“Because,” he announced, grabbing hold of the podium and leaning forward, his face intent, “Because, if Jesus had been there, their brother would not have died!”
Somehow at that moment this seemed more true than it did obvious.
“And the question is: Why was Jesus not there?” He paused and drew a deep breath. “Jesus knew Lazarus was sick. Jesus even told his disciples that Lazarus’s sickness would not end in death. Yet here we have Mary and Martha both crying “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died! How did the Jesus who calmed storms, fed thousands, healed lepers, misjudge this one so badly?”
I stole a look at Charis. Her eyes were closed again. Her head leaning back. Granny Barlow’s knobbly hand was resting on Charis’s knee.
“Lord if you had been there,” said Granny Barlow, trying to say it softly, but failing. Charis gave a low moan.
Pastor Glenn’s voice broke through my distraction.
“’Take away the stone from the tomb,’ Jesus says, ‘Take away the stone.’ It’s the Middle East, it’s hot. Martha gets straight to the point. ‘It’s been four days Lord, he’ll stink!’”
It had been two days and the image of Bevan in his coffin under all that sand and soil broke into my mind. Mum hadn’t wanted a cremation.
“Cremation’s are for pagans,” she’d said, “I want a burial.”
What was Bevan’s body like after two days? What would it be like after four? Had he started to smell? He smelt bad enough in hospital those last few days, could it be any worse now? My head went all swimmy. Pastor Glenn was still talking, but the loudest thing I could hear was the blood pumping in my head. The veins in my temple felt engorged, like in those cartoons were someone gets angry and their face goes really red. I started to zone in and out of what Pastor Glenn was saying. He was still telling the story.
“Then Jesus said, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?’”
I could hear some people shouting out; affirmations, hallelujahs, prayers.
“Show us your glory Lord!” called someone, “Your glory, your glory!”
“Yes it is true that if the Lord had been there their brother would not have died. But would they have seen the glory of God if he hadn’t? No!”
“Your glory Lord, your glory!”
By now I couldn’t focus straight. I felt myself swaying in my seat, bumping into Charis’s arm every now and then. I realized she was swaying too when I finally managed to bring it under control and found she was bumping into my arm. I’m going to vomit. I need water. I need a piss. What is happening to me?
It went on for another ten or fifteen minutes, ebbing and flowing to what Pastor Glenn was saying.
“Lazarus come out. Lazarus come out. Lazarus come out!”
By now Pastor Glenn was off the stage and standing at the front row in the aisle. I tried not to look up at him, but couldn’t help it. I could see the glistening sweat on his face. There was no wide-eyed craziness though, just intensity; an intensity that made me look back down, in case he decided to single me out for special attention.
“People come out! People come out! If you need to see the glory of God this evening, come out! Come out here to the front and let the power of the Spirit release the grave clothes that bind you. Come out from the place of death and live again. Come out and see the power of God bring life where death would rule. Whatever it is this evening, come out!”
Charis had hold of my hand and I felt the dread and desire for both of us. My backside gripped the seat like it had been superglued there. I was not going out there.
“Maybe you’ve been crying out to the Lord, “Lord if you had been here my life would not be a mess! Lord if you had been here my heart would not be broken. Lord if you had been here,” he paused, his trembling voice searching for what I knew he was going to say, “Lord if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
I can’t remember it happening, but in a blur Charis and I were both out the front with a whole bunch of other people, most of whom were yelling out in tongues with their hands in the air. Charis just stood there, crying quietly next to me, her shoulders shaking. Everything had becalmed in the space around me. I was watching what was going on, but felt separate from it. I looked at Charis and it struck me: This was not grief for me, this was grief for her. She was not up here for me, but for her or for something about her that I was not part of. I zoned back in. She was speaking in English.
“Lord if you had been there, Lord if you had been there.”
