Veronica
LOCKET ISLAND
As Terry predicted, the recalcitrant Mike is completely closed to the idea.
“You’ve brought us back here for this? Have you gone completely cuckoo?”
Dietrich is equally firm. “No, Terry. We said we wouldn’t.”
Terry pushes her glasses up her nose and unzips her parka slightly, revealing the small, fluffy little package that is snuggled inside. “I know, I know, but look at him, guys! There’s no harm in trying. And I know loads of people would agree, people across the world who read my blog. This little chick could actually become the face of what we’re trying to do.”
“A tame penguin? A domesticated, hand-fed penguin? Hardly! We’re scientists, Terry, in case you’d forgotten. We’re environmentalists. We don’t believe in human interference—at any cost. Isn’t that right, Dietrich?”
“That’s what we agreed,” says Dietrich as he nods.
The baby penguin pokes its beak out then its whole head. Unaware of its predicament, it surveys us with big, round eyes. Its beak opens, but no sound comes out. It tries again and manages a plaintive sort of piping noise.
In spite of himself, Mike bends his head to look at the chick. He puts a finger out and strokes it on the head.
Is it conceivable that the uncharitable Mike is melting?
“Terry, you’re unbelievable!” he says in a voice that isn’t a compliment but isn’t absolutely rigid, either. He looks up again. “I’m surprised at you. You know the answer has to be no.”
I open my mouth to say something, then think better of it. I battle with strong feelings just as I used to do in the past when they threatened to overcome me. I know that self-control, if I can find it, will be my best ally in this situation. Success is more likely if I can achieve invisibility. I observe Mike and Dietrich. There was a time when I could easily have got my way. An opening of the eyes a little wider, a pouting of the lips, and they’d have been at my beck and call. Now whatever I do seems to have the opposite effect. My only remaining power is in my purse, and even that would be ineffectual in this particular instance.
But Terry—she could win them over. If only she would take off her glasses and flutter her eyelashes a bit. She’ll never master the direct challenge as I did at her age, but I’m sure she could muster a coy persuasiveness of her own. Alas! She has no idea. She is wrinkling her brow in a most unappealing manner.
“Come on, Deet, just think! It would give us a chance to study a juvenile in so much detail from close at hand.”
“You’re not being logical, Terry,” answers Dietrich. “We don’t need that sort of information. We’re studying the survival of the whole species. We haven’t the time to watch over and cater to the needs of a single penguin.”
“Yes, but . . .” she peters out.
He shakes his head. “Sorry, Terry. We’ve got more important stuff to do.”
The chick droops its head feebly as if it understands its own lack of importance. I swallow fiercely. Only I, Veronica McCreedy, unpopular, interfering old bat, am willing to help it. Once more I am filled with a strange, desperate sensation. It is so strong I want to scream in the faces of Dietrich and Mike. I want to knock their heads together, make them see that a species is its individuals. That individuals are what matter. It is men like these who cause wars, where thousands of peace-loving individuals are sacrificed for a so-called “noble” cause. History looks back and says this side won and that side lost, but the reality is that nobody wins. And what about the thousands of men and women and children who are butchered in the process? Does nobody care about them? Each one of them matters. Each and every one.
And this individual penguin matters, too. He does to me, anyway.
The chick lifts his head again. He is so young, so friendless. At this moment, nothing on earth is as vital to me as his safety.
Terry sighs, plainly upset, too. Having carried it home and shared her body heat with it, she has begun to bond.
“Please, Dietrich.”
He tugs at his beard in a stressed manner. “I’ll tell you what. We’ll put it to the vote.”
Mike takes it upon himself to summarize the situation in his own abhorrently prejudiced way. “So: Do we hand-rear the bird, staying up half the night, becoming exhausted and emotionally attached and making it totally dependent on us? Or do we let nature take its course?”
“Let the baby die, you mean,” I put in.
“The baby? It’s not a human, Veronica,” Terry reminds me.
