Honey, Cinnamon, Lemons Ch. 11-12

She crunched and swallowed and cried, 'Oh, please get me some of the other to wash down the bits! No, wait! We have to finish our artichoke hearts!' She swapped their dishes over and ate his heart greedily, dribbling dressing down her chin. He ate hers more carefully, but she still had to reach across with a paper napkin to wipe his face.

'Now we've eaten each other's hearts! We're blood brothers! Or something. There's a bond between us now. Come and get the wine while I dish out.'

While she ladled out vegetable stew he cradled the warm bottle and spoke thoughtfully. 'We evolved to be monogamous but I'm not sure we are, really.'

'Wait till we sit down and tell me about evolution. I told you I'm not educated but I'm always up for learning from an experienced man.' She winked at him.

When they were sitting at the table he said, 'Well, what do you think evolution is?'

'Erm...we change over time to become more advanced? Like humans are more advanced than monkeys.'

'Yes, sort of. I'm not a scientist but I think it works like this. We all have a complicated molecular code inside us and when we breed our children have the same code; except it's a bit from the man and from the woman so it's mixed up a bit and that's why kids aren't just clones of their parents. Sometimes the code gets changed from accidents or from mistakes in copying, like computers sometimes do - you know - 'error, corrupt file'. So people inherit their nature from their parents, but not exactly. But more or less. But a bit different or we'd all be clones. I'm not explaining very well.'

He looked serious, and she nodded encouragingly and said 'I think you're good at explaining. But, 'breeding'? It doesn't sound nice for having children.'

'Well, "reproducing"; I s'pose that sounds more human. Anyway, that's the first bit. Now, erm, where was I? Yes! When kids are not exactly like their parents, they might be a bit better in terms of survival in the world and in terms of their breeding -- "reproducing" - potential. For example, if they are a bit randier than their parents they might have more kids. If they are stronger than their parents they might get more partners. And the same if they are nicer or better looking - like a woman or something. Or if they are more caring to their children. Anything like that increases the chance of them having children which will survive and carry on the parents' molecular code. So we get sort of better, but only better at reproducing, it isn't a moral thing, and most important it doesn't act on purpose to improve the human race, it just happens. God doesn't do it, it just happens. Like if you shake sand around in a bowl, the bigger grains come to the top, not because somebody makes it happen or they want to, it just happens. Or muesli in a packet, you need to shake it to get all the bits mixed in. Or snowflakes, they get their shape because of the way the ice crystals form and join onto each other. Get a load of people milling about in a big room and all wearing Velcro gloves, only they have one of each Velcro sort on each hand, so if they all dance around and shake hands and stuff they'll end up in long chains. It just happens, but some people see the chains and think that somebody designed them and made them happen.'

'You're very clever! How do you know all this stuff?'

'Oh, well, I read a lot. Anyway, people who like sex and food tend to have more kids. That's why people are so randy and greedy, and why women are so attractive.'

'Hmmm. And men too!' He blushed and she realised that he didn't know how attractive he was. 'Taste your ratatouille. Or you might go extinct! Do you have any children?'

'Not that I know of.'

'Oh, that's a shame; I'm sorry. Were you in the swinging sixties?'

'Yes.'

'Did you have lots of dolly birds?'

'No.'

'I bet you were good-looking then. I mean you still are; you're probably sexier now than you used to be.'

'I don't think so; I was never sexy anyway, and I was shy.'

'Do you miss not having children?'

His jaw muscles began to twitch and a vertical groove appeared just above his nose. She realised that part of his attraction was the way his facial expressions gave away his feelings. When they spoke together he smiled, he frowned, he looked intense then light-hearted, all in response to her words, and she felt she could read him like a book. She frowned back in unconscious imitation of his expression, then patted his hand and smiled at him sympathetically.

'James, I'm sorry, I'm asking too many personal questions. Give me a drop of Stemmie.'

He couldn't help laughing at her earnest face, and he filled their glasses and they trinked.

'This stew is delicious.'

