audio extracts

Listen to Ann Kelley reading from The Burying Beetle
[.mp3 file, 4Mb download]

Today, the eleventh day of August 1999, is my twelfth birthday. The sun didn’t rise this morning, or if it did it was so cloaked in dark grey cloud that the sky barely lightened. And then it rained. Not the sort of rain that looks like long knives, but a very Cornish
drizzle – a sea mist, a mizzle that soaks you through just as thoroughly as a downpour.
We’re staying in this cottage on the edge of a cliff overlooking a long white beach. Today, it’s as if the cottage is in the sky on its own island of dull green, the tall pines hung with glistening cobwebs as if summer has gone and suddenly it’s autumn. Like that feeling you get when it’s time to go back to school after a long hot summer, and you put on your winter uniform for the first time, and can’t remember how to tie the stupid tie, and you
remember getting up in the dark, and going home in the dark. I hate that. The thought of a long dark winter ahead. But I do quite like the feeling of the season changing; my school beret snug on my head; knee-socks; lace-up shoes; the warm smell of my own breath under the striped woollen scarf.

Today, no birds come to the feeder hanging from the copper beech. There’s no sound of sea, even. A heavy grey blanket muffles the waves’ collapsing sound on the sand. Ghost gulls moan and whine. There’s not a hope in hell of seeing the eclipse, even though Totality is immediately over this part of Cornwall. But at 10.30am we put on waterproofs and walk through the gate onto the coast path. We push through sodden bracken, our shoes and jeans’ hems soaked immediately, and walk to the railway bridge. All along the coast path there are little groups of people. A man with a small child on his shoulder. A family huddled under a golf umbrella. The sky a solid grey. No light bits, no fluffy bits or
streaky bits, just a dead greyness, heavy with moisture. It’s like being in the middle of a cloud. We are in the middle of a cloud.

People line the path at the highest point where there’s a panoramic view of the bay and its beaches. Even the beach below us is crowded with people. Not loaded down with buckets and spades, ice creams, windbreaks, and with gritty sand in their private parts, but carrying umbrellas and wearing wellies and waterproofs. And we have all come together to share this moment.

And just before 11am, as promised, we can see an even darker darkness spreading from the west over towards Clodgy, coming towards us, enveloping us in a cold clamminess. The gulls are silent.

And at the Moment of Totality, cameras flash on every beach on this side of the bay – Carbis, Porthminster, the Island, and over towards Newquay, Gwithian, Phillack, and Hayle. The sky is dark and all the bright stars have fallen and are twinkling among us. Brilliant! Today at this very minute, I am twelve, and I feel in my bones that something momentous will happen to me. (Anyway, being eleven was so shitty, it’s got to be better this year.)

‘Jack! You are aware it’s your Daughter’s Birthday? No card or present! You could at least Phone her.’ Mum slams down the phone. ‘Where is he, Damn him?’
‘Mum?’
‘Sorry Sweetie, I just thought I’d try your father. He’s Not There.’

‘Oh!’ I try to look disappointed. Mum thinks I must be upset that Daddy didn’t remember my birthday. I forgive him. He’s got some good reason, I’m sure. Men aren’t any good at stuff like birthdays and anniversaries. I read somewhere that it’s because they have more important things to think about, like earning money and fighting wars – or anyway, they think they’re more important things. I think the female of the species have far more important things to think about – like looking after their babies and caring for their families, cooking healthy food for them and hugging them a lot.
Perhaps there’ll be a second post.

I hated it when we first came here. There’s a farm above us on the top of the hill and you could hear the cows calling for their calves all day long. I know they have to take them away from the mothers so the cows will carry on producing milk for people, but it’s so cruel. I don’t drink cow’s milk and I don’t think many people would if they only knew how cruel it is to produce the stuff. Soys don’t have babies.

The countryside is so much scarier than the city. It’s all life or death here.

