Demons

by Bill Nagelkerke

  I told Father Mike about The Creation of Adam and the thoughts I’d had about the meaning behind the painting. ‘I want to be able to close that gap,’ I said. ‘And I want to be the transformation when it happens. I’m sorry, I can’t explain it any more clearly than that.’

  ‘No need to,’ Father Mike said slowly. ‘My advice stands. Pray about it. And don’t go gently into that good night.’

  ‘I’ve heard that before,’ I said, amazed.

  Father Mike nodded. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I know.’

  On the way out I saw the caravan again. ‘What . . .?’ I began.

  ‘Emergency shelter,’ Mike explained briefly. ‘A safe house for anyone who needs it.’

  He didn’t say anything else about the caravan and I didn’t ask more. I guess there wasn’t any need to.

  ‘See you,’ I said.

  ‘Bye Andrea. Good luck. Come and talk again if you want to, or need to.’

  We waved to each other as I drove away.

  Inheritance

  Pray about it. Yes I could do that much. I’d been pretty good at prayer and not that very long ago either. Like riding a bike or swimming freestyle, I guessed it was a skill that, once learnt, would be easy to pick up again.

  So.

  I had discovered I couldn’t disinherit my past, it was tied to me like my own shadow even when the sun wasn’t shining. Perhaps religion was my demon.

  I had to accept it was there and learn to walk with it even if it meant hacking a path through virgin bush, dragging the shadow or the demon of my past along behind me.

  I hoped (prayed, actually) that Chris would still want to walk with me, when I told him what I’d been doing, who I’d been talking to, what I might end up becoming if the fates determined things that way. I was scared he wouldn’t. I was pretty certain he wouldn’t. But, for the first time in ages, I felt as if I was really going somewhere.

  STRANGE MEETING

  ‘You were right about the Greek salad,’ Chris says.

  ‘Was I?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s good. As good as the real thing.’

  ‘The real thing,’ I say. ‘Tell me more about that. Did you travel much?’

  ‘A bit. But mainly I just worked damn hard.’

  ‘Like your father wanted.’

  Chris frowns. ‘It wasn’t just him who wanted me to achieve. It was me too.’

  ‘At our expense.’

  Chris nods, sadly. ‘I didn’t plan . . .’ His voice reduces to a whisper.

  ‘But you did,’ I whisper back. ‘In the end. You were like Judas the Betrayer.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ he said. ‘Do you think I haven’t regretted it ever since?’

  ‘Still, I’ve got a lot to thank your father for,’ I said.

  ‘Do you. What for exactly?’

  ‘He made you show your true colours in the end,’ I say.

  ‘That’s not fair,’ says Chris.

  ‘Isn’t it?’ I ask. ‘Didn’t you let your demons get the better of you? Another coffee?’

  Speaking with the dead and some random thoughts

  I wanted to visit Gran. I hadn’t been to St Brigid’s since the funeral. I wanted to sit quietly beside her grave and have a chat with her. Maybe say some of the Catholic rosary together.

  I rang Chris on Saturday night to ask if he would come with me.

  ‘Of course,’ he said. Sounding different, I thought.

  ‘Something happened?’ I asked. It was of course a question he could just as well have asked me.

  ‘Nothing much,’ he said. ‘Just a busy day at the library. I rang you this morning Andy but your Mum said you were out.’

  ‘Why did you ring?’

  ‘It’ll keep until tomorrow,’ said Chris. ‘Where were you?’

  ‘That’ll keep until tomorrow as well,’ I said.

  Chris was silent a moment. Then, ‘Shall I collect you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘If you can get the car? We haven’t been in the old Austin for a while. I’d like that.’

  ‘See you tomorrow then,’ said Chris.

  ‘See you,’ I said.

  A little voice told me it was the beginning of the end for us. In all honesty it was a voice I’d heard (but had taken no notice of) at the candle protest vigil. It had whispered again to me when I was talking with Father Mike. And I’m sure it had spoken to me for the first time when we were up in Chris’ room where the priest-thought had re-lodged itself in my brain.

