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It may be that the silkworms, or the caterpillar-like things in the hedge next to the village hall, are not silkworms but just some type of baby moth. If it is a mulberry bush then that indicates they are silkworms (because silkworms eat mulberry bushes), and Mrs Friend, the lady that looks after the village hall on jumble sale days, did make the Queen’s wedding dress. I am not that interested in silkworms, but I am very interested in the Scouts’ jumble sale as it’s the best one of the year because instead of relying on people delivering items to the hall on the morning of the sale, they drive round during the week and collect them. I am near the front of the queue because I always arrive fifteen minutes early. That gives me plenty of time to look at the silkworms and wonder how they ended up here.
Everybody knew that Mr Carr was special, and not just because he was new to the village. He told everyone about his time as an opera singer and how he went all over the world singing.
We wondered how he ended up here. How he once had a beautiful voice but now it was rough and scratchy like a cheap pullover. Even so, if you bumped into him at the butcher’s (he lived in the flat above), rather than saying ‘Good morning’, he would sing it at full voice and sometimes bow dramatically at the end. If you went to walk away, he would grab your arm and gently pull you back toward him, almost as if he was preparing to kiss you, then sing a really high note that might have been amazing once but was now quite bad. I am fond of opera and was able to recognise some of the tunes. Once he had realised this, I would be treated to a medley of favourites which, in different circumstances, would have been pleasing, but in or just outside the butcher’s, and with the scratchy high notes, was not. This afternoon, when Mr Carr joined the queue right beside me next to the silkworms, I anticipated a full impromptu recital, so I readied myself with a polite smile. Nothing came.
Instead, Mr Carr appeared to be engrossed in the silkworms. After examining them for some time, he tapped me on the shoulder.
‘Do you know what those are?’ he asked.
‘Silkworms,’ I said. ‘Not just any silkworms; really special ones. These made the Queen’s wedding dress.’ He looked suitably impressed, as if this was breaking news, when in fact everyone in the village knew that our silkworms had been used to make the Queen’s wedding dress. ‘Well, not exactly these, but ones just like them,’ I added. ‘Apparently they make the smoothest, finest, most luxurious and delicate silk in the world.’
I broadened my smile and faced forward as the queue began to move, relieved to have avoided any of Mr Carr’s usual intimacy, leaving him behind scrutinising the silkworms, seemingly no longer interested in the jumble sale.
Inside the hall, the red stage curtain was down, covering the stage and acting as a backdrop to all the jumble that the Scouts had collected around the village during the week. Lots of old clothes, some books, vases and glasses, a breadboard and other wooden things, tools and knives and forks and plates and cups and lots of shoes. In the middle were all the big things like prams and bikes. A potato-peeling machine caught my eye, a mangle, and there was a sunlamp and several old radios and a TV and some carpet. I bought an old bellows camera for two shillings, and a book on whaling with some gruesome black-and-white photos of whales being cut up, all the while keeping a lookout for Mr Carr, who I expected to seize the opportunity and either grab me from behind or, even better, burst through the curtain onto the stage at any moment and let rip with ‘Nessun dorma’ or ‘La donna è mobile’, but there was no sign. On my way out, I could not help but notice that the colony of silkworms seemed much depleted but put it down to the time of day or weather.
Some weeks later, just outside the butcher’s, I bumped into Mr Carr. He grabbed my arm without striking up first, which surprised me. ‘Good morning,’ he said, but didn’t sing. ‘I wanted to thank you for the worms.’ I looked at him blankly. ‘The silk,’ he said. ‘It’s very special.’
‘I know,’ I said.
‘The Queen’s wedding dress,’ we said perfectly together, as if we were appearing in an opera. At which point Mr Carr started to sing. The smoothest, finest, most mellifluous singing I had ever heard. It would be nice to report on the appropriateness of the song to the circumstances but…
‘That’s beautiful,’ I said. ‘How come?’
‘I ate them,’ he sang to a perfect Top C that seemed to go on for ever, kissed me,
and bowed
to the queue of applauding housewives waiting to buy their week’s worth of meat.
April 5, 2025