How the Penguins Saved Veronica
Page 19
“Please, Dietrich.”
He tugs at his beard in a stressed manner. “I’ll tell you what. We’ll put it to the vote.”
Mike takes it upon himself to summarize the situation in his own abhorrently prejudiced way. “So: Do we hand-rear the bird, staying up half the night, becoming exhausted and emotionally attached and making it totally dependent on us? Or do we let nature take its course?”
“Let the baby die, you mean,” I put in.
“The baby? It’s not a human, Veronica,” Terry reminds me.
Dietrich holds up an impatient hand. “OK. Enough! We know the facts. Who’s for trying to look after the chick here?” he asks.
I raise my hand immediately. Terry raises hers, too. Nobody else does.
Mike scowls. “Veronica isn’t one of us. She can’t vote.”
Dietrich ignores him. “And who’s for putting it back outside?”
Mike sticks his hand up. Our eyes turn to Dietrich. Very slowly, he raises his hand, too.
“I’m sorry, you two. I know he’s sweet, but we simply don’t have the time or the resources.”
“Exactly! Couldn’t have put it better myself,” says Mike.
A flash of anger glints in Terry’s eyes. “What is this—boys against girls?”
She turns abruptly and heads toward the door with the penguin still poking its head out of her parka.
I follow her out. “Where are you going? What are you going to do?”
“Kill it.”
I can’t believe what I’ve just heard. “What?”
“I’ll bang its head under a stone. It’s the kindest, quickest way. Better than leaving it to a long, lingering death by starvation.”
I am aghast. “You can’t do that!”
“I don’t want to, believe me, Veronica. I don’t want to at all. But I don’t have a lot of choice. The men have spoken,” she replies, bitterly.
I pull her back. “Yes, indeed, the men have spoken—but need you jump to attention? You’re soon to be the boss of proceedings here. Why not practice some leadership and simply insist.”
“We’d need everyone’s backing to save this little guy,” she answers in a resigned tone of voice. “And even I can see it’s not the scientifically sensible thing to do.”
I am losing her. She starts to walk away.
“No!” I shriek.
“Veronica, please don’t make this any more difficult. I’m sorry. I was wrong to let you hope.”
“You were not wrong. I’m not having that. Scientifically sensible, is it? Well, science can go to hell. Science can cut off its own nose to spite its face and disfigure itself in any other way it deems appropriate. I don’t give a fig.” I’m getting worked up now. “Sad, sick, cruel bastards.”
“Veronica!”
I throw my cane aside and stagger slightly, then regain my balance. “You may be a scientist, but I am not, as Mike so rightly points out. Now give me the penguin.”
She gawks at me.
My hands are outstretched toward her. “Go on. Give him here. I shall look after him myself.”
“Veronica, you can’t do that.”
“Yes, Terry. Yes, I can. I mean it. I’ve made up my mind. I shall do whatever is necessary, whatever it takes.” Even if it is the last thing I do upon this earth. “You may, of course, help me if you like,” I concede. “Not as one of the scientists, but as a friend.” I’ve surprised myself with that last word.
Terry’s glasses are a little steamed up. Her mouth puckers. She stretches out her fingers and strokes the chick’s head. Then, in the speediest of movements, she grabs him in both hands and thrusts him toward me.
“Your penguin, your responsibility?”
“Quite!” I say, accepting the little one and holding him against me. He moves feebly, a tiny bundle made up of flippers, feet and fluff. He rests his head on my chest and seems to relax into me. My heart feels as though it’s just expanded. Now that I’m holding him I realize—quite unreasonably but with a force I can’t deny—that it will now be utterly impossible to let him go.
Terry watches. She blinks away a tear. Then she picks up my cane, presents it to me again and leans in toward me.
“I’ll help. Of course I will,” she whispers. “As a friend!” She smiles a wicked smile. “Veronica, how the hell do you do it? You just made me go against all my logic and all my training.”
“And go with all your natural kindness.”
