The Queen of the Tambourine (14 page)

I blanched a little at a tank of terrible newts at a turn of the landing. This made Amanda laugh. “Look in there,” she said with malice, opening a door on a wall of cages full of little velvety things scuttling about. “They're chinchillas—going to make us a fortune.”

Apart from the cages there were other walls of books, and tables spilling with papers and on the floor more books and papers in tottering piles. “It's my grandmother's stuff,” said Amanda. “She's a widow in India. She says the books would get eaten where she is, so we have them.” In the bathroom there seemed no room for anybody, so tight was the space between bath, basin and WC, and again books everywhere. “All Gran's,” said Amanda. On the walls of the passage between its bedrooms, wherever there were no books, there were posters, and beside the bathroom door a big crucifix at which the baby took a swipe.

“Does your grandmother come here sometimes? I mean come and help?”

“No. She doesn't get on with Vanessa and Vanessa can't stand her.”

“That's a shame. I don't think you should have told me that you know. It's rather a private thing.”

“No it isn't. Everyone knows. Mum-essa says it's better to have these things in the open.”

“I'm not at all sure of that.”

“
Aren't
you?” She looked at me as if, after all, I might hold some interest. “You ought to bathe Timmy now.”

“Bath,” I said to the baby who now lay still across my knees. He gave me a lingering, personal smile, “Oh! he smiled at me.”

Amanda leaned against the bathroom doorpost, swinging a foot.

“Oh Amanda, he's beautiful!”

She came in, put the plug in and ran the taps.

“Oh—isn't that a bit deep? It looks a long way down.”

“No. It's fine. Just drop him in.”

“What now? Like this?”

“Well, take his vest and breeks off. Go
on
. Don't be silly.”

I slowly lowered the watchful child who opened out in the water like a flower. “Oh, he's floating! Amanda—can I let go?”

“Of course you can. Of
course
you can. He won't drown, not even him. He's nearly a year old. He's been sitting up for ages. He can pretty well walk.”

The baby began to beat the water with open palms and sop everything near and far including my nun-dried skirt. He gave a crow like whooping-cough. “Oh,” I said, “Look, look, Amanda. He's laughing at us,” and Amanda shoved herself off the doorpost, came in and leaned heavily against my side all of a sudden. She began to manoeuvre her finger like a knitting-needle through a piece of my hair.

“Are you African? You've got lovely hair. Like little orange bed-springs.”

“I think the baby must be very forward,” I said as Timmy squeezed the soap in the direction of a rubber duck and killed it dead. “Isn't that rather advanced?”

“He's got terrific co-ordination,” she said. “Yes. Actually he's very advanced. He's a bit marvellous. He's more advanced than any baby we know.”

“I think you are all three rather advanced.”

She ran to the top of the stairs and called, “Lucien—she didn't know you could let him float.”

“Well, don't go away, that's all,” he shouted back.

“Help,” I shrieked. “Amanda, he's eating it. The soap. Is it allowed? Oh heavens, is it poison? Oh God he's drowning,” for the baby had taken a slithery sideways glide, clutched wildly about him, grabbed at some garments hanging above the bath to dry and sunk beneath the wave.

“
Drowning
,” I screamed, and Amanda fished him out tangled in what looked like some of his father's Y-fronts and a vest, wrapped him deftly in a towel and laid him again across my knees. “Rock him and shush him,” she said. She put both her arms round my neck. “You are so
funny
,” she said. “You're the funniest we've had.”

We put him in a pod-like outer covering of woolly stuff over a macintosh parcel stuck down at the edges, very plump and neat. I had never seen a baby's private parts and was rather embarrassed by them because they looked so huge. I wondered if there might be something abnormal about Timmy.

“What's the matter?” asked Amanda. “Haven't you seen that before?”

“Well, no. Aren't they a bit out of proportion?”

“No. Pretty average. They're a bit like kidneys, aren't they?”

“Amanda!”

“Well they are. You don't know an awful lot do you? Yet you're so pretty.”

She lifted him up and then down over the cot side and between us we arranged him for the night, pink, clean and peaceful. No pillow. No covers.

