Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

by Jeanette Winterson

I didn’t object to Melanie getting married, I objected to her getting married to him. And she was serene, serene to the point of being bovine. I was so angry I tried to talk to her about it, but she had left her brain in Bangor.

I made her ill, made the house ill, brought evil into the church.

It all seemed to hinge around the fact that I loved the wrong sort of people.

As far as I was concerned men were something you had around the place, not particularly interesting, but quite harmless. I had never shown the slightest feeling for them, and apart from my never wearing a skirt, saw nothing else in common between us.

my mother saw it as a wilful act on my part to sell my soul.

After the exorcism I had tried to replace my world with another just like it, but I couldn’t. I loved God and I loved the church, but I began to see that as more and more complicated.

unable to forgive myself, unable to forgive her.

It was my own fault. My own perversity.

‘Have an orange,’ I offered, by way of conversation. They both stared at me like I was mad.

We didn’t talk about it, not the rights or wrongs or anything; she looked after me by giving me what I most needed, an ordinary time with a friend.

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.

Until this moment my life had still made some kind of sense.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

real

‘I’m vegetarian,’ she yelled,

me when the wizard is trying to tempt me so i yell my dietary preferences at him

It’s so disappointing dining alone, don’t you think?’

the sorcerer sighed, tore off another hunk and mopped up his juice. ‘There’s no pudding I’m afraid.

fuck

‘You tricked me.’ ‘Well it is my job you know.’

can a man not be employed?! god FORBID

The sorcerer stood on his head for while,

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,

‘And what if I stay?’ ‘You will find yourself destroyed by grief.

He didn’t do anything fancy, just cornets and wafers, covered in strawberry syrup.

Then he lost his temper, as only a soft-voiced man can.

There are different kinds of treachery, but betrayal is betrayal wherever you find it.

she understood the different kinds of sorrow and their effects.

‘Have you no shame?’ ‘Not really.’

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.

‘Things get in the way,’ she said, ‘that’s what’s sad about life.’

I don’t know why I didn’t thank her, or even say goodbye.

In a place where truth mattered, no one would betray her,

Now there is nothing about her but water. One thing is certain; she can’t go back.

I thought in this city, a past was precisely that. Past. Why do I have to remember?

People do go back, but they don’t survive, because two realities are claiming them at the same time. Such things are too much. You can salt your heart, or kill your heart, or you can choose between the two realities. There is much pain here. Some people think you can have your cake and eat it. The cake goes mouldy and they choke on what’s left. Going back after a long time will make you mad, because the people you left behind do not like to think of you changed, will treat you as they always did, accuse you of being indifferent, when you are only different.

‘When did you last see your mother?’ I don’t know how to answer. I know what I think, but words in the head are like voices under water. They are distorted. Hearing the words as they hit the surface is sensitive work.

‘What would have happened if you had stayed?’

If the demons lie within they travel with you.

Everyone thinks their own situation most tragic. I am no exception.

It is not the one thing nor the other that leads to madness, but the space in between them.

I went to Liverpool from here once, wearing a hat that looked like a tea cosy. Elsie knitted it for me; she called it my Helmet of Salvation.

I find my mother sitting in front of what is best described as a contraption.

I’ll show you.’ And for the next half-hour she demonstrated the contraption.

‘Have you got enough to keep you occupied?’ I asked her anxiously. ‘I told you I’d gone electronic, well it doesn’t stop in the parlour.’ She was mysterious and wouldn’t tell me anymore.

vibrator

she’s got a young man’ (she’s deliberately not looking at me).

He was a warrior who longed to grow herbs.

My mother had always told me that the Cock and Whistle was a den of thieves and tax collectors. Now that I saw it for the first time, it wasn’t nearly so exciting. It had a lino floor and a few withered-up old men at the bar.

they all want to act posh round here now,

‘After bathrooms they want central heating and poodles,’ Mrs Arkwright thundered on. ‘We all know what central heating does to you. Dry’s up yer natural juices dun’t it?’