“You are a force to be reckoned with.”
“I know.”
She strokes the chick again. “Just please don’t be too upset if he doesn’t make it.”
“If he doesn’t make it, I will know, at least, that we have tried,” I tell her. It is not trying that I find unforgivable.
“What shall we call him?” she asks.
A name whisks across my consciousness. But I am quite unable to utter that name. It is another name that springs, unbidden, to my lips, a name that has kept on surfacing in my consciousness of late. Before I can stop myself, I’ve said it out loud.
“Patrick.”
• 31 •
Veronica
LOCKET ISLAND
“He can stay in my room,” I tell Terry decisively as we head back inside. “We’ll make up a little nest for him.”
“You go ahead and settle him in, Veronica. I’ll see what fish I can find in the storeroom. We’ll need to get some food down him as quickly as possible.”
The baby penguin nestles into me. His feet hang limply; his head flops against my chest. I carry him back through the lounge, whispering sweet nothings and ignoring the disgruntled faces of Mike and Dietrich as I pass. Just before I close my bedroom door behind me, I catch Dietrich saying to Mike: “Leave her be. The poor bird will probably die in any case.”
I cuddle “the poor bird” close to me.
“You are not going to die,” I assure him. He doesn’t respond.
Where can I put him? I lower him gently onto my bed while I think. He stays put in a semi-recumbent position, his eyes half-closed. My empty suitcases are stacked against one wall of the room. I stoop down, causing my back to creak a little in protest, lift the smallest of the cases and place it, open, on the bed, near the foot end. I pad it out using my turquoise woolen cardigan with gold buttons. I place the fluffy orphan inside. He collapses at once onto his belly. A trace of pinkish fluid trickles out from his rear end.
“Don’t worry about the cardigan,” I tell him. “I have it in two other colors.”
He doesn’t look remotely guilty. If I could read penguin expressions (and I believe I can), I would say he was manifesting sheer bewilderment. He’s as floppy as a rag doll. It is indeed hard to believe he isn’t some sort of soft toy. I sit next to him on the bed, stroking his soft down, trying to soothe him. Later I will go out and gather some stones, shells and lichen to make him feel more at home.
Terry comes into my bedroom carrying a bowl of pungent-smelling pinkish mush.
“Oh, I see you’ve already sacrificed a cardigan,” she notes. “We could’ve given him an old blanket.”
“It doesn’t matter in the least. What sustenance have you brought for him?”
“It’s tinned tuna. I’ve warmed it up and mashed it with water . . . I hope he’ll like it. It’ll do him good, anyway, if we can somehow get it down him.”
She perches on the bed next to the suitcase so that we have him between us.
She takes a small syringe from her pocket. “From the lab. Let’s give this a go, then.” She fills the syringe and waves it about in front of his beak. He shows little interest. He is still in a state of collapse.
Does he, in fact, want to live, I ask myself? I automatically assumed that he did, which was very wrong of me.
“As I feared,” Terry comments. “We’re going to have to force the issue.”
“Come on, Patrick!” Terry coaxes.
The chick shows no interest in the food, however, and continues to look fragile.
“Come on, Patrick! Patrick, come on!” I urge.
Terry gently pries open his beak with her finger and thumb. Before he has time to protest, she has released several drops of the mixture down his gullet. She closes his beak again and holds it closed. Little Patrick wriggles and flails about, then gulps. We watch the lump in his neck travel down, the bolus of food safely on its way to his tummy. For a moment he looks affronted that we have taken such a liberty. But suddenly he seems to put two and two together: he is hungry and this is edible, therefore the whole undignified affair must classify as a good thing. He opens his beak wide in a clear indication that more is required.
Terry turns toward me with a triumphant grin. “Well, that’s the first hurdle sorted!”
I clap my hands together in glee. “Tremendous! Oh, Terry! Well done!”
“It was nothing,” she says, modestly, as she rests the bowl on the bed. She hands me the syringe. “So, he’s your chick. You do it.”
