Inchworm (10 page)

‘Here.’

He looks astonished and turns red.

I take out the last pound coin from my pocket and give it to him.

‘What’s this?’ Bridget’s gold star lies twinkling in his grubby hand.

‘Oh, that’s mine – a friend gave it to me for luck.’ I take it from him and walk quickly away.

‘Thanks,’ he calls.

I turn and wave. Mum would be proud of me. She doesn’t usually give money to homeless people but she tries to help them in practical ways. Perhaps I should have given him something else – my cap or scarf? But the cap is an official England cricket cap, and I know Alistair would be upset if I gave it away. Also, Mum says you lose most of your heat through the top of your head, and I need the scarf to keep my chest warm.

Perhaps I’ll take him one of Mum’s scarves. She’s got lots. She has a thing about shoes, scarves and bags. And dresses, and jackets and coats, jumpers, jeans and skirts. I can’t see the attraction, but she says I will, soon.

I feel guilty now. I should have left him the gold star. He needs more luck than me. He looked disappointed when I took it back.

I wish I had asked Alistair to bring me my computer, but I suppose it would be a bit much to ask. Also, I need someone to teach me how to use it.

We’re at the swimming pool for Mum’s first aqua-fit class. She says she is becoming a fat slug, feels bloody awful, her back hurts and she needs to boost her energy levels. I would have liked to join in but I am not allowed to use swimming pools for reasons beyond my comprehension. More germs I suppose.

Elsa, South African, big but no fat on her, though she is not slim, is the teacher. ‘Shame’ – she says as Mum explains about my operation and why I cannot get into the water. Mum wants to look like her. She says her buttocks used to look like that, before she had me.

There are ten women. The air is tropically warm, like it was in Kenya. It’s a small swimming pool but the same depth water throughout. They talk and laugh above loud taped music, all old stuff. They all know the words, and sing along to Tom Jones, The Beach Boys, Elvis Presley, the Beatles.

I take a few photos of them cavorting in the water singing ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’. Cavorting – I like that word. The Leica makes a very soft whisper when I open the shutter, not like my Nikkormat, which clicks.

They should be wearing flowery swim-caps, then they would look like a hydrangea bush. But they do look as if they are enjoying themselves. I imagine Mum diving into the middle of the chorus of swimmers like Esther Williams in
Million Dollar Mermaid.
I do love classic movies, especially musicals. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. And
The
Thin Man
– that funny dog.

Mum goes in the jacuzzi afterwards. She likes the blasts of water on her back. When she gets out of the water she says she can feel how heavy she is, the force of gravity. (I always think that when Mum is seriously cross with me,
I
feel the force of her gravity.)

Afterwards, I have a hot chocolate, which isn’t that hot, but I like the sprinkles of chocolate on the top. Mum has a decaf black coffee and a large piece of carrot cake at the café. Having felt briefly smug, she says, she now feels guilty. The other ladies are gathered round and chatting. One is with her daughter, who looks about seventy, so goodness knows how old she is. She smiles at me and asks why I didn’t join in the class.

‘I’m recovering from a heart and lung transplant,’ I say.

‘My goodness, are you really? I didn’t know they did such things.’

‘Yes, she isn’t allowed in swimming pools in case of infection.’

‘What a shame! Perhaps when you are better?’

‘No, I can never ever go into a swimming pool ever again.’

‘How sad!’

‘I think you can after a year, Gussie,’ says Mum.

‘Oh, that’s good news.’

However, it doesn’t sound nearly so dramatic.

The old lady’s name is Alice and she is eighty-nine. She has done loads of things in her life – like designing hats for a fashion house, and she was in the Women’s Air Force in the war.

I didn’t like to ask which war.

She says she enjoys the aqua-fit classes even though she can’t do many of the exercises and gets very bored at home, and I suggest she writes down her life story for her family. I wish my grandparents had done that. I tell her she better do it quickly before she dies or becomes unable to see or use her hands or something. I get hustled off home by Mum before I’ve finished telling Alice how to spend the rest of her life.

