Eating Things on Sticks (4 page)

I looked around. The cold, bleak house. Uppity mice. Lumpy brown furniture. Pig and owl knick-knacks. ‘Why did she choose this place to come on holiday?'

‘We are the ones on holiday,' said Uncle Tristram. ‘Morning Glory
lives
here.'

I was quite shocked. ‘This is her
home
?'

‘Yes.'

‘But it is awful!' I burst out. ‘There's nothing here. She hasn't got a telly or a DVD player. She hasn't even got a radio or a computer.'

‘I suppose she likes the simple life.'

The door swung open. ‘Hello!' said Morning Glory. She wore a sort of floaty kaftan thing and a frilly mob cap. Clasping her hands together, she made a sort of bow to each of us in turn. ‘May the bright spirits of the day in me salute the bright spirits in you.'

‘I don't think Uncle Tristram has bright spirits in him this morning,' I explained. ‘He was attacked by mice.'

‘Herded into a corner,' Uncle Tristram confirmed. ‘Terrorized all night.'

‘Silly!' chortled Morning Glory. ‘If we are friends to them then mice are friends to us.'

I thought, since he'd been kind enough to bring me with him, I should stick up for my uncle. ‘My mother says that mice are vermin, and she puts out traps.'

Morning Glory gave me a pitying look. ‘No wonder you were so desperate to escape up here with Tristram!'

I didn't dare say I was already desperate to escape back again. Instead, I asked her dolefully, ‘Will we be having breakfast?'

‘Before our walk?'

‘Yes,' Uncle Tristram said firmly. ‘
Before
our walk. Let's go to the small family place. They will have bacon and eggs and stuff like that.' He turned to Morning Glory to wheedle some more. ‘Then we won't have to use up any more of your delicious sorrel tea and precious dandelions on toast.'

She shook her head. ‘You go. I have a few things to do here.'

‘Righty-ho!' I could tell Uncle Tristram was relieved. I think he wanted to sneak out and buy some normal, everyday provisions before Morning Glory started frightening both of us by braising a squirrel or marinating road kill.

So off we went. As soon as we were in the car, he turned to me. ‘Listen,' he said. ‘I fear this trip was something of a mistake.'

‘Mistake?'

‘Well, yes. The problem is, I suppose, that you don't really know someone very well at all until you see them on their own home ground.'

Curious, I asked him, ‘Did she seem normal at your house?'

‘I suppose she did,' he said. ‘But perhaps that was because there were no apples to be mindful of, and we were busy doing other things.' To cover his blushes, he let out the clutch and put his foot down. As we sped away, he told me, ‘OK, here's my suggestion. We have breakfast, find out what time the ferry leaves, buy enough proper food to last us through the rest of the day, make our excuses to Morning Glory, and then we leave.'

‘Top plan!'

We drove about. The little family restaurant had a sign on it:
Closed Until Further Notice
. There didn't seem to be a Waitrose. Or a Sainsbury's. No Morrisons. No Asda. Somertons was closed because it was Sunday morning.

In the end all we could find was the tiniest shop on the planet. It had four shelves and only one small fridge compartment which was barely as wide as the one that got melted at our house.

Uncle Tristram picked up one of the three battered wire baskets on the floor by the door and asked the bearded man behind the counter, ‘When does the ferry leave?'

I think he must have been some sort of foreigner because we understood what he said.

‘Saturday.'

The blood drained out of Uncle Tristram's face. ‘
Saturday?
Nothing till then?'

‘They would have told you when you bought your ticket,' said the man defensively.

‘Ah,' Uncle Tristram said reflectively. ‘That would be “Glerhus dill sotblug.”' He counted up the days to Saturday, and started filling the basket. There wasn't much of a selection, and most of that was pork pies. We bought most of them. I watched as Uncle Tristram stood gnawing his nails a little anxiously at the checkout. His card went through though, and we got away.

‘Right!' he said. ‘Pork pies for breakfast. Then I'm ready to face anything. Even a walk.'

A TELEVISION, A DVD PLAYER, A COMPUTER AND A RADIO

‘First,' Morning Glory said, ‘we have to tell our feet how much we appreciate them.'

‘Why?'

She stared at me as if I were unhinged. ‘Because your feet do lots of work for you. You have to thank your feet.'

‘I've never thanked my feet before.'

