Inchworm

by Ann Kelley

  ‘Does it still work? Can you still get film for it?’

  ‘I think so. There’s a whizz-kid at the archive. I’ll ask him to check it over.’

  We rummage deeper and find a pile of square card boxes, tied with string. Inside each one is a pile of film negatives 2¼ x 2¼ inches, separated by brown tissue paper. Holding them up to the light, we see black and white negative images of St Ives harbour and the town, boats and gulls and people.

  ‘I had no idea,’ says Daddy, shaking his head. ‘This is quite a find.’

  ‘What will you do with them?’

  ‘Get them printed. We’ll see how good they are then.’

  He parcels them up carefully back in the boxes, which are dated – 1928, 1929, 1930, 1931, 1932. Five years’ work by a famous Cornish photographer, hidden in Daddy’s cupboard (the work, not the photographer).

  Daddy’s brought his laptop with him. It’s so amazing. I watch him type.

  ‘Daddy, could you give me a lesson in computers please?’

  ‘Sure. Not now, though. I have some catching up to do.’

  Brett has a computer and I’m sure he’ll help me when I get home.

  In the evening after a snack supper and my drugs regime we walk to the Royal Free Hospital. It’s only around the corner. We have a bag of stuff for Mum – soap, face cream, toothbrush, toothpaste, moisturiser, dressing gown.

  ‘Oh, I didn’t bring flowers!’ I say, and then remember that flowers aren’t allowed in hospital wards any more. The flower seller outside has lost his main customers. Mum would have loved some sunflowers. They’re her favourites after cornflowers, sweet peas and marigolds.

  Mum is lying in bed wearing a hospital gown. She looks pale and not at all pretty, not even interesting and memorable. She gives me a weak smile and I kiss her cheek. Daddy does too.

  ‘Mummy, I thought you were going to die.’

  She looks too frail to hug. I am crying again.

  ‘Oh Gussie, darling, you were so wonderful. Don’t cry now. I’m much better than I was last night,’ she says, ‘and about a stone lighter.’

  ‘Have you got a big scar?’

  ‘Not as big as yours.’

  ‘That’s all right then. We’ll compare them later.’ I say, wiping my face with my sleeve, and she smiles.

  ‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,’ she says. Then to Daddy, ‘It’s good of you to come.’

  ‘Not at all, not at all.’

  ‘You realise I’m not allowed to lift anything heavier than a half-full kettle for six weeks. Won’t be able to drive, can’t hoover, can’t hang up the washing. Can’t do a bloody thing.’

  She’s upset. Mum hates being dependent, she prefers to be in charge. Daddy says she’s a control freak.

  ‘I’ll cope, Mum,’ I tell her. ‘When can you come home?’

  ‘Don’t be silly Guss, I’ll cope,’ says Daddy.

  I feel proud of him. He’s come to our rescue in our time of need. Mum looks lovingly at him. Maybe they will get back together. Perhaps I should put off Alistair? Daddy will look after both of us. I feel suddenly hopeful that everything will be all right in the end. Our family will have a happy ending. I tell Mum about the hoard of hidden treasure we found.

  ‘I didn’t know you’d kept anything,’ she accused him. ‘You said you wanted nothing to do with anyone dead.’

  ‘You don’t know everything.’

  ‘Yes, well, you always were good at hiding things.’

  ‘Daddy, you like old movies and they’re full of dead people. Isn’t Jeanne Moreau dead?’

  ‘Gussie, shut up.’

  ‘But she’s your favourite actor.’ I’m trying hard to defuse the scene. It seems they can’t spend more than five minutes together without falling out. I should never have mentioned the camera. They were getting on fine before that.

  ‘Mum, I couldn’t find pyjamas or a nightie for you.’

  ‘I don’t have any, Gussie. I can’t sleep if I’m wearing something. I get tangled up in the night.’ She giggles. ‘You’ll never be able to stick me in an old people’s home. The staff would be traumatised seeing me naked every morning.

  ‘Jackson,’ she says to Daddy, ‘will you bring in my other glasses, please? My spare reading specs – the green ones, and I better have the red ones too if you can find them.’

