Boating for Beginners

by Winterson, Jeanette

  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 exper
ience 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 ep
ic 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.