Inchworm

by Ann Kelley

  I shake my head. Grandpop had a parrot and I was scared of its sharp beak. It was jealous of me.

  ‘Budgie? Canary?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Better not take chances, Gussie.’

  I think of the thick cloud of dusty birds and hope I haven’t inhaled the deadly fungus. Oh dear, does that mean I can never get close to flocks of any birds or is it only pigeons I must beware of? ‘Be afraid. Be very afraid.’ (Geena Davis, in The Fly.)

  One of Daddy’s favourite directors is Alfred Hitchcock, who made a film about birds suddenly ganging up against people and attacking them. It was originally a story by Daphne Du Maurier, who lived in Cornwall and wrote Rebecca and lots of other romantic adventure stories.

  I’ve had a terrible thought: what about Paradise Park? It’s one of my favourite places in Cornwall. They have all sorts of birds there in huge aviaries and they breed threatened species like choughs. One of the staff gave me some blue and green macaw feathers once. Should I throw them away? I don’t want to.

  On our walk today we went into the corner shop and a small boy in front of us in the queue was grizzling because he wanted to eat his bar of chocolate straight away.

  ‘When we’ve gone past the witch’s house you can have it,’ his mother said.

  When I was little we used to drive past a house with a neon ‘Guest House’ sign, and I used to hide my eyes in terror because I thought it said ghost house. Presumably he isn’t frightened of witches. We walk as far as the pond and watch the swans, feathers ruffled forwards as they drift in the strong wind. They always look cross, like Flo, our alpha female cat. She has black spots each side of her nose and they make her look like a bad-tempered swan.

  Joggers run past with red legs.

  Precious and his Mum are very excited. His father is coming to London soon with the two girls. His mum looks ecstatic at the prospect of seeing them; they have been apart for nine months.

  There are daffodils everywhere on the way home – in window boxes and on little front lawns and in swathes on the Heath. I like the ordinary single flowers, not double ones that fall over when they are wet. No, I like all of them – living lovely flowers, the brightness of them. After each dark winter we are given daffodils, like a huge smile from God. Except that I don’t think I believe in God. I don’t know what I believe in. I suppose I believe in the human spirit. Our ability to overcome bad experiences, like the loss of loved ones. I am feeling less unhappy about the death of my grandparents, for example. We have to say goodbye to our old people when they come to the end of their lives. They have to make room for the rest of us. It’s sad, but it’s life. And I am alive. Mum says the daffs are blooming early this year especially for me.

  ‘Mum, do you think Precious’s family had to pay for his transplant?’

  ‘I don’t know, darling, I imagine they did.’

  I wonder how much a new heart costs? And how much for a pair of lungs. And they would have to pay for the surgeon’s time, the anaesthetist’s time. And then there’s paying for the nursing and drugs he’ll have to take for the rest of his life.

  ‘We didn’t have to pay anything for my new heart and lungs, did we?’

  ‘No Guss, our taxes help pay for the National Health Service so all our treatment is free – sort of.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  METAPHOR—A FIGURE OF SPEECH BY WHICH A THING IS SPOKEN OF AS BEING THAT WHICH IT ONLY RESEMBLES, AS WHEN A FEROCIOUS MAN IS CALLED A TIGER

  PSYCHOANALYST—ONE WHO PRACTICES PSYCHOANALYSIS, A METHOD OF INVESTIGATION AND PSYCHOTHERAPY WHEREBY NERVOUS DISEASES OR MENTAL AILMENTS ARE TRACED TO FORGOTTEN HIDDEN CONCEPTS IN THE PATIENT’S MIND AND TREATED BY BRINGING THESE TO LIGHT

  The Geometer (earth measurer) moths or Geometridae are a family of the order Lepidoptera. Its caterpillar lacks most of the prolegs of other Lepidoptera caterpillars. Equipped with appendages at both ends of the body, a caterpillar will clasp with its front legs and draw up the hind end, then clasp with the hind end (prolegs) and reach out again for a new front attachment, so it looks like it is measuring its journey. The caterpillars are accordingly called loopers, spanworms, or inchworms (they are about one inch long). They tend to be grey, green or brownish and hide from predators by fading into the background or resembling twigs. Some have humps or filaments. They are seldom hairy or gregarious. Typically they eat leaves. However, some eat lichen, flowers or pollen. Some, such as the Eupithecia, are even carnivorous.

  from a pocket-book on moths

  I do like moths. I had no idea the inchworm was a moth caterpillar.

