sepia-toned prints of fishing boats and fishermen and gulls in the harbour. The harbour looked beautiful, full of masts and sails and gulls. There’s a young woman working at a computer and an older man looking through a box file.
I squat to get my breath back. The woman comes to the reception desk and peers over the counter at me.
‘Can I help you?’
I stand up. ‘I hope so. I’m looking for a family.’
‘What name?’
‘Gussie, Augusta, actually.’
‘Is that the name of the family you are looking for?’
How embarrassing: I’m so stupid. ‘No. Sorry, Stevens.’
‘Stevens? Oh yes, we have quite a few of those.’
‘Yes, but do you have any who were car dealers in the area? He was my father’s father. My grandfather.’
‘What was his first name?’
I haven’t the faintest idea.
‘Er, I don’t know.’
She sighs and shows me a series of box files on a shelf. An hour later she says the archive centre has to close. It’s hopeless. There’s no sign of a car dealer called Stevens.
At home I look in the Yellow Pages just in case there is still a car dealership with that name, but there isn’t.
‘Mum, what was Grandad Stevens’ first name?’
‘Don’t know. Why?’
She is lying on her back on the carpet.
‘Just wondered. What’s for tea?’
‘Nothing. Fish and chips maybe.’
‘Yippee!’
Mum has been going out with Alistair on Friday evenings to the pub but he is in the Scillies on the cricket tour and he’ll be gone all weekend. Mum is glum.
Last night I dreamed I was flying. I didn’t have wings. It was like snorkelling in the sky. I could direct my flight with my hands, arms, legs and feet, like Batman, or Peter Pan. I was flying along at the same height above the ground as seagulls. It felt exhilarating, not cold or frightening, and even though I knew in the dream that I was not an expert flier I was enjoying the strange and wonderful sensation of speeding effortlessly through the sky and looking down at little yellow and green and brown fields, crows and gulls scattered like black and white confetti behind a tractor. And then I came to a coast of black jagged rocks, swooped down towards the wave-striped sea and woke up.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
OUR ADOLESCENT GULL is still wheezing and jumping up and down on the roof flapping his speckled wings. He wanders all over the roof, spends most of the time on his own, though one parent perches on the chimney top watching over him while the other parent is fishing for his supper, or is out having a good time.
I feel like that young gull: songless and ugly, unable to fly; totally dependent on my parent.
Mum and I are playing Scrabble. It’s getting easier to beat her. She doesn’t seem to care as much as she used to about losing. She always used to beat me.
I care.
In the town there are young gulls wandering around the alleyways and cobbled lanes looking bewildered and their anxious parents stand on the chimneys and shout. Most of the holidaymakers with school age children have gone home.
Our young gull has fallen into the garden, trying to fly, I suppose. One moment he’s on the roof, next, he’s on the grass. The parents kept swooping on us when we tried to rescue him, but eventually we managed to cover him in a blanket and pick him up. Mum carried him upstairs and put him out my window onto the roof. After half an hour of screaming in consternation the parents returned to the roof, no doubt amazed that he had managed to get back home on his own. He huddled by the chimney looking grumpy. I expect his mum has told him off for straying too close to the edge. She looks like a prim ballerina resting, and the big male ruffles his breast, wings and tail, sending small feathers floating away to become fluttering white butterflies. (Or that’s what they look like to me without my glasses on.)
Summer seems to have gone. The waves are big and the northwesterly wind is cold. Clouds are grey and black with no gaps between them. No more
I squat to get my breath back. The woman comes to the reception desk and peers over the counter at me.
‘Can I help you?’
I stand up. ‘I hope so. I’m looking for a family.’
‘What name?’
‘Gussie, Augusta, actually.’
‘Is that the name of the family you are looking for?’
How embarrassing: I’m so stupid. ‘No. Sorry, Stevens.’
‘Stevens? Oh yes, we have quite a few of those.’
‘Yes, but do you have any who were car dealers in the area? He was my father’s father. My grandfather.’
‘What was his first name?’
I haven’t the faintest idea.
‘Er, I don’t know.’
She sighs and shows me a series of box files on a shelf. An hour later she says the archive centre has to close. It’s hopeless. There’s no sign of a car dealer called Stevens.
At home I look in the Yellow Pages just in case there is still a car dealership with that name, but there isn’t.
‘Mum, what was Grandad Stevens’ first name?’
‘Don’t know. Why?’
She is lying on her back on the carpet.
‘Just wondered. What’s for tea?’
‘Nothing. Fish and chips maybe.’
‘Yippee!’
Mum has been going out with Alistair on Friday evenings to the pub but he is in the Scillies on the cricket tour and he’ll be gone all weekend. Mum is glum.
Last night I dreamed I was flying. I didn’t have wings. It was like snorkelling in the sky. I could direct my flight with my hands, arms, legs and feet, like Batman, or Peter Pan. I was flying along at the same height above the ground as seagulls. It felt exhilarating, not cold or frightening, and even though I knew in the dream that I was not an expert flier I was enjoying the strange and wonderful sensation of speeding effortlessly through the sky and looking down at little yellow and green and brown fields, crows and gulls scattered like black and white confetti behind a tractor. And then I came to a coast of black jagged rocks, swooped down towards the wave-striped sea and woke up.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
OUR ADOLESCENT GULL is still wheezing and jumping up and down on the roof flapping his speckled wings. He wanders all over the roof, spends most of the time on his own, though one parent perches on the chimney top watching over him while the other parent is fishing for his supper, or is out having a good time.
I feel like that young gull: songless and ugly, unable to fly; totally dependent on my parent.
Mum and I are playing Scrabble. It’s getting easier to beat her. She doesn’t seem to care as much as she used to about losing. She always used to beat me.
I care.
In the town there are young gulls wandering around the alleyways and cobbled lanes looking bewildered and their anxious parents stand on the chimneys and shout. Most of the holidaymakers with school age children have gone home.
Our young gull has fallen into the garden, trying to fly, I suppose. One moment he’s on the roof, next, he’s on the grass. The parents kept swooping on us when we tried to rescue him, but eventually we managed to cover him in a blanket and pick him up. Mum carried him upstairs and put him out my window onto the roof. After half an hour of screaming in consternation the parents returned to the roof, no doubt amazed that he had managed to get back home on his own. He huddled by the chimney looking grumpy. I expect his mum has told him off for straying too close to the edge. She looks like a prim ballerina resting, and the big male ruffles his breast, wings and tail, sending small feathers floating away to become fluttering white butterflies. (Or that’s what they look like to me without my glasses on.)
Summer seems to have gone. The waves are big and the northwesterly wind is cold. Clouds are grey and black with no gaps between them. No more
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