Guppies for Tea

by Marika Cobbold

  While Amelia wandered around the estate agents by the harbour being shown details of houses with shopfronts, houses with sub-Post Offices and houses with permission to erect twenty-five dog kennels, Henry was told of his father’s death.

  A woman police constable came to Cherryfield to inform Sister Morris of the accident. ‘I was told I might find the son, the Reverend Mallett, here,’ she said.

  Out in the garden the mist had cleared, giving way to evening sunlight. ‘Did he die instantly?’ Henry asked, bending double as if he was going to be sick.

  Everyone asked that, the policewoman thought. ‘Not instantly, no,’ she said softly, adding quickly what she knew he wanted to hear, ‘but he didn’t suffer. He died in the ambulance, put up a real fight they told me, but he didn’t suffer. He’s in the hospital now if you’d like to see him.’

  ‘I don’t think he fought to stay alive. I think he fought to die,’ Henry said, his fingers raking through his hair.

  The policewoman thought it a funny thing for a Reverend to say. From the shadow of the cherry tree Sister Morris cleared her throat.

  ‘Now why should you think that, Mr Mallett? Your father was quite happy here you know.’

  ‘I’m sure he was,’ the policewoman mumbled soothingly as she prepared to leave. She thought the Reverend Mallett had an almost wild look in his eyes as he got up to follow her. ‘I’m sure he didn’t suffer,’ she said again, trying to comfort.

  It was the unexpectedness of his death that made Amelia burst into tears when Sister Morris told her of the Admiral’s accident. She had returned from town with a bundle of prospectuses to show Henry, finding Selma still asleep and the Residents’ Lounge a nest of lustily growing rumours. The Admiral had had a stroke. He’d been run down by a lorry. He’d collided with a tractor.

  But Miss White felt sure she had the real answer to what had happened. ‘It’s the KGB.’ She shook her head. ‘That Blake has a lot to answer for.’

  Then Sister Morris came in and explained to everyone what had happened.

  Miss White nodded wisely. ‘That’s right dear. It’s always known as a car crash when the KGB have done their dirty work.’ She added thoughtfully, ‘One would have thought they’d have come up with something new by now.’

  ‘The Russians are our friends now, Miss White,’ the old man in the next door armchair corrected her mildly.

  ‘They might be your friends Mr Ambrose,’ Miss White snapped, ‘but they’re certainly not mine.’

  Amelia fled.

  She called the naval barracks at Devonport from the hotel, asking to speak to Henry. While she waited, she practised little suitable phrases of commiseration and comfort. I’m thinking of you at this difficult time: too formal. It was all for the best: too cold hearted. Anything, anything at all I can do: so bland. Then before she had a chance to stop it, the worst thought of all broke loose from its harness of decency and bolted through her mind: You’re free. Henry you’re free. She shuddered and blushed, changing the receiver from her left to her right ear. Finally the exchange came back, informing her that Henry was nowhere to be found.

  She called Dagmar, but something in her mother’s voice, a kind of honeyed impatience, took Amelia back instantly to her childhood when it was never quite the right moment or there wasn’t enough time. Her desire to tell was replaced by a sullen desire to withhold, and, in the end, all she said was, ‘We’re back.’

  ‘Alan and I are planning to come over tomorrow,’ Dagmar said. ‘I’ll bring the puppy. Did I tell you I’ve bought a puppy. Alan adores dogs.’

  Amelia went for a walk after dinner. Away from the harbour, the narrow streets were empty. There was a full moon in the dark-blue sky and the evening breeze was Mediterranean in its warmth. A little out of breath she stopped at the top of the hill and looked towards Ashcombe. A light came on in the sitting room, then the curtains were drawn.

  In Selma’s childhood home, at the Jewish New Year, glasses would be raised in the toast of the Diaspora: Next Year in Jerusalem! Ashcombe had become Selma’s Jerusalem now. It had held everything she wanted in life: husband, children, calm, flower-filled rooms and a sitting room with a grand piano and windows looking out at the sea.

  At Cherryfield there was Sister Morris and Miss White, nourishing pilchards for tea, music from the television and a vista of ornamental cherries. Selma never did like ornamental cherries. ‘Next Year in Jerusalem,’ Amelia sing-songed to herself before turning around and walking back to the hotel. And how on earth am I meant to achieve that?

