Hello I am Louise, the little girl in the blog. I am now 8. I am VERY!!!!!!!! proud of my self that I DID NOT DIE. And I love the blog entry about me.
(The blog entry Louise is writing about is: Louise's Scars.)
Tuesday, 23 October 2007
Sunday, 23 September 2007
Louise's Scars
If you met my daughter Louise, you would probably see an ordinary – if lively – eight-year-old girl. If you managed to catch her in a quiet moment, and sat down with her to read a book, you might notice how beautiful she is. (Okay I’m biased!) Then as she turned the pages of the book you might notice her hands are covered in tiny white scars. If her feet were bare, as they often are, you might glance down and notice that they too are covered in scars.
Every one of those scars Louise got before she was four months old. Mainly they are from a time when most babies are still in the womb. Louise was born over three months premature: due in November, she arrived in August. (According to one of the nurses, Leos like a sense of drama.) Louise is proud of her scars and says she loves them. She doesn’t remember now, consciously at least, how she got them.
I remember. I remember the first time I saw a doctor prick her tiny heel and squeeze. Or do I? Now that I think about it, I’m not sure. Maybe I remember remembering it, my story of what happened: how she cried, how I nearly fainted. I tell people this, I’ve written it in articles about her birth, but eight years on it has a hazy unreal feel to it. Did I nearly faint? Is that true? I’m not sure any more.
What I do remember are my thoughts. I remember that I was afraid she would be psychologically scarred for life having to suffer so much pain at such an early stage. I remember the anger that passed through me: hopeless anger at the nurses and doctors for doing this to her and not finding some other way, and anger at myself that I hadn’t carried her to term, that because of some failing in me she was suffering. I wanted to take her back inside me, I wanted to protect her and I felt useless because I couldn’t.
After that, if I was by Louise’s incubator when someone came for blood, I would open the little doors and put my hands on her back in what is known as ‘containment holding’. Not surprisingly, premature babies like to feel enclosed so this helped her to stay calm. It helped me stay calm. And I didn’t look at the needles.
Louise was 39 hours old when I held her for the first time. She had so many wires and tubes attached it took two nurses to carry her from the incubator. I didn’t willingly hold her. Even though it was what I longed for I was terrified I might do something wrong, might hurt her fragile body. But one of the nurses, Theresa, specialised in the babies’ emotional care and she insisted, for which I am eternally grateful. She even stayed on after her shift had ended to show me how to hold Louise upright on my chest in a ‘kangaroo cuddle’. This is what I remember of that time: the feel of her bird-like body against my chest, her tiny feathery movements, I remember crying with relief, the relief of becoming still again after days of reeling, of feeling half-insane with fear and guilt. I remember Theresa, before she went off home, looked at the monitor above my head and said Louise’s oxygen saturations had gone up, a sign she had relaxed.
A few days after Louise was born I decided to keep a journal, for her if she survived, for her sister if she didn’t, and really of course for me. In my journal I wrote of that first cuddle that it was as if a part of me had been brought back – the mother part. Yet I kept rejecting this part. If anyone congratulated me on the birth of my baby, I thought, “How can they say that when I’ve caused this terrible thing, when I’ve messed up so badly?” Guilt was my constant companion in those early months. I can see now it stopped me feeling grateful. A neighbour said, “At least one good thing was you didn’t have to have another C-section.” (Like I did with my first baby.) In reply I snapped, “I would rather have that than this.” To see any good had come of it, especially for me, seemed like a betrayal of my baby. A nurse told me about a father who felt honoured to watch his baby grow and develop. He felt privileged to see the changes most parents never see. Honoured? I thought. Privileged? It’s easy to see he’s not the mother.
And it’s true he wasn’t, yet how much more peaceful an attitude than mine.
Should I have been grateful? No, that’s not what I’m saying. I wasn’t, not because of wickedness on my part, but because I was afraid to be, afraid it would make me a monster. When Louise was about 4 weeks old and her condition was stable Theresa suggested baby massage. As Louise lay on my lap her tiny arms went into a salute. I had already read that this salute, where one hand shields the face, is classic premature baby language for, ‘I am not happy.’ I believed then that my baby couldn’t look at me without fear.
Now I can see another side. She was adjusting, taking in as much of her surroundings as she could cope with. She was incredibly good at this, at somehow conveying her needs. After a week of laying Louise on my lap for a few moments before her kangaroo care she was ready to have her legs and feet massaged. A few days later she transferred to our local hospital. I carried on doing what little massage I had learned. Then she got ill again. There were more blood tests, a transfusion, drips in her feet again. After that if I touched her feet during massage she gave the salute. I rang Theresa who suggested gently holding them during kangaroo care. We began breastfeeding. Sometimes the effort of this exhausted Louise so much the stimulation of massage was more than she could cope with.
