Guppies for Tea

by Marika Cobbold

  ‘I prefer black bottom,’ said Henry. ‘It sounds much more dashing. Don’t let it take over though.’

  ‘I won’t. I keep it decorously covered most of the time. And I won’t kill Selma, however much I love her. In my case, conviction is never matched by courage.’

  ‘Thank God for that,’ Henry said simply.

  There was no message for Miss Lindsay. ‘No, no call from a Mr Gerald Forbes,’ the night porter answered, looking up from the sports page of the Evening Herald. ‘Yes,’ he was quite sure.

  Chapter Ten

  Dagmar Felt Pleased with herself as she parked her car in front of Cherryfield. She had woken that morning feeling strong and positive, ready to fight. She had wasted too much of her life already, but no more. She smiled as she thought of the interesting conversation she’d had with the new visiting professor from the States about the relevance of fiction in society. She had surprised herself as much as him with how much she had to say on the subject.

  ‘No risk, no fun.’ She mumbled the phrase her husband had used on the ski-slopes where they first met. ‘No risk, no fun.’ And she refused to give in to the impulse to wrap the car keys in tissue paper before letting them fall into her handbag.

  As she rang the doorbell, Amelia caught up with her. They kissed hello, but before they had a chance to speak the door opened and Selma’s voice, carrying her outrage through the rooms, reached them from the Residents’ Lounge, ‘Murderer, brute, Nazi!’

  Dagmar and Amelia looked at each other, then ran towards the commotion, Amelia narrowly avoiding knocking into a nurse carrying a bedpan.

  ‘Stay away from me, do you hear?’ They heard Selma’s voice again, but it sounded smaller now, trembling. ‘How do I know you’re not planning to boil me too? I’m old, I’m ill.’

  They reached the Lounge to find Selma sitting ashen-faced, as far back in her chair as she could, her fingers gripping the armrest.

  ‘Steady on, Selma my dear, steady on.’ Admiral Mallett tried to control his voice, as unreliable as a fourteen-year-old boy’s, as he rose with difficulty from his seat by the empty aquarium. ‘I must say though, Matron.’ He stood facing Sister Morris, leaning heavily on his crutches. ‘Boiling the little chaps does seem a bit excessive.’

  ‘What on earth is going on here, Sister Morris?’ Dagmar demanded as Amelia knelt by Selma, hugging her.

  Sister Morris turned, purple-cheeked and panting with fury. ‘A ridiculous fuss over nothing, that’s what’s going on! And may I tell you, Mrs Lindsay, that it’s your mother who’s the ringleader as usual.’

  ‘Now I say,’ the Admiral tottered on his sticks, but his voice was steady, ‘you can’t call the little fellows nothing. I liked ’em. So did Mrs Merryman here. It’s not a question of any ringleader.’

  Amelia, still with her arms protectively around Selma, asked gently, ‘What is it that has upset you so? Try to explain.’

  Selma managed to heave herself half out of the chair and now she pointed an accusing finger at Sister Morris. ‘I called into the kitchen to see what foul repast they were preparing, the smell coming from there was disgusting. And I find her,’ Selma had fallen back into the chair but she was still pointing, ‘her, standing like a witch from Macbeth over a steaming pan, lowering the Admiral’s little guppies into the fiercely boiling water, one by one. She wasn’t actually chanting, but it was a near thing; her lips were moving.’

  ‘That’s it. I’m going to my quarters,’ Sister Morris spoke with hysterical calm. ‘If anyone should feel the need to hear what actually happened, I’ll be waiting.’ And she marched out, head held high, her wooden slip-ons sucking and letting go of the heels of her feet with every angry step.

  ‘I suppose I should feel guilty,’ Clarissa tossed the green salad with vigour, ‘being here in Amelia’s kitchen, using her things.’ She gave Gerald a coy glance underneath her thick eyelashes, ‘Sleeping with you in her bed.’

  ‘My little Goldilocks.’ Gerald ruffled her hair affectionately.

  For a second, Clarissa stared blankly at him, then her wide brow cleared and she gave an appreciative little laugh. ‘Somehow I don’t feel bad about it,’ she said, ‘that’s the thing. It’s like I’m in my rightful place, and she is the interloper, you know what I mean?’ She licked some oil from her fingers. ‘Well, she will be soon anyway. It’s not even as if I’m breaking up a marriage.’

