Inchworm

by Ann Kelley

  Dad’s flat is large and expensive looking, the garden floor and ground floor of a Victorian house in Southend Green, a couple of minutes to Hampstead Heath. Great for my new exercise regime: walks building up to twenty minutes or more a day. Mum and I will know the Heath well by the time we leave. I have Daddy’s bedroom and Mum sleeps on one of the two enormous sofas in the sitting room – actually, it’s a sofa-bed. I feel rather guilty about having the double bed while Alistair is here, but he is being nice about it. I’m glad he’s here for Mum. At the same time I’m sad that Daddy isn’t here, and we aren’t one happy family. I light a candle for the donor of my new organs. ‘Whoever you are – thank you.’ We celebrate my new life with a carrot cake from the patisserie in the village. It’s a Wonderful Life but I’m tearful, I don’t know why; the counsellor at the hospital says it’s normal, and I mustn’t worry. One of the drugs I’m taking makes my mood swing wildly, one moment I’m euphoric and the next in despair. I must remember that it isn’t permanent depression; it will pass when I eventually come off this particular drug.

  Alistair has done loads of shopping. He got me lovely fresh fruit, strawberries and raspberries, plums and peaches – all out of season. We are having an Indian takeaway, but I’ve gone off curry. I seem to have lost my sense of taste. I wonder if my donor didn’t like spicy food? Mum says I shouldn’t have anything too hot anyway, just gentle food. So in the end I have only plain rice with pappadoms and dhall and a lovely tomato salad, made by Alistair, and chopped banana. We have to eat at the dining table, not sitting on a sofa watching TV, as the furniture is upholstered in cream suede and we’re sure to spill something on it. Mum suggests throwing blankets over it all so we won’t have to worry. But Daddy only has duvets.

  We watch a movie on Daddy’s home cinema screen, which takes up one wall of the sitting room. He works in the movie industry. Well, actually, he works at a film archive, but he is still trying to make movies. He did make one once, but it wasn’t released. We watch The Wizard of Oz. I have seen it about six times. The first time, I was five and I screamed the place down and had to be carried out. It was the wicked witch, of course, with her horrid, green face.

  Mum and Alistair are sitting at one end of the enormous sofa, cuddling and drinking sparkling wine – Mum is scared of even opening a bottle of red wine in case it spills – and I’m at the other end, tucked up with a duvet and Rena Wooflie. She is looking smart, as Mum washed her when I was in ICU. I had no idea her checked dress was such a bright pink.

  I miss my cats. I wonder – if I phoned Mrs Thomas, would she get Charlie to meow to me? Cats have no understanding of time and distance. Will they forgive me for leaving them? They might have forgotten who I am when they see me. They might prefer to be with the Darlings in their huge garden, with chickens and rabbits and ducks to chase. They won’t want to go back to Bowling Green and the tiny garden there.

  My first bath outside hospital: Mum helps me in and out. My scar is quite sensational. Still a little bit weepy, the incision – and me. We have to keep a close watch to make sure there’s no infection. My left arm hurts when I lift it; and my right leg, for some reason. I had been told that having the clips out would be painful but it wasn’t too bad. Fear of pain is often worse than the pain itself, in my experience.

  First night in a civilian bed. It’s so soft and comfortable. No machines humming and lights flickering. It feels strange.

  I was in danger of becoming institutionalised.

  Mum’s travel clock says 4 a.m. I get up for a wee and sit on the lavatory, simply enjoying the fact that I’m alive. A small, beige moth drowns in the puddle of damp by the bath plug. Another flings itself again and again at the ceiling light.

  I look at my hands. The skin is torn where I bite my nails. The central heating is off but the towel rail is heated and I don’t feel cold. London at night is quieter than Cornwall, but then there’s the far off siren of an ambulance. I wonder who is sick, and will they die? In Cornwall there’s the wind fighting to get in the windows and doors, the waves crashing on the beach, gulls calling to each other in the dark. If I was there, Charlie would be on my lap. She doesn’t allow me to go to the bathroom without her.

  A line from one of Mum’s bathroom books – ‘Poetry is truth seen with passion.’

  And from my bathroom reading: ‘Moth caterpillars and larvae have very particular food needs. Some live only on nettles, some on elm leaves, or oak, some on chestnut.’

