How the Penguins Saved Veronica

by Hazel Prior

  “My daredevil father. My not-so-proud father,” Patrick mutters, and adds, “my poor mother.” He screws up his face. Then he confronts me again.

  “So what made you give him away when he was only a baby?”

  Patrick is so blunt in his questioning, so accusatory. I feel my hackles rising. I resent having to justify myself to such a person. Still, I believe he has a right to know.

  “I was very young.”

  “And?”

  “And unmarried.”

  Patrick paces the room. “Seems like deserting babies is a family trait.”

  How dare he speak to me like that? I am his flesh and blood, and I have traveled all this way to find him. I see now that this whole thing has been a mistake of colossal proportions. The history is too complex, the distance too wide. Patrick is what he is. I am what I am. We are very different animals.

  I ask myself if I want this newfound relationship to go any further. The answer comes back sharp as a razor. I do not.

  “How old were you when you gave birth to my father?” Patrick demands.

  I am equally bald in my response. “Too young.”

  I observe something flashing in his eye. It could be sympathy, but I doubt it.

  “And how old are you now?”

  “Too old.”

  “How old is too old?”

  I note he didn’t ask me how young was too young. I sigh. “I shall be eighty-six on the twenty-first of June, which is next Thursday.”

  He frowns. “I see. And do you live alone?”

  “Yes. I have a woman who comes in to help with the cleaning, though. Eileen. The house is rather too large and ramshackle for me to keep in order by myself.”

  “Well, Granny,” he says. I cringe at the word. “You’ve done all right for yourself, then.”

  I bow my head in acknowledgment. “It very much depends on your definition of all right. But yes, the house is worth a few million.”

  He chokes, and a shower of ash scatters over the carpet. I am immediately furious with myself. On no account should I have mentioned my wealth. Now he’ll automatically assume he has a right to it. At least I didn’t refer to the other few million that are sitting in various bank accounts accruing mountainous interest.

  Patrick is unable to speak for some time and then doesn’t seem to want to look at me, instead focusing his attention out of the window.

  “So how come you got to be so rich?” he says to the drainpipes.

  “I married. My husband was in the property business. I helped him with it for a while, before the divorce.” That is all I am prepared to share about myself.

  It is my turn to ask questions, to grill Patrick as he has grilled me. I am far more civil in my approach, even if I fail to muster much enthusiasm. I establish that Patrick works just one day a week at a bicycle shop. Even this is solely because of the charity of a friend who is his boss there. For the rest of his income he scrounges off the government. He has recently split with his girlfriend. I can’t say I’m surprised at this. What surprises me is that such a man can find a girlfriend in the first place. I dread to think what kind of a girl she was. I refrain from asking Patrick if he ever takes a bath. I feel in need of a good wash myself after being here, but I have absolutely no desire to see his bathroom.

  Our conversation runs out of steam very quickly. I am increasingly anxious to extricate myself from this man’s malodorous company. I’m quite certain I haven’t missed anything by not making his acquaintance earlier. I ask him to call me a taxi as soon as it is polite to do so.

  I am extremely relieved to get away.

  • 8 •

  Veronica

  THE BALLAHAYS

  “So I expect your grandson will be coming here to visit soon!” declares Eileen happily as she fixes a brush attachment onto the vacuum cleaner.

  “I sincerely hope not.”

  I couldn’t avoid telling her about my visit to see young Patrick, but it was a conveniently summarized account. I have no wish to encourage further conversation on the subject.

  “Really, Mrs. McCreedy?” She pauses, eager to believe that my grandson and I must harbor feelings of affection for each other. “You’d surely welcome him if he knocked at the door right now though, wouldn’t you?”

  I don’t answer. It can be an advantage being slightly hard of hearing. You can get away with not answering stupid questions.

  Eileen shrugs her shoulders cheerfully. “Well, I suppose that hoovering isn’t going to do itself!” She drags the vacuum cleaner through the kitchen and into the hall, leaving the door open behind her.

  “Eileen. Door.”

  “Sorry, Mrs. McCreedy,” she says and closes it behind her.

  I finish my cup of tea and leaf through the gardening catalog. I do little gardening myself these days except for pruning the roses, but I do occasionally order a set of bedding plants or a shrub. I have some specimen rhododendrons at The Ballahays of which I am particularly proud. Bright blooms help one along in life; I am convinced of it. Besides, Mr. Perkins, the gardener (who has been with me for twenty-six years and is beginning to look a little moldy), needs a few new projects to keep him interested.

  I put on my coat and gloves and wander out. I breathe in the clean, sparse Scottish air. I am still feeling polluted after my visit to Patrick’s disgusting abode.

  The locket is currently lying under my pillow. I shall fetch it next time I am upstairs and put it back into the box. The box must return to the unfathomable depths of the back room. I shall endeavor to forget again what I have so painfully remembered. These things should never have been unearthed in the first place.

  * * *

  —

  This evening, Robert Saddlebow speaks from a penguin colony on a remote island in the South Shetlands of Antarctica.

  “The Antarctic Peninsula is one of the most rapidly warming parts of our planet,” he informs me from a snow-speckled hillside. “Over recent decades there has been a significant reduction in sea ice.”

