Becca at Sea

by Deirdre Baker

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” said Aunt Fifi.

  She unzipped her jeans and gently lifted one leg out. She reached for Becca’s hand. Becca thought her arm would pull right off her body as she hauled Aunt Fifi upwards. And then there was a horrible pause while Aunt Fifi hung at the end of Becca’s arm, shook off the remaining boot and pulled her other leg up to join the first.

  “Don’t let go of me!” Aunt Fifi shrieked.

  Becca hadn’t the breath even to grunt.

  Perched among the brambles on the log, Aunt Fifi was silent as Becca fished for the boots with the hook on the blackberry-picking stick, and silent as she pushed her feet back into them.

  “You look funny standing there in your shirt and underpants and boots,” Becca said, before she leaned out to fish out Aunt Fifi’s jeans.

  “I feel mighty funny, believe me. And I still have to make it onto the ladder and down out of the bush. And we haven’t even finished getting the berries.”

  “Can’t we go home now?”

  “Certainly not,” said Aunt Fifi. “We need a lot more berries. We need enough for jelly, and for pie. Maybe I’ll relent and invite that plumber over to join us after all.”

  * * *

  They picked for another hour, naked legs and all. Aunt Fifi said it would take too long to pick all the thorns out of her jeans and she’d just deal with it later.

  “I can’t tell what’s blood and what’s blackberry juice,” said Becca as they trudged home with the ladder and laden pails.

  “You’ll know when you go in the sea,” Aunt Fifi predicted gloomily. “Your scratches will sting like the dickens. I just hope that plumber has come and gone, taking his clacking teeth with him.”

  “His teeth clack?”

  “He has an old-fashioned pair of dentures that don’t fit properly,” Aunt Fifi said grumpily. “No wonder he has such peculiar ideas about Shakespeare.”

  Whether that made sense or not, Becca couldn’t say. She thought life would be calmer and less painful once Aunt Fifi had gone back to the city with her blackberry jelly.

  On the other hand, she was quite looking forward to dinner with the plumber.

  5. Jelly

  “Is the plumber gone?” Aunt Fifi demanded as they clomped up the path to Gran’s cabin, aching from the weight of the berries and criss-crossed with scratches.

  “Why? Are you spoiling for another fight?” Gran inquired.

  “Did his teeth clack?” Becca asked.

  “Did his teeth clack?!” Gran repeated.

  “Aunt Fifi says he has false teeth. She says they clack.” Becca looked around. She thought it might be rather interesting if the plumber were still there. He’d probably never seen Aunt Fifi quite so decorated in scratches and missing her trousers, too.

  “His teeth are perfectly reasonable,” Gran said to Becca, but Becca didn’t miss the dirty look she directed at Aunt Fifi. “Fiona, why do you tell this child such stories?”

  “I was going to invite him to dinner,” Aunt Fifi said, picking thorns out of her clothes.

  “I’d like to stay on the plumber’s good side,” Gran said.

  “I’ve had a sudden change of heart,” Aunt Fifi told her. “My experience among the blackberries and barbed wire made me want to be a nicer person. Even though his teeth clack.”

  “His teeth do not clack, but go ahead and invite him. Maybe I’ll invite Mac, too, since he’s here for the weekend. And by the way, why aren’t you wearing any trousers?”

  * * *

  “Ooh! Ow!” Becca screeched as they waded out of the sea the next morning.

  Her legs and arms were laced with scratches that woke up when they were wet.

  “Signs of an interesting life,” said Gran. “I’m looking forward to one of your pies, Fifi. Although I can see that you both paid in blood.”

  “First we have to make jelly,” said Aunt Fifi. “Becca is going to help.”

  “I am?” Becca had been planning a quiet day on the beach, letting her scratches get used to salt water. She thought that would take all day, and all her energy.

  “You are,” Aunt Fifi answered. “I hotted up the berries and dumped them in the bag last night, and now there will be lots of lovely juice!”

  * * *

  “That jelly bag looks familiar,” Becca said after breakfast.

