Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (3 page)

Poor Dad, he was never quite good enough.

That night at church, we had a visiting speaker, Pastor Finch from Stockport. He was an expert in demons, and delivered a terrifying sermon on how easy it is to become demon-possessed. We were all very uneasy afterwards. Mrs White said she thought her next-door neighbours were probably possessed, they had all the signs. Pastor Finch said that the possessed are given to uncontrollable rages, sudden bursts of wild laughter, and are always, always, very cunning. The Devil himself, he reminded us, can come as an angel of light.

After the service we were having a banquet; my mother had made twenty trifles and her usual mound of cheese and onion sandwiches.

‘You can always tell a good woman by her sandwiches,’ declared Pastor Finch.

My mother blushed.

Then he turned to me and said, ‘How old are you, little girl?’

‘Seven.’ I replied.

‘Ah, seven,’ he muttered. ‘How blessed, the seven days of creation, the seven-branched candlestick, the seven seals.’

(Seven seals? I had not yet reached Revelation in my directed reading, and I thought he meant some Old Testament amphibians I had overlooked. I spent weeks trying to find them, in case they came up as a quiz question.)

‘Yes,’ he went on, ‘how blessed,’ then his brow clouded. ‘But how cursed.’ At this word his fist hit the table and catapulted a cheese sandwich into the collection bag; I saw it happen, but I was so distracted I forgot to tell anyone.
They found it in there the week after, at the Sisterhood meeting. The whole table had fallen silent, except for Mrs Rothwell who was stone deaf and very hungry.

‘The demon can return SEVENFOLD.’ His eyes roamed the table. (Scrape, went Mrs Rothwell’s spoon.)

‘SEVENFOLD.’

(‘Does anybody want this piece of cake?’ asked Mrs Rothwell.)

‘The best can become the worst,’ – he took me by the hand– ‘This innocent child, this bloom of the Covenant.’

‘Well, I’ll eat it then,’ announced Mrs Rothwell.

Pastor Finch glared at her, but he wasn’t a man to be put off.

‘This little lily could herself be a house of demons.’

‘Eh, steady on Roy,’ said Mrs Finch anxiously.

‘Don’t interrupt me Grace,’ he said firmly, ‘I mean this by way of example only. God has given me an opportunity and what God has given we must not presume to waste.

‘It has been known for the most holy men to be suddenly filled with evil. And how much more a woman, and how much more a child. Parents, watch your children for the signs. Husbands, watch your wives. Blessed be the name of the Lord.’

He let go of my hand, which was now crumpled and soggy.

He wiped his own on his trouser leg.

‘You shouldn’t tax yourself so, Roy.’ said Mrs Finch, ‘have some trifle, it’s got sherry in it.’

I felt a bit awkward too so I went into the Sunday School Room. There was some Fuzzy Felt to make Bible scenes with, and I was just beginning to enjoy a rewrite of Daniel in the lions’ den when Pastor Finch appeared. I put my hands into my pockets and looked at the lino.

‘Little girl,’ he began, then he caught sight of the Fuzzy Felt.

‘What’s that?’

‘Daniel,’ I answered.

‘But that’s not right,’ he said, aghast. ‘Don’t you know that Daniel escaped? In your picture the lions are swallowing him.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I replied, putting on my best, blessed face. ‘I wanted to do Jonah and the whale, but they don’t do whales in Fuzzy Felt. I’m pretending those lions are whales.’

‘You said it was Daniel.’ He was suspicious.

‘I got mixed up.’

He smiled. ‘Let’s put it right, shall we?’ And he carefully rearranged the lions in one corner, and Daniel in the other. ‘What about Nebuchadnezzar? Let’s do the Astonishment at Dawn scene next.’ He started to root through the Fuzzy Felt, looking for a king.

‘Hopeless,’ I thought, Susan Green was sick on the tableau of the three Wise Men at Christmas, and you only get three kings to box.

I left him to it. When I came back into the hall somebody asked me if I’d seen Pastor Finch.

‘He’s in the Sunday School Room playing with the Fuzzy Felt,’ I replied.

‘Don’t be fanciful Jeanette,’ said the voice. I looked up. It was Miss Jewsbury; she always talked like that, I think it was because she taught the oboe. It does something to your mouth.

‘Time to go home,’ said my mother. ‘I think you’ve had enough excitement for one day.’

It’s odd, the things other people think are exciting.

