The Bower Bird Page 15

  ‘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.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  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.

  Flo’s helping – sorting out wrapping paper and ribbons for me and chasing them all over the floor so they don’t escape. Charlie, who has no sense of humour or fun, sits on my bed and looks down her pink nose at Flo’s undignified behaviour. Rambo is frightened of the noise Flo and I make with tissue paper and sellotape and hides under Mum’s bed.

  Our Christmas tree sits in a bucket covered with red and green wrapping paper. The room smells of pine. We’ve put the coloured fairy lights on it – the same
lights we’ve always used, little plastic bells with nursery rhyme figures on them. No tasteful all-white or all-silver decorations for us. No way. If you can’t be vulgar at Christmas, when can you? Oh, dear, I’m beginning to sound like my mother.

  We have Grandpop and Grandma’s old tree decorations this year. They have always been packed in cotton wool in a square biscuit tin with a picture on the lid of a little girl with yellow curls and a red dress playing with her dolls. The decorations are fragile, light as air, pure glass in lovely colours, pale pink, powder blue, scarlet, opal green. Some are balls, others like miniature bunches of grapes. I hang these baubles and try not to knock off too many pine needles. Silver strands are hung over the branches to add the finishing touch, and they glint and twinkle under the lights.

  ‘Shall I put the fairy on top?’

  From the tin Mum produces a hideous one-eyed, half-bald, one-armed half naked doll.

  ‘If you must.’

  ‘It was mine when I was little. She’s called Tinkerbell.’

  ‘Go on then,’ I say, and she reaches up and slips the maimed fairy on the topmost branch.

  ‘What about Santa?’ I take out the little knitted Santa Claus that Grandma made and Mum positions it just beneath the fairy. I switch off the main light and we admire the pretty picture the tree makes in the bay window. Mum suddenly hugs me to her, and I can feel wetness on her cheek.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  I OVERHEAR THIS and I don’t think I am supposed to: I’m sitting by my open window, camera in hand, waiting for inspiration. The weather is so mild we haven’t even got the heating on. The starling is sitting in its usual place on the telegraph wire saying his prayers to the great Sky God, perhaps praying for a white Christmas. Mum is hanging out the washing, when Mrs Thomas from next door comes out.

  Mum: ‘Hello, my dear. Lovely weather, isn’t it?’ Why do adults always talk about the weather? It’s pointless. Weather just is. Nothing we can do about it, so why even mention it? ‘How are you, Marigold?’

  Marigold! What a lovely name. She doesn’t look like a Marigold, more like a Violet.

  Mrs T: ‘’Es, I’m not too bad, you know, my ’ip and knees, as ever. Waiting for an appointment for my cataracts. ’Es. How ’bout you, my girl? How’s your problem? Look peaky, you do.’

  Mum: ‘You were right, quite right – fibroids. Needs an operation.’

  Mrs T: ‘Tsk! Tsk! Tsk! Oo’s goin’ to look after the little maid then?’

  Mum: ‘Oh, I won’t have it. It’ll have to wait.’

  It’s evening and we are watching Absolutely Fabulous. We both love it.

  ‘Mum, what did the doctor say when you saw him?’

  ‘Her, my doctor’s a woman.’

  ‘Oh, right, what did she say?’

  ‘Oh nothing, it’s my age, hormones, fibroids, nothing much.’

  ‘Do you need an operation?’

  ‘No, I’ll be all right, she’s given me some tablets.’

  Next day when Mrs T comes into the garden to hang up her smalls (isn’t that a sweet expression for rather big knickers?) I am ready, armed with my camera. Mum’s gone down town, last minute Christmas shopping.

  ‘Hello my cheel’, how’re you then? Behavin’ are you?’

  ‘Mrs Thomas, may I take a photo of you please?’

  ‘What for you want a picture of me?’

  ‘For my portfolio.’

  ‘That sounds important, portfolio. Go on then.’

  I go into her garden and position her against the hedge of valerian. It’s still flowering. She is of course wearing the flower-patterned apron, which acts as camouflage.

  I have transparency film in the camera.

  ‘Thank you Mrs Thomas, you look lovely.’

  ‘You’m a funny maid, you are, taking a picture of an old lady like me.’

  ‘Mrs Thomas, my mum isn’t well, is she?’

  ‘No, no, she isn’t well.’

  ‘It isn’t cancer, is it? She isn’t going to die?’

  ‘Good heavens, no, my cheel’. She’s got fibroids, that’s all. Needs an operation, is all.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Don’t you go worrying about your mother, now, my girl, she’s strong as an ox.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Thomas.’ I have to sniff loudly and blow my nose. ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’

  I was dreading she would want me to do some shopping but luckily she says no.

  She sits on her front doorstep on a cushion in the sun, and her cat comes out and stands next to her, his back and tail arched in ecstasy as she strokes him. I’ve noticed before, she strokes him all the time, almost obsessively, as if her life depended on it. Shandy’s like her lifebelt and she has to hold onto him or drown.

