Tea & Antipathy by Anita Miller Page B

said. “We can push it aside,” I whispered to Eric, who was still staring moodily into space.
    When the eggs came, on toast, with the green salad, I was relieved to see him tuck it in with good appetite. Bruce was enjoying the Canadian bacon. Eric dug the toast out from under the eggs, ate it, and asked for another piece.
    The waitress hesitated again.
    â€œWe do
do
toast,” she said. “But I don’t know if you can
have
toast. With that,” she added. “I’ll go and check.” Eric sighed. In less than twenty minutes, she was back, triumphant, bearing a plate of sliced, buttered tea toast. Eric consumed it, still moodily.
    But that night, he didn’t touch his dinner. “What’s wrong?” Mark asked him.
    â€œI want to go home!” Eric said, and before our horrified eyes, he dropped his head on the table and began to sob. “I’m afraid of King Claudius! I want to go home!”
    A dull cloud of gloom descended over the kitchen.
    â€œLet’s all go upstairs and watch television,” Jordan said heartily. “We’ll see what’s on.”
    Puppets appeared on the screen. One was lying on a stretcher, moaning and sobbing as he was being pushed through swinging doors. “Oh, oh, oh!” he shrieked. “Don’t take me to the hospital, don’t, don’t! I’m afraid, I’m afraid of the hospital!” Another door opened and another puppet, decidedly African in appearance, swathed in a long white medical gown, approached the screaming sufferer. He was holding a huge hypodermic needle, nearly as long as his leg. The camera shot him from below, so that he appeared to be very tall. “Ho ho ho!” he said. “I am the doctor. I am going to stick you with this needle.”
    â€œOh no!” howled the sufferer, who had great goggly eyes and resembled a frog. “Oh don’t! Oh, I’m frightened of the hospital! I’m frightened of the doctor! Oh, please, please don’t! Oh—!”
    The enormous puppet approached, raising the needle. The toad on the stretcher went into a frenzy of screams. Mark broke the frozen spell in which we sat, crawled over to the set and turned it off. “My God!” he said. Eric turned to me with a weak smile. “That was Sammy Snake,” he said. My flat American voice rose in the cold, chintzy, mildewed air of 16 Baldrige Place. “Doctors are our friends,” I said. Jordan did not meet my eyes.

12
Miss Pip
    T HE NEXT DAY Mrs. Grail bustled in, full of news and indignation. ‘That creature turned up,” she said. “You never told me she was coming.” I had already realized that I had forgotten to tell Mrs. Grail about Miss Pip, who had phoned Jordan, full of complaints about Mrs. Grail.
    â€œHere the doorbell rings,” Mrs. Grail said, “And me all alone in the house, and here is a dreadful creature on the stoop, a man. Ah, the face on him.” She shuddered. “And the coat! So I wouldn’t let them in. You never told me. And here she comes. Ah, the creature! And they wouldn’t go away. So I slammed the door in their faces. But they rang and rang. So I let them in, but I followed them all about. Tracking dirt and fluff, up and down the stairs, carting bits and pieces.”
    â€œThey’re coming back today,” I told her.
    â€œI know,” Mrs. Grail said grimly. “The creatures. And they’re never married, are they?”
    â€œI doubt it,” I said primly. “She’s taken the rooms alone, I think. I’m sure that’s what Mrs. Stackpole said.”
    â€œOh, yes. Alone. And then the monkeyshines start! Probably asked to leave her other rooms, I shouldn’t wonder.”
    â€œMy husband told them you’d only be here until two. So just let them in today.”
    We had grown weary of rushing our two sheets off the big bed to the launderette where Jordan went in a cab and spent the