There was a puddle of water on the pavement.  Unless it was actually some poor kid’s blood.  You couldn’t tell, in the dark.  You’re not on Butcher’s Corner anymore, Natalie told herself, but somehow that didn’t make much difference.

She walked past it, her teeth tightly clenched to keep them from chattering.  They were in a grid made up of long, dark roads, and any minute, something could appear at the other end.

There was a roar in the sky, overhead.  “It’s just an aeroplane!” Natalie yelled, more for her own benefit than for Steph’s.  Her chest kept tightening and tightening, like she was an elastic band being twisted in smaller and smaller loops.  The hadn’t passed the church yet.  She’d been so sure that this was the right way, and they hadn’t even passed the church.  Should they turn back?  But what if that was exactly what Mr Miacca wanted?  What if he was lying in wait, three or four streets behind them?

They got to the corner, and Natalie saw…  She thought she saw…  There might have been something she recognised, just across the road and to the left, but it was too dark to even see what it was.  Natalie wasn’t about to hang around squinting at it, though, so she just crossed the road and headed towards it.  Maybe they’d be lucky.

There were no people around here.  There weren’t even any cars on the road.  All Natalie could hear was the wind rustling through the leaves.

On the other side of the road, there was a fence that looked exactly like a cage, all metal squares from the ground to three metres in the air.  The kind of cage you’d need to keep in a monster.  All Natalie could see through the fence was a blotchy concrete floor.  There was a small building in the distance, but close by, nothing at all.

“My legs hurt,” said Steph.

“Mm,” said Natalie, keeping her eye on the fence.

“Why do we have to walk home?”

“I told you.  Mum had to stay late at work.”  They should have listened to Andrea.  They should have stayed where they were.  At least then they wouldn’t be lost.

“But why couldn’t we…”

“Wait!”  Natalie stopped walking.  For the first time since they’d started out, she stood perfectly still, because she had to get a good look at what she’d just seen up ahead.

The big yellow sign saying M&Ms.  The little pink and white notices in the window.  It was closed now, but it was definitely the sweet shop round the back of their school, the one where Natalie and Steph bought Skittles every Friday afternoon.  And the school was closer to their house than the Girls’ Brigade church was, so this proved it.  They were going the right way.

“Look, Steph!” said Natalie, pointing across the road with her free hand.

Stephanie looked over, and nodded.  “The sweet shop,” she said, cheerful but not impressed.

For a moment, Natalie thought about going down the next street and actually going into the school.  Maybe one of their teachers was working late, and maybe they’d give them a lift home.  But then she got a proper look at the next street, and changed her mind.  Too dark, and who said Mr Miacca wouldn’t live near a school?  It would be the one place where he’d be guaranteed to catch kids away from their homes and their parents.  Besides, Natalie had been to school plays and parents’ evening at her school and Andrea’s, and they were both creepy at night.  Eerie lights glowing from the windows; weird noises echoing from the other side of the building; dark, empty classrooms with the chairs stacked up on the tables.  Natalie didn’t want to go there if she could help it.

Natalie led Steph on, looking from one side of the street to the other and trying to remember exactly what she saw through the car window in the morning, when Mum drove them to school.  Her chest had loosened up a lot now that she knew more-or-less where they were, but she knew she couldn’t relax completely.  They weren’t home yet, and Mr Miacca was still out there somewhere.

She did recognise this street, but not for any good reason.  It was the one where most of the houses had furniture piled up in the front drives.  Years ago, in Year One or something. Natalie and her friend Paul had wandered close to one of those front drives to get a better look at a rusty old swing-seat, and a witchy old woman had popped out of the front porch, yelling, “This is private property!  Keep off!”  She didn’t want that happening again.  Besides, all that furniture would probably be perfect for Mr Miacca to hide behind.  Natalie walked a little faster.

Natalie looked at the houses as she passed them, trying to see if she could remember which one was the old lady’s.  Instead, she remembered something else.  The reason she’d been with her friend Paul that day was that Paul lived nearby.  On the next street, if she was remembering right.  And maybe if they found his house and knocked at the door…

OK, Paul’s mum and dad didn’t have a car, so they couldn’t give Natalie and Steph a lift home.  But they could invite them in, and phone Mum at work so that she could come and pick them up from there.  And that way, Natalie and Steph would get to spend the rest of the evening playing with Paul and his brother instead of trying to escape from Mr Miacca.

They crossed the road and, thank God, Natalie could see Paul’s house from here.  “Let’s go and see if Paul is in,” she told Stephanie, and practically ran to the door.

Paul’s house was painted white, and the door was blue.  The front garden was small and neat and didn’t have any furniture in it.  Natalie went up to the front door and knocked, thinking about what they could do once they were in there.  Paul had a Playmobil pirate ship and a Batman game on his computer.  He had a whole bunch of books that Natalie had never read.  He had…

Natalie looked at the windows, and realised that none of the lights were on.

She knocked on the door, and didn’t hear anything.  No voices, no footsteps rushing down the stairs.  There was no-one in the house.

They’re gone.  Mr Miacca’s taken them.  But Natalie knew, even as she thought it, that it wasn’t true.  Paul and his family had just gone out to dinner or something.  They were miles away, and they had no idea that Natalie and Steph desperately wanted to come in.  They had no idea that Natalie was staring at the front door, trying not to cry.

Natalie swallowed, and looked at Steph.  “Nobody’s home,” she said, trying to sound cheerful, “Come on.”  And they walked onwards.

(To be continued)

The worst part- the worst part of the first few minutes, anyway- was when they came to the corner of the street they were on.  Mr Miacca had taken the boy in the story from the corner of his street.  As soon as they stepped away from the corner and crossed the road, they’d be in Mr Miacca’s territory.  This was their last chance to turn back and wait for Andrea like she’d told them to.

It wouldn’t be so bad… began a nervous voice in Natalie’s head, before she blocked it out, took hold of Stephanie’s hand, and led her across the road.  You couldn’t hesitate.  If they just strode forward and acted like they owned the place, they might just get away with what they were doing.

