Vinegar Soup

by Miles Gibson

  ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered. It’s easy for men strutting about with that big hairy sausage trying to stuff you like a turkey whenever it happens to take their fancy but it’s the woman who takes the risks with the stretching and straining and all the damage to the pipes and tubes in a tangle and in the end they pull you apart like poor Mrs Papworth surrounded by men in rubber gloves snipping out her stomach with scissors and afterwards she wanted to take it home wrapped in paper like a pound of tripe and the surgeon laughed it must have been the anaesthetic she wanted to give it a decent burial.

  ‘One day we’ll be too old,’ warned Gilbert, bending forward to kiss her again. But Olive shrank from his embrace and hurried away.

  Frank was four years old when he first asked Olive the forbidden question.

  ‘Where did I come from?’ he demanded one evening, sitting in the bath, scowling and pulling at the worm between his legs.

  Olive blushed as pink as sweetbreads and told him to ask Gilbert.

  When he repeated the question Gilbert said they’d found him under one of the tables. Frank was satisfied with the explanation. He couldn’t understand why Olive had tried to keep it a secret. He supposed all babies were found, growing like mushrooms in dark corners of old houses. He began to search beneath the tables each morning, hoping to find a new brother or sister. But he was always disappointed. Perhaps there was a season for the growing of babies, like any fruit or vegetable. If you didn’t find them when they first emerged did they wither like fallen apples, turn black and rot back into the floor?

  It was about this time that Frank began to invite his friends to the Hercules Cafe. Mr Artichoke was the first to make himself at home. He slept under the counter and no one could see him but Frank.

  ‘He’s talking to himself again,’ Olive would complain, listening to Frank’s muffled voice as he sat and warbled in the safety of an empty cupboard or the gloomy bottom of a laundry basket.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Gilbert. ‘It’s only Mr Artichoke.’

  Olive nodded but she didn’t like it. She saw Frank stand in corners, wagging his finger at nothing at all and muttering to himself. She saw him pull his hat down over his eyes and suddenly shriek with laughter. She watched him sit and whisper secrets at the walls for hours and it gave her the shivers.

  ‘That boy is as daft as a brush,’ observed Horace, the barber, when he came around for his morning coffee. He leaned on the counter and stared at Olive through a pair of greasy spectacles. He smelt of whisky and lavender water.

  ‘He’s as bright as a button,’ she retorted, slapping a cup beneath the machine.

  ‘He talks to himself,’ said Horace. ‘I’ve seen him.’ He pulled a comb from his jacket pocket and tapped a tune on his knuckles.

  ‘It doesn’t mean he’s daft,’ said Olive. ‘We all talk to ourselves sometimes.’ The machine whistled and spurted steam.

  ‘I don’t,’ said the barber.

  ‘I’m not surprised. Even you don’t want to hear your nonsense,’ said Olive.

  ‘You ought to throw away that hat. His hair can’t breathe.’

  ‘What’s wrong with his hair?’ she demanded, pushing the cup across the counter.

  ‘It can’t breathe – strangles the roots – suffocates the brain,’ chuckled Horace. ‘The boy thinks he’s a giant artichoke.’ He picked up the coffee and stirred it briskly with his comb.

  ‘You’ve forgotten your saucer,’ she shouted as he staggered away to his favourite table.

  ‘Is that Horace?’ Gilbert called from the kitchen.

  ‘Yes,’ shouted Olive.

  ‘Leave him alone. I’m trying to teach him to drink from a cup,’ shouted Gilbert.

  While Mr Artichoke stayed at the cafe little gifts began appearing on Olive’s pillow. A sandwich crust inside a twist of wrapping paper. A doughnut with some of the sugar sucked from the pastry. Within a few weeks she had collected a half-eaten sausage, a boiled egg, three biscuits, a dozen sultanas and a stick of cheese. She found a sardine in one of her slippers and a pickled gherkin in the pocket of her dressing gown.

  ‘Someone loves you,’ frowned Gilbert, picking hairs from the pickle.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Olive. ‘It’s only Mr Artichoke.’ She smiled, flattered by these curious love tokens. It was strange how quickly she had grown to expect a scrap of food on her pillow at night. When the pillow was bare she felt disappointed.

  But Mr Artichoke made a big mistake with the ice cream. It was a fat brown dollop of Chocolate Sparkle. Frank’s favourite. It appeared on the pillow late one morning and all through the afternoon it softened and spread until, by dusk, it resembled a cow pat; and then it slithered under the bedclothes and worked its way through the mattress.

