Guppies for Tea

by Marika Cobbold

  Selma said nothing but watched Amelia intently, her hand trembling in her lap.

  Amelia felt angry again, she couldn’t help it. What right did Selma have to look so enticingly herself? On Amelia’s own instruction the visiting hairdresser had carefully blue-toned Selma’s hair, and set it in loose waves. Her nails had been cut and she was wearing the nicer of the two polyester dresses. She was a Huldra, the Swedish fairy-tale creature who, in the guise of a lovely young girl, would appear in the woods before a lost traveller, beckoning him to follow, leading him further and further from the track, deep into the forest where the massed crowns of the pine trees obliterated the sky. Then, only then would she turn her back on him and in that moment the traveller knew he was doomed, knew that it was the Huldra, because where her back should be, there was just a hollow.

  The Huldra at Cherryfield looked so much like Amelia’s wise and loving grandmother that Amelia was beckoned further into her confidence. ‘He gave me his mother’s locket to keep for him, it’s all very confusing. And so soon after Gerald too.’ She looked up at Selma who was looking intently at her. ‘You know, Grandma, I can’t just keep dropping in and out of relationships. I’m beginning to feel like a baton in a relay race, always the baton but never the runner. Then again, I was beginning to get very fond of Henry, and now there might be a war and I might never see him again.’ She sighed. ‘He would insist on me being honest too and you know how wretched that can make one feel.’

  Selma blinked as if she’d just woken up. ‘Oh darling, let’s not talk about the war, you know how I hate it. All these films and television programmes, making it out to be exciting and romantic when it was all so horrible.’

  Be gone with you Huldra, Amelia thought resignedly.

  Selma made an effort; ‘And how are you anyway darling? Been to any nice parties lately?’ as if she was racking her brains for suitable topics of conversation with a dull guest.

  Amelia sighed, then she covered up quickly with a smile. ‘I’m fine, absolutely fine.’ Physical contact, she thought, that’s the thing, that’s the way of getting through. She looked surreptitiously at Selma’s hands, the one that trembled and the one that was still, like a visitor picking a child from the line of abandoned urchins in an orphanage. If she picked the pathetic one, the most helpless, she would show up all the clearer the weakness of the whole and embarrass Selma. She took the good hand.

  Selma’s eyelids kept drooping, she seemed content. It occurred to Amelia that at Cherryfield the only touching you got, the only time you felt someone’s arms around you or their skin against yours, was in the course of maintenance; when hands lifted you on to the loo or from your bed, washed you, wiped you. But no-one touched you just because they wanted to.

  A while later, Nurse Williams popped her head through the door, and when she saw Selma and Amelia she smiled and called, ‘Ah, there you are Mrs Merryman, I was looking for you.’ She sounded as if she thought Selma had been playing hide-and-seek and she stepped briskly towards them with an empty wheelchair. ‘It’s time for your bandages to be seen to.’

  Selma shrank back in her chair. ‘I can’t come with you now, I’m afraid. I’ve got my granddaughter here.’ She relaxed a little. ‘I don’t believe you’ve met.’

  ‘Of course we’ve met, dear, haven’t we Miss Lindsay.’ Nurse Williams winked at Amelia. ‘We won’t take a moment, Mrs Merryman, I’m sure your granddaughter will wait.’ She began to haul Selma up from the chair.

  Suddenly Amelia felt Selma’s nails digging into her arm. ‘You must take me away from here. I want to go home,’ and she began to cry.

  With an expertly executed pull and twist, Nurse Williams plonked her in the wheelchair. ‘There we are,’ she sing-songed. ‘Nothing to it, is there Mrs Merryman?’

  Amelia thought the nurses must develop the same selective deafness as mothers of young children. ‘Just wait a moment could you Nurse Williams?’ she said. ‘My grandmother seems distressed.’

  The nurse leant closer to Amelia. ‘I know dear, it’s upsetting, but she’ll soon forget all about it and be back bright as a button and as sweet smelling.’ And as Amelia gaped at her she released the brake of the wheelchair with a little kick of her sturdy white lace-ups.

  Amelia put her hand on Selma’s shoulder.

