The Burying Beetle

by Ann Kelley

  My bed is very old – metal-framed, with a pretty bed head and foot end of twisted and knotted cast iron or something, and I have a lovely patchwork bedcover which is all different bits of cotton fabric, spots, stripes and flowers and very girlie, but I don’t mind. Mum says it has character. She’s right. There are wooden planked walls too. There’s a little cracked mirror with a leather frame with a hole pierced in the top so it can hang on a nail. I’ve never seen a mirror like it before. It must be ancient. There’s another large mirror on the wall opposite, an ordinary frameless mirror, but circular, like a porthole, with metal clips on the edges.

  There are hundreds of books in this room. When we first came here and the windows had been closed for a long time, the house smelt of old books, like a second hand bookshop or a library. It’s a lovely smell, sort of musty and cobwebby. I wonder why old books smell that way. Is it the bookworms?

  The books are mostly about nature – birds, wild flowers, lichens, mosses, grasses, trees, mammals, sea shore creatures, butterflies and moths. There are loads of old novels. And travel books, and books all about Cornwall. There’s almost a whole wall of poetry books. There’s even a Winnie the Pooh in Latin, Winnie Ille Pu. Maybe I could teach myself Latin from it. I love Winnie the Pooh, it’s one of my favourite books of all time. I hated Alice in Wonderland – mainly because of the illustrations, I think, whereas the Winnie the Pooh drawings are somehow just right, comforting and cosy. Also because I found the red and white queens rather creepy and the adventures were scary: Alice suddenly becoming very large or very small.

  I remember when I was little and lying in bed in that strange place between sleep and waking, I used to have this weird sensation sometimes of growing larger and larger until I filled the entire room and it was as if I was floating over the bed and seeing myself little and lying there but I was also this huge being looking down.

  Daddy’s flowers are next to my bed, a tight little fist of vivid colour, sharp and foreign looking, just like the packed bunches of carnations they sell in the street in Spain, except the Spanish ones smell smoky and peppery and sort of wicked, like cigars, and these have no scent at all. Everything else here is bleached to pale pastels. The white walls take on the colour of the sea and sky depending on the weather, but even when it rains the house is bright and you almost have to wear sunglasses inside. At the moment one wall is grey-green and the ceiling is the colour of a gull, a pearly white.

  There’s a high shelf that runs all round the room in here and another in the sitting room. Plate shelves, Mum says. The wooden brackets that hold them up are shaped and pierced like sunrises or sunsets, like you get on some gates on old houses. He’s left lots of old plates here, the owner, plates shaped like fish, in pale green or yellow, flat fish with silly faces and little fins in a different colour. We don’t use them to eat off though, in case they are precious.

  There are also some paintings on the walls, not prints but real oil paintings and watercolours. Seascapes and landscapes, all Cornish scenes, I should think.

  When the wind blows hard, the whole house shakes and trembles and draughts come through the wooden walls and floors, and I keep expecting the fishy plates to leap off the wall. Mum insists I have a window open at night but I have to shove a paperback in the gap to stop it rattling. We only use books we haven’t enjoyed, and never the books that belong to the owner.

  It’s exciting to be here when there’s a strong wind blowing. The rooks look like broken umbrellas or black tattered cloaks, thrown away and tumbled by the gusts. The gale shaves the tops off the waves and sends the spray flying back into the sea. And big waves come up over the rocks below, onto the gun emplacement, or whatever it is. It’s dangerous to get close to the sea when there’s a big swell. Every year, anglers get swept off the rocks and drowned. I can’t remember where I read that. Maybe in this book I’m reading by a man called WH Hudson. The Land’s End, it’s called, – A Naturalist’s Impressions in West Cornwall. He was born in South America and travelled around this part of Cornwall in the very early years of the twentieth century. He reckoned the Cornish were a race apart – ‘Celts with less alien blood in their veins than any other branch of their race in Britain.’ He also said that the Cornish ‘were like the Spanish, passionate.’ And that ‘Celtic cruelty is rather due to a drop of black blood in the heart – an ancient, latent ferocity which comes out in moments of passion.’ Hmm!

