Page 82 of Little Wing
It seemed pretty fucked up to Dougie.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. It sounded lame. ‘And I apologize for being nosy. Anyway, I think it’s amazing and brave that you’re up here. Looking. Finding.’
Nell focused on her hands around the mug. Brave was the last thing that she felt. She sipped thoughtfully. ‘As yet I don’t know if any of this has been a good or bad idea.’ Dougie watched her about to elaborate but then check herself and stop. ‘Anyway, I guess we should mooch back,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to keep Nurse Keaton too long.’
‘It’s funny you call her Nurse Keaton,’ Dougie said.
‘But apparently that’s what Flora – my mother – always called her.’ Nell finished the tea. ‘Shall we just have a quick look in there?’ She motioned to the shed.
‘Sure,’ said Dougie. ‘You go on ahead. I’ll just take this stuff back in.’
He watched her from the kitchen window. He thought she was lovely.
The small building was more substantial than a hut and felt more refined than a shed or stable. It was stone on three sides and the fourth, facing the sea, had a pair of glass doors flanked by two glazed panels. The glass itself was very dusty and the frames were peeling, the paint lifting from the wood like old lichen from stone. It wasn’t locked. And there wasn’t much in there – just some old garden loungers, a hose reel and various gardening tools, some cardboard boxes that had buckled and bowed from the damp. Nell swept her foot in an arc over the floor – stone slabs that were well worn, somehow warm and not cold. The light coming off the sea fed the interior completely. The view over the machair, to the sands, to the sea, was almost paralysingly beautiful.
Dougie had joined her.
‘So much more than a shed,’ she said. ‘It’s pretty cool in here.’
But Dougie didn’t reply. Nell turned towards him and found him standing quite still, his lips parted, his eyes widened, gazing way beyond what was around him.
‘I remember,’ he whispered. He reached for her wrist. ‘I rememberhere.’
It is warmer now.
The days are finally longer and you are seven months old and robust – a chunky bundle of squidgeable gorgeousness – so it feels the right time to bring the studio to life.
Those winter months have been both the happiest and the hardest I have known. It was so cold, unbelievably windy, and almost constantly wet. No one in their right mind ventures out in it – and there were days on end when we didn’t see a soul. Day after day when we had to make do with standing outside and taking some kind of company from seeing the distant lights on in Iain’s house and those of our nearest neighbours. Or, if we’re lucky, the Northern Lights. The garden was one unholy squelch. There were three whole weeks when it was just impossible, dangerous even, for Jessie and I to meet up. Nurse Keaton, however, came once a fortnight and never let us down. She’d bring groceries with her, tinned goods too, even hand-me-down clothes for Nell from other families.
But sometimes I wasn’t able to get a singlefàdof peat to light, not even the smallestcaoran. It just smoked without smoulder, without warmth. Twice I ran out of gas for the lamps and matches for candles. You didn’t seem to mind. You had me. But I cried into the dark, cold house. Filling a bath is a chore, which is why you and I splash around together only once or twice a week. And the toilet is a hateful place last thing at night and first thing in the morning with its corners creeping dark with damp. But this is our home. This is home.
There have been days that ran into nights when I didn’t sleep at all because you wouldn’t settle. ‘Caidil m’ulaidh’,I’d sing to you – sleep, my treasure. Teething is torture for babies – I think it’s a very bad design fault. Sometimes, we’ve gone to bed at four in the afternoon, wearing layers of clothes over our pyjamas. You have a cot now – and your tiny room is pretty – but at night you’re still in with me because that suits us both. Often when you’re awake I’m tired. Sometimes, though, when you’ve been asleep I’ve been hair-tearingly bored. And, occasionally, howlingly lonely. Probably just the winter blues. They say:tha an duldachd seo trom air duine –that such dullness is heavy on a person.
Winter out here is all about waiting and you and I have done plenty of that. We’ve waited for the softer weather, we’ve waited for your teeth to break through, we’ve waited for visitors, we’ve waited for the peat to take and our clothes to dry and the kettle to boil and the potatoes to cook. We’ve waited for light to lift the long hours of dark. We’ve waited for the right time to work on the studio. Now’s the time. This is our reward.
