by Robbi Neal
Soup spoons chimed against the silence as they dipped into the china bowls.
‘I’m Pastor Rose now,’ Reuben said.
‘Past what?’ snapped his father.
‘Pastor. I’ve joined the Baptists. I’ve been baptised, immersed.’
Lisbet gasped. ‘Oh Reuben! I’ve prayed for you to come to your senses, I’ve prayed for your safe return, but I never prayed for you to be a Baptist!’
Doran pushed his soup bowl aside. Soup slopped onto the table and began a painful drip onto the floor. He scraped his chair noisily on the floorboards; the sound sent shivers down Alice’s spine.
‘I should have known you would do something truly stupid one day. I should have seen it coming. I should have been tougher with you. It all started when you changed your name.’
‘Well, don’t get too worked up yet because there’s more,’ said Reuben.
They all stopped eating and waited. Everything inside Alice was still. There were too many changes happening too fast. What other change could Reuben possibly bring into her life?
‘We are moving to Australia. That is where God has called me to serve. My wife, my child and I are going to Australia.’
Doran threw his napkin on the table and stormed from the room, slamming the door behind him. The force of it made Alice jump in her seat. Lisbet, she saw, was determined to remain calm. Alice tried to copy her; she took deep breaths and rubbed the pain in her belly.
‘Wasn’t your bar mitzvah enough religion, Reuben?’ Lisbet said quietly.
‘Lovely soup, Ryan, please tell Cook,’ he said.
He looked kindly at his mother. ‘I know this is hard for you, but if it makes you feel better it’s not that I am no longer a Jew. Christianity is a sect of Judaism, really. It’s just that I am a Jewish Christian. I have welcomed the Lord Jesus into my heart. I have not turned my back on Judaism, I have just taken Christianity as well. I have completed who I am. I don’t know why Father is so upset, we’ve never been religious, but now I am, so I suppose I am more Jewish.’
‘A Jewish Christian,’ Lisbet repeated.
‘Such people do exist, you know. I am not alone.’
Alice thought of their baby up in the nursery. Did this mean he didn’t have to be brought up Jewish now?
‘So will we be baptising our baby as a Christian at St Martin’s?’ she asked hopefully. She would much prefer that they did.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Baptists don’t baptise babies.’
She heard Lisbet sigh with relief, but she groaned with anxiety. If the baby wasn’t Jewish and he wasn’t baptised, then he was nothing. If he died like so many children did with childhood diseases that always seemed to lurk in the doorway of the nursery, he wouldn’t go to heaven. How could Reuben do this to her on top of everything else? How could he do this to their child?
She glared at Reuben but he looked back as if everything between them had always been pleasant and sweet, as though she was his much-loved wife and he had always been her faithful devoted husband.
‘Alice, how do you feel about being a pastor’s wife?’ Reuben could have been asking how she felt about a picnic on Sunday.
She felt an overpowering urge to hit him, so she sat on her hands. Her mind reeled with the implications of what he had done and what he was saying and how he was moving her to the other end of the world. Then slowly she realised there was a payoff. It came to her like the tiny light of a match. It struggled for a moment to take hold but soon her mind was burning. She had heard about Baptists. Her friend Izzy had been a Baptist and she was no fun at all. If he was a Baptist he couldn’t drink any more or go out carousing. He couldn’t dance or gamble. He couldn’t smoke and, most of all, if he was a Baptist it would mean that he couldn’t sleep with the maids any more. If they were in Australia he wouldn’t be the celebrated fighter pilot or a Rosenberg from Ashgrove House. The girls wouldn’t fall into him because he would just be an ordinary church pastor.
‘Baptists don’t drink or gamble, do they?’ she asked nonchalantly; she wasn’t going to show him how much she cared.
‘Alice, I am a man of God now. I live a life worthy of God.’
‘Yes, but does that mean you won’t drink or gamble or — or anything else?’ she asked firmly. She wanted to see how sincere he was. It was possible this was just some elaborate joke to get at his father. He loved nothing more than upsetting his father and she’d never been able to work out why.
