The Bower Bird (20 page)

I think I’d be a good entrepreneur.

I have posted Daddy’s birthday present and card. I wonder what he will be doing on his birthday? Sometimes we used to go out to have dinner together in a Greek café in Camden Town. It was his favourite place to eat because they knew him there and made a big fuss of him. He had used the café as a location in a short film he’d made. It never got shown though. But they treated him as if he was a famous film director, and naturally he liked that. Maybe he’ll go there on his own? Poor Daddy, he must be so lonely without us.

I phone him and wish him Happy Birthday. He loves the
Filmgoer’s Annual
, and the card. He’s off to a party with someone called Luk, a girl from Thailand. She’s nineteen. Why did he have to tell me her age? I don’t care who he’s taking out or how old she is. I certainly won’t tell Mum. He acts like having a young girl friend is some kind of trophy he’s won for being Mr Wonderful. And he isn’t, is he? He’s left us, he hasn’t kept his marriage promises and he’s a stupid vain waste of space.

Bonfire Day is a washout. I hope the weather will be good for the New Year’s Eve celebrations. St Ives is The Place to be at New Year.

The long tube hose of the carpet cleaner won’t slide up and down without falling out, and Mrs Lorn can’t find the missing part. Mum and I are going to Penzance to get it mended and do some shopping. It’s pouring with rain, foggy, and the roads are flooded.

When we get out of the car in the car park Mum removes the hose out the boot and wraps it around her. I hold the brolly. The hose comes off her shoulders and wriggles onto the ground like an unruly python, and she drags it behind her to the shop. We are laughing hysterically. The man says he can’t mend it without the missing part, but he agrees to replace the hose. But he doesn’t want the hose taking up room in his workshop, so we have to go through the whole ridiculous procedure again – out into the monsoon rain with the python trying to escape and back to the car. We are so wet we can’t face shopping so we drive home slowly, on the back road, keeping to the middle of the road where there is less water. Mum’s fun to be with sometimes. No peacocks today.

I remind her of when we were in Thailand one winter, driving through terrible weather, after a scary boat trip in thunder and lightning; the road had totally disappeared under water, and it was much more difficult to stay on the track. There were no windscreen wipers, and one of our carload of children had to lean out the front passenger window and wipe the screen with her hand so Mum could see where she was going. We were up to the axle, but we got through. The water buffaloes looked happy.

I often think of the times we spent in hot countries each winter. I used to chase hedgehogs around the outside of the house in the dark – that was in Africa – and in Thailand I had several American friends who lived in the same compound as us. We had night-time barbecues, toasting marshmallows over the fire.

I’m sending a Christmas card to Sergeant Ginnie Witherspoon, the wildlife warden I met, and to Mr Writer. I do love Christmas.

Over every shop in Fore Street men have fixed real Christmas trees. They all have white lights on them (the trees not the men) and after dark the town is lit up like a fairy tale. From my window I can see more fairy lights swaying in the wind on Smeaton’s Pier.

Bridget and her Mum have invited me to go with them to the parish church on Christmas Eve for the early evening service, which is especially for children. I hope Siobhan won’t be there. No, of course she won’t.

I’m not sure I have the guts to go in the church again. Are liars allowed? If we were Catholics, I could confess my sins and be forgiven, but we’re not.

We have covered our little cherry tree in the front garden in lights.

Father Christmas will appear at a local fête. Obviously I no longer believe in Father Christmas, but I can pretend, for appearances’ sake – that’s pretending, not lying, there’s a huge difference. And I hope to buy some presents there. I wonder if Gabriel believes, and Bridget?

The big question is what to get Daddy. I got him nail clippers last year, which he really appreciated, but unfortunately they are still working so I can’t get him any more.

Why are men so difficult to buy presents for? Women and girls are easy. We like pretty things, usually, things we wouldn’t buy for ourselves, like bracelets and necklaces and hair slides and T-shirts and cuddly toys. I, of course would prefer book tokens to any of those, but I know Mum likes to get perfume and clothes and glittery stuff.

