Emotionally Weird(65)

‘Just making ourselves useful,’ Mrs McCue said.

‘That bathroom,’ Mrs Macbeth said sotto voce to me, shaking her head in disbelief. She waved the bottle of Parozone like a Molotov cocktail.

‘They let you out again then?’ I asked.

‘They don’t keep them under lock and key,’ Philippa said irritably, ‘it’s not a prison . And anyway, they’re always out. They’re never in .’

Mrs McCue muttered something under her breath as she sat down next to me. Goneril opened one evil eye and assessed her fearlessly.

‘Lunch,’ Philippa said. I made a move to escape; I couldn’t think of anything worse than eating Philippa’s soup, but Mrs McCue laid a heavy hand on my arm and said, ‘It is nice to see you.’

Philippa slopped soup into bowls and slung a large sliced Sunblest onto the table with a thud that made Goneril flinch but not move.

‘Unhygienic,’ Mrs McCue hissed, giving the cat a surreptitious pinch. Goneril ground her body further into the essay, as if digging in for the duration. Maisie flung herself into the kitchen, reporting that she was starving, and tore into the Sunblest’s plastic wrapper and started stuffing soft doughy pieces of bread into her mouth. She was accompanied by a hollow-eyed, adenoidal girl – Lucy Lake, Roger and Sheila’s eldest offspring, who was in Maisie’s class at Park Place Primary. They both had the same neglected air about them with their unbrushed hair and unkempt uniforms. Mrs Macbeth couldn’t resist the urge to spit on a handkerchief and give Lucy Lake a quick rub.

‘We can have some of this salmon as well,’ Philippa said, dishing out plates and cutlery; ‘it needs eating up.’

Mrs McCue eyed the salmon doubtfully. The stuffed olive eye of the fish returned her gaze with a certain inscrutability.

‘Food poisoning,’ Mrs McCue whispered when Philippa turned her attention back to the soup pot. ‘It may as well have “salmonella” stamped on its forehead.’

‘Such a bonny word that,’ Mrs Macbeth said. ‘It would make a lovely name for a girl. Salmonella.’

‘Is that where the word comes from, from salmon?’ Maisie asked the room in general, and Philippa said, ‘No, it’s the name of the man who discovered it.’

‘Mr Salmon?’ Maisie said sceptically.

‘ Do fish have foreheads?’ Mrs Macbeth puzzled.

‘Well, they have fingers,’ Lucy Lake smirked.

‘Really?’ Mrs Macbeth said, looking worried.

Maisie picked the small naked body of a shrimp off the salmon and scrutinized it. ‘What do shrimp eat?’ she asked speculatively. ‘Do you think they eat drowned people?’

‘We’ll make a philosopher of you yet,’ Philippa said brightly.

Maisie braved a shrimp, biting it in half delicately, and reported it ‘pure bowfing’. Mrs McCue said she couldn’t imagine what shrimp looked like swimming around in the sea and Lucy Lake said, ‘Like insects, probably.’ Philippa clapped her hands and said, ‘Stop it, before this goes any further,’ because everyone had begun to look rather sick.

Philippa took the new McFluffy from her smock pocket and looked at it quizzically. It did seem rather limp and lifeless. She gave it a little shake and it woke up with a start. Maisie took it from her mother and placed it on her shoulder and crooked her head so that it could nestle into her neck.

‘That looks very uncomfortable,’ Mrs Macbeth said.

‘It is,’ Maisie said, eating her soup awkwardly.

~ I think you drink soup, Nora says. (But then she has had a correct upbringing, whereas I have been dragged up anyhow.)

We all chose a different adverb to sup with. Philippa consumed her soup hungrily, Mrs Macbeth decided on messily, Mrs McCue on recklessly, whereas I myself opted for cautiously. Lucy Lake opted for not at all.

‘What’s this?’ Mrs Macbeth asked, poking at the manuscript on the table.

‘I’m writing a novel,’ Philippa said.

‘Why?’ Mrs Macbeth asked.

‘Why not? It’s a doctor/nurse romance, I’m going to send it to Mills & Boon. Archie thinks I’m prostituting my art, of course,’ Philippa said cheerfully (a common cry, it seemed), ‘but as far as I’m concerned that’s a specious argument based on the premise that all art is didactic in origin. Don’t you think?’ she said, turning to Mrs Macbeth.

‘Hmm,’ Mrs Macbeth said, shuffling through the manuscript. As a diversion from answering unanswerable questions she began to read out loud: ‘Flick’s cornflower blue eyes sparkled with devilment. Jake McCrindle may think he was better than she was because he was a high-flying house doctor and she was a mere first-year student nurse but she would soon show him —’ ‘Flick?’ Mrs Macbeth queried. ‘Flick? Are you sure?’