Splendid isolation
Debut novelist Leo Carew recounts how six winter weeks alone on an isolated Hebridean island transformed his writing and changed him as a person too
Author Leo Carew’s Hebridean adventure
Ispent much of this winter living in solitude, on an abandoned island in the Outer Hebrides. It is one of the best things I’ve ever done. The island is bordered by rugged cliffs, and a great sweep of beach the colour of moonlight. The hill at the centre is home to a sea eagle, a crowd of stags, and a humbling sense of perspective. Otters comb the beach, and everywhere are the crumbled ruins of a community of 300 souls, who once inhabited this spectacular place.
Wonderful as these things were, I had come for the things the island lacked. Accommodation took the form of a cabin, without electricity, central heating, or internet. I wanted a break from traffic, administration, notifications, buffering and queues. I wanted to experiment with solitude, something which has been notably absent from my life so far. I’ve never spent more than 48 hours alone before – how would I react to unbroken weeks of it? I wanted to write undistracted and lose myself in the narrative. And I wanted an opportunity to try a life disentangled from the internet, and connected instead with wind, wave and tide; living from deer, kelp, mussels and limpets.
So it was that this January, accompanied by my scruffy terrier Mufasa, and panoply fit for a Victorian expedition (tins, flour, cheese, rifle, ammunition, large bags of salt and coal) I was deposited onto the island. The departing boatmen cheerfully bade me not go crazy. Which is, of course, what I immediately did.
Even before unpacking our provisions, Mufasa and I set off to explore. We careened the beaches together, I laughing, he barking, both insanely, as befits the lone occupants of an island. We stayed out until sun and moon traded perches, when growing awareness of an oppressive quiet pushed us back to our candlelit cabin. I prepared supper to the background of a crackling fire and the tinny intonation of the radio, feeling slightly as though I was in the Blitz. I will admit that when the radio was off, I found that evening a little frightening. It was so dark. And so silent. My dog and I were the only fragment of civilisation for miles of black, heaving ocean, and so we would remain for weeks. I retired to bed, exceedingly glad of the sweet, wordless companion sleeping against my back.
When I was woken by a confiding paw (indicating that it was breakfast time) it was to the sound of the wind. The cabin groaned and creaked like a ship on a storm-tossed sea. During the night, a gale had begun which would not abate for the next two weeks: time spent mastering the art of hygge.
I wrote. I baked bread and scones, chopped mountains of firewood, and whenever the rain relented, stole outside to try hunting. My food supplies were calculated to last two weeks, after which I would need to be self-sufficient. Fortunately, I managed to get a hind after five days. I try to treat stalking as a sober and respectful affair, but will admit to a great sense of satisfaction at that evening’s venison steak with roast potatoes and juniper berries.
Gradually, the silence became less oppressive. The radio, which had come to seem unnecessarily – even perversely – negative in its coverage of news, was rarely switched on. My writing, without the twin distractions of human company and the internet, was progressing apace, and I found myself very satisfied by this way of life.
Timeless is the best word I can think of to describe it. The smells were of coal, baking bread, butchered venison and woodsmoke. The sounds were of wind moaning at the window, the gentle tinkle and tick of smouldering embers, and the beat of my own heart. All the sights were gentle, and changed with the weather: greys to greens, or blues, or whites. Moonlight. Candlelight. Starlight. My skin burned by wind
This was like anti-depression, where minute instances of beauty began to present themselves everywhere
and sun; every muscle wearied by this physical existence, and my hands blistered from firewood duties.
It was around week two that something strange began to happen – at first subtle, and soon rather dramatic. I had developed a routine of rising early to give Mufasa his breakfast, before kindling the fire and brewing a pot of coffee. I would sit by the fire, coffee in hand, and watch through the windows as first light, and then colour, returned to the world outside. One morning, I was struck by the startling beauty of the grain on the table next to me. It was old, and worn, and the sunlight falling over its surface was mesmeric.
It was an interesting, and slightly alarming experience to be so captivated by an old oak table. When Mufasa and I braved the gale later that day, I found myself similarly engrossed by tiny fissures on the beach, caused by the retreating tide.
Then the neat arcs drawn by marramgrass tips as they were whipped back and forth by the wind. And suddenly, it was everywhere. In Mufasa’s fur; the copper kettle; flakes of cheese; rain running off the windows. Everything acquired texture, symmetry and a sense of the extraordinary. In some profound, energetic and hitherto alien way, the world had come alive.
I told myself I must have gone mad. Before long, I decided I didn’t care if this were true. It was too good. Back home, I do not feel I am any more depressed than the next person. Far from it – I think of myself as very happy. But this was like anti-depression, where minute instances of beauty began to present themselves everywhere. Even – perhaps especially – in that previously oppressive silence.
Wild and alone, it was peace which I found in such abundance, and which I believe caused this euphoria. Evenings lit by fire and candle. Treats like tinned fruit, a cup of tea, a chocolate digestive, or a still day. Curling up in my dark bed, back to back with my old comrade, and hearing the wind roar outside. Mufasa’s obvious joy in walks and his fruitless chasing of the deer. The shifting light on the landscape outside. The sudden rattles of rain on the windows. The sea and its foaming horses. All of this, and more; and nothing to come between me and the world. No camera, phone, or other distraction. No words, which would have categorised and limited the experience. And, best of all, no internet.
Those rugged weeks slipped by in a haze, and when the boat finally returned to collect me, returning was the very last thing I wanted to do. I am left with the feeling that perhaps that euphoria is how life is supposed to be. Perhaps we’ve surrendered that, piece by piece, to the insidious grip of administration, internet, and obfuscation between what we do, and what satisfies us. That thought is rather inspiring. Life is great. Maybe it’s supposed to be transcendent.
The Wolf by Leo Carew is published by Wildfire, out now, £16.99 hardback