The kitten also got hugs and kisses on his nose and a handful of biscuity cat food from Mr Paphos’s shop. (Fewer and fewer people were keeping pets and so he could give away pet food without worrying that he would have less to sell – almost no one was buying any.)
The humans enjoyed a lunch of boiled pasta and a small amount of sage and some tomatoes from the garden. Everyone agreed it was a feast. Then Mary changed into her nicest dress (which she had been allowed to make from one of her mother’s nicest dresses) and trotted happily outside and headed for the Grand Avenue with Lanmo perched on her shoulder like a very long and thin golden canary.
The Grand Avenue was not so grand as it had been only a few years ago. Many of the high and wide shop windows were empty or boarded up and the market at the corner of Valdemar Street was quiet. Mary had loved it when it was full of heaped spices in aromatic rainbows and colourful fruits and vegetables carefully stacked. Its silk traders had all but disappeared and the leather workers were only selling a very few sandals and grubby, faded bags. But the ice cream cart was still there and Mr Chanson was still selling cones and tubs and icy treats, although no one liked to ask him how he got the cream. His ices were still delicious: strawberry, cake with flaberry, chocolate with lingonberry, plain chocolate, lemon, gooseberry with elderflower and Marionberry.
Mary joined the queue of townspeople anxious to have a little treat and to act as if Sundays were just as enjoyable as always. Lanmo had never eaten ice cream before and it intrigued him. ‘Mary, what flavour should I have?’
Mary didn’t answer at once and so he slipped along her shoulder, very close to her ear, and asked, ‘Is there something wrong?’
‘It’s just that . . .’ whispered Mary, ‘I can only afford the one ice cream. My parents need the rest of the money. It wouldn’t be fair to buy two.’
‘Hmmm,’ said Lanmo and smiled as much as he ever could. ‘But I can make the human selling ice cream think that we have paid him. I can make him think that we have bought the whole cartload in every flavour.’ He chuckled a velvety chuckle that was so warm it might almost have melted the ice cream.
‘No, no, no, Lanmo, that would be terrible. Mr Chanson needs the money to buy his mysterious milk and make us more ice cream. We can’t steal from him – he’s nice. He gives everyone chocolate sprinkles, or sauce, or extra little dabs of ice cream for free.’
Lanmo shrank slightly and leaned against Mary’s neck. ‘I do not understand humans. Some of you will steal anything all the time and some of you will steal nothing all the time. Couldn’t all of you just steal something some of the time – if you need it?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘But you are hungry and other people have more food than they can eat.’
‘Yes, but that is the way of the world.’
Lanmo thought about this and found that it was an unsatisfactory answer. ‘That is an unsatisfactory answer,’ he said.
‘I know,’ said Mary. ‘But that is the only answer my parents and my teachers have ever given me to the problems of who has food and who does not.’
By this time, our friends were at the head of the ice cream queue and so the snake simply let Mary choose one cone with one scoop of her own favourite flavour, because he had never experienced any of the flavours on offer and didn’t know what to pick. ‘How do you catch a lemon?’
‘Lemons just hang from their trees and stay very still and you can pick them easily. All the fruits are like that.’
‘That is very foolish of them. No wonder everybody eats them.’ Lanmo licked the air and tasted the sweet and sticky and rich wonderfulness of the ice cream scents. They almost made his head spin. ‘Do you like strawberry?’ He could not recall when anything last made his head spin.
‘Strawberry is my favourite.’
‘Then we must have that.’
Mary duly paid for the single scoop of strawberry ice cream and then ambled along to a little bench set under a broad, friendly tree that had stood in the Grand Avenue for many years and had become a landmark and a meeting place for humans. She held the cornet and Lanmo shrank himself and wound his body around it so that his head was just level with the ice cream. The cool of it made him feel slightly sleepy and yet excited. Mary waited while his tongue flickered and fippered and tickled nearer and nearer to the ice cream and then finally took a tiny, tiny, snake-sized lick. ‘Mmmmmm.’
After that the friends took turns licking while they sat and watched people pass.
‘Mmmnnnmmmnnn,’ Lanmo remarked. The treat had completely numbed his tongue. This had never, ever happened, and, although it was inconvenient, he quite liked it. He licked at the warm air for a while, as if he were a panting dog, but then he went right back to eating. ‘Sslllsmmsnnnmllllmmm.’ This was because he had never before encountered anything so delicious and also so much fun.
Once they had finished eating and Mary had crunched the cornet – which Lanmo thought sounded a bit like mouse bones – the snake lolled upside down from her shoulder, just holding on to her arm with his clever tail. He was so happy to have new things happen after such a long life and so happy to be with his friend and to see her so happy. ‘Wibbibb wubbly.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Ibbibb lubby.’
‘Oh, Lanmo, your tongue has frozen.’ And Mary giggled and the sound tasted of strawberries.
‘Thifff iff lovely,’ he managed and chuckled. ‘I have freezy frozey tongue.’
‘There’s no such thing.’
‘There must be. I have it.’
Lanmo could have spent all afternoon like this, but he felt Mary turn and catch her breath as she looked up the avenue. Walking towards them he could see an almost familiar figure. ‘That looks like Paul, only he is taller and older.’
Mary was waving at Paul, as if they had agreed to meet here. ‘Of course he is taller and older. Time has passed.’
‘Oh, but this is terrible.’
Paul was quite close now and Lanmo realised that letting his tongue get freezy frozen was a disaster. It might be hours before he could taste anyone properly. If Mary loved Paul and wanted perhaps to marry him, or go kayaking in the Arctic wastes with him, then the snake absolutely had to be able to taste him clearly and find out if he were reliable and if he loved Mary back and perhaps if he would be a good kayak paddler. Lanmo thought to himself, this is what it must be like to be a human, to never really know or understand the inside of anyone else. And their eggs tell them nothing . . . They are poor, abandoned creatures.
Because his tongue was of no use to him, the snake settled for staring very hard at Paul in an examining way.
‘Ah. The snake is back.’ And Paul looked almost angry as he continued, ‘Snake, the last time you were here you bit Mary, and I have been told that you did not mean to, but I must tell you that if you bite her again then you will also have to bite me, because I will fight you.’ And Paul’s blue eyes shone very brightly in a brave way and his gingery hair became more ginger and he tried to stand so that he seemed big, even though he was still quite skinny and someone you would probably take for granted if you passed him in the street. That is, if you weren’t Mary.
Mary – who was Mary – took Paul’s arm on the side that was furthest from Lanmo and shushed him. ‘No fighting. Please. I forbid it.’