Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (18 page)

The women who came next were all together and gossiping.

‘She felt no pain, she just slipped over in the night, two raspberries and one vanilla please luv, Betty hasn’t made up her mind yet, yet it were the best way, she were old you know, she couldn’t look after herself any more.’

‘Do you want anything else?’ I asked them.

‘Yes,’ Betty raised her voice, ‘a ninety-nine for me, I’m not paying.’ And they burst out laughing. ‘Get a move on,’ ordered the woman who was paying, ‘I’ve me kids at home.’

At last they’d all gone, but just as I dumped my sticky
scoops into the cloudy cleaning jar, I saw Mrs White crossing the road towards me. She was sniffling into a handkerchief.

‘Making money out of the dead,’ she whimpered through the window. ‘The pastor can’t believe it.’

‘It’s not holy is it?’ I said to her.

‘No it’s not, but you’ll pay the price, and it’ll be more than a cornet.’

‘I expect so,’ I said, hoping she’d go away, but she just leaned on the window shelf, sobbing so much that I had to wipe her up with a dishcloth.

‘When’s the funeral?’ I asked, by way of conversation.

‘You can’t come, it’s for the holy.’

‘I don’t want to come, oh go away.’ I went to the wheel, and Mrs White muttered something at me, then ran back across the road.

So I went on as usual, not thinking at all, past Woodnook Baptist church, then up the long hill to Fern Gore, where the ice-cream works was. ‘I need a couple of days off,’ I told them. ‘It won’t happen again.’ They weren’t pleased, school holidays were a busy time, but I worked hard, and made good money, so they let me go.

When Winnet crossed the river, she found herself in a part of the forest that looked the same but smelt different. Since she had no idea where she was going, she decided almost anywhere would do, and set off down the most obvious path. Soon she ran out of food and spare clothes, then homesickness struck her, and she lay unable to walk for many days. A woman travelling in the forest found her body, and by means of herbs revived her. This woman knew nothing of the magic arts, but she understood the different kinds of sorrow and their effects. Winnet went with her, back to her village, where the people made her welcome and gave her work for a living. They had heard of Winnet’s father, believed him mad and dangerous, and so Winnet never spoke of her own powers, and never used them. The woman tried to teach Winnet her language, and Winnet learned the words but not the language. Certain constructions baffled her, and in an
argument they could always be used against her, because she could not use them in return. But mostly this didn’t happen. The villagers were simple and kind, not questioning the world. They didn’t expect Winnet to talk very much. Winnet wanted to talk. She had left her school and her followers far behind, she wanted to talk about the nature of the world, why it was there at all, and what they were all doing on it. Yet at the same time she knew her old world had much in it that was wrong. If she talked about it, good and bad, they would think her mad, and then she would have no one. She had to pretend she was just like them, and when she made a mistake, they smiled and remembered she was foreign. Winnet had heard that there was a beautiful city, a long way off, with buildings that ran up to the sky. It was an ancient city, guarded by tigers. No one in her village had been there, but all of them knew about it, and most held it in awe. The city dwellers didn’t sow or toil, they thought about the world. Winnet lay awake many nights, trying to imagine what such a place would really be like. If only she could get there, she felt sure she’d be safe. When she told the villagers her plan, they laughed, and told her to think about other things, but Winnet could think about nothing else, and she set her mind to making it happen.

In town, the following morning, I saw Joe. He waved and hurried up to me.

‘We’ve got one of yours in the parlour. Go over and have a look.’ I knew he meant Elsie. This was my last chance. None of the church remembered that I helped out at Elysium Fields. In the meantime, I had a letter to write, so waited until evening before walking across town, besides, there was the prayer meeting at church that night, so I’d be unlikely to meet anyone.

‘Oh, it’s you is it?’ the woman looked up as I arrived. ‘Is Joe there?’

‘Yes it’s me, and no, Joe isn’t, he’ll be at the allotment won’t he?’

‘Oh yes, digging up veg for the funeral supper. I forgot.’

The woman was weaving fern and hyacinths into a cross. ‘Look what I’m doing for them, another bloody cross.’ She slapped it down in a temper. ‘Let’s have a drink of tea.’ I passed by Elsie’s coffin on my way to the little kitchen, but I didn’t look in, I wanted to wait until they’d gone home. It felt peaceful though.

‘Fetch them Bourbons,’ the woman yelled.

