The Apple (15 page)
Yes, it was an extraordinary day, a grand day. For me, as well as for the women of the western world. Of course, within a few years, World War One broke out, and all the suffragettes stopped asking for the vote and started campaigning against the Hun. They changed the name of their newspaper to
Britannia
, and Mrs Pankhurst said that anyone who wasn’t pure English shouldn’t be allowed to work for the government. My mother and Aunt Primrose would’ve found that most offensive, I’m sure, but thankfully we’d moved away from London by then, and my parents were too busy earning a living to spare much thought for speeches. Thankfully, too, I was too young to enlist, because I’m sure I would have, just to prove I wasn’t a mummy’s boy, and then what would’ve happened? I’d have found out that human beings are bags of soup just as my Mama said, and that the right kind of injury can spill them all over the ground.
But forgive me: I’m worn out, and the nurses are looking worried. Yes, they are! I have an eye for these things, doddery as I am. That girl over there, now, she’s my favourite. We talk nineteen to the dozen while she’s sprucing me up in the mornings; I swear I know more about her than her boyfriends do. Oh, but she’s lovely, a little treasure. And such a soft touch; such soft hands! No, no, I can see what you’re thinking. You
will
read sex into everything, won’t you? Please remember that I’m from a bygone era; sex hadn’t even been invented then. Why, if I’d been born just one day earlier, I’d have been a Victorian, wouldn’t I? And you know what those Victorians were like.
But seriously, dear: I’m exhausted. All I’ve done is reminisce, and yet I’ve never felt so tired; as soon as these little angels put me to bed I’ll be out like a light. But tomorrow is another day! Come back tomorrow, and I will tell you the rest. Everything you still want to know, I promise. Tomorrow.
Also by Michel Faber
Some Rain Must Fall and Other Stories
Under the Skin
The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps
The Courage Consort
The Crimson Petal and the White
The Fahrenheit Twins
Credits
Book design by James Hutcheson
Copyright
First published in Great Britain in 2006
by Canongate Books Ltd,
14 High Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1TE
This digital edition first published in 2008
by Canongate Books Ltd
‘Christmas in Silver Street’ was written in December 2002
and first published in Glasgow’s
Sunday Herald
;
copyright © Michel Faber, 2002
‘Chocolate Hearts from the New World’ was written in January 2003
and first issued as a limited-edition chapbook by Harcourt Brace & Co.;
copyright © Michel Faber, 2003
Remaining stories copyright © Michel Faber, 2006
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available on
request from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 84767 403 6
www.meetatthegate.com
Table of Contents
Chocolate Hearts from the New World
The Fly, and Its Effect upon Mr Bodley
