The Bower Bird (9 page)

Maybe insects should be my line of study, or spiders. I don’t mind them. Mum does. She cringes when one gets in the bath and I have to rescue it for her. There are little black jumping spiders in the grass. They leap about to escape me when I try to catch them. I like the long-legged garden spiders best. They walk slowly as if balancing on stilts, blown off balance by the slightest breeze. Their legs are like fine human hair.

We don’t have a spider book. I miss all the old books on wildlife there were at Peregrine Cottage. I think I’ll start spending pocket money on second-hand books. There’s always a good selection at the car boot sales and there’s a big second-hand bookshop in town.

I find a good spider book –
The Spiders and Allied Orders of the British Isles
by Theodore H Savory.

Pholcidae
– very long-legged spider – lives in southeast counties of England, but we are in the far southwest, so maybe this isn’t my long-legged spider. I’m pretty sure it isn’t because ours has a round body and this has a long body. Bet there aren’t any books on Cornish spiders. I’ve found it. It’s
Leiobnum rotundum
. ‘Only the male’s body is round. It is rusty brown with no obvious markings apart from the black eye-turret. The female’s body is oval and paler with a dark, more or less rectangular saddle. Both sexes have long, hair-like black legs.’

I have liberated the lizard with
SED
– Sadistic Eating Disorder. Now I have an empty terrarium. I remember when I was little we had a silk worm farm at school. I wonder where we got the leaves for it? Silk worms only eat mulberry leaves. And I had an ant farm once in a large jam jar, and a worm farm in between two sheets of glass that Grandpop made for me.

Our little pond is already swarming with life, mosquito larvae mostly,
Culex pipiens
probably as they are the most common. They wriggle under water, jerkily, but when I get close to the pond they dive backwards together and disappear, like formation swimmers in a Busby Berkeley movie. We bought two water snails,
Limniaea stagnalis
I think they are, but they seem to have mated and produced lots of babies. Jumping Jiminy Cricket, that was quick work. There’s loads of Daphnia, or water fleas.

I have an
Observer’s Book of Pond Life
. There are some wonderful water bugs I’ve never heard of: Water Cricket, Water Measurer, Long Water Scorpion and Pond Skater. The only one I have heard of is the Water Boatman.

Bugs possess a sucking beak called a rostrum with which most of them pierce their prey and suck out their juices. Yuk, even life in our little pond is fraught with danger.

Then there are the water beetles: Mud Dweller, Great Silver Beetle, Screech Beetle, Great Diving Beetle, and there’s even a Whirligig Beetle. Fly and moth larvae and pupae lurk in the vegetation near the surface. Water mites and water spiders live in ponds too. It’s going to be crowded. With luck we’ll have Damsel Flies and Dragon Flies.

Perhaps we should turn the whole garden into a pond with little bridges for the cats to walk over.

Mr Toad hunkers in his John Innes compost bag. I wonder if he thinks he is John Innes, with his name on the door of his home, like Winnie the Pooh’s friend, Piglet, who lived in a house with a notice that said
TRESPASSERS W
. Piglet said it had been in his family for generations and his Grandfather’s name was William and that is what the
W
stood for.

I AM FEELING
rather miserable today. Daddy phoned. He’s off to some film festival in France. I don’t know why I did it, maybe to escape from the wrath of Mum and the library authorities, but I suddenly blurted out ‘Can I come too?’ He says he can’t be looking after me while he’s in conference with directors and producers etc. Sure. Yeah, I understand. I’ll be in the way. He’ll be looking for a replacement for The Lovely Eloise. Some new young starlet with fake tits and legs up to her armpits. What if my donor heart and lungs are suddenly available and we have to go to London straight away? He won’t be there. Where will Mummy stay? He won’t be at my bedside. I don’t want him to leave the country. I don’t want them to be divorced.
I need a family
.

I spend the day in my attic, my turret room, my garret, my lofty tower, the cats surrounding me, trying to comfort me. Rain hammers on the roof, and the wind is howling in sympathy with my emotions. I am a victim, a hard-done-by heroine with the world against me. No one understands me except Charlie, who curls up on my tummy and gazes at me sorrowfully with her viridian eyes.