  Perhaps I’ll be a lepidopterist. It sounds such fun – You are a night creature like fox, badger, bat. You have a large white sheet spread out on the leafy floor of a wood or wherever and a powerful mercury vapour lamp. Moths are for some unknown reason attracted to the light. They arrive on the sheet like dancers and clowns tumbling into a brightly lit circus ring, fluttering their papery wings, quivering and shivering their furry bodies. ‘Moths… live in a world of smells. They also have tympanal organs, sensitive to sound, which are situated on their abdomens or thorax. The moth “hears” vibrations.’ (That’s from Wildwood by Roger Deakin.)

  More cards today, from Ginnie and from Brett’s parents, who’ve sent me a video of bird behaviour and song. Mum won’t let me watch it until Dad shows us how to work his equipment as it’s all so professional looking. But I can easily do it. Adults are useless at modern technology.

  Daddy phones from some foreign place with sounds of partying going on behind him.

  ‘How’s The Great Gussie?’ He’s referring to The Great Gatsby, of course, one of his favourite movies. He has a huge collection of old movies.

  ‘I’m good, Daddy. I like your flat, it’s ace. Lurv the cinema screen.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, good, good. Make yourselves at home, that’s right. Give me to Lara, honeybun.’

  Mum takes the phone with a sigh, goes into the other room and listens.

  He always wanted me to call him Jackson and Mum Lara, but I prefer to use Mum and Daddy. It makes me feel safer, somehow. I don’t want him to be a friend – I need him to be my father. He’s never been good at that, though. Alistair is much more father material. He’s a family doctor and Mum is keen on him. He’s kind. I think he’s a bit embarrassed at sleeping with my mother in the next room, but I’m broad-minded. At least he is nearer to Mum’s age than Daddy’s girlfriends are to his. Daddy seems to only want trophies half his age.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  PREDICAMENT: A CONDITION; AN UNFORTUNATE OR TRYING POSITION

  THERE’S A SAD and sombre atmosphere in the cardiac rehabilitation clinic today. Two people have died this week waiting for donors – one was Pete, a window cleaner I met about three times when we were both in wheelchairs, waiting around. He was always attached to oxygen tanks but still looked really grey. He has – had, three small children. He was forty-one. The other person was an eighteen-month-old baby girl. The team are all subdued and sad, but were really pleased to see me. It’s awful how guilty I feel at being alive, like the only survivor of an earthquake or a plane crash. I do stretching, stationary bike and arm ergometer exercises. It feels so good being able to breathe.

  I hear one of the patients asking a physio, ‘Have you got a dog?’ and she says, ‘No, but I’ve got a horrible son.’

  I didn’t see Precious today. I missed him. Hope he’s okay.

  I have to be careful not to get viruses or infections, as I am immune-suppressed and will get ill. So I have to stay away from people with coughs and colds. I hope that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to be able to go to school.

  On the way back to the flat, Alistair has to stop the car so that I can open the door and vomit. I’ve never been carsick in my life. Mum and Alistair discuss whether to take me straight back to hospital.

  My incision is sore and my chest hurts from the retching.

  ‘I’m fine, don’t take me back there, please.’

  ‘I think she’ll be okay,’ says Alistair.

  With the windows open, I do feel better. Mum finds a tissue, dips it in bottled w
ater and cools my forehead and pulse points.

  ‘Don’t fuss, Mum.’

  I take the tissue from her. I’m clammy, but I don’t think I’ll be sick again.

  I think it’s the drugs. They all have side effects but they’re necessary to stop my body from rejecting my new organs. I’ll have to take them for the rest of my life, but that’s all right – I wouldn’t have a REST OF MY LIFE without my new heart and lungs and all these drugs.

  ‘If she’s no better when we get there, we’ll phone the hospital and see what they say.’

  ‘Okay.’ Mum looks relieved.

  I’m glad Alistair is with us. He phones anyway, even though I feel fine, and they say to wait and see how I feel in an hour or two, but I feel absolutely okay so there’s no panic.

  When Alistair goes back to Cornwall, we use Daddy’s car to get to and from the hospital. It’s swish – a black convertible sports car. Shame it’s too chilly to have the roof off.

