In Search Of Lost Ice Cream

Blueberry, murmurs Proust as he watches the countess eat her ice cream.

He remembers the first blueberry he ever tasted, as a child in Combray. It had been a disappointment, as he had always imagined a blueberry would taste sweet and tangy, like a mulberry but richer, whereas his first blueberry had tasted bland and oily ......

Are you wishing you had one? asks the countess. Gaius could always go back.

No, thank you, countess, says Proust.

Do call me Constance, says the countess.

I would NOT have gone back, says Gaius. The idea!  There's nothing wrong with Proust's legs.

Apologies, says Constance. I forget myself sometimes. Do you know, when I went to my first revolutionary meeting I wore a satin ball gown and a tiara. Imagine how well that went down with the Daughters of Ireland!

Proust tries to imagine himself as a Daughter of Ireland, and Constance in a satin ball gown and tiara, and how he would view her, but as she is wearing khaki knee shorts and a red tee shirt spotted with blueberry ice cream, he is unsuccessful.

Gaius does not even attempt it.

Daniel O'Connell has been trying to eat the ice cream which Gaius wedged in the top of his bottle, after Daniel crawled out.

The shade has shifted, and the sun is melting the ice cream, which drips down the side of the bottle.

The first drip reaches Daniel O'Connell.

Slurp. He licks it.

Not bad at all, says Daniel O'Connell. 'Tis like the birds' milk, but more bland and more oily.

It's dribbling all over my shorts, says Constance, shifting away from the bottle. Could you eat it faster?

No, I could not, says Daniel O'Connell. 'Tis the slow savouring that makes it so fine to be eating.

He sounds comically Irish, says Constance. Strange to think he has relatives in the Canaries.

Indeed so, says Gaius. I have gone into the matter. I believe he may be related to the Tenerife Black Jumping Spider.

Do you now? says Daniel O'Connell. That rings a bell. Oh, I have a hankering to go there!

It's a long way away, says Constance. I have friends who went there on holiday. I recall they complained of being bitten by Black Jumping Spiders. Quite a problem, apparently.

Not for me, says Daniel O'Connell.

There is some debate on the subject, says Gaius. Are they poisonous, or aren't they?

They aren't, says Daniel O'Connell. They aren't, they can't, they shan't.

A poet now, says Proust.

A competent rhyme, says Constance. But I would hardly call it poetry.

I agree with you, says Gaius. Arthur is a poet, and he never bothers with rhyming.

He's not Irish, says Daniel O'Connell. Show me an Irish poet and I'll show you a rhymester.

You are not wrong there, Daniel O'Connell, says Constance. I was friendly with W B Yeats in my girlhood. He was a rhymer. Although I must say, some of his rhymes were quite borderline. 'Drop' with 'up' for example.

Drop with up, says Gaius. No wonder I've never heard of him.

Come on! says Constance. He's extremely famous. He wrote a poem about me and my sister. He drew a sketch of me too. I might have a copy of it here in my bum bag.

She turns and leans over the side of her lounge chair, to rummage about in her bum bag.

Daniel's ice cream oozes stickily towards the warm patch in which she was sitting.