‘Gussie! Gussie! There’s someone for you.’

I ignore Mum. It’s probably the library police. I’ve been shopped by the tramp, the only witness of my crime and delinquency. (I found that word in our
Chambers
. It means
failure or omission of duty
.)

‘Gussie!’

‘What?’

‘It’s Brett for you.’

Oh brill! Brett’s come to see me. I dry my tears, brush my hair and clean my glasses. Oh shit, I should never look in a mirror. I am always dismayed. What do I imagine I look like? Not this puny, pale-mauve shrimp with a red nose, that’s for sure.

He comes up and has to bend down to miss the beams on the ceiling, he’s so tall.

‘How’s it goin?’

I
lurv
his accent and he doesn’t seem to notice my nose, or he’s too polite to comment.

He says hello to the cats and scratches Charlie behind her ears. He’s good with animals. He looks out the window and admires the view and we watch the young gull for a while. He says he and his dad have a herring gull’s nest on their roof too. Most people in St Ives are lucky enough to have gulls living close to them. Brett’s gull comes right into their house and walks around looking for titbits. Since I was ill in the summer, he and his dad have hand-raised a young raven they found under a bush. Brett’s mum gets very cross because Buddy the raven tears off wallpaper and picks up newspaper pages and tears them up. He follows Brett on his bicycle down the road, flying close to his head all the time even when a car goes by.

‘I’d love to meet Buddy.’

‘You will,’ he says, and then, ‘You aren’t really reading
Roget’s Thesaurus
for fun, are you?’

‘Yeah, it’s interesting. Listen: “Deceitful – false; fraudulent, sharp, guileful, insidious, slippery as an eel, shifty, tricky, cute, finagling, chiselling, underhand, underhanded, furtive, surreptitious, indirect, collusive, covinous, falsehearted.” Oh dear, falsehearted – that’s what I will be when I have my transplant.’

He laughs loudly.

‘Gussie, you are so weird.’ He knocks off my England cricket cap with a brush of his hand and tousles my hair. No one’s ever done that, apart from Grandpop.

‘The rain’s stopped, Guss, let’s go birding.’

He has his binoculars around his neck.

‘Okay’ I say, nonchalantly. ‘Cool. Rippa.’ I grab my bins, retrieve my cap and we go downstairs to tell Mum we’re off to the Island.

‘Are you sure you want to go? You look pale. Take your parka. Have you got your bleep?’

‘Mum, I’m not stupid.’

Brett manages to walk slowly enough so I don’t get left behind. I’m not very good at talking as I walk, not enough breath for both activities, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He rambles on about what he’s been doing this term. I wish I was at school too.

We walk around the harbour. Sparrows and starlings peck at the ground hopefully. The Island is just around the corner from the harbour, next to Porthgwidden Beach. It’s a peninsula really, not an island at all, but that’s what it’s called. In the old days locals used to spread their sheets out on the grass slopes to dry in the sun.

It’s windy on the Island, but I don’t mind. My cap is firmly on my head and I am wrapped up well. I’ve got my ex-army parka that we bought at Laurence Corner. Quilted and warm. Mum took up the sleeves for me. I’m also wearing camouflage fatigue trousers with lots of pockets. It’s a good idea to wear natural colours when bird-watching. That way you merge into the background. We shelter by a large rock covered in green and yellow lichens, out of the wind and with a good view of the sea and sky out towards the northwest, under the coastguard lookout. The crashing of the waves is muffled here. There’s a smell of salt and grass. Huge orange and dark grey cumulus clouds lollop heavily across the silver sky. It’s like autumn already.

There have been sunfish spotted from here in hot weather. I’ve never seen a sunfish.

We watch the cormorants flying low over the waves; shearwaters and oystercatchers, each bird so beautiful in its individual flight pattern and behaviour. A flock of starlings swirling like mist over the fields and snaking the hedges; a
V
of airborne geese yapping like dogs; swans gliding effortlessly on a river, or in flight, the wind whistling through their great white wings.