  A whisper of guilt passed through Gerald’s mind, but like a solitary cloud on an otherwise perfect blue sky, it cast no lasting shadow. ‘You’re so sensible, I like that,’ he said.

  Placing the salad bowl on the table, Clarissa said, ‘You are sure though, aren’t you, that she’s not coming back until Monday? I mean, why did you make such a thing about putting the car away?’ She looked earnestly at him. ‘It’s just that it’s so important to do this right.’

  Gerald had a vision of Amelia on an operating table, with him expertly removing her heart with the able assistance of Clarissa. He shook himself, Amelia’s fancifulness seemed to be infectious. ‘I’m quite sure,’ he said firmly. ‘She really is very good about her grandmother, I must give her that. Too good,’ he added hastily, at the sight of Clarissa’s already firm chin, jutting. ‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘that the old girl always was more of a mother to her than poor Dagmar.’

  ‘Is she really mad, the mother I mean?’ Clarissa picked a Little Gem lettuce leaf from the bowl and nibbled it.

  Gerald considered for a moment, as he uncorked the bottle of Chablis. ‘Not actually and certifiably, no; neurotic as hell though. She was quite a promising pianist apparently, as was Selma. But, according to Amelia, she spent so much time disinfecting the piano keys, there was no time left to practise.’ He felt a little guilty as he spoke, about betraying Amelia’s confidence, but then he reminded himself what a pain Amelia could be. ‘Amelia is a bit like that.’

  ‘What? Disinfecting things?’

  ‘Good heavens no, look around you. No, I mean unable to follow anything through. Great ideas, a fair amount of talent, but nothing ever comes to anything.’

  ‘Well as long as she doesn’t come here.’ Clarissa, delighted with her joke, wound her strong arms round Gerald’s neck.

  Gerald laughed a little uneasily, remembering Amelia’s remark that one could always tell a man in love by the way he laughed at even the most feeble of his loved one’s jokes.

  At the same time, Henry arrived at Cherryfield. He was worried about his father, he hadn’t been himself since that disastrous lunch with Amelia and Mrs Merryman. All the fight seemed to have gone out of him. And then there had been the business with the stolen dentures. Henry sighed, raking his fingers through his hair. He had been told by a past girlfriend that she could always tell when he was upset because of his habit of doing just that. Of course months later when he broke off the relationship, she told him how it had always irritated her. There, he did it again: his fingers pushing through his hair as if they could push his problems away with them, but it was a bad time to go off on exercise, now, when his father needed him most.

  He found the Admiral in the Residents’ Lounge, sitting miserably by the fish-tank, whilst next to him Selma rocked backwards and forwards in her chair, weeping like a child, tears running unstemmed down her pinched cheeks. Amelia was kneeling by her side, crying herself at her grandmother’s distress. The television in the corner by the window added to the confusion with an Australian soap being played out at high volume.

  Amelia looked up at Henry, her slanted eyes wide and tearful. ‘I’m taking her home to Abbotslea. No-one else cares.’

  ‘But what on earth has happened?’ Henry asked gently. He put his hand on his father’s shoulder.

  The Admiral just shook his head and pointed his stick at the empty fish-tank. Henry turned to Amelia.

  ‘Ask that awful Morris,’ she said, standing up.

  Henry gave her a long look. ‘Right,’ he said finally. ‘I’ll go and find her,’ and he stalked off.

  ‘She’s
in her flat,’ Amelia called after him, ‘but if I were you, I wouldn’t bother.’

  Henry found Sister Morris in her quarters on the second floor. As she opened the door to him, the heat from an open coal fire hit him in the face like steam from an engine. Above his head, a bell-rope tinkled.

  Sister Morris maintained a dignified silence as she indicated a seat for him on the plump sofa covered in differently shaped and patterned cushions. He sat down, moving a pink heart-shaped one embroidered with ‘Home Is Where The Heart Is’, to avoid it being crushed.

  On the mantelpiece stood a collection of china pigs dressed in the manner of different professions: one wore a tie and bowler, another a nurse’s uniform, one was a fireman, and there was even a pig with a dog-collar Henry noticed, amused. Sister Morris herself shared her armchair with a large teddy, a calico cat and a giant, stuffed hedgehog, and on the coffee table stood an open Paddington Bear biscuit tin. She seemed determined to keep at bay the ever-present spectre of old age by cramming her tiny sitting room with childish whimsy. Like a medicine-man, Henry thought, decorating his hut with totems and charms to ward off the evil eye.