The band was playing again. A couple of songs over and over. I looked around. No one seemed to be paying much attention to those of us at the front. Everyone seemed caught up in an ecstasy of their own. Some men, including the guy who’d shook hands at the door had come up the front. They weren’t up for prayer and they looked official. They went to the end of the row and stood behind the first person, a teenage girl, as Pastor Glenn stood in front of her. She was shaking and had her hands up, fingers outstretched like she was in agony.
The shock I felt when she fainted into the waiting arms of the two men behind her snapped the back of my eyes like a lacky-band. They laid her gently between two of the seats, before moving onto the next person. An older woman who looked like the young girl’s mother, came up and sat on the floor cross-legged next to her, her hand on her head as if soothing a fever. It was only when the second person, a professional looking man in his fifties, went down in the same way that the shock turned to fear. I wasn’t sure whether he’d been pushed by Pastor Glenn, but he didn’t seem to protest. I wanted out of there, but it seemed too late to move.
“Shaddarabbana, shallamannuna,” called Charis next to me, crying and shaking. She’d let go of my hand and had hers in the air, imploring, begging. I felt alone.
The next two or three people didn’t fall down, though their bodies seemed to try before thinking better of it. They stood there staggery for a while, one of them sitting down in the front row, her head in hands. A couple behind her reached forward and put a hand each on her shoulder, eyes closed and praying. Whatever it was that had happened at the start had worn off by now.
Suddenly Pastor Glenn was at the person next to me. I looked at my feet. I could smell his aftershave working overtime as he prayed, his hand pressed tight on the man’s, I think it was a man’s, forehead. I could hear him sucking prayers in and out like deep breaths in those kill-or-be-killed battle scenes in movies. The man went over. Pastor Glenn kneeled next to him, still praying. I was starting to shake. Nerves? Fear? Grief? What was it? A black rain-cloud of whatever it was sat above my head just out of my sight-range, but still there. Building. I could feel it building. Building to burst.
He was with me. His hands hovered near my head.
“How can we pray for you?”
I was trying to gabble it out, but it wouldn’t come. It was the dream where you can’t say what you want or you try to do something and your body won’t let you. I could feel the men were behind me. Charis seemed to have disappeared from sight.
“Bevan!” Bevan! Bevan!” I heard me calling it out. I was in a tunnel.
Rabbanathamana! Rabbanathamana!” I could feel the breath of his words in my nostrils, tendrils curling up into my eyes and brain, smoking into my lungs and heart, spreading out into all my extremities. My whole body was convulsing. I no longer cared.
“Bevan!” Bevan! Bevan!” He stood back and took his hand away. And then zap! There was no other word for it. The rain-storm burst over me in a thunderous shout. A single lightning bolt crashed though my skull and without even knowing how, I was on the floor, arcing and quivering like a KO’d boxer, the shouts of the crowd phasing in and out. Music in the background. Someone falling next to me. Phasing in and out again. Trying to sit up. Warm honey pouring over my entire body, slow-motioning my movements, rendering time sticky and unresponsive. So much warm honey bearing me down. More gravity than I could handle.
I don’t know how long
I lay there. Five minutes maybe? Half an hour? I couldn’t tell. Gradually the weight started to melt away, though my left arm felt heavy still. I turned my head and through the chair legs and feet I saw Charis lying on my arm. Granny Barlow was at her side. Crying. Praying. The honey was still flowing over Charis. Everyone else seemed to have gotten up. I propped myself up on my elbows, not knowing what to do next, where to go. Maybe I should just lie there. I heard clanking cups. Chatting. Pouring water. I sat up. In the time I’d been out of it church had been transformed into a cafeteria. Everyone was having tea and coffee. There were tables out with milk jugs. I could see packets of Arnott’s Family Pack plain biscuits. The man who’d fallen next to me was chatting and joking with another man, pointing out something on the wall. Kids were running around with mouthfuls of biscuit. Toddlers squealed. Mums were grabbing at the more vigorous ones.