They made it to the other side, and kept on walking.  What they needed to do, Natalie decided, was go back the way they’d come and get back to the church.  They could find their way home from there a whole lot easier than they could from a dark, unfamiliar street where someone might jump out at them at any moment.  If they were really lucky, someone might still be there- the Captain or the Lieutenant, maybe, putting the chairs up and locking the equipment cupboard- and maybe that someone would be able to call their mum at work, so they wouldn’t have to walk through Mr Miacca’s territory after dark.  Maybe.  But they had to find it first.

Across the road, there was a thin fence that looked as if it was made out of cardboard, and on the fence, there were words written in white paint.  KEEP OUT.  KEEP OUT.  DANGER.  But what kind of danger?  What was behind that fence that you needed to keep away from?  And how was a fence as flimsy as that going to keep it from escaping?  Natalie moved as far as she could away from the road.  If it escaped, there were bushes they could duck behind.  There were trees they could climb.  They’d be able to get away from it.

“Why isn’t Andrea coming with us?” asked Steph.  She didn’t even sound worried.  This was just a new, interesting thing that had happened in her day.

“Because she wants to watch a film with her friends,” said Natalie, trying to keep her voice level.  Part of her wanted Stephanie to be more alert, to be on the lookout for Mr Miacca so he wouldn’t get her, but in another way, it was good to hear her sounding calm and happy.  As if Natalie needed reminding that people could still be calm and happy.  It was easy to forget, at the moment.

“Oh.”  Steph went quiet, apparently satisfied.  Natalie squeezed her hand, to make sure she was still holding it.  Her own hand had gone numb.

They walked on, quick enough to look confident, but slow enough to keep a proper eye on their surroundings.  Natalie kept looking back at the fence with the writing on it.  It still hadn’t escaped, whatever it was, but she wished they didn’t have their backs to it.  Maybe it was the kind of thing that could sneak up behind you.

Stephanie had a thought.  “Maybe…  Maybe we’ll get home, and Andrea will already be there!”  She smiled in sheer wonder.

“Mm.  Maybe.”  It was too dark here.  The sun was all the way down now, and there were too many trees on this road, blocking out the moon and the stars and anything else that might have given off light.  It made Natalie think of another book she’d read, about a girl who met an evil green troll in the middle of the forest.  Those trees could hide anything.

But then, those trees could also hide Natalie and Steph, if they needed them to.  They’d make it easier for Mr Miacca to sneak up on them, but if they saw him coming first, then the trees could help them.

In fact, now that she thought about it, the safest thing of all might be for her and Steph to climb to the top of one of them and stay there until their Mum came looking for them.  As far as she knew, Mr Miacca couldn’t climb trees.  For a moment, Natalie looked at the trunk of the nearest tree, considering it, but then she heard a noise from one of the nearby houses and hurried on.  It was too risky.  What if they were in the middle of climbing it when Mr Miacca came along?  He’d be able to pick them off the side like they were leaves.

Now that Natalie came to think of it, there were a lot of noises coming from the nearby houses.  Raised voices, from this one, like a mum and dad arguing, or telling their kids off.  It echoed out into the street, as if Natalie and Steph were being told off, too.  For not being good and waiting for their big sister like she’d told them to, even if it meant that Mr Miacca would come and get them.

Natalie saw a street sign, and wished she hadn’t.  “Butcher’s Corner.”  A butcher was just a shop on the high street that sold bacon and lamb chops, but butchering was what Mr Miacca and his wife did to the children he brought home.  That was exactly the kind of name that Mr Miacca’s street would have.

They had to get out of here.  And no sooner had Natalie thought that, than she saw a fork in the road, just up ahead.

Now, which way had they come?  Which way had they come?

Natalie felt like crying.  There was one road that went forward, and another one that went right, and she couldn’t remember which one took them back to Girls’ Brigade.  It was coming closer and closer as they walked, and she still couldn’t remember.  And she couldn’t stop to work it out.  She couldn’t hesitate for a second, or Mr Miacca would seize his chance and…

They crossed the road, and went right.

It looked familiar.  Bits of it, anyway.  Natalie went on, gripping Stephanie’s hand in hers, and left Butcher’s Corner behind.

Girls’ Brigade was about what you’d expect.  Natalie had two points taken off because she wasn’t wearing the shirt that went with her uniform (Mum had forgotten to put it in the wash yesterday, but the one she was wearing looked almost exactly the same).  They had marching practice, where they had to bring their knees up to their stomachs, which no-one could actually do for more than three or four steps, which made Natalie suspect that it was all just a practical joke the adults were playing on them.  They sat in a circle, singing the songs from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, because they were going to put on a production of it sometime before Christmas.  And the whole time, the whole two hours in that little, echoey church hall, Natalie got more and more nervous.  That walk home was looming in the future, moving closer and closer.  The walk home without any adults, with only Andrea to protect them, outside where Mr Miacca could pounce on them at any moment.  Even if Andrea was old enough not to get eaten herself, was she old enough to keep him away?  Natalie just didn’t know.  And as the seconds ticked by, she just got sicker and sicker.

Finally, it was all over.  The songs had all been sung, the Bible stories had all been told, and a small group of parents had started to gather in between the door and the front table.  Time for Natalie to find her sisters and face whatever was going to happen next.

It took her a few minutes to find Stephanie, who’d crawled under a stack of chairs just to see what she could find.  “Come on out, Steph,” said Natalie, poking her back with her plimsole, “Andrea’s taking us home tonight, remember.  We need to go and find her.”

Steph backed up enough to smile at her.  “There’s loads of chewing gum under there!”

“There’s always loads of chewing gum under chairs.”  Natalie had never actually seen anyone chewing gum at Girl’s Brigade, but someone probably did.  Just very quietly.

Stephanie wriggled out, and Natalie spotted Andrea over by the door, talking to her friend Carla.  She took Stephanie’s hand and led her over.  “Hi Andrea!” said Natalie, “We’re ready to go!”

Andrea turned to look at Natalie over her shoulder.  “We.  Are.  Talking,” she snapped, and turned back to Carla.  Natalie shrugged and settled in for a bit of a wait.  Andrea and Carla couldn’t talk forever.  She glanced at the sign on the wall, the stony, bluish-grey thing that looked like it was supposed to be one of Moses’ tablets.  I promise to do my duty to God and the Queen.  Natalie had never understood that.  How were you supposed to do your duty to the Queen at a Girl’s Brigade meeting?  It wasn’t as if she ever showed up or anything.  Besides, the Captain and Lieutenant had never even mentioned her.  They were pretty clear about how you did your duty to God- be honest, help people in need, and sing a hymn now and then—but the Queen was a complete mystery.  If she ever came to check up on them, they’d be in big trouble.

