by Heide Goody
“We don’t want you to go back,” said Joan. “We want you to come with us to Toulon.”
“Toulon? South of France, Toulon?”
“To help us answer a prayer from someone called Simon.”
“Never heard of him,” said Em.
“That’s the problem,” said Christopher. “Neither has Heaven. I took the call, listened to him rant about death and killing and the end of the world. I spoke to the bloody feller. And then, then we discover that he doesn’t exist.”
“What?”
“No such soul,” said Christopher.
Em pushed herself out of her slouch against the side of the camper van, cracked her knuckles and opened the driver’s door.
“Sorry, kids,” she said. “Firstly, what you’re saying is gibberish. Secondly, I’ve got no desire to go to Toulon. That’s hundreds of miles from where I need to be.”
Joan climbed into the passenger seat. Francis scrambled into the back with Christopher and managed to get the door shut just before Em pulled away from the garage forecourt.
“Besides,” said Em, accelerating hard through the flat, green countryside, “Heaven’s got that unit for prayer handling.”
“The NSPAU, yes,” said Christopher. “I’ve been rotting away there for over forty years Earth-time. The Almighty says this prayer requires your personal touch.”
Em made a disagreeable retching noise.
“What? And just because the High and Mighty says jump, we have to jump?”
“Er, yes,” said Joan. “He’s God. You know, the God.”
“Shall I tell you something?”
“Please do.”
“God is a man.”
“I’m not sure we can impose a gender on the supreme —”
“He’s a man,” insisted Em, “and like all men, His head is full of dreams and ideas. Lofty thoughts and absolute rules. Black and white. Right and wrong. He’s all theory, nothing practical.”
“He is the creator of the Heavens and the Earth,” said Joan. “You can’t get more practical than that.”
“Oh, sure. He says, ‘let there be light,’ and there is light. Grand sweeping bloody gestures. Point is, He can dictate from on high but He doesn’t have to live with the reality. He is the creator of all life, but has He ever had to give birth? Or raise a child? Has He ever had to tend a fever or bury a loved one?”
“God is omniscient. He’s the gaffer,” said Christopher a little uncertainly. “He knows all, doesn’t He?”
Em shook her head viciously.
“He can sit on his sodding throne and pass His decrees. Meanwhile, I’m down here on Earth, doing good with my own hands. You ever felt that, eh? The need to actually get out there and do something?”
“All the time,” said Joan. “That’s why I’m here.”
Em threw her a split-second smile.
“And yet the Almighty still sends Zippy and Bungle with you to make sure that the little woman doesn’t mess it up,” she said wryly.
“Who are Zippy and Bungle?” said Francis, looking up.
“Christopher and Francis were not sent to watch over me,” said Joan. “I am a proudly independent woman and perfectly capable of handling everything that the world can throw at me.”
“Are you sure?” said Em as she threaded the steering wheel loosely through her hands. “Most people would say you’re about as much of a feminist icon as the Spice Girls.”
“Who?” said Christopher.
“Nobody move!” shouted Francis, arms wide and scouring about.
“What?” said Em, veering across the road in surprise.
“I’ve lost him,” said Francis and got down on his hands and knees.
“I’ve told you,” said Joan. “The wolf can look after himself.”
“Not the wolf. Weggie.”
“Wedgie?”
“Weginald.”
“The rat,” sighed Christopher. “Can’t have gone far.”
“Jeez,” said Em. “Look, you guys clearly are a crack squad on a really important mission. I will swing past Brussels Airport and you can fly to your final destination.”
“That’s not going to be possible,” said Christopher.
“Oh?”
“French air traffic controllers are on strike this week.”
“How do you know that?” said Joan.
“What’s an air twaffic contwoller?” said Francis.
“I just know,” said Christopher. “Patron saint of travel and all that. And they’re always on strike anyway.”
“Well, that’s just swell,” said Em. “Fine. I’ve got to go to Paris. That’s on your way. I’ll take you that far but no further.”
“Very kind of you,” said Joan.
“There!” shouted Francis, seeing Reggie round by Em’s feet.
He shoved forward into the front of the van, hands outstretched. Perhaps the sudden movement had been unwise. Jostled, Em swerved and tried to stamp on the brakes. Francis grabbed her foot and the pedal before either could crush the cowering rat.
Em swore loudly. Joan gripped the dashboard. Christopher apparently offered a prayer up to himself. Francis, down in the foot-well didn’t see the grassy verge, the hedge or the beet field beyond but felt every jolt and judder as the van ploughed through them.
Joan stepped out on the soft loamy soil and inspected the campervan. Much of the front was bent and buckled. One of the little round lights had exploded. The front wheels, each pointing in different directions were half buried in the mud.
“It doesn’t look too bad,” she said. “Perhaps, we could get some ropes and…”
“Too bad?” shrieked Em, slamming the driver’s door and stomping round in white-soled exercise shoes that were perhaps not well suited to a muddy Belgian field. Joan was glad that her thigh-length dominatrix boots were made of sturdier stuff. “We’ve snapped a cocking axle!” yelled Em. “And as for the bodywork…”
Francis slipped and stumbled out the side door, clutching his head. He had clearly bashed it in the final impact. Em went up to him and grabbed him by the temples.
