by Ian Sansom
“Loser,” shouted one young man across the road.
“Double loser,” added another.
The man with the clipboard smiled beatifically—like a saint. Or Ned Flanders, thought Israel.
“Hi! Hi! Hi! High-five!” came his repeated greeting as young people flocked through the doors.
Israel stood skulking until the rush and the high fives had died down, and then he wandered over.
“Hi!” he said.
“I’m sorry,” said the clipboard man. “The Retreat’s for under-eighteens only. But if you’re in need of a bed for the night—”
“Ha!” said Israel. “Very funny.” By the look on the man’s face Israel realized he wasn’t joking: he really thought he was homeless. “No. No. I’m not…homeless or anything.”
“Oh, apologies,” said the man. “I thought maybe you were…”
“No, no,” said Israel, tugging at his beard. Maybe he needed to shave.
“And you’re not here for the youth club?”
“No.”
“Ah. OK. Well, hi anyway. I’m Adam. Adam Burns.”
“Hello,” said Israel, shaking his proffered hand. So this, he was thinking, is what a schismatic looks like: a Club 18–30 holiday rep.
“And you are?” said Adam.
“Sorry. Israel. Armstrong. I was wondering if I could have a word with you, actually?”
“Now?” said Adam Burns.
“If possible, that would be great.”
“Well. That might be difficult, actually. It’s Retreat night, you see.”
“Yes, I understand. I just wanted to talk to you about Lyndsay Morris.”
“Ah. Terrible,” said Adam Burns, shaking his head. “We’re all so worried about her.” He looked Israel up and down. “Look. Just give me a few minutes, and I’ll see what I can do?”
“I’d appreciate that, thank you,” said Israel.
Israel hung around inside the entrance to the halls, where young people were milling around aimlessly, and where it was possible to hear loud music playing from one room, people singing along to a song that seemed to consist simply of the words “Our God reigns” repeated again and again, and again and again.
Adam had disappeared and then came back a few minutes later, clipboardless, his smile intact.
“Do you want to come into the prayer room?” he asked, touching Israel on the arm.
“Yeah. That’d be great,” said Israel. He’d never really liked men who touched him on the arm.
The room was empty and clearly used as a nursery or a crèche the rest of the time: there were terrible finger paintings and laminated posters with the alphabet and numbers. Adam and Israel squatted down on a couple of miniature plastic chairs.
“So, Israel?” said Adam Burns. “Unusual name.”
“I suppose,” said Israel.
“You’re Jewish?”
“No. I’m a Hindu.”
“Really?”
“No. No. I’m joking.”
“Oh,” said Adam Burns, who despite his hilarious Hawaiian shirt was clearly not a man who was easily amused. “How can I help you?”
“Well, I wanted to ask you about Lyndsay Morris.”
“Yes. We’re all so terribly worried about her. Are you a friend or a family member?”
“No. I’m not, actually. I’m a…librarian.”
“OK,” said Adam Burns, looking momentarily confused: the old L-word again.
“And we are…helping to coordinate the police search?” suggested Israel.
“Oh, really?”
“Yes.”
“Right.” Adam—perhaps because he was a good Christian—seemed to take Israel’s claim at face value.
“Is it right that she would come here?” said Israel, seizing the advantage of Adam’s obvious credulity.
“Yes. Yes. She did.”
“And she came here often?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know her well?”
“I think you could say that, Israel, yes. I’m privileged to say that I was one of those present when she gave her life to Christ.” Adam smiled the kind of inward smile that expressed itself outwardly as a smirk. “Sorry. I should have offered: can I get you a cup of tea?”
“No thanks. Erm. You say she gave her life to Christ?”
“Yes.”
“Erm. You mean she became a Christian?”
“Absolutely, Israel, that’s right.”
“When was that?”
“That was maybe just a few months ago.”
“But she was a Goth as well?”
“Yes. I think that’s right. But the Bible teaches us, Israel, that Jesus died for all our sins.”
“Right.”
“His work of atonement was for all, whoever we are.”
“Even Goths,” said Israel.
“Absolutely,” said Adam Burns. “And Muslims and Jews and prostitutes and sinners of every kind.”
Israel felt a little uncomfortable being lumped together with the world’s outcasts. “We believe in one body of Christ,” continued Adam Burns.
“Uh-huh,” said Israel. “Really? What about the…I mean, I hope you don’t mind if I ask about the…split with Tumdrum First Presbyterian?”
Adam Burns looked sharply at Israel, as though someone had mentioned supralapsarianism.
“Why are you asking?”
“Just. I’m…interested. I must have read about it in the…Impartial Recorder?”
“Well, it was really a doctrinal matter,” said Adam Burns.
“Right,” said Israel. “And what doctrine exactly was it that you disagreed about?”
“You’re a theologian?”
“No, just…an interested layman.”
Adam sat up straight, put his shoulders back, and looked Israel in the eye, as though delivering a lecture or a reprimand. “Well, first of all, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland has become home to a number of unscriptural practices and traditions, and at Tumdrum’s First Presbyterian Church in particular—”
“The Reverend Roberts’s church?”