  “It’s one of your gran’s pillow cases,” said Aunt Fifi. She squeezed the glistening, swollen bag, ran her hands down it so that wine-colored juice spread over her skin and trickled into the bowl below.

  “It looks like blood,” said Becca. “People would think you’d murdered someone in here if you spilled it.”

  “I won’t,” Aunt Fifi said. “Gran did once, though. A memorable occasion. For no reason anyone could discern, she had decided to hang the jelly bag in her van that year.”

  “Fifi! That’s one of my good pillow cases!” Gran cried from the door of the shed. “I told you to pick out one of the old ones.”

  “I took what was closest to hand,” Aunt Fifi said. “Look out, I’m coming through.”

  “I shouldn’t even let you through!” Gran exclaimed. “I should lock you in here for the rest of the day. Imagine doing that to my good linen!”

  For a moment Becca thought she might get her day on the beach after all, but Gran stood back and Aunt Fifi stalked past.

  “You won’t say that when you taste the jelly,” she said calmly.

  “I came to see if you wanted to go to the recycling depot with me, Becca,” said Gran.

  “I’d love — ”

  “She can’t,” said Aunt Fifi. “She’s helping me.”

  Becca looked at Gran. Gran knew she loved the free store at the recycling depot.

  “Never mind,” Gran whispered. “She’s only going to be here for a few days.”

  * * *

  Aunt Fifi put the bowl on the table. The blackberry juice lay sluggishly, except when Becca bumped the table, and then it quivered and jiggled. It looked like something half alive, something that might creep out of the bowl, ooze across the floor and go on to live for years under Gran’s cabinets.

  “It doesn’t look good,” Becca said.

  “It is ugly,” Aunt Fifi agreed. “And there sure is a lot of it.” She sounded pleased.

  “First we wash the jelly jars,” she told Becca. “That’s a good job for you.”

  Becca couldn’t believe that Aunt Fifi was going to make her spend the morning doing dishes. She could be at the recycling depot trying to find a pair of sequined shoes to match the boa she’d picked up last time she was there. She could be on the beach counting her scratches or digging for geoducks. She could be swimming, or visiting Kay next door who always had home baking around, or seeing how Mac’s new house was coming along. Or scouting out kids on the beach who weren’t either babies or teenagers.

  Instead she was up to her elbows in dishwater.

  “Is this what Mum means when she complains she never wanted to be a housewife?” she asked Aunt Fifi.

  “I wouldn’t know,” said Aunt Fifi, clattering around with Gran’s pots. “I can’t believe your gran doesn’t have a bigger jam-making pot. And all she has is this ramshackle hot-plate thing for when she doesn’t want to light the wood stove!”

  For Gran had a strange arrangement of four electrical elements set right into the top of her counter like a stove top. Underneath, instead of an oven, was the cupboard for pots and pans, muffin tins, mixing bowls and kitchen contraptions from the ancient past — things like potato ricers and meat grinders.

  “I’m going to have to make about six batches to get through all this juice with this teeny little pot,” Aunt Fifi went on. “It’s all very well for her to abjure the domestic arts, but it isn’t convenient for me.”

  “What’s abjure?” Becca asked.

  �
��Give up,” answered Aunt Fifi. “‘This rough magic I now abjure.’ Shakespeare.”

  Becca sighed into the soapsuds.

  * * *

  “Now what?” she asked, when the last jelly jar had been set to boil.

  “Put the lids in a pot to boil, too,” Aunt Fifi said, measuring sugar. “One, two, three — I can never believe how much sugar this stuff takes. Four, five, six. Have you got those lids in?”

  On one element the jars clinked and thumped with the pops of boiling water. On another the lids heaved and clattered. On the front element blackberry juice steamed sweet steam, filling the air with its heady aroma.

  “This isn’t so bad,” Aunt Fifi said cheerfully, pouring vast amounts of sugar into the juice. “There. Now you stir it. And stir it and stir it. Let me know when it starts to boil.”

  Becca hung her head over the pot and stirred, watching the dark juice seep into the white sugar. Aunt Fifi rustled around with newspaper, clean cloths and measuring cups.

  “It’s boiling,” Becca reported. The juice foamed up and Becca stirred frantically. “It won’t go down!”

  “Keep stirring! Keep it going for two minutes. Here, I’ll set the egg timer.”

  Becca stirred. The juice frothed and foamed, boiling up like glistening, crimson lava. Her hair stuck to her face and blackberry sweetness filled her nose, her lungs, her whole head.

  “Ready,” Aunt Fifi said. She turned off the element and began to pour hot juice into hot glasses. “Wipe off the rims. Use the tongs and put the tops on. Careful when you screw them down. They’re hot.”

  Mum would never have asked Becca to do this. Aunt Fifi didn’t have kids, so she didn’t know what they weren’t supposed to do. It was kind of fun.

  “There, doesn’t that look great?” Aunt Fifi asked, gazing at the eight perfect glasses of jelly. The morning sun beamed through them, making them shine with ruby brilliance.

  “Taste!” She offered the jelly spoon.

  “Yum! Can I go swimming now?” Becca asked.

  “No,” said Aunt Fifi. “We still have quite a few batches to go. If only Mum had a bigger pot!”

  * * *

  “Aren’t you finished yet?” Gran asked, bursting into the house a long time later. “Sorry I’m so late. I met a couple of friends and we went to the café for lunch. When are you going to make pie? Want to go for a swim, Becca?”

  “She’s still helping me,” Aunt Fifi said quickly. Her face was rosy and her hair was sticking out. Becca could see a smudge of jelly on the back of her neck where she’d scratched herself while holding the jelly spoon.

  “And we haven’t even had lunch,” Becca said.

  * * *

  “If you’ve invited the man for dinner you must at least make something reasonable,” Becca heard Gran instructing Aunt Fifi. “You can’t serve blackberry jelly for dinner. And now I’ve gone and invited Mac, too! Maybe I should cancel.”

  “I’ll make dinner, Mum!” Aunt Fifi said, filling the next batch of jars. “Look at that, will you? This makes twenty-eight. I’ll start the pie in a while.”

  “How are you going to get them all home on the ferry without your car?” Gran asked.

  “I’ll manage. Becca? I need you again.”

  Washing her fifth batch of jars, Becca felt the day would never come to an end.

  “We’ve run out of sugar,” squawked Aunt Fifi, banging the cupboard door. “I thought there was another bag in here!”

  “Can we stop?” Becca asked. The tide was coming in, the sky was blue, and her suit was hanging on the line, dry and ready to go.

  “No. I still have all this juice to deal with,” said Aunt Fifi. “Pop over to Kay’s and see if she has some to spare. I’ll start the pastry while you’re gone.”

  Of course Kay had sugar. She had a huge bucket of it, and she gave it all to Becca.

  “Use what you need,” she said. “Here, have a cookie.”

  Becca lugged the heavy bucket back through the trees to Gran’s.

  * * *

  “Things are getting tight,” Aunt Fifi said, looking at the clock. “There’s more than enough juice for one batch, but not enough for two. We’ll just do it all together. Oh, this piddling little jam pot! Now, you wash up the last of the jars, and I’ll get the juice heating. Then you can stir it while I roll out pastry for a pie.”

  More soapsuds. More jars, more lids, more boiling. Becca was boiling.

  “Do I have to stir?” she asked. “It’s so hot!”

  “I had to fire up the wood stove to bake the pie,” Aunt Fifi said, panting as she thumped with the rolling pin. The pastry was bumping up against the jelly jars on the kitchen table and clouds of flour puffed up, clouding the sparkling look of them.

  “Mother has no counter space whatsoever,” crabbed Aunt Fifi. The jars clinked and clanked against each other as she twitched the pastry around and began another bout of vigorous rolling. “How’s that juice going?”

  “It’s getting there,” Becca reported, but mainly she was looking out the window. Kay was down on the beach with her beach towel, and now she could see Mr. and Mrs. Keswick coming along with their towels and the floating thermometer they used in the sea.

  “Marion’s here, too,” she told Aunt Fifi. Marion was Kay’s sixteen-year-old granddaughter.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Aunt Fifi, thumping. “Stir. There.”

  She flipped the pastry into the pie dish.

