Guppies for Tea

by Marika Cobbold

  ‘Maybe someone is trying to escape,’ Amelia suggested.

  ‘Very droll,’ Sister Morris said. ‘If you’ll excuse me for just one moment.’ She started down the corridor.

  ‘You’ll have her back in a sec,’ Nurse Williams called as she followed behind.

  Amelia was staying at the Anchor. She was meeting Henry for dinner and the next morning she had an appointment to look over the dairy. She sighed. She didn’t want the dairy, she wanted her home. All those things she had wrongly thought of as hers, my home, my car, my Gerald, my stuff all!

  It was getting expensive too, this staying in hotels. She had taken on writing verses for a greetings cards company to eke out her income, but she took so long over each one that she never earned much. Every week it seemed she was writing out a cheque for forty pounds or more to the indifferent receptionist who was so at odds with the old world charm of the oak-panelled reception of the inn. The thought of the money had even kept her awake at night. Cheque after cheque floated past her inner eye. It was worse even than counting sheep, something she had always hated.

  ‘Count sheep, darling,’ Dagmar used to say when some particularly virulent childhood monster had kept sleep at bay. Obediently, because Amelia had been an obedient child, she had closed her eyes and soon become entangled in the problems of sheep. Sheep that crowded over the fence, shoving each other out of the way in their fight to reach the greener pasture at the other side. And always there had been the lamb. A little white lamb with a black patch who got left behind, bleating pathetically, leaving Amelia to try and retrieve its errant mother who had been amongst the first to jump the fence.

  Amelia was deep in her own thoughts when Sister Morris returned with a throwaway apology before picking up the conversation where they had dropped it.

  ‘… Gangrene,’ she said. ‘We fear the foot is gangrenous. So you see, moving her in that condition …’

  Amelia stared at her. ‘But that’s not possible. Gangrene I mean. It’s the sort of thing people got in Gone with the Wind, in that dreadful field hospital. You know the bit where Scarlett goes looking for Ashley?’

  Take a grip on yourself, she thought explaining, ‘What I mean is, I didn’t think it was something that was allowed to happen these days.’

  ‘It’s not a question of allowing it to happen Miss Lindsay, I assure you. I’m afraid that even with the best care in the world,’ Sister Morris emphasized best, ‘it does still occur, especially in our elderly. Her foot was quite bad already when she came here you know.’

  ‘But what are you doing about it?’

  ‘Everything that can be done, I assure you. But you can see that it’s quite out of the question moving your grandmother. Now you must excuse me.’ Sister Morris hurried off.

  Selma was sleeping in her wheelchair. Have wheelchair, won’t travel, Amelia thought sadly as she bent over and kissed Selma’s forehead. Selma’s skin felt clammy and it took longer than usual for her to wake. When she did open her eyes, she looked at Amelia as if she had seen her only moments earlier.

  ‘I’m sorry, darling, I must have dozed off. You should have woken me.’

  The curl had gradually gone from Selma’s hair and it was the flat grey of wire wool, an unfamiliar shade on Selma, but of course her natural one. She was wearing a haphazardly-patterned polyester dress that rode up over her knees, straining round the thighs. Amelia began to understand the sense of having no mirrors in the rooms in Honeysuckle, other than a tiny one above the basin. When Sister Morris had asked Amelia to buy some more easy-care dresses for Selma, Amelia wanted to know what was wrong with the clothes her grandmother had brought with her to Cherryfield. ‘My grandmother hates man-made fibres,’ she had explained, ‘and I do think it’s important to let her keep some dislikes.’

  Just listening to Sister Morris’s explanation of why precisely Selma should wear easy-care dresses seemed a betrayal though, an unacceptable intrusion into her privacy, so Amelia had nodded agreement halfway through and rushed down to the town to find what little there was to choose from in Wash’n Dry, size eighteen.

  As she wheeled Selma through into the conservatory, Selma said, ‘There’s a woman here who keeps a rabbit in a box. Very strange.’

  ‘A real rabbit?’ Amelia asked, feeling stupid.

  ‘Must be, she keeps taking it greens, or tries to.’

  Amelia parked the chair at the far end of the room. ‘I’ve brought you something.’ She bent down and picked a package from her bag. ‘A Disc-man.’

