Oranges

Question 1

My father liked to watch the wrestling, my mother liked to wrestle.

Answer 1

CH1 Matriarch

Question 2

The devil himself is a drunk (sometimes my mother invented theology).

Answer 2

CH1 Matriarch / Education

Question 3

My mother had painted the white roses red and now she claimed they grew that way.

Answer 3

CH7

Question 4

This is kindly light.

Answer 4

CH8 Matriarch

Question 5

It’s an Abomination, it’s like saying we come from monkeys.

Answer 5

CH2 Education

Question 6

So you just take care what you think is the heart might well be another organ.

Answer 6

CH4 Education

Question 7

This little lily could herself be a house of demons.

Answer 7

CH1 Religion

Question 8

These children of god, began the pastor, have fallen under Satan’s spell / fallen foul of their lusts.

Answer 8

CH6 Religion

Question 9

To the pure all things are pure.

Answer 9

CH6 Religion

Question 10

(demon) they talk a lot but they don’t see nothing.

Answer 10

CH6 Religion

Question 11

Romantic love for another woman was a sin.

Answer 11

CH7 Religion

Question 12

Anyone could be saved and anyone could fall to the devil, it was their choice.

Answer 12

CH7 Religion

Question 13

Their kind of violence leaves no visible mark.

Answer 13

CH8 Religion

Question 14

I couldn’t attract her attention, so I took an orange and went back to bed.

Answer 14

CH2 Family

Question 15

She softened ‘good girl’

Answer 15

CH3 Family

Question 16

I felt a blow that wrapped around my head like a bandage. I lay on the lino looking up into the face.

Answer 16

CH6 Family

Question 17

She’s all right, I murmured mechanically (mother)

Answer 17

CH6 Family

Question 18

Perhaps the Lord does, but my mother didn’t (forgive and forget)

Answer 18

CH6 Family

Question 19

She burnt a whole lot more than the letters that night in the backyard. I don’t think she knew.

Answer 19

CH6 Family

Question 20

But oh, Sir Percval, come and turn cartwheels again.

Answer 20

CH7 Family

Question 21

He dreams of Arthur’s court, where he was the darling, the favourite.

Answer 21

CH7 Family

Question 22

There are threads that intend to pull you back.

Answer 22

CH8 Family

Question 23

Because it’s my problem too (jewsbury)

Answer 23

CH6 Guilt and Shame

Question 24

Can love really belong to the demon?

Answer 24

CH6 Guilt and Shame

Question 25

The skin hung stubborn, and soon I lay panting, angry and defeated.

Answer 25

CH6 Guilt and Shame

Question 26

I made her ill, made the house ill, brought evil into the Church.

Answer 26

CH7 Guilt and Shame

Question 27

Shaft of light staining the carpet.

Answer 27

CH7 Guilt and Shame

Question 28

I lay in it, unable to forgive myself, unable to forgive her.

Answer 28

CH7 Guilt and Shame

Question 29

Once I went deaf for three months with my adenoids: no one noticed that either.

Answer 29

CH2 Betrayal

Question 30

I am busy with the Lord in Wigan. (a note) She didn’t comeback for three weeks.

Answer 30

CH3 Betrayal

Question 31

Quite serene / she smiled / want an orange?

Answer 31

CH6 Betrayal

Question 32

If she had been serene to the point of bovine before, she was now almost vegetable.

Answer 32

CH8 Betrayal

Question 33

This was no spontaneous speech. / If there’s such a thing as spiritual adultery, my mother was a whore.

Answer 33

CH7 Betrayal

Question 34

Oh she’s a demon your daughter, wailed mrs white / she’s no daughter of mine, snapped (mother)

Answer 34

CH8 Betrayal

Question 35

The devil looks after his own.

Answer 35

CH7 Betrayal

Question 36

I tried to imagine him without his clothes on. Horrid.

Answer 36

CH4 Sexuality

Question 37

Did that mean that all over the globe, in all innocence, women were marrying beasts?

Answer 37

CH4 Sexuality

Question 38

(the mac) it was bright pink / I looked at the shrimps / I felt sick.

Answer 38

CH4 Sexuality

Question 39

We hugged and it felt like drowning / something crawling in my belly.

Answer 39

CH4 Sexuality

Question 40

I traced the outline of her marvellous bones and the triangle of muscle in her stomach. What is it about intimacy that makes it so very disturbing?

Answer 40

CH6 Sexuality

Question 41

Aping men.

Answer 41

CH7 Sexuality

Question 42

He stood a safe distance away like I was infected.

Answer 42

CH7 Sexuality

Question 43

The devil had attacked me at my weakest point: my inability to realise the limitations of my sex.

Answer 43

CH7 Sexism

Question 44

The earth kept crumbling away

Answer 44

CH7 Struggle

Question 45

I held on tight to the little brown pebble.

Answer 45

CH7 Struggle

Question 46

‘will you repent’ ‘no’ and I stared at him till he looked away.

Answer 46

CH7 Struggle

Question 47

It was not judgement day but another morning.

Answer 47

CH7 Struggle

Question 48

After all, said my mother philosophically, oranges are not the only fruit.

Answer 48

CH8 Struggle