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Ilustrated by Paula Youens

JEANETTE WINTERSON

Boating for Beginners

Ilustrated by Paula Youens

 

Copyright © 1985 by Jeanette Winterson

 

For Philippa Brewster and Ezra the White Rabbit


Bags of rocks and chunks of Ararat, Turkey,

that Biblical archaeologists believe

are relics of Noah's Ark have been taken

to the US for laboratory analysis.

The Guardian: 28.8.84


At eighteen she realised that she would never have the bone structure to be decadent...

Years of grimacing in the mirror and covering her face in a solution of bone meal had all been wasted. Her nose was snub, her jaw undistinguished, and she was short.

'It's your own fault, Gloria,' scolded her mother. 'You wouldn't take milk as a child.'

She had dreamed of martyrdom, her elegant profile jutting through the flames; she had dreamed of stardom, eager thousands trying to make their cheekbones just like hers. At the very least she might have been a recluse, casting aquiline shadows across her unswept floor. Now, all these things were closed to her, and what was left? She was moderately intelligent, but not very, she had a way with animals, and she wanted to fall in love. She sat down and accepted her fate. Either she could be a secretary or she could be a prostitute. If she chose the latter there would be the problem of what to wear for work and how to arrange her hair (her recent experiments with ash-blond tint had left her threadbare — she should probably have mixed the powder with water instead of bleach).

'I can wear a headscarf if I'm a secretary,' she told herself. Then, a little sadly, 'There's no such thing as a bald prostitute.'

She knew she would have to settle for less money, but she solaced that blow with thoughts of luncheon vouchers and regular hours. One of her mother's magazines was lying on the floor, and although she knew it would end in tears, Gloria picked it up and turned the pages. It was full of people whose jaws could have been used as scythes. They led rich fulfilling lives doing nothing at all and earning vast sums of money. They offered her their beauty tips, cut-price bath oil, and exclusive revealing interviews about their glittering lives. Quickly, Gloria turned to the problem page: acne, period pains, unwanted body hair, fat husbands, ugly wives. She felt a wave of relief. At least some people were still vile, obscure and blotchy. Not for them glamorous bed-hopping and expensive narcotics. Her mother called it sordid, but she still bought the magazines.

'For the recipes,' she said, whenever she caught Gloria's reproachful eye. Certainly the recipes were magnificent: sorbets smothered in cream, passion fruit dripping with Kirsch, breasts of melon spread with honey. Gloria dreamed the tastes while Mrs Munde carried on steaming fish. Her mother was nothing if not regular.

'Brain food,' she declared, and at other times: 'Fish, the Lord's first born.'

Mother and daughter laboured under a highly complex and entirely different understanding of the nature of their relationship. Often, Gloria would look at her mother and wonder who she was. She had been known to pass her in the street and not recognise her. Mrs Munde, on the other hand, fondly believed they shared a common ground other than the one they were sitting on. That night, as dusk fell, and her mother served up the fish, Gloria felt emotional enough to attempt a conversation. Usually she let her mother talk.



'Mother, have you ever been in love?'

'Of course I have: I was in love with your father. He had legs so fine it was a sin to walk on them. The first time I saw him I was lying face-down in the soil crying my eyes out because I'd lost my grass snake. I looked up and there were his legs going up like columns, and oh, at the very top, his head. I thought I was seeing a vision. He spent all day with me trying to find that snake, and at about half past three, I knew I had fallen in love.'

'Did he love you too?'

'No, I don't think he loved me until I made him my chocolate mousse.'

Gloria nodded slowly, stirring the fish pan with a bit of twig. If it could happen to her mother, surely it could happen to her? Perhaps she would marry her boss? Per­haps he would come in one day, and whisk the scarf from her head (her hair was bound to grow again), then murmur something about her being irresistible. She'd let him take her, right there, in front of the water dispenser and afterwards it would be a large house, babies, and endless barbecues on the lawn.

'Mother, I want to be a secretary,' she announced, suddenly and firmly. Her mother sat up from where she had been drawing dust pictures of her first husband (one of the reasons she enjoyed eating outside was the freedom it gave her to do other things).

'You can't be, it's dangerous, I won't let you, you don't know any shorthand, you'll have to drink instant coffee.'

'No I won't,' said Gloria as reasonably as she knew how. 'I'll take the grinder, and I can learn shorthand at school. I want to live in the city and meet interesting men.'

'Whore!' screamed her mother. 'Why don't you just become a prostitute?'

Gloria didn't want to go through all that again, so she just said, 'I'll come home and visit you, I promise.'

Mrs Munde was beside herself. 'I'm not letting you go and live in the city. It's full of gaming clubs and unmentionable practices; you'll get a disease.'

'I'll be careful. I'll share a flat with another girl.'

The mother burst into floods of tears and started to bang her head against the fish kettle. 'If only your father was alive,' she moaned. 'That I should be left to see my only daughter come to this.'

At that moment a low bellow upstaged the mother's din. Gloria got up.

'I've got to go and give Trebor his supper. It's not fair to keep him waiting.' She hurried over to the outhouse where her elephant was gently swinging his trunk. While she got his food ready Gloria talked over her plans, reassuring Trebor: 'Don't worry, I'll take you with me when I go. We'll find a landlady who doesn't mind pets.' The elephant grunted and together they sank into a daydream of what life would be like in the city...

 

All this was happening a long time ago, before the flood. The Big Flood starring God and Noah and a cast of thousands who never survived to collect their royalty cheques. Of course you know the story because you've read it in the Bible and other popular textbooks, but there's so much more between the lines. It's a block­buster full of infamy, perfidy and frozen food and in just a few hours when you've read this book your life will seem rich and full…

 

Noah was an ordinary man, bored and fat, running a thriving little pleasure boat company called Boating for Beginners. Gaudily painted cabin cruisers took droves of babbling tourists up and down the Tigris and Euphrates, sightseeing. It was a modest but sound operation. Noah worked hard and was not pleased to see the fruits of his labour slipping away into dubious community projects. That was the trouble with Nineveh: it had become a Socialist state full of immigrants, steel bands and Black Forest Gâteau. He didn't mind a piece of cake himself but a woman's place was in the kitchen. He believed that refrigerators had started the long slide into decadence. Work, good labour-intensive work, was what kept a society together; and now with all these convenience foods and ready-mixed cocktails there was too much time for agitation and revolution.

 

 

Today had been especially depressing. He had opened his morning paper to find that the corrupt Nineveh council had approved yet more taxpayers' money to be spent on providing roller skates for outlying villages without proper public transport. He reached for his heart pills; it was really getting a bit much. Suddenly a huge hand poked out of the sky, holding a leaflet. Trembling, Noah took it. It was yellow with black letters and it said, 'I AM THAT I AM, YAHWEH THE UNPRONOUNCEABLE.'