We sat in the sun for half an hour or so, enjoying the warm and the tea.

‘Best thing to come out of France,’ the woman declared, biting her Bourbon.

‘What about quiche?’ I reminded her.

‘Right, that’s right,’ she nodded. ‘They do know about food don’t they?’ And she started to tell me some recipes she’d seen in a book in the library, and the time she’d sailed across the Channel to Dieppe. She wouldn’t go again, no, it was too far, though she’d like to see the Eiffel Tower. She’d heard it had been built by acrobats, and that a troupe of trained monkeys had put up the last and highest girders. Her own grandmother had seen a picture of it, and a scale model in the Great Exhibition. She’d a picture of her grandmother seeing a picture of it. Did I want to travel? No I didn’t, well she could understand that, what with so much to do at home. Then she said she thought it depended on your reincarnation. I wasn’t to tell anyone she thought this. It was in confidence. She said she’d often wondered why she wanted to do some things and not do other things at all. Well, it was obvious with some things, but for others, there was no reason there. She’d spent a long time puzzling it out, then she thought that what you’d done in a past life you didn’t need to do again, and what you had to do in the future, you wouldn’t be ready to do now.

‘It’s like building blocks in’t it?’

This, she felt, explained why I didn’t want to travel. Just then Joe drove up, and the woman went to make a fresh pot of tea. He opened the back of the vehicle.

‘I got pots, and beets and tomatoes and lettuces, an sum of them pea pods. That should do. They’re having turkey roll with vanilla ice-cream afterwards.’

‘When is it?’

‘Tomorrow at twelve o’clock. We’d best sweep out the vehicle first though. There’s enough soil where she’s going in’t there?’

The woman came out with the tea. She was upset because Joe had promised to take her to the pictures that night to see Gary Cooper. Now he was talking about washing the vehicle. She spilt his tea into the saucer, and hid the packet of Bourbons under her fern. I didn’t want her to be miserable, so I offered to clean out the vehicle, and give it a polish.

‘Can you put it in’t garage?’ asked Joe, doubtful.

‘Course she can,’ snapped the woman, ‘she drives that bloody ice-cream van enough.’

Joe nodded and looked at his watch.

‘All right then, let’s get you home for a wash.’ The woman got up to fetch her helmet – Joe didn’t wear one – then they got on to the little scooter and weaved down the lane. I waited a while, then slowly found the bucket and leather, and cleaned the vehicle. I wanted Elsie to have the best. It was dark by the time I eased it into the garage. I washed my hands and went into the parlour; just a few lights were burning, enough to see Elsie. She was laid out in her Sunday best, with her hymnbook next to her. The hymnbook was full of Elsie’s markings, telling her what key to plav in. I wondered what they’d done with her accordion. There was a stool made for looking into the coffins, the right height, so that you didn’t have to stand. Joe was always sensitive about these things; he’d let you stay the night if you wanted to, though it wasn’t common practice.

I talked to Elsie for a long time about the way I felt, and the letter I’d written. It was dawn before I went home.

Downstairs, the telephone was ringing. I wanted to stay asleep, but the telephone went on ringing. It was Joe. He was in a panic. Would I come and do the meal, cook it and serve it? He had to drive the vehicle and see to the coffin. The woman had fallen off the scooter on the way home from the Gary Cooper film. She hadn’t broken anything, but she needed to stay in bed for a few days. She’d just managed to
finish the wreath. I tried to tell Joe what would happen if I showed up at the funeral.

‘It’s all right,’ he said, ‘I’ll not miss their custom, they can go to gloomy Alf next time.’ Alf ran a very different kind of establishment, with set burials at set prices.

‘Like a bloody Chinese takeaway,’ Joe scoffed.

So I agreed, took some clothes to change into, and went off to cook turkey roll for twenty.

I kept out of sight until the cortege had set off, then rushed to lay the table. I reckoned I could set out the prawn cocktail, and leave them to help themselves to veg, once they’d got a plate of turkey each. Forty-five minutes later they were back, so I ran out with the red hot tureens of steaming veg and fixed them all along the table. Now, Joe could hand out the plates, and we might get away with it. It went well, until the ice-cream. The portions were standing by on the tray; Joe had promised to carry them through, then get everyone to leave the table, for coffee and cake in the parlour, so I could clear up. Suddenly the vicar from the cemetery stood up, and motioned Joe over to the door. Joe looked panic-stricken then came over to me, where I was peeping behind the kitchen window.