Grandma always wanted silk scarves. She had loads of them. Never wore them as far as I remember, just kept them in a drawer and let me play with them. I would unfold them carefully from their tissue paper, wrap them around my waist or head and pretend to be a pirate or a highwayman, or if the scarf pattern was tiger skin or a leopard or zebra, I would be Tarzan.

Dad had a thing about old Tarzan films. So did I. I would leap from chair to chair and table to stool at Grandma’s shouting ‘Aah Eeh Aah!’

As Grandma used to say, ‘Those were the days,’ as if anything that happened a long time ago was necessarily better than what was happening in the present.

‘Mum.’

‘Yes?’ She puts down her magazine and peers at me over her glasses, which she only wears at home, as she hates herself in them. She keeps one pair in the bathroom, one in the kitchen, and one in the bedroom for reading in bed and one in her bag. That’s the theory anyway. In practice the cases are in place but the glasses could be anywhere at all: under piles of magazines, in with the laundry, in the garden. One day we were out together and she couldn’t find her car keys in her bag, so she emptied it and out came nine pairs of specs – nine! Several were old spares that didn’t really work any more and that she said she was going to take to be recycled at the opticians.

‘What is it, Gussie, stop staring at me as if I’m a Martian.’

‘Sorry. Mum did you know your grandparents?’

‘On your Grandpop’s side I did. His father was also in the Royal Navy. He was awarded the
Croix de Guerre
at Gallipoli.’

‘The what?’

‘The
Croix de Guerre
. It’s the highest award given by the French to a foreign national.’

‘How did he win it?’

‘Well, he was a signalman on a ship carrying two French admirals. They were off the coast of Turkey and my grandfather, up in the crow’s nest, was signalling the enemy’s position to the allied ships. He was shot by a sniper from the shore and the bullet embedded itself in his forehead. He carried on signalling for two hours before he collapsed from loss of blood.’

‘Wow! Did he die?’

‘No. It was a spent bullet, it had travelled a long way before it hit him and hadn’t got the force of a fresh one.’

‘Oh.’

‘Yes, and he was awarded the medal there and then by the French admirals. He was transferred straight away to a hospital ship but the enemy torpedoed that and sunk it, and he lost the medal. He survived to tell the tale though, but he only told my Pop, his son, a little while before he died. He’d never mentioned his war before that. My Pop got in touch with the French Admiralty and they issued my Grandad with a replacement
Croix de Guerre
three weeks before he died.’

‘Have you got the medal?’

‘Yes, I’ll find it for you to see.’

‘So my great-grandfather was a hero?’

‘Yes, Guss, a real hero.’

‘What was his name?’

‘Alfred William.’

I will take a photograph of the medal as part of my family history.

So, I have two famous ancestors that I know of. Now would have been a good moment to tell Mum about my research, but the phone rings and she is billing and cooing to Alistair.

THE CHRISTMAS FETE
or ‘Fair Mo’ is in the town hall, which has been specially decorated with balloons and fake holly wreaths. It still smells of that silvery white talcum sort of dust you put on the wooden floor of a dance hall. (There was a dance here a few days ago.) I have a month’s pocket money to spend.

Outside, next to a sculpture by Barbara Hepworth, the Youth Band is playing carols. Inside, stalls sell hand-made greetings cards and present tags, silver and gold fir cones, bowls of hyacinth bulbs and other Christmassy plants, home-made jams and pickled onions and tomatoes with lids of scalloped holly-patterned fabric. One stall sells raffle tickets and the prizes are on show. Mum buys four for a pound in the hope of winning a bottle of whisky.

There’s a Santa Claus downstairs in the ‘Grotto’ and a queue of expectant little children on the stairs. Nearly all the voices at the fair are local, high-pitched and loud with excitement.

There’s Bridget! Siobhan too. I smile and wave across the hall at Bridget and ignore
SSS
. Mum sees their mother, and goes to talk to her. I have to be polite and stand there while
SSS
smiles pityingly at my old jeans, parka and sneakers, looking down her stupid snub nose at me. I pull down my cricket cap and hide under the peak. She looks about twenty-five, in black tights and black shiny boots, a red mini skirt and black leather jacket, her hair done up in about a hundred tiny plaits and real holly-covered combs. I hope they prick her scalp and she gets tetanus.

