Eating Things on Sticks

by Anne Fine

  ‘That’s better,’ Uncle Tristram said. ‘Shall we start getting ready to get off?’

  ‘Disembark,’ I corrected.

  But he’d already gone.

  We were the only passengers to leave the boat at this particular island. ‘Glerhus dill sotblug,’ the ferryman warned once more as he let down the ramp so we could drive away.

  ‘Quite so,’ responded Uncle Tristram enthusiastically. ‘Quite so. Quite so.’

  MORNING GLORY

  An hour later, we were still sitting in the car.

  ‘It would be better not to have a map at all,’ said Uncle Tristram, ‘rather than one like this, that simply throws out the odd cruel hint as to where we might be.’ He ripped it into pieces. ‘I shall ask the very next person we come across.’

  It was quite late by then, so there was no one. There were no houses, either. If there was a village anywhere, it was successfully hidden. We saw sheep, but they’re not helpful when it comes to finding out where you are.

  Finally, some ancient codger on a bike came round the corner. He had a beard like a used scouring pad. I was expecting him and Uncle Tristram to end up in yet another of the conversations like the ones on the ferry – all, ‘Ooh, yar. Darp plummet gep!’ and ‘Quite so. Indeed!’ But though the ancient codger was hard of hearing, he clearly wasn’t quite as steeped in darkest dialect as those on the boat. So when Uncle Tristram gave up on showing him the hastily pushed together pieces of map and simply shouted, ‘Morning Glory!’ at him, the baffled look turned into a seraphic beam. Ushering us a few yards round the corner, the ancient codger pointed.

  There, in the shadow of the hill we’d seen from the ferry, stood what looked like a large and ugly cardboard box with ill-fitting windows.

  ‘Marvellous!’ said Uncle Tristram.

  The codger stood there waiting for some sort of tip. But Uncle Tristram was already hurrying back towards the car. As he came past, he slowed so I could scramble in before he took off with a squeal of wheels.

  IN THE PRESENCE OF THE APPLE

  We knocked on the door. After a moment it opened, and there stood Morning Glory, dressed in some sort of silver tube that barely covered her bottom. Her legs were stuck in furry yeti boots. She wore a lot of bangles on one wrist, and flowers in her hair.

  ‘Tristram!’ she cried, and threw her arms around him.

  ‘Hi, Morning Glory!’ he said enthusiastically, and patted her silver bottom. ‘How far’s the pub? Poor Harry and I are starving.’

  ‘I’ll fix you something,’ she offered. ‘Just let me finish my session first.’

  ‘Session?’

  ‘I’m putting myself in harmony with the universe,’ explained Morning Glory.

  Uncle Tristram asked guardedly, ‘Does it take long?’

  ‘No, no. You go and unpack.’

  ‘I think we’ll just sit here and wait,’ said Uncle Tristram. (I think he hoped that we would put her off whatever she was doing enough to hurry things along.) Morning Glory sank cross-legged to the floor and sat there for a minute or two.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked her.

  ‘Ssh!’ she said. ‘Try not to disturb me. I am sitting quietly in the presence of the apple.’

  ‘What apple?’

  She pointed. Over in the corner of the room, there was an apple on the floor.

  ‘I’ll bring it closer, shall I?’ I offered politely.

  ‘No, thanks,’ she said. ‘It’s fine just where it is because, right now, I am just being mindful of the apple.’

  ‘So you don’t actually want it?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not until it’s time to look at it. I’ll need it then. And after that, when I’ll be listening to it.’

  ‘Apples don’t make a lot of noise,’ said Uncle Tristram, ‘unless someone’s munching them, of course.’

  ‘That isn’t what I do,’ said Morning Glory rather scornfully.

  We sat and waited for what seemed a good few weeks while Morning Glory listened to the apple. Sometimes I looked around the room at all the lumpy brown furniture and a particularly ghastly corner in which there was a sizeable collection of owl and pig knick-knacks. The rest of the time I kept my eyes on Uncle Tristram, half expecting him to start making faces behind Morning Glory’s back. But he sat tight. Clearly he’d had to sit through times when she did weird things like put herself in harmony with the universe before.

  Finally, Morning Glory got to her feet and walked across to pick up the apple. She held it to her nose.

