being grouchy and ungrateful.  I don’t mind people talking to me.  I wouldn’t be anything without that…I just…”

Again, the careworn sigh, the frustrated scrape of the fingers through the front of his hair.

Concerned, Stewart tried a change of subject, “It’s been horrible here…so cold…and early snow.”

“When I was done in London, I was planning to go back to LA…better in December than here, huh?”

Stewart grunted agreement, and waved enthusiastically through the windscreen at a doctor colleague waiting to pull out of the hospital car park as the Q7 surged past.

“That was Bob Turner.  Recognise him?”

“He did look familiar…”

“You’ve met him at our place.  You spent all evening buttering up his wife.  Why didn’t you go back to LA then?”

“You know, Stew, to be honest, I couldn’t handle being in that massive place all on my own.  Up there in the hills with those high hedges, big gates…I felt as if I would just disappear.”

“Isn’t that the point of it?”

“Well…yes…except…”

“Come on, mate, what is eating you?”

“I own eight properties, Stewart.  Eight.  All around the world.  Whichever one I go into, when everyone has left, it’s just me in a big, empty box surrounded by a lot of expensive stuff I didn’t even choose.  Half the time it’s something the interior decorator put there a century ago and I’ve never had time to decide whether I like it or not so it all just sits there, and the housekeeper dusts it, and I walk past it.  None of it means anything, not really.  It’s not enough any more.  The gloss has rubbed off.  It’s just me, staring down the barrel of fifty years old in an empty house with nothing to show for it – “

“But platinum disks on every wall, awards coming out of your ears, and billions in the bank?”

“Now who’s having a dig?”

“Well, you’re hardly failing, mate.”

“No, agreed, I have been a lucky boy…but I’ve worked for it.  I’ve given up everything for my career since I was a kid…”

“Ah, I think I’m starting to get it!  You’re wondering what it would have been like if you’d done a bit less career and a bit more everything-you-gave-up, aren’t you?”

“Perhaps…  You don’t go home to an empty house, do you?  You go home to a smiling wife, healthy kids – “

“Now, this is Elaine we’re talking about.  The smiles aren’t always guaranteed!”

Vidar grinned, “Scary Elaine…but she loves you, doesn’t she?  She’s there for you, no matter what.”

“Surely you aren’t craving domesticity, with your opportunities to enjoy yourself?  You’ve had more girlfriends than I’ve had hot dinners!”

“Yeah, and they’re with me because they think latching onto me for a week or two will help them launch their career as a model or a pop star or an actress, whatever they’ve decided to become that month.  Get their picture taken with me at some première or other and they think it opens a door for them.  There’s no feeling there, no regard, no care…”

“Still, can’t be bad, eh?”

Stewart was beginning to feel really worried.  He’d never seen Vidar like this, not in the fifteen years he’d known him.  Usually, he was an upbeat, glass-half-full character who grabbed the chances life offered with both hands, squeezing the possibility out of every situation with infectious optimism.

“I never thought so…and then I’d see the pictures and it would be as if I was taking my daughter out for the evening.  I looked like an idiot, so I knocked it all on the head.  It was the right thing for my dignity, but it just makes the houses even emptier, you know?”

“I don’t know what to say, mate.”

“I’m just sick of being on my own…sick of it.  I want some company.  I don’t mean being surrounded by the entourage of people who dress me and feed me and pounce to attention every time I open my mouth; I mean company.  I mean Scary Elaine, who shouts at me if I don’t wipe my feet and goes nuts if I don’t use a coaster for my coffee cup on her nice table.”

Stewart smirked as Vidar, distracted by his own private frustrations, unguardedly described his friend’s fierce little Glaswegian wife in all her combative, house-proud glory.

“I mean somebody to talk to, to share opinions with, to discuss and debate and joke and laugh.  Not someone who says ‘how high?’ when I say ‘jump’, but someone who says ‘you wanna jump, you get on with it your damn self’.  Only now it’s impossible to have that because the persona, the ego, the fame,” Vidar spat out the word as if it tasted bitter, “precedes you into every room and clouds every judgement people make about you.  There is no possibility of an incognito encounter with anyone because that’s how life is, how it’s been for so long I have no idea how to change it.  I’m trapped in a situation of my own making.”

“So, you’ve come here to hide for a while and feel sorry for yourself.”

