Adam Mars-Jones - Cedilla

In Mr Johnson’s blessèd Home my reading had shifted away from being the centre of my life. I could even begin to imagine that under extreme circumstances (I couldn’t visualise them) happiness might drive out reading.

The continuing spiritual fermentation going on inside me didn’t make me any less small-minded. When my life seemed to be in a rut, I would try to change my responses to stimuli but found myself reacting exactly as before. The set patterns of mind and action inherited from past lives (those pesky vasanas ) must be dismantled before any progress can be made, and I was grappling with them unsystematically in my own feeble way.

Peter and I had enjoyed, or endured, another meal with Granny at the Compleat Angler soon after the car arrived. In fact we triumphed over her, entirely by accident. Naturally she found a way of getting her own back.

It was well known in our household that there was one foodstuff which Granny abominated. I remember her saying, ‘I hope your mother isn’t serving you boys any of that dreadful slop from the tins? If I find she has, my revenge will be terrible.’ Possibly she was joking, but it was never safe to make that assumption.

I wonder what she would have said, if she had known that the kitchen convenience to which she was referring with such disgust had been introduced to Britain by Fortnum and Mason, the shop for top people par excellence , as a prestige item. For some time they were the only stockists of … tinned baked beans. Considered by Granny to be the active opposite of a vegetable, a food item so vulgar and American it was practically obscene.

She was explaining, not for the first time, that one of the reasons she selected this particular Otel for her stays was the excellence of the vegetable preparation. Now that Peter had found employment in the world of catering she offered relevant instruction free of charge. In a country where greens were routinely boiled to mush, the kitchen staff at the Compleat Angler knew how to retain both vitamins and flavour. It was Granny’s opinion that people shouldn’t be allowed to have children unless they had proved they could cook vegetables correctly. It was hard to see how this scheme could be enforced, but that wasn’t Granny’s responsibility. She just had the ideas.

Of course beans-on-toast was one of our favourite meals at Trees. Mum sometimes bought cleaning products because she might win a cash prize if she produced them when the manufacturers’ representative came to call, though she knew in her heart of hearts that they wouldn’t displace her favourites. Those items lived at the back of a cupboard, awaiting a knock on the door. They shared the space with her Heinz baked beans, those tins glowing with an indefinable blue-green, the colour of an Amazonian parrot that never was.

The beans needed to be near enough for convenience but well out of sight in case her mother pounced for a spot inspection. It was quite normal for our treats to have a lining of shame to them in this way. We never missed Bruce Forsyth on a Saturday night, when he appeared on the Light Programme, as she perversely called ITV (once she’d stopped pretending we couldn’t receive the signal at all, on account of our being so near the river). We watched ‘just to see how awful it is’, to be amazed at what lower people found entertaining. Our pleasures lay some distance from our principles, and often the things we said we liked did nothing for us.

Now at the Compleat Angler Granny was plumping for her main course, the lamb. There only remained the selection of a vegetable. She asked what was available. Normally the staff were chatty and personable, but our waiter must have sensed he was on dangerous ground. ‘Beans, Madame,’ he said.

‘What sort of beans, exactly? French beans? Runner beans? Broad?’

This wasn’t her Spanish pet (the one who didn’t want me for a pet), who would certainly have had a shot at sweet-talking her, however hopeless the odds. This one was reduced to cowed silence and dumb show. He took the lid off the chafing dish to display the contents. It might just as well have been a kidney dish of hospital waste. Granny’s face went dark — this was the scalding look occasionally visited on husband or dog — and Peter suppressed a snort. He and I were throughly enjoying the fix she was in. She who loved to put people on the spot was in a bit of a spot herself. How was she going to get out of it?

I thought I’d help the drama along. ‘What sort of beans are we being served with, Granny?’ I sang out. ‘I can’t see from here! They look all orangey.’

The big game of the ego

We watched her lips, Peter, the waiter and I, waiting to hear what words would emerge. Granny played for time, taking a good ten seconds to clear her throat. ‘The item …’ she said at last. ‘The item on the menu seems to be … haricot beans … gently simmered in a piquant sauce. A la mode de Boston. ’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I know what that is! My French isn’t so bad after all. That’s baked beans, that is.’ I saw Granny quiver, as if from pain or shock. ‘Bung some on here, mate!’ I said cheerily to the waiter. ‘There you are, Peter! I knew Granny would never mind if we ate these. Mum must have been teasing us — or else she got the wrong end of the stick. She does that sometimes.’ It was lovely to have the whip hand for once. ‘You’re right, Granny, they really know how to cook vegetables here. First class, tip-top!’ They tasted even better than the ones we ate at home in conditions of secrecy. For once we were tasting victory, served up on fine china in tomato sauce.

Of course we pushed our luck. We tried to consolidate our advantage, and naturally we came a cropper. Granny had a natural genius for One-Upmanship, and Peter and I wouldn’t remain One-Up for long. Later when I read Stephen Potter’s book on One-Upmanship it held no surprises. The manœuvres all seemed rather tame. One of these days I’ll track down a biography of the man, to see how he came up with the idea. For all I know there is a legendary figure in Stephen Potter studies, a mysterious woman he met at a party in the 1930s who showed him how to hunt the big game of the ego, someone who taught him all he knew.

Now, in the elation of the triumph we had shared, Peter was urging Granny to come with us to a film that was showing locally. An X film, a Hammer Horror. Vampires. ‘Come on, Granny,’ said Peter, ‘let your hair down.’

‘No one has yet been able to explain to me, Peter, why letting one’s hair down would be a good thing. Your own hair has been let down rather far already.’ He blushed but didn’t give up.

‘Really, Granny, you’ll be quite safe. We’ll look after you if you get scared. I’ve seen it already and I’ll warn you when it’s going to make you jump. John hasn’t seen it, but nothing scares him.’ Not entirely true (anything set in a hospital gave me a sick feeling in my stomach) but a good thing to hear your brother say.

‘I very much doubt that the film you propose would make me jump. I warn you, though, that I might flinch.’ Peter seemed delighted. If it wasn’t for the formal surroundings he would have been whooping like mad. Granny was scared — she’d admitted it!

Then Granny went off at a tangent. ‘When I was a child, there was no television and no films. We used to tell each other stories instead. One friend of my father’s who used to visit was called Mr Stoker. In winter we would sit close to the fire while he told us tales that held us spellbound …’

Peter looked at me uncertainly. Granny was rambling, Granny seemed to be going gaga. Perhaps he thought that the shock of those beans in the chafing dish had broken her spirit. I wasn’t so sure. I remembered the last time I had underestimated her, in this very room. I decided I would wait to hear the full six clicks before I was sure that Granny was out of ammunition.