The History of Us

by Jonathan Harvey

  ‘So all of a sudden, God’s gone coloured?’

  ‘No. I dunno. Nan, it’s got nothing to do with me.’

  ‘It’s not right, Kathleen.’

  ‘Why are you even bothered? It’s not like you go to church, is it?’

  ‘Well, I was gonna come if you were starring in the nativity, love. I’m not completely heartless.’

  ‘Well, you still can!’

  ‘Oh, can I? And witness sacrilege? I think I’ll sit in and watch Howards’ Way, thank you.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’

  ‘I don’t think I like your tone, Kathleen.’

  ‘I’m still playing Abigail-Jade. And the Archangel Gabriel.’

  ‘I dunno what they’re teaching you up that church of yours, Kathleen. But I certainly don’t recall an Abigail-Jade in the Bible.’

  ‘She’s the main character.’

  ‘Oh, is she now? So much for Jesus. The world’s on its head. The world. Is on. Its head.’

  She turned her back to me, and continued frying an egg.

  ‘Pass us Mary Magdalene down from that shelf, love. Me nerves are in shreds.’

  She always pronounced it Mary Magda-leeney. Usually I’d correct her, but tonight I couldn’t be bothered. There was no winning with her. As I reached for the plate I heard her mutter, ‘Abigail-Jade? Who the frig is Abigail-Jade when she’s at home?’

  Adam’s version of the nativity opened with a teenage girl from Liverpool, Abigail-Jade, all excited on Christmas Eve and kind of kicking off at her mum – Jean from the choir, who was proving really rubbish at learning her lines – that she wanted to open one of her presents, and she wanted to open it now. And Abigail-Jade’s mum giving her hell because it was quite clear she had forgotten the true meaning of Christmas. And so she sat Abigail-Jade down and started to tell her the Christmas story from this massive book that had CHRISTMAS STORY written on the cover (made by Adam, who was not only writing, directing and starring as Joseph, but was also designer and props maker). And that was when, to quote Adam, ‘the magic happened’.

  As I sat by the Christmas tree between the choir stalls in a smelly dressing gown left over from some previous nativity play, the congregation would hear singing at the back of the church and look round to see Mary and Joseph coming down the aisle singing a two-part harmony version of the title song, ‘How Far Is It to Bethlehem?’, with Mary sat on a donkey. And then the Christmas story would happen around us, with the innkeeper and shepherds and wise men and everything. Well, I say wise men; it was Tonya, Tamana and Tamara, the triplets, with cotton-wool beards on.

  Jocelyn was of course playing Mary, and her shaky rendition of the song filled every corner of the church when we rehearsed. The older members of the choir were on Nan’s side, and got into quite a heated debate about the fact that Mary was black. Adam and I sided with the casting, but you could tell they weren’t happy, by the way they rolled their eyes and checked their watches every time she opened her mouth.

  Adam was really lording it over everyone during the nativity play rehearsals. He’d had to rope in everyone from the choir to play a part as he’d written such a big piece, and there weren’t really enough people to share the load. It was also impossible to find a real-life donkey, so Jocelyn was pretending to ride one of those horse’s heads on a stick with wheels on the bottom. She thought it looked lousy, but Adam was insistent that the magic of theatre would see them through. The other problem was that I, as Abigail-Jade, was meant to be hearing the Christmas story first-hand and, according to Adam, drinking in its sights and sounds.

  ‘Drink it in more! MORE! I need to see it in your FACE!’ he’d yell at me. ‘Face face face face FACE!’ And then he’d hit the ground with the cane he’d taken to bringing to rehearsals. He didn’t need a cane to help him walk, he just felt it made him look more imposing, like the woman who taught the dancing in Fame.

  However, in the middle of drinking in all the sights and sounds of Jesus’s birthday, I also had to leg it up to the pulpit to double up as the angel. Adam said he’d come up with a solution for this that would be a ‘coup de théâtre’. Whatever that meant.

  Not everyone was entranced by the play. A new lad who’d joined not so long ago had taken to inspecting his nails and rolling his eyes heavenwards every time Adam opened his mouth. Paul, they called him, and he must only have been about eleven, but he claimed to have been in a semi-pro production of The Sound of Music at the Empire and so ‘couldn’t believe the level of unprofessionalism’ in rehearsals. Adam couldn’t stand ‘Sound of Music Paul’ and insisted to me that he was just after his job.

