Cock and Bull Read Online Free Page B

been, she would have been in a position to establish the truth. She would have clocked immediately that the frond was an outgrowth of the spongiosum material surrounding her urethra—that somehow her vestibular bulb was being grossly flexed from within, pushing forth a miniature volcanic column of tissue, sinew, blood and vessel.
    Now the body is an old peasant, it retains a vivid memory for felt (and imagined) injustice. Even more peasant-like is the body’s tendency to retail little proverbs or sayings to its accompanying mind. A good example of this practice, so ubiquitous that it is scarcely ever remarked on, was prompted by Carol’s discovery. Her finger probed. There was definitely something there, something that seemed quite large and embedded. Something that neither felt full of fluid, like a cyst; nor insensate like a wart or a callus. ‘But,’ said Carol’s body to her mind, ‘objects in the genitals, like those in the mouth, do appear to be so much larger than they really are.’ And with this folksy assurance Carol let the gristly frond rest. One finger headed south to her vagina, another north to her clitoris. In due course,
A Whiter Shade of Pale
took on form and substance and became a
Rider on the Storm;
and when the rider had passed by Carol was left behind, naked and gooey, spent on the slip-on cover.
    But that was not the last of the frond, oh no, far from it. For although the peasant body dismissed it in the short term as an accident, a filament of meat stuck between the teeth and swollen against the gum, it also retained a memory like an embarrassing polaroid taken at a hen party. And when Carol was relaxed and unsuspecting the following afternoon, her vile body thrust the photograph in front of her mind and threatened blackmail.
    She was in Safeway at the time. She had asked a Muslim shelf-stacker where the bacon was kept. The shelf-stacker, whose uncle was a haj, and who believed that Allah struck down those who ate the flesh of the pig with cancer, did his best to give Carol the most obscure and misleading directions. As she turned away from where he knelt, pricing up tins of puréed tomato, the frond swelled up in her mind with such alacrity, that she became petrified, fearing that the awful little promontory might come bursting out of the tight armature of her jeans and elasticised underwear.
    As soon as she found herself in a deserted aisle, Carol popped her fly buttons and her hand sought out the damp interior. Jesus! There it was, larger than ever! Was it just the sensitivity of her fingertips, or had the frond actually grown? Was it just her imagination, or could she, with her probing digit, actually feel some kind of structure to the frond; some internal viscosities of its own that suggested that it was not simply a raggle-taggle end of gristle, but something sensate?
    The curious head of the Muslim shelf-stacker ap-peared around the end of the gondola. Carol withdrew her hand from her jeans and broke out in a sweat, just as if she had been discovered wanking next to the bouillon cubes.
    Now, say you. You find a gristly frond growing in your vagina masturbating of an evening. What could be simpler than to make an appointment at the local health centre and in due course visit your doctor?
    ‘What seems to be the problem?’ says the doctor, a kindly middle-aged woman, the Friends of the Earth badge on her lapel winking at you in philanthropic conspiracy. You tell her. She asks you to take off your clothes and hop up on the examining table. Once there, she examines you with a care and dexterity that is in itself instantly reassuring. The examination completed, she provides you with a completely satisfying explanation of the frond: its origins, its form, its likely extent and duration. You leave the surgery with a prescription for various salves and unguents; there is no problem.
    That’s what you would will Carol to do, isn’t it? But Carol’s medical experiences hadn’t been like that.