“God,” I said, “how could You let this happen?”
“If I were you, I would be asking Myself the same question.”
“What?” I said. “What do You mean, I should—Hello? Hello?” But there was no answer.
That night I dreamed of a house made from a shoe box. A Lego brick had been pushed through the window. There were flames of orange paper, and when they moved, they crackled. The flames reminded me of something, but I couldn’t think what. The fabric doll was asleep in the front bedroom and I shouted to her to wake up. The doll ran along the landing and woke the pipe-cleaner doll. Flames were climbing the stairs. They beat at them, but they faded then glowed into new life again.
When I woke, it was like coming up through water, the opposite of drowning, though it felt just as bad. And then I remembered what the flames reminded me of: the cellophane wrapper from a bottle of sports drink.
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING, while it was still early, Father came to take me home. I looked at him as we went through Mrs. Pew’s gate into our back garden, but his face didn’t tell me anything; there was no expression on it at all.
Inside the house, everything smelled of smoke. The front-room tiles were black and the walls were black around the window and there were pools of black water on the floor. The armchairs were black and eaten down to the stuffing. The paint on Mother’s sewing machine was bubbly and flaking. Where the window used to be there was now a board.
The front garden was like one of the pictures in the leaflet showing what it would be like after Armageddon. The golden cane around the front-room window was burned to the ground and so were the Christmas roses. The cherry tree was charred and the ground full of cinders. A rug, armchair, and table were piled up by the gate, and they were black too.
My room was as I left it: the bedclothes thrown back, the Land of Decoration just the same, the two little dolls I dreamed about safe and sound.
I got down on my knees. I said: “Thank you!” over and over, and clasped my hands. Then I opened my eyes. And I stared.
Because in the middle of the Land of Decoration was the cornfield, the one that caught fire, and one half of it was covered with the wrapper from a bottle of sports drink.
Master and Servant
I SAT ON the side of the bath and said: “I don’t understand, I don’t understand, I don’t understand.” I wiped my mouth and flushed the toilet.
Then I went back to my room and I screwed up the drink wrapper and rolled up the field. I stamped on the earth and threw away the grass heads. I put the people and the containers of water back where they were. I said: “I don’t understand. I didn’t want to make a fire. I was playing.”
“Didn’t you realize that whatever you make can become real?” said the voice.
“No!” I said. “I thought I had to make something on purpose.”
“When you made the field, you were frightened,” God said. “Fear can make things happen. It’s like praying for disaster.”
“But that would mean something could happen at any time,” I said, “that things come from nothing—out of thin air!”
God said: “It’s worth considering that that model world has got a life of its own.”
“Then I’ll throw it away!” I said. “I won’t keep it! Anyway it isn’t me! It’s You! It’s not me who makes things happen! You made the fire! I said I wouldn’t make anything else happen and I meant it. I don’t want the power! I don’t want anything to do with it!”
“Power can be a difficult creature to tame,” God said. “Sometimes it’s not certain who the master is and who the servant. Anyway, I’m afraid you can’t just hand it back.”
“Why not?” I said. “No one said anything about having to keep it.”
“Well you’re becoming very useful to me. And anyway, you can’t switch the power on and off, you know.”
“Then it’s simple,” I said. “I won’t do a thing—ever again.”
“Easier said than done.”
“Watch me!”
“The power won’t leave,” said God.
“Please take it,” I said and I bit down hard on my lip so that I wouldn’t cry. “Nothing happens the way I think it will. Something always goes wrong.”
“That’s because Something and Nothing are more closely related than people think,” God said.
Dark Matter
FATHER TOLD ME that there is a lot of Something in the universe and we can see it and measure it and it takes up space and things bounce off it and go on their way again. But for all of the Something there is just as much Nothing which can’t be seen and can’t be measured and people only stumble upon it by accident.
I have wondered if God made the Nothing or it came about by itself. Perhaps there could be no Something without Nothing. Just because the Nothing is invisible doesn’t mean it isn’t strong. It’s more dangerous than Something, because you can’t see where it is and it makes things disappear. In some places the Nothing is so strong that everything we know vanishes altogether. This is called Dark Matter.
Father said Dark Matter was what God used to create the universe. It drew things into itself, and those things were never seen again or came out the other end so misshapen they didn’t look like themselves anymore. He explained Dark Matter as the outside surface of a box and matter as the inside surface. We are inside the box so we see only the Something. But if you took the same piece of cardboard and unfolded it, you would see that both are simply different sides of the same thing. In fact, if you folded the box back up again the wrong way, you wouldn’t know the difference. This shows how close Something and Nothing really are.
How can you tell if you are dealing with Nothing or Something? How can you be sure if you’re inside the box or outside it? You can’t. And this is the problem: The inside and the outside, depending on where you’re standing, look just the same.
A Fence
I WAS WRITING in my journal when I looked up and saw Father standing in the doorway. I pushed the journal away and said: “Are we going preaching?”
