Flying Under Bridges

by Sandi Toksvig

  ‘Did you love Adam? Were you awash with him?’ the psychiatrist persists, and I don’t know what to say.

  ‘I’m not sure. I was young. Just eighteen. I do remember thinking that marriage sounded more fun than biology A level.’

  How odd to end up pregnant with a mortgage just because you were once bored by the details of the aorta.

  I didn’t know what to do about Patrick. It was the religion thing that was so difficult. I had never really thought about it. I suppose I’m C. of E., but I’m not sure that counts. Shirley says it’s not so much a religion as a commitment to cream teas and fêtes, and I think that’s true. Both my mother and my daughter believe, believed, and I didn’t get it.

  ‘How did Patrick’s death make you feel? What did you do?’ My shrink feels he is homing in on something.

  ‘I went to Safeway’s. They’re open twenty-four hours now. After Kate had gone home to wait for Inge. I offered to go with her but she looked unwell and I think she wanted to be alone. I was so angry by the time I got the gate open that I had to do something.

  ‘So you went shopping?’

  ‘No. First, I went through all the old newspapers in the recycle pile.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I cut out all the pictures I could find of the famine in Ethiopia. All the kids with big eyes and bulging bellies, all the close-ups of ribs and pleading faces and I took them with me in the car. To Safeway’s.’

  ‘What did you do with them there?’

  ‘I put them all over the counter of the delicatessen and I left.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  I had wanted to talk to Adam about it but we seemed to have lost the knack. He phoned from his hotel.

  ‘Hello, darling,’ he said. ‘I won’t chat for long because it’s very expensive.’ I was glad he’d phoned, but it wasn’t a great conversational opening.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Quite nice hotel really. Very nice selection of biscuits with the in-room tea-and-coffee-making facilities.’

  ‘That’s nice.’ We paused for a moment. ‘You know Lawrence Hansen?’ I asked.

  I could hear Adam opening a ginger snap. ‘No.’

  ‘He’s the priest at Shirley’s church.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ He crunched into the biscuit. ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘His son died.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ There was a pause. ‘I’m glad Shirley’s found an interest,’ he said, and then we rather ran out of things to say. I don’t think men and women do chat all that well. Not that men and men do any better. Adam and Horace have known each other since they both started first school. They feel they’ve been intimate with each other if one of them admits his stamina on the squash court isn’t quite what it used to be.

  ‘Eve?’ said Adam. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—’

  Adam, you didn’t do anything wrong. It was a misunderstanding. The whole town had just got too wound up about safety. We are safe. Nothing has changed.’

  ‘I didn’t mean any harm. I was trying to help.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And now that poor woman… well, I mean.., her husband is on the golf club committee. This might mean the end of the captaincy.’

  Tom finally came out of his room and I made him some hot chocolate. We sat with Mother, listening to her wheeze in her sleep.

  ‘Maybe I should take her to Lourdes,’ I said. ‘Maybe there could be a miracle.’

  Tom picked at the skin of his drink and sipped quietly. I looked at my boy. My strange, silent boy, and thought maybe I hadn’t let him talk enough.

  ‘What do you think about gay people, Tom?’

  ‘Nothing really,’ he said. ‘It’s just people, Mum.’ He looked at me. ‘I’m not.’

  I think we were both embarrassed so I pretended not to understand.

  ‘You’re not what?’

  ‘I’m not gay, if that’s what you were thinking.’

  ‘No… I—’

  ‘Would it matter?’

  ‘No… no.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind. I wouldn’t mind feeling all that…’ Tom put down his drink and moved to go upstairs. ‘You should think about the lesser snow goose.’

  No one spoke to me in English any more. The lesser snow goose? Was it possible to lose all reason very, very slowly? ‘Why?’

  ‘They’ve done a study in California. The lack of available males in lesser snow goose colonies often results in the homosexual pairing of female birds, laying eggs and successfully raising chicks. It seems that after the males contribute semen, they don’t have any role that a female cannot play equally well. In fact, they’re not sure what males are good for — in an evolutionary sense, of course. It’s interesting. The birds may just like it that way.’ Tom stopped in his lecture and looked at me. He looked about seven and my heart nearly broke for him. Tom and Adam, my lost boys. I wanted to help them and I didn’t know how. I felt helpless with the people I loved most.

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Do you think I’m wasting my time? It does no good, does it?’

  ‘I think you’re the best.’

  Tom went back to his room and I sat looking at his cup on the table. I had taken the cloth off since Mother had arrived and it was becoming covered in rings from coffee cups and medicine bottles. I ran my hand across the surface.

  ‘Take a miracle to get those off now,’ I said to Mother. It was the sort of subject she would have liked, combining as it did housework and the work of the Lord. I sat there thinking. You know how those Jehovah’s Witness people always call just when you’re going out or in the bath or have just put the Shake ‘n’ Vac out on the carpet and you just want them to go away? Stupid really because, I mean, just then would have been a really good time. If they had knocked at that moment then I would have probably invited them in.

  ‘Come in, come in. God, I can’t believe my luck — we were literally just out of belief when you happened past. Been through all the cupboards, hadn’t got a thing in the house.’ Helluva product, instant salvation. Maybe Mother and I both needed Lourdes. She had sacrificed her marriage for her daughter. She had believed Martha and it had ruined everything.

  For God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son…

  (JOHN 3.16)

  They’ve put up a lovely stone for Patrick in the churchyard. I looked Molech up in the encyclopaedia. It says he was a god ‘to whom child sacrifices were offered by the Israelites in the days of the monarchy’. Some people think he was actually Milcom, the national god of the Ammonites. I like the idea of having a god called Milcom. (We’ve got a milkman called Malcolm, which is nearly the same thing.) Or he might have been Maluk or even Yahweh, the God of the Jewish people. Anyway, it says in the old Encyc. Brit. that the Israelites were apparently so appalled by the practice of human sacrifice ‘that they tried to blot out their shame by changing the name of the god from Yahweh to Molech, as though human sacrifices had been offered only to a foreign deity’.

  So they changed history. Maybe one day, when Shirley looks back on what I did, she can do the same.

  Love, Eve

  PS Thanks for the offer but I don’t think you should come back for the trial. I just need to get this done.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  A few nights after Patrick’s death, Kate called and asked if Eve would come for a glass of wine. The circumstances were terrible but the invitation still gave Eve a little flutter. She had dreamt of phone calls like that. Friends just ringing for wine and a chat. Adam had come home from his conference a chastened man.

  ‘I need to do something, Eve. I need to make things better.’

  Eve was pleased. Pleased for him, for herself and for the town, but Adam was only thinking about himself, about his reputation. It was what people thought that mattered, what they had said, what they might say.

  ‘I need to show the golf club what I can do. I need to make the revue spectacular.’

 
; Intent on his social rehabilitation from sex fiend to social entertainer, all Adam wanted to talk about was sequin size. Eve had got him some dresses from the Hospice Charity Shop for his big number, and he was very preoccupied with trying them on. Tonight he wanted to do a bit of a fashion parade while Eve mixed them a gin and tonic. Eve knew he wanted her to stay home but she went anyway.

  Kate was sitting quietly on the sofa and hardly moved when Eve arrived. Inge let her in and poured the wine. There were snacks but no one ate them. No one really did anything until the doorbell went. Inge answered it and Eve could hear her in the hall.

  She did say, ‘I don’t think it’s appropriate,’ but weakly. The next thing Eve knew, John Antrobus was standing in the doorway. He smiled at Kate and turned to Inge.

  ‘Oh, Miss Holbrook, you’re such a boon to this community. Kate? I’m John Antrobus. I know you’ve had a horrible time. I’ve brought someone to see you. Someone who needs to talk to you.’

  And then he stepped back and there was Lawrence. Pastor Lawrence, Father Lawrence, standing, looking desperate and pale, but somehow noble.

  ‘I am Lawrence Hansen,’ he managed. ‘I am the Pastor of the Ten Commandments Church. We met briefly on Sunday. My son…

  Kate looked at him and said, ‘Come in. Come in. We need to talk. Come in.’