  Reading The Bacchae together up on the hills I’d been struck, despite Chris’s later comments, just how greatly religion had influenced the Ancient Greeks. The scenes involving the devotees of the god Dionysus, a group of women called the Maenads, had really hit home. Here they were, entranced and enchanted by the god, dancing through the forests above the city of Thebes, this female priesthood worshipping him as he intended and, in doing so, freed from a kind of slavery to their dour and unbelieving husbands. Unless they had been high-class prostitutes, most ancient Greek women had virtually been slaves in their own homes, Ms Shapiro had told us.

  In Dad’s book on early Ireland, in the chapter on Celtic Christianity, it said that St Brigid had been

  ordained a priest.

  I’d tell Chris what had happened, what I’d done on Saturday, who I’d been to see, and what I’d talked to him about.

  Mum and Dad were at church when Chris arrived.

  ‘Hi,’ I said.

  ‘Hi,’ he said.

  We kissed. It felt the same but different.

  ‘We don’t have to leave straightaway,’ I said. ‘We could stay here for a while longer. Play being Daphnis and Chloe again. Go just before Mum and Dad get back.’

  Chris shook his head. ‘It’s tempting,’ he said. ‘But maybe it’s tempting the fates.’

  ‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘Mass sometimes finishes early.’

  ‘I meant . . .’ he began. ‘No, it doesn’t matter.’

  I wished I could read his mind. I suppose I could, in a way. Maybe he had also read mine, just as he seemed to have done the other night.

  We drove. We left the city, hit the motorway, veering west towards St Brigid’s. The countryside changed from flat plain to low hills, then rolling country as the road climbed, turned and twisted. A bunch of willows by a stream were leafing already.

  ‘Spring’s really close now,’ I said.

  ‘Exams too,’ said Chris, his eyes fixed on the road.

  ‘There’s an open day at uni next month as well,’ I said.

  ‘I saw that.’

  ‘You don’t need to go I suppose but I thought I would.’

  ‘That’s good,’ said Chris.

  ‘I’ll check out the Classics Department again,’ I said. ‘Remember what you said about us doing the same papers.’

  ‘Andy . . .?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Is this where we turn off to the church? I thought I saw a sign back there but I wasn’t sure.’

  I hadn’t been paying attention. I recognised the turnoff though. ‘Yeah, turn right,’ I said.

  We went past the orchards and the dairy farms. Saw the same fences, houses and hedges of three years ago.

  Gran, you’ve been here all this time and I’ve never been to see you. I raged against the dying of your light and that means I raged against you too. Not fair, eh? If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be who I am.

  Doesn’t matter, she said. I’ve been with you.

  Not everywhere, Gran, I hope.

  Chris pulled up at the church gate.

  ‘Want me to come in with you?’

  ‘Come and say hello to Gran,’ I said. ‘Then I’ll sit with her by myself for a little while.’

  The headstone was clean and there were silk flowers in a container set into the concrete base. Even though I hadn’t been here since the funeral I knew Dad, and sometimes Mum and Dad both, had visited.

  ‘It’s a nice quiet spot,’ said Chris. ‘“The grave’s a fine and private place, but none I think d
o there embrace.” ’

  ‘Chris,’ I said, ‘I’ve never asked you directly, have I? What do you think happens when a person dies?’

  He shrugged but his reply was certain. ‘That’s it. The end. Finito.’

  ‘No hope of anything?’

  ‘No. Just breaking down into atoms and becoming part of the universe, returning to the stars. Isn’t that what you’ve come to think too?’

  ‘Maybe it is,’ I said.

  ‘Are you having second thoughts?’ he asked.

  ‘You’re very perceptive,’ I said.

  ‘No I’m not,’ he muttered. ‘Just very selfish. Look, I’ll go back to the car. Leave you with your Gran.’