  ‘She’s fine, you know,’ Nurse Williams said, and her large brown eyes had a hurt look in them. They were the same eyes, Amelia thought, as those of Mrs King, the kindly neighbour Dagmar sometimes left her with as a child. Amelia hated going to Mrs King, having taken an instant, virulent and completely unfounded dislike to her, and each time as Dagmar prepared to leave, she’d begin to howl. That same confused hurt look would fill poor Mrs King’s eyes as she tried to defend herself against the accusations of ill-treatment that were never made. And Dagmar had been embarrassed in the same way as Amelia was now; right in the middle of feeling sorry for Selma she felt embarrassed at the tactlessness of her tears.

  Amelia patted Selma’s shoulder awkwardly and said to Nurse Williams, ‘I know you all look after her, it’s not that.’ She patted Selma some more. ‘It’s all right,’ she mumbled, ‘it’s all right.’

  Selma lifted her head. ‘It’s not bloody well all right!’ Then she began to cry again. ‘I don’t understand anything any more. Robert said it would only be for a short while, but no-one takes any notice of what I say, no-one seems to listen when they see it’s me talking.’ She pulled a soiled pink tissue from the sleeve of her cardigan and wiped her nose.

  It was the small, slightly upturned nose of a pretty young girl, Amelia thought sadly: noses just didn’t age. She knelt down and put her arms round her grandmother. ‘I’m listening,’ she said, then she looked up at Nurse Williams. ‘I’ll bring her to you in a moment, if I may?’

  Nurse Williams still looked hurt, but she did leave them.

  ‘I’m frightened, Amelia.’ Selma hung her head like a small child. When she looked up again she was pleading. ‘I’m frightened I’m going to die in this place.’

  It was the first time Selma had mentioned death. Some old people never stopped talking about it, their own and others’, in a busy possessive way as if dying was an exclusive hobby. Selma, though, had avoided the subject as if it was a bad smell. ‘Ignore it dear, and it’ll soon go away.’

  Her uneven nails dug deep into the fleshy part of Amelia’s arm, her eyes were locked on Amelia’s face, anxiously following every flicker of her eyes, every twitch; as if the conclusion of her life is written in my features, Amelia thought, looking helplessly back at her. And what was she to say? ‘Nonsense, you’re not going to die. You’ve got years left in you.’ Was that what she was meant to say? She had planned and schemed for weeks, enjoyed what was nothing but a state of madness or an over active day-dream. And now Selma, who not so long ago had been the serene and loving centre of her life, was begging like no-one should have to beg, for her help.

  Amelia closed her eyes for a moment then she leant across and took both Selma’s hands in hers. ‘You’ll be home for Christmas, I promise you that.’

  Selma sighed a deep shuddering sigh as she relaxed back in her chair. ‘Thank you, darling.’ She added almost nonchalantly, ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

  Amelia felt as if she had just risked life and limb rescuing someone from an approaching steamroller only to find out when it rolled past that it was a Potemkin cut-out. Her heart still thumping, she wheeled Selma out to Nurse Williams who was waiting in the corridor outside Honeysuckle. Selma greeted the nurse with a gracious little smile and went off as if she hadn’t a care in the world.

  She’s put them all on me, Amelia thought as she wandered out into the garden. At Cherryfield you grabbed your fresh air when you could. There was a moment, as she stepped out on to the lawn, when she expected to see Henry standing under the cherry tree in one of his awful shirts. With his head a little to one side, he’d look at her with those keen brown eyes, so different from Selma’s, where age, confusion, sad
ness, had each, drop by drop, diluted the colour. As for Nurse Williams, Amelia thought, kicking a stone across the lawn and indulging her desire to be ten again, she had the large mournful eyes of a cow who had just been shooed off her favourite patch of grass.

  ‘There’s just no right way with old people,’ Amelia wanted to complain, basking in Henry’s warm interest. She sat down under the tree and thought how right she was. You put them in a Cherryfield and you break their hearts. You take them to live with you and they break your spirit and make you fellow prisoners in their decline. ‘No thank you Rosalind I can’t go to London with you, Granny doesn’t fit in the train,’ and, ‘Dear Editor, I hope you like my article on Japanese businessmen in Milton Keynes. I had to guess what Milton Keynes is like because there’s only me at home with granny.’

  How long would Selma have lasted. Amelia wondered, if they had all left her at home at Ashcombe, if they had never interfered?