  There was a song about inchworms measuring marigolds in that old Danny Kaye musical, Hans Christian Andersen – he wonders why they don’t stop to look at how beautiful the marigolds are. I always think marigolds smell of raw rhubarb – earthy and sharp. I suppose the lyrics mean that you shouldn’t try only to scientifically assess something that’s lovely; you should enjoy it for itself. You can’t measure beauty.

  Moths have such lovely names: latticed heath; brimstone moth; purple thorn; scalloped hazel; swallow-tailed moth; feathered thorn; peppered moth; dotted border; mottled umber; clouded border; willow beauty; clouded silver; the dingy footman, the flame shoulder; the dew moth; bordered white; common white wave; light emerald; (I don’t like spring cankerworm much, though); small fan-footed wave; cream wave; small dusty wave; juniper carpet; may highflyer; winter moth; the streak; ash pug; lime-speck pug. There’s loads more. Naming them must be a bit like naming decorating paints. You have to keep coming up with interesting but descriptive words, like Apple-Blossom White, or Coated Tongue Pink. I made up that last one. I could make up my own colour chart easily: Squirrel Red and, of course, Squirrel Grey; Pulmonary Atresia Grey (mauve grey like I used to be); Post-op Pink; Nurse White; London Grass (that’s a sort of grey-brown rather than green); Hospital Green – or Theatre Gown Green; Jealousy – a violent lime green (Bridget feels in colour); Painful Purple (see above); Silver Lining; Lightning; (the last two are shades of white); Rain Grey. I’ll think up more, later. It’s the sort of thing I do when I can’t sleep and I’ve read too much and made my eyes sore.

  That’s something that hasn’t improved – my eyesight. Obviously my donor didn’t have 100 per cent vision.

  My dreams are disturbing. Being lost, not being able to get home, losing my mother and father and cats. Being in a foreign land and not speaking the language. I wish Mum would get a boyfriend who was a psychoanalyst, so I could ask him about my dreams. Alistair is an ordinary doctor, a GP, good with aches and pains, disease and injuries, but he hasn’t been trained to deal with bad dreams. I’m always relieved when I wake up and find I am safe in bed with Mum close by.

  I’ve written a poem about one of my bad dreams.

  Blackbirds Dying

  A leafless tree

  noisy with blackbirds

  in a winter dawn.

  Silence sinks like a knife.

  One by one they fall.

  Dead birds blacken the lawn.

  ‘Mum, when are you going to have your operation?’

  ‘What operation?’

  ‘The operation to remove your fibroids.’

  ‘How do you know about my fibroids?’

  ‘Mrs Thomas. I heard you telling her.’ (Mum has heavy periods and needs to have fibroids removed from her uterus.)

  ‘Plenty of time to think about that. I’ll have it when you’re better. No rush.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Sure I’m sure.’ She goes to the bathroom. She spends ages in the bathroom, but luckily there are two in Dad’s flat.

  I know my donor heart and lungs came from a woman under twenty, but I don’t know any more than that. If I decide I want to know more I can write a letter to the family, via the transplant coordinator, and they can decide whether to answer the letter. I feel that I am grieving for the person who died, and I have a right to know who it was. But if it happened to be a murderer, would I want to know? Or a drug addict? Or someone wh
o was so unhappy they committed suicide? Maybe I shouldn’t know. A donor has to be brain-dead, their next of kin have to agree to allow their organs to be used. Difficult for them, to be thinking of saving someone else’s life. There aren’t enough donated organs for all the sick people waiting for a transplant. That’s why so many die while they’re still waiting. Even if I don’t survive longer than a year or two, I’m grateful that I have been given this gift of time. I can’t wait to breathe in the clean sea air of home.

  Another blip. A chest infection. I feel faint, breathless. Ill. Back to hospital. I’m scared. Mum’s scared. The transplant nurses are brilliant. Katy and Soo Yung are sorting out my medication and tell us it happens all the time and not to worry. I am given strong antibiotics. Mum is staying in a flat in the grounds again. I feel like I live here now, not Cornwall.

