Chapter Text
Erwin clutched the arm of his seat, closing his eyes and swallowing back the nausea as the ferry lurched and shuddered, grey waves slapping hard against the side of the ship. They were barely half way across the Firth and he was starting to seriously question the wisdom of his decision. Nagging tendrils of doubt clawed at his already roiling stomach. His friend Mike’s words kept coming back to him, repeating over and over like a stuck record. Was that still a thing? Did people still play records? He wondered distractedly, as the ship pitched again and his stomach lurched dangerously.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Mike’s voice came back to him, filtering through the haze of nausea.
“It’s an excellent idea,” Erwin replied blithely, taking a sip of beer. “It’s been years since I had a chance to do any proper fieldwork.”
Mike sniffed and fiddled with the label on his bottle of beer, glancing up at the football game showing on the big screen at the far end of the busy campus bar.
“Isn’t that what you’ve got grad students for?”
“Jesus Mike,” Erwin laughed. “Aren’t you the one who’s been on at me to get out of the lab for ages now?”
“Yeah I know, but the Outer Isles? I mean seriously? There’s nothing up there except bird shit and tourists and weird locals.”
“Hanji is up there.” Erwin pointed out.
“Exactly! I rest my case. Besides, Hanji is based at the college on the main island. The field station is two islands over isn’t it? Seriously, Dok spent a couple of weeks up there a few years back and he just about went bat shit.”
“Well that’s Nile for you. He likes his home comforts.”
Erwin had been careful to keep the tightness out of his tone, but Mike looked up sharply.
“Are you sure this isn’t about, well, you know…” he tailed off.
“About what Mike?”
“About Marie.”
“Marie? Why would Marie have anything to do with this?” Erwin asked with unconvincing surprise.
“Oh I don’t know, maybe because she ran off and married your so-called friend, who was supposed to be the best man at your wedding, six months after you split up?”
“Don’t be ridiculous…” Erwin started, but Mike cut him off.
“Erwin, we’ve barely seen you for the last year. All you do is work and go to the gym. Work – gym. That’s it. We virtually have to drag you out of the house these days.”
“That’s not true.” Erwin protested weakly.
Mike snorted, pulled his phone out of his pocket, opened his messages, and handed it to Erwin. Erwin scrolled through the messages, text after text from him apologizing that he couldn’t hang out, couldn’t come to the bar, the cinema, the game, because he was working on an algorithm, running a simulation, finishing a paper. Excuse after excuse after excuse.
“I’m sorry Mike, I’ve just been busy…”
“Too busy to meet your friends once in a blue moon?”
That stung and the fact that Mike was right was just salt in the wound.
“It’s important work,” Erwin replied, a little more defensively than he’d intended.
“I know Erwin, we all know how committed you are to saving the world, it’s just that ever since Marie…”
“This has nothing to do with Marie,” Erwin snapped. “Anyway, it was my decision to end the relationship, remember?”
“Yeah I know,” Mike replied, shaking his head, “but still, that shit’s gotta hurt.”
It had hurt. It had hurt more than Erwin could have believed possible. And what hurt the most was that he knew he had been right. He had loved Marie, there was no question of that, but he also knew, had known for years in fact, that he couldn’t give her the life she wanted, with the nice house and the nice car and the nice kids. The very thought of such an existence was anathema to Erwin, like being trapped for life behind impenetrable walls. It wasn’t fair to Marie, to promise what he couldn’t give, so Erwin had done the decent thing and ended the relationship. Marie had been devastated of course, so Erwin could hardly blame her when she sought solace and a shoulder to cry on from one of their friends. And when his former fiancé got together with his oldest friend, Erwin had been genuinely pleased, he’d even toasted them at their wedding six months later. If he had felt the loneliness seeping into his bones when he had returned home from the marriage celebrations to his empty apartment, he silenced his doubts by telling himself that he had done the right thing, the honest thing, the only thing that was fair to Marie.