I felt like I was failing her. A good mother would know how to get beyond this, would know how to massage and comfort her baby, so I believed. Premature babies needed the contact of massage, and I wasn’t providing it, when I should have been. All I could do was what Louise asked for, which was to be held quiet and still. It seems crazy now that I couldn’t see that what I was doing was okay, but that’s how it was. Like so many mothers I held myself up against some imaginary ‘perfect’ mother I thought people expected me to be, and inevitably I didn’t match up.
Louise came home two weeks before her due date, and three days after it she was back in hospital, her lungs collapsed with bronchiolitis. This time there was a middle of the night drive to a different hospital, further away than the first, followed by nine days on a ventilator. She had another blood transfusion, more tubes, more wires, and then a slow recovery at the local hospital. By then during kangaroo cuddles Louise sometimes wriggled down to lie in my arms where she could see my face. I moved my finger and she followed with her eyes. The first smiles came then, with her eyes well before they came with her mouth.
Yet when she came home she was tense, stiffening when I picked her up. Or maybe that was me. Did I stiffen as I picked her up, and did she react to that? Whichever it was, I took Louise for baby massage lessons and after a few weeks she relaxed. I guess I relaxed too because although Louise never wanted a full massage, I came eventually to see that was okay, not my failure again, just Louise letting me know how much was enough.
I believed then that babies shouldn’t have to feel pain, shouldn’t suffer. Believing that didn’t stop her pain, but it certainly added to mine. I believed it so strongly that one time when she was seriously ill I thought she might be better off dead. I thought she might be damaged, that the emotional and psychological scars would be as obvious in years to come as the ones on her hands and feet. Yet, people have often commented how happy Louise is, and how full of life. (Of course she has her angry, whiny, miserable moments too.) She sees herself as overall a happy person, and thinks that she is brave – because of her experiences as a baby.
I often wonder if her zest for life comes as a result of that early dice with death, in the same way that many survivors of near-death experiences report a renewed love of life after they recover.
Thursday, 6 September 2007
His Grandparent’s House
The wind whistles through Tammy’s hair as he runs. He laughs, listening to the smack of his feet on the wet sand and to the glorious roar of the ocean. He splashes into the water, closes his eyes and dives joyously beneath the cool Atlantic surf.
When he comes up to the surface again, he opens his eyes into darkness. He was a boy again in the night; he has woken up old.
He shuffles into a half-sitting position. His body has made a cocoon of warmth, and now his feet slide onto a cold bit of sheet. He lies still for a minute, wanting a new cocoon. Then he slides his legs out. Now he’s awake he might as well head for the fields. Cold stings under his toenails. He gropes about with his feet and finds his slippers.
Pain lances through his spine and into his neck when he stands.
‘Aeya.’
He turns. Faintly he makes out a mound of duvet on the far side of the bed. The mound doesn’t move, didn’t hear him yelp.
He reaches for his glasses, but they make no difference to the darkness. He moves towards where the door should be, feeling ahead with his hands.
Elsie snores.
Tammy opens the door slowly, quietly. Closes the door, tight. Then, only then, he switches on the light.
He blinks, rubs his eyes, shivers.
In the bathroom he takes off a warm pyjama jacket, and puts on a cold shirt. The wallpaper in here could do with replacing; it looks tatty, old fashioned. Elsie has been saying so for a while. ‘I want something bright and modern. This looks like the stuff in old peoples’ houses.’ Tammy wonders what she thinks of as old.
He takes off warm pyjama trousers, and puts on cold trousers. Pine fittings would be nice, warmer than the grey. They could get a bright rug for the floor. When the lambing is over they can think about it.
Dim light cuts a slice into the dark kitchen. He opens the curtains to let morning inside.
Snow.
Tammy sweeps a few white hairs over his crown, smoothing, flattening. They spring back.
Snow. Falling in spurts, just a few flakes, but definitely snow.
It is May.
Tiredness hovers around his temples. He runs his fingers up the sides of his nose, lifts his glasses, and circles his eyes. Sighs. It’s four in the morning, and there could be a lamb outside, too weak to feed or stand. The lambs won’t wait, snow or no snow.
He steps out. His slippers slap on the cold wet concrete. Round the end of the house he opens the shed door.
‘Morning Lad.’
