Page 67 of Little Wing
‘Aw, m’darling,’ said Al, who’d been sitting there all the while, agog.
‘Tomorrow,’ said Reverend Sinclair. ‘You’re to meet each other tomorrow.’
‘Where?’ Nell asked.
‘She lives on Scalpay,’ Al told her. ‘It’s another island.’
‘Another island? But I have to leave the day after tomorrow.’
‘Well,’ said Al, ‘it’s a good job we built a bridge linking Harris and Scalpay eight years ago, then. We must’ve known you’d come one day.’
Will you keep me waiting?
Six weeks until we say hello, a month and a half until I see your real face. Mid-September when everything – everything – will change. Terror and excitement are my bedfellows at night while panic and calm take my hand by day. It’s exhausting, all these feelings. It’s exhausting carrying you – Nurse Keaton says you’re bonny. I think that’s a tactful way of saying big.
If I think of England Essex Colchester, I don’t think of it as ‘back home’ any longer. I’ve written to Wendy and Joan and told them that they must come to visit – and I realize that it’s not because I miss them so actively any more, but that I’d like to show them around, to show them where I live, to see the wonder on their faces, to introduce them to the people here who are my friends. Jessie and Nurse Keaton. And Morag from the shop. And of course Iain. I dream of George coming to stay – how I’d love to sit quietly while he and Iain are in the same room. But George won’t come; my mother will make it impossible. I doubt, really, that Wendy will, either. She’ll be all married now and skipping around a new home with Jimmy. I can imagine her so clearly in all her bonkers glory and Jimmy coming home to chaos and cocktails and his wife, my sister, wafting about throwing kisses like confetti and serving banquets for two of goodness only knows what.
Joan won’t come for a while yet. Her mother wouldn’t have it and she has no money anyway. She replies to my letters with whole novels. They must take so long to write which is why I hardly ever receive them.
Joan and Jessie. They’d like each other. They’d like each other on account of me being the common denominator because actually they aren’t alike at all.
I love Jessie.
All through July we’ve spent so much time together, whole days on picnic blankets in the machair, while the meadow pipits, stonechats and skylarks sing. We try to count how many types of flower, making up names for those we don’t know.
Wee pinkypoo.
Shyface.
Blue blink.
White ghosty girl.
Peaches and cream.
We mimic the birdsong , very badly. We paddle in the water and nod at the seals and wave at the dolphins. We go through list after list of names for You.
Anna. Rebecca. Lucy. Emma. Marion. Jeannette. Rennie.
David. Daniel. Alfred. Harold. Nathan. Jack. Michael. Antony.
JohnPaulGeorgeRingo.
Jimi.
Mainly, though, we loll, Jessie and I. We just take to our blankets and loll all day. There’s eighteen hours of daylight at the moment. Jessie’s mother says God doesn’t give us days like these to ignore. Jessie’s arms are so freckled, her face so rosy and her nails and her neat little teeth gleam. My skin has turned nut brown and we both have gold in our hair. We’ve pulled out strands to compare. Identical. We share secrets and dreams, Jessie and I. She’s not in love with Lachlan now; her affections have returned to Murdo whom she’s known since she was a girl, who’s back from the Merchant Navy for a little while. He’s been to Australia and Canada and New Zealand. He told Jessie she wouldn’t believe what’s out there. I’ve tried to tell her it’s not that big a deal – that back in Essex I had no idea what was outhere.
We talk about the news. Apollo 11 landed and Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. Brian Jones from the Rolling Stones died. John Lennon and Yoko Ono were holidaying in Scotland but had to go to hospital after they crashed their car. There’s terrible rioting going on in Northern Ireland. Jessie likes to hear, over and again, how I marched for peace and freedom for all. What is London like? she wonders. And all those people on a protest, she marvels, how many people does 200 feel like? And when I tell her make that 20,000 her jaw drops in awe and disbelief. But I know that London would swallow her up. She’d hate it.
Jessie and I practise what we’d say if we met the You Know Whos. I asked her to choose between Murdo and George Harrison and she said, Flora Buchanan, what are you like! I have come to realize that, actually, I’m far more at ease being Flora Buchanan then ever I was being Florence Lawson.
And You. We talk mostly about You. We watch my belly undulate, pucker and poke when you let it be known that you’re awake and playful. We talk to you and we sing to you and we tell you how we just cannot wait until we meet you.
Iain has been spending quite a lot of time on the mainland at the moment. I’m still not sure how the stinky slither that is seaweed can be so desirable or profitable but our alginate industry is the second largest in the world.
See – I said ‘our’.
Thank goodness for Nurse Keaton. From a glance she can tell how I’m feeling and knows what to say. She’s very impressed with You. She says I’ll know what to do.
