‘Prince, you’re a fool,’ said the goose one day. ‘What you want can’t exist.’
‘It must exist,’ insisted the prince, ‘because I want it.’
‘You’ll die first,’ shrugged the goose, about to go back to her feeding tray.
‘Not before you,’ spat the prince, and chopped off her head.
Three more years passed, and the prince began to write a book to pass the time. It was called The Holy Mystery of Perfection. He divided it into three sections.
Part one: the philosophy of perfection. The Holy Grail, the unblemished life, the final aspiration on Mount Carmel. Saint Teresa and the Interior Castle.
Part two: the impossibility of perfection. The restless search in this life, the pain, the majority who opt for second best. Their spreading corruption. The importance of being earnest.
Part three: the need to produce a world full of perfect beings. The possibility thereby of a heaven on earth. A perfect race. An exhortation to single-mindedness.
The prince was very pleased with his book, and had a copy given to all his advisors, so that they should not waste his time with the merely second-best. One of them took it with him to a distant corner of the forest, where he could read in peace. He wasn’t academic, and the prince had a very dense prose style.
While he was lying under a tree, he heard the sound of singing coming from somewhere on the left. Curious, and a music lover, he got up to find out who was making the noise. In a clearing, there was a woman spinning thread and accompanying herself with a song.
The advisor thought she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
‘And she can sew,’ he thought.
He went up to her, bowing as he came.
‘Fair maid,’ he began.
‘If you want to chat,’ she said, ‘you’ll have to come back later, I’m working to a deadline.’
The advisor was very shocked.
‘But I am royal,’ he told her.
‘And I’m working to a deadline,’ she told him. ‘Come for lunch if you want.’
‘I’ll be back at noon,’ he answered stiffly and marched off.
Meantime, the advisor questioned whoever he met about the woman. How old was she? Who were her family? Did she have any dependants? Was she clever?
‘Clever?’ snorted one old man. ‘She’s perfect.’
‘Did you say perfect?’ urged the advisor, shaking the old man by the shoulders.
‘Yes,’ cried he, ‘I said perfect.’
As soon as it was noon the advisor banged on the door of the woman’s home.
‘It’s cheese soup,’ she said, as she let him in.
‘Never mind that,’ he retorted, ‘we’ve got to get moving, I’m taking you to the prince.’
‘What for?’ asked the woman, ladling out her own soup.
‘He might want to marry you,’
‘I’m not getting married,’ she said.
The advisor turned to her in horror. ‘Why not?’
‘It’s not something I’m very interested in. Now do you want this soup or don’t you?’
‘No,’ shouted the young man. ‘But I’ll be back.’
Three days later, there was a great commotion in the forest. The prince and his retinue were arriving. The prince himself had lost the use of his legs from sitting still so long, and had to be carried in a litter. At the sight of the woman, who was sitting spinning, just as before, he leapt from his pallet, crying, ‘I’m cured, she must be perfect.’ And he fell on his knees and begged her to marry him.
The court turned to one another, smiling. They could stop all this nonsense now, and live happily ever after.
The woman smiled down on the kneeling price and stroked his hair.
‘You’re very sweet, but I don’t want to marry you.’
There was a gasp of horror from the gathered court.
Then silence.
The prince struggled to his feet, and pulled a copy of his book from out of his pocket.
‘But you must, I’ve written all about you.’
Again the woman smiled, and read the title. Then she frowned, and motioning to the prince, pulled him inside her home.
For three days and three nights the court camped in fear. No sound came from the hut. Then on the fourth day, the prince appeared, weary and unwashed. Calling his chief advisors around him, he told them all that had taken place.
The woman was indeed perfect, there was no doubt about that, but she wasn’t flawless. He, the prince, had been wrong. She was perfect because she was a perfect balance of qualities and strengths. She was symmetrical in every respect. The search for perfection, she had told him, was in fact the search for balance, for harmony. And she showed him Libra, the scales, and Pisces, the fish, and last of all put out her two hands. ‘Here is the clue,’ she said. ‘Here in this first and personal balance.’
‘There are two principles,’ she said, ‘the Weight and the Counter-weight.’
‘Oh yes,’ put in one of the advisors, ‘you mean the sphere of Destiny and the wheel of Fortune.’
The prince swivelled round.
‘How do you know?’ he demanded.
The advisor blushed. ‘Oh, it’s just something my mother told me, I’d forgotten it until now.’
‘Well anyway,’ said the prince peremptorily, ‘the point is I’m wrong and I’m going to have to write a new book, and make a public apology to the goose.’
‘Sire, you cannot,’ gasped the advisors, as one man.
‘Why not?’
‘Because you are a prince, and as a prince you cannot be seen to be wrong.’
That night the prince paced the forest, hoping to find a solution. On the stroke of midnight he heard a sound behind him, and drawing his sword came face to face with his chief advisor.
‘Lucien,’ he exclaimed (for it was he).
‘Sire,’ the man answered, bowing deeply. ‘I have a solution.’ And for forty-five minutes he whispered in the prince’s ear.
‘No,’ cried the prince, ‘I cannot.’