  ‘What movie do you want to watch, Guss?’ Daddy is the best person in the world to watch a favourite movie with. We always speak the dialogue together. I don’t fancy anything serious like Truffaut, and I don’t really want to watch a Bollywood. Not Fantasia – boring. Not Busby Berkeley. Not Kes, too sad. Maybe an Indiana Jones movie, or Waterworld? Yes, Waterworld. I’ve only seen it three times. Hopefully it’s not a prophetic story. The world is flooded and survivors have made islands from old tankers and docks. The baddies are thugs on jet skis and they are called Smokers. They kidnap a child who has the tattoo of a map of where to find dry land on her back. It’s almost as exciting as an Indiana Jones movie but with interesting low-tech inventions, like a hot-air balloon made of animal skins and the hero’s boat, which has a sail made from cloth and skins.

  I go to bed early, thankful that Daddy is the next room. I have daydreams of him always being there with me, watching old movies and showing me how to make photographs. Perhaps he could be my manager or agent and get me loads of important projects for glossy magazines. He could be my mentor, my guide; maybe I could even make movies if he would show me how.

  Daddy watches me take my drugs and writes down the times and amounts on Mum’s chart. He takes me to the pet shop for mealworms and birdseed. I think he likes the birdfeeders in his garden, even though Alistair bought them. I feed Mr Robin some mealworms and get him to photograph me.

  ‘Very impressive. I’ll forget to feed the birds when you go home, you know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course you won’t. You couldn’t forget Mr Robin. He’ll remind you with a song. Wouldn’t you like a pet, Daddy? Don’t you miss the cats?’

  ‘No I don’t. Damned hair everywhere. Can you imagine that all over my suede sofas?’ He laughs and strokes my hair, attempting to flatten the spikes.

  ‘You don’t really prefer furniture to cats?’

  ‘You talking to me?’ he asks in a Robert de Niro voice, moving around like de Niro did to watch himself in the mirror. ‘You talking to me?’

  I smile. He does it so well.

  ‘Yes, actually. Gussie, I know it’s sad but I do prefer well-designed, comfortable and beautiful furniture to cats.’ He smiles ruefully. Ruefully means that he wishes he didn’t feel that but he does. Poor Daddy, what a sad life. You can’t talk to sofas or cuddle them. He’s happy now the man with a machine has cleaned the carpet.

  No chance to learn a new word today. I’m very tired.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I AM LOOKING into an open grave where my mother is wrapped in a bloody shroud. I’m falling…

  ‘Shh, shh, it’s okay, honeybun, you’re having a bad dream.’

  ‘Oh Daddy, Daddy…’ I weep onto his shoulder. The towelling dressing gown, rough on my cheek, soaks up my tears.

  MRS THOMAS! I had completely forgotten about her eye operation. I phone and she’s at home. She’s got her cat, Shandy to keep her company and she’s feeling all right, but a bit sore. She’s not surprised about Mum being in hospital, she says: ‘I saw it coming.’

  I phone Claire to see how my cats are. Gabriel answers.

  ‘Your cats are silly. They’re scared of ducks and rabbits. The cockerel hates them – chases them whenever he sees them. Charlie sits in my tree-house with me.’

  ‘How are they getting on with the puppy?’

  ‘Zennor? She’s frightened of them. Puts her tail between her legs and runs and hides.’

  ‘She doesn’t? How sweet!’

  ‘When are you coming home, Gussie?’

  ‘I don’t know, not as soon as I thought. Mum will have to recover from her operation first. I’ll let you know
. Is your mum there?’

  ‘I’ll get her. Gussie, I have a new pet.’

  ‘Have you? What is it?’

  ‘You won’t tell Claire will you? It’s a secret pet.’

  ‘Tell me, Gabriel. What is it?’

  ‘It’s a spider.’

  I imagine he means a house spider that he has put in a shoe-box or something. I’m reminded of a terrible thing I did once, when I was very little. I found a crab on the beach at Shoeburyness and wanted to keep it, but was told I couldn’t. I smuggled it home with me and I hid it in a box under my bed. It died, of course. The smell was so bad, Mum found out. She gave me such a hard time. Poor crab.

  ‘I like spiders,’ I say.

  ‘It’s a humungous spider, Gussie, Billy gave it to me. I swapped him a grass snake.’

  ‘I’ve never seen a grass snake.’

  ‘I’ll find you one when you come home. My spider’s a red-kneed tarantula. I call him Terry the Terrible. He was called Ivan the Terrible but he looks more like a Terry.’

  ‘A real tarantula? Wow! Is it a free-range spider?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Does it hunt for its own food?’