That's what Noah reported at the press conference he held in the lounge bar of his most luxurious cruiser, Nightqueen. He had been chosen, it seemed, to lead the world into a time of peace and prosperity under the guidance of the One True God. Naturally people were curious to know why the Unpronounceable hadn't exposed himself sooner, but Noah told them that only when the time is ripe can miracles happen. The Lord had been graciously biding his time, hoping that mere mortals might sort themselves out, and of course they couldn't: it was still false gods and socialism. Noah admitted that the Unpronounceable had some explaining to do, but they were collaborating on a manuscript that would be a kind of global history from the beginnings of time showing how the Lord had always been there, always would be there and what a good thing this was. They were anxious to make the book dignified but popular, and had decided to issue it by instalments starting with Genesis, or How I Did It.

There were sceptics of course, who claimed that Noah had made up the whole story to get more publicity for his company. Noah had anticipated such ungracious behav­iour from the media, and so at midnight, on the eve of another press conference, he asked everyone to come out on deck and look up. While they were looking up, Noah fell down on his knees and begged his God to have mercy on these sinners, forgive their hard and doubting hearts and show himself in all his glory. There was a distant rumble, the river lit up with a strange luminescence and from out of the sky came a large vibrating cloud. By this time all the hard and doubting hearts had spilt their wine and Noah was shouting: 'Glory, Lord, Glory!' For a few moments the cloud hovered, then veered away in dazzling loops, leaving a message in the night for all to see: GOD IS LOVE, DON'T MESS WITH ME.

'A miracle, a miracle!' screamed Noah. 'Put your donations in the box.'

The next morning Noah began to delegate. He was no longer to be seen checking tarpaulins on the quay, he hired minions for his business, minions for his press releases and an orchestra to take on tour with his forth­coming Glory Crusade. He believed that the personal is political, bought up a national newspaper and began to attack the Nineveh Council for what he called 'wanton and ungodly spending'. To a seeming majority his beliefs and vigorous social attitudes were a welcome relief. There was no need, after all, to be vegetarian, charitable and feminist. Noah promised a return to real values and, if possible, the Gold Standard; and he had the backing of the Unpronounceable who couldn't be wrong because he was God. When the Glory Crusade got under way, Noah found himself leading thousands of people to the knees of the Lord. No one could resist a world where men and women knew exactly what they were doing and who they were doing it for; it made life simple and sunny again.

Of course, there were sacrifices that had to be made, like convenience foods and refrigerators. 'A simple diet,' said Noah, 'is more important than gold.' (He meant this as a metaphor only.) 'A simple diet prepared by a simple wife, these are the corner-stones of a godly life.' Later this became a postcard and a huge success — so much so that Noah followed it up with another postcard showing a plate of green vegetables. Around the border it said, 'In the Eternal City there will be no refrigerators,'

The Glory Crusade toured all the major spots around Ur of the Chaldees, and one night Mrs Munde was drawn inside. She was very impressed — all that white canvas and nice music and young men with regular teeth. She was married, pregnant and bewildered, and when Noah asked if anyone truly wanted to be happy, she put up her hand and lost her heart.

When her daughter was born, her husband had wanted to call the child Veronica after his favourite film star, but the mother knew better than that. The child would be called Gloria after the Glory Crusade, and it was Mrs Munde's one hope that her daughter should serve the Unpronounceable in some spectacular way.

When Gloria was five, Noah had announced his retire­ment from public affairs. He would still make the occasional guest appearance and the crusades would con­tinue without him, but he felt he needed time to himself with the Lord to get on with their book. Genesis or How I Did It had sold out over and over again, as had the second volume Exodus or Your Way Lies There. Noah felt that he and the Lord should concentrate on something a bit more philosophical about the role of priests and things; and then there was the Good Food Guide they were planning: what to eat on a long haul across the desert etc. So with reluctance he was going to be a recluse. As he made this announcement, he also advertised for a personal cook of the very highest standard — which meant cooking over an open fire with the most primitive equipment. Mrs Munde applied because she'd done just that all her life. She got the job.

Thirteen years passed, Mr Munde died of neglect and Gloria grew up thoughtful and a little unbalanced. She was a passionate child and it did her no good at all to read her mother's endless collection of romantic fiction written by Bunny Mix, the most famous romantic novelist of them all. Noah particularly enjoyed having celebrities espouse his cause, and one of the most vocal was Bunny Mix, who believed in the purity of love between men and women, the importance of courtship and the absolute taboo of sex before marriage. She had written almost one thousand novels, all of which had the same plot, but she was clever enough to rotate the colour of the heroine's hair and the hero's occupation so that you never felt you were actually reading the same book twice in a row. Sometimes they were even set in different places. Not only had Bunny made a fortune out of novels; she was also the author of a cookery book and a volume of love letters written by rapists, despots and adulterers to their mis­tresses. She overlooked this contradiction, urging her readers to wallow in the beauty of the prose, which despite all the sinfulness behind it was certainly much better than her own.

It was perhaps this book alone that had saved Gloria from becoming a complete emotional invertebrate. She could quote all of the letters by heart and often did in times of great stress, such times usually being the hours spent in the company of her mother. Because Bunny Mix was such a good friend of Noah's and she often dedicated her books to him as the regenerator (along with herself) of tattered morality, Noah had a whole collection which he generously passed on to Mrs Munde. The mother loved to read them after work, and sometimes she and Gloria would sit by the firelight taking a chapter each and reading aloud.

Mrs Munde had never thought that Gloria would want to leave their little home, especially after she had scrimped and saved to give her trombone lessons so that she could join the Good News Orchestra. The idea of her daughter going to live in the city, never eating properly and most likely meeting an unsuitable man filled her with horror. She had to act quickly, and the only thing she could think of was to speak to Noah as soon as Gloria had settled the elephant and gone to sleep. Noah never slept, so Mrs Munde didn't worry about the time.

When the world was quiet, she put on her hat and coat and set off up the hill to the big house. It was guarded, but after all these years she had no problems getting in. Whether it was her fish or chocolate mousse, Mrs Munde had a place in Noah's affections — not a very large place, more of a studio flat, but he liked to protect his workers and why not give Gloria a job? She could help him with his latest, most sensational and most secret project.

