would tell me once in a while about her failed IVF and her deep sadness but not the full extent of it. My heart went out to her.
But I had never seen her like this. She’s still very pretty, with that lovely, silky chestnut hair and clear blue eyes, but so worn and with that lost look in her eyes, as if she were a ghost, like me. The miscarriage was the last straw for her.
I know it sounds naïve, but I think that for a start, more than anything, Eilidh needs good meals and lots of sleep. After a few weeks of Peggy’s cooking and peaceful, silent nights with no traffic or lights from the city through the window, she’ll get stronger. She’ll put a bit of weight back on and start to smile again, that smile that used to light up a room. I know she will recover. I have faith in her.
Time for Eilidh and Jamie to meet again.
7
A MEMORY OF ME
Eilidh
I’d been in Glen Avich for just over a month. October was nearly gone. I would have been about five months pregnant. But I tried not to think of that.
At the beginning, everything was like an echo of things from the past. Everywhere I went I was met by the ghost of the wee girl I used to be. I could see myself, my hair in braids, my grey and navy school uniform on, sitting on the swings at the play park, walking down the high street, doing homework in the back room at the shop.
I still was that wee girl – minus a lot of dreams, plus a lot of experience and an empty heart. Thirty-five years old, nothing to call mine, and all to play for.
Since I’d come back, I’d met countless relatives, young and old. In a village like Glen Avich, everybody is somehow related and when you walk down the street, or into the pub, they ask each other in a whisper: ‘Who’s her people?’ and they dissect your ancestry, your parents, your grandparents, and where they’re from. If any of them come from anywhere else, even a nearby village, that gets specified, as it means you are not really from Glen Avich, not completely, anyway. I knew that for the first few weeks, everywhere I went, my ancestry would be recited in a low voice, like a passage from the Bible or some ancient saga: ‘Eilidh, daughter of Rhona, daughter of Flora McCrimmon.’ I know this would annoy a lot of people, that they’d feel like they were living in a fish bowl. But I enjoy it, like I did back then, when I first arrived with my mum and my sister, because it makes me feel like I belong.
To see the people I used to know again had been lovely and painful, all at the same time. The painful bit was having come back with nothing and admitting that my life hadn’t amounted to much, or that’s how it felt.
Every single conversation came, sooner or later, to the dreaded question: ‘So, how many children do you have?’ Then, accompanied by the usual feeling of being stabbed in the heart, came my rehearsed answer, trying to keep my voice steady: ‘They never came.’
To which they’d say, awkwardly: ‘There’s still time,’ or,‘There’s more to life than children,’ or, ‘Your time will come.’
Next question. ‘And how is Tom doing?’
Oh dear. More embarrassment, them trying to find something supportive to say: ‘All marriages have their ups and downs,’ ‘It’ll sort itself out,’ ‘You’re still young,’ and the best one: ‘Who needs men anyway?’
And to round it all up, ‘How’s your job going?’ That was the nail in the coffin.
‘Oh. Oh well. I suppose you are back here now, that’s all that matters.’
By then, we both needed a cup of tea.
I actually felt quite sorry for them. It must have been really hard to hear of all the devastation, to see the pain etched in my face, find out the reason and still try to keep the conversation going. It wasn’t long before the whole village knew about my quest for babies, of my one and only chance to have one, how it had been lost and I had ended up in hospital with a breakdown.
Sooner or later, all the girls I used to be closest to
But I had never seen her like this. She’s still very pretty, with that lovely, silky chestnut hair and clear blue eyes, but so worn and with that lost look in her eyes, as if she were a ghost, like me. The miscarriage was the last straw for her.
I know it sounds naïve, but I think that for a start, more than anything, Eilidh needs good meals and lots of sleep. After a few weeks of Peggy’s cooking and peaceful, silent nights with no traffic or lights from the city through the window, she’ll get stronger. She’ll put a bit of weight back on and start to smile again, that smile that used to light up a room. I know she will recover. I have faith in her.
Time for Eilidh and Jamie to meet again.
7
A MEMORY OF ME
Eilidh
I’d been in Glen Avich for just over a month. October was nearly gone. I would have been about five months pregnant. But I tried not to think of that.
At the beginning, everything was like an echo of things from the past. Everywhere I went I was met by the ghost of the wee girl I used to be. I could see myself, my hair in braids, my grey and navy school uniform on, sitting on the swings at the play park, walking down the high street, doing homework in the back room at the shop.
I still was that wee girl – minus a lot of dreams, plus a lot of experience and an empty heart. Thirty-five years old, nothing to call mine, and all to play for.
Since I’d come back, I’d met countless relatives, young and old. In a village like Glen Avich, everybody is somehow related and when you walk down the street, or into the pub, they ask each other in a whisper: ‘Who’s her people?’ and they dissect your ancestry, your parents, your grandparents, and where they’re from. If any of them come from anywhere else, even a nearby village, that gets specified, as it means you are not really from Glen Avich, not completely, anyway. I knew that for the first few weeks, everywhere I went, my ancestry would be recited in a low voice, like a passage from the Bible or some ancient saga: ‘Eilidh, daughter of Rhona, daughter of Flora McCrimmon.’ I know this would annoy a lot of people, that they’d feel like they were living in a fish bowl. But I enjoy it, like I did back then, when I first arrived with my mum and my sister, because it makes me feel like I belong.
To see the people I used to know again had been lovely and painful, all at the same time. The painful bit was having come back with nothing and admitting that my life hadn’t amounted to much, or that’s how it felt.
Every single conversation came, sooner or later, to the dreaded question: ‘So, how many children do you have?’ Then, accompanied by the usual feeling of being stabbed in the heart, came my rehearsed answer, trying to keep my voice steady: ‘They never came.’
To which they’d say, awkwardly: ‘There’s still time,’ or,‘There’s more to life than children,’ or, ‘Your time will come.’
Next question. ‘And how is Tom doing?’
Oh dear. More embarrassment, them trying to find something supportive to say: ‘All marriages have their ups and downs,’ ‘It’ll sort itself out,’ ‘You’re still young,’ and the best one: ‘Who needs men anyway?’
And to round it all up, ‘How’s your job going?’ That was the nail in the coffin.
‘Oh. Oh well. I suppose you are back here now, that’s all that matters.’
By then, we both needed a cup of tea.
I actually felt quite sorry for them. It must have been really hard to hear of all the devastation, to see the pain etched in my face, find out the reason and still try to keep the conversation going. It wasn’t long before the whole village knew about my quest for babies, of my one and only chance to have one, how it had been lost and I had ended up in hospital with a breakdown.
Sooner or later, all the girls I used to be closest to
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