Jeanette Winterson
ORANGES ARE NOT THE ONLY FRUIT
GENESIS
Setting: Lancashire. “ Sunday was the Lord’s Day…” The radio program, World Service. Sunday afternoon walks with mother and dog. The story of her mother’s conversion. Mother adopted Jeanette from an orphanage. Pastor Finch finds Jeanette having the lions eat Daniel in Fuzzy Felt. The walk home after church with her aunts, stopping in Arkwright’s For Vermin. Mother receives official letter insisting Jeanette go to school.
3 MOTHER, the narrator’s adoptive mother, known as the Jesus Belle for her conversion attempts in pubs, 36
3 FATHER, formerly a gambler till he married and found the Lord, 36
3 NEXT DOOR, 13, has another baby, 38
5 MAXI BALL, owns a warehouse of cheap clothes called Maxi Ball’s Catalogue Seconds
6 ELLISON, owns a tenement where there’s a fair once a year
7 GYPSY who says “You’ll never marry”
7 GRIMSBY, an alternate paper shop to the one owned by two women
7 MRS WHITE, Mother’s chum, 11, 17, 23, has a vision, 40
8 PASTOR SPRATT, a healer on his Glory Crusade, 21, 24, one of the most famous and successful missionaries their churches ever sent out, his exhibition called “Saved by Grace Alone,” 34
9 UNCLE WILL, an actor who died a pauper
9 THE FIRST FAIRY TALE: The sensitive princess and the old hunchback in the forest who wishes to die
11 PASTOR ROY FINCH, zealot visiting speaker from Stockport, visiting on his regional tour, 83
12 MRS GRACE FINCH
12 MRS ROTHWELL, deaf, falls over, 85, so engrossed communing with the Spirit that she doesn’t see the tide come in, 117
13 JEANETTE, narrator, age “fourteen if she’s a day,” 77
13 MRS JEWSBURY, plays the oboe and conducts the choir, 25, makes love to Jeanette, 106, living in Leeds with another woman, 132
13 AUNTIE ALICE
13 AUNTIE MAY, 22, her gallstones, 28, with Ida, 77
14 MRS ARKWRIGHT, runs Arkwright’s For Vermin, 60, staggering out of the pub, 133
EXODUS
Mother getting Jeanette ready for her first day of school. Jeanette goes deaf for three months with her adonoids, and word spreads through the church that she’s in rapture. Miss Jewsbury takes Jeanette to the Victoria Hospital where she has an operation on her ears, and Elsie visits her. Elsie’s gift of three mice, and her disquisition on the two worlds. A school trip to Chester Zoo. The action kit for the Second Coming. Flags made by disabled missionaries. Mother’s old flames, including Pierre. The miseries of being dinner monitor. Jeanette’s essay, “What I Did in my Summer Holidays.” Tormented by the other classmates for being different. Mrs Vole has to talk to Jeanette. Jeanette submits her black-and-white sampler for the needlework class Prizegiving. The hyacinth contest. The Easter egg painting competition: Jeanette re-creates Wagner in eggs.
23 ELSIE NORRIS, with numerology, no teeth, 29, plays the accordion, 38, told Mrs Jewsbury about Jeanette, her first time back to church after her long spell in hospital, 132, her death, 151
25 AUNTIE BETTY, in the hospital, her leg loose, 26, gets sunstroke, 38
24 refs to oranges, 26, 27, 28, the only fruit, 29, 39, 113, 172
34 SUSAN GREEN, from a very poor family
34 SHELLEY
34 STANLEY FARMER, slipped into the pond, plays Joseph, 41
34 MRS VIRTUE, helping Shelley finish her summer party dress, collecting samplers, unable to see what’s out of context, 44
36 PIERRE, Mother’s early temptation, now listed as an “old flame,” the second reference to him, lives in Wigan, 56, mother met him in Paris, 87
36 MAD PERCY
36 EDDY
36 EDDY’S SISTER, whose picture promptly disappears
39 MRS SPARROW
39 MRS SPENCER
40 MRS VOLE, the head
43 SUSAN HUNT, nearly strangled by Jeanette to illustrate the fate of the damned
49 THE SECOND FAIRY TALE: The Emperor Tetrahedron and the revolving circus of midgets
49 “…no emotion is the final one.”
LEVITICUS
Hymns on the piano to drown out Next Door fornicating on a Sunday morning. Mother becomes active in the Society. Mother’s friend who makes wreaths. Working with the undertaker. Planning the Society’s special annual conference in town.
56 ELI BONE of the Society of the Lost, in Wigan
56 MRS MAUDE BUTLER, former treasurer to the Society
61 THE THIRD FAIRY TALE: The prince who searched for a perfect wife, and the perfect woman in the forest who refuses to marry him.
