Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (4 page)

‘I’ve had enough,’ she said. ‘Go away.’

And she closed the kitchen door again and switched off the radio. I could hear her humming
Glorious Things of Thee are spoken
.

‘Well, that’s that then,’ I thought.

And it was.

The next morning was a hive of activity. My mother dragged me out of bed, shouting that it was half-past seven, that she had had no sleep at all, that my dad had gone to work without his dinner. She poured a scalding kettle of water into the sink.

‘Why didn’t you go to bed?’ I asked her.

‘No point if I had to get up with you three hours later.’

She shot a jet of cold water into the hot.

‘Well you could have had an early night,’ I suggested, struggling with my pyjama top. An old woman had made it for me, and made the neck hole the same size as the arm holes, so I always had sore ears. Once I went deaf for three months with my adenoids: no one noticed that either.

I was lying in bed one night, thinking about the glory of the Lord, when it struck me that life had gone very quiet. I had been to church as usual, sung as loudly as ever, but it
had seemed for some time that I was the only one making a noise.

I had assumed myself to be in a state of rapture, not uncommon in our church, and later I discovered my mother had assumed the same. When May had asked why I wasn’t answering anybody, my mother had said, ‘It’s the Lord.’

‘What’s the Lord?’ May was confused.

‘Working in mysterious ways,’ declared my mother, and walked ahead.

So, unknown to me, word spread about our church that I was in a state of rapture, and no one should speak to me.

‘Why do you think it’s happened?’ Mrs White wanted to know.

‘Oh, it’s not surprising, she’s seven you know,’ May paused for effect, ‘It’s a holy number, strange things happen in sevens, look at Elsie Norris.’

Elsie Norris, ‘Testifying Elsie’ as she was called, was a great encouragement to our church. Whenever the pastor asked for a testimony on God’s goodness, Elsie leapt to her feet and cried, ‘Listen to what the Lord has done for me this week.’

She needed eggs, the Lord had sent them.

She had a bout of colic, the Lord took it away.

She always prayed for two hours a day;

once in the morning at seven a.m.

and once in the evening at seven p.m.

Her hobby was numerology, and she never read the Word without first casting the dice to guide her.

‘One dice for the chapter, and one dice for the verse’ was her motto.

Someone once asked her what she did for books of the Bible that had more than six chapters.

‘I have my ways,’ she said stiffly, ‘and the Lord has his.’

I liked her a lot because she had interesting things in her house. She had an organ that you had to pedal if you wanted it to make a noise. Whenever I went there she played
Lead Kindly Light
. Her doing the keys, and me doing the pedals
because she had asthma. She collected foreign coins and kept them in a glass case that smelled of linseed oil. She said it reminded her of her late husband who had used to play cricket for Lancashire.

‘Hard Hand Stan they called him,’ she said every time I went to see her. She could never remember what she told people. She could never remember how long she kept her fruit cake. There was a time when I got offered the same piece of cake for five weeks. I was lucky, she never remembered what you said to her either, so every week I made the same excuse.

‘Colic,’ I said.

‘I’ll pray for you,’ she said.

Best of all, she had a collage of Noah’s Ark. It showed the two parent Noah’s leaning out looking at the flood, while the other Noah’s tried to catch one of the rabbits. But for me, the delight was a detachable chimpanzee, made out of a Brillo pad; at the end of my visit she let me play with it for five minutes. I had all kinds of variations, but usually I drowned it.

One Sunday the pastor told everyone how full of the spirit I was. He talked about me for twenty minutes, and I didn’t hear a word; just sat there reading my Bible and thinking what a long book it was. Of course this seeming modesty made them all the more convinced.

I thought no one was talking to me and the others thought I wasn’t talking to them. But on the night I realized I couldn’t hear anything I went downstairs and wrote on a piece of paper, ‘Mother, the world is very quiet.’

My mother nodded and carried on with her book. She had got it in the post that morning from Pastor Spratt. It was a description of missionary life called
Other Continents Know Him Too
.

I couldn’t attract her attention, so I took an orange and went back to bed. I had to find out for myself.

Someone had given me a recorder and a tune book for my
birthday, so I propped myself up against the pillows and piped out a couple of verses of
Auld Lang Syne
.