  ‘What are you doing now?’ I asked.

  ‘Right now, I’m smelling the apple,’ she explained. ‘And after that I put it to my lips.’

  ‘And will you eat it?’

  ‘This is a Being-in-Harmony-with-the-Universe session,’ Morning Glory said disdainfully. ‘It’s not a feast.’

  She finished shortly after that, and unfolded upwards just the way our ironing board used to unfold before I burned it to a crisp. ‘OK, I’m ready to go.’

  Uncle Tristram jumped to his feet. ‘Better make tracks. What time do they close?’

  ‘Nine thirty,’ Morning Glory said.

  Uncle Tristram looked horrified. ‘Nine thirty?’

  ‘They’re not a real pub,’ Morning Glory said reprovingly. ‘More a small family place where you can get light suppers.’

  ‘But it’s already ten! You should have said. If you had told us when we first arrived, we could have eaten by now.’

  ‘The thing is,’ Morning Glory said, ‘that it’s important, when you’re in the presence of the apple, to let go of trivia like time.’

  ‘What are we going to eat, though? I’m starving. And Harry here threw up his last meal. He’ll be hungry, too.’

  ‘I’ve got some nettle pudding,’ Morning Glory said.

  ‘What about the apple?’ suggested Uncle Tristram.

  Morning Glory looked shocked. ‘We can't eat that! Not after I've been at peace in its presence!’

  So we had nettle pudding. I can’t say it was very nice, or that I’d ever want to eat it again. But it did settle my stomach. By then I was so tired that I went off to bed. Later, I woke to hear Uncle Tristram tiptoeing past my door and muttering to himself. It wasn’t very clear to me what he was saying. But I did think that I distinctly heard the words ‘could eat a weasel’ and ‘kill for some chips’.

  Sunday

  NOTHING TILL SATURDAY

  Next morning, when Uncle Tristram came downstairs yawning his head off, I asked him, ‘Why were you wandering about in the night?’

  ‘Impossible to sleep,’ he said. ‘I can’t describe the length and misery of the hours. I had a terrible time.’

  ‘The nettle pudding, was it?’

  ‘No. The mice.’

  ‘You never had mice for afters!’

  He stared at me. ‘Of course I didn’t have mice for afters. They simply swarmed about my bedroom.’

  ‘Mice don’t swarm.’

  ‘These did. They swarmed all night. I had to wrap myself in some old Chinese dressing gown of Morning Glory’s, and huddle on the top of the chest of drawers.’

  I looked around. The cold, bleak house. Uppity mice. Lumpy brown furniture. Pig and owl knick-knacks. ‘Why did she choose this place to come on holiday?’

  ‘We are the ones on holiday,’ said Uncle Tristram. ‘Morning Glory lives here.’

  I was quite shocked. ‘This is her home?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But it is awful!’ I burst out. ‘There’s nothing here. She hasn’t got a telly or a DVD player. She hasn’t even got a radio or a computer.’

  ‘I suppose she likes the simple life.’

  The door swung open. ‘Hello!’ said Morning Glory. She wore a sort of floaty kaftan thing and a frilly mob cap. Clasping her hands together, she made a sort of bow to each of us in turn. ‘May the bright spirits of the day in me salute the bright spirits in you.’

  ‘I don’t think Uncle Tristram has bright spirits in him this morning,�
� I explained. ‘He was attacked by mice.’

  ‘Herded into a corner,’ Uncle Tristram confirmed. ‘Terrorized all night.’

  ‘Silly!’ chortled Morning Glory. ‘If we are friends to them then mice are friends to us.’

  I thought, since he’d been kind enough to bring me with him, I should stick up for my uncle. ‘My mother says that mice are vermin, and she puts out traps.’

  Morning Glory gave me a pitying look. ‘No wonder you were so desperate to escape up here with Tristram!’

  I didn’t dare say I was already desperate to escape back again. Instead, I asked her dolefully, ‘Will we be having breakfast?’

  ‘Before our walk?’

  ‘Yes,’ Uncle Tristram said firmly. ‘Before our walk. Let’s go to the small family place. They will have bacon and eggs and stuff like that.’ He turned to Morning Glory to wheedle some more. ‘Then we won’t have to use up any more of your delicious sorrel tea and precious dandelions on toast.’