  I took out the rosary beads Gran had given me all those years ago and said a few Hail Marys. Not a whole rosary. Not even a complete decade. Just a few beads. A few turning points.

  ‘Gran,’ I said, when I’d finished. ‘If you’ve been tagging along with me like I think you have, you’ll know by now that not only have I abandoned you at St Brigid’s but that right now I’m a small-c catholic. And you’ll know that it’s partly your fault. You were a rebel before I was. I’ve just taken a few more steps on the rebel path. Forwards I hope, not backwards. But who knows, maybe one day I’ll get back to the big-C by a different route. Depends. Trouble is there aren’t many signposts. So I wanted you to look after these beads for me in case I lose them, if you didn’t mind. I’ll know where to find them if I need them again. OK?’

  Gran stayed silent. Perhaps she was angry with me. Perhaps she was still praying along with me and hadn’t realised I’d already stopped. I picked up a piece of broken masonry from the old grave next door - it could just as easily have come from the Tower of the Winds - and tore away a small strip of the grass

  blanketing Gran. I dug away a hollow of earth,

  wishing I’d brought our tramping shovel, and put the rosary beads back into their container and buried the box and the beads in the earth with Gran. I almost added my bone pendant to the burial but changed my mind at the last second. I had decided on another place for that.

  ‘See you next time,’ I said and went back to the car to join Chris.

  The mysteries of Dionysus

  We drove on until we came to another turnoff. Chris liked the look of the road. We arrived at a fenced off section of native bush. A kissing gate led into the reserve and a track wound through a stand of birch trees.

  ‘Shall we?’ Chris suggested.

  ‘Let’s.’

  We didn’t need to say much else to each other. We both knew what was going to happen.

  The wind had turned north-westerly and it had gotten warm. Not hot but pleasantly mild. We walked until we were out of sight of the road, the car and the hills below the reserve.

  It was like being in a dream from which we would soon awake.

  We pressed our ears against the tree trunks as though we could hear the sap rising.

  Lying together on the leaves and earth mould we imagined we heard the rush of underground streams.

  Looking back up at the paint strokes of blue sky through the branches and leaves we could feel the world rushing beneath our backs, charting its everlasting course through the immense universe, through stars and galaxies, right through the whole

  enormous exploding reaches of distant space.

  Expanding, collapsing, breathing in and out, the life force, the home of the deity. Christian, ancient Greek, both, all.

  In the dream which was not a dream I said to Chris, ‘Let’s take off our clothes,’ and so we did and we danced trance-like, naked, over the forest floor, behind and between the trees, Daphnis and Chloe again for the last time, worshipers and priests of Dionysus on Mount Kithairon, and we were free, free, free.

  Every tree has its snake, Gran once told me.

  In the dream-not-a-dream Chris said, ‘Andrea. My father’s said that if I can pass the entrance exams he’ll pay the fees for me to go and study in England next year. In that case, if I’m successful, I won’t be going to uni here. We won’t be together again properly until I get back.’

  In the dream that was real I said, ‘I know, I know. I’m a woman of vision.’

  And in the dream that wasn’t, we both shed tears of loss, betrayal, anger, grief, relief, sadness and of joy: the last because our time together had been full of colour and turning points and those are things that stay with you forever and never change.

  Mascot

  Ms Shapiro handed out information about the Classics Competition.

  ‘The questions will cover the whole year’s syllabus,’ she said, ‘so if we enter a team we’ll have to be thorough in our preparation. Those not in the team will have to be prepared to support those who are.’

  ‘Let’s give it a whirl,’ said Becs. ‘I’ll volunteer.’

  Becs, to her surprise, had enjoyed the class and done better in it than even she’d expected. Gradually she had come to be on better terms with Ms Shapiro. I’d seen them, once or twice towards the end of the school year, chatting in the school library. What about, I could only guess. Whatever it was, Becs was changing and, when I say that, I really mean that she was slowly turning into her true self. As I was. As we all were doing, or would do, one day. Taking off our masks, one at a time, but clutching them to ourselves nonetheless, in case we ever needed them again, which we undoubtedly would.

