by Ann Kelley
‘It can’t be.’
‘Let’s put it in water, just in case.’
We pour water into my bathroom washbasin and put the fish into it. After floating on its side for about a minute it suddenly quivers and starts swimming, first on its side, but eventually it recovers fully and swims the right way up.
‘Ohmygod, Mum, it worked.’
Now I have two creatures to hide from Dad. Where can I keep a fish? What do they eat? How am I going to explain how a live goldfish got here? Will he believe that a fish eagle escaped from the zoo and flew over his garden and dropped it? Or a heron, yes a heron would be more believable, or I won it at a fair on the Heath. Daddy won’t have noticed that there isn’t a fair there at the moment.
‘It must have come from a garden pond,’ says Mum.
‘I suppose. Couldn’t we keep it for Daddy?’
‘No, and don’t you touch it, either. Remember in the cardiac transplant leaflet? Fish carry disease and you have to wear gloves to handle them.’
‘Gloves?’ I imagine woolly gloves.
‘Rubber gloves, silly.’
Mum says she’ll ask the neighbours if they’ve lost a fish. It’s too cold now for me to go banging on doors and, anyway, she says, she has no idea what maniacs might be living in the street. She puts the fish into a plastic bowl and sets off. Ten minutes later, she’s back, triumphant. ‘It was two doors away, a pond in the back garden. Lovely woman called Lily. She’s lost ten this year.’
‘Ponds?’
‘Goldfish, stupid.’
‘Maybe Beelzebub’s mother took the rest?’ I say. ‘And she’s inherited a taste for them.’ I give her a generous ration of pilchards in tomato sauce for her tea. She purrs in appreciation. ‘What a clever naughty wicked thief you are Bubba.’
I have another read of the cardiac transplant leaflet to see if Mum’s right about fish. She is. Also, it says to beware of cats and dogs because of animal-carried diseases and to have animals checked by a vet before you go home to them. Oh bloody hell, there’s all these new problems come with my new organs. I’ll let Mum worry about them. I’ve got enough worries. No way am I giving up cats.
Now that Bubba’s back I can go to the library. In Eyewitness Insects I’ve found an interesting item on moths in Australia. I wonder if Brett knows about it?
In the Bogong mountains of New South Wales, moths are collected from rock crevices and cooked in hot sand. The aborigines remove the heads, grind the bodies into a paste and bake them as cakes. Then they have a feast. The moths provide valuable fat to their diet.
Another fascinating fact: the Indian moon moth has the most acute sense of smell of any insect. It can detect the pheremones of a mate from a distance of eleven kilometres. I must remember to tell people that. I think it’s interesting but it could be a great conversation stopper. I’m not very good at conversation.
I haven’t had much practice as I only seem to hang around with Mum or other old people these days. I don’t really know how to communicate with people my own age. I get the feeling that Summer thinks I’m like… I don’t know… an alien or something. When I go back to school things will change, I hope.
I’ll take note of the language, the argot, the slang. I think kids still say ‘cool’ anyway.
Willy, Mum and I walk together on the Heath or up to Hampstead most days, to the second-hand bookshop when it’s not pouring with rain and to his allotment sometimes for tea and biscuits. I’ve bought him three china mugs with smiley faces on. We’re an odd looking trio. Very English eccentric – except that Willy is German. We walk into a flock of pigeons feeding on breadcrumbs. They rise in a tumult of applause around our heads. Mum says it reminds her of sheets cracking in the wind on our washing line in St Ives, and she can almost smell them – her favourite sound and smell. My favourite sounds are of waves shifting sand and gulls wailing. My favourite smell is of seaweed and Charlie’s fur. I ask Willy what his favourite smell is and his favourite sound.
‘A single malt whisky poured into a cut-glass tumbler. It sounds and smells like the epitome of Bliss.’
‘Ah, yes,’ says Mum, ‘I go along with that.’
Before my transplant, I saw everything as if for the last time. I drank life greedily, wanting to gulp at every sensation, every experience. I was packing it all in, like speed-reading. Now, what’s the difference? I see things as they are, but they are brighter, more vivid, because they are mine for a little longer. Precious but sad. I can gaze on a tree full of rooks and see how they are tattered coats, folded umbrellas, hunched witches, and love them because they are a gift to my senses. I have had a reprieve, like someone on death row. I have been moved to another cell, further away from the electric chair, where I can see daylight for the first time. I can take a little more time to savour the sounds, smells, tastes and sights of everyday life, knowing I have a limited time to enjoy them. It’s not sad, exactly, but poignant.
