The White Guinea Pig

by Ursula Dubosarksy

  Of course there was no girl at school. Geraldine had written a notice on the blackboard in yellow chalk on the section where they were allowed to write their own things (usually quotes of false wisdom found in desk diaries, such as ‘Nothing is impossible’, or ‘Good things come to those who wait’). ‘Two guinea-pigs need a home urgently. See Geraldine.’ she wrote. It was a bloodless plea and no one responded. Perhaps she should have described them as ‘sweet, fluffy, adorable’, or added ‘Get them before the butcher does.’ (She’d read in Ezra’s book how guinea-pigs are a delicacy in South America.) But somehow she wanted someone to take them regardless of their charms, just to take them because they were fellow creatures in need. But the twelve-year-olds in her class did not seem overly concerned with their fellow creatures in need.

  Her father had not given up the idea of a party.

  ‘Invite whoever you like,’ he told them one evening as he stood in the kitchen cooking tomatoes and onions, and soggy pieces of fried bread. ‘It’ll be the last party we’re having here, so you might as well go all the way.’

  ‘Great!’ said Geraldine co-operatively, hoping none of the mess in the pan was intended for her.

  ‘For Mum’s birthday?’ asked Violetta, pouring herself a glass of ice-cold home-made lemonade, and glancing over at her mother who was reading sheets of grey paper. She smiled up at Violetta, but it was a tense, troubled smile. ‘Just a party,’ she said quickly. ‘To say goodbye to the house. Do invite your friends.’

  ‘Of course for Mum’s birthday,’ remonstrated their father, shaking a fork at their mother. ‘And a house-cooling, as they call it, I suppose.’

  ‘Where are we moving to?’ asked Geraldine pointedly, because she knew Violetta would never ask.

  ‘Ah, well …’ Her father slipped the food from the frying-pan onto a large platter. He glanced over at their mother. ‘We’re not too sure yet. Might go and stay with your mother’s cousin for a few weeks.’

  Their mother’s cousin, whose name was Deirdre, lived in a small house on the other side of the city.

  ‘We won’t fit!’ said Geraldine. She shook her head as her father offered her some of the stew.

  ‘She’ll be overseas for a few months,’ said their mother, standing up. ‘And your father might not be with us all the time, anyway.’

  ‘Why not?’ said Geraldine, ignoring Violetta’s facial gestures ordering her to shut up.

  ‘Might have to go away myself for a while,’ said her father, trying to sound breezier than he looked. ‘Poor old me, invalid that I am.’

  ‘You shouldn’t eat tomatoes,’ mentioned Violetta. ‘They’re too acidic for your ulcer.’

  ‘I cooked them for you, my Violet,’ he protested. ‘Build you up. Can’t live off lemon juice. You’ve been looking far too much like your tragic namesake lately. Don’t want you ending up like her.’

  ‘For one thing, that Violetta was a prostitute,’ Violetta said firmly, ‘and for another, she died of tuberculosis. I can’t see how she’s like me at all.’

  ‘Well, who’s going to eat all this?’ asked their father, theatrically glum. ‘Smells so good, and none of you will touch it.’

  ‘How about the guinea-pigs?’ suggested Violetta unkindly.

  ‘Ah, yes.’ Their father was diverted for a moment. ‘About those pigs, Gerry.’

  Geraldine bit her bottom lip. ‘What about them?’

  ‘Well, what are we going to do about them? I don’t know if Deirdre’ll go for them.’

  ‘I found them a home. I told Mum,’ said Geraldine quickly.

  ‘You could always take them back to the pet shop,’ said Violetta, who did not believe in the existence of this ‘home’. ‘Like returning soiled goods.’

  ‘They’re not soiled,’ retorted Geraldine. ‘They look better than when I bought them.’

  ‘Yes, but they must be a bit, well, used up, surely,’ Violetta persisted, licking lemon juice from her lips. ‘Their expiry date’ll be coming round.’

  ‘Funny, how Howard was so sure he saw that animal in the garden,’ interrupted their father. ‘You know, I thought I saw something myself a few weeks back. Remember, Violetta?’