When Mrs Munde came outside again she felt like a young faun in spring. Her worries were over. True, it was not quite what she had had in mind for her child, but as long as Gloria kept up with her trombone and in with Noah she would no doubt be able to improve herself later. Her euphoria was such that even the sight of the elephant gently eating her black-out curtain was too insignificant to give her a headache. She pushed him out of the parlour, lay down on her mat and fell asleep...

Next morning Gloria woke early. She liked the morn­ings, when she could pretend she was the only person on earth apart from a mysterious stranger who left her love notes under convenient stones. She walked for an hour or so, then wandered back to the shack hoping that her mother might be feeling more flexible. Mrs Munde was sitting on the front step making coffee and looking deter­mined. Gloria's heart began to sink.

'Your elephant ate my black-out curtain again last night. I'm going to have it put down.'

'You can't. I love him. He's mine.'

'He's not house-trained, he's too big ... but I'll give you one last chance.' (Gloria noticed her mother had an unusual gleam in her eye.) 'Noah's offered you a nice job working with animals. If you decide to take it you can take the elephant too, he can live in. If not, well,' and Mrs Munde made a sinister slitting noise through her teeth. Gloria felt faint and held onto the barbecue set for support.

'I'm not going to live with that transvestite.'

Mrs Munde thought the world had come to an end. 'What did you call him?'

Gloria mustered all her hormones and started again. 'I said he's a transvestite. Look at his clothes. They're not robes, they're frocks, and he wears stacked heels and make-up.'

'That's just for the newspapers,' snapped Mrs Munde. 'They like him to look tall and healthy. He's a star.'

Gloria fell silent. She didn't know or care what Noah was. She'd read about his habits and preferences — invent­ing strange machines in the middle of the night — in a magazine someone had brought to school, the sort of magazine her mother never allowed in the house. At the time she had been embarrassed because everyone knew her mother was his cook and they all asked her if the report was true. It was the first time that Gloria had been shocked out of her autonomous inner life. She lived at the bottom of a deep pool where her mother and the rest of the world were only seen as vague shadows on the surface. Now she was being forced into a graceless breaststroke to find out what everyone else was talking about.

'I'll leave you to think about it.' Her mother bustled away.

In despair Gloria did a personality test in one of the glossies. She didn't have the drive to be a banker, she didn't have the body to be a croupier and she already knew she didn't have enough hair to be a prostitute. It seemed like she and Trebor would be going to stay with Noah after all. She wasn't religious, because she had always associated that state with fish which she didn't like eating and a musical instrument she hated playing. Still, from what she'd heard Noah wasn't very religious either, and there was always the possibility that she might meet Bunny Mix and get a signed copy. In her own way Gloria was adaptable, and so she began to deflate the balloon that held her vision of the city and puffed away instead on a new one marked 'Noah'.

Like Gloria, Mrs Munde was by nature philosophical and optimistic. She believed in the power of the mind — at least, those minds in harmony with the will of the Unpronounceable. After her meeting with Noah she felt more fulfilled as a mother; she felt she had come closer to grasping that elusive and mythic image most perfectly described in Bunny Mix's novels. Every young girl needed a good mother, a figure who could be both wise and sympathetic, a model for the future and a comfort for the present. Her own mother had been little more than a useless socialite, whose dedication to pleasure had seemed shocking to the impressionable and earnest girl who became Mrs Munde — earnest, because she had wanted more than anything to be an astronomer; indeed she had spent nearly all her youth gazing out of the window, wondering about the nature of the cosmos and how she could truly be part of it. As she grew older and her ambitions remained as distant as their object, she per­suaded herself that this early impulse was really a meta­phor for something else, and when she heard about the Unpronounceable she knew her instinct had been correct.

She was an Astronomer without Telescope. Now the cosmos loomed larger and more definable, and she belonged to it. She had been fixed on the creation when what she was seeking was the creator. Suddenly, her life collapsed into place.

Gloria was more of a problem. As far as Mrs Munde could see, her daughter had no ambition and no faith. It never occurred to her that Gloria had chosen to be nothing in order to avoid being her mother's something. Only by remaining in a vacuum-sealed diving bell could Gloria hope to avoid the storm at sea that was Mrs Munde. And so, Gloria's vision of life was rather like the Lady of Shalott's. She dared not expose herself to the genuine and unruly three-dimensional world that included her mother. If she did that, she had a feeling something awful would become inevitable. Instead, she peered through her misty porthole on the shadowy world and dreamed of being rescued by somebody tall...

What Mrs Munde hadn't yet told Gloria about her new job was the possibility it brought of fame. She wasn't going to clean out the chickens or work with dogs; she was going to be part of a special team who were collecting animals for Noah's latest dazzling venture: a touring stage epic about the world and how the Unpronounceable had made it.

Stunned by the success of their literary collaboration Noah and God had decided to dramatise the first two books, bringing in Bunny Mix to add legitimate spice and romantic interest. The cast would be large, probably most of Ur of the Chaldees, and the animals would take pride of place. The whole show was to tour the heathen places of the world, like York and Wakefield, in a gigantic ship built especially by Noah's most experienced men. As it happened, a film company would be putting the whole thing on camera, not just the play itself but the making of the play, because Noah claimed he was going to carry his ship over a mountain by a miracle. This was thought to be nonsense, but it was bound to make money. There was the problem of casting, but it had been decided, quite fairly, that Noah's three sons and their wives should take the major roles. After all they were a public family, unlikely to be upset by the personal intrusions that accompany stardom. Ham and Shem were to play different aspects of YAHWEH because everyone agreed that God is a multifaceted and complex character who shouldn't be restricted by a single actor. Japeth was to play his father. Excitement was mounting amongst the privileged few who knew how Bunny Mix would interpret the characters of the overthrown goddesses collectively described as The Trivia. They had to be seductive but not too racy, and they had to lose all sympathy before the Unpronounceable finally destroyed them. A difficult task, but Bunny was a wonderful woman.

Mrs Munde mused on what she had been told, longing for the morning when the announcement was officially to be made. Perhaps Gloria would get a small part, maybe as one of the more musical heathen. Even if she didn't she'd still have a break in theatre production, and what mother could do more? She had given her only daughter a proper start in life; she had every right to feel proud.

The morning came, and of course the announcement was in all the papers. The Tablet had an old photograph of Noah raising someone from the dead, and a long description of the play and forthcoming film. The whole town was gossiping and doing their hair in case a scout came by looking for faces. The greatest excitement was generated by the imminent return of Japeth and Ham and Shem with their lovely wives Sheila, Desi and Rita. Japeth the jewellery king, Ham the owner of that prestigious pastrami store, More Meat, and Shem, once playboy and entrepreneur, now a reformed and zealous pop singer.

