Boating for Beginners

by Winterson, Jeanette

  'Great,' cheered Marlene. 'Now we can have fun.'

  After supper Marlene and Gloria went to drink cocoa upstairs and plan their campaign. Bunny had given Gloria the list, and none of the animals seemed too hard to catch, except for a pair of hoopoes that could only, it said, be found in Nineveh in the custody of a rather strange old woman. They were to travel there the next day, on the off chance that she might part with them.

  'We ought to bring some order into this,' decided Marlene, and got out the blackboard she usually kept for her dietary progress. 'We'll have to make a list. I'll draw up four columns: Things that Fly; Things that Swim; Things that Run/Crawl/Leap or Totter; and Things that Creep.'

  'Yes,' said Gloria, 'that seems very sensible.'

  'Gloria,' asked Marlene a few minutes later, 'what did you do before you started collecting animals?'

  'Nothing,' said Gloria simply, and she meant it. 'The Cosmic Rien.'

  'Oh well,' sympathised Marlene. 'At least you've had it easy. As for me — ' and for the next hour she narrated the whole ghastly tale of her life as a synchronised swimmer, a potter and a woman with problems. 'I've had seventy lovers, but I've never found the one.'

  Did the one exist, though? This was what Gloria wanted to know. Wasn't it rather a fantasy of romantic propaganda?

  'Well, I expect it is in some ways,' agreed Marlene. 'But in others, there's something to be said for being in love. Lovers take you dancing, they tell you commonplace things that sound different and are different because lovers make you look again at familiar things and find beauty there.'

  'Weren't any of your seventy lovers important?' marvelled Gloria.

  'Of course they were, at the time. It's just that the time didn't last very long, and the only one who really had any drama was lost from the moment we saw each other.' She dabbed her eyes gently.

  'Oh tell me about that one,' begged Gloria in a fit of regressive goo.

  Marlene's story was a tragic one. Immediately after her sex change she had fallen in love with a curate, older than her in most ways, riddled with guilt about pleasure that did not involve pain, and unable to enjoy love for its own sake. They had spent nervous afternoons and tension-filled evenings together. On many of their encounters the curate chain-smoked while Marlene sat moodily recounting their relationship to date, and why it was so awful. They had enjoyed simplistic analyses that sounded profound, e.g. 'If it were truly awful we'd stop/you'd leave,' or: 'All I'm certain of is that I love you,' and they wrote letters to each other to be delivered by hand in the middle of the night, especially when it was raining hard. Marlene had become particularly adept at waylaying the curate on his way home from church. They would embrace, stare and sigh, and then the curate had to go home to his family. Once he had gone, Marlene liked to stare up at the bedroom window, while waves of lust and rage convinced her it was the real thing she was feeling.

  They did sleep together, once, the day before their relationship ended forever. It was during that graceless and frantic act that Marlene felt the magic wand prodding her in the ribs, and when she woke up, the curate had turned into a toad.

  So much for passion. She packed her bags, stared in amazement at the flannel she had used only the night before to wash the curate's bony back, and went home. There she looked in the mirror, and realised she was very far from being the fairest of them all. She was a mess. She had always imagined that pain suited her. It didn't. It made her fat and lunatic, and she realised it for the first time. Her room was untidy and littered with the curate's letters. She put them in a box, opened the windows and started to dust. 'And then,' concluded Marlene, 'I picked up a handful of soil and thought, Tomorrow is another day.'

  'Gosh,' sighed Gloria. 'That sounds awful. Why do you still believe in love?'

  'Because it's always better to feel something, even if that something is pain. Besides, after that incident I'll never be chasing things I can't have. Now I keep an eye out for the accessible. No more creeps.' She walked over to the window and took a deep breath: 'Come and sniff the honeysuckle; it's magnificent — ' then she paused. 'On second thoughts go and get a bowl of water, because something big and creepy is creeping towards our window right now.'

  Gloria rushed across and peered out. Sure enough a dark shape was feeling its way up the clematis towards them.

  'It's some kind of Gross Reality, but I don't know which one,' panicked Marlene. Then they heard the thing speak.

