Monterra's Deliciosa & Other Tales & (13 page)
Read Monterra's Deliciosa & Other Tales & Online
Authors: Anna Tambour
Tags: #Fiction, #Short Stories (Single Author), #Literary Collections, #General
- 3 -
Unlike apples or peaches, most medlars have not, for hundreds of years, met another medlar, let alone a congregation of them. Medlar thought, therefore, has been somewhat undeveloped over the centuries, as well as insufficiently socialized. But with the good life they have in the orchard and the unprecedented companionship, the personalities of these medlars have blossomed, and the orchard buzzes with their conversations, characterized most of all by their unique sense of humour.
How to describe it? Self-deprecating, of course, as you would expect. Dry with a touch of the medieval to it. They made it to Tudor times, but already were being smashed into pastes, pulled out of the ground in favour of their more beauteous cousins, the other pomes. So, for hundreds of years, they suffered derision as well as separation, loneliness and the real fear of death. Their numbers dropped alarmingly, so intellectual development through cross-fertilisation was stunted since before Johnny Appleseed dropped his apple seeds all over America, a world almost no medlar has met.
So there was a lot of catching up to do, a lot of new interaction to learn, as medlars had only talked to themselves for centuries, like the human race not ever learning tennis or football, not ever having a reason for speech—just playing solitaire since 1500. With the same disadvantages, humans would not have got as far as vaudeville, let alone the enrichment of uranium.
The orchard was so alive that the animals caught a drift of something going on. Kangaroos jumped over the wire fence strung to keep the trees safe from gnawing bunnies. Little paddymelon wallabies jumped through the wires without even catching a hair on a barb. White cockatoos and circus-bright rosella parrots dropped in from the sky. Magpies stopped their singing to begin listening.
Those medlars are hilarious.
Humour is a curious thing. Something that one species will think funny, another will listen to and shrug. Animals and vegetables generally have their own sense of what they think constitutes "funny", or "tragic", come to think of it. But maybe it was the humility that medlars have. Maybe it was their centuries of individual thoughts. Somehow, they touched a common nerve in animal and vegetable alike. The dim-eyed wombat with its body the shape of a tank was stuck outside the wires, but he came to listen, and surprisingly, understood the humour best of all the marsupials. The fruit bats folded their wings and trembled over the long, complex stories. The cockatoos, easily bored, had a mean streak to them that meant they particularly loved the medieval-tinged humour, where someone is invariably made a fool of. The rosellas are sweet birds and enjoyed a more gentle laugh.
When the apples and persimmons and quinces were old enough, they joined in. The persimmons have the most culture, everyone agreed—but they are rather solemn, or at least hard to understand. Everyone listened politely though. The apples, though they could be a bit uppity, were greatly admired by the medlars, even if everyone secretly thinks that the
Fenouillet Gris
has a shockingly crude taste.
The chickens listened, but they have no sense of humour at all. The spiders, however, shook helplessly with laughter. The black cockatoos snidely remarked that spiders don't understand the true meaning, but laugh over the telling itself. It is true that some trees could coax a giggle even out of the brown snake who has a reputation as rather a cold customer, even on the warmest day.
~
The medlars love Tim. They want to give something special to him, but every time he comes to see them, they fail. They know he likes to eat their fruits and they know his tastes and try their best to thrill him with their productions. But they want him to get something more. The apples agree, all being of types forgotten by most people for many years, and having only been personally brought into fruition by Tim's mail-order to Timespast Nursery—the same nursery where the medlars Tim had ordered were born.
The persimmons and quinces, more humanly popular fruits, also agree that Tim deserves something special, as they have much more entertaining lives than anyone could expect for a persimmon or a quince. The spiders are vociferous in their agreement, as they would have been sprayed out of existence by almost anyone else.
Everyone agrees what the special present should be, and in anticipation, impatiently awaits the joy that Tim will have.
~
The medlars have tried and tried, but Tim just doesn't get it. While the chickens simply don't have a sense of humour, the medlars wonder if maybe the problem with Tim is that he is stupid.
The spiders insist otherwise. "No, no, no. Tim is a very smart man. You just have to try harder."
One day when nothing he has to read is thrilling him, when his thoughts about society are not going anywhere, Tim walks down to the orchard to spend the whole afternoon. That was what was needed. Time.