Vidar snorted, “Your bedside manner sucks, Doc, you know that?”

“I’m a GP, not a Psychiatrist.”

“You saying I’m nuts?”

“No more than you’ve been for the rest of the time I’ve known you.”

“I did think about going back to Denmark, to the lake house, but my whole family are right there on the doorstep.  I know it sounds crazy, but the idea of that made me feel even lonelier…”

“Vid, you’re just tired.  You work yourself into the ground and then wonder why you’re at a low ebb.

You should cut yourself a bit of slack now and again.  You’re just at that time in your life when you start to feel a wee bit mortal, that’s all.  Bit of grey in the hair, bit of grey in the beard.  Maybe a bit of flab where it never used to be – although the amount you pound the gym in pursuit of eternal youth, I doubt you’ve noticed that yet.  I felt like shite as soon as I got the wrong side of forty-five.  I got through it though, with the help of my scary wife…and fifty wasn’t so bad once I decided I was going to treat myself to a big, shiny car when I got there.  You should give yourself permission to enjoy the life you have…otherwise what are you endlessly working for, to be richer?  It’s not my business, but I hardly think you need to be any richer…and what are you now – forty-seven; forty-eight?”

“Forty-seven.”

“How long are you going to keep pushing yourself like this with no let-up?  Airport to performance to studio to interview to airport and on you go again and again.  Are you still going to want to do that when you’re fifty-seven; sixty-seven?”

“I haven’t given it any thought…”

“Well, perhaps your down-time here should be given over to serious consideration of the latter half of your life.  You have the luxury that you could never do a day’s work again and still not spend all the money you’ve made.  I think your problem might be that you’re running out of reasons to get out of bed every day.  The hole in your life isn’t professional, it’s emotional.  Maybe you should be looking at a way to plug that, not pretending it doesn’t exist by working so hard you can’t remember your own name half the time…”

“You seem very concerned about it, Doc.”

“You’re my friend.  You’ve been my friend for fifteen years.  You’re the most unassuming superstar I’ve ever met.”

“Know a lot of them, do you?”  Vidar prodded sarcastically.

“That’s my point!  You say the ego precedes you into the room and spoils everything but it doesn’t…it doesn’t.  No one would ever know who you are, what you’ve achieved, what you have.  Who else would patiently teach my kids to play the guitar, or take them rock-pooling when they were little, or help round up the sheep when they get out, or give neighbours a lift into town if you’re going, or muck in and dig out the paths when it snows?  I tell you something, none of the other rock stars I’m best mates with ever do any of that…”

Vidar smiled, “I like doing all of that.  Makes me feel as if I fit in somewhere.”

“As your doctor, let me give you some medical advice, for your own wellbeing.  You don’t need another hit album or an extra Grammy.  What you need is a life…and you should be concentrating a bit of that legendary energy of yours on working out how you can get one.”

“Is that your prescription, Doc?”

“Yes, it is – to work on yourself, not on your brand.”

“Point taken.  Thank you for your honesty.”

“What are friends for?”

“People mostly tell me what they think I want to hear…”

“That’s certainly not healthy, is it?  Anyway, can you imagine that happening here?”

“Not for a moment.  The very first time I put the trash out in my pyjamas, Mag Flett would appear telling me to have some self-respect.”

“Ah!”  Stewart thumped his friend’s thigh, “This’ll interest you!  Speaking of the Flett family, little Ginger’s back home.”

The sweep of those flame-red ringlets across his chest, the softness of her pale skin pressing against his naked body, vivid green eyes gazing deep into his…

“Little Sonia Flett…”

Stewart chuckled, taking his eyes off the road briefly to observe with amusement the change in his friend’s expression, “And you can wipe that look off your face.  There’ll be no chance of her warming your lonely nights because she’s pregnant, by all accounts.”

Vidar lurched in his seat as if he’d just been stabbed with something sharp.

“How?  I mean…I know how…but…little Sonia-I’m-going-places-and-leaving-you-suckers-for-dust-Flett?  It seems unfathomable…so uncharacteristically short-sighted of her!”

“Life has a way of biting you on the arse sometimes, doesn’t it?”

“I guess…”  Vidar seemed distracted, uncomfortable, as if the news was unwelcome.

