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`She's used four colours, I've used three.'

Mrs Virtue frowned.

`And besides, no one else has used black.'

Mrs Virtue sat down.

`And I've used mythical counter-relief,' I insisted, pointing at the terrified damned.

Mrs Virtue laid her head on her hands.

`What are you talking about? If you mean that messy blotch in the corner….'

I was furious; luckily I had been reading about how Sir Joshua Reynolds insulted Turner.

`Just because you can't tell what it is, doesn't mean it's not what it is.'

I picked up Shelley's Village Scene.

`That doesn't look like a sheep, it's all white and fluffy.'

`Go back to your desk, Jeanette.'

`But….'

`GO BACK TO YOUR DESK!'

What could I do? My needlework teacher suffered from a problem of vision. She recognised things

according to expectation and environment. If you were in a particular place, you expected to see

particular things. Sheep and hills, sea and fish; if there was an elephant in the supermarket, she'd either

not see it at all, or call it Mrs Jones and talk about fishcakes. But most likely, she'd do what most people

do when confronted with something they don't understand:

Panic. What constitutes a problem is not the thing, or the environment where we find the thing, but the conjunction of the two; something unexpected in a usual place (our favourite aunt in our favourite poker parlour) or something usual in an unexpected place (our favourite poker in our favourite aunt). I knew that my sampler was absolutely right in Elsie Norris's front room, but absolutely wrong in Mrs Virtue's sewing class. Mrs Virtue should either have had the imagination to commend me for my effort in

context, or the far-sightedness to realise that there is a debate going on as to whether something has an absolute as well as a relative value; given that, she should have given me the benefit of the doubt. As it was she got upset and blamed me for her headache. This was very like Sir Joshua Reynolds, who

complained that Turner always gave him a headache.

I didn't win anything with my sampler though, and I was very disappointed. I took it back to Elsie on the

last day of school and asked her if she still wanted it.

She snatched it from me, and put it firmly on the wall.

`It's upside down, Elsie,' I pointed out.

She fumbled for her glasses, and stared at it.

`So it is, but it's all the same to the Lord. Still, I'll put it right for them that doesn't know.'

And she carefully adjusted the picture.

`I thought you might not like it any more.'

`Heathen child, the Lord himself was scorned, don't expect the unwashed to appreciate.'

(Elsie always called the unconverted the unwashed.)

`Well it would be nice sometimes,' I ventured, displaying a tendency towards relativism.

Elsie got very cross. She was an absolutist, and had no time for people who thought cows didn't exist

unless you looked at them. Once a thing was created, it was valid for all time. Its value went not up nor

down.

Perception, she said was a fraud; had not St Paul said we see in a glass darkly, had not Wordsworth said

we see by glimpses? `This piece of fruit cake'—she waved it between bites—`this cake doesn't need me

to eat it to make it edible. It exists without me.'

That was a bad example, but I knew what she meant. It meant that to create was a fundament, to appreciate, a supplement. Once created, the creature was separate from the creator, and needed no seconding to fully exist.

`Have some cake,' she said cheerfully, but I didn't because even if Elsie was philosophically amiss, her contention that the cake existed without either of us was certainly true. There was probably a whole township in there, with values of its own, and a style of gossip.

*

Over the years I did my best to win a prize; some wish to better the world and still scorn it. But I never succeeded; there's a formula, a secret, I don't know what, that people who have been to public school or Brownies seem to understand. It runs right the way through life, though it starts with hyacinth growing, passes through milk monitor, and finishes somewhere at half-blue.

My hyacinths were pink. Two of them. I called the ensemble `The Annunciation' (you have to have a theme). This was because the blooms were huddled up close, and reminded me of Mary and Elizabeth soon after the visit by the angel. I thought it was a very clever marriage of horticulture and theology. I put a little explanation at the bottom, and the appropriate verse so that people could look it up if they wanted to, but it didn't win. What did win was a straggly white pair called `Snow Sisters'. So I took `The Annunciation' home and fed it to our rabbit. I was a bit uneasy afterwards in case it was heresy, and the rabbit fell sick. Later, I tried to win the Easter egg painting competition. I had had so little success with my biblical themes that it seemed an idea to try something new. It couldn't be anything pre-Raphaelite, because Janey Morris was thin, and not suited to being played by an egg.

