Being Here

by Barry Jonsberg

  ‘I have.’ I smile.

  ‘Well, what about your mother’s book, then?’ she asks. ‘The one she spent all her time writing. Did you ever get to read it? Or is that something else you’ll tell me when the time is right?’

  ‘Oh, I read it,’ I reply. ‘But not until she died. Apart from what little remained of the farm and some furniture fit only for Mrs Hilson’s junk shop, it was all she left me. I remember opening the box, a few months after she died. The key was lost, so I had to force the lock. That struck me as fitting, somehow. She tried to keep her secret right to the end. And beyond.’

  ‘What was it like?’

  I travel back to that moment. I feel again the icy hardness of the strong box, hear the crack as the lock yields. The pages are a solid block. I pull them out and place them on the kitchen floor. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them, covered in mother’s small, neat script. Her life’s work, heavy with responsibility. Words from decades earlier ring in my mind: I will write a story that will be perfect, about a place where we will want to live forever. I am scared. But I read anyway.

  ‘It was rubbish,’ I say. ‘Rambling thoughts, ill-conceived ideas about a way of living that, unsurprisingly, was based upon fundamentalist Christian philosophy. There were rudiments of plotting. Many characters who shared two basic characteristics: all unbelievable and poorly drawn. Maidens whose only distinguishing feature was their allegiance to chastity and virtue. Heroes who were diluted Christs. Villains who were flimsy variations of the Devil. How can you make the Devil flimsy? It was rubbish, pure and simple. If there was nothing else to make you pity that woman, it was the reading of her life’s work.’

  ‘Did you read it all?’

  ‘I tried. It has become a habit of mine to read every book through to its end. I work on the principle that a writer has taken considerable effort to write the words and not to follow the path he or she has laid is, in some ways, a betrayal. But mother’s book … it was unreadable. I abandoned it after five hundred pages, a quarter of the way through.’

  ‘What happened to it?’

  I raise myself up in bed. My muscles are aching and there is a tingling down my left arm. It is strange. The longer I spend in the past, the fainter becomes the pain of the present. Story as painkiller. When Carly isn’t here, all the frailties of my body clamour for attention. Now I find it easy to push the aches to one side.

  ‘I still have it,’ I reply. ‘How could I not? And not just because it would be cruel to dispose of something that was the product of so many thousands of hours of labour. In many ways, it is my mother. Passionate, unyielding in its conviction, sharp, hard and wholly lacking in subtlety. But, threaded throughout, almost undetectable at times, is a seam of love. Real love, not the transfigured, otherworldly love of the spirit, but the kind that has its source in the pulsing of blood that manifests as flushed skin.’

  My voice trails away. I see an image, a familiar image. I look through a dusty window at the blurred form of my mother bent over the kitchen table, her hand moving steadily, relentlessly across a page. Her brows are furrowed. The eyes of a child look upon her as a living mystery, a puzzle that could be solved if only one found the key. And then, suddenly, the child experiences an epiphany. It’s not, as most epiphanies are, profound, but it explodes like a star. There is a person in there, in the moving arm, the crook of the neck, the fixed stare of piercing eyes. And a mother is only a small part of that person. There are hopes, dreams and ambitions. They may be alien to the child. They are alien to the child. But for all the harshness and severity, there is someone trapped in that body. And that someone is small, alone and scared.

  It makes it easier to love. It makes it impossible not to love.

  ‘It’s time to take up my story again,’ I say.

  CHAPTER 14

  ABOUT A YEAR AFTER Pagan died, we walked to church on yet another hot, dusty Sunday.

  Mother, as always, strode with purpose, the hem of her black dress swinging in the humid air. I walked twenty metres behind with Adam. Occasionally, I glanced back. There were three sets of footprints in the dirt road, though any observer would have noticed only two people travelling through the landscape. If that observer had come closer he would have been disconcerted, possibly terrified, to see a set of footprints appear as if by magic, spreading in sequence across the earth. I worried that mother would notice. But mother never looked back. Never. It was a matter of pride with her. Her eyes were always fixed on her destination, be it literal or metaphorical. And she didn’t appear to notice when we returned a few hours later. Sometimes a breeze would obscure the prints or other travellers would disturb the trail. Even so, I tried to make Adam walk on the edge of the track where his footprints were less likely to appear. But he always returned to my side after a few minutes. He just forgot.

