At the moment we’re very interested in spiders, my grandson and I. If we see one we catch it and put it in a clear plastic pot with a lid that doubles as a powerful magnifying glass, and we examine it. Last week we caught a monstrous one. It filled the pot. It was intelligent enough to quickly realise that escape was impossible and sat there looking thwarted. We took it in turns to squint at it through the magnifying lid. Oscar has no aesthetic sense as yet, and his powers of expression are very limited, yet he was visibly disconcerted by what he saw.
About once a week I take him on an outing. Lately we’ve gone somewhere and back on a bus because he loves buses with a passion. Suggested alternative outings are rejected out of hand. ‘Train or bus?’ I say. ‘Bus.’ ‘Zoo or bus?’ ‘Bus.’ ‘Adventure park or bus?’ ‘Bus.’ So we go on the bus.
We captured the spider on our bus-ride day, and I asked Oscar if he thought that the spider would like to come on the bus with us. He was certain that it would. We put a tragic poem of a dead and dried-up bumblebee in the pot with it in case it felt peckish on the journey. Also a live young woodlouse, which accepted the remarkable turn of events in its life with breathtaking insouciance.
On the bus we sat upstairs at the front as usual, with our insect gaol on the windowsill. The woodlouse was eagerly exploring the possibilities of the dead bumblebee. The spider clearly had a massive cob on.
At once Oscar and I began our usual exciting game of naming the things we saw as we went along. It seems absurd of the bus company to insist on putting on double-decker buses for a route through tortuous country lanes intended for donkey carts. But we are glad it does. Oscar has very keen eyesight and from the top of a double-decker bus can spot a cow grazing in a field two miles away. So far, we can name the following: car, van, truck, tractor, digger, gog (dog), bird, cow, sheep, goat, hen, sea, boat and mud. Our naming game can become repetitive, but Oscar’s enthusiasm for the English language, with his particular liking for Anglo-Saxon words, normally sustains his grandad’s flagging
interest.
At the bus stop in the next village an elderly and familiar figure got on and came upstairs and sat behind us. As usual, Bill was dressed as if he was auditioning for Waiting for Godot and he smelt of sweat and ammonia. He is a lonely, sociable old man, and he leant his forearms companionably on the back of our seat to share our view. The smell was oppressive. And his patronising old countryman’s assumption that we were entirely ignorant about the natural world was as irritating as usual. ‘What have ’ee got in there, then?’ he said, referring to the pot on the windowsill. I passed it over. ‘Hallo. A spider. A big one,’ he said authoritatively, adding: ‘If you wish to live and thrive, let the spider run alive.’
And then the inevitable commentary on the surrounding countryside began. Every field and hedge is familiar to him. ‘See this crossroads? That’s where Mother used to wait for the bus on market day with 40 pound of butter strapped to her back. She’d already walked three mile to get here. In ’ot weather she was always so worried, God bless her, about it melting in the ’eat.’
‘Gog,’ said Oscar, annoyed by his dethronement and pointing to a dog on the beach. ‘Yes, lovely gog,’ I said.
‘And see that woods over there on the hill?’ said Bill. ‘That’s where Bert Pettigrew cut four of his toes off one day with a chainsaw. So he could stand nearer the bar, Father always used to say.’ ‘Cow,’ said Oscar, referring to a miserable creature by a gate up to its knees in mud.
And so it went on. Two competing commentaries. Then, ‘Bird!’ said Oscar, pointing to a dense flock grazing in a waterlogged field. ‘Rooks,’ said Bill competitively. As one, the birds took off and wheeled low and obliquely across the field, revealing themselves to be not rooks at all, but lapwings. A magnificent sight. ‘Lapwings!’ said Bill. We three craned our heads to watch them. They were beautiful, thrilling to see. Oscar was pleased to have drawn our attention to them. Bill was pleased with his teacher’s role in all of this. I was pleased simply to have seen them. For a moment we were a united, happy company, lurching from side to side high above the countryside. This was living. The woodlouse, eagerly exploring the corpse of the bumblebee, clearly felt the same way. Only the spider, hunched, introverted, had decided to sulk from start to finish.
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