the pink ladies

“I beg your stupid pardon?” he said, taller than me, his eyes narrowing slightly as though weighing up whether or not he should punch me.

“I simply said,” I said, with the confidence of truth on my side, “that jazz are the new pink lady.”

He sighed before he threw the punch and I sank to the floor with its force. We bonded after that.

*

He turned out to be part of a group, called themselves the Pink Ladies. I’d heard about them in the small presses. They had tenuous apolitical links to a couple of BNP members, and the boredom of the thin newspaper had described them as right wing, extremist, dangerous connoisseurs of the pomaceous fruit of the apple tree, only with more commas.

His name, he told me, was Jonagold. All the Pink Ladies had apple names and violent fantasies.

*

We shook hands together, his slightly bruised from my face. He looked a bit like an apple, I noticed, his eyes like carpels in the crisp white flesh of his face.

“Do you want to come to a meeting?” he asked. “One of our meetings?”

“Sure” I said. He rolled up his sleeve. Tattooed on his thick forearm was a Cox’s orange pippin.

“We’re about the apples,” he snarled aggressively, his arm tensing. “You got that?”

I nodded and we got into his car, his superfluous hostility hanging in the air between us and almost endearing.

*

We must have been driving for about half an hour when he pulled the car up outside a large wooden barn. He drove a Ford Sierra and the seats felt good beneath my body, good like memories. From the crack I had opened my passenger side window I could hear the chatter of what I guessed to be about twenty men.

“This is it,” he said, and we both got out of the car. “Just keep your fucking mouth shut.”

We walked across the gravel driveway and over to the barn door. The barn was surrounded on three sides by apple trees and I thought I could see a gallows set up a couple of hundred yards away into the plentiful orchard.

*

The Pink Ladies were gathered around a naked man, unconscious on the straw-covered floor of the barn. They paid no attention to our entrance. It smelt of windfall and regurgitated cider and a noose hung from a wooden beam in the roof.

“Wake him up,” said the tallest man. His name, I would find out later, was Captain Kidd, the Ladies own Grand Wizard. “This boy here needs re-educating.”

They slapped him in the face hard, the sound like breaking young wood. His eyes whipped open as far as they could past the swelling but he remained silent as two of the Pink Ladies pulled him up to his feet.

“You,” said Captain Kidd. “Bastard. Scum.”

The noose was pulled over his neck and tightened and he started hyperventilating, trying to scream.

“You’re everything that’s wrong with this country,” Captain Kidd continued. “You’re sending Britain to shit. What’s this?” He screeched the question, holding up a clear sandwich bag which contained a half-eaten apple. Apparently one of the Pink Ladies had seen him with it in the street, seen him flaunting his consumption of the wrong type of apple. A fuck-up like that needed punishing, for the sake of all apples. Fruit was the cornerstone of UK policy. Without sufficient policing of the apple market the future looked bleak. There had to be standards. It’s like the Pink Ladies self-printed literature said: ‘No More Bad Apples’. The slogan worked so well because of its layers of meaning, its cutting critique of the ineffectual, weak-kneed, public whores of government. No more spongy, tasteless, disappointing experiences! The Ladies offered hope for a brighter future that started with apples. “What is it?” screamed Captain Kidd at the crying man. His voice sat uncomfortably inside my head like a nightmare the day after.

“It’s...” he spluttered. “It’s a Granny Smith.” The Pink Ladies gasped collectively. One of them – Egremont Russet, a white-haired military officer with a distressingly uneven face – even vomited, so repulsed was he by the slightest mention of the name. The Granny Smith was tantamount to sacrilege in apple circles like this, worse still amongst the Pink Ladies. It was treason.

“You bastard,” said Captain Kidd. “A Granny Smith.” Egremont Russet heaved but without result, and staggered from the barn coughing.

“It was just a quick apple,” pleaded the naked man. “For lunch. A crispy green snack. It was...”

“Unforgivable,” interrupted Captain Kidd. “The Granny Smith was a chance seedling. Chance! It was a fucking mistake! And people like you choose to give it credence? Choose it over and above other apples? Un-for-giv-able!” he yelled, relishing the syllables. He kicked the man shockingly hard in the genitals. The noose prevented him from doubling over, and his own hot sick dripped out of his mouth and down his chin, terrible flecks of the stuff snagging on the patchy hair of his chest. I looked at Jonagold, who smiled and nodded at me encouragingly.