“No.” His eyes were dark. “Put on some rough clothes and come downstairs.” I didn’t have time to ask any more, because he was gone. A minute later I heard the back door slam and some clattering. I put my journal underneath the floorboard and pulled on my dungarees and sweater and went downstairs. Father was hauling planks round to the front of the house. He thrust a bucket of nails into my hand and said: “Take these out the front,” so I went into the garden and waited.
The world was blue and yellow and glittering like diamonds, and the air was so cold it burned the inside of my nose. The outline of the mountain looked like it had been drawn with a pin. A robin perched in the branches of the cherry tree and began to sing, and the notes cooled like drops of lead as they fell around me.
Father appeared after a minute with a saw and planks and two milk crates. He set up the milk crates and laid the first plank across them. “Hold it tight,” he said to me and I held the end of the plank. Then he started sawing. His body shuddered with each stroke and the sound tore the air. His face was red. A plank fell to the ground and he reached for another. It was horrible holding the planks.
When the saw’s teeth stuck, the plank brought me up with it. When the saw bent, my own teeth jumped.
Father began ramming the cut planks against the garden wall. I didn’t know where he would put them, because there was already a wall around our garden and above the wall railings, like in all the front gardens, but I began handing him nails. He put the planks on either side of the railings and smashed the nails so far into the wood that it splintered, so far in that the heads disappeared. He hammered nails all over the place, at all sorts of angles; once he hammered his finger, and blood ran down his hand.
The planks were different sizes and different thicknesses. They began and ended in different places. If they weren’t long enough, Father hammered on another one. If there was a gap, he threw cement into it, and stones, or pieces of brick. I
thought he would throw himself in too if he could.
He didn’t look at me and he didn’t speak to me. Around about ten o’clock he started making noises like an animal. The noises made me sick in my chest and my arms feel like liquid. He said: “What are you staring at?” and I turned my head so he couldn’t see that I was crying.
He worked all morning, not stopping to eat or drink, his breath filling the air in great clouds. I kept passing him things as fast as he shouted. He threw off his sweater; his shirt was wet with sweat.
A small group of people gathered on the opposite pavement. Mrs. Andrews was there and Mr. Evans and Mr. Andrews. I don’t think they had ever seen a fence go up so quickly. At half past eleven Mr. Neasdon came out of next door and stood on the pavement. He had his hands on his hips and was blinking fast.
Father either didn’t see him or pretended not to. “McPherson!” Mr. Neasdon shouted. “What’s going on?”
“Fence!” said Father.
Mr. Neasdon said: “Did it occur to you to let us know before you started?”
“Hammer!” Father shouted. I handed it to him.
Mr. Neasdon looked up the street and back again. He shook his head, then he looked the other way. He threw his hands in the air. Then he finally looked back at Father and said: “How high is it going to go?”
“Don’t know!” Father said. He swung the plank into place. “Nails!”
Mrs. Pew poked her head over the railings at the other side of the garden wall and said: “John, would you like a cup of tea?”
“No tea, thank you, Mrs. Pew!” Father said.
She fiddled with her hearing aid. “I have Tetley if you like.”
“No tea! Thank you, Mrs. Pew!” Father said.
Mr. Neasdon said: “Whoa, whoa! Just a minute! I want to know how high this fence is going! It’s already blocking out the light at our front and it looks bloody awful! You just don’t do this without asking us.”
Father continued to hammer.
Mr. Neasdon’s chest began to go up and down. “You know, we’ve just about had it up to here with you! What with your proselytizing and your End of the World this and Armageddon that and you’re not striking—but this is the limit! I’m not going to stand for it!”
Father shouted: “Nails!”
Mrs. Pew reappeared and said: “What about herbal?”
Mr. Neasdon’s eyes bulged. He went inside, slamming the door.
Mrs. Pew came back later, but by that time we could only hear a voice saying: “John! John! I’ve peppermint if you’d like!”
* * *
IT BEGAN TO get dark at five o’clock. The group of people on the other side of the street went indoors. I expect they wondered if Father was going to go on all night, but no one came to ask him to be quiet.
Father told me to go inside, but I was feeling sick and wanted to see him in front of me, so I carried on handing him wood. I was cold though. “Isn’t it high enough now?” I said at last.
“High enough?”
“We can’t see the street anymore.”
“Not high enough by half!” he said, and hurled the cement at the board as if he was teaching it a lesson.
Not long after that, I was handing Father a plank when a splinter went into my hand. Father didn’t see. I tried to pull it out but it broke off, and after that it hurt whenever I passed him anything. It was quite dark then and Father rigged up the Tilley lantern on top of the planks and carried on working, tottering on top of another two milk crates. He asked me to go and fetch the carrier bags of glass for the bottle bank, and when I did, he jumped on them and stuck the broken pieces in the cement along the top of the wall and in the gaps between the wood where the cement was fresh along the outside. At nine o’clock, we went inside. Father’s face was red, and around his eyes there were two white rings. He poured tea in the kitchen and his hand shook. He said the only thing left to do now was make a new gate and he would do that tomorrow.
