Free Inchworm by Ann Kelley Page B

spider. We went to the cottage next door where a German family was staying. We needed help. Unfortunately they misunderstood our problem. Instead of removing the tarantula, they sprayed it with some awful slow-acting insecticide and it staggered around for an hour before dying. Worse, they found a whole family of them behind the wardrobe and killed them too. I still feel guilty when I think of it. I am quite brave about them now, well, braver than Mum ( Mutti ). I do the spider catching in our house. The ones we find in the bath are male house spiders, Tegenaria domestica , who have fallen in while looking for a mate. They can’t climb out because they have no gripping tufts of hair on their feet to climb the shiny surface. Maybe Alistair will be her hero from now on. I hope so; it will relieve me of the arduous task.
    There’s one other tree in Daddy’s garden. It’s a Black Mulberry. Perhaps he could import some silkworms and start manufacturing silk. They prefer White Mulberry leaves, though.
    We had some silk worms at school once. They’re the caterpillar of Bombyx mori – a moth. Someone came to the school and showed us how they live. The silk actually comes from the cocoon. The larva constructs its cocoon from a single strand of silk, laid down in a figure-of-eight motion. When the adult moth emerges it breaks through the silk, damaging the strand. This makes it unusable, as the silk can’t be unwound, so silk manufacturers kill the pupa before the moth inside leaves its cocoon. They place them in hot-air dryers, which dessicates them so the pupae will not putrefy in stored cocoons.
    I don’t imagine they feel any pain – I do hope not. But if you think about it it’s a bit like mass abortion. There are hardly any silk worms in the wild, but there must be some as there is such a thing as wild silk. Mankind has farmed them for thousands of years.
    Mum has lots of silk: shirts and silk scarves. I better tell her not to buy more unless it’s wild and free range.
    As soon as we get settled in the garden the sun disappears and it’s winter again. But it was a promise of sunny times to come.
    Mum and I are invited to Herr Weinberger’s flat. There is a wall of shelves full of brightly coloured pottery figures, but no books at all. I look at the names on the base of two figures on horses – Havelock and Campbell, and seated figures of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
    After he died, Victoria wore mourning black for the rest of her life. I remember that from a radio programme. I like Radio Four, which Mutti listens to most of the time. There’s lots of talking on it, debates, stories, plays – Woman’s Hour and the Today programme. Mutti shouts at one of the presenters sometimes, telling him to shut up so she can hear what the interviewee has to say. I can’t concentrate on things in the morning until I’ve had all my medicines and done my health checks. We have a home spirometry kit: I have to blow really hard and it measures my breathing, which I record in a special notebook with my temperature and weight and what drugs I take and when. If I have a sudden weight loss, I have to phone the hospital in case it’s a sign of some major problem – like rejection.
    ‘Do you like my pottery figures, Gussie?’
    ‘What are they, Herr Weinberger?’
    ‘They are Victorian. Decorated by children, mostly. They were made as souvenirs of popular figures – people in the news – generals, celebrities and royalty.’
    ‘Like posters of pop musicians?’
    ‘Yes, Gussie, similar. People collected figures of people they admired. This one is Jenny Lind, a very famous singer in her day.’
    ‘Are they German?’
    ‘No, no, English. Staffordshire pottery. I love English things, not German, and I love Scottish things – their single malt whiskies, at least.’ He laughs at his own little joke. ‘Try this ten year old cask-made Laphroiag, my dear.’
    He pours a drink for Mum and I have apple juice. Mum murmurs her