POIGNANT: TOUCHING, PATHETIC, ACUTELY PAINFUL, PIQUANTE
Home-made card with picture of seagull and Get Well Soon in a heart:
Der Gussy,
My puppy is groing big and runs farst. She likes Trejer [Treasure, the cat] and sleeps with her. I am bilding a neeu tree hows for yu. Cum soon,
Love,
Gabriel x
PS I fownd my taran… torren… tran… spider. It was in the erring cuberd. Phaedra fownd it. She screemd very lowddly. Moss sez I hav to giv it bak to Billy. But Billy has lost the snake so I wownt. Claire woent cum in my room enny mor.
Xxx see yu soon.
Home-made card with drawing of Charlie asleep on a chair:
Dearest Gussie,
I hope your recovery is swift and you are feeling stronger each day. We are all looking forward to seeing you and your mother again soon. Claire says you look so bonny. What a shame your homecoming has been delayed. Such bad luck. But, do not worry, your cats are well and happy, though I am sure they are missing you. I have started a painting of them in their various sleeping places. Rambo is very elusive though, and hides. I think he is intimidated by the sheer size of the family and its livestock, especially the rabbits. My own cat is still banished from the garden due to her recently acquired taste for chicks. The surviving chicks are rapidly becoming pullets and the cockerel bullies them fussily. Phaedra is enjoying sixth form college and has joined a rock group – she the drummer, and Troy is studying for exams. Surf has been perfect lately, he says and he is missing it. They both send love,
Looking forward so much to your return,
Give my love to your mother,
With lots of love,
Fay.
A home-made card with drawing of Spike smiling:
Dear Gussie,
When are you coming home? I can’t wait. Our kitten, Spike, is growing up. He prefers me to you know who and sleeps on my bed. Siobhan has a new boyfriend – Leo. He’s sixteen and has long hair and tattoos. She wants a tattoo on her shoulder but Mum won’t let her. I want my hair cut like yours. I got a gold star at school for my English. We had to write a news item for the school newspaper. I wrote a story about you and your operation. I’ve kept it for you to read.
lol,
From your bestest friend in the whole world – Bridget xxxxxxx
The school newspaper article:
NEW ORGANS FOR MY FRIEND
GUSSIE STEVENS IS MY NEW BEST FRIEND. SHE IS OLDER THAN ME, 12, BUT SHE WAS NOT EXPECTED TO LIVE VERY MUCH LONGER BECAUSE SHE WAS BORN WITH A BADLY DESIGNED HEART AND LUNGS, AND SHE COULD NOT BREATHE PROPERLY, SO SHE COULD NOT RUN OR CLIMB. SHE HAS HAD A VERY LONG AND COMPLICATED OPERATION IN LONDON TO REPLACE HER DISEASED HEART AND LUNGS. SHE IS RECOVERING AND SOON WILL BE COMING TO THIS SCHOOL SO SHE WILL BE LIKE ANY OTHER GIRL, AND WE MUST ALL BE KIND TO HER BECAUSE SHE HAS HAD A VERY DIFFICULT TIME. SHE LIKES ALL ANIMALS AND INSECTS AND ISN’T AFRAID OF ANYTHING, EVEN SPIDERS AND BEETLES. SHE HAS THREE CATS, FLO, CHARLIE AND RAMBO, AND IS A BIRD-WATCHER. SHE IS ALSO A POET. I THINK EVERYONE BEFORE THEY DIE SHOULD
DONATE THEIR HEALTHY ORGANS TO SICK PEOPLE SO THAT THEY CAN HAVE A CHANCE OF LIVING A NORMAL LIFE.
SIGNED – BRIDGET HEANEY
I write back straight away to say what a good article it is and to tell her about Beelzebub. Bridget and I both have black kittens now – if I am allowed to take her home with me.
I send a card to Fay, also, thanking her for the felt bag and telling how much my kitten likes it. I hope she doesn’t mind.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
DAPPER—QUICK; LITTLE AND ACTIVE; NEAT; SPRUCE
DAPPERLING—A DAPPER LITTLE FELLOW
APT—FIT; SUITABLE; PROMPT; QUICK-WITTED; LIKELY
DADDY HAS GONE away – Paris I think. I still haven’t had a chance to have a go with his laptop and now he’s taken it with him. He doesn’t have a clue about the kitten.
