Even Grimmer Tales (3 page)

When her magic mirror informs a wicked queen that she is no longer the fairest in the kingdom, she becomes jealous of the beauty of her young step-daughter. It's no fun seeing the younger generation take over! The queen arranges for the girl to be disposed of in the forest, but her life is saved and she is taken in by seven dwarves, becoming their servant. The mirror, quite distressingly honest, lets the queen know that her beauty is still out-shone by Snow White. This calls for more action. After several failed attempts, the queen, disguised as an old peasant, tricks the girl with a poisoned apple. In a deep coma, Snow White is preserved in a glass coffin by the heart-broken dwarves, until a passing prince sees the coffin and falls in love with its beautiful inmate. He kisses her, dislodging the poisoned apple from her throat, and she wakes. As the queen might have said: “You can't keep a good woman down …”

‘Little' –

not a word I've ever liked –

or any of its synonyms.

‘Mini', ‘scaled down', ‘diminished'.

They're really much the same.

They carry with them

connotations of inferior,

a lesser world.

A lesser man?

‘Big is beautiful' – hah!

An outmoded concept!

But for a while there it was central

in the thinking of a world

that had not recognised the dangers

in its expanding picture of the universe.

Among ourselves we talk about it now,

in tones of cynical amusement,

how experts castigate the eighties' sins

and how today the ‘less is more' philosophy,

a world where ‘small is beautiful',

has more to offer.

But they've not yet accommodated

human beings

in this new perspective.

Might have improved my schooldays if they had.

Years of playing clown,

Butt of every acned pre-pubescent joker.

Trapped,

locked in rabbit hutches in the playground.

Stuffy, claustrophobic,

frightened whites of eyes stare back at me.

Picked up and stuffed in rubbish bins

(oh yes, I was an easy fit!)

planted high on ledges others might

have safely jumped from –

(yet another broken arm …)

while Happy tells of his especial torment:

the guys who spent each lunchtime holding him at bay

while that day's lucky winner got to tickle him

until he wet his pants. That's how

he got his nickname – “Happy” –

uncontrollable, the giggling.

Me?

I just retreated from the world

and slept.

Through classes, breaks and lunchtimes.

They named me ‘Sleepy'.

Not much fun if poking, prodding,

won't wake up the promised

victim.

It was only when we got together,

our salvation came.

Till then we hadn't realised

that we were … marketable.

Circuses were first;

always keen on Little People.

A few of us joined forces,

found a whole new world

in film, stage shows, the television.

Ever noticed all those Munchkins?

We were there. You wouldn't find

a costume drama of the past

without us.

Got ourselves an agent – did OK.

The four of us were often in demand.

Yes, only four of course. The way

these stories get passed on is never right.

Seven? No way. Who ever heard

of seven Little People living in a forest home?

I guess the house we share,

which sort of borders on a park,

gave rise to that revision of the truth …

Yet if we hadn't had that house

and gone out most nights walking in the woods

we never would have found her.

We took her home and cleaned her up.

She was so white that it was scary.

“She looks like snow,” said Happy. “Snowy white.”

Clothing bloodied, torn to shreds;

threw that away. Those guys

had had their fun with her. When she came to,

she couldn't tell us anything. Didn't seem

to know who did it, but screamed

blue murder when she saw us there.

We knew the world.

Knew if we took her anywhere, we'd get the blame.

What to do?

But Dopey always has good stuff. Doc sees

to his supplies. And ours.

We settled her with that;

soon she was as quiet as a lamb.

I don't know whose idea it was but, looking back,

whoever thought of it should be congratulated.

She keeps the house quite clean, and doesn't seem

to mind at all the fact that she's our guest.

Prisoner? Such an ugly word.

She's kept contented. Dopey's job.

She gets her fix each day, and never finds

the nightly payment any problem.

We find a roster system works real well.

Except some nights we all share in the fun.

At least she gets a home now

in return for what those others got for free.

An inquisitive little girl called Goldilocks is wandering through the forest when she comes upon a charming cottage. No-one has ever informed her that curiosity killed the cat … So, finding no-one home, she walks in. It could be called breaking and entering – but then, the door was unlocked. She finds three chairs; one is too hard, the next too soft, so she sits on the smallest of the three, unfortunately breaking it. Next she tries the three bowls of porridge on the table, rejecting one as too hot, the next as too cold, but eating all of the third, as just right. Tired, she goes upstairs to the bedroom: one bed is too hard, the second too soft, but she falls asleep in the ‘just right' third. On a good day, we'd call her ‘discriminating;' on a bad day we'd say she was ‘picky.' When the three bears who own the cottage return to find a broken chair, porridge eaten, and an intruder in bed, they angrily chase her from their home. One is inclined to feel they were justified!

Of course she fooled us all –

the little slut!

I should have had the wit

to see it wouldn't be

a good idea. But when

I found her at the bus stop,

the make-up from her eyes,

those big blue eyes,

in streaks of black that lingered

down her dolly cheeks,

her yellow curls a tangled mess –

well, call it ‘golden' if you must –

she just stirred something in me,

something I hadn't felt a long long time.

I guess you'd call it …

‘motherly'.

I always would have liked a daughter.

This little waif said she had

no-one,

no friends, no money, and no place to go.

I took her home.

Edward hit the roof.

“What made you bring her here?”

But then it wasn't long before

she'd wheedled her way round him too.

I should have seen much earlier

just what the little minx was up to.

Yet still

I found her loving ways

so winning …

clearly he did too.

I had such pleasure

brushing out those golden curls.

Young Ted took longer though.

A canny lad, our Ted, for all the way

they joked at school.

They called him Teddy Bear.

