Legs

There it was, large, no doubt hairy (I didn’t get close enough to see), just waiting for me to come along. I did what my mother had always taught me to do in such situations – I screamed.

David was the first on the scene. A bit of a loner, our David, but good at his job. 

“Kill it, kill it”, I yelled, pointing towards the sink. He looked at where I was pointing and peered in, apparently unphased by what he saw.

“Wow, she’s a real beauty, isn’t she?”

“Well don’t just stand there, kill the bloody thing.” By now an audience had gathered at the door to witness my hysteria.

“But she’s perfectly harmless.” David reached into the sink and scooped up whatever was in there. “Common house spider. I’ll just pop her outside.” And he put his hand through the open window and dropped the spider.

“What if it gets back in?” David sighed, shut the window, got a cup of water and walked out the kitchen. Some of the others sniggered as I pushed past them to make my way to the ladies, all thoughts of a coffee forgotten.

At lunchtime, David had just put his lunch in the microwave when I went in.

“Why wouldn’t you kill it? The spider, why wouldn’t you kill it?”

“Because I don’t kill spiders. They’re not pests, in fact they are quite beneficial. Besides, considering there’s about 650 different species, possibly 750 million spiders in total, I don’t think the death of one will make much difference, do you?”

I said nothing. These figures made me feel even more vulnerable. “Do you mind if I ask you something? Why did you want to kill it?”

“I didn’t want to kill it. I wanted someone else to kill it.” He said nothing. “It’s what dad does in our house when mum finds one,” I added.

“Ah, that’s where you learnt your fear is it?” And with that he got his lunch out of the microwave and went back to his desk. 

Those numbers haunted me for the rest of the day. That evening, when I was with Liam discussing our forthcoming wedding, I felt I had to ask. “Do you think there’s a lot of spiders in Australia?” Australia was where we were going for our honeymoon.

“Well, yeah. There’s spiders everywhere, right?” That thought didn’t comfort me. I had to do something about this.

The next day I asked David if I could see him at lunchtime – there was something I needed to pick his brain about. We met in the kitchen.

“David, that spider the other day. You called it she. Why?”

“Because it was a female. The female of the common house spider, or Eratigena atrica to give it it’s proper name, tend to be much larger than the male. If I hadn’t known the sex, I’d have said it.”

“So you know a lot about spiders?”

“Quite a lot, yes.”

“Now those numbers of spiders you said yesterday.”

“What, the 650 different species, or the 750 million spiders?”

“Yes, those. How many of those are in Australia?”

“Australia? No, that’s just the numbers for the UK. In Australia, there’s about, ooh, let me see, about 2,400 different species. But don’t worry, less than 50 of those are harmful to humans.” He must have seen the look of horror on my face. “You really don’t like them, do you?”

I shook my head. “They bloody terrify me.”

“And you learnt this fear from your mum?”

I nodded. “I remember when I was small mum screaming because she saw one crawling over me.”

“Hmm. But you understand that there’s nothing to fear from those in the UK, don’t you?”

“You might say that, but how do you know? You said there were poisonous ones.”

“In Australia, yes. But here you won’t come to any harm. The false widow, Steatoda nobilis, is the most poisonous, but if it bites, the effects on humans are no worse than a bee or wasp sting.”

“You’re not making it any better.”

“Look, I don’t know what you want from me.”

I paused before answering. “Okay, I’m getting married next year. We’ve booked to go to Australia for our honeymoon. Liam, my fiancé, would like to go live out there, and the honeymoon is so that I can see what I would feel about moving out there. Permanently. I have problems with spiders here. If there’s more out there, how will I cope?”

He looked at me. “And how do you think I can help?”

“Well, you seem to know something about spiders. Can you help me?”

He shrugged. “Well, I’m not qualified. You really need professional help.”

“But will you try? I know you, so I trust you. Sort of. Pretty please.”

He thought about it for a moment. “Okay, I’ll see what I can do. But I can’t promise anything. Your fears are deep rooted, so I’m not sure what I can do. We’ll start Monday lunchtime, give you time to get used to the idea.”

Needless to say, my dreams, or rather nightmares, over the weekend involved lots of spiders. It didn’t help that Liam was chilling out Sunday afternoon watching and laughing at an old film that included large spiders. I love Liam, but there’s some things he just doesn’t understand about me.

