Fairytales and other stories

Fairytales and other stories By Terence Rajivan Edward 1 Preface From the age of nineteen until the age of twenty-eight, I tried to write fairytales. I attempted many times to come up with a fairytale that would not be out of place alongside the well-known ones. My efforts to achieve this goal only resulted in a few stories that were worth keeping. None of them feature fairies, but most of them can be called fairytales, for the term ‘fairytale’ is not used in exactly the way that the term itself suggests. Today, I do not have the desire to write stories of this kind. The ones I have produced seem to belong to my past. Since I do not anticipate any more, I have collected them in this little book. I have also included two other stories. One of these stories, the earliest one here, reminds me of Kafka. The other is a myth, much like the Ancient Greek myths. It was also one of my ambitions to write a collection of myths that, if read without knowledge of their author, would seem to be Ancient Greek and as good as the best myths of that time. But I have only managed to produce a single myth. It would take a long while to properly explain why I had these ambitions, and why I no longer have them. I will leave aside these issues here. I hope the stories are enjoyable. 2 Contents Doors 4 The Idiot’s Shoes 5 The Pirate Cook 9 The Other Nose 14 Eo and the Goddess 18 The Little Prince 20 3 Doors Once upon a time, there was a man in a corridor where all the doors were shut. Every door that he tried was locked. So he went downstairs. Every door on that level was locked as well and on every other level. Finally, he found a hole in the wall and crept out into the street. In the street, there was no one. Every single door in the city was locked. Every window was shut. So he left the city to a town and then another town and then a third town. The situation was the same. He went all over the world, through every country, looking for a door that would open, but there was none that would open. Finally, he found an open door in the middle of nowhere. He went in and there was a person inside. The other person was himself. To himself, he said, ‘I have looked all over the world for a door that would open and have not been able to find a single one, until now.’ The other person, who was himself, replied, ‘You were in solitude until at last you found yourself.’ 4 The Idiot’s Shoes There was once a village idiot whose only pair of shoes were wearing out fast. One day he finally decided that he needed new shoes. That day hidden in a corner of the market was a shoe-seller from a faraway land. There were many colourful shoes with exotic shapes for sale. The idiot was dazzled. But they were all very expensive. The idiot asked the shoeseller if he had any shoes at a lower price. The shoe-seller pulled out a pair of shoes much like the ones that the idiot was wearing, in much the same condition. The idiot said that he did not want those. To this the shoe-seller replied, ‘If you go home, close your eyes and give each shoe a kiss, they will turn into the most splendid shoes you have ever seen.’ Hearing this the idiot decided to buy the shoes. At home he gave each shoe a kiss. Now there are a few occasions when foolishness has its reward. There are times when it gives the jackpot to those who do not have the regular pay of being sensible. This seemed like one of those times. The idiot opened his eyes and saw the most splendid pair of shoes. They were made of velvet, not leather. The laces were chains of diamonds. And they gave off a delicious chocolate aroma. Shoes like this were so special that the idiot dared not expose them to the harshness of the world outside. He kept them indoors in a cupboard. When the shoes he had on finally wore out, he had no more money to spend on new ones. So he walked around barefoot. People teased him. They called him an idiot for not having shoes. The idiot was unable to face their taunts in silence. He declared, ‘I have shoes but they are too splendid to wear. They are made of velvet, not leather. Their laces are chains of diamonds. They always smell of chocolate, even when I wear them after I have walked everywhere barefoot. In fact my feet 5 come out clean and smelling of chocolate afterwards.’ This made almost everyone laugh in disbelief. There was only one person who did not. There was a knave in the village who wished to marry one of its richest ladies. He listened to the idiot defend his shoes and knew that the idiot was sincere in every word that he spoke. One day he sneaked into the house of the idiot and took off one of the diamond shoelaces. He made a necklace from it and presented it to the lady he so wished to wed. The lady was very was impressed. She wore it everywhere and began to think of the knave as someone superior to her other suitors. The idiot meanwhile was very sad. He hid his shoes in what seemed to him like a safe place and decided not to talk about them at all to the people of the village in case it encouraged further theft. But he could not keep to this resolution. One day he happened to see the rich lady stepping out of a carriage. He saw something shining around the neck of this lady. He could not take it from her because of the guards around her. So he shouted, ‘That’s my shoelace! That’s my shoelace!’ Of course no one believed him. Of course everyone laughed at him. The knave realized that one gift was not enough to secure his marriage. So he sneaked into the idiot’s house again. Now after the first theft, the idiot was afraid of his shoes being stolen. So he hid them in what he thought was a safe place. He moved the shoes from inside a cupboard to under the blanket of his bed. No one keeps a pair of shoes under a blanket, he thought, so no one will think to look for them here. But the knave found them. He went into the bedroom and saw two bumps under the blanket. This time he took the other diamond shoelace. He made bracelets from them and presented them to the lady he so wished to marry as a second gift. You can imagine what followed. Again the idiot was sad. Again he happened to see the lady stepping out of a carriage. Again he could not stop himself when he 6 saw the lady. ‘Those are my other shoelace! Those are my other shoelace!’ he shouted. And again everyone laughed. One more gift, the knave thought, would secure his marriage. But what? Suddenly he remembered that the lady had a weakness for chocolate and that he had smelt a warm chocolate aroma when he unlaced the idiot’s shoes. Now after the second theft the idiot had his shoes locked up in a box, which he kept under his bed. But this only made things a little harder for the knave. It was not as if the idiot was the sort to have lots of treasures which have to be kept locked up. The knave just took the box and had it broken open. He put some icing on the shoes and presented them to the lady. ‘Are these shoes for me?’ she asked in bewilderment. The knave said that he had got her the idiot’s shoelaces and now he had decided to get her the shoes. The lady laughed, thinking it was a charmingly light-hearted response to the idiot’s wild accusations. Then the knave said, ‘Why don’t you try tasting them?’ The lady protested that they were velvet, but the knave said, ‘They smell of chocolate, do they not? They have icing on them, do they not? And what smells of chocolate and has icing on it is surely a chocolate cake, is it not? I bet it will be the tastiest chocolate cake you have ever eaten.’ The lady could not resist the knave’s reasoning. She ate the shoes. They were delicious. She promised her hand in marriage. But by the next morning the knave’s plan had fallen to pieces. That night the stomach of this lady of luxury did not feel at all settled. Over the course of the night she brought up what had been so delicious. But it was not chocolate she brought up and it was not velvet and it was not a half-digested version of either of these. It was stones and grass and mud. It was the sorts of things that you would get on your feet if you walked about barefoot all day. ‘The shoes! The shoes!’ the lady kept crying, before bringing up more dirt. The maids were so puzzled by what they saw and what they heard, until they started to 7 remember the accusations of the village idiot. Together they began to work everything out. In the end the lady never married the knave but the idiot’s shoes became famous throughout the village and throughout the land. 8 The Pirate Cook There once was a young man who served as a cook on a pirate’s ship. Life had taken from him an arm and a leg already. It is also said that he had lost all sensation of taste in his tongue. Nobody can be sure of this apart from him, of course. But all those who observed him closely noticed that he showed no interest in eating except for the purpose of sustaining his life. He ate little more than was needed for this end. The meals he cooked, however, seemed to be the creations of someone who truly understood the love of food. When he caught enough rats on the ship, he would make a little feast for the crew, a feast which gave each pirate more satisfaction than they would have got from their own mother’s cooking after all these years. This is the story of how the outlaw chef became a palace cook. It begins with a great storm. The storm destroyed the ship. Its cook woke up on the shores of a country unfamiliar to him, the only one to survive. The dishevelled cook wandered through the districts of the seaside town searching for a place to stay. If he could only cook for them, he would have had endless offers. But he did not know the language of the land. Muttering in a foreign tongue and carrying with him the stench of the sea, he appeared to the townsfolk to be a crazed beggar. Every pair of eyes that the helpless pirate gazed into looked out at him with frosty prejudice. That was until he came face to face with a haggard old woman. It was like a family reunion. The two were connected not by blood but by being fellow practitioners of magic. Soon mouth-watering aromas wafted from her tired home into the streets. First the beggars came, then the poor but housed. Finally even the more prosperous left their districts to investigate the rumours of culinary masterpieces on offer. 9 The cook became a local legend. Life was pleasant. The great chefs of the seaside town even abandoned their initial bitterness. Envy was saved for immediate superiors. The gulf between their own cooking and that of the young upstart made it ridiculous to envy. But one day the cook’s happy stay in the town was called to an end. A messenger of the Queen summoned the cook to her court. After sampling one small helping of his cooking, the Queen said, ‘I would like you to cook for us a splendid supper.’ ‘The price for such a service will be high,’ said the former pirate. Despite the fame he had acquired, he still looked like a rat-catching sailor. ‘Name your price,’ said the Queen, confident that she had more treasure to give than he had seen in his wildest dreams. ‘Your left arm, ma’am. I would like your left arm to replace the one I have lost.’ The Queen’s face turned red. She threatened to force the cook to make the evening meal. ‘I would rather die ma’am than submit to a will other than my own,’ said the cook with cool sincerity. The taste of the small delight that she had just eaten lingered in her mouth. Her tongue demanded more. ‘It is only my left arm after all,’ the Queen thought to herself, before agreeing to the cook’s outrageous proposal. The food she ate that evening gave her such satisfaction that at first the Queen believed she would never want to eat again. She requested her regular cooks to do the cooking for the days that followed. The palace cooks sweated to compete with the new arrival. They over-reached themselves with fanciness until the Queen herself ordered that things be plain. She ate merely from a lifetime’s habit, indifferent to the taste. On a bland diet she soon recovered. She felt herself to be ready for another supper from the pirate cook. Once again he said the price would be high. Once again the Queen asked him to name her price. ‘The lower part of your right leg ma’am, that I may trample the earth with two feet once more.’ 10 The supper she had this time was painfully satisfying. The Queen did not eat for days afterwards. She told the cook to leave her court. ‘Why do you not just kill me here, your majesty?’ he replied with a wily smile, before bowing in the knowledge that it was he who held the power between them. Months passed, but eventually the cook was summoned back to the court. The Queen asked him for a third time to name his price. ‘First,’ said the cook, ‘let me make the meal. Then we shall discuss my terms.’ The cook asked that the discussion take place in privacy. Alone with the Queen, he told her, ‘If you only give me this one thing, I shall ask for no more from you. Your tongue ma’am, I would like your tongue in place of my own.’ The cook was holding a bowl of food in his hand. He moved it in small circles as he spoke, as if practising hypnosis. The aromas moved upwards. The Queen stretched fingers to the back of her throat. She passed her tongue to the cook. He in turn passed the bowl to the Queen. She brought it close to her nose to take in the smells. Then the Queen began to shake. The bowl dropped. She had turned deathly pale as realization of her madness dawned. How can one eat without a tongue? The cook escorted the shocked monarch gently to a chamber, locking her in there. He then called together the lords and ladies of her court. The Queen, he told them, wanted to be alone, absolutely alone, and she had left him in charge of her Queendom. They were not surprised by his words. She came from an eccentric lineage. And under the spell of foreign cooking, the Queen had been behaving stranger and stranger. In the minds of some of those present, plots were being formed to rid themselves of the cook and take charge themselves. But plots take time to carry out. For the moment, the cook had managed to seize control of the country. The cook did not replace his own tongue with the Queen’s, as may have been expected. He did not wish to have for himself the weakness that proved to be her downfall. 11 Instead, his criminal heart felt a pressing need to destroy this artefact of crime. He went out into the garden and gathered the palace hounds. He tossed the tongue behind them and watched them rush to devour it. But when they approached it, they did not sink into it. The hounds all sat down, as if they had been instructed to by the tongue itself. After this failed attempt, the cook grew anxious. He took the Queen’s tongue to a room with a great fireplace. He lit a fire and tossed it in. But again his effort was unsuccessful. There was a terrible scream as the tongue jumped back out. Guards rushed in, believing that the Queen herself had wailed for help. By then, the quick-thinking cook had already hidden the royal meat. He kept it under his pillow that night, tossing and turning as her voice filled his dreams. In the early hours of the morning, unable to sleep any further, the cook set off for the sea. He borrowed a fisherman’s boat and went a considerable way out, far beyond the distance his body appeared capable of. There he dropped the cursed object into the sea. The water fizzed with agitation. Slowly the sea grew more and more irritable, until the little boat grew out of its boatman’s control. Several hours later the cook awoke once again on the shore. As he opened his eyes, he wondered if the whole adventure since surviving the pirate’s ship had been nothing but a dream. He took in the sensations of the world around. He gazed at the now calm sky. He listened to the gulls and to the sea as it came in and withdrew. He remembered old stories that portrayed the sea as a great beast whose heavy breaths made the tide come in and out. As he continued to listen, he could hear whispering. But there did not appear to be anyone one around. The whispering was coming from the sea itself. Each time it withdrew from the shore, he heard it say, ‘Bring me back.’ Then the old witch who had first taken him in appeared by his side. ‘Trust,’ she said. ‘When you cook you never taste to see if everything is going well. You trust. Only when you truly trust, when you lay yourself 12 in the hands of fate, is magic possible. Where is your trust now? You are trying to force your will on the world. If it cannot be eaten, if it cannot be burnt, if it cannot be drowned, where next will blind determination lead you?’ The cook understood. He walked a little way into the sea and dipped his hand in it. Nothing happened at first, but he did not worry. He just kept his palm open, waiting till the time was right. Soon enough it felt like a fish was wriggling between his fingers. He collected the tongue from the sea and set off on his way back. Even though he had tricked her, the Queen was glad to see him. She was starving and knew that only he had the solution. With her tongue returned to its place, she drank up the soup he had prepared, barely registering its taste. The cook invited the old witch into the room. He detached from his body the arm and the leg he had taken from the Queen and told the witch to restore them to their rightful positions. Then he bid the two women farewell. They watched him leave the room with measured steps. That was the last that was ever seen of the pirate cook. 13 The Other Nose Once upon a time, a princess was born with a nose on the back of her head, as well as a nose on the front. Her mother passed away at the sight of this other nose. Her father, the king, insisted that a veil always be worn over it. He sheltered his daughter from the public. For many years she only had contact with a few trusted subjects of his. It was the king’s hope that his daughter would grow up without feeling herself to be strange. But, although the second nose was passed over in silence, she could not but realize that she was marked by an astounding difference. Aware that everyone was pretending as if she was perfectly normal, she too pretended. She would often be found withdrawn in contemplation as the alternative to moving in an atmosphere of oppressive silence. The princess grew into a beautiful woman. It was the king’s dream that despite her difference, she might enter into a good marriage. He invited princes from the neighbouring lands to come to his court and meet the princess. Three princes visited the court. The first boasted that he was the bravest of all living princes. He spoke of his many heroic deeds in battle and brought treasure obtained from his conquests to offer as a gift. The second prince also boasted that he was the bravest of all living princes. He too spoke of his many heroic deeds in battle and brought treasure obtained from his conquests to offer as a gift. The third prince, however, did not say that he was the bravest of all living princes. Nor did he refer to his heroic deeds in battle. He came from a land that had been ravaged by neighbouring kingdoms. He only offered the princess two diamond nose studs. The king advised his daughter to marry either the first or the second prince. They came from wealthy kingdoms. Furthermore, they were brave men. The king feared that only 14 the bravest of men could bear a wife with a nose on the back of her head. The princess acquiesced. She chose the first prince as her husband. The king grew fearful at the thought of his daughter’s secret being discovered in a foreign land. Anything might happen to her. He insisted that she and the chosen suitor wed and live together in his castle. The wedding ceremony passed smoothly. But when the princess and her husband were finally alone together, she decided that she must reveal her secret to him. She dropped the veil from her head and turned around. At a point in the middle of the back of her head, her hair parted and a nose peeped out. The prince was horrified. He believed that he had been tricked into marrying a royal witch, a type more powerful and more deadly than any other variety. When he overcame his initial horror, he pleaded with her to let him return to his homeland without cursing him. The princess said nothing. She withdrew into her thoughts, leaving the poor prince to tremble until the morning. The next morning the marriage was annulled. For fear of being cursed, the prince never mentioned what he had seen. A year passed. During that time the king rejuvenated his dream of securing a good marriage for his daughter. Once again, he invited princes from neighbouring lands to visit his court. This time only two princes came, the ones who had been unsuccessful on the previous occasion. The king recommended that the princess marry the prince who boasted about his bravery and brought plenty of treasure. She did so, only to find that he was no braver than the first prince. When the prince and the princess were finally alone together, she decided once again that she must reveal her secret nose to her husband. ‘Now I know what happened one year ago,’ he said, shaking all over, before begging her to also let him go without bringing a curse upon him. The princess did not react with words. She moved away and sat by herself 15 for the rest of the night, thinking over the pains of her fate. In the morning her second marriage was annulled. Another year passed. The king could not help but suggest that they make a third