Because she can never make up her mind whether she’d like a pot of tea, or a cup of coffee, the cook has instructions to keep both ready every time my wife feels like a shot of some warming brew. It’s another matter that she doesn’t like to drink her beverage hot, so while the coffee cools in a mug in the study, she might decide to clean out her cupboard with a cup of tea in hand, then find herself distracted by the news on television and fix herself yet another cup, only to discard it when a neighbour calls to ask her over for coffee, or tea, laced with gossip.
As a result, cups of tea and coffee, some half-sipped, others untasted, lie around the house. But there are strict instructions that under no circumstance must these be removed by the staff, for as she moves from room to room, my wife appears to draw comfort from the cups or mugs of tea or coffee she might or might not have drunk. “Here,” she’ll order the cook, “can you zap this for me?” steaming life into some abandoned brew, only to put it down in favour of an earlier cup and opting to have that heated as well.
It’s hardly surprising that we seem to have a gargantuan appetite for cups and mugs, pots, trays and teaspoons, and with all of them in use simultaneously, it appears the work of some mad genius who has unmatched everything in the house. When guests walk in, they might or might not be served in matching cups and saucers; the cook having discarded long ago any attempt to bring sanity and order to the household beverage service. Sizes, shapes, colours, all exist in glorious disarray and depending on the cook’s ability, or mood, you might be served coffee in a mug huge enough to last the day, or tea in a demitasse portion affording no more than a mere gulp.
Given that my wife will lift, and put down, her tea, or coffee, in the oddest of places, I can at least count on being surprised at where a cup might pop up next. While mugs displaying different levels of having been sipped before being put down in one or more shelves in the wardrobe may no longer be unexpected, to find a cheerfully polka-dotted specimen in the shoe rack can still be unsettling. She’ll leave her tea in the bathroom, wanting to claim it the moment you’ve stepped into the shower. “Can’t it wait?” I’ll ask testily. “No,” she’ll reply, “it might get cold, and, therefore, undrinkable.”
In the vegetable container in the fridge, under newspapers, behind books, beside the computer, on top of the washing machine, concealed by flowers, under tables and chairs, tucked away in the linen cupboard, forgotten on the bedside table, lying neglected on the dresser, perched behind the drapes, left cooling on a window ledge, hidden in the bar, evidence of her peregrinations through the house pop up in the unlikeliest places. “Here,” I’ll tell the servants after an hour of setting some files in order, “get me a dustbin for all the waste paper.” “Be careful not to throw out my tea,” my wife will warn from another room — though it beats me how her cup got under my papers in the first place.
Looking for something in the gift cupboard this morning, therefore, I can’t say I was astonished to find a cup of some indeterminate brew amidst the packets and packages and gift-wrapping. “I must have left it there last week,” said my wife, looking at my astonished expression. Then, summoning the cook, she issued instructions, “Here, warm this for me in the microwave — but no more than thirty seconds, mind.”