Inchworm

by Ann Kelley

  He’s now stretched out, fat belly up on my lap, purring loudly. He’s so happy. I’ll call him Happy, or maybe Sunny. Look at the time! Daddy said two hours but it’s two and a half hours since he went out. He’ll be home any time now. Oh God, what am I to do? I take the kitten to my room and put him in his box in the wardrobe, but Daddy still has clothes there. I’ll put the box with the sleeping kitten under my bed for now and work out a plan later. I remember reading somewhere that kittens who have just left their mother are happier if they feel the pulse of a clock, like a heart beat, so I wrap up Mum’s travel alarm clock in a flannel and place it by the kitten. It would drive me potty if I had to sleep with a clock. I think he might be cold, so I fill my hot water bottle for him and wrap one of Mum’s woolly scarves around it so he doesn’t burn himself. He looks very cosy. The rain’s stopped, so I go out and look in the shed. It smells of cat. There’s a nest of old newspapers in a corner, slightly bloody. This is where my kitten was born. No sign of the rest of the litter. The mother must have moved them. They do that all the time, if they think there’s danger.

  The phone rings.

  ‘Gussie, it’s me. How’s Daddy managing? Is he looking after you?’

  ‘Yes, Mum. Guess what I’ve found…’

  ‘Get him for me, I need to talk to him.’

  ‘He’s not actually here at the moment…’

  ‘Not there? Where the bloody hell is he? He’s supposed to be taking care of you.’

  ‘Don’t panic, I’m fine. He had to go out. I’m cooking supper tonight anyway – pasta and tuna.’ (I hope the kitten has left enough tuna for the sauce.) ‘Gussie, I’m so sorry this has happened.’ She’s crying.

  ‘Don’t be silly, you can’t help it.’ I’m crying too. In the end I don’t tell her about the kitten. I’ll save it for when she’s feeling better. She’s got enough worries.

  Another phone call, very faint. Alistair still in Bulgaria, expecting a flight out tomorrow but will have to go straight back to work. He’ll try and get to see Mum before he gets on the train to Cornwall. I think that’s what he said.

  Daddy takes me for my check-up and biopsy. He’s attentive and solemn. ‘You’re a brave girl, Guss, I’m proud of you,’ he says, and I feel warm inside. The nurses are all agog – what a silly word! They think he’s handsome. Well, he is: as handsome as a film star. Maybe I should take this opportunity, when he’s feeling positive about me, to tell him about the kitten? But he’s flirting with Soo Yong, the pretty cardiac nurse; the moment passes. Anyway, I know he won’t want to keep it, what with his cream furnishings and hectic life.

  Precious is here today, also having tests. He doesn’t look too happy.

  When we are alone – Daddy has gone for a coffee – I tell him about the kitten. He isn’t listening.

  ‘What’s up, Presh? Is something wrong?’

  ‘Yes, Gussie. My father and sisters cannot get out of the country. There are too many problems.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He looks so sad and I feel useless. I put out my hand and touch his. It’s cold and smooth. ‘Would you like to visit us?’

  ‘In London?’

  ‘Yes. We’re staying at my father’s flat in Southend Green, it’s near the Heath. You could see my kitten.’

  ‘I would like that.’ His smile is huge. I remove my hand. I think of Brett, who took my hand to help me when we stepped out of a boat in the dark in the Scillies.

  We swap telephone numbers and addresses. Everything is fine with my tests. No more rejection – touch wood. Mum is making me superstitious. She’s always touching wood. I never used to but now I do. It can’t hurt. I also throw spilt salt over my shoulder. In fact I use my left hand to throw it over my right shoulder, then my right hand to throw some over my left shoulder, just in case.

  ‘Can we stop at the chemist’s on the way home for a new hot water bottle?’

  ‘What’s wrong with the old one?’

  ‘Perished.’ I’m such a good liar. Must watch that.

  There’s a new robin in the garden. He isn’t so brilliantly scarlet-breasted as the late Mr Robin, but he sings beautifully. I’ve put out crumbs for him, no mealworms. I better not tempt him to get too friendly in case the stray gets him. I would love to be able to tame the stray, but I haven’t seen her since I found the kitten. Perhaps she’s lying low, or she’s gone travelling, on the hunt for another mate. I wonder what happened to her other kittens?

