Guppies for Tea

by Marika Cobbold

Not so many weeks ago, on a day like this one, he would have been gardening, she thought. His square hands, like a mole’s paws, digging away at weeds, planting out seedlings for a summer he would not see.

  ‘Amelia,’ Selma’s hand gripped her shoulder, the long nails digging in hard. ‘How did Grandpa die? I know you must think I’ve gone completely mad, but it’s all so confused.’ Selma’s eyes pleaded with her to understand.

  Amelia thought of Willoughby lying in the narrow hospital bed, as breath by laboured breath he approached death. She thought of Selma visiting and of her calm as she sat stroking his hand, talking all the while. At times something close to irritation had crept into her voice; for so long he had been the strong one, the trellis round which she had entwined the branches of her contented existence. ‘So what are you doing,’ she seemed to ask, ‘lying here broken?’

  ‘He had a stroke, he died in hospital a week later.’ Amelia’s voice was gentle but, as she looked at her grandmother’s pinched face and anxious eyes, she felt as if she was shooting her in the heart with arrows dipped in cotton wool. ‘He went into a coma and he just never came round. It was pneumonia that actually killed him.’ ‘The old man’s friend,’ the young doctor had called it.

  ‘He was never uncomfortable, one of us was always there.’ Amelia took Selma’s hand, forcing the constant shaking to cease for the moment.

  ‘Thank you darling,’ Selma sighed. ‘I miss him so much, you know. It’s worst at night. I dream about him all the time, and when I wake up I believe he’s still there. Then I remember.’ She stared out over the garden, in silence. Amelia sat feeling useless, aware that the one thing her grandmother wanted, her husband, she could not give her.

  Selma’s eyelids fluttered and closed, her chin falling against her chest, then she snorted loudly and, with a little shiver, opened her eyes again. She stared at Amelia for a second – she’s wondering who the hell I am, Amelia thought – before saying, ‘I know it’s very kind of these people to have me to stay, but I’d much rather be home. I’m sure once I’m back with my own things I’ll be as right as rain.’

  Amelia smiled weakly, thinking that it might be worth the air fare to Brazil just to go and throw something hard at Robert. Selma fell asleep again, her grey-toned cheek resting against the back of the wheelchair.

  ‘My father’s asleep too, in there.’ Amelia turned round to find Henry looking down at them, smiling.

  ‘It strikes me,’ Amelia said fiercely, ‘that there will have to be an awful lot of good things in one’s life before it compensates for this.’ And she gesticulated at Selma who gave a loud snore before closing her mouth and making little chewing movements with her lips. ‘I wonder if being born is at all a good idea if, at the end, there’s got to be Cherryfield.’

  ‘Luckily one’s not asked,’ Henry said briskly.

  ‘The worst time of all,’ said Amelia, not listening, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand and getting it streaked with mascara, ‘is when there’s no-one left who loves you best. Selma has been lucky; at the peak of her existence, she was loved by her parents, husband, children, she was the centre of their world. But look at her now, what is left of all that love, where is the security? At the end of the day, you’re just an old teddy that everyone’s grown out of.’

  ‘There’s always God, He never stops loving you.’ Henry said, somewhat startlingly.

  ‘Ah, you’re born again.’ Amelia nodded.

  ‘Certainly not,’ Henry said. ‘I’m a naval chaplain.’ And he sat down on the grass by the bench.

  ‘Goodness,’ Amelia said looking at him properly now, ‘how comforting for you.’

  ‘Actually, it’s meant to be sort of comforting for others.’ He smiled mildly at her.

  Well, comfort Selma then, Amelia thought, irritated by the smile. But she said, ‘Is your father happy here?’

  Henry lay back resting on his elbows, staring up at the sky. ‘Not happy exactly, but he’s used to community life, institutions if you like; Dartmouth, ships, naval bases. It’s not really Cherryfield he minds, it’s being old.’

  ‘My grandmother is very unhappy.’ Amelia looked at Selma whose mouth had fallen open again as she snored gently. ‘She thinks she’s going back home. Would you believe,’ she turned to Henry, willing her outrage on him, ‘my uncle didn’t tell her the house had been sold. And now he’s buggered off to Brazil, leaving me to tell her.’ Then she blushed, remembering the invisible dog collar that should shield Henry Mallett from that sort of language. ‘Sorry,’ she said.

