by Ann Kelley
I expect the cats will soon forget all those dear little harvest mice and voles they used to kill. At least the wildlife population will increase, now the cats have left.
I hope the robins and blue-tits and greenfinches will survive the coming winter without us feeding them sunflower seeds. Maybe the owner will return from wherever he has been all these months.
Up on the cliffs we could hear oystercatchers and curlews calling to each other.
Herring gulls nest on the roof here. Or rather, they were nesting earlier in the year, and their one chick is making the most mournful noise imaginable. He hunches his shoulders so his neck disappears and he makes this awful rasping noise. I want to give him an inhaler. He keeps nearly sliding off the roof, and it’s a long drop to the garden or to the little lane behind the house. He’s flapping his speckled wings and jumping up and down, trying to copy all the other gulls that are circling the town, screaming and chuckling and murmuring to each other. They are very sociable creatures. It’s wonderful to see and hear so many of them. There’s even a pair of Great Black-backed gulls on a roof nearby.
Every roof of the little town has its own gull family who tuck themselves into valley-gutters or next to chimneys, out of the wind. They are good parents, feeding their young even when they are as big as they are and making this horrible racket. The mother or father bird lands on the roof and the chick immediately goes up to it and starts pecking at the scarlet spot on the beak. The parent eventually throws up – that’s what it looks like – regurgitates the food for the young bird to eat.
It’s wonderful to be on the same level as the nesting birds and to watch their everyday life. The male is larger and more powerful looking than the female herring gull, but they both have a vast vocabulary. They seem to communicate in all sorts of ways. They have a companionable chuckling call, a loud angry screech, a mewing, sad, lonely call and sometimes you hear them grumbling to themselves while flying. Our parent gulls get really angry and throw their heads back and scream a warning if others try to land on the same roof.
Most of them have left the summer nests on the roofs now, but our gulls have to hang around a while longer until their offspring has learned to fly. He must have been a late summer baby.
Like me.
Mum is unpacking our stuff from London that never got unpacked at our rented place. She insists I rest every afternoon, so that’s why I am up here and she is downstairs. I can hear her singing. She must be feeling happy. I hope so.
Mrs Lorn is helping out with washing the crockery. There are newspaper words over every plate and cup. I think we should leave them like that to make mealtimes more interesting but Mum insists they are washed. Mrs Lorn is whistling loudly, like she does. We sort of inherited her from Peregrine Cottage. She’s Mr Lorn’s wife: he was the gardener there. We don’t need a gardener here. The garden is Not Big Enough to Swing a Cat in, but there’s a washing line and a little square of grass, and a pretty fence that looks like it should be metal but it’s wooden. The wooden gate (which also looks like it’s made of metal) opens onto a path, which goes along the front of this terrace and reaches a dead end after number nine. We look down over a steep little hill over the harbour and town. I think it’s perfect.
Mum bought the house while I was being ill. She had been looking for months for the right property in St Ives. I was desperate to get into the town so I could make friends and get about more. I am quite recovered now. Or rather, I’m feeling much better than I was a few weeks ago.
Actually, I am waiting for a heart and lung transplant. I can still get around, more or less, but I get very out of breath and go rather bluer than normal. Not that it’s normal to be blue, just normal for me. The hill is a challenge, but there’s an old bench halfway up, and I can always sit on the steps when I need to.
I now have a special bleeper thingy too, in case the hospital finds a donor for me. Someone is going to have to die for me to get a chance at living longer, but I try not to think too much about the stranger whose organs will be inside me, pumping my blood and my breath around my body.
One Step at a Time.
When you think about it, there’s no such thing as the future. We only assume there is. There is now, this second, and the remembered past.
The past is important to me. I have done many interesting things in my life, so I have some good memories. But the future? There’s no such thing. There’s only today. Live for Today is my motto. Mine and Mum’s. Every moment I have now is precious.