  It was two in the morning when Amelia was woken by a knock on her hotel-room door. At first the noise seemed part of her dream where she pushed Selma in a supermarket trolley round a small town full of glass-fronted houses. But Selma kept shaking her head and saying, ‘No darling, that’s not Jerusalem either.’ Amelia knocked on yet another door, louder and louder, and then she woke up. She rolled over in bed and, half asleep still, put her feet on the floor. She padded across to the door and asked, without opening, ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Night porter, Miss Lindsay. Sorry to disturb you at such an hour but I’ve got a priest for you downstairs. He won’t go away. Says his name’s Mallett.’

  Amelia opened the door. ‘Send him up, would you please?’

  The night porter had obviously been in as deep a sleep as Amelia. His sparse sandy hair rose in a coxcomb and his eyes were bloodshot. Now he opened them wide, taking in Amelia’s short nightshirt and the amount of naked leg appearing below it. ‘Up here Miss?’

  ‘He is a priest. A priest in need of comfort.’

  ‘I thought they were the ones meant to give comfort,’ the porter muttered.

  ‘Well this one operates both ways.’ Impatiently, Amelia took a step past him out on to the landing.

  ‘I’ll get him,’ the porter said quickly, obviously deciding his boss would prefer sin to be contained within four walls rather than wandering the hotel at will.

  Amelia stayed in the open doorway listening. She heard mumbled voices, then heavy steps hurrying up the wooden stairs.

  ‘Amelia, I’m sorry about this.’ Henry almost fell into her arms and she backed inside the room, still holding him. He was crying, she could feel it. She moved her hand up carefully, stroking his hair, patting him, mumbling small phrases of comfort. She felt him shivering and, just as she was beginning to think her back would break, he released her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again, throwing himself down on the pink boudoir chair by the window.

  ‘I’m glad you came. I’ve tried to reach you all evening.’

  ‘I know. Thank you.’ He wasn’t looking at her. ‘He’s better off where he is now. Grief is just selfish.’ He sobbed and tried to pass it off as a cough.

  Amelia knelt by the chair and took his hands. ‘And none the worse for that,’ she whispered. ‘You’re a chaplain, not a saint. You loved him.’

  Henry looked up at her with a small smile. ‘It was always just him and I, and Winter of course. My mother died when I was one. I don’t remember her at all.’

  ‘I don’t remember much about my father, other than that he had bright blue eyes and no interest in his daughter. “Irish eyes,” my mother has a tendency to mutter and that’s all the answer I get.’ Amelia fell silent, trying to weigh up how much idle chit-chat was appropriate.

  Henry seemed calmer now as he sat gazing intently at her. Squeezed into the small, pink-upholstered chair, he reminded her of Willoughby’s boxer who all his life had nurtured a hopeless ambition to fit on to the plate-size silk cushion belonging to Selma’s Siamese. ‘Who is Winter?’ she asked gently.

  ‘Winter.’ Again that quick smile. ‘He was my father’s PO steward. When he retired from the Navy he stayed on working for us. He helped bring me up until I went away to school. Then he went off to run a pub in Modbury. We kept in touch until he died five years ago. I loved him.’

  Amelia sighed. ‘There are times,’ she said, ‘when there seems to be more death than life in life,
if you see what I mean.’

  Henry laughed miserably. ‘At least Winter died a happy man. His doctor told him he’d have to cut out beer or at least switch to the low alcohol stuff. He died of a ruptured bladder while trying to get the old kick from Kaliber.’ Henry laughed again, unsuitably and loudly and for so long that Amelia got worried. Then he sobbed, a snorting embarrassed kind of sob.

  ‘I just miss my father so much already. You see I never mourned my mother; I was too young. Of course I missed the idea of a mother, all that soft indulgence …’ He looked wide eyed at Amelia. ‘What other children had and took for granted. But losing my father; it’s a bit as if all your life you’ve been in this warm, cosy room and suddenly the walls collapse around you and you’re standing there exposed to the world.’

  He gripped Amelia’s hand. ‘I just hope he wasn’t scared. He was one of the bravest men I knew and the thought of him being scared and alone …’

  He just wants his father back, Amelia thought. How can you ever hope to help a person who is grieving when the one person really able to comfort them is the one they’ve lost? A phrase appeared in her head, one she’d heard Selma use. ‘Say not in grief that he is no more, but in thankfulness that he was,’ she mumbled more to herself than to Henry.