Coleridge and the Man from Porlock?

Coleridge was fat, but I felt the tableau would lack dramatic interest.

`It's obvious,' said Elsie. `Wagner.'

So we cut a cardboard box to set the scene, Elsie doing the back-drop, me doing the rocks out of half­egg shells. We stayed up all night on the dramatis personae, because of the detail. We had chosen the most exciting bit, 'Brunhilda Confronts Her Father'. I did Brunhilda, and Elsie did Wodin. Brunhilda had a helmet made out of a thimble with little feather wings from Elsie's pillow.

`She needs a spear,' said Elsie, `I'll give you a cocktail stick only don't tell anyone what I use it for.'

As a final touch I cut off some of my own hair and made it into Brunhilda's hair.

Wodin was a masterpiece, a double-yoker brown egg, with a Ritz cracker shield and a drawn-on eye­patch. We made him a match-box chariot that was just too small.

`Dramatic emphasis,' said Elsie.

The next day I took it to school and placed it beside the others; there was no comparison. Imagine my horror when it didn't win. I was not a selfish child and, understanding the nature of genius, would have happily bowed to another's talent, but not to three eggs covered in cotton wool, entitled `Easter Bunnies'.

`It's not fair,' I told Elsie, later that same evening at the Sisterhood meeting.

`You'll get used to it.'

`And anyway,' butted in Mrs White, who had heard the story, `they're not holy.'

*

I didn't despair; I did Street Car Named Desire out of pipecleaners, an embroidered cushion cover of Bette Davis in Now Voyager, an oregami William Tell with real apple, and best of all, a potato sculpture of Henry Ford outside the Chrysler building in New York. An impressive list by any standards, but I was as hopeful and as foolish as King Canute forcing back the waves. Whatever I did made no impression at all, except to enrage my mother because I had abandoned biblical themes. She quite liked Now Voyager, because she had done her courting during that film, but she thought I should have made the Tower of Babel out of oregami, even though I told her it would be too difficult.

`The Lord walked on the water,' was all she said when I tried to explain. But she had her own problems. A lot of the missionaries had been eaten, which meant she had to explain to their families.

`It's not easy,' she said, `even though it's for the Lord.'

* * *

When the children of Israel left Egypt, they were guided by the pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night. For them, this did not seem to be a problem. For me, it was an enormous problem. The pillar of cloud was a fog, perplexing and impossible. I didn't understand the ground rules. The daily world was a world of Strange Notions, without form, and therefore void. I comforted myself as best I could by always rearranging their version of the facts.

One day, I learned that Tetrahedron is a mathematical shape that can be formed by stretching an elastic band over a series of nails.

But Tetrahedron is an emperor….

The emperor Tetrahedron lived in a palace made absolutely from elastic bands. To the right, cunning

fountains shot elastic jets, subtle as silk; to the left, ten minstrels played day and night on elastic lutes.

The emperor was beloved by all.

At night, when the thin dogs slept, and the music lulled all but the most watchful to sleep, the mighty

palace lay closed and barred against the foul Isosceles, sworn enemy to the graceful Tetrahedron.

But in the day, the guards pulled back the great doors, flooding the plain with light, so that gifts could be

brought to the emperor.

Many brought gifts; stretches of material so fine that a change of the temperature would dissolve it;

stretches of material so strong that whole cities could be built from it.

And stories of love and folly.

One day, a lovely woman brought the emperor a revolving circus operated by midgets.

The midgets acted all of the tragedies and many of the comedies. They acted them all at once, and it was

fortunate that Tetrahedron had so many faces, otherwise he might have died of fatigue.

They acted them all at once, and the emperor, walking round his theatre, could see them all at once, if he

wished.

Round and round he walked, and so learned a very valuable thing:

that no emotion is the final one.

* * *

Leviticus

The Heathen were a daily household preoccupation. My mother found them everywere, particularly Next Door. They tormented her as only the godless can, but she had her methods.

