‘Gracie!’ she shouted.
Tilly never shouted. Once, she was stung by a wasp, and it took ten minutes for any of us to realize.
‘Why are you shouting?’ My head was back in the kitchen, and I could feel the heat creep into my face.
‘You’ve got to come now,’ she said. Her face was tomato red, and the words struggled to leave her mouth with all the breath in there. ‘Now,’ she said again.
‘Why?’
I wrapped my arms around my chest and leaned against the fridge door, so I wouldn’t look interested.
‘You’ll never guess who’s at the end of the avenue. You’ll never guess.’
She repeated ‘you’ll never guess’ a few more times, just in case I was under the ridiculous impression that I might be able to guess.
I leaned a bit more. ‘Who?’ I said, and looked at my fingernails.
Tilly took another deep breath, and when she spoke, she made sure the words came out with as much force as her lungs could possibly muster. ‘It’s Jesus!’
The Drainpipe
30 July 1976
I think we might have left the back door open, but I couldn’t be certain.
We fell out of the kitchen in a tangle of questions and Tilly’s cardigan got caught on the door handle. Remington woke up to see what all the noise was about, and was nearly fallen over as we tried to get outside.
‘I don’t understand,’ I said.
We tipped out on to the path. I realized I wasn’t wearing any shoes, but it didn’t matter. The concrete was as warm as carpet.
‘You’ll see,’ she said, and her excitement pulled me along the side of the house and down the avenue.
We passed Mr Forbes, who watched us from his lawn.
‘Jesus is here,’ I said, by way of an explanation. He continued to stare, but a touch of a frown wandered into his eyebrows.
Sheila Dakin looked up from cooking herself and rested on her elbows. She screened her eyes from the sun and waved, and I slowed down to wave back.
‘Come on,’ said Tilly. ‘He might leave!’
We reached the far end of the avenue, where a small patch of grass blended into a spray of chippings. Tilly stopped very suddenly and held on to my elbow. There were two council garages there, but both of them were empty and their shutters had long since disappeared. Shells of cool, dark concrete stared back at us, but no Jesus – just rainbow pools of spilled oil and the soft conversation of leaves in dusty corners.
‘Where did he go?’ I said.
Tilly made a strange squeak and nodded towards the nearest garage. I took a few steps forward, followed by Tilly, who still held on to my elbow.
The little white stones bit into my feet.
‘There,’ she said, ‘look.’
I looked. There wasn’t anything. ‘There isn’t anything,’ I said.
I had expected Jesus to be waiting for me, wearing a clean, white robe with deep sleeves, and a neat beard, and possibly a generous smile. Instead, there was a torn bin liner and a rotten tyre, and where I expected Jesus to be standing were lines of thirsty weeds, marking the place where paving slabs had once sat.
‘There,’ Tilly said and nodded into fresh air.
I didn’t move. She gave a small sigh and pulled me towards the outside wall of the garage. ‘There,’ she said.
I looked again. Nothing. ‘All I see is a drainpipe.’
‘Grace, look at the drainpipe!’
I looked at the drainpipe. It was made of some kind of ceramic. I thought it must have been white at some point, but now it was peeled and chipped and there was a large brown stain near the bottom, where something had been spilled.
I looked at the stain again.
‘Do you see it?’ Tilly said.
I crouched down to get a better look. There were swirls of paint or creosote. Patchy marks of brown where the tip of someone’s brush had grazed the pipe. But there was something odd about it, something almost familiar.
I sat back and made my eyes very narrow.
And then I saw Him – as plain as anything. So obvious that I couldn’t imagine why I hadn’t noticed Him in the first place.
‘Jesus!’ I shouted.
And Tilly began to squeal.
*
Tilly’s squealing brought Mr Forbes out of his garden, and because Sheila Dakin had seen him leave, she felt obliged to leave too, in case she missed out on a situation which required her presence.
They crouched next to us in front of the drainpipe. I could smell sun cream and tobacco.
Mr Forbes turned his head this way and that. He took his glasses off and moved them backwards and forwards between his face and the drainpipe.
‘Do you see?’ I said.
He moved his glasses a bit more, and then all of a sudden he fell back into his shorts.
‘Jesus Christ!’ he said.