  Mum used to take me to tropical countries in winter when I was little. We’ve been to Kenya three times, Thailand once and the Seychelles once.

  We also went to the Canary Islands with Daddy one winter. A monkey attacked me. He was an organ grinder’s monkey on a long leash and he saw me walking towards him and attacked me, grabbing at my jacket and pulling it off my arm. I screamed and screamed but I wasn’t really hurt, just a tiny scratch on my arm, luckily. Mum said they had wondered whether to get me to a doctor so I could have rabies injections, but the skin wasn’t broken so they didn’t. I think they’ve stopped people keeping monkeys like that, as part of a street act. I hope so, it’s so cruel keeping them tied up.

  We went to a circus in the Canaries and the posters showed elephants and lions, and tigers and snakes, but there was only one baby elephant, a dancing dog, and a few mangy lions in a cage that looked like it was going to topple over. The lion-tamer looked terrified and all he could do with them was stop them killing him, which I suppose was enough. It was funny in a very scary way. And there was a woman who nearly fell off a tightrope, she kept wobbling, and then she was fired out of a cannon, except it didn’t work and she sort of fell out instead. But I liked watching the audience best. The old men in black flat-topped broad brimmed hats and with wine in pigskins or something, pouring the wine from a height into their mouths; and the women with wonderful fans to keep themselves cool. Daddy bought me castanets and a folding paper fan. I wonder what happened to them. And all the little children wore white – white dresses or shorts and white crocheted socks and white sandals, and they all looked so cute. Mum bought me some Exquisite Garments there, she says. A sailor suit dress with stripes. I don’t really remember that. I hate dresses.

  ‘I’m off, Gussie. Now are you sure you’ll be all right? What can I get you?’

  ‘For goodness sake, Mum, I’m not ill, just tired, that’s all. You know I like mooching. You can buy me some Smarties.’

  ‘Please!’

  ‘Please.’

  Mum’s going shopping to Truro. I was going with her to spend my birthday money from Daddy but I’ll have to do it another day. Even the thought of walking up the cliff to the car makes me feel exhausted.

  Rambo and Charlie are on my bed, curled up asleep on my cuddly blanket that I’ve had forever. It’s a blue and pink checked woollen blanket that used to go on my baby buggy, and I love it. It might not be exactly the one I had, but it’s a substitute one Mum bought when she realised I wouldn’t be parted with the old one, and she washed it a few times so it faded a bit and got to look like my old blanky. It fooled me anyway when I was about four. I used to suck my thumb and rub the blanket on my cheek. I still do suck my thumb sometimes. It’s a comfort thingy. Mum says my thumb will never be the same shape as the other one. She’s right. My right thumb is flatter and wider than the left one. I don’t care. I think it makes me look interesting. I like things that make people look different from other people, like scars. Which is just as well.

  I’m going to read some more of this old book, which I like for its strange old-fashioned manner of expression. This writer rambles – that is, walks – through our part of Cornwall and sees everything, including the people, with a foreign eye. It’s interesting.

  There’s a big gull outside on the rail of the decking. He’s not making any noise, he’s just sitting there and looking in. He has a cruel looking curved beak with a yellow spot on it, and his breast feathers are so very white. He has pink legs and webbed feet and he is a very handsome fellow. In St Ives they have gulls everywhere, nesting on t
he roofs, and there are notices saying do not feed the gulls, because they start taking food out of people’s hands, including the hands of small children, who get frightened. But I think they are very splendid creatures.

  This man WH Hudson says there used to be lots of jackdaws in St Ives, sitting on the roofs. He liked watching them peering down the smoky chimneys and talking to each other, as if they were trying to decide what was cooking on the fire below. He made friends with some of them, by feeding them, and the local people thought he was very odd. But he thinks the jackdaw is a very intelligent bird and very amusing to watch. I wonder if those big black birds on our pines are jackdaws? All big black birds look the same to me, and they all go caw or wah, more or less.

