So many houses now were large, ranch-type spreads, and he speculated that they would be beyond the pocket of most city dwellers.

The village names were different too. In his youth they had all been anglicised on the road signs, but a concerted effort to protect the indigenous Gaelic language had seen them revert back to their traditional spellings; names drawn from the Norse and the Gaelic that had so shaped the island culture. Many of these small, struggling communities had been settled longer than the self-important cities of the mainland.

Having driven north half the length of Lewis, Cal left the island’s east coast and headed towards the wilder west. Buildings changed, the cars and the clothes, but the landscape remained as ever it had been. The heather moorland that smothered the land, the rocks that heaved out from the peatbog and the ocean. Timeless. And restless.

Emerging from the hinterland of the moor to the coastal townships, he knew he was almost there. In little more than an hour he had completed a journey that would have taken his grandfather more than a day.

He drove by the lochside, past the church, to the crossroads. The main road swung north-east but beyond the old stone bridge he took the branch road west. This was single-track again and he took the bends cautiously, remembering to keep left to avoid oncoming vehicles but also aware that a miscalculation would send his wheels off the verge. The road began to meander more steeply and folds of land slipped away to reveal lochs and stunning rock formations.

The house sat on a plateau at the very top of the hill which then fell away to the sea. It seemed an odd place to build a home, exposed as it was to the gales roaring in from the Atlantic. Mary could have told him why, but he’d never been interested enough to ask. This was the house in which his father had been born and raised. That was all he knew.

Cal pulled into a patch of hard packed mud and stone next to the gate, careful to avoid the drainage ditch, then switched off the engine.

The only sound was the sough of the wind round the car, seeking a gap through which to sneak. Sheep, disturbed by his arrival, returned to chomping at the grass in a neighbouring croft. A lone seagull glided in the breeze from the sea. The blend of peat smoke and brine in the air took him straight back to childhood. Yet something was out of place. In times before Aunt Mary would already have been out of the door to greet him. But not today.

3

ON THE WROUGHT-IRON gate, flakes of sky-blue paint scrapped for dominance with the brown of the rust. His father had painted it years ago. In the sea air, any metal left exposed corroded rapidly. He lifted the latch and used both hands to swing it back. Atolls of wild grass and moss strung their way up the length of the concrete path that had been the cause of another row with his old man, who had laid it with no help from Cal. Now it all just looked so old and in need of repair.

The front door faced onto the road, but he had never known it to be used. The storm doors were closed and the lock and handle were rusty. The path split in two, petering out to the left as it reached the wall of the old blackhouse. To the right, it led to a small porch at the back. This was never locked during the day and unless the weather was foul, it was rarely closed.