by Flynn
The strange insistence of Sunday school Teacher, Miss Haynes, and the Reverend Castle on using the words seeing and knowing in such a clumsy way was a very sore point with Anna. The Reverend Castle talked about seeing Mister God, about meeting him face to face, in a sermon one Sunday morning. He never knew how close he was to disaster. Anna grasped my hand tightly, shook her head violently and turned to face me. All her efforts were directed to damping down her inner fires, which would have consumed the Reverend Castle had they been let loose.
When it comes to fires, Old Nick had nothing on Anna. She could make the fires of hell look like glowing embers.
In a whisper that echoed around the church, Anna said, "Wot the 'ell he gonna do if Mister God ain't got no face? Wot'U he do if he ain't got no eyes, wot then, Fynn, eh?"
The Reverend Castle faltered for a second and pressed on, dragging with him the head,s and eyes of the congregation.
Anna mouthed the words, "Wot then?"
"Search me," I whispered back.
She pulled at my arm and signaled me to come closer. Her lips plugged into my ear. "Mister God ain't got no face," she hissed.
I turned my face to her, and my raised eyebrows asked the question, How come?
Plugging in again, she said, " 'Cos he don't have to turn round to see everybody, that's why." She settled back on her pew, nodding her head at her own certainty and folded her arms with a full stop.
On our way home from church I asked her what she had meant by "he don't have to turn round."
"Well," she said, "I've got an 'infront' and I've got a 'behind' so I have to turn round to see what's behind me. Mister God don't."
"What's he do then?" I asked.
"Mister God's only got an infront, he ain't got no behind."
"Oh," I nodded, "I see."
The idea of Mister God having no behind struck me as deliciously funny and I tried hard to suppress the j'jggles. I didn't manage it. I exploded.
Anna was a bit puzzled at my outburst. "Wot you laughing for?" she asked.
"Just the idea of Mister God having no behind," I chortled.
Her eyes narrowed for a moment or two and then she grinned. The grin fanned her eyes into flame and she lit up like a Roman candle. "He ain't got one of lliem, too!" Her laughter ran along the road, erecting little barricades as it went. The all too obvious and self-satisfied Christian worshipers bumped into tlie laughter and frowned.
"Mister God ain't got no bum," sang Anna to the tune of "Onward Christian Soldiers."
The frowns turned to scandalized looks of horror. "Disgusting!" said the Sunday Suit. "Little savage!" squeaked the Sunday Boots. "A limb of Satan!" said the Albert Watcrf dangling from the waistcoat, but Anna went on, laughing with Mister God.
On our homeward journey Anna practiced her newly discovered game with me. In the same manner that she launched her spiritual being at Mister God, so she launched her physical being at me. "Mister God ain't got no bum" wasn't a joke, she wasn't being naughty or just a silly child. It was just an eruption of her spirit. With these remarks she hurled herself at Mister God and he caught her. Anna knew that he could, knew that there was no risk involved. There was really no other way; it just had to be done. This was her way of being saved.
Her game with me was similar. She would stand some distance off, run toward me, and launch herself at me. The run toward me was deliberate and active; the moment after her launch she was completely passive and limp. She made no effort to help me catch her, no effort toward her own safety. Being safe meant not doing these things at all; being saved meant trusting in another.
Being, safe was easy. You simply accepted Mister God as a superman who hadn't shaved for about six months or so, that angels looked like men and women with wings on, that cherubs looked like fat little babies with wings that couldn't support a sparrow, let alone twenty-five pounds or more of chubby infant. No, being saved was for Anna only possible in that act of creative violence to the images of being safe.
Every, minute of every day Anna lived; she totally accepted her life, and in accepting life, accepted death. Death was a fairly frequent topic of conversation with Anna, never morbid or anxious, simply something that would happen at some time or other, and it was better to have some grasp of it before it happened than to wait until the moment of death and then get panicky about it. For Anna, death was the gateway to possibilities. It was Mum who provided. Anna with the solution to the problem of death. Like; Anna, Mum had this lovely gift of asking questions that landed somewhere.
"What," she asked us one Sunday afternoon, "was God's greatest creative act?"
Although I didn't go along with Genesis, I answered, "When he created mankind."
I was wrong, according to Mum, so I had another shot. I was still wrong. I ran through six days of creation and drew nothing but blank looks. There was nothing more that I could think of. It wasn't until I had run out of ideas that I became aware of the exchange between Mum and Anna. So often with Mum that smile happened. It was her Christmas-tree smile, she lit up, she twinkled, and there was no other place to look. She sort of gathered everything around her. Anna was watching her intently, chin cupped in hands. There they sat, looking at each other, Mum with her wonderful smile and Anna with her intense look. The insulation of the six feet or so that separated them was beginning to give way. Anna drilled away at it with her blue eyes while Mum melted it with her smile. Suddenly it happened. Anna slowly placed her hands on the table and pushed herself upright. The gap had been bridged. Anna's matching smile had to wait while astonishment shaped her face. She gasped, "It was the seventh day—course it was—the seventh day."