‘Reuben, does that mean you won’t drink or gamble or — anything else?’ she asked again slowly.
‘Alice, I am a man of God,’ he said again. ‘I won’t gamble or drink — or anything else.’
They both knew what anything else meant.
A smile grew inside her and came to her lips. ‘Well then, it seems I don’t have much choice in the matter, do I?’ She looked at her soup because she couldn’t remove the smile from her face. Her life had suddenly turned around. She was going to have a husband who would be true to her, who would be reliable and honest. Yes he would be religious but she felt she could live with that so much more easily than what she had lived with so far in her marriage.
Reuben got up from the table and walked around to her. ‘I have a name for the baby,’ he said putting his arm around her shoulders, his head pleasantly resting against hers.
That cheered Lisbet up. ‘Really, Reuben? A family name, I hope. Perhaps Silas or Meyer?’
‘Wycliffe. I’m calling him Wycliffe after the great Protestant martyr.’
His mother frowned. She’d never heard the name before and it took her several goes to get the spelling right.
Alice liked the name. It had a ring to it. She repeated it several times.
‘Mother,’ Reuben said, standing tall, ‘I am alive and I am going to be a better man. Surely that’s all that matters.’
‘I’ll try to focus on that but I do think I’m going to miss the old Reuben.’
Later that night Reuben came into Alice’s room and whispered love into her ear. She never asked him where he had been or what he had done in all those months he was missing. She didn’t want to know. She was just glad that at last she had a real husband.
Reuben had run from the house a madman. He had stood in that room with his new child in his hands and seen everyone’s souls: Mary, who he had taken in her tiny cast-iron bed in her maid’s room, her soul was open to him, wanting more than he could give; his mother’s soul, yearning for a life she hadn’t had; Alice’s soul, damp and crinkled with disappointment, growing something unhealthy; his baby’s soul, fresh and new. He saw what he had done to all of them. He rushed down the stairs and he saw Ryan’s soul as Ryan opened the front door for him. Ryan, who was so faithful in his service but really hated them all. He saw Pevensie’s soul full of bliss as he bent over the roses, his soul intertwining with the earth. He saw the souls of the trees, fluttering, shimmering, speaking to the angels.
In his head the voices pounded, ‘Talk to us, Reuben!’ Over and over they called. The guns boomed and the earth split open and barbed wire tore at men’s flesh.
‘I’m talking! Let’s discuss this reasonably. Just tell me what’s next!’ he yelled over the noise.
He took the car, cranked the motor and drove until the petrol ran out. It was night by the time he stopped. The voices continued to yell at him as he rested his head on the steering wheel and fell asleep.
‘Reuben, talk to us,’ called the voices of God and Satan. Behind the voices he could hear the bombs exploding and men screaming for their mothers. In the morning he abandoned the car and walked with his hands over his ears, trying uselessly to block out the clamour. He had no idea how far he had travelled or where he was. He just walked. He would go into the first synagogue he came to. Maybe in a synagogue God and Satan would tell him what was next. If they would just be reasonable, maybe he could do a deal with them and they would leave him alone. He stumbled through a field and saw a small timber chapel. It had an awning over the door and two plain windows a
t the front and sat alone in the field on the edge of the village as though someone had left it for a moment and forgotten to come back for it. Apart from the cross perched on its roof like a weather vane, it was little more than a timber barn. Reuben walked through the long grass and up the front steps and tried to open the door but it was locked. Reuben hated God and Satan then for keeping him out, they were being so unreasonable.
‘He hates us,’ said Satan to God.
‘Sometimes,’ said God.
How dare they bring him all this way only to lock the door in his face! He swore and banged on the door with both fists. He banged louder than the bombs, louder than the screams of dying men, but not louder than the voices of God and Satan.
‘You’re going to punch a hole in my door,’ came a new voice.
The sounds of dying men and an irritable God and an overbearing Satan faded off into the distance. He turned around. The man was tubby and had a baby face. Reuben couldn’t trust someone who looked so innocent; who looked too young to have experienced the war.
‘You’re not a rabbi,’ said Reuben.
‘No, I’m not, son,’ said the man, whose voice was old and fatherly, ‘but God can still speak through me to ease your burden. I know what the war does, I know the burdens you carry. I’ve heard many confessions.’
Reuben looked at the man’s clear young eyes and realised they were set in an older face. His eyes travelled from the man’s face to his chest, and sure enough there was his soul, red and fervent, eager to spread the word. The man was in fact very elderly and had experienced many wars and many deaths.
‘Just let me go and get the keys for the chapel. I live next door in the manse,’ said the Reverend, indicating a cottage about three hundred yards away.
‘No! I can’t wait. Now! I need to finish this now! I can’t stand a minute longer of this,’ demanded Reuben. The Reverend looked worried; was he dealing with a madman? Should he call the police to take him away? Reuben felt the Reverend’s mind turning over, deciding whether to run for the constable.
After a long moment of consideration, the Reverend said, ‘Why don’t you kneel there on the steps?’
And Reuben did. He hoped the man knew what he was doing; he had to stop the racket in his head.
‘You have to repent of your sins,’ the Reverend said.
‘All of them?’
The Reverend nodded. ‘Even those during the war. God does not distinguish.’
Reuben thought of the war and wondered if what he had done constituted murder. He suspected it did and didn’t answer.
‘Just close your eyes and repent of everything you can think of,’ said the Reverend. ‘Make sure you mean it. Confession and repentance are the keys to salvation. You must turn away and never sin again.’
So Reuben confessed his sins. He thought he would be confessing his fornication, but God and Satan whispered, ‘No, we don’t want your fornication. Confess to us your pride. Confess to us that you use others to fulfil your own needs. Confess to us your lack of responsibility towards those who love you. Confess your desire to destroy instead of create!’ Reuben did, and it took so long the Reverend’s legs got tired and he sat on the step next to Reuben, his hand resting on Reuben’s head.
Hours later when Reuben had finished repenting, he looked up at the Reverend and tears were streaming down both their faces. Reuben listened and all he heard was silence, then slowly and quietly came a voice. It was just the one voice, off in the distance: the soothing, gentle voice of God. Satan had done his work, taken the dying and left. Reuben felt his chest and it was light. He looked down and saw his soul and it was flying, freed from its cage. Reuben didn’t notice the pain in his knees from kneeling so long on the hard steps until the Reverend reached out his hand and helped him to stand.
The Reverend took Reuben home for lunch and while they ate Wensleydale cheese sandwiches and drank tea he told Reuben about the state of human depravation and the ignorant practice of infant baptism. He showed Reuben verses from the Old Testament and the New Testament that proved salvation came through faith, and Reuben learnt them by heart. That night he showed Reuben to his spare bedroom and they started again the next day and the day after that and after many weeks, when the Reverend had taught Reuben all he needed to know, he took his small flock of thirty villagers down to the pond behind the chapel on a Sunday afternoon. The flock sang ‘All to Jesus I Surrender’ as they stood on the banks of the pond, far enough back that their shoes wouldn’t be ruined in the mud. They watched as the old Reverend with his shaking arthritic arms pushed Reuben’s body under the icy cold water with all his might. Reuben went into the water with his brown soul and his special white clothes and came up from the water with his clothes brown from the mud but his soul white as snow. At least that’s what Reuben believed.
Thirty-Eight
The Tests
Monday, 29 August 1921, Ballarat, when no one likes a test.
June could be chilly but this was Arctic. The icy ghosts of men escaped out from the mines that had closed two years ago, and the town was filled with a cold that was unusual and silent.
Edie, Gracie, Lilly and Paul had taken a horse-drawn cab from the shops. ‘I keep telling you there is no way in the world motor vehicles will outdo reliable horsepower,’ said Paul several times. When the horse pulled into the drive they ran inside and slammed the door shut on the cold. Edie said, ‘You could catch your death out there,’ as she put her basket of shopping on the kitchen table.
‘Are you having another lesson? You’ll need to rug up. You should take a blanket for your knees,’ said Gracie.
‘It’s my driving test today,’ said Edie, and she felt sadness wash over her.