  'Will you two stop talking amongst yourselves and help me in? It's me, Desi, and I've got enough problems without you pouring water over my head.'

  'Heavens!' squeaked Marlene. 'Why can't you use the stairs like everyone else?'

  'Because I don't want anyone to know I'm here, that's why not,' panted Desi, heaving herself over the window-sill. 'Individual I may be, but I'm not totally out of my tree. I didn't climb three storeys up a wistearia for exercise and general amusement.' She stood in front of them, dusting herself down.

  'Clematis dear, not wistearia. So why are you doing The Lady Loves Milk Tray for our benefit?'

  'I've got some terrible news, that's why. So find me a drink and prepare to be shattered.' Marlene found the Scotch and poured a large measure, while Desi unbuttoned her jacket. As calmly as she could she told her story — the manuscript, the equipment, the meeting in Gaza. 'So you see, the Unpronounceable's an all-powerful ice-cream cone and Noah and the boys are going to float away to a better world.'

  They discussed the problem for some time, but Desi was clearly exhausted.

  'Why don't you sleep here?' suggested Marlene. 'There's nothing any of us can do tonight. Tomorrow we'll go to Nineveh as planned, otherwise Bunny will tell Noah something's up, and you can go back to the film set and see if you can learn anything about the new plans. We can meet again tomorrow night, here, at about this time.'

  Wearily Desi agreed and they made her a bed in the bathtub.

  'Don't you think we should be panicking?' asked Gloria anxiously, when Desi was safely asleep.

  'Yes, I expect so, but what good will it do? We can do our best to warn people as soon as we can prove it, but what makes you think anyone is going to believe a zoo keeper, a transsexual and a member of the rich middle class? Only if Noah starts getting that boat under way and it starts to rain, do we stand a chance of making them see sense. Would you believe this story? I wouldn't. A flood; when has there ever been a flood? It's not part of our history.'

  Gloria went to her room and sank into a fitful sleep. She dreamed she was floating along on a log and all she had once known was floating by her. She was cold, wet and cross. As she sailed on she noticed an orange demon cooking sausages over a little fire. The demon seemed entirely unconcerned about the flood, which made Gloria even crosser.

  'What's going on?' she demanded.

  'Flood myths,' answered her bright friend sagely. 'What seems outrageous to one generation becomes a commonplace to the next. You think this can't happen; but later, when it's history, no one will be surprised.'

  The morning dawned bright and fair. Desi slipped away before anyone else had stirred, leaving Gloria and Marlene to rush down to breakfast, acting as casually as possible. They had hardly started on their dandelion croissants when Bunny came bounding across and placed herself beside them.

  'Now dears, I hope you two won't idle away the day. I want you to go into Nineveh and pick up that pair of hoopoes. It shouldn't take you long, and besides I especially want you to be back tonight for one of my exclusive talks in the main hall. I shall be reading from my forthcoming book of poems to give the occasion some feeling. I'm sure you've read about the book already, because the press are so excited. It's called If On A Summer's Night, A Bee ... and I think it's my most mature work to date, though of course I have lost none of my freshness. Anyway, there'll be that, and there will also be a very important lady who's come all the way from Andorra just to share with us some of her life-changing secrets, so do get back for seven-thirty, won't you?' and off she swept.


  'Bossy isn't she?' said Marlene, stashing a few of the croissants in her handbag. 'I'm taking these in case the journey takes a long time. You know how unreliable the railways are.' She noticed Gloria's face. 'Oh, don't worry. I haven't still got the bird in here. I put him back with the other one.'

  Gloria sighed, and they set off together for the station, Marlene commenting enthusiastically on the flora and fauna and what a pity they weren't going to be seeing it for much longer. Gloria, who was beginning to get upset about being drowned, asked Marlene how she could be so carefree in the face of her own mortality and the planet's doom.

  'The planet will find a way back, and I don't think of myself as indispensable. Truth to tell, if I didn't have this attitude I'd be a gibbering wreck by now. Besides, we've got work to do - we have to make one heroic attempt at foiling that cosmic dessert and the little chocolate button that created him. If I think about how awful it is, I'll just sit down here until I float away.'

