September, 1929
Una and Li Meredith sat on the veranda, red tea bowls between them, savouring one of the last clear evenings of the season. The air was cool and breezy, and leaves rattled chitinous from their tremulous positions amidst the branches. One or two fell lazily to the ground and Akela, guard dog of Trinity House, set off gamely to vanquish them, barking all the while.
'Or loyal protector,' said Li.
'But there shall not an hair on your head perish,' said Una, almost reflexively. 'He won't let us risk even that, loyal rascal. At least he doesn't throw things.'
The air rippled with Li's high, flutelike laughter. She began to replenish the tea, dark head bowed to her work.
'Thank you,' said Una, accepting a cup absent-mindedly. She was meant to be planning lessons for the coming term, but the evening was too lovely for such mundanity. Walter would have said to think violets, not lessons. Not that there were violets, but there were mynas in chorus, and sentiment was the same. One of them was imperfectly singing a hymn it had learned off Una by osmosis. Mynas, it turned out, could do that sort of thing. And you hadn't lived, it Una discovered on the veranda of Trinity House, until you'd heard All My Hope on God is Founded sung by a myna at seriously improbable decibel.
Una smiled a half smile for the flock of myna birds even now holding court on the veranda rail, utterly unfazed by Akela's crazed antics or avian hymnody. One couldn't be, living with Carl. Beside her, Li took up a pen and began to sketch the birds with sharp, deft strokes. This was how, in the first instance, she missed the coming of the Buffalo. Frankly, Una missed the Buffalo because initially it was too inconceivable to be real. Yes, there was Carl coming up the walk. Yes, he was leading something by a rope. But it wasn't really a Buffalo. What possible purpose could they have for a Buffalo? Where did he think it was going to live? And anyway, Carl wouldn't bring home a Buffalo. They didn't know how to feed it. And it clearly wouldn't fit in the house. Besides, Puck would loathe it! Puck would torment it! And it had such wide, gentle eyes, the thing Carl was leading up the road. Which wasn't a Buffalo. Couldn't be a Buffalo.
The thing that was not a Buffalo lowed in subdued fashion. It was not particularly noisy, but Li jerked to attention anyway, stray drops of tea eschewing the little jade teapot in her hands. They dotted her skirt, Una's skirt, Li's half-formed sketch and the table between them. Li opened her mouth to apologise, and then saw the Buffalo. Una watched this happen, watched as Li became transfixed by the sight of Carl and his non-Buffalo pet ambling up the walk, her mouth open like a fish. Li unfroze enough to look at Una, her face writ large with a myriad of questions. Do you see this too? What is it? Why is it here? How is it here?!
Presently Li collected herself. Una watched that, too. The straightening of her shoulders, closing of her mouth, her wide eyes darting back and forth, back and forth. 'Carl,' she said with all the serenity of a koi pond, 'who is your friend?'
On the walkway, Carl came to a stop and raised his free hand in a salute. 'This?' he said inquiringly of the Buffalo. Buffalo. Una sat and meditated on this for fully five seconds at least. And No, thought Una, The army of elephants behind you. What do you think Li means? Of course she means the thing in the rope at your side. Which is not a buffalo. It was now close enough that she could see it was a Buffalo, and smell it was a Buffalo, and it was on the walkway of their home with great brown eyes, standing placidly at Carl's side.
Li inclined her head, elegant as a swan. 'Yes,' she said. 'That. Who is he? How did you get him? Did someone give him to you? How long for?'
Dazedly, Una wondered what else needed to be asked. Carl stroked the Buffalo. He said, 'I found him in the market. I didn't much care for how it was being treated, you know, so I bargained with the owner for it.'
'You…' began Una, but could get no further. She took a restorative sip of tea. Li had brewed Jasmine, and it had clearly reached the stage of steeping where it went bitter and tanniny. It scraped against her teeth with a jolt that brought the reality of the Buffalo into lurid, technicolour life. It was a Buffalo. On their walkway. And it was Carl's Buffalo. Carl had bought a Buffalo. It was massive.
'I brought home a buffalo,' said Carl for her. He seemed to think this was as ordinary as jasmine tea, or mynas singing hymns, or even the flowers that bloomed in the spring. Una wondered, if she squinted, if she might yet see the doorway from the alternate universe Carl had walked through that had led him to the erroneous conclusion that a Buffalo was a house pet. Akela ambled over and gave the interloping Buffalo a judicious sniff. He barked once or twice, ever the faithful protector, and the Buffalo lowered its head and retreated half a pace. Akela ceased barking and tilted his head.
'But Carl, why?' said Una, because she still hadn't processed that Carl, and possibly Akela, canine guardian of Trinity House, had accepted a Buffalo into their home.
'Because,' said Carl, 'the man whose buffalo it was before was too hard on it. If you'd seen it, you'd understand.
Well, they hadn't seen it. Puck, sensing the arrival of his favourite, came scampering onto the veranda, took one look at the Buffalo (which definitely, Una felt was deserving of a capital letter) and screamed his outrage. There being no peanuts to hand he picked up an innocent tea biscuit from the platter and hurled it, still screeching, at the Buffalo. The Buffalo did not flinch. Una could not for the life of her decide what was odder; the fact that she and Puck were united in a cause or that the unflinchingness of the Buffalo in the face of simian aggression was actually evoking sympathy in her.