  ‘Oh yes, I remember,’ said Violetta. ‘Honestly, you’ll be seeing unicorns next.’

  Howard? Was that the name of the man with the beautiful shoes?

  ‘Is that his first name or his second name?’ asked Geraldine. ‘Howard, I mean.’

  Their father sat down, suddenly nervous, as if he had said something he wished he hadn’t. ‘Look, um, now that we’re talking about it, you won’t mention Howard’s visit to anyone, will you? I mean, it’s a delicate business, sales and so on. Okay?’ He looked at them both anxiously. Geraldine shrugged. Who would she mention it to? Who would be interested, anyway?

  ‘So he is buying the house,’ she said, but her father did not answer.

  ‘Not even the boyfriend, eh, Violetta?’ was all he said, squeezing Violetta’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, what’s his name again?’

  ‘Dad.’ Violetta was embarrassed.

  Boyfriend. What a terrible expression.

  Marcus came round after dinner, wearing furry green stockings that cyclists in Europe wear in the snow. Well, that’s what he said when Geraldine couldn’t help asking. He’d just taken his bicycle for a service at a bike shop round the corner from where they lived, so thought he’d drop in and invite Violetta to lunch for his mother’s birthday.

  ‘Oh! I can’t!’ Violetta was half regretful. Marcus’s mother might go to a very delicious expensive restaurant for lunch, after all. Although perhaps not, remembering the orange-cream biscuits. They might just have a dull brown-bread sandwich at home. ‘We’re having a party here. For my mother’s birthday.’

  ‘Really?’ said Marcus, turning his head to one side like a budgerigar.

  ‘Well, yes,’ confessed Violetta. ‘Dad just mentioned it this morning. He said to invite you, by the way.’

  ‘Ah.’ Marcus looked gratified. ‘Well, that will be nice. Things are improving, then, are they? Business-wise?’

  Violetta looked at him sharply. How did Marcus know about the business? All she had told him was that they were moving house, nothing about the reason why.

  ‘What about your mother’s birthday?’ objected Geraldine, who was sitting with them in the kitchen, drinking tea.

  ‘Well, I could always take her for breakfast on the beach,’ Marcus replied easily. ‘She likes that sort of thing.’

  Violetta looked at him, sceptical. ‘Won’t it be a bit cold for the beach? Windy?’

  ‘Cold is a matter of taking precautions, darling,’ said Marcus, patting his green legs.

  ‘Why don’t you ask her to come to our party?’ Violetta said, unable to bear the thought of Marcus’s poor mother huddled on the sand in green stockings eating gritty windswept birthday cake.

  ‘Well, that’s very kind,’ replied Marcus, pleased. ‘Your father won’t mind an extra guest?’

  ‘Oh no,’ put in Geraldine, as she picked up a third chocolate-mint biscuit. ‘He said to invite whoever we liked. As many as we liked.’

  Violetta rolled her eyes at her sister.

  ‘Ah.’ Marcus paused, thoughtful. ‘So Father can come as well, then? He’d enjoy it.’

  Violetta stared. Did people’s divorced parents go to parties together? Apparently they did. After all, she reasoned, they lived in the same house, didn’t they? What was a party?

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Of course.’

  Geraldine stood up. What a party this was going to be. Deadly, by the sound of it. ‘Got to feed the pigs,’ she said, rather liking the effect of this laconic, farmer-like sentence. She’d always been fond of books about farms, where life was centred around feeding various animals, robbing them of their eggs and milk, then leading them to slaughter. Purposeful routine, not like getti
ng up in the morning and going to school and coming home again. She stepped outside, pleasantly warmed by tea and chocolate. Who could she invite?

  ‘Sad situation,’ said Ezra’s father, gesturing next door, as the video spun around.

  ‘Hmmm. The less we know the better,’ murmured his mother from her macramé. ‘Can’t go on much longer, anyway, from what they’re saying.’

  ‘What can’t?’ Ezra suddenly paid attention, something he rarely did to his parents’ conversations. He was sitting on the floor, rolling his mother’s ball of macramé wool about, as if he were a kitten.

  His father coughed and rubbed his nose.

  ‘That’s what people do just before they’re going to tell a lie,’ mentioned Ezra. ‘We learnt about it in school. It’s body language.’