  “Oh, dear me!” I comment.

  His rugged face becomes larger until it (rather pleasingly) fills most of the screen. “Penguins are used by scientists as indicators of change within their ecosystem,” he continues. “Any changes in their breeding performance or populations are likely to reflect changes in the Antarctic as a whole. So monitoring species such as the Adélies gives us valuable insights into large-scale environmental changes.”

  “Oh, Robert, you are a tour de force! We ignoramuses need to know about these things,” I murmur.

  He smiles. “Adélie penguins are also particularly delightful,” he adds, as the camera pans out once more.

  I wholeheartedly concur. The assembled birds fill the barren landscape with rambunctious life. The species is named after the wife of a nineteenth-century French explorer. In spite of their name, they do not come across as particularly feminine. With their sleek black-and-white outfits, they have the look of stumpy little men in tuxedos. Adélie are one of the smaller breeds, only about twenty-eight inches tall. They have bright, intelligent eyes, with white rims. Most appealing.

  After enjoying their antics on land, I am shown some superb footage of the birds swimming underwater, their tubby figures transformed into paragons of grace and balletic precision.

  The program also features a group of scientists who are living out there and studying the penguins. Robert Saddlebow interviews one of them, a German fellow named Dietrich. He calls himself a penguinologist. I don’t take to his accent, but I am impressed by the passion with which the man speaks. He asserts that although Adélies are not one of the most endangered species (not like the northern rockhoppers and the erect-crested penguins), they fall into the “near-threatened” category. Moreover, this particular colony of birds has been dropping in numbers alarmingly over recent years, and nobody knows why. A new field cen
ter was built on the island seven years ago to try to get to the bottom of it, and scientists have been studying the penguins in depth every season, but now the funding has almost run out. When the program was filmed, there were only four scientists there trying to do the work of five. This year there will be three. Possibly after that the project will have to stop altogether, unless they can find further funding. His words seemed to nudge at something in my subconscious.

  This Dietrich man has concern written all over his big, hairy face. He gesticulates wildly. I would normally be unaffected by such a display of perturbation, but Robert Saddlebow (I foster a degree of admiration for him) seems quite moved, too. He professes his hope that the scientists will find a way to continue their invaluable work, shakes the man’s hand and wishes him the very best of luck. The scene slides to reveal a handsome if rather stout penguin, standing on a rock, drip-drying his flippers by holding them out at right angles to his body. His eyes fix on mine, creating an eerie connection from him on his rock in Antarctica to me on my armchair in The Ballahays Snug.

  “If you’d like to know more about these Adélies,” says Robert Saddlebow’s voice, “please look up Terry’s Penguin Blog. It will provide you with regular updates on the progress of the scientists and the penguins on Locket Island.”

  Locket Island? Locket Island? The word seems to set off a series of electrical currents along my neural pathways. A strange coincidence? Or an omen?

  I switch off the television as the credits run. To avoid nodding off in the chair (which is an aggravation to the neck muscles) I head upstairs straightaway. As I step into the bathroom, I utter a gasp of amazement. There it is before my eyes: the word “PENGUINS” inscribed at the bottom of the mirror in brown eyebrow pencil. The reminder must have been very important for me to have resorted to an act of graffiti. This is interesting.

  I take up the pencil again and add the words “Adélie” and “Antarctica.” And, as an afterthought, “Locket Island.”

  * * *

  —

  There is a penguin waddling toward me, wearing a locket around its neck. It is opening and shutting its beak as if it’s trying to tell me something, but no sound is coming out. I am a carefree young version of myself complete with an array of chestnut curls blowing in the wind. But everything around me is white. White flowers, white trees, white feathers spiraling in the air. I step closer to the penguin, bending down to hear him. I can almost catch words, penguin words coming out from that beak, but then there is an interruption. A shrill ringing that hurts my eardrums.

  I sit bolt upright in bed. I realize at once it is the phone that has disturbed my slumbers. I scoop my dressing gown up from the chair and fling it round my shoulders, glancing at the clock. Nine thirty at night. What cretin would ring at this hour? I stumble across the room and pick up the receiver. The voice at the other end is muffled.

  “Just a moment,” I tell it, and fumble to get my hearing aid in.

  “Veronica McCreedy speaking,” I say when I am ready.

  “Hello, Granny.”

  I think I’ve gone crazy for a moment, then remember my unpleasant encounter with my newfound grandson. Granny. Ugh. Why does he have to call me that?

  “Patrick,” I say, his name springing back to me in an instant. It is fortunate I am so on the ball and my memory is so remarkable. I am not convinced it was a good idea giving him my phone number, though. At the time, it seemed a necessary formality and a courtesy, but I am now filled with misgivings that he is going to abuse my goodwill.

  “Sorry I forgot your birthday. It was the day before yesterday, wasn’t it?”

  I consult the calendar I keep on the windowsill with each day’s date carefully crossed off in red once it’s finished.

  “Day before that,” I tell him, not really seeing why it’s any of his business.

