Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (17 page)

The sorcerer nodded slowly, while Winnet wondered what fiendish game they must play to decide the contest. Suddenly the sorcerer looked up.

‘Let’s play Hang the Man.’

He took out a piece of paper and a fountain pen. ‘X,’ he started.

‘No,’ Winnet replied scornfully. ‘One to me.’

‘You ought to give me a clue,’ said the sorcerer, ‘after all we aren’t using magic arts.’

‘All right,’ she agreed reluctantly. ‘Here’s a rhyme.’

‘
To some my name is almost a bird,
To others a vessel for keeping the curd
.’

‘And that’s all you’re getting.’

The sorcerer stood on his head for while, repeating the chant over and over.

‘P,’ he said at last.

‘Two to me,’ trilled Winnet.

Then the magician leapt to his feet crying, ‘Your name is Gannet Barrel.’

‘Wrong,’ snapped Winnet, ‘and I get two points for that. Next one and I draw in the noose.’

Around nightfall, as Winnet poured them both another cup of coffee, the sorcerer gave a chuckle. ‘I’ve got it.’

‘Oh really?’ inquired Winnet. ‘Remember I’m free in about two more goes.’

‘Your name is Winnet Stonejar.’ And the chalk circle vanished.

‘Oh well,’ thought Winnet, scuffing out the fire. ‘At least he can cook.’

The next morning they were standing in a castle with three ravens staring beakily down from an old flagpost.

‘Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego,’ the sorcerer introduced. ‘You’ll get to know which is which, if you’ll pardon the pun. Now I’ll have to carry you over the doorstep here, or you’ll fall asleep. It’s all part of the security.’ And he picked up Winnet and brought her to a brightly coloured room with a huge hearth blazing at one end.

‘Do you like high ceilings?’ he asked her, as they perched at either end of the fireplace. ‘It’s all the same in these old buildings, but you’ll get used to it.’

‘How long have you been a sorcerer?’ Winnet asked, by way of conversation.

‘Oh, I can’t say,’ he replied airily, ‘you see I am one in the future too, it’s all the same to me.’

‘But you can’t be,’ Winnet argued, ‘it’s not possible to talk about time like that.’

‘Not possible for you my dear, but we’re very different.’

This at least was true, so Winnet turned her attention to the room instead.

It had very little furniture, but innumerable cupboards. On the right, by the window, hung an enormous embossed ear trumpet.

‘What do you use that for?’

‘Well, I’m not always as old as I am now, and when I’m older, I can get a bit deaf. That’s so that I can listen to the nightingales at night, when I’m lying on that couch.’

As far as Winnet could see there was no couch. ‘What couch?’

‘Why that one,’ said the sorcerer, surprised. She looked again, and there it was. This was only the beginning of Winnet’s adventure at the castle, but as she stayed there, a curious thing happened. She forgot how she had come there, or what she had done before. She believed she had always been in the castle, and that she was the sorcerer’s daughter. He told her she was. That she had no mother, but had been specially entrusted to his care by a powerful spirit. Winnet
felt this to be true, and besides, where else could she possibly wish to live?

The sorcerer was good to the villagers who lived in clusters under the hills. He taught them music and mathematics and put a strong spell on the crops, so that no one got hungry in winter. Of course, he expected their absolute devotion, but they were glad to give it. Winnet learned to teach the villagers herself, and all went well until one day a stranger came to the settlements. He took lodging at one of the farms, and soon struck up a friendship with Winnet. She invited him to the castle on the day of the great feast.

The great feast was a remembrance and celebration for the village. Each home offered the sorcerer a present, and he gave presents in return, where he thought they were most appropriate.

‘Will you give the stranger a present?’ Winnet pressed her father, on the morning of the feast.

‘What stranger?’

‘This one,’ pointed Winnet, making him appear. The boy was shocked. A second ago he had been leaning against a tree gazing up at the castle. Now he was standing beside three ravens in a hall so high that the ceiling and the sky were confused. The sorcerer turned to them both and clapped his hands. ‘What will be will be, you have already decided his present.’ Then gathering his robes about him, Winnet’s father was gone.

‘I’m frightened,’ said the boy.

‘No need,’ said Winnet, kissing him.