“She hasn’t come to see me since she’s been back – too embarrassed, I daresay – but Elaine saw her mother in Dounby Co-op and the whole thing came out.  As you can imagine, Margaret is scandalised.  It seems wee Ginger’s foray into the world of motherhood was an unplanned excursion.”

“Poor little Son.  Her family is out of the Ark.  I don’t imagine they’re being too supportive of her…makes you wonder why she came back at all…”

“The impression Mag gave was that she didn’t have much choice in the matter.  Lost her go-getting job.”

“Ouch…  What did she say about the father?”  There was more than a flicker of interest in the keen, grey eyes.

“Apparently, she’s keeping that particular card very close to her chest, so I’d suggest sniffing around there offering a butch shoulder to cry on will doubtless bring the mother out with suspicions aroused and shotgun cocked.  Do your thinking with your big head, not your wee one, eh?”

“Relax.  There’s nothing left between me and Sonia Flett.  It was a bit of fun that ran its course.  There’s no unfinished business there.  I told you, I’m laying off the young girls.  I’m gonna act my age from now on.  I can’t deny I’d like to see her again, but only out of curiosity, not to cause her any more trouble than she’s already in.”

“Good.  Keep it that way.”

“It’s going to be tricky lying low next door.”

“Just don’t let Margaret catch you ‘consoling’ her eldest in the farmhouse kitchen, that’s all.  Not if you want to make your own fiftieth birthday, anyway.”

“Is that Doctors’ orders too?”

“Yes, it bloody well is.”

Stewart squeezed the big car through the gate and up past the rear of the Flett family farm to the large timber lodge cut into the side of the hill overlooking the bay.  The whiteness of the xenon headlights shone their bright beam in an arc around the circular driveway as Stewart turned the car.

“Want help unloading?”

“No, I’ll take it in.  I’m used to lugging that stuff around.”

“Bit of washing to do?”

“Yeah, like, four months’ worth!”

Vidar swung his long legs out of the car.  The cold of the evening swirled into the fuggy interior and Stewart shivered.

“Thank you for getting me, I really appreciate it.  You and Elaine should come up to eat sometime soon.”

“Sounds good…and remember what I said; spend some time here working out what it is you actually want out of life – and stay away from Sonia Flett!”

Vidar stood to attention on the driveway, saluted and crossed himself for good measure, “I promise.”

“Boot’s open, smartarse.”

“Thanks again.”

“Any time.”

Vidar shut the passenger door, popped the boot and removed his bags, and waved as Stewart disappeared down the hill, leaving him alone on his drive in the chilly dark.

 

SIX

Vidar stood for quite a while on the flagstones, listening to the roar of Stewart’s big car as his friend enjoyed his own private race homeward along the empty lanes in his indulgent birthday present.  Vidar smiled to himself.  He was fond of Stewart and his family.  The man had never been starstruck, and never treated him with anything other than the straightforward openness of one friend to another despite their very different life circumstances.  Stewart held an influential position here as local GP, and his wife as a nurse.  They self-evidently made more of a contribution to this close-knit rural community than Vidar ever could.  That was why he enjoyed Orkney so much.  It was satisfying to be anonymous, arousing barely a flicker of curiosity.  Once his neighbours understood who he was and why he’d come, they delved no further.  Hardly any tourists noticed his presence because no one would remotely expect him to be anywhere like this in a million years.  He had to sign the odd autograph for a keen-eyed visitor, but found it was more of a novelty here than the nuisance he might be tempted to consider it in London, Copenhagen, or Los Angeles, perhaps because being in Birsay caused him to forget what the rest of the world thought he was – his ‘brand’, Stewart had called it – and enable the man trapped behind it to have some room to breathe.

Vidar held his key in one cold hand, zipped up his jacket against the gusting wind, and stood with his back to the front door, watching fast clouds scud across the bright, full moon. 

His stomach growled.  He should have trespassed further on Stewart’s endless kindness and got him to stop at a Kirkwall supermarket on the way.  He hoped one of the people his brother let the house out to on his behalf had left a tin of something behind in the cupboard that would see him through until the shops opened tomorrow morning. 