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be young the very heaven. Ur of the Chaldees looked less and less like an inhabited spittoon and more and more like Milton Keynes as the hours ticked by. Neighbours made friendly gestures and lent one another their lawn mowers, the dustbin men volunteered to return to work without their extra 10 per cent and the Socialist Worker Party Magazine painted their offices. It's extraordinary what Art can do.

Gloria was less certain. She had always considered the theatre a rather risqué profession and she said as much to her mother.

'Don't be silly,' cooed Mrs Munde. 'This isn't State-subsidised Nineveh Council theatre, this is honest profit and the glory of the Lord. You won't find any drugs or loose living, and remember it's being made into a film. You should be thankful for your chances and especially grateful to me.'

For a moment Gloria felt her diving bell keel to one side: her mother had managed to score a direct hit despite eighteen years of careful preparation. Was there no justice in the world? No. She thought about an article she had once seen on mind control. Apparently if there was a person fiendish enough to set about interfering with your life, the only thing you could do was to concentrate hard on someone they were unlikely ever to have heard of called Martin Amis. The particular blankness of this image was guaranteed to protect from any subtle force, but Gloria realised with a sinking heart that it was too late now.

Mrs Munde broke into this miasma. 'You have to go up to the big house in the morning and you'll be told how to get started. I won't be here much myself because Noah wants me to try out a few new recipes that need some invention of his. Do you know he's been inventing in his spare time? No, I don't suppose you do, you never listen to what I tell you. Well Noah's not just religious, he's scientific and he's invented all kinds of things, including a jet-propelled shark to amuse the tourists. He's going to do the special effects for the film. You should be proud, Gloria; I know I am. I look up at the stars, those bright and pleading stars, and I feel proud.' Mrs Munde began to choke and Gloria was forced to approximate intimacy and slap her on the back. She felt about touching her mother the way natives feel about looking into a camera: her soul might be transferred by accident.

'I think I'll go to bed,' she said, 'so that I can do my best in the morning,' and she folded the night around her with something like hope. Surely things couldn't get worse?

 

'I was like a disaster looking for somewhere to happen,' said Doris, which seemed to Gloria a very intimate and surprising thing for a perfect stranger to say. They were standing in a long room in Noah's house and Doris was doing the dusting. 'I've been hired, same as you, to help with the arrangements, so we're going to see a lot of each other.'

Gloria wasn't sure which question to ask first; she wanted to know about Doris and her disastrous self, but she needed to know what these arrangements were. Not used to making choices, Gloria just frowned. It had started to dawn on her as she surfaced from her pool that she was remarkably under-equipped to deal with life as it is lived. Her own world had been perfectly ordered and very clean because she had assembled it from a kit composed of spiritual certainties and romantic love. It didn't matter that she hardly believed in God and had only ever received one valentine. What did matter was the voltage of faith she injected into every worn-out cliche. A rose is a rose is a rose.

'Yes,' continued Doris, 'all my life I've hovered over happiness like a black cloud. Whatever I've touched has turned to dross.'

('Dross?' wondered Gloria, too nervous to interrupt.)

'I used to be rich and beautiful. I took my holidays in Andorra, and now I have to use a false name just to get a cleaning job. I don't think it's my fault. We're all drunken mice running round on the wheel of fortune and some of us are lucky and some of us aren't.'

Lucky. This was one word Gloria recognised. She clutched at it.

'Don't you feel lucky then?'

Doris gave a hard and bitter laugh. 'My first husband died on our honeymoon, my second suffocated at a fancy-dress party and my eldest boy is an accountant.'

There was a silence while Gloria hopped from foot to foot, trying to design her first social response. Unaware of this new architecture going on around her Doris felt the silence compelled her to continue.

'I've learned something though. I think of myself as a student of life. I suppose you could call me an organic philosopher.'

'Do you understand the Meaning of Life?' blurted out Gloria. She knew that everyone sought this mysterious meaning because it was in all the magazines. Every month there was an article on how to be fulfilled and what to invest in when you were. Gloria felt tense at the thought of being offered a fully inflated lifebelt to help her nego­tiate the pool.

'The Meaning of Life,' began Doris slowly, 'is death.' Gloria looked blank. 'All your clothes are rotting, all your food is putrefying, you're covered in dead skin and your bowels are full of muck. Why try and pretend? No wonder we don't have an easy life.'

'What about freezer food? That's not rotting.' Gloria hoped her mother couldn't hear.

'I'm not talking about things that have been interfered with. I'm talking about Essences. Decay is the key; once you've come to terms with decay not much can disappoint you. Your house will crumble, your friends will die. Nothing remains. Can you think of anything permanent?' She turned on Gloria with a challenging duster.

 

 

'Washing up,' cried Gloria wildly. 'There's always wash­ing up to do. No matter how much you manage, there's always more.'

Doris was thoughtful. 'Washing up as a Metaphor. I can see what you mean.' Gloria had said the right thing. It had never happened to her before and she actually felt rather tearful.

It's fortunate that our dangerously emotional moments are often punctured by Gross Reality (one reason for the Shakespearean fool). The lives of fanatics are usually rather low on Gross Reality, which allows them to take their visions too seriously. Joan of Arc or Mary Baker Eddy might have found their personal lives less compli­cated if, say, either of them had had a bowel complaint or a passion for chocolate milkshakes. If Gloria had been left untended a moment longer the effect of that first wave of social rapport might have drowned her for good; but by a miracle she survived, and that miracle appeared in the form of Rita, Sheila and Desi, fresh from the hairdresser's.

Rita was dark-skinned with a bush of orange hair and matching painted fingernails. Gloria had never seen anyone wearing a leopard-skin dress in the day before. Even the models in the magazines wore them against a photo-background that was clearly night. Exhausted from her recent efforts Gloria found she could think of nothing to say, so she turned to stare at Sheila who was very fat and covered from head to foot in solid gold. She had a snake torque round her neck, snakes dangling from her ears, snake ankle chains and something like a boa constric­tor round her middle. She was the most unsnakelike creature Gloria had ever seen. Beside these two, Desi appeared relatively normal, clad as she was in a designer-cut suede cat suit. Gloria noticed that she wasn't wearing make-up but that her hair was probably henna'ed.

'Hi,' said Sheila. 'Guess you know who we are because we're wearing our badges. You should have a name badge too if you're working here. Are you with the film crew or the stage hands?'

'Neither,' said Doris loudly. 'I'm here to do the cleaning and she's here for ...' Doris stopped as she realised she had no idea who she'd been talking to, but then, she thought to herself, knowing is a superficial position to assume, most commonly in fact a deception. Comforted by this she went back to her dusting, but Sheila vulgarly pursued the point. 'So tell us, skinny, what do you do here? We don't know anyone. We've just arrived.'

