Gone with the penguins, p.19
Gone with the Penguins, page 19
Daisy nods, trying for a smile, not managing it.
‘What is it, then? You’re not hurting anywhere, are you?’
Fear lurches through me. Could it be that her cancer is returning? Might it already be invading her delicate young body again? And here am I, forcing her into physical exertion every day, far from home and family. Yet until now she has seemed so fit and well.
She darts a look up at me, her eyelashes beaded with tears. ‘No, not hurting. I’m OK.’
She struggles to her feet and walks away.
We exchange questioning glances.
Eileen shrugs her shoulders. ‘What was that all about? Was she upset at the skua eating the dead penguin?’
I ponder. ‘It didn’t seem to affect her at the time. It might be … certain memories coming back? Being here might have accentuated them, possibly?’
‘Yes, maybe. It’s not like her, though, is it? She’s normally so cheerful.’
This is true; she is a remarkably buoyant girl and seldom inclined to sulkiness. I would worry less if she were willing to share the problem with us. She is pacing up and down on the grass, a short distance away. Every so often she pulls her sleeve across her face. The penguins eye her curiously.
‘Shall I go to her?’ Terry offers.
Without waiting for an answer, she shoots off, and I see her walking at Daisy’s side, the two of them conversing. It seems to be Terry who is doing most of the talking. We pack up the remains of the picnic. Patrick offers his arm and I reach for my stick and handbag. We must be getting on.
Patrick strides ahead and takes Terry’s place at Daisy’s side. Terry loops back towards us.
‘She seems a little better. I was telling her all about the three Emperor penguins who are named after you three. Distraction tactics. She wouldn’t say what was troubling her, though. Maybe it’s worth contacting her parents.’
I am reluctant. Gavin and Beth have put their trust in us, and I do not wish to imply that we are doing a less-than-perfect job of looking after their daughter. Especially after the booby shenanigans in the Galápagos.
‘I could WhatsApp them once we’re back?’ Eileen suggests.
‘That might be an idea,’ I concede.
We make our way along the path. Daisy has calmed down, but speaks very little. All the ingredients are there for a perfect walk. We have our backs to the wind, which blasts us along. The sun has edged out and the clouds are putting on a pageant of ever-changing gold-trimmed glory. The land slopes down to rumpled dunes and a sparkling sea, pigments of green and lilac-blue, fronted by a pale streak of bay. Penguins, ducks and geese populate our route. Yet today we don’t seem to fall into our usual rhythm of walking. Our steps are haphazard, wavering, out of kilter with one another.
As soon as we are back at the lodge we contact Beth and Gav via Eileen’s Wotsit. We word the message carefully, mentioning that Daisy seems to be struggling but we cannot determine what ails her.
Beth replies at once. She is not able to tell us what’s up at all, only suggesting what has already occurred to us. Her concern much in evidence, she informs us she will ask Daisy directly if she’s all right. If she wishes to go home, we will do our utmost to arrange it. Eileen promises she will travel back with Daisy if need be. It will spell the end of our walking together, but so be it. The mission would not exist without Daisy’s desperate desire to save Mac, and if that is now subsumed by other concerns, what can we do? If this happens, however, I, Veronica McCreedy, first Penguin Ambassador, shall complete Operation PIP alone.
Somewhat surprisingly, I do not relish this prospect. I have become accustomed to – nay, enamoured of – the idea of completing the task as a trio.
A few hours later there is a ping from Eileen’s doo-dahs. It is Beth, letting us know that she has FaceTimed with her daughter. Daisy is adamant she wants to continue with Operation PIP. She apparently denied being upset at all.
Beth points out that her turmoil might merely be a matter of emotional overwhelm, since sometimes a mix of many things (fears for Mac, a grand undertaking, foreign travel, removal from one’s normal comfort zone) can mount. Gavin has also Wotsitted Daisy separately. He cannot fathom it either, but puts her behaviour down to tiredness.
It is unaccountable, but if she wants to continue, then that is what will happen. All we can do is to keep a careful eye on her and hope that, whatever it is, the issue will resolve itself.