Andrea and Carla began to wander towards the door, so Natalie took Stephanie’s hand and followed them.  They went out of the building, up the path, and along the pavement up to the traffic lights, and throughout it all, Andrea never once looked back.  For all she knew, Natalie and Steph might not even have been following her.  For all she knew, they might have snuck round the other side of the church to look for ghosts in the graveyard.

It was getting dark, but it wasn’t completely dark yet.  Natalie didn’t think that would make much of a difference to Mr Miacca, though.  By the sound of him, he could come along and capture you even if it was broad daylight.  Natalie glanced up and down the street.  It looked empty, apart from the four of them.  But maybe streets always looked empty, until it was too late.

They crossed the road and went up the next street.  Natalie didn’t recognise this route, but she wasn’t worried about that.  She was willing to trust Andrea.  Right up until Andrea turned right and headed up a garden path towards an unfamiliar house.

“What are we doing here?” asked Natalie.

Andrea glanced back at them.  “This is our friend Marina’s house,” she mumbled, then turned back to Carla.  “Do you think she’s got The Mask?”

“Dunno.  We’ll have to ask her.”

Natalie tried to calm herself down.  Andrea probably didn’t mean that they were going to go in and watch a whole film.  She probably just wanted to borrow the video and take it home.  And even if she did want to watch a film, at least that meant they’d be inside for the next hour or two, where Mr Miacca couldn’t get them.  By the time they finished watching it, Mum would probably be finished with her work thing, and she could pick them up after all.  Natalie didn’t like the idea of going into a strange house where she didn’t know anyone, but if it was what they had to do to stay out of Mr Miacca’s way, then she could put up with it.

Andrea’s friend Marina answered the door.  Natalie took a step sideways to get a look at her, but it was practically impossible.  She was wearing a hat and a jumper that were both too big for her, so all Natalie could see was wool and hair.  “Alright?” she said in a sleepy voice, “What do you want?”

“Andrea’s here,” said Carla, with a wicked little smile as if she was making a joke, “Are we going to watch The Mask?”

Marina scratched the side of her face.  She strained her neck, spotting Natalie and Steph behind Andrea and Carla.   “Who are these?” she asked.

Andrea glanced behind her.  “They can play in your living room while we’re watching it, right?”

Marina shook her head.  “Mum’s doing repairs in the living room.  She’d never let me have little kids in there.  Too dangerous.”

The three older girls went quiet and thoughtful.  From what Natalie could see, one of two things was about to happen.  Either Andrea would give up and take her and Steph home, or Marina would think of another room to abandon them in.  Silently, Natalie crossed her fingers and hoped for the first one.

After a moment or two, Marina shrugged her shoulders.  “Well, they can just play out here while we watch the film, right?”

Andrea looked worried.  “Well…”

Carla turned back towards Natalie and Steph.  “You can play out here for a bit, OK?  We won’t be long.”

Steph, unable to think of anything to say to that, gave Natalie a confused look.  “What?” said Natalie, “You’re just going to leave us out here?”

Andrea looked up and down the street.  “Look…  Look, it’s perfectly safe out here, alright?  You’re not stupid.  You know not to talk to strangers.  We won’t be long.”

“But you were supposed to take us home!”

“We.  Won’t.  Be.  Long.”  Andrea turned her back and went into the house.

Carla followed her in.  “Try not to play in the road!” she yelled with a laugh, before slamming the door behind her.

Natalie stared at the closed door, willing the older girls to open it and announce that it had all been a joke and of course they could come in.  But it didn’t happen.  The door stayed closed, and they stayed outside.  They were sitting ducks.

Stephanie gave her a worried look.  She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to- that was a What are we going to do? look if Natalie had ever seen one.  Natalie looked at the door again, and tried to think.

They could wait out here until Andrea and her friends finished watching the film… but the film was probably going to be more than an hour long.  Mr Miacca could have picked them off ten times over before Andrea came out.  And what if she didn’t come out at all?  What if they put on another video, and another, and left them out there all night?  Even if Mr Miacca didn’t come along, what would happen when they had to sleep, or go to the toilet?

They couldn’t stay out here and wait.  So what could they do?

Natalie looked from one end of the street to the other.  They were on a long, dark road, and anything- anything– could appear in the distance.  But it would probably get them a lot faster if they stayed still.

Alright, she didn’t know where Mr Miacca was.  Maybe if they went somewhere else, they’d run right into him.  But maybe if they were quick…

Natalie looked at Steph, and tried to swallow down the cold, tight feeling in her throat.  If Steph thought Natalie was scared, then she’d get scared too.  “Looks like we’re going to have to walk home by ourselves,” she said, taking her sister’s hand, “Come on.”

(To Be Continued)

(Note:  “Mr Miacca” is a genuine creepy folktale as told by genuine creepy folk.)

October 1995

Natalie only had herself to blame.  The book had a picture on the front cover of a giant old man eating children in pies and burgers.  That should have been a good enough warning that, well, the book was going to have a story in it about a man who ate children.  But that story, ‘Mr Miacca’, had really bothered her.

The worst thing was that the story never called Mr Miacca a giant, or a troll, or a monster.  He was always just “Mr Miacca,” as if he was a normal person who everyone knew ate children.  The other worst thing was that the only thing you had to do for him to catch you was go round the corner from where you lived.  That was all the boy in the story had done.  His mother had told him not to go too far from home, and he’d only just got round the corner.  How did he even manage to go to school, if those were the rules?  Was it different if an adult was with you, or was he trapped on the same street for every moment of his life?  How old did you have to be before you didn’t count as a child anymore and Mr Miacca wouldn’t eat you?  Had anyone ever tried to stop him?  What had happened to them when they did?

Natalie was still thinking about it the following day, when her mother took her and her sisters shopping in Glamis Road after school.  She must have been to Glamis Road a thousand times, but this time she eyed it suspiciously from the car window.  Everywhere she looked, she could see places where Mr Miacca might hide, ready to jump out and capture you if you took one step too far away from your parents.

