Free This Northern Sky by Julia Green Page B

shift the stuff that’s already been cut and dried; put the peats in sacks so we can bring them back down in the jeep. Then we build the proper peat stack next to the house. I’ll show you: there’s a special way to do it, so the peats can dry out and then make a weatherproof skin to last the winter.’
    ‘It sounds complicated,’ I say.
    ‘Not really. It’s easier if everyone helps. It’ll be fun. You’ll see.’
    Everyone’s quite a lot older than us. Finn isn’t intimidated like me, but that’s because he knows them all and, in any case, he’s the one who seems to know the most about the peat and the traditional ways to do things, more than his older brothers even.
    Piers and Thea climb into the jeep.
    ‘Here’s Jamie and Clara,’ Finn says. ‘Come and say hello.’
    Jamie’s a rounder, more solid version of Piers, with fairer, curlier hair. Clara is petite and gorgeous, with short fair hair and almond-shaped eyes like a pixie.
    ‘This is Kate,’ Finn tells them. ‘She’s staying at Fiona’s place for the summer.’
    ‘Hi,’ Clara says. ‘Nice to meet you, Kate.’
    Jamie nods but doesn’t say anything.
    ‘We’ll see you up there,’ Finn says.
    We climb back on the bike. But it’s too difficult to pedal uphill with me: we walk the long way back up the slope until the track levels out again.
    This part of the island is covered in springy heather, humming with bees. There are silvery trails of water between black banks of peaty soil, pools reflecting sky. Now, ahead of us, I can see lines of people working at the peat banks. Finn’s smiling, waving. ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ he says to me. ‘To think we’re doing the exact same work that’s been done on the island for hundreds of years. Except in the old days people would have horses and carts rather than jeeps and cars, of course.’
    I think of Mum, at the garden centre, choosing compost. ‘I thought we were running out of peat?’ I say. ‘Like you’re not supposed to buy it for gardening any more.’
    ‘That’s totally different. Yes, it’s terrible where peat extraction’s happened on a huge mechanical scale, like in parts of Ireland. But this is small scale, sustainable, hand-cutting for one family’s domestic use. It’s like the difference between small scale fishing in a little family boat, versus those vile enormous trawlers with dredge nets that bring up everything off the seabed.’
    ‘OK, OK,’ I say quickly before he goes on. ‘Sorry. I guess I’m just pig ignorant.’
    He gives me a look. ‘Stop it!’
    ‘I know, I’m doing it again. It’s a habit.’
    ‘A bad one!’
     
    Tim’s really efficient: he does most of the heavy carrying, lifting the sacks up into the back of the jeep. The rest of us fill the sacks, but talking and larking about at the same time. Piers recites a poem by some Irish poet; he tells me about the Tollund man, found perfectly preserved in a Danish peat bog. Finn works the hardest, of course, cutting a new line of fresh peat with the specially designed spade. Piers and Jamie follow behind, digging the peat and stacking it up. Piers sings at the top of his voice and Jamie joins in. They don’t care in the slightest what anyone thinks. They’re enjoying themselves too much.
    ‘Are you having a good holiday?’ Tim asks, as he waits for me to fill up a sack.
    ‘Yes.’ I realise I almost am , in spite of everything. ‘Though it’s not at all how I imagined it would be.’
    He heaves the sack up and dumps it in the jeep. ‘What did you imagine?’
    ‘I don’t know. I had no idea the island was going to be this small, and remote, and so different from anywhere I’ve ever been. Remember being,’ I correct myself. ‘I was here as a baby. And I suppose I didn’t imagine meeting people . . . making new friends. Doing stuff like this and actually enjoying it!’
    ‘You’re here with your family?’
    ‘Mum and Dad. Not my sisters. They’re older . . . they’re doing their own