Patrick
LOCKET ISLAND
JANUARY 2013
The old year has gone and the new one has begun. Not that it makes any difference. Nobody was in the mood for celebrating. I’ve been here four days now, and in that time, Granny V hasn’t eaten at all. She just lies there looking cross. I’m presuming that’s not a good sign.
I feel like a spare part here. There’s nothing I can do for her, really, except sit by her bed, hoping she knows I’m there. Making moronic comments she’d probably pour scorn on if she could hear them, which I doubt. The scientists give me plenty of space. They’re a busy lot anyway. Seems of vital importance that they go out every day and count penguins and tag penguins and weigh penguins and do other penguiny stuff. They’re kind to me, though. Well, Terry and Dietrich are anyway. Mike tolerates me. That guy has issues. Looks down his nose at anyone who doesn’t have a PhD in penguin studies.
I’m glad to have the company of Pip the Penguin. He’s totally at home here. He sleeps a lot, eats a lot, runs round in circles a lot and gets under our feet a lot. And OK, I’ll admit it: I sometimes talk to him. Call me crazy, but I actually find it quite a relief talking to a penguin. It’s easier than talking to a comatose eighty-six-year-old, anyway.
According to Terry, Pip was called Patrick before I arrived. “Veronica named him after you,” she said.
You could’ve knocked me down with a feather. Granny is a strange fish, no doubt about it. A seriously strange fish.
We’ve had the helicopter doctor in, apparently the same one who came before. He prescribed more antibiotics and said she’s comfortable and there’s nothing else we can do, really, except just being here. He says she’ll know, even if she doesn’t show it. She should make a turn either for the better or the worse very soon. He implied he didn’t want to be called out again either way. We should just keep her warm and hydrated.
There’s a plastic pot under the bed for emergencies. Terry is great and deals with the hygiene stuff. I did offer (I felt I had to), but wow, was I glad when Terry insisted! She says Veronica would hate any man to do it, and I think she’s right. My guess is that Granny hates everything about the situation she’s in right now. Rough deal, being old and ill like that, especially when you’re a million miles from home.
“You can’t stay by Veronica’s bedside the whole time,” Terry told me yesterday. “It’ll drive you mad. Anyway, she’s stable for the moment. She can spare you an hour or two to see the Adélies.”
I have to admit, I was pretty keen to visit the colony. “Well, if you’re sure.” I flung on my fleece.
“Are you going to be warm enough in that?”
“Got two sweatshirts on underneath. But no, probably not. I’m not overly keen on cold like this.” Why do the wrong words always jump out of my mouth? That made me sound like a wimp.
“We keep a spare parka. That’ll help.” She fetched me a jacket ten times thicker than the one I was wearing.
“Thanks.”
She looked down at my trainers. “You’re not nearly as prepared as your grandmother for all this. I think you’d better borrow Mike’s spare mukluks.”
“Won’t he go ape if I do that?”
“No, he’ll understand.”
The mukluks fitted OK, and did help, to be honest.
The snow! I’d almost forgotten. The brightness hits you the minute you step outside. The landscape just swallows you up. The clarity. The sharpness of each breath as it hits your lungs. Man, it’s quite something!
Up and over a great gleaming bank and there we were: penguin land. They were awesome, those birds. Thousands more than I was expecting, so you could hardly see the ground between them. Making a right old racket, too. Wild, waddling and willful. Like humans but smaller and beakier and black-and-whiter and funnier. I swear, you couldn’t not like those guys.
I kept saying dumb things like “Wow” and “Cool” and “No way.” Some of the birds were curious about our presence and formed a little group around us. Us looking at them, them looking at us. Don’t know what possessed me, but I stooped down and gathered up a miniature snowball and threw it toward one of them, not hard or anything, just playful. It landed right at his feet. The penguin looked down in surprise then turned its gaze to me. Not hostile, just kind of puzzled. “Sorry, mate,” I called to it. “No offense. Just a scientific experiment. Just to see if it annoyed you or not. You did great, pal. Full marks for non-annoyedness.”
I turned to Terry and pointed to her notebook. “Better log that,” I told her.
She laughed. “You’re funny,” she said.
