I scramble for the phone in my pocket. I’m sure I felt it vibrate, but there’s no flashing. It’s obsidian black. Silent.

Blinking back disappointment, I place it facedown on the table, glance at the clock on the wall behind the bar, and retrieve the glossy welcome package from my handbag.

Congratulations! You’ve been accepted into our Ten-Day Therapeutic Retreat – A Radical Course That Will Change Your Life.

The door swings open, and a weather-beaten man shuffles inside the pub and shrugs off his coat. Air rushes in, sharp and cold.

Biting my bottom lip, I look at the clock again – the ferry is late.

A flash of childhood – waiting with my father for the St Mawes Ferry to Falmouth. He’s grinning. Ferry timetables are like politicians, pet . . . can’t trust any of them.

Behind the acceptance letter, there’s a glossy brochure. It’s emblazoned with a large photo of a stately stone manor, solitary atop
a treeless cliff, the ocean beyond. Written beneath the photo is a cryptic passage. Join us on Rathlin Island. The only inhabited island in Northern Ireland, this is where Kings find their courage. The question is, will you?

There’s an illustrated map too – drawings of a puffin and a seal huge against the tiny L-shaped outline of the island. I can’t make out many man-made structures, except for the lighthouses. There are three – to the west, east and south. Don’t come too close they say.

I shift on the wooden stool. There’s a dull throb on the right side of my head. I massage the spot, pressing my fingers into the sphere of pain.

Hugh isn’t here. My husband. I won’t lie about him in his absence, though. You see, most women fib about the men they’re married to, sculpting them into statue-sized heroes for other wives to fawn over. I won’t fabricate an alternative version of Hugh. I don’t need to.

Hugh isn’t a where have you been, when is dinner, and how many times have I told you husband. You won’t see him smirk when other men mock their wives or whistle slowly when the waitress walks away and say, What I’d do to tap that.

Hugh is a good man. He gives me the security women won’t admit they want.

That said, you won’t hear me bandy compliments about in public. My husband doesn’t need a woman to deify him; he’s already important. Well, he’s one promotion away from important. I know he can make it from Assistant Head Teacher to Head Teacher. I give him security too.

The other wives, the wives who lie about their husbands, also lie to them. No, I hadn’t planned anything special they say when John calls from the pub and another dinner goes cold. You’re right, I don’t enjoy them either they demur when Paul insists that holidays with other couples are no fun. I’m not that easily offended they laugh when Tom mentions his new assistant’s great tits at a dinner party with their friends.

Hugh and I are different from other couples. We know that leaving things unsaid is the stuff of real love.

I stare through the small front window of the pub and watch the sea swell and foam. Hugh isn’t here, but I wish he was.

I turn the phone over and search for the orientation email. Maybe I got the time wrong. The ache on the right side of my head intensifies. I knead it deeper with my knuckles, wishing I could reach inside my skull and remove the migraine before it arrives in force.

There’s a flash in the room, a horn blares: it’s the ferry, fog lights eye-level to the pub. It putters in the small harbour, swivelling in a circle to dock. I rush to the door with only one arm in my jacket, and wrench it open. The blast of freezing air makes my eyes water.

A south-westerly howls across the ocean, gnashing waves against the dock. Beneath my clothes, I’m wearing a high-tech base layer, a last-minute purchase from Marks and Spencer. It’s immediately obvious it won’t do. The thin fabric is no match for the freezing wind. I stuff my other arm into the jacket, zipping it up to my chin.

A long-bearded man, burly, vital, in his thirties, lowers a ramp from the back of the boat. He looks wild and untamed – a Viking.

‘Kate, is it? Ya, right?’

I look over my shoulder to see if he’s hollering to someone else – a different Kate, a doppelgänger who’s followed me here. It’s foolish. The retreat organisers have emailed to say they chartered the ferry specifically for me. They know my name. They know I’m arriving today.

‘Come on, you,’ he says, his hair a frenzied mess in the wind.

I clatter my suitcase up the ramp and notice what I hadn’t seen from the dock: the man is wearing a kilt and sporran – one corner of the tartan whipping against his thigh.

‘It’s a winter kilt. It’ll hold, hen,’ he says, a mischievous glint in his eye.

Safe onboard, the surge of adrenaline subsides, and my limbs become heavy. London to Ballycastle has taken all day, and the island is still six miles across the churning Atlantic.

‘You’re the representative? You’re taking me to the retreat?’ I say, flinching as the jacket’s zip pinches the skin beneath my chin.

‘Not what you expected, is it . . . a Scotsman?’ he says, hauling the ramp back into position. ‘We’re a real mixed bag, us islanders. Scots and Irish both. Up in these parts, we all belong to the same Gaelic kingdom, though – Dál Riada.’ The wind whistles across the bow of the ferry. ‘You’re right to go inside the cabin. It’s too grim out here in the brunt of it.’

I don’t move. I want to feel the icy blast, hopeful the shock of cold will alleviate the pressure building inside my head.

‘Suit yourself,’ he says, taking my suitcase with him, the cabin door slamming shut.

We rock side to side, and the rolling motion makes my stomach flip. Bile rises from my gut, nausea reaching an unbearable peak. I swallow and set my eyes on the horizon…