The Bluebird Café

by Rebecca Smith

  Wagon Wheels were Mavis’s favourite even though the soft mallowy discs gummed up her mouth whether or not it was encumbered by teeth. Her passion for Wagon Wheels had brought to an abrupt end one of her attempts to do a bit for charity, to get out more. She was asked to leave the League of Friends when she was caught cramming half a dozen of them into her bag. There had been other reasons why they’d wanted her to leave, her habit of cleaning her fingernails with knives that were meant for buttering scones, and the time she was suspected of filching three copies of Woman’s Weekly from a partially-sighted patient who had, sadly, passed away.

  Here she was now, waiting for Cllr Doon. She wanted to talk to her about something, and if Cllr Doon had her car then Mavis would make sure that she got a lift home. After all, she didn’t want to be wandering around on the Common in the dark, did she?

  When the Badger Centre minutes arrived in their mouse-scented brown envelope ten days later, Paul discovered that not only had he volunteered to take part in the sponsored whittling event, but that it was to take place in the Bluebird. The date was familiar. Oh yes. Lucy’s birthday.

  Chapter 32

  Minutes of the Meeting of the Badger Centre General Committee 11 May 1999 at the Badger Centre. 7.30 p.m.

  Present: K. Watts, D. Mellish, P. Tupper, J. Tupper, K. Tupper, C. Polls, P. Cloud, Cllr Doon (Chair), A. Wallis.

  Apologies: J. Fielder, K. Stoops.

  Matters arising from minutes of 10.4.99.

  1. The wind-damaged bird table has been replaced. Thank you, Paul.

  2. The water vole has been seen four more times.

  3. The fire extinguishers have now been checked and serviced.

  4. The date of the first-aid course has been changed from 10.8.99 to 11.8.99. All staff, volunteers and committee members are requested to attend.

  1. New pond

  The new pond will be dug on 20.5 from 9 a.m. P. Cloud, K. Tupper and J. Tupper all volunteered. Others welcome. A newt-moving licence has been granted.

  2. Fundraising

  The sponsored whittle is going ahead, but will now be on June 26. (NB A post-meeting change of date by arrangement with the Bluebird.) Thanks to the Bluebird Café for offering refreshments, etc. Our next event will be a stall at the Balloon and Flower Festival, first weekend in July. Stall theme to be decided at next meeting. Volunteers required to staff it. D. Mellish to draw up a rota.

  3. Leather Bookmarks

  At the request of two vegan members, leather bookmarks will no longer be sold at the centre. Current stock (approx. 12 bookmarks, assorted colours) will be given free to the next school party.

  4. Treasurer’s Report

  In the absence of the Treasurer there was no Treasurer’s Report. The Treasurer will be asked to submit a written report when she is unable to attend meetings, especially as this often seems to be the case.

  5. Staffing

  The Centre Manager’s position will be advertised in the News next week. Interview panel will be P. Tupper, Cllr Doon and C. Polls. Agreed to ask the successful candidate to start ASAP, to ensure the bird-ringing project is properly supported. Contract renewable annually. Salary £17,695, or less if the Woodman’s Cottage offer is accepted.

  6. Sale of Animals

  Several requests have been received to purchase mice and rats. It was agreed that these would ALWAYS be refused, even when funds are low and the animals are breeding well. Visitors will be encouraged to buy toy mice instead. The possibility of introducing an adopt-an-animal or sponsored-mouse scheme will be discussed at the next meeting.

  7. Any Other Business

  The Chair thanked K. Watts for delivering the newsletters despite the rain.

  8. Date of Next Meeting

  16.6.99. Would all committee members please ensure that they arrive PROMPTLY.

  ‘What’s this about the Woodman’s Cottage?’ Lucy asked. Her reading of the Badger Centre minutes was more usually punctuated by snorts and cries of ‘Ha!’ than questions.

  ‘The Centre Manager can live in that little cottage on the edge of the Common if he wants.’

  ‘Or she. Is it nice?’

  ‘A little bit damp, untouched inside since the fifties. Surrounded by bluebells and wild garlic and a ditch full of celandine, and cow-parsley hedges. It’s really called “Bluebell Cottage”’

  ‘Oh, Paul, apply!’

  ‘I didn’t think you could manage the café on your own.’

  ‘I hate the café. We’ll sell up. I’ll find something else to do.’

  ‘I had kind of thought about it.’

