Page 43 of Little Wing
‘To Scotland, I mean,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you go to Scotland? Find your facts, Nell. They’re more likely to be there than in your mother’s head or between the lines of what your aunt isn’t telling you.’
‘I can’t just go to Scotland.’
‘Why not? You do know I can heat my own food up. It’s not all about Walnut Whips. I can cook tinned spaghetti.’
My mother can barely look at me.
Sometimes, though, I catch her – and her expression is hard to fathom. I’ve heard her say, ‘She’s finished me off.’ And I want to say, ‘But Mum .?.?.’ but I don’t.
I haven’t seen Marjorie – she’s gone back to her university.
Wendy comes into my room often – and she’ll hold both my hands and scan my face and then she’ll either talk about me or about Jimmy but I never know which it’ll be. She said to me, ‘You’re too little to have a baby.’ I told her I disagree. Sometimes, though, when I wake up in the night, I lie there and I think to myself that Iamtoo little to have a baby. I’m still going to school while everything else is organized. I don’t look at all pregnant. I’m forbidden from talking about this but I do with Joan. She’s been trying to find out about Peter. It’s brick walls at every turn. She feels she is being helpful – but actually, I don’t think of him now and if I do I feel plain angry.
Joan managed to take a leaflet from the doctor’s surgery about babies and we went to the library together and hid books on pregnancy and childbirth inside the atlas. So I know how big you are now, I know about your fingernails.
And we looked at the map of Scotland and tried to work out exactly how far away the Outer Hebrides are. They are the furthest thing west on the map of the United Kingdom. It doesn’t look like there’s much else after that, just St Kilda then the tips of Greenland and North America. I’ve never been west. We go to Great Yarmouth for our holidays, Scarborough once. I have no idea when I’m going or who’s coming with me or how long it’s going to take or how long I’ll be gone for. What do I pack? What happens when I get there? When will I be coming back again? With my baby?
I don’t want to ask questions – I want to be in control of the answers. Joan and I have started to plan how we stay in touch. She says she’ll come and visit. I’ve decided when I first see her hold you, then I’ll ask her to be your godmother. When we were young we always promised we’d be each other’s bridesmaids. But marriage isn’t important to us any more. Society has moved on. But society has not moved on about being a young and unmarried mother. It seems there’s no place for me, seems I’m a disgrace, seems most people think you and I should not be together. But I am your mother and no one is taking you away from me.
George has come knocking at my door. Asks if he may come in. There’s just him and me in the house at the moment. I’m drawing – another of my psychedelic dream sequences of shapes and swirls and spaces and forms advancing and retreating. Pinks and greens and oranges and blues, with black outlines just now and then. All inspired by Jimi Hendrix of course. I think I’ll do you a huge one and stick it on the ceiling above your crib.
George says, ‘Wow.’ He says, ‘Never stop drawing and painting and writing, Florence.’ He says, ‘I used to paint and I stopped and now I can’t start again.’ He says it’s a time thing, he says it’s a confidence thing. And then he says, ‘You’re an artist, Florence – and that’s a responsibility, that’s what you must be.’
‘It’s all I’ve ever wanted to be,’ I say.
‘Your dad,’ he says, ‘my very best friend. I promised him I’d look out for you.’
We have a moment, privately and together, with my dad.
‘I wasn’t – entirely – truthful,’ George says. ‘But I had reasons enough for painting the outline of a picture and not filling in all the details.’
I don’t know what he’s on about.
‘My brother and I left Skye to follow our hearts. Mine led me to England and my first wife, God rest her. For my brother Iain, it was a lassie from Harris and it’s there that they made their life.’
This much I know.
‘But she died a while ago,’ George said.
You flutter but I slump. Now what? Now where?
‘But Iain is a good man,’ he’s telling me. ‘And he will look after you and the wee one. And in your own way, you’ll be a good thing for him. You’ll be cared for and safe, Florence – I swear to you.’
‘Is this a secret?’ I ask. ‘Between you and me? About your brother’s wife?’
George thinks about this. ‘Let’s just say it’s information which we can choose not to share.’
I think about this.
‘There may be a reluctance to send you there, otherwise.’ George rubs his eyes and I notice the bags and the wrinkles that stay for a moment where he’s dragged his skin. He looks tired. ‘And then I can’t guarantee where you might go.’ He looks very uncomfortable. ‘Your mother – I know she’s – but she’s a good woman. And I told your father – I’d look after all of you. All of you – and this is what I’m trying to do.’
I understand, I think.
But I need to know something else.
‘But George, when the baby comes – then what?’
He nods thoughtfully, but then he is forthright.
