IKEA

What's IKEA? I repeated. Pliny, don't you know?

No, I don't, said Pliny. What is it ?

It's a place, a huge, vast, enormous place, where you go with your mum to look at furniture and furnishings and knicknacks, and, as you tend to fall into a sort of trance there, the time goes by until you realise you are going to be obliged to buy some lunch.

That sounds good, said Pliny. Lunch.

Little you know, I replied, remembering the greenish layers on the salmon chunks, and how they had disagreed with my mother afterwards.

In any case, it doesn't matter, said Pliny. I don't suppose I will ever go there.

No, I'm sure you won't, I said. Were there any other questions?

Yes, said Pliny. What was that about placing a rubber band around your mother's curtain rod, and a subsequent debate?

Oh, that's a funny story, I said. I made her some nice blue curtains with the stuff we bought at IKEA, and took them round on Saturday. The curtain rod was too long and needed to be cut, so we measured it and marked it with a rubber band, so that the handyman would know where to saw it off on Tuesday.

That's not very funny, said Pliny.

Wait, I said, it becomes funny. Then mum said, perhaps we should mark it with a marking pen.

We marked it with the rubber band, I said.

What if it moves? she said.

Why would it move? I said.

Someone might move it, she said.

Why would they? I said.

I don't know, she said.

I'm sure no one will move it, I said.

Alright, she said. But it's risky!

Well, mark it, I said.

But she didn't.

Dear me, said Pliny, not laughing. I can't help thinking that one of you was being deliberately obtuse.

Lucky

I was at Li Feng's this morning. She was telling me about the cats that come to her kitchen door every morning and evening. There are four of them now. A white one, a black one, a yellow one and a gold one.

Three of the cats will eat anything she gives them. Rice or soup or vegetables. The fourth, the gold one, will only eat salmon and chicken breast fillet. He very fuss, she said.

This one sleeps on top of the shed at night. One night her husband went to the shed to get something and the cat tapped him on the head. This was because her husband had made a noise and woken up the cat, which wanted to sleep. The same thing had happened to her once, she said. It proved that this cat is clever.

It costs her fifty dollars a month to feed the cats. I wanted to know why she continued to feed them. Some people say a cat or dog come to your door is lucky, she said. Lucky cat, lucky dog, I don't know.

Your cats are lucky, I said.

Easter Story 4

What do fish do at Easter time? They know nothing of Lent.

The question had not crossed the minds of Pliny and Nostradamus yesterday. They went to Port Noarlunga for a picnic and a walk beside the sea.

They sat near the rocks and ate salmon rolls, rock melon and grapes. The sun was shining, the sky was blue. It was 24 degrees. What perfect Easter weather we are having, they said.

They walked towards the southern cliffs and the Onkaparinga mouth, carrying their shoes in a bag. The reef was under water and only a faint line of splashes showed where it was. The sea, black green and blue green out there, was a pale translucent green at the shore, stretching up like toffee before dumping loudly on the sand.

When they reached the river they turned with it and sat down facing the opposite cliffs, on a small ridge of sand at the edge of the water. The tide was coming in. The river was racing inland. Small white fish were speeding along with it in mid stream. But something was not right with the small white fish.

After some time Pliny and Nostradamus realised that they were not even fish. They were just scum. It is less fascinating to watch scum swimming past. Pliny turned around.

Between her and the sea was a low sand hill, and metres away, on the horizon of the low sand hill were a hundred Hitchcockian seagulls. Pliny turned back to look at the water swirling into a tiny inlet just near her feet. The ripples and cross currents formed patterns like fish scales edged with golden light.

They got up and walked back along the edge of the river towards Port Noarlunga. Along a narrow churned up track between the water and the sand hills they passed fishing families with runaway dogs and sulky sons and daughters. The track opened up into sticky mud flats half covered in low green succulents with swollen red tips. The water was flat, reflective.

But not so reflective. Pliny and Nostradamus could see grey and brown fish in it, of small to medium size.

The closer they got to the bridge at the end of the sand hill trail, the more of these fish they could see. Nostradmus stopped to tell a fisherman that he had just seen a number of fish some way back. There's plenty here too, said the fisherman. But they're not biting today.

And they were not. There were hundreds of them in suspension all pointing southwards, and they were not biting today.