Mibbly

Stewart Ennis

The weather was perfect. I'd wanted to do this trip with her for a while but things got in the way. She was too young to appreciate it, or days put aside were spoiled by poor weather. Also, I didn't want our nostalgic cycle trip into daddy's childhood to turn into an endurance test. But the tag-a-long bike, that converted my bike into a tandem, had made it possible. She loved it; and even though she was only six she could really help propel us along. In fact sometimes on the flat, I would to put my feet up and let her do the pedalling.

'Daddy! I'm doing all the work.'

We took the bikes by train into Paisley and found the cycle track that led to Bridge of Weir. 'This used to be a railway line.' I said, and looked over my shoulder, just in time to see a flicker of concern in her wee sparkly eyes. 'Don't worry, you don't get trains here any more.' She smiled, reassured. 'Except the odd ghost train maybe.' I added.

'Daddy!'

'Well, hardly ever, and it's probably just a story!

'Daddy. Stop it!'

I looked again, she had her melodramatic scared look on; she knew it was a joke and wanted me to carry on.

'Whoo whooo! Did you here that? There's a train coming. Quick, faster! Pedal faster!'

'Daddy! I can hear it. Hurry. It's coming.' We both pedalled as hard as we could, round the corner and under an old rail bridge near Johnstone. Every square inch of was covered in romantic, obscene and sectarian graffiti; but most were just attempts at immortality:

Jude Woz Here.

Kevo Woz Here.

Janice and Billy Woz Here.

'Me an Daddy Woz here!'

'Yeh! You and me, darlin. We Woz here!'

We stopped just outside Brookfield and sat down on the grass verge for some blackcurrant and apple juice. And there it was, that solid cartoon yellow rape field, with its implausibly green tree right in the middle, and a clear blue cloudless sky above.

'When I was a wee boy, my daddy used to drive past that field and I always wanted to take a photo. Can I take one now?'

'Ok. It's really pretty. It's like a painting.' I took one of just of the field on its own, and one of my daughter in front.

'Just look natural.'

'Ok.'

And immediately she crossed her eyes, stretched her mouth into a toothy gargoyle grin and stood on one leg. Just like I would have done aged six.

There are hardly any photographs of my dad and me for the same reason there are hardly any of me with my daughter. Camera's were boys toys and he was the boy with the camera; Voigtlander rangefinder that only he could really use. And in the few photos that my mum took, he's all frowns and gesticulating hands, clearly issuing instructions.

'Have you got the lens cap off?' ' Make sure our heads are in!'

Bridge of Weir station hadn't been open since the 'Beeching Axe' felled it in the early 1970's. Or maybe even earlier? It was hard to roll past the old station and not get pulled into the past.

'Daddy.'

And anyway, that was the point.

'Daddy! I'm hungry.'

She dragged me back into the present.

'Hungry? Right, well, they make they make the best bridies in the world here.'

And so they did, at the bakery where my mum worked for a short time. Auntie Jessie, my mum's sister, was standing outside and recognized me at once.

'So this is Flora?'

'This is your great' Auntie Jessie, Flora.'

'That's enough of the 'great'' She took a pound coin from her purse and gave it to Flora.

'That's for you pet, to buy what you want, and don't let your dad tell you what to spend it on.' Auntie Jessie looked at Flora, then at me. 'Well, she certainly looks like you, specially round the eyes.' It's daft I know, but a warm wave of I don't know what, swept through me, just at that recognition of me in her, her in me.

We walked the bikes up the glen to the place by the burn where I'd come so often as a child to drink watery squash with my cousins, surrounded by bare footed aunties in cotton print dresses and shirt sleeved uncles, their hands in their pockets There are picnic tables now but we still sat on the grass and ate our bridies, like we used to do. And for the next hour and a half my daughter and I did everything, 'like we used to do.' We rolled down the hill-like we used to do We paddled in the burn-like we used to do She lost a shoe-like I used to do.

We had a stick sword fight-like we used to.

We played hide and seek-like we used to do.

We cycled down the hill to my old house and we sat on the step, the same step that my brother and I sat on to have our picture taken in 1965; and I took a picture of my daughter and I with the camera's 10-second delay. I just made it in time and it nearly cut off the top of my head.. We wandered up the road a little to my Primary School, where I pointed out the Lady Bell with her Big Skirt up on the roof., and the railings where I'd got my head stuck twice in one week. As I was putting her helmet on, ready to go, and feeling full of food and memories, I bent down kissed her on her nose. She looked beautiful.

'Are you sad daddy?'

'Do I look sad?'

'A wee bit.'

'No, not sad darlin. Just, I don't know really.'

'Mibbly?'

Mibbly. Her and her made up words. Mibbly, meaning; happy and sad; neither one nor the other, and both together.

'yeh, Mibbly. That's what I'm feeling, Mibbly.'