Work Text:
Singapore, May, 1927
Una stood in the kitchen methodically slicing guavas. She was hampered in this objective only mildly by Puck the resident monkey, who sat cross-legged on the draining board lobbing peanut-shells at her for no discernible reason. Unless one counted that Una was hoarding both guavas and salt, which, all things being equal, Una Meredith did not count. The peanut shells, for anyone keeping notes, had their origin in the dish of peanuts Una had issued the monkey in an effort to deflect his culinary interference. The effort had failed.
All that was as may be. So there was a monkey on the draining board and the house was still overrun with stranded but exuberant ACS children, only now beginning to make noises about heading home. So nothing. Carl's Li was coming up to the house, and be the obstacles ever so many, Una was determined the evening succeed, though Puck run ever so amok and the children ever so noisesome. Hence, the guavas.
Finishing with them, Una covered the fruit with the kind of latticed dome intended to protect it from insects, but in this case also (moderately) handy against curious, irritating and wilful simians. That done, she unpacked the Gladstone Blue Ribbon. Una had boxed it away for safe keeping with the influx of youthful residents back in the rainy season; After all, it had not survived a journey halfway round the world to be overturned and shattered by a casual game of Tig. But it was Mother's china, and of course Carl's sweetheart must have use of it. The thing went without saying.
Puck crept dangerously close to the domed fruit. Una, hesitating over the selection of tea, turned on him and said with as much steel as she could muster, 'Don't you dare.'
Puck dropped the dome, shrieked righteous indignation, and flicked a peanut shell with bonus peanut at Una for good measure. Una did not deign to react and Puck took himself off to beg attention from attendant children.
Puck gone, Una resumed the ceremonial preparation of tea. Green, she thought, for Li. China was Puck's favourite, but Puck was not the company being entertained, and Una remembered hearing mention of Li and Dragon Well tea in the same sentence. Una shook her head; This was not its proper name but in the moment it eluded her. She would file it away for conversation later.
Presently, Nenni, sleek, spotted and regal feline traipsed across the counter with all the grace and aplomb of a diminutive tiger. Really, Una thought, hefting the relevant tea chest down from its shelf, one would be forgiven for thinking she'd stuck a sign to the kitchen door proclaiming ingress to all and any animals. Monkeys, snakes, lizards, cats, oriels, mynas, perhaps a stray tree toad…It seemed worrisomely plausible. She spared a surreptitious look at Nenni's mouth. No snake. No mouse either. Indeed – oh rare and joyous occasion! – no dead animals whatever. Not even a half dead one. This did not preclude the possibility that the dead thing was even now lying lovingly atop Una's pillow. Still, her pillow was miles from the guavas, which seemed the crucial point. Una gave Nenni a saucer of milk in gratitude. Nenni fell upon it with gusto and Una measured out the Dragon's Well leaves. One per person, rang Rosemary's gentle advice in Una's inner ear, and one for the pot. As Una put the last spoonful in the teapot, Nenni waltzed under her arm and nuzzled her in sleek, spotted satisfaction. Her nose joggled the teaspoon. Awry went the leaves. Spring went Nenni as she pounced on them with vim. Her spotted paws splayed genteelly across the counter-top suggesting to all the world just how effective they were at the evisceration or otherwise of unsuspecting fingers, tea leaves, or lizards, as the case might be. Una retreated with the teapot to safety. By the time she turned around the cat was meticulously washing those same spotted paws, for all the world a perfect picture of feline gentility.
The kettle whistled, Nenni bolted, and Una was left to finish her tea tray in peace. The fireflies were out as she carried it onto the veranda. Una stood watching them, little winking ruby lanterns in the blossoming evening, and gathered herself. Please God, let this go well. Una made no bargain, only winged the prayer upwards on the back of a passing myna. It swooped down and snatched at the fruit, but Akela, bedraggled dog of the house though he was, roused himself sufficiently to bark the uninvited bird away. Off ran Akela after it, great mottled paws galumphing across the veranda and down the rolling green slope of lawn. The displaced Anglo-Chinese School children fell upon him and lavished him with extravagant attention, the yard now twice as chaotic as it had been previously. Akela, needless to say, barked unbridled satisfaction.
