Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (13 page)

What on earth was she talking about? Melanie and I were special.

‘Drink this.’ She gave me a glass. ‘It’s brandy.’

‘I think I’ll have to lie down,’ I said feebly.

I don’t know how long I slept, the curtains were drawn, and my shoulders felt very heavy. At first I couldn’t remember why my head hurt, then as the panic in my stomach got clearer I started to go over the morning’s events.

Miss Jewsbury came in.

‘Feeling better?’

‘Not much,’ I sighed.

‘Perhaps this will help.’ And she began to stroke my head and shoulders. I turned over so that she could reach my back. Her hand crept lower and lower. She bent over me; I could feel her breath on my neck. Quite suddenly I turned and kissed her. We made love and I hated it and hated it, but would not stop.

It was morning when I crept home. I had a plan to go straight off to school hoping no one would notice. I expected my mother to be in bed. I was wrong. There was a strong smell of coffee and voices coming from the parlour. As I tiptoed past, I realized they were having a prayer meeting. I got my
things ready and was all packed up to leave. On the way out they caught me.

‘Jeanette,’ cried one of the elders, dragging me into the parlour. ‘Our prayers have been answered.’

‘Where did you stay last night?’ asked my mother sulkily.

‘I can’t remember.’

‘That Miss Jewsbury’s I’ll bet.’

‘Oh, she’s not holy,’ piped up Mrs White.

‘No,’ I told them all, ‘not there.’

‘What does it matter?’ urged the pastor. ‘She’s here now, and it’s not too late.’

‘I’ve got to go to school.’

‘Not at all, not at all,’ the pastor smiled. ‘Come and sit down.’

My mother absently passed me a plate of biscuits. It was 8.30 a.m.

It was 10 p.m. that same night before the elders went home. They had spent the day praying over me, laying hands on me, urging me to repent my sins before the Lord. ‘Renounce her, renounce her,’ the pastor kept saying, ‘it’s only the demon.’

My mother made cups of tea and forgot to wash the dirty ones. The parlour was full of cups. Mrs White sat on one and cut herself, someone else spilt theirs, but they didn’t stop. I still couldn’t think, could only see Melanie’s face and Melanie’s body, and every so often the outline of Miss Jewsbury bending over me.

At 10 p.m. the pastor heaved a great sigh and offered me one last chance.

‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘I just can’t.’

‘We’ll come back the day after tomorrow,’ he confided to my mother. ‘Meantime, don’t let her out of this room, and don’t feed her. She needs to lose her strength before it can be hers again.’

My mother nodded, nodded, nodded and locked me in. She did give me a blanket, but she took away the light bulb. Over the thirty-six hours that followed, I thought about the demon and some other things besides.

I knew that demons entered wherever there was a weak
point. If I had a demon my weak point was Melanie, but she was beautiful and good and had loved me.

Can love really belong to the demon?

What sort of demon? The brown demon that rattles the ear? The red demon that dances the hornpipe? The watery demon that causes sickness? The orange demon that beguiles? Everyone has a demon like cats have fleas.

‘They’re looking in the wrong place,’ I thought. ‘If they want to get at my demon they’ll have to get at me.’

I thought about William Blake.

‘If I let them take away my demons, I’ll have to give up what I’ve found.’

‘You can’t do that,’ said a voice at my elbow.

Leaning on the coffee table was the orange demon.

‘I’ve gone mad,’ I thought.

‘That may well be so,’ agreed the demon evenly. ‘So make the most of it.’

I flopped heavily against the settee. ‘What do you want?’

‘I want to help you decide what you want.’ And the creature hopped up on to the mantelpiece and sat on Pastor Spratt’s brass crocodile.

‘Everyone has a demon as you so rightly observed,’ the thing began, ‘but not everyone knows this, and not everyone knows how to make use of it.’

‘Demons are evil, aren’t they?’ I asked, worried.

‘Not quite, they’re just different, and difficult. You know what auras are?’

I nodded.

‘Well, the demon you get depends on the colour of your aura, yours is orange which is why you’ve got me. Your mother’s is brown, which is why she’s so odd, and Mrs White’s is hardly a demon at all. We’re here to keep you in one piece, if you ignore us, you’re quite likely to end up in two pieces, or lots of pieces, it’s all part of the paradox.’

‘But in the Bible you keep getting driven out.’

