Page 73 of Little Wing
Mrs McGregor dyeing her wool.
Eilidh Campbell weaving on her Hattersley loom.
Fish guts on a boat deck.
Old hands fixing nets.
A red deer.
A self-portrait against the folds and jags of the eroded rock at the summit of An Cliseam. Twenty years old he was then, and home for the summer.
Two men, hauling kelp.
The minister, preaching.
Lachina, one hundred and two years old, with no teeth and the widest smile.
A traditional blackhouse with its thatched roof and deep-set windows not dissimilar to the face of a highland coo.
His father, dozing.
His mother doing battle with the wind to peg her washing.
At the time, Dougie knew that technically and aesthetically these photographs were outstanding. He saw now what he’d truly achieved; every image defined and encapsulated Harris and even the seemingly inanimate personified thegenius loci, the spirit of the place. But more than all of that, these photographs were his homage and his love song to the island of his birth, the island on the edge of the long sea.
He sat quietly with Gordon as they took it in turns to lift the sheets of tissue paper off the prints.
‘And now,’ Dougie said. ‘Now I photograph agricultural gubbins and racks of polycotton clothing for a living.’
Gordon noted the hoarseness to Dougie’s voice, observed his son carefully restacking the prints. He knew, just then, that he needn’t say a thing. He put his hand on his boy’s back and left it there for the crucial fraction longer than a moment.
Back up in the bedroom, Dougie restored order to the cupboard; this time briefly unrolling the posters to gaze at his teenage crushes before he put them away for God knows how many more years. Back went the shoebox full of tickets and stubs and coasters and leaflets from his inter-railing trips. Back went his medals. The ridiculous straw hat he’d worn every day on that one long hot summer in Greece. A rugby ball. The box of random letters and birthday cards. The tin of button badges and pins of the musicians and quotations that had brought deep meaning to his teenage years. Everything stacked to the left. To the right, the four acid-free boxes. Three on his bed, one for each year of his degree course. The fourth untouched, right at the back, always at the bottom of the stack. All the other boxes and mementos he could deal with; they brought a gentle nostalgia, they were a commemoration of sorts. That other box? Lifting the lid would serve only to slice through a scar and open a wound that had taken so long to finally heal.
Your name is Nell.
Well, it’s Neilina Joan but you’re known as Nell even though I call you Little Wing mostly. Neilina means ‘cloud champion’ in Scots. I love you I love you I love you. You are perfect and noisy and gorgeous and exhausting and terrifying. I don’t think I’ve ever sung so much in all my life – I just sing to you all the time, mainly because you don’t understand many words. I sing to help you sleep. I sing because it makes you smile. All of Jimi’s hits can be adapted into soft, lilting sing-song lullabies. Even ‘Purple Haze’ and ‘All Along the Watchtower’. Of course, I sing ‘Little Wing’ to you most of all. It’s your song. You – among the butterflies and zebras and moonbeams. You of the thousand smiles. You who have made life into one strange and beautiful fairy tale. I read that Jimi was inspired by Native American legends where spirits inhabit nature and animals and birds. I like that.
I also sing to stop myself panicking when I’m not sure what I’m meant to do, the times when I haven’t a clue and feel completely out of control and utterly useless. When I’m so tired my head won’t balance on my neck. Nurse Keaton tells me, ‘You’ll muddle through – you’ll find your own way.’ She says there are no rules.
That’s not what Mrs MacSween said when she came visiting. She’s a kind soul, all bosom and smile and busy busy efficiency. But by the time she left I felt I’d been doing it all wrong, I felt I couldn’t trust my own judgement. She says I’m to feed you at 6.00, 10.00, 2.00, 6.00, 10.00, 2.00. But I don’t have a watch and I can’t be checking the only clock in the house and anyway, the one day I tried it you weren’t hungry at 2.00 but at 3.05. Then not at 6.00 but at about 7.23. Mrs MacSween also said I have to let you cry because it’s good for your lungs. She says I’m to wrap you in a tight bundle, pop your pram outside and let you holler till you’re done. If you ask me, Mrs MacSween knows everything about baking the best cake on the island but NOTHING WHEN IT COMES TO BABIES – even though she’s had five of her own. That’s when Nurse Keaton found me sobbing because you were screaming but it was only 9.35, not 10.00, and my chest was swelling and oozing and I had no voice to sing. That’s when she gave me a hug and told me I’d muddle through. So I feed you when you’re hungry and sing to you whenever you like. And when I don’t know what anything is about, or if there’s a better way of doing something, or if I’ve no idea what’s going on or what the right or wrong way is, or how I’m going to make it through to lunch or tea or bedtime, I sing a little ditty I’ve composed:
I’ll muddle through,
you’ll muddle through,
you and me Little Wing a Ding Ding,
we’ll muddle through.
I’ve even heard Iain humming it quite a few times.
I remember nothing of the early days – they just passed in a fog. The early weeks seemed to move very slowly, like we were inching our way along a tunnel. Some days I didn’t manage to get myself dressed I was so busy with you. Some days I didn’t have the energy to even be bothered. Thank goodness for Nurse Keaton. But in the last month or so, since Christmas really, our days have found their own rhythm and we’re muddling along just fine. You’re star of the show, you’re the dish of the day for miles around. Oh! the fuss that was made of you the first time I took you to Tarbert! All the little children crowding round to marvel at your tiny fingernails, to dimple your cheeks with their thumbs. People crossed the street to meet you, they rushed out of shops to admire you and even Old Woman Gillies came over and took her pipe out her mouth and peered into the pram. Leanabas! Leanabas!She cooed at you softly inGàidhligand then started laughing like a drain. She pinched my cheek and her eyes were all watery and, dare I say it, gentle. The kindness of everyone – the little parcels left at the door, the extra bun or the creamiest milk from Morag. The tiniest little shoes from Duncan MacAskill’s shop and ice cream wrapped in newspaper from Bean Angie’s.
And Nurse Keaton. And Jessie. Always there for you and me.
Jessie is often with us. She’ll take you in your pram for fresh air so that I can have a little time. Earlier on, I used that time to slump into a crazy deep sleep. Now I use it to tidy or cook or wash my hair. I sent Joan a photograph and a long, over-emotional letter. She sent me a tiny pair of mittens and the dearest teddy bear. She’s desperate to meet you, desperate. We neither of us have a clue how or when we’ll get to see each other.
I wrote to Wendy too but her letter back was odd. She must have had a million things to ask, a zillion things to tell me and out they all tumbled and she obviously forgot to read her letter through when she sent it. Not a single full stop. Iain went to the hotel when you’d been born, to telephone George. I like to think that George might have kept the news to himself for a little while, before letting my mother know. I imagine my mum told Marjorie at some point. It has probably never been spoken of since.