Whichever home he chose to frequent, all were equally devoid of welcome or the convivial comforts of company – no homecoming hug, no special celebratory meal, no interest in where he’d been, no one to put the pretensions into perspective.  Nothing but him, his mountains of dirty laundry, the threatening winter, and the frighteningly fast passage of time.  However wealthy and successful he was, when the front door closed behind him a moment from now, he would simply be a single, middle-aged man, sitting alone in a cold house eating something out of a tin – and he knew without a shadow of a doubt such an existence was no longer enough.

Shivering uncontrollably now, Vidar steeled himself against self-pity, unlocked the door and impatiently shouldered it open, staggering into the hallway with his burden of heavy luggage, dumping it unceremoniously in the middle of the floor and pushing the door shut behind him. 

There was no post on the mat, which surprised him.  Usually, if the house had no Lets and the cleaner hadn’t visited for a few days, there were at least a few letters for him to open.  Puzzled, he slipped off his shoes and padded across the hall.  After the chill outside, the house seemed quite warm and he shrugged off his coat, tossing it across the bags on the floor.  He’d deal with all that tomorrow.  Unpacking was a chore he couldn’t face in his current dissatisfied mood.

As he approached the connecting door, he noticed a faint light shining underneath it from the living area beyond.  That explained the lack of post.  The cleaner must have been here.  She’d obviously left the light on by mistake, or Ragnar had told her his big brother was coming home and she’d kindly left a lamp on for him.  It might explain the warmth too.  Perhaps she’d decided to flick the thermostat up a notch to ensure he returned to a warm house?  Maybe – his empty stomach growled again – she’d left him some food?  He didn’t care what.

Hopeful, he pushed down the handle and opened the door, utterly unprepared for what he’d find.

****

In.  Stomach swells, filling with the breath.

Out.  Stomach contracts, actively pushing out the tension along with the air.

Grace, sitting in the lotus position on the rug next to the sofa, opened one eye as if that would improve her hearing.  She could have sworn she’d just heard a car…

No, she must be mistaken.

She closed her eyes again, returning to her meditation.  If at home, this would have been the time when Dominic barged in from work, banging around disturbing the tranquillity of her evening and demanding to be fed like a spoilt child when it was far too late and too bad for the digestion to eat.  She had always passed through the pangs of hunger, never enjoying the elaborately-complicated meals she wasted her time preparing to impress him, as his disturbing presence made her so uncomfortable any lingering appetite instantly fled like a spider in a spotlight.  Daily, she wondered why she bothered, as Dominic forked in the food with barely a pause to taste it and no comment on her efforts, but she’d established a benchmark of quality and could not dip below it without drawing attention to the fact she’d stopped trying.  A Chicken Kiev simply would not do in place of Steak Diane.  A rod for her own back, Sonia would call it.

Sonia. 

Her friend. 

What was more, the only proper friend she’d had in her forty-two years.  Over these last few weeks, she’d come to realise previous encounters masquerading as friendship had never been anything of the sort, so tied up had they been with conditions of wealth, behaviour, and social status.  Real friendship was accepting without judgement, supportive without indulgence, laughter without reserve, opinion without censure, and adventure without end.  If Grace wanted an honest, straightforward exchange of views with someone who would consider her opinion without chiming in or shouting down, share without expecting a return, and buoy her up when her confidence wavered, she walked the half-mile down the lane to the Flett farmhouse and was welcomed into a haven of warm security, filled with laughter, banter, the smells of cooking and sooty chimneys, muddy shoes and damp dogs.  Nothing was particularly clean, it certainly wasn’t fashionable, and footwear other than wellies was out of the question, but there was a comfort and conviviality unmatched in kind-hearted sincerity.  It didn’t matter that the dresser was covered with a layer of dust and paperwork so thick Grace assumed it had been some years in the making.  It really wasn’t important that she suspected the marks up the boot room wall came from something a cow had done.  It didn’t seem significant now that she’d brought six different coats of varying styles with her and had only worn one – her thickest, warmest anorak – which now had quite a lot of mud and other unmentionables up the front of it from the paws of the exuberant farm dogs, and a significant quantity of sand in the pockets from her beachcombing finds now cluttering the windowsill in the guest bedroom she occupied at Somerled.  She supposed she could have taken over the large Master Suite with its view down to the sea, but the family photographs and personal items occupying the shelves had made her feel she was intruding in private space.  The guest room was clean, bright, and impersonal – more what she was used to in a room, given her whole London flat was a honed homage to minimalism.  Her chosen bedroom had a large window which looked out over the circular flagstone driveway and across the Flett’s fields to the farmhouse and wetland wildlife reserve beyond.  Grace loved that when the moon was out, it shone with stunning reflected symmetry in the waters of the reserve, and when she left the blinds open, she could see the farmhouse roof from her bed, which made her feel secure.  The kitchen formed one corner of the large, square living space, with a dining table in front of it.  A baby-grand piano occupied the lower-floor area in front of the window, facing onto a flagstone patio and the vast lawn that curved down the hillside.  The entire rear of the house was glass, providing an uninterrupted rural panorama empty of everything but fluffy white blots of varying sizes.  The ewes hunkered down within the waving tussocks of grass, trails of their wool caught on the barbed-wire fencing, blowing horizontally in the persistent wind like scudding clouds across a green sky.  Rolling pasture eventually met shelving rocks and a beach of purest cream, with clear sea sweeping majestically across its expanse twice a day.

