Letters from Lockdown by Evan Davis

Author:Evan Davis [Davis, Evan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473590083
Publisher: Random House

Geraldine

Rathlin Lockdown

14 May 2020

Mostly the weather has been kind. God tempering the wind to the shorn lamb and all that. I have been locked down in a very heaven. A small island of total peace and tranquillity. Last evening there were eighteen hares, count ’em, lolling in the field above; at the shore, there were eider ducks courting, and seals on the rocks soaking in the last of the sun; scarlet pimpernel still awake by the path; fat, furry mullein leaves thrusting, so many dog violets this year, tiny vibrant blue stars of gentian, early purple orchids, although not yet on the Chapel Brae. A floral fanfare for the spring. I am getting good at walking on the pebbles again, and I lift little white stones to make neat borders around my flower beds and pocket limpet shells to scatter in my own octopus’s garden. Shipwrecked in paradise while others suffer, I feel guilty.

I am lonely for friends and family, but living here I often am. After decades of visiting and seven years’ residence, I am still very much a ‘blow-in’. In a long life of wandering I never landed in a place before where I did not find my tribe and forge enduring friendships. I have a connection to the land itself, a deep affinity with its basalt breaking through peaty soil, its bogs, heather and bracken, its salt-laden, wicked north-west winds. I never forgot my first visit, with my mother, more than fifty years ago. We came in a sea-tossed open boat, walked thigh-deep through lush wet grass to the East Lighthouse, had tea with her friend, tomato sandwiches cut into triangles and Marie biscuits. Sea voyages make you hungry.

Much later Rathlin called me back to find her small, lonely harbours, the wall-steads of abandoned clachans and a dark and eerie lough, as deep as the cliffs are high, with a standing stone nearby that lends you her magic. I lived another life here; every discovery is more a recognition than a novelty: the cairns, old mills, boat shelters built for curraghs, wrinkles on the hillside where barley and potatoes once grew. The past is everywhere and it murmurs to me all the time, tells me stories. I have been given time to listen.

An island reminds you that control is an illusion. Wind and tide decide if a boat will travel and mere mortals must change their plans, for more powerful forces are at play. We here are better equipped for these strange times, better at wait and see and better at turning to the next task at hand. Blessed indeed.

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