by Robert Power
‘But those alive at Armageddon, those who have turned their backs on the Truth, those who have sinned against the Spirit, will be struck down and sent to Hades for evermore.’
‘Only Jehovah’s people will be protected from the terrible fires and torments of Armageddon. You, Oscar can be one of those to be saved.’
I listen to the Twins and conjure images of medieval sieges, the fires blazing around the dome-topped cathedral, and we, Jehovah’s people, safe inside.
There is a lull as Perch climbs onto a fallen log, spreading out her arms to deliver the final message.
‘And all those who commit adultery and other sins against Jehovah should realise it is better to die today than to face His wrath at Armageddon. It is better to die now, to wait in the ground for the blessed touch and hope of the Resurrection.’
Then, almost exhausted, Perch flops forward and falls silent.
On the walk home I tread lightly and look over my shoulder. The hairs rise on my neck in fear and expectation. When I get home, with Stigir winding in and out of my steps, I go straight down to the cellar, making sure no one knows I’m back in the house. Opening the Bible, I quickly read the birthday greeting, touch the dried ink and then flick through the pages to the Book of Revelation. My heart races, as I know what I am looking for. I know what the Twins were warning me of. Listen to this Stigir.
‘Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Four there were. Dreaded. And each one with a special terrible secret and gift. Chasing us. In the night-time. Is this what happened to Great Aunt Margaret’s baby girl? The fires of Armageddon? Hades? The four horsemen in the coach-house setting fire and sacrificing the baby? Killing the baby because of all those animals sacrificed to the gods of men?’
I turn the pages back to the Book of Proverbs. I know where I’m up to, but I’ll leave it to God to show me a sign. So I close my eyes, flip the pages and circle my finger above the words. Stigir, Stigir, I didn’t cheat, I didn’t peek, you know I didn’t, I swear on my life. Hand on my heart. Stigir’s ears pop up and down and then up again, telling me he knows I’m telling the truth. Stigir, this is where my finger pointed. I’ll read it to you.
‘The fear of the wicked, it shall come upon him: but the desire of the righteous shall be granted.’
I read it over again in my mind until I’m happy that it’s telling me that if we’re good we’ll be okay. When I look up, Stigir is sniffing around the base of one of the trunks, the one with the folder from the hospital. I hope telling the fib about Great Aunt Margaret and the teeth doesn’t make me wicked.
‘It’s late, girls. Getting to be time for bed,’ says Mrs Fishcutter, trying to sound light and cheerful, but really worn down by the Twins’ indifference to her.
Perch and Carp ignore her and continue with their work, pouring over the pages spread out on the dining table.
Their stepmother takes a deep breath, remembering her husband’s pleading with her to keep trying. ‘Do the loving thing and you can’t go wrong,’ he had said.
So she smiles, stretches up on tiptoes and looks over Carp’s head to see what holds their concentration.
‘Ah,’ she says, ‘the family tree. What fun.’
The Twins take no notice of her and continue marking out the lines linking the branches of the family.
‘Where’s your mother?’ she asks, treading on untrodden territory.
The Twins stop what they are doing.
‘Here,’ says Carp, pointing to an elegant drawing of a woman at the centre of the page. She is dressed in a white shroud and has a halo around her head.
‘Why does she have a halo?’
‘In case she is one of the Remnant to rule over us when Jesus comes again,’ says Perch, without looking up.
‘During the thousand-year reign,’ says Perch.
‘After Armageddon,’ affirms Mrs Fishcutter.
‘When we will all be judged,’ say the Twins, huddling together, crouching over their work.
‘Where do I fit in?’ asks Mrs Fishcutter, keenly aware of the irony of her remark.
The Twins chew their pencils and then both point to a blank space on the page at the end of a perpendicular line.
‘Here,’ says Carp.
‘We’ve a special place for you,’ adds Perch.
‘Oh, good,’ replies their Stepmother, unable to think of anything else to say. ‘Well, I’ll get on in the kitchen. But bedtime soon, yes?’
No response.
So Mrs Fishcutter wanders back to the kitchen, where she stares aimlessly at the row of heavy copper-bottomed pans, surprised at the thought that enters her head: what might it take to crack a skull?