“Can he sleep like that?”

“Of course he can.”

“No blankets?”

“Of course not. Mum-Vanessa doesn't like things covered up. It's for health. He needs his sucky thing though,” and she produced from some evil corner a rag covered in congealed food which the baby grabbed like an old drunk in a bar spying his whisky. He thrust a corner of it in his mouth with one hand and let the other wave slowly about above him, as if giving Benediction.

“He'll be a bishop.”

“Vanessa says she'll shoot him first.”

“Doesn't she like bishops?” I knew of course that Vanessa was a conventional clergy wife who wanted no part in her husband's work.

“No, Vanessa's an atheist.”

“Oh, I see.”

“It's hard on Daddy. In a sense,” she said, stroking Timmy's face as she hung over the cot side.

“Well, I'm sure you . . . What about Lucien?”

“He's agnostic.”

“I suppose Timmy's a Communist?”

“You are
funny
. How could Timmy be a Communist yet? Anyway, Communism's over.” She called down, “Lucien, she thinks Timmy's a Communist!”

“And what about you, Amanda?”

“Oh, I'm Christian. I'm going to be a Woman Priest. Vanessa's really pleased. And if you don't mind,” she added, “I actually ought to be going to bed now.”

“She ought,” called Lucien. “She's not nine yet and it's past eight o'clock.”

“Do I—? Shall I—? Help you to bed?”

“No thanks, I'm too old.”

“Would you like a story?”

“Oh yes. I'll call when I'm ready. I'm sleeping here in Timmy's room, by the way. Granny's stuff's filled up mine.”

While I waited to be called I went downstairs to the kitchen and began to clear up a bit. I did this and that. A little more. A little more. There was an ancient, salty smell rather like Venice and I wondered if it would be taken amiss if I started a good clear-out. The dish-washer was nearly full up with dirty dishes. There was a big saucepan beside the cooker I wondered if I could squeeze into the dish-washer with the rest. “Shall I start the dish-washer?” I called to Lucien.

And then I screamed.

In the saucepan something moved. It scrabbled at the pan sides and lifted a fleshy head. The rest looked soft and purplish and old as time.

“It's only the terrapin,” called Lucien. “It has to be kept warm till the weather's hot enough for it. Isn't it awful? Eliza? Eliza—are you all right?”

He came to the door, “It was the size of a lop when we got it. It's growing and growing. We don't know what to do with it. Oh Lord—sorry. It does get to some people—but it's only an animal, you know. Poor thing—think of being it. Look I'll get you some tea. It's just the noise its claws make, you know.”

“I promised Amanda a story.”

“Stop shaking. Don't worry. She'll be out cold.”

“But it was only a few minutes ago. I promised.”

“Well, just you go and see, Eliza,” and I ran quickly away and up the stairs.

He was right. Amanda of the scowl and flounce had cleared a space for herself on the divan and lay thumb in mouth clutching a small lion. She was wearing a garment of a hideousness similar to the baby's and was twisted in an uncomfortable-looking knot. But nothing could detract from the serenity of her face, the two arcs of black lashes lying on her cheeks. The baby watched me watching her and sent me a further Episcopal salute, and sucked his cloth.

“All right?” said Lucien downstairs beside the tea-pot. He had laid out yellow cups and saucers on a space at the sitting-room table end. Around them were many used ones. He had black eyebrows, silver gold hair, dark blue eyes. I thought, Oh, what a man you are going to be, then remembered that women shouldn't think like this anymore. But perhaps I'm old enough to admit to taking unquenchable pleasure in men.

“There's some muesli,” said the future heart-stopper, “if you're hungry. And a bit of marmalade. We don't eat much in the week.”

“Really?”

“No. Vanessa says we don't need breakfast and we get a good dinner at school. The baby's still partly breast-fed of course. We do eat a bit of supper.”

“What about—er—your father?”

“He gets stuff all round the parish. Vanessa gets a good meal at work—she's a child psychologist. But I expect you knew that.”

“You're an unusual family.”

“Are we? Indian or China?”

“Well, China. Lovely. No—no marmalade.”