Into this noisesome riot came Carl up the walk, Li on his arm. She was moonlight-pale and elegant in silk as sleek and orange as the cat. It made her look like a sunset, right down to the bold red poppies splashed across the fabric. They started small at the collar and swelled until they massed in pregnant possibility across the angles of Li's hips. The sight of her in susnet colours and hair coiled high, made Una grateful for her choice of her Sunday best - this a deeply mercurial blue - and forget-me-not brooch .Cecilia Meredith's locket was a given.
Nenni marked the occasion by stalking the veranda railing, liquid shadow personified in the evening light, a gleaming lizard suspended disconcertingly between her jaws. It had no tail, which led Una to horrified meditations on just where she might later find the tail, but there was no time to dwell on that. Puck settled himself, peanut dish and all, onto the veranda swing, the better, Una supposed to infuse the scene with peanut shells. The fireflies winked and glimmered in the twilight.
'Hullo!' called Carl up the walk. Then, apparently noticing the lizard, 'Say, what present has Nenni gifted you?'
Before Una could answer, he had lightly disengaged from Li's enjoined arm and drifted towards the veranda, where he crouched down, and with eyes carefully averted from their feline-turned-idol, commenced to make a study of her prey.
This left Una to greet Li. She spread her hands and made her way down the walk trying to recall all those little, useful words the ACS children had taught her over the years. None were forthcoming. Nor could she place in that auspicious moment which dialect she would have wanted in any case. That they were all different she did recall. She smiled and hoped it bespoke welcome.
'Una,' she said simply, when it came to the point. Li nodded, and offered a slow-blossoming smile like a waterlily unfolding.
'Li,' said Li in her turn, voice light and lilting.
'I've heard,' said Una cautiously, risking the hybrid language of the ACS children 'so much about you. All good.'
Li's smile widened into laughter. She said, 'So have I – about you. Carl didn't say your accent was better than his.'
That made Una laugh, too; The thing was too absurd. 'I doubt Carl would know,' Una said loyally. 'Our sister is the best of us with languages.'
Li nodded, suddenly thoughtful. 'That is…' a delicate eleven knitted itself into her forehead as Li reached for the right relational connector.
'Di? The one who was visiting?'
'Faith,' said Una. 'But yes, I suppose Di counts too, after a fashion.'
Now they were on the veranda, having successfully navigated past the tangle of children and animals. Una gestured Li onto one of the cushioned wicker chairs. It occurred to Una, joining her, that Li did not so much sit as perch bird-like on the edge of the chair. Impossible not to think she would fly off at any moment, like the myna Akela had so lately worried away. Una unveiled the guavas and handed them, gleaming across the table. Carl, still apparently conversing with Nenni over her tailless lizard, caught the sheen of them by the glow of the fireflies.
'Oh,' he said, 'guavas, mind if I feed one to Nenni?'
'I expect she'd prefer cream,' said Una. Opposite her, Li, still poised on the edge of her chair, said, 'Afterwards. Carl, you've muddled all your people together. Come here and explain them first.'
'Have I?' said Carl, perplexed. But then, improbably, loped over towards the tea table, folded himself against the side of Li's chair, smiled like a sunburst and said, 'Where did I go wrong?'
Li began to explain but was struck, mid-explanation by a peanut. It sailed through the air and caught her on the back of the neck. Li flinched, and Una's blood ran cold. She had a sudden, bone-deep feeling that Li had missed the monkey with his peanuts. She would think – but mercifully Carl was hastening to explain about Puck.
'You mustn't mind him,' Carl was saying, when Una regained her composure. 'He does that to everyone.'
'No, he doesn't,' said Una. 'What Carl means is Puck does it to everyone else. I can't so much as think about talking to Carl without getting harangued for my trouble. He's been doing it ever since Carl brought him home.'
'Brought him home?' asked Li, her eyebrows rising higher by the second.
'I told you about that,' said Carl. Then, hazily, 'I thought I did, anyway.'
'He did,' said Li to Una. 'I didn't realise you weren't expecting the monkey.' Another peanut registered against the back of Li's neck. For good measure one sailed further and caught Una on the shoulder.
'Can one expect a monkey?' asked Una and lobbed her peanut back whence it had come. Puck squealed annoyance. Li laughed. It sounded sweet and high like a flute.