We set off, my mother, Alice and May (‘Auntie Alice, Auntie May, to you’). I lagged behind, thinking about Pastor Finch and how horrible he was. His teeth stuck out, and his voice was squeaky, even though he tried to make it deep and stern. Poor Mrs Finch. How did she live with him? Then I remembered the gypsy. ‘You’ll never marry.’ That might not be such a bad thing after all. We walked along the Factory Bottoms to get home. The poorest people of all lived there, tied to the mills. There were hundreds of children and scraggy dogs. Next Door used to live down there, right by the glue works, but their cousin or someone had left them a house, next to our house. ‘The work of the Devil, if ever I saw it,’ said my mother, who always believed these things are sent to try us.

I wasn’t allowed in the Factory Bottoms on my own, and that night as the rain began, I was sure I knew why. If the demons lived anywhere it was here. We went past the shop that sold flea collars and poisons. Arkwright’s For Vermin it was called; I had been inside it once, when we had a run of cockroaches. Mrs Arkwright was there cashing up; she caught sight of May as we went past and shouted at her to come in. My mother wasn’t very pleased, but muttering something about Jesus associating with tax collectors and sinners pushed me inside, in front of them all.

‘Where’ve you been May,’ asked Mrs Arkwright, wiping her hand on a dishcloth, ‘not seen hide of you in a month.’

‘I’ve been in Blackpool.’

‘Ho, come in at some money have you?’

‘It were at Bingo ‘ousic ‘ousie three times.’

‘No.’

Mrs Arkwright was both admiring and bad-tempered.

The conversation continued like this for some time, Mrs Arkwright complaining that business was poor, that she’d have to close the shop, that there was no money in vermin any more.

‘Let’s hope we have a hot summer, that’ll fetch them out.’

My mother was visibly distressed.

‘Remember that heatwave two years ago? Ooo, I did some trade then. Cockroaches, hard backs, rats, you name it, I poisoned it. No, it’s not same any more.’

We kept a respectful silence for a moment or two, then my mother coughed and said we should be getting along.

‘Here, then,’ said Mrs Arkwright, ‘tek these furt nipper.’

She meant me and, rummaging around somewhere behind the counter, pulled out a few different-shaped tins.

‘It can keep its marbles and stuff in ‘em,’ she explained.

‘Ta,’ I said and smiled.

‘Ey, it’s all right that one, you knows,’ she smiled at me and, wiping her hand firmly on my hand, let us out of the shop.

‘Look at these May,’ I held them up.

‘Auntie May,’ snapped my mother.

May examined them with me.

‘ “Silver fish,” ‘ she read.’ “Sprinkle liberally behind sinks, toilets and other damp places.” Oh, very nice. What’s this one: “Lice, bed bugs, etc. Guaranteed effective or money back.” ’

Eventually we got home, Goodnight May, Goodnight Alice, God Bless. My father had already gone to bed because he worked early shifts. My mother wouldn’t be going to bed for hours.

As long as I have known them, my mother has gone to bed at four, and my father has got up at five. That was nice in a way because it meant I could come down in the middle of the night and not be lonely. Quite often we’d have bacon and eggs and she’d read me a bit of the Bible.

It was in this way that I began my education: she taught me to read from the Book of Deuteronomy, and she told me all about the lives of the saints, how they were really wicked, and given to nameless desires. Not fit for worship; this was yet another heresy of the Catholic Church and I was not be misled by the smooth tongues of priests.

‘But I never see any priests.’

‘A girl’s motto is BE PREPARED.’

I learnt that it rains when clouds collide with a high building, like a steeple, or a cathedral; the impact punctures them, and everybody underneath gets wet. This was why, in the old days, when the only tall buildings were holy, people used to say cleanliness is next to godliness. The more godly your town, the more high buildings you’d have, and the more rain you’d get.

‘That’s why all these Heathen places are so dry,’ explained by mother, then she looked into space, and her pencil quivered. ‘Poor Pastor Spratt.’

I discovered that everything in the natural world was a symbol of the Great Struggle between good and evil. ‘Consider the mamba,’ said my mother. ‘Over short distances the mamba can outrun a horse.’ And she drew the race on a sheet of paper. She meant that in the short term, evil can
triumph, but never for very long. We were very glad, and we sang our favourite hymn,
Yield Not to Temptation
.

I asked my mother to teach me French, but her face clouded over, and she said she couldn’t.

‘Why not?’

‘It was nearly my downfall.’

