by John Kelly
At the hospital, Michelle and Julian were taken to casualty. Fortunately it was a quiet night and they were not left waiting long. After Julian was treated for his sprained ankle, and with the aid of a walking stick, he went in search of Michelle. He found her close by. She too, had been examined and allowed to rest in a cubicle. Neither of them was suffering a medical condition sufficiently serious enough to require admission. Julian entered the cubicle, drew the curtain, and sat by her stretcher, his clothes still stained with Pastor Doug's blood. She appeared to be asleep. He took her hand and stroked it gently. 'So beautiful,' he thought. 'perhaps we could become more than friends somehow,' he thought. Moments later she opened her eyes, saw Julian, and began to cry. "It's all my fault," she said, as she recalled the events at the hall and unable to control the flow of tears. "You shouldn't think that way," Julian said, placing his finger on her lips, "No one can anticipate something like this," he added. "You don't understand," she said. "I could have prevented this. I wouldn't talk to him. I didn't know what to do." Julian did not understand what Michelle meant and, although he had promised Maria Stewart earlier in the day that he would not divulge what she had told him, he decided to throw caution to the wind.
"Michelle," he said, "I know about your relationship with Douglas." Michelle looked at him. "What do you know?" she asked, surprised and curious. "I know that you and Douglas were having an affair," he said. "No we weren't," she answered, "who told you that?" Julian was taken aback. "Maria Stewart, your aunt. She told me today at the hospital," he answered. Michelle rolled her eyes in exasperation.
"She doesn't understand. I have told her repeatedly not to think that way. She shouldn't have said that. Douglas and I were not in a relationship. He was like a father to me. Besides," Michelle said, "we couldn't be. He was gay."
Julian couldn't believe his ears. "He's gay?" he asked without thinking. "Maria never liked him," Michelle continued, unaware that Julian was interpreting this piece of news in an entirely different way from her. "She just didn't understand him. He was a very fragile man and after what happened this afternoon, I should have behaved differently. I should have been more understanding," Michelle said. "What happened this afternoon?" Julian asked.
Michelle blew her nose with a tissue. "After I left Maria at the hospital this afternoon, I went to Douglas' house," she said. "I wanted to talk to him about the music for tonight. I knocked on the door but there was no answer. I peered through the windows and that's when I saw them," she said. "Saw who?" Julian asked. "Douglas and another man," she said. "I don't know who he was. They were?," she hesitated. "They were what?' Julian asked, his pulse rate climbing. "They were doing it," she answered with a censured expression. "Doing what?" Julian pressed, his joyous expectation brimming. "You know, THAT! They were doing THAT!" she said as she began sobbing again. The accent in Michelle's voice left no doubt in Julian's mind as to what THAT was! He gave Michelle a few moments to recover before pressing her further.
"What did you do then?" he asked.
"I must have made a noise or something, maybe I accidentally knocked on the window, or cried out, I don't know, but Douglas looked up and saw me looking in. He was horrified. I was horrified and so I did the first thing that came to my head and I ran off," she said. "Bloody hell," Julian exclaimed "What a thing to experience. Did you know that he was gay before this?" Michelle wiped her nose with another tissue. "Well, sort of. He never came out and said anything definite, but I got the general feeling he was, from things he said and did, but I always thought he was celibate, or something, or just resisting it. I thought he was so committed to Jesus, that he was able to overcome it somehow. I had no idea when I ran away that he would do this," she answered. Julian remained silent for a few moments, trying to rationalize the actions of the pastor. "It seems a bit odd to me that he would kill himself because of what you saw," Julian said, trying to reassure her. "Perhaps he was suffering from depression. Perhaps it had more to do with the person who was with him," he said. Michelle blew her nose again.
Suddenly the cubicle curtain swung open and Annette and Margaret stood at the entrance. "Thank goodness," she said, "here you are. We have been searching up and down." Michelle and Julian went silent as if caught in the act of doing something wrong. Margaret walked in and spoke to Michelle. "How are you dear? Is everything all right?" Annette handed some clean clothes to Julian. "You'd better go and change somewhere, the toilet perhaps?" she suggested. Julian looked at himself and realizing his bloodied, dishevelled state, looked at Michelle and nodded.
As Julian walked out into the corridor and headed for the toilets, he noticed Robert and Warwick Steedman standing in the reception area, half hidden behind a pillar. They were arguing. Out of earshot, and their line of sight, he watched in stunned silence as Warwick grabbed Robert by the shirt and shook him. Robert responded by pushing Warwick away, and shaking his forefinger at him before storming out, knocking over a chair along the way. Warwick stood motionless, staring after Robert, fuming, angry. As Julian moved in the direction of the toilets, he turned his eyes back at Warwick, wondering what would happen next. Warwick looked across the wide expanse of the waiting area and locked eyes on to Julian. The two men had never formally met, only ever coming in direct contact with each other an hour earlier. Neither man was aware that they were involved in the same car accident a few weeks earlier. They stared at each other and, as if by some telepathic transmission, perceived that their lives were now somehow linked by a common association, about which neither man felt comfortable.
29.