'Ratatouille, not stew! All from the garden except I bought an aubergine from Pascale over the road, and two tomatoes and I put a bit of tomato puree in it, and the garlic is bought, too. I love it. I love this wine as well.'

She gulped and he grabbed her wrist. 'Whoa! You need to savour it properly. Take a small sip and let it trickle over your tongue then down the sides, but don't swallow.' She did as he said and he watched her funny face as she tasted the wine with her mouth carefully closed. Then she looked at him with wide questioning eyes. 'Mm, mm?'

'Now, be careful. Chew it a little. Then let it trickle into your throat, and as you swallow, breathe out through your nose to send the fumes up.'

Again she obeyed, but suddenly choked and spluttered, squirting red spray over their food and his hands. Her eyes popped and she had a real coughing fit, so that he had to jump up and run round to pat her back.

'Oh god!' She clutched his arm and coughed until she caught her breath, then she took another gulp and swished it round her mouth before swallowing it greedily.

'I'll tell you...tell you what. It tastes really powerful when you do what you said. I'm sorry I spat on you.'

'Not to worry, it was your first time. You'll get the hang of it. You just need to relax and let it happen naturally, so you don't squirt all over the place.'

She blushed a deep red and burst out laughing. 'I've been told that before!' She laughed uncontrollably, and he realised what he had said. He blushed.

She managed to control her laughing-fit and said, 'Let me change your plate, you don't want to eat my spit.'

'No, no, don't bother, I don't mind. After all, we're blood brothers, or something.'

'Are you sure? Can I try again?'

This time she managed her mouthful without accident. 'You're sooo clever, teaching me how to do it. I knew you were an experienced man; just what I need.'

They continued to slurp their way through the ratatouille and wine, both feeling tipsy, then mopped up their juices with bread and sat back and sighed.

He became pensive and she said, 'Do you mind being my grandad? I told Madame Rousseau you were, I had to so she doesn't get the wrong idea. Mind you, I don't think she'd mind, she's very French!' Her face fell. 'I never had a grandad when I was little.'

'And I never had a granddaughter to enjoy while she was growing up. I mean, you know, to cuddle when she was tiny, then to tell her wise things as she grew older.'

'I wish I'd had you. I never met my real grandad.'

A thought came to him. 'Did you check my pockets before you washed my shorts?'

'I certainly did, and a good job too; you had a packet of fags and a dirty dog-end wrapped in clingfilm. I left the fags in the laundry room and put the dog-end in the bin.'

'What, outside?'

'No, just in the little bin next to the washing machine. I didn't know you smoked. James, can you open another bottle? I just fancy a drop of Bordeaux.'

'We just had a bottle of Bordeaux.'

'No, that was Stemmie.'

'St Emilion is a wine from Bordeaux.' He went to find a bottle, opened it, then said, 'The thing about evolution is that you and me are the result of billions of years of evolving, and if we don't have children, then evolution's been wasting its time. No, not wasting its time, but we are cutting off a magic process that's produced us and so it might as well not have bothered.'

'Is that true? It sounds awful. But I do want to have children, don't you?'

'Well, it's a bit late for me, unless I have unknown progeny.'

'You are sooo intelligent! If you'd been my grandad I might have been a bit brighter, I'm sure you'd have taught me so much; long words like 'progeny'.'

'You are intelligent, I can tell. But progeny isn't a long word, it's just not used much in everyday discourse.'

'Everyday intercourse! That's a long word I know!' She poured herself a glass and said, 'Anyway, sod you! I'm going to enjoy this my way!' She knocked it back and topped them both up.

The meal and the conversation continued. She brought out two dishes of rum and raisin ice cream; she poured cream over hers and offered him the jug but he declined, said he had to watch his waistline. She shrugged and dolloped a spoonful of Nutella on hers. 'I love it when the cream freezes and makes a crunchy crust. And Nutella is heaven in a jar!'

