by Nina Smith
There was a pause. The bible disappeared. She opened her eyes, relieved it was all over so quickly. A young man whispered in Preacher’s ear. “What?” Preacher said. He didn’t sound impressed.
The man whispered again and gestured at the doors. Magda looked out into the Congregation. A few in the front row shuffled their feet. Many in the crowd glanced frequently at the doors. There was a noise outside that sounded like chanting. Some of the people crowding the aisles weren’t wearing muppet collars and suits. She looked closer, distracted from Preacher. “Help me!” she yelled. “Somebody help!”
Preacher put his hand in her face. “Quiet, Satan! I haven’t finished with you!”
“Get your religion out of my face!” she screamed.
Preacher’s hand rose. She cowered. The crowd surged.
“No more church control of politics in Hailstone!” somebody bawled from the crowd. “Stay out of our social lives!”
Preacher turned toward his faithful, hand still in the air. “What?”
Magda grinned.
“No more church control!” yelled another voice in the crowd. People repeated it. The chant rippled through the aisles. The Congregation faithful got to their feet; some started to push their way toward the door.
“Get out of my church!” Preacher roared. His voice cracked.
Part of the crowd rippled and knocked the people around them off balance. Magda watched, awed, as the sea of people below her surged like a wave breaking on rocks. She looked left and right; Zack and the Lamb of God stared at the scene, apparently dumbstruck. She jerked her arms away from them, ducked Preacher and fled into the crowd.
A man wearing a black hoodie and track pants detached himself from the mob and grabbed her hand. “This way sweetie,” he hissed.
Magda followed him around the edges of the chaos toward the door. “Adam! What are you doing here?”
“Do you like my disguise?” He cackled in her ear. “You’ve got a lot of fans after last night, Mags. Did you really try to shoot Preacher?”
“Yeah, but my aim sucked.” Magda ducked a knot of frightened Congregation women and emerged into the sunlight with Adam. “We’re getting out of here, right?”
“Just as soon as Kat’s finished taking photos.” Adam put a finger under her chin and studied her face. “Are you okay?”
“Far from it.” Magda blinked in the brightness.
“Here she is, come on.” Adam pointed to a station wagon parked across the road. Kat waved at them.
Magda glanced over her shoulder, but the crowds seemed enough to keep Preacher and Zack inside. She bolted across the road with Adam.
“Get in.” Kat fired the ignition.
Magda got into the passenger seat. Adam leaned in the window. “I’ve got to go,” he said. “You be careful now Mags. Thanks Kat darling. Can’t wait to read the paper on Monday.” He winked and moved away.
Kat turned in a tight circle, avoiding stray knots of people who spilled onto the road, and headed for the highway faster than the speed limit permitted.
Magda put her head in her hands to stop it spinning. “I appreciate this,” was all she could think of to say.
Kat’s voice was crisp. “I’ve never been so appalled in my life at the behaviour of people claiming to be Christians.”
“Where are we going?”
“I’m taking you to hospital to get checked out. You look like shit.”
“Gosh, and I got dressed up and everything.” Magda rested her head on the seat and closed her eyes. Her pounding blood hadn’t caught up to the fact help had come. The sick, cold weight on her ribs was the certainty Preacher would catch up to her again and finish the job. She slipped into a daze for a while, only to start awake when the car came to a halt.
“I have to tell you about some things before they find me again,” she said.
“They won’t find you,” Kat said. “We can talk later. Right now you’re seeing a doctor.”
Magda didn’t argue. She followed Kat into the hospital and waited quietly in the sterile brightness until a nurse took her to a bed and drew the curtains around it. Kat went with her, at her insistence, and took a seat beside the bed.
The doctor arrived within ten minutes. She was a middle-aged woman who looked as though she’d been on her feet for a day already.
“Magdalene McAllister?” she said.
Magda flinched. “Magda,” she said. “Please.”