  When we arrived in town I knew something was different, though nothing appeared out of the ordinary. I understood that was an advantage of routine. When it was broken, however subtly, it screamed for attention. I gazed at the usual groups of worshippers making their way to church. They seemed as normal, but I sensed small changes in the way they held themselves slightly more erect, the way their steps seemed almost imperceptibly more determined. And when I noticed that, I noticed also a change in mother’s bearing. She was more charged than normal.

  Something was going to happen.

  I understood when we approached the church. I had sent Adam away as I always did when other people were around. I was keen to lessen the chances of his detection. He would wait outside the church until the service had finished. Afterwards, mother would talk to some of the congregation before we started the long walk home. Only when we became lone travellers once again on the dusty track would he fall in step beside me.

  So mother and I walked into the church alone.

  A new pastor stood at the entrance, greeting his flock as they filed in.

  This was inconceivable. Nothing changed in town. Nothing. There were deaths, of course. And births. And very occasionally, someone would move away for reasons I never understood. Only later did I see this as the inevitable ebb of people from the country to the city, from poverty to the promise of riches, from dull routine to the illusion of excitement.

  A new pastor.

  The old one had been a hook-nosed person of advanced years. He reminded me of a crow in his sleek black robes and his sharp predatory eyes. Solemnity was a word that might have been coined for him. He rarely smiled, as if pleasure in the world was something of suspicious provenance, that a smile might lead to a laugh and a laugh to … God knows what. It was better not to take the risk. His sermons were like him. Dark, humourless and solid.

  The new pastor was much younger, about my mother’s age. He had a small moustache and neat hair. He was good-looking. Even at that age, I knew it. And he was smiling as we stepped closer. My blood tingled with the excitement of the new, the unpredictable.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said, extending his hand towards my mother. ‘It is lovely to see you here.’

  ‘Thank you, Pastor,’ said my mother, shaking his hand. She smiled in turn. ‘Welcome to your new church.’

  ‘And who is this?’ he said, crouching down so his eyes were on a level with mine. ‘How are you, young lady?’ His smile broadened. His teeth were very white.

  I didn’t know what to say. The old pastor had never spoken to me in all the years I had attended his church. He paid no attention to the young. They were below the level of his gaze and he was content for them to stay there. And now this new man not only acknowledged my existence, but expected communication. My tongue froze to the roof of my mouth. I nodded. And then I blushed. If he thought this an inadequate response to his question he didn’t show it. He touched my shoulder with a slender finger and continued to smile. I was hypnotised by his expanse of teeth.

  ‘Well, I am delighted you are here today. My name is Michael Bauer, but please call me Michael.’

  ‘Thank you, Pastor Bauer,’ said mot
her. She introduced both of us and we slipped into the cool darkness of the church. Others were queuing behind us, waiting their turn to be greeted. I liked him. I liked that he’d talked to me. The church seemed brighter somehow. And warmer, as if it had absorbed something of his smile.

  Mother did not share my view. That was apparent in the way she sat in our usual pew, the way her head bent in prayer, the way her hands clenched each other. She radiated disapproval. We sat in a cloud of cold distaste.

  Most of the service was as normal. We sang. We prayed.

  But the sermon was different. Very different.

  Pastor Bauer stepped to the pulpit, which had been stripped of the gold paraphernalia we were accustomed to. The huge gilt lectern that carried the Bible had been in the form of a massive bird – an eagle, I’d always supposed – and I had quite liked it. On drowsy Sundays I’d occasionally imagined it taking flight, with me on its back hanging on to feathers for grim death as it swooped over strange lands. Now it was gone. In its place was a plain wooden block. Other furnishings had disappeared too. Nothing sparkled. It was almost as though some of the spirit had left the place. But, strangely, I liked the new arrangement. It seemed homely. I breathed easier.

