by Tom Trott
‘How sure?’
‘Pretty sure.’
‘Fine, then maybe someone at the school. A teacher, maybe.’
‘You would know.’
We stared at each other.
‘I never hurt anyone,’ he stated definitively.
‘No, you just wanked off to it.’
He was silent again. His beady, squinty eyes were studying me like bugs from underneath a rock.
‘I know you, don’t I?’
It was my turn to be silent.
‘You were one of my pupils. I don’t remember your name.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Now who’s being dishonest?’
I fished for my knife again.
‘Fine,’ he held up his hand, ‘let’s forget it.’
I wished I could.
‘So you think it’s someone at her school?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know. If it’s a sex thing, maybe. But I don’t know why you think it’s a sex thing.’
‘Isn’t everything?’
‘Maybe for you.’
I smirked, ‘You mean it isn’t for you?’
‘You don’t get it. For me, nothing is about sex. Nothing can be about sex, ever again. I just have to pad around this flat until I die.’
‘Poor you.’
‘The funny thing is I wanted to be caught.’
‘Really? Why didn’t you turn yourself in then?’
‘You may learn this one day,’ he looked me up and down, ‘one day soon, probably. That when you do something really bad it sticks to the inside of you. And until everyone knows, every knock on the door scares you stiff, and you don’t ever get to rest. My first night in prison was the best sleep I’ve ever had.’
He was right, he was a coward. I didn’t care what his excuses were. And I didn’t know why I was sitting here listening to them.
The irony was that as a teacher, we all loved him. He was great. He never made us do any work, and when he got upset with us talking too much he would just sulk over to his ‘angry corner’. Then he would flap his hands at us and squeal that he could never stay angry at us. It used to make us feel so loved. So safe and warm. Now it made me feel sick.
No it didn’t, that was how I wanted it to make me feel. Instead it made me want to cry. It made me want to hug the young me tight, and keep him safe. But he would always be alone.
‘Why don’t they just go to the police?’ he asked.
Why didn’t they? They should ask Bessie to do something, it was a better idea than asking me. My plan had been threatening a pensioner.
6
Holier Than Thou
the old man’s face rose from the deep. Breaking through the waves. Up, up, toward my hand. An inch away from my grip, and then…
I was in my own bed. I say bed, on my mattress I mean. What had happed last night? That was right: Monica Todman had happened.
The first time I had thought it was every man’s dream. Dominance. Now it was weird. I tried not to think about it. It’s what she wanted. We wanted the same thing, didn’t we? God, what was I still thinking about it for? It meant nothing, it was just a bit of fun. That was the whole damn point. Fun.
It was Sunday, and it was nine o’clock, and I had a text from Thalia. I cheered up a bit; her date can’t have gone that well if she was awake already. I opened it. It was just the name of a church.
Standing at the bedroom window I poked my head out onto the flat rooves. The bread was still there, sitting limply in a puddle. The baby seagull was still on a higher roof a few metres away. Still alone. Still fluffy. Still hungry. I convinced myself there was nothing more I could do.
After an espresso and more avocado smashed onto burnt bread, I put on the least creased shirt I could find and a jacket that made me look vaguely less like a scumbag, then wandered out into the heat.
Today wasn’t as unbearable as yesterday, but any drop in temperature was defeated by the clothes I was wearing. By the time I reached the church my smartness was undone, and I had to use sweat to smooth down my hair.
The building looked like a bigger brother to the church they ran the charity in. It had the same red brick and flint construction, the same geometric stained glass windows, and just like the other one it wasn’t old enough yet to be attractive. But I’m one of those people who thinks the only attractive churches are made of stone and take a hundred years to build. A philistine, I guess. At least both of these places had Gothic arches: Roman arches look terrible. At least on English churches.
I followed a few feet behind a young couple pushing a pram through the large double doors. An old woman in a made-to-last suit jacket was standing in the atrium and insisted on shaking my hand. I guess it was her job to welcome me. I’d much rather have been able to slink in unseen, and I had the horrible feeling that at some point in the service, or afterwards, people would advance on me like zombies, desperately seeking to sink their teeth in me as though I was one stale biscuit away from indoctrination.
Luckily for me I was one of the last people to arrive and I could take up an empty pew in the back row. I say pew, it was a row of clipped together blue faux leather cushioned pine chairs with a box attached to the back where the person behind could put their hymn sheets. It wasn’t just the pews that were missing either, the place looked like it had been gutted.
I hadn’t been in a church, not for a service at least, since I was a kid. In care, and with school, I had been to a Methodist service, and heard a C of E vicar talk about Jesus, that was it. I had never been to a service as part of a job, and to be honest I didn’t feel any magic as I glanced around at the interior. It seemed to me that every new iteration of Protestantism was more boring than the last, removing anything beautiful until you’re worshipping in an empty building. First they removed the Icons of the Catholics and the Orthodox, and hung banners instead. Then they got rid of pictures in the windows. Then they got rid of the banners too, because they were just too damn colourful, and they plastered everything white. Because if your idea of faith is inspired by a painting, or by music, or by anything that isn’t the pure, undiluted, full-fat love of God, straight from the source, then it’s not really faith, it’s just a love of pretty pictures. Jesus didn’t need gold, he didn’t even need a temple. That at least was true. But this place was heading toward demolishing the building and sitting in an empty field on cardboard boxes because ‘the church is not a building, it is us.’
