Adam Mars-Jones - Pilcrow

Lessons in Dad

‘Well JJ,’ Mum said, ‘I can see I’m going to have to give you some LID. That’s Lessons In Dad. It’s a matter of timing. You must learn to hold back and then pounce. If you ask him while he’s rushing about, of course he’s going to say “No”! All he wants to do is get out into the garden. I’m afraid you’ll just have to let another week go by now. By then I promise you he’ll have forgotten the entire affair. Wait till next Friday and then pounce. I’ll make an apple pie and after that I’ll give him sweet milky coffee (ugggh!) and a couple of chocs left over from last Christmas. They’re Black Magic. Your father never grew out of his liking for sweets, you know … Wait until he’s all relaxed and floppy and then spring it on him.’

I had first heard of the sundew plant in the Bathford days, when the thought of a plant eating a fly like that made me burst into tears. Perhaps I was a cannibal in a previous life — that would explain so much dietary fastidiousness in this. Then I had a conversation about them with one of the nurses at CRX, who said that it moved ‘ever so quickly’ to catch its prey. I’d become more of a man of the world by then. There were more than enough flies in the world, after all, and it made sense that there should be plants whose job was to eat some of them.

My interest had a scientific tinge to it. Perhaps this was an area where I would make discoveries and breakthroughs. It would be such a triumph to breed a variety which ate wasps, for the benefit of people like Sarah who reacted really badly to their sting.

And still I hadn’t seen one. By this time I had cross-examined the nurse who was an expert in sundews (at least compared to me) many times. I just asked the same questions time after time. I reasoned that if you kept on hammering away, sooner or later you were bound to hit the jackpot — even if the coins often cascaded towards you from a completely unexpected direction. It was especially encouraging when the victim said, ‘Honestly John, I’ve told you absolutely everything I know or can remember on the subject. There really isn’t anything more that I can remember.’ That always meant that they knew plenty. That wasn’t the moment to let go, but rather to intensify my mental grip.

One day I was reaching the end of a rather fruitful interrogation session — I’d established that the colour was a little more golden than I had suspected, and that the plants tended to have ten rather than six wee fisted rosettes. Then I heard a little voice edging politely into the conversation with, ‘Excuse me for interrupting, John, but I could not help overhearing your conversation with Nurse Burrows. I gather that you have developed quite an interest in the sundew plant!’

It was Miss Reid of all people, whose previous botanising had been so ominously symbolic. I was afraid she was going to take these wonderful plants away from me before I had even seen one, to cast them on the everlasting bomfire. ‘Are they tares, Miss?’ I asked timidly, bracing myself for the worst.

‘Of course not, John,’ she said. ‘Why would you think so? They’re wild flowers.’ Reid moved so smoothly between the world of the Bible and the world of nature study that I expect she didn’t know she was doing it, but I couldn’t really be blamed for feeling confused.

‘I don’t honestly know an awful lot about them,’ she went on, ‘but I can tell you where they grow in the wild. I thought you might be interested.’ She settled on the very edge of the bed. Miss Reid had her needlework bag with her, and fished out a piece of embroidery. It was soothing to watch her work at it. She glanced up at me from time to time, but there was no danger of her fixing me with the meaningful gaze of judgement.

‘Chobham Common is only a few miles away. I believe’, she said as she pulled a thread tight, ‘that two varieties grow there — the round-leaved and the long-leaved. If you are lucky, you may also see some butterworts growing there. You told me last week that your family now has a car. Perhaps you could ask your father to drive you there one weekend.’

Two varieties of sundew, and butterworts thrown in by nature’s generous hand! If that wasn’t worth Dad’s petrol money, what was? No wonder I thought that the cake of the coming weekend was iced and fully decorated, with Roman candles set around the edge sending up globes of hot light in my honour.

971 centimetres a second squared

Mum’s wait-and-pounce plan worked like a charm the next week. Dad’s system, charged with sugar and caffeine, couldn’t muster resistance to the plan. Once we got going, Dad really enjoyed himself, and we brought back some sundews as trophies. I feel a bit guilty about that, but there were no protected species then.

Chobham Common was a special expedition, and the marshland by the river was for every day. Dad made it his mission to show me that even a familiar habitat could spring surprises. He was good at spotting something in nature and pointing me towards it in the chair. Then he would navigate my eye by landmarks towards what he wanted me to notice. He was very good at getting me to see what he saw. It’s a useful knack. There’s no use just pointing at something (in this case, something that nature has taken trouble to tuck away) if you don’t share an eyeline with the person you want to see it.

There was a bridge that we had to cross, on our way to the marshy patch which was Dad’s passion. It was very narrow and had no railing, really closer to a broad plank than a bridge proper. The Tan-Sad, as I well knew, had four small wheels and was very awkward to manœuvre. I started to fret as we came up to the bridge. There was only about half an inch of leeway each side. ‘I’ll fall, Dad,’ I whispered. ‘It’s too narrow.’

‘No you won’t,’ he said. ‘You will not fall.’ His voice was very firm, very reassuring. ‘What’s over there is well worth going to see. You won’t find it anywhere else in these parts.’

I put my life in his hands. Then the right side of the chair slipped over the edge of the plank bridge. I started falling sideways at a great rate — at the rate prescribed by gravity (971 centimetres a second squared ). I saw myself going into the marsh. Then Dad grabbed the chair as it fell and held its weight. With a great effort he wrenched it back onto the bridge. We were both panting with terror and relief. I could hear him behind me. ‘Not bad, eh?’ he said, trying to sound jaunty. ‘That’s jungle training for you. Lightning reflexes. I told you I wouldn’t let you fall, didn’t I?’

Once we had reached the marshy bit, he pointed out what I thought were pinky worms that had come out of the ground and had climbed up some nettles to greet the morning sun. They weren’t worms at all. Dad said, ‘What you see there is called dodder, John.’

A fascinating plant if ever there was one, a parasite which grows on the heads and stems of live stinging nettles, shedding its own roots the moment it finds a host. It would have been greater dodder we found, Cuscuta europæa , which taps into the sap of the nettle using suckers. It’s a specialised relative of bindweed (as indicated by its family, the convulvulaceæ ), that demure invader, bane of gardeners everywhere.

I was my father’s son. I couldn’t help being fascinated. Dad said, ‘Worth crossing a few bridges for, eh, chicken? And I told you I wouldn’t let you fall, didn’t I?’ I managed not to say, but I did! I did fall. I just didn’t fall all the way down or all the way out of the chair . I was beginning to get a sense of adults and the promises they made. Promises weren’t all the same. When it came to reassurance, Dad’s promise-you-won’t-fall was nowhere near as cast-iron as Heel’s you-don’t-have-permission-to-die-it’s-against-hospital-rules.