Alimentary Armistice
Because it had been ages since she had visited and because she hated revising in the dorm, Lucy rang up Gilly on a February evening and said, “Gilly, might I come down for the weekend?”
Gilly, who lived alone in a bungalow on the southern bank of the Avon, said, “Of course darling, but what shall we do for meals? I’m on a new diet, and I won’t be thrown off. Not even for my beloved granddaughter.”
Lucy heard Gilly’s beloved for what it was: Lucy was the only granddaughter. Her brothers, lovely boys, were artistic and gentle. They were reverential towards Gilly. Lucy shrugged the phone against her shoulder to manage her roll-up and said, “Don’t bother, Gilly. I’ve gone vegan. I’ll bring my own.”
Meals at Gilly’s were simple affairs, removed from their cellophane M&S wrappers and popped in the oven just long enough for a gin & tonic. Lucy had heard the stories of state dinners and tea at Raffles before the war, but she believed the frugality of widow-hood sustained Gillian Croft far better than crab rangoon. Stinginess, she assumed, was at the true heart of her grandmother’s resolve not to Mix Foods that Fight — stinginess and not the scientific rationale that, in Gilly’s retelling, became more anthropomorphic than anabolic. Starch, she was explaining now over the phone, required entirely different digestive enzymes than proteins. Fruit, she warned, was inherently antagonistic to cheese. Lucy knew the tenor of her grandmother’s fervor too well to mistake it for anything other than the excitement inspired by a new regime. She imagined Gilly plotting alimentary armistice, between her bath and the crossword puzzle.
On Friday, Lucy arrived late, wearing what her grandmother considered workman’s clothes. She had missed her train and Gilly called her “silly idiot” with the affectionate disapproval that she believed was hers, as a devoted grandmother, to use. “I’ve had my drink, darling, it’s gone past seven,” she said. “I’m making my tray now.”
Lucy examined her grandmother’s supper, which more closely resembled the paper it had been drafted on than a proper meal: Two slices of ham. Beetroot with horseradish.
“So this is the non-fighting foods?” she asked. Gilly began explaining further the concepts of this simple science, irritation eroding her confidence. Lucy listened attentively to the certain phrasings from a ladies’ magazine, pulling things from her rucksack as she did. She watched her grandmother eye the raw almonds, the cashew milk and soya paste, as if considering: olive branch or thrown glove? Lucy made her voice bright: “Foods that fight. I think it’s the most enlightened notion I have heard from you since you joined the Arctic charity.”
If it had been summer, they would have taken their meals to the garden and smoked another cigarette before eating. But it was February, and so they prepared their trays separately and dined in the sitting room, where the spire of the cathedral shone on their meal like a candle, which they shared along with half of a red pepper.