In order to distract himself from the isolation and heartache, Erwin had focused all his energies on his research. It wasn’t difficult, as an environmental scientist researching marine pollution, there was urgent work to be done and Erwin had thrown himself into that work like a man possessed. Erwin’s forte was data analysis; designing algorithms and simulations to predict the severity and extent of pollution based on data and samples returned to the lab from around the world. His research did not normally involve fieldwork and sampling, and it certainly did not normally involve spending six months of the year at the university’s field station on a remote island in the North Atlantic monitoring microplastics in the littoral and marine environment. But when Erwin had secured funding for this particular study, he had decided to undertake the fieldwork himself rather than sending a postgraduate student as he would normally have done. It would be a change, and change was what he desperately needed.
Despite Mike’s reservations, it had seemed like the perfect opportunity, but as the ferry pitched and wallowed in the choppy firth, Erwin was seriously beginning to doubt the wisdom of his decision. The journey had started optimistically; Erwin had driven out of the city on a clear bright morning in early summer. Heading north, he soon left the suburbs behind, driving through rich farmland, until the fields gave way to forestry plantations, which petered out into rough moorland. And then he was climbing up into the highlands over high barren moors and through deep glens overshadowed by dark mountains where patches of snow still glittered in high corries. It was late afternoon when Erwin reached the impossibly picturesque fishing port on the west coast of the mainland where he would catch the ferry to the Outer Isles.
The first hour of the crossing had been breathtaking, as the ferry sailed down the long sea loch flanked on either side by hills that turned purple and mauve in the gloaming, dotted here and there by tiny white-washed houses that clustered along the shores of the loch. Erwin made his way up to the top deck of the ferry, where he joined groups of tourists with their expensive walking gear and fancy binoculars, and solemn locals smoking stoically in the lee of the ship’s funnel. Breathing in the fresh sea air, tainted by the unmistakable tang of diesel from the ship’s engines, Erwin watched the hills slip by as the white wake of the ship fanned out behind them, stretching back towards the mainland, and for the first time in a long time, he felt like he was waking from a long slumber.
It was only once the ferry sailed out of the mouth of the sea loch and into the open Firth that the wind picked up and the boat started to pitch and roll, sending cold spray flying across the bows. Erwin had hastily retreated to the lounge on the lower deck to endure the purgatory of the crossing, while trying not to loose the contents of his stomach. They were two hours in when a commotion roused Erwin from his misery. Passengers were peering out the windows on the starboard side of the ship, pointing and chattering excitedly.
“Look!” a small red haired child gasped, tugging at their father’s hand. “Dolphins!”
With a supreme effort of will Erwin got to his feet and staggered over to the starboard windows. Over the heads of the small crowd of passengers he could see sleek dark shapes coursing through the water. Every so often one of them would breach the surface to leap over the bow wave of the boat accompanied by oohs! and ahhs! from the onlookers. By the time the school of dolphins peeled away from the ship, the Outer Isles were in sight and Erwin had just about forgotten his seasickness. The sea was much calmer in the lee of the long island archipelago and Erwin went back up on deck to watch the islands approaching. It was well after ten in the evening but in these northern latitudes dusk had yet to fall and the islands were bathed in a soft translucent light. Portrona, the main port of the Outer Isles nestled in a broad deep water harbour, colourful buildings clustered around the head of the bay, looking for all the world like a pile of children’s toys scattered on the shore line. Across the bay, a tall castle stood on the hill top, a Victorian folly built by a long dead opium baron, one of the islands’ many colourful and often profligate owners. Within the harbour, a small fishing fleet lay at anchor, beyond which a fancy marina provided berths for a flock of graceful white yachts. Erwin watched enchanted as the islands drew closer, the lights of Portrona town glittering off the dark waters of the quay, where the round heads of harbour seals bobbed, watching the ship pass with curious observant eyes. He was so captivated by the scene that he had to drag himself away when the ship’s tannoy announced that drivers should return to their vehicles to disembark.
As Erwin drove off the car deck and up the ramp onto the slipway, the first thing to catch his eye was his old friend and colleague Hanji, waving manically from the quayside. A marine biologist, among many other things, Hanji worked at the university’s island campus, based in the local college on Main Isle.
“Erwin!” They yelled excitedly, bounding over as Erwin pulled up in the ferry terminal car park and climbed out of his car. “I can’t believe you’re here!” They squealed, seizing him in a bone-crunching hug. “How was the journey? Was the crossing okay? Jeez you’re a bit pale. Nothing a spot of sea air won’t fix eh?!”
“Hello Hanji,” Erwin said, extricating himself from his friend’s embrace, “I’m fine, good. Crossing was a little rough, but I survived.”