The boy in the story had been caught just past the corner of the road where he lived, and, oddly enough, the corner of the road where Natalie lived was exactly as far as she was allowed to ride her bike on her own.  That couldn’t be a coincidence.

“Natalie?” asked Mum, at the parking-ticket machine, “Are you with us?”

“Yeah,” said Natalie.  She was with them, alright.  She was going to stick to her mum and sisters like glue.

“You looked lost in your own little world for a minute,” said Mum with a laugh.  She got the ticket out of the machine, and handed it and the keys to Natalie’s older sister.  “Andrea, do me a favour and lock up the car for me, alright?”

Natalie watched Andrea all the way to the car and back.  It was probably OK.  She was still in Mum’s sight.  Besides, Andrea was going to be thirteen in a few months- for all Natalie knew, she might already be past Mr Miacca’s age limit.  Still…

Andrea came back, and Natalie relaxed.  She’d probably un-relax in a few minutes, when Andrea insisted on going into a different shop to the rest of them like she always did, but things were OK for now.

“Are you still alright for tomorrow, Andrea?” asked Mum, leading them all out of the car park.  From here, Natalie could hear the sounds of pigeons cooing.  When she was Stephanie’s age, Natalie had heard that mournful “oo-oo-oo” sound and wondered if it was wolves, howling in the distance, waiting for their chance to come down from the hills and feast on unsuspecting townsfolk.  Stephanie herself didn’t seem too worried, though.  She was just trotting along, smiling up at Mum, all curly hair and chubby cheeks, like she didn’t have a care in the world.  Steph wouldn’t last five minutes against Mr Miacca.

Andrea shrugged.  “I guess.”

Mum turned to Natalie and Steph.  “I’m going to be late home from work tomorrow, so I thought Andrea could walk you two home from Girls’ Brigade.”

Natalie didn’t like the sound of that.  Even if Andrea was above the age limit, walking home with her couldn’t be as safe as walking home with an adult, could it?  Yeah, she’d babysat them a couple of times, but they’d all been in the house then, not out on the street.

The other worst thing about the story was that, at the end of it, Mr Miacca was still around.  The boy who was the main character managed to outwit him and get away (twice, actually), but Mr Miacca didn’t die or lose his powers or anything.  He just didn’t get to eat that particular boy.

Mum turned to Natalie and Stephanie.  “Now, do you promise to be good for Andrea?  Do exactly as she says?  Just like you would for me?”

Steph nodded.

“Yeah,” said Natalie.  In the story, the boy’s mother warned him in the first line not to go any further than the corner of their street.  Not listening to her had been his first mistake.

“Good,” said Mum, “She won’t be telling you to do things just to be mean, you know.  It will be because she wants to keep you safe.”

“I know,” said Steph happily, and she carried on skipping.  If Mr Miacca came along right now, she wouldn’t know what hit her.  Natalie shivered.

“Just do as she says, and you’ll all be fine,” said Mum with a smile.  But even then, even before everything that happened, Natalie was pretty sure that wasn’t true.

(To Be Continued)

(Note- The alternative wager mentioned in the RE lesson is sometimes attributed to Marcus Aurelius, but as far as I can tell, that’s not accurate.  So I just left it anonymous.)

Mum couldn’t actually stop them from going to Dad’s without triggering another round of drawn-out court proceedings, so the following weekend, they were back.  Rosalyn and Oliver sat in Dad and Sally’s dining room, unenthusiastically poking their casserole with their forks, listening to Sally worry about a woman from her church who’d phoned earlier.

“I just wonder if she’s making the right choice,” said Sally, for the sixth or seventh time.

Dad swallowed what he was eating.  “Well, you said yourself, he was gambling away her kids’ university funds.  She’s just trying to protect them.”

“I know, I know.”  Sally fidgeted with her fork.  “I just wonder if… if we give up too easily these days. He’s hardly likely to get better now that she’s left him on his own, is he?”

“It didn’t sound as though he was getting any better with her and the kids around, either.”

“But there was always hope.  That’s what she doesn’t understand.  If you keep trying…”  Sally broke off and sighed, and Rosalyn was filled with a sudden certainty that she’d be saying more-or-less the same things if her friend’s husband had been beating her and her children black and blue every night.  There’s always hope.  If you keep trying…  Yeah, and Sally would never be satisfied that they’d tried enough until the psycho finally killed one of them.  And even then she’d probably criticise the survivors for not visiting him in jail.  “She goes to the same church I do.  She knows that God still loves Frank.  So why can’t she?”

“It wasn’t God’s money he was gambling with,” said Dad, fork halfway to his mouth.

Sally sighed again.  “I just can’t shake the feeling that it’s not really Frank she’s fighting with.  It’s God.  I can’t shake the feeling that if she forgave Frank, God would forgive her.”

Oliver looked up.  “Forgive her for what?”

Original Sin or something, thought Rosalyn wearily, but that wasn’t what Sally said.  Instead, she tapped her knife and fork lightly against her plate, as if calling everyone to attention, and said, with some irritation, “Look, at the end of the day, they swore to love each other for better and for worse.”  She underlined it with one of her gay marriage shrugs.  Her that-settles-it shrugs.

Oliver nodded.  “So, by that logic, should Dad still be married to Mum instead of you?”

And if looks could kill, Oliver would have been going home in a body bag.

*

That Wednesday in RE, Mrs Nightingale brought up Pascal’s Wager again.  “There’s actually an alternative wager,” she explained, “It’s similar to Pascal’s but…  Well, let’s just say that it comes at it from a different angle.”

This wager said that you should always try your best to be a good person.  If God was just, he’d be pleased with you for doing it.  If God was unjust, you were probably never going to make him happy anyway.  And if there wasn’t a God, then at least you’d have done some good while you were here.

Needless to say, Sally would not have approved.  She’d have said that humans didn’t get to decide whether God was just or unjust; he’d created the universe, so he got to define what justice was.  She’d have said that it was unbelievably arrogant to assume that you’d have a better idea of how to live a good life than God did.

Rosalyn didn’t know about God, but she was pretty sure she had a better idea than Sally did, at least.

*

That Friday, Oliver put on Radio One in Dad’s car, and Sally was still going on about it half an hour later.

