Zimmer: Friends & a Feast

16

No sooner had she dressed for the evening ahead when the doorbell rang, her first guest arriving. It was Tal, in a dusty pink shirt and jeans, barefoot as always, with a bunch of pretty, wild flowers in his hands. He presented the hostess with the flowers.

“For the lady of the house!”

“Oh, Tal, these are beautiful, thank you! Please come and take a seat outside,” she gestured to the patio, while fishing around in a kitchen cupboard for her little blue glass vase. Pouring some water in the vase, she placed the flowers on the patio table. There we go. Now everything was just right. What a picture it was, her water fountain mosaic and flowering river indigo with such delicate blossoms of pink and white, the twinkling fairy lights. And a glorious Spring day!

Before she had a moment to spare, the bell rang again. This time it was Renate and the professor together. As always, Renate was the very picture of perfection in a white V-neck dress with a broad white belt cinching her in, and a billowing skirt just above her ankles before boasting a pair of glamorous red peep toe heels. In his own way, the professor was ever dapper in a clean white shirt and navy slacks. They greeted and kissed each other on the cheek before she led them outdoors. But Renate stopped her just as they were on the threshold of the steps.

“One moment, dahling,” she whispered before placing a crystal tiara on Amelia’s crown. “There, that’s better.” She winked and then took Amelia by the hand, leading her out onto the patio feeling like royalty being announced. Shy, and unusually thrilled that Amelia felt all the same.

“Tal... I believe you all are fairly acquainted as my spectacular home renovators! Now, who’s thirsty?” They all chimed in with mass enthusiasm as Amelia brought out her batch of arrival drinks with mint and cucumber martinis. Not traditional, but devilishly delicious all the same and deceptively refreshing on this balmy evening.

“Mmm, you’ve put my gin to very good use,” the professor beamed. “I’ll have to keep my wits about me with these! Too good for their own good! Oh me, oh my, I forgot your gift in my old Morris. Please excuse me a jiffy.”

He returned moments later with a very large gift indeed.

“Oh, you spoil me! You shouldn’t have!” Amelia gushed, again embarrassed at the public spectacle with her at the centre. Slowly and respectfully she peeled away the wrapping paper to reveal a framed canvas of two whales, one smaller than the other, swimming across a field of wheat.

“Oh, professor!” She found herself utterly lost for words and close to tears.

“My son is a photographer. It’s one of his pieces. I hope you like it. You know, there were certain species of whales that for decades were considered solitary animals when science later proved they could in fact communicate over vast, vast expanses of water and were communing with each other, and not solitary at all. So I hope you will think on our friendship whenever you look on this piece.”

“Well he’s very talented. Your son.” Amelia hugged the professor. But then grew curious. “I didn’t know you had a son.”

“Yes, our Jonathan. It means God has given. It is Hebrew. Although my late wife was Jewish after all... A Jewish beauty and a lapsed Catholic. Quite the pair we made. But we struggled for many, many years to have a child, a decade even... That when our Jonathan finally arrived, it was as if God had finally bestowed us with our very heart’s desire. He looks so much like his mother, with her sun-kissed olive skin and hazel eyes. And if I may say so, he is a masterful photographer and artist. So I’m so glad you like your present. Just a small house-warming gift for this truly beautiful home you have worked so hard to make for yourself.”

“Well, I’m simply so humbled by you all, truly! Better friends a gal could not ask for! You’ve all been absolutely incredible, so cheers to friendship!” Amelia raised her glass while the others joined in. Just then, Ailuros surfaced, meowing at Amelia’s feet. She placed her glass down and picked up the mottled feline.

“Oh and to you too, Ailuros, you magnificent creature! Where would I have been without you arriving on my doorstep on that Autumn morning all those months ago...”

“Here’s to cats! As if I need another excuse to toast with these martinis!” The professor chuckled at himself, a flush already creeping up on his face, turning his cheeks a deeper pink.

“You know, after having lost my Fritz, and with my two children, my Pierre and my Brigitta so very far away, I didn’t know how alone I was until I met you both, Amelia and Jack. And now you, Tal. Is it not so that all we need is a few good friends to keep the wolves from the door?” Renate grew sentimental and misty eyed and Amelia in turn, so touched by her confession, taking her by the hand and giving it a firm squeeze with a knowing smile in solidarity.

