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CHAPTER EIGHT
Reverend Dickinson stumbles into the arched
sanctuary of his Church. He is drunk. He drinks from a bottle of white liquid,
compliments of Mister Needham who manages to distil the juices from rancid
potatoes that are beyond being edible.
The night’s light barely intrudes through
the cracked, smeared plastic sheeting covering the windows, silhouetting the
few chairs in the room and the bulk of the makeshift altar.
His eyes move around the room. “Where are
you? Where are you? Are you in here?” He looks in the vestry. “I know you’re
here somewhere...”
He looks under a chair on wobbly knees.
“Under here? No.”
He stands in the centre of the aisle facing
the rear of the church. “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he calls. The
only response he gets is the wet echo of his own voice of the walls. He pulls
up a chair with his foot and sinks into like dead weight.
“O come all ye faithful joyful and
triumphant, O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem. Come and behold Him, born the
King of Angels...”
He stops singing and remains still for a
moment. He senses a presence behind him. Slowly he turns and looks up at the
dirty, broken stain-glass window above him at the far end of the church. The
window depicts God on high with his subjects kneeling at his feet. The images are
childishly etched in crayon, a gift by a woman long deceased.
“There you are,” he sneers. He glares at
the window. “Why, why must you torture me this way? I your most loyal servant,
this is my reward? To fornicate, to screw, to fuck! Thank you for that little
joke, Messiah!”
He tries to stand but thinks better of it.
“Am I not a man of God but a man of flesh and blood also? Made in your own
image? Imperfect image! Ungracious Idol! I will kneel to you no more.”
He sits quietly for a moment, looks across
to the empty chairs that are his only company. “They sit here, frail and weak,
the dying and the already dead, and you ask me to lie - to tell them their
suffering in this world will be their salvation in the next. I made a vow to
love only you and this how you re-pay me?
Hell and damnation?” He stares at his feet. “I accuse you of hypocrisy
Blessed Lord, who did punish the meek and murder the innocent. Hypocrite! Vile
hypocrite! Prophet of doom! Do you have
anything to say in your defence? No? Then the sentence is guilty, guilty as
charged.”
He staggers to his feet, the bottle
slipping from his fingers. It breaks with a dull, useless thud.
“Why did you not stop us? Not one word,” he
asks the walls. “Not much to ask was it - a child, a product of love? Not much.
No.”
He burps and laughs out aloud because of
it.
“But she was sorry. Danya said she was
sorry...my sweet Danya,” he tells the sound of plastic flapping on the roof.
Across the street from the Church, the
light of candle flickers in a window of the Ferguson house.
The interior of the house reminds you of
the house your grandmother may have built. Its furnishings are sparse but
selective; heavy furniture inexpertly refurbished and prints of a once popular
Monet and a Picasso, a Warhol, nailed to a wall; all somehow salvaged and badly
repaired, collected after The Event like driftwood on a beach after a storm.
The walls are a mismatch of brick, rock and wood. It is a sad attempt of making
a home, but at least it is an attempt.
Sarah, carrying a pitcher of steaming
water, enters the bathroom. Danya is in the bath. It is a metal tub and she
sits with her knees up. There is no running water. Danya’s thoughts are
elsewhere.
“Here we go. Perfect temperature, the way
you like it,” Sarah says as she enters. “What were you thinking about?”
“Why I hate this wind and the dust. It clings to me like a snake’s skin. I think the dust is trying to throttle us, to
starve us from breathing.”
Sarah kneels beside Danya and pours the
water over her hair and upper body.
“It’s a wind from hell, I say. At least,
before, it was cooler and the children would float paper bags on pieces of
string. One day we’ll see that again.”
“There was no dust on the automobile,”
Danya points out. “No dust. Not even a dead insect. Not a fly, a locust. Did
you notice?”
“No I didn't.”
“I thought, perhaps, that he came from
somewhere where there is no dust, no insects but that’s impossible, isn't it?”
“Oh, so you were thinking about that man!” Sarah
teases as she begins to sponge Danya.
“I was not!”
“Calm down. No need to be defensive, Danya.
To be honest, I’d be thinking about him if
he had looked at me the way he looked at you.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Sarah’s hands are working Danya’s
shoulders, gently and sensuously. “I think you do,” Sarah whispers in her
daughter’s ear. Sarah’s hands begin to explore Danya’s chest. Danya tenses her
body, raises her knees tighter to her breasts, but then she leans back, closing
her eyes.
Sarah leans closer to her daughter’s ear.
“A man like that carries a scent that fills your senses with wicked
abandonment; makes you imagine places to run, places to hide and to meet. Did
you see his hands? They were strong, very strong hands that could hurt, just a
little, but in the right places.”
Sarah leans over the bath a little further,
her chin resting on Danya’s wet shoulder.
“Mother...”
“Hush.”
Then Danya screams. She screams at the
small window in the wall ahead of her.
Hef has his face glued to the outside of
the bathroom window, working his tongue like a snake’s. He licks the pane of
glass.
“Get a robe on!” Sarah shouts to Danya.
Sarah charges into the passageway and into
the bedroom. From under the bed, in a
smooth action, she collects the twelve bore shotgun that has seen better
times. Now she returns down the
passageway and enters the kitchen. She
swings open the kitchen door in time to...
...see Charles crossing the small garden
near the shed. Sarah fires the shotgun
and its pellets blast into the shed as Charles “yelps” and sprints around the corner
of the house, his cashmere coat trailing like linen in the wind.
Sarah staggers under the recoil of the
weapon.
“Stay where you are, Danya!” She shouts.
Sarah steps away from the kitchen door and
into the garden. Hef comes sprinting from around the corner, straight towards
her. Hef skids to a halt, his arms fluttering like a windmill. Sarah trains the
gun on him.
“Did he send you?”
Hef shakes his head.
“Then run away you idiot,” Sarah tells him.
Hef does as Sarah shoots a round harmlessly
into the night sky. She heads back into the house as she loads a thick
cartridge. She storms into the lounge where she opens the only window in time
to...
...see Sampson making a bee-line for the
small, crooked gate. Sarah fires again, the pellets dancing in the sand near
the running man. Sampson is over the fence and into the street, swallowed up by
the darkness.
“Bugger it!”Curses Sarah. “Danya, where are
you?”
“In the bathroom,” Danya replies, her voice
shaking.
Sarah sets the gun aside and takes a deep
breath. Then she hurries down the passageway and into the bathroom. Danya is
huddled in the corner wearing a robe.
“Have they gone?”
“Yes. Be calm now. Come here. Come.”
Danya settles into Sarah’s hug, her body
trembling slightly. “Why can’t they just leave me alone? Why?”
“Ignorant fools. It will never happen again. I will always protect you.”
“That is what Reverend Dickinson promised!”
Danya says as she steps back from her mother.
“I know. And he’ll hear from me first thing
in the morning. Trust me.”
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