AFTER THE WAR

by L C McCahon

part 2

Later, John came up from the stream, looking for tea. He found Janice mournfully looking through the cupboards, trying to find something that could pass as a teaset. She told him the problem, and he sighed.

"Well, I suppose we could use some of those old cans as separate mugs," he suggested. "I'm sure I can talk Sandy into giving it a go, if we all have one each. Meanwhile, why don't you try and convince Maurice that the violets could be repotted into something else? Like the cans, for instance?"

It was Janice's turn to sigh. "I'll try, but I can't promise he'll listen... if you go out and talk to Sandy, I'll make the tea."

John went out into the garden, and Janice went to the living-room to start the fire again, placing a small pot of water on the metal top of the wood-burner. She could hear John and Sandy's voices rising and falling in the distance. It was true what Sandy had said. Maurice wasn't good for much. He was good with plants, but his head didn't work quite like other people's. He could ensure delicate seedlings survived the harsh winters with his endless patient care in the greenhouse, but he was prone to odd notions, and his work was slow. Nothing in the world could hurry him, he seemed to feel no urgency under any circumstances.

And this was incomprehensible to a fast, clever person like Sandy, who had never stopped missing the comforts of the Old Life, and lived in a perpetual state of anxiety. If famine threatened, Maurice took note, and worked to avoid it, but never became frantic, accepting the possibility of more suffering and discomfort largely beyond his control. Sandy however would become a ball of anxiety, working feverishly to try to avoid what was often inevitable. A food shortage could be lessened, but never entirely avoided. The weather was too unpredictable, the seasons too uncertain. But Sandy clung to her old notions about human agency being able to change things completely, her memories of when she felt in control of all aspects of her life.

Sandy also clung to ideas like private property, and doing things properly, and ideas of hygiene that were now redundant in their New Lives. They lived in such close quarters and with such intimacy that it seemed silly to insist on everyone having separate cups, for they were all breathing each other's breath constantly at night. But Sandy insisted on the tea-drinking ceremony being inviolate.

Janice saw the water boil, took the pot off the wood-burner and put it on the living-room table, and got out a new tea-bag from the box. There were also four clean cans. Perhaps they would get to drink the tea after all.

John lead Sandy inside, and then left again, and then returned with Maurice. Everyone sat down at the table. After some coaxing, John convinced Sandy that they could have tea out of a pot and four cans. It helped when Maurice told Sandy that it was possible to eat violet flowers, and that he would make some little cakes with the violets on, that were perfect for being eaten with tea.

"Maurice, please can we have the teaset back?" begged Sandy. "We can have tea in the teaset, and violets in the cans."

"No, Sandy, no. The violets belong in the cups."

"But why?"

"The violets like being in the cups. It's where they want to stay. They don't like having their roots moved around."

"Oh for God's sake, Maurice!" cried Sandy. "They're just plants! Just plants!"

Maurice frowned his familiar disapproval. "They're not just plants, Sandy." He went silent, becoming absorbed in the tea, and Janice knew there'd be no getting anything else from him now.

Sandy sighed like the world was bearing down on her, and sulked into her can. John and Janice drank quietly, used to this sort of exchange. Eventually Maurice finished his and left, no doubt for the greenhouse.

Later, John ventured into Maurice's domain, and when they both came out, Maurice explained that although the violets had to stay in the teaset until spring, they could then be moved into something else, perhaps even relocated outside. They just needed time to grow strong, and go through their winter flowering period, and then they'd be okay. Then Sandy could have the teaset back.

"When the violets survive the winter, then we'll have a teaset, and we'll have violets! Imagine! Two things from the Old Life!" Maurice was beaming.

"Oh! Maurice!" Sandy exclaimed, and in a fit of generosity, gave him a hug.

John smiled at Janice, and she, astonished, smiled back.

That evening, Sandy came in from the garden flushed with pleasure, holding a clutch of sleeping snails in her cupped hands. She had found their daytime hiding spot, and now she could provide them all with protein for dinner.