“Call me peculiar but I always think on mushrooms when I think on friendship,” the professor levelled his gaze at Renate. “What we see on the surface is only just one small part of a thriving and ever expansive network beneath the soil bed. Like the whales. In fact, the world’s largest living organism is a fungus. Isn’t that just like friendship, so much more than it seems to be at first glance on the surface.”

Renate smiled a grateful smile at the professor and leant over to peck his cheek and in that fleeting moment, Amelia glanced the beginning of something a great deal more than friendship between the two, as the professor suddenly blushed, the love between them so abundantly clear to the quiet Amelia who had always been a keen observer.

“Now how about we get this party started with some bubbly and jazz expressly for our guest of honour, the talented hands behind my dazzling mosaic water fountain, the one, the only, Renate Buschle!” Popping the cork and topping up their flutes, Amelia went over to her stereo and selected an old record of her grandfather’s, Ladies of Jazz, feeling ever more festive.

“The next dinner party will be held at mine,” Renate announced as Amelia returned to the table. “The professor has been such a, how you say, godsend, helping me in my late Fritz’s garden. Now I want to show it off!” It was Renate this time who fixed her gaze on the professor, again catching Amelia’s rapt attention.

“Deal! But only if you let me help in the kitchen,” Amelia insisted when the brief glimmer of a moment was done between the two of her house guests. “And on that note, starters!”

Amelia brought out her aubergine dip and some flatbreads to the table.

“Oh, Amelia! This is just as my wife used to make! I haven’t had it in years. My son would’ve loved this! Valerie was a whizz in the kitchen... I pride myself on making a good cup of tea but beyond that, matters of the culinary leave me absolutely stymied!” The professor tucked in, and again Amelia felt what it is to nourish those you care for and love, wondering if there were a better feeling in the world than this, so simple yet so soul satisfying that it was.

No sooner than they’d all devoured the starter than Amelia stoked her outdoor fire to prepare the kofta for the main event. Ready to be served up, she plated the table with the lamb and tzatziki and pistachio dip and more toasted flatbreads. She had to admit, for someone who’d barely made anything before aside from the occasional boiled egg and slice of toast all those moons ago, she’d put on quite the impressive spread this evening, while her guests ‘oohed’ and ‘ahed’ over the food.

As the bubbly flowed and the evening wore on, Jack and Renate grew evermore openly affectionate with each other and this time it wasn’t only Amelia who noticed, as Tal winked at her across the table in their shared conspiracy. Ailuros had taken a real shine to Tal over the months of renovation and was sleeping peacefully on his lap before dessert was up. Amelia wasn’t surprised. He had that ability about him, to calm and make at ease all he encountered it seemed, soothing even the most savage beast. Amelia imagined him being able to make of a roaring tiger nothing more but a little purring feline.

Plates cleared, and bellies full, Amelia decided it best to let her guests rest before the final course. The professor was again regaling them on the world of fungi.

“There is a species, Elaeomyxa Cerifera, or the ‘amethyst mushroom’, first discovered in 1942. Its fruiting structures split open to release spores that sparkle like disco balls. It is like a galaxy in a single mushroom.... Nature is a marvel indeed...” While he held Tal and Renate in the palm of his hand, transfixed by his tales, Amelia found herself drifting off, the sun now altogether set and the candles all a’glow and the fairy lights sparkling magically, just lost in the moment with that feeling of profound happiness that was slowly making a bedfellow of her now, no longer the strange and uncomfortably unfamiliar feeling it had once been.

She pulled herself back into the moment at hand, remembering the limoncello she’d made a month ago, still in the deep freeze. Now felt like an opportune time to serve up a homemade aperitif to her dear friends.

Quietly she slunk away, returning with a tray of the delightfully bright yellow aperitifs in tiny crystal stemmed glasses she’d found at the antique store when purchasing her round mirrors. Something to clear their palates and ready them for the citrusy desert to follow.

She returned to find that it was Tal who now had the audience enthralled with the history of the Golden Ratio or Divine Proportion and all its marvellous manifestations in nature, holding one of Amelia’s paper nautilus shells in his hands by way of gentle demonstration.

“Well I’m glad to see you’re all getting along,” she remarked, placing the tray of limoncello glasses down on the table.