“I’m Doctor Baker.” She put the clipboard on the trolley and got out a stethoscope. “What seems to be the problem? How did you get this bruise?” She managed to put the stethoscope on Magda’s chest and examine her face at the same time.
“Preacher hit me,” Magda said.
Kat shifted. The doctor put away her stethoscope and inflated a blood pressure cuff around her arm. The tightness reminded her of Preacher dragging her down the road. She tensed.
“Preacher?” The doctor pursed her lips at the readout on the machine. “Are you from that awful church?”
“Preacher’s my father.” Magda knit her fingers. She didn’t want to be here anymore.
“Does he hit you often?”
“Yes.”
“I’m just going to do an examination and see if anything’s damaged. Lie down please.”
Magda lay down and waited. The doctor’s cold fingers poked and prodded. Then she shone a torch in front of her eyes. “Well,” she said, once the torch was flicked off, “you’re in reasonably good shape. No concussion. A little dehydrated. You need to bring your blood pressure down or you’re going to risk some serious problems. Are you on any medication?”
“Valium.”
“When did you last have any?”
“Yesterday. Or the day before. I don’t remember. Preacher took it away and said I wasn’t to have anything before the exorcism.” Magda sighed and stopped talking before she could embarrass herself further.
The doctor pursed her lips again and looked disapproving. “When did you last eat or drink?”
“I don’t know.”
“I want you to stay here under observation for a little while, Ms McAllister. I’m going to put you on a drip to try and bring your blood pressure down. I’ll send someone in with some water for you to drink. I want you to drink it slowly. I’ll be back in a little while.”
She disappeared. Within minutes a nurse came in and hooked Magda’s arm up to a drip. She winced when the needle went in.
“Well, Jesus Christ,” Kat said, when they were alone again. “I figured there was some crap happening in your life, Mags, but I had no idea until I saw that interview last night.”
“You watched that rubbish?” Magda closed her eyes.
“Adam rang me up and told me to put it on. I don’t blame you, you know. For trying to shoot Preacher.”
“I wish I hadn’t missed.”
“No you don’t. You don’t really want a murder hanging over you. There are other ways to deal with domestic violence.”
“Such as?”
“Take out a restraining order.”
“Oh.” Magda opened her eyes. She’d never thought of that.
“I sort of asked someone else to come and talk to you. He’s due any minute.” Kat sounded apologetic.
“He?” Magda tensed.
“A friend of mine. He’s a policeman. Not affiliated with the Congregation, I made sure. Magda you need to put in a police report about what Preacher’s been doing. Somebody has to speak out.”
The throbbing returned. “I can’t, Kat,” she said.
“Why not?”
“Preacher would kill me.”
“All the more reason to make the report.” Kat’s voice was implacable.
The curtain twitched aside. A young man in a blue uniform peered in. “Hi Kat,” he said.
Magda’s cheeks flamed. She levered herself up to a sitting position.
“Jason, this is Magda,” Kat said. “Have a seat.” She moved, since she was occupying the only seat. “Mags, don’t
be afraid. Tell him everything.”
*
An hour later, Magda had made her way through two glasses of water and told Jason almost the entire story of her life. She felt better. Lighter. Jason thought she’d get a restraining order with no problems; she just had to apply for one at the courts. She’d left out the part about John’s counselling centre, since she wasn’t sure if it was even illegal. Everything else had gone into the little notebook and then Jason had gone away.
The doctor came back, pronounced her stable, gave her a pile of pamphlets about women’s refuges and help lines and said she could go.
“Where do you want to go?” Kat asked, once they were back in the car.
“Food,” Magda said immediately. “Let’s go get food.”
Kat chuckled. “Now you sound better. I know a place, it’s just around the corner.”
The short drive was quiet; soon, Magda sat in a corner booth, a burger and chips in front of her. Kat sat opposite with a salad.
Magda ate slowly. She felt better than she had in a long time.
“So what is it you wanted to talk to me about?” Kat asked.
“Ah.” Magda speared a chip with her fork. “Well, you know about stuff, right?”