  Henry smiled at her and she sat back, leaning her shoulder against his knees. ‘Tell me about your father.’ She had always found it strange how there seemed to exist a conspiracy of silence around someone grieving, as if his friends were attempting, out of sheer embarrassment, to kill even the memory of the dead.

  They talked about the Admiral for a long time and then Amelia stood up and put her hand out to Henry. ‘Shall we go to bed?’ The moment she spoke she regretted it. Tasteless, that’s what it was. She felt her face go hot as Henry sat back and looked at her. Like a guilty child she said quickly, ‘I didn’t really mean it.’

  ‘I wish you had,’ he smiled and pulled her down on his knee. ‘Although I would have had to say no, I’m not a chaplain just for the pretty uniform.’ He kissed her hand lightly. ‘It was a very nice thought. Thank you.’

  It was five o’clock when he left. Amelia stood at the window watching him walk off towards the car park as the sun rose over the sea beyond.

  Chapter Sixteen

  ‘Mrs Merryman has had a good night,’ Nurse Williams said as she opened the door for Amelia later that morning. ‘She insisted on waiting for you in the Lounge. We really felt it would be better for her to rest in her room, but she can be quite determined when she wants to, your gran.’

  ‘I know,’ Amelia said. ‘It’s excellent that she knows what she wants, isn’t it?’

  Sister Morris busied past them with an anxious looking middle-aged couple in tow. ‘And this is our Residents’ Lounge.’ There was a pause. ‘Normally, of course, we have a waiting list but what with the cold spell in March and Number Two suddenly becoming available …’ They disappeared upstairs.

  Before Amelia had got out of the hall the bell rang and Dagmar stood in the doorway together with a tall man who was holding the lead to a struggling black puppy that looked like a labrador.

  ‘Darling.’ Dagmar’s lips brushed against Amelia’s cheek, Dagmar’s smile radiated across the hall. ‘And this is Alan.’ Her eyes darted between Amelia and Alan, the words rushed from her lips. Alan took a step inside and almost fell over as the puppy entwined its lead round his legs.

  ‘Admiral Mallett died yesterday,’ Amelia whispered as they approached the Lounge. ‘I expect Grandma will be pretty upset.’

  ‘There’ll be wailing and gnashing of dentures,’ Dagmar said and laughed out loud. She stopped suddenly. ‘Oh I’m sorry, darling, he was a dear old boy. It’s just that it’s all so awful.’ Her voice rose shrilly and Amelia stiffened and glanced at Alan. She couldn’t bear her mother making a fool of herself.

  ‘He looked so fit, I always thought,’ Dagmar said in a normal voice now. ‘How old was he?’

  When you’re old and you die, no-one thinks to ask how it happened, Amelia thought. It’s just assumed that you expired by the rules, quietly, without fuss.

  ‘He was a bit of a devil in the car. He crashed,’ she said, hoping she’d done right by the Admiral.

  ‘He was a dear friend of yours?’ Alan stood back to let her go through the door first. He had a nice voice; quiet with a soft New England accent.

  ‘I was fond of him, and I’ve got to know his son quite well,’ Amelia said, raising her arm to wave at Selma who was slumped in a chair by the television. The seat by the fish-tank was empty. A sad son and an empty space by a fish-tank, were those all the traces left from the Admiral’s moment on earth? Amelia wondered, shuddering.

  Selma stared blankly at them as they approached. Her tightly bandaged legs rested on a small stool and she was dressed in a shapeless, yellow dress that accentuated the greyness of her skin. When Dagmar bent down and kissed her she smiled suddenly. ‘Hello, darling.’ She snatched at Dagmar’s hand. ‘You know for a moment there I didn’t recognize you. Have you changed your hair?’

  Dagmar had worn her hair in the same glossy bob for twenty years. ‘No, Mummy.’ Dagmar winked at Alan as she straightened up. ‘Mummy this is Professor Blake, he insisted on meeting you,’ she announced, smiling proudly.

  Amelia thought she might as well have thrown her arms out wide, announcing, ‘And now for my next trick and without a safety-net, I will introduce my mother.’

  Alan extended his free hand to Selma, who received it suspiciously. ‘A great pleasure to meet you, ma’am.’ Selma looked stonily at him; she had never been keen on conspicuously good manners.

  The puppy had been licking his scrotum absorbedly, but now he lifted his face, alert, ears pricked. He got up and took a little leap at Dagmar before settling down to licking her legs in their shiny tights, with the same rapt attention.