‘Sire, you must, your kingdom is at stake.’
‘No one will believe me,’ wept the prince, sitting on a log.
‘They will, they must, they always do,’ replied his advisor evenly. ‘Trust me.’
‘Must I?’ asked the prince wildly.
‘You must,’ said the advisor, very firm.
‘The night continued, and the prince fixed his heart to evil. At dawn, there was a great trumpet cry, and all the court and all the village assembled together to hear what the prince had to say.
He stood in their midst, newly washed, and called for the woman to come forth.
As she came from her home, the first light caught her, and she shone beacon-like across the clearing. There was a murmur of amazement, for she was more beautiful than ever that day. The prince swallowed hard, and began his speech.
‘Good people, all of you know of my search for perfection, and many of you I hope have read my book. I had hoped on coming here to find an end to my quest, but I now know that perfection is not to be found, but to be fashioned, there is no such thing as flawlessness on this earth. . . .’
‘But there is such a thing as perfection,’ the woman spoke out, her voice clear and strong.
‘This woman,’ continued the prince, ‘has done her best to convince me that perfection and flawlessness are not the same thing, and why should she take such trouble if she were not flawed herself?’
‘I took no trouble,’ returned the woman, as strong as before. ‘It was you who sought me.’
There was a ripple of dissent among the crowd. Suddenly someone cried out.
‘But she healed you!’
‘Heathen arts,’ snapped back the chief advisor. ‘Arrest that man.’ And the man was bound, and taken away.
‘But she has no blemish,’ shouted out another.
‘But I have,’ said the woman quietly, ‘I have many.’
‘Proof from her own lips,’ screamed the ch
ief advisor.
Then the woman took a step forward and stood before the prince who began to tremble uncontrollably.
‘What you want does not exist,’ she said.
‘Proof from her own lips,’ screamed the chief advisor again.
The woman took no notice, but continued to address the prince, who had turned deathly pale.
‘What does exist lies in the sphere of your own hands.’
The prince fainted.
‘Evil, Evil,’ shrieked the advisor. ‘We will not give up on our task.’
‘You’ll be dead first,’ shrugged the woman, about to go back inside.
‘Not before you,’ cried the prince, coming to. ‘Off with her head.’
And they chopped off the woman’s head.
Instantly, the blood became a lake, and drowned the advisors and most of the court. The prince only managed to escape by climbing a tree.
‘This is a tedious affair,’ he thought. ‘Still, at least I have stamped out a very great evil. Now I must continue my quest, but alas, who will ever advise me?’
At that moment, he heard a noise beneath him. He looked down, and saw a man selling oranges.
‘What a good idea,’ exclaimed the prince, ‘I’ll get a dozen for the trip home.’
‘Old man,’ he hailed, ‘sell me a dozen oranges.’
The old man fumbled out a dozen, and put them into a bag.
‘Got anything else?’ asked the prince, feeling better.
‘Sorry,’ said the seller, ‘I only does oranges.’
‘Oh dear,’ sighed the prince, ‘I was hoping for something to read on the way back.’
The old man sniffed.
‘No magazines?’
The old man shook his head.
‘No informative booklets?’
The old man wiped his nose.
‘Oh well, I’ll go then,’ decided the prince.
‘Wait a minute,’ said the man suddenly, ‘I got this.’
And he pulled from his pocket a leather bound book. ‘I don’t know if it’s up your street, it tells you how to build a perfect person, it’s all about this man who does it, but it’s no good if you ain’t got the equipment.’
The prince snatched it away.
‘It’s a bit weird,’ continues the old man, ‘this geezer gets a bolt through the neck. . . .’
But the prince had gone.
NUMBERS
IT WAS SPRING, the ground still had traces of snow, and I was about to be married. My dress was pure white and I had a golden crown. As I walked up the aisle the crown got heavier and heavier and the dress more and more difficult to walk in. I thought everyone would point at me, but no one noticed.
Somehow I made it to the altar. The priest was very fat and kept getting fatter, like bubble gum you blow. Finally we came to the moment, ‘You may kiss the bride.’ My new-husband turned to me, and here were a number of possibilities. Sometimes he was blind, sometimes a pig, sometimes my mother, sometimes the man from the post office, and once, just a suit of clothes with nothing inside. I told my mother about it, and she said it was because I ate sardines for supper. The next night I ate sausages, but I still had the dream.
There was a woman in our street who told us all she had married a pig. I asked her why she did it, and she said ‘You never know until it’s too late.’
Exactly.
No doubt that woman had discovered in life what I had discovered in my dreams. She had unwittingly married a pig.
I kept watch on him after that. It was hard to tell he was a pig. He was clever, but his eyes were close together, and his skin bright pink. I tried to imagine him without his clothes on. Horrid.
Other men I knew weren’t much better. The man who ran the post office was bald and shiny with hands too fat for the sweet jars. He called me poppet, which my mother said was nice. He gave me sweets too, which was an improvement.
One day he had a new sort.