We do not see Daisy until supper, and then she stomps in, scowling at us. Betrayal is written all over her face.
‘How dare you?’ she rages. ‘How dare you tell Mum and Dad I’m “struggling”? I’m not struggling at all. The walking is easy-peasy, and you know – you know – how much I’m wanting to save Mac and Pablo and Florence and the others. How could you go behind my back? How could you even think I want to go home?’
Eileen blurts out an apology. I try to explain that we were merely trying to help. Daisy is still mutinous. Her eyes smoulder; her forehead is clenched and contorted.
Keith marches in at this point with a tray of sausage rolls and steaming vegetables. ‘Miss Daisy is looking as if she needs extra sausage power today. And if she needs anything else, she just needs to come to Keith. Keith is always here if she needs him; I hope she knows that. In fact, Keith has a little job to do, because Tony-the-Macaroni has asked for help.’
Despite herself, Daisy is curious. ‘Why does Tony need help?’
‘Penguins aren’t much good at writing, you see.’
‘Writing?’
‘Yes, writing. Which is why Tony has asked Keith to write a postcard on his behalf.’
A sneaky smile is spreading across Daisy’s face. ‘A postcard? To who?’
‘To his fellow Macaroni penguin in Scotland, to cheer him on.’
‘Tony wants to write a postcard to Mac?’
‘Yup.’ Keith gives a quick glance in our direction, accompanied by a scarcely detectable wink. ‘Keith is going to do the actual writing, but it would be great if you’d contribute because your spelling has got to be better than mine.’
Daisy’s anger has all melted away.
She stuffs her mouth with sausage rolls in her hurry to be done with supper so that she can get on with assisting Keith in the important matter of penguin postcard writing.
Daisy’s Penguin Blog
POSTCARD FROM A PENGUIN
Dear Mac,
I’m a Macaroni penguin, like you. I’ve never been to Scotland but I hear it’s beautiful, with delicious fish, like here. The weather is good in the Falklands but it’s always so windy. Sometimes I get sand in my eyes.
I hope you and the Lochnamorghy penguins are well? Please don’t worry. Your human friends are walking every day to save your home and your life.
Sincerely,
Your penpal penguin, Tony
PS. Daisy sends her love.
PPS. So do Veronica and Eileen.
PPPS. Keith says hello. He’d really love to meet you one day.
Talking of walking (haha, I rhymed!) did you know about penguins’ knees? Penguins don’t seem to have any, only little legs with waddlery feet on the ends … but Terry says all birds have knees, just backwards ones! Flamingos’ knees are really obvious but you can’t see penguins’ knees because they’re deep inside the penguin under layers of flesh, fat and feathers. Penguins don’t really use their knees to get around like we do. Instead, they swing from side to side like a pendulum. It looks like it’s a lot of effort but actually isn’t. Patrick (our useful bird nerd) says: ‘Their to-ing and fro-ing converts to kinetic energy. The penguin wacky walking style is actually more efficient than ours.’
Maybe we should be waddling the 100 miles, not walking? Eileen would be good at that. I suggested we should all do it but Veronica said no.
29
Veronica
Bolder Island
WE ARE ON a clifftop. Cormorants soar above, waves churn below. A lone Magellanic penguin waddles just ahead of us, his stumpy back view silhouetted against the azure strip of sea. My limbs are working slowly today. My knee joints grind and my calves ache, unhappy that they have been pushed so much of late. I coax them onwards.
Daisy stops frequently to take photographs, and I worry that she is treading too close to the edge. In this buffeting wind it is surely not safe. Terry and Patrick are hand in hand again and too involved in each other to notice. Luckily Keith and Eileen are keeping track of her.
Before long we encounter a community of rockhoppers. Their sprouting yellow crest-feathers wave in the wind, their white bellies gleam. They are busy nest-building, hefting unwieldy sticks in their beaks, prodding at pebbles. I see several pinch sticks from each other’s nests. Others bounce up and down a rickety, steep incline to and from the sea. Their shenanigans are a joy to watch.
A sudden high-pitched shriek pierces the air.
Daisy.
I turn. She is teetering on the clifftop, waving her arms around in distress.