We love birds in spite of the fact that some eat each other’s babies; some kill better singers (robins) and are often barbaric in their behaviour, except to their own mates and young. I think it is because they are beautiful that we overlook their actions. Beauty can do anything and we still adore it. Our eyes, our hearts and souls need beauty.

Brett says he’s going to the Hayle estuary next week in case some of the winter birds are arriving. They stop over here after flying across the Atlantic Ocean, and they rest up on this, the first bit of land they find, to gather strength and build up their body weight. He says I can go with him and his dad if I want. You bet I want.

From our sheltered spot we see various gulls: skua, fulmar, great black-backed gull, gannet, herring gull of course, black headed gull, tern, cormorant, oyster catcher, shag, and some little diving ducks in a flotilla.

‘Gussie, you’re blue.’

‘I’m always blue.’

‘No, you’re darker blue than usual; your lips are purple. You look bushed. We better get you home.’

‘Okay, I am a bit cold.’ I’m so glad it’s his idea, not mine. I’m bloody freezing.

We set off, Brett carrying my binoculars. We stop at the seat on the hill while I squat to catch my breath, pretending to do up my shoes.

‘I don’t suppose you could come to the Scillies in October, could you? A birding weekend.’

‘I don’t know.’ Mum would never let me go on my own. Oh, I really want to go. We’ve never been to the Scillies.

‘How are you getting there?’

‘Helicopter to St Mary’s, then a boat. An organised trip. Your Ma’s friend is going.’

‘Alistair?’

‘Yeah, I reckon. The doctor?’

‘Yes, our
GP
. He’s keen on my mum.’

‘Yeah? Well, she’s cool.’

A cunning plan has occurred to me. Oh dear, I really am becoming scheming and wily.

WE ARE IN
a field next to the secondary school.

In the next field are three horses: a tall skewbald, much bigger than the others, a little fat Shetland pony and a cream palomino. The Shetland pony is tearing around the field, his mane and tail horizontal, and the other horses are following him, joining in the fun. When he stops they stop. They are all speaking to each other; neighing and snorting like Wild West ponies. They are having such a good time.

Eleven men in cream trousers and white shirts and cream woolly jumpers with stripes around the v-neck are standing around while two batsmen stand at either end of the pitch. There are two umpires wearing what look like white laboratory coats. There’s a smell of grass and bonfires and the sea. Gulls chuckle overhead. We are two of about ten people watching – most of them are in the batting side. Alistair is one of the batsmen. He goes to hit the ball and misses. Mum groans. He misses again. Oh dear. The bowler bowls again and Alistair whacks the ball hard and a fielder tries to stop it but it goes to the boundary and it’s a four. We applaud loudly.

I think of Grandpop and Grandma playing cricket together and I feel sad and happy at the same time. Mum isn’t the least bit sporty, though she did do a yoga class once but her back went so she didn’t go again. Alistair looks very dashing in his cricket whites.

Mum is smart and pretty in navy linen baggy trousers, sleeveless white top and white linen hat. She’s got war-paint on too, glossy shiny lip stuff and mascara. I prefer her with no make-up.

I wear my England cricket cap of course. I feel it’s really mine now, after wearing it every day for several weeks. It is getting nicely battered and comfortable.

A very angry sounding gull is chasing a buzzard, who lazily lifts a wing when the gull gets close enough to peck at it and soars higher and higher, effortlessly. The gull is satisfied and goes home. Two crows squabble in a tall pine between the school and the field. There’s a far view of the bay and you can see as far as Carn Brea and right along the coast to Newquay.

The other batsmen waiting for their turn are chattering away all the time. When each one gets given ‘out’ by the umpire, he comes back very cross and blames the bat, the wind, and/or the other batsman – and especially the blind umpire.

Suddenly the wind drops to nothing and the sun burns us. Swallows swoop low over the grass, flashing purple and blue wings. There’s a strange thick band of sea mist hovering over the horses’ field. It’s coming towards us, a white fog, like a low spiralling cloud, and suddenly the sun has gone and we are shivering. A phantom juvenile herring gull whistles. The horses have disappeared.