  Precious is at the clinic today. He’s looking well and smiles broadly when he sees me. ‘Guthie, Guthie,’ he calls from the other end of the corridor. It’s good to see him. We work side by side at physio. Dolores is my favourite physiotherapist. She is a slender beautiful Ghanaian who never stops talking and laughing. She makes me work hard and I hate it at the time but feel grateful afterwards.

  I watch Precious do his exercises, his arms the colour of conkers just out of the shell. The sight of the pale soles of his large flat feet somehow make me feel happier. Precious has heard from his father. He’s trying to get a job in England. They have a big house in the best part of Harare, but if it is sold they won’t be able to take that money out of the country. So they must think hard before making a decision.

  Afterwards, in the café, Agnes tells Mum more about their predicament. There are food riots in Harare, as well as other towns in Zimbabwe. People can’t afford to buy their staple foods – mealie maize, cooking oil. Government troops are using tear gas to disperse protestors. Doctors and nurses aren’t getting paid. Drugs aren’t available for the sick.

  ‘It’s a nightmare. I think many people will starve,’ she says. ‘My husband is in danger because he vociferously opposes Mugabe and Zanu-PF. Members of the MDC and Mugabe’s political opponents are arrested and tortured. He must leave…’ she is sobbing, ‘he must bring our girls here. If he cannot work here we will go to Australia or New Zealand. They must leave…’

  Mum gets her a cup of tea.

  ‘You need whisky, not tea,’ she says, and Precious’s mum smiles through her tears.

  ‘What’s the MDC?’ I ask.

  ‘The Movement for Democratic Change,’ says Agnes and blows her nose.

  I am surrounded by sadness these days, when I should be enveloped in happiness. After all, I have survived. I am a survivor. I only have one real problem – keeping well. Most people in the world have life-threatening problems – war, starvation, fear of imprisonment or torture, no clean water, fatal diseases with no hope of treatment, like Aids and typhoid fever; earthquake, floods, drought. They might be homeless, exiled, old and poor, or motherless, orphans with no hope. Life is very hard for most of the earth’s population. We are very lucky here. My Grandpop always said that. We have freedom of speech; we don’t get put in prison when we disagree with the government of the day. Our poets aren’t tortured as they are in some parts of the world. Dictators are frightened of poets because poets say what they think. Their poems can make people into dissidents. I think poets are great. I really must write some more poems.

  I think of being in Kenya when I was little: the warmth of the air, the smells of pepper, the monkeys and butterflies.

  ‘You’ll be able to work in the UK, won’t you?’ Mum asks Agnes.

  ‘Maybe later, but I must get help to look after my daughters. And I cannot leave my son to care for himself just yet.’

  Here is a poem I have written about Kenya.

  Bamburi

  I am on the beach all day,

  find coral, cowries, puffer fish washed in by the sea,

  watch monkeys fly from the sausage tree.

  Catch huge millipedes to place on my arms,

  race big butterflies folding fan-like through the palms,

  chase dragons stalking dappled gloom of casuarina,

  walk with the tall baboons.

  Cotton-wool air filters scent of pepper,

  sweet potato, banana, mango, papaya,

  coconut, Mombasa meat market.

  ‘What’s vociferous, Mum?’

  ‘What do you think it means?’

  ‘Voice… loud-voiced?’

  ‘More or less, yes. Look it up in the dictionary.’

  VOCIFEROUS—MAKING A LOUD OUTCRY; NOISY OR CLAMOROUS

  We’re having our morning walk on Parliament Hill, wrapped up against a gusting east wind. The trees are still bare, their thin branches like arms stretched up to the sky begging for sun and warmth. Dry brown leaves rustle and rush across the grass like demented hamsters. A large party of pigeons rise from the grass in front of us. They flap around our heads in a blur of blue and grey, smelling of musty chicken food. (Grandma used to cook potato skins and porridge oats in a pressure cooker for her chickens. I quite like the smell.) There’s a woman with a little boy flying a kite. She looks sad. I wonder if her husband has left them. Mum used to fly kites with me here when we lived in London, when I was much younger. Where was Daddy then?

