The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson

Author:Jeanette Winterson
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Crown/Archetype
Published: 2015-10-05T16:00:00+00:00

“One! Two! Three! Four!”

“If you wanna know if he loves you so, it’s in his kiss, that’s where it is.”

The Separations were great. They had a sound they called Hillybilly Soul Banjo and snare-drum, girl-group harmonies, steel guitar played hard on pedal and plec. Tall bass, thumb- and finger-plucked, and a Pentecostal piano; every chord a call to Judgement Day. That was Shep.

They called themselves The Separations because Holly, Polly and Molly were BabyHatch kids. The group had started out as the Orphans but that was too sad.

Anyway, Perdita was literal-minded and HollyPolly Molly couldn’t be orphans because orphans are children whose parents are dead. The girls were foundlings—but who wants a girl group called the Foundlings?

Then Holly read something at school about six degrees of separation and, as they were all fans of vinyl retro soul, like The Three Degrees…and as they had been separated from their parents, it was obvious.

The three girls, HollyMollyPolly, were Chinese triplets. No one ever found out who had left them in the BabyHatch in Guangzhou. They’d been adopted by English missionaries. Their father was a minister from High Wycombe who had ended up in a Baptist church in New Bohemia via a mission to China. He had his own ideas about the End of the World, and Shep didn’t agree with them, but—Apocalypse or Armageddon—the two of them were friends.

HollyPollyMolly were a year older than Perdita. All the children had played together from the beginning, and in the beginning Shep took Perdita to church with him.

Holly had a stammer. It was Shep who noticed that when she sang she didn’t stammer—and to help her feel less awkward he had started all the little girls singing those old soul songs while he played the piano.

He had more faith in those days—these last ten years he had lost faith in his faith. The world was getting darker, not brighter. The poor were poorer, the rich were richer. People were killing each other in the name of God. What kind of a God wanted his followers to act like they were gun-slung avatars jihading it through “World of Warcraft”?

If this was the end of time then fire it right back into eternity and get it over with.

He supposed that the point of time was that it would end—if it went on forever then it wouldn’t be time, would it?

What to believe? What to believe in?

But Perdita was a kind of faith in her own right. He believed in her.

—

HollyPollyMolly were zipping each other into their sleeveless V-neck girl-group stage-wear. Perdita was brushing her pink suede shoes with a toothbrush.

“So do you think I should date your brother?” said Holly. “He’s asked me out.”

“Clo? He’s twice your age!”

“I like older men.”

“I don’t think you should date a guy who’s still living at home in his thirties,” said Polly.

“He’s not living at home—he’s managing a business.”

“He said that?” Perdita pulled a face in the mirror at Holly, who was fixing her lipstick.

“Well, I think he’s cute.”

“He’s not cute.”

“He’s your brother.

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