“I think I’m allowed to set standards in my own house,” she snarled at Dad, her arms crossed.

“Technically speaking, the car’s not…” said Oliver.

“Don’t be cheeky,” said Dad, “And yes, Sally, if you don’t want to listen to something, you’re allowed to say so.  And Oliver should respect your wishes.”  He gave Oliver a dirty look.

“But I don’t see why he has to listen to that kind of music at all!” Sally spluttered, “If it’s wrong here, then it’s just as wrong at his mother’s house!”  She glanced up at Oliver, made a disgusted sound, and turned back to Dad.  “He’s sixteen now- he should be working out the correct way to live his life!  And we should be helping him!”

Oliver scratched his nose.  “So, the correct way to live my life specifically involves no Franz Ferdinand whatsoever?  Is that what you’re telling me?”

Rosalyn, who’d sat in the corner pretending to do homework so she could stay out of this argument, felt her heart sink.  She used to smile a bit when Oliver made fun of Sally, but now it just didn’t seem worth the effort.  Sally would have a reply, and that reply would keep Rosalyn up all night.  That was how it always went.

Sally took a few steps towards Oliver so that she could loom over him properly.  “It’s no laughing matter.  You should hear what my friend Faye told me about that kind of music.  Then you’d see what it really is.”

Oliver shrugged, and Rosalyn put her hands over her ears and tried to think about something else.  It never worked, but she always tried it anyway.

“Faye’s husband Peter did some missionary work in Africa before they were married, and he took along his Elvis Presley records.  Well, one day one of the local tribal elders came by and heard him playing them.  He looked really scared, and he said it was because of the drumbeats in the music.  He said that before they’d been Saved, his tribe used those exact drumbeats to summon demons.  So you see, it’s not as harmless as…”

“That’s not true,” said Rosalyn.  She’d felt the words building up inside her the whole time Sally had been speaking.

Sally turned around, and looked at Rosalyn as if she was a cockroach she’d just spotted on the kitchen floor.  “It is true, Rosalyn.  Peter told me that himse…”

“Elvis Presley was inspired by black Americans who’d lived through the Jim Crow era!”  Rosalyn hadn’t expected her voice to sound that loud, or for everything to come out as fast as it did.  It was as if the words were jostling each other to get out.  “If they were such wanton demon-summoners, why didn’t they get one to wipe out the Ku Klux Klan?  Or why didn’t their ancestors get one to kill all the people trying to take them into slavery?”

Sally smiled knowingly.  “Ah, well, people always think demons can…”

“Do you have any idea how racist you’d have to be to assume that all African tribes just go round summoning demons?”  It came out as a shout.  Rosalyn hadn’t meant it to, but she wasn’t sorry it had.

Something- probably either the raised voice or the word ‘racist’- seemed to have knocked Sally off-kilter.  The smile had disappeared, anyway.  “Can I ask you a question, Rosalyn?  You laugh at the idea of demons existing, but when you look at, at what’s happening in the world today, can you honestly tell me you don’t think evil is real?”

“Oh, it’s real, alright!” snapped Rosalyn, giving Sally a pointed glare.

Sally decided not to reply to that directly.  “I just don’t understand how people can…”

“I don’t know whether demons exist or not.  But I do know you can’t summon them with a Franz Ferdinand CD!”

Sally sighed.  “But how do you kn…”

“This is how you see the world, isn’t it, Sally?”  Rosalyn could hear the blood pounding in her ears, like a drumbeat urging her to keep up the pace.  “Anyone different from you?  Going to Hell!  Anything you don’t understand?  Fucking demons!  That way you never have to think at all!”  She took a couple of deep breaths.  “You never bother to wonder whether something’s actually true or not!  It’s all just an excuse for you to look down your nose at everyone else!  You talk so much about other people not making time for God, but you’ve only ever worshipped your own fucking ego!”

Dad stood up.  “Don’t you talk to Sally like…”

“And you’re just as bad!  At least she actually believes in this stuff!  You just let her bang on about it so you can tell yourself that you’re deep!”

“Rosalyn, you’re being hysterical…”

“You were about to let her ruin something Oliver likes!”  Her voice caught.  “Something that makes him happy!  Because of some stupid stories about African tribes and demons!”

Sally looked about to burst into tears.  “Oh, ‘stupid stories.’  ‘Stupid stories,’ you say.  If they’re so stupid, why do they upset you so much?”

“Sally, I’ll handle this,” said Dad, practically in a bark.  He took a deep breath, calming himself down, and turned back to Rosalyn.  “Rosy, I think Oliver can survive not being allowed to listen to Franz Ferdinand for one weekend.”

Rosalyn raised an eyebrow.  “‘One weekend’?”

“‘One weekend’?” repeated Sally, giving Dad daggers.  His expression changed, and he seemed to shrink in front of them.

Oliver, who’d been watching the whole thing with a look of horrified fascination, took advantage of the awkward silence.  “It’s OK, Rosy.  I just tune her out, most of the time.”

Rosalyn nodded.  “Well, I can’t.”  The speed and the volume had gone out of her voice.  The drumbeat had left her ears.  All the energy from the last few minutes seemed to have disappeared.  “And I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to stay over this weekend.”

She turned around and left the room.  Behind her, she heard her dad’s voice.  “Oh, Rosalyn, there’s no need to…  Rosalyn!”

Her bag was by the front door, where she could pick it up and turn the doorknob in more-or-less a single movement.  Some of her other things- her toothbrush, her pyjamas and so on- were still upstairs, but she wasn’t going to go and fetch them.  She wasn’t going to stay in this house for one more minute.

She heard footsteps behind her, and Dad’s voice said, “Rosalyn, just listen, will you…”

“I’ll text you when I get home,” said Rosalyn, not turning around, “So you know I got there safely.”

“At least let me drive you, for God’s sake.”

She did glance back at him now.  There was still a little anger in his face- probably just frustration, to be fair- but there was also concern.  Just enough for Rosalyn to know that it was a genuine offer.  “No, I’ll walk,” she told him, “I need some fresh air.”

And he didn’t say anything else, so she left.

*

The streets were quiet.  Rosalyn could hear car engines off in the distance, but only two or three cars had actually passed her since she’d set off.  Here in the backstreets, the only real sounds were the birds up in the trees.

