The Burying Beetle (6 page)

The car-booters who sell plants all seem much friendlier than the other traders. I wonder if working with plants makes you a happier person? Or maybe they are lonely because they work with plants and not people, and that’s why they are pleased to talk to people. It must make you patient I should think, growing plants, because you have to wait such a long time to see the results of your work. I wonder if it’s like that when you bring up a child. Except that you do sometimes see people being horrid to their children, so maybe it doesn’t make you patient at all. Maybe it makes you the opposite of patient. Cross and fed up.

London parents seemed less tolerant of their children than parents who live here. I think people who live here have a better life in many ways than Londoners. They breathe cleaner air for one thing. They don’t bump into each other in the street all the time – except in the summer – and they don’t have traffic jams so much, except on bank holidays.

I really would like to go into St Ives and sit on the beach and watch the sun go down. We don’t see it from where we live.

That was my favourite thing about being in St Ives. We sat against a high wall on the beach, facing the sea and sun, all of us wearing baseball caps, and Mum and Daddy drinking wine, and I was allowed cola – which I’m never usually allowed because of the E numbers. I get quite silly, apparently. It must be like feeling drunk. And Mum and Daddy were nice to each other and even
held hands, and I made friends with some other children who lived
there and they let me play beach cricket with them, even though I was only four or something, and they were very kind. One boy showed me how to catch properly, not snatch at the ball. He was so good-looking and tanned and at least ten years old. I wonder if I’ll always be attracted to older men because of that?

Grandma used to play cricket in a men’s team with Grandpop. She was the only woman in the team. I never saw her play; she was too old by the time I was born. It’s so cool, having a gran who played cricket in a men’s team. I think she used to run a women’s team but it fizzled out.

They both loved to watch cricket on the telly, especially the test matches. I can’t get up much enthusiasm, but I do like the white clothes, and it’s sort of a peaceful thing to do, watch cricket, and if I’m angry about something it makes me calm down. Perhaps they should use it in anger management
– that’s what some men have when they’ve abused their wives. I read it in the
Independent
.

It’s just as well I don’t want to be a footballer or tennis player or a marathon runner. I might be very unhappy if all I was interested in was playing energetic games, because I know I can’t. I am much more interested in reading things and looking at things around me, and learning about animals and birds and insects. So my heart problem isn’t really much of a nuisance. Yet.

‘Mum, can we go into town and sit on the beach?’

‘No, Gussie, I don’t feel like it.’

‘But Mum, why can’t we go? I’m sick to death of being out here in this lonely place. I need to see people. I’m going bonkers, talking to myself.’

‘It’s so bloody difficult finding a parking place.’

‘Oh Mu–um. We could take a picnic and watch the sun set.’

‘Oh, all right, if you really want to go.’

Cool! She’s finished planting the geraniums in large clay pots on the deck. They look stunning, so vivid, like fresh spilt blood. Such a foreign colour. They smell like cat’s pee.

Note: There’s a wild flower that grows on the dry-stone walls in St Ives – Valerian – that comes in dark pink, medium pink and white, and when it’s rained they smell absolutely disgusting – like dog shit. And the smell always fools me and I have to look under my shoes.

This beach we’re having our picnic on
– Porthmeor –
is sort of big and white with a green hill at one end with a little house on top. It’s called the Island, but it isn’t actually an island. It’s not so busy at this time of day. I think the holidaymakers mostly go back to their hotels and self-catering cottages to wash and dress to go out for the evening. Only the locals are left on the beach to watch the sun go down, and a few surfers, there’s always a few surfers. Mum looks cool in her white baggy linen trousers and black vest and a black linen cap. She always looks good, and I feel proud of her when we’re out together.

‘Do you remember being here with Daddy? We sat in the exact same place.’

‘Do you
miss him Terribly, darling?’

Mum’s finished the bottle of red wine that she brought with her, so I suppose she’s feeling maudling (look that up when I get back to make sure it’s the right word).