‘What do you mean?’ I persisted, whenever I could. But she only shook her head and muttered something about me being too young, that I’d find out all too soon, that it was nasty.

‘One day,’ she said finally, ‘I’ll tell you about Pierre,’ then she switched on the radio and ignored me for so long that I went back to bed.

Quite often, she’d start to tell me a story and then go on to something else in the middle, so I never found out what happened to the Earthly Paradise when it stopped being off the coast of India, and I was stuck at ‘six sevens are fortytwo’ for almost a week.

‘Why don’t I go to school?’ I asked her. I was curious about school because my mother always called it a Breeding Ground. I didn’t know what she meant, but I knew it was a bad thing, like Unnatural Passions. ‘They’ll lead you astray,’ was the only answer I got.

I thought about all this in the toilet. It was outside, and I hated having to go at night because of the spiders that came over from the coal-shed. My dad and me always seemed to be in the toilet, me sitting on my hands and humming, and him standing up, I supposed. My mother got very angry.

‘You come on in, it doesn’t take that long.’

But it was the only place to go. We all shared the same bedroom, because my mother was building us a bathroom in the back, and eventually, if she got the partition fitted, a little half-room for me. She worked very slowly though, because she said she had a lot on her mind. Sometimes Mrs White came round to help mix the grout, but then they’d both end up listening to Johnny Cash, or writing a new handout on Baptism by Total Immersion. She did finish eventually, but not for three years.

Meanwhile, my lessons continued, I learnt a bout Horticulture
and Garden Pests via the slugs and my mother’s seed catalogues, and I developed an understanding of Historical Process through the prophecies in the Book of Revelation, and a magazine called
The Plain Truth
, which my mother received each week.

‘It’s Elijah in our midst again,’ she declared.

And so I learned to interpret the signs and wonders that the unbeliever might never understand.

‘You’ll need to when you’re out there on the mission field,’ she reminded me.

Then, one morning, when we had got up early to listen to Ivan Popov from behind the Iron Curtain, a fat brown envelope plopped through the letter box. My mother thought it was letters of thanks from those who had attended our Healing of the Sick crusade in the town hall. She ripped it open, then her face fell.

‘What is it?’ I asked her.

‘It’s about you.’

‘What about me?’

‘I have to send you to school.’

I whizzed into the toilet and sat on my hands; the Breeding Ground at last.

E
XODUS

‘W
HY DO YOU
want me to go?’ I asked her the night before.

‘Because if you don’t go, I’ll have to go to prison.’ She picked up the knife. ‘How many slices do you want?’

‘Two,’ I said. ‘What’s going in them?’

‘Potted beef, and be thankful.’

‘But if you go to prison you’ll get out again. St Paul was always going to prison.’

‘I know that’ (she cut the bread firmly, so that only the tiniest squirt of potted beef oozed out) . . . ‘but the neighbours don’t. Eat this and be quiet.’

She pushed the plate in front of me. It looked horrible.

‘Why can’t we have chips?’

‘Because I haven’t time to make you chips. There’s my feet to soak, your vest to iron, and I haven’t touched all those requests for prayer. Besides, there’s no potatoes.’

I went into the living room, looking for something to do. In the kitchen I heard my mother switch on the radio.

‘And now,’ said a voice, ‘a programme about the family life of snails.’

My mother shrieked.

‘Did you hear that?’ she demanded, and poked her head round the kitchen door. ‘The family life of snails, it’s an Abomination, it’s like saying we come from monkeys.’

I thought about it. Mr and Mrs Snail at home on a wet Wednesday night; Mr Snail dozing quietly, Mrs Snail reading a book about difficult children.
‘I’m so worried doctor. He’s so quiet, won’t come out of his shell.’

‘No mum,’ I replied, ‘it’s not like that at all.’

But she wasn’t listening. She had gone back into the kitchen, and I could hear her muttering to herself against the static as she fiddled for the World Service. I went after her. ‘The Devil’s in the world, but not in this house,’ she said, and fixed her gaze on the picture of the Lord hung about the oven. It was a watercolour about nine inches square, painted by Pastor Spratt for my mother, before he left with his Glory Crusade for Wigan and Africa.

It was called ‘The Lord Feeding the Birds’ and my mother put it over the oven because she spent most of her time there, making things for the faithful. It was a bit battered now, and the Lord had a blob of egg on one foot, but we didn’t like to touch it in case the paint came off too.