The next phase was Musselburgh. Plucked from teuchter life and dropped into a council house on the edge of Edinburgh. No more sheep shit. Just slabs and snails. Still wet, still wild in its own way.
We found snails in the garden like treasure. We hunted them in the undergrowth, noses to the earth, breathing in that sharp green smell that only city soil has. Damp and secretive. I remember the smell more than the snails. That garden still lives in me.
I had a plastic tractor and trailer we’d brought from Scourie. The front wheel got snapped right off. My dad got it welded back on but this time they welded it facing backwards. I didn’t care. It still moved. It still carried things. So did I.
We walked to school along little paths. Narrow like the Highland roads we’d left behind, but now scattered with glass and crisp packets. The wildness was still there, just broken up and littered. It had corners instead of curves.
My twin sister and I were extra sensitive. Extra soft. So shy, we barely spoke. Our mum had to carry us into school because we were too scared to go in. The kids were wild in that place. Fast, on high volume already and brittle.
There was a boy called Gordon Ledbetter who used to climb the school wall at lunchtime and run home. I envied him. He knew how to escape.
Mum got a job in the playground, as a supervisor. It helped, having her there. She was a known shape in the chaos. My sister Cat, who was still small, stuck to her like a limpet shell. Sometimes she’d sit in our little car in the car park, a blanket on her knee, the engine ticking quietly. This was her mobile refuge. A soft shelter in a sharp world.
I dreaded break time.
Not because of the noise or the playground-though they were hard enough, but because of the juice. My apple juice. Organic concentrate, of course. Packed with love and care. But always, always in a bottle I couldn’t open.
I’d sit at my desk, fingers damp with sweat, trying to twist the lid with hands that weren’t strong enough to move things yet. My palms slipping. My breath held. I knew what was coming.
Without fail, it would spill. A little tidal wave of liquid apple panic washing across the desk. I remember the sound it made. Thin and soft, like embarrassment spreading across my cheeks.
It wasn’t the juice that upset me . It was the moment of trying too hard, in front of others. Of failing quietly. Of being seen.
In Musselburgh, I had a bike.
A massive red thing. It was far too big for me. I’m not sure why I was given an adults bike. I had to climb onto it like it was a farm gate. It took me forever to learn to cycle. Falling off regularly, I’d feel my face burn like red paint. Not from the pain of the fall but from knowing the fall had been watched. Seen. I was so self conscious in these moments I’d forget I was even in my body. I’d forget how to move.
Eventually, the boys from next door stole my bike. Not even hiding it from view, they displayed it in their front garden like a sculpture. My red bike. On display, like I wouldn’t notice. Those thieves denied it was even mine. Just flatly said no. And I don’t think I did anything about it. I just let it go, silently.
That’s the sort of thing that teaches you something. About scale, and silence. Maybe how easily your own belongings can be claimed by someone with a louder voice?
Once, we went away for the weekend. I think it was to visit the organic farm we’d later move to. A kind of hopeful escape from Musselburgh.
While we were gone, the same neighbours broke in through the living room window. Through that old wobbly latch that wasn’t strong enough. I wasn’t surprised by their intrusion. Apparently, it was normal in Musselburgh?
They didn’t steal much. Not physically. They played with our toys. Left them in the wrong places. Moved through the house like hungry ghosts trying on a different life. Finding my brother’s home made Fungus the Bogeyman cake, they left bite marks in it. Bright green, wrapped in foil. Red hair made from strawberry laces. Those angry teeth marks in soft sponge.
Around that time, my mum Sally met Bruce.
Bruce would become a huge part of our lives, although we didn’t know it yet. For now, he was a weekend visitor. He came from a farm in Fife, arriving in what I think was a old Morris Minor car with a scruffy dog called Carrot.
Carrot was a proper farm dog. The sort that smelled of rain and earth and made rules of her own. Once, she got left in the van overnight. In the morning, we went to check on her, and she’d dug a hole in one of the seats. And done a shit in it.
It’s funny, the things you remember. Not the big speeches or the turning points. Just a dog named after a vegetable, and a ripped vintage car seat steaming with truth.