Inchworm

by Ann Kelley

  *

  Precious hasn’t been in to see me. Hope he’s okay. Wish he was here – we could play chess. Mum hates chess. She’s bored, I can tell. She’s standing at the window and gazing out.

  ‘What can you see, Mum?’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘Tell me what you see, I can’t see anything from here.’

  I’m feeling low and blue today and have come back to bed after the physio session.

  ‘There’s a gold carriage and four white horses with white plumes on their heads and they are stopping outside. I think they’ve come to take you to meet your prince.’

  ‘What can you really see?’

  ‘Not a lot. Sparrows pecking at something. Rain on the window pane.’

  ‘Is the crow there?’

  ‘Crow? No, no crow. Cars in the car park. It’s like a Sunday afternoon when I was a child.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Dull. Dull and grey and gloomy. No one having any fun. Fun is banned on Sundays, or it was then.’

  ‘Tell me what you did when you were little.’

  ‘I was a lucky child. In the holidays I played outside all day until teatime. I’d take jam sandwiches onto the beach for my lunch. When I was about ten I had a racing bike, second-hand, of course, I helped pay for it with my pocket money. I went everywhere on it, miles from home, into the countryside.’

  ‘Weren’t you ever attacked by paedophiles or perverts?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘So, why didn’t you let me do that when I was ten?’

  ‘Life isn’t that simple any more, Gussie. Too many cars for a start.’

  ‘Did you have animals?’

  ‘We had lots of chickens, some rabbits, a cat and a dog.’

  ‘Oh yes, Tiddles. I remember. What sort of dog was it?’

  ‘Lion Pekinese – Foo. My Mother did a Terrible Thing. Foo was ill. Lost the use of his back legs, dragged himself around. She took him to the vet and left him there, she said, for the vet to make him better. But of course, the vet put him down… put him to sleep. I kept expecting him to come home and I worried about him. She should have told me. I can’t remember how I found out.’

  ‘Poor Mum.’

  I suddenly start to worry about my cats. What if Charlie is ill and Claire takes her to the vet and has her put down? I’m not there to look after her. I bet she misses me. She always sleeps on my bed. Will Claire let her sleep on Gabriel’s bed? Or Phaedra’s or Troy’s? Betya Rambo runs away: he’s scared of everything.

  ‘Tell me more about when you were little.’

  ‘I’m Too Old, I can’t remember.’

  ‘Oh, go on, Mum. Tell me about the Veet.’

  ‘The hair-remover? Oh, dear me, yes. It was my mother’s. I was very young, about seven or eight. I thought it was face cream and I rubbed it all over my face and wiped it off after a little while. Then my mother caught sight of me. I had managed to remove both my eyebrows. She Was Furious.’

  We laugh. We always laugh at that story. I love hearing the same stories over and over again, I don’t know why. When I was little I loved Mum reading The Three Billy Goats Gruff. It was very scary but I loved it. There’s a monster that lives under the bridge they have to cross to get to a green meadow. It’s called a…? I must have slept a little. Mum has gone back to her hospital flat. I hope the crow has gone. I close my eyes and now I can’t sleep. I keep thinking I might die if I fall asleep. This new heart will decide it doesn’t want to beat inside my chest. My new lungs will let go my breath and forget to breathe in again. Will it hurt, dying? I will be… where, what? Not here anymore. Where will I be? Will my spirit or soul survive somewhere? Will I be simply a memory, a pain my mother and father have to bear for the rest of their lives? I think I might be having a panic attack. Or a heart attack. Maybe I’m rejecting again. My heart is racing and I can’t stop moving my legs. There’s a loud tapping at the windowpane, like the sharp beak of the crow. I press the button to call the nurse on night duty, Cynthia. She takes my temperature, blood pressure, pulse rate, etc; goes away and comes back with a pill and a drink of water with something in it and gives me an injection in my arm. I can hear her tights rubbing on her thighs. I wonder where nurses get those little watches they pin on their chests?

  I’m a pincushion. I remember Grandma had one with a china lady on top – the velvet pincushion was her crinoline skirt. It’s strange how some memories only last for that brief second you need to know them then disappear again into the dark recesses of the mind. At least my brain is okay – so far.

