Work Text:
Singapore, 1925
Una Meredith opened the door and came face to face with a monkey. She stared at the monkey and the monkey stared back. It was small, matted, grey thing and sitting bold as you please in the arms of one Carl Meredith, which went a considerable distance to explaining the oddness of his knock not seconds before. Una blinked. The monkey chattered and clapped its hands – or were they paws, Una wondered? – together.
'This,' said Carl, 'is Puck.'
At least, Una thought, taking in the spectacle of brother and monkey, he hadn't said something like This is a monkey of the species X,Y,Z, partial to A, B, and C. All perfectly true, Una was sure (albeit much more specific when parsed through the language of Carl) but fundamentally irrelevant. So, the monkey had a name. This meant Carl had bonded to it, and judging from the fact it was now on her doorstep obstructing Carl's face and chattering fit to burst, he was bringing it home. Possibly permanently.
'Puck,' repeated Una, stupidly, because what else was there to possibly say? Then, as an afterthought, 'He's a monkey, Carl.'
Carl nodded, unperturbed. 'One that loves peanuts,' said Carl, and jostling Puck, managed to procure the aforementioned treat from somewhere on his person. Una missed where exactly, being in that moment entirely too preoccupied with the reality of a monkey on her doorstep to pay attention to such niceties as which pockets Carl had allocated to the preservation of peanuts. For Puck the Monkey. She was still fairly stuck on this last bit.
'I thought I'd bring him home,' said Carl, ever elucidating.
'I see that,' said Una. From Carl's arms, the monkey clapped its clawed little hands and made a noise Una couldn't parse and didn't try to. On the stoop, Carl shifted awkwardly and said, suddenly hesitant, 'You don't mind, do you? About Puck? I thought maybe he'd be good company.'
On cue, Puck launched into a voluble diatribe about something with great rapidity and conviction. Heat shimmered in the air, almost tangible between the three of them, and Una stepped aside to let Carl and Puck the monkey into the little house on Evelyn Road, if for no better reason than Aunt Martha would not have done it and Una lived in terror of even accidentally turning into Aunt Martha.
'You really don't mind?' asked Carl, setting the monkey down and beaming a dazzling smile in Una's direction. It was impossible to resist that at any rate. She'd put up with the almost certain hassle of half a dozen monkeys should Carl only continue to radiate sheer delight like that.
'I really don't mind,' said Una, and meant it.
She went on trying to mean it as Puck hauled his matted self up onto the living room sofa and commenced to shell peanuts thereon. Force of habit she stuck a chipped saucer proximate to him – not Mother's Gladstone Blue Ribbon – and almost resolved to like him when Puck directly commenced to use it as intended. She decided absolutely not to hold his interference in Carl's library against him. After all, Carl's library was scattered in disparate fashion across several bookshelves, side and coffee tables, and assorted haphazardly stacked books, the filing of which made sense only to the librarian. Probably Puck's migrating books across the room or turning them upside-down as he felt occasion warranted did not massively affect their classification. Besides, Carl was supervising and seemed not at all perturbed. She told herself she was entirely sympathetic when Puck picked up that day's stack of marking for the Anglo-Chinese School and deposited it on the floor. She continued to insist sympathy when Puck sat on the marking on the basis that it was probably more comfortable than it was legible.
'Shall I make tea?' Una asked in the face of Puck's overturning of Carl's chess set.
'Please,' said Carl.
He had sat down upon the floor, the better, apparently, to reassemble the chess board with a mind to making a pupil out of Puck. Rather the monkey than herself, Una supposed. She was almost to the kitchen when Carl called, seemingly as an afterthought, 'Be sure to remember the sugar. Puck takes three lumps in his tea.'
