Only Strange People Go to Church (15 page)

The time has flown in; every minute of the last month has been filled with drama and excitement. A month in a wonderful blur of auditions, talent, costumes, songs, sets, backstage nerves, strops, magicians and rabbits. The church is busy every day with groups rehearsing and the Golden Belles have set up a café.

In Hexton this in itself is a community triumph. Fair enough, Ray has provided the space and the ladies of Autumn House are serving the teas but Maria feels justified in taking at least some of the credit. That’s why it’s only fair that Blue Group get a piece of the action.

When she spoke to Alice and Margaret yesterday about it they were less than enthusiastic, trotting out the usual excuses about the dangers of work in a kitchen. Luckily Ray was there to intercede on their behalf.

‘You know how it is girls, come one, come all,’ he said simply.

When they tried to argue he shrugged and said,

‘No work experience, no café. No café, no snooker.’

Weirdly, this seemed to do the trick and suddenly Alice was fixing times and dates for Blue Group to come in and wait tables. She’s only allowing two-hour shifts once a week but this is a tremendous breakthrough, something no other Key Worker has ever managed, and one which Maria can’t wait to wave under Mike’s nose.

But even if the show wasn’t going so well as it is, nothing can get her down. Maria is in love. Every day with Dezzie gets better and better. She’s staggered in a lovestruck swoon from midweek to weekend date, each one more successful and more romantic
than the last. The last date, two nights ago, was the best so far. Not because the film was so good, because it wasn’t, and not because he bought her popcorn and then held her hand all the way through the film preventing her from eating it. What was so good was that as they were leaving the cinema Dezzie bumped into a friend of his and introduced Maria.

‘This is Maria, my girlfriend,’ he said.

And the sex. It’s just sex, sex, sex, sex, sex. Maria never gets tired of it, or sore the way she used to with Dirk. Dezzie’s gentle. Constantly he asks her: what d’you want? Is this okay? But she’s no slouch either in the bedroom department.

Every time they do it she goes down there, sucking him with the instinct and hunger of a newborn. Dezzie never asks but she knows he likes it. She wants to do it. She needs to. She has to bury her head in his smell, in his softest most vulnerable places. He’s new bread, a succulent roast, spiced rum. She has to consume him, to have her senses overwhelmed by him.

Going down has become her new religion; like her meditations, an important touchstone in her life. She knows that so long as she does it everything will be all right. Down there she practices her devotions. When they’re married she’ll do this every morning. She’ll wake his brain and his cock with as much pleasure as she can give him in gratitude and reverence for what it is he gives her.

But it’s his nature to be generous. The cinema date was the first time she had actually managed to pay for anything and even then it was only her own ticket. He earns the same money as she does, he hasn’t the means to pay for everything but he keeps wanting to. He’s as free with his time as he is with his money. At the centre he is always on hand to help her with Blue Group. He should be floating between the various groups but he does what’s asked of him elsewhere and then comes and helps Maria. He’s always funny and sweet with everyone, Blue Group are as much in love with him as she is.

Really she doesn’t deserve a boyf as good as Dezzie but she has, it’s official. He said so to his friend outside the cinema, ‘this is Maria,’ he said, ‘My Girlfriend.’

At the centre they are discreet. They have to be. Sauce for the goose, Mike always says. If they see us doing it, what’s to stop the clients? Staff openly fraternising is a sackable offence, regarded in the same light as if a staff member were to conduct a physical relationship with a client. So at the centre they restrict themselves to smiles and winks.

Dezzie’s on swimming pool duty with Green Group so she doesn’t see him until nearly lunch and when she does she has to smile. Since he gave his prized T-shirt to Bert he’s worn nothing of note, but today he’s wearing a new red one with a slogan on it that perfectly encapsulates his charming insouciance.

Ride Bikes

Drink Beer

Talk Bollocks

No one else could get away with this. He’s proudly showing it off around the groups and everyone is admiring it.

‘Where did you get it, Dezzie?’ Martin asks.

‘D’you like it?’

’Yeah, I’m getting one.’

Dezzie laughs.

‘You trying to copy my style, wee man?’

‘I can buy stuff like that if I want, you know,’ says Martin briskly. ‘I can get anything I want.’

Maria rolls her eyes, slightly embarrassed by Martin’s rudeness. Dezzie wasn’t patronising him, he was only joking.

‘No, sorry mate. No offence,’ says Dezzie quickly, putting an arm around Martin. ‘I got it in Hexton, in that wee shop beside the pub. I’m just worried that it’ll look better on you than it does on me.’

‘Yeah, well,’ says Martin, only slightly mollified, ‘I’m getting my mum to get me one.’

‘I’m taking my group to the church after lunch’ says Maria, changing the subject. ‘We’ve got work experience.’

This she says in an understated throwaway manner but she hopes Dezzie will appreciate the magnitude of this news. He does not disappoint.

‘Way to go, Miss Maria!’ he cries.

As though declaring the winner in a boxing contest he lifts her arm and shakes it and then goes round Blue Group dispensing high fives.

‘I could do with a hand getting everyone down there, d’you want to come with us?’

‘Do I want to? Just try and stop me!’

To maximise the time spent together and also for the exercise the client’s will get from the walk, Maria chooses the long route through the park.

‘Look!’ says Fiona, excited. ‘Wee squirrels!’

‘Where?’ asks Maria.

Fiona points to a tree and everyone gasps when they see a little squirrel scamper along a branch. Alarmed by its fast movement, Jane runs for cover behind Maria.

‘It’s okay, pet,’ Maria laughs, ‘it won’t touch you.’

But Jane is not convinced and cowers.

‘It’s only a wee creature. It can’t do you any harm. It’s more scared of you than you are of it.’

But Jane’s fright has spooked Martin and now he looks worried too.

‘I don’t like squirrels,’ he says.

‘I’m with you, mate,’ says Dezzie. ‘Bloody tree rats, that’s what those things are, hoaching with fleas and God knows what else. In fact, they’re worse than rats. The other week I saw a squirrel kill a rat down at the embankment. Ripped it to pieces. Vicious buggers. In a fight a squirrel will take a rat out every time.’

‘Please, Dezzie,’ Maria says softly, ‘Jane’s frightened.’

‘Sorry Jane,’ he says.

But the damage is done. No one wants to look at the squirrels anymore and they hurry past. So vivid is his description of the killer squirrels that everyone is quiet for a while.

Maria understands why Dezzie said this. He’s angry with himself for offending Martin earlier and now he’s trying to make it up to him, agreeing with him, trying to bond. But he’s trying too hard. This is something she’s beginning to notice about Dezzie. He works so hard to keep everyone happy that sometimes he inadvertently
upsets them. It’s a very human weakness and one that makes him all the more loveable, but sooner or later it’s going to get him in trouble.

When they arrive at the church, Ray is painting a rural idyll on a canvas framed by old strips of MDF. By way of a greeting he calls to Blue Group in an Australian accent and dreadful impersonation of Rolf Harris.

‘Can you see what it is yet, kids?’

At his direction some of the unemployed young people who hang around here are moving bits of scenery and/or joinery, it’s hard to tell. The other spaces are no less hectic.

The main hall is a factory of creativity with multiple simultaneous rehearsals taking place amidst the busy bustle of the café. This is going to be terrific experience for Blue Group. A primary class is practising a puppet show where the older kids use smaller ones, with thick cords tied to their wrists, as live puppets. Amidst the mayhem the teacher is untying one of the small ones. He’s crying from the rough treatment he’s receiving from the excitable girl yanking his strings.

The school choir are using the stage to rehearse their Madonna tribute. It’s strange to see them in rows, identical in their smart school uniforms, singing
Papa Don’t Preach
with such regimented formality. A month ago, who would have thought it? This show is positive evidence that dreams can come true. The way everything has taken off, the café, the work experience and her relationship with Dezzie, especially her relationship with Dezzie, these things are all compelling evidence of the power of positive thinking.

In the kitchen the ladies from Autumn House, about eight of them, are busy getting in each other’s way, banging pots and producing steam from urns. The café is mostly patronised by mums
waiting to pick up children although Maria recognises and waves to a group she recognises from the Motorway demonstration. They are busily folding leaflets and have recruited a table of mums to help stuff envelopes.

There is a table of Pastor McKenzie’s Victory Singers, sitting with cups of tea before them. They are a peculiar looking bunch of oddballs and misfits; the only thing they have in common is a dreamy religious haze that hangs over them.

Maria smiles when she thinks of what Mike would make of this. He’d have a good rant about how he knows very well what the Victory Singer’s agenda is, she can hear his voice in her head right now. Don’t kid yourself Maria, he’d say, McKenzie’s mob aren’t here for the soup. They’re feeding off the misery of the redundant, the suicidal, the recently bereaved. They’re scavenging people’s souls, sniffing out life crises. They try to catch them at a low ebb and ensnare them. Another soul saved, another notch on their crucifix. They probably have league tables, he’d say.

Mike’s a cynic but he’s not alone. She knows plenty of people who have an open animosity to organised religion. She suspects there are others who don’t mention the lack of community and spiritual void they feel in their lives. To do so would be an admission of weakness, of failure. Maria knows this because it’s the way she felt.

Her experimentation with Christianity began after she woke up one morning with her tights dangling from one leg and an unknown boy from the other. There had to be more to Sundays than self-revulsion and killer hangovers.

The Kelvin Street Kids tight foursome, (all four one and one four all!) was no more. Those days were gone. The rest of them were hooked up, going steady. Over time this new larger crowd diffused to become bigger, less focused, subsets of girlfriends and boyfriends, wives and husbands, mothers and fathers, parents and children.

Maria still saw them, but it wasn’t the same. Even Colette, her Best Friend, gently faded her out. Nights out at the pub became dinner at Colette’s with Colette’s husband, and not long after that,
Colette’s kids. A new social scene had been established, a scene which Maria was unable to penetrate; the mother and toddler group. She missed the girls, especially Colette, she missed the laughs and the mad nights out. They were all baby bores now, ‘ooh,’ they’d cry, ‘Katie’s on solids!’ or ‘Oliver did a poo in the potty all by himself!’

Maria knew nothing about breast pumps or sterilising solution. Without a baby she couldn’t be in that club. So she began, on the QT, going to church. Or rather she began the process of selecting a church, one that could provide her with a club membership but also anonymity.

She wasn’t ready to tell her friends. Although she didn’t know Mike at the time, she knew plenty of people like him. In the social circles she moved in it was deeply uncool to hold faith in God. Anyone ingenuous enough to come out as a
Christian
was regarded with suspicion. The word itself was almost a dirty word, a word with judgmental or hypocritical overtones. Going to church was perceived as questionable behaviour.

So it couldn’t be anywhere too close to Kelvin Street or where she worked. It couldn’t be anywhere too nosey, where the minister invited you to stay for tea and a half-hour interrogation. It couldn’t be anywhere too sad. With her usual optimism she had begun with high hopes of perhaps finding a nice decent unmarried man but most churches she tried had only a pitifully small congregation of old or strange people. Eventually she found one which met her rigorous standards.

This one, St David’s, had a sign outside which said,
Those
who choose to worship in private will not be disturbed.
It was good marketing.

The minister wasn’t young or trendy but he seemed nice and he did have his finger on the pulse. The church was equipped with PowerPoint. The words of the hymns were projected on to a large screen, animated, sometimes dancing or in flames, under a bouncing ball that kept the beat. The hymns had sweet sad tunes or lively rousing ones. There was a wee choir but the minister encouraged everyone to sing out. Maria, hiding amongst their unsteady voices,
joined in. Towards the end of the service there was karaoke. Anyone could choose a hymn from a list of about forty and step up to the altar with the microphone.

Every week there was The Sign of Peace. She shook hands with everyone seated around her and was touched and surprised by their warmth and generous fellowship. These people didn’t know her or want anything from her.

When the minister said, ‘now let us pray’ Maria put her head down and closed her eyes.

Except for family weddings or funerals her parents never took her to church. At school there was the odd service at the end of term, but really the only pupils who practiced religious devotions were the Muslims kids. Maria didn’t know how to pray. The first time she did it she felt self-conscious, panicky even, but she bowed her head, screwed her eyes closed and concentrated.

She became aware of the smells of incense and damp. The opulent fustiness of the church comforted her; it was the smell of serenity. She started to get a light-headed feeling. A current of something: contentment, grace, buzzed through her,– getting stronger every time. Was this a spiritual high? It seemed like everyone in the church was getting it, she could feel it in the atmosphere.

Before now she’d never understood communal prayer. Just for a few minutes, while she had her eyes closed, while there was silence and they all prayed together, Maria felt an outpouring of love for everyone in the room. It was a great feeling; she only wished the church was full. Now she realised why churches were built to accommodate so many people and why Christians spent so much effort proselytising. These few minutes of enlightenment would sustain her for days. But just as she was beginning to enjoy it, it all went wrong. She got caught.

She’d been attending St David’s for about four weeks when she ran into Colette. She’d just come out and bumped into Colette pushing Oliver’s buggy. Colette was on her way to a baby swimming class with Oliver.

‘I’ve got to do something,’ she said, ‘I’m getting cabin fever sitting in the house all day staring at four walls.’

Maria could pray for a miracle to get out of this and she would have, but she felt it was hypocritical to ask God’s assistance in denying him.

‘I didn’t know you’d gone happy clappy.’

Colette said it enthusiastically but Maria saw the pity in her eyes.

God forgive her, Maria could only think of denial.

‘Me go to church? Don’t be ridiculous!’

Colette sniggered at the misunderstanding.

‘I thought you’d finally
let Jesus come into your life.’

This was a reference to an incident from years ago.

Maria and Colette had been in a club with the other KSKs. They were finding it difficult to shake off two boring but tenacious boys. With a straight face Colette told the boys that she and Maria had
let Jesus come into their lives
. Maria joined her in pretending to try to convert them, bowing her head every time she said the word
Jesus
. The boys soon made their excuses.

‘Well, what the hell were you doing coming out of a church on a Sunday morning, then?’ asked Colette, still hooting with laughter at her own joke. She obviously needed to get out of the house more often. It wasn’t that funny.

Maria couldn’t tell her. Not now, not after the
let Jesus come into
your life
remembrance.

‘I went in to ask about a yoga class that runs there.’

Maria knew it was blasphemy. But although she had covered her tracks, the game was up.

It turned out that with the baby swimming class Colette would be passing the church at this time every Sunday. Unless St David’s had a back exit Maria would no longer be able to come. She didn’t have the stamina to start again at another church. But more importantly – and it was an ugly revelation – she hadn’t the moral rectitude to make it as a Christian. She’d much rather deny Christ than endure her friend’s pity.

But that was a long time ago. She doesn’t beat herself up about it anymore. Since then she has accepted and forgiven herself for her moral failings. Now she has honed and perfected that spiritual high in the privacy of her own home.

Good luck to Pastor McKenzie and the Victory Mission; whatever floats their boat. It can’t be easy standing every Saturday night outside The Hexton Arms singing off-key whilst being pelted with kebab containers. They must go home dripping in chilli sauce but that’s the price they pay. And if they can comfort a few people and help them to make some kind of sense of their personal tragedies then, why not? They’re not doing any harm.

Pastor McKenzie, with his good looks and easy charm must be a super-smooth salesman of Christianity. If they do have league tables, he must be premier division.

The Pastor is playing snooker with one of the men from the orchestra. The orchestra are not due to rehearse today but perhaps the musician has come for the soup or the snooker or the vibrant atmosphere that now fills the church. Maria overhears what sounds like a philosophical debate between the two of them as she herds her group past.

‘But you know, Arnold, it’s not possible to achieve permanent happiness,’ says Pastor McKenzie, ‘the best we can aim for is to be good.’

‘Life is hard,’ says the musician, ‘I accept that. And once you do, it makes things a bit easier, but I really miss her. Brown in the top left pocket.’