They Came From SW19 (16 page)

Testify! Testify!

Take your troubles to the Lord!

Testify! Testify!

Dare to face the Fire and the Sword!

Are you down and glum?

Oh has the Saviour come?

Have you news you really want to cry?

Step among us brother!

We’re the ones! No other

Will let you really Testify!

I thought about Old Mother Walsh’s prophecies. I thought about Lewis. I thought about that snake with
TWO THOUSAND YEARS GO BY
on it. And I thought about all the crazy things people believe. Just to keep themselves sane.

Step among us brother!

We’re the ones! No other

Will let you really Testify!

One Sunday morning, about a week after I had seen my dad for the second time, I was lying in bed when I heard voices in the street below. They were singing. Not loudly, but loudly enough for half past six on a Sunday morning. Among the voices, I thought I recognized Roger Beeding’s and Hannah Dooley’s.

Mother-life God she is calling Thee!

Mother-life God she is calling Thee!

Holla! Holla! Holla!

Awa-a-a-y!

We have very patient neighbours.

I got up, staggered to the window and, while keeping my head below the level of the sill, attempted to close it.

My first thought was that I was 320 duck-jumps behind and if I was ever going to make the state of
shai-hai
I would probably have to spend a whole weekend duck-jumping. My second thought, which did not occur to me until I was crawling back along the floor towards my bed, was that today was the day when I was due to Testify. That was what the choir outside was for. I had been called upon to show my newly strengthened Christian faith before the whole congregation of the First Spiritualist Church. Praying with Quigley wasn’t enough. I had to tell the people. He was very emphatic about that.

I got back under the duvet and felt my balls, for reassurance. These were probably one of the few things of mine not due to be on show at the First Church of Christ the Spiritualist later that morning. As Quigley had said to me last night, ‘Speak the whole truth of your heart when you testify, Simo!’

There is a sign outside the First Church that reads

ARE YOU A CUSTARD CHRISTIAN?

DO YOU GET UPSET OVER TRIFLES?

JESUS ISN’T. COME ON IN AND JOIN HIM.

If I was a Christian at all – and I wasn’t sure that I was – I thought I was probably a custard Christian. Or maybe not even that. Maybe I was a jelly Muslim or a sponge-cake Buddhist.
The whole truth of my heart.
The thought of morning service is always a pain, and the prospect of this one made me stick my head back under the duvet to block out the already brilliant day.

I had also remembered that the Quigleys were still living with us. ‘We’re having building work done,’ Quigley had said, ‘so we can camp out with you!’ He had said this as if he was doing us all a big favour.

My mum came in at about 07.15, holding out my black suit and a white shirt that she had just ironed. She stood looking at me from the end of the bed.

‘Oh, Simon!’ she said. ‘Oh, Simon!’

‘Yes, Mum?’

She put the shirt and the suit on a chair by the window.

‘I wonder if Daddy will come through today. I must say, I hope he manifests himself. He’d be so proud!’

I thought there was a very good chance of his showing up. Quite often there are more deceased members of the congregation present on Sunday mornings than there are living punters.

‘Would he?’

She looked at me narrowly. She was rather less convinced about my conversion than the Quigleys. I had been doing my best to mime the odd prayer since my dad died, but I had a feeling she saw through me.

‘You’re not going to be silly, are you?’

‘No, Mum. I just wasn’t sure whether he
would
be proud. I mean, Mum, was he religious, or what?’

‘He was . . .’

She stopped. I found myself wondering what exactly my dad
had
been. He had been religious. I knew that. Even if he wasn’t always sure quite what religion he belonged to. She had told me how they met at a First Spiritualist Church ‘Convert the Heathen’ session outside the Anglican church in Putney. Pike, Quigley and Mum used to wait behind the hedge, rattling tambourines and waving placards saying
ARE YOU REALLY GOING TO MEET THE LIVING GOD?
as the congregation filed out and chatted to the vicar about the problems of British Rail.

Dad had had some kind of religious crisis later, but I didn’t know too much about that. He had mentioned it to me, in a roundabout sort of way, but I could never work out when it had happened or how old I was when it occurred. It was funny I couldn’t remember. But your own past can be a closed book, even at fourteen.