The dog turns cataracted eyes on Tammy, and wags his tail.
‘Come on boy, time to go round the sheep.’
Lad staggers to his feet and hobbles forwards. Tammy pats matted fur. It seems a sin to take the dog out in this cold. They need a new dog, but Lad would take badly to a pup. It would be like telling him he’s useless, he might as well be put to sleep. Tammy couldn’t do that either. Not to Lad. After fourteen years service it would be like murder. Maybe it’s time they sold the croft anyway; seventy-five would be a fine age to retire. Only a few days ago Tammy said as much to Elsie. ‘Imagine,’ he’d said, ‘next year instead of trailing through fields in the middle of the night, we could be basking on a Mediterranean cruise.’
‘Aye,’ she said. ‘We could do that all right. And you’d have a fine time, spewing over the railings.
‘I don’t get seasick.’
‘Humph.’
Maybe not a cruise then, but they could do something.
Tammy pats Lad’s head. ‘Come on then, some breakfast before we go.’
Lad eats biscuits while Tammy kits out. A nylon jacket with threads hanging loose, oilskin trousers and thick woollen socks both patched and darned by Elsie, rubber boots, and an oilskin jacket.
He gets penicillin and a needle from the fridge, hoping he won’t have to use them.
‘Ready Lad?’
Lad looks up, wags his tail.
‘No more. That’s enough biscuits for now.’
When Tammy opens the door snow whirls in. He pulls his hood tight.
Next year they could go to Australia and visit relatives he hasn’t seen in fifty, sixty years or more. They’d have plenty to talk about. It would be warm this time of year, coming into winter but Australian winters aren’t bad. They could start by visiting Uncle Wilbert in Perth, then go over to Sydney.
Tammy is a boy again, Wilbert a young man waiting at the bottom of the gangway, ready to board the steamer. He is heading for the New World, where everything is bigger and better. Bigger sheep with thicker fleeces, which always struck Tammy as daft, what with the heat in Australia. Tammy, at eleven, imagined Australia as endless cracked earth, like a stream that has dried up in a warm summer. He couldn’t imagine why anyone wanted to go there, but since Uncle Wilbert was going, he wanted to go too.
‘When I’ve made my fortune, I’ll send for you.’ Wilbert’s face is still laughing, he is still tweaking Tammy’s chin.
Wilbert will be eighty-six now, if he’s a day.
Tammy opens the back door of his van, and Lad struggles in, a paw at a time.
Maybe Australia would be a bit hot.
When Tammy starts the engine, Lad sidles into the passenger seat.
Elsie has always wanted to see Canada, another vast country, filled with fields of wheat instead of cracked earth. You could get lost there, walk for days, weeks even, and never get back to the start. A bit different from Shetland. Funny how folk that emigrated chose these endless places. Just driving round your farm would take hours, whereas now here Tammy is already, at the first field.
‘Come on Lad, let’s go see the sheep.’
Lad follows him out the driver’s door.
The cold bites under Tammy’s fingernails, and he wishes he’d brought gloves. He wonders what the weather is like in Canada now. Hot summers, freezing winters, but he has no idea when it changes. Anyway, all their relatives live in Toronto or Montreal, they wouldn’t see much countryside if they went over.
‘We’d not be much use in a city, would we Lad?’
Snow gathers on the dog’s eyelids, dissolving to leave his face damp. This is the worst May Tammy can remember, and he can remember a few. He should have left Lad in the shed, it’s not as if he’s up to much, keeps letting sheep straggle off.
‘A terrible day, eh Lad? Your feet must be frozen.’
Lad wags his tail.
Tammy scans the field. In a hollow near the gate are six ewes; four already lambed, two showing no signs. He tramps up the hill, his boots slipping on the damp grass. Elsie will still be sleeping, warm. Next year he could have a lie-in too, if they give up the sheep. They could not bother going anywhere, just stay home and sleep.
He sees twelve sheep and eight lambs, all doing fine.
It would be fine to waken about half-four, knowing it was lambing time, and knowing he could go back to sleep.
Five sheep by the dyke, resting.
It would be fine to be warm in bed right now.
Nine are sheltering around a ruined croft house; one of them might lamb soon. Tammy’s mother grew up in this house, and Uncle Wilbert, with seven sisters and brothers in between. Tammy goes inside. The house roof went forty years ago; now there’s nothing left but stones. The snow has stopped; dawn is making a clean sweep of the sky.
‘Alright Lad?’ He strokes the dog’s head. Lad nuzzles into the oilskin trousers, wags his tail.