My neighbours are the Munros – but they’re still a good walk away. There’s Gordon, the man. Màiri, the woman. And Wee Douglas, the boy. He’s three years old. I’ve only spoken to Gordon a few times – but I often see him striding by on some epic walk or other and he always waves. I am terrifically fond of Màiri. She is twenty-five and Jessie and I could listen to her for hours. She’s not like a big sister – she’s more like the cool girl in the upper sixth. She says such outrageous things about Gordon in the bedroom department, she has Jessie and me in fits. All that laughter is so good for the children – I love that the soundtrack to Nell’s early months has been mostly laughter and song. Màiri knows everything about being a mother and between her and Nurse Keaton, I’ve been kept sane and Nell has been kept healthy. Wee Douglas loves Nell; he sits very still and pleads to have her on his lap. He inspects her fingers and asks for a tissue to clean her nose. He likes to feed her, spooning in the porridge while singing crazy made-up songs that make Nell chortle and coo so much that she and Wee Douglas end up wearing most of the food. You can tell that he is a very kind little boy.
It was Màiri and Jessie who helped make the studio shipshape. Iain, Gordon and Mr MacDonald fixed the open wall before the weather set in and, for a building that is so old and hasn’t been used for years, it’s dry and stable. I swept and swept and swept the floor. Jessie, Màiri and I then saw to it the old-fashioned way, like their grannies used to do apparently. It was such a slog, but seemed fitting, somehow. We gatheredmealtrach– the very fine roots of the marram grass – and buckets of shell sand. We scrubbed the floor with carbolic soap then used the grass as a scourer before covering it with the sand. Two days later, when it was dry, we brushed the sand away and the floor was clean enough to eat off. We sat on upturned buckets, drank tea and ate scones. That afternoon, while Màiri jiggled Nell, and Wee Douglas had a nap on the sheepskin, I did a drawing and Jessie wrote a poem. It became our studio that day.
Jessie is torn between staying here, sharing the studio and being a poet – and applying to university on the mainland. These days she likes the sound of Edinburgh. She tells me that wherever she goes, she’ll still write her poetry and that every holiday she’ll be back. She really believes that. She says that we can start a business – selling art and poetry. We talk about it for hours. But there’s a little voice in me that says once she leaves she may not return. I bet she will be swept up by all that the city has to offer. I bet she’ll see things, feel things and experience things that life on a far-flung island can never, ever provide. I bet she’ll meet new people and they will band together like a tribe and be carried on the tides of opportunity and excitement that come their way.
I don’t want her to go. I’m closer to her than to anyone I’ve ever known, even Joan. Jessie is my sister-friend. When she dithers about what to do I want to cry please stay, Jessie, please don’t leave. I hate myself for not encouraging her, for hoping that she’ll make the wrong decision – which would be to stay. Murdo is back with the Merchant Navy heading for Canada for goodness knows how long. But these days Jessie has decided that she doesn’t want to be tied down by love, she says she wants to stretch her wings and fly free. Màiri said that one day, she hopes for us both to find men as good as Gordon.
Jessie rolled her eyes. ‘This is the 1970s now!’ she exclaimed.
‘And you, Flora,’ Màiri said. ‘Aye – may someone make it their life to cherish and look after you and Nell.’
Jessie started laughing her head off. ‘Flora doesn’t need a man – look at the fine job she is doing! Our Flora is the epitome of feminism. Aren’t you, Flora – aren’t you!’ Màiri had to shrug and nod and agree. ‘This is the 1970s!’ Jessie sang out again.
And I thought yes, it is. I thought this is the 1970s now. And I wondered just then, where the decade would take my daughter and me? And then I thought, who on earth would be able to find us all the way out here anyway? And then I realized that we are not lost. And that we are looked after and cherished by the island itself.
The Studio
Still holding Nell’s wrist, Dougie led her over to the back wall. With boxes and junk to clamber over, it was as if they were mountaineering. He brushed away the veils of dusty cobwebs that hung like shredded curtains until the whitewashed stone was revealed. Without letting go of her, he peered silently at the wall.
‘But it used to be here,’ he said at length. ‘It’s been painted over.’ He dug his nail into a chip in the surface to see if the layer of paint might lift. ‘It washere.’
‘What was?’ said Nell.