“I’m sorry,” he said hopelessly. “I didn’t know it was chance.”

“You should have. Always do your research. What hope do we have for the future if you won’t even do your research?”

“It was a lunch break. I...”

“Gravenstein,” said Captain Kidd, passing the sandwich bag to another of the Pink Ladies, this one meticulously suited with a sheer hairstyle and almost plasticized features. “If you would.”

Gravenstein placed the bag on the floor next to him and crouched as he unfastened and removed his black leather shoes. He opened his belt and removed his trousers, which he folded neatly and placed next to the sandwich bag, then he pulled down his underpants. Picking up the sandwich bag he squatted, held the opening of the bag to his anus and, without breaking his intimidating, silent eye contact with the naked man, defecated onto the air-browned flesh of the Granny Smith apple. He stood up and passed the bag back to Captain Kidd, then picked up his shoes and trousers and walked calmly out of the barn in his socks.

“Now,” said Captain Kidd, holding the bag up to the light, the one solid piece of shit coiled along next to the half-eaten apple. “Eat your precious Granny Smith.”

The naked man took the bag in tears. Egremont Russet entered looking pale, followed by Gravenstein, his suit trousers and shoes back in place as though none of us had never seen his hanging testicles. The man put his hand into the bag and pulled out the apple, a large piece of excrement clinging to its thick green skin. Captain Kidd nodded, and in some desperately unimaginable act the naked man bit down into the Granny Smith and the faeces, groaning and heaving as he did so.

“You vile person,” said Captain Kidd after the first couple of swallows. “We are the Pink Ladies, protectors of both good apples and the nation’s moral fibre. We fight to protect our country and we fight to protect the high quality of our apples. You, and your Granny cunting Smith, have committed an assault on both. Gala, Empire,” he said, gesturing with a nod of the head towards two of the watching Pink Ladies. They each pulled on a pair of durable gloves, took hold of the other end of the rope which had been noosed around the naked man’s neck and, after a count of three, yanked with all their might. The man was hoisted upwards about six feet from the ground and he hung there noisily choking. The shit-smeared apple fell from his fingers and landed where he had been standing.

The Pink Ladies began chanting a mantra, of sorts, in unison, which was really just an alphabetical list of apple varieties. “Bolero Braeburn Breakey Captain Kidd Carlos Queen Calville Blanc D'Hiver Cortland Cox’s Orange Pippin Delicious Discovery Egremont Russet Ellison’s Orange Epicure Empire Exeter...”

It was strangely creepy in the circumstances. The Pink Ladies all seemed on edge without the aural drama of the audibly snapping neck. The man didn’t stop moving until the mantra reached Senshu.

*

When the drama had eventually subsided, Captain Kidd turned his attention to me.

“Who’s this?” he asked suspiciously.

“This is Jeff Goldblum Stevens,” said Jonagold. Captain Kidd raised one of his eyebrows. “Named after,” whispered Jonagold, by way of explanation.

“Parents,” I said. “Big fans of ‘The Fly’”.

“What about ‘Earth Girls Are Easy’?” asked Captain Kidd.

“That’s what I said,” I replied.

“So what brings you here, Jeff Goldblum.” I didn’t really know, so I looked at Jonagold.

“He’s into apples,” said Jonagold. “In a big way.” I wasn’t sure I liked the way he accentuated the big, but I stayed silent.

“Oh yeah?” he said. “That’s a good start. So. You like apples? Bit of fan, are you? A connoisseur, perhaps?” There were some sniggers among the other Ladies. “Fuji,” he said, and a Japanese man appeared at his side almost immediately with a tray loaded full of sliced apples. “Try a piece, Jeff Goldblum. See if you can’t tell us what it is.”

I reached over to the tray and grabbed the first slice I came to. I looked at the skin: handsome, decent pink tinge, flecks of green. I took a bite: good crunch, solid texture, clean bite, slightly acidic.

