Page 108 of Little Wing
‘Dougie—?’
‘—Nell.’
‘Would you photograph my beautiful chaffinches?’
‘It’s funny you should ask,’ said Dougie, ‘because when I sat in your café and Danny asked for tips and that wee quiet girl offered me cake and the tall gangly laddie was shining the coffee machine for all he was worth – I was struck by this desire to photograph them. I would love to. I would love to.’
‘I would love all their portraits framed and on that long side wall of the café.’
‘I’ve a quiet week coming. I’ll bring a couple of cameras – they might like to have a go themselves.’
‘Oh, they’d love that. And Dougie—?’
‘—Nell?’
‘Maybe not next week but one day – will you also come and meet my mum? Though she might think you’re someone you’re not. Oh, and she hated my ex.’ Nell laughed. ‘It was before I’d moved her from our old house into where she is now. I brought him over – twice. Both times she chased him around the place with a broom yelling, out! out! out!’
‘Listen,’ said Dougie, reaching across the table for Nell’s hand, his cuff dipping into the ketchup. ‘If Flora liked me at three years old, Wendy is going to love me. Just you wait, Nell. You’ll see.’
And Nell looked at Dougie, looked at her hand held by his. ‘We can’t understand a person unless we know the content of their memories,’ she said. ‘I’m glad to have shared mine with you. Thank you for trusting me with yours.’
It was just a Saturday night as May was slipping into June. There was an enticing half a bottle of red remaining at Dougie’s. The trains to Colchester ran into the early hours. Nell didn’t have a shift at the Chaffinch the next day. Wendy hadn’t a clue what day it was and she didn’t know what year either but that was OK because she’d had a delicious supper and now Sylvie was watchingInspector Morsewith her. Marjorie was studying journals and planning lectures and telling herself she wasn’t lonely, she wasn’t lonely at all. Frank was never lonely, he had his blackbirds and his Walnut Whips and his friend Nell, and his dressing gown tonight was a green-and-orange check so bright that surely it could be seen from space. He would wave at the astronauts before he Zimmered his way to bed, that’s what he’d do. It was pizza and DVD night at the Chaffinch residential home for those who weren’t with their parents this weekend. Danny wasn’t there; he was at home watchingBack to the Futurefor the zillionth time cuddled up with his mum and a tin of Quality Street while his dad dozed off in the chair next to them. Debbie was cooking her grandmother’s Jamaican spiced corn soup, following the recipe diligently with a view to having it as a special on the menu for the café the following week. In New York, Philippa was looking into flights back to the UK for August, to escape the insane humidity in the city. In Colchester, the floodlights came on to illuminate the castle. In the Outer Hebrides, the days were now long; the sun was only vaguely thinking about setting and in a most leisurely manner at that. In the machair – safe beneath the buttercups and corncockle, the sea spurrey and wild orchids, the milkwort, the sorrel, the campion and the centaury – the elusive corncrakes rested, some on their backs with their legs in the air to hold the sky up. Amongst the myriad flowers, petals curled inwards to hold on to their honey-sweet fragrance until the morning light. In the rocky inlets the otters were still playing, but the dolphins further out were gone until tomorrow, and on slabs of ancient rock in the shallows the harbour seals reclined on their sides like portly ancient Romans after a gargantuan feast. In their nests, the eagles were settled. And over 3,000 miles away waves were forming, ready to make their way across the Atlantic to lick clean the white shell sand of the Hebridean beaches. It was going to be mild tomorrow, it was going to be a glorious day. In Scalpay, Nurse Keaton was loving her new hip and telling her sister to bugger off back to Leeds before she killed her. In Harris, Gordon was in the garden with Ben the dog, thinking what a beautiful evening it was. Thinking maybe he’d give his boy a phone call. See if he’d been in touch with Flora Buchanan’s wee girl yet. That’s what Màiri was telling him to do.
And in Camden, Flora Buchanan’s wee girl Nell, and Gordon and Màiri Munro’s son Douglas, were kissing like teenagers at the corner of his street.
‘Will you stay? Will you stay with me, Nell?’
‘Yes, Dougie. I will stay with you.’
Epilogue
Harris, 21stSeptember 2005
The day before Nell left for two weeks in Harris, she had a visitor. It was a quiet afternoon at the Chaffinch and she and Rachel were trying to make the paper napkins resemble swans, without much success. Debbie and Sanjay were decorating cupcakes and Danny was lost in a daydream when the door opened and Marjorie walked in.
‘Cappuccino, latte, Americano, flat white,’ AJ called out to her. ‘Mocha. Black.’
‘I’d like Nell, please – my niece,’ she told him. ‘Is she here?’
AJ thought the lady looked spiky; he wasn’t sure whether he was going to like her so he hollered for Nell.
‘Aunt Em?’ Nell was flabbergasted.
‘Hello, dear,’ said Marjorie. ‘I’m popping in on Wendy in a while, so I thought I’d drop by.’ She said it as if it was a most common occurrence.
‘To see where I work?’
Marjorie thought about that. ‘Well – to seeyou.’ She held out a small cardboard box. ‘And I came to give you this.’
Nell couldn’t remember Marjorie giving her anything but that wasn’t relevant just then. The Chaffinch gang loved anyone unwrapping packages, often gathering around a table if there was a customer with birthday presents. Now, they were in a jostle to be closest to Nell.
Inside the box, under a pad of bubble wrap and behind leaves of tissue, was a set of the Clarice Cliff Coronation china. The teacup and saucer, the plate. The frilled edging, the turquoise, the gold and the Queen.
‘It’s yours,’ said Marjorie with a softness to her voice Nell wished she’d heard more often. ‘It belonged to your mother. It was Florence’s.’ But Marjorie wasn’t one for emotion and Nell’s suddenly welling eyes were disarming to her. ‘Well – I think I will have a coffee.’ She turned to AJ. ‘Young man – would you mind telling me again what’s on offer?’
Marjorie stayed for half an hour. She had black coffee and a chocolate chip cookie which she ate daintily in front of an audience. Rachel gave her a scrunched napkin and said it was a swan, which Marjorie did not contest. Danny wanted to know who was the lady on the cup and the plate. Libby told him it was the woman offCoronation Street, silly. Marjorie laughed at that, a deep, honking sound that set everyone off. It struck Nell just then that of the three sisters, one was dead, one was contorted by early-onset dementia but the eldest was living really quite a small and lonely life with rarely more than dry lecture notes for company. So Nell sat with her aunt and told her a little of her trip to Harris. Just a few details today; there would be another time to tell her more, a time to ask as well.
Back in her flat, Nell placed Flora’s Coronation trio on one of the shelves that she’d put up the other week, which Dougie had kindly straightened for her. There it sat, pride of place, flanked by a community of framed photographs, various guide books to the Western Isles and a Toby jug she’d been unable to resist from the little shop on Trinity Street.