  We watch the yellow kite tug at the string, the woman doing all the work, the little boy wandering off to chase a small gathering of Black-headed gulls, which run and rise together squealing. We stop to rest for a moment on a wooden bench. Wayne loves Amy. Scott is fit. Is it graffiti when it’s incised on wood? A flurry of leaves blows in a circle, a mini whirlwind. The road where Daddy lives looks like it’s been laid with a leaf-patterned laminate.

  ‘Mum, I’m going to phone and see if Summer’s around. She might come and see me.’ Summer is the only one of my old school friends in London that I have kept in touch with, sort of. Though she doesn’t know about my transplant.

  No reply. I expect she’s away for the weekend. I don’t really have any other friends now in London. I can’t wait to go back to Cornwall and walk along a beach or go birding with Brett.

  Today, I find a peacock butterfly in my bedroom. Poor thing, it’s much too cold for it outside, but now it’s awake I have to let it out into the garden. Who knows what will become of it – it could be part of a robin’s lunch. It won’t survive long, but at least it will have a moment’s freedom in the cold blue sky.

  Daddy is back from Hungary but is staying elsewhere – with his latest girlfriend, Annika (leggy, blonde, big tits, not her own). He’s so predictable. There are photos of her pouting in his room. She should be wearing a T-shirt like the ones I’ve seen in a shop in St Ives, with a message on – I wish these were brains – an arrow pointing to her tits. He’s taken his car, though, and we’re renting one.

  Mum invited three of her old London friends to supper, but one has cancelled as she has a cold and I mustn’t be exposed to germs. There’s so many things to be scared of post-transplant, or rather, be aware of. We’re having chicken, lentil and vegetable soup, a green salad and a lemon meringue pie. I made the salad with roasted sunflower seeds on top, lemon and olive oil. I mustn’t have mayonnaise as it’s high-risk for food poisoning, ditto raw egg, pâté and partially cooked meats. I don’t really like pink meat anyway.

  Mimi is half-Italian, half-Australian and larger than life – which means she talks loudly, swears a lot and wears outrageous clothes, false eyelashes and scarlet nails. She’s The Italian Job. Celeste, fierce and stern and chic is from Paris. She wears a black trouser suit and has short blonde hair and pale make-up – The French Connection. She smokes, but Mum doesn’t let her do it indoors, sends her outside in the rain and shuts the door so the smoke doesn’t drift in. Mum is… I haven’t decided what movie Mum is yet. Mommie Dearest! Of course. I must ask Mum if her name really is
Lara or if it’s Laura or Lorna. Daddy might have made her change it to Lara because of Doctor Zhivago. I could call Alistair Dr Z maybe? What is Daddy, though? The Vanishing.

  I go to bed early with my book and Rena Wooflie – The Big Sleep – no, an ordinary sleep, I hope. The Big Sleep means death.

  It’s good to hear Mum laughing. Mimi’s voice becomes more Australian and less Italian when she’s had a few glasses of wine.

  ‘Kill for a ciggie,’ I hear her say. ‘Gave it up New Year and I’ve put on ten kilos.’

  Valentine’s Day – I forgot. One card, hand-made, with a red heart and blue arrow surrounded by kisses – luv yu lots, xxx no signature – must be Gabriel. And a box of flowers from the Scillies – Paper Whites – from Brett. The small card inside says: ‘Remember the islands? We’ll go again one day, Brett x.’

  The flowers smell of cold sea air and dark earth. I phone to thank him and he tells me they have frog and toad spawn in their pond. I love tadpoles: that big black mouth with a tail. I wonder if our tiny pond has any life in it? We should have, as a giant toad lives in the grow-bag under our garden seat. I can hear seagulls at his end of the phone. I do miss the sound of gulls. Why hasn’t Daddy got an animal? His flat seems so un-homelike without even a single goldfish.

  Mum has a card too, from Alistair. She’s rather old to have a Valentine’s card. It makes her smile and cry. She won’t let me see what it says.

  Back at the cardiac rehab clinic (I have to go back to hospital twice a week for six weeks). I’m doing fine, they say. But when I mention bird-watching and then the pigeons on Parliament Hill, one of the doctors tells me to stay away from them.

  ‘But why?

  ‘C. Neoformans.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Cryptococcus Neoformans – it’s a fungus that’s a major threat to people with weak immune systems. It appears in bird droppings, and you might breathe it in. Caged birds are to be avoided too. You don’t have a parrot, do you?’