To get back to my room – Flo, Charlie and Rambo have already sussed out that this is where I spend most of my time and they’ve made it their base. Flo is curled up on a cushion on a wicker chair, Rambo is trying to look like a Trafalgar Square lion on the floor in a patch of sun and succeeding rather well and Charlie is of course, on my lap as per usual. They didn’t approve of being moved in small cramped baskets from Peregrine Cottage to here, but it was only ten minutes at the most in the car. Rambo shat himself though. Poor cat. He is always car sick and terrified of anything and everything. Mum had to wash his bottom.
The cats spent the first week under my bed. I had to feed them up here, placing their food and bowl of water close by. We put Rambo’s litter box on the front door mat for all of them to use, but I’m afraid there have been one or two little presents on the doormat itself. I expect the two females consider the box as Rambo territory and won’t use it.
Flo was the first to venture forth and discover the delights of 5 Bowling Green: stairs, cupboards, carpet smells, high shelves. Flo likes high shelves. She is the only one of the cats who looks around her and above her. She is like a detective, determined to investigate every possible hiding place, or way out, more like. She hates to be enclosed. She has to find an escape route. Maybe she has claustrophobia. I reckon she is the most intelligent of the three cats. I love Charlie of the green eyes, but I have to admit that she is not terribly bright.
And Flo is the only one who likes playing games with me, especially in the morning, after breakfast, sometimes instead of breakfast. Her favourite toy is the plastic ring that comes off the top of a plastic milk carton. She’ll pretend it’s a mouse and throw it and chase it and catch it and kill it. She has a vivid imagination. The others look on with complete disdain – or incomprehension. She is not at all embarrassed. She just enjoys life, Flo, and I admire her. She plays catch and football with me, pushing the toy to me and when I throw it to her she sends it back.
She reminds me of my Grandma. Grandma played cricket and she was always going to dances, and she used to dance with other old women, can you imagine? I would die rather than dance with another girl, if I had the chance to dance with a boy. Not that I’ve ever been dancing. If you think about it it’s a very strange thing to do. I can understand the ritual bit about attracting a partner – the highest jumping dancer in the Masai tribe, I think it is, for instance. But why do old people do it? Apart from getting physical exercise I can’t see the reason for it, unless it’s a widow or widower looking for another mate.
Some birds have complicated dance rituals, I know. The male great bustard throws back his wings and head, apparently turning his head inside out.
Grandpop didn’t go in for dancing. He obviously didn’t feel the need to keep attracting Grandma.
I miss them very much. They were the best grandparents. Grandpop died last year when I was in hospital having an operation and Grandma died a few days later, of a broken heart. I was eleven.
I remember them sitting on their old green sofa, watching telly, holding hands.
Like boy and girl sweethearts, holding hands. Grandpop’s faded tattoos on his arms, the sleeves of his white collarless shirt folded up, elasticated silver bands above his elbows. He had an old rocking chair and when I was little I sat on his lap and we rocked together. He smelt of tobacco. Sometimes he had a little patch of cigarette paper, Rizla paper it was called, very thin like tissue paper, stuck to some part of his face – his cheek or chin, where he cut hims
elf shaving. And he usually had a cigarette tucked behind one ear – for later. He rolled his own cigarettes and taught me how to do it, though obviously, I haven’t ever told Mum.
Of course, I would never ever smoke anyway, with my heart. I don’t really understand how anyone can inhale stuff that’s going to make them breathless and possibly cause cancers all over their body. Perhaps if human beings had evolved to be transparent so we could see exactly what was going on inside of us, we wouldn’t eat fatty things that clog up our arteries, or take drugs that destroy our brains, or drink and smoke too much. Or maybe we would be fascinated by the sight of smoke whirling around in our lungs and keep on doing it.
I would love not to be breathless. I do remember what it felt like to be able to run and climb and play physical games and, best of all, to swim and snorkel. But I haven’t been able to do any of that stuff for a few years now. Not since my heart had to work extra hard to keep me alive. When I was little I was pretty normal, I think. Well, it felt normal.