“Well,” I said contemplatively. “A knee jerk reaction would conclude that this was itself, in fact, and in keeping with your group moniker, a slice of Pink Lady.” I saw Captain Kidd’s eyebrows rise with pleasure, obviously satisfied with his own perceived intelligence and superiority, a smug grin forming across his lips. “But that would be knee jerk reaction,” I continued. I sucked the remaining apple juices from the corners of my mouth, looked again at the skin of the slice. “If I’m not mistaken, the slightly drab edge to the pink of the skin” – I pointed it out to the watching Ladies – “and the ever-so-slightly off-kilter sugar/acid balance I’m getting a sense of here would instead make this a simple Cripps Pink. Not a difference many would notice, I suppose. Just an issue of branding for most people.” I threw the last piece of the slice into my mouth and chewed contentedly. “But a difference none the less. Cripps Pink. One of the sixty-five per cent of which falls slightly below the marketable standard of the Pink Lady brand name.”

“Impressive,” acknowledged Captain Kidd, slightly put out by my pinpoint accuracy.

“As I say, I like apples.”

“Like? That’s not just like. My mother likes apples. That’s knowledge. You know apples.” I shrugged. “Try another piece. Show us what else you know.”

I did and, consciously or not, with every bite I took of every variety on the tray I became more and more a part of the Pink Ladies.

*

“What happened to your face, Jeff Goldblum?” asked Captain Kidd. We were both now sitting down on wooden dining chairs in the centre of the barn. Two jugs of cider were passing between the Ladies.

“My face?” I said, unsure what he was referring to. “Oh, right. Jonagold punched me.”

“Interesting,” he said. “Jonagold? Why would you do that?”

“It was just something he said. It was nothing.”

“Nothing?”

He looked at the both of us, waiting for an answer.

“It was nothing really,” I said eventually into the barn’s great silence. “I just said that...”

“Jeff Goldblum!” interrupted Jonagold urgently. He sounded nervous, like I was about to do something unmentionably wrong.

“Shut up and let him speak,” said Captain Kidd. I swallowed drily and looked around the cider. Both jugs were on the other side of the circle of Pink Ladies.

“I mean I just said that” – Jonagold was hiding his face behind his hands – “Jazz were really the new Pink Lady and that...”

“What?” Captain Kidd sounded decidedly unimpressed.

“Jazz are the new...”

“I heard what you said, Jeff fucking Goldblum. I meant: what the hell are you talking about?”

“Jazz apples,” I said. “I’d been feeling lost, dissatisfied by the unfulfilling texture of the Pink Lady. I don’t want to say it out loud, but I’ve had spongy, I’ve had tasteless, I’ve had...”

“Stop, please stop,” he said with genuine sadness.

“That’s just what I thought. I thought it was the end of the line for crunchy, flavoursome, readily available apples. Then I found Jazz. Just... sitting there. No fanfare, no advertisements. Just... Jazz. And the more I ate, the more Pink Ladies became...”

“No!” shouted Captain Kidd, and punched me in the face in desperation. His knuckles were hard and thick and I blacked out instantly.

*

When I came around I was being held upright by two of the Pink Ladies. I noticed that the noose was now fastened around my neck. They must have cut the other guy down and dumped him outside somewhere, because I couldn’t see him in the barn.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“You’re awake,” said Captain Kidd. “I wouldn’t usually do this, not to a connoisseur. You’ll noticed I left your clothes on. But your claims. Frankly, without verification of your suppositions vis-à-vis your so-called Jazz apples, you have made a hideously damaging value-judgement about the unsurpassed quality of the majestic Pink Lady, and thereby committed the most abusive affront to our organisation.”

“I’m telling you,” I said. “Those apples are incredible.”

“In this barn,” he said, “that’s for me to decide. Where do they come from?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Jazz. Where do they come from?”

“Right. Initially I thought it was just an M&S job, catering to the luxury market much like the P.L. did, back in the day. But only yesterday I picked a bag up in Tesco. Tesco, for Christ’s sake. There’s an apple revolution going on out there! Go, go get the bag and let’s verify. These apples can be the change that Britain needs, they can purify it clean of all its shit and take it back to the root of a fucking good apple.”

“Tesco,” said Captain Kidd. He blinked like he was impassioned, even if he didn’t sound it. “You heard him Jonagold.”

Jonagold literally ran out of the barn. I heard the Sierra’s engine turning over and the crunch of gravel as he sped out of the driveway and back into town.