('Americans,' thought Doris. 'Typical.')

Gloria breathed deeply twice and concentrated on Martin Amis in an effort to clear her mind. 'I'm here to help with the animals.'

'Shit,' said Sheila, 'you a zoo keeper?'

'No.' Gloria was getting agitated. 'My mother's a cook and I've got an elephant that needs a home and they told me I could bring him with me if I came to work here. I only started this morning and I'm waiting for someone to tell me what to do next.' Gloria wasn't aware of it, but she had just summed up her whole life in one sentence.

'Well, you won't have much animal work for this week; they're still building the set. Tell you what, you can help the girls and me check out our franchises. We're not just film stars, we've got business on our minds as well, ain't that right?'

'Right,' agreed Rita.

('No sense of proportion,' thought Doris bitterly, as she dusted a map of the world as dictated by the Unpronounceable.)

'What do you do?' asked Gloria timidly.

'One of the things we do is to run a kind of clinic, a place to help people who have problems, personal prob­lems with their bodies and themselves. We used to do it just as a hobby but the thing took off and now it's so popular we have to franchise out. We're taking this opportunity to visit our branches and maybe put in a few guest appearances. You can come along, take notes, make coffee, go out for sandwiches.'

'Like a secretary,' whispered Gloria to herself, feeling better.

'Meet us down town first thing tomorrow, outside the Pizza Hut,' ordered Sheila, and the three of them left.

Doris poked her tufted head round the bust of Noah as a young man. 'What kind of people do they think they are? Coming in here ordering me about. You should have refused. I always do. Whenever I'm asked to step outside my Union-defined bounds I refuse, otherwise it's only a matter of time and we workers will be back on collar and lead.'

'I don't belong to a union,' explained Gloria.

'You what! You don't belong to a union and you don't know anything about the transience of existence! No wonder you haven't got on in the world. You're a fool to yourself.' But Gloria didn't care. Any port in a storm.

 

Spiritual empathy, coincidence, or sheer bloody-minded-ness meant that Mrs Munde was having a difficult time of it too. She had gone up to the house to make scrambled eggs with wheatgerm and found Noah's eldest son, Ham, wandering around her primitive kitchen. Naturally she felt aggrieved. Some places you share with others and some you don't. A room of her own was important to Mrs Munde. She liked to think or to look at her plan of the constellations when she had a spare moment. Now it was going to be small talk and a smiling face when she could have been studying Orion. She decided to make as much noise and mess as possible in order to drive the stranger away. Accordingly she began to sing the overture from Carmen while spilling a pail of milk. Ham didn't seem to notice. He was fiddling with some new kitchen item which Mrs Munde assumed to be the promised gadget invented by Noah. A sense of social hierarchy prevented Mrs Munde from actually telling the lousy bastard to get out, so instead she began to think evil thoughts. She had once read an article on mind control, explaining that the best way to bend someone to your will was to think of a gooey mudlike substance called Cliff Richard and direct it at the object of your intent. Such were the marshmallow-suffocating properties of this image that the victim fell instantly into an undignified froth. Putty in your hands in fact. It didn't seem to work. The stranger was insensitive as well as intrusive. Mrs Munde gave it one last go till the kitchen air was thick with Cliff Richard. The stranger suddenly made a little squeaking noise and fell sideways. 'Stop it, stop it!' he cried. 'You're pulping my brain.' 'Well go away then,' sulked Mrs Munde, releasing her victim, not through generosity but because she found the image too nauseating to continue.

'But I've got something very exciting to say. This conversation could change your life.'

'I've got all the insurance I need,' said Mrs Munde stiffly.

'Lady, I'm not here to sell you anything. I'm here to give you something.'

Mrs Munde looked up into Ham's dark brown eyes, and with a wave of affection that began in her throat and sank to her apron pocket, she felt she might trust this man. Perhaps he had been sent by the Lord. Perhaps he was an angel in disguise come to test her spirit.

'Why don't I take us both for a cup of coffee?' he suggested.

'It's happening to me!' Mrs Munde thrilled inside. 'I've read about it and now it's happening. Perhaps I've been chosen for the Bunny Mix Romance Show.'

The Bunny Mix Romance Show was a very popular afternoon programme in which a woman would be pleas­antly accosted by a mysterious tall figure. If she behaved in a fitting and simpering manner a number of boys would then rush onto the set singing in barbershop harmony and strewing flowers. The lucky woman would then be taken out to dinner and given a signed copy in calfskin of her favourite Bunny novel. If she behaved rudely a bucket of custard was poured over her from behind. It was possible that Mrs Munde had already qualified for the custard, which made her nervous because she was allergic to milk. Still, perhaps she could make up for her recent ill temper; and after all, she had never been taken out for a cup of coffee.

As they set off together Ham explained who he was, and Mrs Munde was caught between a welter of disap­pointment that she wasn't on the Bunny Mix Show after all, and a deluge of wonder that someone so rich and well connected should want to be with her. She decided to be happy.

Ham ordered a double espresso for him and a cappuc­cino for her. 'Mrs Munde,' he began earnestly, 'do you honestly care about the Lord?'

'Oh I do, I do. No one more.'

Ham nodded and smiled. 'Do you think you would like to serve more fully in countless little ways?'

'Oh I would, I would. It's my dearest wish.'

'Do you think you could cope with long hours and hardship for his sake?'

'Mr Ham, I could cope with a bed of nails for his sake.' (Like Gloria, Mrs Munde was given to bouts of emotional hyperbole.)

'Our God is not a namby-pamby socialist idol, Mrs Munde. He demands we use our brains, our business brains for greater glory and greater profit. He asks us to be worthy of him, and he has said that whatever we do he will bless.'

'The Lord blesses me,' interjected Mrs Munde fervently.

'You may know that I own a fabulously large, forever-expanding chain of pastrami stores called More Meat. I own those stores for His Sake, not my own. He has guided me through the money markets and the loopholes in the Health and Safety Regulations because he is more than YAHWEH, the God of Love, he is YAHWEH the Omnipotent Stockbroker and YAHWEH the Omniscient Lawyer. (Praise Him.) Now he is guiding me to a new place, a place of peace and prosperity because he saw how I was crying out when my profits fell and I couldn't afford to worship him in the style I had promised. He came to me in a vision as I stood over my bank statement and he said, "HAM, THERE IS NO FIXED MINIMUM WAGE IN THE CATERING INDUSTRY." Those were his very words, and I fell on my knees crying, "Thank you, Lord. I will start up a chain of restaurants in your name and I'm going to call them House of Trust and Fortitude." What do you think, Mrs Munde?'