In the next room the Twins sharpen their pencils, then turn the perpendicular line into a hangman’s noose, the right-angle of the family tree into a gallows and draw their stepmother hanging in the void. Carp adds pins sticking into her face. Perch takes a red crayon and sets her clothes ablaze.
‘Dibbleydob, Perch.’
‘Dobbleydab, Carp.’
And they throw back their heads and laugh and laugh.
THIRTEEN
OSCAR EMBRACES JEHOVAH
‘By her informed, we best religion learn, Its glorious object by her aid discern.’ Blackmore
‘Brothers and sisters, it was these very acts which led Jehovah to wreak his wrath on Sodom and Gomorrah,’ declares Brother Solomon. ‘Such bestiality makes God weep each time they are performed, and they are performed today as then. Promiscuity, adultery, the perverted acts of homosexuality. Do not be deceived. Jehovah is watching. Bestiality. Men and women as beasts. He will judge. He will bring retribution on those who persist in lustful, base and unnatural deeds. As God’s people, as his witnesses on earth, it behooves us to be clean and wholesome, to understand His Will for us, and to be untainted by worldly ways and the corruption of Satan, the devil.’
Perch and Carp exchange complicit glances. These words are a sign. A sign to reassure them of the righteousness of their intentions. Divine intervention from their Heavenly Father.
Beside them sits their earthly father, biting a fingernail, staring into the middle distance. The speaker, Brother Solomon, balding, tiny, crisp as a lettuce in his new suit, shirt and tie, bought specially for today, pauses for emphasis. He peers over the lectern, wishing the microphone was six inches lower, or he was nine inches taller. Row upon row of shiny clean faces look back at him. Men in identical black suits, white shirts and sober ties. Women in modest flannel frocks and cardigans. Nursing mothers rock their babies in the aisles. Toddlers and children, miniatures of their parents, sit obediently, Bibles on their laps, always at the ready.
‘Sexual intercourse is a blessing to be enjoyed by two loving people in the confines of the marriage bed,’ continues Brother Solomon. ‘But, as with all things, we must live our lives in accordance with the dictates of the Holy word of God. Please open your Bibles to the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter one, starting at verse two.’
There is a ruffling of pages throughout the hall, as if the Holy Spirit had swept by on its way to Babylon.
‘Brothers and sisters, let us follow along in our Bibles together,’ says Brother Solomon, trying to read the scriptures and look up at the same time.
‘Vanity of vanities, says the preacher, vanity of vanities. All is vanity.’ His reverent tone changes as he moves from the reverence of direct quotation. ‘All is vanity and a striving after wind. Let not yourselves be seduced by the ways and wiles, desires and lusts of the modern world.’
Outside in the street it is a normal Saturday afternoon. There is a light drizzle, but the townsfolk mill up and down the High Road, weaving in and out of the shops like grazing cattle. Extra large boxes of soap flakes are two for the price of one at Thomson’s; Joanne’s Boutique has a new floral dress in the window, though Joanne is worried about the mannequin with the chipped elbow. Mutton chops are on special offer at the butcher’s. Inside the shop, Mrs Butcherhook wipes the blood from her hands onto her apron. She is slicing ox’s l
iver on a huge marble block her grandfather bought from an Italian sailor on his way to Jamaica. Through the plate-glass window she surveys the street, cutting the liver by Braille, the fingers of one hand measuring its width as she slices with the other. She stares at the sign draped across the picture house on the other side of the street.
JEHOVAH’S KINGDOM IS CLOSE AT HAND it declares in huge black capitals, lovingly painted onto five yards of calico by Sister Patience. In order to paint it, the Sister had spread it the full length of her hallway. It had left a black mark on the carpet, a loving memorial to her labours. The stigmata. The imprint of the shroud.
Underneath, in smaller letters and lowercase, it welcomes all to the afternoon’s public lecture.
District Assembly of Jehovah’s Witnesses
Public lecture: ‘Suffer unto me the children’
All freely welcome. This Saturday at 2 p.m.
‘Suffering children,’ hisses Mrs Butcherhook, the liver decimated on the block before her, her own son torturing a blackbird up the hill in Grundy’s Wood as she speaks.