effort to secure a good marriage for his daughter. But this time there was only one prince who came to the court. It was the prince from the ravaged land, who had no deeds of bravery of which to boast and no treasure to offer. Once again he brought two diamond nose studs, a most meagre gift for a princess. The king advised his daughter to reject this poor suitor. He did not consider the prince worthy of his daughter, and he was sure that if they married it would bring her the same traumatic experience. But the princess interpreted his gift as a sign from destiny. She told her father that she must marry this prince. She reminded him of how she had followed his advice on previous occasions and that now she only wished for an opportunity to follow her own heart. Her father was a kind king. Though he disagreed with her decision, he allowed it to pass. The wedding ceremony proceeded smoothly. This time when the princess and her prince were alone together, she decided not to reveal her secret. She would wait until it was discovered. But she soon found out that it was already known to the prince. ‘Why is it that you only have this little jewellery to give me? Even if your land has been ravaged, I am sure that your family has more riches to offer,’ she said to her husband. ‘It is true that we have much more riches to offer,’ he said, ‘but my mother, the queen, insisted that I bring nothing more than these two studs. She said that only then would you understand. Is it true that you have two noses?’ ‘Your mother must be a royal witch, for it is true indeed,’ the princess replied. She wore one of the studs on the front nose. Then she removed her veil and asked that the prince pierce her other nose with the gift. Its point passed painlessly through her skin. The prince was then witness to a magical event. The nose that peeped through at the back of 16 the princess’s head slowly withdrew. Eventually all that was left where the nose had been was the glittering diamond of the nose stud and its golden rim. Soon the attendants of the princess noticed that her other nose had gone. Yet they did not remark upon it. It was passed over in silence, just as the presence of her other nose had been. But it was no longer an oppressive silence. The princess stopped wearing a veil and enjoyed a happy marriage. 17 Eo and the Goddess Once upon a time, a goddess took the form of a Queen and ruled over a remote island whose inhabitants were only women. Tired of just female company, she decided to bear a son. He was called Eo. All of the island’s women adored him. He grew into a young man whom every young lady longed to be with. But Eo had feelings for none of them. Secretly, this pleased the Queen, for she herself had fallen in love with her creation. But the Queen knew he was sad and yearned for true love. One day, as mother and son were walking along the beach, a boat made of pure glass was brought to their feet by the tide. It was just large enough to fit two people in it, and came with two delicate glass oars. ‘Step into this boat, Eo,’ instructed the Queen, ‘and cross the ocean in search of love.’ Eo rowed for many days and nights without rest. He never felt hungry or tired, and the ocean was miraculously calm during his journey. Finally, he came to a small but lush island. It had only one inhabitant, a woman who won Eo’s heart at first sight. Unbeknownst to Eo, it was his own mother in another form. They spent lovely days together, enjoying the fruits of the island. Then Eo asked his love if she would cross the ocean with him back to his home island. For two-thirds of the journey the ocean was again miraculously calm. Then Eo began to think. He wondered whether his mother would approve of the girl he was bringing back. She was beautiful, but so different from the women of his island. As he worried about this, the ocean grew rougher. Cracks appeared in the glass beneath where she was sitting. Eventually she dropped from the boat into the ocean. Then the waters became tranquil again. There was a hole in the boat where she had been sitting, but mysteriously no water entered. 18 Eo did not even feel relief at this wonder, however. His relief concerned something else. Now he no longer had to worry about family approval. When Eo came to shore, women of the island greeted him and asked how he fared on his quest. He did not answer them, telling them that first he must speak to his mother. As he entered her chamber, she was looking out beyond it, her back turned to him. She then faced him. But her face was not the familiar one he had left behind. It was the face of a drowned corpse. ‘You did this to me. Now you must die,’ she declared. The goddess then turned her son into a gigantic eel. He writhed on the dry floor and soon died. The women of the island feasted on the eel and the Queen introduced a taboo on ever mentioning her son. So ends the story of Eo, a mortal born from the womb of a goddess. 19 The Little Prince Once there was a pretty little prince who lived all by himself in a tower. There was magic in the tower that allowed him to stay small no matter how long he lived. The magic there also provided him with delicious food and endless delights and spared the prince from having to do any work, like tidying up. But there was one thing that the magic in the tower could not do. It could not provide him with another person. Fortunately, one day a visitor knocked at the tower door. Without explaining why, she asked the prince, ‘Is it possible for me to stay here with you in your tower?’ And without asking why, the prince replied, ‘You can stay here, but you are gigantic.’ This was not true. The visitor was a woman of ordinary size. It was just that the prince had not seen other people for so long that he had forgotten how tiny he was in comparison to them. Nevertheless, as soon as the prince had said that she was gigantic, the woman felt it to be true. The prince asked the woman if she was hungry. She replied that she was. So he clicked his fingers and two plates of food magically appeared, a small one for him and a larger one for her. The food was so delicious that the woman would have loved to eat more. But since she now thought of herself as gigantic, she decided it was better not to ask for any more. After the meal, the prince decided to show the woman the many different rooms in his tower. They started at the bottom and moved upwards. At each level the rooms were more dazzling than at the level below. But they were also smaller. Before the pair had reached the 20 top, the rooms had become so small that the woman was too big to fit into them. But she was keen to go higher and see the most dazzling rooms of them all. ‘I do not see how you can,’ said the prince, ‘unless you can just lift your head from your body and let me roll it into the highest rooms.’ To the woman, the tower seemed like a place where anything was possible. So she thought she would try to lift her head from her body. Amazingly, it came off neatly. ‘Now will you show me the highest rooms?’ asked the woman. The prince agreed. However, the woman’s head was bigger than the prince himself and it was hard work for him to roll it through the little rooms and then up a narrow winding staircase. Before he had reached the uppermost rooms, the prince wanted to stop. He had never put effort into anything before and was becoming exhausted. But the head of the woman pressed him to go on. ‘You said you would show me the tower and I am sure you will keep your word,’ she said in a firm voice. So the tired little prince kept rolling the woman’s head, until he came to the door of a tiny room at the top of the tower. ‘This is the room where the magic comes from. I have to come here every night so that I do not become gigantic like you,’ said the prince. Hearing this, the woman was keen to enter the room. Maybe being there would make her smaller, she thought to herself. The prince opened the door to the room, then went behind the woman’s head to push it in. But the doorway did not seem big enough. ‘I do not think you will fit in here,’ said the prince, with a note of relief in his voice. ‘Just push,’ the woman instructed in response. She told him to push a few more times and he exerted all of his strength to get her head into the magic room. But then there was no space for him to enter as well. Even worse, the prince could see no way to get the woman’s head back out. 21 The prince went back down to his bedroom, which was in one of the lower levels. He asked the headless body of the woman to follow him there, which it did. He then tucked it in his bed, wished it goodnight and fell asleep beside it. He hoped that, after a good night’s sleep, he would be able to figure out how to get the woman’s head out of the room. But when he woke in the morning he found that he had grown considerably. Having not gone into the magic room last night, he was well on his way to becoming what he called ‘gigantic’. He was already too big to access some of the very high rooms in the tower. And yet the woman’s head was still stuck in the magic room. After a few more days, the prince was even taller than the woman herself. And when he clicked his fingers food did not magically appear. The prince was hungry and worried. He wished he had someone who could help him with the tasks that lay ahead of him. Then he heard a noise that sounded as if it was something rolling down the stairs. He ran to the stairway and stopped the woman’s head from rolling any further. ‘How did you get out?’ he asked her. ‘Some of the magic must have finally affected me and made my head smaller,’ the woman conjectured. The prince could not notice any difference though. ‘How did you start moving?’ he asked. Of course, she was kicked out of the magic room by magic, but that is not what she said. ‘Please put me on top of my body, instead of asking all these questions,’ she requested. So the prince did. The woman examined herself in the mirror. While she did so, the prince complained, ‘I cannot even go to my magic room any more!’ ‘Well, I think it is time we looked for a house for ourselves,’ the woman said in response. The prince looked around. For the first time in his life, he could see dust gathering. The magic tower was behaving like a servant who has just quit their job. ‘I suppose you are right,’ he said. 22 The prince and the woman left the tower that very day. They got married and found an ordinary-sized non-magical house for themselves. Soon they forgot all about the tower and even that the prince was a prince. They worked, slept, argued, made up, got ill, got better, exercised, went to dancing lessons, had dinner parties, read novels, went on holidays and more. But all that belongs to another kind of story. 23