By sundown the hall had filled with people and animals. Some of the animals were gifts to the sorcerer for his own farm, others had just wandered in. By midnight, the wine had caused everyone to forget all but the moment, and the sorcerer was making his customary speech. He promised a good harvest again next year, and good health for his friends. To the young men leaving the village that year, he gave a shield, or a knife, or a bow. To the young women, determined to seek their own living, he gave a falcon, or a dog, or ring. ‘Let each protect each according to their needs.’ For the sorcerer knew the ways of travellers. Finally his face grew
heavy, as he told of a terrible blight come to the land. ‘It lies in one of you,’ he warned them, watching them ripple with alarm. ‘He must be cast out.’ And the sorcerer laid his hand on the boy’s neck.

‘This boy has spoiled my daughter.’

‘No,’ shouted Winnet, jumping up in alarm. ‘He’s my friend.’

But no one heard her. They bound the boy and threw him into the darkest room in the deepest part of the castle, where he might have lain forever if Winnet hadn’t set him loose by her own arts. ‘Now go to him,’ she told the boy, as he stood blinking against her torch, ‘and deny me. Blame me for whatever you like, you cannot stand by me, for you cannot stand against him.’ The boy went pale and wept, but Winnet shoved him up the stairs, and in the morning she heard he had done as she intended.

‘Daughter, you have disgraced me,’ said the sorcerer, ‘and I have no more use for you. You must leave.’

Winnet could not ask forgiveness when she was innocent, but she did ask to stay.

‘If you stay, you will stay in the village and care for the goats. I leave you to make up your own mind.’ He was gone. Winnet was about to burst into tears when she felt a light pecking at her shoulder. It was Abednego, the raven she loved. He hopped up beside her ear.

‘You won’t lose your power you know, you’ll use it differently, that’s all.’

‘How do you know?’ Winnet sniffed.

‘Sorcerers can’t take their gifts back, ever, it says so in the book.’

‘And what if I stay?’

‘You will find yourself destroyed by grief. All you know will be around you, and at the same time far from you. Better to find a new place now.’

Winnet thought about this, while the raven balanced patiently on her shoulder.

‘Will you come with me?’

‘I can’t, I’m bound here, but take this.’ The raven flew down and, as far as Winnet could see, started vomiting on
the flags. Then he rearranged his feathers, and dropped a rough brown pebble into her hand.

‘Thank you,’ said Winnet. ‘What is it?’

‘It’s my heart.’

‘But it’s made of stone.’

‘I know,’ the raven replied sadly. ‘You see I chose to stay, oh, a long time ago, and my heart grew thick with sorrow, and finally set. It will remind you.’

Winnet sat for a moment, at the edge of the fireplace. The raven, struck dumb, could not warn her that her father had crept in, in the shape of a mouse, and was tying an invisible thread around one of her buttons. As Winnet stood up the mouse scuttled away. She did not notice, and when morning came, she had reached the edge of the forest, and crossed the river.

I had gone back to work at the undertakers, or funeral parlour as the woman and her friend Joe preferred to call it. They paid well and I could always do a bit of extra washing of the cars if I needed more money. Sometimes I had to park the ice-cream van round the back, lay some person out round the front, then get on with my round again. Joe used to joke about dropping the bodies in my freezer when the weather turned warm.

‘They’ll not notice a bit of raspberry ripple will they?’

The woman was still making wreaths, and much happier since Elysium Fields (that was the name of their business) had won the contract at the posh nursing home just out of town.

‘It does mek a difference money does,’ she assured me, showing off her new designs. ‘They like proper remembrance up there. None of them bloody crosses.’

Joe was doing well too. He’d bought two new vehicles, and was converting the shed into a cold room.

‘I don’t want to be mowed out with bodies in here,’ he said, sweeping his hand round the chapel of rest. ‘I mean folks come to pay their last respects, and they don’t want
any old sod laying with theirs do they? It’s only natural to want a bit of privacy.’

‘Oh it is, it is,’ the woman agreed. ‘Don’t want ‘em lined up like lollies do they?’ As far as I could hear, Joe and the woman never answered each other without asking another question. They’d go on for hours while Joe fitted handles and the woman forced wire and flower into an indistinguishable whole. They admired their work.

‘Bootiful in’t it,’ said Joe, ‘this brass?’

‘Like Heaven’s Gates in’t it?’ the woman returned.

