The Gospel According to Luke

by Emily Maguire

  ‘I do, Honey. I like you a whole lot, which is why I’m not gonna do this to you. So be a good girl and cover up.’

  Honey threw her dress over her head. ‘Covered. Open your eyes, please?’

  He did. He smiled and touched her cheek. ‘You’re beautiful, but I’m not going to take advantage of you.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be, I swear.’

  ‘It’s not happening, Honey.’

  Honey lunged for his crotch, snatching the pillow away before he could stop her. He went to get up but Honey straddled him, pushing him onto his back and opening his fly. ‘I want you to fuck me.’

  Greg took hold of Honey’s hands, holding them up over his stomach so she couldn’t touch him. ‘Don’t talk like that. I don’t like it, and it won’t make me change my mind. I’m not stupid, Honey. You’re hurt and you’re scared, but this isn’t going to fix anything. It’ll just make things worse.’

  ‘Stop playing hard to get.’

  ‘I am hard to get, and you should be too. Our bodies belong to Jesus Christ and shouldn’t be used for –’

  ‘My body belongs to me.’ Honey pulled her hands free. She lifted her dress over her head, ignoring his cries of protest. ‘Look at me, Greg, please. At least look at me when you say you don’t want me.’

  He opened his eyes. Honey sat very still, watching as his eyes flickered over her, the wrinkles around them becoming more pronounced with each passing second. He never let his eyes rest; they darted from breast to hip to stomach to breast to throat to face. He blinked rapidly and licked his lips. He placed his hands on her stomach. ‘You are so precious, Honey. I wish you realised how very, very special you are. Your baby is very lucky to have you.’

  Honey ripped his hands from her stomach and rolled off him, landing face down on the bed beside him. She sobbed hard into the mattress.

  Greg buttoned his shirt and looked down at her. ‘I have to go, service is in twenty minutes. You’ll be okay?’

  ‘Sure. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. It’s been a tough day.’ He finished getting dressed and then bent to kiss her lightly on the lips. ‘I’ll tell the others you’re sick. They’ll understand.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Honey got up and dressed and waited until she was sure everyone would be gone to the service, and then she packed her things. It didn’t take long.

  36.

  Aggie and Luke had to wait for almost an hour at casualty. During this time, Luke did not respond to Aggie’s presence, except to sit where she told him to sit and stand when she told him to stand. If she tried to touch him, he pulled away; when she asked him questions he stared at the floor or the wall or his hands. She kept talking anyway. ‘This is a good hospital,’ she told him, ‘I used to work here. Not here in casualty, but in the next building over. In rehab.’

  Luke looked at her for the first time. ‘This is where he works.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your lover.’

  ‘Luke, you’re my lover. Right, sweetie?’ She pressed her hand to his cheek but he turned from her, with a derisive grunt.

  They were called in then. Luke would not tell the doctor how he’d hurt himself and Aggie could only shrug. Nineteen stitches were needed in his hands, but his nose was only swollen, not broken, and his top lip required only two stitches. The doctor gave Aggie an icepack and a small bottle of codeine as they were leaving. ‘Don’t give him any of these until he sobers up,’ he said.

  ‘He thinks I’m drunk!’ Luke laughed loudly. ‘No, no, doctor. I don’t drink. That’s one thing I never do.’

  The doctor gave Aggie a sympathetic smile. ‘Whatever he’s on, wait until it wears off.’

  On the trip home, Luke lay back on the fully reclined seat, with the ice on his nose. ‘You must be disappointed,’ he said. ‘Coming out here and not seeing your lover. Maybe we should have asked for him. Requested the services of the incomparable Dr Keating. I wouldn’t have minded, really, I mean, at least I could have seen him properly. It’s impossible to tell what he really looks like from that picture; it’s grainy and his face is, well, shall we say, obscured?’

  ‘What picture? I don’t understand what you’re talking about.’

  Luke snorted. ‘Evidence, Aggie. You didn’t clean up after yourself. You left tracks.’

  ‘Of what? Jesus, Luke!’

  He laughed, sat up, switched the radio off, lay down again. ‘This is the way of an adulterous woman. She eats and wipes her mouth, and says, “I have done nothing wrong.”’

  Aggie swung the car into her driveway. ‘Firstly, Luke, don’t quote fucking Bible verses at me.’ She turned off the ignition and pulled the icepack off his face. ‘Secondly, adulterous? Do you actually know the meaning of that word?’

  ‘Do you?’ He got out of the car and stalked up to her front door.

  Inside, he ignored her offer of food or drink and went straight to the study. While she watched over his shoulder, he switched on her computer and opened her internet connection. She asked him what he thought he was doing, but he ignored that question too.

  On the screen in front of her, the words Justice for the Unborn had appeared, and below them, a gruesome picture Aggie recognised from the placards outside the clinic. ‘What are you –?’

  ‘Wait.’ Luke scrolled down, clicking on links too fast for Aggie to see where he was going. ‘Look.’

  Aggie squinted at the screen, then laughed as the photo came into focus. ‘Hah, there’s Mum! She’d be thrilled about this. She’s a publicity whore, you know?’

  Luke looked up at her. ‘You’re not upset by this?’

  ‘Not really. They can delve as deep into my life as they want, I have nothing to hide, nothing to be ashamed of. I’ve had worse from this lot. At least they haven’t shot me yet.’

  ‘How can you be so cavalier?’ His voice cracked. ‘You’re in real danger.’ Aggie bent to embrace him, but he held up his hands. ‘Don’t touch me,’ he said.

  Aggie straightened, nodded.

  Luke returned his attention to the screen and scrolled down. A black and white picture of Aggie and Luke outside the clinic appeared. He scrolled past it, stopping on the next picture. It was of Aggie and Simon.

  ‘Oh. Luke, sweetie, that was before we –’

  ‘I can read the date. I know when it was.’

  She knelt in front of him. ‘You know I never would’ve –’

  ‘How could you do those things with him, if you loved me?’

  ‘One doesn’t have anything to do with the other.’

  ‘It makes everything that happened this weekend meaningless.’

  ‘No! You have it the wrong way around. The thing with him was meaningless. You’re everything.’ Aggie pressed her face to his lap. He didn’t push her away.

  Tears fell onto the back of her head and her ears, sliding down the sides of her face. ‘This is why we are told to stay pure until marriage,’ Luke said. ‘The pain of sexual betrayal is just so intensely bad. It’s worse than anything I’ve ever experienced, anything I can imagine.’

  ‘I didn’t betray you.’

  ‘You believe that, I know.’

  ‘Is this worth all the heartache, do you think?’

  ‘Worth? I don’t know. I don’t know what anything’s worth anymore. Everything is . . .’ He touched her hair and face. Feather-light fingers skipped over her, fast, like he was trying to find something, sense some answer through the tips of his fingers. ‘Aggie?’ he said finally. ‘I think I’d really like to go to bed now.’

  37.

  After three days of shutting his mind and heart to the Lord, Luke found the Lord had shut His ears to Luke’s prayers. He thought of David, running for his life and crying how long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? Luke wondered if God would leave him forever too.

  I have asked the Lord for one thing; one thing only do I want: to live in the Lord’s house all my life, to marvel there at his goodness, and to ask for his guidance. Not tru
e, not true. He had asked for the love of a woman. He had thought he was lonely. But true loneliness was this, now. The absence of God.

  Aggie said God was the imaginary friend Luke had created because he didn’t have a real one. Now that he’d fallen in love and experienced intimacy with another human being, God was gone.

  ‘You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,’ he told her.

  ‘So explain it to me.’

  ‘Why? So you can tear it apart? Poke holes in my beliefs? Tell me I’m wrong and brainwashed and idiotic, that my life has been wasted on a delusion? That I should be happy?’

  Aggie sighed and draped her hot limbs over him. ‘Forget it,’ she said.

  So it went on. The lovemaking, intense and spiritual; the prayer, hysterical and unheard. It was like being eight years old again, lying in the dark, listening to the boy in the next bed cry, holding his breath, trying not to cry himself, wondering if help would ever come. He clung to Aggie like he used to clutch his blanket: like a life preserver in cold, deep water.