The medlars gather their collective thoughts, and with the speed of a hailstorm, they joke. There is no letup. No pause before the next funny story, the next quick straight-question funny-answer line. From tree to tree, the hail never stops. The kangaroos who usually wait till evening to visit, jump over the fence. The wallabies waft through in their silent way. The fruit bats hear the ruckus from their caves, and stain the inky sky as they stream down to the orchard to hang from every outreaching medlar arm. The wombat climbs out of his hole and shoves his head hard by the mesh of the fence, eyes closed, curling his toes in ecstasy. The spiders laugh till they fall out of their webs and have to climb up the trunks again. The apples guffaw in a way only apples can.
And finally, finally, Tim hears.
It has taken years for the first inkling of what was going on in the orchard to filter into the dim brain of Tim Thornbourne, but that day, surrounded by animals he had hardly seen and a show that he had never before heard, he got it.
That night under a sliver of moon, the spiders are insufferable in their glee. "We told you so, we told you so," they sing in that smug sing-song that only a spider has.
- 4 -
Another two winters have passed. The orchard now has no fence. The rabbits promised Tim and the trees that they would be good. The wombat appreciates the fence being gone, as he is hard-of-hearing and the fence was a great strain.
The original congregation has grown to 500, of mixed ethnicity as requested. Of medlars—three hundred more, the bulk of whom were donated as seedlings by the trees voted most popular, but newcomers were also invited: Bredas, Monstrous, and 10 Russian Giants who were grown on hawthorn rootstocks to hold their somewhat strong personalities in check (an idea contributed by the Nottinghams and approved by all). By general request, a Bulmer's Norman, a Black Taunton, two Hyslop Crabs, and five modest Hubbardston Nonsuches increased the apple population. More are being considered if these behave themselves. A Biggareau Napoleon apple was considered but blackballed, due to an obscure but deeply resented incident involving the great-great-great granny of the
Fenouillet Gris
. A Black Genoa and a Brown Turkey fig with their dustily lusty, somewhat pedantic reputation, now keep the persimmons a close company. The Brown Turkey in particular has been a great success, even drawing the odd comment from the chickens. Citrus was requested— Seville oranges, kumquats, and clementines.
This is now a settling-in period for all, but if they want, there is room for a more residents, but only a few, Tim has told everyone. The farm is only so big. Everyone acknowledges this, especially as Tim has made sure there is no overcrowding.
The medlars made a special request that has turned out very successful—a family of asses, companions of the medlars from way back when. "Donkeys have always laughed at our jokes," they told Tim—and when the donkeys arrived, he found it to be true. He can hear them laughing from his bed.
~
The Frawleys have been pleased with developments. Tim Thornbourne has enabled them to live in a manner in which they fervently hope to become accustomed.
One cold evening, Gwyneth Frawley licks from her lips the last winy remnants of the year's Nottinghams.
"What do you think he's doing with all those medlars, Stephen?" she asks her husband, as she opens the tin of bag balm to massage into her work-gnarled hands.
Stephen had been wondering himself. "Well, he can't be growing them to sell the fruit—"
"Yeah," breaks in their fifteen-year-old son Bram from the stove where he stirs his latest stinky tree wound compound creation. "We're the only ones who like them. Remember that yum jam you made, Mum?"
His father had also been wondering about Tim. "Maybe he's setting up a jam factory." He picks up the newest edition of the Royal Horticultural Society's
Encyclopedia
from the table-height pile by his chair and arranges himself comfortably so he can settle the full weight of the tome on his knees. "But Gwyn," he adds before preparing to bury himself in its pages, "better pray he still buys. I've just ordered a first edition of Cowper's
Treatise on the Quince
."
"Naughty you," Gwyneth giggles, as she squirms in the delicious frustration of looking but not touching yet, the brown paper packet that she picked up at the post office this afternoon. Tomorrow she will unwrap her new set of grafting knives, made in Tasmania by a fanatic in his own right. The tallow-wood handles will be a joy, and the blades ... Bram will get them when she can't bend her fingers any more.
~
More winters have passed. The feeling of the valley nowadays is that of a city, social life is so complex.
Of fruit, which could have been a problem seeing as there is only one Tim Thornbourne, the decision was made that each tree would only contribute so many. The donkeys, though great medlar fans, can only eat so much. The kangaroos would help to eat the medlars that dropped to the ground, the fruitbats would eat the soft ones that didn't drop easily from the trees. The best would be picked by the kangaroos and wallabies and given to Tim. The kangaroos and fruit bats have been doing their bit even though they think the fruits are a bit disgusting. Still, they would never tell the medlars that. The cockatoos have turned up their beaks at helping out, as they are open in their scorn of the fruits in any state. Of all the other fruits, the animals have undertaken a similar sharing of responsibility.