  Frank, frightened, half-asleep, was dragged from his dreams at midnight and pushed before the spoiled bed.

  ‘Where did this come from?’ roared Gilbert, prodding the puddle as he glared at Frank. It had been a bad day and Olive, scalded with soup, bullied by customers, had wanted nothing but the simple comfort of a clean bed, head down, lights out, good riddance and good night. The wet pillow had been enough to make her fall on the floor and howl.

  ‘Mr Artichoke,’ whispered Frank, rubbing his nose and looking anxiously at Gilbert.

  ‘I’m very angry with Mr Artichoke,’ sobbed Olive from the floor. She was propped against the foot of the bed like a disappointed china doll. Her dress was pulled over her stomach revealing a pair of polished pink legs. She had tried to undress but found she didn’t have the strength.

  Frank was quiet for a long time. He sucked his thumb and stared at the bed. ‘It’s all right,’ he said at last. ‘I sent him away.’

  ‘Where?’ growled Gilbert as he started to pull the bed apart.

  ‘I sent him back to the factory,’ whispered Frank. His chin trembled and he burst into tears. He threw back his head and wailed. His eyes glittered. His mouth shone like an open wound.

  ‘Don’t hurt him!’ screeched Olive, struggling to her feet.

  ‘I didn’t touch him!’ protested Gilbert as he tangled with the sheet. He threw a pillow to the floor and trampled on it. Frank screamed. Olive opened her arms to embrace him, her dress fell over her knees and Frank was swept beneath it. He blinked in the warm and crowded dark. He clung to her thighs and wept.

  Despite Frank’s misery, Gilbert was glad to hear that Artichoke had left the neighbourhood. But then he hadn’t met Godfrey.

  Godfrey was a monster, a poltergeist and thief. He pilfered from customers’ plates, robbed the kitchen and raided the freezer; stuck finger in pies, spat in the soup, cracked cups and curdled milk. He scribbled on the walls and piddled on the floor. He was fast, silent and so cunning that no one could catch him. Olive threatened to skin him alive. Gilbert wanted his guts for garters. Frank scowled and said nothing.

  ‘He’s lonely,’ declared Gilbert one evening as he worked in the kitchen with Olive. They stood at the stove and stared at an ox tongue curled in a pan of water. The water boiled. The tongue began to wag.

  ‘Who?’ said Olive.

  ‘Frank,’ said Gilbert. He bent forward and sniffed the steam. You can’t lick a Hercules tongue. Salt. Pepper. Dash of mustard. Fit for the crowned heads of Europe.

  ‘I talk to him,’ said Olive.

  ‘That’s no good. He needs someone his own age. That’s why he invented Artichoke and Godfrey. Everybody has a secret friend at his age.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ argued Olive.

  ‘You must have had someone you could tell your secrets to,’ said Gilbert. He pushed a fork into the steam and hooked out the purple tongue. A tangle of pipes dribbled water over his apron.

  ‘I had tadpoles,’ said Olive. ‘The milkman used to bring them.’

  ‘You can’t talk to a damn tadpole,’ grunted Gilbert, plunging the tongue into fresh water.

  ‘I kept them in a kettle.’

  ‘And you talked to them?’

  ‘Yes. They understood every
thing I said.’

  ‘That’s more than I can do,’ sighed Gilbert.

  Olive pouted and fell silent. ‘Well, what are you going to do about it?’ she demanded.

  Gilbert frowned. What can I do about anything? Kick off your shoes. Roll down your stockings. Once around the bedroom carpet. Swift and simple. I’ll be gentle. Answer to a matron’s prayer. A brother for our small son, Frank. Fat chance. Another baby in the house. Yes, that’s the truth of it. Bring me babies, dozens of them, grinning, toothless, crawling around on their hands and knees. Bring me babies, hundreds of them, hot and squirming, shot from the rumps of ripe, rude women.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Godfrey,’ snapped Olive impatiently. ‘What are you going to do about him?’

  ‘Leave it to me,’ said Gilbert, smacking his hands on the wet apron. ‘I’ll fix him.’

  The next morning Gilbert had a few words with Frank under the counter. ‘Have you stolen Olive’s pencil?’ he inquired gently. He didn’t sound angry. He might have been talking about the weather. He pulled a speckled egg from his apron pocket and tapped it experimentally against his knee.