  There are all sorts of twitterings going on too from small blue birds, small green birds and small brown birds that look like tabby cats. There’s so much to learn about everything. Will there be time?

  I don’t really think about how much time I’ve got. It Doesn’t Do to Worry about things you Can’t Change. She’s right, of course. But I do worry that I won’t have time to do all the things I want to do. I don’t know what I want to do yet, but the possibilities seem vast and unending. I thought I might be a vet but all the girls I know want to be vets, so there’ll be lots of competition. Most people seem to have quite boring jobs, like solicitors and bank managers and plumbers and secretaries. I’d rather do some exploring or mountaineering or sail round the world single-handed, except that I get seasick and I don’t like heights. But that sort of thing, anyway. Perhaps I’ll make a list of all the jobs I might be able to learn how to do.

  At least I’ve been to foreign countries, more than most girls of my age. I did love Kenya so much, but I can’t go to very hot countries any more. Last time we went somewhere hot – Thailand – I got pains in my chest and arm. When we got back to London the cardiologist, Mr Samson, said I shouldn’t really get too hot or too cold anymore. Which is one reason we came to Cornwall – they have milder winters here than in London.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A LONG TIME ago, in the days of ancient Greece, this insect was named Mantis, or the Prophet. The peasant saw her on the sun-scorched grass, standing half-erect in a very imposing and majestic manner, with her broad green gossamer wings trailing like long veils, and her forelegs, like arms, raised to the sky as though in prayer. To the peasant’s ignorance the insect seemed like a priestess or a nun, and so she came to be called the Praying Mantis.

  There was never a greater mistake! Those pious airs are a fraud; those arms raised in prayer are really the most horrible weapons, which slay whatever passes within reach. The mantis is as fierce as a tigress, cruel as an ogress. She feeds only on living creatures.

  Having a flexible neck, she can move her head freely in all directions. She is the only insect that can direct her gaze wherever she will. She almost has a face.

  Great is the contrast between this peaceful-looking body and the murderous machinery of the forelegs. The haunch is very long and powerful, while the thigh is even longer. And carries on its lower surface two rows of sharp spikes or teeth. Behind these teeth are three spurs. In short, the thigh is a saw with two blades, between which the leg lies when folded back. This leg itself is also a double-edged saw, provided with a greater number of teeth than the thigh. It ends with a strong hook with a point as sharp as a needle, and a double blade like a sharp pruning knife.

  When at rest, the trap is folded back against the chest and looks quite harmless. There you have the insect praying. But if a victim passes by, the appearance of prayer is quickly dropped. The three long divisions of the trap are suddenly unfolded, and the prey is caught with the sharp hook at the end of them, and drawn back between the two saws. Then the vice closes and all is over. Locusts, grasshoppers and even stronger insects are helpless against the four rows of teeth. (Fabre’s Book of Insects)

  I wish I had had this book with me in Kenya. I could have studied the mantis. And now I will never again have the chance. Bother and poodlebums! That’s one of Grandpop’s expressions that were supposed to be swear words. They were much more inventive and amusing than any real swear words. He never said anything rude – except bugger and damn – Grandma wouldn’t have allowed it. She was very religious and proper. Unlike my parents, who say sod and shit and fuck but never the ‘c’ word. Mum says it Demeans Women.

  I do miss them, Grandma and Grandpop Jackson. They lived in Shoeburyness, in Essex – which is a long way from Cornwall but quite close to London. They used to think of the best things to do when I saw them – like play Monopoly or Scrabble, if it was cold and raining, or chess, and Grandpop cheated like mad, and Grandma got cross and we always ended up killing ourselves laughing. And when it was fine we used to go for walks along the seafront and talk to very old friends of theirs who had a little wooden beach hut called Happy Days, and who offered us fish paste sandwiches and cream buns and disgusting tea from a flask. And these people never nagged me about how I was getting on at school or what I wanted to be when I grew up. They didn’t whisper about how frail I looked, and never looked at me as if they were sorry for me. They treated me as if I was normal, not some sort of freak. They just wanted to laugh and chat to Grandma and Grandpop, so I could just go and balance on the black wooden breakwaters and find white stones on the pebbly beach to rub together to make a spark. I think they might have been quartz pebbles.

