The Burying Beetle Read Free

– pines or something, absolutely huge, a line of them like an overgrown hedge on the edge of the cliff. We can’t see much of the beach through the branches, but they are Good Windbreaks, Mum says. From downstairs you can see beach and sea between the huge trunks. It’s like peeping through the legs of an elephant, massive, dark grey wrinkled hulks. There’s a wooden deck, too, with a high rail around, but I haven’t had the courage to go out there yet. I’m no good at heights.
    I don’t know who the owner of the house is, but whoever it is, is a great reader. There are books everywhere. They are very old and dusty, not like mine, but our books are all in store. Mum hasn’t enough room for her clothes because of all the books. She is threatening to stuff them in the shed, so she can hang up her huge collection of clothes. Not that she’s ever going to wear any of that stuff here. I can’t imagine why she bothers. There’s not exactly a flourishing social scene of the sort that she had in London. But she’s OK really, apart from her intense vanity and the way she has of turning into Cruella de Vil every time she speaks to Daddy. I suppose she’s had lots to put up with – not being able to go to work because of looking after me.
    I don’t know why she and Daddy split – it was last year, before Grandpop and Grandma died. I was in hospital some of the time anyway but when I was at home there were lots of muffled angry voices and Mum cried a lot. I suppose he was having an affair.
    He lives with a woman called Eloise, which is a lovely name. I think I might change my name by deed pole… or is it poll? You can do that to make it legal. Augusta is so ugly and I get called Custard sometimes. Summer calls me Org. Daddy calls me Gussie, which is OK. Grandpop called me Princess Augusta for a while. I thought I was a real princess until I was about seven or eight. I was quite relieved when I found out I wasn’t. I thought I’d have to leave home and go and live in the palace with the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh.
    I want to be known as Kezia – I’m not sure how that’s pronounced. I read it in a short story by Katherine Mansfield. There’s this family in a house on a bay and the women all just about tolerate the father but can’t wait to get him off to work, so they can relax and enjoy themselves. There’s a wonderful granny in the story who cooks and looks after the little children. I think the mother is sickly, or she’s just had a baby or something. She’s a wuss; the father is stuffy and demanding and the women all run round looking after him. It doesn’t sound much but it’s a lovely story. It makes me feel warm and safe for some reason. A bit like how I feel when I watch It’s a Wonderful Life . I found it here, the book.
    This house is called Peregrine, which I thought was a posh boy’s name from out of a PG Wodehouse story, but which is in fact a bird of prey, but we haven’t seen any yet. Not that I’d know one if I fell over it, or it hit me in the belly with a wet fish. There are loads of bird books here but I haven’t got round to them yet.
    Some Like it Ho t ! That’s the name of the Marilyn Monroe film. That makes me feel warm in a different way. I love it that Mum and I laugh out loud at the same bits each time, like at the very end when Tony Curtis gets a proposal of marriage from the millionaire, and tells him he’s really a man, and the millionaire says – ‘Nobody’s perfect!’
    My favourite bit in Born Yesterday is when the bully shouts to the woman, ‘Billie!’ and she shouts back ‘Whaddyawaan?’ And the bit where he says, ‘All this trouble just ’cos a broad reads a book!’ I so love her voice. It’s all small and squeaky except when she’s yelling ‘Whaddyawaan?’ And the card-playing scene, I love that.
    I haven’t started my periods yet. I don’t suppose I will for a couple of years. I’m small for my age and skinny – that’s because of my heart. I