  ‘No, he’s in a terrarium under my bed.’

  ‘What does it eat, Gabriel?’

  ‘Whatever I catch. I have to go now. Don’t tell Claire about Terry. She doesn’t like spiders. Claire! Claire, it’s Gussie for you.’

  I wonder what Claire will think next time she cleans under his bed. And what does a large spider eat? Large insects? Small birds? Mice? Must look it up.

  ‘Gussie, hello darling, how are you? How’s your mother? Is your father with you?’

  ‘Yes, he is.’

  ‘That’s good. Let me know if you need me. I can come any time.’

  She says it’s all right for our cats to stay there for as long as they need to. That’s one problem solved. My cats are fine, anyway. They’re happy.

  When we visit Mum, I take a bottle of elderflower cordial.

  ‘No whisky?’ she says.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘You could have disguised it in the elderflower bottle,’ she says.

  ‘Nah, don’t think so.’

  I lean over and she kisses me and strokes my cheek.

  ‘Thank you for rescuing me,’ she says. ‘What would I do without you?’

  I feel proud and sad, and my eyes smart. I tell her Claire sends her love.

  ‘Yes, Jackson, you really should meet your relations – such nice people, surprisingly so in fact.’

  ‘Mum!’ I say, threateningly.

  We open our mail, which has been sent on by Mrs Thomas, including my copy of Bird Magazine. Mum suggests I send them photos of me feeding Mr Robin mealworms from my hand. What a good idea. It might be the breakthrough I need to make me a famous wildlife photographer, except that Daddy would have taken the picture.

  ‘Are you taking your medicines? Filling in the charts? How do you feel Gussie? My poor baby.’ She cries on my arm and makes my sleeve wet. ‘I’m sorry this happened, darling.’ Her nose is red. Mum-Nose Pink – another colour chart name.

  ‘I’m fine, really. When can you leave hospital, Mum?’

  ‘Wednesday, if I’m good.’

  But she isn’t good. Wednesday comes and when Daddy goes to collect her she is in tears. Her temperature is up and she has an infection. She’s in a room on her own and I am not allowed to go in to see her.

  Alistair will not be here tomorrow. He’s stuck in Bulgaria by an air controllers’ strike. Bad luck always seems to come in threes. Sure enough – when I get back, on the patio step, there’s Mr Robin – dead. He has been chewed and his breast is bloody. A cat attack, probably. I have seen a mangy, pregnant female skulking in the bushes.

  I am the only mourner at Mr Robin’s funeral. I bury him under the beech tree, after saying a few words: ‘I only knew you a short time but I loved your voice and you brought happiness to me.’ My sad words make me cry. I sing the first verse of All Things Bright and Beautiful. Sparrows and a blackbird hop around at the back of the garden keeping a respectful distance; rooks in the high branches are suitably dressed in black. I place a few sprigs of hebe and a daffodil on the grave and a cross made of two twigs tied with cotton. I know he wasn’t Christian, but it makes me feel better. When I was little I used to make graves for butterflies, mice, shrews and lizards. Anything the cats half ate I would carefully place in a matchbox or wrap in tissue and bury in the garden. Now I leave the corpses for burying beetles to lay their eggs on and bury – Nature’s recyclers.

  Mr Robin was different. We had a special relationship. He trusted me. Into my mind has popped a book I had when I was small – The Wise Robin – a Ladybird Book. He too was called Mr Robin – Bob to his wife. She wanted tinsel from a Christmas tree to decorate her nest and persuaded her husband to get it. He was trapped on the tree inside the house on Christmas Day and a child, assuming he was a toy bird, wanted him as a present. He had to sing to prove he was real and then they let him out – minus the tinsel. When the tree was thrown out after Christmas there were pieces of tinsel still on it and so Mrs Robin had her smart shiny decor after all.

  It’s been too sad to learn a new word.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  FORSAKE—TO DESERT; ABANDON

  ANTHROPOLOGIST—SOMEONE WHO STUDIES THE SCIENCE OF MAN IN ITS WIDEST SENSE (sounds like it should be someone who apologises for man)

  MUMMY STILL HAS an infection and is being kept in a separate room, so still no visiting for me. Daddy goes in the afternoon for half an hour and then is back.

  ‘Gussie, I have to go somewhere. Will you be all right?’

