Angel Dust

by Sarah Mussi

  ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ sighs Marcus. ‘You know. I once thought I saw an angel and she said something like that – she said my friend had been taken very good care of. The image of Marcus covered in angel dust, nodding his head, understanding everything, forgiving me my trespass explodes.

  I cringe. I falter. I remember the torn rose. The fog swirls up.

  ‘C’mon, sis.’ Marcus grabs Jasmine’s arm. ‘This is what I knew would happen. Someone else shot. It’s all my fault.’ He hurries her down the aisle out of the nave into the vestibule. ‘I might as well have pulled the trigger myself.’ His voice breaks ‘Oh God, Joey . . . I’m so sorry . . .’

  ‘Marcus,’ sobs Jasmine. ‘Sharissa’ll be so scared . . . she’s only eleven . . .’

  ‘There’s no way out. No fresh starts,’ says Marcus bitterly. ‘No guardian angels.’

  I hold on to the font. Splash myself anew with Holy water.

  ‘The police can’t protect us. There’s only one way to settle this. Man’ll do as they say, but after . . .’ He crashes out through the huge wooden swing doors into the bright autumn sunshine.

  The church, pews, pillars and windows swirl around me. I must follow. The tugging at my stomach starts. Outside is so hot. What did Lily Rose say – that if you can’t go somewhere, hang on until the last minute, and the pull will tug you to the next place. I hang on. Literally. I get hold of a stone gargoyle carved into the base of the font. Its leering face like a demon’s own seems to smile triumphantly into mine. Its white marble teeth gleam.

  I can withstand the tug no longer. I reach out. I blow out my raiment; a flyer from the church is trapped in its folds. I let go of the gargoyle and, like a rubber band released from its stretching, I zip through air, stone, glass and concrete and with a ping find myself back in the police station, back in the charge office.

  The police do not look happy.

  ‘Step in here,’ says the charge officer with a voice that could crack cement.

  Marcus is led on his own into an interview room. The officer steps in front of Jasmine in a none-too-friendly way. He motions her to go and remain in the waiting area. I glide through into the interview room. Thank God it’s cool inside.

  Marcus sits on a metal chair. His head between his hands.

  ‘You are being charged under Section 5(2) of the Criminal Law Act 1967 with causing wasteful employment of police time by knowingly making a false report which shows that a criminal offence has been committed, creates apprehension for the safety of any persons or property, or indicates that you have information material to any police inquiry. The offence carries a maximum penalty of six months’ imprisonment and/or a fine. I shall now read you your rights . . .’

  Marcus nods; a vein in his temple throbs. His fists are balled tight. ‘I’m sorry, officer,’ he says. ‘Please read me my rights, and I’d like to call a friend to see if they can bail me – if I can. There’s things going on I need to see to.’

  ‘Got somewhere more important to be?’ mocks the police officer.

  The scene whirls.

  Something snaps at me. What’s this? I’m cool. I’m not too near Marcus.

  A dark tunnel opens up. I feel the all-too-familiar tugging again. What’s wrong? I must know how this ends. I can’t leave Marcus alone, shamed, trying to save Sharissa, regretting his decision to change, in a prison cell. I can’t leave him still angry at me. I can’t leave him just when . . . just when I . . . A sudden realisation begins to dawn.

  I just can’t leave him.

  That’s the problem. And I remember Lily’s warnings: ‘If you get too intense your feelings will boil up and you’ll overheat.’

  I take a deep breath. Oh Marcus. I push away my feelings. I must.

  The tugging lessens. The scene clears.

  Time has shifted.

  I am outside the police station. There is Marcus. Thank God he’s free. Jasmine is crying. There are four young men with him. They all look the spitting image of Joey. I think they must be his brothers. One of them is venting.

  ‘Man’s not happy about this y’know, Big M. You think grassing on Crow dem gonna do the business? Man coulda told you he’s too big to take down like that! Now look what you’ve done. Melly shot an’ all and those two kids fucking freaked out. And the law’s got a charge on you. There’s only one way to settle that creep and when we’ve put Joey to rest, man dem gonna pop him like a birthday balloon. You get me?’

  ‘Yeah, I get you,’ says Marcus, ‘an’ I ain’t gonna offer up no excuses. I was doing my own little thing there, trying to straighten up. But I hear what you’re saying, Spider. Thanks for bailing me out. Man owes you big time for that.’

  ‘We could get you legal aid. Claim you were threatened?’ squeaks Jasmine.

  ‘Please, Jazz,’ silences Marcus.

  ‘Cool,’ says the other. ‘We’s a team; we’re there for you, Big M, you know that – and we know you taking it personal about Crow dem. We know Joey was your main man, we know Crow popped you one – so we’re safe.’

  ‘Did you get to Melly’s yard? In time?’ asks Marcus.

  ‘Yeah, we chased them off, but it ain’t looking good for Melly. She bled out on the kitchen floor. They took her to hospital, but you know. We got her junior and Joey’s kid with us now. We told the po, they can’t answer no questions now. They don’t know nothing. Nobody knows nothing and we keep it that way till we fix Crow ourselves.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Marcus and hung his head.