I looked from one to the other and cleared my throat to capture their attention.
"I don't get it," I said. "God worked all his miracles in six days and then shut down for a bit of rest. What's so exciting about that?"
Anna got off her chair and came and sat on my lap. This I knew. This was her approach to the unseeing and unknowing infant—me.
"Why did Mister God rest on the seventh day?" she began.
"I suppose he was a bit flaked out after six days' hard work," I answered.
"He didn't rest because he was tired, though."
"Oh, didn't he? It makes me tired just to think about it all."
"Course he didn't. He wasn't tired."
"Wasn't he?"
"No, he made rest."
"Oh. He did that, did he?"
"Yes, that's the biggest miracle. Rest is. What do you think it was like before Mister God started on the first day?"
"A perishing big muddle, I guess," I replied.
"Yes, and you can't rest when everything is in a big muddle, can you?"
"I suppose not. So what then?"
"Well, when he started to make all the things, it got a bit less muddly."
"Makes sense," I nodded.
"When he was finished making all the things, Mister God had undone all the muddle. Then you can rest, so that's why rest is the very, very biggest miracle of all. Don't you see?"
Put like that, I did see, and I liked what I saw. It made sense. Sometimes, though, I found that I kicked against being the infant at the bottom of the class, and this feeling often caused me to put a dig in whenever I got the chance.
"I know what he did with all that muddle," I exclaimed, feeling rather pleased with myself.
"Wot?" asked Anna.
"He stuffed it in people's brainboxes."
I had meant it as a bombshell, but it didn't go off; instead two heads nodded in agreement and pleasure that I had grasped the point so quickly. I did a sharp about-face and accepted their agreeing nods as if I was entirely entitled to them. It left me with a problem. How could I ask the question Why did he stuff the muddle in people's brainboxes? in such a way as not to find myself at the bottom of the class again!
"It's a funny thing, this muddle," I began.
"It ain't," said Anna. "You have to have a muddle in your head before you really know what rest is.
"
"Oh, yes. Yes. I suppose that must be the reason." "Being dead is a rest," she went on. "Being dead, you can look back and get it all straight before you go on."
Being dead was nothing to get fussed about. Dying could be a bit of a problem, but not if you had really lived. Dying needed a certain amount of preparation and the only preparation for dying was real living, the kind of preparation old Granny Harding had made during her lifetime. We had sat, Anna and I, holding Granny Harding's hand when she died. Granny Harding was glad to die; not because life had been too hard for her, but because she had been glad to live. She was glad that rest was near; not because she had been overworked, but because she wanted to order, wanted to arrange, ninety-three years of beautiful living; she wanted to play it all over again. "It's like turning inside out, me dears," she had said. Granny Harding died smiling, died in the middle of a description of Epping Forest on an early summer's morning. She died happily because she had lived happily. Old Granny went to church for the second time in her life.
It was three weeks to the day that we all went to another funeral. About a couple of dozen or more of us went to Skipper's funeral—six or so of the older ones and about twenty or so of assorted sizes. "She won't make old bones," they had said, and they were right. Skipper was a natural practical joker, always ready for a laugh. She would have laughed a lot more but it made her cough and she had been coughing a lot lately. Skipper was just coming up to fifteen when she died. Flaxen-haired, blue-eyed, with skin about as transparent as tissue paper, Skipper funned and punned her way through her fifteen years. Why, it hadn't been all that many weeks ago that we'd all been talking about dying.
It was Bunty who opened the conversation with, "How do you die?"
Someone answered with, "It's easy, you just stop."
Skipper had flipped back with "Sure, it's easy. Dead easy."
We all groaned.
The funeral service was a solemn occasion, far too solemn for such as Skipper. The Reverend Castle went on about the innocence of youth and someone had to stifle a giggle. Lifting his eyes upward, he told us that Skipper was. now in heaven. Amen. Little faces all turned upward and little mouths opened wide in appreciation, except for young Dora. She looked downward. She got a good nudge and someone said in one of those thunderclap whispers, "Up—up there."
Dora's head went up to the roof of the church, overbalanced and toppled back with a thud. "I dropped me sweets on the floor," she complained.
The Reverend Castle droned on his easy way, painting his word-picture of Skipper. It wasn't our Skipper he was talking about; at least none of us recognized her. It's a good job that the dead don't talk back. I can just imagine what Skipper would have said, " 'O the bleedin' 'ell he talking about? Silly old sod!" Fortunately the Reverend Castle didn't hear and brought the proceedings to a close. We trooped off to the cemetery to pay our last respects. The kids -chucked various items into the grave and walked away. We all stood a few yards off and waited for Buzz. We made tracks for the cemetery gates, passing a twelve-foot angel laying a marble bunch of flowers on a grave.
"D'you reckon Skipper's got wings now?" somebody started up.
"Suppose so," came an answer.
"Don't fancy wings meself."
