It was clear to Matilda that she was going around in circles. All she wanted to know was whether she was in danger of blaspheming the Holy Spirit by uttering these thoughts. It was a simple question and you would think there would be one qualified to answer it. And as for clarification, it was clear that the leadership at church did not think in unison with regards to her blasphemous thoughts: one of the three thought she was an attention-seeker; a second thought she was ill and the third was undecided. And none of them could tell her whether what was happening to her was a consequence of the prophecies Betty had given.
So, for the time being, she continued to listen to her prophecies, even though she was tempted to tell Betty Boulder they turned out to be false, that Satan had run off with both her marbles and her salvation. She remembered with embarrassment all those fighting words she had hoyed in Satan’s direction. Could it be that he was extracting his pound of flesh in revenge?
18
Several weeks passed.
There were no new developments. Matilda still felt anxious and frightened. The filth still pulsed through her mind at an alarming rate and still she doubted whether God could have forgiven her for uttering some of it.
She was now writing in her Promise Book every day, words that might have been confused with sentimentality but which in fact meant a great deal to her. As long as she got a Word a day she was satisfied and could be seen leaning on the work surfaces in the kitchen scribbling in a journalist’s notepad.
Stuart passed and asked, ‘What’s that you’re doing?’
‘It’s my mood notebook,’ she lied.
He paused to take out a plastic bottle of cider from the fridge.
‘What’s that, then, a mood notebook?’ he asked.
‘It’s when you record your daily mood.’
‘I didn’t know you were being treated for depression,’ he said as he took a slug from the bottle. He belched and replaced the top.
Somehow, it went awry. Before she knew it, there was whole screeds of the stuff, whole notebooks of it, as Matilda became addicted to writing down Words from God. It was as if God were trying desperately to communicate with her through the fogs of alcohol and psychosis, promising her this, that and the other – freedom from the fear of eternal death or new clothes of righteousness.
Matilda visited her friends Johnny and Janis at their city centre flat. They were moved by her plight and offered to pray for her, though she refused to let anyone lay hands on her, ‘In case the Other Spirit takes up residence in me,’ as she said to Janis.
‘Right, well,’ Janis said blithely and returned to chopping the onions.
‘I didn’t mean to imply you had a spirit contrary to the Holy Spirit,’ Matilda said quickly, now aware of her gaffe. ‘It’s just that I’m demonised and I got that way by having the Holy Spirit prayed into me.’
‘But the Holy Spirit won’t harm you,’ Johnny said.
‘The Holy Spirit means me harm,’ Matilda said.
‘We’ll pray for you tonight when we say our prayers, then,’ Janis said as she tipped the onions into the frying pan.
‘It’s not as if I purposely want to diss the Holy Spirit,’ Matilda explained, ‘it’s just that I can’t trust him.’
The onions sizzled.
‘Why not?’ Janis asked as she stirred.
‘The Holy Spirit and demonic spirit are both attacking me, each for a different reason,’ Matilda said. ‘The Holy Spirit because I’ve grieved him and the demonic spirit because he’s jealous of me.’
‘Hmmn,’ mused Janis, ‘a touch of schizophrenia.’
‘I keep praying that I won’t think of myself a schizophrenic,’ said Matilda later, over a supper of sausage and bean casserole. ‘Excuses are so invidious.’
‘Have you seen a doctor?’ Johnny asked. ‘About these attacks, I mean?’
‘I saw my GP a couple of weeks ago and he referred me to a psychiatrist.’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘Only that I hate thoughts and I want to be rid of them.’
‘And what does he think?’
‘He thinks it’s a case of isolation-engendered depression,’ Matilda said, her mouth full of sausage and bean. ‘You know, the kind of mental disturbance you get when you’ve been in solitary too long. You could say church isn’t that friendly.’
‘I’ll speak to my brother-in-law,’ Janis said, ‘and see what he recommends. He might know of someone who could help.’
Janis’ brother-in-law was the pastor of a small Evangelical church in Switzerland. He had been to university and Bible college in the UK.
‘I’d be very grateful if you could,’ Matilda dead-panned. ‘These thoughts are driving me nuts.’
‘Even though you believe the Holy Spirit is trying to harm you?’ Johnny said.
Matilda went home to pack her few belongings into cardboard boxes and black plastic refuse sacks. She was moving into Avril’s old studio flat in another part of town in a few days’ time. Avril’s room already had a bookcase, so she was planning to leave behind her wonky DIY shelves and table.
Janis’ enquiries yielded fruit. Her brother-in-law recommended someone called Christopher Purcell, who he had gone to Bible college with, someone who would be able to tell Matilda whether her affliction was a mental illness or a demonic possession. Janis got a hold of Christopher’s phone number to scout out the territory. Janis gave him a precis of the problem and asked him if he would see Matilda.
Christopher was only too happy to agree. He lived in Manchester, an hour’s journey by train, so one day in August, Matilda walked to the train station and caught the train to Manchester. She was met at the station by Christopher’s wife Kathleen and their adult daughter. They lived on one of the larger council estates in the city and drove Matilda there in their ancient Ford Fiesta.