“Hot tea sweetheart, hot tea.”
One of the women who’d prayed over Charis at the start sat next to me.
“Cup of tea dear?”
“Thanks.”
“And some biscuits.”
She handed me a plate with two milk arrowroots and one of those cheap thick mugs you get at Coles filled with watery looking tea. I sipped the tea. Hot, weak and sweet. “The Spirit was at work here tonight wasn’t he?”
I nodded, not quite knowing what to say. Whatever was at work it had lifted the rain-cloud. Charis stirred beside me. Granny Barlow looked over at us.
“Can you get her a cuppa Marjorie?” The woman went off. Charis started to sit up, the honey pouring off her like water from a re-floated ship. The smoothed expression left her face and she smiled at me, almost embarrassed. Granny Barlow was stroking her hair.
“You okay?” asked Charis, reaching for my hand.
“Fine.”
“Freaked out?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know what I am. You?”
“I’m okay.”
“You’ve finally left it at the altar, haven’t you love?” said Granny Barlow, still stroking. I watched her fingers as she did it. Not one went in the same direction. Charis read my face. She gently took one of the hands on its downward stroke.
“Granny Barlow’s hands have reached out to everybody at one time or another,” she said, her turn now to do the stroking, “That’s why they are they way they are.” She kissed the hand and gave it back, before smiled at me. Marjorie came back with a tray of cups, all weak and white. The teabags were still dangling in the cups, vainly trying to give up their strength in the milky water.
“You’ll be needing one too Pearl,” she said. “Too weak?”
“It’s not weak, it’s helpless!”
The four of us sat there drinking tea, not saying anything. The cuppa things were being cleared up. I could hear dishes being washed in a kitchen off to the side. Men were folding tables, while the musicians were wrapping up leads and putting instruments in cases.
“Suppose we better get these cups back,” said Marjorie finally, picking up the tray. Charis and I took that as our cue to get up. The place was emptying fast. Pastor Glenn was near the door talking with a flouncy-haired woman who kept putting her hand on his arm. Another woman, his wife perhaps, was standing near him holding a struggling toddler. She had a grimace on her face, nodding at hair-lady while all the while inching closer towards the door. She wanted to go home.
Charis hugged Granny Barlow again.
“Come round and see me love.”
“I will Granny Barlow, I will.”
“You come and see me too Rob.” I went to shake her hand, but leaned in a little more. She hugged me, planting a kiss on me that smelt of old lady’s powder. “Take care of each other.”
“We will Granny Barlow,” I said. The effortless authenticity in my voice surprised me. We made our way over to the door, managing to get past the hair, the pastor and the toddler without being stopped. The night air was cool. We walked to the car. Silent. Holding hands.
“Let’s walk on.”
“Okay,” said Charis, “I could do with the walk.”
We walked on still saying nothing, past wreckers’ yards, gardening suppliers and steel fabricators. A guard dog hurled itself at a gate, its bark making us jump, and kick-starting our conversation.
“Well?” asked Charis.
“Well what?”
“What did you think?”
“I don’t know. Weird eh?”
“Weird?”
“Well not weird.”
“What then?”
I could tell she was looking for something more. Affirmation perhaps.
“I’ve never experienced anything like that,” I said, stopping and turning to her. “Is that what it used to be like for you?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“Didn’t it freak you out?”
“Not if you grew up with it. That’s what we expected it to be like. Some Sunday nights it was even more out there than tonight. It felt really strange going to school the next day. Everyone else would have been talking about watching the Wonderful World of Disney on Sunday night, while we did that stuff.”
“You didn’t tell other kids?”
“No, but they knew we were different. Didn’t do Halloween stuff, or read books about dragons or dinosaurs.”
