Inchworm

by Ann Kelley

  Then she sees it. ‘Eeek! Fuckaduck! It’s a rat!’

  ‘It’s Bubba’s mouse,’ I tell her and find a napkin to catch it with. Bubba is stalking it, but the mouse is too quick and hides behind a radiator. I shut the frantic kitten in the bedroom and rescue the mouse. Mimi is standing on the sofa, clutching a glass of wine, her face a picture of horror.

  ‘Open the patio door so I can put it out,’ I tell her, and she reluctantly climbs down and opens it. I step out into the cold orange glow of night and let the mouse go onto the earth. I sniff the air and smell the lovely London night scents of diesel, dead leaves, old bricks. There are no stars, just an orange haze.

  ‘Come in and shut the door, for gawd’s sake, Guss, it’d freeze the balls off a croc.’

  I’ll miss London and the people I’ve met when I go back home. There aren’t enough foreigners in Cornwall, except during the summer season.

  ‘Well that was interesting,’ Mimi says. Any more livestock to show me?’

  I go to bed about ten thirty, leaving Mimi listening to music with Willy, who has appeared with a bottle of champagne.

  I wait on tenterhooks (or is it tenderhooks – where does that come from?) for Mum to return. I read one of Daddy’s film-making books while Bubba purrs in my ear. When I feel myself dropping off I take off my glasses, plump my pillow and open the window. A taxi draws up, Mum gets out, pays the driver, and comes in. She’s alone. I put on my dressing gown. Laughter from the sitting room. Mimi and Willy leaving, I think. I open the door a chink and peer out. Mutti’s sitting alone at the table eating a chunk of cheese and has her fingers in a jar of pickled gherkins. Bubba comes out with me to see what’s what and maybe have a little supper. She likes cheese very much, but only if I give it to her with my fingers. Put it on a plate and she turns up her little black nose and runs away offended. Bubba, not Mum.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well what? Why aren’t you asleep?’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Hah! Disaster! Your father is such a… It Wasn’t the Best Evening I’ve Ever had.’

  ‘Wasn’t the best evening…? What happened?’

  She sighs. ‘Well first of all he sets fire to the restaurant.’

  ‘Sets fire to the restaurant?’

  ‘Don’t repeat everything I say, please, Gussie, it makes you sound like a moron.’

  I smack her lightly on the arm, and giggle.

  ‘Your father,’ (she always calls him my father when she’s angry with him) ‘passed the bread-basket Too Close to the Candle in the middle of the table and the napkin in the basket Caught Fire and bits of Flaming Paper flew all round us.’

  ‘Ohmygod. Is that how you hurt your thumb?’ It has a plaster around it.

  ‘No. I’m getting to that. I had grilled lobster. Your father said I could choose anything I wanted. Smart Restaurant, my foot! (Another foot expression for my collection.) ‘Not even linen napkins! Paper! Huh! It took me three asks to get a finger bowl. Tried to fob me off with a scented paper packet thingy. Ugh! And they hadn’t split the claws properly, and when I was trying to break one open with my hands the shell split my thumb from top to bottom.’

  ‘Ohmygod.’

  ‘Yeah, blood everywhere. Needed more than paper napkins, I can tell you. That’s not all. I went to the cloakroom to clean the cut, having told your father to get a plaster from the waitress. Twenty minutes later I was still running cold water on my cut. Gave Up Waiting. Eventually, wrapped my lacerated thumb in toilet paper and went back to the table. They Hadn’t got a First Aid Kit, Can you Believe?’

  ‘Isn’t that illegal?’

  ‘Yes. Someone had to go up the street to get a plaster from Another Restaurant. It took Forever.’

  ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘Believe it. Meanwhile your father’s finished his main course, drunk most of the second bottle of My Favourite vino, is tucking into sticky toffee pudding and chatting up the Busty Blonde at the Next Table. Not the Least Bit Concerned. I could have Bled to Death down there. I wasn’t Too Happy, I can tell you.’

  I could imagine Mum being Not Too Happy with Daddy.

  ‘And to complete a Perfect Evening with Your Father, I find I have lobster juice and garlic butter down the front of my New Frock.’ I notice her dress is wet where she has soaked it.

  ‘Oh dear, poor Mutti.’

  ‘I’m famished,’ she says, her hand stuck in the pickle jar.

  ‘Was that all?’

