Inchworm (21 page)

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.

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.

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 sight. 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
DM
s?’

‘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.’

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

Physiotherapist

Cardiac surgeon

Night nurse

Cardiac nurses

All very simple and straightforward. Daddy says it’s best not to give photographs titles like
THE NIGHT WATCH; HOPE COMES WITH THE DAWN
and stuff like that. It’s mawkish and embarrassingly amateurish. So I’ve stuck to straightforward description. Daddy is having really good frames made. His grandfather’s photos and mine are having the same mounts and frames. Ivory mounts and black wood box frames. But it’s ages before the exhibition. Nearly a year.

‘Phone, Gussie, answer it please.’

I’m grooming my kitten, who is lying on her back enjoying every moment. She is so sweet.

‘Okay, Mum, I’ve got it.’

‘Hello. This is the Jackson Stevens residence.’ I’d make such a good secretary. There’s no answer, though I can hear someone breathing heavily at the other end. ‘Who’s there?’ Whoever it is, is crying I think. ‘Hello? Hello?’

‘Give it here.’ Mum takes the phone from me.

‘Hello? Who is that? Agnes? Is that you? What is it? What’s happened dear?’

I don’t think I can bear it. Precious has died.

I THINK ABOUT
death quite often. My own death. I expect it will be like before I was born – nothingness, or nothing I can remember. But I prefer to think that my spirit will become something else. I think it might be wonderful to be a bee, busy at my duties each day, building a hive, sipping at nectar, buzzing into the golden hearts of roses or daisies. It would be wonderful just to be a daisy in a meadow, surrounded by buttercups and other daisies, bobbing in the breeze. I would close my petals at night and sleep, and open them each day of my life and worship the sun. Even being grass would be good, but to be a bird would be best. A white gull, skimming waves, riding the winds, swooping and swerving and calling to my mate in the dark; or a skylark ascending, singing my heart out in the blue sky above the hilly dunes, fluttering my wings and hovering over the sand, suddenly diving to my nest hidden in the marran grass.

I think Precious might become a sunflower, his open face following the path of the sun, like a huge smile. Or maybe he has become an African bird – one that has long legs and large feet and glossy feathers. I don’t know many African birds apart from sea eagles and toucans as I wasn’t very interested in birds when I was in Kenya, which is a terrible waste. If I ever do go back to Africa I’ll definitely learn more about them. Glossy Ibis – Precious would make a wonderful Glossy Ibis. I wish I had known him better. I wish he hadn’t died.

On the day I am not well enough to go to the funeral. It is icy and wet and so grey the sky never lightens after breakfast time. I stay in bed and Mum administers to me, bringing me hot drinks that I cannot even sip without choking with emotion.

‘Scrabble?’ she asks. I shake my head. Nothing, I must do nothing today, but think of Precious and his smile that is like a sunflower. I cannot bear to think of his father and sisters in Zimbabwe; his mother alone in England.

‘You go, Mum, you should go,’ I tell her, but she won’t leave me. She’s sent flowers – daffodils and Paper Whites, all spring flowers and I wrote a note on a card: ‘
I will never forget you, Precious friend. Love, Gussie
.’