‘Sweet hearts for a sweet heart,’ he said and laughed. That day I had almost strangled my dog with rage, and been dragged from the house by a desperate mother. Sweet I was not. But I was a little girl, ergo, I was sweet, and here were sweets to prove it. I looked in the bag. Yellow and pink and sky blue and orange, and all of them heart-shaped and all of them said things like,
Maureen 4 Ken
Jack’ n’ Jill, True.
On the way home I crunched at the Maureen 4 Ken’s. I was confused. Everyone always said you found the right man.
My mother said it, which was confusing.
My auntie said it, which was even more confusing.
The man in the post office sold it on sweets.
But there was the problem of the woman married to the pig, and the spotty boy who took girls down backs, and my dream.
That afternoon I went to the library. I went the long way, so as to miss the couples. They made funny noises that sounded painful, and the girls were always squashed against the wall. In the library I felt better, words you could trust and look at till you understood them, they couldn’t change half way through a sentence like people, so it was easier to spot a lie. I found a book of fairy tales, and read one called ‘Beauty and the Beast.’
In this story, a beautiful young woman finds herself the forfeit of a bad bargain made by her father. As a result, she has to marry an ugly beast, or dishonour her family forever. Because she is good, she obeys. On her wedding night, she gets into bed with the beast, and feeling pity that everything should be so ugly, gives it a little kiss. Immediately, the beast is transformed into a handsome young prince, and they both live happily every after.
I wondered if the woman married to a pig had read this story. She must have been awfully disappointed if she had. And what about my Uncle Bill, he was horrible, and hairy, and looking at the picture, transformed princes aren’t meant to be hairy at all.
Slowly I closed the book. It was clear that I had stumbled on a terrible conspiracy.
There are women in the world.
There are men in the world.
And there are beasts.
What do you do if you marry a beast?
Kissing them didn’t always help.
And beasts are crafty. They disguise themselves like you and I.
Like the wolf in ‘Little Red Riding Hood’.
Why had no one told me? Did that mean no one else knew?
Did that mean that all over the globe, in all innocence, women were marrying beasts?
I reassured myself as best I could. The minister was a man, but he wore a skirt, so that made him special. There must be others, but were there enough? That was the worry. There were a lot of women, and most of them got married. If they couldn’t marry each other, and I didn’t think they could, because of having babies, some of them would inevitably have to marry beasts.
My own family had done quite badly, I thought.
If only there was some way of telling, then we could operate a ration system. It wasn’t fair that a whole street should be full of beasts.
That night, we had to go to my auntie’s to play Beetle. She was in the team at church, and needed to practise. As she dealt the cards, I asked her, ‘Why are so many men really beasts?’
She laughed. ‘You’re too young for that.’
My uncle had overheard. He came over to me, and put his face close.
‘You wouldn’t love us any other way,’ he said, and rubbed his spiky chin against my face. I hated him.
‘Leave off Bill,’ my auntie pushed him away. ‘Don’t worry love,’ she soothed, ‘you’ll get used to it. When I married, I laughed for a week, cried for a month, and settled down for life. It’s different, that’s all, they have their little ways.’ I looked at my uncle who was now sunk in the pools coupon.
‘You hurt me,’ I accused.
‘No I didn’t,’ he grinned. ‘It was just a bit of love.’
‘That’s what you always say,’ my auntie retorted, ‘now shut up or go out.’
He slunk off. I half
expected him to have a tail.
She spread the cards. ‘There’s time enough for you to get a boy.’
‘I don’t think I want one.’
‘There’s what we want,’ she said, putting down a jack, ‘and there’s what we get, remember that.’
Was she trying to tell me she knew about the beasts? I got very depressed and started putting the Beetle legs on the wrong way round, and generally making a mess. Eventually my auntie stood up and sighed. ‘You might as well go home,’ she said.
I went to fetch my mother who was in the parlour listening to Johnny Cash.
‘Come on, we’re finished.’
Slowly she put on her coat, and picked up her little Bible, the travel size one. We set off together down the street.
‘I’ve got to talk to you, have you got time?’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘let’s have an orange.’
I tried to explain my dream, and the beast theory, and how much I hated Uncle Bill. All the time my mother walked along humming What a Friend We Have in Jesus, and peeling me an orange. She stopped peeling and I stopped talking about the same time. I had one last question.
‘Why did you marry my dad?’
She looked at me closely.
‘Don’t be silly.’
‘I’m not being silly.’
‘We had to have something for you, and besides, he’s a good man, though I know he’s not one to push himself. But don’t you worry, you’re dedicated to the Lord, I put you down for missionary school as soon as we got you. Remember Jane Eyre and St John Rivers.’ A faraway look came into her eye.
I did remember, but what my mother didn’t know was that I now knew she had rewritten the ending. Jane Eyre was her favourite non-Bible book, and she read it to me over and over again, when I was very small. I couldn’t read it, but I knew where the pages turned. Later, literate and curious, I had decided to read it for myself. A sort of nostalgic pilgrimage. I found out, that dreadful day in a back corner of the library, that Jane doesn’t marry St John at all, that she goes back to Mr Rochester. It was like the day I discovered my adoption papers while searching for a pack of playing cards. I have never since played cards, and I have never since read Jane Eyre.