'Perhaps not,' said Li. 'Still,' with a look towards Carl, 'you might have said something.'
Una shrugged. 'No harm done,' she said, and began to pour out the tea.
'Not to Carl, maybe,' said Li. She picked up a peanut and scrutinised it. 'I'm not so convinced about the rest.' Then, reaching across the table so that her fingers glanced off of Una and the teapot, 'May I? Do you mind?'
For what felt an interminable moment, Una froze, Cecilia Meredith's teapot still poised and ready to pour. Time spun to treacle and Una found she could not recall the last time she had entrusted Gladstone Blue Ribbon to anyone else's care. Then time snapped back into focus, and her brain unstuck sufficiently to remind her Di had had run of it when she had visited, and it had survived. And if Di, long-time friend of the Merediths, could be trusted with it, then surely Li, who Carl loved…
'Of course,' said Una, and twisted the teapot's handle round until Li could access it.
Una needn't have worried. Handling the it with all the meticulousness a cat expended grooming its person, Li cradled the teapot and began to pour.
'Like this,' she said, softer and more lilting than ever.
As she poured. the yellow-green of the tea tumbled from one cup to another to another. Down the line of cups went the Gladstone Blue Ribbon teapot, then back again, like a liquid musical scale that ascended and descended in the key of bone china, signature for three people.
'This way,' Li said, 'it is all the same strength.' This in English, with careful and precise diction. She smiled, a tentative, watery thing like a water lily, and Una smiled back.
'I'll have to remember that,' said Una, and meant it.
Li passed her a teacup, and Una traded her for the platter of guavas. Li took one, bit into it and smiled the full-blown smile of an open water lily or maybe a full-blown rose.
'Perfect,' she said of the guavas. Carl swiped two and handed one to Nenni as she waltzed past their triumvirate. Not to be left out, Puck scampered over and plucked the second guava out between Carl's thumb and index fingers.
'Little thief,' said Li, but Carl laughed indulgence.
'If it stops him practising his cricket arm,' said Una, 'I say let him have it.'
There was laughter, and there was tea. The fireflies winked and shimmered in the gloaming. Akela barked and went haring after something – whether it was a snake, a lizard or a blade of grass was impossible to say. The ACS children joined in and went shrieking and squealing after him. Una murmured some apology, but Li shook her head.
'This is good,' she said. 'Happy. They all are. Even Puck.'
Una hummed uncertainty, and Li laughed. On the edge of nightfall, the fireflies winking and twinkling like jewelled lanterns, it was almost conspiratorial.
'Next time,' said Una, 'we'll aim for both. Civilised and happy. Quieter, too.'
'Next time,' said Li, and they linked hands across the table in promise of it.
The light faded, the fireflies scattered, and when Una next looked out over the city, it was to see thousands upon thousands of lights shining welcome in the distance. They called the young people to taxi dances and extravagant dinners, strolls through this place or that. Carl rose and said something about an evening out. Li tilted her head, not disagreeing.
Then she turned to Una and said, 'Will you come to?'
'Oh,' said Una, caught off-guard, 'no. Not this evening. You go, enjoy yourselves.' She nodded towards the chaos that was Akela, Puck and the children, still running amok on the sloping green lawn.
'I should probably reorder the house,' she added as an afterthought. The others nodded. Li pulled Una into a hug. She smelled of lemon and jasmine. 'Another night,' she said. 'I insist.'
Una promised and went to call the children in. They tumbled up the lawn, Akela at their heels, Puck chattering volubly atop the veranda rail, better than any school bell or declamatory Caesar. Friends, Romans, objects of peanut-throwing practice…Heeding the simian call to arms, or at any rate to bed, children sped past and Una kissed heads and clasped shoulders as they went, lingering only to catch the last of the fireflies shooting out over the lawn. She wished on it as it vanished out of sight; For many more next times.
There would be, too, she thought as the sky dimmed. There would be countless cups of tea in Gladstone Blue Ribbon, and Li's fluted, rippling laughter. Carl's sunbeam of a smile, too, and almost certainly more stray peanuts and dead lizards, though somehow these things mattered less than before. Certainly more fireflies and guavas. It wasn't a haven, not exactly, being altogether too chaotic. It hinted of safety though, and happiness, and even alliance in the face of simian onslaught, and those were things to hold to fast.