  ‘All? What do you want? World War Three? No, Actually, it wasn’t quite all. I threw the remains of the very nice Chardonnay over your father. There was hardly any in the bottle so I emptied the jug of water over him too. Huh! His face!’ She smiles smugly. ‘Don’t think he’ll be welcome there again.’

  ‘Want a wally, sweetie?’

  Mum offers me a gherkin.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  DISCREET—PRUDENT; CIRCUMSPECT; JUDICIOUS; CAUTIOUS (IN ACTION OR SPEECH)

  INCORRIGIBLE—HOPELESSLY BAD OR DEPRAVED; BEYOND ANY HOPE OF REFORM OR IMPROVEMENT IN CONDUCT

  MUM’S SWIGGED HALF a carton of orange juice and is doing the Full English thing with bacon, egg, sausage, tomato and fried bread and I’m having porridge, apple-juice and a warm bread roll and honey. I give Bubba her first breakfast of real cat food from a tin and Mum has to go to the bathroom for a while. When she comes out she says she reckons the lobster must have been off and it’s poisoned her system. She does look green. She can’t face her coffee she says and takes one look at Bubba’s food and goes back to the bathroom. It seems her usual method of killing a hangover hasn’t worked. She’s yet to dose herself with sugar, though. Perhaps I’ll take her a hot chocolate in an hour or so.

  Bubba is so funny with her tinned food. She acts as if I’ve insulted her. She spits at it and hisses, her back fluffed up to make herself huge (as big as a slice of chocolate cake). She backs away and shakes her head. Then she creeps towards it as if it’s an enemy, her ears back. She puts her nose to the plate and licks tentatively. She sniffs, licks, sniffs. Where’s the pilchard? What, no tomatoes? She licks again and she’s eating it. She’s a proper cat. When she’s finished she goes to the door to be let out. It’s a cold and blustery wet day, but she runs to the patch of earth at the edge of the patio and gets into a crapping position. It’s the only time a cat looks less than beautiful. We once went to the Picasso Museum in Paris. There were all sorts of wonderful paintings and sculptures and pottery there, but the thing I remember best was a life-size bronze cat having a crap. It was by a door, very discreetly placed and looked so real. I looked to see if there was a lump of bronze poo but there wasn’t. I tried to find a postcard of it in the shop but failed. I’ve never seen it in a book either.

  I call her to come in and after she has dutifully scratched the earth to cover her poo she rushes in to me. The next ten minutes are spent grooming herself. She still falls over when she’s trying to clean her tummy. She’s very sweet and I do hope I can keep her. I’m sure Charlie and Rambo will love her when they get to know her. Even grumpy old Flo should be able to tolerate a little kitten on her territory.

  Willy comes round to borrow some milk and I tell him about Mum’s disastrous dinner. We laugh. He looks rather pleased with himself this morning. He’s dressed in paisley patterned silk dressing gown with a yellow silk scarf tucked in at the neck. I think it’s called a cravat. He looks like a suave old Cary Grant.

  ‘Will you have a coffee, Willy? There’s loads left.’

  ‘Danke schön, Gussie, but no. I have a… a very special guest upstairs.’

  For breakfast? I think but don’t say. I am attempting to be discreet. Mum says I speak my mind too often and should think of other people’s feelings.

  ‘Is your Mutti here?’

  ‘In the bathroom.’

  ‘Ah yes, of course. You don’t have any biscuits to spare, do you, Gussie? Croissants? I haven’t done any baking this week. No? Smoked salmon? No? Ach well, never mind. I must go ba
ck. I hope your Mutti is better soon. You seem to spend your time looking after her, you poor child.’ He gives a little skip on his way out.

  Thinking about it, he’s right. I do seem to be the carer in this family. Am I the only one who cares about keeping the family together? Dad doesn’t give a duck’s arse (a Mimi expression); Mum’s behaviour doesn’t help. Perhaps I’ll be a counsellor when I grow up. Specialising in marriage bust-ups in families with a transplant member.

  I hope this little incident doesn’t mean that Daddy won’t come to see me. Maybe he’ll want us to leave. After all, we’re paying no rent, it’s his place, and Mum has just assaulted him in public.

  What can I do with them both? They’re incorrigible. I’m never going to get them back together. I am thinking dark thoughts when the phone rings. Maybe it’s Daddy phoning to apologise. Except that I suppose it’s Mum who should be saying sorry. I don’t know. Why do grown-ups make everything so complicated?