I have something called Pulmonary Atresia – a rare congenital disease, and people who have it usually die when they are very young. But I have been lucky. There are other defects in my heart muscle, but my blood does get oxygenated to a certain extent, so I am still alive. As I get bigger my heart won’t be able to cope with the extra work and I’ll need that operation.
‘Mum, Mu-um, Mu-uum!’
The whistling and singing stops.
‘What?’
‘What happened to Grandpop’s rocking chair?’
‘I gave it to his cricket club.’
‘Oh. And why didn’t you save it for me?’
‘Gussie, I Refuse to Shout,’ she shouts.
I wonder who is sitting in it now? Has it an inscription of Grandpop’s name? Do little boys fight to rock in it? I hope no one has burned cigarette holes in the upholstery.
Grandma used to hang a clean antimacassar – that’s a sort of lacy or embroidered cloth – over the back. I bet no one at the cricket club thinks to do that. It will get stained from greasy heads, like all those chairs in the hospital waiting room. The thought of his favourite chair being abused depresses me.
To get back to my cats: Rambo is the least brave of the three. He looks wonderfully royal and proud and courageous until someone stands up. Then he runs and hides. He cowers. He’s a coward and scared of Flo, with good reason. She is fierce and fearsome, fearless and feisty, and I am sorry to say – a bully. I think she just can’t stand the fact that the other two are such wusses. She has no patience. I do love her though. She has guts, chutzpah, presence. She is definitely the matriarch, the alpha female, the boss, queen bee, big momma, top cat.
The first day here I rubbed butter on their paws – the usual procedure to make them want to be where we are, and gave them lots of goodies – Parmesan cheese, curried chicken, that sort of thing. But cats hate change. They haven’t been allowed outside yet. We have to find someone to put a cat-flap in the front door first. I’ve seen other cats around, so they’ll have to meet them and sort out territorial rights.
The little cobbled lanes and alleyways and steps of Downlong are full of cats. Black cats, grey cats, orange cats, tabby cats, fat cats and slender cats. There’s a weird looking cat that sits in a window in Back Road West. It has hardly any hair. It is a pink and grey colour with enormous ears. Hideous.
I haven’t let our cats see inside the deep dark cupboards under the eaves yet. I’m afraid they might find a way out. As it is they sit on the window ledge and do that chittering thing cats do with their mouths as if they are freezing cold when they see birds and want to eat them. It’s as if they can’t help it, their teeth just start rattling fast in anticipation of the feast. Or maybe they are swearing, saying disgusting things in catspeak, threatening a horrible death by a thousand bites and claw stabs.
The Bower Bird
The Bower Bird won the 2007 Costa Children's Award and the UK literacy Association Book Award. The Bower Bird also won the 2008 Cornish Literary Guild's Literary Salver.
Gussie is twelve years old, loves animals and wants to be a photographer when she grows up. The only problem is that she's unlikely to ever grown up.
'I had open heart surgery last year, when I was eleven, and the healing process hasn't finished yet. I now have an amazing scar that cuts me in half almost, as if I have survived a shark attack'.
Gussie needs a heart and lung transplant, but the donor list is as long as her arm and she can't wait around that long. Gussie has things to do; finding her ancestors, coping with her parents' divorce, and keeping an eye out for the wildlife in her garden.
REVIEWS:
'Brilliant' THE MAIL ON SUNDAY
'I'm pleased to be able to announce that Gussie has lived to see another day with Kelley capturing so beautifully Gussie's optimism and hope.' SUE BAKER'S PERSONAL CHOICE, PUBLISHING NEWS
'The world of life and death, beauty and truth seen through the eyes of a 12 year old girl. A rare and beautiful book of lasting quality - we felt this is a voice that needs to be heard and read.' COSTA AWARD JUDGES
'It's a lovely book - lyrical, funny, full of wisdom. Gussie is such a dear - such a delight and a wonderful character, bright and sharp and strong, never to be pitied for an instant.' HELEN DUNMORE, author of 'Ingo'
The Bower Bird is available from Luath Press, as an eBook, and from all good bookshops. Visit http://www.luath.co.uk/the-bower-bird.html for more information.