“That’s right. And under the”—and here Adam Burns coughed, as though pausing nervously in confession—“guidance of the Reverend Roberts, Tumdrum Presbyterian has been teaching a kind of liberal humanism in the guise of the Gospel, which I as a Christian would have to reject.”
“Right.”
“The Reverend Roberts, I’m afraid”—and he coughed again and looked away from Israel—“I would have to say is a false teacher.”
“A false teacher.”
“That’s correct. The Reverend Roberts has replaced the true Gospel with something more commercially acceptable to—”
“Commercially acceptable?” said Israel, unable to work out what on earth was commercially acceptable about the Reverend Roberts.
“Yes. Something that sells more easily to people. Jesus said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, there is no way to the Father except through me.’”
“Right.”
“And I’m afraid I don’t hear that simple, plain Gospel message being preached by the Reverend Roberts.”
“So you think he’s too…lenient?”
“Well, that’s certainly a layman’s way of expressing it, yes.”
“I’m definitely a layman,” said Israel.
“Can I ask if you’ve read the New Testament, Israel?”
“Not often,” said Israel. “No.”
“And have you ever considered your future, Israel?”
“Well, again, no, alas, not often,” said Israel. He thought about that brownstone in New York, his true home and his future, which had maybe a little balustrade out front, and he thought about breakfast with Paul Auster, and lunch with Philip Roth, and cocktails with friends from the New Yorker, and returning home late at night to listen to the sound of John Coltrane playing A Love Supreme. The utterly complete, beautiful, urban bourgeois solidity of his unfulfillable fantasy life…
“You are aware
we are living in the end-times?” Adam was saying.
“Are we?” said Israel.
“Look around you,” said Adam.
Israel glanced around the room.
“Erm…”
“Not just in Tumdrum. Around the world. Economic catastrophes. Natural disasters. Tsunamis,” said Adam. “Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Wilma.”
“Ah, right, I see what you mean.”
“Disease,” continued Adam. “Famine. Strife. War.”
“Yes,” agreed Israel. But Adam wasn’t listening: he was preaching. He’d got into a rhythm. He was even rocking slightly on his seat.
“Just take the weather. Swollen rivers. Devastating floods. Southern China, northern India, Pakistan, Bangladesh. In Europe, Israel, last year people died from the extreme heat—and this was in Europe, mind.”
“Right.”
“Drought and wildfires.”
“Well, you’re certainly painting a picture of—”
“It’s not my picture I’m painting, Israel. It’s the Book of Revelation. The consequences of man’s rebellion against God.”
“Erm…”
“Look at the Middle East, Israel. Israel, Israel. The war against terror. Bird flu. SARS. Soaring crime. I believe we are witnessing the beginning of the outpouring of the bowls of wrath, Israel.”
“Doesn’t sound good, certainly,” said Israel.
“When you look in the papers, Israel, isn’t all you see photos of people drinking and cavorting and in states of undress? Celebrities? Lowlifes?”
“Erm. I’m not sure about the paper thing, actually. Doesn’t it depend rather which…”
“The angels are pouring out God’s wrath.”
“Uh-huh,” said Israel, nervously.
And then Adam Burns broke off suddenly from his litany of wrath and woes, as though awakening from a trance.
“You say you’re a librarian?”
“Yes.”
“Can I ask, does the library stock the Left Behind series?”
“I don’t think so,” said Israel. “I can always run a check for you.”
“My sense is,” said Adam, “that the forces of the secular state don’t want that kind of literature in the libraries.”
“Well, I’d hardly regard myself as an agent of the secular state. We have a very open policy on what’s admitted,” said Israel.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Mmm,” said Adam, unconvinced.
Israel felt that the conversation had perhaps drifted away from where he wanted it to be going. He shifted in his tiny seat.
“Sorry. Just to get back to Lyndsay Morris.”
“Ah, yes, of course.”
“When was the last time she was at the club here?”
“It would be about a month or so ago, I think.”
“OK. And can you think of any reason why she hasn’t been back since?”
“I’m afraid I had to ask her to leave the Retreat.” Adam did his cough.
“Right. Why?”
“She was becoming rather…a problem.”
“Really?”
“It was a question of behavior.”
“Oh dear. What sort of behavior?”
“I’m afraid Lyndsay was self-harming,” said Adam Burns.
“What?”
“She was cutting her arms with razor blades.”
“Oh dear.”
“It’s not uncommon, actually, among the young people we work with, Israel. More girls than boys.”
“Why was she self-harming?”
“Personally, I think it was something to do with home.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“Well, I believe, Israel, that I have what the Bible calls the gift of knowledge.”
“The gift of knowledge?”
“Yes. One of the gifts of the spirit.”
“1 Corinthians 12?” said Israel.
“Yes,” agreed Adam Burns, rather surprised. “That’s right. And I felt I had to ask to her to leave.”