‘Exactly!’ said Tilly.
Sheila Dakin saw Him at the same time, and said bloody hell and blew Lambert & Butler all over the Son of God.
Mr Forbes told her to be careful, and we all waved our arms around, and everyone started coughing (except Mrs Dakin, who seemed to have done all her coughing on the way over).
‘I’m going to get Dorothy,’ said Mr Forbes. ‘This will perk her up no end.’
Sheila Dakin ground her cigarette into the chippings with the tip of her slipper. She peered in at Jesus.
‘He looks bloody miserable, though, doesn’t he?’ she said.
‘I always imagined that when I met Jesus, he’d be quite cheerful,’ said Tilly. ‘I thought he’d wear a long smock and look people in the eye.’
‘Me too,’ I said.
We both stared at the drainpipe.
I tilted my head to one side. ‘Perhaps he’s having an off day.’
*
‘I haven’t finished my list yet, Harold.’
I could hear Mrs Forbes being led along the pavement. When she appeared, she had a duster tucked into the waistband of her apron, and Mr Forbes’ arms around her shoulders, as though he were guiding the blind through traffic.
‘Harold, you’re confusing me again.’
‘Just open your eyes and look,’ he said.
She stood very still and stared at the garage, and her hand went straight to her mouth.
I wondered which words were trying to escape.
‘Jesus,’ she said. ‘Jesus is in the …’
‘Drainpipe,’ said Mr Forbes.
‘Well, I never did.’
She saw Him straight away.
*
By lunchtime, Drainpipe Jesus had caused quite a commotion.
Mr Forbes fetched a selection of deckchairs, and Mrs Forbes insisted on sitting as close as possible to Jesus, without blocking His view of anyone. She took a tissue from her sleeve and dabbed her nose with it.
Every so often she said, ‘It’s a sign.’
‘Of what?’ I whispered.
But no one answered.
At one point, Sheila Dakin said God knows under her breath, but she nipped home for a T-shirt to cover herself up, just in case.
Under the circumstances, she said.
After half an hour, Eric Lamb appeared, in thick wellington boots covered in soil. He left a trail right up to Jesus, where he bent down and stared at Him straight in the eyes.
‘I don’t see it,’ he said.
‘How can you not see it?’ Mrs Forbes stopped at dabbing her nose. ‘It’s as plain as a … as a …’
‘Pikestaff,’ shouted Mr Forbes.
‘It’s just a creosote stain, Dot.’ Eric stood back and folded his arms. ‘Just a regular, everyday creosote stain. The heat must have brought it out.’
Mrs Forbes tightened her eyes and arched an eyebrow. ‘Well, I suppose it’s a question of faith, Eric, isn’t it?’ she said.
And strangely, when Eric Lamb stepped back and squinted, and stared at the drainpipe from a different angle, he did in fact find that it was Jesus after all. ‘I’ll be damned,’
he said.
Mrs Forbes just nodded and told Mr Forbes to fetch people a glass of lemonade.
Sheila Dakin said, a glass of sherry might be nice, but everyone ignored her.
Mr Forbes returned with lemonade and more deckchairs, and we all sat in the shade of the garages, with the rotten tyre and the dusty leaves and Jesus.
‘What do you think it means?’ said Sheila Dakin.
Thin Brian sat on the grass in his plastic jacket. He’d started off in a deckchair, but it had to be abandoned because, every time he moved, it tried to fold him up.
‘I reckon it’s a warning,’ he said. ‘Like when you see a magpie or break a mirror. I reckon it means there’s trouble coming.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, lad.’ Harold Forbes took out his pipe. ‘They’re just superstitions. This is religion.’
‘Well, he’s obviously here to tell us something.’ Mrs Forbes disappeared the tissue again and sipped at her lemonade. ‘He must have a message.’
‘What kind of message?’ said Tilly.
‘I’m not sure.’ Mrs Forbes bit into her top lip. ‘But that’s what Jesus does, isn’t it? He brings messages.’
People shifted on canvas seats and Tilly drew her knees up to her chest. ‘What could Jesus have to say to any of us?’ she whispered.
Harold Forbes coughed, and everyone else just shuffled their feet in the chippings.
