Ten miles off the north coast of Scotland are the Orkney Islands, wild and beautiful, beaten by the clean cold winds of the North Sea. Life there in the last century was simple, but hard.
Captain Torvald has returned home to Orkney after a lifetime as a seaman on the world’s oceans. He lies alone with his memories of the past, a past he has tried hard to forget…
Andrina comes to see me every afternoon in winter, just before it gets dark. She lights my lamp, gets the fire burning brightly, checks that there is enough water in my bucket that stands in the hole in the wall. If I have a cold (which isn’t often, I’m a tough old seaman), she worries a little, puts an extra peat o two on the fire, fills a stone hot water bottle, puts an old thick coat around my shoulders.