The bay was protected by a curve of rock extending out some hundred feet from the beach to create a tranquil, shallow lagoon at low tide, the stillness of which was only disturbed by the gusting wind rippling its surface, or the stately passage of a pair of swans who had claimed the stretch of silent water as their own.

A large double-sided fireplace divided living space from office and gym, with a sunken central seating area dominated by an enormous u-shaped sofa curving around a huge coffee table, and a flat-screen television above the fire.  The whole house felt roomy without being ostentatiously large.  It was subtly well-designed, functional, and comfortable.  As Grace relaxed into this new space, she started to leave things lying around, something she would never have done at home – a book on the end of the sofa, two or three mugs on coffee table, worktop, draining board.  She knew she was going to tidy them up eventually, but there was no pressure or hurry to do so.  Instead of pathologically putting everything away the moment she no longer required it, in case Dom came home with a business associate in tow whom he was trying to impress, she left the bread out on the board, her slippers halfway across the room, and her handbag over the back of a dining chair.  Her one concession to tidiness was to stand her undeniably filthy wellingtons on some newspaper to prevent their vileness spoiling the hall floor. 

She thought herself very lucky to have discovered this gem at such short notice.  The added coincidence of such closeness to Sonia convinced Grace she had been supposed to see that magazine, intended to come here, meant to find exactly this house and encounter the very person to bring her to it.  Why else had all this happened so quickly, and so easily? 

Thus, Grace’s first few weeks passed in a blur of surprisingly happy self-discovery.  She relished the previously unknown freedom of making all her own decisions and either enjoying their fruits or dealing with their consequences.  Instead of pandering to her husband’s whims, the pattern of her day was now dictated by her own desires.  She ate when she wanted to, and the time when she would have previously been disturbed into nausea by Dominic’s demanding presence became her opportunity to relax, unwind, and practice her yoga.  She still hadn’t attempted a piece of art, but was confident this would come, eventually, if it was supposed to.  Grace felt strongly that this place had a plan for her, and she must follow the course it indicated. 

Sliding onto all fours, Grace clasped her hands before her in a fist and pressed her forearms onto the ground.  Lifting her bottom upward tipped her head to nestle into the thick pile of the shaggy rug before the fire.  Clasped hands behind her skull supporting her head and holding it still, she gently eased to tiptoes.  Grace walked her feet out wide to either side of her hips, took a deep inhale, tightened her stomach muscles, and gradually lifted her legs, first to the splits at hip level and then slowly and deliberately upward until her feet touched and she stood on her head on the rug, staring at her reflection in the window to maintain her form, concentration, and balance.  Content she was in control, Grace allowed her eyes to close, and surrendered to the sensation of floating produced by the pose.  The freer she became, the suppler her body felt.  The more confidence she unearthed, the stronger her muscles seemed.  Powerful, unbreakable, she stood straighter, walked taller.  She was a butterfly emerging from long pupation, and discovering the potential of her newly-grown wings. 

As she opened her eyes again to check the straightness of her legs in the huge lounge window, she saw a figure reflected in the glass, standing motionless by the hall door.

© Annie Holder 2017 

Annie Holder has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. 

First published by Annie Holder in 2017.

This is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination.  Place and public names are sometimes used for the purposes of fiction.  Resemblance to any person, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the author.