Page 68 of Little Wing
I don’t. I don’t know what to do. I’m going to get this all wrong.
I told her this yesterday, crying my eyes out. She tipped her head to one side and watched me as I paced about. Iwon’tknow what to do, I told her. I don’t want it to come out. I don’t know about being a mother.
I’m. Too. Young.
I’m. Too. Stupid.
I’m. Too. Scared.
Nonsense, she said and she can say ‘nonsense’ in a way that is both kind and an order. She said I may be young but I am not stupid and that I’ve nothing to be scared of. She says I’m in the safest hands and in the best place in the world. She said I WILL know what to do. She said that she’ll be here, every step of the way, when my time comes.
Nurse Keaton says I’m dead brave. She says I’m the bravest young woman she’s ever met.
Less than one month to go now.
I sleep sitting up because you’re such a bonny baby that it feels like you’re in every nook and cranny, there’s not much room for anything else and the acid has been pushed right up into my chest. Jessie’s mum says it’s a sign that you’ll have a full head of hair. Nurse Keaton laughed like a drain and said it’s only gastric reflux and that Vidal Sassoon needn’t book his ticket to Harris just yet.
There was a ceilidh in Tarbert last night after the Agricultural Fair. Oh, I loved the fair! The sheep that are usually all scraggy were puffed up and snowy white, their little black faces proud as punch. And the cows – or coos as I’m to call them these days – all the colours of caramel and toffee and liquorice, their fringes fluffy and their horns gleaming. There was a tug of war and food galore and ponies and tractors and best of all, the pipers. That sound pulses through the blood and I felt quite teary but as I looked around I saw I was not alone.
I’m dog-tired in the evenings. I didn’t want to go to the dance. I don’t like being stared at. These days, more people now smile and greet me than gawk or look sharply away, but there are still those who pass me with pursed lips or an eyebrow raised. However, Morag, from the grocer’s, will have none of it. Morag has come to my defence more than once. ‘Now that’ll be a shilling for your shopping, Mrs McKenna – and two more for all those nasty glances you’ve shot at Miss Buchanan in my shop.’ And I’ll be for ever grateful for her telling Old Woman Gillies to take her holier-than-thou-ness and stuff it in her pipe. Old Woman Gillies does smoke a pipe – and she can sour the milk and freeze the blood in your veins. But even though she growled at me and spat curses at my baby, she was no match for Morag. That’s why, when Morag told me that Iwillcome to the ceilidh, I wasn’t going to argue with her.
In mid-August it seems the sun is just too happy to set. The hall in Tarbert was packed, some of the older women were sitting in little groups sewing and telling stories; the young children were in a writhing scamper, just like the salmon that flurry and leap at this time of year. Men were deep in discussion and deals – there was a lot of smoking and nodding and backslapping and handshaking. And the music! And the dancing! And Jessie danced and danced with her Murdo and I watched their eyes lock and their fingertips linger ever so slightly when the dance was done. I hope he comes back to the island to live when he’s done with the Navy, though he claims he never will. I want Jessie to have more and more reasons to stay.
I was too slow and full of baby to dance much, let alone nimbly, but still I was dragged in to join the reels. Everyone laughed at my clumsy footwork but I was quite content to be part of the entertainment.
And You, you little rascal, you out-danced everyone.
‘Flora – here, will you?’
Iain is calling me now.
I am in the garden, pegging washing.
I go inside.
He takes me to the front door and opens it.
‘Look!’ he says.
Outside is a pram.
Outside is a small crate with some toys in it.
Outside is a bag with a bundle of baby clothes tied with a ribbon.
From the MacLeods. From the MacKinnons. From the Martins and the Frasers.
From all of them, for you and me.
Little One.
You came.
Ten days late and you took your time and had me screaming blue murder and bellowing like a cow and swearing like a navvy and crying that surely I was going to die. Poor Iain, downstairs at a godforsaken hour, heating the water while my caterwauling shifted the mortar from the stones. And all the while I squeezed the blood out of Nurse Keaton’s hands while she told me that I was doing brilliantly, that I was a natural. She reminded me all about breathing when I clean forgot how to.
But none of that matters any more.
Because you’re here now.