Matilda outlined the problem over coffee in the kitchen: the Surround-Sound™ anxiety, the constant fear of blaspheming the Holy Spirit and the endless blasphemous thoughts. Then they went upstairs to the living room. Christopher asked her if she still prayed.
‘All the time,’ Matilda replied, ‘including up to the time I got on the train this morning.’
‘There’s no indication you have a severed relationship with God,’ Christopher said after careful probing, ‘so I doubt you have blasphemed the Holy Spirit.’
It was a relief to know, after weeks and weeks of constant dripping. After asking her a few questions, he put it to her gently, ‘How do you feel about schizophrenia?’
‘I wouldn’t like that at all,’ she replied. ‘Real Christians don’t get schizophrenia.’
‘They get cancer, AIDS and depression, so why not schizophrenia?’
Matilda got to the root of the problem: ‘If I think of myself a schizophrenic, I think I’m only making excuses for my behaviour.’
‘But you’re not actively pursuing these thoughts, are you?’ Christopher pointed out. ‘You’re not saying, “Let’s see how far we can take these thoughts,” are you?’
‘Sometimes it feels as if I am.’
‘Put it another way, do you want these thoughts?’
‘Of course not,’ Matilda said.
‘Would you like them to go?’
‘More than anything,’ Matilda said.
‘So you’re not actually pursuing these thoughts, even if it sometimes feels as if you are,’ Christopher said.
The interview lasted only an hour and Kathleen dropped her off in the city centre, just outside Chinatown. It was the afternoon and Matilda was hungry, so she walked around until she found a Japanese restaurant and went in.
Now that she had fed the soul, it was time to feed the belly.
19
When one day Alwyn announced that he was shortly to leave City Mission to take up the position o
f senior pastor at a sister church in Sussex, Matilda was gutted. Alwyn sought her out at the end of the service and said, ‘I don’t want you to think you’re being left alone in this. I’ve mentioned your details to a woman called Chrissie. She’s a Christian counsellor. Here’s her number. She’s expecting your call.’
Chrissie was short and barrel-shaped. She worked out of the church office of St Nick’s. She offered Matilda a strong coffee and said, ‘Alwyn’s talked to me a little about your problems. How can I help?’
‘I don’t know if you can,’ Matilda replied as she helped herself to a hobnob on Chrissie’s desk. ‘Satan’s trying to force me to commit the Unforgivable Sin. I’m trying not to, of course, but unless the Lord helps me, it’s only a matter of time.’
‘I’m going to have my work cut out with you,’ Chrissie said, rolling her eyes.
Matilda went to see Chrissie for ten or twelve weeks until it became apparent that her problems went beyond Chrissie’s ability to help. Matilda was always begging for a Word. She had hit upon a novel way of divining whether she was still in favour with the Almighty by the issuing of Words. As long as the Words came, it was proof that she hadn’t blasphemed the Holy Spirit and was thus still saved.
‘But I gave you a Word last week,’ Chrissie would gasp.
‘I need a new Word for today. Last week’s Word is no good.’
Chrissie would clear her mind of clutter and pray for another Word: ‘My grace is sufficient for you.’
‘You gave me that a fortnight ago.’
‘I’m sorry, it’s the only Word I got.’
‘Can’t you ask God for a new one, then?’
‘God obviously wants you to go on your old Words.’
20
That Wednesday, Matilda went to see her psychiatrist for the first time. It was the Senior House Officer, Dr Brick, who had helped dismiss her from the hospital with the diagnosis “no mental illness”.
‘It’s the blasphemous thoughts I can’t stand,’ she told him as she sat in the consulting room. ‘They don’t give me any rest from morning till night. They’re constant.’
‘And what are they telling you?’ Dr Brick asked.
‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you that,’ said Matilda. ‘It would be the Unforgivable Sin for me to repeat what they’re telling me.’
‘I don’t see how,’ said Dr Brick sourly. ‘Committing a murder and reporting it are two different things entirely. If you don’t tell me, I can’t help you.’
Briefly, Matilda considered her options: she could either tell Dr Brick or not. She would just have to take his word for it that murder and its reporting were two different things. She hoped God would be able to forgive her and said, with some reluctance, ‘They tell me that Jesus and the Holy Spirit is Satanic and that Satan is my lord and saviour.’
Dr Brick wrote this down.
‘And they’re constant, you say?’ he asked.
‘All the time, from the moment I wake until the moment I go to sleep. Sometimes I dream I’m praising Satan, too.’
Dr Brick looked her squarely in the eye.
‘And how’s the drinking?’ he asked.
Now for the first big whopper: ‘Only a can or two in the evening, to take the edge off my anxiety.’
‘How many exactly?’ he asked.
‘One, sometimes two. Never more than that. There are nights I don’t drink,’ Matilda lied. Pinocchio, she thought. She swore she saw her nose grow another inch in length. If you were having the kind of thoughts I’m having, she thought, you’d drink like a fish, too.
The consultation came to an end and Matilda shuffled out of the hospital grounds. All around her, the trees and shrubs were in bloom and delicate birdsong filled the air but she scarcely noticed them, consumed as she was by her own suffering.
21
It was about this time that Matilda met Mary.
