Even Grimmer Tales (2 page)

Don't give me that old line,

that looks aren't everything.

It isn't true. You know it. So do I.

And if you're honest, you'll admit it.

I learned it the hard way.

I've never trusted men

who have male model looks.

The sort you see on covers

of women's magazines.

Or blandly smiling on commercials,

or advertising latest trends

in fashions for aspiring young executives.

Worse still, the bulging biceps lot,

flexing muscles over skimpy briefs.

Fair made me sick to look at them!

Something about those guys

put me right off. I think it was

the smug look on their faces,

the consciousness they showed

that girls would almost certainly

fall at their well-shod feet

and find them irresistible.

Not me!

Not that I ever had to worry.

Pa's money saw me always

well-pursued. I knew it. So did he.

“Well, Princess, just take care!”

Time after time, he said that,

when yet another blond young hunk

rocked up to take me

(or was it just the family fortune?)

out to dinner. I listened to my dad.

He was a wise old bird. “Good looks,”

he'd say, “are dangerous. You're lucky,

Princess, 'cos you've got it all.

Not only beauty, but good sense,

and being Daddy's only child

won't be a disadvantage either.

So take care.”

I did, and anyway,

I always liked the plainer ones.

They often seemed to have

much more to offer. I guess

because they knew they weren't

god's gift to women, so saw themselves

as offering much less. In looks, at least.

I specially liked the one

they all called ‘Frog.' He knew

that he was downright ugly,

but didn't let it worry him.

I liked that.

He'd never look at me,

just turn away, and blush.

OK. That got me in, and I will be

the first one to admit it.

It piqued me, so I chased him.

Pursued him quite relentlessly,

and caught him. We were married.

Daddy was approving. “Looks – ”

he said it many times to me,

“ – they're not reliable. I'm glad

you've learned that lesson.”

So Frog and I were happy for a time,

until he started to look round

and realise he didn't have to look

the way he did. I loved him,

so I really didn't feel at all uneasy

about the money all those doctors

charged us.

And they were worth it.

Boy, the changes that they made.

Those plastic surgeons have so much

to answer for. They do a lot of damage!

I will admit it may not be intended.

You often see him now; his photo's

in the social pages most weekends.

A different model's on his arm

each time.

He's not called ‘Frog'

these days. They've nicknamed him

‘The Prince.' We haven't seen each other

for a while. He did quite well

out of our breaking up. I don't regret

the money that it cost.

What saddens me

is what it did to Dad. These days

he doesn't have so much to say;

he looks a bit confused.

He's lost his certainty,

and ‘Looks aren't everything!” is not

a phrase you hear around our house.

Worst of it is the palace pool is empty.

He could at least have given us

some tadpoles for the future …

A widower with one beautiful child marries a proud and arrogant woman with two far less prepossessing daughters. These jealous maidens oppress and persecute their new step-sister, who is forced to do all the housework and live among the cinders in the kitchen. On the night of the Prince's ball, Cinderella is left at home, but her dreams are fulfilled when a fairy godmother appears and transforms the girl's rags into a haute couture ball gown. This wonder woman sends Cinderella to the ball in a coach created from a pumpkin (modern transport authorities might well envy this ability) and driven by coachman and horses made from the kitchen creatures that the girl has befriended. She and the Prince are so entranced with each other that she forgets the requirement to leave the ball before the enchantment ends at midnight. When the clock strikes she returns to her rags as she flees, but leaves behind a glass slipper on the palace steps. Although all through the kingdom hopeful girls, including the wicked stepsisters, try to cram their feet into the glass slipper, the prince searches until he finds the girl whose foot fits the object, to be his beloved. They live happily ever after, and we all learn the adage: If the shoe fits, wear it!

I get annoyed the way the whole world seems

to overlook what it was like for me.

I married him in good faith

expecting what a woman always hopes for:

to be at least of some importance in his life.

Mind you, the girls warned me. “Are you quite sure – ”

Priscilla's always been a cautious one,

“are you quite sure that he is really

what he seems?”

