Flying Under Bridges (38 page)

‘Oh.’
Horace had never been to see me about anything.

‘Would you
like some coffee?’

He
would, and he sat looking at me while I made it. ‘Always had a lovely way about
you, Eve. Adam’s a lucky fellow.’

I
handed him his mug and his hand brushed mine as he took it. He looked so
intently at me that I thought for a minute there must be something unpleasant
on my nose. ‘You’re a fine woman, a very fine woman.

We
drank our coffee while we thought about how fine I was. I hadn’t been alone
with a man like this since Adam and I had been dating. It was very awkward. I
tried to break the silence.

‘Garibaldi?’

‘No,
thank you. Eve, if I were a different sort of man then I might be here on a
different sort of mission. I have always thought you were very lovely, and my
wife.., but I’m not that sort of man. I am here to help Adam.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Eve …
it’s about your little … idea.’

A dim
light began to burn at the end of the corridor of my mind. ‘Oh, my mission, you
mean.’

‘Is
that what you’re calling it? Yes.’ Horace looked for inspiration in his cup of
instant. ‘It’s not a good plan.’

‘Well,
not yet. You see the pool was sold before I realised but I will think of
somewhere else and—’ Horace didn’t let me finish.

‘Eve,
you are a good woman. A good member of this community. Adam has had a tough
time. It was all most unfortunate because he was doing important things for
Edenford. Give him a chance to come back. Don’t spoil it.’

Horace
stood up and put both his hands on my upper arms. He looked deep into my face
and pulled me towards him. I thought he was going to kiss me and I wasn’t at
all sure what I would do. His moustache looked prickly and rather unpleasant
but I was too polite just to say, ‘Get off.’

Horace
swallowed hard and you could see the effort run down his throat. It was like
facing a pelican with a free fish supper.

‘I am using
all my will power to stand by Adam,’ he managed. ‘Now you need to do the same.
We must restrain ourselves for him.’

Horace
gulped another salmon-size lump and left with his words of wisdom hanging in
the air.

The
women’s group were still trying to meet on Tuesdays, although the heart had
gone out of it since the débâcle with the bypass. I didn’t stay for the chat
any more. Just went over and let them into Mother’s empty house.

‘You’re
friends with that Inge Holbrook, aren’t you?’ asked ferret woman in a tone that
I just knew meant trouble. Not that I wouldn’t defend you, Inge. It’s just that
I didn’t want the need to arise in the first place. Everything was doing my
head in. Being in the house I grew up in, Mother’s house. Being at a group that
Martha had started and not finished. Martha, who fought for women’s rights but
who had destroyed the life of my father. I couldn’t bear it but the minute I
turned to go I could hear the women in the room start gossiping.

‘Anyway,
I hear there’s going to be a legal case brought against Inge Holbrook for her
partner’s assets. Hogart, Hoddle and Hooper are handling it. That nice young
man, what’s his name?’

‘I can’t
help it. I don’t really like lesbians. I don’t even like the word. It makes me
think of hairy old women with cats.’

Hairy
old women with cats. I’m a hairy old woman with a cat, I thought.

When I
got home, Claudette was waiting for me. She took one last feline spring at my
shoulders and landed in my arms. The cat was dead.

As far
as I can find out, there are no references to cats at all in the Bible. No
lesbians and no cats. There’s plenty about dogs, a lot of sheep and birds and
even some dragons, but no cats. They are utterly ignored by God.

Labours
of Love

And as
they went along the road they came to some water and the eunuch said, ‘See,
here is water! What is to prevent my being baptised?’

(ACTS
8.36)

‘Do you know about Blaise
Pascal?’ I ask the psychiatrist. He frowns at me and looks up from his notes.

‘He
invented the syringe,’ he says rather smugly.

‘Yes,
and the first digital calculator.., in 1644 … and the hydraulic press. I don’t
know what that is but it was important.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t
know why. I suppose it was needed.’