'I think you have the Lord with you mightily, sir,' sighed Mrs Munde. Ham saw that they were both overcome, so he ordered two more coffees. Gulping down his fresh espresso he fixed his magnetic gaze back on Mrs Munde's shining face.

'I need your help. You can cook over an open flame like no other woman of the Lord I know. My father trusts you. I want you to help me prepare and patent a menu in keeping with our faith — though of course we'll have to buy the materials in bulk which might mean a slight drop in standards, but nothing to worry about, and we'll have to be able to work quickly. That machine in your kitchen. It's a hamburger press and I want it for the staple item on our menu, the Hallelujah Hamburger, served with fries and mixed salad. What do you say?'

What could she say? All her life she'd been hungry for a role. She had felt fulfilled in Noah's kitchen, but to be an Evangelist in the kitchens of the world, that was a calling. She straightened her back and smiled.

'I want to do His Will, and I see that, like your father, you have the Spirit of the Unpronounceable. Whatever I can do for you will be a service and a joy.'

Together they walked back to the kitchen and Ham showed Mrs Munde how to use Noah's invention. It was rather like a cement mixer at one end where the meat had to be funnelled, and at the other end a squat attachment plopped out the hamburger cakes.

'Be careful,' warned Ham, 'the motor's very powerful. Now why don't you see how many you can produce in an hour? I'll come back.'

Left alone, Mrs Munde sat down on her favourite stool and opened her astronomy book for comfort. She was overwhelmed. 'The Unpronounceable has chosen me,' she thought. 'If only he chooses Gloria too.'

 

Gloria had a restless night. She dreamed she was walking in a forest of sugar cane and whenever she opened her mouth to say something all her teeth fell out. Struggling from this sticky dream she slid over the edge of her hammock and tried to remember the important words she had been unable to speak. She opened and shut her mouth a few times beginning each sentence with 'I', and suddenly, like a medium with a message from the other side, she said, in spite of herself, 'I want to be a success.' No sooner had she spoken these words than a bright orange demon hovered in front of her nose holding a pen and a bit of paper. 'Just sign here,' it told her cheerfully. 'There's more to life than honest toil.'

'What am I doing?' asked Gloria, becoming more her usual self again.

'You're making an investment,' replied the shiny crea­ture. 'I promise you, you won't regret this. Your life is about to change.' Feebly Gloria signed and flopped back into a deep sleep. Did she dream it or did it happen?

 

While a team of highly trained non-union carpenters sawed and planed at Noah's Ark, Gloria waited outside the Pizza Hut hoping no one would take her for a waitress. The trio of wives appeared in similarly alarming outfits, slapped her on the back and took her round to a side door.

'In our kind of business you can't be too careful. People like to think they come to therapy unobserved, but you'll learn.' Sheila was cheerful.

Inside, Gloria saw a set of rooms tastefully decorated in a very pale green. There was a long green couch and a number of attractive pot plants.

'This is one of our most successful sublets because it's in a rich part of town, and there does seem to be a relationship between wealth and the inner life. If you aren't rich you don't tend to want a shrink. Don't ask me why not, it's just one of those strange and wonderful little equations.'

Gloria was thankful that Desi was a little more lucid than her relations. At least she now had some idea of what was going on.

'We handle people who can't come to terms with either their sexuality or their chosen expression of it,' she continued.

Then Rita butted in: 'Yeah, we tell them that we're all God's children and they can have a great time just as they are. We don't lay anything heavy on them.'

Gloria wondered how Noah reacted to such an attitude in his daughter-in-law.

'Oh, he knows what we do. It's just a different end of the business. Noah doesn't contradict himself. Like the great Unpronounceable, he contains multitudes.'

Dimly Gloria began to perceive a world of affairs beyond her previous dreams. She realised that there is no such thing as a standard. Oddly enough, her heart gave a little skip.

'I've arranged for you to take Fatima's clients for the day, Desi,' said Rita. 'You know most of them and they'll be pleased to see you. We'll meet you for some food up front at six-ish.'

Desi nodded and suggested that Gloria stay with her. Just after the other two had left, there was a tap at the door and a very attractive woman of about thirty glided inside. She sat down in the chair while Desi lay on the couch; and after a few pleasantries and a brief explanation of why she wasn't seeing Fatima, the woman began her story.

'It's been a dreadful week. I can't tell you how dreadful, but I'm going to have a try. You will know from my case notes that my life is ruined by fantasies, fantasies of a particular nature.' (She lowered her voice.) 'These fanta­sies are about my piano teacher, a bitter blow because I started to learn the piano as a diversion from my previous set of wicked daydreams which involved the boy at our local garden centre — you know my husband has a prize exhibit.' Desi nodded and looked concerned. The woman's face twisted into an expression of pain. 'I could cope with my little thoughts if they didn't intrude so much on my daily life, but now, every time I hear piano music, I have an orgasm — at least I think that's what I have. The problem is they play piano music all the time in the supermarket I use and I find it very difficult to concentrate on my shopping and Gordon, my husband, is very particu­lar about his food. Only yesterday I went in there to buy for a dinner party and I came home with two hundred sachets of lime jelly. I couldn't help it, I was just throwing things into the trolley. The neighbours will notice soon, and I dread meeting anyone I know in there.' She burst into tears and Desi motioned for Gloria to pass the paper hankies.

'You don't have a problem,' Desi said soothingly. 'You need a set of earplugs for potentially dangerous situations; otherwise you should go out and buy all the piano music you can find and make the most of what is quite an unusual experience.'

The woman looked startled. 'Do you really think I'm normal?'

'I think you're normal and lucky,' said Desi firmly. 'Only 35 per cent of all women experience orgasm regu­larly and 95 per cent of those are self-induced.'

The woman got up and put on her gloves. 'I'm going to the record shop right now and on the way back I'll get those plugs you mentioned and do the shopping. Gordon won't notice, will he?'

'No,' smiled Desi. 'I shouldn't think Gordon will notice a thing.'

Gloria was bewildered again. She had read about orgasms but she thought they were something you only had with men, and only when you were very much in love. She didn't know that you could have them by yourself or in the supermarket. Bunny Mix sometimes spoke of the strange thunderclap on the wedding night, when the bride more or less melted and her new husband rolled over in tenderness and triumph — because of course the girl had never before experienced the feeling of true love. Her mother had always told her never to touch herself 'down there' and gestured in the region of her apron pocket. Gloria knew what she meant, and she didn't even look at it in the bath in case vulgar curiosity should spoil her own wedding night.