  No, I won’t, is what I want to say but, ‘Fine, no probs,’ comes out of my mouth. ‘How long will you be?’

  ‘Oh, a good couple of hours.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘No, you can’t do that, no. Take your pills if I’m not back. Watch a movie. Phone Willy if you need anything. I’ve told him I have to go out. Have a meeting with…’

  ‘Why can’t I come with you?’ I don’t listen to his reasons. A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.

  It’s raining too hard to go out for a walk. Didn’t go yesterday either. I walk around the flat for twenty minutes instead. I pretend the sofa is the lake with swans and ducks floating by; the side table is a block of shops, the vase of orange dahlias is the flower seller’s stall. I stop to pat a spaniel puppy (a stool) and talk to a jogger (the coat rack) who is doing up her laces. What a lovely day. Do you come here often? Only when it rains.

  I could phone the police and shop Daddy for leaving me on my own, I’m sure it’s illegal. I’m only twelve, for goodness sake. I think you have to fourteen to be left on your own at home.

  It could be worse: he could have asked the Snow Queen to look after me. I have a sulk, blowing bubbles with my spit as I did when I was little. I squeeze out a few tears, missing home, wishing Mum was here, wishing Mr Robin hadn’t been killed, wishing I hadn’t had a heart and lung transplant, wishing I was a million miles away and someone else.

  Who would I like to be?

  David Attenborough, I think. He spends all his time travelling to interesting natural places and learning all about insects and birds and animals. That sounds like a perfect job to me.

  I start to watch some boring cartoons then give up after half an hour. Instead I make a recording of the rain. Maybe I could be a sound recordist for radio. That must be a really interesting job, listening to birds, animals, night sounds in forests, traffic sounds, sea sounds, the sounds a house makes when it is empty of people.

  At home we have a catalogue from an exhibition of pictures made by the tracks that wild creatures make at dusk. The artist the animals’ scratch marks and scatterings, worm slitherings and frog jump marks – on a glass plate coated on one side with a layer of carbon. A beetle’s footprints look like tiny tank tracks. A slowworm made a pattern like someone cleaning windows, great smears and
swirls of white on the blackened glass plate. There’s one picture made up of the prints of a cat and a mouse. The cat’s paw-prints look like a dinosaur’s compared with the tiny mouse prints.

  Carbon doesn’t hurt the animals. It’s the one element that all living things share in common. It forms the building blocks of life, and is ‘the ultimate destiny of all life.’ Perhaps I could do a sound version of that. The tiny scratching of ants marching; badgers snuffling and their long sharp claws digging for worms. That’s their main food. They must have to work hard to get enough to fill them up. When we lived on the cliff we put out peanuts and leftovers for the badgers. They ate fish and chips, chicken carcasses, curry, anything except green vegetables. They were probably the best-fed badger family in Cornwall, if not the world. Now we’re gone they’ll have to make do with worms, bugs and slugs – their usual diet.

  When I play back the recording I hear what sounds like Mr Robin’s alarm call, a constant wheep, wheep, and I go to the patio door to look to see what he’s making such a fuss about, before I remember that he is dead. There’s a small bundle of sodden fluff on the step. I slide the door open. It’s a kitten, about five or six weeks old. Poor little thing, it’s shivering and half drowned. I pick him up and he spits and hisses at me, trying to look fierce but he’s frightened. I wrap him in a towel and dry him carefully. It’s a tom I think, you can’t really tell at this age – completely black. Where’s his mother? It’s raining too hard for me to go out and search. Maybe his mother is the scruffy stray that killed Mr Robin? Why didn’t she take the bird for her other babies to eat? Some mother! Or maybe she’s old and sick and can’t feed her babies properly and has had to leave each one on someone’s doorstep, hoping they will be adopted.

  I find a boot box and line it with one of my T-shirts. How am I going to feed him? I find an eyedropper in the bathroom cabinet and try feeding the kitten with warm milk mixed with raw egg. He doesn’t like it, but licks his lips and wipes it off his chin with his paws in a very adult cat way. He is still shivering, from cold or fear. His paw pads are black and his eyes are the colour of forget-me-nots. What shall I call him? I give him a saucer of water mixed with a very little milk. His nose hits the water first and he draws back in surprise. He laps with difficulty, almost falling into it in his haste to drink. I find a tin of tuna and mash up a little. He likes that. Oh yes, he does like that.