Page 50 of Little Wing
My people, my tribe – I would have found them in London. They’re hardly likely to be waiting for me on a piece of forgotten land hurled into the sea.
My mother couldn’t look at me before I went, but I saw how white and tight I’ve made her. She saidMay God go with you, which is an improvement onMay God forgive youwhich I’ve had hissed at me for weeks. She wasn’t there when I left yesterday. I know it was the worst day of her life. For her, it was even worse than the day that Joan told her about me and about You. She’ll never forgive me so I doubt very much whether her God will either. I wonder if I’ll ever see her again – will she forget all about me? Will she even want to know?
I’ve lost count of what day was when because it feels like I’ve been travelling for ever. There aren’t just miles between me and home but mountain ranges and so much water. Wendy slept in my room on my last night at home. She came in, crying and cuddling me and calling me Oh Little One, then spent hours and hours talking about her wedding though she never actually mentioned Jimmy and never finished a single sentence. I envy my sister – she can change the subjects in her mind at breakneck speed, she can zoom her focus on one thing and forget everything else that might be connected. I wish I could do that, it would be so useful. Marjorie I haven’t seen or heard from, not since that day in the sitting room when the wall of George protected me and my fate was fixed.
Joan and I never had an official goodbye because I didn’t know I was leaving until the night before, nobody told me. So I wrote her a letter on the long train journey, at about two in the morning. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t get comfortable. My heart was thundering for hours on end as the train rumbled through the night, through England and into Scotland. I haven’t an envelope but I want to post Joan’s letter as soon as possible. I mean – they do have post offices over there, don’t they? On those chunks of land in the distance that are looming from the ocean like a sea monster?
It was George who took me to London and saw me onto the train. He gave me a hug, a kiss on the top of my head.Soraidh slàn mo ghràidhhe said in Gaelic. I think it means farewell. He told me everything will be OK, he said just you wait and see. He knew I was shaking uncontrollably but he didn’t even mention it – we both knew that there was nothing more he could do.
Oh, I am going to be sick again.
This horrible wretched bloody bloody boat – when will it get there?
I am headed for Tarbert on the Isle of Harris. George’s brother is to meet me. His name is Iain Buchanan. More than that I do not know.
And You.
Can you feel my stomach curdling? Does it affect you? Can you feel seasick too? Am I hurting you? If I’m being hurled around the boat, throwing up over the side, are you still safe inside me?
This will be where you are born.
This is where we will live together.
If we ever get there.
The further away we are from where we’re from, the closer and closer we get.
Mr Buchanan found me.
Not that I’d have been easy to mistake. I was the only teenage girl on the boat. I actually wanted to kick the boat when I got off. I sensed a few people nearby on the harbour cast a glance but Mr Buchanan just nodded at them, took my suitcase and put his hand on my shoulder to guide me up the steep streets and along. He looks so much like George I wanted to hug him but, like George, he isn’t the type. However, like George, in not many words and quiet gestures, you can sense kindness. He just appears to be more traditional, more formal.
I forgot to see if there was a post office. Tarbert thinks it’s a town – but it is tiny.
I know why I’m here – but I haven’t a clue where I am.
This much I know.
1: The Isle of Harris actually occupies the same land mass as the Isle of Lewis but they are completely different and there are mountains that keep them separate. Harris is Norse for ‘High Land’ and this makes sense. It’s rugged and majestic and, in glowering weather, quite terrifying. Mr Buchanan says the island is formed from some of the oldest rocks on the planet. Lewisian gneiss. It’s grey, with bands of white and black contorted by pressure and shaped by the Ice Age.
2: There is a North Harris and a South Harris and they are connected by just a skinny pinch of land at Tarbert. I am living ten miles away from the town. I’m living in the middle of nowhere on the edge of what appears to be nothing. There is water everywhere, water and a vast sky and so much quiet and so few houses and so few people and somewhere in all of this is tiny little me. I don’t really know where I am – and in a strange way this often makes me feel freer than it makes me feel lonely.