  'I don't know what I'm going to do about my mother,' said Gloria. If she was going to worry she might as well worry about the lot now, and get it over with. 'I mean, she won't believe a word of it and most likely she'd go off and tell Noah. I think I'll have to kidnap her.'

  Marlene was sympathetic but not much help. She had never met Gloria's mother and could not imagine the force of nature that was Mrs Munde. On the train Gloria tried to explain, but the more she said, the more impossible the picture grew: the bedrooms that stayed up by themselves, the obsession with fish, her romantic fiction and her belief that only two sorts of people existed — friends and enemies; her star-gazing and her belief that she was an astronomer without telescope; and finally her calling to the kitchens of the world where, if she could not put the Lord in their hearts, she could sneak him into their stomachs on a slice of pizza.

  'I don't know anyone else like that,' admitted Marlene. 'How have you survived all these years?'

  And Gloria explained that she had survived by disappearing to the bottom of her private pool with a collection of unsuitable literature and a vivid imagination. 'And now I am scrutinising the world for the first time and hoping to reach a state of continuous prose.'

  'What are you talking about?' asked Marlene, not surprisingly. So Gloria had to tell her about Northrop Frye and her own present state of probing curiosity which she had exchanged for her previously inchoate state and would, if all went well, trade in for an understanding of the world which was both fluent and fluid. Continuous Prose.

  'I see,' said Marlene. 'So your mother is in a genuinely poetic state in which she cannot distinguish between herself and nature, and you were in a fallen quasi-poetic state in which you had no distinguishing powers, but no poetic powers either.'

  'That's right.' (Gloria was relieved.) 'My mother is a very affecting woman. You may think she's crazy but you can't ignore her. Ignoring me was not an effort at all. There was no alternative.'

  'Pigeons aren't poetic,' hissed Marlene, seeing one out of the window. 'They're the most prosaic birds invented. That's the only thing about this flood stuff that cheers me up; those shitty excuses for powered flight will be wiped off the map. Have you seen anything with less charm?'

  'What about those hoopoes we're collecting? They bite.'

  'I'm not bothered about being bittten. Animals and things always bite. What I object to is the psychological reign of terror imposed on me just because I want to kill them all. I used to have a catapult and a bag of dried peas, that got rid of them, but then I got fined. Fined for threats on a pigeon's life with a pea.'

  For the rest of the trip they talked again about Art and the Meaning of Life and whether or not the Experimental Novel had any significance in the society that haggled over which television channel should show Dallas.

  'I like reading books,' insisted Marlene, 'but I'm more concerned with how to get rid of the cellulite on my thighs. I mean, there's plenty of books around but I've only got this one body.'

  'Art shows us how to transcend the purely physical,' said Gloria loftily.

  'Yes, but Art won't get rid of my cellulite, will it?'

  'Art will help you put your cellulite in perspective,' replied Gloria, wondering for a moment who was feeding her her lines.

  'I don't want to put it in perspective.' Marlene tried to be patient. 'I want to get rid of it.'

  'If you can't get rid of it - and a lot of women can't, you know, no matter how many Swedish bath mitts they buy - Art will help you find other fulfilling ways of being a beautiful person.'

  'Rubbish,' snapped Marlene. 'If I don't get rid of it I'll become bitter and twisted and start interfering with small children,' and she loomed over at Gloria, pulling faces and gnashing her teeth.

  'Now you're being difficult,' sighed Gloria. 'Why don't we play Hang the Man or I Spy?'

  'No, I'd rather play Battleships but we haven't any graph paper, have we?'

  They hadn't, and so they were forced to talk about the Space-Time Continuum, and whether or not you should write books which clearly fixed themselves into time or books which flouted the usual notion of time in an effort to clear the mind of arbitrary divisions.

  'It's not illogical to ignore time, it's anti-logical; and I expect that's quite useful if you have a pedantic mind.'

  'Yes, but would you like to see all the episodes of Dallas in the wrong order?'

