Deathwatch (24 page)
Authors: Nicola Morgan
So he wouldn’t. He’d written down his past and it was a real part of him. But “what if?” was not part of the past, the present or the future. It was a hopeless nothing.
And now, on New Year’s morning, the start of a new future, Walter makes a small decision. He will drive out to the coast, to a beach he and Sheila used to go to. He will scatter her ashes across open water. And he will say goodbye and sorry in the only way he can, because every other way is too late and too meaningless.
As he stands up, stretching, his eye is caught by the Christmas present he had given himself.
He takes the lid off the large plastic box. Very large plastic box. There, among the moist leaves they both sit. The female is his favourite, huge, glossy black, her dozens of segments sitting perfectly, almost seeming to breathe as she moves. She uncurls herself from her coil and begins to inch towards his hand. He lets her crawl up his fingers onto his palm, and marvels at the size and weight of her. She is magnificent, enormous, an empress among her species.
Archispirostreptus gigas
. The giant train millipede.
A collection of dead insects is all very well. But there is nothing better than observing the living.
SEVEN
months later. A sweat-soaked summer. The air soft and yellow and humming. Cat McPherson is going for a run. Not easy in this dripping heat when part of her wants to sit in her cool kitchen and drink iced smoothies.
But she runs. Because she wants to. Because she can. Because of what it gives her. Because it is her.
Funny though – shortly after the canal incident, her parents had started to suggest she cut back on her training. They said maybe she was doing too much, that she should keep her options open, work hard at her schoolwork, treat the athletics as a hobby, not expect too much. “Happiness is the most important thing, Catty. You have to do what
you
want.”
If they’d said it weeks before, she’d have jumped at the chance. But something changed the night she ran for her life. She won’t forget the woman, her sadness and her lost dreams. But Cat will not let her life be damaged by that woman’s shattered hopes.
She
will
have her own dreams and hold them for as long as she can. Not because she ought to but because she wants to. Not because it’s right or wrong but because it just is her. Not because of her grandfather, but
with
her grandfather, because there is a bit of him in her even though most of her is herself. And although her friendships will change as she does, they will always be friendships.
She swims a bit less now but runs more, will focus on that and not the biathlon. There is more freedom in it. Not to mention the long lean muscles rather than the big shoulders that always loomed at her from the mirror.
She’s read her grandfather’s diary now, touched and absorbed the yellowed newspaper cuttings, seen more photos of him, talked to her grandmother. She knows more of him now, and it’s interesting, fun, tugs warmly at her heart. But it doesn’t matter. Because the truth is that he was an Olympic medallist and that she never knew him. And he never knew her. Maybe some of what he felt she feels too, but she will never really know that. It is comforting and human to touch the past, but it is not everything. Or enough.
She is on her own, running for herself. But more completely so.
Along the wooded path Cat runs, seeking the shade, the thick ancient branches crowding over her, protecting, a canopy of cool.
Breathing easy, strong, smooth. Floating in absolute control. Her thoughts in another space.
She comes to a fork in the path. Now she must go up the hill or down to the lake on the right. She goes to the right. When she comes to the lake, she will swing round and go up the hill from the other side. It’s a longer route. She passes a family walking in the opposite direction, the two small children arguing about being carried.
Cat doesn’t like small children. They irritate her. She has no patience with them. They whinge and are spoilt. They expect everything done for them. The brat has its arms outstretched to its mother, its face screwed up.
She hopes that there will be no one by the lake. She will stop to watch the swans, do a few stretches, measure her recovery time. She can hear the buzzing of flies, the hot chitter of birds.
At first, it seems as though no one is there. As she gets closer, she sees that someone is sitting on the bench, by the water. An old man, judging from his clothes. Her heart sinks. She will have to go further round, find some space. She’s not going to do stretches with anyone looking.
Closer to the man now, she thinks he’s asleep. His head is slumped forward. At an odd angle. His chest curled round, his shoulders sagging, his arms hanging by his sides.