  ‘I’ll make marzipan animals and felt mice for you to sell at the centre!’

  Paul saw himself sitting in a deckchair in the Woodman’s garden, listening to the cricket.

  ‘The money’s good,’ he said.

  ‘Better than we make here.’

  ‘And we’d get rich quick with the marzipan animals … but I am on the committee, isn’t that sort of unethical?’

  ‘But you practically do the job already. I’m sure they’d snap you up. You’re the best they’ve got, the only person who isn’t over eighty or completely doolally, a total twitcher. Go on. Ring up for the form. Do it now, then you can just leave a message on the machine … Would you need a new suit for the interview?’

  ‘I hadn’t thought … It wouldn’t matter really. They know what I’m like.’

  ‘Perhaps you should just wear a lumberjack shirt and carry an axe?’

  Paul wore his old suit. Lucy had found it in Romsey Oxfam. She made special trips to Romsey, Lyndhurst and Lymington where the second-hand shops were full of rich people’s cast-offs. Paul had a tweed jacket with a moss-coloured lining. Lucy had found a yellow cashmere scarf with a silk lining (and only one tiny burn mark) and a proper panama hat that rolled up, and a pith helmet which they hung on the wall, thinking that it would be of questionable taste to wear it in the inner city. Lucy’s favourite skirt was a black circular one with ribbons round the bottom. She’d found it in Lymington Help the Aged. She had a genuine Burberry from the same shop, but it had bust darts and they made her feel silly.

  There had been thirty-seven enquiries about the job and the Badger Centre’s Recruitment Subcommittee were pleased with their drafting of the ad. It had taken three meetings and five phone calls to the News. But only nine application forms were returned. One was completely illegible, and one contained no information except the applicant’s name and address. There was one which said: ‘I love all animals, especially badgers. My friends tell me that I am a kind of a person and good with working with the children and the animals, although I am not very keen on insects like moths.’ These were put on the Definitely No pile. There were four recent graduates with little relevant experience, and an unemployed youth worker. Paul’s application shone like a glow-worm.

  ‘We’d better interview him though,’ said Pat Tupper, sipping her Blackcurrant Bracer fruit tea.

  ‘Equal Opportunities – yes!’ said Cllr Doon. ‘Thank The Lord he applied.’

  ‘Shall we have a couple of the Biology ones to make the numbers up?’ Colin Polls suggested.

  ‘Good idea, Colin. And, Pat, could you write to all the no-hopers please, say intense competition and if they’d like to volunteer … all the usual stuff.’

  Pat made a note in her notebook. ‘Shall we plan the questions now? We can ask about their hobbies.’

  Chapter 33

  ‘Aldi is the cheapest,’ Mavis said, spitting egg sandwich. ‘And these aren’t sausage rolls,’ she continued, jabbing one at Gilbert and then Cllr Doon. ‘Not real sausage rolls.’

  ‘Of course they’re real,’ said Gilbert. ‘Feel one.’

  ‘No, I mean, there’s no meat in them. Euch!’ And she stubbed it out into a parlour palm pot.

  The sponsored whittling event was about to begin. Paul and Lucy had over-catered. There were ten participants, most of whom were just sponsoring each other. The photographer from the News hadn’t arrived yet. They were all
given sticks which Ken Tupper, one of the Badger Centre volunteers, had gathered on the Common that morning. Paul’s seemed to be a bit damp. A woodlouse walked out of it. He took it to the back garden and tapped it gently against the step, making a family of the mini-armadillos homeless.

  ‘Uh-oh,’ he said out loud, and put the stick under a bush, ‘sorry, chaps.’ He found another piece of wood and took it back inside.

  ‘I’m telling you, Aldi is the cheapest. No arguing.’ Nobody was arguing with Mavis, least of all Cllr Doon, who was planning what she would say to the deaconess she was meeting once she’d got away from the whittle. The deaconess wanted a grant of £37,000 for repairs to a church hall. Bette Doon just didn’t know if a grant that big could be justified, even if the hall was used by the Silver Oldies Lunch Club and three troupes of baton twirlers. She had agreed to meet the deaconess that afternoon and join her on the city’s ‘All Faith March for Peace and Reconciliation’. It was to end with prayers at the cenotaph.