Puck took…Una quietly said a requiem prayer for the departure of mundanity from her life. Presently there was a monkey with a sweet tooth and a taste for tea and peauts in her living room making an imperfect study of chess. That was nothing. It could be a frog in a Sunday School, or an eel, or…On second thought, it was probably better not to think about all Carl's past skittering, scaled pocket cohabitants. And anyway, Puck was not in the living room learning chess, because he was presently perched atop the kitchen whatnot, marching the black Queen – at least Una thought it was the Queen – across the top of the teapot in Gladstone Blue Ribbon.
Una gestured at the door. She had the distinct impression that not only was she too short for this gesture, but that Puck didn't care for it. She had no doubt he understood; he swung his legs against the Whatnot and chattered at her. An ungenerous person might have said he laughed. Una was trying for generosity.
Una stared at Puck. Puck stared back. He went on marching the black Queen around the rim of the teapot; It flashed inkily obsidian in the sunlight, a striking contrast against the lacy Gladstone roses.
'Out,' said Una Meredith in her severest classroom voice, arms crossed, to the monkey on her whatnot.
Puck verily grinned. This was sufficiently disconcerting that Una risked turning her back on the much-valued teapot and set about filling the kettle with water. Puck, being as it transpired, aptly named, followed her. He climbed into the sink with a war-whoop to make any respectable mortal's hair stand on end, and commenced splashing. On the one hand, he was now safely away from the Gladstone china. On the other, he was presently turning Una's kitchen into his own personal paddling pool.
'Carl?' said Una to the direction of the doorway. 'Could you possibly…'
She was not entirely sure how to finish. Remove the monkey? Shut off the water? Return your pet to the botanic gardens?
Carl hummed and padded to the doorway, whence he stood taking in the spectacle for several long seconds. Una, having decided she could not possibly fight every Puck-inspired battle, was retrieving a tea chest from overhead.
'Could it possibly be China tea?' asked Carl, suddenly alert. 'Do you mind? It's Puck's favourite, you see.'
'Carl,' said Una warningly, so that he blinked and twitched his shoulders. She still set the tea chest aside, though.
'Sorry,' Carl said. 'Something the matter?'
Una contorted her neck so that she was nodding over her shoulder and round the tea chest at Puck, still bent on re-enacting the flood God sent Noah.
'I really don't think,' she said with difficulty, 'he should be doing that.'
'Oh,' said Carl, as though taking the scene in for the first time. 'Possibly not. Puck!'
The effect was electric. Puck broke off his splashing and paddling and swivelled to face Carl. 'Let's leave the experts to work, shall we?' said Carl, brightly.
Puck did not look, in Una's opinion, terribly convinced. By way of a peace offering, she rescued the abandoned Queen from the whatnot and approached Puck with it. This was not, as it transpired, the right move, because Puck snarled, snatched it and batted at Una's hand much to say That is my chess piece, and I will thank you to leave it wherever I see fit to deposit it.
'Come on,' said Carl, invitingly, and the law of contraries being in good, working order, off scampered Puck into Carl's outstretched arms, whence he crooned peaceably to his chess piece.
They retreated to the living room, and Una resumed tea making. Heat the teapot and spoon the leaves; these were nice, comforting, normal acts.
Less normal, when she whirled round to deal with the whistling kettle, was the small, furry imp sitting on her kitchen counter. Una almost asked when he'd come in, realised the illogic of holding converse with a monkey and changed her mind. But there was still Puck on the counter-top.
'You're dangerously close to the hob,' she said, in spite of herself. 'I really don't think Carl will thank either of us if you scald yourself.'
Puck clapped his hands. Whether this signified agreement, derision or disinterest was officially anyone's guess. Not even God, Una thought, and Una had substantial faith in God, could have parsed the whims of this impossible animal.