My mum, as mums tend to do, had divined my state of mind rather shrewdly and moved over to the bed in a thoughtful kind of way.

‘Norman . . .’

At first I thought she might be addressing him directly. Then I realized we were into genuine past-tense mode. She sighed slowly.

‘I very nearly married a man called Flugtermans,’ she said ‘ – a dentist.’

Why was she telling me this?

‘I met him at a tennis club, and he was a very, very attractive man indeed. And very fond of me. But I didn’t continue the relationship are these your socks?’

‘Yes.’

‘They’re stiff with dirt! And your father was not, I have to say, a handsome man, although he was . . .’

‘Available,’ I said.

She gave me a sharp look.

‘Anyway,’ she went on, ‘then he went to Portugal and everything changed of course you should really have some new blinds but they’re so expensive and they warp.’

I knew better than to interrupt. Sooner or later, out of monologues like this, some really vital piece of information was liable to emerge.

‘Of course,’ she said, ‘I know you still blame me for what happened at Angmering.’

I kid you not, I had not a clue as to what she might be talking about. People assume that parents and children will understand each other. It doesn’t work out like that. They share experiences, but they don’t seem to share the same memories of them. Family business is strange.

I can remember my dad opening the newspaper once and saying, ‘There is going to be a war in China.’ And I can also remember him standing in the hall with my mum and her saying, ‘I am going out!’ and him, for some reason I will never understand, bursting into tears. Why did he cry? And was he even the same guy as the one with markedly dodgy views about the international situation in the Far East?

‘Gorbachev is a genius!’ was another one of his. Only to be followed, a few weeks later, by ‘Gorbachev is an idiot!’

How could you explain this human stuff to Globo, Arch Lord of the System of the Blabbenoids? You couldn’t. You know why? Because it doesn’t make sense.

I looked at Mum as she moved towards the door. She seemed pleased to have got this off her chest. Whatever it was.

‘In Angmering . . .’ I said, cautiously.

She suddenly got angry.

‘With Veronica, for Christ’s sake!’

I still didn’t get it.

She went to the window and looked down at our drab patch of suburban garden. She sighed. ‘I’ll never forget that night in Lisbon!’ Then she turned to me: ‘Always be faithful and true, Simon. Always be honest and faithful and sincere in your dealings with others where are your trainers?’

‘On the floor.’

‘Keep them out of sight!’

Then she puckered her lips and allowed her breast to heave one or two times. This is usually a sure sign that she is about to quote from the collected works of Old Mother Walsh, and this, indeed, is what she did: ‘ “Shoes are remarkable, warm, bright and neat. The best place to keep them is on your feet.” ’

And with these words she thumped off down the stairs, leaving me to collect my thoughts for the hard task of Testifying.

I rolled out of bed and, feeling I was doomed to the state of
hei-hei
, or eternal sloth and uselessness, I wondered whether I could find a pair of unstiff socks.

The choir outside seemed to have stopped, but downstairs I could hear the Quigleys. Marjorie, who has a carrying voice, was saying, ‘Isn’t Testifying the best thing? Mrs Danby says it’s the
best thing
!’ She sounded rather girlish as she said this. Then I heard Quigley’s low bass, but couldn’t make out what he was saying.

I took one last, depressed look at myself in the mirror above the electric fire and clattered down the stairs. As I reached the landing I heard Mrs Quigley say, ‘We’re having the patio done. Then we’re getting a
completely
new roof.’

They were getting a good deal out of staying at our house. Some people have to rent places. And, while we were at it, how the hell were they managing to afford these improvements? My dad always used to say that
we
could not afford lunch, although, I have to say, this did not stop him eating it.

They were all in the clothes traditionally worn when people are going to testify. My mum was wearing a sort of large red sack and a conical hat that made her look like a gnome in a pantomime. Mrs Quigley was wearing a loose white robe with a hat and a veil rather like a bee-keeper’s. She looked like a worker at a nuclear power station. Women at Testifying must be ‘loose and bright’, as Old Mother Walsh once said. The men are their usual uninspiring selves.

Mrs Quigley held out her arms as I came into the hall. ‘Oh my darling, darling boy!’ she said.

