Jim Crace - The Devil's Larder

WE SHOULD HAVE been more vigilant and checked the progress of the fish each night. The timing of such things is critical. The water and the salt restored the cod more rapidly than we’d expected. That’s our excuse. ‘Excuses never fed a man,’ my father used to say. Our two-week meal doubled its weight and quadrupled its thickness behind our backs. We had only a moment’s warning. The three of us were on the slipway, pulling up the kelp for fuel, when we heard the splintering and looked up to see the birch door on the drying room fly back and wedge itself in the snow. Our efforts had revivified the cod, as they’d been meant to. But it did not intend to help us through the hungry weeks ahead. It had the strength to clear the pot, as agile as a salmon, and flap into the open air.

We might have caught it had we been a little closer. But by the time we’d reached the foot of the slope up to our house, the fish, mouth gaping, was halfway to the sea. Good luck was on its side. The tide was in, the hill was steep and slippery. Without the snow the cod might well have torn itself to pieces on the bushes and rocks. The snow, though, was a perfect slide, a wet and speeding cousin to the waves.

We tried to cut our salt cod off by running down onto the beach and wading in. If only we could catch its tail. If only we could lift it in our arms before it reached sea deep enough to float. But once a fish smells the ocean it gathers strength, it quickens. It doesn’t need the water even. It can swim in air.

Three brothers, then. A fourth one missing, no address. We’re standing on the shoreline in our boots, our boat well holed, the roads impassable, our prospects famishing. We hope to see a final sign of our salt cod, far off. A tail perhaps. A fin. We only spot outlying plumes of surf, a half-encountered squall too distant to be frightening, and then the furrows of an ever-grateful sea.

It is, we say, the perfect meal.

SHE’D HEARD an actor talking on the radio. He loved his cat. So, when it died, he had the animal cremated and put its ashes in an airtight pot on the condiment and spices shelf. He’d add a tiny pinch of ash each time he made a soup or stew, or a cup of instant coffee. The ashes lasted him three months. They didn’t seem to spoil the taste of anything. But it was comforting to have the cat inside, recycled as it were, and purring for eternity. He recommended it for anyone with pets.

When her husband died, she took the actor’s route. Cremated him and potted him and put a pinch of him into her meals, like grainy, unbleached salt. She judged that the flavour of these meals suffered slightly from his ashes, to tell the truth. Or maybe that was just a widow’s queasiness. But certainly the comfort that she felt was less than she had counted on, She did not feel possessed by him. She did not feel at peace as she had hoped. She was not reconciled with her new solitude. Instead, a small voice piped inside her stomach as she lay in bed at night. It bothered her. Her husband’s singing voice, high-pitched and watery. The lyrics were not clear, but then they never had been clear when he was living. No matter what she did he would not stop. His singing would not let her sleep.

The doctor listened with his stethoscope. He hummed the tune and tried to put a name to it. He took his patient’s temperature. ‘This sort of thing is common,’ he said. ‘I’ve heard all kinds of songs from widows of your generation. There’s not a medicine to fix it. But I’ll say to you exactly what I’ve told the other women, you can’t eat grief. It’s far too strong and indigestible. You have to let the grief eat you. You have to let the sorrow swallow you. Then put his ashes in the earth and let him go. Come back and see me in a month or two. By then I bet your husband’s voice will only be a memory and you’ll be happy with the quieter life that you have earned by loving him.’

MY DAUGHTER asked me, ‘Do you think that pasta tastes the same in other people’s mouths?’ Let’s try, I said. You first.

I picked a pasta shell from the bowl, dropped it, red with sauce, onto my tongue and closed my mouth. My lips were pursed as if I was waiting to be kissed. I sat down on the kitchen chair and spread my knees. Come on, I said, trying not to laugh or swallow. Be sensible.

She’d started giggling but struggled to compose herself. She pushed against my stretched skirts and reached my face with hers. It was a kiss of sorts. She had to turn her head like lovers do, invade my lips and hunt the pasta with her tongue. She pushed the shell about inside my mouth and then stepped back, a little shocked by what she’d done, at what I’d let her do.

What do you think? ‘Tomato, onion, pesto,’ she said, remembering the sauce we’d made. ‘And lipstick, too. A sort of cherry flavour. Except for that, it tastes exactly the same as it does in my mouth. Your go.’

She picked a piece of pasta for herself and put it on her tongue. Again she came between my legs. Again we kissed. My tongue got snagged on her loose tooth. Our lips and noses rubbed, we breathed into each other’s lungs, our hair was tangled at our chins. I tasted sauce and toothpaste, I tasted sleep and giggling, I tasted disbelief and love that knows no fear. My daughter tasted just the same as me. We held each other by the elbows while I hunted for the pasta in her mouth.

oh honey