‘Not really, Mum, only sometimes.’

She has started to cry. An ashy tear appears below her sunglasses and runs down the length of her cheek next to her nose. I get up and walk away. Buggering Nora, I should never have asked that question. I wander down to the water and splash about at the edge and look back surreptitiously and see her blowing her nose on her paper napkin. It’s red – her nose. Now I feel my throat getting tight and sore feeling. And I think I’m going to cry too. Oh, bugger everything!

But I can’t be expected to handle grown-ups’ emotions. I am, after all, pubertal. I have troubles enough of my own. I used to think puberty was called pubberty because it meant you were old enough to go to the pub. To be exact, I’m not actually pubertal – but pre-pubertal. No hairy armpits or breasts or anything yet. But I feel my hormones beginning to range, I think.

I
’
M
ON
THE
coast path next to the house when I see this interesting looking woman.

‘Hello!’ The woman I speak to has short blonde spiky hair, almost punky, but she is too old to be a punk
– twenty, at least. Also she’s wearing sensible walking boots and a black sleeveless padded jacket. She’s got binoculars around her neck. So have I.

‘Hi,’ she says.

‘Are you a birdwatcher?’ I know I shouldn’t ask questions of strangers, but she looks OK, smiley. And I haven’t seen anyone to talk to for ages. She says she’s keeping an eye on a peregrine falcon’s nest.

‘I know they’re protected.’ I put my borrowed bins up to my eyes and try to look as if I know what I’m doing.

‘Those look antique,’ Punky says. ‘Here, have a go with these.’

I can’t believe how light they are. ‘They’re cool,’ I say and hand them back to her.

‘Did you see the nest?’

‘No.’

She points at a black bit of cliff with a low shrub growing out of the base of it.

‘There’s a narrow ledge there, under that leafless bush. Look again with my binoculars.’

At that moment the peregrine flies past us and glides in to her nesting place, and I get to see the landing.

‘Wow, that is so cool.’

‘There’s one chick, did you see it?’

‘No, is there?’

We stand side by side and look at the mother bird’s back. She settles down on top of the chick, presumably – I can’t actually see a chick. After a while my bins get heavy and I leave off looking at the bird.

‘Is this where you live?’ She nods her head towards our ramshackle shack.

‘Yes, sort of, we’re renting it.’

‘Lucky you! It’s got the best view for miles. You must be able to see the dolphins.’

‘Dolphins? We haven’t been here long, we haven’t seen any yet.’

A hang-glider appears over the top of the cliff behind the peregrine’s nest. The man is like a huge blue bird, part of the fabric of the hang-glider, spread out, face forwards, with a crash helmet on. Punky puts the bins up to her eyes at once and focuses on him. I think he’s seen us. He has. He glides over us, right above us, and I feel like I’m being spied on. She keeps on looking straight back at him. He moves past us fast and makes a slow turn at the point and heads back towards the highest bit of the cliff, up near the farm where in April I heard the cows crying for their calves.

‘Do you get many hang-gliders here?’

I tell her they often fly low over the house and garden and Mum hates them – says they are Violating Her Privacy.

The hang-glider has disappeared over the brow of the hill now.

‘I better be off,’ she says. ‘Nice to meet you.’

‘What’s your name?’ I call after her, and then feel stupid and like I’m still a kid. Child, I mean. (Grandma said kids were baby goats.)

‘Ginnie,’ she smiles at me. ‘Police Constable Virginia Witherspoon, actually. I’m in charge of wild-life welfare. You can call me Ginnie if you like. What’s your name?’

I tell her Gussie.

‘Perhaps, Gussie, you might let me know if you see anyone trying to disturb the peregrine’s nest. Just call the St Ives police station and ask for me.’

I watch her as she strides away. Wow, a policewoman in charge of wild animals. That must be really interesting. What a cool job to have! And she could be American Indian with that name – Virginia With a Spoon. She did have a rather strange accent, sort of sing-songy. I wonder how that name came about? Perhaps an ancestor was the first person to make a spoon out of silver. They are very good at making things out of silver. And turquoise.