I’d be expected to sit between them nodding wisely and pouring tea. I didn’t mind, it was nice to get away from the kids on the ice-cream van. I had a chime that played
Teddy Bears’ Picnic
, so they all knew when to come rushing out shouting for orange sticks and ninety-nines. The important thing about the chime was to wind it up, otherwise it groaned through the tune so slowly that Joe once offered to buy it for his vehicles. On the other hand if you wound it up too much, it sounded like that Western music they play when the cavalry comes chasing down the hill. ‘It’s bloody Trickett’s,’ people said when I got it wrong, ‘bugger off.’ They were fickle. They ran across the alley to Birtwistle’s, the last horse-drawn ice-cream cart. Birtwistle was at least eighty and his horse had the droop. Folks said no one knew what went into his mixing pail, and no one ever asked. It tasted good though. He didn’t do anything fancy, just cornets and wafers, covered in strawberry syrup. He called it blood. When I was little, we always bought from him, because there was a bonus. We were the round on his way home, and for the whole day people fed the horse odds and ends, so that by the time it came steaming up the hill, shit was pouring out the back. My mother heard the whistle, and shoving a ten-shilling note in one hand and a shovel in the other, sent me out for two wafers, one cornet, and whatever I could carry off the cobbles. The horse stamped and blew and usually dropped a bit more for me, once I’d bought the ice-creams.

‘Grand,’ beamed my mother as I tottered down the lobby trying not to slop. ‘Go and dig it in to me lettuces.’ Then we’d sit content with our bloody wafers.

There was a romance about Birtwistle’s that Trickett’s never had. When Elysium Fields arranged a wake for someone, they always used Birtwistle’s for the dessert.

‘It’s quality in’t it?’ the woman said.

The wakes were very fine. Always the best. Since the nursing home contract they had included a starter, usually prawn cocktail from Molly’s Seafoods. For the main course you could choose between turkey roll, beef slices, or hot quiche. The quiche was thought to be a bit daring at first, but had become very popular.

‘You need a bit of fancy don’t you?’ the woman told me, when I went to print the menu.

On Saturday, as I drove the ice-cream van round Lower Fold, I saw a crowd of people milling outside the end terrace. The end terrace was Elsie’s house. I tried to drive straight there, but somebody wanted a lolly, then somebody wanted a wafer, and my hands shook and I couldn’t make the scoops.

‘Bit sloppy, you,’ a fat woman complained.

‘Have a free choc-ice,’ I said, throwing it at her, then as she stood staring, hands on hips, with her choc-ice poking out of her pinny pocket, I roared the engine and bounced down the cobbles. No one took any notice of me, parking the van, or getting out, or pushing through to Elsie’s door. In the parlour were Mrs White, the pastor and my mother. No Elsie.

‘What’s happening?’ I demanded.

They glanced at me, but carried on discussing in low voices. I caught the words ‘funeral arrangements’. Then I grabbed my mother by her coat sleeve.

‘Will you tell me what’s going on?’

She brushed her coat sleeve. ‘Elsie’s dead.’

The pastor came up to me. ‘Go home please Jeanette.’ His voice was very quiet.

‘And where do you suppose that is?’ I shot back at him. He never flinched, just took me by the arm, and led me into the lobby.

‘We haven’t really talked much have we?’ he asked.

I didn’t answer, just looked at the floor, wanting not to cry.

‘You should have trusted me.’ His voice was soft.

‘What are you afraid of?’ I suddenly wanted to know.

He smiled. ‘I am afraid of Hell, of eternal damnation.’

‘So what’s so awful about me?’

Then he lost his temper, as only a soft-voiced man can. ‘You made an immoral proposition that cannot be countenanced.’

‘It takes two you know,’ I thought it fair to remind him.

‘She was confused by you, you used your power over her, it wasn’t her, it was you.’

‘She loved me.’ As soon as I had said this I felt he would kill me if he could.

‘She did not love you.’

‘Is that what she said?’

‘She told me herself.’

I leaned on the wall, two palms flat, breathing out. There are different kinds of treachery, but betrayal is betrayal wherever you find it. No, he wouldn’t kill me, soft-voiced men do not kill, they are clever. Their kind of violence leaves no visible mark. He led me to the door, and I stumbled towards the ice-cream van. ‘Here she is.’ I heard a shout and saw that all the people bundled round Elsie’s were forming a queue outside my window. The first one took out her purse.

‘Two wafers luv. Did you know her in there? I knew her by sight.’ Then she turned to her friend. ‘We knew her by sight didn’t we?’ 1 passed them the wafers.