'Do they all talk about orgasms?' she asked Desi, getting the word out with difficulty.

'Most of the time, yes. But so do we all, except that we aren't usually paying for it.'

'I don't.' Gloria was prim.

'That's because you've probably never wanted one.' Desi was teasing but kind. 'Sex is the only thing in life worth getting emotional about. It's the only thing in life you should pursue with all your resources. Work is fine, friends are valuable, but sex is dynamite. It stops you going mad.'

Gloria had heard it drove you mad. Bunny Mix called it a terrifying force and cautioned all her readers not to be ensnared too soon. She felt that even in marriage it should be measured out; otherwise, she said, it made you limp and without ambition if you were male, unnatural if you were female. Babies, she said, should keep your mind off it.

Desi smiled. 'I like to break down, to forget myself. I can only do that when another person is affecting me in a way I can't resist. It's therapy, if you like; perfect and total therapy.'

This was all a bit intimate for Gloria who preferred the passive, unimaginable notion of being thunderclapped. If Bunny Mix was false, whom was she going to trust? The roses round her heart shrank a little and she resolved to read one of her old favourites as soon as she could get home.

As she fed herself this emotional Baby Bio, the door opened and a tall person with broad shoulders and expen­sive clothes walked into the middle of the room. She took one look at Desi and leapt on her like a labrador. 'Denise, it's you! You've come back to me! 1 knew you would, oh I knew you would. There is a God after all.'

'Hi Marlene,' grinned Desi, disentangling herself. 'We're all back for the film. You must have heard about it.'

'Of course I have,' said Marlene crossly. 'Some of my pottery will be in it, but I didn't think you'd be visiting the clinic. Good, I can tell you all my troubles — and I've got a lot, darling.' She sat down in an elegant heap, then noticed Gloria. 'Who's this?' she demanded.

This is Gloria, my assistant. Talk to her while I have a pee.'

'She's so coarse,' grumbled Marlene,' 'but I love her. Now what can I tell you about myself? Well, I make designer pots for the most exclusive shop in Nineveh. It helps me to keep calm because I'm a very nervous person who needs a lot of encouragement, so when people tell me how lovely my pots are I feel I can live another day. I used to be a swimmer, one of those synchronised swim­mers, but that had to stop when they found out I was having surgery. I mean they weren't nasty or anything, just said that I couldn't compete as a man if I had breasts. They said they gave me extra buoyancy. Now that I'm all woman I haven't the heart to start again. I like the pots more. What do you do in your spare time?'

Gloria thought she was going to die. How did priests ever cope with confessions? They probably didn't. They probably fainted behind the curtain and never told any­body. The person she was sitting next to had no gender identity and still expected Gloria to be able to talk about her hobbies. There must be limits in the world somewhere, she cried to herself. Why had she become the plaything of anarchic forces? Perhaps it was some evil dream or some unscrupulous mind pushing against her own. She no longer had any faith in Martin Amis. All she could do was wait for Desi to come back from the toilet and rescue her. She did.

'So what's the problem, Marlene? You've had the operation, it went well, and I know my sister's a fine needlewoman.'

'Denise,' began Marlene, 'I want it back.'

There was a moment's silence, during which Gloria underwent several reincarnations and returned to her chair weaker than ever.

'Of course, I don't mean the same one: Any one would do, even a smaller one, just so that I could feel it was there. Oh I know I'm wicked and ungrateful but I can hardly walk without it. I used to call it my sleeping snake and now there's only a nest.'

Desi walked over to the couch and sat beside Marlene. She looked worried. 'Marlene, how do you feel about your breasts?'

'Denise, I love my breasts. I go to sleep holding them. I don't want to lose them. I just want it back as well.'

'All right, but there are a few things you should know. First, it's going to be expensive; second, we probably don't have the right colour, and third, it might not work.'

'Oh, I don't care about that,' breathed Marlene. 'I only want it for decoration, so it might be quite nice to have it in a different shade.'

'Come for a pizza at six and talk to Sheila about it,' arranged Desi. 'We'll do what we can.'

When Marlene had left to visit her dentist, Gloria sat back and sighed. 'Desi, are there really people who . ..'

Desi interrupted her. 'There are always people who ... whatever you can think of. Whatever combination, innovation or desperation, there are always people who ...'

'Right,' decided Gloria with a sudden firmness. 'I'll find out,' and her breaststroke assumed a new and purposeful character that almost resembled direction.

 

Mrs Munde was having trouble with the Hallelujah Ham­burger. Noah's machine was slow, messy and smelly. She could have whipped them up quicker with a pastry mould. Truth to tell she was finding the Lord's work altogether tedious. When Ham came back for the third time, she told him they should scrap the machine.

'We can't,' he explained patiently. 'Machines mean cheaper labour. To do this by hand, even if it is quicker, will cost more because it comes under the category of skilled rather than operative work. They'll start calling themselves chefs and asking for a share in the profits. I want menials and that means machine work.'

'Well, you're going to have to improve it,' panted Mrs Munde. 'You can't run a business with this.'

Ham thought she was probably right and took the machine away to one of the Ark engineers. If they could power a boat surely they could improve a hamburger machine. He generously gave Mrs Munde the afternoon off. This cheered her up because she wanted to knock down her kitchen which had been oppressing her for some time. She felt the need for open spaces as she got older, perhaps so that she could look at the stars and dwell on her life. Gloria hated her mother's demolition projects and so Mrs Munde tried to do them as surreptitiously as possible, but given the nature of demolition work found that quite difficult.

She hurried home and collected her axe. 'Nasty pokey place,' she muttered. 'It's not hygienic to be confined, especially in the warm weather. I'll soon have it down,' and she started to chop at the bamboo walls.

Once upon a time her friends would have come to help her, but people had changed - or rather fridges had changed them. Mrs Munde felt that being able to store food for longer periods had broken down the community spirit. There was no need to share now, no need to meet every day, gathering your veg or killing a few rabbits. The day-to-dayness had gone out of life. Everyone lived apart in their own little house with their own little fridges. Noah was doing his best, but greed and iniquity were catching up again. There had been a boom in freezer food over the last couple of years. That was probably why Noah had decided to launch his all-singing, all-dancing stage-and-screen epic in a last attempt to thaw out the world's hard and sinful heart.

Mrs Munde was so carried away with her thoughts and her demolition that she didn't hear Gloria come home. Gloria had decided not to move to Noah's, although the stabling for Trebor was much better there. Taking one look at her mother's handiwork, she swung up the ladder into her bedroom and started to root through the trunk that contained their vast collection of Bunny Mix ephem­era. She found the one she wanted and squatted in an corner, trying not to get too excited. It was called Moon­light Over The Desert, and had won the Purple Heart Award for best romantic fiction. She read the blurb half-aloud to better appreciate the sensuous prose...

