It was raining when the plane touched down in Glasgow. Thin rivulets wound their way down the little window at the end of my row of seats as condensation bloomed around the edges of the glass. I remember pausing briefly at the doorway of the plane, one foot still inside and the other on the metal criss-cross of the stairs, and feeling the cold wind cuff me around the ears like a playful sibling. It tugged at my clothes and pulled at my hair as I made my way down to the tarmac, and as I breathed in its fresh scent I felt my chest tighten.

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            I saw Mum before she saw me, and I watched the worry dissolve in her eyes as her mouth formed a silent oval of relief and she clutched me to her. She smelt of the type of rose hand cream that comes in a metal tube. Our faces pressed together, sticky with each other’s tears; I remember her asking me what I wanted for dinner.

 

As I answered all of their questions and chewed and listened and swallowed and laughed, I thought of Felix’s pots and parasol and of how suspicious we were that day when he left his chicken and hard boiled eggs and came over to ask if we needed help carrying our things. After dinner Dad proudly showed me some photos that he had taken of a big tree that had washed up during a storm. Sam asked if anyone wanted a cup of tea, and then I made it as he and Michael re-enacted cutting the wood up and setting it alight with a little head of broccoli that someone had left uneaten at the side of their plate. 

    From my bed I traced the daisy petals on my walls, feeling in the darkness for the special one with the bump of a nail head in its centre. I remember finding it, and feeling a little embarrassed by the reassurance it gave me. I remember watching the lights on the other side of the loch flash red for port, green for starboard. 

    Malcolm came by the next day with a fresh batch of tablet, and I drank mug after mug of tea. A few nights later I sat against the radiator, wrapped up in a big white towel, until my shoulders turned red. I remember walking into the loch in my wellington boots on a calm day and getting cocky; going too deep and having to squelch my way back up to the house. I remember peeling white ankle socks from my feet at the door and dashing upstairs for a shower, leaving wet footprints on the tiles. 

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    I don’t remember exactly when or how I realised that the longing had not disappeared. Most of the time it left me alone, but sometimes its shadow still trailed around after me, clinging to my ankles. When I felt that insistent tapping on my shoulder and turned my head, I knew that I would be looking back at dolphins playing in the Maroni, so close to the boat that their chirping squeals and synchronised movements felt like a private performance; that I would be looking back at Birthe standing in front of a vegetable stall at the market, wearing a t-shirt with a mark on it, giving every avocado an efficient, business-like squeeze before buying the one she picked up first. I don’t remember exactly when or how I realised that the longing had not disappeared, but once I had, I stopped thinking of home in blue and white. Once I had, it changed the way that I thought about lots of things.