Although no one tells the medlars, everyone gets more pleasure from eating the other fruits. Most popular are the apples; next, the persimmons. The fruit bats especially like the figs. All the kumquats and half the clementines go to Tim; the Sevilles, to the cockatoos who relish their bitterness.
Some natives have dropped in, literally. Wombat berries twine loosely around the tall trunks of the Nottinghams. A few rosella bushes have sprung up. A patch of native grape twines against an old fencepost in the southwest corner. They add their stories too—very old ones they are, but the kangaroos know them all and the birds have heard them so many times that they don't listen very politely.
The spiders have called upon their friends the lacewings, mantids, and ladybugs—to help out with the other fruits bothered by the odd pests that the spiders can't control. With the promise of no spraying, their friends have enthusiastically taken up residence.
The most popular tree of the orchard is a skinny Nottingham, second from the end in the last row, whose name Tim still can't pronounce. This one tree looks as if he should wear a stiff white frill about his neck. He never manages to produce more than five little pear-shaped fruits a year. But can he tell a story!
He only has a thin voice, so the story gets tossed by the trees to the far corners of the orchard. This has good and bad aspects. Like every story told this way, by the time it gets to the Smyrna quince, it is often an entirely new tale. Sometimes the embroidery makes an even better story. Sometimes the wombat is asked to get the original from the Nottingham himself and relay it straight. The wombat can be trusted to tell the story exactly, though he has no pizzazz of his own.
But what of the eucalypts? They look down, miffed. "I always thought
we
had the best sense of humour, didn't you?" asks the spotted gum of the woolybutt.
"Of course we do. Just watch this," answers the woolybutt, and cracks a 30,000-year-old classic, to the reflex action of the kookaburras sitting on its branches, who laugh in their raucous way exactly as they always have at everything the eucalypts say.
"See?" says the woolybutt, secure in his superiority of their humour over that of the valley residents below. "The kookaburras haven't deserted us. Not at all."
"It's true that the kookaburras still laugh," admits the spotted gum, "but I wonder ... are they laughing with us, or at us?"
~
Four Dutch in the middle of the orchard made a house for Tim one spring, weaving their branches so well that rain couldn't soak, wind couldn't chill.
That gave Tim more time that he could live in the orchard itself.
He learned that there is a pattern to the storytelling and socializing. When photosynthesis is at full activity and the trees are working their hardest, they can only converse so much. On those evenings, they have a wind-down period, but then need their sleep before the UV hits the next day.
Once their work is over for the year and they shed their leaves, they take on a diurnal existence, taking short naps but generally carrying on at all hours of the day and night. All the animals say they enjoy winter more. The kangaroos come when they like, but both the owl and the magpie get an equal chance to hear long stories, and to tell stories back.
The citrus have a different clock, as they, like the eucalypts and wattles, never shed their leaves. Also, some of the citrus, eucalypt and wattle birth fruit in the winter.
~
By now, the community of valley trees has expanded so far that it is within whispering distance of the hill trees, and there is no longer a separation of society. The eucalypts and the wattles, too, have long serious talks with the medlars, while most everyone else listens.
"The medlars are the wisest, but they're also the funniest," is the conclusion drawn by the listeners, although the medlars themselves have never said it.
"Success does not bring deep thought or good humour," was how the medlars summed up (only amongst themselves, mind you) the conclusions everyone came to, but no one expressed, as no one wanted to hurt the eucalypts' feelings. It is the case, it seems, that the kookaburra laughs at the jokes of the eucalypts, but the reasons are that he is a creature of habit, and prefers the stories and jokes he knows. The 20,000th telling of it just makes him feel comfortable, not bored. For all but the kookaburras, the medlars are the masters of the tale that lightens your day.