  ‘You’ll be fine, girlie, you’ll be fine. Shall I call your Mummy?’

  Cynthia is a large-bottomed, large-bosomed, woman with a skin like black satin and a voice like warm honey. I want her to hold me tight so I can feel safe. I imagine she would feel like a giant hot water bottle covered in satin.

  ‘No, she’ll be in bed now. I’ll be okay, thank you.’

  ‘I’ll get you a hot milky drink, shall I, girlie?’

  I cuddle Rena Wooflie and nod.

  ‘Cynthia, is there anything at the window?’

  ‘What’ya mean, girlie? Not’in’ is at the window.’ She draws back the curtain to look. ‘Only the wind and the rain – your awful winter.’

  It’s called a troll – the monster under the bridge. My brain seems to process information or memories during the night when I sleep and comes up with answers in the morning. Very clever.

  Precious is here. My mum and his have gone for a coffee. Precious shows me a letter he has had from his sister, Grace, who is eleven. His other sister, Blessed, is eight.

  Dear Precious,

  I am well and so is Blessed, but we miss you very much. Daddy takes us to school and our maid collects us at the end of the day. We have electricity for two hours a day most days and it is difficult to do homework by candlelight, so teacher has stopped giving it to us! My friend’s father died last week and we went to his funeral. It was very sad. Now my friend cannot come to school any more because her mother cannot pay her fees. On the roadside people are selling coffins. I hope you come home soon.

  With all my love and prayers,

  Your loving sister, Grace

  Eeensy Weensy is still weaving her webs and living on my ceiling. I understand now how some English king or other took comfort in the company of a spider, and learned to be patient as she was, waiting for that one insect to land on her carefully woven web. Was it the same king that burnt the cakes? My knowledge of history is rubbish.

  I wonder what age they are doing at school? I better ask Brett.

  There’s a schoolroom here, with paper and crayons and paints, a small library and a computer – yay – hopefully someone will show me how to use it soon. Precious wants to learn too.

  Katy says it’s not unusual for PT patients to feel nauseated. It’s the drugs. It’s boring, though, because feeling sick stops me from reading, or doing anything else. My head is spinning and my stomach feels as if it will empty itself any moment. Being hospitalised is mostly boring – there is so much hanging around, waiting for treatment – punctuated with fear and pain. Like being a soldier or sailor at war, I suppose. There they are hanging around in a bunker or whatever, cleaning their boots and painting coal white, or scrubbing decks if they are at sea, and then suddenly they are having bombs lobbed at them or they are shooting and being shot at.

  I feel a bit better today. Not so jumpy and twitchy, or nauseated, but I can still see the raven or whatever it is. Perhaps I should feed it and then it wouldn’t be so menacing. It might as well be carrying a scythe. I’ve never been any good at telling big, black birds apart. Maybe it’s a carrion crow. It’s not a jackdaw. Jackdaws are quite small and cocky and talk a lot. I like jackdaws. I remember one in Fore Street at the end of the summer. It stood on a lamp attached to a cottage and was chattering away to itself very loudly, with lots of different sounds. A monologue. It was so unusual that visitors were actually stopping to look up and watch it. I
wish I could understand bird languages. Is it easy for robins to understand what starlings or rooks are saying or do they only understand other robins? And do robins in foreign countries understand what our robins say? Someone on the radio said that human beings are the only creatures with language but I don’t agree. It’s odd that we can translate foreign human languages but not animals’ methods of communication. Herring gulls have the most interesting and varied calls I have heard in a bird. They seem to laugh, cry, scream with anger, chuckle, chat, talk to themselves, grumble, grieve, threaten, canoodle. I do miss them. In London there are black-headed gulls and terns, who screech and shriek rather bad-temperedly, but they don’t chat to each other like herring gulls do.

  I go to have X-rays and cardiographs and other tests and meet three children who are waiting for transplants with their parents. They all have the same look – the parents – anxious, tense. I think the parents worry more than the patients.

  I am up and about and feeling great. A walk around the hospital garden with Mum and… no crow. Well, there are yellow-beaked rooks in a big tree near the road building nests like witch’s brooms, but the night-crow is not on the tree outside my window. I spot lots of sparrows and starlings, one robin and a wren. Oh, and I heard a broody chicken. Must be from a garden somewhere nearby. Grandma had chickens and I recognise a broody chicken when I hear one. Corr, cocococor. Cococococorrr. Or maybe it has just laid an egg and is proud of it.