  She shook her head. ‘You go. I have a few things to do here.’

  ‘Righty-ho!’ I could tell Uncle Tristram was relieved. I think he wanted to sneak out and buy some normal, everyday provisions before Morning Glory started frightening both of us by braising a squirrel or marinating road kill.

  So off we went. As soon as we were in the car, he turned to me. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I fear this trip was something of a mistake.’

  ‘Mistake?’

  ‘Well, yes. The problem is, I suppose, that you don’t really know someone very well at all until you see them on their own home ground.’

  Curious, I asked him, ‘Did she seem normal at your house?’

  ‘I suppose she did,’ he said. ‘But perhaps that was because there were no apples to be mindful of, and we were busy doing other things.’ To cover his blushes, he let out the clutch and put his foot down. As we sped away, he told me, ‘OK, here’s my suggestion. We have breakfast, find out what time the ferry leaves, buy enough proper food to last us through the rest of the day, make our excuses to Morning Glory, and then we leave.’

  ‘Top plan!’

  We drove about. The little family restaurant had a sign on it: Closed Until Further Notice. There didn’t seem to be a Waitrose. Or a Sainsbury’s. No Morrisons. No Asda. Somertons was closed because it was Sunday morning.

  In the end all we could find was the tiniest shop on the planet. It had four shelves and only one small fridge compartment which was barely as wide as the one that got melted at our house.

  Uncle Tristram picked up one of the three battered wire baskets on the floor by the door and asked the bearded man behind the counter, ‘When does the ferry leave?’

  I think he must have been some sort of foreigner because we understood what he said.

  ‘Saturday.’

  The blood drained out of Uncle Tristram’s face. ‘Saturday? Nothing till then?’

  ‘They would have told you when you bought your ticket,’ said the man defensively.

  ‘Ah,’ Uncle Tristram said reflectively. ‘That would be “Glerhus dill sotblug.”’ He counted up the days to Saturday, and started filling the basket. There wasn’t much of a selection, and most of that was pork pies. We bought most of them. I watched as Uncle Tristram stood gnawing his nails a little anxiously at the checkout. His card went through though, and we got away.

  ‘Right!’ he said. ‘Pork pies for breakfast. Then I’m ready to face anything. Even a walk.’

  A TELEVISION, A DVD PLAYER, A COMPUTER AND A RADIO

  ‘First,’ Morning Glory said, ‘we have to tell our feet how much we appreciate them.’

  ‘Why?’

  She stared at me as if I were unhinged. ‘Because your feet do lots of work for you. You have to thank your feet.’

  ‘I’ve never thanked my feet before.’

  Morning Glory ignored me. She sat on the floor and bent her body over to stroke her toes and heels while we pretended to copy her. ‘Dear feet,’ she said, while we did a bit of Amen-style mumbling along with her. ‘We know how very committed you are to your daily task. We do appreciate that very much. We care about you. All today, we will be thinking of you.’

  She wasn’t wrong in that! All day I thought how sore my feet felt. She led us miles. Sometimes she stooped to gather scraggy green weeds and mucky-looking roots. Behind her back, Tristram kept winking at me as if to say, ‘Well, you and I will not be eating that!’ But I was not so sure because I’d come to think that Morning Glory was more than a match for both of us, and we were her guests, after all.

  When we got home, we all sat on the sofa in a row. I thought I’d just check one more time. ‘So you really don’t have a telly?’

  She shook her head. ‘Not many people on the island bother. Since the last aerial blew down it’s been such a pathetic signal that you can’t even make out people’s faces. Everyone looks exactly the same. They’re all just grey and fuzzy blobs.’

  ‘Well, what about getting a DVD player?’ She looked a little blank. I thought I would step back in time a little. ‘Well, don’t you even have a radio?’

  ‘No, Harry. I don’t have a radio.’

  ‘Or a computer?’

  ‘No. No computer either.’

  ‘Well, what do you do all day,’ I wailed, ‘except for picking weeds and thanking bits of yourself, and being in harmony with the universe?’

  Morning Glory turned to me and smiled as if I were some toddler who was getting overtired. ‘Tristram,’ she said to my uncle sweetly, ‘would you mind fixing supper? Take Harry with you. I know he’s missing his television and a few other things, and I’ve a plan to make him feel a little more at home here.’