Mimi, The Italian Job, from Mum’s designer days, who I have met once before, has come to stay for a week or so. She sleeps on the sofa and Mum sleeps in the big bed with me and Beelzebub. The sick bay, we call it. Mimi is a three times widow – which means she has been married three times and all her husbands have died. She’s fiftyish – the same age as Mum. She teeters on stilettos, wears glinting rings on every finger, cooks great pasta and is teaching me how to make sauces. She’s taught me Bolognese, Marinara, and basic tomato. There’s good deli close by where we can get lovely Parmesan cheese. It’s all we seem to eat these days – pasta. I’d like roast chicken, or a chicken pie like Claire makes, or sausages and mash, or mussels and chips. (I’m not allowed shellfish ever again, though.) But Mum and The Italian Job prefer to spend more time wine-tasting than cooking.
We invite Willy down to supper and he kisses Mimi’s glittering hand and she giggles as if she likes it, even though he must be nearly a hundred years old. Mimi wears a low-neck fluffy fuchsia pink jumper. Mum always says if you’ve got it, flaunt it. But when will I have it? Will I ever have it? Willy brings champagne and they drink three bottles. That’s one each. I have my favourite – elderflower.
‘What’s that blue stone, Mimi?’ I think I can recognise diamonds and rubies but that’s about it.
‘It’s Tanzanite, Gussie, a very rare stone, found only in one place in Africa, in the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro. A gift from a Kenyan lover – a man who knew all about big cats. Beauty, isn’t it?’
Mum and Mimi smile at each other and Mimi winks at me.
‘How romantic,’ I say. The cut stone is ultramarine blue with a slight hint of purple. A new one for my colour chart – Tanzanite Blue.
‘And this one is a fire opal from a geologist who lives in the Yukon.’ The stone looks as if there is fire in its blue green heart. Mimi looks wistful as she twists the ring on her little finger. ‘And this little cluster is from a Yankie fighter pilot I met during the Vietnam War. And my other opal is from an Aussie croc hunter. Dickhead, he was.’
‘Don’t believe everything she says,’ says Mum, and Mimi raises her eyebrows at me.
‘May I look, my dear?’ The Italian Job gives Willy her hand and he smiles approvingly and takes out a little magnifier from his pocket. ‘Charming.’ He raises her hand to his lips and kisses it again.
‘What happened to your three husbands, Mimi?’
‘Don’t be rude, Guss.’
‘No, sorright, darl, no worries.’ She is becoming more Oz as the evening goes on. ‘’S a long story.’ She pours herself another glass of wine. ‘A long, sad story. The first one – Arnie – he was an Aussie, died on the job.’
‘Mimi…?’ Mum’s eyes widen.
‘Trucking, poor man. I was nineteen. Gutted.’
‘What about the second one?’
‘Charlie? Oh Charlie… was my darling.’ She begins to sing and Mum shushes her. ‘Fifty to my twenty-five, but oh could he dance. Died of a heart attack. Only married two years.’ She takes another glug from her glass. ‘I was very unhappy until I met Johann. Dutch – big yacht. Big car, big head, big everything. What a berk he was.’ She pours them all more wine. ‘And well, poor old Johann’s liver gave out on him. Poor sod. Hah! Less said about him the better. Big emerald, though!’ She waves a hand in the air before wiping her eyes with her paper napkin and then blowing her nose loudly on it. Willy takes her hand and kisses it yet again.
Enough’s enough, already. I’m going to bed.
Mimi is taking Mum out to have her hair done. I am staying home with Beelzebub. It’s pouring with rain. Willy looks in but is disappointed when he sees that Mimi isn’t here and goes away when I insist that I am going to rest. I doze – what a nice word – reading my cat behaviour book. Beelzebub snores in my ear. She has this thing about my hair – licks it. Maybe she likes the taste of the gel I use for the spikes, or perhaps she is being affectionate, or maybe I remind her of her mother. Yeah – a scruffy mangy stray. I’ve made sure she hasn’t been on any more fishing trips.
Mum and The Italian Job come home looking great. Mum’s hair has turned dark reddy brown and is much shorter than before with a side parting so there is a wing of hair over one eye. It suits her. The grey bits have gone. They also went shopping in Hampstead and are trying on their ‘bargains and investments’ while I cook supper. I am inventing a sauce tonight – roasted aubergine with sun-dried tomatoes, anchovies and olives. The aubergines were left over from yesterday, the tomatoes and olives were from the deli, and I find a jar of anchovies in the cupboard, so there’s very little work to do. I mix them all up and add garlic and balsamic vinegar and threw some basil leaves in at the end – over the spaghetti. Mum and Mimi are dressed to the nines. Where does that expression come from? Mimi says I must have Italian blood, and so I speak with an Italian accent for the rest of the evening.