It was with some trepidation that I went for my meeting with David at lunchtime on Monday. We’d commandeered one of the meeting rooms that was not in use. I was expecting, something large, hairy and leggy. “Have you got one with you?”

“Have I got one what?”

“A spider. Where is it?”

“Good heavens. You’re not ready for that yet.” I relaxed a bit. “No, today we’re just going to talk and look at some pictures.” He had a folder with him, and got out a bunch of photos, all of which he placed face down. “Now, I want you to turn over each of these pictures and tell me what you think in three words.”

Nervously, I took the nearest one by the corner and turned it over. It was a kitten. “So, what are your thoughts?”

“Cute, fluffy, playful.” I couldn’t see where this was leading.

“Okay, next one.” This was a tiger. 

“Fierce, large, handsome.” And so it continued.

It was the fifth picture that was a spider.  I backed away. David watched me. “Okay, let’s put that one to one side and we’ll continue with the others. No more spiders, promise.”

When I had finished, there were a dozen or so pictures in front of me, plus the one of the spider. “Interesting,” said David.

“What is?”

“The one you couldn’t bear to touch is the one that is least dangerous.”

“Kittens aren’t dangerous.”

“Kittens want to play fight, have needle sharp claws and teeth and have yet to learn how to retract their claws in play.”

“Vampires don’t even exist,” I said, pointing to one photo.

“But if they did, wouldn’t they be frightening? Look, if you want to be okay with spiders before you get to Australia, you’ve got to be able to look at them. Before you go, I hope that you’ll be able to do some research on the most dangerous of the species, even if it’s only to familiarize yourself with them. I can help you get used o those in the UK, but not those over there. I don’t have drawers full of spiders lying around.”

“Just why do you know so much about spiders?”

David paused. “My dad. He was a zoologist. He specialized in invertebrates.”

“Wow, like you mean on TV?”

“Sort of, though I don’t think he’s been on TV. Anyway, time to go back to work. Have you got a drawer you can put this in?” He indicated the spider picture. “Then at times when you’re feeling strong enough, you can open the drawer, get used to looking at it.” I had a spare drawer in a filing cabinet that I didn’t use, so David put the picture in there. We agreed to meet again on Thursday.

By Thursday, I hadn’t opened the drawer once, couldn’t face it. As I went to meet David, I felt guilty. “So how many times did you open that drawer?”

“Sorry, been busy.” He didn’t look surprised.

“Don’t worry. I’ve got another copy of the picture. We can use this one.” And he placed a copy of the photo between us and began to talk about it. I didn’t want to hear.

“Tell me about your dad.”

“What?”

“Your dad. The one who taught you all this stuff. Tell me about him.”

“Dad didn’t teach me anything. I taught myself. Look, you’re obviously not interested. I’ll leave it up to you how you cope with them in the future.” And with that he picked up his folder and walked out.

A spider in the bathroom Saturday morning convinced me I needed to try again. Liam thought my phobia was a joke, couldn’t see that I was terrified, couldn’t see how deep seated this was. Monday morning, I caught up with David in the kitchen. “David, I’m sorry about last Thursday. Look, I really need help. Could I see you again at lunchtime?”

He looked at me before answering. “Opened that drawer yet?”

“Yes,” I lied.

“Okay, and you’re still here. If you open that drawer again where I can see you, we’ve got a deal.”

I got back to my desk. Tricia who I shared an office with had a meeting at 10. I would look then. David would be able to see from his desk in the main office outside, but I wouldn’t have any other witness to my fear

At 10.15, when I knew that David was looking and I knew Tricia wasn’t about to walk in for something she’d forgotten, I went and stood before the filing cabinet and took a deep breath. I opened the drawer quickly, looked down, there was the damned thing looking up at me, and then I slammed the drawer shut again.

Except it wasn’t, was it? It wasn’t looking up at me. Whereas all the other pictures David had shown me showed creatures both real and imaginary looking out at me, the picture of the spider showed a spider from the top. Not looking out. I went back to the drawer, pulled it open gently, and looked down on the spider. Not for too long though, before I shut the drawer with a shudder.