I realise then that she’s asked me to help her, just like that. Keep my eyes open. Just call and ask for her. I feel suddenly taller, which is cool, as I’m very small for my age. Mind you, Mum and Daddy aren’t terribly tall, so I haven’t much of a chance of being a model.

I remember when I first noticed that Daddy wasn’t as tall as other fathers. It was on a path by a river, I don’t remember where, just that it was a sunny day with puffy white clouds, I must have been about six, and there were boats and swans. A man he knew stopped to speak, and this man was so much taller than Daddy, and I had always thought Daddy was the biggest, tallest, most powerful person in the world, and suddenly I saw that he was rather short really. Daddy had to strain his neck to look up at the face of the man, like a baby bird does when its mother is feeding it. And I had this awful feeling, which I can’t describe really, but it was horrible, as if I had been tricked, somehow, and had just realised it. I know all sorts of short men have been famous and powerful – Napoleon for one, and Tom Cruise, and Humphrey Bogart, and Nelson, I think. He’s still my Darling Daddy, anyway. Of course he is. It goes without saying. What a very strange expression that is!
It goes without saying.
Huh! What goes? Where does it go?

‘Mum, I saw the peregrine and I know where it nests.’ Mum pretends to be impressed but I don’t think she’s too interested in the local bird-life, really. She’s reading some stupid magazine about clothes.

‘Someone showed me the nesting place – a policewoman. She’s a wild-life warden too. Mum, she asked me to phone her and tell her if anyone disturbs the nest. It’s protected.’

Mum is dressed in her dressing gown. She says she had to put her clothes on when the hang-glider flew overhead. She was Not Pleased.

‘Mum! You know you shouldn’t sunbathe in the middle of the day, anyway. The sun’s rays are carcinogenic.’

‘Life is Carcinogenic,’ says Mum.

Note: At the feeder this morning
–
a family of greenfinches. They eat very slowly and carefully, standing on the perch, usually two at a time, and chewing away at the sunflower seeds, occasionally looking over their shoulders. One male blackbird drinking from the galvanised bath that’s full of water. It was my idea to put a branch across it so the birds can perch on it and lean over to drink. Blue tits, great tits
–
they are twice the size of blue tits and have beautiful distinctive markings. Dunnocks (which are lovely, like tabby cats) and a robin, feed on the ground. They are ‘ground-feeders’ –
that figures. The blackbird likes apples and plums and pear cores.

I had to go out and bring in Charlie
– she was pretending to be a bush under the feeder, not a very green bush, I have to say, before any of the birds came for breakfast. I suppose she thought a little bird was going to drop into her mouth, just like that.

It’s been a very exciting day altogether, nature-wise. We were sitting outside having a lunch of egg sandwiches when the peregrine came and perched in the tree in front of us. We had to sit very still so as not to frighten it off. I didn’t have my bins, unfortunately, but I could see it anyway. It sat there while Mum’s cold wine got warm. But she was very good about it and nearly as excited as I was. It flew away behind the house. Perhaps it was hunting for food for its chick.

HAVEN
’
T
SEEN
GINNIE
the policewoman at all.

‘Mum, do you think I should phone Ginnie and tell her about our sighting of the falcon?’

‘Who’s Ginnie?’

‘The wild-life warden, Ginnie the policewoman.’

‘Do you think she’ll need to know that?’

‘Well, at least she’ll know it’s still alive.’

‘Go on then.’

I phone the local police station and they say she’s not there but they’ll tell her I called.

I have a new pair of binoculars. I paid for them with the money that Daddy gave me for my
birthday. I wrote a thank you letter of course. I hope he won’t be cross that I didn’t buy a dress. He does like me to look pretty-pretty. He doesn’t seem to realise that I’m not a girlie sort of a girl.