  Alan offered a chair to Dagmar who refused, saying she needed to stretch her legs after the journey.

  With a ‘May I?’ to Selma, Alan sat down himself. ‘Cute little fellow isn’t he?’ He pointed at the puppy. ‘You know I never would have guessed the country-woman in your daughter. Of course, I’ve always loved animals, nature, feeling the dirt under my fingers, that kind of thing. Now Dagmar here comes and tells me that’s the life for her as well.’ He brought a pipe from his pocket and crossed one long leg over the other. ‘Of course that comes as no surprise to her mother.’

  Selma opened her mouth to speak.

  ‘That’s enough now.’ Dagmar, speaking between clenched teeth, was doing a little dance to avoid the long pink tongue of the puppy.

  ‘Simon, you little rascal … That’s enough. Simon! Do you hear me? That’s enough I said.’ Dagmar’s eyes darted across to Alan to make sure he wasn’t looking, then she gave the puppy a shove with the point of her shoe. ‘Get him off me, will you, Amelia?’ she hissed. ‘Did you see where he had his tongue just now? All over his you know what.’

  Amelia squatted down on the carpet and put her hands out. Simon, stubby tail wagging, threw himself towards her to investigate.

  ‘Why don’t you sit down, dear?’ Alan asked again.

  Dagmar smiled nervously at him and rushed a tissue from her pocket, dropping it across the seat of the chair before sitting down.

  Leaning down towards Amelia she hissed, ‘Puppies are worminfested. It doesn’t matter what you do about it.’ Then she forgot to whisper. ‘How am I supposed to enjoy the rest of the day with these filthy tights on?’

  Alan turned around and looked at her, one bushy eyebrow raised.

  ‘There are no worms on your legs,’ Amelia said. She hadn’t meant to sound so sharp.

  ‘Shuss.’ Dagmar glanced nervously at Alan who was once more in conversation with Selma. ‘Anyway,’ she whispered, ‘it’s the eggs that are dangerous. They get stuck everywhere. You can’t see them, and even the strongest disinfectant can’t get rid of them.’ It almost sounded, Amelia thought, as if she was making a commercial on behalf of the wretched
worms.

  She whispered back to Dagmar, ‘I don’t know how to break it to Grandma about Admiral Mallett. It doesn’t seem as if she’s been told.’

  ‘Oh, don’t you think so?’ Dagmar stretched her right leg out in front of her, twisting it to check the back of the glossy tights. ‘Did you know a child could go blind if he ingested those eggs?’

  ‘I hardly think some little cherub will dive out of the wood-work and begin to lick your legs. Not here. Not at Cherryfield.’ Incensed by Dagmar’s inability to think of anyone but herself even for a minute, Amelia ignored Dagmar’s hurt look and moved her chair closer to Selma’s.

  Alan was saying how he too loved Jane Austen, and when there was a pause, a long one waiting for Selma to fill it with a reply, Amelia broke in.

  ‘Any news? All well around here?’ She made her voice light but she looked intently at her grandmother. She was aware that Miss White, sitting by herself a few yards away, was listening, an expectant smile on her lips, head cocked as if waiting for an opportunity to pounce on the conversation. Now she seized her chance with the ease of a trained hijacker.

  ‘I hear you’re one of our American cousins.’ She leant so far towards Alan that Amelia feared she might topple from her chair any moment. Alan turned with a polite smile. Selma looked furious and did not introduce them.

  ‘You will agree with me that it would almost certainly be the KGB?’

  ‘Pardon me, ma’am.’ Alan looking confused, turned in vain to Dagmar for help, but she was staring out across the room with the faraway look that intrigued strangers but Amelia knew meant she was wondering how to remove her tights without seeming odd.

  ‘Admiral Mallett.’ Miss White sounded impatient.

  Amelia sat up in her chair, ready with a comforting hand for Selma.

  ‘They’re burying him tomorrow I’m told. Bury ’em quickly if you want to stop tongues wagging, they say.’

  Well they failed miserably with you, you old crow. Amelia glared at Miss White. She turned to Selma with soothing words ready to fire and found that her grandmother’s expression of sullen confusion had not changed by a flicker. She still hasn’t taken it in, Amelia thought, taking Selma’s hand. As she prepared her speech she could feel the hand trembling in hers like a frightened heart.