As we went on, I was half expecting the penguin to throw a snowball into my back, but he didn’t.
A little while later Terry said: “Patrick, I was just wondering . . .”
“Yes, Terry?”
“About your grandmother, about Veronica. I expect you’re very fond of her, are you?”
“Er . . . And that would be because of her warm and sunshiny personality?”
Terry chortled. She gets me. “Well, you did come out all this way.”
“Yup. That’s because . . . Well—it’s complicated.”
Terry had this look like she couldn’t quite decide on which words to say then just decided to say them anyhow.
“I suppose she told you all about her money?”
“That there’s a ton of it? Yeah. Yup, she did.”
A slight pause. Terry studied the horizon. “And did she tell you about her plans for her will? Her legacy?”
“Hell, no!”
Her voice went all quiet, and I had a problem hearing what she said next. “Veronica didn’t actually have a will, from what she told me. She was planning on making one when she got back home.”
I was a bit surprised Terry was banging on about such a subject. She doesn’t strike me as somebody who’d be majorly into money.
I shrugged. “I guess we’ll never know what her plan was.”
Terry marched on. “I suppose not,” she declared to the frozen air.
Terry is first to come back from the Adélie colony today. She calls out, “Hi, Patrick,” then heads straight for the office.
When she emerges twenty minutes later, I’m standing in the “lounge,” staring into space. You know how it is. Sometimes you just have to take a little break from the joys of Granny Veronica’s bedside.
“God, I just can’t think of anything to say in the blog,” Terry confides. “Veronica’s become a real part of it, but I don’t want to let on she’s ill.”
There must be some great gem of wisdom I can offer here, but I can’t find it.
“Tricky,” I answer.
“It’s probably best if I don’t mention her at all. I don’t want to lie and . . . It’s all just too upsetting.” She gulps and looks a bit teary. I’m wondering what’s the best way to offer comfort. Just as I’ve decided a hug might be OK, Mike and Dietrich come in, shaking the snow off their boots. The moment has gone.
After we’ve all had the inevitable how-was-your-day and how’s-Veronica and how-are-the-penguins conversations, I broach something I’ve been wondering about for a while.
“Can I cook for you? I’d like to do something to, you know, say thanks for looking after Granny.” There’s no way I can contribute any money, after all. There’s no money to contribute.
Terry becomes smiley. “Oh, that’s very good of you!”
Mike becomes sneery. “Can you cook?”
“I’m not bad,” I reply, peed off at him. He clearly assumes I’m a complete waste of space. “Not bad at all.”
“Ah, this is very good news,” cries Dietrich. “Especially if you can come up with something we don’t normally do. We’re a bit stuck in the rut of frankfurter sausages, canned beans and pasta. Gott, we are sick of them all.”
“Can I see your store cupboard?”
“Yes. You’re welcome, my friend. Follow me.” He takes me to the back room. It seems like they only ever use the tinned stuff and the packets of dried pasta, rice and ready-mix sources. The only other thing that’s been opened is a huge crate of peanut butter.
“We have the frozen stock, too,” Dietrich says, leading me to a lean-to out the back. “Some meat, some veg—the ones that freeze OK. I’d steer clear of the cauliflower if I were you. It’s putrid.”
I can well believe that frozen cauliflower would stick in the gullet. I notice some hunks of beef, though.
“That’s not bad. From Argentina,” Dietrich tells me.
There’s a box of frozen red and yellow peppers, too. I start to plan in my head.
An hour later, the aroma of real food is wafting around; my beef and pepper goulash. It draws each of the scientists from their various corners of the building to the stove.
I dish up, piling the food high. I’d have liked to scatter it with fresh leaves of some sort, but fresh leaves aren’t on the cards here. I’ve cooked masses so there are seconds for everyone. They eat like vultures. I feel proud—I’ll admit it.
“There’ll be plenty for tomorrow, too, if you don’t mind having the same thing twice,” I tell them.
“Mind!” cries Terry with her mouth full.
“You can come again!” says Dietrich.
Mike doesn’t say a word about the food, but I notice how he gobbles it up.
“Like it?” I ask, pointedly.
“Yes. Very good. Very good indeed. Thank you,” he replies stiffly.