Simultaneously Eileen and Keith hurtle towards her and almost collide. Eileen pulls her in and crushes her in a hug whilst Keith crouches down to her level to check that she is all right. I wend my way hastily towards them to find out what is happening.
‘My phone!’ Daisy wails.
Apparently a strong gust plucked it right out of her hand and hurled it on to the rocks way below us. We look down, craning our necks at different angles, trying to spot it. I can make out nothing, but Keith points. ‘I think that’s it.’
Terry and Patrick have caught up with us.
‘I’ll go get it for you,’ Terry volunteers without a moment’s hesitation.
‘No you don’t,’ Patrick protests.
‘Watch me,’ she cries, and starts shimmying down the rock face, completely unfazed by the dizzying height.
‘Fricking hellstones,’ says Patrick, and starts to clamber after her. They are both young and fit, but my heart is like a piston as I watch them manoeuvring downwards amidst the jags. For a while I can just see the tops of their heads, then Terry disappears altogether. My grip tightens on my handbag. If anything should happen to that girl …
Now Patrick has vanished out of sight, too. My blood pressure is skyrocketing. How dare they risk their lives for a stupid mobile phone?
A moment later they both reappear, further down.
Terry reaches the spot first, and I see her leap, goat-like, on to a narrow ledge, pick something up and place it in her pocket. Patrick arrives beside her, and they share an impassioned kiss before climbing upwards again.
Eileen, Keith, Daisy and I watch, all breaths bated.
The moments draw out. I catch sight of a moving elbow, a corner of woolly hat. Then two flushed faces. They have made it safely to the top.
‘Never, ever do that again!’ I bark, clutching at the locket that hangs against my heart.
Terry delves into her pocket and returns the phone to Daisy. ‘I’m afraid the screen is smashed, so it’s probably not much good to you any more.’
‘Thank you,’ says Daisy in a very small voice. She fiddles with the machine, trying different things.
‘Let me have a go,’ Patrick offers.
If he cannot get it going, nobody can. Alas, it is useless. The wretched gizmo is beyond repair.
Daisy is grief-stricken. The sort of grief that only a ten-year-old with a broken phone can invoke, i.e. complete histrionics. She bawls like a baby. She is wholly unable to exist for twenty-four hours without her toy.
At Terry’s suggestion she has tried writing a blog post on the computer at the lodge but declares she hates it.
‘And anyway, I can’t carry the stupid computer out with me on walks and take photos with it, can I?’
Daisy’s dark mood has spread through all of us. I don’t know how to remedy the situation. There is not a single shop on this island. Food and supplies are normally flown in by the tiny local aeroplanes, but if Daisy and Eileen fly to Stanley tomorrow in search of a new phone, they will not be back until the next day at the earliest and precious time will be lost.
Eileen has, of course, offered up her own phone for Daisy’s use, but that won’t do, either.
‘It takes rubbish photos and it’s just soooo old,’ she whines.
I am getting fed up of all this.
‘In three days we shall be in Stanley anyway, for the ambassadorship ceremony,’ I tell her with a degree of acidity. ‘Can you not wait until then?’
No, it appears she cannot. At any rate, she erupts into yet another tempest of tears.
Now, big softy that he is, Keith steps in and offers to take Daisy to East Falkland in his motorboat tomorrow morning. She nearly bites his hand off in her urgency to say yes.
‘Goodness knows how much a new phone will cost,’ Eileen mutters.
Daisy has her comeback ready. ‘You have to speculate to accumulate.’
I need to watch what I say in her company. She listens to everything, and she is sharp, is that one. And I am under no illusion about who will be footing the bill. In my childhood I would never have expected such indulgence, but nowadays attitudes are vastly different. Tempted as I am to utter the words ‘spoilt brat’, I hold back, mindful of Sir Robert’s reprimand. I, too, have a distinct habit of getting whatever I want and the label of ‘hypocrite’ is far from endearing.
‘It can’t be easy for her, so far away from home, and with nobody her own age around,’ Eileen whispers.
So it is all arranged, and Eileen is to go with them. They will be keeping tabs on the steps they make whilst trawling around town in pursuit of a brand-new phone.
