Why is the colour of envy green?
These two young women on my bus are, without a doubt, beautiful. Young, lithe and smooth-skinned, tanned and perfectly made-up, midriff exposed as per the current fashion. Flat, tanned, smooth midriffs, untouched by time and life, though not, I suspect, by man.
I try to avert my gaze; after all, I used to be much like that. Okay, maybe not beautiful, but young certainly. I try to fall into the comfortable, condescending frame of mind that we all console ourselves with at some point: you know, ‘Oh they're only young; let them get on with it. They’ll have to deal with stretch marks and middle age spread too one day.’ And all that kind of thing.
I don’t let my mind, busy with thoughts of dinner and ironing and whether or not I will make it home before the kids are back from school, acknowledge that there is this simmering resentment and, I hate to say it, jealousy, bubbling beneath the surface.
It is not of a malicious nature; I would never do or say anything nasty. They are little more than kids after all. It wouldn’t be fair, like, woman to woman.
Meow.
So I sit and look out of the window. An elderly lady makes a remark about the weather, to me, not the girls, and resignedly I reply with something equally mundane. They are talking about boyfriends, and plans on leaving school, and a new top, and that part of my brain that will always be teenage is listening in, very discreetly, and won’t let me be an adult entirely.
Then I find myself wondering why time and other things conspire against me. Even the envy, which I am wearing now like a second skin, is green. Green has never suited me.
One of the beautiful young girls is wearing a lime green top; cropped of course, and she looks lovely.
Orange now, burnt orange, is one of my colours.
Why can’t envy be orange?
S. P Oldham.