“I'd think we were pretty usual. There's crowds like us around here. Nick wants us to move somewhere poor. He's a very good man, my father, you know. The trouble is my grandmother's paid for all our private education and it's supposed to be hard for us to break away once it's started. We're irreparably brainwashed, Vanessa says. If you were hungry we could get some fish and chips.”

“I think someone should be back soon.”

“They won't be. Shall I nip out?”

“Lucien, no. I really think not. I can't go for them and leave the baby alone and I certainly can't let you go. It's getting dark.”

“You talk just like my grandmother. Yet you look so young.”

I glowed.

“And terrific. You look very terrific indeed actually. I could ring a friend with a bike.”

“And what would you do for money? Fish and chips are expensive.”

“My friend might have some and there's plenty here. There's The Society of the Risen Christ.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“In the blue cardboard box in the hall.”

“Do you regularly steal from the poor box?”

“Yes. I put in an IOU, signed. It comes out of my bank account at the end of the month.”

“Lucien—let me see your homework. Isn't it about time you went to bed, too?”

I picked up the exercise book and read the pages of flawless handwriting. Everything looked perfect.

“It was a push-over. It's grott, though, having to use ink. I'd give a bit for a word-processor.”

“You'd have to.”

“I keep on at my grandmother about one. I've the Latin next. Can you do gerunds?”

“Are you on gerunds already? I've rather forgotten.”

“No prob. I'll manage. D'you want the
News
?”

He switched on the television set and I watched the antics of the hysteric world as he set to work. Northern Ireland, the Lebanon, South Africa, Bangladesh. Bangladesh underwater again. Bangladesh! Good heavens! There in a crowd of faces, backcloth to horror, I suddenly saw you, Joan. I saw you.

“It's Joan!”

“Joan who?”

“It's my friend, Joan. On the
News
. In Bangladesh.”

“That's where my grandmother is. We're always seeing people we know on the telly. We know more on than off. Hundreds of bishops. They used to come and stay here once at Conferences, the Third World ones, but they're not so keen now we're so crowded. They're not into fish, tortoises and so on. You'd think they'd be keen on wild-life wouldn't you?”

“No—but I did! I saw my old friend. I haven't heard of her for a year and a half, nearly.”

“Did she look well?” he asked politely.

“She looked,” I said and wondered what it could possibly mean to this precocious and most rational child. “She looked very usual.”

“Some of my friends are very usual. I wouldn't mind not seeing them for a bit.”

“Have you finished the gerunds?”

“Yep. Well—” he folded away his books, replaced the top of the pen, carefully arranged everything in his briefcase and set it in the hall with cap and blazer beside it, “—I'll just clean my shoes,” and he carried them into the room, set newspaper on the table, smeared on polish and seriously, unhurriedly, brushed and polished it away. He created an island of order in the room. He was a trim craft in a tattered ocean.

“That's it.” He eased back the lid on the polish tin. “I think it all went very well, don't you—the evening?”

“Yes, I do.”

I had the notion that I had been married to Lucien for many years; a good marriage but to a very much older man.

“I hope you've enjoyed it. Oh—someone's back.”

In flew Fish. He seemed amazed to see me. “Oh, ah—Eliza. Very nice. Yes? All well, Lucien?”

“Going to bed. Fine.”

“I've brought some fish and chips. Want some?”

“Great.”

Lucien disappeared to the kitchen with his greasy packet and came out again with it plus a length of kitchen roll and a bottle of vinegar. He started up the stairs, “'Bye Eliza. Come again.”

“I suppose he always says that,” I said to Nick at the door, eye on the second package in his hands. It is odd that nobody ever thinks I eat, even though they all go on about how thin I am.

“Says what? Oh yes. Yes, he's quite polite. Should I—”

“Of course not. I can easily walk home, I've been walking home all my life. I hope I've made the grade?”

“Grade? What grade is that, Eliza? I hope they didn't do you in?”

“No.”

I could see through his heavy eyes a memory struggling: Eliza Peabody? The one they say's gone off her nut. God knows what Vanessa will say. Well, her own fault, she didn't arrange anyone else. And nothing's gone wrong.