When he steps outside Tammy puts a hand up to shade his eyes from the sun. There is no warmth getting through, but under his layers he is sweating from exertion. The wind is in his back going down the hill, and he reaches the van still warm.
The next field seems to have grown a few acres overnight. Tammy’s mind works its way round, seeing lambs being born effortlessly on a bright warm morning. His body drags behind, finding a dead lamb in the snow.
Maybe he could leave it this once, come back later.
The ewe licks her dead baby.
Tammy picks up the lamb and carries it into a small pen by the gate. The ewe follows, and Tammy fastens the pen.
At the far side of the field he finds twins and a mother with barely enough milk for one. She bleats half-heartedly, but doesn’t move, as he lifts a lamb and heads back to the pen. He takes out the dead lamb and rubs it over the living, transferring blood and mucous. The ewe stamps, maaing. Tammy lifts the living, wriggling lamb into the pen beside her. She sniffs, and licks its coat. ‘Maa, maa,’ she bleats softly. The lamb sucks.
Tammy puts the dead lamb in the van. Lad flops down in the back, had enough.
‘Aye Lad, it’s been a hard morning.’ Bed seems forever away, the effort to drive home too much. Tammy’s throat is dry. He could do with a flask of tea.
He starts the engine.
Bed is getting nearer, the thought of it pressing on his eyelids. He turns the heater down a touch to stop the tiredness he can feel creeping back round his temples. Lad whimpers from the back, dreaming. A bend in the road, and the sun shines into the van. Tammy raises a hand from the wheel, shading his eyes, and remembers the old house, and the ewe close to lambing.
If he’d given up when he got his pension, like he’d always said he would, he could be in Australia now, or in bed. Instead, he’s trudging back up the hill, Lad plodding behind him. The sun gives up, sleet falls. Seven sheep are by the house, but not the one he wants. He finds her inside, lying down, heaving. A lamb lies beside her, its head on the ground, its belly moving slowly out and in as it breathes. Otherwise it is still. There is another lamb, its swollen head sticking out of its mother. Its legs are bent back, and spread like wings inside the ewe when she gives another exhausted push.
‘Good job we came back Lad.’ Tammy is wide awake now. The first time he saw a sheep like this he panicked, had no clue what to do. He could only watch helplessly as Uncle Wilbert felt for the lamb, and eased it out. Now Tammy doesn’t even have think. He kneels down, reaches inside the ewe and in moments the lamb is lying by its mother. He gives the ewe a shot of penicillin, and then he picks up the lambs. The ewe bleats quietly and staggers to her feet. Lad, who has been lying down with his head on his forepaws, leaps up too. Tammy starts down the hill with a lamb under each arm and the ewe totters after him, with Lad following behind. Tammy opens the back doors of the van and lays the lambs on some empty bags. He heaves the sheep in beside them.
When Tammy opens the driver door Lad jumps in and pads over to the passenger seat. Tammy sits down and pats Lad’s head. ‘We might not be so young any more Lad, but we’re far from useless yet, eh boy?’ He starts the engine.
Back at the house, Tammy puts the sheep in the shed. He takes the lambs into the kitchen where he lays them on an old towel before a fan heater. Kneeling down, he bathes the poorly lamb’s swollen head with warm water. He fills the kettle, and while it boils he puts two scoops of dried ewe’s-milk into a bottle. When he puts the teat to the older lamb’s mouth it drinks the lot.
‘Aye you’ll be okay,’ Tammy says, and fills the bottle again. The younger lamb doesn’t raise its head. Tammy lowers the bottle and eases the teat into its mouth. No response. He raises the lamb’s head a little. It sucks.
Tammy remembers his own dry throat. A cup of tea would be fine. Elsie might have heard the van pull up, so he takes her one too.
‘What time is it?’ Elsie asks when he pushes open the bedroom door.
Tammy shrugs. ‘I think maybe we should have the lambing later next year,’ he says. ‘This is the worst May I can remember.’
‘Half past six,’ Elsie says, looking at the clock. Tammy hands her a mug, and sits on the bed.
‘There was a lamb stuck,’ he says. ‘Good job I went back to check.’
‘How is it?’ she asks. She sips her tea, and stares ahead, still half asleep.
‘It’ll survive. I tried it with some beest, and it took a little. I’ll see if it’ll take some more in a minute.’
‘Are you not coming back to bed?’
‘Maybe later,’ Tammy says. ‘I’m not tired right now.’ He goes out, and down the passage towards the sound of bleating.