  The pastor gazed at the congregation for a few moments. His smile was permanent. A few people coughed. Somewhere at the back a baby cried and then stilled.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘As you will have noticed, I’ve made a few changes to the interior of our church. Now, no one could call me a professional decorator …’ He paused for a moment as if waiting for laughter, but it didn’t materialise ‘… yet it struck me that this house of God was sorely in need of a small spring clean. A little simplification. You may wonder why and, hopefully, in this, my first sermon, I will explain.’

  He did. He talked about Christ and the moneylenders. He talked about wealth as something that was of the spirit. He mentioned the Gates of Heaven, a camel and the eye of a needle. Mother, perched on the pew at my side, stiffened with every passing word. I relaxed with every passing word. I understood Pastor Bauer. He talked about love and kindness and charity and simplicity. And he spoke as if he were talking to us as individuals, in language we knew, in language we used in the world outside. His voice did not ring, as his hook-nosed predecessor’s had, with anger and violence and retribution.

  He did not mention Hell once.

  At the end of the service, he stood at the entrance offering a personal farewell to each member of the congregation. Mother strode past him. She was coiled with energy and anger. In thirty minutes I trailed her by a hundred metres. She brought up clouds of dust with each determined footstep. At least it gave me an opportunity to talk to Adam.

  ‘What’s got into the old buzzard?’ he said.

  ‘Adam,’ I hissed. ‘Don’t talk of Mamma that way.’

  We walked in silence for a few minutes.

  ‘She’s angry,’ I said.

  ‘She’s always angry.’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘It’s nearly true.’

  It was, but I said nothing. We followed her along the track. She was like a force of nature, a small dust-devil, a pocket of pent-up energy searching for release.

  Later, we prayed on the verandah for two hours. Mother muttered to God throughout.

  I caught the word ‘temptation’ a good many times. ‘Pride’ also featured prominently.

  Later, in my own bed, with Adam curled up at its foot, I puzzled over the source of Mother’s anger. I didn’t make progress, but I knew something, maybe everything, had changed.

  I didn’t know it, but my world was about to contract yet again.

  ‘So,’ says Carly. ‘She didn’t like the new guy, huh?’

  I have to wrench myself from the past. It is becoming more and more difficult to do so.

  ‘I’m sorry, Carly?’ I say. ‘I was miles away.’

  ‘I said your mum hated the new vicar, or whatever you called him.’

  I laugh. ‘Oh, no, dear. I don’t think she hated him. Quite the reverse.’

  She spreads her arms wide. It’s a “please explain” gesture. I am learning this new language of the young. It’s direct and it lacks elegance, but economy seems to be a motivating factor. I suppose it has advantages.

  ‘The new Pastor was in his thirties. He was attractive. He was approachable. He had energy, a new way of looking at things. He smiled. Can’t you work it out yourself?’

  Carly bites her lower lip again and curls one bare foot beneath her bottom. The metal stud in her eyebrow wriggles as she furrows her brow. Then it stills and her mouth forms an exaggerated O.

  ‘You are kiddin’ me!’ she says. ‘You don’t mean … no. You’re joking. Oh. My. God.’ She bursts out laughing. I find a smile on my own lips.

  ‘Look, I don’t know,’ I say. ‘Obviously, this is not something we would ever have discussed. And it’s only a theory I developed years later. But you remember I talked about repressed sexuality earlier? Well, why should mother be immune to that most fundamental of human urges? She had been a widow for nearly eight years. We didn’t have guests. The only men mother ever saw were members of the church. Married men. Farmers she conducted business with. Why shouldn’t she experience … lust?’

  Carly screams with laughter. She bends over in her chair. Her hair swings below her knees, curtains her face. Then she rises up again, her mouth a riot of colour. I laugh myself. It is impossible to resist.

  After a couple of minutes she calms down, presses a hand to her chest.

  ‘Sorry, Mrs C. No offence, but I can’t quite see this psycho, bible-bashing fruitcake getting the hots for anyone. I mean … she was horny!’

  The thought sets her off again. I should laugh more. It makes me feel young again.

  ‘Call me Leah,’ I say. ‘I think you’ve earned it.’

  I wait until we have both recovered some control.

  ‘It’s only amateur psychology,’ I continue. ‘And if mother was attracted to the new Pastor, how would she cope with that? It would run counter to everything her moral code dictated. Everything the Bible taught her. Lust? Lust was a one-way ticket to Hell. Nonnegotiable. So what could she do? Face the prospect of everlasting damnation or bury the emotion beneath a stronger, more acceptable emotion? Anger. Suitably Old Testament. So she persuaded herself that Pastor Bauer was worthy of hatred. He didn’t preach damnation. He preached salvation. He preached love. There was a danger in that. He upset her world. He had to be defeated.’

  ‘Jeez! That is seriously fu … weird, Mrs C.’

  We contemplate the state of weirdness for a minute or two before Carly glances at her watch.

  ‘Hey, Mrs C. I should get going. I didn’t realise the time.’

  ‘Leah. Remember?’

  ‘Sure. Leah.’

  She says the word, but it obviously feels strange in her mouth. She uncurls herself from the chair and turns off her machine, tucks it into her backpack.

  ‘And Carly?’ I say. She turns to me. ‘I’m sorry about what I said to you a few days ago. I was rude and nosy. You are perfectly entitled to keep your private life to yourself. It was unforgivable of me. Are we still friends?’

  She grins.

  ‘Sure, Mrs … Leah. And, anyway, I thought about what you said. About what’s important between people? And once I got past your grumpiness – again no offence – I reckoned you were right. I’d like to talk to you about the important things. If that’s, you know, okay.’

  ‘I’d be honoured.’

  She is slightly embarrassed now. She kicks at one shoe with the other.

  ‘Catch ya tomorrow, then.’

  ‘I have a gift for you,’ I say.

  ‘A gift?’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure if you’ll consider it much of a gift. It’s not valuable. In fact, you probably won’t want it all.’

  ‘Boy, you’re giving this a big build-up, Mrs C.’

  ‘There is a box on the floor of that wardrobe over there. Could yo
u get it for me, please?’

  She opens the wardrobe door and rummages around for a moment. The box must be heavier than I remember because she grunts under its weight. But she drags it out, lifts it onto the mattress next to me.

  ‘Open it,’ I say.

  She sits at my side and removes the lid. There is a silence while she examines the contents.

  ‘It’s my copy of Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens,’ I say. ‘I would really like you to have it.’

  ‘Thanks, Mrs … Leah. Cool. It’s kinda … well, buggered.’ She brings out the first page. It is leprous with water-stains. I remember when I first saw it. The creamy whiteness of the paper, the crispness of the print. It had passed from youth to age in one stormy night. Now I have caught up with it.

  ‘It has sentimental value for me,’ I say. ‘And I couldn’t bear it if it was just thrown out after I die. It would be a great kindness if you would give it a home.’

  ‘This is the book you read to Adam? When he’d take you into the world you were reading about?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The actual book. Cool.’ She turns the page over. ‘I’ll keep it always, Leah.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  She puts the page back, replaces the lid and tucks the box under an arm.

  ‘See ya tomorrow, then.’

  ‘Carly?’

  She turns.

  ‘I’m curious,’ I say. ‘Do you believe in Adam? Do you believe he was real?’

  She chews her bottom lip as she considers.

  ‘Sure,’ she says. ‘I don’t have a problem with that.’ She grins. ‘To be honest, Mrs C, the one I have difficulty believing in is your mum.’

  I watch the door for a while after she has gone.

  I skip dinner. It is fish and mashed potatoes tonight. I am not hungry and I can’t stand the texture. I remember crisp apples. The sound when my teeth pierced the skin and the gush of juice on my lips. Like almost everything else, it is in the past.

  CHAPTER 15