Rosalyn wandered along, setting her own pace, and felt as if her muscles had loosened up.  That tight feeling in her chest, in her throat, in her limbs, in her head… all gone. Rosalyn knew that you couldn’t burn off all that terror with just a few minutes of anger, but just for now, she felt more content than she had in months.

It would have been quicker to go by the main road, but Rosalyn had had visions of Sally deciding that her outburst was a sign that she was ripe for conversion, and badgering Dad into starting up the car and going to find her.  Besides, Rosalyn liked the peace and quiet.  It gave her a chance to think.

It was still light out.  The sky faded from blue to white and back again, the sun glowing around the edges of the clouds and turning to gold.  And maybe somewhere behind that sky, there was someone who liked humans and basically wanted them to be happy.  Give Rosalyn a month or two away from Sally, and she might really start to believe it.

Rosalyn walked on, beginning to smile.  She was going to get home and explain to Mum why she was back so early, and then she was going to make herself a big bowl of pasta and watch whatever was on TV.  After that, she planned to go to bed and sleep until morning. Maybe the fear would creep back in tomorrow, and maybe it wouldn’t, but right now, just for tonight, she felt completely calm.

The End

One Tuesday morning, Rosalyn’s friend Carrie found a copy of the Daily Mail in the Sixth Form common room, and brought it over to Rosalyn and their other friends so that they could share in the outrage.  “Who even reads this shit?” she snarled, throwing it open on the table in front of them, “‘The heart-breaking, inspirational poetry of tragic Emily, aged 7…’  Ohh yes, that sounds amazing.”

The others laughed, especially after Carrie read out a poem or two and found that they weren’t so much “heart-breaking and inspirational” as “more-or-less what you’d expect from a bright seven-year-old.”  Even Rosalyn smiled before she said what she had to say.  “You can’t blame her parents for having them published, though.  It was probably a real comfort to them after she died, knowing they still had those poems.”

“I don’t blame her parents,” said Carrie, “They can grieve however they like- I’m not judging.  They’re not the ones who coated a dead kid in treacle to make old ladies cry so they could sell more papers.”  She flicked ahead, the grey pages flying through the air, before settling on a long editorial about a soap that had featured a gay kiss a few days back.  “Look at this wanker!  ‘I have many gay friends, and they were just as outraged as I was…’  Imaginary gay friends don’t count, you jackass.”

“I’m sure he’d have been just as outraged if it had been a man and a woman kissing,” said their friend Jodie, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Oh no, Jodie!  Nobody would ever use a straight kiss as a ‘tawdry publicity stunt’!  This is a special case, right here!”

Rosalyn thought about what Sally said whenever they talked about gay marriage on the news.  I don’t know what they’re trying to achieve.  It says in plain black-and-white:  “Do not lie with a man as you would with a woman.”  You can protest ‘til you’re blue in the face, but you’ll never get those words to change.  She wouldn’t go on about it.  She wouldn’t even get angry- she’d say it with a shrug, most of the time.  As far as she was concerned, the matter was settled.

So what was Rosalyn supposed to do now?  Tell her friends that she actually agreed with the guy in the paper (even if she didn’t)?  Tell them that he was only repeating what it said in the Bible?

But he doesn’t even mention the Bible! Rosalyn thought furiously.  He’s just going on about what a terrible publicity stunt it was, and how its going to ruin the actors’ careers!  Rosalyn knew what Sally would have said about that thought- Look at how many mental gymnastics you have to go through just to avoid admitting the truth– but she still managed to keep her mouth shut until Carrie turned the page.

For the next few minutes, things were a bit easier.  Carrie pointed out and decried a number of little things- an article about how awful it was that people dropped their ‘t’s and ‘h’s when they spoke, a feature speculating whether or not Victoria Beckham had had a boob job- and Rosalyn managed to laugh.  She even joined in on making fun of it, once or twice.  But all that changed when Carrie turned to an article near the back, by the letters pages.  “‘Yes, sex can kill- it killed my daughter,’” Carrie read, “Oh, this ought to be good.”

Carrie read them bits and pieces from the article.  The writer’s daughter had recently died of cervical cancer, and the mother hadn’t even waited for her to be cold in the ground before racing to the papers and implying that she’d brought it all on herself by being a foolish slapper.  The article concluded, “Our Heavenly Father has ordained sex for marriage alone.  We go against that at our peril.”

Rosalyn began to feel queasy.

“So, Our Heavenly Father will strike you down dead for having a few one-night stands?” asked their other friend, Ebony, “Sounds really loving.”

Rosalyn swallowed.  Sally would have said that Ebony had no right to talk about God in that way.  Sally would have said that the daughter in the article deserved to die for defying Him.  And Rosalyn was so very scared that Sally was right.

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” said Carrie, “My cousin Naomi shagged her entire university class, and she’s still here.  Unless God’s just behind schedule with her.”

Sally would have said that Rosalyn should tell her friends to fall to their knees and repent of their blasphemous words.  Sally would have said that to do otherwise would be to condemn them to Hell through inaction.  Sally would have said that if Rosalyn was ashamed of God, then one day God might be ashamed of her.

Jodie spoke up.  “I say, have as much sex as you can, and just get regular cervical screenings.  Best of both worlds.”

“Or just avoid having a mother who writes for the Daily Mail in the first place,” muttered Carrie, shoving he paper aside.

“Well, yeah…  But that wouldn’t have stopped her from being dead.”

“Sometimes dead is better, Jode.”

Sally would have said that Rosalyn should have given them her testimony on the joy of knowing Jesus (or the joy that she imagined would come from knowing the first thing about Jesus… or the joy that would come from your entire concept of religion not being a terrifying, confusing mess…).  Sally would have said that Rosalyn should have saved their souls.

And the worst part was that, underneath all the guilt and the fear, there was a big part of Rosalyn that just wanted to let loose and make fun of a stupid newspaper with her friends.  And Sally would definitely not have said that was a good sign.

*

One day. Rosalyn fainted twice in three hours, and the school called her parents.  It was then that they finally noticed how much weight she’d lost.

“She wants to look like the girls in the magazines,” Sally informed Mum and Dad, as they stood around in Mum’s living room, “It’s a sign of the times.”

