Liam steers us away from the water’s edge and back up the beach. There’s a pub sitting opposite the pier; one of a handful of old, stone buildings that make up the hamlet of Arduaine. Too small to be a village, Arduaine is an outcropping built to withstand the weather. The pub is short and squat, its walls thick as a jail’s. Its windows are small beady eyes, recessed deep into heavy sockets.

‘The Bucket of Blood?’ I say, reading the battered wooden sign nailed over the casement.

Liam opens the door. ‘Let’s hope they serve a decent IPA,’ he laughs, as I duck under his arm and walk inside.

The pub is cosier than its name would have us believe. A fire crackles in the grate and the burnished brass fittings glow as though they’ve absorbed centuries of polish. It’s empty, aside from a middle-aged landlord, with a complexion as weathered as the pub sign outside, and a man in his mid to late twenties who’s wearing a camouflage jacket and sitting at the far end of the bar, hunched over and nursing a pint.

‘Afternoon,’ the landlord says, smiling at us as we lower our hoods and approach. ‘What can I get you?’

Liam, always affable and friendly in situations like these, immediately falls into conversation with him about the local ales on tap. I take off my jacket and start to unwind my scarf but stop suddenly, feeling eyes on me, and turn my head. The man at the end of the bar is staring right at me. I smile, trying to be polite, but his gaze remains unflinchingly cold and piercing, so I look away. I wonder what his problem is. Perhaps he doesn’t like non-locals in his pub. I wrap my scarf back around my neck, feeling a sudden chill despite the fire roaring in the grate. It feels more like winter, not at all like the dying days of summer.

‘Lime and soda?’ Liam asks, turning to me.

I nod. ‘Yes, thanks.’

‘I thought we could wait until we get to the island before we eat,’ Liam says.

I nod again. I’m not hungry anyway. The doctor said it can be normal with depression to lose your appetite, and that I should wait for the anti-depressants to kick in. I started taking them a month ago though and haven’t yet felt any change, at least to my eating. I’m definitely starting to see some improvement in my mood – a crack of light is appearing in the dark. Who knows? By the end of the week maybe the horrible weight pressing down on me will have been levered off like a giant boulder and I’ll start to feel free of it.