She slows down. Something is not right. In her heart she knows what it is. Yet she walks towards him, pulled there, though wishing she could run away.
The man is dead. She stretches out her hand as if to touch his shoulder, but she doesn’t want to. She draws her hand back towards herself.
And then a smell. A memory. The smell of him. She knows his smell. And with that memory comes guilt and horror, all in one moment. He is the man who brought hissing cockroaches into their classroom. There is his jacket pocket, his musty smell, his tweed, his patches, his wispy hair. She will not look at his eyes, but they will be his eyes – she does not need to look.
Words rise in her throat. She turns, screams, sees a man and woman in the distance, waves, screams again. “Help! Please! This way!”
And as they hurry towards her she sees something remarkable. A thin blue insect floats through the air and hovers in front of her face. It is a dragonfly, she thinks, though of course she does not know what sort it is. Danny would know. The blue is artificial in its powdery blueness. It floats there, its buzzing almost silent. Then it settles on the man’s shoulder, its wings shivering. Two pairs of wings it has, iridescent, veins of amazing thinness. It is beautiful. The most beautiful thing she has ever seen.
Cat holds out her hand towards it, her palm upwards. And the blue dragonfly lifts into the air and comes to settle on her skin.
She barely breathes. Suddenly nothing is as important as that tiny thing of beauty.
The man and woman have arrived now and they have discovered what Cat knows, that here is a dead person. The man is making an urgent call on his mobile phone: police, ambulance, hurry. The woman is looking at her strangely.
“Are you all right?”
Cat looks at her and smiles through watery eyes. Words don’t come, at first. She looks at the dead man’s face and she thinks how peaceful he looks now, just as though he were asleep. His mouth is set in the slightest, softest smile. Cat gently blows the dragonfly from her hand and towards the lake, where it lands on the water a little way away.
“He wouldn’t have wanted it to be hurt,” she says. The woman doesn’t look reassured. “He liked insects,” Cat continues. “He came to our school once.”
“I think you should sit down,” says the woman. “You don’t look very well. You’ve had a shock.”
Later that evening, when the police have taken a statement – she’s good at those now – and her parents have worried about her unnecessarily, Cat goes round to Danny’s house. There is something she wants to know. She describes the insect and he finds pictures in his books.
“Two pairs of wings or one? Horizontal or vertical?”
“Two. Um, horizontal, like a tiny plane.”
“Sounds like proper dragonfly then, not a damselfly. Like this?”
“A bit like that but more like this one.”
“What about this one?”
“Wrong colour. Mine was more sort of a pale powdery blue. And no black bit on the tail.”
And then she sees it. Points to it. “That’s it! I know it is!”
Danny reads out the name. “Odonata Anisoptera
Orthetrum coerulescens
.”
“Odonata Anisoptera
Orthetrum coerulescens
,” she repeats slowly, for the words are soothing, secret, ancient. Strong.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he says, though it is not a question but a statement.
She touches the picture, softly, as though stroking it.
It is beautiful. She nods. No longer does she hate or fear these small things. She does not wish to spend her life with them, but she can understand a little of why someone would. Dreams, desires and obsessions come from within and are like gifts, uninvited. But she has different gifts. And different dreams.
NICOLA MORGAN
knew when she left university that she wanted to be a writer. While working to achieve that ambition, she was also an English teacher, and became an expert in literacy and dyslexia. Now, after writing numerous bestselling books for young children, Nicola is the author of many critically acclaimed titles for older children and young adults. Her novels
Fleshmarket
and
Sleepwalking
both won Scottish Art Council prizes, the latter winning the Scottish Children’s Book of the Year, and her non-fiction title
Blame My Brain
was shortlisted for the prestigious Aventis Prize.
Nicola lives in Edinburgh but travels widely, visiting schools, conferences and festivals, enjoying any chance to inspire young people about fiction or the workings of their brains.
You can find out more about Nicola and her books at:
www.nicolamorgan.co.uk
Or for Nicola’s tips on becoming a writer, visit:
www.helpineedapublisher.blogspot.com
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