Being Here (10 page)

‘Leah, meet my son Daniel,' said Mr Cameron.

I had no idea what I was supposed to do, so I did nothing except feign extraordinary interest in the small patch of earth beneath my feet.

‘He has a present for you. I remembered that you have a birthday around this time of year. Am I right?'

I nodded. Inside, I was stunned that anyone other than mother would remember. I'd always believed I made no mark upon the world. ‘Perhaps you would like to stay out here with Daniel while your mother and I go inside and talk,' he continued. ‘Would you like that, Leah? Mrs Cameron will bring you both some lemonade.'

I couldn't recall when so many words had been directed at me by anyone other than Mamma. I tried to find a response, but my brain wouldn't cooperate. I nodded.

‘Remember your manners, Leah,' said my mother. ‘What do you say?'

‘Thank you,' I mumbled.

‘Dan,' said Mr Cameron, ‘go and get Leah her present. It's on the sideboard in the front room. Then maybe you could take her for a short tour around the farm buildings. Show her the horses.'

‘I don't think that will be required,' said mother. Her pinched face seemed at odds with the openness of those around. I felt vaguely ashamed. Of mother. Of me. It was as though we were refugees from another, darker world. A fleeting blight upon this family. ‘I would much prefer it if Leah remained on the verandah. We will not be staying long.'

There was silence for a few moments.

‘Of course,' said Mr Cameron finally, and if he felt slighted or confused his tone did not betray it. ‘Dan, jump to it. I'm sure Leah is anxious to get her present.'

I was. Not so much for the present itself, but because of the experience. I had never received a gift from anyone other than mother. In a predictable world, the prospect of the new was heady. My blood tingled with excitement though I kept my eyes upon the ground.

Daniel disappeared inside the house and returned a few moments later with the gift in his outstretched hand. It had been wrapped, but I knew from its shape and size that it was a book. I almost couldn't bring myself to reach out and take it. All books are cloaked by covers. The story inside this one was doubly concealed, a further layer of bright paper teasing me with possibilities. I felt an almost unbearable sense of anticipation. I didn't want to tear the wrapping paper and reveal its identity.

Even now, I feel the same, that somehow unwrapping a gift destroys a mystery. It is an irrevocable step that dispels magic in the very act of revealing it.

I did unwrap the gift, of course, taking pains not to rip the paper, but gradually unpeeling it. I had a small box under my bed that contained treasures I had accumulated over the years. A pretty stone, a slice of rock with what might have been a fossil pressed onto its surface, a flower carefully preserved between pages. This paper would join the others. It had yellow roses in a repeating pattern. It was a feast to the eyes. Through long and moon-filled nights I would gorge on it.

‘It's not new, I'm afraid, dear,' said Mrs Cameron. Her voice was rosy. It danced. ‘But I understand you enjoy reading and we have had this for a number of years. To be honest, we are not great readers. I'm pleased it will finally go to someone who might appreciate it.'

The final rose layer revealed red leather binding. The title was embossed in gold onto the leather. I smelled the luxury of binding and paper. The book caressed my hands. It was a copy of
Oliver Twist
by Charles Dickens. I had never heard of the author, but my hands were heavy with the weight of characters and story. I turned to the title page and it whispered in my hand, the paper creamy, soft and rich. I think I stopped breathing.

‘What do you say, Leah?' My mother's voice had sharp edges of disapproval.

‘Thank you,' I said. ‘I love it.' For some reason I could meet the eyes of the others now. Words raced through my head. I was thirteen years old. I was excited. And the words spilled over before I knew it. ‘It's the best present I've ever had.'

Mrs Cameron beamed. Mr Cameron smiled. Even Daniel appeared pleased. But mother's expression … I read betrayal there and it stilled the tempest in my mind. Her look sliced to the bone. Words fled. I turned my eyes again to the small patch of earth beneath my feet.

‘We mustn't keep you any longer than necessary, Mr Cameron,' said mother. ‘Perhaps we could deal with business.'