  ‘You’re up for that, innit?’

  ‘Man needs to think,’ says Marcus slowly.

  ‘You watch your back then,’ says the other. ‘Crow gonna feel he whupped you this time, so he might get cocky and try to take you an’ yours out next.’

  ‘Yeah,’ says Marcus. ‘I know.’

  They walk off down the street.

  I follow. The fog is seeping back

  I manage to blow the church flyer on to Jasmine’s hand. She catches it as it flutters past. She scans it, smiles briefly, hands it to Marcus, saying, ‘Look what the wind blew at me – so strange.’

  Jasmine hands him the flyer.

  He looks at it, shrugs and screws it up. He tosses it in the gutter. ‘Where are you now, Guardian Angel?’ he mutters. ‘Still out there rearranging the truth?’

  The fog closes in; I feel myself falling. With a crash, I land spreadeagled on the couch in Lily Rose’s parlour.

  The Channel snaps out.

  And I’m back.

  Serafina 27

  I was confused. I needed space to try and think. He’d been so near. It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t fair. He didn’t have Free Will at all – did he?

  It was all a myth. God’s great creation, mankind, weren’t free at all.

  I had to ask someone. Was the very principle salvation was built on a lie? The thought made me faint. I needed to talk to Kamuel. I knew he went walking at daybreak.

  So I got up early the next morning and lay in wait.

  Kamuel was as tall and elegant as ever, as kind and good-tempered, as sad and thoughtful. He didn’t mention our last meeting. We might have strolled for the entire day and never referred to Vincent or Falling, let alone Free Will.

  So I stopped and asked him.

  ‘Kamuel,’ I said, ‘you’re so wise and well versed in everything.’ That’s the appropriate way to address an Archangel (they are such sticklers for etiquette). ‘I believe you may even have been there when God first created Earth.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said simply, ‘I was.’

  I noticed he was looking at me with large melancholic eyes. We reached a brook. We entered under the shade of swaying willows.

  ‘Why,’ I asked, ‘did God create the world?’

  We sat down on a fallen trunk and watched the brook rushing past.

  ‘He wanted to do something beautiful to console himself,’ Kamuel said. ‘It saddened him when Lucifer fell. They were like brothers. From morning till night they talked.’

  ‘Arg
ued?’ I said.

  ‘Yes, argued.’

  ‘About what?’ I asked.

  ‘Free Will, mostly,’ said Kamuel.

  I knew it. This was the root of the problem. But all I said was: ‘It puzzles me too.’ And then I added, ‘It seems to me that Free Will is just a nice idea that doesn’t really work.’ I waited.

  He said nothing.

  So I continued. ‘What exactly is it, even?’

  ‘Free Will means allowing another to do what they want, in the way they want, when they want. That’s the short version, anyway.’

  ‘But you can’t really have Free Will if every decision you make affects someone else badly, can you?’ I said. ‘Isn’t it just a choice of the lesser evil?’

  Kamuel looked at me thoughtfully. ‘You have hit upon the nub of the problem.’

  ‘And,’ I added, ‘I don’t think it’s fair to judge someone if they haven’t really got Free Will – if they just decide to choose the lesser evil and not what they really want to do.’

  Kamuel didn’t laugh. ‘Be guarded in what you say,’ he whispered. ‘Make sure God’s Army do not hear you.’ Hurriedly he looked over his shoulder. ‘Their first premise is that everyone is responsible for their own actions – their own destiny, their own suffering.’

  I opened my eyes wide. Kamuel pointed at my bracelet. I nodded. I understood.

  ‘If everyone has Free Will, why did God make all the Rules?’ I asked in a low voice.

  Kamuel laughed in a deep, soft way. ‘How exactly you have hit upon the other problem,’ he whispered.

  ‘Lucifer didn’t like the Rules, did he?’ I mouthed.

  ‘Ah,’ he returned thoughtfully, his sad eyes fixed on mine, as if he could see into my future. ‘But there have to be Rules. What if an action you take hurts another? Should God set no limits?’

  I thought about limits and rules, and how once rules are made there are consequences, and when the rules get broken and the consequences are unpleasant – Free Will, if it ever existed, ends and punishments begin.

  I pulled a face.

  ‘Look, let’s backtrack,’ he said. ‘What about responsibility?’

  I felt uncomfortable under his scrutiny, so I stood up and picked a pebble up to throw it into the stream.

  ‘Of course everyone has to be responsible,’ I said.

  I threw the pebble into the water. It made a very satisfying splosh. But I saw how it created waves and the waves were beyond my control. What if one of them should flood a tiny creature and drown it? Would that be my fault?

  And I thought of intention. How Marcus had intended to do the right thing. Had done the right thing by reporting the Crow. Hadn’t broken any rules. But he hadn’t foreseen the consequences, either. Was he to be held responsible for things that might or might not happen? