Flying Under Bridges (34 page)

‘Eve?’
said Adam. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—’

Adam,
you didn’t do anything wrong. It was a misunderstanding. The whole town had
just got too wound up about safety. We are safe. Nothing has changed.’

‘I didn’t
mean any harm. I was trying to help.’

‘I
know.’

‘And
now that poor woman… well, I mean.., her husband is on the golf club
committee. This might mean the end of the captaincy.’

Tom
finally came out of his room and I made him some hot chocolate. We sat with Mother,
listening to her wheeze in her sleep.

‘Maybe
I should take her to Lourdes,’ I said. ‘Maybe there could be a miracle.’

Tom
picked at the skin of his drink and sipped quietly. I looked at my boy. My
strange, silent boy, and thought maybe I hadn’t let him talk enough.

‘What
do you think about gay people, Tom?’

‘Nothing
really,’ he said. ‘It’s just people, Mum.’ He looked at me. ‘I’m not.’

I think
we were both embarrassed so I pretended not to understand.

‘You’re
not what?’

‘I’m
not gay, if that’s what you were thinking.’

‘No…
I—’

‘Would
it matter?’

‘No… no.’

‘I
wouldn’t mind. I wouldn’t mind feeling all that…’ Tom put down his drink and
moved to go upstairs. ‘You should think about the lesser snow goose.’

No one
spoke to me in English any more. The lesser snow goose? Was it possible to lose
all reason very, very slowly? ‘Why?’

‘They’ve
done a study in California. The lack of available males in lesser snow goose
colonies often results in the homosexual pairing of female birds, laying eggs
and successfully raising chicks. It seems that after the males contribute
semen, they don’t have any role that a female cannot play equally well. In
fact, they’re not sure what males are good for — in an evolutionary sense, of
course. It’s interesting. The birds may just like it that way.’ Tom stopped in
his lecture and looked at me. He looked about seven and my heart nearly broke
for him. Tom and Adam, my lost boys. I wanted to help them and I didn’t know
how. I felt helpless with the people I loved most.

‘Mum?’

‘Yes?’

‘Do you
think I’m wasting my time? It does no good, does it?’

‘I
think you’re the best.’

Tom
went back to his room and I sat looking at his cup on the table. I had taken
the cloth off since Mother had arrived and it was becoming covered in rings
from coffee cups and medicine bottles. I ran my hand across the surface.

‘Take a
miracle to get those off now,’ I said to Mother. It was the sort of subject she
would have liked, combining as it did housework and the work of the Lord. I sat
there thinking. You know how those Jehovah’s Witness people always call just
when you’re going out or in the bath or have just put the Shake ‘n’ Vac out on
the carpet and you just want them to go away? Stupid really because, I mean,
just then would have been a really good time. If they had knocked at that
moment then I would have probably invited them in.

‘Come
in, come in. God, I can’t believe my luck — we were literally just out of
belief when you happened past. Been through all the cupboards, hadn’t got a
thing in the house.’ Helluva product, instant salvation. Maybe Mother and I
both needed Lourdes. She had sacrificed her marriage for her daughter. She had
believed Martha and it had ruined everything.

For God
so loved the world he gave his only begotten son…

(JOHN
3.16)

They’ve put up a lovely
stone for Patrick in the churchyard. I looked Molech up in the encyclopaedia.
It says he was a god ‘to whom child sacrifices were offered by the Israelites
in the days of the monarchy’. Some people think he was actually Milcom, the
national god of the Ammonites. I like the idea of having a god called Milcom.
(We’ve got a milkman called Malcolm, which is nearly the same thing.) Or he
might have been Maluk or even Yahweh, the God of the Jewish people. Anyway, it
says in the old
Encyc. Brit.
that the Israelites were apparently so
appalled by the practice of human sacrifice ‘that they tried to blot out their
shame by changing the name of the god from Yahweh to Molech, as though human
sacrifices had been offered only to a foreign deity’.

So they
changed history. Maybe one day, when Shirley looks back on what I did, she can
do the same.

Love,
Eve

PS Thanks for the offer
but I don’t think you should come back for the trial. I just need to get this
done.

Chapter
Twenty-two

A few nights after Patrick’s
death, Kate called and asked if Eve would come for a glass of wine. The
circumstances were terrible but the invitation still gave Eve a little flutter.
She had dreamt of phone calls like that. Friends just ringing for wine and a
chat. Adam had come home from his conference a chastened man.

‘I need
to do something, Eve. I need to make things better.’

Eve was
pleased. Pleased for him, for herself and for the town, but Adam was only
thinking about himself, about his reputation. It was what people thought that
mattered, what they had said, what they might say.

‘I need
to show the golf club what I can do. I need to make the revue spectacular.’

Intent
on his social rehabilitation from sex fiend to social entertainer, all Adam
wanted to talk about was sequin size. Eve had got him some dresses from the
Hospice Charity Shop for his big number, and he was very preoccupied with
trying them on. Tonight he wanted to do a bit of a fashion parade while Eve
mixed them a gin and tonic. Eve knew he wanted her to stay home but she went
anyway.

Kate
was sitting quietly on the sofa and hardly moved when Eve arrived. Inge let her
in and poured the wine. There were snacks but no one ate them. No one really
did anything until the doorbell went. Inge answered it and Eve could hear her
in the hall.

She did
say, ‘I don’t think it’s appropriate,’ but weakly. The next thing Eve knew,
John Antrobus was standing in the doorway. He smiled at Kate and turned to
Inge.

‘Oh,
Miss Holbrook, you’re such a boon to this community. Kate? I’m John Antrobus. I
know you’ve had a horrible time. I’ve brought someone to see you. Someone who
needs to talk to you.’