God and monkeys notwithstanding, Una could hardly stand idly by and let Puck run afoul of the hob. She tried to replicate whatever it was Carl had done that had previously got the monkey into his arms, but had hardly got within half a pace of Puck when something hit her head. Another half step and another something glanced off her shoulder. Peanuts, Una thought, giving the whole thing up as a bad job. Much better to turn the hob off, and seize control of the kettle, preferably before His Nibs on the counter was similarly inspired. Accordingly, Una turned her back on Puck, said a prayer for the durability of the Blue Gladstone in the face of the peanut battery, and set about adding the hot water to the tea. It was china, because that was Puck's favourite. There seemed to be something deeply wrong with this logic, and Una stopped to remind herself she was being generous. Carl loved the monkey. She loved Carl. Ergo, she by extension loved Puck. Or that was the working theory. The fact that peanuts were pinging gently off of her person as she assembled a tea tray was sorely testing the theory.
She got halfway out the door with the tea tray, then stopped, turned back and picked up a piece of sturdy blue-and-white bone china for Puck, pattern indeterminate. Peanuts and floods were one thing, but she categorically did not trust him with Mother's Blue Gladstone. A fact Carl must have realised directly, because he picked up the indeterminate blue-and-white, turned it over, opened his mouth and shut it again.
'I thought,' said Una, 'Puck might like to have his own china pattern.'
Carl beamed at her. 'An excellent thought,' he said.
There was a clattering and pattering of delicate feet on cedar floors and Puck appeared, damp, but utterly pleased with himself, on Una's heels and followed them out to the veranda.
Una set the tea tray down on a low-slung table with a rattling to rival Puck's teeth. This delighted Puck, who threw himself wholeheartedly into animated discussion with the Gladstone Blue Ribbon.
'And now,' said Carl loftily, 'for our next trick, my assistant shall pour tea. Puck?'
Una watched warily as Puck scrabbled onto the coffee table and wrapped his clawed little hands around their mother's Blue Gladstone. It looked very fragile in those dainty, even delicate hands. Somehow though, it did not shatter. A stream of amber liquid tumbled out of the spout, albeit from the spectacular height Puck had hefted it to, but nonetheless fell clandestinely into the bystanding teacup. Una released a breath she had not intended to hold and opened her mouth to say something to forestall the pouring before they were facing yet another flood. There was no need. Puck, apparently well trained, set the teapot down, picked up the sugar bowl and turned to Carl.
'You take just the one, don't you?' said Carl, to Una. Una nodded, having quite run out of things to say.
'One sugar, Puck,' said Carl, and so Puck seized the tongs – and Una really had thought he wouldn't– plucked a sugar cube out of the dish, and deposited it in the teacup with a satisfying plop! Down went the bowl of sugar. Up went the milk jug. Puck cocked his head to one side and surveyed Carl patiently. Getting no response, he swivelled warily towards Una, milk jug still in hand.
'Better let her do that one,' said Carl. 'There's a real alchemy to it. Even Mother Rosemary can't gauge it right.'
It seemed impossible to suppose any of this made sense to Puck, and yet, he set the jug down with a rustle, picked up the teacup and saucer, and held it securely in his two impish hands. Then he swivelled round so that he was facing Una. Unsolicited, he clambered onto Una's knee and thrust the teacup into her hands. There was some tea lost in the transfer, and Puck squeaked the squeak of the righteously indignant. It was minimal, though, and Una tipped the contents easily from saucer to teacup while Puck's eyes widened before her. Forgetting the milk entirely, he seized upon the teacup Una had mentally designated his, filled it with tea, and proceeded to pour it from teacup to saucer and back again, all the while squealing his delight. Occasionally he paused to clap his hands.
Una did not dare risk disturbing their tentative truce with a reach for the milk jug. Similarly, Carl's own tea was a lost cause. None of this lessened the contagion of Puck's glee. Back went the tea, saucer to teacup and teacup to saucer, so that Una bit her cheek to check a smile. She had an idea Carl had once said it unsettled monkeys. Or perhaps that was some other creature. In any event, it was patently obvious mundanity had exited out the window and they were doomed to never be short of laughter – and probably more than a few implausible anecdotes – hereafter.