I park at the clearing they use for boat trailers. I kill the engine and pull the handbrake. I look back through the line of thin trees. The wind is light on the lake. I take off my seatbelt, take a deep breath, exhale. Silence. I wind the window and smell the water. This is safe.

I take my phone from my handbag. It has been buzzing all the way here. Conversations have continued in my absence in the work forum. Several new messages and notifications have come through. The daily demands for responses, decisions, uploads and downloads, password and registrations. They should be scanned immediately. I press the only button. The screen goes exquisitely blank. I look over the folders spread out on the passenger seat. I’d been trying to read them as I left town, speeding through blocks of text while I navigated roundabouts. There must be a law against that. I look in the rear-view mirror, turn it towards me. I run my hands through my hair, identify the shape of my skull. For a moment I imagine it in its naked state. I shiver and focus on my skin. I see what I imagine are fresh ageing signs, the collagen stretched and compressed one too many times and, overnight apparently, it has ultimately rested in the contours it has been twisted in around my bone shape for years. But those lines were there all the time, since early adulthood, their visibility to me and everyone else dependent on the light, my perspective, my mood and my application of what was once called ‘paint’. But the sight of them still knocks me, ages me instantly. I look away, turn the mirror back to the rear window. I didn’t really come here for a hyper dose of reality, just the opposite. I open the doors, my heels hit the tarmac, what I can see of it, it is mostly covered in black-brown dead leaves, damp and flat. Late Autumn. Hence the deserted shoreline. At the summer weekends here, there is never anywhere to park.

It’s rarely hot enough for bathers, but tourists take the small boats out to fish or explore the shoreline. Some have picnics and even camp on the tiny islet at the centre, known as Inis Marr.

I walk around to the car boot. I pull the work files out of the way and get to the leather case. I take it up and walk to the line of trees, into the clearing by the water. There is no sand here, just grassless ground, millions of tiny flat round stones, a line of small boats. They are more like canoes, they have oars attached to the sides, one or sometimes two flat seats in the middle. They are held in place by ropes looped onto steel bars set in concrete. They are all full of water and floating leaves. I take a bucket hanging on a post, go to the side of one boat. My work suit gets spattered as I scoop out the water. It takes ages. I stop when there is just a small pool at the bottom. I hang the bucket back onto the post.

I should really have changed my clothes. I put the leather case under the seat. I pull the rope off the steel post. I bend, grip the end of the boat and push. The underside grinds on the stones. The boat shifts onto water as my face gets hot. I jump in. I take the oars and row as I perch myself on the seat.

The boat is silent as it moves out from the shoreline. The land begins to shrink. I start to feel free. The pull on my muscles feels good. I dig my heels underneath. I feel like I am getting somewhere, even though there is nowhere I particularly want to be. I pass through a large group of rushes, then I am out on the clear open water.

A few drops of drizzle fall. The sky is grey. I hadn’t checked the forecast. The air is cool but not cold. I row for a few minutes with no attempt to direct myself. Then I stop. The boat drifts aimlessly. I can hear the gentle throbbing of water currents underneath. The drizzle has become constant. Yet the sky is brightening. Sharp sun streaks through. The make-up which I had carefully applied this morning is running down my face.

Raindrops roll along my back, lodging at my bra strap. My good suit jacket and skirt are getting soaked. The hair which I had blow-dried a few hours ago becomes flat and sticks to my neck. The drizzle fades. My clothes are sodden in the warm rays.

I toss off my heels under the seat. I take off my soaked jacket, unbutton my blouse. I shiver as I unhook the dripping bra. I slide off my skirt, tights, underwear in one slick movement. The seat is wet against my skin. I enjoy the risk of being seen. There are specks of houses now visible along the shoreline, but I am as much a dot to them. Even though I am unusual out here and they are not. Goosebumps run up my arm.

I turn and reach for the leather case. I put it on my knees. My fingers tremble as I open it. The shape and veneer of the violin, the horsehair bow, the green velvet inner cladding seem absurd amongst the water around me, leaves stuck to the inside of the boat, the dampness in the air. I put the end of the violin under my chin, its wood cold against my chest. I take up the bow, draw across the strings. The acoustics are odd out here, bouncing across the lake as I try to play. It is like I am too far out of tune, I can’t get into it, the chords I play are so far from the carpeted wall of my music teacher’s practice room, her civilised, encouraging tones echoing now in my mind from our weekly lesson.

There is a screech behind me. I swing around, expecting the worst, a boatload of office clients with cameras. But it’s a flock of gulls flapping as they rise out of Inis Marr. I have drifted all the way to the centre of the lake.

The islet is only 200 metres in diameter. It is mostly covered with short palm trees. There is a clearing within. I can see the remains of tourist campfires, crushed beer cans and other plastics.

I row again, directing the boat to the stony edge. It grinds as it reaches it. I look at the pile of clothes. I place the violin and bow back into the case and clip it closed. I get up and climb out, feet onto the grassless ground.

I walk to the clearing, enjoying the dirt seeping up between my toes, the air wafting all around my exposed body. Dead leaves lift in the breeze, some stick to my legs.

I look around the clearing. The gulls squawk overhead, the noise echoing down the shoreline. Inis Marr was an ancient ‘funeral island’. The local tradition involved wrapping corpses and gathering them at the mainland shoreline throughout the year. On a certain date between late autumn and deep winter, a day which was deemed to have mystical properties, the remains were canoed out here. Afterwards, the islet was set on fire, the ceremony believed to complete the soul’s journey.

I circle the clearing, the drizzle has faded altogether, the sun has become bright. Rays come through the trees. The palms are waving in the morning breeze. I look out beyond the shore, where the lake widens out. I had always wanted to visit this patch of earth on the water, but I had never had the time until today.