I had been getting a lot of this. I had so far managed to avoid being kissed by the old bat, but I had the strong feeling that, by the end of the day, she and I were going to be getting physical.

I stayed where I was. She decided against physical contact. Instead, she looked up to the ceiling from where she got quite a lot of her inspiration. Quigley was smirking next to her.
The whole truth of my heart!
How was he going to take the news of the hijacking of earthling bodies by extraterrestrial beings? I was going to have to be extremely subtle about this.

‘Jesus,’ said Mrs Quigley in sharp tones, ‘can you see this boy?’

‘Thee him,’ said Emily. ‘He’th blethed!’

My face didn’t crack.

‘Today,’ said Quigley, ‘is a very great day in your life. You’re going to stand up in front of a hundred or so of your closest friends and tell them your deepest, most private thoughts.’

This seemed to me to be a pretty fair definition of hell, but I tried to look like a man who enjoyed such occasions.

‘You’re going to tell them,’ said Quigley, ‘what
you
think about . . . about . . .
everything
!’ And then, with a kind of war whoop, he picked me up under the armpits and carried me out to the choir waiting outside. He was incredibly strong.

As we thundered along the road, he whispered in my ear, ‘And after you’ve Testified, Simon, you’ll be Confirmed in Faith. In ten days. Think of it! Cor blimey, mate, you’re not just Simon, old lad. You’re Simon pure!’

Bergman had a barmitzvah and I went. Everyone there was Jewish apart from me. There was a lot of chanting, and afterwards we went to a posh hotel and I got a free hat. Bergman, at the end of it, was officially a man. As far as I am concerned, Bergman has been officially a man since the end of the Upper Removes. He is one hairy guy. But it was nice to see all these old geezers with huge noses treating him as if he
was
a man. In the First Church of Christ the Spiritualist you are Confirmed in Faith, which means you are officially a berk. There are no free hats.

Quigley held me up with one free hand and opened the door of his car with the other. He threw me across the front seat, and the choir applauded – whether this was for my benefit or to register approval for Quigley’s strong right arm was not clear.

He wanted me Confirmed in Faith did he?

Being Confirmed in Faith is the full masonic job. I’ve never been able to find out what goes on at the ceremony, but, from what I’ve heard, there is more to it than rolling up your trouserleg. I know that the male members of the congregation ‘play loudly on the organ and show their bodies’. I know a fair amount of water gets chucked around, and at some point I think you are expected to wear your underpants on your head. But in between all these things something happens which is only spoken of in hushed whispers. Maybe they paint your balls green.

All this stuff dates back years, to Old Mother Walsh and her Sisters. When they baptized people they stayed baptized. You know? There was none of this dip-the-finger-in-the-water-and-let’s-talk-about-the-Test-Match bollocks. They used to run down into the Nerd, or whatever river it is that runs through Ealing, and throw themselves in, yelling about the love of Jesus. Water was cheap and unpolluted in those days.

He was really moving fast, was Quiggers. He couldn’t wait to get me sewn up, could he?
Why the big hurry?
I wondered, as Mum, Emily and Mrs Quigley got into the back of his brand new car and he thrust it out into the traffic.

One of the areas where Quigley really needs a lot of help from the Lord Jesus is in the driving department. But I have never heard him confess his unworthiness in this field of human endeavour. He snarls at motorcyclists, accelerates hard at the back of buses and views the red traffic light as a challenge rather than a warning.

As we careered down towards South Wimbledon, I remembered other trips I’d taken to church. Mostly I thought about going with my dad. I thought about running along beside him as we came up to the main road opposite the church, about his taking my hand and singing, ‘Hold my
hand
– I’m a
stranger
in
Paradise
!’

And, as I thought about that, another image came into my mind. A heavy, silver casket was swinging backwards and forwards and there was that smell in the air – a smell of old leaves and perfume and musty, clinging sweetness. There was music, too, and those long shafts of light that fell from a high window, somewhere over to my right. For the first time, I could feel my father very close to me, his face very dark and serious. He was talking to someone. Someone I couldn’t see. I wanted to see who it was, but I couldn’t. He was mumbling. The words he was using weren’t English. They were some old, runic language I couldn’t understand. But there was something even stranger than that about him. He was on his knees. Why? Why was he kneeling? And to whom?