‘Don’t believe all you read.’

I started to feel ill again, so I took off my socks and pushed my toes into my mouth for comfort. They tasted of digestive biscuits. After that I went to the window and burst a few of
the geranium buds to hear the pop. When I sat down the demon was glowing very bright and polishing the crocodile with its handkerchief.

‘What sex are you?’

‘Doesn’t matter does it? After all that’s your problem.’

‘If I keep you, what will happen?’

‘You’ll have a difficult, different time.’

‘Is it worth it?’

‘That’s up to you.’

‘Will I keep Melanie?’

But the demon had vanished.

When the pastor and the elders came back, I was calm, cheerful, and ready to accept.

‘I’ll repent,’ I said, as soon as they came in the parlour. The pastor seemed surprised.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Sure.’ I wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible; besides, I hadn’t eaten for two days. All the elders knelt down to pray, and I knelt down beside them. One of them began to speak in tongues, and it was then I felt a prickle at the back of my neck.

‘Go away,’ I hissed. ‘They’ll see you.’ I opened an eye to check.

‘Not them,’ replied the demon, ‘they talk a lot but they don’t see nothing.’

‘I’m not getting rid of you, this is the best way I can think of.’

‘Oh, that’s fine,’ trilled the demon, ‘I was just passing.’

By this time all the elders were singing
What a Friend We Have in Jesus
so I thought it wise to join in. It was all over very quickly really, and my mother had put a joint in the oven.

‘I hope you’ll testify on Sunday,’ said the pastor, hugging me.

‘Yes,’ I said, squashed. ‘What will Melanie do?’

‘She’s gone away for a while,’ Mrs White put in. ‘To recover. You’ll see how much better she is in a few weeks.’

’Where’s she gone?’ I demanded.

‘Don’t you worry,’ the pastor soothed. ‘She’ll be safe with the Lord.’

As soon as they had all left I went straight round to Miss Jewsbury’s.

‘Do you know where she is?’

She opened the door wide. ‘I’ll tell you in a little while.’

Melanie was staying with relatives in Halifax. I told my mother I had to spend the night in the church. She seemed to understand, and so I made Miss Jewsbury drive me the twenty-five miles across to where I needed to be.

‘You’ll pick up at at 7 a.m.?’

She nodded, biting her lip.

‘You know I have to see her, make sure I’m safe.’

As soon as it grew shadowy I rang the door bell.

‘Is Melanie here?’ I asked the woman. ‘I’m her friend from school.’

‘Yes, come in.’

‘No, I won’t thanks, I’ll just give her a message, if she’ll come out.’ Melanie came to the door. When she saw me she tried to shut it.

‘I’ve got to talk to you,’ I begged. ‘Go upstairs in about half an hour, I’ll go up now and wait for you.’ She nodded, and let me slip past. I heard her say goodbye very loudly and shut the door. No one seemed to think anything of it.

It was a crisis and once again I fell asleep.

In front of me was a great stone arena, crumbling in places, but still visibly round. At the far end, truckloads of men and women were being emptied out on to the grass; most were mutilated, all had numbers round their necks, and I heard a guard say, ‘This is your new address.’ The prisoners were very quiet and marched without resistance towards a massive stone turret. In the turret were little nooks with numbers that corresponded to the numbers around the prisoners’ necks. In the middle of the turret an iron stairway spiralled up and up; I started to climb, along with many others, but each time we passed one of the nooks, its inmate tried to push us off. I was the only person left when the stairway stopped in front
of a glass door. The letters on the door spelt BOOKSHOP: OPEN. I went inside, there was a woman at the counter, a number of buyers and browsers, and a team of young women translating
Beowulf
.

‘Hello,’ called the assistant. ‘Why don’t you start as a browser and take over from one of the girls when it’s time to move round?’

‘Where am I?’

‘Where everyone is who can’t make the ultimate decision, this is the city of Lost Chances, and this, the Room of the Final Disappointment. You see, you can climb as high as you like, but if you’ve already made the Fundamental Mistake, you end up here, in this room. You can change your role, but never your circumstance. It’s too late for all that now, toodle-ooo, I’m about to become a buyer.’

‘Jeanette,’ said Melanie, ‘I think you’ve got a temperature.’

She was sitting beside me, drinking a cup of tea. She looked tired and crumpled like a balloon full of old air. I touched her cheek but she winced and pulled away.