  Haven’t seen Precious. Or anyone, except Mum and hospital staff. Will I ever be well enough to go home? I’m in a different room this time, a pale yellow one, but the huge crow is still on a tree outside my window. He doesn’t caw like ordinary crows. He sits sullen and menacing in his punk feathers, staring in my window. I turn to face the wall. Perhaps he’ll go away if I don’t look. I’ll make a photograph of him when I’m feeling more human.

  At least I felt human at Daddy’s flat, not like some sort of robot. Mum sits with me for most of the day and I’m still pretty sorry for myself, but Katy said I must remain positive, and it’s unlike me to mope. I can’t help it. I feel like a snail without a shell, or a bird with a broken wing. I could die here in this grey place, with no beach outside the window, no herring gulls calling. Only sirens and sick people, flashing blue lights and noisy helicopters.

  I want so much to be back home, Charlie, Flo and Rambo competing for my attention. Are they being loved enough by the Darlings? Is Gabriel grooming them? Charlie loves to be combed, especially under her chin on her white throat, where fleas gather to suck her blood.

  Alistair has checked on our house and says the apple tree is nearly in blossom. Spring comes earlier to Cornwall than London. I wonder if the starling still sits on the telegraph wire and whistles and clicks to the Sky God? Are there gulls on the roof?

  Only three weeks to go before we were supposed to go back to Cornwall. Will I still be able to, or will this setback delay things? Oh dear, I’m crying again and it hurts my head and throat.

  I’m out of hospital, joyful as a caged bird set free. Mummy is pretty pleased too. Alistair has come up again just to take us back to Daddy’s flat, though he can’t stay for more than one night. I am to take it easy for a few days. Suits me, I’ve got plenty of books to keep me going, and I’m beating Mum at Scrabble almost every time we play. We play for money: £1 for every point. She owes me £346 already. I better let her win some back or she’ll refuse to play.

  Each day I feel stronger. I walk a little further onto the Heath, Mum holding my arm. Ducks squabble on the pond; swans look down their noses at them; rooks do aero-acrobatics. The Heath is still wintry-looking with flattened grey grass but the sky has large patches of blue between the grey bits. I say hello to the flower sellers, Marj and Ron, where Mum buys our fruit. Marj often gives me an extra red apple, or a perfect peach.

  ‘How far d’ya get today darlin?’

  ‘Only to the pond, but we saw a duck-fight. I think they’re getting frisky because spring is coming. They were cavorting.’

  ‘Cavortin’ eh? Where does she get it from?’ says Ron, picking out a dozen yellow roses for a short fat man with a long fur coat and piggy eyes.

  They hoot with laughter at everything I say. Am I that amusing? Maybe I could do stand-up. There can’t be many teenage comedians. I’d be a big hit.

  Ron presents me with a red carnation. I do like him, even if he has only got three teeth.

  Summer is meeting us at an ice-cream parlour in Hampstead. I wonder if she’s changed? We see her before she sees us. She’s talking on a mobile phone. She has two other girls with her, also talking on their phones. They look so silly, all talking to someone else, not to each other. They wear identical trainers and puffer jackets with fake-fur lined hoods. I have on my old Berlin parka, jeans, red Doc Martens and the England cricket cap Alistair gave me.

  ‘Am I allowed to hug you?’

  She looks like she’d rather not.

  ‘Try.’ We hug and jump up and down and squeal. We share the same birthday, 11th August, but she looks like fourteen rather than twelve and I look eleven at the most.

  ‘Oh, Gussie, you look so well! Your cheeks are rosy. Your hair!’ I forgot she hadn’t seen my short spikes.

  ‘Thanks, yeah, I feel great.’

  ‘This is India and this is Sahara.’ Is this an introduction or a geography lesson?

  ‘What was the operation like?’

  ‘Does it hurt?’

  ‘Only when I laugh.’

  ‘Have you got a big scar?’

  ‘You look so well! You really do.’

  I know I look a freak, with my cheeks puffed out from the steroids.

  ‘What’s your mobile number? You don’t have a mobile?’

  She wants to know all about our new home in Cornwall and promises that this year she will definitely come and stay. Mum goes shopping while we eat huge ices and when she comes back Mum pays. She’s bought me a grey sweatshirt hoodie, sweatpants, socks and a long-sleeved grey T-shirt. So cool.

  The three girls spend most of their time talking on their mobiles. They’re catching a bus to Camden Lock and I’m invited, but I’m not sure. I worry that someone might bump into me. My incision scar is healing, but still weeps in places and is sore inside, as my entire breastbone was lifted up. I can see Mum’s relieved when I decide not to go.