  “It’s boiling.”

  Becca stirred slowly as Aunt Fifi measured sugar into the pot.

  “Ten, eleven, twelve,” counted Aunt Fifi. “I don’t know — do you think that’s enough? I’ll throw in another just to be sure. Keep stirring now. Oh, how I hate this stove!”

  Becca stirred. Aunt Fifi dumped berries into the pie shell.

  “It’s starting to boil,” Becca said. “It’s boiling high. It’s way up.”

  “Just keep stirring!” Aunt Fifi commanded hastily, slapping a cover of pastry over the pie.

  “I am.” Becca gazed at the neighbors and Gran. They were wading into the bouncing sea, leaping into the waves of a northwest wind.

  “Stir! Stir!” cried Aunt Fifi, brushing the crust with milk and then stabbing it with a fork. She looked like she was trying to kill the pie.

  “I am,” Becca said. She saw Marion drop her towel and go racing into the waves, splashing and waving her arms.

  Hot jelly spat at Becca’s skin.

  “Ow!” She looked down into the pot.

  Juice was rising to meet her. Boiling, boiling. It boiled furiously. It frothed and foamed. It rose up seething toward the top of the pot.

  “It’s rising!” she cried.

  “Stir!” Aunt Fifi commanded.

  “I am! It’s boiling! It’s boiling hard!”

  Clouds of steam rose into her face, breathed into her body.

  “Stir! Stir!” cried Aunt Fifi, crashing the oven door open and banging it shut, poking the fire and clanging the poker.

  “It’s higher!” Becca shouted. “It’s foaming up. It’s climbing up! It’s going to overflow!”

  “Glory be!”

  Aunt Fifi seized the wooden spoon and stirred madly.

  “Turn the element off!” she shrieked, but Becca was transfixed. The sweet, dark juice was alive, moving and flowing, bubbling upwards, glistening, growing —

  With a great sizzle the jelly boiled over, poured over the rim in a rich purple fountain, cascaded in ruby streams down the side of the pot, flowed under the element and dripped, congealing as it went, into the regions under the range.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” exclaimed Aunt Fifi, unable for once to think of Shakespeare. “Oh, for crying in the sink!”

  The jelly subsided. There was a dreadful smell of burned sugar.

  Becca started to scoop what w
as left in the pot into jars.

  “You’d better put the lids on,” she told Aunt Fifi.

  Aunt Fifi opened the cupboard under the range.

  “I can’t bear to look,” she said.

  “Put the lids on,” Becca repeated, filling the jelly glasses while they were still hot. “Come on! It’s the last batch.”

  Silently, Aunt Fifi cleaned the rims and capped the jars. Becca dumped the pot in the sink and washed her hands, all the way up to her elbows.

  “It sure is sticky,” she said. She couldn’t imagine wanting to taste blackberry jelly again, ever.

  “Sticky is not the word for it,” said Aunt Fifi. “World-class adhesive, maybe.”

  “It’s not as bad as slug guts,” Becca assured her. “They are the stickiest glue in the history of the world. Once, when I was camping, I accidentally stepped on one with my bare feet. And its guts stuck to my foot for weeks, and when I felt it with my fingers, it felt like — ”

  “Thank you for sharing,” said Aunt Fifi. “But I don’t think — ”

  Gran poked her wet head through the door.

  “Mum, you don’t want to come in here,” Aunt Fifi said. “You don’t want to see this.”

  “All right, I won’t,” said Gran agreeably, and she went off to have a little douse in the outdoor shower.

  Becca looked into the cupboard. Jelly had trickled down the sides of the pans and pots Gran stored there, had congealed thickly on the shelves. It had streamed down the inside of the cupboard door and pooled out on to the floor. It hung like richly colored icicles from the braces in the cupboard. On the cupboard doorframe, jelled drips hung, shining.

  “Someone has to wash all this,” Becca realized. “All the pots and pans, too. And the muffin tins.”

  “The mixing bowls and the potato ricer,” said Aunt Fifi. “Who uses a potato ricer anymore?” she grumbled. “I’ll do it. You go and swim. You’ve waited long enough.”