“Why? Shouldn’t you be—”
“It’s complicated, Israel. Lyndsay had become a part of our church group—”
“Kerugma?”
“That’s right. So she wasn’t just coming on Friday nights. She had become part of our fellowship. And when someone…breaks covenant with us within the fellowship we feel we have no choice but to defellowship them.”
“Defellowship?”
“That’s correct.”
“Sorry, I still don’t quite understand how a young girl who is self-harming would be breaking—”
“Let me put it this way, Israel. We believe that Jesus shed his blood in our place and that his was the perfect sacrifice. And so in self-harming we believe the young person is denying this once-only act of atonement. Do you see?”
Israel nodded skeptically.
“So,” continued Adam Burns, “persisting in this sort of behavior, we believe, is behaving in many ways like the priests of the Old Testament, who continually offered sacrifices that could in no way atone for their sins.”
“Right,” said Israel, feeling increasingly uncomfortable with Adam Burns’s logic.
“Which is wrong. It’s a sin.”
“OK.”
“Jesus wants to transform us, Israel. He wants to make us into his likeness. And if we resist that and continue to set our face against the Lord’s will for our lives, then I’m afraid it’s difficult for us to share fellowship with such a person.”
Israel smiled, falsely.
“The aim of Kerugma is not merely to proclaim the gospel but also to offer to one another mutual encouragement and edification in Christ. 2 Thessalonians 2:15.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Where the churches are instructed to ‘stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us.’”
“Yeah.”
“So, if we believers are part of the body of Christ, shouldn’t we be unified, as his one bride?”
“Erm…” said Israel, his voice strained and high. “So, basically, when you found out she was self-harming—”
“Persisting in self-harming.”
“Right. You then asked her to leave?”
“Yes.”
After thanking Adam Burns for his time, Israel left the community halls as quickly as possible. As he hurried down the street he remembered something his mother would sometimes say to him. “All Christians,” she would say, “are crazy.” He’d never quite understood what she meant.
He’d never been so glad to see teenagers hanging around on street corners drinking and smoking and shouting abuse.
21
Israel rang Veronica.
“Hi.”
“Who’s this?”
“It’s Israel.
“Oh, right. So, shoot.”
“What?”
“How are you getting on, Israel?”
“Fine.”
“What have you got?”
“I went to the Venice Fish Bar.”
“And?”
“I spoke to some people there.”
“Yes. And?”
“They thought Lyndsay was close to the owner.”
“Gerry Blair?”
“Yes.”
“No!”
“Yeah.”
“He’s married.”
“I know.”
“So how close is she?”
“They didn’t say.”
“God, well. That’s brilliant. We’re talking tabloid there.”
“Are we?”
“Absolutely! And what else?”
“I also spoke to her ex-boyfriend.”
“Who?”
“He’s called Colin. He spends all his time editing Wikipedia and playing computer games.”
“Computer nerd?”
“He was quite nice, actually.”
“Boring. God, I hope it’s Gerr
y Blair.”
“Anyway, he put me onto this guy who runs a sort of Christian youth group thing that Lyndsay used to attend.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And he thinks there were maybe problems at home.”
“What sort of problems?”
“He didn’t say.”
“Your interviewing skills are not that great, Armstrong, d’ye know that? You have to ask the supplementary.”
“The what?”
“Never mind.”
“Anyway, how did you get on with Maurice?”
“Fine, yeah. He’s quite dishy, actually.”
“Dishy?”
“Yeah.”
“Anything to go on?”
“Not yet, no.”
“So what do we do next?”
“I think I need to follow up some up of the leads we’ve established.”
“We?”
“Yeah. I’ll get on to the Gerry Blair angle and the computer nerd boyfriend—what was he called?”
“Colin.”
“Him, yeah.”
“Can’t I follow them up?”
“That’s very sweet of you, but I don’t think you have the necessary skills, Israel. You’re more use to us out on the street.”
“Out on the street.”
“Yeah. I think you need to speak to Mrs. Morris, without Maurice there. See what she has to say about it all.”
“Can’t you talk to her?”
“D’ye want me to do all the work, Israel?”
“No.”
“Look, Maurice is going to be busy with last minute door-to-doors and what have you. I’ll keep an eye on him, and I’ll start on Gerry Blair as well. If you go and see Mrs. Morris—”
“What should I say?”
“Just tell her…I don’t know. Tell her you’re a librarian. That usually works, doesn’t it?”
“Yes. But—”
“OK, Israel, sorry, got to go, thanks. Bye.”
Which is how Israel ended up the next morning ring ing the doorbell at Maurice Morris’s luxuriously appointed home, where there didn’t seem to be anyone in, and then wandering around the back of the house, toward the sea—where waves lapped up against the shore—and peering in through the windows of one of the many restored outbuildings, the old grain store, where he saw a woman lying on a sun lounger, smoking, wearing sunglasses, and which is how he ended up tapping on the window, and putting his head round the door, allowing a little rush of wind into the room, and saying—
