the lost manuscript.

A self-confessed failure at writing. It made it easier if anybody asked, but they never did. Kittiwakes and guillemots were an orchestra for Damien’s thoughts. A flock of fulmars broke ahead of the ship and created their own path. A razorbill dipped with the incomers and rose above the three mountains before getting lost in the waves. There were more red deer than people on the island. ‘Fuck,’ he whispered. ‘This is where he came tae write and change the world.’  

He was taken with himself, in a way he rarely admitted. He was a little on the short side and some would call him fat. His soft brown eyes were his best features. But years of reading magnified his greed for words with thick lenses. They tipped his face and took away the sensitivity of his nostrils and his often tremulous lips when he was moved by beauty or disgust.

For all the island’s natural beauty, golden sands and curious heads of keening seals on the beach, he’d noticed a fellow traveller watching him, while pretending not to.

He was a strange looking being, much the same height, but like him, foreign to fashion. Not just because of the yellow cagoule. His rolled-up sleeves showed hairy arms. Similarly, his blue shorts and skinny legs plunged into knee-length woollen socks, gaiters and well-worn boots. His prominent forehead was pallid, his thick hair curling behind his small ears and close-shaven beard.

He licked his lips as he approached the failed writer. Smiled and extended his hand. ‘Robert Frump. I wondered why you were staring at me?’

Damien took his small hand. ‘I wisnae. I mean, I wisnae looking at yeh. I wis looking through yeh at the beach and wondering how we’d dock wae such a big boat?’

His eyes darted ashore as if to bear witness to his statement. He stared into the icy waves for so long the sodden air crept into his feet and bones. Discombobulated and disorientated by the moving of the ship. Stamping his feet to get his blood moving and come back to himself.

‘Do you usually look through people?’  

‘Aye,’ he admitted with a laugh. ‘Sometimes. It’s a habit I got intae.’

‘A bad habit?’

‘There’s worse.’

‘Like what?’

He almost said writing. ‘Asking too many questions and shaking somebody’s haun like yeh’ve jist had a stroke. My da said yeh could tell a lot by a handshake.’

A tiny shift in his pale blue pupils as he smothered a flinch. A smile of bemusement. His lips wobbled and gained traction. ‘I’ll need to practise, I guess.’  

‘Yeh will.’

‘You’ll need to practise washing.’

‘Whit?’

‘Well, to put it more politely than you deserve, you stink. Seriously, even with the wind and spray, I can smell you from here.’

He moved closer and sniffed. ‘It’s worrying how bad you smell. It’s really quite out there. I’m an art critic, so I wouldn’t lie. Are you ill?’

Damien’s damp feet pushed deeper into his work boots. He leaned backward as his muscles tensed and he felt a hole where his brain should be. He thought he was going to faint.  ‘Nane of yer fucking business.’

The art critic grabbed his arm to steady him. ‘Your aura is showing jaggy spikes.’

‘Fuck off wae the auras,’ he pushed him away. ‘Go and lie doon in ye ain pish, that might help.’

He smiled at Damien. ‘You don’t mean that. You’re just hurting. I can sense you need to sleep more and drink less. And you’ve experienced some sort of major grief.’

Damien squared his shoulders and pushed him away. ‘Yeh’ll be experiencing some sort of boot up the hole, unless yeh fuck off, noo.’

He felt those eyes peering at him as he pulled the rucksack onto his back and got off the boat.

‘Wait, Daimen,’ the art critic shouted.

His gut reacted, and he twisted his neck and shoulders, but didn’t turn. Acted as if he’d not heard and hurried away. Wondering how he knew his name. The sky was empty of bird cries as if they’d skulked off too.

It took half-an-hour of walking, following the drystone walls and a smattering of small boulders that turned to scree. Corralled land rolling upwards like a licked cone. He moved slowly through a soggy world with soggy sheep. Keeping to the road. A car stopped. A local with that lovely accent, offering a lift, but he was conscious of the stink not of rotting seaweed used as compost but himself and declined.

There was no soap to lather and no shop for miles, but this was what he’d came for. Silence to write.

Barnhill had no electricity. No running water. The croft had been more remote when Orwell settled down to write. Beating out his final works one fingered on a typewriter, Animal Farm and 1984. Often coughing, with a cigarette in his bluing lips, as he squinted through his spectacles at the proofs with a pencil in hand.  

Damien used the toilet brush to scrub his back and between his toes. He brushed his teeth twice and watched the water gurgle down the drain.

Damien checked the bathroom door was locked. Even though he had the cabin to himself. It was more like a high-tech shipping container with windows and lights. Solar panels on the roof. A desk and a computer. It was dry and warm. Everything he needed and too much that he didn’t.

He sat at the desk. Writing used to be the easy part. He’d hoped Orwell’s genius would bleed ink into his brain. A scattering of wind-blown ideas, darkening overhead like the black lines of the mountains dimly seen. Empty stretches of rock moor would fill his soul. But his mind was a rampart of stone.

Rummaging through his rucksack, he pulled out a can of cider. It was his last one, and he’d promised not to spark it open. Not now. Not ever. He’d promised her.