  ‘I see,’ said Ezra’s father, shifting in his chair. ‘What about pulling on the ears?’

  ‘What can’t go on much longer?’ Ezra insisted.

  ‘Geraldine’s father’s been having financial problems,’ said his mother, calmly. ‘It’s not going well for him.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mention it to Geraldine, though, Ez,’ put in his father. ‘It might upset her. Don’t know how much she knows.’

  ‘I don’t think she knows anything,’ said his mother. ‘Or Violetta, by the look of her. Head in the clouds, those two girls. I don’t think they’ve been told anything.’

  ‘Well, how do you know?’ asked Ezra.

  ‘It’s been in the paper, actually.’ Ezra’s father coughed. ‘But your mother’s right. I wouldn’t say anything. Their parents might not want them to know, you see, Ez. Might just worry them.’

  ‘But now that it’s in the paper,’ sighed Ezra’s mother, shaking her head. ‘They’ll have to find out, sooner or later.’

  ‘Just a small paragraph at the back,’ protested Ezra’s father. ‘I wouldn’t have bothered reading it except that the name caught my eye.’

  Ezra agreed with his father. Geraldine would never read a newspaper, apart from the comics, and if there were any spare room in Violetta’s capacious brain, he could not see her filling it up with ephemeral things like the news.

  The doorbell rang. They had one of those electric doorbells that go ding-dong, like cues on television comedies. Ezra’s parents frowned at each other, although not with displeasure.

  ‘Go and get it, will you Ezra?’ said his father.

  ‘I’ll go,’ said his mother. She laid down her cream-coloured lacework, and went to the door. Ezra scuttled to his room. He didn’t particularly like visitors; not even the ones he invited himself.

  ‘Ezra! It’s Geraldine!’ Ezra let his hand drop from the doorknob. So much for privacy. Slowly he came out to the living-room.

  ‘Sit down, Geraldine,’ his mother was saying. ‘Near the heater. You look freezing. What have you been doing?’

  Geraldine sat down on the sofa. Why had she come? She looked quickly over to the sideboard at Tory’s photo, and felt herself relax slightly, as if she had just spotted someone she knew at a party. She said nothing, not even ‘hello’ to Ezra. She suddenly felt terribly tired, so tired she wasn’t sure she could even open her mouth.

  Ezra stared at her. Geraldine always looked strange, but tonight more than ever. Was it something to do with that guinea-pig, he wondered, or could it be she had found out something about her father and what his parents had just been talking about?

  ‘Ezra, why don’t you boil us all up a hot drink?’ suggested his father, who also seemed disturbed by Geraldine’s appearance. ‘Some of that nice hot caramel milk of yours.’

  ‘All right.’ Ezra retreated obediently to the kitchen. At least he wouldn’t have to talk to her.

  As long as his parents didn’t mind her sitting there like a lump of wood. But wood was not the right word—there was something unstable about Geraldine tonight. She was more like a pile of leaves on a still day, that as soon as the slightest breeze blew by would disappear into a thousand crackling irretrievable pieces.

  ‘So, Geraldine,’ said Ezra’s father, wondering if he should turn the television off, or if perhaps a viewing of Paint Your Wagon might not do Geraldine the power of good. ‘How have things been?’

  Geraldine stared at the screen through the dim light, listening to Ezra’s parents’ gentle breathing, like a colony of sleeping bats. She sat herself down on a stool next to Mr Perlman, who seemed to exude some intangible masculine comfort, quite unlike her own father.

  ‘Are you feeling all right?’ asked Ezra’s father.

  Geraldine looked up at him, and found her sore eyes filling with tears at these words of unexpected kindness. But through some effort of nature she managed to send them back to their source.

  ‘Would you like to come to a party?’

  Marcus had left, striding busily off into the night to fetch his bicycle. Violetta’s notes on The Wife of Bath’s Tale lay neatly on the top of her desk. Violetta herself lay, not so neatly, sprawled across her unmade bed. She could fit in another hour’s study before eating anything, although she admitted to herself that her mind was not at its most receptive. But Violetta did not believe in giving way to such excuses—that would be the beginning of the end, and she would wind up slobbing around in front of the television night after night like Geraldine.