She made him tell her more about evolution and gazed at him lasciviously while he spoke, sucking her ice cream till it melted in her mouth, and then sticking her milky tongue out. She tried to make him taste the mix from her spoon, but he refused politely, saying it was too sweet. 'You are such a prude! Grandad Tim would have loved to taste my pudding!' Tears suddenly overflowed and ran down her cheeks. 'Oh God, he's gone and I probably won't ever see him, ever! He was so sexy and lovely to me and even when we couldn't play any more I wanted him to be with me and I never even saw him. It's not fair! He was sweet to me and he wasn't s'posed to because it would be incest; and you won't be sweet properly and it wouldn't even matter because you're just anybody.' She laughed through her tears and said, 'I don't mean anybody, but you could, you know, we're not related or anything, we wouldn't have a monster child.'

She couldn't see his face properly because of her wet eyes and the wine she had drunk. 'Do you think I'm being horrible? I don't want to be, I'm just lonely. Please don't hold it against me.' She couldn't stop herself from another laughing fit but finally managed to gasp, 'Not that you would! You're too much of a gentleman.' His face came into focus and she saw that he had moist blinking eyes and looked as if he was in pain. She felt a sudden upsurge of pity and maternal attraction, and managed to get to her feet and round the table on slightly wobbly legs; she bent to cradle his head and pulled his face against her breasts, patted and stroked his short grey hair, and said, 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry; I shouldn't tease you. I understand how you feel; you're such a gentleman. A gentle man. And you're an artist. I love gentle men, and creative sensitive men, not like the others I've had. Even Malcolm!'

He felt hot tears dripping onto his head, and then cold tears trickling down the back of his neck. Suddenly she pulled away from him and said 'I want some music! Something romantic! Wait here!'

She put a CD into a cheap player and the music started, the opening notes of an old romantic song in slow waltz time, then a thrilling woman's voice, "A Paris dans chaque faubourg....." Polly came to Tim and they joined in a slow waltz; he tried to keep his groin away from her, but she pressed against him. 'I love this song. What do the words mean?'

'In Paris, in each neighbourhood, the sun of every day...makes in each destiny grow a dream of love. In the crowd, love alights on a soul of twenty years. For her everything changes and becomes the...colour of spring. At twenty, one dreams all in the colours of love. They lived in the same district, the same street, the same courtyard...he used to smile at her and she loved him without telling him. But one day they joined in a kiss, and she thought she could read in the sky an...infinite hope. There remains no trace of happy days, everything is the colour of night. But at twenty the future wipes away the past when hope...shines. In Paris when night comes, a passionate soul again dreams of love.'

'Aaaaaw, that is so beautiful. How can you understand it?'

'I've heard it before. The first time when I was twenty. I never forgot it. The singer is Lys Gauty.'

'The music's so sad. What are those instruments?'

'Clarinet and violin, mostly. Some flute. And a bit of banjo.'

'And old Jewish men. I always imagine they are old Jewish men who can really play old-fashioned instruments. They are sad because of the war and the concentration camps, so they know how to play sad music. Do the boy and girl get together at the end?'

'I don't know. It sounds as if they don't, from the music.'

'Gran told me about the war. She wasn't in the war but she had an uncle who died in an aeroplane and a Jewish great-grandad and Gran told me the war was terrible and loads of people were killed. How can people do all that stuff? Oh, listen to the next one, she's got a gorgeous voice!'

She held her glass as they danced and made him take sips when she did. When the glass was empty she refilled it and when the last of the bottle was gone she leaned to place glass and bottle on the table, then relaxed against him with her wrists resting on his shoulders, her fingers stroking his neck; she felt open and vulnerable like that, and wanted him to caress her back and pull her body against his, but he simply let his hands rest gently against her shoulder-blades. She pressed her ear to his chest and listened to the slow beat of his old heart, mixed up with that of her own young one pulsing in her ear...

Suddenly she woke up and he was saying, 'I think we ought to get you to bed, young lady.'

'Mmmmm yes please...I thought you'd never ask.'

He turned her round to face away from him and tried to guide her through the kitchen towards the staircase. 'I want to stand on your toes and you walk me. Gran used to do it but I want grandad to do it.'

She was heavy and hurt his feet, but he managed to walk her to the stairs, holding her round the waist. 'Now, you're going to have to be a big girl and lift your own feet. And be very careful, the stairs are steep. Hold the banister carefully.'

