Page 64 of Little Wing
‘I don’t have the baby yet,’ I apologized. ‘I’m not due for another three months, I think.’
And she smiled. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I can get to know Baby very well before then – and when it’s your time we’ll be quite the little team, us three.’
I was still standing in the doorway.
‘May I come in?’
And just for a moment I thought if I let her in, this becomes very, very real. If I let her in then the baby will most certainly come out.
I think she’s a mind reader.
‘You’ll be a little scared, Flora – I understand. But I have all the answers to all those questions that you’ll not have asked a soul. I am your nurse. I am all yours. May I come in?’
So, took her into the kitchen and made tea.
‘Did you deliver Jessie’s brother wee Glen?’
‘No, pet, that was Catherine – Nurse Morrison.’
‘Am I to have the baby here?’
‘What – here in the kitchen? And where will poor Buchanan take his evening meal!’
‘I meant – or in hospital?’ I was so nervous her humour had quite slipped off me.
‘I know, Flora, I know – but no, you’ll have your baby here at home. Just not right here in the kitchen, Iain’ll never get over that.’
I took to her so quickly. She’s another incomer – as we are known here. She’s from Yorkshire and brimming with kindness and so upbeat. She saw my drawing on the table and she was wowed by it. I said that Jimi Hendrix’s music inspires me. She loves Jimi too. She asked me what film stars I love and what I’m reading.
And would you like to see the dress I made from my friend’s mum’s tablecloth?
Oh yes, she said, I’d love to.
It doesn’t fit me at the moment, I told her.
And she said – well perhaps it will fit me!
She did some gentle feeling, some measuring, asked me to pee, took my pulse, listened to my heart, read my blood pressure. Best of all, though, was her look of joy and excitement when she listened to you.
She says you are one bonny baby without a doubt.
She’s to come every fortnight for a while, and then once a week.
I am very happy about all of it. I believe she’ll know what to do because it’s struck me I haven’t a clue.
Jessie.
And her mother.
And Nurse Sophia Keaton.
We’re being looked after, baby – you and I. We are cared for.
Every now and then little surges of excitement trample over the thudding worry.
Sunday
‘Will you come to church, son?’