“Yeah, I know about stuff.”
“I went snooping a few days ago, because I wanted to find out what my ex husband did while he was away.”
“Ex?”
“Long story. Anyway, it turned out he’s been running this Christian counselling centre in Gibson. They take people with problems – drugs, alcohol, anger – and cure them. Apparently. Except this cure can’t be all that good, because a kid who went through the centre committed suicide.”
Kat’s fork poised in mid-air. “What was he in for?”
“Being gay.”
“Christ.”
“You can say that again. So it’s all fallen apart over there, the police are investigating, and a woman is bringing sexual assault charges against them.”
“You know I think I heard about that. Your husband was involved?” Kat returned to her salad.
“Yeah, he was involved. And Preacher funded it.”
Kat’s fork clattered to the table. She leaned forward. “Really? That’s huge. Do you have proof?”
“No. Preacher took away the laptop it was all on.”
“Bugger. Why didn’t you tell Jason about this?”
“I wanted to talk it over with you first. I mean, Preacher does this kind of thing all the time. He’s been talking about opening up outreach centres all over Hailstone, it’s his pet project. What John was doing in Gibson was some kind of trial for it, but Preacher was furious about the suicide.”
“You think he’s going to go ahead with the same methods?”
“That’s just it. I don’t know. I’m sure he wouldn’t purposely encourage something that drove kids to kill themselves.”
“Are you?” Kat pushed away her plate. “Seriously Mags, are you? After what he’s done to you?”
Magda sighed.
“What do you want me to do? Do you want me to put it on my front page tomorrow? Because I can, if I can get to the printer before five o’clock. But I need proof.”
Magda shook her head. “I can get you proof, but not before five. I’d need an excuse to be alone in his house, and that would have to be Sunday dinner.” She shuddered.
“No, forget that. You’re not going back there. We’ll find another way. You can stay with me until we find you somewhere to go.”
“Really?” Magda brightened.
“Really.” Kat smiled. “I have a very comfortable couch.”
Magda gave her a mock-disappointed pout. “Alright then. Thanks, Kat.”
“You know, I had a phone call from someone at the Congregation this week.”
“Oh?” Magda finished off the last of the greasy food.
“Yeah. They told me not to show the pro-alcohol protestors in a positive light. Or else.” She snorted.
Magda stared. “What did you say?”
“I told them the free press doesn’t take kindly to threats.”
Magda shook her head. “Do you feel like this is going to get worse before it gets better?”
“I really do.”
Magda pushed her plate away. “Got any cigarettes?”
“Sorry hon, don’t smoke. Let’s just go for a walk. The courthouse isn’t far, you can apply for that restraining order.”
Magda followed her out. It hit her that she had nothing. No money, nothing but the clothes she wore. Everything was back home. She couldn’t so much as buy a packet of smokes. On the up side, her head wasn’t throbbing at all. She felt good.
Someone waved at them from across the road.
“Who’s that?” Kat asked.
Magda waved back. “It’s Joseph. He’s in the Congregation, but it’s okay, he’s a friend.”
Joseph jogged over to them and grinned. “Hey Mags! Watcha doing?”
“Just walking. What about you? Hey isn’t today your birthday?”
Joseph nodded.
“Oh my God, you were going to leave on your birthday.” Magda grinned. “Are you leaving now? Are you running away?”
Joseph tilted his head. “If I was, would you come too?”
Magda glanced at Kat. She shook her head. “There’s one or two things left for me in Hailstone,” she said. “But good luck.” She eyed a car that pulled up behind Joseph. “Is this your ride?”
He glanced around. “Yeah, this is it. It’s yours too, Magdalene.”
Magda blinked. “Why’d you call me that?”
“Holy shit,” breathed Kat next to her. “These people don’t give up.”
Magda took her meaning. She took Kat’s hand and bolted, but Joseph grabbed the back of her shirt and pushed Kat onto the pathway. The car door opened; Zack peered out. “Get in, Magdalene.”