  ‘They do household as well,’ Mavis went on. ‘There’s something in the Advertiser every week, the special offers. This week it’s blinds for £7.99. Peach or plum. I’m going down there now. I want a peach one. And rotary dryers. £8.99 including the cover. So no arguing! It’s even cheaper than Lidls without the bus fare. Coming then?’ She thrust her chin at Cllr Doon.

  ‘Sorry, my dear. I’m already booked for the “All Faith March”. In fact, I must set off now, mustn’t be late, goodbye!’ Bette tried to make a speedy exit, she dropped the stick that she’d made a poor attempt at whittling into the umbrella stand on her way out, but her sleeve caught on the door handle and she was trapped.

  ‘Wait for us,’ Mavis called after her. ‘Come on, Gilb, you’ll get some bargains. And my trolley’s lost a wheel so you can give me a hand.’

  ‘So you’re off your trolley, are you?’ Cllr Doon quipped.

  ‘What?’ Gilbert was confused.

  ‘They’d like you to go with them,’ Lucy explained, ‘to the shop or on a march in the town, near the cenotaph.’

  ‘Cenotaph? What’s that?’ he asked.

  ‘That big white blocky memorial thing near where the Aviary used to be.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Gilbert. That made sense to him. He stuffed some cheese straws and apple shortbread into his pockets, and shuffled after them.

  ‘I didn’t know he knew them,’ Lucy said when they’d gone.

  ‘Maybe through the council or something. It’s not through the Centre,’ said Paul.

  ‘Maybe she works at the council. Perhaps she’s a cleaner.’

  ‘I thought she looked like a dinner lady. She might be in the canteen,’ Paul suggested.

  ‘Did you see her nails? She really couldn’t work in a kitchen. Talons!’ Lucy told him, ‘Huge black and yellow claws. Imagine her toenails. Rhino’s feet. Ugh!’

  Lucy pictured Mavis’s toenails hanging over the end of some thick rainbow flip-flops.

  ‘What?’ Paul asked.

  ‘Oh, I think they might be quite well suited, Gilbert and that woman,’ she said.

  ‘Hmm.’ Paul wasn’t listening now, he was concentrating on his whittling. His stick had a particularly tricky knot that looked a bit like an owl.

  ‘Is this it?’ Cllr Doon asked the deaconess. She hadn’t intended to sound so scathing.

  ‘We were hoping for a few more, but the Methodists have cancelled, an inter-church badminton match. A pretty poor excuse really. We’re hoping for some more Sikhs but there’s a big wedding on at one of the Gurdwaras; either that or a Death in the Community, I expect. The Baptists have just gone to get their banners. We’ll be setting off soon. Did you bring any instruments?’

  ‘Just my voice,’ said Cllr Doon with a smile. She was heavily tipped to be the First Mayor of the Millennium.

  Chapter 34

  Mavis’s lounge was a shag-piled shrine to Kenny Rogers. Her pride and joy hung on the wall above the settee. It was a huge towel, bought at Southsea Funfair; a portrait of Kenny with his guitar standing on a mountain top surrounded by crotchets and clouds and quavers. She had almost all of his records as well as mugs, T-shirts, pictures, a clock with his face, and a mirror where, unless she jumped or ducked, it was Kenny’s face that stared back at her. The effect was uncanny as they had hair of the same colour and style.

  ‘I’m not one of these Johnny-Come-Lately-Lucille Kenny fans. I’ve always loved Kenny,’ she explained in her head to imaginary people who might ask her about her collections, and to the few visitors that she managed to lure into her parlour for tea and a slice of lardy cake. She bought a slab of yesterday’s every day at the baker’s, which was one of the last businesses still running in the sad parade of shops that bordered the estate. The butcher’s was long gone, the post office was packing its bags, and market forces had forced the 50p Shop to change itself into a 55p Shop.

  ‘Sit down here, by the fire, love,’ she told Gilbert. ‘Get yourself warm before you help me with that Venetian and that dryer.’

  The gas fired at the fourth attempt. Orange and blue tongues licked at the decaying honeycomb and danced outwards into the room. She brought in the huge red BOVRIL mugs and two chunks of cake. The tea was steaming strong and milky, and she heaped sugar into Gilbert’s mug without asking if he took it.

  ‘Lots of children in your family?’ Gilbert asked, indicating the cardboard boxes full of jumpers, mittens, cardies and hats, and the carrier bags that were spewing balls of wool, needles and patterns on to the floor.

