Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (16 page)

‘I have to go now Elsie.’ I got up, sadly, as the clock ticked on.

‘Well come back as you need.’

She stood at the door till I was a long way down the street, then as I turned to wave again, she disappeared inside. I plodded on past the viaduct and the carpet shop, then the short cut down the Factory Bottoms. I met Mrs Arkwright
staggering out of the pub, The Cock and Whistle, where nobody good ever went. She beamed at me, ‘’Ello nipper,’ and rolled on her way. Past the school house and the Methodist Chapel, and Black Abbey Street where someone had had their head chopped off. For a moment I leaned on the wall; the stone was warm, and through the window I could see a family round the fire. Their tea table had been left, chairs, table and the right number of cups. I watched the fire flicker behind the glass, then one of them got up to close the curtains.

I lingered outside my own front door for a few minutes before going in. I still didn’t know what to do, wasn’t even sure what the choices were or what the conflicts were; it was clear to the others, but not clear to me, and nobody seemed likely to explain. My mother was waiting for me. I was late, but I didn’t tell her about Elsie, I didn’t trust her to understand.

The days lingered on in a kind of numbness, me in ecclesiastical quarantine, them in a state of fear and anticipation. By Sunday the pastor had word back from the council. The real problem, it seemed, was going against the teachings of St Paul, and allowing women power in the church. Our branch of the church had never thought about it, we’d always had strong women, and the women organized everything. Some of us could preach, and quite plainly, in my case, the church was full because of it. There was uproar, then a curious thing happened. My mother stood up and said she believed this was right: that women had specific circumstances for their ministry, that the Sunday School was one of them, the Sisterhood another, but the message belonged to the men. Until this moment my life had still made some kind of sense. Now it was making no sense at all. My mother droned on about the importance of missionary work for a woman, that I was clearly such a woman, but had spurned my call in order to wield power on the home front, where it was inappropriate. She ended by saying that having taken on a man’s world in other ways I had flouted God’s law and tried to do it sexually. This was no spontaneous speech. She and the pastor had talked about it already. It was her
weakness for the ministry that had done it. No doubt she’d told Pastor Spratt months ago. I looked around me. Good people, simple people, what would happen to them now? I knew my mother hoped I would blame myself, but I didn’t. I knew now where the blame lay. If there’s such a thing as spiritual adultery, my mother was a whore.

So there I was, my success in the pulpit being the reason for my downfall. The devil had attacked me at my weakest point: my inability to realize the limitations of my sex.

A voice from the back. That’s a load of old twaddle and you know it. Now are we helping this child or not?’ It was Elsie. Someone tried to sit her down, but she kept struggling and then she started coughing and then she fell over.

‘Elsie.’ I ran down to the back, but got pulled away.

‘She can do without you.’ The others gathered round while I stood helpless and shaking.

‘Get a warm coat and let’s get her home.’ And they bundled her out into the porch.

While this was going on the pastor came up to me and said that as a mark of new obedience to the Lord I was to give up all preaching, Bible study classes and any form of what he called ‘influential contact’. As soon as I had agreed he would arrange for a further more powerful exorcism and then I was to go on holiday with my mother for a fortnight to the Morecambe guest house.

‘I’ll tell you in the morning,’ I promised, pleading tiredness.

Sir Perceval has been in the wood for many days now. His armour is dull, his horse tired. The last food he ate was a bowl of bread and milk given to him by an old woman. Other knights have been this way, he can see their tracks, their despair, for one, even his bones. He has heard tell of a ruined chapel, or an old church, no one is sure, only sure that it lies disused and holy, far away from prying eyes. Perhaps there he will find it. Last night Sir Perceval dreamed of the Holy Grail borne on a shaft of sunlight moving towards him. He reached out crying but his hands were full of thorns and he was awake. Tonight, bitten and bruised, he
dreams of Arthur’s court, where he was the darling, the favourite. He dreams of his hounds and his falcon, his stable and his faithful friends. His friends are dead now. Dead or dying. He dreams of Arthur sitting on a wide stone step, holding his head in his hands. Sir Perceval falls to his knees to clasp his lord, but his lord is a tree covered in ivy. He wakes, his face bright with tears.

