Page 90 of Little Wing
‘Well, in a very roundabout way, what I intended to say is that in my own space I choose simple. I choose open and bare. So I can see everything. So there is calm.’
‘But you liked the cushion in the tweed shop?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s a cushion – it’s functional?’
‘Yes,’ Nell faltered. ‘But it’s also a solid piece of Harris for me to take home.’
‘My grandparents were cottage weavers,’ said Dougie. ‘My mother too. For it to beClò Mòr, or the Big Cloth as we call Harris Tweed, it must be woven in the home of an islander. I wouldn’t be surprised if Flora’s studio had a loom in it at some point.’ He flopped down onto the sand, his arms loosely over his knees. Nell sat beside him. ‘And I have my granny’s crotal spoon.’
‘Herwhat?’
‘It’s an old spoon – with one side cut diagonally. She’d scrape the crotal off the rocks – it’s a lichen, a dye – for the wool. It turns it a deep red-brown.’ Dougie looked at Nell; he appeared confused and amazed. These memories weren’t just pleasurable, the recounting seemed to him suddenly significant. ‘They taught me. I know the ways. I’d never mistake goat’s beard for crotal. I could show you. I could show you, Nell.’
‘Show me what?’
‘I could show you the ribwort that gives a blue colour, heather tips for pastel green and hogwort for dark, willow leaves or bracken roots for soft yellow, peat soot for warm cinnamon,sealasdair– iris – for black and the sorrel used for colour-fastness.Dathan nàdarra, Nell – true earth colours. I know where these things grow and I could show you.’
‘Except you’re flying back to London today!’ Nell laughed. ‘It must’ve been amazing growing up here – but the kind of amazing you only truly understand much much later.’
‘I couldn’t wait to get away.’
‘And you so rarely come back?’
Dougie shrugged.
‘I couldn’t wait to leave home,’ said Nell. ‘I went back, for a little while, when my mum really wasn’t in a good place – but I had to go. For my own well-being.’ She looked desperately sad. ‘She can’t live alone now.’
‘Your mum,’ Dougie said cautiously. ‘Wendy.’ He paused and looked straight out over the water, his voice suddenly raised. ‘Ihatethe way when we say “mental” it immediately has derogatory implications. Like poor mental health is somehow unsavoury, inferior, even shameful compared to poor physical health. What I’m trying to ask is – your mum Wendy—’
‘—has mental illnesses,’ Nell finished for him. ‘Yes. Severe.’
Dougie nodded.
‘Yes,’ said Nell softly. ‘Bless her.’
‘When she was bringing you up?’
‘Yes. Undiagnosed for years and years. She’d just be called bonkers. Crackers. Bit of a nutter. As if it was self-indulgent. Not real. As if she should know better.’
‘And she brought you up on her own?’
‘Yes.’
‘When you left here?’
‘She was still married for a couple of years after.’
‘You see your da?’
‘No.’
Dougie thought about this.
‘My childhood wasn’t unhappy,’ Nell rushed. ‘It was just – well.’ She looked at the sand, focusing hard on a square inch, wanting to shrink down and get inside that world for a while. ‘You know, I always feel like I’m betraying my mum when I speak about any of this.’
Dougie brought his attention right to her. She could feel it. Warm. Intent.