Grandma used to say that if you can’t find something nice to say about someone, say nothing. I don’t think it applies to murderous thoughts though.

Bridget hugs me around the waist and we wander around together looking for presents. She tells me she has already got my present. Something she made. She’s desperate to tell me what it is, but I stop her. I love surprises. She’s wearing a hair band with reindeer antlers sticking up and a brooch with a flashing Santa. (He lights up, I mean.) I ask her if she’s going to visit Santa Claus.

‘No way, he’s a fake. They’re everywhere. There’s one in the Lelant garden centre and at least two in Truro. The real Father Christmas lives in Lapland. I’ve sent him a letter.’

I stop at the bookstall and get lost in a book about bees. I don’t know a thing about bees. It’s time I did. However, I am not supposed to be looking for things for me, but for people on my list. I find a book about wildlife walks in Cornwall for Brett. I hope he hasn’t got it already.

We have already made loads of jars of pickled onions, and Mum had some pickled samphire left over from the lot we made when we were at Peregrine Cottage. We are giving Mr and Mrs Lorn pickled onions, and samphire to Alistair and the Darlings. I buy some pickled walnuts as a treat for Mum. Mum has been very busy baking mince pies and a cake and a Christmas pudding, though I don’t know why she makes a pudding because neither of us likes them. She never used to make cakes and stuff when we lived with Daddy. She’s gone domestic since moving here.

I find three red fake fur mice with bells on for my cats. They like toys that rattle or squeak or make a noise when they ‘kill’ them.

Bridget is easy. When she is busy looking on a different stall I buy her a very pretty felt shoulder bag on a string. It’s in the shape of a cat’s face, and has whiskers. The stall sells cushions and tablecloths, holly wreaths and candles and embroidered glasses cases. I can’t find anything pretty enough for Mum, though, but I am inspired to make something.

Mum wins a tin of talcum powder in the raffle. She’ll give it to Mrs Thomas. Shame about the whisky. She buys some fairings – Cornish biscuits.

A successful Fair Mo, I think.

The air is warm for December and there’s no sign of snow, I’m glad to say. I never enjoy the cold. I just go numb and my fingers and toes don’t seem to belong to me.

When/if I ever get the transplant, I expect I’ll put on weight and my circulation should be one hundred per cent better and I’ll be able to go out in the snow. There’ll be hundreds of pills to take every day, of course, to stop my body rejecting the new organs, but I’ll eventually be able to run and climb and do sports again. It’ll be brilliant. Maybe I’ll learn how to play cricket.

Apparently one in three transplants don’t go ahead on the first occasion, and one person we heard about had had seven cancellations before he had his operation.

Mum says Daddy is coming for Christmas! I can’t believe it. Well, not for Christmas Day, but he’s coming to visit between Christmas and New Year. I’m amazed Mum has agreed to it. I can’t wait. Perhaps he’ll stay for the New Year’s Eve celebrations. There’s going to be a huge firework display and everyone wears fancy dress and goes onto the streets and harbour for an all night party.

I’m making a specs-holder for Mum. I have invented the design. It’s like one of those hanging shoe-storers, with pockets for each shoe, but mine is made of deckchair canvas, with separate stapled pockets for each pair of glasses. There’s a hole at the top so she can hang it by the door or somewhere so she’ll always know where to find them.

My main presents to people are photographs I’ve made. I’ve got a mounted black and white print of the three cats for Daddy, as I’m sure he must miss them terribly, living all on his own. I’m also writing him a copy of ‘Cherish’, hoping it will make him think of Mum. I’m sending Summer a photo of the view from my window, so she’ll want to come here and visit. I’ve got a picture of the singing starling, which I’ve made into a card for Brett. For Mum I’ve made a rather good black and white still-life photograph of her grandfather’s medal and I’ve coloured it in parts with watercolour paints, so it looks like art. I found cheap wooden frames the right size in a local shop and I’ve framed the prints.