Vinegar Soup

by Miles Gibson

  At first light he woke Charlotte with fruit and coffee and steered her through the ruined hotel. He showed her the dining room with the hole in the ceiling. He took her out to Sam’s grave and through the wreckage of shanty town. Charlotte took an interest in everything. She inspected the latrines and the generator shed, tapped the water tank and probed the oven. When she asked him questions about the kitchen he ran to fetch his pillow book and proudly provided the most detailed answers. Knives forty-seven. Forks sixty-nine. Surviving saucepans eleven.

  As she made her grand tour she made him collect all the religious ornaments and carry them back to her room. Framed scenes from the life of Jesus ten assorted eight in full colour. Crucifixes five. Bleeding hearts one painted plaster.

  ‘People don’t like it,’ she growled at him. ‘Pictures of Jesus don’t make ’em feel good.’

  Gilbert didn’t argue. Charlotte knew what belonged in a palace. Frank helped him hang the pictures around her walls and nail the crucifixes above the bed. They screwed the bleeding heart to the wardrobe.

  ‘It looks like a funeral parlour,’ Frank told Veronica that night as they sat in his bed and fed each other biscuits by candlelight.

  ‘What’s the idea?’

  ‘She says Jesus upsets the customers.’

  ‘We don’t have any customers,’ she objected.

  Frank grinned and filled her mouth with biscuit. ‘Have you spoken to Comfort and Easy?’

  ‘No,’ she mumbled ‘They just sit around in the sun with Boris and drink warm beer and stare.’

  ‘I suppose they’ll start work when we’re ready to open again,’ he said, but he didn’t sound convinced. Nothing worked in the rain. Nothing worked in the heat. They would probably never be ready to open.

  ‘Open? We’re nearly full!’ She protested. ‘There are only three bedrooms left in the place and they’re fit for nothing.’

  ‘Charlotte must know what she’s doing or she wouldn’t have come here.’

  ‘She’s enormous,’ said Veronica.

  ‘Yes,’ said Frank, sucking his fingers, ‘And Gilbert. They’re like a pair of circus elephants.’

  In the days that followed Charlotte set out to prove herself as Gilbert’s mother of invention. She was a seamstress and a barber, a butcher and a dentist. She could bake bread, brew wine and make her own herb medicines. She boiled a poultice to draw the poison from Frank’s bad hand and mixed a paste for his ears when they were sunburnt and peeling. As soon as she heard Happy complain of his teeth she filled him full of hot whisky, sat on his chest and attacked his mouth with a pair of pliers. He gurgled as his throat filled with blood and fainted. When he woke up it was dark and he found four teeth in his cardigan pocket. She offered Veronica sweet herbs for the sake of her stomach and a green leaf tea against the bleeding. But Veronica would have none of it.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with me,’ she barked running around the yard, a bundle of bones in torn knickers. It might have been Olive.

  Charlotte smiled and shook her head and turned her attention to Gilbert. He was still weak from the fever, rose late, retired early and liked to sleep through the heat of the afternoons. Charlotte nursed him. She cooked his meals and cleaned out his room. She burned his blanket and dressed him in a set of her own pyjamas, a black satin jacket with a scarlet collar and a huge pair of matching pantaloons. She stopped him working and tried to confine him to bed. But he rolled around the property, giddy with pleasure, his toothbrush stuck in his jacket pocket and the pantaloons blowing. The place needs the touch of a good woman. That’s the idea. Maddened by desire to see the jungle palace he urged Boris to start the generator.

  Boris grunted and ignored him. ‘Charlotte tell me when it’s time,’ he said.

  ‘It’s time!’ roared Gilbert. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

  ‘Charlotte tell me,’ insisted Boris and glared at him with a yellow eye.

  But that night the generator rumbled into life. Charlotte had already tucked Gilbert into bed when the fan creaked above his head and sent cobwebs spinning around the ceiling. The Kelvinator shuddered in a corner of the kitchen. All over the Hotel Plenti the lights flickered, blinked and glowed once more against the walls of the forest.