  ‘That’s all right, I have been down the odd sailor’s mess deck you know.’

  ‘I think this is a dreadful place,’ Amelia sighed. ‘Everything about it upsets me. It’s unfair I know, they seem to try their best. Couldn’t you just see the headlines? I’m a journalist by the way; I even think in bold, “Ill-treatment at Retirement Home: Nurse wipes old woman’s bottom.” Not much of a story in that!’

  A snore turned into a hiccup and Selma awoke. Her eyes flickered between Amelia and Henry, uncertain and unfocused, then her gaze fixed on Amelia. ‘Darling, how lovely to see you. When did you arrive? And who’s your young man? You must introduce us.’ Selma stretched out a chubby arm and smiled coquettishly.

  Henry stood up and took her hand. ‘I’m Henry Mallett. I think you know my father already – Admiral Mallett.’

  Amelia smiled at him gratefully. She did not go to church much herself, but had inherited from Selma a respect for men of religion, were they chaplains or rabbis: an expectation of goodness. She approved of Henry.

  ‘Grandma,’ she said, ‘Henry’s a naval chaplain.’

  ‘Now isn’t that interesting.’ Selma beamed at them both. ‘And tell me, how did you come to meet my granddaughter?’

  Chapter Four

  ‘That’s what’s so disconcerting.’ Amelia stirred the earthenware pan filled with vegetable soup. ‘One moment she’s the old Selma; with it, sensible, the sort of person you feel you can go to with your problems. Next thing you know, whoosh, she’s gone, replaced by this large, malfunctioning child.’ She looked across the kitchen at Gerald. ‘It’s really very upsetting.’

  ‘Well there you are, it was obviously right to put her in a home,’ Gerald said, picking up the Independent and turning to the sports pages.

  Amelia slammed the spoon down by the side of the cooker making Gerald wince. ‘It wasn’t all that long ago that she enthralled people with her piano recitals. You know, back in Sweden a young man actually shot himself underneath her balcony because her parents wouldn’t let her marry him. And now, now she’s someone who’s “put” places. What the hell help is it knowing that “it was obviously right”?’

  ‘A lot I should think,’ Gerald said sourly.

  How her vagueness irritated him, he thought, her habit of making illogical remarks in that rather slow, deliberate voice of hers, a voice that, just like her grandmother’s playing, had once enthralled. Even her prettiness annoyed him these days. Her grey, slanted eyes, the soft wavy hair that framed the oval face, all reminded him of how much in love he had been with her once.

  Oh Amelia, he thought, looking at her moving about the kitchen, wiping down the cooker, using three matches to light the candle on the kitchen table, you’re altogether too languid, too useless. Suddenly angry he snapped, ‘Why don’t you do something about the situation if you think it’s so terrible.’ And he slammed down the paper and strode from the room.

  Amelia cried as she kept the soup warm on the stove, stirring it slowly. She cried bitterly, because now she really feared that Gerald had stopped loving her, but she also cried carefully, so as not to smudge her make-up, because he was not lost to her yet, and he could come back in to the kitchen any moment.

  ‘There’s a sweetness about you,’ Gerald had said soon after their first meeting, and he had shaken his head with a bemused air as if to say, I might seem strong, but against you I’m helpless. He was so good natured too, like over that silly business with the
modelling. He had been as hard-working and serious a painter as he was a solicitor now. Yet he had shown no irritation when, after having promised to sit for an important canvas, she had turned up in his studio only to end up wasting his day. She hadn’t intended to, of course. She had watched him set up his easel, she had undressed and sat down where he wanted her to, and then she had panicked like a fool when he asked her to part her legs for the pose. But Gerald had been only kind and understanding. She had sat crying in his huge blue armchair, her knees pressed together as if they had been welded that way, and he, kneeling by her side, had just smiled and said, ‘You’re a sweet, fragile, dreamy girl, and I should never have asked you to do this.’

  ‘Sweet, dreamy, fragile,’ Amelia hissed, splashing the wooden spoon round the soup. ‘Try wet, gullible and inconsistent.’

  The soup had simmered so long she knew there would be no flavour left. She took it off the stove and went to look for Gerald. She found him in the bedroom, speaking on the phone. As he looked up to see her in the doorway, he said a loud and hurried goodbye and hung up.