'Puck,' she said warningly.
Li was not so moved. She set down her sketch, sipped at her own tea in its ruby red tea bowl with butterfly stamp and said, 'I don't like it.'
Puck threw another biscuit.
Emboldened, Una said, 'I don't want it here.'
'It's a buffalo.' This from Carl, apparently thinking they had misunderstood.
'I see that,' said Una.
'I won't feed it.' Li again.
'What does it eat?' Una, genuinely curious.
'Grass. It can live in the garage. We don't use it. They make excellent cheese, apparently.'
'Apparently?' asked Una, helpless. 'You mean you don't know?!'
'Are you going to make the cheese?' asked Li, but there was a lilt to her voice, a ripple of a joke as the absurdity of the Buffalo dawned on her. The fireflies were beginning to wink into existence, drifting to and fro like little, living lanterns. Light emissaries for the Buffalo. Puck had run out of biscuits, and now flung himself bodily upon the veranda like one overcome by the Spirit and commenced shrieking and kicking in horror and indignation. Seeing him, Li laughed harder, and her laughter was infectious. Una began to laugh. The myna birds on the railing scattered, chorusing their alarm as they took wing. All My Hope on God is Founded indeed. Akela gave the interloping Buffalo another sniff then bounded onto the veranda and rubbed himself against Una's skirt. It's all right, he seemed to say, as his nose snaked between her ankles, I have inspected our new friend and deemed him worthy. Go forth and embrace the Buffalo. Una was unconvinced, but she gave Akela a scratch behind the ears anyway.
'I could learn to make cheese,' said Carl, gamely. Li's flute-like laughter sailed up and away into some echelon of the upper atmosphere indiscernible to mere mortals. The fireflies reduplicated in winking, blinking majesty.
'Not in my kitchen you won't,' said Una. 'Puck would want to help you and then chaos would ensue.'
Here Puck shrieked worse than ever, much to say, Help?! I wouldn't go near that great, lumbering interloping excuse of a monster! Much less anything it produced! Horror! Calamity! Horror! Horror!
'We'll practice in the back garden,' said Carl. Puck continued to cry horror. It dawned on Una that chaos had already ensued because there was Buffalo in her garden and a monkey shrieking indignation on the veranda. Una clicked her teeth. She had visions of Puck eating curds and whey until he was sick and wondered obliquely if she should forewarn Carl. Very probably. Then again, Puck might just as likely weaponise the curds and whey and use them to pummel the unsuspecting Buffalo. Which was still on her lawn. Their lawn. It was sanctioned by Akela, and Una couldn't quite get past this most prescient of details.
Then, an improbable thing happened. Carl and the Buffalo were still standing on the lawn, the mynas chattering in the treetops and the leaves chitinous as ever. The fireflies shimmered and glistened around them. Into this tableau slunk Nenni, low-slung to the ground, grass tickling her belly. Without warning, she leapt onto the back of the Buffalo. Beside it, Carl braced for warfare and intervention, as did Una on the veranda, her back stiffening and her posture shifting forward in case she should need to grab the cat. Even Puck ceased his tantrum to watch. Only Li sat cool and unperturbed, content apparently to let the animals wrangle their own hierarchy. Possibly she was on to something. But Nenni circled ponderously on the back of the Buffalo, then abruptly sat down, legs akimbo, and commenced grooming it. Una felt herself relax, dimly aware that the tension was going out of Carl's shoulders even as she stared. Nenni, suddenly aware of the staring, froze. She hopped off the Buffalo, slunk under the bushes, and began to chatter her teeth together. Carl walked onwards towards the neglected garage, the Buffalo ambling lazily beside him. It occurred to Una to wonder if they even knew how to open it. Li sipped at her tea and held the teapot up to Una in mute question.
'Please,' said Una, and passed her back one of the tea bowls for replenishment.
Out in the garden, Nenni was once more stalking her prey. She darted feather-light across the lawn, more shadow than cat, sprang onto the Buffalo's broad back and recommenced where she had left off, zealously washing behind its ears. Well, thought Una, so much for making it a temporary Buffalo.
Aloud she said, 'If its staying here, it needs a name.'
Puck verily squawked betrayal. Et tu, Brute?!
Una nursed her tea, bitter-tasting and aromatic as any night-blooming jasmine bush. Carl stopped, abruptly, and a startled Nenni hissed her annoyance as she struggled to maintain her balance atop the halted Buffalo. She swished her tail and resumed her devotion to her new friend. Una finished with the much-needed tea, leaving the butterfly stencil gleaming in the fading light. Li saw it and smiled.
'A name,' said Una, again, helpless.
'Oh,' Li said and clapped her hands, 'but that's easy, of course! We'll call him Papatee.'
Papatee, Una thought, looking from the hulking brown Buffalo to that delicate, elegant hand-rendered stencil in her tea bowl. Butterfly. Could there be anything more incongruous? But Carl was grinning, and when it came to the point, there was a certain grace to the lumbering, shuffling buffalo. It had lost some of its alien grandeur, Una felt, upon acquiring a name, and was, as such, no longer requiring of a capital letter. Nenni chirruped approval. No going back now. The cheese might be a debatable point, but the buffalo – Papatee– was plainly here to stay.