Free Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson Page A

for buns.
    The conference was booked for a Saturday, and there was always a market near Infant Street on Saturdays, so my mother gave me an orange box, and told me to shout at everyone what was happening. I had a bad time. Most of the street traders told me I was in their way, that they had paid to be there, that I hadn’t, and so on. I didn’t mind the abuse, I was well used to it, and never thought it personal, but it was raining and I wanted to do a good job. Eventually Mrs Arkwright from the Factory Bottoms shop took pity on me. She had a stall at the weekend mostly with pet food though she would advise on vermin if it was urgent.
    ‘I like my little break,’ she said.
    She let me put my orange box inside the shelter of her stall, so that I could give out tracts without getting too wet.
    ‘Tha mother’s mad, tha knows,’ she kept saying.
    She might have been right, but there was nothing I could do about it.
    I was relieved when two o’clock came and I could go inside with the rest.
    ‘How many tracts did you give out?’ demanded my mother, who was hovering by the door.
    ‘All of them.’
    She softened. ‘Good girl.’
    Someone started playing the piano just then, so I hurried inside. It was very gloomy with lots of pictures of the apostles. The sermon was on perfection, and it was at this moment that I began to develop my first theological disagreement.
    Perfection, the man said, was a thing to aspire to. It was the condition of the Godhead, it was the condition of the man before the Fall. It could only be truly realized in the next world, but we had a sense of it, a maddening, impossible sense, which was both a blessing and a curse.
    ‘Perfection,’ he announced, ‘is flawlessness.’
    Once upon a time, in the forest, lived a woman who was sobeautiful that the mere sight of her healed the sick and gave a good omen to the crops.
    She was very wise too, being well acquainted with the laws of physics and the nature of the universe. Her great delight was to spin, and to sing songs as she turned the wheel. Meanwhile, in a part of the forest that had become a town, a great prince roamed sadly along the corridors of his palace. He was considered by many to be a good prince, and a valuable leader. He was also quite pretty, though a little petulant at times.
    As he walked, he spoke aloud to his faithful companion, an old goose.
    ‘If only I could find a wife,’ he sighed. ‘How can I run this whole kingdom without a wife?’
    ‘You could delegate?’ suggested the goose, waddling beside as best she could.
    ‘Don’t be silly,’ snapped the prince. ‘I’m a real prince.’
    The goose blushed.
    ‘The problem is,’ continued the prince, ‘there’s a lot of girls, but no one who’s got that special something.’
    ‘What’s that then?’ panted the goose.
    The prince gazed into space for a moment, then flung his body to the turf.
    ‘Your hose has split, sire,’ hissed his companion, embarrassed.
    But the prince took no notice.
    ‘That special something . . .’ He rolled over, and propped himself on an elbow, motioning the goose to do the same.
    ‘I want a woman, without blemish inside or out, flawless in every respect. I want a woman who is perfect.’
    And he buried his face in the grass and began to cry.
    The goose was much moved by this display, and shuffled off to see if she could find some advisors.
    After a long search, she stumbled on a clump of them under the royal oaks, playing bridge.
    ‘The prince wants a wife.’
    They looked up as one man.
    ‘The prince wants a wife,’ she repeated, ‘and she must bewithout blemish inside or out, flawless in every respect. She must be perfect.’
    The youngest advisor got out his bugle horn and sounded the cry. ‘For a wife,’ he shouted. ‘Perfect.’
    For three years the advisors roamed the land to no avail. They found many lovely and virtuous women, but the prince refused them all.
    ‘Prince, you’re a fool,’ said the goose one day. ‘What