Sonny?
Yes Miss Shaughnessy?
I know they’re supposed to be for guests only, but it’s so hot, and there’s no one here, and if I promise not to tell anyone…
Yes Miss Shaughnessy…but I think we only have blueberries…
And he disappears into the back room, and comes out five minutes later, one gloved hand placed protectively over a small side plate, which he carefully hands to me over the counter. And my eyes light up as he takes his hand away from the plate…
Raspberries…
Just for you miss…
A bit of explanation here as to why one of the Lido servers fetching me a tiny plate of raspberries is a cause for celebration: There are some things onboard that are reserved specifically for the passengers only. Little things. The good desserts at dinner, one whole side of the Lido restaurant (which has a totally different menu from ‘our’ side), and the real fruit, the kind that hasn’t been sitting out all day, and hasn’t been pulled out of the freezer ten minutes before the lunch hour starts and left to thaw into a soggy mess that may as well be yogurt.
To get real berries on board you have to know one of the servers very well. And they have to take pity on you. Once in a very great while, I work up the nerve to ask. Most of the time, I get shot down – even when I asked on my birthday I got shot down.But sometimes, sometimes you catch just the right person at just the right time.
Why raspberries? Well, that’s for a number of reasons. For one when I was somewhere around 26 or 27, living in a falling down flat (which had its charm I’ll admit), in the UK, working two jobs to put myself through theatre college. My budget then wasn’t even a shoestring, it might have been…a button? I don’t know, what’s less than a shoe-string? I couldn’t afford much in the way of groceries (though I never did resort to kraft dinner), and anything in the way of fancy desserts was out. But once in a while, raspberries would go on sale at the local market. I’d have to dole them out to myself, and I had to put notes on them to keep my roommates from nicking them. Special occasions only.
Really though…even then ,it was because of something else.
Raspberries are an instant transport for me. The second one touches my tongue I’m somewhere else. Somewhen else. I’m no longer wearing company colors, sweltering in the Indonesian heat, thousands of miles from home. I am home, it’s July, in my Gran’s garden – and I’m ten years old. My parents are sitting on the back deck, drinking something cold to stave off the heat of the summer (I wonder sometimes now, if a Victorian summer will ever feel truly hot again)…and I’m trying to figure out whether I should go inside and ask my Gran to borrow the sugar (which would mean admitting I’d stolen the berries in the first place, as if she didn’t already know that), or if I should just sit there next to the vine and pop them in my mouth as is.
My childhood? Smells like salt water and sunshine, and tastes like California lemonade, and homegrown raspberries.
One for me…two for the bowl….
I think this is wonderful! It makes me miss me apple tree. She *knew*
you were eating them of course.
M