  ‘A what, dear?’

  ‘A Disc-man. It’s like a record player only better and you have little earphones so you won’t disturb anyone else. It will stop you hearing that blasted television too. I’ve got you some discs as well: Bach’s “Concerto for Two Violins”, Lars-Erik Larsson’s “Pastoral”, “Finlandia” and …’

  ‘There’s that Hudd woman, the one with the rabbit.’ Selma pointed to a tall woman entering the conservatory with the aid of two sticks. Her limbs were long and bony and her large face was crowned by a thick white plait wound round the top of her head. As she searched for a chair she liked the look of, she spotted Amelia and hastened across the tiled floor.

  ‘I wonder, would you mind getting some oats? Porridge oats will do.’ Her voice was deep and her eyes flickered nervously from Amelia to the door as she spoke. ‘Some carrots too.’ And, groping round the pocket of her long cardigan, she pulled out a pound coin.

  Poor old soul, Amelia thought but she took the coin and nodded, ‘Of course, no problem.’ She wondered if she should collude in the madness and ask after the rabbit’s health and happiness.

  ‘I’ve never had much truck with pets,’ the woman said. ‘Cats huh, vicious smelly things. But rabbits, they’re different. There’s no malice in a rabbit.’ She shuffled off.

  ‘Silly fool,’ Selma hissed.

  China that matched, Henry thought: cups, saucers, plates, all matching in some cheerful pattern and no chipped edges, was one of the things his children would grow up with. He fingered the ashtray as he waited for Amelia in the bar of the Anchor Inn.

  Would she be upset, he wondered, when he told her they were sailing soon? He took a deep gulp from his vodka and tonic. Lately he had felt something dangerously close to excitement at the thought of war; so he had prayed with more fervour than ever for peace and the other night he had stayed in the chapel until morning. He had thought of the people in the squadron, his people, and had wanted to beg their forgiveness. He kept asking God’s. It was the thought of being needed that caused that shameful excitement. In a war, people would be faced with the most basic reality; you stay alive or you don’t, and he would be able to help. All the years of work and preparation would be put to use as never before. He sighed, his thoughts were as ill-disciplined as a street full of urchins, racing through his mind unbidden and unwanted, upturning ideas and scattering the contents all over his mind. He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles, hard, relishing the pain as the bones pressed against the eyeballs; he could almost hear the veins popping.

  When he looked up again, he saw Amelia coming through the doors. As he stood up to greet her he wondered at how pale she still was after a whole hot summer. She needed him, she might not know it yet, but she did, he thought, as he watched her cross the floor. It was always a surprise to him to see how straight backed she walked; he suspected that mentally she wandered through life with an apologetic stoop. He smiled to himself; at heart he was just a frustrated big brother. There had been no little sisters or brothers at home, not even a dog or a cat, just two large, well-meaning, preoccupied men.

  Amelia looked hard at him before kissing him hello. ‘Your eyes look a bit red. Are you all right?’

  ‘Me?’ He smiled. ‘I’m absolutely fine.’ He went over to the bar to get her whisky and water, and when he got back he asked, ‘Have you looked at the dairy yet?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Amelia said, feeling her glance crawling around shiftily somewhere at floor level. ‘I’m not really
so sure now about this café idea, or rather I’m worried that Kingsmouth isn’t quite the place for it.’ She sipped her drink and felt irritated by her own habit of adding little unnecessary ‘actuallys’, ‘not sos’ and ‘quites’ to any unpopular statement she made, as if trying to dilute what she was saying to an acceptable blandness.

  ‘You’re not giving up already, are you?’ Henry looked expectantly at her. She wished she had the guts to look expectantly back instead of wittering on obligingly. It was the same at dinner parties, she thought. Ten people fell into simultaneous silence and Amelia felt wholly responsible for filling it.

  ‘Or maybe it will work,’ she added lamely. ‘Oh I don’t know.’

  Henry smiled at her. ‘What don’t you know?’

