Every autumn I am shunned by my friends and neighbours. But I think I’ve finally broken the curse
Sometimes you smell them before you see them. These people carry a particular scent. It is worthy and rich but with a suggestion of the fetid – like creamy milk that is on the verge of turning sour. I don’t want to be rude about them because they are nice folk and I am one of them. I own a fruit tree. And I can’t get rid of the fruit.
Every autumn the world divides into those with fruit trees and those without. The latter have to be on high alert for the people bearing fruit. A friend, a colleague, even a passing stranger can stage an ambush. Before you know it, they will have whipped out a bag of their produce and thrust it under your nose so that particular smell assaults your senses. “Help yourself,” they say. “Ooh, lovely!” you are forced to exclaim. It’s the simple gift there is no polite way to refuse.
You will look into the bag and see dozens of imperfect apples, scarred and blotched. Some will be holed, the work of worms that have burrowed in, perhaps never to emerge. But you mustn’t be squeamish and turn up your nose. Have you not railed against the suspicious gloss and symmetry of supermarket fruit? Now here is the real thing and you must dig in, and dig deep, and be the opposite of picky. You must actively enthuse. Mmm, authentic!
There is a lot going on here. The pressure is intense, on both sides. We bearers of fruit are weighed down by our bounty, oppressed by the need to pass it on before we have to bin it. Yes, we can juice it and puree it, but there are only so many hours in the day. And there is only so much of it we can eat; only so much Imodium we can safely take.
This autumn has not been quite so bad. I have fewer and better apples. I followed some advice that when the fruit first starts to develop in little clusters on the branches, you should leave just one apple from each cluster to grow to a decent size, instead of half a dozen tiddlers.
Something had to change. Last September, my single tree yielded possibly 200 undersized apples. I could not shift them. My neighbours started shunning me, pretending to be out when I knocked on the door. Others crossed the road if they saw me coming. Nobody came visiting. I resorted to taking them to work. This was in the weeks after the death of the Queen. I was broadcasting live from Canada Gate, across the way from Buckingham Palace. I did good business on the first day, shifting a couple of dozen to producers, technicians, royal correspondents and other contributors. But on day two I detected a loss of enthusiasm. Perhaps someone had found a worm and sent out a warning.
My rucksack remained heavy with apples as I wandered around the temporary memorial flowerbeds of Green Park, speaking to mourners. Then I had a brainwave. At the conclusion of an interview with a Canadian woman, I asked her if she would like an apple. She looked nonplussed – Canadian journalists obviously don’t give items of fruit to interviewees – but nevertheless accepted and munched away happily enough. The next couple of interviewees took some too. A man down from Fife took a handful. Soon I dispensed with the interviews and just started handing out apples. People were heartbreakingly grateful. Absurdly, my gesture even took on a faintly spiritual dimension, which made me feel a bit of a fraud.
I walked back to the broadcast point with an empty rucksack. My colleagues relaxed, visibly. The pressure was off. It was over for another year.
• Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster, writer and Guardian columnist