“Not bleeding,” she said. “Can you see straight?”
Francis breathed deeply.
“Think so.”
Em tilted his head back and peered in his eyes, one at a time.
“No wooziness or vomiting?”
He shook his head.
“Good,” she said, took a step back and laid a vicious punch on his jaw that laid him out on the ground.
“What did I do?” he moaned, clutching his face.
“What did you…?” Em’s words slipped away into an inarticulate roar.
She patted her pockets aggressively for her cigarettes and, failing to find them, swore again. She looked past the campervan, at the long muddy grooves in the field and the ragged hole in the hedge.
“Right,” she declared loudly. “Travel-boy, get out here.”
Christopher stepped from the campervan.
“That town we just passed, Sint-Jan…”
“Sint-Jan-in-Eremo.”
“There was a tow truck behind that garage, wasn’t there?”
“Bruggeman Sleepdiensten.”
“Right. You and me. It can’t be more than a four mile walk,” she said and began to make her way back to the road.
“And what should we do?” asked Joan.
“Think for yourself, woman,” shouted Em without looking back. And then she stopped and turned briefly. “It’s going to be night soon. We need accommodation, unless you want us to camp out in this bloody field. Mr Invisible! This way!”
Joan watched them go and then went to help Francis up.
“She hurt me,” said Francis. “Weally hurt me.”
“I think she considers us a burden,” said Joan.
Reggie scrabbled up Francis’ leg and inside his habit.
“Us?” he said.
“Let’s do our best to help out. Maybe we can find rooms at that place over there,” she said, looking at a sq
uare brick-built house further up the road. “Or at least get some directions to the nearest inn.”
The square house, it transpired, was a farmhouse. Beneath a carved pig’s head, were the words, ‘De Wilde Zwijnen - Kosthuis.’ Francis knocked at the front door but there was no response and so the two saints, one in leather bondage gear, the other in a mud-spattered habit, went round the back of the building to where a low wire fence separated the house from an array of animal pens and the fields beyond.
The woman scooping food into a rabbit cage looked up at them, not with surprise but with great interest.
“I imagine you have quite a story to tell,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” said Joan. “We tried knocking. Our vehicle has broken down and we’re looking for rooms to rent.”
The woman tossed the scoop into a bucket and called out to the man tending to some larger animals.
“Hey, Martijn! Visitors!”
The man waved and began to make his way up towards them. The woman wiped her hands on her apron and shook hands with the pair of saints across the wire fence.
“Ida Couckuyt. Let me guess,” she said, looking them up and down. “You’ve come from Amsterdam. Had a crazy time of it too, I should think.”
“How did you know?” said Francis.
“Spooky, huh? Martijn, this is…”
“Joan,” said Joan. “This is Francis.”
Martijn gave them a wave of greeting. Like the woman – who Francis guessed was his wife or maybe sister – he was dressed in a shabby jumper and jeans. Both had lined faces and ruddy cheeks, offset by intelligent eyes and an almost constant smile.
“They want rooms,” said Ida.
“And a bit of a warm up and some food,” added Martijn. “And some fresh clothes for the lady?”
“But these are new.”
“I’m sure we can find you something a little more… comfortable.”
The woman stepped over the little fence and led them through the side door into a large, clean kitchen.
“Martijn, take Joan through to the good room, get them checked in and then let her have her pick of the women’s clothes upstairs. Francis, put yourself down there. Tea?”
“Thank you,” said Francis, grateful for a simple seat in a warm house.
As Joan and the man left the room, the woman Ida filled a kettle from a tap and placed in on the top of the wide cooking range. At the flick of a button a ring of blue flame appeared beneath the kettle.
“Do you mind me asking,” she said. “Are you really a man of the cloth or is this some sort of fancy dress thing?”
“I am a lesser bwother of the church.”
“But you travel with…?”
“Joan is also of the faith.”
“Really?”
Ida opened a tall cupboard that was some form of ingenious ice-box and inspected the plastic tubs within. All were marked with names. Laila, Hans, Yasmine, Henri.
“Would sausages for dinner be acceptable?” asked Ida, taking down a box marked ‘Arnaud’.
“We ate hotdog sausages in the last town,” said Francis.
“At old Bruggeman’s place? Then you’ve already tried our produce. We supply meat products to a lot of the local places.”
“You keep animals for food?” said Francis, attempting to keep any note of condemnation out of his voice.
“That too,” said Ida. “Do you like animals?”
Francis smiled.
“I love animals.”
Ida smiled.
“Then tea and sausages can wait. I’ll give you the tour of the menagerie.”
Martijn sat Joan down on a lumpy settee covered with a crocheted throw and took a sheaf of printed forms and a pencil from a sideboard.
He licked the pencil and smiled.
“So. Name?”
“Joan.”
“Surname?”
“D’Arc.”
“Joan Dark. And where are you from?”
“Domrémy. In Lorraine.”
