He would glare at anyone who stopped to warm themselves by the fire, and there was no end to the things he needed while he waited for his troublesome leg to mend. Fetch me this, quinie. Fetch me that. Tea. His pipe. His woollen hat. The tin of tobacco whose words had all but rubbed way. Ma kept her face mild but I fancy I could always tell what Ma was really thinking behind her careful face. The aunties and the girls avoided us when they could. Why take part in Granda’s suffering? I couldn’t blame them for that, but I felt aggrieved just the same. Because it was worse for me than for all of them, aye, all of them put together. Just the sight of me made the old man broody, like a man with seven years’ bad luck stitched to the hem of his gansey. Granda was not going to leave me to my own ill schemes, no, he was not: I was a thing to be ground down hard beneath the coarse pad of his thumb, to be run ragged till the air blew out of me.

You’re a smart one, lambsie, you’ll know, you’ll be nodding your head already. I hadn’t escaped the punishment of my sins at all.

~

When the day came for Ma to set off with the last of the fish, I helped her to fasten the leather strap across her collarbone. Only a little did she stagger as she took the creel’s weight. She was strong, Ma was, and could carry heavier loads than this. I passed her a knitted piece I’d made for her to tuck beneath the leather, to help protect her skin from the worst of the rubbing as the creel swayed.

In truth, she didn’t need my help. No mind how heavy, Ma could hoist the basket onto her back herself. But these small fussings gave me pleasure and pride, and I fancy Ma liked them too. And it gave her the chance to list off, one more time, all the things I must not do and all the things I must. Oh, how weighty they felt, my responsibilities, as weighty as the creel, for now I had the job of looking after Granda.

She squeezed my cheeks in her hands before she left. We’re relying on ye, Meggie, me an’ your da, an’ ye know what’s to be done.

Perhaps she knew what I was thinking too because she added: Don’t ye pay no mind to Granda Jeemsie’s mumpin’. He’s an old man, but he’s ours, see? Family. But keep that whelp from his sight an’ the reach of his one good footie!

Lost, I was, when the grip of her hands relaxed. One last pat on the arm and she was away, into the grey of morning.

~