When the pastor came round the next morning, I felt better. We had a cup of tea, the three of us; I think my mother told a joke. It was settled.

‘Shall I book you in for the holiday then?’ the pastor asked, fiddling for his diary. ‘She’s expecting you, but it’s only polite.’

‘How’s Elsie?’ This was bothering me.

The pastor frowned and said that last night had upset her more than they had realized. She had gone back into hospital for a check-up.

‘Will she be all right?’

My mother pointed out that was for the Lord to decide, and we had other things to think about. The pastor smiled gently, and asked again when we wanted to go.

‘I’m not going.’

He told me I’d need a rest after the struggle. That my mother needed a rest.

‘She can go. I’m leaving the church, so you can forget the rest.’

They were dumbfounded. I held on tight to the little brown pebble and hoped they’d go away. They didn’t. They reasoned and pleaded and stormed and took a break and came back. They even offered me my Bible class, though under supervision. Finally the pastor shook his head and declared me one of the people in Hebrews, to whom it is impossible to speak the truth. He asked me one last time:

‘Will you repent?’

‘No.’ And I stared at him till he looked away. He took my mother off into the parlour for half an hour. I don’t know what they did in there, but it didn’t matter; my mother had
painted the white roses red and now she claimed they grew that way.

‘You’ll have to leave,’ she said. ‘I’m not havin’ demons here.’

Where could I go? Not to Elsie’s, she was too sick, and no one in the church would really take the risk. If I went to Katy’s there would be problems for her, and all my relatives, like most relatives, were revolting.

‘I don’t have anywhere to go,’ I argued, following her into the kitchen.

‘The Devil looks after his own,’ she threw back, pushing me out.

I knew I couldn’t cope, so I didn’t try. I would let the feeling out later, when it was safe. For now, I had to be hard and white. In the frosty days, in the winter, the ground is white, then the sun rises, and the frosts melt. . . .

‘It’s decided then.’ I breezed in to my mother with more bravado than courage, ‘I’m moving out on Thursday.’

‘Where to?’ She was suspicious.

‘I’m not telling you, I’ll see how it goes.’

‘You’ve got no money.’

‘I’ll work evenings as well as weekends.’

In fact I was scared to death and going to live with a teacher who had some care for what was happening. I was driving an ice-cream van on Saturdays; now I would work Sundays as well, and try to pay the woman as best I could. Bleak, but not so bleak as staying there. I wanted the dog, but knew she wouldn’t let me, so I took my books and my instruments in a tea chest, with my Bible on top. The only thing that worried me was the thought of having to work on a fruit stall. Spanish Navels, Juicy Jaffas, Ripe Sevilles.

‘I won’t,’ I consoled myself. ‘I’ll go in the tripe works first.’

I made my bed carefully the last morning at home, emptied the waste paper basket, and trailed the dog on a long walk. She ran off with the Jack from the bowling green. At that time I could not imagine what would become of me, and I didn’t care. It was not judgement day, but another morning.

R
UTH

A
LONG TIME
ago, when the kingdom was divided up into separate compartments like a pressure cooker, people took travelling a lot more seriously than they do now. Of course there were obvious problems: how much food do you take? What sort of monsters will you meet? Should you take your spare blue tunic for peace, or your spare red tunic for not peace? And the not-so-obvious problems, like what to do with a wizard who wants to keep an eye on you.

In those days, magic was very important, and territory, to start with, just an extension of the chalk circle you drew around yourself to protect yourself from elementals and the like. It’s gone out of fashion now, which is a shame, because sitting in a chalk circle when you feel threatened is a lot better than sitting in the gas oven. Of course people will laugh at you, but people laugh at a great many things, so there’s no need to take it personally. Why will it work? It works because the principle of personal space is always the same, whether you’re fending off an elemental or someone’s bad mood. It’s a force field around yourself, and as long as our imagining powers are weak, it’s useful to have something physical to remind us.

The training of wizards is a very difficult thing. Wizards have to spend years standing in a chalk circle until they can manage without it. They push out their power bit by bit, first within their hearts, then within their bodies, then within their immediate circle. It is not possible to control the outside of yourself until you have mastered your breathing space. It is
not possible to change anything until you understand the substance you wish to change. Of course people mutilate and modify, but these are fallen powers, and to change something you do not understand is the true nature of evil.