Once in her room he laid her carefully on the bed and began to tiptoe towards the door.

'I want a story!'

He sat on the bed and she took his hand and laid it on her belly. He slowly slid it away but she pulled it back and said, 'Don't be horrid. Tell me a story.'

'Once upon a time there was a little girl who had no mummy and daddy, so she lived alone with her gran, who was very old but still very, very beautiful, and very, very kind. And the little girl was beautiful, too.'

'Oh, I know this one! Tell it me again.' She closed her eyes and drifted into a strange world she had known once before, when Tim was writing beautiful words to her. James's voice continued, gentle and reassuring, and she felt that for the first time in her life a man was really taking care of her and that she was truly safe. She opened her eyes to look at him. 'Why is the landing light on?'

'It's just the moon, darling, don't worry.'

She sat up and said, 'I've got to look at the moon. He might be looking. What day is it?'

'Sunday.'

She sank back. 'Oh. He promised to look on Thursday; I always look on Thursday. But he might be looking. I want to go and see.'

He didn't turn the shower room light on, but the room was bright from the three-quarter moon; she knelt on the toilet seat and looked out of the window. The moon hung there in the black night, and stars sparkled around it like moths round a street light. Tears trickled down her cheeks and she said, 'I think he's watching with me. Do you think he's there?'

'I'm sure he is, darling. Who do you mean?'

'Grandad Tim.'

'You're both watching the same moon.'

'How do you know? He might not be watching.'

'He is, I know he is.'

A shooting star zipped silently across the sky and she cried, 'Oh, did you see that? It's him telling me he's here! But he's all alone up there in the sky, and it's so big. So many stars. Do you think he's died and gone to live with the stars?'

'No, darling, I'm sure he's alright; he's just saying hello. Let's get you back to bed.'

'I don't want to leave the stars. There's so many! Thousands, and so far away. It's all so big, it makes me feel like nothing.'

'Size isn't everything. You aren't nothing. You're cleverer than the stars; you can think and love, and they can't. They're just big fires in the night.'

'Perhaps they can't think and love, but they are so big and powerful. Hot enough to burn me up and burn the world up. Burn us all up. And when we're dead and gone they will still be there being hot and powerful, waiting to burn people up. I'm scared of them.'

'They can't burn you up when they're up there and you're down here. And they don't mean you any harm, they're just shining for you, wishing they could have feelings like us.'

'What feelings do you have? Have you got anybody to love?'

'Yes, darling, I have someone very special and I love her more than anything in the world.'

'Who? Sab?'

'No...Someone else...my secret love.'

'What about your wife? Your ex-wife?'

'I love her too, but it's different. Come on, time to settle down.'

She let herself be led back to bed and two minutes later began to snore gently. He stood up carefully and crept towards the door. 'Where are you going? Don't leave me.'

'Just going for a wee, close your eyes and I'll be back in a minute.'

'I want a candle. It's on the dresser.'

He found a long white candle in a brass candlestick and next to it a box of matches. 'If I light it you must be very careful not to knock it over.' She closed her eyes when the match flared and he watched her for a minute; she turned onto her side, facing away from the flickering flame, and popped her thumb into her mouth. He crept to the shower room and sat for a minute or two on the closed toilet seat. He finally wiped his eyes with a piece of toilet paper. When he returned she was still asleep in the same position. He pinched out the flame and she said 'I thought you needed a pee.'

'I'm just going; you go back to sleep.'

'Leave your willy with me, I need to cuddle it.'

He took the candle from its holder, pressed the extinct wick into the palm of his hand to make sure it was cool and safe, then stroked it on her palm. She curled her fingers round the stem and raised the end to her lips. 'Mmmmmmm...' After a minute, hands and candle disappeared under the sheet and he realised it was safe, and polite, to slip away: he took the matches with him. He sat listening on the bottom step for ten minutes, grateful for her silence, and only went to his own bed fifteen minutes after she began to snore again: he slept in the dining room with all the doors open so he would hear her if she needed anything in the night.