Only Strange People Go to Church (14 page)

There is good news; wonderful news. In a cold and officious memo Mike informs Maria that Brian’s application for independent living is currently being assessed. This means that if successful he’ll get his own flat. He’ll need help around the clock of course, but the important thing is that he’ll be free to do what he wants when he wants. It is just after lunch and Blue Group are assembled in the common room watching the afternoon news. The common room is busy at this time of day. Yellow Group and Green Group are also here. The two others groups sit quietly, engrossed in the programme, but Maria’s lot banter and bicker between themselves. Several members of the other groups have already shot disapproving glances and a few irate ‘shhhs’ towards Blue Group’s corner. Things are not helped with the exciting arrival of Blue Group’s best pal, Dezzie.

Initially Maria had not been keen to encourage Brian’s application. She was scared that it might break his heart not to get it; he stands a much better chance when he’s a bit older. Brian’s still only nineteen, a very young nineteen. But Dezzie has no such qualms; he’s bursting to tell him.

Dezzie, who only recently arrived at the centre, has written a much stronger application than Maria could ever have come up with. He worked hard on the submission, doing endless internet research and putting his heart and soul into writing it. And now it seems he may have been right to be more optimistic.

Still and all, she wonders if it’s wise to build Brian’s hopes when he could yet be disappointed. But she knows that it’s almost a foregone conclusion that, with his infectious optimism and sensual whispers in her ear, Dezzie will eventually win her over.

On hearing the news, Brian throws up, as anticipated. But they are prepared: Maria has already popped the plastic lunch bib around his neck. Once the vomit has been removed Blue Group form an orderly queue to congratulate him with hugs, kisses and hair touslings.

‘That’s it mate: party back at yours every night! Plenty of birds, plenty of booze, we can’t go wrong,’ says Dezzie with a secret wink to Maria.

‘I’ll. Charge. An. Entrance. Fee.’

‘Discount rates for your mates though, eh?’

‘I’ll come and stay with you for my holidays,’ says Martin, as excited as Brian and Dezzie.

‘Brian, you realise that it’s only being assessed at this stage,’ warns Maria. ‘Not everyone who applies actually gets a flat. There aren’t enough to go around.’

‘Yeah, but with the professor here off to uni next year, he’s in with a good chance. All those university birds Brian, eh?’

‘Get. Away. From. Philious. And. Bilious. Never. See. Those. Goons. Again.’

Everyone knows who Philious and Bilious are: Brian’s dad and his brother. They’re well used to the acrimony with which Brian speaks of his father and the inventively insulting names he has for him: Philibuster, Philbert, Phil the Fool.

‘Come on now Brian, let’s not get bitter and twisted,’ says Maria gently.

‘Next. Year. University. My. Own. Place. No. Phil. No Bill.’

To the consternation of the members of Green Group and Yellow Group, Brian drives his wheelchair as fast as he can around the perimeter of the common room. Blue Group watch and giggle as he careens into the back of occupied chairs before reversing, like a dodgem car, and then carries on around the room at speed. At the request of their Key Workers, the other service users do their best to ignore this attention-seeking behaviour.

Brian’s still smiling like a maniac as he makes Grand Prix circuits around the room all the while ignoring Maria’s requests, and then demands, that he stop it right now. He apparently feels that he’s
still not quite as annoying as he could be and ramps it up a bit. The
Dynavox
has a remote control facility that allows him to take over the television. As he passes the telly he flips the channel to a noisy Cowboys and Indians shoot-out movie, and all hell breaks loose.

It’s funny how these things work out. Never in a million years did Alice think she’d end up playing snooker.

She’d never wanted to leave the city, Glasgow was all she knew. Her mother lived above them in the same close, her sisters and aunties in the close next door. She didn’t want to take Paul away from his cousins.

They came to Hexton, the outlying village that grew into a satellite town, when George got promoted. With the opening of the factory George took up a management position, the lowest rung, but a start. He came up from the factory floor through his own hard work and determination. He never tired of telling her that: his own work and determination. Even when he could no longer properly form words, he still tried to tell her.

His rise was all the more impressive seeing as his last name, Boyd, was so Irish sounding. But that was in the past, a generation ago at least. George worked hard and he drove his workers into the ground, increasing productivity on his shift by 36%. In Hexton’s burgeoning Masonic lodge there were opportunities for an ambitious man and his promotion through management kept pace with his ascendancy in the masons. At George’s funeral there was a big turnout of men she’d never met before.

Their new house had patio doors that gave on to the back garden. It was management housing, very continental and dead modern. They agreed that this should be Paul’s room, it was quieter at the back, away from the noise of the road and once Paul got a bit older he’d be able to go straight out and play in the garden. A garden to play in was a luxury neither Alice nor George had ever had and she wanted Paul to get the full benefit of it.

George was a good man to her, a good provider; he worked hard and he wasn’t a drinker. That’s what people thought, what she wanted them to think. He liked a game of snooker. Him and his pal Tommy Sanderson played snooker in the factory social club. What with the snooker and his commitments at the lodge, he spent more time with Tommy Sanderson than he did with the family. ‘That wean doesn’t know his own daddy. He never sees you,’ Alice often complained.

Meningitis took Paul when he was four and a half. Dead in six hours. The longest six hours of her life. The doctor said it was a particularly virulent strain, that’s why he went so quick.

George was in the social club playing snooker. Half a mile away and he never saw the boy before he died. He blamed her: she should have known the fever was serious; she should’ve got the doctor right away. She knew that herself.

After they buried Paul, George stopped going to the club. He stayed in nearly every night. They tried for another baby but it never happened. Conversations became brief, made up of her saying ‘what?’ And him saying ‘never mind’.

Before he took ill with the first stroke, George was earning good money. That’s how he could afford the big slate snooker table. Hundreds of pounds it cost. It wasn’t a table for a house, not an ordinary house anyway. If they hadn’t had the patio doors he’d never have got it in the house. He had them deliver it when she was away at her sister’s, eight men it took to bring it in. Once it was in it wouldn’t fit anywhere else. He must have known that when he bought it.

They sat it right in the middle of the room, where Paul’s wee white coffin had stood on its trestles. She pleaded with him but he wouldn’t listen. He said they had to move on. He tried to throw Paul’s toys out, they were getting in the way of his snooker table, but she wouldn’t let him. She fought him. She bit into his arm and refused to let go. The bite turned septic and took a long time to heal. He was scared of her after that and never tried to move the stuff again. For years him and Tommy Sanderson were in there most nights playing snooker with the wean’s toys all round
the room and his wallpaper: the wee choo choo trains chuffing across the walls.

George was young for a stroke, only forty-one. It was only a wee one and the doctor said there was every chance of a full recovery. Then he had another one. After that he never went back to the factory, he couldn’t. He was frozen all down the one side. He walked with a stick. He couldn’t speak, he’d mumble something and she’d say ‘what?’ And he’d shake his head, never mind. Unless she turned his plate for him he only ate half his dinner. He cried a lot. There was no more snooker but Tommy Sanderson still came round and sat with him for hours until she told him not to. She asked Tommy if he could get rid of the snooker table but he didn’t know anyone who’d want it. And so it stayed there, a monument to their empty lives.

In sickness and in health, that’s what she’d signed up for. She was never going to leave him, but they had their moments. Sometimes he was pathetically grateful and other times he’d try to lash out at her with his stick. Correspondingly, she sometimes felt a tenderness for his helplessness, a melancholy when she remembered the man he’d been. Some nights, just to cheer him up, to get him interested in something, anything, she’d bring him through to Paul’s room and sit him down where he could watch her. She’d play the table taking both her turn and his, and he’d watch, criticising and getting angry at her hopelessness, and slowly teaching her how to play.

At other times she hated him. Sometimes she said terrible things. She told him Paul wasn’t his; that she and Tommy had carried on that time he went on management training to London. The dates fitted. He cried and cried and she tried to take it back. She tried to tell him she’d only said it to hurt him, because she was angry with him, because she was a horrible evil bitch. But still he would bring it up again and again and cry for hours on end. The dates fitted.

Every time she saw him parked in front of the telly, shuffling to the toilet, mumbling about his glory days at the factory or with tears of self-pity dripping off his chin, she felt she was being buried
alive. She wasn’t ready for this living death, she would never be ready. That’s why she started the Golden Belles.

She came back one day from a show in an OAP home somewhere on the other side of Glasgow. By the time they paid for a minibus there and back it had actually cost them but it was a terrific show. They staff in the home were lively and fun and they encouraged the residents to call for an encore.

When she came in to the house she saw immediately that George’s spirit had departed. It had left only the rubbery rind that was his useless old body sitting on the chair. For old times sake she kissed it on the head and cried a little. Then she had to change out of her spangly show tights before she called the doctor.

These days, every day’s a holiday. Ray can’t help it, he feels good. Feeling this good makes him feel bad, or at least guilty, but he tries not to. He keeps himself busy. He has his work, his sideboards to be getting on with, all the young ones coming in every day, all the performers rehearsing for the show, endless jokes and fag breaks and cups of tea. He looks forward to his day. He arrives at the church in the morning with a spring in his step, lead in his pencil, wick in his candle, sap in his stem. This makes him feel scared. Experience has taught him that this kind of feeling good will end in tragedy. He’s gone back to showering every morning and trying on different shirts in front of the mirror. He’s planning a haircut. He even contemplated new aftershave, he can’t use the old stuff, it must have gone off by now, it’s lain at the back of the bathroom cabinet too long.

Because of the show she comes to the church nearly every day. He watches her while he pretends to keep his head down and get on with his work. He fancies her, plain and simple. He has no idea why. He knows he shouldn’t, there’s the age discrepancy for a start, plus she’s no beauty and she’s bossy and snappy but maybe that’s what it is: that vitality.

Ray has long since given up asking God for any favours, he knows how pointless and humiliating that is. He’s not doing anything wrong, he tries to remind himself, it’s not wrong to fancy a woman. Nothing to stop you looking, so long as you don’t touch. He only has to resist temptation until the show’s over.

Down by the shimmering river, at the edge of the forest, Maria looks into the quiet river pool and sees her reflection, fresh and beautiful. These days every meditation is filled with this spiritual ecstasy.

She has already had her consultation with Arlene and Nelson and outlined with them how wonderful her busy day is going to be.

‘I can’t wait to get to work,’ she’d told them, partly hinting that they should get a move on. These days Nelson’s ponderous wisdom is beginning to get on her nerves.

‘Fulfilling work is not only our goal but also our reward,’ he’d preached.

Arlene had backed him up. Who would have thought that these two would make such a good team?

‘Yeah,’ said Arlene, ‘so don’t get complacent. She’s fly, that Alice one.’

‘Aye,’ Nelson had qualified this, ‘she
thinks
she’s fly.’

‘He’s right. You heard what she was like when you asked about work experience. She doesn’t want Blue Group in her kitchen; she’ll try everything to put you off.’

‘Do not be distracted from your purpose. Focus.’

They wouldn’t let her away until she promised to focus.

Now she can take a few moments to savour the bliss before returning to the external world. She used to often linger here, milking her reverie for every bead of joy she could squeeze from it but these days the external world is every bit as blissful.

Everything is going well. The Diva Extravaganza has hurtled into life. This is the final week of rehearsals. Tomorrow is Saturday,
the last big rehearsal before the dress. The biggest surprise of all has been Blue Group.

This is all credit to Brian’s irrepressible mischievous nature and his scriptwriting talents. Due to his re-write of the script, which now features his sly automated comments throughout, Martin the havea-go-hero shopkeeper and Jane the gun-wielding robber have moved from lacklustre melodrama into the realms of surreal comedy.

To begin with, Martin was not best pleased with what he considered to be barefaced upstaging by Brian, but he’s forgotten his churlishness and adapted. Now that they’re getting a good reaction from other performers, Martin works hard to create maximum comedic effect.

Weeks ago, bored and embarrassed by the piss-poor script and shambling performances, Brian had re-interpreted the play and completely turned it around. He’d had a cold and was unable to go to swimming lessons with the rest of them. Dezzie had volunteered to stay with him and by the time Blue Group came back Brian had re-worked the script. Dezzie insisted it was all Brian’s work, he had merely taken dictation.

It’s basically the same story: woman tries to rob shop and is disarmed by shopkeeper while disabled assistant looks on. Shopkeeper and thief fall in love. Assistant looks on. They live happily ever after.

But now all the characters are named after Brian’s chess heroes Kramnik ( Jane), Kasparov (Martin) and Fischer (Brian). Now there’s a
Pulp Fiction
homage in Kramnik’s monologue and a
Matrix
reference in the fight scene. Now there’s comedy, rather than awkwardness and embarrassment, in the pauses between the words Fischer says with his computerised voice. Brian parodies his voice machine’s complete lack of intonation and spontaneity. The laughs are all in the silences which they milk for all they can.

