harmers 2

She dabbed the scab at her wrist shaped like a keyhole. Picking at it. Although she knew she shouldn’t.

Dr Malik was on the phone. Always on the phone. He said something to her, but she waved him away and concentrated instead on her breathing.

That was the secret. Being grateful for each God-given breath. 

She closed her eyes. Heard again the seesawing swing of a piece of timber being dragged along through the muddied paths of the Glen. Slow steps. Thud and drag. Drag and the thud coming from the longer piece that couldn’t fit on the old woman’s shoulder as she faded into view. It was barely light, the sky a beached grey as she’d crossed the road from The Saltings to the The Glen.

The smell of peat, wet lichen, and damp leaves wrapped her in the breath of muddy soil. The brook of rushing water St Patrick was said to have bathed in. The high winds funnelled through birch, ash and elm, long preceding the taut steel structure of the Erskine Bridge that carried the sky and the traffic above.

Not that she could see it through the driving rain, but felt the hum of its looming presence.

She’d slipped and plonked on her arse, making a mud-brown cast of one legs of her denim. Cupping her kneecap which had clattered her knee against the rotted wooden post. ‘Fuck sake,’ she hissed through clenched teeth.

The drag and thud came to a stop before her. Jodie stared at the old woman. The wind seemed to pause. The smell of damp pine needles, of old ash and peat, filled the air as she scrambled to get up. ‘Who the fuck ur yeh and whit yeh daeing with that daft piece of wood—moving house?’

‘Language, Jodie.’  Her voice low and raspy cawing whispers shaped themselves into syllables like cold winds scraping across moss-covered graves that spoke of other times and other places. Names of things written in stone that faded but not lost. Never forgotten. ‘Yeh’ve hurt yersel child.’

‘Nah, I’m awright.’

She leaned the bits of wood against an ash tree which weaved it into the moaning of the wind like a tuning fork. The air around her shifted—the scent of wood smoke and violets.

Jodie’s ears brimmed with names, more than she could remember. Tumbling and overflowing like rain and pain: Mhairi, Senga, Lachlan, Elspeth... names pulled from the earthy musk of dampened leaves, the sweet decay of autumn plundered and the deep dark waters of the Clyde.

The old woman took her hand. Touched her wrist gently, her fingers cool as loch water.

‘These marks. Why did you do yeh dae that tae yerself, Jodie?

She couldn’t answer. Her tongue felt thick, heavy with the taste of iron. Her lips cracked as she cried, ‘Dunno.’

‘Yeh sure about that, Jodie?’

‘Aye.’

‘And the note in yer pocket?’

Jodie tugged her hand away and dabbed the bit of paper, checking she hadn’t dropped it. She’d written a note. Best copperplate handwriting. Tidy, factual. She didn’t want her mum to wonder and worry any more. She knew she was a burden. She’s already told her about him. Her stepdad.  She didn’t want to go back to the unit. She just wanted to be believed. To be proved right. To be listened to.  

The note was still in her pocket. ‘How dae yeh know about that?’

The old woman chuckled. Her eyes aglow as dawn’s moonlight. ‘By watching and listening, of course, Jodie. Yeh ur a precious child. Much loved.’

‘Aye, aw well and good. And I’m a fairy pumpkin. But I don’t believe in any of that shite. I just want the pain to stop. And for it aw tae be o’er.’

‘OK,’ she nodded. ‘Yeh mind if I walk wae yeh, precious child.’

‘Stop calling me that. Yeh, don’t even know me.’

‘Oh, I  know yeh awright Jodie. I know yeh very well. But would yeh mind daeing an auld woman a wee favour?’

‘Whit?’

She pointed a waxen finger at the bits of wood propped in the tree. ‘Would yeh mind helping me carry yer cross up tae the Bridge?’

Jodie’s lips parted, but she couldn’t answer at first. It was as like meeting your best friend at Butlins on holiday. She wasn’t meant to be there so she didn’t recognise her standing right next to her, until she did. The two bits of wood were now a cross shape. She couldn’t unrecognise it.

The old women muttered before she lifted the cross onto her shoulder. ‘May the saints listen and hear. But they echo only one truth. There are no years.’ She groaned under its weight. ‘Child, yer urnae ready tae die. It’s no yer time.  Silence would dae better tae save yeh. And God’s grace if yeh’ll let it.’  

Jodie’s voice trembled. ‘Is it heavy?’

She knelt, dipping her fingers into mud and soil. Her palms itched as she picked up the back end of the wood of the cross. Her mouth stopped with grief. She cannot walk, but took a faltering step, even though the weight was too full.

The old woman took another step for her.

Jodie followed. Hollowed out trying to keep up. Keep moving.

Stones sing underfoot with the weeping of lost women. The Glen never sleeps. And she will never sleep the same. Her sense of touch grows into a fire. She feels the heartbeat of trees through bark, passing through the the joy trapped in old linens, the aching relief in the hands of strangers from afar, calling to her.

Smells cling to moments more vividly: honeysuckle wrapped around apologies, burning sage accompanying truth. The world becomes filled with feelings of wonder and fullness.