'"When slim brunette Naomi travels across the desert with her uncle's caravan she doesn't expect to find true love. A mysterious thunderstorm forces the party to take shelter in a nomadic village, a place of sultry tradition where she meets Roy, the most fearless camel tamer of them all."'

The first chapter was called 'Into the desert' and, as she read, Gloria began to sink into that semi-hypnotic state she always experienced with Bunny Mix and her magic...

 

'I do think, Naomi,' scolded her Aunt Ruth, 'that you might be a bit more enthusiastic about this trip. Your uncle has gone to a lot of trouble to arrange it for you.'

Naomi looked up from her toast, her pretty face spoiled by a scowl. She was a slightly built girl with a weak heart, beautiful hair and piercing green eyes. Her skin glowed with the bloom of youth. Her aunt, watching her, felt a sudden twinge of envy. She remem­bered her own youth and her excitement at falling in love. She had told the story to her niece many times: how she had met Reuben at a cattle fair, how he had stood a head taller than any of the others, what a way he had with the heifers and what a gentleman he had been when she had fallen into the cesspit. They had walked out together for a year, then one night when the air was thick with bird song and warm rain he had asked her to marry him. She had accepted, and on their wedding night, after he had gently pulled back the sheets, she had felt a thunderclap melting her and a thick tenderness deep inside. It was like a fairy tale, and of course love is like a fairy tale, as she always told her niece.

Naomi knew what her aunt was thinking and she didn't care. She wanted to feel her own pulse beat, her own heart race. Why did they have to pack her off on a sight-seeing tour in the desert when she really wanted to go to Monte Carlo and meet a man who owned racehorses. That was the trouble with relatives; they thought they knew best. She was a headstrong young woman who liked to go fishing and make her own clothes, and although she had no idea what love could really mean she felt certain that she wasn't going to find it in the middle of the desert with her uncle.

Naomi's aunt sighed and started to clear the breakfast things. She had enough to do without worrying about her niece. There was the laundry and the dishes, and the packed lunches for her sons, and Reuben's clothes to put out, and oh, the hundred and one little things that come with marriage. She liked it, it gave her a sense of purpose.

When she had gone out of the room her niece gazed into the mirror, trying to decide whether or not she was beautiful. She had a good figure, and was thought to be unusually intelligent, but was she beautiful? This was what she ached to know.

Soon it was time to join the caravan. She watched the servant boys swing up bales of straw and provisions. One of them caught her eye and grinned. She blushed. He had warm brown skin and a furry neck, but she would not lower herself from her class. She heard her uncle's voice: 'Naomi, are you ready? We need to be well away before dark.'

'Ready, Uncle,' she shouted, skipping towards him.

'Really,' he thought, feeling his age, 'she is lovely.'

Then they were off, rolling across the dunes as the sun spread into the glory that is the desert at dusk. Naomi sniffed the air: it was fresh and exciting. She would sleep that night dreaming of princes on well-muscled steeds.

The next day, as she ate kippers with her uncle, she noticed that he seemed preoccupied. 'What is it, Uncle Reuben?' she asked with sympathy in her voice.

'Oh, nothing I hope, just the chance of a storm. But we'll get on as quickly as we can; there's an oasis town a few miles south of here.'

Naomi felt a rush of blood. An oasis town! She had heard of them, where custom had remained unchanged for hundreds of years, and the men still carried off their brides for a honeymoon of passion behind the rocks. Long before nightfall they reached the camp, the white tents glittering and dignified under the powerful sun. 'You have to watch out for some of these chaps,' her uncle warned. 'They're friendly enough but their passions are strong. Be polite, but remember your honour.'

The chief came out from one of the tents and made signs of welcome. Naomi was thrilled. She could smell the animals, the cooking, and that different enticing scent of men in the desert. Suddenly she felt very young and asked to go and lie down. Her uncle arranged everything for her and they agreed to meet at sundown for supper. Naomi fell into a fitful sleep where she dreamed anxiously about her wardrobe. What should she wear to make an impact? Every young woman wants her first important entrance to be a success and Naomi was typical of anyone who has found themselves in a Bedouin camp without an iron. Finally, when she awoke she decided on her light silk dress specially designed to resist wrinkles. She matched it with a simple string of pearls and tied up her hair perfectly but casually. After about three hours she was satisfied that she looked as if she had made the minimum effort and achieved spectacular results. She wanted to be thought natural.

As she walked into the supper tent every eye turned to stare at her, and those admiring but uncivilised men could hardly quiet their admiration. For a few moments their whistling and lip-smacking deafened her, but her uncle bent over and told her to take it as a compliment. She noticed he seemed upset.

The meal lasted for hours, with every kind of delicacy offered to please her. At last, with the impatience of youth, she got up to take some fresh air. Once outside the tent she was overwhelmed by the menacing beauty of the desert: the timeless sand, the leering palms. She shuddered, and felt a hand against her bare shoulder.

'Forgive me.' A rich warm voice spoke. 'My name is Roy and I thought you might like some company. I am known to my tribe as a camel tamer.'

As she looked into his eyes, she knew he was more than just a passing stranger. Far away, the moon rose across acres of quiet sand. The storm had passed and the world lay still. He took her hand.

'Perhaps you would like to come to my tent? I have a fine collection of Arab weavings.'

Unable to speak she nodded her assent, and felt safe by his side as they turned from the communal dwellings into the private spaces of privilege. Naomi was used to wealth, but even she was amazed at the splendour Roy called his tent. Everywhere she saw gold and ivory and jewels without price. Roy noticed her surprise and, laughing softly, explained, 'I am more than just a camel tamer, I am also a very rich prince.'

Naomi felt inward relief. Surely now there could be no opposition to their union? But was she being too presumptuous? After all, she didn't even know if she was beautiful.

'You are the loveliest woman I have ever seen,' said Roy softly. 'Would you, perhaps, be my wife?' He waited, head bowed, not daring to look at her. He waited for at least five minutes, and still she had not answered. Bravely, he raised his eyes, and saw that she had entirely fainted away. He roused her with the scent of desert thistle, and as she regained consciousness she was saying, 'Yes, oh yes, I do so want that,' and his heart was glad.

They spent the rest of the night planning their future, lying side by side on deep cushions, but the morning brought a problem neither of them had expected. Her uncle refused his consent. Naomi fell weeping to the floor. She begged him, and promised to visit him regu­larly, but it was of no use. Finall


Date: 2016-01-03; view: 930


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