  She sat under the tree trying to think of all the reasons why she should not fulfil her promise to Selma and she remembered Henry saying once that doing nothing could be a grave sin too. The worst maybe, she thought, because you’re so seldom brought to justice. She looked at her watch and got up, feeling her skirt all damp at the back. I’m one of life’s hand-wringers she thought. You can see people like me at every bad happening through history, be it big or small. ‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ is our motto, as we stand at the foot of the cradle, squashed between the bad and the good fairy, peering down anxiously, ‘Oh dear, oh dear.’

  ‘Your gran is having a little snooze,’ Nurse Williams told Amelia who came looking for her in the hall. ‘It always takes a lot out of her I’m afraid, seeing those legs when the bandages are changed.’ Then with surprising speed she dived after Miss Hudd who was arranging herself in the chairlift, and wrenched a small paper parcel from her fingers.

  ‘Boiled carrots from the kitchen,’ she mouthed at Amelia.

  ‘You’ll rot, you murderer,’ Miss Hudd said calmly and clearly before propelling herself around and starting to walk back to the lounge. She looked straight past Amelia as she met her in the doorway and settled herself in a chair a little removed from the others.

  Amelia waited a moment, then she walked up to her and asked, ‘The carrots, were they for the rabbit?’

  Miss Hudd turned slowly to face Amelia with an expression of such raw pain that Amelia flinched as if slapped by Miss Hudd’s large, blue veined hand.

  ‘I’m so very sorry about forgetting the food the other day. Would you please let me run down and get some now?’ I’m taking the easy way out, she thought, joining in her disillusions: buy a smile now, pay later.

  ‘It’s too late.’ Miss Hudd wasn’t looking at her any more and she spoke more to herself than to Amelia. ‘The carrots wouldn’t have been any use either, but I felt I owed it to him to try.’

  Amelia was wondering what to say when Miss Hudd looked directly at her. ‘Come and see for yourself, it doesn’t matter now.’ She heaved herself up from the chair.

  Upstairs in her room Miss Hudd walked over to the chest of drawers on the bare wall opposite the narrow bed. Letting go of one stick, supporting herself on the other, she pulled out the top drawer. She looked up at Amelia. ‘Here,’ was all she said.

  Thinking hard of fluffy toys, Amelia took a step closer and looked down. On a piece of thick green velvet lay what seemed at first to be an untidy mesh of pale grey wool. Then she saw the silky ear and the small front paws. ‘Oh my God!’ Amelia slapped her hand across her mouth and took a step back.

  Miss Hudd dropped the second stick and, leaning her side against the wall, put her large hands into the drawer. Gently she lifted the little creature out and, shifting so that her back was supported by the wall, she stood, holding the rabbit tight against her flat chest. Amelia turned away for a moment, the expression in Miss Hudd’s eyes was hard to bear. Then, coming up closer, she whispered, ‘Is he dead?’

  Miss Hudd bent her neck and kissed the rabbit’s head. For a moment his sparse lashes fluttered as he struggled to open his eyes. Then he lay still.

  ‘I didn’t really mind coming here,’ Miss Hudd said, in an even voice. ‘I know I was becoming a nuisance; always scalding myself, falling over. I had agreed to go when my nephew told me pets weren’t allowed.’ She buried her nose in the tousled fur, and when she looked up again there were tears in her eyes. ‘I couldn’t go without him, you understand that, don’t you?’ She looked as if she was going to sink to the floor.

  Amelia reached out and steadied her, guiding her across to the chair. Still clutching the rabbit to her chest, Miss Hudd collapsed on to it. She sat, silently stroking the rabbit, her big hand covering the animal like a heavy blanket. Then suddenly she cried out.

  ‘Look how big I am! Look at me. “Let Hudd do it,” the teacher at school said, “she’s a big strong girl.” And my mother, “Trust Elizabeth, Elizabeth will cope, she’s so sensible, so capable,” she said. Look at me!’ Miss Hudd cried again, stretching her long arms out, showing the emaciated rabbit laying motionless on her large palms. ‘I’m no use,’ she whispered, ‘no use at all.’ She began to cry, tears falling down her cheeks, dropping one by one on to the rabbit’s face.

  Amelia knelt by the chair and put her hand gently on Miss Hudd’s shoulder. ‘I’m so sorry I didn’t believe you. I’m so very sorry. Let me take him to the vet, please.’