‘It was beauty this arvo, Lara. We oughta do it more often.’
‘Yeah cobber,’ says Mum, getting into the swing of things Aussie. They get very silly and giggly on red wine and me ditto on Cola. Mimi brings out the best in Mum. Makes her relax and enjoy herself.
I go to bed early with Bubba and Rena Wooflie – mustn’t neglect her. It is good to see Mum looking and acting human again. I didn’t hear her mention her bowels once today – a record.
Mimi takes Mum and me to the hospital for my last two-weekly biopsy. It’s nearly three months since my transplant. I have been very lucky to have only had two complications so far. Acute rejection of transplanted tissue happens mostly in the first year, so that’s why I have to have regular checks. But now I only need a biopsy once a month, so I won’t have to be near the hospital all the time.
It is reassuring to see other post-transplant patients who are doing well and awful when they become sick and have to go back into hospital for treatment. Judy, she’s in her twenties, had her transplant when she was eighteen and she’s since had a baby. She looks great and her baby is very sweet and absolutely healthy. She comes back for check-ups once a year only, and occasionally to give talks to people waiting for a transplant. Saul, he was fifteen, died after kidney failure. I am one of the lucky survivors. Two babies, who were very ill, couldn’t survive long enough to get donor hearts. Half the people waiting for transplants die before a donor is found. The transplant unit is a strange mixture of joy and sorrow.
Precious arrives and I feel happy again, carefree. I had forgotten how tall he is, and how hunky. We don’t talk for long as they split us up for various tests, but I catch sight of him before we leave and blow him a kiss, and he smiles his piano-key smile – the white keys, not the black ones.
The grey hospital grass has turned green. I would like to give all the patients birdfeeders to hang outside their windows. It would cheer them, I think. Perhaps I’ll leave them enough money in my will to always be able to feed birds. I do have about a hundred pounds in my bank account, from when Grandpop and Grandma died.
The doctor says I am allowed to go home to Cornwall. Yippee!
On her last day, Mimi drives me to Camden Town to get my hair trimmed and buys me a beautiful white duffle jacket from the market. Mum says she shouldn
’t have, but I love it. It’s a bit big on the shoulders, but I’ll grow into it.
I’m sorry to say goodbye to Mimi, she’s been such good fun. She’s promised to come and visit us in Cornwall.
I think I might write a book of recipes made from leftovers. Mum has invented some interesting meals using leftovers: curries and soups and stir-fries, mostly – like a soup made out of cauliflower cheese and potato-pie leftovers, and another of leftover curried hake and coconut milk. She has bought a new baking tray for Daddy. For some reason she didn’t like the idea of roasting food in the old one after the kitten has used it as a litter tray. Bubba now goes outside after each meal and performs. She’s a fast learner.
‘Mum, can we keep Bubba, please?’
‘How can we, Gussie? Three cats are more than enough. It’s expensive to keep them in food and flea injections and flu injections… and she’ll need to be spayed and micro-chipped. No, I think we should give her to Willy.’
‘Free Willy?’
‘Don’t start that again.’
‘I was thinking of calling him Willy Wonka, but Free Willy suits him much better.’
‘It’s in very poor taste, darling, so please don’t do it. Anyway – the kitten: she’ll be company for him. He’s a lonely man, you know.’
‘I think he’d rather have The Italian Job.’ I say.
‘Gussie!’
So we invite Willy again for a drink and ask him if he would like to have Beelzebub.
‘My dears, I would love to have her, but you know I am nearly eighty-three. How long will I live? The poor kitty would get fond of me and then – kaput! – I will die. No, that is not fair for her, nicht war? And you know, I would fall over her all the time with my stick. And my beautiful Staffordshire figures? She would knock them down. Nein, nein, nein. I really cannot have this kitty.’
I can see that he is thinking up excuses and he isn’t a cat person at heart. He really doesn’t want her. Mum understands and doesn’t push it. Goody, we’ll have to take Beelzebub home with us.
‘Would you perhaps give me your friend’s telephone number, my dear Lara? I seem to have mislaid it. She has left something at my apartment.’