He liked his food, that's true. So did we all.

But Teddy's baby fat

kept girls away.

Until she came …

Then Ted for all his wariness

had no defence against her charms.

She had the three of us

in thrall. She ate our food,

sat in our chairs, slept in our beds.

Oh yes, I'm not a one to be suspicious,

but I well knew whose beds she'd slept in.

They'd had her, both of them – the way

they looked at her made that quite clear –

while she was like a cat

who'd swallowed cream!

It wasn't true, the way they told it later.

Made it sound as if she was

a victim!

I kept my peace, and let the story stand.

We didn't throw her out. Truth was

she sloped away one night,

with every bit of cash we had, my jewellery,

and all the family silver. We never saw

young Goldilocks again.

I sometimes wonder

who she's taking for a ride these days.

A beautiful young girl with long golden hair has been imprisoned by a wicked witch in an isolated tower. There are no doors, but the witch gains nightly access through a window by climbing the long ropes of hair that the girl lets down in response to her call:

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair

so that I may climb the golden stair.

Clearly her hair has strength as well as beauty … (beauticians take note!) One day a prince riding through the forest hears the girl's singing, sees her at the window and falls in love with her. Seems she's talented as well as attractive. The prince watches and then imitates the witch's access to the tower. They fall in love, a reward for his enterprise and athleticism. When the witch discovers his nightly visits, she cuts Rapunzel's hair and casts her out, then uses the golden ropes to haul the Prince up to join her. Horrified, he leaps from the tower and is blinded. Later, he and Rapunzel are reunited when he hears her singing in the forest. Wasn't it lucky that she had a voice as well as looks?

I heard her singing.

That was how it started.

A sound so sweet, almost heart-rending,

it floated on the still night air.

It hovered,

notes cascading in the dark

like raindrops falling on still water,

sending ripples out.

I'd stopped my bike to rest –

one of those long night rides

I took to wear the body out,

to reach exhaustion.

Kill the need.

If possible.

Now there's an irony.

To kill the need.

What need?

The need to kill.

A paradox quite neat enough to satisfy

the mind of any sophist. Although in truth

I've never felt the lust to kill. Sometimes

it's necessary. You could say it happens …

Perhaps ‘collateral damage' is the term to use?

They never seem to understand exactly

what it is I'm after.

I'd seen a girl the night before.

Had followed her

almost to her front door,

my mind bewitched

by long dark hair that swung across her shoulders,

gleaming in the moonlight.

I could feel

already how it might be underneath

my stroking hand, its smoothness

as my caressing fingers gently touched

those tresses, so seductive, so alluring.

Almost jet black.

No jet blacks yet

in my collection. And my favourite length,

not just a colour that I lacked.

She turned (don't think she'd seen me)

at a garden gate.

The front door opened, someone

welcomed her.

Knew I'd missed my chance.

I left in haste. Still felt

the raging need, so rode

long hours into the night.

This house was dark, upstairs one light,

and from a lamp-lit window came

a voice.

Then she looked out, beyond the sill,

singing old songs

through evening air.

The moment that I saw her,

forgot her voice at once.

Leaning out, she turned from side to side and,

as she moved her head,

her hair swung in the moonlight.

I stood transfixed.

It was beyond

my wildest dreams.

Pure gold. No trick of lighting, this.

Her hair was shimmering,

molten gold,

and long …

It rippled in the soft night breeze.

I staggered, bike forgotten where it fell –

the rush of hot desire,

felt once more

the old familiar swelling need.

That hair …

But as I moved my hand to bring relief

she saw me where I stood under the shadow

of the trees. “Is anybody there?”

I moved;

I could have been sleep-walking.

Stepped into the patch of moonlight.

Heard again:

“Who's there? Please come and talk to me.”

My voice was hoarse, I knew, rough with desire.

“Come down,” was all that I could manage.

“Can't do it. I'm locked in at nights

while Mum's at work. But I'm bored silly.”

She was right. The house was firmly locked.

No window even that I could have broken.

Shuttered up, the whole place was.

Almost a prison.

But when I looked again

it drove me almost wild.

She'd started to braid up

that hair, those golden swinging sheets of hair.

“Leave it,” I croaked. “I'll climb the tree.”

And so began our nights.

I rode there, every night,

to climb the tree to talk to her.

Didn't really have a lot to say. I'd watch

her hair, imagine how I'd run it through my fingers,

feel it swing across my body, move delicately down

my flesh to tease and tantalise.

She knew just how

to madden me. One night

she wore a scarf;

that night I would have wound it

round her throat if I had got to her.

And then the hair could

have been mine.

But how to get to her?

She wouldn't say her name. “You could call me

Rapunzel.”

That was all she'd say.

Back then I didn't understand. But now

I do. I've read the story that they tell.

Idiotic notion,

that a prince could climb her hair.

And yet, I guess you could say that

my body rose under the influence

of all those golden braids.

It climbed, indeed, a different sort of stairway.

If not a tower, well at least it rose aloft!

Perhaps that's how the story started …

They tell me now there is a name for how I feel.

It's trichophilia, they say. As if I give a damn,

another bit of useless information.

I've always known that long hair turns me on.

That's why

collecting is the best thing in my life.

I didn't mind the risk I took

in climbing from the tree into her window.

She'd asked me many times

to see if I could do it. What she didn't know

was that it wasn't her,

just her hair

I wanted.

I had to keep her quiet

while I cut it off.

Who would have thought

that it would take so long?

So when at last

I turned her over, took the pillow off her face,

I'd half expected that her eyes would open,

that she'd look up at me.

But she was just like all the others.

Like them, she lay there, still.

They never look the same, without their hair.