"Why's that?"
"How can you get yer shirt off?"
"Don't be daft, angels don't have no shirts."
"Wot then?"
"It's a nightie."
"I ain't gonna wear no nightie, it's sissy."
Life had started up again.
"Maggie," someone yelled, "where's 'eaven?"
"Somewheres," replied Maggie.
"It's up there."
"Better not be."
"Why's that?"
"If it was, betcha Skipper'd widdle on yer head."
"Oo, you are 'orrible."
"Buzz, you gonna get married, now Skipper's dead?"
"Silly cow," said Buzz, "what's she wanna die for?"
"Better'n coughing yer guts up for years."
"Suppose so—still."
"Maggie, is there a different heaven for the Protties and the R.C.'s and the Jews and all them?"
"No, only one."
"What's all the different churchs and synnigogs for then?"
"I don't know."
"Old Nick done that. Just like Old Nick, he mucks cveryfing up."
"D'you reckon Skipper's gone to Old Nick?"
"She'd better not. Old Nick would chuck her out in a couple of days."
"Poor Old Nick. Yer gotta laugh."
"Can't stand that, can Old Nick."
"Stand wot?"
"Laughing. It drives him up the wall."
"What you think Skipper is doing now?"
"Singing hymns, I suppose."
"Don't fancy that lark, singing hymns all the time." This was Mat. Looking upward, he began to yell, and in a moment was joined by all the other kids:
Sam, Sam, the dirty old man,
Washed his face in a frying pan,
Combed his hair with a leg of a chair,
Sam, Sam, the dirty old man.
"Betcha Skipper'U teach all them angels that one."
"Yeah, and 'There was an old man of Lancashire, who------'"
"Not that one, stoopid, it's dirty."
"Cors it ain't. Betcha God laughs."
"Bet he don't."
"Wot's he make us with arses for, if we can't say it?"
"It's dirty, that's all."
"Why's everybody make God out to be miserable for? I wish I was God, I'd laugh."
"Yeah, and what about Jesus?"
"Wot about Jesus?"
"All them pictures make him look like a pansy."
"Bet he didn't look like that."
"His old man was a chippy."
"So was Jesus."
"If n you sawed up bloody great lumps of wood all day you'd have bloody big muscles."
"Yeah. I bet he was all right."
"Course he was. He had a bloomin' good booze-up an' all."
"Where's it say that?"
"The Bible. He turned the water into wine."
"Good job. My old man can't do that."
"Your old man can't do nuffink."
"Why can't I say 'arse'?"
" 'Cos you can't."
"Jesus had one."
"He didn't say 'arse.' "
"How do you know?"
"Bet he said 'Bum'."
"He didn't, he talked Yiddish."
"You're daft."
"Like that nit at Sunday school, says the rain was the angels crying. Wot the 'ell they got to cry about?"
"Twits like you asking silly questions."
"You reckon God gets fed up?"
"What for?"
"All them prayers and questions."
"If I was God, I'd make people laugh."
"If you was God, you wouldn't have to make 'em."
"If I was God, I'd bash 'em on the head wiv a t'underbolt."
"I got a good idea."
"Annuvver miracle!"
"No, straight up. What about starting another church?"
"Stone the perishing crows, ain't we got enough?"
"No. I mean no prayers, and no hymns. We'll all loll funny jokes about Old Nick. That'll make him curl up."
"Yeah, a laughing church."
"Hey, that's good, that is. A laughing church."
And so it went on. Hour after hour, day after day, y<-nr after year. Like summer lightning, the conversa-ficm flickered and flared, lighting up the dark places, forging a philosophy, a theology, a way of life, some-tliing to live with. It was this that Anna was so greedy for. It may not sound like very much, but it was the mo from which the gold came. One thing was certain: .Skipper was dead, and as she would have said, "Ah well, that's life!" Being dead was a fact of life. Life ifter was a fact of being dead.
That night, after Skipper's funeral, I was wakened ;ry of despair from behind the curtains. I went to Anna and I cradled her in my arms. A nightmare was my firs
t thought, or perhaps grief for Skipper. I rocked her gently in my arms and made those kinds of noises that "made it all right again." I was holding her tightly for comfort but she fought her way out of my arms and stood on the bed. I was a bit scared and lost at this turn of events and didn't quite know what to do. I lit the gas. Something seemed to go bad inside me. Anna was standing on the bed, her eyes wild and wide, tears streaming down her cheeks, both hands pressed over her mouth as if to stifle a scream. It seemed as if all the familiar objects in the room suddenly raced away to infinity and the world dissolved into formlessness.
I tried to say something, but nothing came. It was one of those senseless moments; my mind was racing around in circles but my body wasn't in gear. I tried to do something, but my body was frozen. What really frightened me was that Anna didn't see me, I wasn't there for her; I couldn't help her. I cried; I don't know if I cried for her or for myself. Whatever the reason, the miseries took over. Suddenly out of my tear-filled void I heard Anna's voice.