  Daddy and I go to see Mum. She’s in an ordinary ward now, sharing with three other women. One of them keeps sitting up and shouting, ‘Jesus loves you!’ An elderly man with red-rimmed eyes keeps wandering by wearing a backless hospital gown and wheeling his drip stand. I try not to look at his skinny bare bum. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, or what? Mum looks worse than she did before, I think, though Daddy doesn’t seem to notice. Alistair has visited and got the train back to Cornwall.

  ‘I can’t stay much longer with Gussie, Lara. I have to go away in a week’s time.’

  ‘But I thought you said…’

  ‘Something’s come up.’

  ‘Oh, God, Jackson, can’t you ever think of anyone except yourself?’ People are staring at us. I leave them to it. I’m no good at trying to keep the peace. The old lady sits up and points at me: ‘Jesus loves you!’

  I have made the kitten a litter tray from a stainless steel baking dish lined with paper and earth. I haven’t seen Daddy do much cooking in his glossy kitchen apart from opening tins and microwaving things so I don’t think he’ll miss it. I keep my door closed with a notice blue-tacked on – PRIVATE, NO ENTRY – if he wants to come in for something, I just hope the kitten is out of the way. Mother cats don’t recognise their kittens after they’ve been missing for a couple of days, so there’s no point in trying to find her and reintroduce Sunny into the litter.

  Sunny is less frightened of me now, though he still hisses when I go to pick him up. He looks so funny, fur on end, black whiskers twitching, cornflower eyes glaring at me. His little claws are very sharp. He is so black when his eyes are closed I can’t tell which end is which, even with my specs on. When I put him in the tray, after each meal, he tries to eat the earth, licking at it, or tumbles over on his nose, his little tail stuck up straight like a quivering coiled wire.

  When Daddy goes out I take the kitten on a tour of the flat. We sit on the sofa and watch Bambi but I start crying even before the bit where Bambi’s mother dies, so I turn off. I feed him some tinned sardines and he eats far too much and is sozzled, round-tummied and completely out of it. What am I going to do with him? I’m sure Daddy would love him if he gave him a chance. Perhaps not, though.

  The phone rings.

  ‘Gussie, it’s Claire. I’m coming up tomorrow to look after you.’

  ‘Oh, Claire, are you really? That’s wonderful. Does Mum know?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve spoken to her. Don’t do anything. I’ll look after myself. Sleep on the floor, if I have to. I’m catching the twelve noon from St Erth, so I’ll be with you about five. I’ll get a taxi from Paddington.’

  As I replace the phone I discover that my cheeks are wet.

  Mum phones: ‘Gussie, has Claire phoned? Good. I feel happier knowing she’ll be with you. I haven’t told your father, will you tell him, please?’

  When Daddy returns I tell him about Claire. I think he’s relieved. After all, he has a full time job and can’t keep taking time off to look after me.

  ‘So, you’ll meet one of your relations soon. She’s not actually one of our blood relations; she’s only connected by marriage. Anyway, I know you’ll like her.’

  ‘M’chutin,’ he says.

  ‘Bless you.’

  ‘No, M’chutin. It’s a Hebrew word that means related by marriage.’

  ‘Oh.’ I didn’t realise Daddy was so knowledgeable about anything other than film.

  ‘How do you know Hebrew?’

  ‘Can’t remember. Willy? Jewish girl I used to know? Woody Allen movie? Can’t remem
ber.’ He sniffs. ‘What’s that horrible fishy smell, Gussie?’

  ‘Tinned fish – I can’t get enough of it. It’s really good for me.’

  Daddy sits on the sofa and gets bitten by a cat flea.

  ‘Where the hell did that come from?’

  ‘You must have picked it up at your girlfriend’s,’ I say spitefully. I make a mental note to buy a flea comb when we next go to the pet shop or I could get a nit comb from the chemist in the village.

  ‘Hope this Claire is good at housework,’ he grumbles, hoovering his suede upholstery. ‘It’s like the Invasion of the Body Snatchers in here.’

  Willy and I walk to the Heath next morning. He is a quiet companion, a good listener. I tell him about the kitten.

  ‘What are you going to do with the kleine Katze? You can’t hide him forever.’

