The Itinerant Lodger. David Nobbs

a fine thing, poetry. It’s not anything about the house, is it?”

      “What do you mean?”

      “It’s not because you’re not happy here?”

      “Oh no. No.”

      “I hope you’ll be happy. Mr Veal has never complained.”

      “Mr Veal?”

      “The old man upstairs.”

      “Oh.”

      “With garlic, then.”

      He resumed his creative activities. Nothing happened. The possibilities became so infinite, and the infinite stretched so far, that it seemed as if it might burst into a million fragments. Instead it receded. Far into the distance, with infinite slowness, it slid. He had no power to follow it, and a flat despair came upon him. For a while he was aware of nothing at all, but then odours of stew began to impinge themselves on his misery. He realised that he was hungry.

      The odours came from the kitchen, and were constantly changing in the strangest ways. Where was Mrs Pollard? Why did she not bring him his stew? A simple comfort would have been most welcome. He had had comforts in his time. Miss Potter, Mrs McManus of Barnstaple, Mrs Egham, Mrs McManus of Newport (I.O.W.) and Mrs Bell, they all had seen to that. And now there was Mrs Pollard. She was mothering him, and trying to make him happy in a thousand little ways. Her hair was growing white, and she wanted to make him happy. And yet he wondered. What lay behind it? Maternal instincts he had seen, but were there others? He waited and waited, and his uneasiness grew.

      Chapter 4

      NOT SINCE MR JENNINGS HAD MRS POLLARD FELT SO much concern over a stew. She wanted to make Barnes a stew that he would never forget, a stew that would help him to overcome his worries and inspire him to write his poems. She opened the door of the fridge and gazed at the frosted wonderland inside. She went to the cupboard and peered at the rows of smiling edibles that stood in its dark, spicy depths. And she realised that for the first time in her life she was at a loss where to begin.

      In desperation she consulted Thorneycroft’s Thought For Food and started to read Chapter One: “Your Guest Arrives”. She had never before sought the advice of the great culinary philosopher and gastrophile, but then she had never before been at a loss. In the past her stews had just happened. One minute they had not been there and the next minute, hey presto, there they had been.

      The most important thing to consider, in choosing a menu, was the nature of the person who would eat the food. However carefully prepared, however exquisitely cooked, however delightfully presented a meal might be, it could not be a complete success unless it was served to the right person, said Thorneycroft, and Mrs Pollard believed him. But although he gave examples of kinds of people—the ascetic scholar was one, and the young executive was another—none of them were remotely like Barnes. What kind of a person could he possibly be? She turned to the chapter on stews, but to no purpose. Each recipe was absolutely delicious, of that she had no doubt, but which of them was right for her Barnsey?

      In the end she had to abandon the book—a Christmas present—and return to her shelves. But it was no use. She was quite incapable of deciding which ingredients to use, and eventually, with a sudden despairing decision she relinquished control of her faculties and flung into the casserole the first objects that came to hand—some capers, an onion, some stewing beef, a sprig of tarragon, a lobster, some plums, and a sheet of gelatine. Onto all that she poured some stock.

      While these ingredients were settling down she went to Barnes’ room and asked him about the garlic, and then, after she had returned and added the garlic, she tasted the stew. It was displeasing. She fetched from the larder a bay leaf, some more stewing beef, a bottle of sherry, another onion, and some carrots. She put a spoonful of sherry and the carrots into the stew, tasted it again, and grimaced. It still displeased her, though not so strongly as before.

      At first she was not unhappy. She was performing a heroic holding action, and it occupied all her energies. But when she had tried every imaginable combination of ingredients, and the stew had still not become more than a pathetic shadow of the feast on which she had set her heart, she grew very depressed. She went to see Veal, as was her custom when things became too much for her.

      She climbed slowly the dark, narrow, creaking staircase. She was panting and having great difficulty in breathing and before she entered his room she waited for it to die down.

      Veal was asleep, and Mrs Pollard sat quietly for a few minutes on a wooden chair at the side of his bed. Then, when she felt calmer, she adjusted his sheets and tidied the bottom of his bed, making sure that the blankets were properly tucked in. She brushed his shoes, wound up his alarm clock, made certain that his suitcases were arranged in inverse order of size, and then stood at the bottom of the bed and looked down on him where he slept. She stood there for a few moments, and then she realised with a shock that she had been thinking of other things—of Barnes, of the stew, and of how she could make things easier for him in a thousand little ways.

      She hastened downstairs and began once more to taste the stew. She did so with horror. She had hoped that in the interim it might have matured, or that, returning to it after a breather, she would find that her fears had been exaggerated. But it seemed, if anything, even less tasty than before. It was very far from being the ideal stew after which she had hankered.

      She realised now, when it was too late, that the success of a stew depends not so much on the nature of the ingredients as upon their relationships among themselves, one to another. The sweetest carrot tastes bitter inside a camembert. At first the introduction of ingredients into the casserole had improved the stew, but only at first. She had introduced too many, far too many, so that it had become a struggle for survival down there in the cauldron. It would be difficult to state the exact moment at which the stew had ceased to improve, and had begun to deteriorate. Very likely it was with the introduction of the lobster. Anyway Mrs Pollard became certain that, could she but remove the lobster, the dish would become, if not ideal, at least edible. The lobster, however, had disintegrated, as lobsters will, given the slightest encouragement, and had permeated the stew to such an extent that not only was there nothing which could be said to be the lobster, but there was nothing that could be said not to be.

      The only thing for it was to remove from the wreckage those objects which she judged most likely to be completely distasteful, and which were still sufficiently whole to be distinguishable—the sprig of tarragon, for instance. After removing each object she tasted the remainder and to her delighted surprise it began to grow more and more edible. With increasing excitement she removed objects and with increasing relish she tasted what was left. Really, it was almost delicious. She removed something which looked suspiciously like a burnt carrot, and ate another spoonful. She decided that it was perfect. At last! She had done it, and she could have cried for joy.

      It was at this moment that she discovered that not a morsel of stew remained. She had just eaten the last spoonful.

      Chapter 5

      FOR A FEW MOMENTS HER HAND QUIVERED ON THE knob of his door, but she exerted no pressure, and the handle did not turn. Her stomach felt hollow. Her hands were weak. Once or twice she wavered, as if she was plucking up her courage and determining to walk boldly into his room and tell him the terrible news, but in reality she already knew that she would not.

      She walked slowly through the kitchen, past the dying fire and the deserted knitting basket, and crept up the narrow staircase. Up there, separated from Veal by a thin and peeling wall, she lay wakeful. In the distance a steel bar was being hammered upon her forehead, and nearer at hand, a long while later, she heard a jangled squeak, as Barnes converted his sofa into a bed.

      For he had noticed suddenly that the fire had gone out. He stood up, stretched painfully, and creaked into the kitchen. All round the range stood pots and pans and tins, and there, in the centre, was the empty, unwashed casserole. It was most strange.

      Hunger was biting into him, and furtively he found some bread and ate three slices, dry. After that there was no point in staying up, so he cleaned his teeth, undressed,