Inch by Inch
Two weeks after I returned from Basra I got an invitation for dinner. I have never been keen on Hampstead evenings but I knew I would have to go. When the time came round I actually did find it a relief to ditch my customary flak jacket and heavy boots for a black dress and heeled shoes. My high heels have always been a tight fit but that evening they slipped on surprisingly easily. In fact they were so loose I had to stuff the toes with cotton wool. But it was a chill evening and I thought nothing of it.
The dinner was just like all the others I have attended: suits and talk; a great deal of it pompous. People always ask about my work. They insist on every gory detail. I refuse to give them blood and guts. If they want that, let them watch slasher movies.
‘What an exciting life you must lead.’ The number of times I’ve heard that. It’s true that I’ve covered all the major conflicts – Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq, Liberia, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan and Zimbabwe – but why must the enquirers insist on the details?
‘There’s an awful of waiting around,’ I say, ‘and sometimes the most awful goddam food.’
‘Don’t you ever get scared?’ Don’t you ever feel like running away from it all?’
At times I’ve sensed a pit in the stomach, a sudden desire for a whisky but I never panic. If I did I wouldn’t be able to do the job and someone has to. The people who attend dinner parties listen to the news 24/7. That’s why we’re needed, that’s why I’m needed.
‘I don’t feel fear.’ That evening my questioner was a well-known politician. He has a thick, grey moustache, which makes his face look like it has been invaded by a hairy animal.
‘Really?’ he replied, smug as only that kind can be.
‘Are you calling me a liar?’ I said, moving swiftly on.
For the first time in my life I felt anxious. My palms sweated and I couldn’t sleep at night. Maybe I was even a little afraid and maybe that was why I didn’t visit the doctor’s for six whole weeks. By then I’d virtually stopped going out. I wouldn’t have been able to reach the pedals on my car anyway.
I told everyone I was suffering from a virus. ‘Don’t come round,’ I said. ‘I don’t need sympathy.’
At first the doctor said, ‘It’s quite normal for your age,’ and he muttered something about bone density but when I stood up to leave his Adam’s apple wobbled. ‘Perhaps…perhaps we should send you for a scan.’
‘Is it serious?’
‘I really don’t know.’
But when I came back for the results, the doctor scratched at his head and wouldn’t look me in the eye. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’
Suddenly I felt like I’d become one of my own news bulletins. ‘Tell me straight up,’ I said.
He didn’t get the joke. Instead he shuffled papers on his desk.
‘I’m a war reporter!’ I yelled. ‘I’ve seen babies with their heads smashed open! I’ve shrunk to the height of a seven-year old child and yet you won’t even tell me what is wrong!’
He looked up then. ‘I’m sorry Miss Finlay but we don’t have a diagnosis. Your case is really quite extraordinary. We’ll need to run more tests.’
‘To hell with your tests,’ I said marching out of the surgery.
I piled my hair up to give me extra height. I caught a taxi into town and bought a pair of killer heels and a pair of black trousers long in the leg. I wore the shoes and the trousers out of the shop. The assistant gave me a funny look but I shoved two fingers in the air and stomped off.
‘I’m back in the land of the living,’ I said later that day, walking unsteadily into the editor’s office.
The editor’s eyebrows almost tied themselves in knots. ‘You’ve lost weight. Or is it…?’
‘I’m fine and ready for my next assignment.’ I sat down in the chair.
His jaw began to twitch and he coughed. ‘What was it you said you had?’
‘A little virus I picked up in Iraq. Nothing too alarming.’
The office clock ticked loudly. I examined a piece of blue tack on the wall above his balding head.
‘Elspeth,’ he said, with a click of his pen. ‘There’s something I have to tell you.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Like everyone else we’re having to make cuts.’
‘Snip, snip,’ I said.
A faint gleam of sun illuminated the clock. I wanted to punch it.
‘Elspeth…’
‘You want to let me go, that’s it.’
‘Your work has been exemplary,’ the editor said, with another little cough. ‘But…’
‘Don’t bother,’ I said, getting to my feet.
He gasped as if he was drawing his last breath. Then I realised what had happened: one of my trouser legs had got caught, exposing the heel of my shoe.
‘You’ve shrunk,’ he said, pointing to the shoe. ‘That’s what’s wrong, isn’t it? You never wear heels.’
‘Fuck off,’ I said.
‘Big Issue, Big Issue,’ the man on the corner called. ‘Help the Homeless.’
‘You’re not bloody homeless,’ I hissed at him. ‘Believe me I’ve seen homelessness.’
He looked me up and down. ‘Christ,’ he said. ‘I thought you were a kid.’
‘Well I’m not.’
‘Don’t I know you from somewhere?’ He frowned and waved a ‘Big Issue’ at me.
‘No you certainly don’t,’ I said, moving away.
‘That’s it!’ he called. ‘You’re the woman on the telly, that reporter. I never knew you were that small.’
‘I’m not small!’ I shot back. ‘Your eyes are wrong.’
I teetered off down the street. The new shoes were impossible. I took them off and chucked them in the nearest bin. As I waited to cross the road near my street a woman tried to take my arm. ‘It’s not safe for a kid like you to be crossing alone,’ she said.