Other Books from Ann Kelley & Luath Press
Inchworm
Gussie is a twelve year old girl from St. Ives in Cornwall. She is passionate about learning, wildlife, poetry, literature, and she wants to be a photographer when she grows up. But her dreams were put on hold as she struggled with a serious heart condition. Now she has got what she needed: a heart and lung transplant. But it isn't working out quite the way she thought. Firstly she has to leave her beloved Cornwall to live in London and in the months following her operation she is unable to do very much except read and adopt a stray kitten, but she could do that when she was sick. She craves adventure and experience beyond her four walls, until, that is, she hits upon a plan - she is going to get her divorced parents to fall in love again. It's not going to be easy, her mum is still dating her doctor boyfriend and despises Gussie's father, who happens to be living with his new girlfriend - the Snow Queen. But Gussie is a determined girl and there is only one thing that could stop her now.
REVIEWS
'Not many books around that you can give to anyone of any age and be sure of an appreciative audience, but Kelley does it beautifully in this, the third in the Gussie series, following the well-deserved Costa Category award for The Bower Bird.' SUE BAKER's Personal Choice, PUBLISHING NEWS
'A great book.' THE INDEPENDENT
'You have to read it, and it will stay with you forever!' TEEN TITLES
Inchworm is available from Luath Press, as an eBook, and from all good bookshops. Visit http://www.luath.co.uk/inchworm.html for more information.
A Snail’s Broken Shell
For the first time in years Gussie can run, climb and jump. Every breath she takes is easier now, and every step more confident, but Gussie can't help wondering about her donor. Was she young? Had she been very sick or was there an accident? And with her new life comes a whole new set of problems. She is going back to school at last - but she doesn't know anyone her own age, with the exception of Siobhan, the girl she hates most in the world. With school not meeting up to her expectations, Gussie turns to her old pastimes of birdwatching and photography, but troubling news awaits her there too. And then lightning strikes and Gussie must act at once...
A Snail’s Broken Shell is available from Luath Press, as an eBook, and from all good bookshops. Visit http://www.luath.co.uk/a-snail-s-broken-shell.html for more information.
Runners
As mankind strives to rebuild society in the wake of climate change, over-population and global food shortages, every day is a struggle for people like
Sid and his younger sister Lo. They are ‘runners’- people whose very survival the government has outlawed. As they move west, trying to find family or somewhere they can call home, they must work out which of the people they meet on the way can be trusted, and which want to cut their adventure short. Encountering people on both sides of the law, as well as those who seem to exist outside it, Sid and Lo make and lose friends as they fight for their lives and each other.
Runners is available from Luath Press, as an eBook, and from all good bookshops. Visit http://www.luath.co.uk/runners.html for more information.
The Light at St Ives
France has Montmartre, Prague has Mala Strana and England has St Ives, an enclave where artists can create freely and showcase their works to the world. Costa winner award Ann Kelley has already proved to be an excellent photographer with her previous books Sea Front: A Cornish Souvenir and Paper Whites: Photographs and Poems. Ann Kelley expresses herself in photographs as if they were words. Her style is simple but special, careful and delicate and her photographs genuinely capture the atmosphere of this beautiful Cornish town.
The Light at St Ives is available from Luath Press and from all good bookshops. Visit http://www.luath.co.uk/the-light-at-st-ives.html for more information.
Luath Press Limited
committed to publishing well written books worth reading
LUATH PRESS takes its name from Robert Burns, whose little collie Luath (Gael., swift or nimble) tripped up Jean Armour at a wedding and gave him the chance to speak to the woman who was to be his wife and the abiding love of his life. Burns called one of ‘The Twa Dogs’ Luath after Cuchullin’s hunting dog in Ossian’s Fingal. Luath Press was established in 1981 in the heart of Burns country, and is now based a few steps up the road from Burns’ first lodgings on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile.