I need no further encouragement. I extract a generous amount of the fishy mush and release it into Patrick’s open beak. He swallows it more eagerly this time. He opens his beak again.
We take it in turns to feed him.
“Thank you, Terry.”
“Thank you, Veronica. I’m glad you insisted. He’s well worth the trouble. Aren’t you, little Patrick?” she says to our new charge.
Already he seems stronger. I’m sure I can see a spark of determination has kindled in his bright eyes, a dogged willpower. He does want to live. He’s going to give it his best effort. He’s keen to defy the odds.
I’m not the only stubborn one around here.
* * *
—
I still go out to the penguin colony to be among the other penguins every day, but only for a short time. Patrick the Penguin has become my chief concern. I now know the location of all the different sorts of fish at the field base. In addition to tuna, there is frozen cod, herring and fish fingers. Once they are defrosted, I remove the skin, bones or batter as required, warm them in the oven, mash them carefully with water and serve them straight into Patrick’s beak with the syringe. It is a rare and satisfying feeling to be of use to a fellow creature.
Terry is going to try and source some krill for him as well, as this (in regurgitated form) is what he’d be eating in the wild. There are fisheries on some of the islands. “I wouldn’t normally have dealings with them,” she has informed me. “I feel a bit ambivalent toward them because overfishing is one of the big threats to the penguins’ future. Still, if we can help our Patrick . . .”
Patrick’s strength is building day by day. He spends much time snuggled up in the turquoise cardigan in the suitcase, which is now on the floor. He likes to play with the cardigan’s gold buttons. I think he is amused by their roundness and shininess, as any child would be.
He is now able to waddle about on my bedroom floor and make short forays into the lounge. He is, of course, incapable of opening a door himself, and doesn’t grasp the concept of knocking. If he wants to go through he will wait, pressed up against the door. This alarms me because he is in danger of being squashed should somebody suddenly open the door from the other side. It nearly happened once with Dietrich. I suggested that to avoid this we should always call out, “Penguin clear?” before opening. However, people cannot be trusted to remember.
Terry says it’s vitally important he doesn’t develop agoraphobia and we must let him wander about the field center. For this reason I’ve accepted the fact that most of the doors inside the building will have to remain open. Initially, I found this trying and stressful, but I’m becoming accustomed to it. Penguin Patrick takes full advantage of his freedom and wanders at will.
Unfortunately, Patrick, like his namesake, has no comprehension of basic hygiene. Little accidents occur all the time and require the application of strong detergent and a mop. If Eileen were present, this duty would be allocated to her, but as the three scientists are out for most of the day, the responsibility is mine. I don’t relish heaving a bucket of water around, but needs must. Astonishingly, I find that I rise to the challenge without the slightest trace of resentment.
Even more astonishing is the fact that my baby penguin seems to have taken a liking to me. If I lift him onto the bed, he will crawl into the crook of my arm and press up against me. I am aware that any baby creature will seek something warm to cuddle up to, but I cannot help but be wholly delighted that the something, in this case, is me.
The dear creature doesn’t even mind when, if his nether regions become mucky, I scrub him in the basin. He seems to think it’s a kind of game. He bobs his head in and out of the water and opens and shuts his beak in a charming manner. Then he gives his whole body a shake, sending scattered droplets through the air. I scold him gently for making me wet, but it’s impossible to be angry with him.
Terry still shares feeding duties with me, but she is out for much of the day. She always rushes into my room on her return to see how Patrick is doing. Sometimes she measures and weighs him. Often she takes photos of us together for her blog.
“Have you noticed,” I asked her over supper last night, “that he recognizes his own name? He stretches his flippers out and widens his eyes whenever we say ‘Patrick.’ And sometimes opens his beak, too?”
“Yes, I’ve noticed,” she answered. “Well, we do use his name a lot.”
“You sometimes call him ‘little sausage,’” I pointed out. “But that has no reaction. It’s the name ‘Patrick’ that he recognizes.”
