Boating for Beginners

by Winterson, Jeanette

  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 lu
xurious 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'.