  ‘No,’ said Frank. ‘It must have been Godfrey. Damn Godfrey. I’ll skin him when I catch him.’ He screwed up his face and clenched his teeth as he’d seen Olive do so many times when she was angry with Godfrey.

  ‘That’s rum. He told me he was going to start behaving himself,’ murmured Gilbert as he cracked the egg. He peeled the shell in a delicate spiral.

  Frank stared thoughtfully at Gilbert. He stuck his thumb in his mouth and gave it a suck. He felt suspicious. He knew something was wrong. He pulled out his thumb and dried it carefully on his vest. ‘He wouldn’t talk to you,’ he argued.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he’s my friend,’ Frank said indignantly.

  ‘Well, if he’s your friend why do you let him do such mischief?’ said Gilbert. He bit softly into the egg. The yolk was the colour of apricots.

  ‘I can’t control him,’ said Frank. The egg smelt like a warm fart. He rubbed his nose and sneezed.

  ‘It will end in tears,’ sighed Gilbert.

  ‘Have you seen Basil today?’ asked Frank as he followed Gilbert back to the kitchen.

  ‘The bear with the spectacles?’ asked Gilbert, walking on eggshell.

  ‘Yes,’ said Frank.

  ‘The tap-dancing bear?’

  Frank nodded.

  ‘Godfrey stole him,’ said Gilbert.

  ‘Godfrey? But he’s my friend!’ exploded Frank.

  ‘That’s the trouble with Godfrey – you can’t trust him,’ grunted Gilbert.

  And it was true. From that moment, whenever something went wrong in the cafe and Frank pointed a finger at Godfrey, the little fiend took revenge. When one of the girls from the beauty parlour complained that someone had stolen the doughnut from her plate, Frank complained that someone had kidnapped Hardy Annual, his favourite penguin. When Olive found that someone had salted the sugar bowls, Frank found that someone had peppered his toothbrush.

  ‘You can’t trust Godfrey!’ he spat.

  A month before Frank’s fifth birthday Godfrey vanished. He disappeared as suddenly as he’d arrived and no one knew he had gone. But after a few days, when nothing had been scorched, scratched, smashed or stolen, Olive missed him.

  ‘Where’s Godfrey?’ she asked, one morning at breakfast.

  ‘He’s gone,’ said Frank.

  ‘For ever?’ asked Gilbert.

  ‘Yes,’ said Frank.

  ‘What happened to him?’ asked Olive.

  ‘I ate him,’ said Frank.

  4

  Gilbert took charge of Frank’s education from the beginning. He wouldn’t trust Frank to a school and, anyway, Olive was convinced the authorities would seize the boy as a foundling and refuse to return him. So the nursery grew into a classroom, the walls became a map of the world and Frank was taught to read and write.

  Whenever Gilbert could leave the kitchen he would hurry away to sit with the child. They wrestled with arithmetic, sweated with science, dreamed in geography and marvelled in history. Gilbert saw the spread of civilisation as the transport of fruit and vegetables through the ancient world. The planet as a plundered larder. God the giant grocer.

  Empires rose and fell on the strength of a vine or the thrust of a foreign cucumber. The Romans made Britain a slave to the grape and robbed the island of oysters. The Arabs took spinach and oranges to conquer Spain. The Portuguese bombed India with pineapples and poisoned the cooking with peppers.

  Men were remembered, not for their bravery in battle but for the courage of their stomachs. Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618) sailor, gave England the first taste of potatoes. Alexander the Great (356-323 BC) conqueror, marched an army on onions and garlic.

  Frank had trouble enough trying to spell his name, write the alphabet and tie his shoes. But Gilbert couldn’t wait for him. The Egyptians built pyramids and worshipped the cabbage. The Greeks cast a golden radish for the temple of Delphi. The Hebrews ate giraffes. The Romans ate mice.

  While Frank learned to buckle his sandals Gilbert tried to explain the shape of the planet, a dark and dangerous, poisonous parcel of men, vermin and mud. When words failed him he hauled a leather trunk from the attic and spilled the contents over the bedroom floor. The trunk was full of old letters, curling photographs, torn tickets, fetish objects, rubbish from his travels.

  ‘America,’ he announced, holding a painted pebble in the palm of his hand, souvenir of the Grand Canyon, Arizona.

  ‘Africa,’ he declared, flourishing a hairy nut with ivory studs for eyes and teeth.

  ‘India,’ he explained, holding a snowstorm trapped in a bubble. Beneath the snowflakes the Taj Mahal.