  He cleared his throat and began, choosing his words carefully. ‘There seems to be some sort of problem downstairs. I wondered if you could possibly fill me in.’

  Sister Morris’s chins quivered with emotion and her cheeks reddened. ‘I’m glad that someone sees fit to ask me. Of course you are a man of the cloth,’ her voice softened, but just for a moment. ‘This whole thing has been blown out of all proportion …’

  Five minutes later, Henry returned to the Residents’ Lounge. ‘Right,’ he said, sitting down in the empty chair between his father and Selma, ‘there’s a perfectly good explanation, nothing to get too concerned about. You see the fish were ill,’ he continued, feeling like some grotesque version of Listen with Mother, as more residents gathered round like ancient vultures, determined not to miss any morsel of scandal.

  ‘Well, boiling them can’t have helped,’ Miss White said firmly as she manoeuvred herself into an armchair. ‘And if that’s Sister’s little remedy for the ailing, none of us can sleep soundly in our beds. Not that I’m ever blessed with sound sleep.’ Her expression suggested suffering bravely born. ‘I toss and I turn, I toss …’

  ‘The vet told Sister Morris that there was nothing he could do for them.’ Henry spoke firmly. ‘I’m afraid putting them out of their misery was the only option.’ He smiled encouragingly at Selma who slumped in her rose-patterned armchair. ‘Apparently, immersing the fish in boiling water is the quickest and least painful way of doing it.’

  ‘I had lobster once,’ Miss White said. ‘Highly overrated I thought.’

  A large woman, whom Henry hadn’t seen before, leant across, her cheeks pink with excitement, her eyes opened wide, ‘I don’t care what that Sister Morris says, I’m not having those poor little fish for my tea.’

  ‘I’m not either,’ a cacophony of voices agreed. ‘I won’t eat a scrap.’

  Henry clenched his teeth, worried and ashamed of his sudden urge to shake them, scream at them all to shut up. He looked into the old faces, sagging, whiskery, toothless, confused, and he saw the humiliation in his father’s eyes, how straight he sat in the chair by the empty fish-tank. God forgive me, he thought. Getting up from his chair, he walked across and put his hand on the old man’s shoulder. ‘What do you say we go for a drive, have a drink at the Anchor?’

  Then Amelia came downstairs with a small suitcase, badly packed by the look of the corner of blue material that hung out from the side. She was about to help Selma from the chair when she stopped, looking round for the walking-frame.

  ‘I think you’re overreacting.’ Henry spoke quietly, but he went over to the television which was still on, bleating out some incidental music from a motionless screen, and brought out the walking-frame that stood in the corner behind. He placed it by Selma’s chair, then he turned and said quietly to Amelia, ‘You should never make decisions when you’re in a state. Get your grandmother upstairs for a rest, sit down yourself and think this over.’ He looked from Selma’s grey expressionless face to Amelia’s bright pink cheeks and moist eyes. ‘How will you get her back? How will you cope when you get her home? You’re not strong enough to lift her?’

  ‘We’ll manage,’ Amelia said. She smiled mechanically in his direction. ‘It won’t be for long, she just needs a break from this place.’

  Henry didn’t argue further but helped Selma up. ‘At least let me drive you to the station,’ he said as he held the door for them.

  Amelia turned. ‘That’s very kind of you, but my mother should be arriving back any minute, she’ll take us.’

  Selma too had stopped in the doorway, and for a moment Henry thought he saw a look of triumph in her eyes. He sighed and went back across the room, sitting down, next to his father, on Selma’s empty chair.

  ‘What about you, Pa, do you want to get away from here too?’

  The Admiral turned and attempted a smile but his hands, black-bruised and wrinkled, gripped the handles of the sticks at his side. ‘I’m fine, dear boy, don’t worry about me. It’s not this place, it’s being old. It’s no fun.’ He put one hand on Henry’s. ‘But that’s life in a blue suit, and even a chap with your connections can’t change it.’

  Dagmar drove Selma and Amelia to Plymouth Station.

  ‘It’s jolly good of you to have Mummy,’ she hissed over her shoulder to Amelia. ‘I would have liked to have had her myself of course, but they’d never give me the time off.’ She added in her normal voice, ‘Well, at least I managed to find you a decent dress, Mummy, rather than that permanent-press monstrosity the woman at Cherryfield picked up for you.’