  19

  Gilbert sat in bed in his satin pyjamas and let Charlotte feed him. She stuffed him with cakes and soaked him with beer and spun him stories of palace life. She turned a Chari chicken parlour into a pleasure pavilion of stupendous proportions. She told him that the bedrooms had glass floors, the courtyards were cooled by marble fountains and a little monkey, dressed as a waiter, carried drinks on a silver tray. She told him that all the princes of Persia came from the east to stay at the palace and pashas and pharaohs came from the north and blue-skinned men from the desert. She told him that there were peacocks stewed in honey served on nests of wild rice, turtles roasted in their shells, brandied figs and coloured sherbets. And poor, fat, befuddled Gilbert, because he wanted to believe it, because he needed to believe it, gorged on her words and stared at Charlotte with love in his eyes.

  ‘We’ll build a jungle palace,’ he wheezed as she fed him on lumps of banana cake. ‘I worked the Congo riverboats. I’ve seen something of the world. Everything grows in the forest. When we’re established we’ll sit here and feed from the fat of the land.’

  ‘Cushions stuffed with peacocks’ feathers,’ she purred, wiping his mouth with her fingertips. ‘Living carpets of forest flowers.’

  ‘And a star on the roof?’ he said. ‘A star on the roof to shine at night?’

  ‘Bright as the moon,’ she said.

  ‘The others don’t understand. They’re children,’ he whispered, pulling his heavy head from the pillow. ‘You’re a woman of the world. You understand. You’ve had the experience.’ He tapped his nose and fell back on the bed exhausted.

  ‘It’s not good for a man to live with children,’ said Charlotte.

  ‘I brought them here,’ sighed Gilbert. ‘I brought them here and I’ve made them suffer.’

  ‘They’re strong,’ said Charlotte. ‘And children like to suffer. It makes them feel romantic.’

  Gilbert shook his head. ‘They share all the hardship but they don’t share the dream,’ he whispered sadly. ‘They look but they don’t see anything. They listen but they don’t hear anything.’

  ‘They’re children,’ said Charlotte. ‘And a man needs the touch of a woman.’ She offered him more banana cake but Gilbert had fallen asleep.

  Meanwhile Boris began to decorate the hotel according to Charlotte’s instructions. He scrubbed out the little entrance hall, polished the mirror and stuffed the broken sofa with most of Baxter’s Mountain Memories and pages from The London Pageant. He swept out the dining room, repaired the ceiling with cardboard and embellished the walls with posters. The posters were grey with age and featured a set of impossible, naked, Hollywood girls. They were all laughing. Their hair was bright as ribbon. Their breasts were hard and polished like fruits. One of the girls was stepping out of a bath in search of a towel. Another was kneeling on the beach with her swimsuit held in her hands. They were advertising something called Sweetheart Beer.

  ‘Real American!’ he roared indignantly, when Frank dared to look doubtful. ‘Top quality USA.’

  ‘But this is a dining room,’ objected Frank. ‘People are going to want to eat here.’

  ‘Makes me hungry just lookin’ at women,’ muttered Boris and he threw himself at the wall, licking the nearest available breast with his tongue.

  ‘Gilbert isn’t going to like it,’ warned Frank.

  Boris ignored him. He knocked out the door to the veranda and hooked a string of paper lanterns around the walls. ‘You people as bad as Sam,’ he grumbled as he screwed home the lightbulbs. ‘He sit around all day complaining. Do nothing. Watch the house fall down. People come out here. They want a nice place to drink. They looking for comfort.’

  Comfort was usually on the veranda. The two girls sat out every afternoon, d
ressed in their Sunday-best satin frocks and a wealth of bent wire jewellery. Comfort was a beautiful, madeyed girl with long limbs and a face as black as an olive. Her mouth was full and curved like a knife. Easy was less lovely but a good deal friendlier with big breasts and buttocks too heavy for her bandy, pipe-cleaner legs. She sat around drinking beer or strutting up and down the veranda in plastic high-heel shoes. They provided themselves with a constant babble of music from a tape machine the size of a suitcase. The music they favoured was reggae and old love songs from the Nigerian hit parade. They danced together in a lazy shuffle, leaning forward, arms loose, heads bobbing, feet scrubbing the floor. They called out to Frank and laughed whenever he passed them but he was too busy with the kitchen work to give them much thought.