I shrugged her off. When she saw the age lines on my face, her jaw hit the pavement.
‘I’m vertically challenged!’ I shrieked. ‘Never seen that before, eh?’
I got the call the next day from the agency. It wasn’t quite what I wanted but I wasn’t going to sit in my empty flat any longer. I’ve been a reporter for 25 years. I’m good at it. It’s what I do. There’s always work for people like me.
The guy who met me at the airport clapped his hand over his mouth but I still heard his stifled snigger. You can’t wear heels in this job and so there I was, tiny as a shrew. Felt like one.
‘Have you got a problem?’ I snarled.
He looked away. ‘No problem.’
Later I overheard him talking to a colleague, ‘I thought she was a child,’ he said. His colleague said something I didn’t catch. I know it wasn’t polite.
They gave me an interpreter even though I speak Russian. I thought of making a fuss but I let it go. I needed a driver anyway. Cars aren’t made for people my size. The interpreter was called Ivan. A quiet man. I liked him. He asked no questions.
We interviewed the family in their house outside Groznyy. They showed us where the young man had been taken. There were bloodstains on the wall and an old woman crying silently in the corner. When I left, the murdered man’s youngest brother plucked at my sleeve. We were exactly the same height.
‘So many stories,’ Ivan said in the car, ‘So many the same.’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘It plucks at my heart.’
‘I need a drink,’ I said. ‘Maybe two.’
He laughed. ‘Of course. This is how we cope, is it not? I know good place.’
The bar was crowded with men. I was the only woman but that’s quite usual in my job. Ivan and I sat by the window at a small wooden table. By then it had grown almost dark and a snowstorm had moved in.
‘K schastʹyu,’ Ivan said, ‘To happiness.’
We downed our vodkas.
‘It is hard job for woman, no?’
I shook my head. ‘Sometimes that makes my job easier. I can get into places men can’t go.’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘that is possible.’
‘Are you from Groznyy?’
‘No, Argun.’ He sighed and scrabbled at the stubble on his chin. ‘We have seen much violence there.’
I had done my research. ‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Another vodka?’
‘My turn,’ I said, snapping my fingers at the man behind the counter.
‘Does your work send you sick?’ he asked, while we waited for the vodka.
I turned to look out of the window. It was dark now but I could still see the snow falling against the streetlights, softening the edges of things. ‘If you let that happen you can’t operate,’ I answered. ‘In a way it’s like being a soldier. Except that you don’t kill.’ It was what I always said.
He closed his eyes a moment. ‘I have seen so much.’
The vodka arrived. We picked up our glasses and drunk.
‘You seem…how do I say?’ Ivan tapped his fingers on the table and smiled at me. I noticed the shadows on his face; the essential quietness of him. ‘You are so small and delicate. Like a flower.’
I laughed. I’d never been called a flower before. ‘I wasn’t always this way.’
‘No?’
‘No,’ I repeated.
‘You are like child,’ he said. ‘I was surprised to see this when we met.’
‘It doesn’t affect my ability to do a good job.’
‘This is not what I mean, Elspeth.’ Ivan was silent a while. The flakes were falling faster. They were creating white holes in the darkness like the snow I had seen over the years on so many old videotapes. Ivan sat back in his chair. ‘I show you something,’ he said, pulling a photograph from his wallet.
I took the picture – a young girl, maybe nine or ten; a pretty girl framed with dark hair. She was not smiling for the camera but her expression was sweet and earnest.
‘My daughter. Look at her.’
I looked. The more I looked the more I could see myself there, reflected in her eyes.
‘Russian army shoot her dead.’ He pointed two fingers at me. ‘This is the life we have.’
Damn it all, I started to cry. That snow was falling white and quiet and there was his daughter looking up at me like so many hundreds I had seen but that time I cried. I had never cried before, not in all the years and years.
Ivan placed his hands on mine. ‘I no longer cry,’ he said. ‘My crying is all done.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said and for once it was true.
On the flight home I suffered the most terrible pain in my back. Nothing touched it – not the bottle of wine, the ibuprofen or the business class ticket. But the pain was to be the harbinger of good news.
In the months since, I’ve only gained an inch but it’s a start. People still stare at me but I don’t mind any longer. I’ve got used to it. Even my editor has forgiven me and last week I bought my first copy of the ‘Big Issue.’ The guy selling didn’t recognise my face. I was happy about that.
I wrote to Ivan with the news. ‘The sickness is gone,’ I said. And I promised to be back. One promise I’ll keep.
Bronwen Griffiths: Biography
I live in Hastings where I teach creative writing part-time to adults. I also run poetry and creative writing workshops in schools and community venues, recently working at Dorchester Museum through the National Association of Writers in Education. I also work as an education consultant in the arts and heritage sector.
My novel, Mermaid at the end of the World, was shortlisted for the Writers News/WOW factor competition in 2007. A short extract from this novel won first prize at the Winchester Writer’s Conference in 2004. I have had a number of short stories and poems published.
I completed a Diploma in Creative Writing at Sussex University in 2005 and was awarded an MA in Creative Writing and Personal Development – also from Sussex – in 2009.
I am currently writing a new novel based, in part, on a recent holiday to Libya which was cut short by the conflict there.