Mary was a newcomer to City Mission, a widow who had recently moved into the area and who was looking for a church to join. They started meeting for lunch in the church café. Mary didn’t seek to lecture Matilda when she told her about the voices.
‘So you’re hearing voices as well?’ Mary asked one lunchtime as Matilda munched on a large bacon baguette.
‘I daren’t tell my psychiatrist.’
‘Why not? The more you tell him, the more he’ll be able to help you.’
‘I’m frightened he’ll lock me up and throw the key away.’
It was Mary who suggested Matilda’s ailment might be a cross between a mental illness and a demonic oppression. The idea of a demonic oppression made Matilda feel uncomfortable. As things stood, she had already been through two or three rather rowdy exorcisms at the hands of enthusiastic Christians. When Mary mentioned the words “demonic oppression”, Matilda said, ‘Surely not.’
‘Don’t you think so?’ mused Mary. ‘Oh well, I’m sure you’d know yourself.’
Mary would pray for her and give her Words. Mary gave good Words, including the Word, “I will be your harbour in the storm”.
Mary was a godsend. Matilda could ask her things like, ‘Do you think I’m making excuses for myself if I think of myself as ill?’
‘Why should you be?’ said Mary, stirring her tea. ‘There’s obviously some kind of mental disturbance.’
‘It’s just that when I was seeking the Lord, I got the impression that to think so was – well – making excuses for myself.’
‘Why would it be an excuse?’ asked Mary.
‘I don’t know, I just thought that to think of myself as mentally ill would be making excuses for my behaviour, in case these thoughts were coming from me instead of Satan.’
It was Mary who offered to look after her when the thoughts became too much, at the back end of October. Mary had a holiday booked in November – to Italy – but said she could take Matilda for the last two weeks in October.
Mary collected her from work and they drove to Matilda’s new one-roomed flat so that she could pack her Bible and a few clothes. Mary then drove Matilda to her large Victorian terraced house in the south side of the city. When they got out the car and Matilda saw Mary’s house, she was enchanted.
‘Would you like some coffee?’ Mary asked when they got in.
‘Please,’ said Matilda.
Mary went off to make two mugs of decaffeinated coffee. Matilda took her mug and went into the rear yard to smoke a couple of cigarettes and, afterwards, she watched the late evening news on Mary’s television in the living room where a gas fire blazed.
‘I don’t tend to watch telly,’ said Matilda in the middle of the transmission.
‘Why not?’ asked Mary.
‘It interferes with my thinking. I don’t like it.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Mary.
‘Yes. And Satan’s planted a thought-transmitter in the base of my skull.’
‘Have you told this to your psychiatrist?’
‘There doesn’t seem much point, really,’ said Matilda.
After the news, Mary showed Matilda to her bedroom. It was a double bedroom overlooking the rear yard, and was dominated by a large wooden bed, already made up. Matilda put her sports bag on the bed, unzipped it, took out her pyjamas and wash bag and undressed. She put on her pyjamas and went to brush her teeth. When she came back, she switched the bedside lamp on, got into bed and read her Bible until midnight, when she switched the lamp off and went to sleep.
The fortnight at Mary’s was a time of relief. Not only did she enjoy a clean and comfortable bed, hot meals and companionship but she also had access to Mary’s late husband’s library, a treasure trove on all subjects Christian. While rummaging on the shelves, Matilda came across an illustrated book on Biblical archaeology which counterbalanced her readings of the Old Testament. She would get up at about ten or eleven,
make herself coffee, go out into the rear yard to smoke and drink her coffee, eat her breakfast, then amuse herself by reading in her room, usually the book on Biblical archaeology. Then she would help Mary make lunch, which they always ate in the dining room, and then Matilda went to change for work.
Mary was taken back by the severity of the thoughts. She rang Paul and he agreed to see them the following Thursday lunchtime before Matilda went to work. They went along and Mary invited Nan, the church cleaner, along with them as Nan had been praying for Matilda ever since the onset of her affliction. Together, Mary and Nan and Paul started the meeting with an obligatory prayer and Matilda burst into tears. Paul asked for the leading of the Holy Spirit and Nan announced, ‘Satan’s trying to drive you mad.’
‘That’s interesting,’ said Paul, turning to Matilda. ‘You’re already exhibiting some of the symptoms of schizophrenia.’
‘Satan’s having a field day with you,’ said Nan.
Matilda wondered how well Nan would cope if their situations were reversed and it was Nan who was getting the blasphemous thoughts.
‘I had a picture of you while we were praying,’ said Mary then. ‘I saw a pair of hands with feminine nails clinging onto your back and I felt they were demonic.’
Matilda squirmed at the mention of the word “demonic”. Ever since her exorcism by Alwyn, she didn’t think her problem was demonic and said so.
‘A demonic oppression, perhaps,’ said Mary.
After the meeting, they went off and had lunch at BHS, Nan tagging along with them. Matilda started telling Mary about her latest paranoid delusions about God and the devil being in league against her, each for his own reasons.
‘You seem very paranoid,’ Mary said. ‘Are you telling all this to your psychiatrist?’
Kingdom Come Page 7