‘Do you think Jesus is trying to tell us Margaret Creasy is still alive?’ said Mrs Dakin. ‘That she didn’t fall in the canal after all?’
‘Don’t be so ridiculous, Sheila. Of course she’s not alive.’ Harold Forbes rearranged his shorts on the deckchair. ‘People’s shoes don’t turn up at the side of a canal without good reason.’
Mrs Forbes crossed herself and looked at the drainpipe out of the corner of her eye.
‘We need the vicar,’ she mouthed, ‘to translate.’
*
It was about half past three when Mrs Morton appeared. She had been alerted by a telephone call just after The Archers, and had brought her reading glasses along especially.
‘I didn’t know how tall He’d be,’ she said.
She peered and frowned like everyone else had, then Mrs Forbes told her to step back a bit, and when she did, the shock of seeing Jesus sent her straight into a deckchair.
‘Isn’t it exciting?’ I said.
‘Who found him?’ said Mrs Morton.
Tilly shuffled along the grass until she was level. ‘I did,’ she said. ‘I was hanging around here, trying to decide whether to go home or go back to Grace’s and say sorry.’
Mrs Morton looked at me, but didn’t comment. ‘Well, you should be very proud,’ she said to Tilly. ‘He wasn’t easy to spot. It was obviously meant to be.’
Tilly turned to me. ‘Perhaps the newspaper will want to interview us,’ she said. ‘Perhaps people all over the place will see us. Even people from Bournemouth.’
‘Perhaps,’ I said.
‘I wonder if I should wear a dress.’ She scratched at a stain on her cardigan sleeve. ‘Although perhaps people won’t recognize me if I don’t wear a cardigan. I want to make sure people recognize me, don’t I, Gracie?’
‘Definitely,’ I said.
‘You were the one who found Him, though, Tilly, not Grace,’ said Mrs Morton.
‘But we’re friends.’ Tilly looked at me. ‘We go halves on everything. Even Jesus.’
We both stared at the drainpipe and smiled.
Number Two, The Avenue
30 July 1976
‘What do you mean, Jesus?’ May Roper pulled the crocheted sea a little further up her legs.
‘On the drainpipe. I’ve seen Him with my own eyes.’
‘Have you been in the sun again, Brian?’
‘Sheila Dakin thinks it’s a sign.’
‘A sign she’s been at the sherry.’
Brian turned back to the window. There was quite a crowd now, and he could see Harold Forbes, marching around in the middle of it all in his shorts. ‘Everyone’s out there, Mam. They reckon it’s something to do with Margaret Creasy going missing.’
‘You don’t need to be Jesus to work out what’s happened there. You’ve only got to look at number eleven.’
Brian frowned, but said nothing. ‘They reckon the vicar from St Anthony’s is coming later,’ he said.
‘The vicar?’
‘Maybe even a bishop. You know, to give it the green light. As a miracle.’
‘Why on earth would the Lord God Almighty choose to perform a miracle on this avenue?’ said his mother. ‘I doubt very much the vicar will even give Jesus the time of day.’
‘I think he will.’ Brian took one more look and straightened the curtain. ‘Dorothy Forbes is in charge of it all.’
‘Dorothy Forbes? In charge?’
‘Oh, yes. Definitely in charge.’ He turned from the window. ‘What are you doing?’
His mother had unwrapped herself from the crochet and was on her feet. ‘I’m going over there, of course,’ she said. ‘If anyone’s in charge of Jesus, it’s going to be me.’
The Drainpipe
30 July 1976
The afternoon passed by and we passed by along with it.
Mrs Forbes refused to leave the Son of God, for fear of Him disappearing on us, and May Roper refused to leave Mrs Forbes. Eric Lamb said it was quite relaxing, sitting in the sunshine, and Sheila Dakin kept dozing off, so we all sat together, fanning ourselves with the backs of our hands and talking about nothing in particular. Other people came and went – people who didn’t live on the avenue, but had heard about Jesus in the corner shop, or over a washing line. They admired Jesus from a safe distance, designated by Mrs Forbes as being just beyond Sheila Dakin’s left foot. She wasn’t taking any chances, she said. They were tolerated interlopers in our small corner of the world. We were kindred, locked together by Jesus, and sitting in a circle around Him, like pieces of a jigsaw, waiting to fit.