  'I don't think it would make much difference,' said Gloria, who no longer had any interest in the fortunes of Sue Ellen. 'But it seems to me that to restrict your fantasy life is the most oppressive form of masochism. And fiction both belongs to and creates fantasy, so why should it not be as wild as your wildest dreams?'

  'Well, I just like things to happen in a line, that's all; and talking of lines, we're at the end of ours. Come on, let's find these hoopoes.' Marlene heaved the cage from the luggage rack and the two of them bundled out onto the platform. 'Got the piece of paper with the details?' Gloria said she had, and they set off into the vast expanses of Nineveh City which, as the Bible tells us, was a city of sin..

  Mrs Munde was standing in Nineveh centre arranging her orange box. It was a collapsible one that the newspaper had given her, and she very much admired it. She was a woman easily preoccupied by technology, hence her intricate and fatal interest in the Hallelujah Hamburger machine. She had been one of the first women in Ur of the Chaldees to embrace fully the electric toaster, and although Noah had subsequently outlawed such quick-meal gadgets from the true believer's kitchen, Mrs Munde had never quite been able to forgive and forget. She enjoyed and made a success of cooking over open fires with the most primitive equipment — indeed, for most of her married life she had been renowned for her versatility with the naked flame and a skewer — but she had dreams: dreams of working in a huge automated kitchen with electronic egg slicer and pre-programmed French dressing. She always repented after such dreams, worked extra hard cleaning the dirtiest leeks and made unnecessary trips to the cesspit. She had hoped that Ham might help her dreams come true without compromising her position as faithful chefette to the servant of the Unpronounceable. She couldn't change the world with one arm though; at least, not gastronomically. She'd once seen a book about people with one arm. It was called Famous Disabilities and it listed everyone who had ever frothed, squinted, fallen over at intervals or had less than their full complement of limbs, and had yet managed to do remarkable things. Remarkable, yes; but none of them had ever invented a dish to melt the heathens' stony hearts, so Mrs Munde was relieved that she had not been put out to grass in that great meadow of neglect but had been given another chance to alter history. The box was a bonus, and as she fitted its last wood-like plastic side she reflected ever-more-gladly on how the Lord understands our little hobby-horses.

  She began to sort out her material. She had her large NAFF banner, specially embroidered by veterans of the Good Fight who still wanted to help with active service; she had a collection box and a tract she had prepared herself called 'Know your enemy' which displayed pictures
of the most common fridge-freezers and their specifications. On the back she'd printed a list of the most tempting frozen foods and their natural alternatives. She was ready to go. Now all she needed was an audience.

  Marlene and Gloria were walking down the street, arguing again, this time about body hair.

  'Listen!' shouted Marlene, already inflamed. 'Don't give me all this natural rubbish. If you had warts growing out of the side of your ears, would you leave them there or would you get them seen to?'

  Gloria said that the type of warts Marlene was describing would be person-specific and therefore belonging to medical science. Body hair was gender-specific and therefore to do with image and cosmetics.

  'You mean,' said Marlene, 'that however you're born is how you've got to stay — buck teeth, spotty, maybe bald, maybe hunchback, perhaps dribbling. Why bother to wear any clothes at all? Why don't we just grow our hair, those of us who can — Gold help the baldies — and run hooting?'

  'I never mentioned hooting,' snapped Gloria. 'I think you're too concerned with the way you look, that's all. I don't care if you've got underarm hair.'

  'You don't care about my cellulite either. As far as you're concerned I could be as matted as a furze with thighs like orange peel as long as I read Northrop Frye.'

  Gloria sighed. 'I just don't see how you can be happy when all you care about is the way you look and whether you should wax, shave or annihilate your underarms.'

  'You seemed to worry about the same things for long enough. What about the hair on your head? What about your nose? What about your cheekbones?' demanded Marlene, poking Gloria hard to press home her point. At least Gloria had the sense to blush, but she was put out. She thought her past belonged to her. She didn't want Marlene reminding her of what she'd been. She had already started to rewrite it in accordance with her future, which included drowning. She wanted to die with integrity. Still, Marlene was right, Gloria had been unfair; and she took her friend's arm and smiled.