  ‘Oh, it’s you.’ It’s Alistair.

  ‘How are you, Gussie?’

  ‘All right, I suppose.’

  ‘Is your mother there?’

  ‘Yes, but she’s in the bathroom. She went out for dinner with Daddy last night.’ Why did I say that? It’s as if I want to hurt him. And I don’t; he’s nice. But he’s not Daddy. He’s only my doctor in Cornwall.

  ‘I see.’ I’m sure he doesn’t. What does he see?

  ‘When are you coming home, Gussie, do you know?’

  ‘Don’t know. Mum hasn’t had her final check-up yet.

  ‘How goes your treatment?’

  ‘Boring.’ I don’t feel like talking to him, I don’t know why. Perhaps I feel that if I’m nice to Mum’s boyfriend it’ll encourage him. I want my Daddy back. Why was Mum so horrid? Why can’t she try to behave? She’s so selfish. I hate her.

  ‘Is everything okay, Gussie?’

  ‘Yeah, fine.’

  ‘Well, give her my love and say I phoned, won’t you.’

  ‘Yeah, okay. Bye.’ I put the phone down and run into my room and curl up on the bed with Bubba. There’s a horrid tight feeling in my throat, like the awful soreness when the breathing tube was taken out. I swallow tears but my eyes leak in spite of my attempts to feel nothing. Bubba squeaks at me and shoves her little face into mine. I give in to my feelings and let my tears flow.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  MUM GETS TO the phone before I do.

  ‘Right. In that case I’ll do some shopping in the village. What time are you arriving?’ She puts down the phone. ‘Your father will be here at eleven. I’m going out.’

  There’s just time to sort out Bubba’s breakfast and toilet ritual and hide her away before he gets here.

  He arrives carrying a large and heavy black portfolio, which he places on the glass-topped dining table.

  ‘Surprise, honeybun.’

  He opens the case and peels back tissue paper to expose a large photo print of an old man looking straight at the camera. He has laughter lines splaying from his eyes, a large nose and wears a flat cap. I sort of recognise it and then realise…

  ‘That’s mine. I did that in one of the fishermen’s lodges.’

  Daddy has had some of my black and white photographs printed large on beautiful thick watercolour paper with a black line around them and lots of white border. There are six pictures of the men playing dominoes, laughing, chatting and smoking. There’s a print of a woman in a floral wrap-around apron standing against a hedge of valerian.

  ‘That’s our neighbour, Mrs Thomas. She’s had an eye operation and her cat Shandy has died.’ Mum must have given him my exposed film from home.

  ‘I like the hospital pics, very atmospheric.’ He’s right. They look interesting: Mr Sami in his surgical greens, his mask over his mouth and nose, his eyes tired and sad; the physios looking straight at the camera; a picture of Katy and Soo Yung laughing together. The one I did at the aqua-fit class is amusing, though I don’t think Mum will like the way she looks. She always has her mouth open and her eyes closed in photographs. At least she’s not holding a drink in this one.

  The women are in a circle formation, not unlike my dream of elephants swimming, except of course, the women don’t look at all like elephants.

  I wonder how the ninety-something-year-old lady is? She was really interesting and I’d like to meet her again. I’d like to hear more about her life. I bet she’s had adventures.

  There’s more. The old negatives that my great-grandfather Amos Hartley Stevens made of St Ives: the harbour full of fishing boats with dark sails, gulls wheeling overhead, and portraits of fishermen and their wives – Daddy’s had them made into bronze-grey prints on the same lovely rough paper.

  ‘What’s this colour Daddy? How do they do that?

  ‘Selenium toning. Looks great doesn’t it?’

  ‘I love it.’

  ‘What do you think about an exhibition, Guss?’

  ‘An exhibition of Amos Hartley Stevens’ photographs?’

  ‘Yes, and yours. I think it would make a great show – continuity, family talent, handing on the torch, that sort of thing.’

  ‘My pictures? In an exhibition?’ I am so astonished at the idea I can’t speak.

  ‘I’ve talked to the powers that be at the archive. They’ve okayed it. He was quite a guy, my grandfather. Important in the scheme of things. Yeah.’

  ‘So, the exhibition would be at the film archive?’