‘You’ll have to do the ice-cream. He wants to talk to me.’

‘But Joe . . .’ I was terrified, and he had already gone.

I picked up the first tray and tried to make my face look different.

‘Vanilla?’ I asked Mrs White, plonking it down in front of her.

‘Vanilla, Pastor?’ I asked, spilling some of it.

‘Vanilla May? Vanilla Alice?’ And I vanilla’d my way down the line until I came to my mother. She was staring at me, with her mouth a little bit open.

‘You?’ and her pearls quivered against her throat.

‘Me. Vanilla?’

Elsie’s relatives from Morecambe thought we’d gone mad. The pastor stood up.

‘Where’s Mr Ramsbottom? Is this a sick joke?’

‘The woman’s ill,’ I explained, ‘I’m helping out.’

‘Have you no shame?’

‘Not really.’

The pastor motioned to the flock. ‘We won’t stay to be mocked any longer.’

‘Oh she’s a demon your daughter,’ wailed Mrs White, holding on to the pastor’s arm.

‘She’s no daughter of mine,’ snapped back my mother, head high, leading the way out.

And they left, and so the relatives from Morecambe had seconds, and two pieces of Battenburg. When Joe came back he just shook his head, said they were all mad, and that I was well out of it. He was right, but I was lonely. As I washed up in the kitchen thinking it over, I felt someone standing behind me.

It was Miss Jewsbury.

‘You weren’t at the meal,’ was all I could think of to say.

‘No, I didn’t want that. I wanted to see Elsie off, that’s all. I know her cousin from Morecambe.’ I didn’t reply, and she looked awkward. ‘How are you then?’

‘Oh fine,’ I told her, ‘I can make some money, and I have a plan for next year.’

She was the first person I’d confided in, apart from Elsie. She seemed pleased, told me it was a good idea, that she should have done it herself. ‘Things get in the way,’ she said, ‘that’s what’s sad about life.’ Then suddenly, ‘Will you come and see me in my flat?’

‘No,’ I answered slowly, ‘I can’t do that.’

She gathered her bags and her gloves. ‘Well if you change your mind, or if you need money, I’m in the directory.’ She turned away, and I heard her heels for a long time. I don’t know why I didn’t thank her, or even say goodbye.

That was the last time I worked for the Elysium Fields on a regular basis. I had finished school and been offered a full-time job in a mental hospital. It wasn’t something I would have chosen normally, but it had a distinct advantage over other jobs, because I could live in. A room of my own, at least.

‘She’ll not like, will she?’ the woman said to Joe.

‘How can she?’ Joe replied, ‘All them lunatics.’

But I went, nevertheless, comforting myself with my plan.
Winnet tried to imagine what the city might be like. Some of her village said it was made of crystal, others, that it had been spun from a web. Some called it a nonsense, and told her she’d still be unhappy even if she managed to find it. She thought how everyone must be strong and healthy. She thought of their compassion and wisdom. In a place where truth mattered, no one would betray her, and so her courage grew, and with it, her determination. She found a map rolled up round a broom handle; the map showed the forest, and the edges of the forest where the towns began. She found the river, placid and shrunk, but growing to a huge mouth where she had once lived; the river belted the sacred city, and splitting itself like a cut worm, flowed variously into the sea. Winnet had never sailed on the sea. She had known the sea only as it came to the shore, known it only in connection with the land. She was afraid of it, though she knew the faithful have made miracles from coracles. The easiest way to the city was out into the sea, then back up the river again. The only other way was through the deepest forest, down a part of the river that looked like a tunnel. The waters there were brackish, she could not hope to navigate them, as they lost themselves in a thick tree-dark that lasted long after the night. She must find a boat and sail in it. No guarantee of shore. Only a conviction that what she wanted could exist, if she dared to find it.

Winnet studied the ways of boat builders; how they turned and trimmed the hull for speed, and fattened the stern for steadiness. She learned the geometry of a sail. The blind man who taught her said rope was like a dog, rough and dependable. Warm and scratchy like a dog’s coat, and brown and needing to be handled right. She learned to handle everything like it was alive. It was alive, he told her, and it worked better if you knew it. He told her it was Wu li: principles of organic energy. She didn’t understand, but she felt it moving; the rich black tar and the tight thread bound round the stem of her oars. When the stones are hot, he said, they sing, and he gave her a singing stone for her journey.