Page 76 of Little Wing
‘Started off in North Uist in 1950 when often I had to row a boat to patients. I was twenty-two years old. Came to Harris when I was twenty-seven and they gave me a cottage and a motorbike. Eventually, a car. But Nell,’ Sophia said, ‘that’s another story. Slow right down now and indicate – because that stony track coming up on the right, that’s where your story begins.’
And Nell gazed at the billowing expanse of sea meadow and dunes, the broad swathe of white sand beyond. And the sea. And Nell thought, here I am.
The car rattled along, and then around a bend the Buchanan house stood before them, achingly familiar to Sophia but new and unexpected for Nell.
‘This is where you were born, pet, in this house here. Upstairs in the little bedroom at the back that looked out and over the dunes to the sea and over to the isle of Taransay which was still inhabited back then.’
Nell couldn’t find her voice. Just then, she had no thoughts of Flora or of Wendy – only for herself. This is where she came into the world, right here on 21stSeptember 1969. She’d always assumed it was hospital and Colchester because she’d been given no reason to think otherwise.
She walked tentatively towards the house; Nurse Keaton at her side letting her set the pace. There was no car, no dog; the house seemed still and quiet. They stood by the front door and, with an encouraging nod from Nurse Keaton, Nell knocked. There was no answer. They peered through the windows and Sophia thought how different everything looked, all trendy grey walls and tasteful artwork and a sumptuous-looking L-shaped sofa.
‘Come around the back,’ Sophia said.
She hardly recognized the garden. It had been fenced all around and a bank topped with well-tended turf now rose level along one side of the short stretch of stone wall while the other side had been beautified into a rockery with alpines already spilling forth between the old stones. The clothes on the washing line were like a family portrait. Here is Daddy and Mummy and Big Sister and Baby Brother. Sophia noted that an extension had been built, modern yet unobtrusive, with a spectacular wall of glass doors. What would old Buchanan have made of this?
‘There’s no one home,’ Nell said with her face up close against the window. ‘Nice kitchen.’
Sophia took a look. So sleek! It made the room look far bigger. ‘She wasn’t a bad cook at all, your mother,’ Sophia said. ‘Taught herself from the late Mrs Buchanan’s cookery cards.’
‘There’s no one home,’ Nell said again. ‘Should we leave a note?’
‘We can do.’
‘Which was my bedroom?’
‘That one there, that one on the left. That’s where you were born. You had the tiniest cry – like a kitten – for the first two days. Then you found your lungs. Bloody hell, that was a right pair you had on you.’
Nell stood and stared at the house. The presence of the current family was so strong that it dominated and she felt her own story had receded; faint, silenced and covered up, like faded wallpaper hidden behind three decades of redecoration.
‘I don’t know why but I expected it all to be preserved – like a museum to Flora and me.’ Her voice was thin. ‘Shall I still leave a note, though?’
Sophia nodded. ‘Do that. I don’t know this family.’ She looked at the washing all ordered and clean, wafting gently in the breeze, as though the family were dancing together. ‘But I get the feeling that they’re nice.’ She watched Nell write a note, tear it carefully from her spiral-bound pad. ‘A long time has passed. The next place might have changed a lot too. Best prepare yourself, pet.’ She was aware that she was speaking to herself as much as to Nell.
* * *
‘That’ll be Roddy,’ Gordon said to Dougie on hearing the doorbell. ‘Diabhlaidh càr– bloody car.’
Dougie glanced at his watch. It was gone 10.30. If the car could be fixed quickly, they could make the next ferry from Leverburgh. However, if Roddy was still the inimitable Roddy, then the man liked a good long stroke of his chin and a lot of pensive humming before he even looked under the bonnet. His father and Roddy were old friends and Gordon wouldn’t hear of anyone else coming to see the car. Fixing it was something of an institution; it was a ritualized dance of sorts, with mugs of tea, loaded silences considering worst-case scenarios and every tool in the box, unrushed reminiscences, rags and a tub of Swarfega. Dougie accepted that he might not be walking on water between North Uist and Berneray this trip either. As his father went through to greet Roddy, Dougie put the kettle on and dropped teabags into three mugs.
Only it wasn’t Roddy.
Gordon opened his front door to two women standing on his doorstep. He was so flummoxed at not seeing all six foot two of Roddy with his oily hands and his ancient, stained boiler suit, he could only stand and stare.
‘Gordon?’ Sophia was charmed that, apart from the colour of his hair, he really hadn’t changed all that much.
‘Fire?’ Gordon rubbed at his eyebrows and blinked, as if that might produce Roddy. ‘Fire! Well now! You’re not Roddy, not Roddy at all – but what a fine surprise!’
‘Gordon – this is Nell. Nell, this is Gordon Munro.’ Sophia faltered. She didn’t quite know where to start. It would be far easier giving a potted history to the new people at Buchanan’s old house. But Gordon would remember, and memories revisit pain as much as benign nostalgia. ‘Might we come in?’
Gordon gave his head a little shake as if to still the futile attempt to change the nurse into the mechanic. ‘Aye – of course. Come in. Please – do. Dougie, another mug, please.’
And Dougie thought that if Roddy had an assistant these days, perhaps they would make the ferry.
‘Hello, Dougie.’
Dougie hadn’t seen Nurse Keaton in years. But hers was a face he’d never forget and a voice that sounded just the same. In just those two words, memories were triggered of wanting to be brave when there was an injection to be had, trusting her to pop his dislocated shoulder back into place, finding comfort in her commiseration that a broken ankle meant no running for a good six months. He’d bled on her, been sick on her, cried like a baby and, once or twice, fallen asleep on her lap.
‘Fire?’