‘What’s
this got to do with anything?’ The closer we get to the trial the more
short-tempered my helpmate gets.

‘Tom
told me about his wager and I like that. It’s called the Pascal Wager and it
was a sort of bet he had in life. He said that nobody can really prove that God
exists, right? I mean, you’re clever and you can’t. No one knows for absolute
certain that Jesus or anyone was able to make up for our sins by dying or if
miracles really do happen. So the trick is, if you’re not sure, just get on and
believe anyway. Basically it’s better to believe than not. I think it makes
sense. If you believe and it turns out there is a God and a lovely afterlife
and all that, then you’re not disappointed when you die. You might even get
something for having all that faith. Of course, if you die and there’s nothing,
just oblivion, then you’ll never know you were wrong in the first place.’

I’d
like to invent something.

Fact
—
in the early 1900s the Los Angeles city fathers were concerned
to make accidents in the street less harmful to their victims, so an
upholstered couch was fixed to the front of the local trains. The intention was
to ‘scoop’ up hapless pedestrians who got in the way of the public transport.
Unfortunately it had the reverse effect and knocked more people to the ground
than any tram ever did. I’m not surprised. I mean, you’d stop in the street and
stare if you suddenly saw a large piece of stuffed Dralon coming at you. Beware
things that are meant to protect you.

I
couldn’t seem to talk to anyone any more. Tom looked quite different with his
hair washed and cut. He hardly spoke and all the life seemed to have gone out
of him. It was a Samson haircut and I regretted it. He sat with me in the
kitchen and didn’t seem inclined to do anything. Sometimes some of the
construction workers would drive past our house towards the woods and tears
would come to his eyes. I had managed to persuade him to come down for lunch
one day when Shirley came over with John. They were holding hands and beaming
the beam of the chosen.

‘Mum,’
trilled my daughter, ‘Lawrence is going to be doing baptisms at the pool next
week. He’s brought the whole thing forward to help bring the church together.’

John
smiled at my beloved child. ‘Everyone is so devastated about Patrick that they
could do with some good news, and Shirley is to be among the first!’

‘That’s
nice.’ It was all I ever said to my daughter now. ‘That’s nice.’ Everything was
nice. My daughter was to be born again. Among the many things I had planned for
her over the years, this had not been one of them. I didn’t know what I was
supposed to do. Was there an appropriate response? Should I suggest a party?
Were there Hallmark cards for the event?

‘Eve,
we’d very much like it if you would be there,’ beamed John. He’d
like
me
to be there? My daughter was getting born again and she wouldn’t need her
mother? ‘And Tom as well, of course.’

I
wanted to be supportive but I was a bit lost. ‘I don’t really understand,’ I
said. ‘What’s it about?’

Tom
played with the salad cream while he answered. ‘It’s a ritual, Mum. They all
have the same purpose. They’re used to make outsiders of the rest of us and to
make the participants feel superior. You should be careful, Shirley. Once you
feel superior to others then it’s a small step to thinking another human being
is worthless and a tiny leap from there to thinking that really they ought to
be got rid of.’

This
incensed Shirley. ‘That is not true, Tom. It’s absurd. I love everyone.

Tom
looked up from his examination of the chicken quarter I had planned to eat. ‘Then
why do you need to do this?’

There
was a short pause around the breakfast bar.

‘Shirley…’
prompted John squeezing her hand.

Shirley
looked at her brother. ‘Because God has called me.’

Tom
looked at her. ‘How do you know that?’ he asked.

‘Well…’
Shirley looked to John who nodded for her to continue. ‘I’ve prayed and I have
been shown the way.’

Tom
thought about this and then said, ‘Okay, so show me.’

John
laughed. ‘You have to pray, Tom. We’d be happy to pray with you.’

Tom
shook his head. ‘No, I don’t want to be born again. I just want you to show me how
God called you. Just prove it to me so I can see.’