  ‘Dem pipli mek plenti troble an no mistik,’ complained Happy as he helped Frank cut onions for the evening stew. ‘Fos tarn a louk am a no lek am.’ he said, shaking his head. The juice from the onions stung his eyes and he had to stop to blow his nose in a rag.

  ‘They haven’t done anything,’ said Frank. That’s the trouble. They appear from nowhere, make themselves at home and then sit around all day waiting to be fed.

  ‘Dat won he nem Easy,’ gasped Happy. ‘He don mek Happy louk he big bak seid.’

  ‘What?’ said Frank. He didn’t believe his ears. He tossed the onions into the pot and stirred at the stew with a stick.

  ‘Daso,’ confessed Happy. ‘He don tek he clot and pout for op – kouik kouik – an mek a louk he neket bak seid!’ He bent forward, hitched up his cardigan like a skirt and waggled his rump in the air.

  ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘Plenti tarn.’

  ‘More than once?’

  ‘Fo, feif tarn,’ said Happy, wiping his eyes in his rag. ‘Ma blod he run col.’

  There was a crash of saucepans and Boris broke into the kitchen. ‘What’s happening?’ he shouted at Frank. ‘You make this bastard work for a living?’ He turned to Happy, slapped him playfully around the head and sent him spinning into a corner. Happy farted and fell on the floor.

  ‘Happy works hard!’ barked Frank. ‘Leave him alone.’

  Boris grinned and swaggered to the stove. ‘What you got cooking you bastard? It smells like a turd.’

  Before Frank had time to stop him, Boris snatched up a spoon and sampled the stew. He rolled it around his mouth. He sieved it through his teeth. He sucked. He chewed. He sprayed it across the kitchen wall.

  ‘It makes me sick in the stomach!’ he roared. He brushed his teeth with a dirty finger and spat a string of bubbles on the stove. ‘I bring you special rations. What happens? You cook me a turd.’

  ‘Get out!’ shouted Frank. ‘This is my kitchen and that’s my stew. If you don’t like it you can make your own arrangements.’

  For a moment he thought Boris was going to reach out and strangle him. He watched the big, boiled face begin to swell with blood, the eyes glitter, the fingers curl and claw at the air. Frank watched and was ready for him. Kick the stove. Drench the bugger in boiling stew. Burn him. Blind him. Bang his head on the butcher’s block. Cut his throat to stop him screaming. What happened? Couldn’t save him. Fell down drunk. Bled to death on the bacon knife. Shame to waste him. Ask Happy to skin and bone him. Frank watched and waited but nothing happened.

  ‘You think you know something?’ growled Boris. ‘You don’t know nothing.’ He laughed abruptly and waved his hand around the kitchen. ‘Charlotte make some changes around here and you bastards kiss goodbye to everything.’

  ‘Gilbert gives the orders,’ said Frank quietly.

  ‘Gilbert!’ hooted Boris. ‘He makes me sick in the stomach.’ He turned and staggered back towards the sunlight. ‘Gilbert like your stew,’ he shouted from the doorway. ‘He full of turds.’

  ‘Holi Gost!’ muttered Happy, ran across the floor and into his barrel.

  That evening, before Charlotte had time to stop him, Frank took Gilbert his supper in bed. While the old man sat propped among the pillows and gobbled the stew, Frank seized the chance to complain about Boris.

  ‘Why did he come here?’ he demanded. ‘We don’t want him. He’s nothing but trouble.’

  Gilbert licked his spoon and stared at Frank with lugubrious eyes. ‘He brought back supplies,’ he said. ‘He got the generator working again.’ He looked up at the fan in the ceiling. His bald head flashed in the lamplight.

  ‘We could have managed without him,’ insisted Frank.

  ‘And he brought Charlotte here,’ said Gilbert, poking the air with his spoon. ‘He listens to Charlotte. If he gives you any trouble she’ll sort him out.’

  ‘He slapped Happy this afternoon,’ complained Frank. ‘He’s crazy. He’s not allowed back in the kitchen.’

  Gilbert sighed and licked his chin. ‘He doesn’t mean any harm. He’s trying to help. Charlotte has great plans. She can see the opportunities.’ He laid the dish on the curve of his stomach and stared dreamily about the room.

  ‘And what about Comfort and Easy?’ said Frank.