  ‘Only some nephews and nieces in Shirley that I don’t see much,’ Mavis said. ‘I knit for the cats.’

  ‘Uh?’

  ‘Sick cats, rescued cats, strays …’

  Gilbert supposed that the mittens must be for bandaged paws and the other stuff for when they lost fur or had the cat flu which he knew was a killer. But wouldn’t knitwear be a bit dangerous for a cat who was climbing trees, or going through hedges or whatever?

  ‘Would be good for those small dogs that shiver too,’ he suggested, thinking of chihuahuas and Mexican hairless. ‘Knitting for some dogs would take just as long as making something for a grown-up. Great Danes and Alsatians and them are just as tall on their hind legs.’

  ‘What? Why would I want to knit dog clothes? I might knit you something one day,’ she said, with a lusty glint in her eye. ‘What are your measurements then?’

  ‘Um, medium, I think.’

  The Southampton Cats Protection League gave a collective miaow of horror each time Mavis arrived to donate one of her boxes of knitted items. She never missed a fund-raiser. At the Autumn Bazaar, Christmas Fayre, Spring Bring and Buy and even the Summer Beach Bar-B-Que, there was always a stall heaving with her handiwork. She knitted with a special kind of itchy acrylic wool in shades that nobody would ever choose, and in styles that hadn’t been worn for over twenty years; balaclavas with peaks, matinée jackets with huge buttons, scratchy pram-suits, jumpers with arms long enough for a gibbon. The secretary of the League took them with her when she visited her mother in York and made anonymous donations of them to a PDSA shop there.

  ‘Come here,’ Mavis told Gilbert. ‘I’ll get your measurements.’

  He splashed his mug down on to a Kenny coaster and stumbled towards her with his mouth and arms open wide.

  When he awoke the next morning, the pink-and-grey marbled slab that was Mavis’s arm was pinning him to the bed, and the grey-and-pink ham that was her calf was lying across his legs. Kenny’s face told him 6.30. Time to make tracks for the depot. He tried to slither out. Mavis woke.

  ‘You can’t go to work on an empty stomach!’ she told him and she was soon resplendent in a pale blue towelling dressing gown, the cuffs stained brown by tea and fry-ups, doing him some eggs.

  Gilbert wasn’t the sort to worry about wearing the same underwear twice, but Mavis lent him some, and it fitted.

  ‘My late husband’s,’ she told him. ‘And my first late husband’s before him.’ Gilbert felt honoured.

>   ‘I don’t always do this, you know,’ Mavis told him.

  ‘Oh, I don’t need cooked breakfast every day.’

  ‘Not the eggs!’ She clouted him playfully and painfully with an old copy of the News. ‘I mean sleep with someone on a first date!’

  ‘Nor do I,’ he told her, ‘but you’re special.’

  ‘You’re Special’. A slogan that he’d seen on sashes worn by white rabbits and teddies holding red hearts in a card shop window. He’d wondered what they were for, and now he knew. He thought that he might get one for Mavis if they weren’t too expensive.

  Staying for breakfast at Mavis’s meant that Gilbert missed breakfast at the canteen. He’d have had eggs, tomatoes, beans, sausages, bacon and toast there. He thought about this as he trudged to work and decided that it was well worth it.

  Chapter 35

  John Vir decided that undercooked kidney beans might be the thing to try next. He’d stuff a samosa with some and give it to Paul when he came into the shop on his own. Who could resist just one samosa? It wouldn’t get anywhere near Lucy. If that failed he’d ask Paul to help him with some decorating and push him off a very tall ladder. The way to Lucy’s heart would be clear. Gurpal’s project had told him that kidney beans should be cooked thoroughly, boiled for four hours, something like that.

  He soaked a handful of beans overnight and then cooked them for fifteen minutes, just to soften them up. He stirred them into some samosa-filling mixture, and wrapped it up making a square to distinguish it from the rest of the batch. He carefully lowered it into the boiling oil, it fizzled and turned orangey-brown.

  ‘Giz one, Dad!’ Gurpal’s quick hand reached for the biggest one, the square one.

  ‘No!’ He slapped her hand away.

  ‘Aw, Dad, why’d you bother to have me if you won’t even give me a samosa?’

  ‘OK. Have one. Just one.’ He handed her a neat triangle.

  ‘Why’d you bother making them when we’ve got half a trayful left downstairs?’