  I’ve found a very powerful magnifying glass in the house, and I’m sure we’re meant to use it. It was with the binoculars and it’s quite ancient, with a fancy ivory handle and a circular metal frame. But it’s rather large and much too good to carry with me when I go out exploring. I’ll try it out in the garden first, when I’m feeling better.

  Fabre says, ‘many a time, when Mantis-hunting, I have been clawed by the insect and forced to ask somebody else to release me.’ That’s extraordinary, because, when I rescued the mantis from the loo it made no attempt to attack me. It must have known I was helping it.

  The cats have shoved off. I was moving too much; they didn’t appreciate the earthquakes. It’s funny how they often come and lie on my bed when I’m not very well. They seem to know when I need affection and company. I’m lucky with my cats.

  I think I might be a scientist when I grow up – an observer of animals and insects, like WH Hudson and David Attenborough. Better even than a vet.

  Our gull – I call him our gull because it’s the same one who comes each day – is the ghost of my Grandpop. Mum told me Grandpop always said he would come back as a gull. He was a sailor and everyone knows that sailors come back as gulls. She calls the herring gull Pop, which isn’t a very beautiful name for such a handsome bird, but I’ve started to call him Pop too. He is very well mannered, for a herring gull. He doesn’t shout and scream for food, he simply waits patiently, for hours sometimes, usually on the roof or the deck rail, until I find him a little treat – sometimes it’s only a crust of bread, sometimes a bit of bacon or old cheese that’s been sitting in the fridge for ages. As soon as I open the kitchen door he flies down from the roof and looks eagerly at me. He is so beautifully clean and white and his back is a sea blue-grey. I would like my walls painted in his colours, when I have my own room in our own house. He is the only ‘character’ I see all day, mostly, apart from Eugene, who usually runs down the hill to us, quickly posts the letters through our letter box and runs up the hill again.

  Mum says Eugene’s Dishy in a Brutish way. I can’t see it really, except that I do quite like Bruce Willis, and he is rather brutish, I suppose. I don’t know why I like him but I think he has a beautiful soul as well as being tough.

  I like Kevin Costner too, but he isn’t quite so tough seeming. I loved him in Waterworld. I’ve seen it four times. Everyone else thought it was rubbish but I loved it, all those Heath Robinson sailing boats and machines and the smoking baddies on jet-skis – cool. I liked Rollerball too, except for the boring love bits, and no one else did. Maybe I’ve got rather odd taste in
films.

  Pop is very amusing sometimes. He stands outside the sliding glass door and taunts the cats by pecking lightly at the glass until they either turn tail and slink away, or face up to him and lash out, spitting at the glass. I’m sure they know they can’t get hurt with the glass there, but it seems to me rather brave of our little cats to stand up to a bird that’s bigger than them, and with a long sharp beak.

  I have decided to keep a notebook of my observations of Pop and other herring gulls.

  I have a lovely new book with a shiny green cover, hardback, with blank pages so I can draw things as well as write notes. It was an extra birthday pressie from Mum. It’s almost too beautiful to spoil with writing in it. And there’s a ribbon so I can go straight to the page I’m working on. And I’ve bought a new pen, especially for my notes. It’s a liquid ink roller and makes my writing look very grown-up.

  Mum has started a part-time job with a local estate agent. Just on Saturdays. She reckons that she will be the first to get to know if anything exciting turns up in the way of a suitable house for us to buy, and she’s always been nosy about people’s houses, so this is the ideal job for her. And I can phone her at work if I need her in a hurry.

  She lives in the past, but I suppose all adults are like that.

  She has this awful habit of speaking in capital letters, like everything she says is vitally important. I usually ignore her. I do talk to the cats. Only Charlie talks back to me. The others are silent. Good listeners though. I have just remembered something about the real Pop – he called Grandma ‘Mate’, and until I was quite grown up I thought that was her name. In their house the floor was always called ‘the deck’ and I learned my port and starboard before I knew left from right.