  Inge did try again. ‘Kate, I really don’t think—’

  Kate’s eyes never left Lawrence. ‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s fine.’

  John seemed to have taken on the role of host. ‘Lawrence, Kate Andrews, Inge’s … flatmate, and I think you know Eve Marshall, Shirley’s mother?’

  ‘Of course.’ Lawrence nodded as Inge moved into the room.

  ‘Please sit down,’ she said. ‘Would you like a glass of wine?’

  Kate got two more glasses and red wine was poured and handed out. Everyone sipped for a moment before anyone dared say it.

  ‘I’m so sorry about Patrick,’ said Inge. There was general murmuring then. Everyone was so sorry about Patrick. It was so awful. Lawrence nodded and almost fell down into an armchair. John smiled at Eve and perched on the arm of the chair. Then he opened the can of worms.

  ‘Lawrence wants to find out what happened.., to Patrick. He knows, Kate, may I call you Kate? … that you and Miss Holbrook were close to him.’

  Kate nodded. ‘Yes, yes I was.’

  ‘I need to know who he had been speaking to. Someone is responsible for what happened to my boy. If he hadn’t been told he was gay…’ Lawrence faltered.

  ‘No one told him he was gay.’ Inge nearly rose from her chair but a look from Kate checked her. ‘He was worried about feelings that he was having. He was confused.’

  Lawrence frowned. ‘There was nothing to be confused about. I know young people get passions but he knew what was right. I told him, I tried to help him.’

  Inge leant forward, ‘What did you tell him?’

  ‘I told him he would grow out of it. That it was a phase and that he must not give in to it. That the Lord was watching over him all the time.’ Lawrence was getting angry. ‘Who did he talk to? Do you know? Look, I’ll be frank. People have been talking and we know there was a young man.

  ‘A young man?’ Kate leant forward. ‘What young man?’

  Lawrence shook his head in despair. ‘I don’t know. Some young man up in the woods. He was seen with his arms around Patrick. He had very long hair.’

  Eve sat up and looked at the priest. ‘That was my son Tom.’

  Lawrence paled. ‘You can just sit there when it was your own son who led my boy to his own destruction?’

  For a brief moment Eve thought she would explode. She rose from her chair and it took all of Kate’s strength to get her to sit down again. Eve tried to stay calm. ‘My son has done nothing. He is not gay.’

  ‘Would it matter if he were?’ asked Inge quietly.

  ‘No, of course not. All I meant was—’

  Kate came to the rescue. ‘Tom was comforting Patrick. That’s all.’

  ‘About being gay?’ Lawrence persisted.

  ‘No, about the death of some ducks, actually,’ replied Kate. ‘Look we know how you feel. We loved Patrick too, but I think you have allowed other people to make some presumptions.’

  Lawrence looked from one woman to the other. ‘Maybe some things have been said that shouldn’t, but I need your help. I need to know who talked to Patrick. Was it someone at the school?

  That was where he…’ Lawrence’s voice faltered to a halt. Kate spoke gently to him.

  ‘I don’t know about school but I know what his friends said. His real friends. He was worried about being gay. He was worried that it wasn’t just some phase. That he felt too strongly about it for the feelings to go away. His friends told him what it would be like if he didn’t grow out of it. That life would go on. He was told that being straight isn’t the very essence or the heart of being a good human being. He was told that it didn’t matter.’

  ‘It didn’t matter because some bloody poof teacher somewhere just couldn’t wait to get his hands on my boy. That’s why he killed himself at the school. Some bastard sodomite who just kept drawing Patrick along, telling him that it was okay so that eventually he could seduce my son. I know how it works. I know what happened.’ Lawrence was losing control but Kate needed to be clear.

  ‘What would have happened if he had grown up gay, Mr Hansen?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘He couldn’t have. It’s a sin. It’s a sin. I’m a minister.’ Lawrence bowed his head. You could have reached out and touched his pain. Eve could hardly bear to look at him.