Whilst I appreciate that we are making a communal effort, their constant presence has become rather trying of late. I welcome some freedom from it and look forward to my day with Terry and Patrick. We have two coastline walks planned that will encompass three penguin colonies. In the presence of penguins I will reveal to my grandson that I shall indeed be selling my home and taking on proprietorship of Lochnamorghy Sea Life Centre, and that documents have been signed to that effect, whether he likes it or not.
As well as windswept beaches, headlands, heath and a plethora of birdlife, Bolder Island is home to several small war memorials. I avoided these last time I was here. I feared they would provoke painful memories, for as a girl I lived through wartime tragedy and great are the scars it left on my soul. However, this time I linger by the thin, sad white cross and the stone etched with the names of those who perished, and I pay my respects. So much courage has been spent, so much sacrifice. Behind each of these names was a living presence, a unique conundrum of experiences. Each one was a precious vessel of thoughts, wishes, hopes, fears, love. Each one, along with vast multitudes of people throughout history, destroyed by their fellow men.
I turn to face the wild sea.
‘What a piece of work is man,’ I quote softly to myself.
It feels both miraculous and unfair that I am still here, that I have withstood life’s slings and arrows for a full eighty-seven years. And so many of those years I have wasted, stewing in privilege. In privileged despair, rather.
A cold blast scythes through my bones and my rickety body wobbles in the wind. On either side, Terry and Patrick step up and hold on to me.
Despite sobering thoughts, today is a rare treat. I drink in the moments with these two, relish having them to myself. As we hike over Bolder Island they point out many birds to me: dotterels, meadowlarks, cormorants, night herons, steamer ducks and, of course, penguins. Yet I cannot seem to find the right opportunity to tell them of The Ballahays’ sale. I do not fear their judgement. No, it is more that I seem to have an allergy to saying the words out loud.
I scold myself once we are back at the lodge.
‘The Ballahays has been sold,’ I mouth to my reflection in the bathroom mirror, by way of a practice. My reflection looks startled.
I try again. This time my reflection looks completely furious with me.
Envy darkens every line of that face; envy of the man who is buying The Ballahays. With a bitter pang I envisage what he might do to ‘improve’ it. Rip out my beautiful oak panelling to make room for a colossal flat-screen TV? Install a computer console in the bread oven? Convert the dining room to a gym? Replace the bay windows with plastic Velux hideosities? Concrete over my rose garden? Cut down the trees in my gorgeous plum orchard? Build a complex of studio flats in my beloved walled garden? It does not bear thinking about. I shall never be able to go back and visit, just in case these things come to pass.
I think of Mac, and I harden my heart.
Loud exclamations downstairs inform me that Eileen, Keith and Daisy have returned from Stanley. I pull myself together and head to the hall to greet them. Daisy is triumphant with her new phone. She is trying out the video on Patrick, who is pulling the most extraordinarily ugly faces at her.
‘We need to go and see Tony so I can video him, because he’s much, much handsomer than Patrick,’ Daisy trills.
Patrick makes a great show of pretending to be wounded to the core.
After which we set off together again. This will only be a short stroll, down to the Gentoo colony and the beach.
Light rain splatters in our faces, but we are brightened by Daisy’s reborn enthusiasm.
‘Veronica?’
‘Yes, Daisy?’
‘Would you like to live in the Falkland Islands?’
I consider. How wonderful, how uplifting it would be to live amongst penguins. And the coastline here is stunning, with its craggy cliffs and miles of untrammelled beaches. And yet …
‘No, I think not, Daisy. I should miss too much the rowans and birches of the glens, the birdsong from our full-throated robins, larks, thrushes and blackbirds. I should miss hearing the sound of bagpipes wafting on the wind. The outline of ruined castles. The history.’
‘OK. I just wondered. How about you, Eileen? Would you like to live here?’
Eileen giggles. ‘I’m trying to imagine it, but I just can’t. Let me see.’ She closes her eyes for a moment, scrunches up her face in concentration. ‘Nope. I can’t see it at all. I can’t see Doug here, either. Whatever would he do?’