“You do look a little green around the gills.” Hanji peered at him nodding. “Come on let’s get you home and fed. Think you can eat anything? I left Moblit at home making dinner, he was out in the boat earlier and caught some fresh mackerel. You’re staying with us tonight then I’ll take you over to Ronsay and Wester Rona tomorrow. I’m in the long-wheelbase Landie parked over the road there, I’ll drive ahead and you can follow, it’s not far, just out of town and along the coast a bit. Okay? Okay. Let’s go.”
Erwin smiled and nodded, too tired from the long journey to even attempt to get a word in edgewise.
By the time he was sitting back in Hanji’s comfortable, if chaotic, kitchen a couple of hours later, nursing a second large whisky and with a belly full of fresh mackerel, cooked to perfection by Moblit, Hanji’s lab assistant, life partner and responsible adult, Erwin was feeling considerably more relaxed. Hanji had a large Ordinance Survey map spread out on the kitchen table and was pointing out various landmarks around the islands.
“So, this is Portrona, and we’re just here,” they pointed to a spot on the east side of Main Isle. “We’ll get the ferry to Ronsay over on the other side of the island at Westernish. It’s just a short crossing, twenty minutes if even that. Then Outer Rona, your lovely home for the next six months is just, up here.” Erwin had to lean over the table and squint at the map to see the precise spot Hanji was pointing to.
“It’s…very small.”
“Tiny,” Hanji agreed. “Just five miles across. You can walk the whole island in a morning. It’s a tidal island so you get to it over a causeway that can only be crossed twice a day. Obviously. I wouldn’t recommend trying to drive over in anything less than a four by four or a tractor. Norman the Postman gets really pissed off when he has to get his Fergusson out to tow dumb tourists who get stuck half way across with the tide coming in. There’s a small car park at the Ronsay side of the causeway, you can leave your car there, I’ll take you over in the Landrover with your gear and stuff. The field station is on the west side of the island near the beach. It’s a lovely spot, though a little exposed. You’ll be fine though. God I wouldn’t mind a couple of months peace and quiet on Outer Rona myself. Hope you like your own company though, because once the tide comes in, it’ll just be you and the seals.
“Seals?” Erwin asked curiously.
“Yes,” Moblit explained, “there’s a seal colony on the skerries just to the north of the island. That’s where the island gets its name from actually. Rón is the local word for seal; Outer Rona, Ronsay, Portrona, they’re all named for the seals.”
“Huh,” Erwin said, taking a sip of his whisky, “who knew seals were so popular?”
“Oh yes,” Moblit continued. “There are all sorts of folk tales and legends associated with seals in the islands. Some of them are fascinating.”
“I’m sure we’ve got a book of local folk lore lying around here somewhere,” Hanji said. “I’ll look it out and you can take it over to the island with you. Actually, the Rona skerries used to be home to the biggest seal colony in the Outer Isles, but it’s declined to almost nothing over the last decade. There’s still a small colony there but nothing like previous numbers.”
“Actually there’s really good fishing off the rocks up there too,” Moblit added. “You can get cuddies and saithe, sea trout if you’re lucky. I think there’s a couple of rods at the field station, I can lend you some tackle if you want to try your hand. Morning and early evening is the best time to go out. You might even get to hear the seals singing then.”
“Singing?” Erwin asked, but the word was swallowed by a huge yawn. “Sorry guys, that’s really rude of me.”
“Don’t worry,” Hanji reassured him with a smile, “it’s the sea air, it affects people like that. Knocks you out until you get used to it. Don’t be surprised if you sleep like the dead for the first week or so. The locals say it’s the ozone but I’d love to know what actually causes it and whether it’s a measurable effect. I suspect it’s actually due to a combination of factors including….”
“Hans,” Moblit cut in, “I think we should probably let Erwin get to bed, he’s had a long journey.”
“Ah yes, sorry, come on, I’ll show you to your room.”
Erwin knocked back the last off his whisky and, pleasantly warmed by the peaty spirit and the convivial company, followed Hanji down the short corridor to the small guest room at the end of the house. He was asleep almost before his head hit the pillow, his dreams filled with boats and seals and islands and, somewhere in the distance, the soft ceaseless sound of the sea.