  This afternoon I go to the library to get a pile of books to read over Christmas and automatically ask to renew the lost books. The chatty lady looks at her files and says she can’t renew them until I bring the books in for them to see.

  Oho! The shit’s hit the fan.

  I obviously look shocked, because she says, ‘I can renew them, but it’s County Council policy to ask to see the books after they’ve been out a certain length of time.’

  ‘Oh dear, the fact is, you see, Mum’s… had an accident with them.’

  She raises her eyebrows.

  ‘Yes, an accident.’ My mind is racing. What can I say? ‘A dog, two dogs, a very aggressive bull terrier and a… a poodle, attacked her and tore the books to ribbons, I’m afraid, and ate them. She was only slightly injured but her mind was affected.’

  I think she believes me.

  ‘I see, the dogs have eaten the books. How novel. Well, perhaps you could ask Mummy to come and see us, because there will be a fine to pay.’

  ‘A fine?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How much will it be?’

  ‘I’ll have to check.’

  She goes away and telephones someone.

  ‘They weren’t new books, dear, so ten pounds will cover it.’

  Ten pounds! I give her the remains of my Christmas present money, all ten pounds of it. I can feel myself blushing with embarrassment, but relief too. Whew! I’ll never ever tell a lie again.

  ‘You don’t have to pay it now, dear. The County Council will send her a letter.’

  ‘No, no, that’s fine, that’s okay. She would want me to pay now. Really.’

  She makes me wait while she writes a receipt.

  Ten pounds. Thank goodness I have already got most of the presents. I’ll make the rest.

  Next day I wait for the post and it’s Eugene, our old postie from Peregrine Cottage. He remembers me. I give him a hug and wish him Happy Christmas. Mum invites him in for a mince pie and a glass of wine and he eats and drinks standing up in the kitchen. He says they are short of postmen this Christmas and he’s covering this part of town now. He has brought a load of Christmas cards for us. There’s a card for me from Summer, with a photo of her and two other girls from my London school, taken in a photo booth. They look so happy and carefree and I miss them all suddenly, having not thought about them at all for months.

  Hurray for darling Daddy, who sends me a Christmas card, a letter, and thirty pounds for Christmas expenses. Nineteen-year-old Luk from Thailand is history, it’s someone called Natasha now. He doesn’t give her age. Mum hoots and says he’s incorrigible. She doesn’t even sound bitter.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  I’M BACK AT Arts and Artists, and I ask to see the book about Arts and Crafts. It’s a big book and the man gets it down for me. I sit at a desk and open the book.

  Later, I phone Alistair.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  ONLY FIVE MORE windows to open in the Advent calendar. I’m probably too old to have one really but go along with it for Mum’s sake. She likes to make everything as Christmassy as possible.

  The holiday people arrived last night. Daisy and Grace stroke our cats, who are all sunbathing in their garden. Grace is a bit youn
ger than me but about four inches taller. I don’t think she and her sister get on very well. I heard them squabbling through the wall. I’ve always wanted a sister but maybe it’s not such a good idea. You can’t choose who to have as family, you can only choose friends.

  We’ve invited them all to come round on Christmas Day.

  We are at a lunchtime party at Brett’s house. We nearly didn’t come because Mum is feeling lousy and doesn’t feel up to socialising and Really Needs to be Near a Bathroom. It was only when she saw me all dressed up ready to go that she made an effort to get herself ready. She looks rather pale but very smart in a black dress and boots with a long string of red and green glass beads.

  I have Brett’s present with me to give him. We’ve got a box of cocoa-covered almonds and a bottle of Australian wine for Hayley and Steve from the two of us, and a big bag of seeds for their bird feeders.

  I have new khaki baggy trousers and a long sleeved black T-shirt with sparkly red bits on it. Mum spent loads in Truro on clothes and I got these and a pair of red Doc Martens – an early Christmas present. My hair is newly trimmed and gelled into individual spikes. No hat. Mum says I look like a fetching urchin!

  ‘What’s fetching?’

  ‘Pretty.’

  That’s going a bit far, but I do look a little more human than usual, I suppose.

  They have a huge tree that hits the ceiling of their sitting room. I’m glad Steve hasn’t insisted on a barbecue today, though it is still very mild. There are loads of guests I don’t recognise, as they’ve made many friends at the school. Mum knows a few people, including Alistair, of course, who looks rather handsome in a black shirt and cords with an orange and pink tie. He drove us here.

  The beach family is here, the godfather family. I say hello to the little fairy girl and ask her about Wobert. I think he’s called Robert but she’s not good on Rs.

  ‘He’s fine, spends his days on a sheepskin next to the fire keeping warm.’

  Brett and I go into the garden to say hello to Buddy, who peers down at me suspiciously for a while then flops down to land on Brett’s shoulder. He lets me stroke his shiny head – Buddy I mean. Brett talks soothingly to him, telling him how beautiful he is. He is so good with birds.