Free Boating for Beginners by Jeanette Winterson Page B

famous adaptation by the rabbit of romance, but she preferred the original which had some human drama and more than a touch of grand hyperbole. Noah and his cosmic friend had a way with words that Bunny lacked. She kept trying to make the thing progress — first there was this, then that, then the conclusion. In the original Genesis or How I Did It, events, people and places had been lumped together purely for dramatic effect. Doris admired that; it showed a magnificent lack of concern for order and common sense. She wasn't a believer herself because she didn't like mixing politics with poetry, and she felt that Noah had gone too far, trying to take over the world and change everything. He should have been content to stay a cult figure and write extravagant best sellers. She wondered how much his sons had influenced him, and whether his retirement was more to do with letting them get on with it. That was probably it, she thought, given how pushy they all were. And the wives; if only they could have a nasty accident in a dark place.
    Doris was old enough to remember the time when Noah had made his first announcement about the One True God on board Nightqueen. The cloud trick had been the clincher. However had he persuaded the Creator of the universe to appear in a fluorescent cloud and do some fancy sky writing? He deserved to be successful with contacts like that. Then there had been the Glory Crusade and the move towards a religious and political coup. Maybe it had done some good, helped a few people, but she still felt it a pity that someone who had such a way with words should turn out to be a lousy fascist bastard.
    Noah was right wing, suspicious of women and totally committed to money as a medium for communication. Yet when he spoke he charmed. He could transform his audiences' dull grey lives for an hour or two. Doris had been to most of those meetings, and when she came out she realised she had been conned and seduced because most of what he implied was dangerous nonsense. But while she was inside she believed him. He became a focus for pain and disappointment, urged his audience to lay their burden down and rest in him, told them they'd see their country become great again, painted a bright future for their children. It was all colour with Noah. Not surprising then, that many wanted to keep the feeling. He had created a congregation who wanted to look after one another. For some reason, this was their first experience of family. It meant they had friends to call on, resources to claim and, most important, that they would never be alone again. The sinister side lay in their attitude to those who didn't believe. If you refused the message you were an outcast, and although they might claim to love your soul the rest of you could literally and metaphorically go to hell. Doris objected to this. Why should a God of love disown a large part of his beloved? Noah said that love is hard and strong and love makes choices. Love discriminates and above all, love cannot embrace the inherently unlovely, ie those without YAHWEH in their hearts. They might feel concern and patience perhaps, but only for a time. 'Live in the light,' said Noah. 'Know your enemies.' Then there was his preoccupation with frozen food. This was some kind of personal oddity, but why make it a tenet of his doctrine? No believer was supposed to eat frozen food, and no believer was allowed to own a fridge because Noah felt it flouted the life process of freshness, decay and death. It was, he said, flying in the face of nature. Doris loved her fridge: her pots of cottage cheese, her smoked ham, and in the freezer she kept Black Forest Gâteau, Noah's particular anathema. She wondered why he'd hired her even to do the cleaning. Surely he could tell. She imagined the telltale smell of refrigerated food sticking to her clothes. But then, people in power — rulers, fanatics, TV personalities — always made a virtue out of their peculiarities; bow ties, a passion