I could see my fingers moving, but there was no sound.

I tried
Little Brown Jug
.

Nothing.

In despair I started to beat out the rhythm section of
Ol’ Man River
.

Nothing.

And nothing I could do till morning.

The next day I leapt out of bed determined to explain to my mother what was wrong.

There was no one in the house.

My breakfast had been left on the kitchenette with a short note.

‘Dear Jeanette,

We have gone to the hospital to pray for Auntie Betty. Her leg is very loose.

Love mother.’

So I spent the day as well as I could, and finally decided to go for a walk. That walk was my salvation. I met Miss Jewsbury who played the oboe and conducted the Sisterhood choir. She was very clever.

‘But she’s not holy,’ Mrs White had once said. Miss Jews-bury must have said hello to me, and I must have ignored her. She hadn’t been to church for a long time because of her tour of the Midlands with the Salvation Symphony Orchestra, and so she didn’t know that I was supposed to be full of the spirit. She stood in front of me opening and shutting her mouth, which was very large on account of the oboe, and pulling her eyebrows into the middle of her head. I took hold of her hand and led her into the post office. Then I picked up one of the pens and wrote on the back of a child allowance form,

‘Dear Miss Jewsbury,

I can’t hear a thing.’

She looked at me in horror and, taking the pen herself, wrote, ‘What is. your mother doing about it? Why aren’t you in bed?’

By now there was no room left on the child allowance
form so I had to use Who to Contact in the Event of An Emergency.

‘Dear Miss Jewsbury,’ I wrote,

‘My mother doesn’t know. She’s at the hospital with Auntie Betty. I was in bed last night.’

Miss Jewsbury just stared and stared. She stared for so long I began to think about going home. Then she snatched my hand and whisked me off to the hospital. When we got there my mother and some others were gathered around Auntie Betty’s bed singing choruses. My mother saw us, looked a bit surprised, but didn’t get up. Miss Jewsbury tapped her on the elbow, and started doing the routine with her mouth and eyebrows. My mother just shook and shook her head. Finally Miss Jewsbury yelled so loud even I heard it. ‘This child’s not full of the Spirit,’ she screamed, ‘she’s deaf.’

Everyone in the hospital turned to peer at me. I went very red, and stared at Auntie Betty’s water jug. The worst thing was not knowing at all what was going on. Then a doctor came over to us, very angry, and then he and Miss Jewsbury waved their arms at each other. The Faithful had gone back to their chorus sheets as though nothing was happening at all.

The doctor and Miss Jewsbury whisked me away to a cold room full of equipment, and made me lie down. The doctor kept tapping me in different places and shaking his head.

And it was all absolutely silent.

Then my mother arrived and seemed to understand what was going on. She signed a form, and wrote me another note.

‘Dear Jeanette,

There’s nothing wrong, you’re just a bit deaf. Why didn’t you tell me? I’m going home to get your pyjamas.’

What was she doing? Why was she leaving me here? I started to cry. My mother looked horrified and rooting in her handbag she gave me an orange. I peeled it to comfort myself, and seeing me a little calmer, everyone glanced at one another and went away.

Since I was born I had assumed that the world ran on very simple lines, like a larger version of our church. Now I was
finding that even the church was sometimes confused. This was a problem. But not one I chose to deal with for many years more. The problem there and then was what was going to happen to me. The Victoria Hospital was big and frightening, and I couldn’t even sing to any effect because I couldn’t hear what I was singing. There was nothing to read except some dental notices and an instruction leaflet for the X-ray machine. I tried to build an igloo out of the orange peel but it kept falling down and even when it stood up I didn’t have an eskimo to put in it, so I had to invent a story about ‘How Eskimo Got Eaten’, which made me even more miserable. It’s always the same with diversions; you get involved.

At last my mother came back, and a nurse pulled me into my pyjamas and took us both to the children’s ward. It was horrid. The walls were pale pink and all the curtains had animals on them. Not real animals though: fluffy ones playing games with coloured balls. I thought of the sea walrus I had just invented. It was wicked, it had eaten the eskimo; but it was better than these. The nurse had thrown my igloo in the bin.