‘Of course, of course.' He ushered mother inside. I was left alone with Daniel on the verandah. Pagan had curled himself into sleep. Adam sat on the railings, legs swinging. He winked at me.

The return journey was quicker. Mother still kept her gaze fixed on the horizon, but there was increased urgency in her paces. The dust puffed clouds around her boots and I had difficulty keeping up. We walked in a bubble of anger.

I said nothing. I wanted to burst that bubble with an apology, but I was too nervous to speak. Pagan fell behind. Adam didn't catch my eye. And the further we walked, the greater the tension grew.

‘Did you think I wouldn't notice, Leah? Did you really think that?'

I was relieved she had spoken. Anything was better than her silence dripping with displeasure. But I was also puzzled. I searched for an explanation of her words because I couldn't find a response without one. I knew my words of thanks to the Camerons were a betrayal of all my mother's gifts, that I had diminished her in their utterance. Was that what she meant, that I thought she wouldn't notice the unintentional barbs in my unthinking words? It was the only meaning that made sense.

‘I'm sorry, Mamma,' I said, but my apology provoked no response. If anything, her pace picked up, her eyes pinned the horizon with greater determination and the puffs of dust beneath her boots spoke even more eloquently.

‘Why are you apologising?' said Adam. His tone was bitter, as if I had offended him. ‘You've done nothing wrong. Why should you apologise?' I couldn't bear the thought I had disappointed him also. I felt overwhelmed with judgement. Its weight crushed me.

‘So you are aware of the sin you committed?' my mother added. She still didn't turn her eyes towards me.

There was danger in this. If I was aware of my sins, then it bespoke a deliberate flouting of the moral codes by which we lived. I risked damnation. If I was unaware, then my sin was limited to an inability to think, learn and reflect. This required contrition, but was not damnable in itself. But I knew it was too late for a plea of ignorance. I had already apologised and that confirmed awareness. Anyway, I wouldn't lie to her. I would never lie to her.

‘Yes, Mamma,' I said. ‘I'm sorry.'

‘You spit in the face of our Lord. Our dear Jesus, who lay down his life for you. And this is how you repay Him? This is how you repay me, who loves you as Christ does? An apology is not good enough, Leah. You must burn off the impurities in your soul, you must winnow it of sin, if you are to be worthy of Divine forgiveness.'

Tears burned my cheeks. How had I so offended God? Would He really be angry at the unthinking words of a child? That I loved my gift, that it was the best present I had ever had? I thought of the Fifth Commandment and it was a bright and soundless epiphany. That was my sin. I had dishonoured my mother. Shame welled within, a powerful geyser, an enormous pressure. I tapped, almost gratefully, into something that flooded all my being. I drowned beneath the deluge and gloried in it.

I couldn't speak and that was for the best. Mamma was right. Words were only words. I lifted my eyes to the horizon and saw it swimming through a film of tears. And behind my eyes there materialised an image of Christ's face on the cross and a pain beyond understanding. Not the pain of nails in flesh or the piercing of a lance. That was nothing in comparison to the agony of my betrayal. He loved me. He died for me. And I repaid Him thus.

The sky that blanketed the horizon was bruised and heavy with cloud. Light flickered and pulsed within its darkness. A distant rumble swept over us, followed by another. Pagan whimpered and tucked himself close to my heels. In the gathering gloom, we limped towards the cold of home and the approaching storm.

Mother lit lamps against the dark and the thunder. I shooed chickens into their coop.

Adam watched from a distance. He was no longer dressed in his absurd costume, but I paid him little attention. He was a shape moving on the periphery of vision, a concern on the border of consciousness. I shooed chickens and prayed for forgiveness with all the energy I could muster. Lightning flickered and crackled in response.

‘Leah, this is madness,' he said, once the chickens were in and I was walking back to the house. He kept pace with me and his voice was small. I suddenly understood he was scared. Of what lay within me. ‘I see your pain, but I don't understand it. Talk to me. Explain.'

‘Leave me alone, Adam.'