For some time Winnet had noticed a strange bird following her, a black thing with huge wings; then for a whole afternoon the bird disappeared. It was that afternoon she saw the sorcerer. The sorcerer stood opposite her, on the other side of a fast flowing stream. She recognized the clothes and would have run away had not the figure called to her above the tumbling.

‘I know your name.’ And so she stopped, afraid. If this were true she would be trapped. Naming meant power. Adam had named the animals and the animals came at his call.

‘I don’t believe you,’ she shouted back. Then the sorcerer smiled and invited her to cross the stream, so that he could whisper in her ear. She shook her head; the sorcerer’s territory must lie across the stream; here at least she was safe.

‘You’ll never get out of this forest without me,’ he warned her, as she picked her way through the mud. Winnet didn’t bother to reply. Another night fell, this time bringing rain that gusted the trees, and blew down her shelter. Then she was attacked by an army of water ants, forcing her to move on further into the dark and the forest. By dawn she was exhausted. Her stone jar of food and dry clothes had been lost, and by the bend in the river she realized she had hardly travelled at all. On the other side of the river, smiling gently, she saw the sorcerer.

‘I told you,’ he said.

This wasn’t what Winnet wanted to hear. She sat among some rushes and sulked.

On the other side the sorcerer lit a fire and got out a cooking pot. Winnet sniffed the air, and drew her legs closer. Smelled like pigeon.

‘I’m vegetarian,’ she yelled, watching his face.

‘Oh so am I,’ he replied in a pleased tone. ‘I’m making adzuki beans and dumplings, there’s plenty to spare.’

Winnet was horrified. How could he know? Memories of her grandmother floated towards her; her famous adzuki
bean stew; the singing round the fire when the men had gone off to hunt. She hid her nose in her jacket and tried not to breathe.

‘Do you like coriander in yours?’ the sorcerer called again. ‘It’s fresh.’

‘Yes,’ cried Winnet, hoarse and confused, ‘but I’m not eating because you’ll poison me.’

‘My dear!’ The sorcerer seemed genuinely shocked.

‘How do I know I can trust you?’ (Winnet’s belly was rumbling.)

‘Because I don’t know your name. If I did, I’d have spirited you over here already. It’s so disappointing dining alone, don’t you think?’

Winnet thought it over for a few moments, then made a pact with the sorcerer. She would share his table, then he was to tell her what he wanted, and they’d hold a competition to decide. As a bond he drew her a chalk circle with a tiny gap to step into as she crossed the water. Then he threw the chalk to her on the other side. It was a rough brown pebble, and clutching it tightly she wobbled across the stepping stones, leapt in the circle and closed it behind her.

‘French bread or granary?’ the sorcerer asked as he passed her a steaming bowl.

For fifteen minutes they chewed in companionable silence, then the sorcerer sighed, tore off another hunk and mopped up his juice. ‘There’s no pudding I’m afraid. I was planning a custard, but milk’s hard to come by round here. Still we’ll have coffee, and I’ll tell you what I want.’

Winnet’s piece of bread stuck in her throat. She started to choke and was forced to let the sorcerer bang her on the back. Perhaps he wanted to chop her up, or turn her into a beast, perhaps he was going to make her marry him. By the time she got her coffee she was rigid with terror.

‘What I want,’ he began, ‘is for you to become my apprentice. The magic arts are dying; the more of us there are, the better. You have gifts, I know that, you can take the message to other places, where even now they hardly know how to draw a chalk circle. I will teach you everything, but I cannot force you, and first you must tell me your name.’ He leaned
back and looked at Winnet. ‘There’s just one small thing; unless you tell me your name, you’ll never get out of that circle, because I can’t release you, and you don’t have the power.’

Winnet was speechless with fury. ‘You tricked me.’

‘Well it is my job you know.’

‘All right,’ said Winnet after a few moments. ‘Here’s a deal. If you can guess my name, I’ll be yours. If not, you show me how to get out of here, and leave me alone.’