In Pursuit of the English - Doris Lessing [109]
‘It’s no sense quarrelling with her now,’ I heard Flo tell him. ‘Because if you put her in a bad mood, she won’t tell all her friends what a nice place this is, and we might lose tenants that way.’
So I sat with them, and tried to remember the basement as it had been on that first evening.
The great table, which had been the centre of the room, had been pushed to one side, to make room for a half-circle of chairs used for the television. Aurora was asleep next door, with the cat. Flo no longer cooked two meals an evening, but food that could be eaten off people’s knees as they watched. Len and Mick complained that her food was too rich; so she had banished herbs, garlic and oil from her cuisine. On that evening we ate undressed salad and cold meat.
The television was on, of course, but Len and Mick only half-watched it, and kept up their usual back-chat – what Rose referred to as ‘talking silly’.
Len was a thin, spike-boned, white-faced youth, with great black watchful eyes. Mick was light, easy, good-natured; concerned with his clothes and his girls – he had several.
‘Look,’ said Mick. ‘Look – what do I see?’ He was chasing something around his plate with a fork. ‘It’s a snail, no it’s a frog-leg. What my ma would say if she knew what I ate here, she’d have a fit.’
Flo sighed and shrugged. Rose said tartly: ‘Don’t parade your ignorance.’
‘Ignorant,’ said Len. ‘Ignorance said Auntie.’
‘And don’t call me Auntie. I’m your sister.’
‘I’ve got a worrrm,’ said Len, holding up a piece of lettuce on a knife. ‘Worms those foreigners eat.’
‘Well, if you don’t like what I cook,’ said Flo.
‘It’s not bad now you’ve restrained yourself a little, ma,’ said Mick.
‘Cheek,’ said Rose.
‘Oh, let him talk,’ said Flo.
‘If he doesn’t know any better,’ said Dan.
Dan, Flo and Rose had the same attitude towards the two boys: puzzled, and rather sad. This was a new generation and they did not understand it. Flo said once: ‘The way they talk – but they must get it from the telly, that’s what I think.’
‘Mind you, I’ve eaten stranger things in my time,’ said Mick. ‘Ever eaten a haggis, Len?’
‘Not since I saw one alive,’ said Len.
‘Alive, did you? I’ve never seen that. What’s it look like?’
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Rose. ‘Haggis is sheep’s stomach.’
‘No, Auntie, you’ve got it wrong. A haggis is a little animal, covered with fur.’
‘Come to think of it I saw one, too, once,’ said Mick.
‘Where was it now? On the slopes of Ben Nevis, it was.’
‘I like old Ben, don’t you. Mick?’
‘My best friend. Mind you, he’s hard on those haggises.’
‘You have to understand a haggis. They need kindness.’
‘And sympathy.’
‘That’s what our old friend Ben Nevis hasn’t got. Sympathy.’
‘Those poor haggises’ll die out soon, the way he treats them.’
Flo said, ‘There’s ever such a nice programme coming now.’
The screen was filled with spangled girls and the air was loud with South American type music.
Len raised his voice and said: ‘That’s why I hope I never see a mink. My favourite food, mink is.’
‘Who ever ate mink?’ enquired Rose.
‘Me,’ said Mick.
‘Me,’ said Len. ‘Dressed with salad cream, there’s nothing like mink.’
‘It has to be a mutation mink,’ said Mick. ‘Well-dressed.’
‘Better flavour,’ said Len.
‘You know what mutated mink is. Auntie – go on, you’re just ignorant,’ said Mick. ‘It’s mink that’s changed from those atom-bombs. Twice the meat it had before.’
‘That’s right,’ said Len. ‘Like evolution.’
‘The first time, it happened by accident,’ said Mick, ‘but now they mutate them on purpose for the meat. Now where is it they have that mutated mink farm. Len? It slips my mind for the moment.’
‘Tibet,’ said Len.
‘That’s right, of course. I read it in the Reader’s Digest last week. Biggest mutated mink farm in the world, right up there in the Himalayas.’
‘Since they mutated them, they look rather like Hamas,’ said Len.
Rose was staring hard at the television set. But her hands plucked at the arm-rests of the chair,