The spring after Uncle Wilbert left Tammy helped his grandfather with the lambing. Going off on his own one day, he found a lamb and a dead mother. He scooped up the lamb, still covered in blood, and took it back to his grandparents’ house, the same house he was in today. It was the first time he saved a life.
This story was originally published in "Shetland Life". It is inspired by and dedicated to my father, Willie, and I am grateful to him and my sister Mary for the information they provided, without which this story could not exist.
When he comes up to the surface again, he opens his eyes into darkness. He was a boy again in the night; he has woken up old.
He shuffles into a half-sitting position. His body has made a cocoon of warmth, and now his feet slide onto a cold bit of sheet. He lies still for a minute, wanting a new cocoon. Then he slides his legs out. Now he’s awake he might as well head for the fields. Cold stings under his toenails. He gropes about with his feet and finds his slippers.
Pain lances through his spine and into his neck when he stands.
‘Aeya.’
He turns. Faintly he makes out a mound of duvet on the far side of the bed. The mound doesn’t move, didn’t hear him yelp.
He reaches for his glasses, but they make no difference to the darkness. He moves towards where the door should be, feeling ahead with his hands.
Elsie snores.
Tammy opens the door slowly, quietly. Closes the door, tight. Then, only then, he switches on the light.
He blinks, rubs his eyes, shivers.
In the bathroom he takes off a warm pyjama jacket, and puts on a cold shirt. The wallpaper in here could do with replacing; it looks tatty, old fashioned. Elsie has been saying so for a while. ‘I want something bright and modern. This looks like the stuff in old peoples’ houses.’ Tammy wonders what she thinks of as old.
He takes off warm pyjama trousers, and puts on cold trousers. Pine fittings would be nice, warmer than the grey. They could get a bright rug for the floor. When the lambing is over they can think about it.
Dim light cuts a slice into the dark kitchen. He opens the curtains to let morning inside.
Snow.
Tammy sweeps a few white hairs over his crown, smoothing, flattening. They spring back.
Snow. Falling in spurts, just a few flakes, but definitely snow.
It is May.
Tiredness hovers around his temples. He runs his fingers up the sides of his nose, lifts his glasses, and circles his eyes. Sighs. It’s four in the morning, and there could be a lamb outside, too weak to feed or stand. The lambs won’t wait, snow or no snow.
He steps out. His slippers slap on the cold wet concrete. Round the end of the house he opens the shed door.
‘Morning Lad.’
The dog turns cataracted eyes on Tammy, and wags his tail.
‘Come on boy, time to go round the sheep.’
Lad staggers to his feet and hobbles forwards. Tammy pats matted fur. It seems a sin to take the dog out in this cold. They need a new dog, but Lad would take badly to a pup. It would be like telling him he’s useless, he might as well be put to sleep. Tammy couldn’t do that either. Not to Lad. After fourteen years service it would be like murder. Maybe it’s time they sold the croft anyway; seventy-five would be a fine age to retire. Only a few days ago Tammy said as much to Elsie. ‘Imagine,’ he’d said, ‘next year instead of trailing through fields in the middle of the night, we could be basking on a Mediterranean cruise.’
‘Aye,’ she said. ‘We could do that all right. And you’d have a fine time, spewing over the railings.
‘I don’t get seasick.’
‘Humph.’
Maybe not a cruise then, but they could do something.
Tammy pats Lad’s head. ‘Come on then, some breakfast before we go.’
Lad eats biscuits while Tammy kits out. A nylon jacket with threads hanging loose, oilskin trousers and thick woollen socks both patched and darned by Elsie, rubber boots, and an oilskin jacket.
He gets penicillin and a needle from the fridge, hoping he won’t have to use them.
‘Ready Lad?’
Lad looks up, wags his tail.
‘No more. That’s enough biscuits for now.’
When Tammy opens the door snow whirls in. He pulls his hood tight.
Next year they could go to Australia and visit relatives he hasn’t seen in fifty, sixty years or more. They’d have plenty to talk about. It would be warm this time of year, coming into winter but Australian winters aren’t bad. They could start by visiting Uncle Wilbert in Perth, then go over to Sydney.
Tammy is a boy again, Wilbert a young man waiting at the bottom of the gangway, ready to board the steamer. He is heading for the New World, where everything is bigger and better. Bigger sheep with thicker fleeces, which always struck Tammy as daft, what with the heat in Australia. Tammy, at eleven, imagined Australia as endless cracked earth, like a stream that has dried up in a warm summer. He couldn’t imagine why anyone wanted to go there, but since Uncle Wilbert was going, he wanted to go too.