  We rehearsed twice a week after choir practice in the church, and the most exciting thing was that the vicar had entrusted a set of church keys to Adam so that he could lock up once we’d finished. One night me, Adam and Jocelyn decided to hang around after rehearsals and have a ‘church party’. This involved us bringing a few bottles of Lambrini and some packets of Wotsits and sitting in the choir stalls, gabbing away like we were in a wine bar. I didn’t really like the taste of the alcohol, so just pretended I was more tipsy than I was. Then, after the Wotsits were all gone, Adam said he had something to show us. He led us over to the organ behind the choir stalls. Encased in oak panelling, it was a very handsome beast. Anyway, he leaned in and tapped one of the panels, and it miraculously opened up. It was a secret door.

  ‘It’s the organ loft. Come on.’

  And he disappeared inside, and we followed him in.

  I was getting on a lot better with Jocelyn these days, especially after our little chat outside Mr Wong’s. She seemed to have calmed down since being cast as Mary, like she had nothing to prove now, and she was turning out to be quite sweet.

  Once inside the panelling we climbed a sturdy wooden ladder that led to a tiny space, about the size of my nan’s box room, nestled behind the organ pipes. We sat there for what felt like ages, marvelling at our own secret den. It was so warm and cosy in there. Life felt good in that moment. Or maybe it was just the effect of half a beaker of warm Lambrini. The floor was dusty, and we were surrounded by cardboard boxes and plastic bags that appeared to have Christmas decorations spilling out of them.

  ‘Your play’s amazing,’ said Jocelyn, looking through one of the boxes, and Adam smiled.

  ‘I came up with the concept ages back. It came to me in a dream,’ he said.

  Blimey. Pretentious or what?

  ‘I think the storybook book ending really works,’ Jocelyn added.

  ‘Except when I have to leave the living room and stick me angel wings on and then go in the pulpit and be the angel,’ I pointed out. All that glistens . . .

  ‘We’ve covered that with the new line from Abigail-Jade, Kathleen. I need to go to the loo, I’m bursting.’ Adam was getting ratty.

  ‘D’you think you’ll be a writer one day, Adam?’ Jocelyn asked. She had pulled out a bauble from the box and was studying it, transfixed. I was starting to feel I’d not had as much Lambrini as these two.

  ‘I am a writer. I am writing,’ he said, like a sigh.

  ‘Professional,’ Jocelyn corrected herself.

  ‘It’s my dream,’ Adam cooed. ‘What’s yours?’

  ‘I want to be a top recording star.’

  Adam sighed deliciously. ‘I can see that happening. You’ve got an amazing instrument.’

  Instrument? She played an instrument? This was news to me.

  ‘Thanks, Adam.’

  ‘What instrument d’you play, Jocelyn?’

  ‘He means my voice.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘What about you, Kathleen? What do you want to be?’

  Jocelyn was looking at me with such keenness, I didn’t want to let either of them down. At the same time I didn’t want to lie and say I wanted to be a dancer, or an actress, or a prostitute, just to keep them sweet and make them think that I too had showbiz aspirations when I didn’t. And, oh, I don’t know, maybe it was the Lambrini talking, but I answered honestly.


  ‘I wanna be an embalmer.’

  They both looked at me like I was completely crazy.

  ‘A what?’ Adam gasped.

  ‘An embalmer. They drain the blood out of a dead person and replace it with embalming fluid. I think that’d be a really interesting job. And it’s a dying art, coz no-one can be arsed getting embalmed these days so embalmers are dying out.’ And then I added, for dramatic effect, ‘To coin a phrase.’

  I smiled. I thought that little joke was quite good. However, it was met with stony silence. And, I’m not being funny, but I’m sure I heard some tumbleweed drift across the organ loft right at that moment.

  I immediately realized it was the wrong thing to say, because they both looked at each other and Adam asked Jocelyn what sort of singer she wanted to be.

  I zoned out. I’d been honest. And they weren’t interested. Fine. I didn’t have to be interested in their ridiculous dreams.