  The doorbell startled them both. Luke sat up too fast, causing the blood to rush to his head and the throbbing in his nose to intensify. Aggie raised her head off the pillow and swore. The doorbell sounded again and she climbed from the bed, groaning and pulling on her bathrobe. ‘Wait here,’ she croaked.

  Luke heard her heavy footsteps on the stairs, the doorbell again, Aggie shouting that she was coming. It occurred to him that Justice for the Unborn may have discovered her address. They had published Malcolm’s address, why not hers?

  ‘Aggie!’ He ran for the stairway. ‘Aggie don’t open –’

  ‘Have a seat,’ he heard her say, and then she appeared below him. ‘It’s fine, Luke, go back to bed.’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘A friend. Just give us a couple of minutes, okay?’

  ‘What friend? Malcolm?’

  ‘Luke, you’re naked.’

  Luke returned to the bedroom, wrapped a towel around his waist and then went downstairs.

  Honey and Aggie were sitting on the sofa holding hands. Honey was crying. On the floor were her navy sports bag and the plaid overnight case Luke had bought her for when she went into hospital. When she saw Luke she bit her lip, then sobbed and pressed her face to Aggie’s chest.

  ‘Can you leave us alone for a while?’ Aggie asked him.

  ‘Honey? What’s wrong? Why are you here?’

  ‘I said leave us. Please, Luke?’

  Luke nodded at Aggie and went upstairs, where he dressed in his blood-stained T-shirt and dusty shorts.

  ‘Right,’ he said, descending the stairs. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Bloody hell, Luke! Can’t you just do one thing I ask you?’

  He sat beside Honey, who was now sitting up straight, smoking a cigarette. ‘Why are you here, Honey?’

  ‘To see you.’

  ‘So can I stay and talk to you, or do you want me to do what Aggie says and go away?’

  ‘Stay and talk.’

  Aggie glared at Luke over the top of Honey’s head. He glared back. ‘Aggie, maybe you can make us tea?’

  ‘Do I look like your slave?’ she said, but stomped off to the kitchen anyway.

  When she was gone, Luke plucked the cigarette from Honey’s fingers and extinguished it in the ashtray beside him. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I went a bit crazy and I –’

  Honey threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his back, tucking her legs under her in his lap and pressing her face into his neck. ‘You can’t leave me, Luke. I don’t have anyone else. Me and Greg never did anything, I swear. I was just so lonely. Please, please don’t leave me, Luke. I swear I’ll be better.’

  ‘Oh, Honey, oh. I didn’t leave you, I left the . . . things are very complicated right now. It’s better that I stay here for a while.’

  ‘Let me stay with you.’

  Luke tried to ease her off him but she held tight. ‘Honey, please, you’re better off at the centre. They all care about you very much and will look after you properly. I can’t do that here. I have no money, no resources. I have nothing to –’

  ‘Come back with me, then. You can still come back, can’t you?’

  Luke closed his eyes. His legs were going numb under the weight of her.

  ‘For God’s sake, Honey, get off him. He’s injured.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Honey whimpered, climbing off his knee. Luke exhaled with relief but smiled at Honey to show he was fine. Aggie put the tray she was carrying on the side table and handed them each a mug of hot tea.

  ‘Please, Luke. I can’t do this without you. I can’t. I can’t. You have to be with me. You promised.’

  Luke looked to Aggie. She raised her eyebrows at him, her lips pressed firmly together, shrugged and looked pointedly at the ceiling.

  ‘Honey, I promised you would be safe, I never said I –’

  ‘You never . . .?’ Honey shook her head fiercely. ‘Right, right, of course you never. How simple for you.’

  ‘For God’s sake!’ Aggie slammed her mug down, splashing milky tea over the table. ‘Honey, you can stay here tonight. An old colleague of mine runs a shelter in Redfern. I’ll take you in the morning.’

  ‘She is not going to live in a shelter.’

  ‘Don’t have much choice, do I? I don’t have anywhere else. Don’t you get it?’

  ‘You belong at the NCYC. That’s your home now.’

  ‘I never belonged there. I hate it there. I just stayed because of you. I don’t even believe in God, you know? I don’t believe any of it. It’s bullshit. You’re all full of mounds and mounds of utter bullshit. I don’t know how I even managed to fake it for so long. Pretending to believe all that utter, utter crap!’