  The sun is shining, big white clouds rush across a blue sky and all’s well with my world. Not Precious’s world, though. His blood sugar is out of control, his kidneys are packing up and he is back in hospital for them to sort out his treatment. He’s having dialysis. It’s not an unusual problem for post heart transplant patients. I’m lucky I haven’t had any kidney problems – yet.

  I am allowed to go outside the hospital grounds with Mum, who pushes me in the wheelchair as it’s quite a trek. I feel like a fraud, but Mum and Katy insist I am transported this way. We go to the river. There’s a grey heron, tall and still, on the other bank. Reeds swaying. Coots and moorhens bustle along, black feathers fluffed out by the wind, and mallards fly low past us. The world is so beautiful! I want to do what Mary Oliver says – ‘kneel down and give thanks’… or was it Raymond Carver? Some American writer. I get out of the wheelchair and walk a little way along the bank.

  I feel full of life, oozing with life, bursting with life, exploding with life, fainting with life. ‘My cup of life brimmeth over.’ Bliss – like that story by Katherine Mansfield. Such perfect happiness simply in being alive. I can’t imagine ever being happier than I am now. Except I suppose I shouldn’t be feeling this way as my friend Precious is very ill.

  I mooch, doing nothing for the rest of the day, reading and dozing and watching the telly. I felt that I was totally recovered this morning, but now I’m exhausted. Beat Mum at Scrabble, though. She now owes me £216.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  VESTIGE—A FOOTPRINT; A TRACE; A SURVIVING TRACE OF WHAT HAS ALMOST DISAPPEARED; A REDUCED AND FUNCTIONLESS STRUCTURE, ORGAN, ETC, REPRESENTING WHAT WAS ONCE USEFUL AND DEVELOPED

  EUPHORIA—AN EXAGGERATED FEELING OF WELL-BEING, ESP. IRRATIONAL OR GROUNDLESS

  I NOW KNOW the difference between big black birds – at least in theory. Ravens are the largest – about 61 cm – bigger than buzzards, and they are rare. They have a wedge-shaped tail in flight. In The Natural History of Selborne there’s a sad story about a big old tree that always had a raven’s nest in the top branches and the local boys couldn’t get to it because of a huge lump in the trunk that they couldn’t climb around, so the nest was safe. But the tree was cut down and the mother bird sat on her eggs even when the tree was felled, and she died.

  Carrion crow – 44–51 cm. The face is feathered. Crows are solitary, not sociable like rooks, who build their nests in a village of trees, not too close and not too far from each other. Young rooks have to behave or they are driven out by their elders.

  Rooks, like people, build towns for self-protection. Their worst enemy is the carrion crow. One pair can destroy an entire rookery, driving the parents from their nests and eating the eggs and young.

  Rooks are about 46 cm long, wholly black, except for a greyish face, bare of feathers. Usually gregarious. Nests like large witch’s brooms.

  Carrion crow is similar in size, has a thicker beak and is wholly black. Hooded crow is the size of rook but with light-grey body and black wings and tail, black head and straggly black bib.

  Jackdaw is smaller than rook, but hangs about with them. Seen in pairs, amorous. Dark grey. Lighter grey neck side and nape. Eye is greyish white. On ground struts around with upright posture. They are conversational, with many cries – short and cutting and quite pleasing. Some harsh and hoarse – Kya, kyack kyaar, and harsher tschreh. Chatter quietly together and bill and coo.

  Jackdaw is smallest of the crows – 30–34 cm. Dark grey, not black. Lighter neck-side and nape, short dark beak, pairs for life, amorous. (That’s true, I often see them in pairs canoodling – one of Grandpop’s words – side by side on street lamps.) Likes chimneys. Dense flocks – like pigeons. Alarm call is furious, hoarse, drawn out. Chaiihr. Cackling together in large flocks at night. His wings give quicker, sharper strokes, Chack chack – his call. Jackdaw has pearly-white eyes. He steals baby birds as well as eating insects and grubs. Small, rounder head and dark, shorter beak; grey under wing; likes chimneys.