  Amelia had calmed down during the trip. She could feel the heat going out of her cheeks and her pulse rate slowing but, as Dagmar pulled up in front of the station, she began to worry again, but for different reasons. Henry had been right, how would she cope? Then again, hadn’t Rosalind felt the same mixture of panic and inadequacy when bringing little Ronnie home from hospital in his flower-sprigged Moses basket? Amelia went through her duties in her head: bathing and dressing, food to prepare that was both nourishing and suitable for dentures. How on earth did one clean dentures? At least she had had the forethought to ask one of the nurses at Cherryfield for Selma’s medication. Then there was Gerald. Amelia looked helplessly at her mother, but it was too late to change her mind now.

  Dagmar wrote ‘Transporting Invalid’ in large letters on a piece of paper and fixed it to the windscreen. Then they walked Selma across the platform to the waiting train. Amelia got on first and, taking Selma’s wrists, she began to pull her up. Dagmar, careful not to rub her trouser-leg against the dirty bottom step, heaved at Selma’s polycotton-clad bottom. ‘Just like Pooh getting stuck in Rabbit’s hole,’ she called cheerfully. Selma, facing Amelia, pretended not to hear.

  A guard strode purposefully past the beached Selma, on his way to help a young mother with a twin push-chair on to the next carriage. The babies smiled their toothless thanks. Little blond cherubs, Amelia thought bitterly, as with a final heave, Selma stood tottering on board the train. She too smiled, out of relief and embarrassment, she too showed her gums. Oh my God, Amelia thought, she’s left her teeth behind.

  Waving at Dagmar from the window, Amelia thought how unfairly arranged it all was. Babies’ toothlessness was sweet, their chubbiness, cuddly. They dribble their food, they burp and sick up, lacking all control over their bodily functions, but the package came wrapped in such irresistible cuteness that few people failed to coddle and assist. After all, Amelia thought, how may Residential Homes for the Active Infant did you see dotted along leafy, small-town streets?

  She turned away from the window and sat down opposite Selma. So what about old people, why was it made so easy for us to want to abandon them? Amelia felt a pity that was almost painful when she looked across at her grandmother slumped in her seat, unlovely, her dress riding up over her thick kne
es, an uncertain smile on her pinched, grey face. No, it wasn’t fair.

  She handed Selma a copy of Good Housekeeping. Selma said, ‘How lovely,’ and leafed through it happily. She had always had Good Housekeeping reserved for her at the newsagent in Kingsmouth, even after Willoughby’s retirement when economies had to be made.

  Does she know, really know, Amelia wondered, as she sits avidly reading those recipes that she will never again prepare a meal?

  ‘I need to spend a penny.’ Selma put the magazine down.

  Amelia’s back hurt as she pulled Selma up from her seat. For a moment, they stood facing each other, Amelia bent, Selma tottering, their hands clasped together. Amelia wondered what to do next. Dagmar had helped tow Selma to her seat, as the aisle was too narrow for the walking-frame.

  ‘We have to turn,’ Amelia said finally. ‘The loo is that way.’ She pointed over Selma’s shoulder. Still holding hands, they circled slowly round, an unmatched pair in a bizarre dance.

  At Ashcombe, Dagmar had played the piano with the sun pouring through the half drawn blinds, as Selma grasped Amelia’s small hands in hers. ‘Dansa min docka,’ she had sung in Swedish, ‘Dance my doll, dance whilst you’re young, soon you’ll be old and heavy.’ Round and round they had danced, across the pattern of sunbeams on the oak floor.

  The train jolted to a stop. Selma lurched towards Amelia who managed to stay upright, stopping them both from collapsing on the floor. ‘I can’t go now,’ Selma whispered, ‘we’re at a station.’

  ‘I’ll just take you through now. It’s easier to move when the train is standing still.’

  Walking backwards, step after careful step, Amelia lead Selma through the carriage. People looked up at them only to immediately avert their eyes in embarrassment, a couple of children giggled. Selma’s eyes were blank as she stared ahead.

  ‘You sit here.’ Amelia placed Selma on an empty seat at the end of the carriage whilst she pulled at the heavy, sliding doors. She pushed her bottom against one, to hold it open; at the same time she leant forward to help Selma up and through. My vertebrae are going to crack, I’m going to spend the rest of my life a helpless cripple, Amelia thought, biting her bottom lip. As the train was about to pull out, she jerked Selma from her seat and helped her out into the corridor. Sideways like crabs they manoeuvred themselves in front of the door marked WC and Amelia began propelling her grandmother inside.