Our townie cats have practically gone wild. They spend all day hunting and bring in half dead creatures – voles, which they don’t even eat, just leave them on the floor for us to tread on. Harvest mice – which are so pretty – golden honey coloured with the longest whiskers – are carried in and let go, so the three cats have sport all day, trying to recapture the terrified little things. They work together, like a pack of lions or a pride or whatever. They take turns – one keeps guard while the others sleep.

We even get slow-worms, which are grey-pink, with a silvery stripe. Sometimes the cats chew them a bit and let them go. I have decided that slow-worms are the best thing about living here. They suddenly appear on the floor in the sitting room and the cats are a little scared of them. It’s the fear of serpents thingy, I expect. Inbuilt sensible fears that keep you from being stung or poisoned or bitten.

I’m not frightened to pick slow-worms up, though I read in one of the trillion books here (I love books) that they can bite. But their jaws are so tiny that they couldn’t manage anything but a nip anyway. They feel very cool and not slippery or slimy at all, just cool and smooth. But they don’t like to be handled, they squirm like mad, so I usually just throw them out into the garden and hope the cats don’t see where they’ve gone.

It’s a bit like a zoo in this house. Apart from the slow-worms and mice and voles, we have crickets. There’s a plague of them at the moment, on the curtains, on the wooden ceiling, leaping around the carpet and confounding (I think that’s the word) the cats’ attempts to catch them.

I never saw a cricket in London. Though of course I’ve seen and heard cicadas in hot countries, when Mum used to take me away each winter. That was the good side of being a Sickly Child. Getting out of school and cold wet winters to go somewhere warm and sunny and just swim and snorkel and lie around all day reading. Heaven!
I remember a very sad looking praying mantis that was trying to climb a wall and he only had one back leg. I should think it makes you totally confused losing one of your jumping legs. I like praying mantises. I had one once in Kenya – I rescued it from the loo. It was nearly drowned but had kept its head above water. I fished it out and put it to dry on a piece of toilet paper on the table next to my bed. It was fine, and it stayed there for ages, just watching me. I could feel its huge eyes following me around the room, like Mona Lisa’s. It was the most beautiful bright apple green and had an articulated neck and head. Like a large truck. It stayed three days. It must have been grateful and was trying to tell me.

Our house is ramshackle – I love that word – it sounds just like it is – a sort of black-painted shack on the edge of a cliff. And there’s a big beach below us. I can walk down across the rocks, but I have to take ages getting up again. Keep stopping for breath. But that’s ok. There’s no one to see me struggling, except Mum.

That’s the main problem of being here. There’s no one around.

When Mum said we were moving out of London for my health and coming to St Ives, I thought we would be in the middle of the old town and I could sit on Porthmeor Beach and watch the sun set, and be able to make friends. It’s always been a dream of mine to live here, ever since we came a few years ago, when Mum and Daddy were happy together. It’s sort of idyllic and I just love everything about it: the gulls everywhere, their calling to each other, the surfers riding the big waves, the little boats bobbing in the harbour, the artists’ studios we looked round, the white sand that almost blinds you when you look at it without sunglasses on.

‘Sweetie – will you answer the door…?
‘… I’m in the bathroom.’ I finish the sentence for her.
‘Miss Gussie Stevens?’
‘Yes, that’s me!’ This very wet looking (I mean soaked wet)
man has a huge cellophane-wrapped bouquet in his big red hands.
‘Birthday, is it?’
‘Yes, how did you know?’
‘Lovely view you’ve got here!’
‘Yes, thanks!’
The flowers – all red and yellow carnations and purple irises –
from Daddy, of course.
Happy Birthday, Babe! All my love – Daddy xxx
‘Hmm! Typical!’ Mum fumes when she gets out of the bathroom.

Well I think they’re wonderful. I sniff them, but there’s no scent at all. It’s a very grown-up sort of present. No one’s ever given me flowers, except in hospital.

Buy The Burying Beetle online now from the secure Luath Press website: www.luath.co.uk/acatalog/The_Burying_Beetle.html

The Burying Beetle by Ann Kelley will be available from May 2005, priced £9.99, from all good bookshops or online from www.luath.co.uk.

ISBN: 1 84282 099 0 PBK