  Amelia took a deep breath and walked over to the bed. She sat down next to him and, giving him a little smile, she put her hand out, running her fingers through his hair. Ignoring his irritated flinching, she kissed him lightly on the cheek. ‘Gerald, I love you.’

  Gerald looked at a point somewhere over her left shoulder. ‘And I love you too,’ he mumbled.

  Grateful, she hugged him and, after a few moments, she felt his arms around her back.

  In a small but beautifully furnished flat not far from the cathedral in Exeter, Dagmar Lindsay shone a torch into the back of her wardrobe, making sure it really was clean, that it was just a shadow she’d seen earlier, not dirt. Again she rubbed her finger against the back wall of the cupboard, checking. Her long-fingered hands – pianist hands Selma always said delightedly – were raw, the skin chapped and rough, not fitting the creamy complexion of her face and the soft skin on her slim arms.

  ‘I just haven’t got the time to go off to Kingsmouth,’ she muttered to herself, as she removed hanger after hanger from the rail, wiping them with a J-cloth drenched in Dettol. ‘I can’t see why Robert should get away scot-free, I really can’t.’ She went over to the basin and rinsed the cloth carefully, turning it under the hot tap, then she washed her hands. She pushed a strand of pale, blond hair from her forehead and, taking a deep breath, smoothed down her cornflower-blue, silk skirt before returning smiling to the sitting room where her guests were having coffee. ‘So sorry,’ Dagmar said, ‘I had to call to see how mother was.’

  ‘Miss Lindsay, Miss Amelia Lindsay? I hope we didn’t wake you up.’ The voice on the phone was nasal and apologetic. ‘I told your grandmother it was much too late to call anyone up, but she would not listen I’m afraid. Miss Lindsay, are you there?’

  ‘Yes. No you didn’t wake me up, it’s quite all right. Are you calling from Cherryfield?’

  ‘I’m sorry, didn’t I say. It’s Nurse Kelly, I’m on duty tonight. Your grandmother has quite a temper when she wants.’ The voice laughed uncertainly. ‘Here’s your gran now.’

  ‘Amelia darling.’ Selma’s voice sounded faint, there was a crashing noise, nothing, then, ‘Oh bugger!’

  ‘Miss Lindsay, Mrs Merryman dropped the phone but here she is again now.’

  ‘Amelia,’ Selma’s voice was small and frightened. ‘I wanted to make sure I had your number.’ There was a pause and Amelia could hear Selma breathing heavily into the phone. ‘It’s 0962 3628 … Bother, I can’t read the last number. Is it nine … Or one?’

  ‘But Grandma, you’ve just called the right number, you’re talking to me now.’

  ‘Yes of course, silly of me. What did you say the number was? 0962 …’

  Gerald, however irritated he got with Amelia, found it impossible not to continue giving her advice, attempting to sort her life out for her. The next evening he looked up from his brief and explained that it was a form of arrogance believing that no-one but she could look after Selma. ‘You just can’t go running off to Devon every other week. You have your own life to lead, responsibilities here, a home to run. Then there’s the question of the cost of all these trips, hotel rooms …’ He turned a page in the brief. ‘You’re not your grandmother’s keeper you know.’

  Still Amelia couldn’t stop thinking of Selma alone and confused at Cherryfield. Friends with new babies had said that suddenly the world seemed populated almost exclusively by infants in prams. A member of the family, not recently arrived in the world, but on the way out, tottering into certified old age, had the same effect, Amelia felt. Old people, harassed by a blinking green man turning all too fast into angry red, crossed in front of her car at pedestrian crossings. They were found in their own cars at every roundabout, sitting paralysed by the stream of traffic pouring from every direction. There they were again, fumbling for the right change in the check-out queue at the supermarket, apologizing for their outmoded habit of carrying real money.

  Two weeks after her first visit to Cherryfield, Amelia was again boarding the train to Plymouth. She wondered, as she looked for a seat, what had made Gerald suddenly quite happy with her decision to go. Could it just be that she had sold another couple of articles and was able to pay for the weekend herself?

  An old man settled like a large shabby bird on the seat opposite, his dark brown mac flapping round his scrawny limbs. ‘All right, all right, I don’t need any more reminders, I’m going down, aren’t I?’ Amelia muttered in an inaudible voice.

  When the train passed a large and heavily populated graveyard the old man and Amelia both stared out at it.