  ‘Charlotte’s girls?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Frank. ‘They don’t do anything. They sit around all day waiting for me to feed them.’

  ‘They’re only children. They probably feel lost out here. Remember how difficult you found it for the first few days. I’m depending on you, Frank, to make them feel at home.’

  ‘They feel at home with Boris,’ grumbled Frank. ‘He keeps them up drinking all night.’

  ‘That’s good,’ said Gilbert. ‘It shows they’re beginning to feel comfortable. It takes time.’

  Frank shook his head. ‘I don’t like it,’ he muttered. ‘There’s something wrong.’

  ‘What does Veronica think about it?’

  ‘I don’t know. She spends most of her time hiding out in the trees. She creeps into the compound after dark and I have to go out and bang her dinner bowl and call her home like a cat.’

  ‘She’ll settle down,’ said Gilbert. ‘Charlotte has some wonderful ideas. You’ll be surprised. You won’t recognise the place when she’s finished. Has she redecorated the dining room?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Frank.

  ‘And the lights?’ said Gilbert. ‘Has she managed to hang up the lights?’

  Frank nodded.

  ‘I wish Sam was alive to see it,’ grinned Gilbert. He belched and closed his eyes. The spoon slipped from his fingers. When Frank reached out to rescue the soup dish Gilbert was asleep.

  ‘He’s besotted,’ said Frank later as he sat in bed with Veronica. ‘He’s besotted with Charlotte.’

  Veronica was trying to break into an orange, scratching at the leathery skin to get at the flesh. ‘He’ll get over it,’ she grunted.

  ‘And he spends all day in bed,’ worried Frank. ‘He hasn’t been outside his room for days. The hotel could fall down and he wouldn’t know about it.’

  ‘The hotel has fallen down,’ Veronica reminded him.

  ‘And have you seen what Boris has done to the dining room?’ continued Frank. ‘It looks like a Chinese massage parlour.’

  ‘I don’t care what he does to the place so long as he doesn’t bother me,’ shrugged Veronica.

  He scowled at her in disgust. And then, as he watched her picking at the orange, his disgust turned into a creeping horror. Her sunburnt skin had a queer, phosphorescent pallor. The corners of her mouth looked caked with blood. There were faint green circles around her eyes. ‘What’s happened to your face?’ he whispered.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said sharply.

  He reached out to hold her chin in his hand but she recoiled from his touch and turned her face away. ‘You’ve painted it!’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘Why?’ he demanded. What was happening? ‘Why have you painted it?’

  ‘Mind your own business,’ she retorted, sucking viciously at the fruit. ‘I wanted to paint it. Comfort let me use her make-up. Jesus, Frank, what’s wrong with you?’

  Frank snorted and snapped out t
he light. She’s gone mad. She looks like a trollop. Why did she want to paint her face? It doesn’t make sense. When was she talking to Comfort and Easy? She spends all her time in the trees.

  But as the days passed he noticed that she stopped running to hide in the forest and began to hang around the hotel, drinking and laughing with Charlotte’s girls. They painted her face and curled her hair and buttoned her into a short, satin frock. She no longer came to his room at night but returned to her own bed to sleep.

  ‘It’s not safe,’ he insisted. ‘It’s not safe to sleep alone.’

  ‘You mean you want me to sleep with you,’ said Veronica contemptuously.

  ‘No,’ said Frank. ‘I mean I don’t want to have to come running every time Boris takes a fancy to you and tries to kick down the bedroom door.’

  ‘I can take care of myself,’ she said.

  ‘And I think you should take Gilbert his food sometimes,’ he added.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He’d like it.’

  ‘Charlotte looks after him.’

  ‘She’s an outsider. He ought to have his family around him.’

  ‘Charlotte is part of the family,’ said Veronica. ‘What has she done to upset you? You’ve been difficult ever since she came here. Would you rather we were starving and scratching around in the rain?’

  Frank had no answer. He tried to talk to her again but she contrived to avoid him. He could only watch helplessly as she drifted into the camp of strangers.

  ‘Why she leave you?’ grinned Boris as he watched her walk the veranda. ‘She want a proper shag. Look. See. She beg for it. Boris make her beg for it. Bite her teeties. She grunt like a hog. Too good to waste. You wait. You watch. Boris make her hot for shagging.’