  So, she’d invited Marcus and his parents to the party, she thought with a groan. She hadn’t meant to. Violetta had not wanted to invite any of her friends. She hadn’t felt like talking about the fact they were moving house, and why they were moving, although sometimes she had the uncomfortable feeling that perhaps her friends, even her teachers, knew about it, from the way they looked at her, or the odd whispers or comments they made. Almost as if they knew even more than she did. Violetta ignored them.

  Anyway, the least she could do was invite poor Marcus’s mother. Violetta had a natural sympathy for mothers, rather the way some people have a natural sympathy for coal-miners or firemen, mindful of the awful working conditions and dangers of the profession. To be Marcus’s mother, that would really be difficult.

  She decided after all that it was dinner time. She went out into the kitchen, and found in the fridge half a takeaway pizza, still in its box. Whatever would they do without melted cheese, she wondered, darkly picking off all the pieces of pineapple (unfortunately Geraldine, when making the order, had forgotten how it made Violetta’s mouth go all tingly). They would have starved. That sort of remark would irritate Marcus, making him cite endless examples of cultures who never touched dairy products and were healthier by far than any in the Western world. But, thought Violetta with a certain satisfaction as she bit into the icy pizza, Marcus is not here …

  ‘Hello there!’

  Violetta jumped and swallowed a large piece of crust in surprise. She turned around. At the door stood Simon.

  ‘Um, the front door was open,’ he said. ‘I noticed as I was passing. On my way to visit Ezra, you know. Sorry.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Violetta, gasping for air. ‘Geraldine must have left it open. My sister. Geraldine.’

  ‘Ah.’ Simon stood at the door expectantly.

  ‘Come in,’ said Violetta. ‘Unless Ezra’s waiting for you.’

  Simon stepped in eagerly. ‘How are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, all right,’ replied Violetta. ‘We’re moving house, you know.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. Ezra told me.’ He was silent. Waiting. But Violetta waited too. After all, Simon was the one who dropped by. He must have something to say. But all he said was, ‘Um …’

  ‘Yeah,’ she answered.

  ‘Um,’ he repeated.

  ‘So we’ve been busy packing. You know.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘We’re having a party, actually,’ broke in Violetta, without much effort, as Simon was not exactly monopolising the conversation. ‘My mother’s birthday. And a
house-cooling, you know.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘When?’

  Violetta, slightly taken aback, said, ‘Sunday.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Would you like to come?’ Violetta found herself driven to say.

  ‘Oh.’

  The second ‘Oh’ was definitely more animated than the first.

  He paused. ‘Oh. Thank you. Yes. I’d love to come.’ He paused again. ‘The only thing is …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Would it be all right if I brought my aunts? I promised to go with them to the aquarium on Sunday.’

  ‘Oh.’ It was Violetta’s turn to stop and think. ‘Well, perhaps you’d better do what you promised. They might be disappointed.’

  ‘Oh no, not at all,’ Simon assured her, rather too blithely, Violetta felt. ‘I’m sure they’d far rather go to a party than look at a whole lot of ghastly fish. Well, I don’t mean ghastly, exactly,’ he added quickly. ‘I mean, they’re very interesting, especially from an evolutionary point of view.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ supplied Violetta, as Simon seemed to expect her to say something.

  ‘I mean, you’re interested in evolution, aren’t you?’

  Oh. Was she?

  ‘When I saw you in the bookshop that time, with The Origin of Species …’ Simon’s voice trailed off into uncertainty. ‘I mean, I was actually going to ask you to come with us, that’s why I dropped in …’

  Violetta took pity on him. ‘Bring your aunts,’ she said. ‘If you think they’d like to come.’

  ‘If you’re sure that’s all right …’

  ‘Dad said to invite everyone we knew.’

  What have I done? thought Violetta. Marcus and his parents. Simon and his aunts. How am I going to entertain them? Perhaps they could play Monopoly, or some very complicated card game that requires a lot of concentration. Marcus would be sure to know something like that, and be very good at it. While Simon, she was equally sure, would be quite hopeless.