“And why not? You have excellent taste in all things it would appear!” The professor was the first to motion while the others saluted each other with the aperitifs before continuing in their easy banter amongst each other.

Amelia loved when she could just simply sit back and soak it all in. She adjusted the tiara on her head and considered her crystal slippers. Oh if only her Nana could see her now, so splendid in all the finery Renate had bestowed upon her. No longer the plain Jane she had been for so very long. It had begun with such a humble to-do list and a peculiar stray cat, and now look at her. Her home, her newfound friendships, her whole life, transfigured. It had been hard work at times, and she’d had to force herself out of her long-lived comforts, where she had all but avoided anything remotely spontaneous, not wanting life to disappoint her so again. But she’d done it. She’d really and truly done it.

Her Italian dessert polished off, along with a final round of limoncello, and Amelia was cleaning up the kitchen as her lingering guests had finally left. The last of the dishes all rinsed, Amelia lounged back on her sofa still in her regalia and finery of the evening, even the tiara. Feeling so very elegant and unlike her old self she was loathe to change should its enchanting spell finally turn her carriage into a pumpkin.

She regarded the library books she’d renewed on the coffee. She paged through Sara

Fanelli’s whimsical illustrations for Pinnochio. Fanelli’s eccentric approach to collage and the art of re-enchanting found, everyday objects had her captivated. And excited... There was an energy to her craft that was infectious. Cheeky. Brazen. Unapologetic. Infectious. She thought back onto her own childish renderings of the velveteen rabbit that her mother had wanted to gift her with all those years later on her 35th birthday. Had her mother known that she would never pursue those dreams that now seemed so very childish and impossible? Sleep getting the better of her, reclined still in her dress and tiara and crystal slippers, she nodded off on the sofa and began to dream fitfully...

She found herself once more in a big bright field of red poppies... She was in the evening’s emerald gown, slippers and tiara in her hand, poppies at her feet, when she heard a mirthful laughing in the distance, a laughter bubbling over that she knew all too well... It was her mother. Squinting off into the distance in her dream, her mother was laughing and beckoning her to join her, running off into the distance in her sky blue cotton kimono... Laughing and running...

Amelia hitched the tail of her dress up and attempted to pursue her mother, but however close she felt, her mother would drift off further and further towards the horizon, and try her damndest, Amelia just couldn’t catch up. Heaving and puffing and gasping for air, Amelia fell into the field of poppies, her mother’s laughter still ringing from the distance, a shot of sky blue in her robe so very far off, her laughter no longer mirthful but mocking. And Amelia conceding to inevitable defeat in her dream, she suddenly woke, her head sore and ringing from all the champagne. The dress feeling like a boa constrictor around her chest.

She went to go change into her oversized Pixies fan tee, placing her emerald velvet dress delicately onto a hanger in her closet and setting the tiara on her chest of drawers. The cotton of the t-shirt, thin and worn over the years, was cooling on her skin. She fetched a cold glass of water from the refrigerator and downed it in a few gulps, feeling exhausted and parched and flushed from the dream.

It had been months since her last vivid dream like that. How like her mother, Amelia thought bitterly, to come and interrupt her life when she was just getting to a place where she felt contented, to shake things loose and rattle her so. As if she weren’t doing all she could, as if the changes she’d made weren’t worth anything. What did her mother want now? Surely she’d proven just how industrious she was, as her namesake’s implied... But apparently not.

Setting some soothing music on the stereo, Amelia went to join Ailuros on the sofa. Stroking the softly purring cat helped to steady her nerves as she sipped on a second glass of cold water. Cuddling up next to the furry ball with her mother’s letter, Amelia read it many times over before sleep took hold of her again. This time, her mother leaving her in peace, and giving her daughter the rest she so desperately needed, for tomorrow would be a big day indeed for our dear, dozing Amelia. Of that much, Georgina Young was sure, watching over her Amelia as she was.

“She’ll get it soon enough, dear,” Portia turned to Georgina and reassured her own daughter. Their dear, dozing Amelia would be just fine in the end.

(If you like to purchase Zimmer, resplendent with delish recipes assured (!), my labour of love, you can find it here: https://www.amazon.com.au/Zimmer-Jocelyn-Fryer-ebook/dp/B09BCTYG9T )

Breakfast of the Rowers by Renoir