  Miss Hudd shook her large head violently like a distraught child and her plaits uncoiled and dropped down her back. ‘It’s too late. He’s gone.’ She rubbed her wet cheeks against him, kissing him over and over, then with a shudder she held him out to Amelia. ‘You take him. Bury him for me, would you? Please. Under the cherry tree.’

  ‘I’d like you to use my car while I’m away,’ Henry had said as he sailed that morning. ‘It will actually be a help for me. I would have to sell it otherwise or pay for garaging.’ So Amelia placed the dead rabbit on the floor of Henry’s car and, as Selma was still sleeping, drove off to pass the time until dark fell. She took tea down by the harbour and had another look round the dairy. Then she drove back to Cherryfield and sat at Selma’s side until the cherry tree at the centre of the lawn grew fainter and disappeared in the darkening evening.

  She had taken the gardener’s shovel from the shed before it was locked up and now she brought it from its hiding place under the rhododendrons. She carried the rabbit from the car wrapped in a white Cherryfield towel, and she could feel its bones under the cloth, as fragile as a feather pen. Glancing up at the dull, starless sky she pushed the shovel into the hard soil and, as the crust broke, the sickly-sweet smell of mud and rotting leaves rose from the ground.

  She placed the rabbit in the shallow hole she’d dug, still in his towelling shroud. The small theft gave her some pleasure. The wind rustled the branches of the tree and fresh leaves floated to the ground, some settling on the small white bundle in its shallow grave. Amelia had a sudden image of Sister Morris, black-cloaked and wild, toiling away over a much bigger grave. She shook herself. Sister Morris was nothing if not orderly. Every body that passed through Cherryfield was sure to be properly accounted for.

  ‘Everyone but you,’ she whispered to the rabbit. She covered him with black soil, shovelful after shovelful, until it was impossible to see that someone was buried under the cherry tree.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  ‘Doreen? Amelia Lindsay Here. Yes, we’re all well thank you.’ Amelia held the receiver a little away from her ear as Doreen Hamilton seemed not to trust the telephone to carry her voice all the way to Exeter. ‘I’m calling on behalf of my uncle,’ she lied. ‘He’s living out in Brazil at the moment but he’s asked me to make sure that everything is satisfactory.’

  She fiddled with her key-ring, gazing out through the open window at the street. The dry autumn leaves rattled along the pavement like a plague of brightly coloured cockroaches, while Doreen, her voice stiff with complaints, told her about cracks, damp patches, loose tiles and funny smel
ls in the cellar.

  ‘Well that’s excellent then,’ Amelia said breezily, ‘I can tell him everything is fine.’ Ignoring any complaints with cheerful resolution was a trick she’d learnt from the builders that had worked on the Old Rectory.

  ‘Oh, by the way,’ she said quickly, as Doreen, sounding confused, was preparing to hang up, ‘I hear you’re spending Christmas in the sun this year. Over the actual holiday is it?’ She tucked the question in with her goodbyes. ‘Until the sixth, lovely.’ She put the phone down and went to find her diary.

  The red ribbon marker running along the inside spine of the blue leather diary (she always bought the best in diaries ever since reading Mrs Miniver when she was fourteen) was placed to make it fall open on the twenty-third of December. The red-ringed date made her jump as if it had announced itself in a ringing baritone; only two months away. Time, these days, was money in more than the obvious sense, she thought, as she sat down on her bed with the open diary in her lap. Ever larger amounts of it disappeared faster and faster. Two hot summer weeks when you were seventeen were time to be reckoned with; you got a lot for fourteen days when you were very young. Now, it was nothing but small change, and she squandered it, as if she still had riches of years ahead of her, when instead she should be making the minutes go a long way, like a pensioner counting coins at a check-out counter.

  She sighed and got up, putting the diary on her desk with the letters from Henry. For him, time seemed suspended as he sailed in the ship, closer and closer maybe to war. There was already a small pile of his letters to her. Funny, clever, sometimes beautiful letters, each written with that last weekend like an unanswered question between them.

  Later that day, Amelia stood by the window in Selma’s room looking out at the gentle dying of the leaves that were at their loveliest just before dropping to the ground. Then she looked at Selma.