‘I’ll give them suffering,’ she spits to no one in particular, for the shop is empty.
She looks at the pile of offal on the block.
‘Heart,’ she says, sharpening the knife with her words. The ox’s heart, hiding under a pile of tripe, misses a beat and then resigns itself to its fate.
The rain gathers strength, whipping down on the banner. It flaps in the wind, but Sister Patient’s choice of paint ensures the words withstand the elements.
Jimmy and Millie Carter, glad they decided not to go with Barney Butcherhook to the woods, look up at the sign and wonder what sort of film is coming to the picture house.
‘You can’t read,’ says Jimmy to Millie.
‘So, nor can you,’ says Millie to Jimmy.
‘So.’
‘So?’
I’m living in a world full of demons. A Pagan world. Perch and Carp say the Devil is marauding the Earth looking for people and children to come under his spell. He’s roaming around as a ferocious beast before the mighty battle of Armageddon, when he will be chained in a cage for the one-thousand-year reign of Jesus.
If demons are real, as my Bible tells me, then so are all the strange animal things that happen in my life and my house. The were-animals are my family possessed by demons. Mr Fishcutter is a were-wolf in fish clothing.
For our next Bible study I want to ask Perch and Carp:
How do you spot a demon?
How can you make them go away?
Do they know you know they’re demons in disguise?
I know what they look like. The boys, the men. They have short hair and always wear ties. I’ve seen them in the street, always in pairs. Their hair is always parted and flat. I look at myself in the big mirror in Mother’s bedroom. She is somewhere else, so I won’t be disturbed. I pull her big black comb across my head. I’ve splattered a butter-pat of the Father’s hair cream on my curls. The comb rakes it across my head. I flatten it down with my hands, rubbing the grease on the back of my school jumper. I’ve got my only tie on, the green and yellow striped one, because they always wear ties. Straightening the knot, choking a touch, I notice how the shiny hair makes the freckles on my face seem even more freckly. I rub at them, but they stay where they are. I pull up my long cub-scout socks and pick at the scab on my knee. Another few hours and I’ll be able to flick it off. Maybe I’ll feed it to the birds in the park.
I stand to attention, give my reflection the once-over. I strike a pose of greeting, holding out an imaginary book.
‘Good afternoon,’ I say to myself in the mirror, ‘we are calling on you and your neighbours and would like to know if you would like to live as long as the old turtle in this picture here.’
‘Yes, please,’ I say back to myself.
‘Wonderful. So I’ll come back and we can have a Bible study and then we can both live happily forever and ever.’
Downstairs, the clock chimes the half-hour. I rush out of the room, leaving the mirror to carry on with the story.
Outside it is raining hard, but it runs off my greasy hair like water off a seal. When I get to the corner of the High Street I slow down. I want to look appropriate. Tearing along the pavement is not how I imagine a Brother to be. Ever since Perch and Carp told me at our last Bible Study that I was ready to attend a Meeting, to belong, I’ve been anticipating this moment. And it’s not just any Ordinary Meeting, they said, but a District Assembly, when everyone from miles around meets up. I told the Mother and Father I was going to the pictures, which is nearly true.
Over the road Mrs Butcherhook is standing under the awning outside the butcher’s shop, drinking a mug of tea. She is an enormous woman, arms folded to keep her all in. She wears old black boots and her apron is smudged in dry brown blood. She looks like a ship’s surgeon who has just amputated the limbs of twenty sailors shattered by cannon shot. Behind her head hang rows of arms and legs, freshly dripping, ready for sale.
Then I see them, watching me watching Mrs Butcherhook. Perch and Carp, one on the left, one on the right, between them the open door to the picture house. The door has a window on either side. It looks like a cross. Jesus and the two thieves at Calvary. Is this a vision? Am I seeing signs already?
‘The boy is punctual,’ says Perch to Carp, without a hint of a hello, or any real acknowledgement of my presence. But then I’m getting used to the way they treat me, the way they treat everyone.
‘A good sign,’ says Carp to Perch. Then the two turn and walk back inside. I follow them, assuming this is what is expected.
The hall is full with men, women and children. Family groups sit together in rows, munching through packed lunches.