Shirley
was getting annoyed. ‘Tom, don’t be ridiculous. Mother, Tom’s being ridiculous.’

‘We can’t
show you unless you believe,’ explained John.

‘Aaah,’
said Tom, angry with the world and winding his sister up. ‘So, this being born
again is unreasonable?’

‘It is
not unreasonable!’ Shirley was piqued now. The beam was faltering. Tom smiled
at her.

‘Not to
you, Shirley,’ he said, ‘but scientifically. What you believe has happened to
you has no reason behind it.’

‘Tom!’
I warned, knowing we were heading for trouble.

‘No,
Mother, it’s interesting. You see, if you give up reason then you can believe
in anything, depending, of course, on your personal taste. Instead of looking
for what is true then what one would like to be true will do. And if you feel
pushed to justify that belief then that’s easy. You just make it a mystery.
Shirley is immune from rational attack because we don’t understand what has
happened to her. Those of us who disagree are, by the very fact that we
disagree, proven incapable of making contact with the mysterious source of
truth. What Shirley is telling you, Mum, is that she is now better than us and
there’s nothing we can do about it unless we stop thinking and just believe.’

John’s
smile wavered but stayed intact. ‘We could help you, Tom. Suppose, just
suppose, you’re wrong. What will you do on Judgement Day when you are called
before God?’

Tom
stood up and stared at his sister. Then he turned to John. ‘I shall look him in
the eye and say, “Sir, you gave me insufficient evidence.”‘

So my
daughter was baptised… for the second time. The first time had been at the
Church of Saint Mary the Virgin of Edenford followed by tea and a selection of
fondant fancies. This time it was at the old swimming baths. Adam had to work
so he couldn’t come but he and Tom sent a card with some flowers on the front.
When I got to the baths, John opened the card because Shirley was busy getting
ready. Adam’s message read, ‘Have fun, love Dad,’ while Tom had scribbled,
‘Sapiens
nihil affirmat quod non probat,’
which John told me meant a wise person
says nothing is true that he has not proven. John said he would give her the
card later but I doubted it.

It was
no wonder the council had closed down the old municipal swimming baths. They
were not in a good state. I was told to sit downstairs by the side of the pool
in the public seats on the ‘away’ side for swimming galas. No one on that side
had been saved. We were just related. The woman on my right kept crying so I
tried to calm her.

‘It’s
all right,’ I said. ‘I mean, it’s not like the Moonies. At least they’re not
going away to live in some farmhouse on a moor.’ But she carried on sobbing.

Across
the water, on the ‘home’ side, were the members of the congregation who had
already been done. John sat there chatting and laughing. I thought they all
looked rather smug. Lawrence was moving among them in a white robe. I hadn’t
seen him since the hospital. He looked tired and pale. After a few moments, the
two doors to the boys’ and girls’ changing rooms opened and the ‘about to be
born again’ people appeared in two single files of men and women. Another
mother bustled in late and sat on my left.

‘Have I
missed it? Have I missed it?’ she demanded breathlessly. I reassured her.

‘No. It’s
just starting.’

‘I was
trying to finish the cake,’ she whispered. Cake, I thought. Should I have made
a cake?

‘Oh,
don’t they look lovely?’ she said. The participants were all in white robes. ‘I
made six of those,’ hissed the woman. ‘Not easy. All those lead weights.’

I knew
I was out of my depth. ‘What lead weights?’

‘In the
hem,’ said the woman. ‘You know, to stop the gowns floating up during the
immersion. I think it’s the boys who worry. My son said to me, “Mum, you don’t
want to get halfway through the thing and suddenly show the gallery who the
Lord has been kindest to in the ‘private endowment’ department.”‘

I
looked down at the lines of nervous men and women shuffling towards the
shallow end. I think some of the mothers had overdone it with the weights
because the gowns appeared to be something of a burden. Everyone rather had to
drag their feet out of the changing room.