  I’ll never remember all of that.

  I need to see them all walking around together with labels on, flying together with labels on and sitting in trees with labels on.

  I only notice my scary crow when I am lying in bed feeling sick and sad.

  I can now walk to the end of the corridor on my own. Hurray!

  I’ve been watching a movie on the television in my room. I usually don’t, as it is high on the wall and it makes my neck ache. Also I prefer quiet so I can read or play Scrabble with Mum. But Hook was on, with Dustin Hoffman as Captain Hook, so we watched it together.

  It was cool.

  I wonder why so many actors are short? I’ve made a list (no children, dwarfs or female actors allowed).

  Dustin Hoffman

  Danny de Vito

  Tom Cruise

  Alan Ladd (had to stand on a box to kiss some actress)

  Woody Allen

  Humphrey Bogart

  Michael J Fox

  Mickey Rooney

  Al Pacino

  Richard Dreyfus

  Gene Kelly

  Fred Astaire

  Paul Newman

  And I happen to know that Pablo Picasso and Joseph Stalin were only 5 ft 4 in. I think Napoleon was short too.

  Daddy is quite short; maybe that’s why he’s good at acting. Or are all short men show offs? I’m a dreadful show-off, Grandma used to say. If they were taking me to meet one of their friends she would say, ‘Don’t forget your hanky and don’t show off.’ I was very young then. I am shorter than other girls my age and I have probably inherited my show-offedness from Daddy.

  Precious is improving. He is off the kidney machine and back to his healthy colour. The yellowy brown tinge he had when his kidneys failed was like the colour of the sky in St Ives when there’s a storm brewing. He still feels weak, he says. We play chess and he beats me. I’m crap at chess. I say we must play more Scrabble as it will help his English. It helped me when I was little and learning new words. Mum made me look up words I thought might exist so my vocabulary is not bad for a twelve year old. (Brett’s mum told me that. She should know, she’s an English teacher. Well, she’s Australian, but she teaches English.)

  Today I leave hospital. I can’t believe it. Some of the transplant team are here to wave goodbye – the ones who aren’t too busy. I cry a few tears. It’s been like an unusually long holiday at a hotel with lots of staff, a good gym, but no sunshine. Alistair has taken more leave and comes all the way from Cornwall to collect me and Mum but he refuses to put the flashing light on
top of his car like he did when he drove me here. Mum says he’s a spoilsport. We are going to stay at Daddy’s flat and Alistair will be with us for three days. He looks less like a horse these days, more bovine and sweet looking. He’s being gentle with me, and with Mum, who keeps bursting into tears. Anyone would think I had died instead of surviving.

  It is scary that I won’t be surrounded by nurses and doctors who know what to do if anything goes wrong, but I’ll still have to go back twice a week for check-ups and physiotherapy and once a week I’ll have heart and lung biopsies, ECGs and other tests. I think that’s right, it’s complicated, but Mum has all the details. I was lucky to have my transplant the first time I was called. Katy says some people have as many as five ‘shouts’ or ‘dry runs’, even getting as far as having a general anaesthetic before the operation is cancelled. That would be pretty bad, waking up without anything having been done and having to go home and wait to go through the whole thing again. That sort of thing happened to me once, with my operation to build a pulmonary artery. When I was opened up, the surgeon could see I had no vestige of an artery to build on, so they had to close me up again without doing anything. That was when I went on the transplant list.

  I don’t remember much about the preparations on the night I came in for the transplant. I had lots of blood taken, along with loads of other tests, and I had to bathe in disinfectant. The oxygen I was given made me feel light-headed and giggly. Mum wasn’t allowed to kiss me but I remember blowing her kisses as I was wheeled into the theatre. I don’t think she saw, she was crying onto Alistair’s shoulder. The last thing I remember is that I felt cold and wished they’d let me keep my socks on.

  I feel I’ve been imprisoned for years and now I’m free, out on bail anyway. All the people with no worries, laughing and chatting, kids running and playing – they don’t know how lucky they are.

  London is grey after Cornwall. I miss the big sky and the blue bay. But there are yellow and purple crocuses under the bare trees, a promise of spring. So many people walking briskly in the wintry wind, healthy people with hearts and lungs working properly. I’ll be able to do that soon.