*

He was back within twenty quick minutes with five bags of Jazz apples, forty apples in total. Captain Kidd tore greedily into the polythene and started passing the apples out to the other Pink Ladies and me, taking the biggest, reddest apple for himself. We all inspected their skin.

“Bi-coloured,” he said, to himself more than anything. “Good redness shot through with a kind of green, yellowy tinge. Attractive.”

He looked up and nodded, and we all bit into the flesh as one. The crunch sounded incredible, as did the slurp of twenty plus men sucking the juice of the apple back up their chins and into their mouths.

“Oh God,” said Captain Kidd, swallowing the first bite.

“Didn’t I tell you?” I said. “Taste that! It’s so sweet, like a sweet, a pear drop or something.”

“Oh God,” Captain Kidd said again, his words slurring slightly.

“Don’t get me wrong, I love a bit of acidity in my apples, like a good tree-ripened Braeburn, but tell me its absence here detracts from the flavour. Tell me, I said.”

“I won’t,” said Captain Kidd.

“Exactly. And look at the flesh. Butter yellow, crisp as crisp. This is a perfect apple. They’ve got a website for fuck’s sake.”

Captain Kidd bit the last shred of flesh from his Jazz apple and slumped down heavily into one of the wooden chairs. He looked almost sexually exhausted.

“Any apple worth its shit has a website. But these... these are the new Pink Lady,” he said. I smiled. “Let him go.” They loosened the noose and I walked over and sat down next to him. Jonagold was starting his second apple and he looked at me apologetically, sorry for the punch, for everything. I was right. This was the beginning of a Jazz revolution.

“Jeff Goldblum, we need someone like you in our party. Dynamic, young, trendsetter. You saw the future in these apples and fuck it, you were right.”

“Party?” I asked.

“Politics,” clarified Captain Kidd. “Local elections are coming up and we’re running. The Pink Ladies. The main parties have buggered this country to bleeding and people are ready for a change. This year we really have a chance for seats on the council.”

“What are your policies?” I asked, glugging from the cider jug.

“We’ll get to that,” he replied. “Are you in?”

I thought about everything else I had to do in life. It didn’t take long.

“I’m in,” I said.

“Excellent,” he said, shaking my hand forcefully. “Fucking yes. You’ll need an apple name of course, but I think we both know what that’s going to be.”

“Jazz.” He flashed me a thumbs up.

“Watch your policies, 2009,” he said. “Here come the Pink Ladies.”

The chanting started again, back from the beginning. “Bolero Braeburn Breakey Captain Kidd Carlos Queen Calville Blanc D'Hiver Cortland Cox’s Orange Pippin Delicious Discovery Egremont Russet Ellison’s Orange Epicure Empire Exeter Fortune Freyburg Fuji Gala Golden Delicious Golden Supreme Goodland Gravenstein Harcourt Honey Crisp Horei Idared Irish Peach Jerseymac James Grieve Jonafree Jonagold Jonamac Jonathan Kings Orange Red Liberty Lobo Lodi Lord Nelson McIntosh Macoun Merton Beauty Merton Russet Mother Mutsu Norland Northern Spy Parkland Patterson Primevere Priscillia Pristine Polka...”

It was the start of a very strange period in my life.

four parts of Berlin

Brett's sadness

I once worked with a guy, Brett, who had just celebrated his fiftieth and always seemed on the very edge of tears because of a variety of small problems in his regular life, like woman trouble with a legal secretary he somehow knew and who was three years his senior, or like a terrible asthma infliction for which he still used endless hits of Ventolin, or the fact that he worked as a chef at the lower end of the catering trade because he had had such a sickly childhood and all he did was go to hospital for treatments and not get good qualifications. Potato-faced, he lay down on the soft chairs at work with half of his face pressed down against the leather-effect seats and I could see him frowning and he kept on sighing and letting out crushing groans of discontent. I hoped that things would never have to get that bad for me, and couldn’t help wondering whether he would play rock classics at his no doubt pending funeral because earlier that day he had been whistling ‘Smoke on the Water’.

He kept telling me never to end up like him and assuring me that his near-estranged son had been to Australia to travel. The legal secretary had told him that against the odds she did fancy him, but had had sex with another man all the same. His throat was so dry that he could barely speak the words out. He ate slithers of banana on wholemeal rolls because the kitchen didn’t have any bacon or tomato.