3: There are hardly any trees.
4: My address is: Buchanan, Seilebost, Harris. That’s it. Seilebost has a bank of sand dunes at right angles to a massive beach – so it’s like a beach within a beach. A vast horseshoe bay filled with white sand. I see a few houses all the way over on the other side. I see the island of Taransay. But mainly, I see the sea.
5: The Buchanan house is a plain building. It is situated on the west coast of South Harris and Mr Buchanan’s late wife’s father built it on land that the family had previously occupied before the Highland Clearances shoved them off. It’s painted white and positioned away from the prevailing wind. Otherwise, Mr Buchanan said, there’d be days when we wouldn’t be able to open the door. The window glass looks black from the outside but inside the view from each is like a framed painting. Soft land or the sugar-white sand or the ever-stretching sea, skies brilliant blue or choked with swirling clouds, rain coming across the sea in solid pillars or sunshine so brilliant everything looks tropical.
Outside, there is a short run of ancient tumbledown low stone wall which Mr Buchanan has kept as a memorial, though his land stretches to either side. Nowadays it divides nothing from nothing, and from my bedroom the wall looks like a short and lumpy scar. The sheep like it though – they lie in a line right next to it. They’re not even his sheep. After a day of sunshine, the stones feel warm but I’ll bet my hand would freeze against it in midwinter. And oh! the wild weather here, the slating rain, the whipping wind and those waves that have been running for 3,000 miles across the Atlantic. Mr Buchanan told me that they have around 375 hours of gale force winds a year. There probably isn’t much else to do here than count them.
6: It is a very quiet household. I think Mr Buchanan has forgotten about talking or humming or whistling as he’s been here all on his own since his wife died, also they had no children. The floors have threadbare rugs on top of stone slabs and you can sense the earth underneath it all. The kitchen is neat and small and runs into the sitting room which has a worn leather sofa and two wooden armchairs gathered around the fireplace where peat provides the warmth. There’s a stack of books on the shelf and a stack of peat outside, piled up like a huge brown honeypot. Cut peat looks like a slab of the richest chocolate. Mr Buchanan has only had electricity for four years and he doesn’t seem to like using it. He hasn’t heard of Jimi Hendrix and almost didn’t believe me when I quoted some lyrics and tried to describe what his music sounds like. I showed him my swirly pictures inspired by this amazing musician and he seemed to like them. He has a wireless that takes a long while to wheeze into life.
There are a few photos of the late Mrs Buchanan – and she looked so warm and smiley. And that’s when I catch myself about to cry because every so often I would like very much to cuddle up to someone like her, for them to shush me gently and tell me I’m all right, that everything will be OK.
7: The view from my room is nothing much to see – just endless stretches of waving marram grass that grows in sand, that looks so soft but is sharp like a whip. Just that and the dunes and the sea.
My room has curtains that let in the light and for the first few days I hardly slept because it’s so quiet and empty and yet my heart raced through the night whilst my thoughts collided head on. My room has faded wallpaper decorated with flower sprigs, a bed and a cupboard and an old school lift-up desk. There are no marks on it, no one has carved their name or scratched a doodle and there are no inkblots. I’m glad I left my marks everywhere in my old school. I’ll bet the kids see them and say ‘Remember her?’ but in just a few years I suppose I’ll be forgotten.
Inside the desk I have put the few belongings I managed to squeeze into my suitcase. I brought with me notebooks, pens and pencils so I can write and draw. I brought Woofy, the toy dog I loved so much when I was little – I should like to give him to Baby. The framed photograph of my dad and me on my third birthday. Also, my school photo, rolled up in a tube – just so I can remember who I liked and what I hated. Joan and I are side by side, looking goofy. I brought my tablecloth dress. Also the mascara and the very pale lipstick Joan and I bought to share. And my favourite LPs. There’s no record player here but I sit on my bed with them in a fan around me. If I take out the vinyl and tip it against the light so that my eyes can run along the tiny grooves, I can hear the music. I gaze at the album covers and sing along quietly.