  ‘Goodbye then, Gussie, see ya.’

  Summer used to be my best friend, but somehow I have the feeling this is the last I’ll see of her.

  Mum takes my arm and we walk back through well-heeled crowds. (A foot metaphor: I collect them – ‘footloose and fancy-free’; ‘too big for his boots’ – that sort of thing.) I am ‘following in my paternal great-grandfather’s footsteps’, in that he was a famous photographer and I am learning how to make photographs. Mum says Daddy is ‘a heel’. Not sure where that comes from. The lowest part of a body, perhaps. She certainly doesn’t mean it kindly. I’m not ‘head over heels’ in love with Brett, but I do like him lots.

  Must stop this line of thought.

  I could get obsessed.

  ‘Would you like a mobile phone?’ Mum asks.

  ‘Don’t need one, thanks.’ (Just thought of another – Charlie ‘walks all over me’ – literally and metaphorically.) ‘Will my face look like my own face ever again?’

  ‘Of course it will, Gussie. The swelling is only temporary, you know that.’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose. Do you think Summer’s pretty, Mum?’ I know she is, don’t know why I asked.

  ‘She’s pretty, darling. And you’re extraordinary and interesting and gamine and elfin.’

  ‘I think I’d rather be pretty.’

  ‘It has its drawbacks.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Sometimes other girls hate you and you have to be extra nice to your friends or they get jealous. And men are scared of pretty women. Anyway, your face is much more attractive than hers, don’t you worry.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. Summer’s face isn’t memorable, whereas yours is.’

  ‘That’s all right then,’ I say and try to move along looking interesting and memorable. Come to think of it, some of my favourite actresses have interesting faces:

  Bette Davis

  Katherine Hepburn

  Audrey Hepburn (I don’t think they are related)

  Lauren Bacall

  Ingrid Bergman

  Geena Davis

  Meryl Streep

  Helen Mirren

  Helen Hunt

  Daddy’s favourites are:

  Grace Kelly

  Fay Ray (the one with
a good scream in the original King Kong)

  Most French film actresses, especially Jeanne Moreau and Catherine Deneuve – so all the pretty ones, then, excepting Jeanne Moreau.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  OBLIQUELY—SLANTING; NEITHER PERPENDICULAR NOR PARALLEL; NOT AT RIGHT ANGLES: NOT PARALLEL TO AN AXIS

  ECLECTIC—SELECTING OR BORROWING; CHOOSING THE BEST OF EVERYTHING; BROAD, THE OPPOSITE OF EXCLUSIVE; ONE WHO SELECTS OPINIONS FROM DIFFERENT SYSTEMS

  ARDUOUS—STEEP, DIFFICULT TO CLIMB; DIFFICULT TO ACCOMPLISH; LABORIOUS

  THREE NEW WORDS to use today – challenging my powers of memory as well as invention.

  I am making photos of my father’s flat. It’s sparsely furnished, which is good: I don’t have to move heavy stuff out the way, only our clothes and books. The low winter light falls obliquely through the slatted blinds across the pale wood floor. I am using black and white film, 400 ASA, on a tripod, Daddy’s, of course. Another view is of his bed, the black mosquito net, classy, and the white flimsy muslin curtain blowing at the window. Very Hollywood, very Daddy.

  When Alistair came up last time he brought me the tape-recorder he gave me for Christmas and several books I’d asked him for, and my binoculars, which I had forgotten to ask for, but he thought I might need them. He also brought a copy of the St Ives Times and Echo which has photos of the New Year’s Eve celebrations – everyone in fancy dress. I do like that word – fancy. It sounds like what it means, special, unusual. I am front-page news! ‘Augusta Stevens, aged 12, of St Ives, has received a new heart and lungs in a heroic, ten-hour operation on the last Boxing Day of the Twentieth Century.’ I’m famous.

  Daddy doesn’t really have any proper novels here, only scripts and movie biographies and books on how to make movies. He used to like murder mysteries but I can’t see any on his shelves. Mum and I have a more eclectic selection of reading matter – she’s going through all the old Virago books – paperback novels by women who published in the early twentieth century and who had been out-of-print; writers like Kate O’Brian, Edith Wharton and Nina Bawden. She also reads modern novels.