  For years now, I’d thought I’d love to work with the dead. Dead bodies didn’t scare me because Nan had dragged me round to the houses of everyone and anyone she knew who’d died since I was knee high to a coffin. I understood the need for grieving relatives to be able to say, proudly, he/she looks so at peace. And I could imagine myself saying, ‘Then my work here is done.’

  Everybody dies. Not everybody becomes a professional writer or recording artist. My plan seemed infinitely more practical and achievable.

  I zoned back into Jocelyn’s monologue about how she saw her recording career panning out. It sounded very much like she was just describing what had happened to Madonna. I tried to stifle a yawn.

  Suddenly Adam kneeled up. ‘I just wanna say . . .’ Oh God. I suspected a Lambrini Love-In was about to be upon us. ‘I love yous two SO much.’

  I was correct.

  ‘And us three sat here. It’s like our own little club. The Loft Club. All for one and one for all.’

  ‘The Loft Club’s a rubbish name,’ I pointed out.

  He shot me an Exocet glance. ‘Well, what would you rather I called it?’

  ‘I don’t know. The Breakfast Club?’

  ‘But we don’t have breakfast here,’ Jocelyn pointed out, sounding as equally peeved as Adam.

  ‘I know but it’s a great movie,’ I said.

  Jocelyn rolled her eyes. ‘That ginger girl is SO ugly.’

  I knew it was pointless to argue. Even though I disagreed with her.

  ‘I feel so close to you all,’ Adam continued. I could see Jocelyn nodding in Lambrini-infused agreement. ‘Let’s always be there for each other, and never let one another down.’

  Jocelyn held her hand up. Adam matched it. Slowly, I raised mine.

  ‘The Loft Club,’ Jocelyn said, like it was the best name in the world. And far superior to the Breakfast Club.

  ‘The LOFT CLUB!’ Adam and I joined in. me sounding more enthusiastic about it than I really felt.

  ‘I feel like we’re in a movie or something,’ Adam added, then took a sip of his Lambrini. Some spilt down his top.

  ‘Like The Breakfast Club,’ I said, ‘only not in the morning. And in a church loft.’

  I didn’t have to look at Jocelyn. I knew she’d be rolling her eyes.

  ‘It’s like we’re the figures in this bauble,’ Jocelyn said and we both looked over. She passed the bauble around for us to have a butcher’s. It was more delicate than I’d anticipated, close up. And in the glass were three tiny men.

  ‘But they’re all men,’ I said. ‘They’re like . . . the Three Wise Men.’

  ‘I’m being poetic,’ she explained and Adam nodded as if this were life-changing. ‘The three of us. Here. Now. Trapped in glass forever.’

  ‘You’re making me feel claustrophobic,’ I said, and Jocelyn snatched the bauble back and stared at it some more herself.

  Just then we heard a noise in the main body of the church. A bang. It reverberated round the building, echoing for what felt like minutes. We all froze. Had the vicar come back? Were we about to be found out for having our church party?

  We all knelt up and crawled across to the organ pipes. Peering in between them, we could see the main body of the church. Someone was standing near the front row of pews. They were bending over. They were picking something up and putting it back.

  ‘He’s knocked over a hymn book,’ whispered Adam.

  Well, it wasn’t the vicar. This was a young lad.

  ‘Who is it?’ whispered Jocelyn.

  And then the lad faced the front.

  And, oh my days, it was like the Star of Bethlehem had shone down upon us and a heavenly choir had burst into song. Standing there in the church, looking up at the altar was none other than Mark Reynolds.

  ‘What the fuck’s he doing here?!’ Adam yelped, a little too loudly.

  Mark looked up, hearing this. I could see panic in his face.

  I could also see he had a black eye.

  ‘Mark, are you all right?!’ I called. And then he looked really confused.

  ‘I think he thinks it’s the voice of God,’ Jocelyn said with a grimace.

  ‘Mark, wait there! We’re coming down!’ I called again.

  And now he was looking like someone who was reasoning that maybe God didn’t have a strong Liverpool accent.

  Once we were down on ground level, it was clear something was wrong. Mark had a black eye, and cuts to his face. The sleeve of his tracksuit top was ripped.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Adam asked.

  Mark shook his head, bravado rising. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Have you been in a fight?’ I asked.