‘Our father and stepmother have gone back to the shop,’ says Perch, noticing me watching all the happy families.
‘So we can sit where we like,’ says Carp.
‘This way,’ says Perch and we follow her to the front, settling down on three seats by the aisle. Everyone else is eating sandwiches and cake, but we sit in silence, eating nothing. The Twins have their Bibles on their laps. The books have green covers, the colour of a meadow in spring. I don’t have a Bible yet, so I put my hands on my knees, which seems to be the next best thing. I play with my scab and watch two men pin a plain white sheet to the wall behind the podium. I look around and see another man focusing a lantern projector, set upon a stand between the rows of seats.
‘Are we going to get some pictures?’ I ask excitedly.
Perch turns to Carp. They both turn to me, raise their eyebrows and then turn their faces back to the front. I return to watching the men and the big white sheet. Above them, painted on the wall of the picture house, is an Arabian scene. It is one I have looked at many times before while waiting for the film-show to begin. The paint is faded, but I can make out the outlines. Tall minarets, sweeping deserts and a big crescent moon. Tiny pinprick stars double as lights. I count the lightbulbs that have blown. Death stars. Four … five … six …
‘Brothers, sisters and friends,’ begins the man on the stage. Lost in the Arabian night, I hadn’t noticed him come up onto the podium. ‘Welcome to the public talk. A special welcome to those of you not yet in the Truth. After the session, Ministerial Servants will be positioned behind the literature stalls to answer all your questions. My name is Brother Harold Pearson and the topic of this afternoon’s talk is one precious to all our hearts and lives, futures and presents: our children.’
This man has a voice that makes me feel safe. I settle in my seat to listen.
Brother Pearson is a kindly man, born into the Truth seven decades ago. As a youngster, he realised his destiny was to work for Jehovah rather than Mammon. He became a Temporary Pioneer at sixteen, committing himself to seventy-five hours a month of Ministry work. By seventeen he was a Special Pioneer, knocking on doors noon and night, offering the gift of everlasting life. To his amazement and sadness this offer was mostly rejected in a trice. Doors wer
e closed on his face, the householder hardly giving a thought to the pearl being cast before them. Sometimes there was cursing, sometimes a lively debate. Rarest of all, exquisite because of its rarity, was the soul with an open heart. These he would go back to on a ‘Return Visit’, as he would write on the street-maps of the territory he was covering. Once a year, or so, he would achieve a Bible Study. This was his greatest joy. To watch a Worldling, though he never liked the term, embrace, accept and revel in the gems of the Truth. At the age of nineteen he married Anita, another Special Pioneer. They had held hands before the wedding night, losing their virginity in a fumble of Camberwick eiderdown and an unexpected amount of fluids.
In the year before their first son was born the couple achieved their ambition to be Missionaries. Two years previous they had been accepted by the Bethlem, where they underwent special training in the Bible and an intensive course in Spanish. It was a year totally devoted to Jehovah, a year of cardboard shacks and the barrios of Bogota. But they have been long back amongst the North Sea winds, the smell of mackerel, and the enduring certainty of the Second Coming, settling down to their family lives: she as mother and wife of four children; he as Elder in the congregation, Special Pioneer and town window cleaner.
The man who is speaking has kind eyes. The same kind eyes as Mrs April. From the front row I can see the way his face and eyes smile when he speaks. Thin lines appear on his face: the script of his soul. I like the colour of his tie. It’s pastel blue with light pink shading. His suit is creamy-coloured and he has a bright red rose in his buttonhole. I think it is his heart. He is talking about children. Saying things about how precious they are, gifts from Jehovah, to be nurtured and shaped. Every now and then he refers to the Bible, accompanied by the sound of turning pages as everyone focuses on their books. I join in by staring at the scab on my knee.
‘It is not easy bringing up children,’ says Brother Pearson, pausing, casting a glance around the audience. ‘I can see by the nods this is not only my experience.’ There is a titter amongst the Brothers and Sisters. ‘Sister Pearson and I have brought up four children. With love. With effort. With kindness and discipline. But most importantly, with the guidance for living, laid down for us by Jehovah God through his inspired scriptures.