  ‘Yes, I can, I’ll take him back to Cornwall.’

  ‘But will your other cats tolerate a kitten?’

  ‘Rambo won’t mind. I don’t know about Charlie and Flo. They might be jealous.’

  ‘Yes, and they will be resentful of your attention to this kitty and maybe they will bully him.’

  I hadn’t thought of that. All I had thought of was rescuing a poor lost kitten, but Willy’s right. Charlie especially will be very angry with me for forsaking her and having a new pet. I haven’t told Mum about him yet either.

  At the bridge over the railway line Willy opens a gate.

  ‘Would you like to see my vegetable garden?’

  ‘Where? Here?’

  ‘Yes, my allotment. Kommen sie hier.’ I follow him along the path to a series of little plots alongside the railway line. In each one there is someone digging.

  ‘Guten morgen, Willy,’ shouts an old lady in red wellies and a long mac. I think she is German too.

  ‘Guten morgen, Anna.’

  He greets and is greeted by the gardeners, who are mostly old and foreign. A man in a green bobble hat waves to us and says something in Italian. Willy introduces me to him. ‘This is my good friend, Julio. He grows the best potatoes and broad beans in Hampstead.’

  ‘No, no, I grow the best everything!’ Julio shouts. ‘Marrow, aubergine, fennel, carrot, tomato, oregano.’ Then he starts singing – something from an opera it sounds like.

  Willy’s allotment has a little old apple tree on a rectangular vegetable plot, and a wooden shed with a real horseshoe on the door.

  ‘I make you a cup of tea, ya?’

  ‘Yes please.’ I don’t really like tea but any hot drink would be good, just to keep my hands warm.

  Oh, the smell of it! Earth and onions. Willy’s shed is full of hooks with spades and forks and other tools hanging on them. There’s a string of onions and sunflowers drying upside down. He has a shelf of books in German, a pair of wellington boots, a dented kettle, a primus stove and two chipped enamel mugs. A solid lump of sugar sits in a torn paper bag. There are old shopping baskets under a table with bruised apples in them. It smells warm and leafy, like a greenhouse. It reminds me of my Grandma’s garden shed. Actually, it was Grandpop’s shed, not Grandma’s. He used to mend their shoes in there on a metal thingy that looked like three feet. I went in once looking for him and walked into two dead chickens hanging by their feet from the ceiling, dark musty feathers, black blood dripping onto the floor.

  We sit on two wooden boxes against the sunny wall of the shed and dip wholemeal biscuits into hot sweet tea. Willy pours whisky from a hip flask into his. A thrush dips his beak into the dark earth and pulls on the tail of a long worm. The bird tugs and tugs and still the worm hangs on, but the worm loses the tug-of-war and the thrush beats it onto a stone, and when it becomes mushy and presumably dead, he swallows it.

  Every creature hangs onto life. Even the kitten’s fleas, when I have maimed them between my finger nails, try desperately to hop or crawl away. They cling to life just as much as an elephant or a whale. Just as much as I do.

  It is so peaceful here, even with trains going by. Commuters stare out of the dirty windows at us.

  Willy takes off his coat and shoes and changes into his wellies. He rolls up his shirtsleeves and I see he has blue numbers tattooed above his wrist. My stomach drops suddenly and I see in my mind a picture of Auschwitz dead, piled together like the white bones of birds. The Italian man is still singing and the lady in red wellies is weeding with a long-handled hoe. I feel suddenly faint, so I sit down while Willy digs happily in his small patch of London clay.

  ‘Thank you for the tea and biscuits, Herr Weinberger. I do like your garden.’

  ‘Here, Gussie, you must take some apples. They are last year’s crop and very sweet.’

  I can’t say no, even though I don’t really want to carry a heavy bag. He must have seen the reluctance in my face.

  ‘Ach, nein, I forget your operation. I will deliver them to you later, yes?’

  Phew. That was a lucky escape.

  I do like old people. Walking back, I think again of Grandma in their Essex garden. She grew most of the things she and Grandpop ate – potatoes, carrots, onions, runner beans (though Grandpop built the bamboo pole wigwams they climbed up) lettuces, radishes, raspberries, strawberries, blackcurrants, gooseberries and loganberries.