“Fuck you.” She jerked away, but Joseph had weight and strength on his side. He planted a hand on her spine and shoved her into the back seat. Zack dragged her in.
“Hey!” Kat yelled. “Magda! Magda I’m going to call the police to come get you!”
The car door shut and her voice cut out. Joseph’s mother was at the wheel. Joseph got in beside her and the car pulled away.
Magda removed Zack’s hands from her clothes and brushed herself off.
“You need to stop seeing that woman, unless she wants to join the Congregation,” Zack said. “Put your seatbelt on.”
Magda put her seatbelt on. She ignored Zack and glared daggers into the back of Joseph’s head.
*
By the time Mrs Georgiou dropped them at home, Magda had her face in her hands. She blocked out everyone else in the car. It was abundantly clear her only way out of the church was to die. Or failing that, for the church to die. That option was infinitely preferable. In fact, she thought she’d probably take great pleasure in bringing it down.
She knew exactly where to start, too, but first she had to eat some dirt.
She peered out through her fingers when the car stopped. No Preacher in the front yard. That was something.
She and Zack got out of the car. Zack unlocked the door and motioned her inside. Magda went into the lounge room and sat on the couch. Zack followed. “Magdalene,” he said.
“I want to see Preacher.”
“What?”
“I want to see Preacher.”
He took a few steps back. “Okay. I’ll call him.”
He left the room, presumably to use the house phone. Magda took a few deep breaths. She steeled herself. That bottle of vodka used as fuel to burn her clothes seemed an awful waste now. She looked down at her clothes. Things would go better if she dressed in the uniform, but that was one concession she just wouldn’t make.
Preacher opened the front door a few minutes later. He loomed in the lounge room. He sounded as cautious as Zack had been. “Magdalene?”
Magda stood up and faced him. He might have been a whole head taller, but he looked o
ld. Old and tired. She hoped he choked on old and tired. “Preacher,” she said. “Father. How can you ever forgive me for the way I’ve treated you?”
Hope flickered in his face, but he remained suspicious. “God forgives all of his children,” he said.
“I’m sorry I ran from the exorcism. I was frightened. I know it was for my own good. But later, Preacher...Father...I felt it. I felt the light of God in my heart.” She made her voice rise. She worked herself up a little bit and squeezed out a tear, every bit as sincere as Preacher’s tears had been on TV last night. “Please help me return to God,” she said. “I’m ready. I want to change. I’ll do whatever you ask of me, if you’ll only give me one last chance to prove I can be a good daughter to you.”
“Magdalene.” Preacher’s arms went around her. “My child, I can see that Satan is gone from your heart. Praise God. Praise Jesus. The exorcism worked. Welcome back, my daughter.”
Magdalene looked at Zack over Preacher’s shoulder. She winked.
He looked troubled.
*
Sunday dinner.
Magda sighed. The only time she’d ever escaped Sunday dinner was when she’d had gastro at the age of fifteen and thrown up all over the person in the pew next to her at church. She’d kind of hoped being possessed by Satan might get her out of it this week, but no such luck.
Sunday dinner was Preacher’s second most important event of the week, after church, of course. Only his inner circle were invited; the mayor, his wife and son; herself and Zack, and tonight, Rebecca from 3CE, who appeared to be Preacher’s new favourite, despite all the makeup.
Magda arrived with Zack, smiling and happy. Zack opened the door for her. He took her coat and hung it up. In fact, he was a very helpful little puppy dog, but he still looked like he didn’t trust her as far as he could throw her.
Smart puppy.
Magda opened the door into the living room and smiled her biggest smile at the Georgious and Rebecca.
“Magdalene so good to see you. Congratulations.” The mayor pumped her hand.
She shook it back. “Mr Georgiou, how lovely to see you.”
“Magdalene darling, you’ve done so well.” Mrs Georgiou kissed her on the cheek. “We’re all so very proud of you. Perhaps we’ll see you doing a bible reading at church next week?”