And so the service got underway in that vein, and I scanned the crowd row by row for the Tothovas, but I needn’t have bothered because they were right at the front, and one of the first things the priest did was pray for them. People corrected me later that he was not a priest, or indeed a vicar, he was a minister. Minister of what, I didn’t ask.
This place was practically round the corner from me, over on the posh side of the train tracks, less than ten minutes’ walk from Fiveways, where the girl had disappeared. I had expected their church to be in Hove, like their house. I mean sure, which church you attend is a personal choice, and if you’re not Church of England or Catholic then you might not choose your local, but for them to be shopping at Fiveways too? They must have moved recently.
As the bearded minister, who wore flip-flops and looked like a tech guru, said a prayer, the Tothovas held hands and bowed their heads. Everyone had done the same, and most had closed their eyes. Occasionally one of them would grunt in audible agreement with something he said, which seemed to be the strange middle class version of shouting ‘Amen!’ or ‘Hallelujah!’. Instead people mumbled ‘Amen’ when the prayer ended and it was the loudest they ever got when they weren’t singing.
When the time did come for songs they came all in one bunch. We must have sung three or four in one go, transitioning from hymns that sounded like nineties rock ballads to hymns that sounded like nineties country hits, all accompanied by a band that consisted of around seven men who could half-play the guitar, an out of place oboe, and two pri
mary school teachers on microphones who seemed to be singing completely different harmonies to the ones we were encouraged to aim for. When singing, about half the people in the congregation reached out a hand above them, as though God was just beyond their fingertips. To me they looked like the aliens in Toy Story that reach for ‘the claaaaw’. I just mouthed along.
We were almost an hour in before the actual sermon started. It was vaguely interesting, he seemed to know his stuff.
The Tothovas attention seemed less engaged and every five minutes the man sitting next to Mrs Tothova would whisper something in her ear. She would nod, and then occasionally their shoulders would shift as though hands were being held or un-held.
I couldn’t see who he was. He had a suit on, unlike anyone else, and black hair. He was white, he looked like he was in his late thirties or early forties, and he was bearded. That was about all I could tell.
After the lecture we sang some more and then the whole thing ended without a bang. The minister informed us that there were coffees, smoothies, and gluten-free brownies available in the vestibule, and that we should help ourselves. And then, as the atmosphere began to hum with quiet conversation and the most eager to get a drink or take a piss jumped out into the aisle, several heads in front meerkat-ed up and Exorcist-ed round to stare at me with horrific smiles. One jumped right up at me and tried to lick my face.
‘Hello!’ he almost shouted with an outstretched hand. ‘I haven’t seen you here before.’
‘No,’ I replied, ‘I used to be a Satanist but it turns out I’m allergic to pentagrams.’
‘I’m just going to get a cup of tea,’ he chirped. He hadn’t registered a word I’d said.
I moved out into the aisle.
‘Hello again,’ a deep voice said behind me. I turned around but there was no one there. No one above shoulder height, that is. It was the old woman in the suit jacket who had “welcomed” me at the door. ‘Chris. Nice to meet you.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, shaking her hand, ‘Jake.’
‘Nick,’ said a man I hadn’t noticed was standing right next to me. He was in a fleece with his arms folded and leaning so close that I could tell what he’d had for breakfast. ‘What do you do, Jake?’ he asked.
Don’t be sarcastic, don’t be sarcastic, don’t be sarcastic! ‘I’m a taxi driver,’ I replied.
They asked me some questions, confirming this was my first time. Then they wanted to know what I thought. I was very complimentary. Through my teeth, I told them it had made me look at Our Lord in a whole new way. There’s an inherent lack of dignity in pretending to be someone you’re not, and I hate that. But in my business dignity costs.
‘Do you want a coffee?’ Nick asked.
‘That would be great, thanks. One sugar.’
‘Chris?’
‘No thanks,’ she told him, ‘I don’t do caffeine.’
He disappeared. At the front, the Tothovas were talking with the minister, who was nodding sympathetically.
‘That couple at the front,’ I asked, ‘who are they? I recognise them.’
‘Oh,’ she muttered gravely, and lowered her voice. ‘You might have seen them on the television. Graham and Maria are the ones whose little girl has been taken.’
‘Oh, yes. I think I heard about that.’
She made a kind of rumbling noise in her throat.
‘Did the girl come here then?’
‘Yes. I used to teach her in Sunday School, actually. Lovely girl. Good Christian girl, if you know what I mean.’
Good Christian? Yes, I know the phrase. These people would cum in their pants when they thought how good they were.
I took another glance at them. ‘They seem so nice. How terrible.’
‘They’re lovely people. Good Christians.’
There it was again. People who bake a cake for Malawi, volunteer at a charity, all whilst planning their next Venice minibreak. If you drive a BMW to church, you’ve missed the point.