We walked again, turning at the next block and making our way back to the car. Our car was the only one in the street. The factory was empty and dark now. The Living Waters sign had been taken down and the gates locked. A portal had been closed. Someone or something had spoken to us tonight, but by six am the secular sounds of hammers, drills, buffers, swearing and FM radio crank calls would have drowned out all traces of God.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I moved home two days later, timing it for when Benny had left for work and before Mum would be home from her cleaning job. Mum surprised me by being home already.
“Thought you’d be at work Mum.”
“Mrs Chan didn’t need me today. Besides, thought you’d be at work too.”
“Chris is taking a day off.”
“Another one? He’s taking too many days off at the moment. Drinking I suppose. No Charis?” She sounded disappointed.
“Some of us have to work.”
“Will you be home for tea tonight?”
“Home? You mean here? I don’t know yet.”
“We’re not a hotel you know. You can’t just decide on the spur of the moment that you need a meal.”
I could, of course, but somehow the remembrance of the warm honey at Living Waters sweetened my response.
“I don’t know yet Mum,” I said, hugging her, “I’ll let you know.” She looked confused, as if the feeling was right even though the answer was wrong.
“Want me to bring some boxes in?”
“No, I’ll do it. Some of them are heavy. Books. How about you just put on the kettle?
Cup of coffee and a Tim-Tam?” She sounded relaxed. “I’ve got new ones. Double Chocolate, only one-ninety five on special.”
Tim-Tams. Mum’s own way of being sweet to those she loved.
“You and your Tim-Tams!!” I laughed, and for a second there it seemed she might even hug me back.
* * *
I didn’t see Charis after that Sunday for the rest of that week. I spent the time either working with Chris or arranging and re-arranging boxes of books, music and junk into the bigger box that was my room. I shifted everything a dozen times, like those little tile games you have when you’re a kid where there’s a bit missing. You’re supposed to come up with the right picture by moving the pieces around each other. I’d usually just get sick of them really quickly when one piece wouldn’t get to where I wanted it without stuffing up all the other bits I’d got right.
My room was turning out the same. I gave up eventually, spending a day or two glowering at my desk which had been about two centimeters too small to make a perpendicular with the bed. I bumped my hip on the corner of it a couple of nights getting up to go to the toilet
, swearing loud enough each time for Mum to think she might have heard something.
Then there was the job of drawing and redrawing boundaries with Mum. Tim-Tams cover a multitude of sins, but even their propitiatory powers are limited. I comforted myself with the fact that this was a stop-over, not a destination.
Living at home again was like wearing a jumper you haven’t worn over summer. When the first cool day leaps out and surprises you, you dig it out again from under the shorts and tee-shirts, smelling slightly sour like the bottom of the drawers. It’s the same jumper, but you need to re-stretch it, flex your elbows, pull at the forgetful collar which has tightened again, choking your neck. It need to draw up your deodorant, your aftershave, your sweat. That jumper needs to know that you’re the boss, that you’re wearing it to meet your needs, rather than the other way around. The trouble with mum was that she kept springing back to shape. She had no progressive memory. It was always “back then”, never now.
On Friday I dropped Chris off after work and escaped to the well-stretched double-hammock at Charis’. Working with Chris had been a nightmare all week – silent gloom, whining tools and three or four lunch-time beers.
“Don’t let the owners see you on the beer.” I tried to make it jokey, but it came out harsh anyway.
“Fuck ‘em, fuck me all,” he said, kicking an empty across the dusty floorboards. The floor was warped where the stump-plates had rotted, and we watched as the can stopped spinning and rolled like water finding its level all the way to the skirting.
“It’s a shit-heap anyway. I told ‘em to re-stump the place before doing anything above floor, but they’re tight-asses.”
I secretly thanked God. I hated re-stumping – it’s all claustrophobia, spider-webs and rat droppings. It’s amazing that a whole house can sit on small wooden posts and not even be nailed down. The weight pressing downwards does the work. But that same weight will keep pressing until the stump-plates, weakened and weathered, crumble away like so many cancerous hips.
Warm Honey Page 19
