Page 71 of Little Wing
Sophia gazed at Nell. ‘Her eyebrow did that – what yours just did. That little tremor and twitch when she’d fret.’ She watched Nell touch her eyebrow. ‘Let me tell you – Flora was a natural. You made the world make sense to her. The pair of you – it was really something.’
‘Where was I born?’
‘At home – at the Buchanan house.’
‘Where did she die?’
‘At the other house.’
‘The other house?’
‘She’d moved by then. She was renting a tiny cottage.’
‘She didn’t stay with Granddad George’s brother?’
‘Oh, she didn’t move far – but she was feeling so settled, if you like. Earning a little – but enough. Of course, everyone helped everyone in those days. I remember her saying it was time for her to put down roots for the both of you.’
‘So – she was happy? Coping? Excited?’
‘There wasn’t electricity in her cottage, there were parts of Harris still off-grid back then. So she just had her peat and Tilley lamps. But that little cottage breathed warmth and light. She felt blessed, Little Wing. She felt her life could not be bettered.’
‘Are they still there? The house I was born in – and the cottage where she died? Can we go?’
Sophia nodded. It would be a good thing to do. It would infuse the places with Flora’s spirit again, keep it strong by tying Nell’s to it. But she wasn’t going to tell Nell that she hadn’t been back to either place for many, many years. She hadn’t yet told Nell that it was she who’d discovered Flora. How was she going to tell her what she found that afternoon? All these years gone. Flora dead, Nell at her side, trying to revive her mamma with her toy tea set?
‘Now?’ Nell asked. ‘Can we go now?’
‘I’ve an appointment in Stornoway this afternoon.’ Sophia said. ‘I’m having a hip replacement soon. So it’ll be tomorrow – we’ll go tomorrow.’
But I’m going home tomorrow, Nell thought.
And then she thought, no, I’m not.
* * *
Dougie was aiming to run am Bealach, the Coffin Trail, fast, knowing well what his personal best was for the eight taxing miles. The fact that he’d achieved it at eighteen, over half his life ago, made the challenge all the more compelling. It was his last chance, really, for a good run. He was leaving on Wednesday and tomorrow he’d spend with his dad. They planned to take the ferry from Leverburgh over to Berneray, walk the length of West Beach and drive on to Lochmaddy for a meal. Dougie had never been over the causeway that now linked Berneray with North Uist but Gordon had spent the last six years since it was built eulogizing to his son that it was the closest he’d get to walking on water. So, today he’d run. What he was not expecting was to trip up just two miles in and see Duncan MacAskill’s face peering down at him.
He knew it couldn’t be Duncan – he’d been dead many years, but Dougie sat a while longer on the rough and stony ground, his arms loosely across his knees, gazing at the slab of rock in whose furrows and dinks and streaks old MacAskill’s face had momentarily appeared. Dougie could no longer see it. He called himself a silly twat, picked himself up off the path, brushed the dirt off his calf and inspected the graze. You’ll live, he told himself. He ran on for a few metres more and though the soreness was surface only, his pace was off. He slowed to a walk, then to a stop, put his hands on his hips and slowly turned a full circle. This God-given place. How did he feel about leaving? Was he even ready?
‘Duncan MacAskill,’ he murmured quietly. ‘Bless you.’ Dougie turned for home, his personal best irrelevant. He sauntered, keeping time with his thoughts. He passed the rock again. It looked nothing like Mr MacAskill from any angle or with any level of squinting. But still Dougie put his hand to the stone. It was cool to the touch and yet he sensed energy deep beyond the surface. His mother had always told him that some would say that rock was just stone hard cold, the deadest and greyest of things – but that the lucky ones could feel through to find a force billions of years old. Same as what’s up on the moon, she’d told him, same rock, same powers.
He thought of his mum just then, how she had stories and sayings that could narrate almost anyone’s life. He chuckled; how many had she simply made up? He thought of his father; did he not find the house intolerably silent now? Did he not find his life these days unbearably lonely? He thought of the house; it had always been a peaceful space, whether bouncing with sound or stilled by silence. And Dougie knew that Gordon was pretty much like the rocks amongst which he lived, solid enough to withstand a bit of harsh weather. Seventeen years his mother had been dead. Thank goodness she hadn’t borne witness to anything that came after. She’d been spared what Peggy had referred to as ‘that terrible business’. No, thought Dougie. But then he thought of how his father had had to shoulder it all on his own. No, he said to the memories. No.
Dougie walked on, glancing behind him. Just a slab of rock. Duncan MacAskill wasn’t there.
But I know where I can find him, Dougie said to himself. He picked up the pace and headed straight home.
‘That was fast!’ Gordon said.
‘I fell. Stupidly.’
‘You all right, son?’
‘Oh aye – just a graze.’
‘But you didn’t run on? For your personal best?’
‘No, Da – I remembered something I have to do.’
