The End of the World in the UK

 

The End of the World According to the locals and to anyone I have spoken to since, it was a rare occasion. Tarbert, on the Isle of Harris, experiencing the perfect trinity; no rain, no wind and no mosquitoes. Free wheeling into the village for the first time, I had spied a lonely jetty and despite a weariness demanding a pillow, I promised myself a return that evening. Now here, journal in hand and a sea beaten bollard for my back, I was immersed in the most orange of sunsets; a seventies Kodak print, soft of hue and rounded corners.

I sighed with deep satisfaction and drank in the amber glow till I was drunk on its sublimity and wore the unapologetic loose grin to prove it. My only companion was the silence. Not a whisper, not even a slop of water against the jetty. Perhaps I was the only human left in the world, a final witness to its apocalyptic end. I didn’t mind. The pain of cycling around the Outer Hebrides, of riding over the South Harris mountains that very afternoon, was worth it. And then she arrived. In my drunken daze, I hadn’t noticed the car pull up, but the sound of her footsteps on the timber boards was enough for me to put down my pen, and curiously stare. She was a young girl, no more than ten with rosy cheeks and the obligatory ponytail.

A white bucket in one hand and fishing line in the other. She walked slowly, weary of my presence. Some lanky stranger was in her town, on her jetty, where she fished! ‘Hello,’ I ventured, eager to appease. ‘Hi. What are you doing here?’ she demanded in a confident Scottish accent. ‘Just writing in my journal and enjoying the evening. Amazing isn’t it?’ ‘Yes, and there are no mosquitoes, which is good. They give me red itchy spots.’ ‘Yep, me too,’ I offered, sensing a thaw in her tone. ‘What are you fishing for?’ ‘Arctic Char or Sea Trout. Although Dad says I’ll be lucky to catch either. Sprats most probably.’ I smiled at her obvious dejection with this last option. She cast the line, but it snagged on the reel and the tackle landed meekly with a plop. A ripple started out across the water. ‘Damn!’ she said, but became excited when a bunch of sprats nibbled furiously at her bait. ‘Fish!’ she exclaimed. ‘There are FISH down there.’ ‘Don’t get to close to the edge!’ a voice yelled, just as I was motioning to peer over the side. We both froze. I looked up.

A man was approaching down the jetty, presumably from the same car as the girl. He was an stocky man, weather tanned with a grey fisherman’s beard. ‘I wasn’t Dad!’ the girl protested. ‘I was just watching the fish eat the bait.’ ‘Yes but we talked about this in the car. Move away from the edge please Katie.’ Katie moved her foot an inch back and leant out further than before. ‘Katie!’ Another inch was relinquished. I smiled, Katie’s father did also, and we shook hands. While Katie fished, and fought a battle with her father over safety, he told me some of the history of the islands. He spoke of the old families, generations of crofters who had fought out a living here, winter after winter when cruel westerly winds, arctic cold, wouldn’t stop blowing for months. Of the sons who went fishing or to war, never to return, and farmers near to starving, unable to grow crops. But he also spoke of the incredible beauty of this land the mystical spirit that once caught, was hard to let go. I relayed my journey so far; of beaches with water so clear you wished you could drink it, and sand so white it squeaked in pleasure with every step. Of jagged mountains that I had crossed, moon like landscapes used for film sets and pockets of the famous Black Houses, huddled together, smoking peat in the cold. But also of the folk I had met on my journey; painters, farmers, fisherman, crofters and dreamers. People who, like him, who were so welcoming, so warm.

As the sun became a memory and its only trace a faint red hue on the horizon, I thought about the special time I had shared with this family. Dad and his girl, fishing, while the whitewashed stone walls of Tarbert glowed in an evening light. ‘I got one!’ Katie shouted as her rod jiggled about and she hopped from foot to foot in excitement. Without thinking, we all moved closer to the edge to take a look. This was the beauty of the Hebrides. This was what there was to be thankful about.

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