  Frank sucked his thumb and stared at the world spread out at his feet. Once he had managed to pull Africa’s teeth and swallow most of the snow in India, he turned his attention to the photographs. There were hundreds of them. A perpetual fog hung over most of the world, but through the fog there were blurred views of mountains, houses, trees and faces.

  ‘That’s Sam Pilchard,’ said Gilbert, stabbing at a blurred portrait of two young men standing, grinning, through a curtain of straw and dust. ‘And that’s me,’ he added, pointing at the smaller of the two figures, a thin smudge clutching a chicken in its fists.

  ‘No,’ said Frank.

  ‘Yes, when I was young,’ explained Gilbert.

  ‘Where’s Olive?’ demanded Frank.

  Gilbert scratched his chin. There were no pictures of Olive. One morning, many years ago, he had armed himself with a camera and tried to take her snapshot while she stood in the street to wash the cafe windows. It was a hot, dusty, August day; the sun shone in her hair and a summer breeze, lifting the hem of her skirt, revealed a pair of plump white knees. She had posed patiently on the pavement, leather in hand and bucket by feet. But as he pressed the button something caught her attention: a bird, balloon or vapour trail drifting above in the empty sky. When the picture was printed her face had the painted God-help-me look of a grieving plaster Madonna. The finely pencilled eyebrows and scarlet rosebud mouth spoke of earthly delights but her eyes, rolled white, were staring intently at heaven. This little snapshot of the virgin Olive was kept secure in Gilbert’s wallet until the day it fell apart.

  ‘Olive?’ he murmured, scratching his chin. ‘This was a long time ago, before Olive.’

  Frank tried to imagine a time without Olive and failed. She had always been there, fretting and complaining, simple and safe. But Gilbert knew of a time so long past that it was even before the Hercules Cafe.

  ‘Sam and me used to travel a lot in the old days,’ said Gilbert. ‘We came from the same kitchen. Coronation Hotel. Terrible place. Paddington. Sam was mostly breakfast and I was usually dinner. But you couldn’t tell the difference. It was all porridge and horse meat in that place. We slept in a corner of the kitchen with the oven doors open to keep us warm. They wouldn’t pay us and we could
n’t eat the food so we left and went on the road.’

  Frank grinned and wriggled deeper into his cushions. He saw the two men walking down an empty road with frying pans strapped to their backs.

  ‘Once we started walking we found we couldn’t stop,’ continued Gilbert. ‘We took work wherever we found it but we never stayed long. As soon as we earned the price of a new pair of shoes we’d leave and go somewhere else. We spent a season boiling crabs in the south of France and another stewing snails in Spain. We spent a summer roasting pigeons in Morocco and a winter cooking black beans in Benin. It took us years to walk around the world.’ He paused. And how had he spent so many years at the Hercules Cafe? Too late. Too long. Stayed too long on the way to somewhere else.

  ‘And where’s Sam?’ demanded Frank, returning to the photographs.

  ‘I left him in Africa,’ said Gilbert. ‘Cooking for the cannibals.’

  ‘What does he cook?’

  ‘Little boys – when he can catch ’em,’ growled Gilbert and ruffled Frank’s hair with his hand.

  Frank was seven years old when the classroom moved to the kitchen. He already knew the names of all the spiders to be found in wild pineapples; the mystery of the world’s weather system; the dimensions of the pyramids; the length of the perfect hot dog. Now Gilbert was ready to teach him one of the most important facts of life. He was going to explain how grain and water make a kind of glue you can bake and eat. Frank was impressed. Standing on a chair, with an apron tied beneath his chin, he turned out a thousand grubby pastry men with burnt sultana eyes. Gilbert was expected to eat most of them. Olive pretended she couldn’t manage because of her teeth. So Gilbert changed the recipe, introduced sugar, ginger, butter and eggs, until Frank was producing an honest biscuit.

  Flushed with success, Frank turned from the mystery of the biscuit to the secret of the sandwich. He stuffed bread with anything he could reach on the shelves and all the scraps he found on the floor. His sandwiches were explosive mixtures of fruit, honey, cheese, pickles, hair, beads and bacon rinds. He tasted everything. And when he felt too sick to eat he built boats from fingers of toast or carved faces from old potatoes. One afternoon he dusted his face with flour and made a necklace from noodles which he wore like a rope around his neck. He thought he might become a waitress. But Gilbert hadn’t finished his education.