  ‘So he would have lost you and God?’

  ‘My son was not gay. I am telling you that there is some viper in that school who was feeding Patrick ideas that—’

  Kate raised her hand to stop him.

  ‘What is it that you want, Mr Hansen?’

  Lawrence took a hanky from his pocket and mopped his brow. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ he said. John patted him on the arm.

  ‘It’s all right.’

  ‘You were close to my son,’ Lawrence pleaded with Kate. ‘Please, I want you to tell me the name of the teacher or whatever who did this to him. I want to know the man who could find it in his heart to drive my son to his death. I want to know that nothing.., happened before he died.’

  ‘Is that what this is about?’ Kate’s voice trembled as she spoke.

  ‘You want to know if your son was intact? Is that what matters? In all this, is that what you think about? Well, Mr Hansen, you can sleep well because there was no man. I talked to your son. I told him those things.’

  Lawrence looked at her and then shook his head. ‘No, it can’t be. Patrick told me it was a gay person he’d spoken to.’

  Kate nodded. ‘That’s right.’

  Eve had never heard a deafening silence before. People talk about such a thing but she had always thought it was one of those artistic licence things. It isn’t. It was quite something. Lately John had taken to sucking on his teeth the way Adam did and that was the first sound in the room followed by him muttering, ‘But you live with Miss Holbrook. She’s…’

  Kate nodded again.

  John nodded. ‘I had no idea. I’m so sorry.’

  It would probably be fair to say that what followed was a socially awkward moment.

  No one wanted to hurt Lawrence. He was bereaved and everyone felt his pain, but he had come for some truth, and Kate, dying Kate, had provided it. The shattered man of God slowly rose from his seat. Perhaps he had no other defence left. He held his Bible aloft and began to declaim, ‘You harlot. You whore. You will be punished. God says that the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, murderers, fornicators, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their lot shall be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone … Revelations, Chapter twenty-one, verse eight…uhm…’ Lawrence was getting a little lost in his desperation to have the revealed truth on his side. ‘Uhm … many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is
destruction, their god is the belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. But our commonwealth is in heaven, and from it we await a Saviour… Philippians…’

  ‘Don’t you do that in this house!’ boomed Kate rising and going to stand right in front of the pastor of the people. She was tiny and frail but there was no lack of power in her determination.

  ‘Don’t you bring your prejudice in here and say that it is God’s work.’

  Lawrence held the Bible up in front of him and tried to continue,’… our commonwealth is in heaven…’ but Kate put her hand out firmly and clutched the holy book between them.

  ‘Philippians chapter three, verse nineteen, I know. I know because it is wonderful and I will not have you use it to justify your petty prejudices.’

  Lawrence faced her on the hearth rug like a gunfight at the OK corral.

  ‘I really had no idea,’ John muttered again, looking at Eve but getting no reply.

  A battle began to rage. Inge was on her feet trying to get Kate to sit down.

  ‘Kate didn’t do anything to your son except try help him.’

  ‘Help him? My son is dead.’

  ‘Maybe he couldn’t fight you and your quotes at the same time.

  ‘I cannot change God’s word,’ screamed Lawrence. ‘It’s in here.’ He banged the Bible down on the mantelpiece so hard that the little clock bounced backwards. Kate picked up the book.

  ‘Is it? Is it? Where? Let me tell you. There are nine biblical citations which are usually trotted out about homosexuals. Four of them actually just forbid prostitution by both men and women. Two others are part of the Holiness code and I will give you those. Leviticus…’

  Leviticus. Eve remembered Leviticus. Lawrence had mentioned him at church.

  ‘… does explicitly ban homosexual acts but he also prohibits the eating of raw meat, planting two different seeds in the same field, wearing garments with two different kinds of yarn, having tattoos, committing adultery and sexual intercourse during women’s periods. Cracking rules, aren’t they? Do you keep to all of them?’ Kate eyed Lawrence’s clothes. He was wearing chinos and a sweater. ‘Surely that’s not cotton and wool you’re wearing at the same time, Pastor Lawrence?’