We ate dinner in silence. It hurt to hold the fork. I didn’t feel like eating anyway. Suddenly I said: “You forgot to say thanks.”
Father stopped eating. Then he swallowed with a gulp and reached for his cup of tea. “Well, it’s too late now,” he said.
I stared at him. He cleared the last of his plate with a clatter, pushed back his chair, and said: “Is this finished?” I didn’t answer, but he took my plate anyway and went to the sink.
“What’s the matter with you?” he said as we were washing up.
“Nothing.”
“Yes there is. Come on, out with it.” Then he stopped rinsing the dishes and said sharply: “What’s the matter with your hand?”
“Nothing.”
He took the plate I was drying and opened my palm. The skin around the splinter was red and raised. When he touched it, I jumped.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he said, in a different voice altogether, and I shrugged and looked away.
Father turned off the tap. He told me to sit down and went out of the room. When he came back in he had antiseptic, cotton, a tin of Band-Aids, and a needle. He pulled up a chair and sat opposite me and took my hand and began stroking the splinter with the needle.
Father’s face seemed to be completely empty now. I could feel his breath on my hand. He was gentle so it didn’t hurt, but my eyes got full anyway and I couldn’t look up.
He took a bandage and peeled off the back and pressed it down around the cut. “By there,” I said, and he pressed it. “And there.” He pressed the Band-Aid some more. All around us, the room had become very still.
Then he stood up as if he’d suddenly remembered something and said: “That should do it.”
I said: “Do you think I need it wrapped?”
The darkness came back into his face. He said: “It’s a splinter, Judith.”
I put my hand over the Band-Aid and watched him go.
A Gate
WE DIDN’T GO to the meeting the next day, so I didn’t have to decide whether to wear Josie’s poncho or not. We didn’t go preaching or read the Bible or eat roast lamb and bitter greens. Instead, Father made a gate.
I have never seen a gate like it, and I don’t think anyone else had either judging from their faces as they walked by. Father worked on it all day in the front garden. There was ice on the ground and it didn’t melt, because there was no sun. I took cups of tea out to him, but he told me to stay inside because it was so cold.
At ten to two Uncle Stan phoned to find out if we were all right. I thought it was strange Father hadn’t phoned him or Alf before now to tell them about the fire, but I didn’t like to ask why. I told Uncle Stan that Father was making a gate. He said: “Oh…” Then he said: “Well, as long as you’re both all right … not ill or anything.”
“No,” I said. “Would you like me to get Father for you?”
“Is he busy?”
Father tottered past the window with the gate. “A bit,” I said.
Stan said: “Well, don’t bother him, pet.” Then he said: “A gate?”
“Yes.”
“Well, just let him know I phoned to say we missed you.”
“All right.”
I felt strange when I put the phone down. Uncle Stan’s voice seemed to be coming from another world. I suddenly wished we had gone to the meeting. I wouldn’t even have minded wearing the poncho.
When Father had finished the gate, it was taller than him and shaped like a church window. It was three planks thick, with metal studs in the front and right in the middle a brass knob that was as big as a hand and shaped like a spike. It took Father an hour to hang it, and the sweat ran down his face and he made a noise as if he were in agony. Afterward, he showed me how to unlock it and gave me a key. The key was longer than my hand and very heavy.
At dinner I said: “Uncle Stan phoned.”
“Oh.”
“He wondered if we were ill.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That you were making a gate. He said to tell
you they missed us.” I took the plates to the sink and said: “Shall I get the Bibles?”
Father put his head in his hands. “In a minute.”
I hadn’t noticed his hands till now. They looked twice their normal size and were bright red, as if they’d been plunged into boiling water. There were cuts and dried blood and pieces of skin peeled back. His fingers looked like sausages about to burst out of their skins.
I washed and dried the dishes and fetched the Bibles. But when I came back, Father’s head was on his arms and he was fast asleep.
A Ring of Stakes
ON MONDAY, NEIL Lewis wasn’t in school and I was glad. Mrs. Pierce didn’t seem to know about the fire and no one else did either, so if Lee and Gareth had been with Neil they hadn’t told anyone.
When I went home, I saw Mr. and Mrs. Neasdon, Mrs. Andrews, and Mr. Evans standing on the corner of our road with bags of shopping. Mrs. Neasdon was saying: “We’ve got to live next door to that.”
Mr. Evans said: “I can understand why he’s done it, but you don’t go and do that. I mean, look at that glass.”
Mrs. Andrews said in a low voice: “If you ask me, I think he’s losing it.”
Mr. Neasdon shook his head. “He lost it long ago.”
They stopped talking when they saw me, and Mrs. Neasdon smiled a wobbly smile. I didn’t smile back. I heard her say when I had passed: “And God knows that child gets stranger every day.”
I felt itchy as I walked to the house. I went through the gate and locked it behind me. I peered through a crack in the fence. The itching got worse. Then I picked up a small stone and climbed the cherry tree. I flung the stone as hard as I could over the top of the fence, then dropped to the ground. When I looked through the crack, they had all stopped talking and were looking at the house.
The Land of Decoration Page 17