So the medlars suggested that the eucalypts specialize in telling what they are best at—glory—thrilling tales of success because, after all, they and the wattles are the ones who have won out. As for some others: the citruses can't tell a tale at all, they are so flushed with success. The persimmon is so revered in places that superiority and obscurity often ruin what might have been a good story, so persimmons are respected—just not enjoyed or really listened to. And then, the best example of a tree that no one wants to invite to the valley or hill or anywhere near: the Granny Smith. "Avoid her like the fruit fly, the blight, the black sooty fungus, the man with the bulldozer," everyone but everyone agrees. The medlars especially would have liked to meet some of the trees who lost out to the eucalypt, the wattle, the more unassuming but still victorious geebung—all the fire-lovers who were helped to prosper by man and who are now the "natives" with the other trees now forgotten and maybe ... terrifyingly ... extinct.
~
It was in early winter, one day in May that Thornbourne woke to the sound of soft plops around him. The fruit bats were hanging from the branches eating the last of the soft fruits, but it wasn't their guano or the seeds dropping. It was tears from their beautiful round brown eyes. A Royal was telling a story. It was not like any Tim had heard a medlar tell. It was a tragedy, and as he listened, he heard a great epic thousands of years old. And as sad as a story can be.
When it was finished, the only sound to be heard was the refolding of the bats' wings as they thought, and the honk of Tim's nose as he blew it.
"That was exquisite," Tim said to the Royal, "but why have I never heard a story like this from any of you? With your history, you are full of tragedies."
"That's precisely why you don't hear stories like this, Tim," a Dutch and a Nottingham replied in unison.
The Dutch explained. "We have seen and experienced many horrors in our time. We have had centuries to mull over wrongs done to us, but we don't want to celebrate them. We have known much pain, but we don't want to wallow in it."
"Hear, hear. No wallowing," came a chorus of medlar voices from all over the orchard.
The tall, skinny Nottingham with the thin voice cleared his throat, and there was complete silence. "Verily, young Tim. We have a saying, we do. Be it a good time to speak it again." But his voice was drowned as voices rang out, in every medlar dialect:
"From salt, make sugar!"
"Verily. From salt, make sugar," the Nottingham said.
Tim scratched his itchy scalp. "Sort of like 'laugh and the world laughs with you; cry and you cry alone'. Is that it?"
"We've heard that," said the Nottingham. "But we think it's just better art to turn pain into laughter. And infinitely more enjoyed."
Tim looked around, and it was true. Most of the other trees had not enjoyed the epic, and the kangaroos and wallabies were nowhere to be seen. Most telling of all, the wombat had wandered away, and he lived almost full-time now in the orchard.
"Can we still have the occasional story like tonight's?" pleaded the bats, who are inclined to be melodramatic.
"For you ... on occasion," the medlars allowed.
"Remember, Tim," the skinny, funny-looking, funniest-of-all Nottingham quietly said. "Sadness into sadness grows nothing. Salt into salt feeds the soul like rocks do, your hunger. Make sadness into joy, salt into sweet. There doth you find—"
"Something to eat!!" three of the youngest medlars burst out.
~
With that in mind, Tim Thornbourne has now extended his collection of the great classics of the world (of man) from a different point of view.
Tim Thornbourne, who once avoided people, now has people avoiding him as he makes his rare trips into town. He does look a bit withdrawn and sometimes he smells. His millions do whatever the electronic equivalent is of growing dusty.
He and the medlars have discourses when everyone else is tired. He has now started to take notes for a volume of their lore.
He is going through the classics with the orchard now, although his conversations with the medlars in particular make him wonder if he has much to contribute. But some books everyone has truly enjoyed. He began with
The Man Who Planted Trees
. It was a great success, and he has already re-read it in several Command Performances.
Next he tried
The
Wind in the Willows
, full of happy memories of his mother reading to him, and he, interrupting her to chortle out more and more of the story that he had memorized. Now, all through the first chapter of his reading, there had been complete stillness in his audience. He was up to the last paragraph when he, too, was interrupted by a small something.
Tim looked around, smiling.
With a final crunch, an antechinus almost under Tim's foot swallowed the head of a scrumptious beetle, and then spat, unable any longer to restrain his disgust. "As sickly sweet as a—"
"Rotting antechinus corpse," the most tender-hearted fruitbat broke in, but too late.
"Silly, but not really funny, you see," a spider gently added—but there was still horrified silence all around ...
"Chhm," the wombat finally said, and everyone was, if possible, even quieter, since the wombat never chattered. "Unbelievable," he said.
And with that pronouncement, the deep pool of Tim's love for Rat, Mole, Badger, and Toad—and their waistcoats, spats, swords and pistols—suddenly dried up, leaving a mucky little slick of embarrassment.