‘What did they do to you?’ I asked.

‘Nothing, I repented, and they told me I should try and go away for a week. We can’t see each other, it’s wrong.’ She started to tug at the quilt and I couldn’t bear it anymore. I think we cried each other to sleep, but somewhere in the night I stretched out to her and kissed her and kissed her until we were both sweating and crying with mixed up bodies and swollen faces. She was still asleep when I heard Miss Jewsbury sound her horn.

The next thing that happened to me was glandular fever.

‘It’s her Humours,’ my mother pronounced.

Certainly it was the belief of the Faithful that God was cleansing me of all my demons, and there was no doubt that I would be welcomed back into the fold as soon as I recovered.

‘The Lord forgives and forgets,’ the pastor told me.

Perhaps the Lord does, but my mother didn’t. While I lay shivering in the parlour she took a toothcomb to my room
and found all the letters, all the cards, all the jottings of my own, and burnt them one night in the backyard. There are different sorts of treachery, but betrayal is betrayal wherever you find it. She burnt a lot more than the letters that night in the backyard. I don’t think she knew. In her head she was still queen, but not my queen any more, not the White Queen any more. Walls protect and walls limit. It is in the nature of walls that they should fall. That walls should fall is the consequence of blowing your own trumpet.

The Forbidden City lies ransacked now and the topless towers are all gone. Only a stone’s throw separates the Black Prince from Amiens, and a pebble will fell a warrior today. Old men that dribble and huddle on any of these benches will tell you where their sweetheart’s house once stood, will tell you how her garden grew, and how they daily beat a path to her door.

She had a heart of stone.

Who will cast the first stone?

Where the world ends in the East you will find a stone lion, and in the West, a gryphon made of stone. At the Northern corner a stone turret will baffle you, and in the South a gritty beach for your feet. Do not be afraid. These are the ancients. Weathered and wise as they are, respect them, but they are not the everlasting substance. The body that contains a spirit is the one true god.

It is the nature of stone to convert bone.

At one time or another there will be a choice: you or the wall.

Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall.

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

The City of Lost Chances is full of those who chose the wall.

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men.

Couldn’t put Humpty together again.

Then is it necessary to wander unprotected through the land?

It is necessary to distinguish the chalk circle from the stone wall.

Is it necessary to live without a home?

It is necessary to distinguish physics from metaphysics.

Yet many of the principles are the same.

They are, but in the cities of the interior all things are changed.

A wall for the body, a circle for the soul.

‘Here you are,’ said my mother, giving me a sharp dig in the side. ‘Some fruit. You’re rambling in your sleep again.’

It was a bowl of oranges.

I took out the largest and tried to peel it. The skin hung stubborn, and soon I lay panting, angry and defeated. What about grapes or bananas? I did finally pull away the outer shell and, cupping both hands round, tore open the fruit.

‘Feeling any better?’ Sitting in the middle was the orange demon.

‘I’m going to die.’

‘Not you, in fact you’re recovering, apart from a few minor hallucinations, and remember, you’ve made your choice now, there’s no going back.’

‘What are you talking about? I haven’t made any choice.’ I was struggling to sit up.

‘Catch,’ called the demon and vanished. In my hand was a rough brown pebble.

By that summer I was my old self again. Melanie had gone away before starting university, and I was preparing my sermons for a tent mission we had all planned in Blackpool. No one mentioned the Incident, and no one seemed to notice that Miss Jewsbury had picked up her oboe and left. My mother spent most of her time singing
Bringing in the Sheaves
, and collecting tins for the Harvest Festival. She disapproved of perishables on account of the Holocaust, and had made it her campaign to persuade the other church women to contribute to a giant War Cupboard hidden beneath the
vestry. ‘They’ll thank me when the time comes,’ she always said.

So one sunny Saturday we piled into the bus and set off for Blackpool.

‘I wish we had Elsie with that accordian,’ Mrs Rothwell sighed.

‘She’s better where she is,’ returned my mother rather sharply.

In the past these remarks would have meant nothing to me, now I wasn’t so easy. I had often thought of questioning her, trying to make her tell me how she saw the world. I used to imagine we saw things just the same, but all the time we were on different planets. I went to sit at the back to help May with her pools. My mother obviously felt slighted at my departure and buried herself in the
Band of Hope
review.