Evelyn Piper had prayed for three sons, only to be disappointed by the birth of a single daughter, whom she called Olive. The disappointment got worse the older Olive became, as she became a dull, plain teenager who wore glasses. Just about the only thing Olive had going for her was that she didn’t have acne. Eventually, the disappointment grew so intense that Evelyn realised she had no option but to die.
If Olive was upset by her mother’s death, she didn’t show it. Primarily because she was almost entirely without affect. So on the day after Evelyn’s funeral, she went to see her careers adviser at school. “What do you want to do?” asked the careers adviser. “Nothing really.” “What interests you?” “Nothing really.” “Nothing?” “Well, I quite like reading books.” “Then you’d better become a teacher.”
From that moment on, Olive decided to be a teacher and went to a small university in London to read English, which she quite enjoyed in as much as she enjoyed anything. After realising she hadn’t left her room for more than six months, Olive decided to join the drama society where she was chosen to be the prompter in its Doctor Faustus. Olive was quite pleased about this as her life was turning into one long metaphor.
At the drama society, Olive met a student called Malcolm who was almost as dull as her. After not saying anything to each other for several pages, Malcolm invited her to stay with his parents. After dinner on the Saturday night, Malcolm came into her room and did what she assumed must have been the sex thing to her. “Have you finished?” she enquired when he stopped moving. “Yes,” he replied. “Good.”
Olive decided she wasn’t going to see Malcolm again and took a holiday job working in a library. In her second week, a short-haired woman tried to touch her neck. Hmm, thought Olive, she must be one of those lesbians she had heard about. As Olive knew she wasn’t a lesbian herself, she resigned from the library.
Nothing much happened for a while after that, until Malcolm wrote to say his cousin had been run over and killed and would she like to come and stay for the weekend. Olive couldn’t think of a good reason why not, having had nothing to react to for some time, so she went to see Malcolm who insisted on having the sex thing with her again. She still didn’t like it, even though he asked her to marry him. There was only so much boredom any woman could stand.
Two months later, Olive discovered she was pregnant, though even this barely raised a flicker of interest in her. Having decided she was going to have the baby and give it away for adoption, she sat around and did nothing for the next seven months.
“What are you going to call the baby?” asked a nurse. “Do I have to call it anything?” “It’s normal to do so.” “Then I’ll call it James. Bye, James. Have a nice life.” Having given her baby away, Olive remembered she was supposed to be interested in literature and applied to become an English teacher at a school in Salisbury.
“Do you like books?” the headteacher asked. “Quite.” “Then you’ve got the job.”
Towards the end of her first term, Olive was struck down by a mystery illness for a week and woke up to discover she was a lesbian having an affair with an older teacher called Thea. Olive was quite pleased to be a lesbian and went home to tell her father. “I’m a lesbian,” she announced. “That’s disgusting,” said her father’s new wife. “Your father would have hated that. Thank God he’s just had a stroke and died.”
On her return to Salisbury, Olive learned she had been sacked from her job for being a lesbian. She was disappointed by this and went round to see Thea, who she now discovered had always been in a long-term lesbian relationship with another teacher.
Olive briefly remembered she had not thought of James for a while. Having thought of James, she moved to the Lake District to be a teacher there. She hadn’t yet decided whether she would continue to be a lesbian or not.
Digested read, digested: Olive branches out.