  When I was told that Grandpop and Grandma had died I felt as if someone had struck me with a knife in my heart, and that sharp pain came back each time I woke and remembered, for a long time. But now the pain is familiar; I don’t think of it every morning. I have found a corner for it where I can take it out and look at it and then put it back again, like an old photograph or a movie that makes me cry even though I know what happens.

  The French onion man is wheeling his bike along the road. I hope he doesn’t try to ride it, he looks like he’s spent the last three hours in the pub.

  I go to the newsagent for some chocolate. (I am allowed chocolate, though I have to watch my cholesterol and sodium levels.)

  There are two women with buggies in the shop and the babies are gurgling at each other, as if they are having a very interesting conversation. I’ve noticed that babies are always fascinated by each other; toddlers always look at toddlers and teenagers are mostly interested in teenagers. It’s as if humans prefer to tune in to others at their own stage of development. Maybe I could study anthropology at uni?

  I can’t wait to go to school and meet other twelve-year-olds.

  I’m a freak, always hanging out with adults and old people. It’s not normal. It’s not fair.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  NO TIME FOR new words today – too hectic.

  The Snow Queen comes with Daddy to the flat to meet me. I have luckily just fed the kitten, he’s had a poo and now he’s asleep under my bed, hopefully, but I haven’t had a chance to clean his litter tray.

  Annika is not the bimbo I expected. She’s a part-time model, yes, but also she’s training to be a lawyer and she’s from Sweden. She bosses Daddy terribly, making him get her a decaffeinated coffee and look for pearls she thinks she has left here. She opens the bedroom door and turns up her small nose in horror. I push in front of her.

  ‘Excuse me, I’ll look in my bedroom.’

  The doorbell rings. The Snow Queen goes to open it, and closes it again.

  She shouts something in Swedish to Daddy. Daddy opens the door and laughs.

  ‘That’s not a tramp, that’s Willy in his gardening gear,’ he says, kissing her. Willy has the apples.

  Willy smiles scornfully at the Snow Queen and winks at me. I’d like to kill her. Perhaps I’ll start reading thrillers to get some ideas on how to perform the perfect murder.

  I find the pearls under the bed and practically throw them at her. The Snow Queen has a sneezing fit and discovers a flea bite on her ankles. Is furious. Glares at me as if I am flea-ridden. Says Daddy should get a pest controller to clean the entire flat, and when he has he can call her. Slams the door on her way out. Well done, kitten.

  ‘Gussie, tell me the truth. Have you brought a cat into my
flat?’

  ‘Daddy, where would I get a cat?’ Oh dear, what’s the matter with me? I should have confessed.

  ‘When’s this woman Claire arriving?’

  ‘Tea-time, I think. She’s going to find her own way here, don’t worry. And she’s not This Woman, she’s your relation.’ Oh dear, I sound like Mum.

  Daddy makes up the sofa-bed with clean linen and puts his old sheets in the washing machine.

  ‘I didn’t know you could speak Swedish, Daddy.’

  ‘Oh, yes, comes from my Bergman era.’

  He has to go to his office in the afternoon so I go to see Mum on my own.

  ‘Are you keeping your daily log, darling?’

  ‘Yes, Mum.’

  ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘Okay. Nausea, a bit.’ I don’t tell her I’m feeling practically suicidal. I know it’s one of the drugs and I just have to get on with it.

  ‘I had to keep a daily log when you were a baby.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Yes, I had to give you Digoxin every four hours, night and day. If I didn’t write it down straight away after giving it to you, I wouldn’t know if I had given it. I was so exhausted I was hallucinating.’

  ‘Poor Mum.’

  ‘I don’t know how you survived. I was a hopeless mother.’

  ‘Well, I did, so you must have done something right.’

  ‘Yes, and look at you! I’m so proud of you.’

  Horror of horrors! – When I was out the kitten escaped from the bedroom and scratched the back of the sofa-bed. He also vomited on the duvet and it dribbled onto the suede. I think I gave him too much pilchard in tomato sauce this morning. I don’t have the foggiest notion how to remove the stain. It’s really bad. It looks like murder has been committed. St Valentine’s Day Massacre. I try with washing liquid but the stain spreads. I scrub it with a nailbrush but that just makes it wetter.