“She’s worried about something,” said Mum.  She cast a suspicious glare at Dad and Sally.  “I don’t know what’s going on in your house, but…”

“Just what are you implying, Maggie?” snapped Dad.

“I’m implying that anyone would be off their food if they were being filled up with hellfire and brimstone every other weekend.”  Mum wasn’t all that tall, but at that moment, she seemed to tower over Dad and Sally, her blonde hair shining around her face like a halo.  “I’ve held my tongue because I felt Rosy and Oliver needed their father in their life, but good God, if you can’t even protect your own daughter…”

Dad spluttered.  “You?  Hold your tongue?  That’d be something worth seeing.”

“‘Good God’?” muttered Sally, her lip curled in contempt.

Dad prodded with his finger in Mum’s direction.  “They’re at your house twelve nights out of every fourteen.  This is something that’s happened on your watch.”

“It only started when you married the Mother Superior over there!” snapped Mum.

Sally’s lip trembled.  “Excuse me for trying to introduce some morality into their lives!  But I suppose that’s not very politically correct, is it?”

Rosalyn herself hadn’t said anything for at least an hour.  She sat in one of the armchairs in the corner, staring at the ground, until they all finished shouting and Dad and Sally left in a huff.

Mum came over and stood, awkwardly, a yard away from where Rosalyn was sitting.  “You don’t have to listen to her, Rosy,” she told her, “Just because she married your dad doesn’t mean she has the right to run your life for you.”

“I know,” said Rosalyn quietly.

“You know the things she says aren’t true, right?”

“Yeah,” said Rosalyn, because it wouldn’t have made any difference if she’d said something else.  Mum thought that all religion was just a coping mechanism.  She thought that people only believed in it to avoid admitting to themselves that the universe was a bleak, indifferent place.  But at this point, Rosalyn would have been quite happy to believe that the universe was indifferent.  Indifference didn’t strike you dead for thinking the wrong thoughts.

(To be concluded)

The one thing that brought Rosalyn a bit of comfort was her RE course.  One Monday, Mrs Nightingale taught the class about Pascal’s Wager.  It was an argument thought up by a famous mathematician, which probably accounted for how bloody soulless it was.

“Blaise Pascal argued that it was only logical to believe in God,” Mrs Nightingale told them, “His point was that, if you believe and it turns out to be true, you’ll get an eternity in Heaven.  Whereas, if you believe and it turns out not to be true, then you’ve lost nothing.”

Rosalyn put her hand up.  “But what if you decide to believe in the Christian God, but then you die and it turns out that the one true religion is Hinduism?”

Mrs Nightingale grinned.  “Good!  Remember that, and put it in your essay.”

Rosalyn did remember that.  And she also remembered that, if you forced yourself to believe that Al-Qaeda or those American preachers were right about God, and then you died and it turned out they weren’t, then you’d actually lost quite a lot.

*

Rosalyn and Oliver spent most weeks at Mum’s, which took some of the pressure off.  Still, even there, they got emails from Sally every couple of days.  They were forwards, mostly, stuff she’d got from her friends and sent to everyone in her address book.  Even Mum, who she probably knew would delete them on sight.

“I can’t believe I let that woman talk me into giving her my email address,” she’d say though gritted teeth, staring at the computer screen as if it had wronged her, “‘Sorting out the children’s schedule,’ my foot.”

Every so often, though, Rosalyn would get to the emails before Mum did, and, because she was apparently a total masochist, she’d feel compelled to open them.  And there would usually be at least one sentence that would feel like a punch to the stomach.

There are countless others who walk into our lives with that same look of desperation and exasperation on their faces.  They may never utter the words with their lips, but surely if we listen, we can hear their very lives crying out to us, “Can you help me find Jesus?”  That lonely recluse who lives down the road is crying out. So is that pregnant teenager. And the prostitute. And the drunkard.

Sally would probably add her grubby little heathen stepchildren and their mother to that list.   It wasn’t exactly flattering.

Funny how you can send a thousand ‘jokes’ through e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord people think twice about sharing!

Rosalyn had a nasty feeling about those quotation marks.  Sally had never said so specifically, but jokes didn’t seem to be something she believed in.

If the Lord lays upon your heart to send this to more than four “4” people , you are truly blessed!

As far as she remembered, the Lord had never laid upon Rosalyn’s heart to do anything.  She didn’t even know what that would feel like.  It made her feel kind of inadequate, as if part of her wasn’t working properly.

 This is the simplest test. . If you love God and are not ashamed of all the marvelous things he has done for you…..  Send this to ten people and the person who sent it to you!

Oh, God…

“It’s unbelievable,” Mum would say, reading over her shoulder, “How can anyone believe in stuff like that, in this day and age?  It’s the Twenty-First Century, and all she wants is to pull us back into the dark ages.”

Rosalyn swallowed.  It was alright for Mum.  She could just be annoyed, then shrug it off and go about her day.  Rosalyn could talk to her about just about anything else, but not this.  How could she tell her that she was having a nervous breakdown over something Mum had dismissed as a fairy tale?  How could you possibly help somebody who told you that?

*

One of those emails had said, Jesus is waiting to help you out. Come and experience Him into your life, and you will wonder why you waited so long to accept Him as your Forever Friend!

Sometimes, Rosalyn wondered if she should do just that, if only to stop Sally’s voice from squawking away in her head day and night.  Just offer up a quick prayer to Jesus, and all her worries would be gone.  Never mind that she didn’t necessarily think Christianity was the one true religion.  Never mind that she wasn’t completely sure what “experiencing Him into your life” actually entailed.  Never mind that she couldn’t hear the phrase “Forever Friend” without thinking of that stationery with the teddy bears on it she’d had when she was seven.  If it put her mind at rest, if it meant that she could go a whole hour without feeling like there were cockroaches crawling around in her brain, then maybe that other stuff didn’t matter.

Then one weekend, Sally told Rosalyn that there were plenty of people who’d offered up that prayer to Jesus and thought they’d been Saved, but would get a nasty surprise on Judgement Day.  “They just go through the motions,” Sally told her, “There’s no sincerity.”

That was another sleepless night for Rosalyn.  If you didn’t already have enough sincerity, where were you supposed to get it?

(To be continued.)

