Bequest

Chapter 2

He feels something brush softly against his cheek. He wakes from his old man's sleep, sits up, and switches his bedside lamp on. A moth flies towards the light. It is white with speckled black spots; he recognises it at once as Darwin's moth that is tattooed on his right calf. He'd taught his students the same story every year; it was textbook natural selection, the white peppered moths changed their appearance to adapt to the soot-covered landscape in the industrial revolution. The darker moths survived, while predators killed the paler moths. He pulls his body up and leans against the bed head, watching the moth's wings beat against the naked light globe.

He observes the moth with a child-like wonderment. It is so close to him, he can see the fur on its head.

The owl and the pussycat went to sea, he thinks to himself.

That guy, he'd illustrated moths a little like this one. Leonard had seen an exhibition on scientific drawings at the museum recently.

The owl and the pussycat, he thinks again. What was the name of that poet?

He'd been surprised to learn that he was also a fine illustrator. It bothers him that he can't recall his name. He knew it only a month or two back.

Don't worry, he reassures himself, it will come back to you when you're least expecting it.

As a history teacher he'd always prided himself on being able to file information in his mind on catalogue cards, he recalled dates and the names of obscure historical figures as one pictures where the salt and pepper is kept in the pantry. But he was out of practice and the mind is an evolving thing; it needs to let go of certain information to let new information in. It can't hold on to everything.

So what if I can't remember the name for that owl and the pussycat guy?

But he cannot let it be. Somewhere there is a book. When his wife moved out she'd left tubs of things for him to give to Luke when he had children of his own. She'd moved into a small unit and couldn't take everything with her, so she'd left things in the study.

'Make sure you give these to Luke. I've held on to them for years,' she'd said miserably to him in those days before she left for good.

Leonard, wide-awake now, gets out of bed and hunts through those tubs for the first time. There are yellowing clothes and baby blankets, old toys, a book of firsts where his wife had recorded Luke's first word, first crawl, first wee on the toilet. She'd archived Luke's upbringing in these tubs. But the information has been left to perish, to discolour, and it has taken on an unpleasant smell. No one has been interested in its contents until now.

He opens and closes lids, tearing one of his fingernails, cursing his haste. Why had his wife kept all this stuff? Luke was never going to want it. It was very unlikely he was ever going to have any children, considering his lifestyle choices. It would sit in these tubs until the day he died, and then someone else would throw it out. But he is sure that the book is in here somewhere. Luke had liked the owl drawings and the pig with the ring through its nose. They were modern drawings, not the original drawings by that writer, whatshisname.

One tub is so full of books it's heavy to lift. He discovers that she'd even kept his toddler books. The spines are ratty. Goodnight Moon was so well read it had needed to be rebound with sticky tape. He recalls Luke searching through that book with an anxious energy, trying to find the tiny mouse on every second page. He hadn't thought about those days for so long, Luke sitting on his lap before bed. They'd been close back then, affectionate with each other. They'd shared an unconditional love, as basic as butter on toast.

Finally he finds the book that he is looking for and the name: Edward Lear. Of course, Edward Lear, he repeats to himself. He takes a snapshot of the author's name on the cover of the book with his eyes, repeats the name to himself another five times, and places the book back in the tub. Just then, the moth flies into the room.

Anxiety flutters into his chest and lays an egg in his soul. The moth's tiny eyes seem to study him closely. He thinks he sees one eye wink, but it is an optical illusion surely, he tells himself.

Go back to bed, old man. It's just a moth.

He turns the light off in the study and walks down the hallway, the light in his room a dull beacon. The moth flies in front of him suddenly, almost touching his face. His arm rises instinctively, to swish it away, but the moth has disappeared into the darkness. In his bedroom, he turns off the lamp and wedges his colourful body under the white cover. He lies there with his eyes shut, willing sleep, thinking he can hear the impossible sound of moth wings lacerating the air.