There was nothing for me to do but contemplate my fate and lie still. A couple of hours later my mother returned with my Bible, a Scripture Union colouring book, and a wedge of plasticine, which the nurse took away. I pulled a face, and she wrote on a card, ‘Not nice, might swallow.’ I looked at her and wrote back, ‘I don’t want to swallow it, I want to build with it. Besides plasticine isn’t toxic, it tells you on the back,’ and I waved the packet at her. She frowned and shook her head. I turned to my mother for support, but she was scribbling me a long letter. The nurse started to rearrange my bed, and put the offending putty in her uniform pocket. I could see that nothing would change her mind.

I sniffed; disinfectant and mashed potatoes. Then my mother prodded me, put her letter on the bedside cabinet, and emptied a huge carrier bag of oranges into the bowl by my water jug. I smiled feebly, hoping to gain support, but instead she patted me on the head and rolled away. So I was alone. I thought of Jane Eyre, who faced many trials and was always brave. My mother read the book to me whenever she
felt sad; she said it gave her fortitude. I picked up her letter: the usual not-to-worry, lots-of-people-will-visit, chin-up, and a promise to work hard on the bathroom, and not let Mrs White get in the way. That she’d come soon, or if not she’d send her husband. That my operation would be the next day. At this, I let the letter fall to the bed. The next day! What if I died? So young and so promising! I thought of my funeral, of all the tears. I wanted to be buried with Golly and my Bible. Should I write instructions? Could I count on any of them to take any notice? My mother knew all about illness and operations. The doctor had told her that a woman in her condition shouldn’t be walking around, but she said that her time hadn’t come, and at least she knew where she was going, not like him. My mother read in a book that more people die under anaesthetic than drown while water-skiing.

‘If the Lord brings you back,’ she told May, before she went in for her gallstones, ‘you’ll know it’s because he’s got work for you to do.’ I crept under the bedclothes and prayed to be brought back.

On the morning of my operation, the nurses were Smiling and rearranging the bed again, and piling the oranges in a symmetrical tower. Two hairy arms lifted me up and strapped me on to a cold trolley. The castors squeaked and the man who pushed me went too fast. Corridors, double doors and two pairs of eyes peeping over the top of tight white masks. A nurse held my hand while someone fitted a muzzle over my nose and mouth. I breathed in and saw a great line of water-skiiers falling off and not coming back up. Then I didn’t see anything at all.

‘Jelly, Jeanette.’

I
knew
it, I’d died and the angels were giving me jelly. I opened my eyes expecting to see a pair of wings.

‘Come on, eat up,’ the voice encouraged.

‘Are you an angel?’ I asked hopefully.

‘Not quite, I’m a doctor. But she’s an angel, aren’t you nurse?’

The angel blushed.

‘I can hear,’ I said, to no one in particular.

‘Eat your jelly,’ said the nurse.

I might have languished alone for the rest of the week, if Elsie hadn’t found out where I was, and started visiting me. My mother couldn’t come till the weekend, I knew that, because she was waiting for the plumber to check her fittings. Elsie came every day, and told me jokes to make me smile and stories to make me feel better. She said stories helped you to understand the world. When I felt better, she promised to show me the basics I needed to help her with numerology. A thrill of excitement ran through me because I knew my mother disapproved. She said it was too close to madness.

‘Never mind that,’ said Elsie, ‘it works.’

So we had quite a good time, the two of us, planning what we’d do when I got better.

‘How old are you Elsie?’ I wanted to know.

‘I remember the Great War, and that’s all I’m saying.’ Then she started to tell me how she’d driven an ambulance without any brakes.

My mother came to see me quite a lot in the end, but it was the busy season at church. They were planning the Christmas campaign. When she couldn’t come herself she sent my father, usually with a letter and a couple of oranges.

‘The only fruit,’ she always said.

Fruit salad, fruit pie, fruit for fools, fruited punch. Demon fruit, passion fruit, rotten fruit, fruit on Sunday.

Oranges are the only fruit. I filled my little bucket with peel and the nurses emptied it with an ill grace. I hid the peel under my pillow and the nurses scolded and sighed.

Elsie Norris and me ate an orange every day; half each. Elsie had no teeth so she sucked and champed. I dropped my pieces like oysters, far back into the throat. People used to watch us, but we didn’t mind.