Page 51 of Little Wing
Also in the desk is an envelope containing £20 that George gave me to give to Mr Buchanan who has refused to take it.
8: Mr Buchanan likes church – but not in the way my mother likes church. For my mum, it was the answer to her anxious everythings and something to brandish over us girls and what she saw to be our failings. For Mr Buchanan, it’s far more straightforward – it’s structure and community and a rhythm to his life.
9: Until last year there was no public transport, now there are three buses a day all the way to Stornoway and one bus connecting the east and the west. Luckily, there’s a bicycle for me to use – I think it must have belonged to Mrs Buchanan. I posted Joan’s letter and it took me over an hour and a half to cycle to the post office in Tarbert and almost two hours to cycle back because of the awful hill. But I met a very old lady on the way who was pushing a bicycle with two flat tyres. In the basket was all sorts, including two cats. Mr Buchanan says she’s known as Mrs Mole and her sheep live in her house. He says she feeds them brown bread because she says white bread is not good for them. I hope I see her again.
10: I’ve been here over two weeks and in that time I have spoken to just a handful of people as I’ve only been back to Tarbert twice. They all have soft, sing-song voices. Some have regarded me most suspiciously – but whether that’s because I’m from Colchester or because I’m pregnant I don’t know.
11: It seems that I’m to be known as Flora. That’s what Mr Buchanan calls me, that’s how he introduces me.
I like it.
It feels as if being Florence was a million miles away in a totally different time.
12: And you’re growing and I’m lookingbonny, so I’ve been told.
Glasgow
Nell hated flying and had boarded the plane to Glasgow with a stomach knotted with nerves, which tightened during the short flight. Though she knew she was heading to the same destination as Florence, so too did she know that she was hardly tracing her birth mother’s footsteps. She doubted very much that Florence had gone by plane. She imagined that the journey, all those years ago, would have been a protracted, hard slog via various trains and boats and buses. And Nell thought of Florence. How had it felt setting out on her own, banished, pregnant and so young? She must have been terrified. Florence: utterly alone and forsaken. How long had her journey taken, and were the family even aware when she arrived safely? And what of Wendy back then? With her little sister exiled – how had it been for her? Wendy, engaged to Jimmy but still living at home, emotionally all over the place, no doubt. And Nell wondered if all of this was the catalyst, whether this was what had triggered her mother’s mental health issues? Did the family see it as Florence’s fault? And just then, Nell wondered if perhaps it was. And then she considered whether Marjorie believed blame to be transferable. First Florence, now Nell, through mother to daughter, like a kind of genetic blight. She’d always felt her aunt had disliked her. Marjorie was very good at finger-pointing, Nell reasoned. She blamed me. She blames me still.
Within an hour, England melded with Scotland and the plane made its descent. Nell felt strangely emotional disembarking, knowing she was stepping onto new yet native soil. Did Florence never return to England? Was she ever spoken of again, in either country? Memories could be hidden but could they be forgotten?
And also—
—am I Scottish, then?
Nell sat in the airport waiting for Loganair to fly her onwards to Stornoway. The flight would take pretty much the same time as the one up to Glasgow had. The departure board listed destinations she’d never heard of and the names were compelling. They sounded dramatic, romantic, far-flung. Benbecula. Islay. Barra. Tiree. Stornoway. Outside, a tiny propeller plane that looked like a toy. Please not that one.
‘Where you headed?’
She didn’t really feel like talking but the whiskery man sitting three seats away had kind eyes and a slightly sad smile and there was no one the other side of her so she couldn’t pretend he was talking to someone else.
‘Stornoway,’ she said.
‘On your holidays?’
Nell wondered how to answer that one. Officially, she had taken holiday from work, something she hadn’t done for so long, something that had rendered Debbie speechless and Danny and the gang outraged. But no, not a holiday.
‘Visiting family,’ she qualified, cautiously.
He nodded and his eyebrows went this way and that, as if trying to entice a fuller conversation.
‘You?’ she asked
‘I’m home to Barra,’ he said.
Nell regarded him. She realized she had imagined that the islands’ population stayed where they were, that only visitors came and went. ‘You live in Barra?’
‘Aye. Work in Glasgow four days a week. Then home.’ He nodded at her. ‘You been to Barra? When you’ve been visiting family?’
‘This is my first trip. Harris.’
‘Won’t be your last,’ he said sagely. ‘And next time, make a holiday of it and fly in to Barra – you land on the beach.’ He nodded and smiled. ‘On the sands.’ He sighed. ‘You wouldnae believe it.’
It was obvious that he was ready to be home while Nell was pretty sure that this trip would be her last. Once she had answers, once she could finish sentences and lay mystery to rest, what point would there be of returning? No. This was not a holiday, this was duty. She had a duty to her mother and to her mum. Both lost, both deserving to be found.
‘I just need to know.’
She hadn’t meant to say that out loud, certainly not in a voice so hoarse and emotional.