‘No. I won't. Not until you explain.'

But I didn't. I walked towards the house and my punishment as if to salvation.

Mother met me on the verandah.

‘Kneel and pray,' she said. A flash of lightning rolled shadows across her face. I knelt and bowed my head. I caught a glimpse of Pagan lying under the rickety chair. He flinched as another peal of thunder split the air, dropped his head onto his paws and whined. Mother knelt beside me. She held a Bible in her hands. I felt the hard boards under my knees and welcomed them.

‘Dear Lord,' she said. Her voice was elevated, rapturous. ‘Forgive us our sins, though we are unworthy. And in particular, forgive my daughter, Leah, for her many and manifest failings. Forgive her lustful glances, Lord, for she is heir of flesh and prey to its temptations …' I was transported as I had been before and would be in the future. Nothing could be compared to stripping bare the soul, the prostration to a power that could cleanse or destroy. It was an experience beyond pleasure and beyond fear. I felt my eyes roll back in my head. My muscles twitched. I was filled with light as surely, as fully, as the storm-charged sky. I teetered on the brink of surrender. But mother's words hooked me from the edge.

‘Mamma?' I said.

‘… just as Eve, the first and original sinner, the fountainhead of our shame, sinned against your Word. Dear Lord, forgive us now.'

I plucked at her sleeve.

‘Mamma?'

She turned her face to mine. It wore a puzzled expression, torn between two worlds. I truly believe she had wholly forgotten my presence, so complete was her communion with the Divine. It was a tribute to my bewilderment that I interrupted her so. Had I been thinking clearly I would never have dared.

‘Mamma?' Her form swam before me through a curtain of tears. I blinked and focused, though my voice was small and lost to my own ears. ‘Lustful glances, Mamma? I don't understand.'

I had broken the spell. She gazed at me in a fog of incomprehension for a few moments and her confusion stripped away a layer. I saw, briefly, a scared and fragile woman and my heart clenched. Then her eyes hardened and she jumped to her feet. Her hand plucked at the mane of my hair and she dragged me to mine. I heard Pagan growl, but the noise was swallowed by thunder. It beat a counterpoint to the thudding of my heart.

‘Dear God, do you deny it?' she screamed. ‘Do you deny it?'

I knew the word ‘lust', had read it in the Bible and understood it to be a foul and deadly sin. The word had associations of decay; it conjured an aura of something fetid, like entrails baking in the midday sun. But as to its meaning? It was nothing more to me than patterns on a page and there was a gap in my mind where definitions lived. I was thirteen years old in an age when adulthood lay far off on the horizon of time.

‘I saw the way you looked at that boy, the Cameron boy,' mother continued. Her voice was sharp and thin as a blade. ‘The lascivious glances, the unashamed desire. You
must
know, girl, that love of the flesh is base and coarse. It is a mockery of true love, which is spiritual, which is God. It is the reason we were ripped from Grace. It is foul, as Satan is foul. I saw you through the window. I saw the filth and corruption in your face. You are stained by it still. And do you now deny it?'

Mother's hand still gripped my hair, tilted my face towards hers. I could see her eyes, the smooth sweep of her pinned-back hair framed by flickers of lightning. I still didn't understand. Something in the way I looked at Daniel. I searched my memory, but could find no clue. How had I looked at him? He had made me smile once or twice, but that couldn't be it. Could it? But I knew ignorance did not equate to innocence. I
must
have looked upon him in a way that was offensive to mother and to God. That I was unaware showed only a lack of self-knowledge. Nonetheless, I grieved that I did not understand how I had sinned. It meant I could not correct my failings. Contrite though I was, how could I avoid repeating my mistakes? I was terrified that I was set upon a path to damnation and had no means to alter the direction of my footsteps.

‘I am sorry, Mamma,' I sobbed. ‘I have sinned. Show me how to repent.'

Her eyes softened and the fingers in my hair relaxed. She pressed down on my shoulders and I sank again to my knees. She thrust the Bible into my hands.