“He doesn’t know it’s his name,” Mike insisted with his usual acerbity. “You’ve heard of Pavlov’s dogs?”
“It does ring a bell,” I replied.
“Ha ha. Very droll.”
Dietrich takes it upon himself to expand. “Pavlov always rang a bell before feeding his dogs, as you’ll remember, Veronica. The dogs quickly began to associate the sound with food, so that, after a while, merely ringing the bell caused them to salivate in expectation. It’s probably similar with your Patrick. Baby penguins have very refined hearing. They can detect their own parents’ calls among the deafening furor of the rookery. You are Patrick’s substitute parent, and you say his name every time you feed him. It’s not surprising he’s come to recognize the word so quickly.”
Mike nods. “It is merely a primal response.”
Mike is committed to concealing any hint of softness in his character. He calls Patrick “that bird.” Right from the outset he was very sure that my baby penguin was going to die—and we all know that Mike doesn’t like being proved wrong. Yet sometimes, when he thinks nobody is looking, I catch him holding out a little tidbit of food for our new resident. And on his face is that rarest of things: a fond smile.
TERRY’S PENGUIN BLOG
26 December 2012
Well, it has been some Christmas this year! We made a token gesture toward celebrating: a pretty decent Christmas dinner and fun in the evening with board games and some carols courtesy of Dietrich’s CD player. But the major news is that we now have our very own adopted baby penguin! He has lost both parents—sadly, a common occurrence out here on Locket Island. While we wouldn’t normally consider nursing such a young one under our own steam, we do have an extra pair of hands at the moment, and Veronica was very keen to help him. It will be interesting to study his behavior and monitor his progress.
The chick (we’ve named him Patrick) is a gutsy lad. He was a mere 510 g when he arrived last week, but since then he has almost doubled in weight. You see him here with Veronica being f
ed his own Christmas dinner: a formula made from krill and herring. He’s up for anything and didn’t mind (for the sake of the camera) wearing a party hat—unlike Veronica!
As a rule, we never interfere with the lives of Adélies. But Patrick the Penguin is an exceptional case, and he seems more than happy in Veronica’s company. I think you’ll agree this bond is quite remarkable.
• 32 •
Patrick
BOLTON
Right, was this Giovanni guy a one-off? Did he get her pregnant? Did he turn out to be a scumbag? And is she going to spill the beans about what happened with Harry? I grab the diary and flip through, reading entries on and off, searching for answers.
Friday, 15 August 1941
Dunwick Hall
A few girls stay here for the summer holidays, and I’m one of them. I only go back to Aunt M’s at weekends (and that’s only because she feels she has to make some gesture toward keeping an eye on me, otherwise God will be cross). Miss Philpotts and Miss Long, two very tiresome teachers, are here the whole time at Dunwick Hall supervising us, but I’ve found ways of eluding them. Because elude them I must if I’m to meet up with my Giovanni. The Saturday meets at the market are no longer enough. I play the teachers off against each other, telling one I am ill, the other that my aunt has requested my presence in Aggleworth. I leave a trail of confusion in my wake. They’re too lazy and stupid to work out that I’m actually sneaking out to meet my lover.
This new episode of life is unlike anything I’ve experienced before. I’m swimming in a wild, bright ocean of magic. I am gloriously, thrillingly, wholeheartedly submerged in love!
Luckily, Giovanni is trusted at Eastcott Farm to take the cart out on his own. He’s good at finding pretexts so he can meet me at prearranged places and times. Once I’m out of the school gates I walk miles down the country lanes to reach the secret rendezvous. I select only the most romantic places, mapped out from my journeys in the milk float. Sometimes it’s under a spreading oak, sometimes inside a hay-scented barn, sometimes beside the daisy-strewn banks of a brook. Sometimes we can meet for only a matter of minutes to share kisses and whispered words across a fence. If we miss each other, we leave love letters under stones, marking them with a single plucked dandelion.