by Leah Fleming
‘Farming’s not for me, you know the sorts of stuff I make, but what I do mind is you not knowing who I really am. I didna want some laddie blurting it out to you in the playground. They might say that you were not Father’s son but mine and you wouldn’t understand and get teased. I got used to being called Auntie Netta years ago. You’re a special wee boy to have two mammies who care for you.’
Gus looked puzzled. ‘Now I’ve got two mammies, do I get two paws as well?’
They were all looking at each other, spluttering crumbs, and Father added his sixpence.
‘Your brave daddy, Rae Hunter, died in the war. He’s not here to look after you so I’m doing it for him.’ Auntie Netta was smiling with damp eyes and a soppy look on her face. It was time to ask a better question. ‘Did you buy me at the hospital then? Jamie Paterson said they bought his wee sister at the Cresswell or was the shop closed?’ There was silence again. That had shut them up. Auntie Netta was blushing and Father was scratching his head, flummoxed.
‘You don’t buy bairns in hospitals, son. You helped me pull out Maisie when she was born…’
‘But she’s a cow, just an animal,’ he argued.
‘And we’re just animals when it comes to birthing. Babies grow big in their mother’s tummies in a safe watery nest, just like Maisie!’
‘Yuk!’ Gus looked around again. They were all looking queasy and red in the face. Grown-ups could tell such silly stories. ‘Shall I show you my picture? See… that’s you and you… and I’ve put a rainbow bridge in the sky like my banner but there isn’t one here at the moment. I shall paint it when I get home to remember. Is there any more cake? I’m starving. Do I have to go back to hospital?’
His parents were ferreting in the bottom of the basket for a box that was hidden under Father’s serviette. He coughed like the Minister before the Sermon. ‘It’s handy us all being together on the occasion of wee Gus’s coming home. We wanted to thank you, Netta, for all you’ve done these past weeks. I hope we can all find a way to make things work for the young chap but we wanted you to have something, just a wee tochar to help you along.’ He was handing her an old blue box and she opened it and started snivelling. Inside was a necklace, the one in the story with stones on a gold chain.
‘That’s the rainbow necklace,’ Gus said promptly. ‘You like rainbows.’
‘Aye, it belonged to Granny Jean and Peg but I… we want you to have it now.’ Pa looked awful embarrassed as if he was afraid she’d hug him. Auntie Netta looked pleased and dangled it in the sunlight.
‘Thank you, you know how much this means to me.’
What was the matter with grown-ups? Why did they bite their lips and sniff when they really wanted to blubber and greet? What a strange picnic this was turning out to be and no one was answering his question, thought Gus, as he turned to finish off his drawing. He was tired and not sure if he wanted two mammies to fuss over him. But he didn’t want the nurse hurting him in hospital again.
*
The sun blazed down on the party, the flies buzzed over the crumbs. They retreated into a companionable silence. Father was lazing on the rocks with a pair of binoculars, pointing out the sea birds to Gus. Peg snoozed over her knitting and Netta just stared out to Ardwall in a daydream. Something momentous had shifted that afternoon. Their honest exchanges, however hesitant, had been made. Gus knew the score now. It wouldn’t change anything much. She would always be just his Auntie Netta.
There would be tensions galore and the rivers of frustration, jealousy and rivalry to ford if she came back north. So much uncertainty. Best to ford rivers at the burn or the source, deal with what came along sooner rather than later. That was surely something all of them knew now. Netta would always be rooted to this spot because of Gus but Griseley had its charms too. Where would her heart settle? Could she keep on shifting it from one place to the other? And there was Drew.
With Peg and Father no longer against her, surely there was nothing they couldn’t work out, given time and space, to make Gus’s future a happy and secure one? He would take many more months to recover his mobility. Her instincts told her that Gus needed to be in familiar surroundings with friends and pets, not flung into a strange town or school. He was going to be a difficult patient. She had to do what was best for her child. There would be Drew’s visits and outings together and who knew where those might lead?
Netta thought about the vow she had made on that dark, dark night when Gus’s future looked so bleak. She had let go her claim to him then and he had lived. Now even Peg and Angus were learning to loosen the tight cords of control. Here on Carrick shore they were all beginning a journey of hope and trust. It must succeed for it had cost them dear.
Netta fingered the necklace of coloured stones sparkling in the sunshine; garnet, amber, citrine, jade, turquoise, lapis lazuli and amethyst, shielding her tears from view. There was no rainbow in the sky to seal their promises today but who needed rainbows when such a crock of gold was sitting beside her on this pebbly beach?
In the beginning there was colour everywhere from orange-red to purple: birth to death. But now there was a rainbow of colour in her heart, no longer dulled with the jet of despair but tinged with a hint of gold, the colour of love. That was enough for now.
Acknowledgements
Firstly I would like to thank all the team at Heads of Zeus for giving this book a new lease of life. Many thanks to Cosgrove’s House of Colour, Rimington, Lancashire for their advice about the clothing trade and Lisa Kennedy of ‘Sugar Almonds’ who explained bridal design and its history.
I am also indebted to the Crichton Royal Hospital Museum, Dumfries, the inspiration for Park Royal Asylum. Thank you to the people of Kirkcudbright who shared wartime memories, the Stewartry Museum, Galloway News and Tourist Information. I acknowledge Adam Gray’s wartime anecdotes in his book Borgue Academy.
Last but not least, without experiences endured within my own family in an era when mental health was not so easily supported and often misunderstood, I could not have written this story.
Leah Fleming
Author the Author
leah fleming worked in teaching, catering, running a market stall, stress management – as well as being a mother of four – before finding her true calling as a storyteller. She lives in the beautiful Yorkshire Dales but spends part of the year marinating her next tale from an olive grove on her favourite island of Crete.
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