Me, I'm the trusting sort.

Plus, desperation's setting in.

That sick sense of unease

when money matters loomed.

Solo, widow, penniless,

two daughters with no looks –

slim chance of getting rid of them!

He seemed ideal. Thought for sure

he'd be protective, caring,

he'd look after me.

He told me that he had a daughter,

said he loved her very much.

He didn't say
how
much.

Somehow that bit is never mentioned

when the story gets retold.

They tell you that she loved her daddy,

and what a rotten bitch I was.

That's what they say. They leave out

how I tried to make the whole thing work.

They make it sound as if she was exploited.

Stuck inside the kitchen,

slave for everyone. While my girls –

this is what they tell you – swanned round

and treated her like dirt.

Not how it really was.

A clever little minx, that one.

Piteous looks for Daddy

and quick to cuddle up to him.

Often made me feel a little odd,

especially when I saw

just how he looked at her.

Yes, daddy loved his daughter.

Separate bedrooms for us? Not a worry.

I thought it was considerate,

given how he snored. Though I'd admit

I'd looked for something different

when I said yes, I'd marry him.

“I need a wife,” he told me.

Fool that I was, I didn't hear

exactly what he wanted. And she,

I saw how she played up to him.

Creaking stairs when he went down

so many nights

to get his midnight glass of milk –

it took some time …

Her little room was off the kitchen.

That's how the story started, I suppose,

how badly she was treated.

Balls and princes – all that silly talk!

As for the story

that I stopped her going out!

Me stop her

doing anything she wanted!

He couldn't bear the thought that other men

might want her. That's the truth of it.

He locked the doors, and took away

the pretty clothes he'd lavished on her …

(Dressed in rags? Now that's a laugh!

The ones who wore the hand-me-downs

were my poor girls. No wonder

Ruby and Priscilla tried to pay her back.

But daddy always took her side.

They didn't stand a chance!)

“For your own good,” he told her

as he shut her in.

“I just want daddy's little girl to stay

the same sweet innocent she is.”

I wouldn't call what she was ‘innocent.'

She'd learned a thing or two from him.

Time to act – and she was eager.

“Find yourself a prince!' I said. “I'll help.”

Not hard to find the key and organize a taxi,

find her some pretty clothes, and warn

“Make sure that you get back in time,

before his meeting ends and he gets home,”

I'd love to know what story teller

invented midnight as the time.

I'd told her 10 pm.

The first few nights we managed it all right,

and she was properly grateful.

Said I was her fairy godmother. We'd made

a sort of peace between us by that time.

New life for her –

maybe for me too …

She found her prince, of course.

A nice young man;

a salesman in a shoe shop in the town.

They met one day when she sneaked out,

(a little help from me) to buy some dancing shoes.

I guess that might explain how later on

the story got re-told.

They left together,

and her name's not mentioned in the house

these days. Our lives have been much quieter.

The place is still at night.

The stairs don't creak.

It makes me feel a bit queer, though,

when often in the middle of the night,

his bedroom door clicks shut – it has a real

distinctive sound –

then I hear the footsteps pause …

outside what would be Ruby's door.

At the christening of a long-awaited baby princess, all the invited fairies offer gifts. But hosts really must check a guest list very carefully; there's a danger if it causes offence! One fairy, angry at being left out, gate-crashes the party and brings an unwanted gift – one day the princess will die after pricking her finger on a needle. This fate is altered by a final gift from another fairy; though the curse can't be undone, rather than death she will sleep for a hundred years. Despite great efforts to ban all needles from the castle, the curse is fulfilled on the girl's sixteenth birthday, and the entire castle and all inhabitants are plunged into a deep sleep. The building itself is surrounded by an impenetrable hedge of thorns. Rescue comes when a handsome prince breaks through the thorns, is overcome by love, and kisses the princess, at which all wake.
Amor vincit omnia
wins out again.

Dad and bodies.