‘When I’ve made my fortune, I’ll send for you.’ Wilbert’s face is still laughing, he is still tweaking Tammy’s chin.
Wilbert will be eighty-six now, if he’s a day.
Tammy opens the back door of his van, and Lad struggles in, a paw at a time.
Maybe Australia would be a bit hot.
When Tammy starts the engine, Lad sidles into the passenger seat.
Elsie has always wanted to see Canada, another vast country, filled with fields of wheat instead of cracked earth. You could get lost there, walk for days, weeks even, and never get back to the start. A bit different from Shetland. Funny how folk that emigrated chose these endless places. Just driving round your farm would take hours, whereas now here Tammy is already, at the first field.
‘Come on Lad, let’s go see the sheep.’
Lad follows him out the driver’s door.
The cold bites under Tammy’s fingernails, and he wishes he’d brought gloves. He wonders what the weather is like in Canada now. Hot summers, freezing winters, but he has no idea when it changes. Anyway, all their relatives live in Toronto or Montreal, they wouldn’t see much countryside if they went over.
‘We’d not be much use in a city, would we Lad?’
Snow gathers on the dog’s eyelids, dissolving to leave his face damp. This is the worst May Tammy can remember, and he can remember a few. He should have left Lad in the shed, it’s not as if he’s up to much, keeps letting sheep straggle off.
‘A terrible day, eh Lad? Your feet must be frozen.’
Lad wags his tail.
Tammy scans the field. In a hollow near the gate are six ewes; four already lambed, two showing no signs. He tramps up the hill, his boots slipping on the damp grass. Elsie will still be sleeping, warm. Next year he could have a lie-in too, if they give up the sheep. They could not bother going anywhere, just stay home and sleep.
He sees twelve sheep and eight lambs, all doing fine.
It would be fine to waken about half-four, knowing it was lambing time, and knowing he could go back to sleep.
Five sheep by the dyke, resting.
It would be fine to be warm in bed right now.
Nine are sheltering around a ruined croft house; one of them might lamb soon. Tammy’s mother grew up in this house, and Uncle Wilbert, with seven sisters and brothers in between. Tammy goes inside. The house roof went forty years ago; now there’s nothing left but stones. The snow has stopped; dawn is making a clean sweep of the sky.
‘Alright Lad?’ He strokes the dog’s head. Lad nuzzles into the oilskin trousers, wags his tail.
When he steps outside Tammy puts a hand up to shade his eyes from the sun. There is no warmth getting through, but under his layers he is sweating from exertion. The wind is in his back going down the hill, and he reaches the van still warm.
The next field seems to have grown a few acres overnight. Tammy’s mind works its way round, seeing lambs being born effortlessly on a bright warm morning. His body drags behind, finding a dead lamb in the snow.
Maybe he could leave it this once, come back later.
The ewe licks her dead baby.
Tammy picks up the lamb and carries it into a small pen by the gate. The ewe follows, and Tammy fastens the pen.
At the far side of the field he finds twins and a mother with barely enough milk for one. She bleats half-heartedly, but doesn’t move, as he lifts a lamb and heads back to the pen. He takes out the dead lamb and rubs it over the living, transferring blood and mucous. The ewe stamps, maaing. Tammy lifts the living, wriggling lamb into the pen beside her. She sniffs, and licks its coat. ‘Maa, maa,’ she bleats softly. The lamb sucks.
Tammy puts the dead lamb in the van. Lad flops down in the back, had enough.
‘Aye Lad, it’s been a hard morning.’ Bed seems forever away, the effort to drive home too much. Tammy’s throat is dry. He could do with a flask of tea.
He starts the engine.
Bed is getting nearer, the thought of it pressing on his eyelids. He turns the heater down a touch to stop the tiredness he can feel creeping back round his temples. Lad whimpers from the back, dreaming. A bend in the road, and the sun shines into the van. Tammy raises a hand from the wheel, shading his eyes, and remembers the old house, and the ewe close to lambing.
If he’d given up when he got his pension, like he’d always said he would, he could be in Australia now, or in bed. Instead, he’s trudging back up the hill, Lad plodding behind him. The sun gives up, sleet falls. Seven sheep are by the house, but not the one he wants. He finds her inside, lying down, heaving. A lamb lies beside her, its head on the ground, its belly moving slowly out and in as it breathes. Otherwise it is still. There is another lamb, its swollen head sticking out of its mother. Its legs are bent back, and spread like wings inside the ewe when she gives another exhausted push.