  The stones, mostly marble, rose from the ground, new and shining like giant teeth, or old crumbling white, streaked by years of rain like powdered cheeks by tears. Amelia looked over her book at the old man and wondered if he felt the pull of the graves, or if death, even at his age, was something that only happened to others?

  ‘Nice day,’ smiled the old man, showing a perfect set of white dentures.

  ‘Lovely day,’ said the nurse who opened the door for Amelia at Cherryfield.

  Selma sat in a chair in front of the television, her face half turned from the programme on learning difficulties in adult life. On her lap lay her copy of the Omnibus Jane Austen. Amelia had to go right up and put her hand on Selma’s arm before she looked up, a frown on her face. Resting the back of her head against the chair she gazed at Amelia, then, with a sudden delighted smile, she put out her hand. ‘Darling, what a lovely surprise.’

  ‘I phoned and told them I was coming, they should have told you.’

  ‘The maid’s been in and out of my room all morning, but she never said a word.’ Selma frowned, ‘I do wish I’d known, I haven’t been to the shops at all this week.’

  ‘We’ll go out for lunch,’ Amelia said quickly. ‘Is your toe better? Are you able to walk a little?’

  ‘It is a bit sore, but of course I can walk on it. Just give me a hand up darling.’

  Amelia braced herself and began to pull. For a moment Selma stood tottering on both feet, her dress riding up at the back showing the edge of her flesh-coloured knickers, then with a shriek of pain, she toppled back into the chair.

  ‘Why don’t I get the wheelchair, just for today, give the foot a bit of a rest?’

  ‘This is quite ridiculous,’ Selma muttered. ‘There’s absolutely nothing wrong with my foot, a small cut that’s all.’

  As Amelia came through the door a few minutes later, pushing the wheelchair, she heard Selma’s laugh, soft and flirtatious like a girl’s. At her side, chatting, stood the Admiral and his son. Henry, looking relaxed, was leaning lightly against the half-empty bookcase behind him, his father, on the other hand, attempting the same easy pose, looked strained; his elbow resting on top of the bookcase the only thing preventing him from collapsing.

  ‘I’m going to sit down, won’t you join me?’ Amelia hurried forward. The Admiral shot her a grateful glance an
d said he’d love to.

  ‘I get very tired standing,’ she added, wondering if she might be overdoing it.

  ‘Amelia darling, you didn’t tell me your young man was here.’ Selma smiled graciously at Henry.

  ‘Grandma, that’s Henry Mallett, Admiral Mallett’s son.’

  ‘What a coincidence!’ Selma looked gratified. ‘I believe the Admiral is staying here too.’

  ‘Well, seeing we’re all here,’ Henry said, ‘why don’t we have lunch together?’

  Amelia didn’t notice the make of Henry’s car, but it was burgundy coloured and they all fitted inside quite comfortably. Selma, fresh lipstick and scent applied, was hauled from the wheelchair into the front seat of the car and Amelia sat in the back with the Admiral.

  Henry suggested they went to a hotel he knew on the edge of Dartmoor. They drove for half an hour, through nearby Totnes and out again on to narrow winding lanes flanked by tall hedgerows. Selma wound the window down and sighed happily as the air blew through her washed-out curls. The Admiral looked out at the passing landscape.

  ‘You almost forget there are such creatures as children.’ He smiled at three small girls on bikes.

  As they parked in front of the hotel, there was a slight fracas when Selma could not release the seat belt. ‘The stupid thing,’ she fumed pink faced. ‘It’s completely stuck. No,’ she said to Henry as he leant across to try, ‘it doesn’t matter what you … Oh, thank you.’ And she was helped out and back into the collapsible wheelchair. ‘I can’t wait to be back on my feet again,’ she said over her shoulder to the Admiral, as Henry wheeled her towards the hotel entrance.

  At the table in the restaurant, the Admiral was in expansive mood. ‘I’ll do the wine shall I, dear boy?’ he said as he peered short-sightedly at the wine list.

  They had Stilton soup to start with, and a glass of dry sherry. This was followed by lamb chops and new potatoes and what the Admiral called ‘a robust claret’. Selma and he then ordered trifle. ‘None of this nouvelle stuff,’ the Admiral sniffed, ‘a fellow could starve to death.’ He hailed the waiter, ‘Be liberal with the cream.’ And he winked at Selma who giggled happily.