  Luke stood up, placed his mug on the side table and walked out of the room. He went outside and stood on the balcony, overlooking the swimming pool. He gazed at the water’s dark shimmer, and although the night was cool, he stripped off his clothes on the way down the stairs and dived in naked. For a second he was numb, then the blessed chill went through him and his sinuses tingled. He swam ten fast laps, then another ten slower ones. Breathless, but calmer and clearer, he rested a moment, his back against the smooth tiles of the wall.

  A few minutes later, the screen door creaked open and then clanged shut. Luke turned and watched Aggie’s calves descending the stairs, her shadow gliding over the lawn, her thick ankles crossing in front of his face. He reached out a wet hand and gripped a foot, feeling the tiny bones beneath his palm.

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘A mess. She’s gone to bed. I told her we’d sort something out in the morning. We, meaning me and her. Not you, obviously, since you run away as soon as someone says something you don’t want to hear.’

  ‘I just don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Tell me, Luke, and please don’t lie to me. Have you slept with her?’

  ‘What? You know I haven’t!’

  ‘Yeah.’ Aggie sighed and flexed her foot. ‘You haven’t kissed her or . . . I don’t know, Luke, you two seemed so intimate. When I came out of the kitchen and she was . . . all on you.’

  ‘She’s scared and thinks I can help her. And you should know me better. Goodness, Aggie, I would cut off my hands before I hurt that girl.’

  ‘Having sex with a girl is not the only way to hurt her. She’s sobbing her heart out in there.’

  ‘It’s not my . . . I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Help her,’ Aggie said. ‘She’s a teenager in trouble. Help her! It’s what you do.’

  ‘No, no. I help lead people to God, I teach them the word of the Lord, I introduce them to Jesus Christ. Without God . . . I have no idea what to do for her.’

  ‘What about with me?’

  He released her foot and pressed his hands to his face. He had failed so badly. Aggie, Honey, himself – all Godless and lost and doomed. ‘We’re all alone,’ he said. ‘All three of us, alone.’

  ‘Then we’re not alone at
all, are we? We’re together.’

  ‘Without God, we are alone.’

  ‘When you were with God, I was alone.’

  ‘I need to swim some more.’ Luke pushed off from the edge and swam until he was dizzy and nauseated. He stopped in the middle of a lap and spat up bitter chlorinated water and wiped his stinging eyes. When his vision cleared, he saw she was still there, watching.

  38.

  Lying in the dark, in the huge, cold house, Honey considered throwing herself out the window. She was on the second floor, so it probably wouldn’t kill her, but it would make Luke feel guilty for abandoning her. He would be so sorry. He would bring her flowers and chocolates. He would sit beside her hospital bed and beg her to forgive him.

  But a fall from the second floor would almost certainly kill the baby. Even though the thought of sharing a room with ten other pregnant girls and giving birth alone and never having a boy want to touch her again and always being lonely and sad and fat – even with all that, she just couldn’t do it. She kept thinking of that Bible verse: Before I formed you in the womb I knew you. She didn’t believe that it was literally true, as if her son’s spirit had always been floating about, chatting away to the angels, and then one day God looked down and decided that it was time for the little spirit boy to be real so he zapped him into the freshly forming zygote in Honey’s womb. But there was something about that verse which really got to her. She changed it around in her mind: Before I knew you, I formed you in my womb. If she killed him, she would never know who he was.

  By the time Aggie banged on her door and told her to come downstairs for breakfast, Honey was exhausted.

  ‘Please forgive me,’ Luke said as soon as Honey walked into the kitchen. ‘Will you stay here with Aggie and me? Let us help you with your baby?’ He hugged Honey tight and kissed both her cheeks.

  The three of them ate cereal and drank coffee. Aggie rattled on about government agencies and childcare provisions. Luke was subdued, barely eating, smiling only when Honey met his eyes.

  ‘I have to get to work,’ Aggie said eventually, carrying her bowl to the sink. She turned and smiled down at Luke, who was staring morosely into his coffee cup. ‘Luke, sweetie, can you take Honey to social security this morning? Sort out her payments?’