‘Good job we came back Lad.’ Tammy is wide awake now. The first time he saw a sheep like this he panicked, had no clue what to do. He could only watch helplessly as Uncle Wilbert felt for the lamb, and eased it out. Now Tammy doesn’t even have think. He kneels down, reaches inside the ewe and in moments the lamb is lying by its mother. He gives the ewe a shot of penicillin, and then he picks up the lambs. The ewe bleats quietly and staggers to her feet. Lad, who has been lying down with his head on his forepaws, leaps up too. Tammy starts down the hill with a lamb under each arm and the ewe totters after him, with Lad following behind. Tammy opens the back doors of the van and lays the lambs on some empty bags. He heaves the sheep in beside them.
When Tammy opens the driver door Lad jumps in and pads over to the passenger seat. Tammy sits down and pats Lad’s head. ‘We might not be so young any more Lad, but we’re far from useless yet, eh boy?’ He starts the engine.
Back at the house, Tammy puts the sheep in the shed. He takes the lambs into the kitchen where he lays them on an old towel before a fan heater. Kneeling down, he bathes the poorly lamb’s swollen head with warm water. He fills the kettle, and while it boils he puts two scoops of dried ewe’s-milk into a bottle. When he puts the teat to the older lamb’s mouth it drinks the lot.
‘Aye you’ll be okay,’ Tammy says, and fills the bottle again. The younger lamb doesn’t raise its head. Tammy lowers the bottle and eases the teat into its mouth. No response. He raises the lamb’s head a little. It sucks.
Tammy remembers his own dry throat. A cup of tea would be fine. Elsie might have heard the van pull up, so he takes her one too.
‘What time is it?’ Elsie asks when he pushes open the bedroom door.
Tammy shrugs. ‘I think maybe we should have the lambing later next year,’ he says. ‘This is the worst May I can remember.’
‘Half past six,’ Elsie says, looking at the clock. Tammy hands her a mug, and sits on the bed.
‘There was a lamb stuck,’ he says. ‘Good job I went back to check.’
‘How is it?’ she asks. She sips her tea, and stares ahead, still half asleep.
‘It’ll survive. I tried it with some beest, and it took a little. I’ll see if it’ll take some more in a minute.’
‘Are you not coming back to bed?’
‘Maybe later,’ Tammy says. ‘I’m not tired right now.’ He goes out, and down the passage towards the sound of bleating.
The spring after Uncle Wilbert left Tammy helped his grandfather with the lambing. Going off on his own one day, he found a lamb and a dead mother. He scooped up the lamb, still covered in blood, and took it back to his grandparents’ house, the same house he was in today. It was the first time he saved a life.
This story was originally published in "Shetland Life". It is inspired by and dedicated to my father, Willie, and I am grateful to him and my sister Mary for the information they provided, without which this story could not exist.
welcome
Hello, and welcome to Deeper Azure.
Azure, the colour of the sky, and of the ocean. The sky and the ocean are, to me, a reflection of all that is vast, unknowable and wonderful in life. (And it's one of my favourite colours.)
The first post on this blog is the opening of an (almost finished) novel-in-progress. (I was on a computer course and blogging was one of the course components, and I had nothing else to post!)
Now, if I had a lofty plan for this blog it would be to post writing that reflects the beauty of life, that turns the ordinary into the azure (vast, unknowable and wonderful.)
And if I had a less lofty plan, it would be to have fun.
Azure, the colour of the sky, and of the ocean. The sky and the ocean are, to me, a reflection of all that is vast, unknowable and wonderful in life. (And it's one of my favourite colours.)
The first post on this blog is the opening of an (almost finished) novel-in-progress. (I was on a computer course and blogging was one of the course components, and I had nothing else to post!)
Now, if I had a lofty plan for this blog it would be to post writing that reflects the beauty of life, that turns the ordinary into the azure (vast, unknowable and wonderful.)
And if I had a less lofty plan, it would be to have fun.
Wednesday, 29 August 2007
Pictures
1
PICTURES
She is so small, small for her age. Although he is only five and she is six, Sammy has overtaken her. He is already long and thin. She is a speck of dust hiding in the curtains. The curtains are green velvet. Her bedroom walls are creamy white and scattered with sprigs of tiny green flowers. The carpet is pale brown, dark brown, grey brown, red brown, all coming together and going away again, like a big spider that will swallow her up. Like a thousand big spiders that cling to her legs every night as she runs across the room and dives into bed.
The carpet doesn’t go with the curtains or with the wallpaper. But the carpet is good enough for children who never appreciate anything, who will only get it in a mess. There’s no point putting down a brand new carpet in that room. It will only be destroyed. Especially by Stella.