Edie thought of Virgil’s lovely blue car, which led her to think about his lovely blue sweater and his lovely blue eyes. She would get her father to buy a Morris Crowley like Virgil’s, so she would be used to it, but it would have to be a four-seater. Virgil’s was a two-seater. She looked at the clock. It was 2 p.m. and her test was at three. Virgil was picking her up. She didn’t know if it was Virgil or the lessons she had liked the best but either way they just had to go on because she spent all week looking forward to her lesson. It was something she was doing for herself.
Lilly and Paul had gone into his study, chatting away with each other, oblivious to Gracie and Edie who walked down to the kitchen. Gracie filled the kettle with water, Edie got out the cups and saucers and made sure the pot was empty from the last lot of tea.
‘I really enjoy my lessons, you know,’ she said to Gracie.
‘Why do they have to stop?’ said Gracie, pointing to the tea caddy that was out of her reach. Edie stood on her tiptoes and lifted it off the mantle.
‘Well, I’m going for my licence and once I pass I won’t need to have lessons any more.’
Gracie put two teaspoons of tea leaves into the pot. ‘So don’t pass,’ she said, and they both smiled.
At half-past two Edie stared at herself in the hall mirror. She studied the fine lines around her eyes and mouth and wet her finger and ran it over her eyebrows. She was thirty-five years old and she laughed at her younger self who had stood in front of this mirror and thought she was too old to get a husband at nineteen. That young girl had no idea how old she would become. Edie realised how silly she had been, but now she really was old and there was absolutely no hope of a husband and a husband was something she no longer wanted. So why was there this tug on a string whenever she thought about it? She shook her head then pulled her green cloche hat firmly over her hair and down to her eyebrows; she tied a red scarf around her neck and put on her coat and gloves. Then she followed Gracie’s advice and grabbed the crocheted knee rug that Lilly had made. She opened the door and jumped because Virgil was right behind it, waiting for her. He had an open umbrella, ‘In case it rains between here and the car,’ he said, holding it out. She peered at the threatening grey clouds and put her hand out into the air that was thick with wetness.
‘A
re you nervous? Don’t be nervous,’ he said. ‘You’re an excellent driver. I would put my life in your hands any day.’
‘Thank you, Virgil,’ she said and wondered if she had the courage to fail her test as Gracie suggested.
She drove to the police station in Camp Street and waited in the car while Virgil went in to get Old George who would test her driving. She wasn’t nervous about her driving skills at all, but when Constable George looked at her, his face full of uncertainty, she played the part and quivered as though she was racked with nerves.
‘Miss Cottingham, I’m not sure about this at all. I haven’t tested a woman before,’ he said, opening the passenger door.
‘You’ll be right, sergeant,’ said Virgil, leaning on the car bonnet. ‘I’m a good instructor.’
Old George got in and sat next to her instead of Virgil. The car groaned and sank under his weight.
‘All right then,’ said George, ‘show me you’re safe.’
Edie drove up Mair Street to the lake and drove around the lake at five miles an hour. When they crawled back into Camp Street still at five miles an hour and she parked outside the station, Virgil was standing there, his arms crossed over his chest, slowly shaking his head.
‘Sorry,’ said George from the window of the car. ‘She’s a danger on the road, she’s too slow. She’ll hold up the horses.’
‘Really?’ asked Virgil and he looked at her as though he couldn’t work her out. She drove perfectly well with him.
‘I’ll give her some more lessons, George, and we’ll try again.’
Monday, 12 September 1921, when Edie tries again.
Edie had two more lessons and Virgil booked her for another test. On the next test Edie pulled out into Camp Street, went left up Mair Street, left into Lydiard and right into Sturt. She drove up to Drummond Street and Constable George said, ‘All right, I’ve seen enough, you can take us back now.’ So she drove back to the police station and she did it all perfectly and Old George stretched back and relaxed into his seat and Edie began to manoeuvre the car to park it outside the police station and she backed into the fire hydrant so that water spurted in a fountain from the earth and a dent like a broken egg sat in the rear silver bumper bar. She and George scrambled out of the car.