“I notice you opened the drawer twice,” said David. “Why was that?” I told him. He smiled. “That’s very perceptive. You’re right of course. Most photographs you see, though not all, are the spider from above. Today we’ll talk about how the spiders’ body is made up. Don’t worry, no photos this time, only my drawings.” He spent the rest of the time talking and drawing which he was very good at. I was so taken with his skill that I forgot it was bits of spiders he was drawing. Towards the end though, he pulled out that now all too familiar picture of the spider, and I backed away again. “You need to get used to the pictures, Miranda. Avoiding the issue doesn’t make it go away.”

“You avoid talking about your dad,” I said.

“What?”

“Your dad. You won’t talk about him. Are you afraid of him? If I understand your fear, perhaps I’ll be able to face my own. I’ll see you Thursday.” And with that I walked out.

For the rest of the day, and during Friday, I kept going to the drawer and opening it briefly. I was getting used to seeing Incy Wincy, but I wouldn’t let him see the light of day for long. Monday came round, and I checked him out at least three times that morning, making sure that David saw me each time. At lunchtime, I was ready.

“So, I’ve been trying to look at that picture, I really have. But you tell me about your dad. I’m interested and I promise it won’t go any further. Then you can show me some more pictures.”

He looked at me. “What’s to tell?” I said nothing. “Okay, my dad was a zoologist, always off on some trip or other. Not interested in anything with less than six legs, unless it was to his advantage of course. There was always the odd zoology groupie around these camps, hanging onto every word he said. My mum was one of them, though she gave up galivanting round the world after I came along. Oh he did the right thing, married her, sent her money for my upkeep when he remembered.  But he was hardly ever there. Always off to some other jungle, some other expedition.

“Don’t get me wrong, most of those guys on expeditions are great family men, they learn how to mix the work with a family life, but dad never did. He often missed Christmas, usually missed birthdays. I’m not sure if he knew when mine was.

“I got interested in spiders to try and make him proud of me, but it did no good. No matter how good I was, I wasn’t as good as him, even thought I knew more than he did at the same age.

“I was fourteen when mum got sick. It took her two years to die. He never once visited her in that time, never even came to the funeral. Luckily mum had made a will and I got everything, so at least I had somewhere to live when she died. He only ever came back to see if he could claim half the house to fund some expedition. If he had, I’d have been out on the street. Luckily mum had the foresight to have the house put in her name in the first place, so he got nothing.

“So, you can see why I don’t like talking about my dad. He’s not worth it.”

I paused taking all this in. I thought of my family, the love that I’d had from them over the years, and the help we always gave each other. “With all that, I’m surprised that you don’t hate spiders like I do, except for a different reason.”

“But the spiders aren’t at fault. And the thought that I might know more than him about something that he’s supposed to specialise in, well I know he’d hate that, which is why I carry on. I do it to spite him. But I’ve no ambition to be like him, which is why I have an ordinary job, an ordinary life.”

After that we did progress. That day he explained how the house spider like the one that I’d seen on that first day would go into sinks because they were thirsty, how to leave a towel over the edge to help them escape. Each session I’d learn about a different spider. By Christmas I could handle pictures of spiders. After Christmas, we’d go out for walks at lunchtime, and as spring progressed, he’d find spiders for me to look at. If they were small enough, I’d let him put them on my hand before screaming and dropping them and feeling ever so slightly proud. 

It was late May when I got my biggest test. There was another spider in the sink in the kitchen. I didn’t scream, but I did go to get David. He looked in and then looked at me. “Do you think you can manage this one Miranda?”

Breathing deeply, I put my hand in the sink. The spider backed away, but by now I knew that’s what it would do. I paused, and then quickly, so that I couldn’t change my mind, I scooped it up, dumped it out of the window, and stood shaking. A cheer went up behind me. Some of the others in the office had come to witness my triumph.

It’s autumn now. Lunchtimes when I’m not getting acquainted with more spiders, I’m on the internet, checking out what spiders they have on the other side of the world. I will soon be marrying Liam, and I’ll soon be going to Australia for my honeymoon. And if I ever meet a zoologist with a son called David, I’ll be sure to tell him what a wonderful man his son has turned out to be.