That's what I remember.

Not something classy, like pathology.

Not even a GP. No family doctor.

But bodies fascinated us.

Forensic science shows on telly –

they had us hooked.

Cadavers stretched on gurneys,

whine of saw into rib cages,

flaps of skin peeled back

with expertise. An art.

So is embalming.

That was Dad's field.

A whiff can take me back.

Formaldehyde and ethanol,

humectants – tools of trade –

all my childhood world.

He wanted me to follow

in the family business.

Not my scene.

I tried – real hard.

Could manage most of it:

draining blood, injecting fluids,

Okay. But other bits repugnant.

Compensations though.

Some bits I liked.

Grooming of the face and body.

Cosmetics, a real blush of life,

outlining lips, light powder coating

to prevent the oily sheen

that might upset the grieving viewers.

Easier to do on bodies that lie still.

True of other things as well.

Not good to tell too many others

just how I earn a crust. Especially

girls.

Hard anyway

to find a girl. Stammered.

Blushed. Blood uncontrollable

would redden cheeks, ears, nose, and leave me

flushed, perspiring, and apologetic.

The nicer ones would smile and treat me gently;

most laughed and went away.

I learned.

Yearning flesh

withers and subsides

when faced with a real girl.

Better those quiescent figures

who haunted night's imaginings.

“Leave well alone,” that was my dad's advice.

“They're trouble, women,” he was quick to say.

After she went we didn't talk of mum.

We had a quiet life.

Quiet in the house.

Quiet in the mortuary too.

I fixed Dad when he died.

He looked the same as always.

But silent.

Not that we'd ever talked much;

we liked the quiet.

Same with the work too. Those bodies

were so still. They never criticised or sneered.

Women lying absolutely passive.

No expectations, no demands on me,

except to make them look as good as ever.

Or better.

I took a pride in that.

“There, sweetheart,” I said once.

“Bet you never knew that you could look like that.”

She had a look, a half smile, I was sure

no-one except her lovers ever saw before.

She was the first one that I kissed.

Cool kisses – for the first time I was fine:

no blush, no stutter

when I spoke. I knew

I'd found the women for me. After that,

the rest was easy.

But wondered sometimes what it might be like

with someone who was still alive ...

Not enough to take the risk. All that writhing,

bodies straining, struggling with each other.

Who'd need that? My way was better.

My work was good; I had a reputation.

When someone special died, they called me in.

State funerals and dignitaries; people

in the social swim. If family wanted someone

to look good, they knew they needed me.

Different this time, though.

She was the real McCoy.

Social pages, top-drawer stuff,

although she had been out to it a long long time,

years in fact.

No, not a hundred, that's typical

of how these stories get blown up

and out of all proportion.

Just like that other tale,

that she'd been cursed at birth. I ask you!

Who'd believe that sort of garbage?

I grant you

that it was a mystery, the way she'd suddenly

collapsed, and then was out to it, in la-la land.

Expensive nursing home …

they called it coma.

Gossip, sure. A lot. We heard

the stories, talk of needles in her room.

There's always someone who will think the worst.

People do have nasty minds.

All those doctors! Still, no explanation,

or even what might happen next.

And so they kept her,

cared for, lovely as she'd always been.

Or even, I thought, better,

in her stillness and her sleep.

They showed me photos, later.

I swallowed hard.

She was a vision as she lay there.

When it was over,

came the call to me:

“Keep her just the way she is!”

They left me to my ministrations.

My rules.

No interruptions.

A priest. Her priest, summoned to adore. And,

in adoring, to preserve to all eternity.

An old familiar surge of feeling,

the need to have her, to possess.

So this is where there is indeed

some truth in that familiar tale

that generations have so utterly distorted.

So beautiful, a sleeping beauty,

still and white,

her flesh almost translucent.

I leaned above her,

lifted from her lovely face

the veil that tender hands had laid there.

She was the woman I had waited for.

My lips touched hers in our first kiss.

And then the stupid bitch woke up.