They hated hymns, and she liked to play the piano, an old upright with pitted candelabra and yellow keys. We each had a copy of the Redemption Hymnal (boards and cloth 3 shillings). My mother sang the tune, and I put in the harmonies. The first hymn I ever learned was a magnificent Victorian composition called Ask the Saviour to Help You.

One Sunday morning, just as we got in from Communion, we heard strange noises, like cries for help, coming from Next Door. I took no notice, but my mother froze behind the radiogram, and started to change colour. Mrs White, who had come home with us to listen to the World Service, immediately crushed her ear against the wall.

`What is it?' I asked.

`I don't know,' she said in a loud whisper, `but whatever it is, it's not holy.'

Still my mother didn't move.

`Have you got a wine glass?' urged Mrs White.

My mother looked horrified.

`For medicinal purposes, I mean,' added Mrs White hurriedly.

My mother went into a high cupboard, and reached down a box from the top shelf. This was her War

Cupboard, and every week she bought a new tin to put in it, in case of the Holocaust. Mostly it was full of black cherries in syrup and special offer sardines.

`I never use these,' she said meaningfully.

`Neither do I,' said Mrs White defensively, clamping herself back against the wall. While my mother

was covering up the television, Mrs White slithered up and down the skirting board.

`We've just had that wall decorated,' my mother pointed out.

`It's stopped anyway,' panted Mrs White.

At that moment another burst of wailing began from Next Door.

Very clear this time.

`They're fornicating,' cried my mother, rushing to put her hands over my ears.

`Get off,' I yelled.

The dog started barking, and my dad, who had been on nights the Saturday just gone, came down in his

pyjama bottoms.

`Put some clothes on,' shrieked my mother, `Next Door's at it again.'

I bit my mother's hand. `Let go of my ears, I can hear it too.'

`On a Sunday,' exclaimed Mrs White.

Outside, suddenly, the ice-cream van.

`Go and get two cornets, and a wafer for Mrs White,' ordered my mother, stuffing 10 shillings into my

hand. I ran off. I didn't know quite what fornicating was, but I had read about it in Deuteronomy, and I knew it was a sin. But why was it so noisy? Most sins you did quietly so as not to get caught. I bought the ice­

creams and decided to take my time. When I got back my mother had opened the piano, and she and Mrs

White were looking through the Redemption Hymnal.

I passed round the ice-creams.

`It's stopped,' I said brightly.

`For the moment,' said my mother grimly.

As soon as we had finished, my mother wiped her hands on her apron.

`Ask the Saviour to Help You, we'll sing that. Mrs White, you be the baritone.'

The first verse was very fine I thought:

`Yield not to Temptation, for yielding is sin,

Each Victory will help you some other to win.

Fight manfully onwards, Dark Passions subdue,

Look ever to Jesus, He will carry you through.'

The hymn had a rousing chorus that moved my mother to such an extent that she departed entirely from the notation of the Redemption Hymnal, and instead wrought her own huge chords that sounded the length of the piano. No note was exempt. By the time we got to verse 3, Next Door had started to bang on the wall.

`Listen to the Heathen,' my mother shouted jubilantly, her foot furious on the hard pedal. `Sing it again.'

And we did, while the Heathen, driven mad by the Word, rushed away to find what blunt instruments

they could to pound the wall from the other side.

Some of them ran into the back yard and yelled over the wall, `Stop that bloody racket.'

`On a Sunday too,' tutted Mrs White, aghast.

My mother leapt from the keys and rushed into our back yard to quote the scripture. She found herself

staring at the eldest son who had a lot of spots.

`The Lord help me,' she prayed, and a piece of Deuteronomy flashed into her mind:

`The Lord will smite you with the boils o f Egypt, and with the ulcers and the scurvey and the itch o f

which you cannot be cured.' (Revised Standard Version.)

Then she ran back inside and slammed the back door.

`Now then,' she smiled, `who's for a bit of dinner?'

*

My mother called herself a missionary on the home front. She said that the Lord hadn't called her to the

hot places, like Pastor Spratt and his Glory Crusade, but to the streets and by-ways of Lancashire.

`I have always been guided by the Lord,' she told me. `Look at my Wigan Work.'