  Amelia laughed. ‘Where do I start? I don’t have any faith in my ability to carry anything through. You know when you’re little and say, “I want to play the guitar”, or “learn to ride”, or “build a matchstick model of the Eiffel Tower” and some grown-up comes along and says “That’s all fine and well, dear, but will you finish it?” Well I’m doing it all myself now. I’ve cut out the middleman. Each time I decide to do something, each time I get swept away with a new plan, I say, “That’s fine and dandy Amelia dear but will you ever carry it through?” Serves me right too; I’m a project nymphomaniac, always looking over the heaving shoulder of one idea at the newer and better one beckoning in the distance.’ She stopped. There he was again, fixing her with that keen round-eyed gaze as if what she said actually mattered. Disconcerted, she fiddled with the pearls round her neck. They had come out of a Christmas cracker and Gerald had said she couldn’t possibly wear them. Amelia thought they were very pretty.

  ‘I still think it’s quite an interesting idea,’ Henry said now. ‘Just make up your mind to do it. Lots of retired people round here, holiday-makers too. All you need is to stock the book section with Hardy, Dick Francis and Jackie Collins, and you’re away.’

  Amelia finished her whisky with a little grimace; she was training herself to drink the stuff because she thought the world was too full already of women ordering dry white wine.

  ‘The newsagent across from here sells books of course,’ she said, ‘but they hide them under such a mountain of speciality interest magazines and Ninja Turtle stationery that you’d need a sniffer dog to find them. I might stock the odd voucher or Talking Classic, but otherwise it’ll be strictly books. I’d be liberal in my selection though: Sex and Shopping, Sex and Suffering, Sex and your Intellect, No Sex but a lot of Intellect; it’ll all be there. I can see myself on top of some rickety old library steps reaching for a dusty volume on the top shelf, captivating my customers with my intellectual air and spectacular legs.’

  ‘What about the pastries?’

  ‘Oh don’t you worry, I’ll fit them in. That’s if I decide to go ahead of course.’ She sighed. ‘I don’t suppose I will.’

  ‘You sound as if you have no control in the matter.’ Henry looked annoyed.

  ‘Some of us are blessed with self-control,’ Amelia said primly, ‘and some of us are not. So don’t mock the unafflicted.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ Henry said. ‘Shall we eat?’

  Every time Amelia came into the hotel restaurant she was struck by the determined brownness of it: brown beams bore down from the ceiling, brown tables and chairs were placed at nudging distance around the brown wooden floor, even the curtains and the seat cushions had a brown pattern. She wondered who the little devil was who had slipped in red napkins.

  They sat down and were given the large menu covered in improbable suggestions: ‘Butter fried Dover Sole and Banana, Breast of Wild Duckling with Kiwi sauce, Filet Mignon with a garnish of lobster claws.’

  ‘It will have to be Dover sole and banana,’ Amelia smiled across the table at Henry. He was fiddling with his napkin, smoothing it down and folding it, smoothing it down again.

  She put her hand over his. ‘Having you as a friend through everything, potty grannies, errant lovers, it’s been marvellous. I’m just so sorry about your father. I don’t feel I was a great comfort there.’

  For once Henry didn’t seem to be listening. Taking a deep breath as if he was about to launch himself off a ten foot rock in to the sea, he said, ‘We sail Monday week. We’ll be away for about six months. Longer maybe if there’s a war.’ He looked guilty, as if he felt he had let her down.

  When Amelia didn’t answer he asked, ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Fine.’ She smiled. ‘I think I’m getting immune to men leaving, or at least I’ve come to expect it.’ And she realized that what she had begun to say for effect was actually true. Daniel, her father, Willoughby and Gerald; they had all left. Pulling a face, she said, ‘It’s as if it’s in the Trade Descriptions Act, Man: non-child-bearing member of the species, lots of body hair, one willie, leaves a lot.’

  There was a bit of indulgence, she thought, in Henry’s laugh as he reached across the table for her hand. Pulling it to his lips, he began kissing her fingertips each in turn.

  While she enjoyed the sensation of his warm dry lips against her skin, she tried hard to think of something to say, ready for the awkward silence she guessed would follow when he’d run out of fingers.

  ‘Every radio and television priest worth his collar is telling us to pray for peace. I’m all for it of course, but …’

  Henry stopped kissing and gave her her hand back. ‘But what?’