“France. You live there with your family?”
“Er, no. I don’t have any family. Not alive I mean.”
“No parents?” said Martijn.
“No. They died a long… long time ago.”
“So no one knows that you and Francis are out this way?”
Joan shrugged.
“Heaven knows.”
Martijn smiled at that and made a note on the form.
Martijn produced a device from the side of his seat and held it up in front of his face. There was a click, a temporarily blinding flash and a shiny square of card rolled out of the base of the device.
“Right,” he smiled brightly. “I’m sure that will be lovely. Now, health. Do you drink?”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
“Alcohol.”
“Oh. Only communion wine.”
“Smoke?”
Joan shook her head. She could honestly say she had only smoked once and that was when they burned her at the stake.
“I have to ask,” said Martijn, “do you use drugs?”
“My body is a temple,” said Joan.
“Glad to hear it. No history of STIs.”
“STIs?” said Joan.
“I’ll put that as a no. Any incidence of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease in your family?”
“Do you ask all your guests this many questions?” she said, curious despite not wishing to appear naïve and unworldly.
“Nearly done,” Martijn said cheerily. “Do you know your Body Mass Index?”
“Does it?” she said.
“So, what’s in Paris?”
“Sorry?”
Christopher gazed at the road ahead. It might be only four miles back to the garage but on a road so straight and featureless – field, field, wooden post, field – boredom had settled on him very quickly. Belgium, he guessed, was one of those places that the Almighty had created as an afterthought to fill a hole in the map.
“You said you had to go to Paris,” he said. “Or did I mishear?”
“I have friends in Paris,” said Em.
“Oh, right. Who?”
“Well, not friends as such. Contacts.”
Christopher shrugged.
“What does that mean?”
“You wouldn’t understand.” Em patted herself down for cigarettes for the tenth time in as many minutes. “I’m something of a player in the anti-capitalist movement.”
“You’re right. I don’t understand. You’re against capitalism?”
“Yes.”
“The idea of… capital.”
“If you wish.”
“So people shouldn’t own stuff.”
“Exactly.”
Christopher considered this.
“So… if you had your way, these wouldn’t be my sandals?”
“I think you can have your own sandals.”
“This tunic?”
Em grimaced and sped up a little. Christopher had no problems keeping pace with her.
“It’s not about the little things,” said Em. “It’s about the big things.”
“Like houses?”
“Perhaps.”
“So, my house shouldn’t belong to me?”
“No.”
“Who should it belong to?”
“Everyone.”
“But it’s not a big house. I don’t think there’d be room for everyone.”
“You’re missing the point,” she said.
“I hope so.”
“It’s about entitlement. It’s about breaking down the plutocratic oligarchies.”
“Ah…” said Christopher, none the wiser.
“For example, have you heard of Anonymous?” said Em.
“Heard of him,” said Christopher. “Never met him. But I know he’s written lots of stuff.”
For the next two miles, Christopher was subjected to a lecture on Anonymous, the anti-capitalist movement and the reasons why a thing called ‘globalisation’ was bad. Apparently, globalisation was
something that people did naturally, but Christopher got the distinct impression that Em regarded it as the fault of men generally and the Almighty in particular. Christopher listened patiently. It wasn’t interesting but, as far as boring stuff went, it was better than just staring at Belgium.
By the time they arrived back at the garage, Christopher was convinced he’d be an ideal recruit for Anonymous and told Em as much.
“Why?” she said.
“I’m invisible,” he said. “I’d be ideal for all that ‘anti-establishment’ stuff. Below the radar. Off the grid. Whatever that means.”
“It’s closed,” said Em.
“Have they got too many members already?”
“Not Anonymous, you fool. The garage.”
She was right. The shop door was shut. The lights were off. Even in the evening gloom, Christopher could see the tow truck had gone. Christopher followed Em as she strolled over to a pair of cars at the edge of the forecourt.
“Anyone can join the fight against the dicks and dictators,” said Em. “Whether it’s part of an organisation or alone. Just get out there and stand up for the rights of the common people. Stand up for freedom of information, for the freedom to be who we want to be, for the freedom to choose our own destinies.”
Em peered into the windows of the first car. It was a dusty old saloon. Christopher knew, without knowing how he knew, that despite its appalling fuel consumption, the car was a relatively sound vehicle.
“Freedom of information?” he asked.
“Sure. Knowledge is power,” she said, moving on to look at the second car, a Volvo estate with a leaky carburettor and a dodgy gearbox. “If we are to have equality for all people then everyone is entitled to know everything.”
“Everything? What, even like my own personal secrets?”
“Well, no. The individual’s right to privacy and personal security is very important,” said Em and, gathering her coat sleeve up around her fist, punched in the Volvo’s passenger window.
“What are you doing?” said Christopher, astonished.
“We need a ride. Our need is greater.”
“Yes, but…”
“But what?” said Em, giving him a challenging glare. “Still clinging to notions of property and privilege?”
“Yes, but, I mean… I could have done that.” Christopher clicked his fingers and the door locks all sprung open. “Patron saint of cars, me.”
