Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit Read Free Page A

nature, eight feet tall shrunk to six foot three through the prayers of the faithful.
    Now and again my mother liked to tell me her own conversion story; it was very romantic. I sometimes think that if Mills and Boon were at all revivalist in their policy my mother would be a star.
    One night, by mistake, she had walked into Pastor Spratt’s Glory Crusade. It was in a tent on some spare land, and every evening Pastor Spratt spoke of the fate of the damned, and performed healing miracles. He was very impressive. My mother said he looked like Errol Flynn, but holy. A lot of women found the Lord that week. Part of Pastor Spratt’s charisma stemmed from his time spent as an advertising manager for Rathbone’s Wrought Iron. He knew about bait. ‘There is nothing wrong with bait,’ he said, when the
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somewhat cynically asked him why he gave pot plants to the newly converted. ‘We are commanded to be Fishers of Men.’ When my mother heard the call, she was presented with a copy of the Psalms and asked to make her choice between a Christmas Cactus (non-flowering) and a lily of the valley. She had opted for the lily of the valley. When my father went the next night, she told him to be sure and go for the cactus, but by the time he got to the front they had all gone. ‘He’s not one to push himself,’ she often said, and after a little pause, ‘Bless him.’
    Pastor Spratt came to stay with them for the rest of his time with the Glory Crusade, and it was then that my mother discovered her abiding interest in missionary work. The pastor himself spent most of his time out in the jungle and other hot places converting the Heathen. We have a picture of him surrounded by black men with spears. My motherkeeps it by her bed. My mother is very like William Blake; she has visions and dreams and she cannot always distinguish a flea’s head from a king. Luckily she can’t paint.
    She walked out one night and thought of her life and thought of what was possible. She thought of the things she couldn’t be. Her uncle had been an actor. ‘A very fine Hamlet,’ said the
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.
    But the rags and the ribbons turn to years and then the years are gone. Uncle Will had died a pauper, she was not so young these days and people were not kind. She liked to speak French and to play the piano, but what do these things mean?
    Once upon a time there was a brilliant and beautiful princess, so sensitive that the death of a moth could distress her for weeks on end. Her family knew of no solution. Advisers wrung their hands, sages shook their heads, brave kings left unsatisfied. So it happened for many years, until one day, out walking in the forest, the princess came to the hut of an old hunchback who knew the secrets of magic. This ancient creature perceived in the princess a woman of great energy and resourcefulness.
    ‘My dear,’ she said, ‘you are in danger of being burned by your own flame.’
    The hunchback told the princess that she was old, and wished to die, but could not because of her many responsibilities. She had in her charge a small village of homely people, to whom she was advisor and friend. Perhaps the princess would like to take over? Her duties would be:
    (1) To milk the goats
    (2) To educate the people
    (3) To compose songs for their festival
    To assist her she would have a three-legged stool and all the books belonging to the hunchback. Best of all, the old woman’s harmonium, an instrument of great antiquity and four octaves. The princess agreed to stay and forgot all aboutthe palace and the moths. The old woman thanked her, and died at once.
    My mother, out walking that night, dreamed a dream and sustained it in daylight. She would get a child, train it, build it, dedicate it to the Lord:
    a missionary child,
a servant of God,
a blessing
    And so it was that on a particular day, some time later, she followed a star until it came to settle above an orphanage, and in that place was a crib, and in that crib, a