  ‘Yeah, the corridor. They do stills exhibits there. If you are okay about if we’ll probably schedule it for next winter for a month.

  I am so gobsmacked I can’t speak. I might even be having a heart attack. I wouldn’t know, as a transplanted heart feels no pain. I hug him tight.

  ‘Oh thank you, Daddy, thank you.’ He places a hand on my head. I think my heart might actually burst, I am so happy.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  DISPARAGE—TO DECRY; TO BELITTLE; TO LOWER IN RANK OR REPUTATION; TO DEPRECIATE

  ‘I’LL BELIEVE IT when I see it,’ said Mum when I told her my news.

  ‘Why do you do that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Put him down all the time. He says he’ll do it, he’ll do it.’

  Yes. Okay, maybe he’ll keep his word this time.’

  Why does she always disparage him? He’s trying his best. I think it’s lovely that he’s gone to so much trouble for me. He’s doing it for me. It’s his way of showing he cares. He took the large prints with him, for framing, but left me with smaller prints of my pictures, including one of Mum asleep, her mouth open.

  She is suitably embarrassed and forbids me to use it in any exhibition ever. In fact she says I should tear it up. But she likes the others.

  ‘They’re very good, sweetheart. You’re very clever,’ she says and I feel a warm glow. I want to tell the world. Instead I phone Claire and tell her. That way, practically everyone I know will get to hear about it.

  ‘Can I phone Brett, please Mum?’

  ‘Go on then, but don’t be long.’

  ‘Brett, It’s Gussie. I’ve got exciting news.’

  ‘Hi, Gussie, howyadoin?’

  ‘I’m much better, thanks. You’ll never guess – I’m going to have an exhibition of my photographs in London.’

  ‘Goodonya, Guss. That’s ripper. When you coming home?’

  ‘Soon, I think. Mum’s got to wait a bit longer before she’s allowed to travel, then we’ll come. Brett, I’ve got a new kitten.’

  ‘I heard, yeah, from Bridget. How will the other cats get on with it? That’ll be a laugh.’ I suddenly remember the photo of Bubba caught in the mosquito net. Didn’t Daddy see it? Or is it still on the undeveloped film in the Leica?

  It’s so good to hear Brett’s Aussie voice. I can imagine his curly mouth smiling at the phone. ‘How are you, Brett? What’s happening in St Ives?’

  ‘Not a lot. Went birding with Dad – the starlings at Marazion. Thousands of them go to roost in the marshes. It’s a great s
ight. Wish you could see it. The racket they make!’

  I suddenly miss the wide-open skies of West Cornwall, the curve of the bay and the noisy sea. I can almost smell it. And then I hear them, the gulls at his end of the phone. Homesickness hits me like a stab in the chest.

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Well, thanks. I have to take loads of pills every day and have tests and things, but I’m doing all right. You won’t recognise me. I’m pink and I’ve put on weight.’

  ‘Still got your England cap?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And the red DMs?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I’ll recognise you.’

  ‘Gotta go, Brett, bye.’ I can feel Mum’s eyes boring into me.

  ‘See ya, Guss.’

  I feel happiness like an orange swirl of colour inside a lava lamp, rising and bubbly, swelling and glowing. Then I feel slightly guilty. It’s not really an exhibition of my pictures, but my great-grandfather’s images. Still, he doesn’t know that. It’s my show too. And I haven’t mentioned Precious. I should have. It’s funny how I feel so happy today, when I felt so sad yesterday. I don’t think it’s only the drugs. I suppose I am going to have to accept the fact that Mum doesn’t want to live with Daddy again. Anyway, I have my own life to lead; the life of a famous photographer. Perhaps I could write poetry in my spare time.

  ‘Gussie, could you put this plaster on for me? I can’t do it with one hand.’

  ‘When can we go home Mum?’

  ‘Soon.’

  ‘And will I be able to go to school?’

  ‘We’ll see.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  MAWKISH—LOATHSOME, AS SOMETHING DECOMPOSED OR MAGGOTY; SICKLY SWEET; INSIPID; MAUDLIN

  I’VE MADE A list of my exhibition photographs and given them all titles.

  St Ives series:

  Mrs Thomas

  Dominoes

  Euchre

  No Swearing

  Aqua-fit

  Hospital series:

  View from hospital bed

  Heart monitor

  Window onto hospital garden