June 2004

Rosalyn’s stepmother believed two things:

1. That God loved every living thing, that He had known every detail of your being since before you were even conceived, and that He had a special plan for the universe in which you played your own particular part.
2. That God was also statistically quite likely to condemn you to be tortured for all time on a technicality.

When you put those two beliefs together, you had to wonder a few things.  Like what exactly she meant when she said she loved Rosalyn’s dad.

“I’ve never understood why so many people think they can pick and choose which parts of the Bible they follow,” said Sally blithely, as she and Dad drove Rosalyn and Oliver up to Brewer’s Fayre for dinner one Friday night, “I mean, either it’s the Word of God, or it isn’t.  Pick a side.  You can’t sit on the fence when it comes to things like that.”

Dad hummed in vague agreement.  He wasn’t particularly religious, but he admired the fact that Sally was.  “It’s refreshing to meet somebody who’s in touch with her spiritual side,” he’d told Rosalyn once when he and Sally first started dating, “So many people have lost sight of that, in the modern world.”

“I had words with my sister about just that,” continued Sally, “When I told her I believed that every word of the Bible was true, she said to me, So do you think Owen and me are sinning by living together?  Well, actually, yes!”  She gave a nervous little laugh.

Mum thought that Sally was completely insane, and that Dad’s marrying her proved that he’d finally lost his marbles.  Then again, Mum had a dim view of religion in general- her position was one of “If there’s a loving God, why do children die in earthquakes?”  Rosalyn’s RE teachers had given her a few answers to that question- all of them interesting, none of them completely satisfying- but Mum was rarely up for a debate.  To her, it seemed to be more of a gut feeling that anything else.  Rosalyn sometimes suspected that everyone’s religious views worked like that, and the logical arguments people gave were just a way of making it look respectable.

Naturally, Sally had an answer for that question, too.  It wasn’t pleasant to hear.  Rosalyn desperately hoped that meant it also wasn’t true.

“The thing is, people today have moved away from worshipping God,” Sally continued, “They’re more interested in worshipping themselves.  You can hear it all the time- self-esteem, self-improvement, self-actualisation.  Well, maybe your self isn’t quite as important as you think it is!”  Another nervous little laugh.

In the back seat, Rosalyn squirmed.  She’d never thought her self was all that important, but that didn’t make her feel any better.  Every time Sally talked, it was like having pins driven through her skin.

Sally’s answer to Mum’s question was that those children deserved to die in earthquakes.  Everybody deserved to die in earthquakes, and then everybody deserved to go to Hell afterwards.  Jesus had saved a select few from that last part, but basically, anything bad that happened in your life was your own fault, and you should be grateful that it wasn’t ten times worse.

Dad was about to park the car.  There was just enough time for Sally to make her closing statement.  “And that’s what’s wrong with the world, isn’t it?” she asked, “In this day and age, people are afraid to stand up for God.”

“You’ve got a point there,” said Dad, who hadn’t really been listening.  He turned off the engine and let them all out of the car.

*

Rosalyn could feel the sky pressing down on her again.  This time, it was a whole lot worse, because her real worry was who might be behind the sky.

They said there was an all-powerful force watching your every move, listening to your every thought, controlling every good or bad thing that could possibly happen to you.  And that was OK if you assumed that the force in question liked you and generally wanted you to be happy, but what if Sally was right?  What if having the wrong thought at the wrong time could lead to your entire family being slaughtered in retribution?

Rosalyn had heard a lot of people say that you shouldn’t presume to know the mind of God, but sometimes it seemed that was all people did.  Most people seemed to assume that God was like them.  Rosalyn desperately wanted to believe that the kind-hearted, open-minded people were right about that, but there was a chance that Sally was instead.  Or someone a lot worse than her, because Sally was no monster- just kind of dim and up her own arse.  What if Al-Qaeda were right, and the only way to please God was to slaughter as many non-believers as possible?  What if those preachers in America were right, and the only way to please God was to shun gay people and feminists and boycott anything that might make you have a single original thought?  Rosalyn knew what she wanted to be true, but she couldn’t know for certain.  It was a matter of faith, and she didn’t know if she had enough.

If any of those people were right, then every atom of the universe was arranged against Rosalyn, and everything she loved was about as solid and resilient as tissue paper.  And once she’d thought about that possibility, really thought about it, she couldn’t keep it out of her mind for two minutes at a time.

*

Oliver’s favourite show was Little Britain, but they were only really allowed to watch it at Mum’s.  “If Jesus was sitting on the sofa next to you, would you put on a show like that?” asked Sally, “Just because you can’t see him doesn’t mean he’s not there.”

“True, true,” said Oliver, “Jesus always seemed like more of a League of Gentlemen kind of guy.”

Rosalyn bit her tongue to avoid laughing.  Lately her stomach was tied up in knots even at the best of times, but it got ten times worse every time she arrived at Dad and Sally’s.  If you wanted to pick a night when you could guarantee that she wouldn’t be able to finish a meal or get more than half an hour’s sleep, you’d just have to check when she was visiting them next.

They switched over to Midsomer Murders, which Dad liked, but Sally still didn’t look satisfied.  “What’s the matter, Sal?” asked Dad, “This is good clean fun, right?”

Rosalyn expected Sally to make a snippy remark about the fact that Dad’s idea of “good clean fun” involved beheading, pitchfork-stabbing and one guy getting burned alive in a caravan, but she didn’t.  “I just feel…”  Sally trailed off, threw up her hands, and sighed.

“What?” asked Dad.

“Well, what are we getting from programmes like this, really?  Do they teach us how to live our lives?  Do they stir our souls to worship God?”

“They stir my soul to avoid the countryside,” said Oliver, “Looks like a bloodbath out there.”

Rosalyn thought about what Sally had said; her requirements for a good TV show.  They were similar to her requirements for a good book or a good song.  If it wasn’t a constant reinforcement of stuff you were already meant to know by heart, Sally didn’t seem to be interested.

A few weeks later, Rosalyn found out about a particular church that disapproved of any kind of fiction, condemning it as no different from lying.  They said that the only books people should read (besides the Bible, of course) were real-life testimonies of people who’d been Saved and come to Jesus.  After that, Rosalyn stopped reading (or watching, or listening to) much of anything.  She’d lost her enthusiasm for it.

To Be Continued