Especially by Stella. Once Stella peed on the carpet. She woke in the night too late and peed all over the spiders as she ran for the door.
It’s a blessing we didn’t put down a new carpet.
The dust in the curtain makes Stella feel like she is choking. The smell, and the way it catches in her throat. The dust is so fine she can’t see it, and yet it chokes her. If she was dust she could disappear. No one would ever find her again.
You have to lie down and then wriggle up to get between the curtain and the lining. You can’t see much when you are inside, but there are enough holes in the lining that it isn’t dark. Stella closes her eyes and sees magical pictures. It is like painting, except the pictures are inside her head, so she can choose any colour she wants. Bright pink, lime green, red. Stella can see anything she wants when her eyes are closed. Sammy is afraid of the dark, and of squashed up places. He gets scared inside the curtain. Once he made a noise, and Stella had to dig her nails into his hand. You must be quiet inside the curtains, so no one can find you.
Then one day Sammy trips as he is looking for Stella. It is a game of hide-and-seek. Sammy runs up laughing, and he catches his foot in the lining. It tears. The hole is the size of a teddy bear and the shape of a banana.
Mummy doesn’t know, but one day she will find it, one day she will blame Stella. One day she will say
You are the most careless creature I ever met. Look what you’ve done. And you didn’t even have the common decency to tell me you’d done it. Did you think I wouldn’t find it you stupid girl? These are no good now, no good at all. Well, I’m not buying new curtains for someone who cares so little, who looks after her things so badly.
Stella doesn’t like the curtains any more. Because of them she is in trouble. She will never again hide between their layers of velvet and lining. Besides, Stella is bigger now, and it is not so easy to disappear. And she likes to draw. You can’t draw when you are inside the curtains. Now Stella takes her pencils and paper and sneaks past the kitchen, down to the basement and her own secret place where no one ever goes, not even Sammy, where no one will ever find her.
PICTURES
She is so small, small for her age. Although he is only five and she is six, Sammy has overtaken her. He is already long and thin. She is a speck of dust hiding in the curtains. The curtains are green velvet. Her bedroom walls are creamy white and scattered with sprigs of tiny green flowers. The carpet is pale brown, dark brown, grey brown, red brown, all coming together and going away again, like a big spider that will swallow her up. Like a thousand big spiders that cling to her legs every night as she runs across the room and dives into bed.
The carpet doesn’t go with the curtains or with the wallpaper. But the carpet is good enough for children who never appreciate anything, who will only get it in a mess. There’s no point putting down a brand new carpet in that room. It will only be destroyed. Especially by Stella.
Especially by Stella. Once Stella peed on the carpet. She woke in the night too late and peed all over the spiders as she ran for the door.
It’s a blessing we didn’t put down a new carpet.
The dust in the curtain makes Stella feel like she is choking. The smell, and the way it catches in her throat. The dust is so fine she can’t see it, and yet it chokes her. If she was dust she could disappear. No one would ever find her again.
You have to lie down and then wriggle up to get between the curtain and the lining. You can’t see much when you are inside, but there are enough holes in the lining that it isn’t dark. Stella closes her eyes and sees magical pictures. It is like painting, except the pictures are inside her head, so she can choose any colour she wants. Bright pink, lime green, red. Stella can see anything she wants when her eyes are closed. Sammy is afraid of the dark, and of squashed up places. He gets scared inside the curtain. Once he made a noise, and Stella had to dig her nails into his hand. You must be quiet inside the curtains, so no one can find you.
Then one day Sammy trips as he is looking for Stella. It is a game of hide-and-seek. Sammy runs up laughing, and he catches his foot in the lining. It tears. The hole is the size of a teddy bear and the shape of a banana.
Mummy doesn’t know, but one day she will find it, one day she will blame Stella. One day she will say
You are the most careless creature I ever met. Look what you’ve done. And you didn’t even have the common decency to tell me you’d done it. Did you think I wouldn’t find it you stupid girl? These are no good now, no good at all. Well, I’m not buying new curtains for someone who cares so little, who looks after her things so badly.
Stella doesn’t like the curtains any more. Because of them she is in trouble. She will never again hide between their layers of velvet and lining. Besides, Stella is bigger now, and it is not so easy to disappear. And she likes to draw. You can’t draw when you are inside the curtains. Now Stella takes her pencils and paper and sneaks past the kitchen, down to the basement and her own secret place where no one ever goes, not even Sammy, where no one will ever find her.
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