  ‘No problem,’ Uncle Tristram said. I think, like me, he thought that she was off next door – wherever next door was – to try to borrow a few electronic basics. He set to with a will to make the sprout salsa while I got on with rinsing the weird lumpy roots and the watercress. On the sly, while Morning Glory was gone, we both ate four pork pies. I must admit I thought it was a little odd that neither of us heard the front door opening or closing after she left us or just before she returned. But that was all explained when Morning Glory finally came back into the kitchen and took my hand to lead me into the living room.

  ‘There!’ she said proudly, pointing to the wall.

  I stared. On it, in thick black charcoal, she had drawn a television, a DVD player, a computer and a radio.

  I didn’t really know what to say, so I kept quiet.

  ‘Well?’ she said, twinkling away as if she’d given me the keys to my very own palace.

  I pulled myself together and tried to be polite. ‘They’re wonderful.’

  ‘They are good, aren’t they?’

  ‘But they’re not real.’

  ‘Well, no,’ she said. ‘But does that matter? You’re only here a week. It’s such a lovely island it would be a waste of time to watch films, or play silly games on the computer. So these are simply to make you feel a little more at home.’

  I wondered suddenly if it was possible to swim to the mainland.

  ‘Well, thank you,’ I said. ‘No one has ever given me anything like this in my whole life.’

  She looked amazed and delighted. ‘Really?’

  ‘Really,’ I said with perfect confidence.

  She was thrilled, I could tell. ‘There!’ she said, ushering me back to the kitchen. ‘Now you’ll have something special to write in your daily diary!’ She noticed my baffled face. ‘Oh, it’s all right,’ she assured me. ‘I don’t read minds. It was Tristram who assured me that you won’t mind being left alone for hours if we’re busy doing other things because you spend a lot of time keeping your daily diary.’

  ‘He said that, did he?’

  I turned to glower at Uncle Tristram, who was taking very good care to keep his head down over his chopped sprouts.

  Monday

  THE WALK TO LOOK FOR ANGELS

  Next morning for breakfast Uncle Tristram and I had more pork pies.
Morning Glory had barley and mushrooms.

  ‘Let’s go and look for angels,’ she suggested.

  I gave Uncle Tristram a glance that said: ‘She is completely insane. You got us into this. You get us out of it.’

  He totally ignored it. ‘Yes,’ he said weakly to Morning Glory. ‘Let’s go and look for angels.’

  I glowered at him. I knew that he was only saying it to try to wheedle his way into her good books. ‘Are you quite mad?’ I hissed. ‘You know as well as I do that there are no such things as angels. And even if there were, you would not find them just because you go to look for them. Even the people who believe in them know they live in a different—’

  I couldn’t think of the word.

  ‘Universe?’ Uncle Tristram suggested.

  ‘Realm,’ Morning Glory said. But I could tell that she had overheard and I had hurt her feelings. She went all quiet and started gathering up the pork pie wrappers and her bowl.

  I tried to repair the damage. ‘Well, I suppose there’s no harm in just going to look . . .’

  Her eyes went bright again. ‘So you will come?’

  ‘Not half!’ I said enthusiastically. ‘All my life I’ve longed to see an angel.’

  ‘I have my own,’ she told us.

  Even Uncle Tristram looked startled at this claim. ‘Really? Your very own angel?’

  ‘Yes. She’s called Dido and she hangs about at the top of the hill behind this house.’

  ‘Hangs about?’

  ‘In the air,’ explained Morning Glory.

  ‘Can anyone else see Dido?’ Uncle Tristram asked cunningly.

  ‘Only real true believers,’ Morning Glory admitted.

  ‘Oh, well,’ said Uncle Tristram. ‘Still worth the trip, I expect. Though it’s a very steep hill.’

  ‘Very,’ I echoed.

  It was, too. It took at least an hour to reach the top. Uncle Tristram and Morning Glory spent a lot of the time kissing and giggling on the narrow path. She’d come out wearing some sort of leopardskin tablecloth that trailed on the ground, but he had sent her back to change into the silver tube that barely covered her bottom. (‘It’ll get tangled in the undergrowth a whole lot less.’) He made me walk in front, so I climbed very fast to spite them both.