  “Oh, so that would be . . .” He pauses, trying to squeeze some information from his drug-befuddled brain. “. . . the twenty-second?”

  “Twenty-first.”

  “Twenty-first, then. And you are what, now? Eighty-eight, is it?”

  “Try again.”

  “Eighty-seven?”

  “No, Patrick.”

  “Eighty-six?”

  I humor him. “Very good. Well done. Brilliant. Exactly right.”

  “Well, many happy returns for, um, the other day!”

  He is trying to be jolly and not succeeding very well. What an annoyance it is for him to have me in his life now. What a relief it will be to him when I’m dead and gone.

  “Did you do anything special?” he asks.

  “Nothing. Eileen brought a cake.” He’ll have no idea who Eileen is.

  “Oh, that was nice. Eileen’s the carer, right?”

  “Certainly not! I have no need of a carer. I’m not entirely incapable of looking after myself. Eileen acts as my occasional assistant with the house and running of things.”

  A slight pause. “Ah! OK. Good old Eileen! Was it nice? The cake?”

  “It was quite acceptable.” (It was actually a ghastly affair, all almonds and sugary pink icing. It tasted of tooth decay. As if I haven’t got enough of that going on as it is.) “Eileen’s not a culinary genius by any means. But it was a kind gesture. She tried.”

  “Unlike me,” my grandson says with atypical astuteness.

  “You’re trying now,” I point out, kindly.

  “Very trying, I suppose.”

  I am inclined to agree but don’t let myself do it out loud.

  “Look, I don’t know how to say this, but it’s been bugging me. I feel I . . . I feel we got off to a bad start, Granny. It wasn’t like I was expecting it to be, and I know I must’ve come across as a total arsehole. ’Scuse my French. I was wondering if we could maybe, well—start over again?”

  This piece of unpoetic unctuousness does not impress me, and I glean at once that he has been thinking about my money.

  “Very well,” I reply with studied patience.

  There is an uncomfortable pause. “How is everything with you?” I ask. Not that I particularly want to hear the answer—his life is made up of boorish trivia—but somebody has to say something.

  “Oh, you know. The usual. Not a lot going on. Bicycles on Mondays. Rain. Bills. Cooking. Eating. The occasional job application that takes, like, forever and gets me nowhere. But not complaining. Cheered on by visits to the pub and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?”

  “You do, presumably.”

  A slight pause. “Well, of course I wouldn’t sob my heart out if a million pounds happened to come my way.”

  I am affronted at the boy’s cheek. He’s hinting in the most unsubtle way imaginable. He must have worked out that I have no one else to leave my money to. That is to say, nobody who classifies as a family member. I have indeed given much attention to this quandary of late. It is a grave responsibility being in possession of so much wealth. There is the possibility of leaving everything to Eileen, who, for all her faults, has been assiduously loyal to me over the years, but she’d probably give it straight to Patrick anyway because her conscience would protest. She sings (if you can call it that) in a church choir and considers herself to be an upright and moral person.

  There is another pregnant pause on the phone line.

  You’d think Patrick might demonstrate some small molecule of interest in his grandmother, but no. The conversation has already dried up. It is pointless to prolong the agony.

  “Thank you for ringing, Patrick.”

  I put down the receiver. Bitterness and anger flood through me. How dare he try to buy my favor by ringing in the middle of the night to wish me a happy birthday three days late. This, after he treated me so badly during my visit to his stinking abode. He was disrespectful to me and, more importantly, disrespectful to the memory of my son, his own deceased father. Evidently, he’s had second thoughts no
w merely because the idea of my inheritance has penetrated his skull.

  Let him dream about becoming a millionaire. Why should I reward depravity and sheer laziness? My not-insubstantial hoard is being looked after by various banks and building societies at present. I shall have to contact my solicitor and make arrangements. They say that blood is thicker than water. That, unfortunately, is nowhere near the truth in our case. No, it appears that McCreedy blood runs much, much thinner than water. That boy needs to do something with his life other than fritter away my inheritance on drink, drugs or worse. I’ve decided. My legacy will be going toward a more worthy cause. There’s no way Patrick is getting his grubby little fingers on my money.

  • 9 •

  Patrick

  BOLTON

  I try to shake off that scratchy, uncomfortable feeling she’s left me with. Hell, I did my best, didn’t I? I didn’t exactly want to phone, but this inner voice kept on and on at me: Just do it, mate. Just ring her. So I forced myself. And I made a spectacular mess of everything, as usual. I had a go at being contrite but got confused over dates. Days of the week, man: I never know which is which. Mondays are workdays, that’s sorted, but the other days just merge together in a kind of blob. Anyway, I managed to offend Granny V by getting the date of her birthday wrong, then dug myself even deeper into a hole by overestimating her age. She was positively bristling down the phone at me. If there were a gold medal for sarcasm, she’d win it. I felt so stressed I went and said “arsehole.” Then I started blathering on, saying anything to make it sound more like a normal, relaxed conversation between granny and grandson. And then somehow the subject changed and got onto me wanting to be a millionaire, which was totally bizarre and irrelevant. I hope she doesn’t think I was hinting or anything.