‘Gussie, you really mustn’t be so fierce with people.’

A parcel and card (photo of baby seal) from Brett:

Hi Guss,

Howyadooin? Hope you are feeling better. I’ve finished
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
. It’s beauty. ‘Life? Don’t talk to me about life.’ Marvin the robot’s line, not mine. I recommend it. It’s full of crazy ideas and happenings. I won’t spoil it for you.

See ya,

Brett x

He’s sent me the book. Daddy used to be mad on it too. He was always quoting stuff from it. Like, ‘
DON’T PANIC
.
’

I do like getting letters. Hearing someone’s voice on the telephone is good but you can’t take it out and look at it again like you can a letter.

I write back straight away and tell him about Mr Robin, the ducks and other birds on the Heath and say I am still birding when I can. I don’t mention the streptawhatever. I don’t want to be abnormal, I want to be treated as if I am the same as everyone else.

I have a pile of nature books to read. I get a feeling of security and anticipation having a pile of unread books next to my bed. I also like to reread favourites – like the
Just William
books and
Swallows and Amazons.

Mum is invited for a drink at Herr Weinberger’s flat. I don’t go; I’m too busy reading.

When she comes downstairs I see she has been crying.

‘What’s the matter Mum? Aren’t you happy now I’ve had my transplant?’

She hugs me to her, being careful of my scar.

‘Oh, darling, of course I’m happy, very happy, over the moon.’ She has a red nose. ‘Willy and I were talking about evil.’ She sniffs loudly.

‘Evil?’

‘Yes. Herr Weinberger’s Jewish, you know. He’s the only survivor in his family. He escaped from Germany before the war. His parents and brothers, aunts and uncles were all killed by the Nazis.’

‘Oh, I see.’

‘Do you remember when we were in Kenya, finding coral together on the beach?’

‘No.’

‘Tiny red fragments with a hole in. We made necklaces from them.’

‘I remember a red necklace. It was scratchy.’

‘A huge empty beach and a white man in swimming trunks suddenly walked between us, separating us. It was as if we didn’t exist. He had a scar from his head right down through one blind eye and down to his chin. He only had one arm. The other one ended in a stump above the elbow.’

‘No, I don’t remember him.’

‘He looked like someone who had seen and done terrible things. He looked evil.’

‘What did you do?’

‘Grabbed you and took you back to the house. I never saw him again.’

‘Maybe you imagined him?’

‘No, he existed.’ She is crying again and I am holding her around her waist.

LIFELINE—A ROPE FOR SAFEGUARDING OR SAVING LIFE; A VITAL LINE OF COMMUNICATION

WHAT I DO
remember of Africa, the first winter there, is all the cripples in Mombasa. A man with no legs trundling himself along in the heavy traffic on a sort of square of wood with wheels, like a primitive skateboard. People with no eyes or no arms, begging in the streets. Sweaty, half-naked men striding along with mattresses or huge bunches of bananas balanced on their heads. Bikes overloaded with people and heavy loads. Children smiling and waving. The smell of the meat market. Humidity and heat. Air-conditioning in the cinema and bank. The stink of a dead elephant on a bush track. Poachers had hacked out the tusks and the wrinkled skin had shrivelled onto its sad ribs. The vultures ignored us and just kept on tearing at the flesh. I can still smell it. And I remember vervet monkeys leaping from a sausage tree, hugging their babies to their chests. Huge butterflies flapping through the palms. Giant tortoises at the funny guest house along the beach, which was like a black and white Elizabethan cottage. Prints of Cornwall on the walls. The scent of pepper and charcoal burning, sweet potatoes. Air like cotton wool.

