I didn’t arrive on the island with much. The clothes I wore. The keys to a cottage I had never seen. Some money, not a whole lot, and a matchbox containing a small piece of canvas.

The piece of canvas is about the size of the heart of a daisy. It is rough to the touch and as brown as mud. It is woven out of a flax that grew on the banks of the Rhine nearly four hundred years ago. Without the rest of the canvas from which it is cut, my piece is no better than dirt. And in a house as full of rubbish as the one I have just rented, if I am not very careful, it will get lost for ever. I will keep it on the top shelf of the dresser, where it should be safe.

I took off into the storm this morning. Had to stumble along the coast road like a drunk. I was soaked within seconds. The Atlantic waves crashed thirty feet into the air as they collided with the sea wall. Each collision boomed in the sky like cannon-fire. At first it was a thrill to hear wind blow so hard.

The shop is painted blue and cream. mackey’s petrol coal gas videos newsagent fresh meats it says on the wall. The newspapers flapped in the blast of wind that burst in when I entered. I heaved the door shut and blinked rain out of my eyes. Two women were smiling at me. One was behind the counter, the other in front. I’d seen the one in front before. She had made breakfast for me in the pub the morning I had arrived on the island.

‘Awful day,’ the woman behind the counter said.

‘It is,’ I agreed, and shook the rain out of my hair. My hands were numb. So was my face.

‘Shocking,’ the one from the pub said. ‘And what’s more, it’ll get worse.’

‘Will it?’ I rubbed my hands together and blew on them. They had turned purple.

‘You haven’t seen the half of it. All the chickens blew away one year. Every last one of them. We woke up and they were gone.’ The barmaid again, still shaking her head. I made an appropriately appalled face, and then grabbed a wire basket from the pile that sat on the newspapers as paperweights. I disappeared down the first aisle. The women began to chat behind me. I wasn’t sure what to buy. Bread, I reckoned, and threw in a loaf of sliced white. Butter to go with it. Jam and tea. Old-fashioned food. I hadn’t eaten jam in years. I moved through the aisles quickly, throwing items in. Milk and a can of beans. Two cans of beans. Four altogether. Toilet roll. Soap. Cat food. And the makings of a big fry: rashers, sausages, eggs and tomatoes. The whole process took only a few minutes. Soon the basket was full. I was comforted by how heavy it was. It knocked against the side of my knee as I walked.

I hesitated in front of the fruit and veg stand and stared at the potatoes. I knew I was forgetting something important. The two women were still chatting away in the background. One of them laughed. Beyond them, the wind howled like a wounded animal. Firelighters, I remembered, whispering the word aloud. I needed firelighters and a box of matches.

I worked my way back through the aisles. I couldn’t find the firelighters, though the shop was quite small. I had been doing so well. I doubled back a third time. The drone of the women’s conversation stopped. Only the hum of the refrigerators was audible. And, of course, the relentless wind. I looked up at the convex mirror that was mounted in the corner. I was set, taut as a spider, right in the centre of it.

‘Are you all right, love?’ the shopkeeper called out. She could probably see me hovering in the deviant mirror; was likely addressing herself to that stringy reflection. ‘Do you need a hand with anything?’

I emerged from the canned goods. ‘Firelighters?’

‘Just behind you, pet. Bottom shelf.’

I turned around and there they were, at least twenty boxes of them, stacked up in neat piles. I smiled stupidly at the shopkeeper. ‘Thanks,’ I said, adding a box to my basket. I approached the counter and stood behind the second woman.

‘Don’t mind me, chicken,’ she said, stepping out of my way. ‘I’m not queuing.’

‘Thanks,’ I said again, and hauled the basket onto the counter. The shopkeeper – I shall call her Mrs Mackey – reached across and grasped the other side of the basket. She helped me manoeuvre it into the slot beside the register, grimacing under the weight of it.

‘Jesus Christ, love,’ she said, ‘are you stocking up for a war?’ Another stupid smile from me. She fished out the fire-lighters and turned the box about, looking for the price sticker. I tore down a plastic bag from the pile hooked onto the counter, and packed the box when she had rung it in.

‘And matches, please,’ I said, ‘before I forget.’ This produced a smile and a nod from the customer, or the barmaid, or whatever she was. The landlady, the publican. Mrs Mackey turned to the cigarette shelf and took down a box of matches. She shook it before placing it on the counter. I dropped it into my plastic bag and selected a bar of chocolate from the tray by the register. I looked down at the stacks of newspapers. I didn’t recognise any of them. They were all local ones.

‘Have you any of the national papers?’

‘No, pet,’ Mrs Mackey told me. ‘The boat can’t sail in weather like this.’

‘Ah. I’ll try tomorrow.’

‘You’d be lucky. This one won’t die down for a couple of days.’ Mrs Mackey hummed a tune as she rang up the goods. The other woman picked up one of the local papers and flicked through it. I filled up my plastic bag and tore down a second one.

‘So,’ Mrs Mackey began, her voice that bit less casual than it had been before. ‘How are you getting on?’

I looked up and turned around, hoping that a fourth person had emerged from somewhere. But there were just the three of us, forming a tight little circle around the cash register as if it were a hearth. Mrs Mackey keyed in the price of the loaf of bread, her eyebrow arched towards me, then she met my eye. I turned to the other woman, and she smiled encouragingly. I shrugged.

‘I’m getting on fine, thanks.’

Mrs Mackey nodded and handed me the bread. I put it in the bag. ‘And what brings you to our remote corner at this time of year?’ She rang in the eggs, then the milk.

A few months earlier, I’d have thought something up. ‘I’m doing some research.’ ‘I’m on a retreat.’ ‘I’m … I don’t know, painting, or writing, or bird-watching, or something.’ But right then, I couldn’t so much as answer. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. So I shut it again and packed up my goods. I threw them in any which way. The eggs would get broken. The carton of milk would burst. There was a steady straightening up of the two women as they watched.

‘I’m –’ I said after thirty seconds or so, searching desperately for a suitable word. ‘I’m waiting,’ I eventually managed. The two women nodded sagely, as if my explanation had made perfect sense. Mrs Mackey put the bar of chocolate into the bag for me. She hadn’t rung it up on the register. She told me how much I owed her, and her voice was quiet. I handed over the money.

‘Thanks,’ she said, handing back my change. ‘Will you be able to carry all that back on your own?’

‘I will, yeah.’

‘Are you sure, honey? It must weigh a ton. And in this weather. Why don’t I get Michael to run it up to you later? He’s to go up that road anyway.’ She knew where I was staying. I shook my head as I divided the bags between my hands.

‘I’m grand,’ I told her, holding the bags up for her inspection. My arms seemed a yard long. ‘See?’ The two of them looked on, unconvinced.

‘Take care now, love,’ the other woman said as I turned to leave. I paused for a second, my bag-entangled hand already on the door handle.

‘Sorry,’ I whispered hoarsely, and smiled crookedly at the floor. My mouth felt awesomely big, quivering and throbbing on my face like an exposed vital organ. I hurried out.

Painkillers, I remembered when I was halfway down the road. I stopped walking and tucked my chin in against the driving rain. The stretched handles of the bags cut into my palms. I had forgotten to buy painkillers. I turned back towards the shop and stood there for a moment, my headache already returning, but I couldn’t face going back.

The priest was sent up to me after that. An hour or two later. He was quick off the mark. Perhaps he had been waiting for the signal, and Lord knows but I had triggered it that day. The storm had not abated when I heard his knock. I opened my door and there he was, his back hunched against the October rain. Fantastic, I commented under my breath. My headache was full-blown by...