  ‘Me too,’ said Ro.

  Chris put his hand up. ‘I’m in.’ He looked at me. I shook my head.

  ‘Go on,’ said Becs.

  ‘One more would be good,’ said Ms Shapiro.

  No one else was offering.

  ‘Andrea could be our mascot,’ said Ro.

  I’d forgotten that each team could bring a mascot. Someone who was willing to dress up as a classical character and be judged alongside the other mascots for an extra prize. Why not I thought. I’ve played the parts of Andronikos and Chloe. Why not actually dress up for once as well.

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘I’ll do it.’

  ‘Good for you,’ said Ms Shapiro. ‘We’ve got our team. Now the work begins.’

  ‘And the fun,’ said Becs.

  ‘Of course,’ Ms Shapiro agreed.

  ‘We’ll decide first who the mascot’s going to be,’ Becs said.

  ‘No we won’t,’ I said firmly. ‘I’ll decide who I’ll be.’

  Home of the winds

  Another turning point or, to use Gran’s metaphor, a bead on the rosary of life.

  The scene.

  An intersection near uni, a typically over-busy crossroads with all the usual buzz of traffic. Cars, pushbikes and pedestrians compete with each other and the changing lights, right-turning arrows and running men.

  Why was it always men who did the running? I had wondered about even that from an early age.

  But in one corner there was a green reserve, small and neat and sheltered, a calm eye in the traffic storm. Sadly, people never seemed to notice it. No one ever sat there, quietly contemplating. Praying.

  Not that the reserve was actually the important bit, not as far as I was concerned. It was what stood in the reserve that counted.

  A single-piece of limestone carving, showing four faces, facing in four directions.

  The compass points of north, south, east and west.

  The faces showed four winds of Maori mythology.

  A proverb was inscribed into the soft stone.

  Kei te pupuhi mai te hau I tehea aronga?

  Kei te pupuhi mai I te arongo o te raki; te tonga; te hauauru; te rawhiti.

  The translation beneath read:

  From which direction is the wind blowing?

  From the north, the south, the east, the west.

  Four directions. So many choices.

  The ancient Greeks had their own names for the four main winds.

  They were Boreas, the North Wind.

  Notus, the South Wind.

  Eurus, the East Wind.

  Zephyrus, the West Wind.

  Acc
ording to Chris, all the winds were gods. Male, of course. Apparently, at least one of them in human form was a complete bastard.

  Ah, some things never change.

  The reserve was roughly halfway between school and the university. Although the sculpture had been there for ages I was one of those many people who had never really noticed it, not until the day I hiked over to the uni for a look-see, that first real day of

  summer when you could see and smell green and yellow everywhere. I was on my way home, about to obey the running man and cross the intersection . . .

  . . . another interesting question, why do we take notice of him instead of just using our common sense?. . .

  . . . when there it was, the home of the winds.

  Pale, yellowing stone against green grass, halfway between my past and my future, the four faces of the winds looking in four different directions.

  And there was me, at a crossroads of my own.

  I stayed in the reserve for a while to read the inscription and think about all the things that had happened that year. I wondered about my future, in which direction I would go and who I would ultimately become.

  A turning point, what else?

  Pray about it, Gran would have said. So would Father Mike.

  I’d left my rosary beads with Gran and St Brigid but I prayed anyway and received an answer, of sorts,

  to a question I hadn’t got round to asking yet.

  Classics Competition

  Mum and Dad didn’t know quite what to think. They stared at me, at each other. To smile or to frown? To ask why, or to stay silent? To trust, or to disbelieve? Too many options. I put them out of their misery. I told them why I was who I was.

  ‘That’s clever,’ said Mum. ‘You could come to our next meeting dressed like that.’

  ‘Will anyone else realise?’ Dad said.