  ‘I don’t understand it. I never have. We’re told God is almighty. So we all ask the same questions: why does He allow children to be tortured and murdered? Why does He allow mass starvation, wars, the holocaust? And we’re all given the same answer give or take a hallelujah: God gave us free will. We’re not puppets. If we are not free to choose evil, we will never be able to understand the meaning of goodness. He suffers with us but He does not interfere. That’s fine we say nodding wisely. That is, until someone comes along and tells us to pray. Why, I ask myself, why pray in the face of this determined policy of non-interference?’

  ‘Oh that. Easy peasy Japanesey.’ Henry lifted his hands to make room for the plate of Stilton and apple soup.

  Amelia put her spoon into the rubbery flesh of her avocado Mary Rose. ‘I’m waiting. And “God knows” won’t do as an answer either.’

  All of a sudden Henry looked serious. ‘I can’t give you an all-enveloping, iron-cast, bulletproof answer, but then you knew that. But first of all, you have to look at prayer not as a shopping list: long life, happiness, a plague on Aunt Caroline, etc but a way of keeping in touch, of keeping the lines of communication open. Both ways too.’ He tasted the soup and quickly drank some wine.

  ‘The Bible describes prayer as something like a torchbeam through the darkness.’ He sat quiet for a moment. ‘This might seem like a cop out,’ he said at last, ‘but I was given a book once by a master when I was at prep school. It said that we shouldn’t always want a reason for everything. Why should we expect to understand everything about God? In the last resort to be a Christian you must be a bit like a trapeze artist, prepared to take a leap across the gulf between what you know and what you believe, reject the safety net of certain knowledge and just go for it. Once you’ve done that you hang on to those beliefs and, as time goes by, little by little God’s purpose will be revealed to you.’ He looked up at her and smiled, touching her forehead with his fingertip and drawing it down the bridge of her nose to her lips. ‘I’ve taken that leap,’ he said.

  Later, when they had finished their dinner and were walking along the quayside with a tepid breeze coming off the water, Amelia asked, ‘If there is a war, will you be frightened?’

  He thought for a moment. ‘Probably.’ He slipped his arm round her shoulders and said, with all his usual energy, ‘Fear can be a very useful emotion.’

  Amelia stopped abruptly. ‘You wouldn’t say that if you knew my mother. Fear has ruined her life. It hasn’t exactly added reams of jollity to mine either.’

  Henry pulle
d her along. A seagull squawked over head, circled and glided off over the water. ‘Fear has to be husbanded, harnessed, then it becomes useful. Your mother, from what you’ve told me, fights ghosts, spending her fear wildly in every direction, achieving nothing.’

  Amelia shrugged off his arm. ‘You make it sound as if she had a choice in the matter. As if she blighted her life through sheer carelessness.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Henry said quietly. He stopped her and pulled her close. Framing her face with his hands he bent down and kissed her.

  In the circle of light thrown by the street lamp, Amelia was smiling.

  ‘What are you grinning about?’ Henry dropped his hands.

  ‘You don’t want to know,’ Amelia said matter of factly.

  ‘Yes I do.’

  She sighed and put her hands on his shoulders. ‘I smiled because I enjoyed your kiss. You’re the nicest man I think I’ve ever known. And …’ She looked down at the tip of her blue shoes.

  ‘And …?’

  ‘And I enjoy feeling a strong man weaken in my arms, and that feeling is enhanced when the man is a priest,’ she said quickly. ‘There, I told you you wouldn’t like it.’ She turned pink. It had been a mistake being honest. It nearly always was.

  Henry looked at her unsmiling. ‘Us chaplains do a good line in bondage too if you think it would give you a kick.’

  ‘See, now you’re offended.’

  ‘No I’m not.’ They had walked round the block and were back at the hotel entrance. ‘How long will you be down here?’

  ‘I go back to my mother’s tomorrow. I’ll stay for a couple of weeks and then …’ She shrugged her shoulders as if life really was too much of an effort.

  Henry took the telephone number of the flat and, after a moment’s hesitation, kissed her again before walking her inside.

  I’m like the Princess of Wales, he thought as he drove back to Devonport, making himself smile at the unlikely comparison. I would marry knowing that whatever the rest of the world gets up to, I could never get a divorce.