Morning Glory ignored me. She sat on the floor and bent her body over to stroke her toes and heels while we pretended to copy her. ‘Dear feet,' she said, while we did a bit of Amen-style mumbling along with her. ‘We know how very committed you are to your daily task. We do appreciate that very much. We care about you. All today, we will be thinking of you.'

She wasn't wrong in that! All day I thought how sore my feet felt. She led us miles. Sometimes she stooped to gather scraggy green weeds and mucky-looking roots. Behind her back, Tristram kept winking at me as if to say, ‘Well, you and I will not be eating
that!
' But I was not so sure because I'd come to think that Morning Glory was more than a match for both of us, and we were her guests, after all.

When we got home, we all sat on the sofa in a row. I thought I'd just check one more time. ‘So you really don't have a telly?'

She shook her head. ‘Not many people on the island bother. Since the last aerial blew down it's been such a pathetic signal that you can't even make out people's faces. Everyone looks exactly the same. They're all just grey and fuzzy blobs.'

‘Well, what about getting a DVD player?' She looked a little blank. I thought I would step back in time a little. ‘Well, don't you even have a radio?'

‘No, Harry. I don't have a radio.'

‘Or a computer?'

‘No. No computer either.'

‘Well, what do you
do
all day,' I wailed, ‘except for picking weeds and thanking bits of yourself, and being in harmony with the universe?'

Morning Glory turned to me and smiled as if I were some toddler who was getting overtired. ‘Tristram,' she said to my uncle sweetly, ‘would you mind fixing supper? Take Harry with you. I know he's missing his television and a few other things, and I've a plan to make him feel a little more at home here.'

‘No problem,' Uncle Tristram said. I think, like me, he thought that she was off next door – wherever next door was – to try to borrow a few electronic basics. He set to with a will to make the sprout salsa while I got on with rinsing the weird lumpy roots and the watercress. On the sly, while Morning Glory was gone, we both ate four pork pies. I must admit I thought it was a little odd that neither of us heard the front door opening or closing after she left us or just before she returned. But that was all explained when Morning Glory finally came back into the kitchen and took my hand to lead me into the living room.

‘There!' she said proudly, pointing to the wall.

I stared. On it, in thick black charcoal, she had drawn a television, a DVD player, a computer and a radio.

I didn't really know what to say, so I kept quiet.

‘Well?' she said, twinkling away as if she'd given me the keys to my very own palace.

I pulled myself together and tried to be polite. ‘They're wonderful.'

‘They are good, aren't they?'

‘But they're not
real
.'

‘Well, no,' she said. ‘But does that matter? You're only here a week. It's such a lovely island it would be a waste of time to watch films, or play silly games on the computer. So these are simply to make you feel a little more at home.'

I wondered suddenly if it was possible to
swim
to the mainland.

‘Well, thank you,' I said. ‘No one has ever given me anything like this in my whole life.'

She looked amazed and delighted. ‘Really?'

‘Really,' I said with perfect confidence.

She was thrilled, I could tell. ‘There!' she said, ushering me back to the kitchen. ‘Now you'll have something special to write in your daily diary!' She noticed my baffled face. ‘Oh, it's all right,' she assured me. ‘I don't read minds. It was Tristram who assured me that you won't mind being left alone for hours if we're busy doing other things because you spend a lot of time keeping your daily diary.'

‘He said that, did he?'

I turned to glower at Uncle Tristram, who was taking very good care to keep his head down over his chopped sprouts.

Monday

THE WALK TO LOOK FOR ANGELS

Next morning for breakfast Uncle Tristram and I had more pork pies. Morning Glory had barley and mushrooms.

‘Let's go and look for angels,' she suggested.

I gave Uncle Tristram a glance that said: ‘She is completely
insane
. You got us into this. You get us out of it.'

He totally ignored it. ‘Yes,' he said weakly to Morning Glory. ‘Let's go and look for angels.'

I glowered at him. I knew that he was only saying it to try to wheedle his way into her good books. ‘Are you quite mad?' I hissed. ‘You know as well as I do that there are no such things as angels. And even if there were, you would not find them just because you go to look for them. Even the people who believe in them know they live in a different—'

I couldn't think of the word.

‘Universe?' Uncle Tristram suggested.

‘
Realm
,' Morning Glory said. But I could tell that she had overheard and I had hurt her feelings. She went all quiet and started gathering up the pork pie wrappers and her bowl.