Fischer How. Long. Is. It.

PAUSE WHILE KASPAROV WAITS FOR QUESTION TO BE COMPLETED.

KASPAROV How long is what?

HE REACTS – SHOCKED AT SUCH A PERSONAL QUESTION. HE CHECKS HIS FLY AND COVERS HIMSELF
PROTECTIVELY AS THOUGH FEARFUL THAT FISCHER CAN SEE THE DIMENSIONS OF HIS MANHOOD.

FISCHER Since. The. Shop. Was. Last. Robbed.

KASPAROV (
RELEIVED
) Oh! Since the shop was last robbed? (
LOOKS AT HIS WATCH
) Two years, three months, four days, six hours and twenty minutes ago. Approximately.

FISCHER She. Got. To. You. Huh.

KASPAROV Yes, I don’t think I’ll ever forget that thieving She-devil Kramnik.
ROMANTIC MUSIC PLAYS AS KASPAROV GETS A FAR AWAY LOOK IN HIS EYES
That wonderful hunny bunny crazy no good thieving beautiful lady. But if I ever see her again I’ll be ready for her.

FISCHER Is.It. Hard.

LONG PAUSE.

KASPAROV Is what hard?

KASPAROV TURNS AWAY FROM THE AUDIENCE AS HE COVERS HIMSELF AGAIN

FISCHER To. Forget. Her.

KASPAROV Oh! (
RELIEVED
) Yes, yes it is hard. To forget her, I mean! But it’s impossible. They put her in jail and threw away the key. I’ll never see my hunny bunny ever again. (
HE IS BEREFT
)

KRAMNIK ENTERS SHOP UNNOTICED BY KASPAROV AND FISCHER. SHE STANDS ON TOP OF THE COUNTER, PULLS OUT A GUN AND SCREAMS HYSTERICALLY

KRAMNIK Any of you move and I’ll execute every motherflippin last one of ya!

FISCHER Look. Out. She’s. Got. A.

EXTREMELY LONG SILENCE WHILE KRAMNIK AND KASPAROV REMAIN IN FREEZE FRAME

FISCHER Gun.

KASPAROV REACTS. IN SLOW MOTION HE RUNS TOWARDS KRAMNIK.

KASPAROV Noooooo!

THEY FIGHT SLOW MOTION KUNG FU AS THOUGH THEY ARE IN THE MATRIX

KASPAROV ADDRESSES THE AUDIENCE
KASPAROV (
STARING AT HIS HANDS, BAFFLED
) I know Kung Fu!

EVENTUALLY KASPAROV WRESTLES THE GUN FROM KRAMNIK AND HAS HER IN A ROMANTIC CLINCH.

FISCHER Are. You. Going. To. Take. Her.

LONG PAUSE. BOTH KASPAROV AND KRAMNIK LOOK AT FISCHER

FISCHER To. The. Police.

KASPAROV No. I’m going to do what I should have done two years, three months, four days, six hours and (
HE LOOKS AT HIS WATCH
) twenty four minutes ago. I’m going to make her my wife!

KASPAROV LEANS FORWARD AND PULLS KRAMNIK INTO A PASSIONATE EMBRACE WHILE THE ROMANTIC MUSIC REACHES CLIMAX

FISCHER And. So. They. Lived.

LONG PAUSE.

MUSIC FIZZLES OUT. KASPAROV AND KRAMNIK ARE FORCED TO STOP CANOODLING AND LET FISCHER HAVE THE LAST WORD

FISCHER In. Hexton. Kasparov. Worked. Hard. Business. Was. Good. And. Before. Long. Kramnik. Had. Two. Little.

LONG PAUSE

KRAMNIK NURSES HER TUMMY

FISCHER Kalashnikoffs.

SHE PULLS OUT TWO RIFLES AND WAVES THEM MURDEROUSLY
WHILE KASPAROV SMILES PROUDLY

FISCHER And. They. Were. Never. Robbed. Again. The.

SHORT PAUSE

FISCHER End.

So long as the audience understand that it’s intended as comedy, it’s going to be the smash hit of the show. And a welcome relief from all these singers. Except for Fiona, of course.

Her voice is a rare gift, a one-in-a-million talent. The thing that Hextors rate most highly, the ability to sing well, is the thing that a mentally disabled woman can do better than any of them. Hopefully, they’re going to love her for it.