*
When I returned from having my tea, I brought my mother and father back with me.
My mother was easy to persuade, because it was a choice between Jesus and the washing-up, but my father had to be talked into it.
‘Are you serious?’ he said.
I said that I was, and he picked at his teeth and said the heat must have affected us all.
‘At least give it a look, Derek.’ My mother put the unopened Fairy Liquid back on the window ledge. ‘It won’t do any harm.’
And so we waited for him to finish getting round all his teeth, and pull his shirt sleeves down and button the cuffs, and put a lead around Remington (who didn’t really need a lead, but everyone played along with it), and we walked to the end of the avenue in thick evening sunshine, through clouds of anxious midges, accompanied by my father’s sighing and smirking, and saying that the whole world had gone bloody mad.
Mr and Mrs Forbes had been persuaded to go inside and have their dinner, and Mrs Forbes had nominated Mrs Morton to be left in charge of Jesus. She had taken up her post on Mrs Forbes’ vacant deckchair and was being very serious about everything, although she was also involving herself in some knitting at the same time. Eric Lamb sat in the next deckchair, unwinding wool for her from a thick, blue skein.
My father raised his eyebrows. ‘Busy?’ he said.
Eric Lamb smiled. ‘Makes a change,’ he said, ‘brings back a few nice memories.’
My father tried to peer around them. ‘Well, where is He, then?’ He looked up and down the garage wall. ‘Grace says you’ve got Jesus stuck in a drainpipe.’
My mother clasped her hands and leaned forward as far as she could without falling over.
‘He’s there.’ Mrs Morton pointed with a size 7 needle. ‘But be careful you don’t breathe on Him, we’re not sure how resilient He is yet.’
My parents shuffled forward, to stand before the Son of God and Mrs Morton’s rows of stocking stitch.
I could tell the moment my mother saw Him, because sh
e gave a little squeak and jumped backwards. ‘He doesn’t look very happy, though, does He?’ she said, leaning in again.
My father took a step closer and squinted, and pulled a face so all his teeth were showing. He turned his head to the left, and then to the right, and then he stood back and frowned. ‘It looks more like Brian Clough to me,’ he said.
Mrs Morton took a shocked breath.
My father started turning his head again. ‘It does, though, doesn’t it? Do you not see there?’ (He started to point, but Mrs Morton’s knitting needle interrupted him.) ‘It’s the eyebrows.’
‘No, it’s definitely Jesus,’ said Mrs Morton. ‘It’s the nose, you see. Couldn’t possibly be anyone else.’
‘Shame, though.’ Sheila Dakin leaned back in her deckchair. ‘Our Keithie would be down like a shot if he thought we’d got Cloughie here instead.’
Number Eight, The Avenue
30 July 1976
There were eleven of them now.
John could see it all from the front-room window, although the piles of letters and photographs had become so high, he had to squeeze between them to peer through the glass. There were a lot of comings and goings: Sheila rushing around with a T-shirt, Harold fetching a stack of deckchairs. A few hours ago, he’d watched May Roper roll up her sleeves and march over there as if she was going into battle.
He wanted to go and see for himself what was going on, but he couldn’t face the questions. He’d managed to avoid everyone since they’d found Margaret’s shoes. Sheila had knocked on the door a couple of times and he’d seen Brian skulking around outside, looking up at the windows, but he’d generally done quite a successful job of hiding himself away.
PC Green had been a little more persistent, but then policemen always were. He’d knocked at the front and at the back, but it was only when he started shouting through the letterbox that John thought he’d better answer before PC Green summoned up the entire avenue with the racket he was making.
He wanted to know if John would like a liaison officer.
John explained, very politely he thought, that he didn’t liaise with anyone, least of all policemen.
PC Green had told him to try and stay calm, and John said, how was he supposed to do that with DI Hislop rushing around suggesting all sorts of ridiculous things about what might have happened to Margaret. It was obvious she’d be back when she was good and ready. It was their wedding anniversary soon, she’d definitely return for that, and he didn’t care what PC Green, PC Hay or even Detective Hislop had to say about it.
The Trouble with Goats and Sheep Page 23