  He shook his head.

  ‘Who did this to you?’ Jocelyn asked. Her voice sounded so wholesome. But he didn’t reply.

  ‘Was it your dad?’ Adam asked. I looked at him. It sounded like he had inside information. But then, his mum did find out a lot behind that sweet-shop counter.

  Mark, again, didn’t answer. But he did say, ‘I was just looking for somewhere to put me head down for the night.’

  ‘Come and stay at ours. If you want,’ Adam suggested.

  Mark shook his head. ‘I wasn’t sure where I was gonna go. Then I seen the door open here. I was gonna get me head down on one of the benches.’

  Adam looked to the open organ loft door. ‘I can go one better than that.’

  Mark looked across to the door too, none the wiser. But he was about to find out.

  Five minutes later, Mark was snugly ensconced in his new home.

  ‘I could bring you a sleeping bag from home!’ Jocelyn said, all excited.

  ‘I can bring my spare pillow!’ Adam chipped in.

  What could I bring? What? It reminded me of those lyrics from the Christmas carol – what can I give him, poor as I am? Then I struck on it.

  ‘I could bring a plate with a picture of Moses on it!’

  Three faces looked at me like I was mad.

  ‘It’s like that film, isn’t it?’ Adam said during dinner break one day.

  ‘I know,’ I said, without thinking. Then realized I had no idea what he was talking about. ‘Which one?’

  ‘Whistle Down the Wind. You seen it?’

  I hadn’t. ‘I’ve seen The Breakfast Club,’ I said, like that was some kind of help. Like all films had the same story.

  ‘There’s this escaped convict on the run and Hayley Mills hides him out in her barn coz she thinks he’s Jesus.’

  ‘Why would she think that?’

  ‘I forget. But it was really good. Even if it was in black and white.’

  ‘What? It didn’t even change to colour halfway through, like The Wizard of Oz?’

  Adam threw his head back and laughed. I liked it when I made him do that.

  We’d been hiding Mark in the organ loft for a whole three days now, using Adam’s key to get in and out to bring him drinks and food that we’d squirrelled away from our family larders. Sometimes we’d be in a rush, on our way to school, so couldn’t stop.

  Last night we’d stayed
and chatted to him for ages, and he’d opened up about the rows he had with his dad. I found it an eye-opener. There was me thinking that everyone else had the perfect life, and that it was just me who had the lousy time . . . Dad away ‘on the rigs’, Mum done a runner. But scratch the surface of anyone’s life, and it seemed that pain and misery weren’t far beneath. Mark hadn’t cried again, but the closeness I’d felt last night had stirred something in me, cementing all the feelings I’d had for him over the past few months. The angry young man on the demo had been replaced by a sensitive lad with a lot on his plate – a plate with Moses on, no less. I’d been true to my word. He seemed at once mortified that we knew his secret, but relieved that he was no longer suffering alone. Jocelyn had come with us last night and she’d offered to sing for him. I’d had to bite my tongue to stop myself from laughing, but imagine my surprise when Mark had said yes, he’d love to hear her. Jocelyn had then closed her eyes. I thought, oh here we go, hope none of the windows break. But when she opened her mouth and sang, she made the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard.

  The song she sang was called ‘The Troubles of the World’. It was like an old Negro spiritual (and I wasn’t being racist calling it that, as that’s how she actually described it), and it was really deep and slow and . . . well, spiritual. By the time she finished, I realized that I was crying. I saw that Adam was, too. And Mark was just sat with his eyes shut. It was like we’d all shared something. The song had made me think about my dad, and how I hardly knew him. I’d even conjured up a picture of my mum, on Australia’s Gold Coast, digging sand castles with her new family, the one she loved. (I didn’t even know if she was on the Gold Coast. I’d just heard about it, on the telly.)

  It made me think, too, about my nan. I was usually such a typical teenager with her – infuriated by her and her smoking and her plates and her cooking and her constant endless gabbling – that I never stopped to think about everything she had done for me since I was little. She’d done more for me than anyone on this planet, and I was rarely grateful. It made me want to go home and give her a hug.

  Which, about an hour later, I did.

  ‘I just want to say thank you,’ I said.

  She looked at me cautiously.