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 in the seat, coat hood up to conceal her distinctive hair.  Mercifully, the cold wind 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.

It was odd to be back after all this time away.  If anything, the place appeared more 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 moisture.  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 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…”

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