The part about the island.
There was a phone box upslope from the youth hostel. It stood out on the hillside, a dab of red against the greens and greys. It was the same colour as my bike panniers, waxy red and waterproof, that had carried everything I needed over the last weeks, through the wind and rain.
That was a good feeling. Striking camp, slotting the panniers back on the bike, being on your way. And so was rolling on and off the ferries ahead of the cars.
You watched an island approach, like this one with its terracotta cliffs and a rock pillar rising from the waves. The shoreline slowly resolved: a boatyard, a hotel on the pier, a distillery. White and grey pebbledash houses with laundry lines outside, clothes snapping in the wind.
The ferry bumped against the tyres of the pier, the ramp clunked down. The line of wet tarmac stretched out ahead, glowing when some light came through the clouds. Just a single lane with some passing places for cars, but there were none. This island was wilder and emptier than the others.
So I didn’t expect the phone box to be in use, but I could see someone, two people, through the glass slats.
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