And
then he stepped back and there was Lawrence. Pastor Lawrence, Father Lawrence,
standing, looking desperate and pale, but somehow noble.

‘I am
Lawrence Hansen,’ he managed. ‘I am the Pastor of the Ten Commandments Church.
We met briefly on Sunday. My son…

Kate
looked at him and said, ‘Come in. Come in. We need to talk. Come in.’

Inge
did try again. ‘Kate, I really don’t think—’

Kate’s
eyes never left Lawrence. ‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s fine.’

John
seemed to have taken on the role of host. ‘Lawrence, Kate Andrews, Inge’s …
flatmate, and I think you know Eve Marshall, Shirley’s mother?’

‘Of
course.’ Lawrence nodded as Inge moved into the room.

‘Please
sit down,’ she said. ‘Would you like a glass of wine?’

Kate
got two more glasses and red wine was poured and handed out. Everyone sipped
for a moment before anyone dared say it.

‘I’m so
sorry about Patrick,’ said Inge. There was general murmuring then. Everyone
was so sorry about Patrick. It was so awful. Lawrence nodded and almost fell
down into an armchair. John smiled at Eve and perched on the arm of the chair.
Then he opened the can of worms.

‘Lawrence
wants to find out what happened.., to Patrick. He knows, Kate, may I call you
Kate? … that you and Miss Holbrook were close to him.’

Kate
nodded. ‘Yes, yes I was.’

‘I need
to know who he had been speaking to. Someone is responsible for what happened
to my boy. If he hadn’t been told he was gay…’ Lawrence faltered.

‘No one
told him he was gay.’ Inge nearly rose from her chair but a look from Kate
checked her. ‘He was worried about feelings that he was having. He was
confused.’

Lawrence
frowned. ‘There was nothing to be confused about. I know young people get
passions but he knew what was right. I told him, I tried to help him.’

Inge
leant forward, ‘What did you tell him?’

‘I told
him he would grow out of it. That it was a phase and that he must not give in
to it. That the Lord was watching over him all the time.’ Lawrence was getting
angry. ‘Who did he talk to? Do you know? Look, I’ll be frank. People have been
talking and we know there was a young man.

‘A
young man?’ Kate leant forward. ‘What young man?’

Lawrence
shook his head in despair. ‘I don’t know. Some young man up in the woods. He
was seen with his arms around Patrick. He had very long hair.’

Eve sat
up and looked at the priest. ‘That was my son Tom.’

Lawrence
paled. ‘You can just sit there when it was your own son who led my boy to his
own destruction?’

For a
brief moment Eve thought she would explode. She rose from her chair and it took
all of Kate’s strength to get her to sit down again. Eve tried to stay calm. ‘My
son has done nothing. He is not gay.’

‘Would
it matter if he were?’ asked Inge quietly.

‘No, of
course not. All I meant was—’

Kate
came to the rescue. ‘Tom was comforting Patrick. That’s all.’

‘About
being gay?’ Lawrence persisted.

‘No,
about the death of some ducks, actually,’ replied Kate. ‘Look we know how you
feel. We loved Patrick too, but I think you have allowed other people to make
some presumptions.’

Lawrence
looked from one woman to the other. ‘Maybe some things have been said that
shouldn’t, but I need your help. I need to know who talked to Patrick. Was it
someone at the school?

That
was where he…’ Lawrence’s voice faltered to a halt. Kate spoke gently to him.

‘I don’t
know about school but I know what his friends said. His real friends. He was
worried about being gay. He was worried that it wasn’t just some phase. That
he felt too strongly about it for the feelings to go away. His friends told him
what it would be like if he didn’t grow out of it. That life would go on. He
was told that being straight isn’t the very essence or the heart of being a
good human being. He was told that it didn’t matter.’

‘It
didn’t matter because some bloody poof teacher somewhere just couldn’t wait to
get his hands on my boy. That’s why he killed himself at the school. Some
bastard sodomite who just kept drawing Patrick along, telling him that it was
okay so that eventually he could seduce my son. I know how it works. I know
what happened.’ Lawrence was losing control but Kate needed to be clear.

‘What
would have happened if he had grown up gay, Mr Hansen?’ she asked quietly.

‘He
couldn’t have. It’s a sin. It’s a sin. I’m a minister.’ Lawrence bowed his
head. You could have reached out and touched his pain. Eve could hardly bear to
look at him.

‘So he
would have lost you and God?’

‘My son
was not gay. I am telling you that there is some viper in that school who was
feeding Patrick ideas that—’

Kate
raised her hand to stop him.

‘What
is it that you want, Mr Hansen?’

Lawrence
took a hanky from his pocket and mopped his brow. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ he
said. John patted him on the arm.

‘It’s
all right.’

‘You
were close to my son,’ Lawrence pleaded with Kate. ‘Please, I want you to tell
me the name of the teacher or whatever who did this to him. I want to know the
man who could find it in his heart to drive my son to his death. I want to know
that nothing.., happened before he died.’

‘Is
that what this is about?’ Kate’s voice trembled as she spoke.

‘You
want to know if your son was
intact?
Is that what matters? In all this,
is that what you think about? Well, Mr Hansen, you can sleep well because there
was no man. I talked to your son. I told him those things.’

Lawrence
looked at her and then shook his head. ‘No, it can’t be. Patrick told me it was
a gay person he’d spoken to.’

Kate
nodded. ‘That’s right.’

Eve had
never heard a deafening silence before. People talk about such a thing but she
had always thought it was one of those artistic licence things. It isn’t. It
was quite something. Lately John had taken to sucking on his teeth the way Adam
did and that was the first sound in the room followed by him muttering, ‘But
you live with Miss Holbrook. She’s…’