I learned to swim in Africa: first with armbands in a pool, then by snorkelling over the reef and in the shallows of the lagoon. You wouldn’t believe the fish I saw. They were like imaginary fish, not real, all colours and patterns. Puffer fish blown up like balloons were washed in dead on the beach. There were giant clams, lion fish, sea snakes, moray eels, orange and white striped clownfish hiding in the waving tentacles of sea anemones, that are poisonous to other fish but not to clownfish. We never saw a shark; there are lots there, but they stay outside the reef. So they said. Mum used to sit on the verandah teaching herself to type on her portable typewriter. I remember a black man called Zackariah, who cooked and cleaned for us.

It’s warm enough today to sit outside again. The patio’s a suntrap. Mum finds the sun screen – I have to have it on even in winter if the sun shines, and I put on my cricket hat. The deckchairs come out, but we still can’t use the spider nursery. They’ve hatched, tiny cream babies, remaining inside the webby nest with their mother. Does she feed them at this stage, I wonder? Only one baby has braved the world outside the silken nest. It looks bigger than the others. The survivor. I don’t think mother spider approves of exposing her babies to the bright light of day, so I close the deckchair again. When will they disperse? I had no idea spiders were such caring mothers, or that their eggs took so long to hatch, or that the spiderlings (I love that word) stay in the nest so long. Maybe they are sick babies, or premature, and need extra time in the nursery. Spiderlings often fly away on silk threads to avoid being eaten by their siblings.

Why is it I can never find the creature I am looking at in a reference book? They never look the same as they do in photos or illustrations. Are they all new discoveries? I’ll have so many bugs named after me, I’ll be as famous as Darwin.

We’ve run out of mealworms. Mum says they are too expensive, but Mr Robin comes to my hand anyway for wild birdseed. He is perfect, with his scarlet breast and black button eyes. He watches me as I watch him. What do birds think about people? Do they see us as flightless birds, with featherless wings? Or maybe they think our clothes are feathers? They might sit around on trees on the Heath watching us and admiring a red coat or a yellow hat or blue trousers and green shoes as we walk under them. We must be difficult to label: a juvenile, lesser-spotted, white-faced geek; a glossy, red-beaked shopper. I would be a juvenile, blue-capped, red-footed walker. Mum is a moulting magpie. No, that’s cruel. She’s a mature, black-capped female, caring for her one and only sickly fledgling. I’m lucky she hasn’t thrown me out of the nest. Most creatures are pretty cruel when it comes to caring for sickly young, except elephants and some big cats. It’s all part of Nature’s survival of the fittest rule. People are much kinder to
their
unhealthy offspring, loving them just as much as their healthy babies.

My biopsies are going well, though I hate them. There’s this awful feeling of uneven heart beat when the catheter is in there, which reminds me of how it was
BT
. No sign of more problems, touch wood. That’s a silly superstition and I’m not superstitious, but anyway it can’t do any harm to touch wood even if it doesn’t do any good.

I feel that the hospital has become the main part of my life – a lifeline. I have more friends there than in the real world. Well, not friends exactly, but people I know and need, expert nurses and medics. Katy and Soo Yung, my transplant nurses; Dolores in physio, who always has a smile for me. She says she looks forward to having me to look after as I always make her laugh. I think it’s the other way round – she makes me laugh. She thinks I always tell her something she doesn’t know. She says I’m a clever clogs. Is that a good thing I wonder, or is she being ironic or sarcastic? It’s another foot expression to add to my list.

My visits to hospital will soon go down to one every two weeks. Twelve weeks after the transplant they go down to monthly visits for six months, then two monthly – which means we’ll have to travel from Cornwall quite often, but it also means I get to see Daddy more often.

I loathe the anti-fungal liquid I have to swallow, against thrush. (Why it’s called thrush?) But apart from the occasional nausea and mood swing I feel stronger every day and my scar is nearly healed. There are only one or two places that are sore and still need dressings. My face is still puffy. I hope the cats recognise me when we go home. But I suppose my smell hasn’t changed and that’s how cats recognise people, as well as by their voice. Charlie always comes running when I call her name. But maybe the drugs I have to take are changing my body smell? When Mum has just applied hand cream or body lotion, Flo will flee from her in disgust. She has a more sensitive nose than the other two cats or she takes offence more than they do.