The Chair by the Fire

The guesthouse stood above the harbour with its door on the sheltered side, which on these islands is the side you build a door on. It was kept by a North Ronaldsay ewe, one of the shore sheep that live off seaweed at the north end of the archipelago. Polly stood in the hall with rain running off her. "Do you have any available rooms?"

Pensionatet lå over havnen med døren på læsiden, og på disse øer er det den side, man bygger en dør på. Det blev drevet af et får fra North Ronaldsay, et af de strandfår, der lever af tang længst mod nord i øgruppen. Polly stod i entreen, mens regnen løb af hende. "Har I nogen ledige værelser?"

There were rooms. There usually are in September. Polly said, "I would like a quiet room, please." The ewe paused long enough to be polite about it. The rooms at the back face the yard, the rooms at the front face the water, and the wind finds both. Nowhere here is quiet in the way a visitor means it. What the islands offer instead is a wind so constant that after two nights you stop hearing it.

Der var værelser. Det er der som regel i september. Polly sagde: "Jeg vil gerne have et roligt værelse, tak." Fåret ventede lige længe nok til at være høflig omkring det. Værelserne bagude vender ud mod gården, værelserne fortil vender ud mod vandet, og vinden finder begge dele. Intet sted heroppe er stille på den måde, en gæst mener det. Det, øerne tilbyder i stedet, er en vind så konstant, at man efter to nætter holder op med at høre den.

"Could you assist me with my luggage, please?" The ewe carried the bag up herself and set it beside a chair by the fire, and the chair was the reason Polly stopped talking. Its frame was driftwood, because no tree grows here and every plank in the old houses came in on the tide. Its back was oat straw, coiled and stitched into a hood that curves forward over the shoulders. A joiner in Kirkwall named David Kirkness turned that farmhouse habit into a standard design in the middle of the eighteen hundreds.

"Kunne du hjælpe mig med min bagage, tak?" Fåret bar selv tasken op og satte den ved en stol ved ilden, og stolen var grunden til, at Polly holdt op med at tale. Stellet var af drivtømmer, for der vokser ingen træer her, og hver eneste planke i de gamle huse er kommet ind med tidevandet. Ryggen var af havrehalm, snoet og syet sammen til en hætte, der buer frem over skuldrene. En snedker i Kirkwall ved navn David Kirkness gjorde den gamle gårdvane til et fast design i midten af attenhundredetallet.

"What time is check-out?" Polly asked, because the ferry decides everything here. Then she sat down in the chair. The straw hood cut the draught off the door, the fire went on doing what fires do, and for the first time since the boat she could hear herself breathing.

"Hvornår er der udtjekning?" spurgte Polly, for færgen bestemmer alt heroppe. Så satte hun sig i stolen. Halmhætten holdt trækken fra døren ude, ilden blev ved med at gøre det, en ild nu gør, og for første gang siden båden kunne hun høre sig selv trække vejret.