Page 84 of Little Wing
‘Blues and purples and silver,’ said Dougie.
‘The zebra,’ said Sophia. ‘And butterflies – and moonbeams. Fairy tales. From the lyrics to Jimi Hendrix’s “Little Wing”.’
Everyone saw the smile lift Nell’s face. ‘That was Flora’s nickname for me,’ she told Gordon and Dougie, proudly.
‘Will you have a piece?’ Gordon offered the remaining sandwiches to Nell and Dougie.
‘Thank you,’ she said to Gordon; she was famished. ‘And thank you for the key. It unlocked more than the cottage.’
‘You’re very welcome,’ he said. ‘Would you like another tea? Dougie, put the kettle on.’
Gordon and Sophia saw a smile pass between Dougie and Nell.
‘I also remembered a wee tea set,’ Dougie said. ‘In a tin case painted to look like wicker.’
Sophia nodded and fixed her mouth into a smile but her eyes belied it. And she thought, when’s the best time to tell the girl what happened? And she wondered whether now would be good, here, in this familiar kitchen with a family who knew. But then she thought about how Nell had yet to ask. And she thought what if Nell had decided she doesn’t want to know anything else? What if seeing where she’d been born, visiting where she’d lived, meeting the boy who’d been her friend, the nurse who’d brought her into the world, all the while learning about the land and the light and the water of her early years – what if all of these were enough for Nell?
‘Did I have a dress and a hat with huge red flowers?’ Nell broke into Sophia’s thoughts.
‘Yes, pet, you did. You wore them on your first birthday.’ Suddenly Sophia actively wanted to avoid the subject of Flora’s death. It was the worst thing that had ever happened to her. District nursing was hard in itself out on these islands, especially in the years she’d been active when the roads were rough and resources were unreliable and communication was patchy. But in all that time, though there had been deaths – some of them terrible, some tragic – at least she’d been there, at least she’d been able to try. With Flora, she hadn’t been there. She’d found her when it was too late.
Sophia tapped her hands lightly on the kitchen table and smiled at Gordon and Dougie and Nell. Then she took a slightly theatrical glance at her watch and smiled around at them all again.
‘Probably best we head off now,’ she said. ‘I’ve my sister arriving all the way from Leeds tomorrow – to lend a hand when I have my hip done.’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Nell, ‘look at the time!’
At the front door, she turned to Gordon and thanked him. Then she held out her hand to Dougie. He didn’t take it; instead he slipped his hand along hers and encircled her wrist again. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
He nodded. ‘And thank you. If I have any more memories of buckets and zebras and tea sets – I’ll be sure to let you know.’
In a gaze that lasted seconds but stretched back years, Nell and Dougie said goodbye.
Pulling up to Sophia’s house, Nell stilled the engine.
‘Big day,’ she said. ‘My brain is aching.’
Sophia nodded. ‘It’ll take a while to sink in.’
‘Dougie’s lovely and I love the thought of the mural.’ Really it was two sentences.
‘He’s dead nice, our Dougie – always has been. And the mural – yes. Flora was talented but what we all loved about her was that she was so idealistic. Not so much a daydreamer as someone who was dreaming big. She didn’twantto be an artist – she was going tobean artist.’
Sophia watched Nell’s gaze cast downwards to her hands in her lap. And she knew, then, that it was coming.
‘How did she die?’
The question was finally here and yet Sophia didn’t shirk from it. It wouldn’t have been right in the Munro house. It would have been too painful at the White Cottage and just not fitting at the Buchanan house. Nor had the time been right yesterday, when she first met Nell. Was that only yesterday? But here, in the neutral bubble of a hire car outside her home, it felt OK. Where to begin?
‘Was it suicide, Nurse Keaton?’ Nell whispered, unnerved by her silence.
Sophia turned to her sharply. ‘Heavens, no! No, Nell – nothing like that.’
Nell’s voice creaked. ‘It’s just all my points of reference have become skewed,’ she said. ‘I ask because I’ve grown up secretly fearing that my mum’s mental health issues are hereditary. Now I’ve been wondering whether both sisters suffered – whether it’s genetic – whether I’m susceptible.’
‘Nell, love, Flora was perhaps the strongest and most emotionally stable person I have ever met. She had a quick, bright mind, that one.’
Nell slumped and exhaled deeply. The relief, though, was swiftly tinged with a biting sense of betrayal. How could she be relieved that Wendy was not her mother? The woman who’d always done her eccentric best by her, the woman who’d always made her feel loved, the woman currently sitting in gaga land confused as to who was Florence and who was Nell and who she was herself at any given moment.