NUMBERS
The dream of being married to a pig. Men as beasts. Jeanette discovers the real ending to Jane Eyre. Hiding in the dustbin to eavesdrop on women talking about their men. Aunt May and forbidden Ida. Mother buys Jeanette a dreadful new pink mac. Jeanette meets Melanie boning kippers behind the fish stall, offers her a baked potato, and invites her to church, where Melanie raises her hand as a sinner. Mother tells her of her fall from grace with Pierre. Jeanette stays overnight with Melanie.
72 UNCLE BILL, horrible and hairy, 73
75 NELLIE, a widow on hard times since Bert died, blind 118
75 DOREEN
75 BERT, Nellie’s dead husband
75 FRANK, Doreen’s husband, up to no good
76 HILDA, across the road whose husband drinks
76 JANE, Doreen’s daughter, age seventeen
76 SUSAN, Jane’s friend, where Jane spends all her time
77 IDA, one of the women who runs the forbidden paper shop
77 LOUIE, Jeanette’s mother’s name
78 MRS DOREEN CLIFTON, who gives singing lessons, shops at Marks and Spencers, Marks and Sparks, 81, says Jeanette needs a new mac, 81
80 MELANIE, boning kippers on the other side of the stall
81 MONA
82 MRS BETTY GRIMSDITCH, the waitress at Trickett’s, 81, 169
85 DANNY, plays the guitar in church
86 ALICE
86 GRAHAM, a newish convert boy at church
DEUTERONOMY
The last book of the law
On storytelling and history, disposing of the past and collecting curios, the flexibility of the past and the balance of stories.
95 “If you want to keep your own teeth, make your own sandwiches.”
JOSHUA
Mrs White and mother clean the parlor. The Awful Occasion when Jeanette’s real mother comes to see her and is driven away by mother. Jeanette trustingly tells her mother of her love for Melanie. In church, the two girls are caught by surprise; Mother has told the pastor, and they are singled out as under Satan’s spell. Jeanette refuses to recant. Mrs Jewsbury sees Jeanette to her home and makes lover to her. A full day at home with the pastor. Jeanette locked in her room without food. Dialogue with the orange demon. Jeanette repents. Melanie has been sent to Halifax. Jeanette goes to her. Fever dream. Mother burns Jeanette’s letters in the back yard. Glandular fever. The demon in the orange. Five angry men from the boarding house complain about the singing and tambourines of the revival meeting. Rehearsing Christmas cdarols with the Salvation Army. Melanie comes to say goodbye on the Sunday of the Nativity play. An uncompli-cated love affair with Katy. Spitting at Melanie’s fiancée.
116 KATY, newly converted in the summer, coming to church, 120
117 FRED, the hired bus driver
128 THE FOURTH FAIRY TALE: Sir Perceval, the decay of Camelot, and his dream of the Holy Grail. * Sir Perceval arrives at the dwarf’s castle. * The two different hands of Sir Perceval.
JUDGES
Jeanette and Katy leave the door unlocked in the guest house. The issue of allowing men power in the church. Jeanette announces to her mother and the pastor that she’s leaving the church and refuses to repent. Mother orders her to leave. Jeanette’s last morning at home.
RUTH
Jeanette returns to work at Elysium Fields funeral parlor. Driving the ice cream van, she discovers that Elsie has died. Jeanette’s farewell to Elsie in the funeral parlor. When Jeanette’s mother and relatives realize she’s working with the funeral parlor, they leave Elsie’s reception in outrage. Mrs Jewsbury visits. “When did you last see your mother?” Snow on the train line. Jeanette goes back to see her mother at Christmas. Mrs Arkwright takes Jeanette for a drink, and confides her plan to burn down her own shop. Accidental meeting with Melanie pushing a pram. Mother in headphones, receiving reports.
141 THE FIFTH FAIRY TALE: the tale of Winnet Stonejar, sorcerer’s apprentice:
The sorcerer lures Winnet Stonejar across the stream. She lives in his castle, and becomes convinced he’s her father. The sorcerer calls for the unknown boy who loves Winnet to be cast out of the village, and then drives out Winnet. The raven Abednego can’t go with her because its heart is stone. * Winnet decides to make her way to the beautiful ancient city guarded by tigers. * Winnet learns boat-building and leaves the village.
148 THE WOMAN who owns Elysium Fields funeral parlor
148 JOE, her friend
149 BIRTWISTLE, age eighty, owner of the last horse-drawn ice-cream cart
164 REV. BONE, a broken man
170 “I miss God. I miss the company of someone utterly loyal. I still don’t think of God as my betrayer. The servants of God, yes, but servants by their very nature betray. I miss God who was my friend. I don’t even know if God exists, but I do know that if God is your emotional role model, very few human relationships will match up to it.”
171 “…there are different kinds of infidelity, but betrayal is betrayal wherever you find it. By betrayal, I mean promising to be on your side, then being on somebody else’s.”
172 The title – “oranges are not the only fruit” – said by the mother