Dietrich holds up an impatient hand. “OK. Enough! We know the facts. Who’s for trying to look after the chick here?” he asks.
I raise my hand immediately. Terry raises hers, too. Nobody else does.
Mike scowls. “Veronica isn’t one of us. She can’t vote.”
Dietrich ignores him. “And who’s for putting it back outside?”
Mike sticks his hand up. Our eyes turn to Dietrich. Very slowly, he raises his hand, too.
“I’m sorry, you two. I know he’s sweet, but we simply don’t have the time or the resources.”
“Exactly! Couldn’t have put it better myself,” says Mike.
A flash of anger glints in Terry’s eyes. “What is this—boys against girls?”
She turns abruptly and heads toward the door with the penguin still poking its head out of her parka.
I follow her out. “Where are you going? What are you going to do?”
“Kill it.”
I can’t believe what I’ve just heard. “What?”
“I’ll bang its head under a stone. It’s the kindest, quickest way. Better than leaving it to a long, lingering death by starvation.”
I am aghast. “You can’t do that!”
“I don’t want to, believe me, Veronica. I don’t want to at all. But I don’t have a lot of choice. The men have spoken,” she replies, bitterly.
I pull her back. “Yes, indeed, the men have spoken—but need you jump to attention? You’re soon to be the boss of proceedings here. Why not practice some leadership and simply insist.”
“We’d need everyone’s backing to save this little guy,” she answers in a resigned tone of voice. “And even I can see it’s not the scientifically sensible thing to do.”
I am losing her. She starts to walk away.
“No!” I shriek.
“Veronica, please don’t make this any more difficult. I’m sorry. I was wrong to let you hope.”
“You were not wrong. I’m not having that. Scientifically sensible, is it? Well, science can go to hell. Science can cut off its own nose to spite its face and disfigure itself in any other way it deems appropriate. I don’t give a fig.” I’m getting worked up now. “Sad, sick, cruel bastards.”
“Veronica!”
I throw my cane aside and stagger slightly, then regain my balance. “You may be a scientist, but I am not, as Mike so rightly points out. Now give me the penguin.”
She gawks at me.
My hands are outstretched toward her. “Go on. Give him here. I shall look after him myself.”
“Veronica, you can’t do that.”
“Yes, Terry. Yes, I can. I mean it. I’ve made up my mind. I shall do whatever is necessary, whatever it takes.” Even if it is the last thing I do upon this earth. “You may, of course, help me if you like,” I concede. “Not as one of the scientists, but as a friend.” I’ve surprised myself with that last word.
Terry’s glasses are a little steamed up. Her mouth puckers. She stretches out her fingers and strokes the chick’s head. Then, in the speediest of movements, she grabs him in both hands and thrusts him toward me.
“Your penguin, your responsibility?”
“Quite!” I say, accepting the little one and holding him against me. He moves feebly, a tiny bundle made up of flippers, feet and fluff. He rests his head on my chest and seems to relax into me. My heart feels as though it’s just expanded. Now that I’m holding him I realize—quite unreasonably but with a force I can’t deny—that it will now be utterly impossible to let him go.
Terry watches. She blinks away a tear. Then she picks up my cane, presents it to me again and leans in toward me.
“I’ll help. Of course I will,” she whispers. “As a friend!” She smiles a wicked smile. “Veronica, how the hell do you do it? You just made me go against all my logic and all my training.”
“And go with all your natural kindness.”
“You are a force to be reckoned with.”
“I know.”
She strokes the chick again. “Just please don’t be too upset if he doesn’t make it.”
“If he doesn’t make it, I will know, at least, that we have tried,” I tell her. It is not trying that I find unforgivable.
“What shall we call him?” she asks.
A name whisks across my consciousness. But I am quite unable to utter that name. It is another name that springs, unbidden, to my lips, a name that has kept on surfacing in my consciousness of late. Before I can stop myself, I’ve said it out loud.
“Patrick.”