‘Is it true they give all their money to charity?’
‘Well, I don’t think so…’ she spluttered.
‘Sorry, I thought, when you said they were good Christians…’
‘Well, I don’t think—’
‘Isn’t that what Jesus said,’ I interrupted, ‘that it’s easier for a rich man to enter—’
‘Yes,’ she cut me off, ‘but I don’t think he meant we should give up everything we—’
‘That’s what his disciples did.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Here you go,’ Nick had returned with my coffee.
I glanced over at the Tothovas again. The bearded man was hanging around them, he looked as much a stranger here as I did.
‘Who’s that man with the Tothovas, I recognise him too, I think?’
‘Really?’ Chris drawled.
I had slipped up.
‘I have no idea,’ she continued, ‘if you’ll excuse me…’
She marched off with purpose. I was on borrowed time.
Nick frowned slightly, noticing her irritation without understanding. ‘That’s Ben McCready,’ he said, ‘he’s a councillor. Hove somewhere, I think.’
McCready. I didn’t recognise him with the beard. He’d been a city councillor for some time now, this was his third term. When he was elected he had been one of the youngest. The youngest if you didn’t count those smug students parties sometimes place in their safest wards.
He was the future once. Then he was caught sending dick pics to an underage girl. He had managed to hold his seat though. People believed her parents when they said she said she was eighteen.
Hove, somewhere. I tried to remember which ward and which flavour he was, councillors in Brighton only come in three flavours. I peered over his shoulder again. McCready was staring straight at me. Shit. He whispered something in Maria’s ear and then he started to approach.
‘Oh look, he’s coming this way,’ Nick announced helpfully.
He was with us in a flash.
‘Hello,’ he smarmed, holding out his hand to each of us.
‘Hello. I’m Nick,’ said Nick.
I took a mouthful of my coffee, and then made a face. ‘Oh, Nick, did you put sugar in this?’
‘Yes,’ he answered, confused.
‘I’m trying to cut down, can you get me another one?’
There was a moment of inaction, but the action of me passing him the cardboard cup sent him drifting on his way.
McCready was wearing a three piece suit, without a tie but with a blue display handkerchief, and his beard was just the right amount of kempt to look clean but not try-hard. He was born stylish. I didn’t like him already.
‘I didn’t get your name,’ he asked.
‘George,’ I shook his hand again, ‘and yours?’
‘Ben,’ he said with a practiced smile.
‘I recognise you, Ben, you’re on the council aren’t you?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘Which ward is it again?’
‘Hove Park.’
‘Hove Park, really? What made you come to a church over this way?’
‘I don’t go to church, although I respect the role faith plays in people’s lives,’ he pandered, ‘I just came to show my support for Maria and Graham.’
‘Good friends of yours, are they?’
‘Can’t a councillor support his constituents?’
‘Of course he can. But they’re not in your ward.’
The practiced smile became an unpractised frown. York Avenue is in Goldsmid, we both knew that.
‘Yes,’ he hissed, ‘they’re very good friends of mine, but that doesn’t matter.’ He never broke eye contact. ‘They’re very important people.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘I don’t want them bothered.’
‘How come you know them so well?’
He held up a hand to stop me. ‘I’m not interested in having a conversation with you.’ He counted the next three points on his fingers: ‘
They’re very important people. I don’t want them bothered. I think you should leave.’
‘Excuse me?’
Who the hell did he think he was? It wasn’t him these people worshipped.
‘I don’t want them bothered, Mr Grabarz.’
Oh I see. So he recognised me. I guess I should’ve been flattered. Instead I bit my lip.
He raised his eyebrows. Do you understand? he was asking.
‘It does explain a lot,’ I said.
He sighed. He had to engage with me, he was too curious by nature. ‘What?’
‘Here I was, wondering why the police went against the rulebook and put out a missing persons report soon enough to actually find someone. I was also wondering why the newspapers ran it the very same day. But now I know it’s because they’re very important people, and nothing at all to do with them being very good friends of yours.’
‘You’re a shit, Grabarz.’
I couldn’t help a grin. ‘You see, that’s the difference between you and me, councillor: we’re both shits, I just don’t pretend otherwise.’
Nick hadn’t returned with my coffee. McCready wanted to slap me round the face. Everybody wants to these days.
‘A bunch of hooligans searched my office because of what you said on the radio.’
‘I didn’t tell anybody to do anything.’
‘Really.’ I rolled my eyes.
‘Did you even hear the interview?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Don’t believe everything people tell you.’
He pointed with his eyes to the exit. I didn’t want to hang amongst these hypocrites anyway.
I walked through the vestibule and back to the big wooden doors.
‘There you are,’ Nick was standing in the way with my coffee, I took it from his hands a little too quickly and spilt some on his hand, ‘Ouch!’
Chris was a few steps to the right, whispering to someone, and wearing the frown she should have used when they showed her that suit. She tried to burn a whole in my back with her glower.
Outside, I sipped the coffee, realised it didn’t have sugar in it, and threw it on a plant.
