‘Was there ever a finer wee boy in all the world?’ Mrs Fergusson was saying, and Beatrice heard her thoughts churning in reply.
There was. There was…
She wasn’t sure which had started first, Kitty’s soft singing or her own instinctive, slow rocking of the slumbering child, but after a few moments she became highly aware of both.
Kitty’s sweet voice lifted and she smiled as she sang the beautiful melody.
Had we never lov’d sae kindly,
Had we never lov’d sae blindly,
Never met – or never parted,
We had ne’er been broken-hearted.
Fare-thee-weel, thou first and fairest!
Fare-thee-weel, thou best and dearest!
Thine be ilka joy and treasure,
Peace, Enjoyment, Love and Pleasure.
Ae fond kiss, and then we sever!
Ae fareweel alas, for ever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I’ll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I’ll wage thee.
The sound was drowned out by another, louder commotion in Beatrice’s ears. It took her a moment to realise it was her own heartbeat resounding and her escalating breathing rushing in and out. Her hands shook beneath the bundle in her arms and the edges of her vison seemed to dim away into blurry darkness shot through with sudden starbursts of light which she tried to blink away but only grew more vivid.
Somehow, Beatrice wasn’t sure how, Sheila had baby Archibald in her arms again and the first whines of his crying were ringing out between the valleys. Beatrice knew she was apologising repeatedly to anyone who would listen as the hills distorted into swirls of green and purple. She couldn’t think and she could hardly breathe but she was aware of her feet pounding on the ground as she ran and the awful, exaggerated echoing sound of their impact hurting her deep inside her brain.
She knew what was happening even though she couldn’t articulate it at that moment. It had happened before, after the first time she’d seen her mum hooked up to the dripping red chemo bag with the cannula in her arm. It hadn’t happened right there in the ward but days later beneath the harsh strip lights of the supermarket aisle, and then again many times after that in quiet queues at the bank and the library and again waiting for Rich to get home one night when all the trains were cancelled because of summer flooding on the line, and each time the panic attack had taken her by surprise, stolen her breath, and always managed to convince her she wasn’t going to survive it this time.
And yet she was still running, her hand clasped to her stomach, hardly seeing where she was going, all the way back up the brae towards the river, hoping she was heading in the right direction to meet Atholl’s makeshift bridge over the water, barely able to ask herself what she was meant to do when she reached the road.
The fall, when it happened, sent her tumbling headlong into the heathers and damp earth, her fingertips sinking into mud up to her knuckles as her ankle stung and smarted. The jolt helped her focus and she gasped some deep breaths. Running away, again, was the only thing she could think of doing.
‘I have to get away from this place,’ she told herself in a panting, wild-eyed whisper. ‘Go where people won’t know I’m broken, and I won’t be tested and questioned…’
She glanced back angrily at the offending rock that had tripped her only to see Atholl tearing up the brae towards her.
When he reached her, he instantly threw his jacket over her shoulders and spread his hands out across her back, drawing her close to him.
‘Beatrice, what on earth’s the matter? Can you no’ tell me? Please, say the words and let go o’ the burden that’s hurtin’ ye.’
The long breath caught as she filled her lungs with air, thinking it would act as a stopper. Instead it burst from her chest again and with it came all the trapped words spilling out along with violent, unrelenting tears coming in contracting waves that cramped her stomach.
‘I’ve made a mistake. I can’t do this… any of it.’ She shook her head frantically.
Atholl didn’t let her go, but loosened his grip so she had room to breathe in great gulping gasps between words.
‘It doesn’t matter how remote I am, how far from my own life, I can’t seem to recover. I’m lost, Atholl. I don’t know who I am or what I’m doing. I’ve no job, and no home, and I don’t even have my mum to tell all this to anymore, and… and I keep looking everywhere for something I just can’t get back… and I…’ These last words were forced from her with a pained cry that ended in deep convulsing sobs.
Atholl’s eyes flooded but he didn’t speak.
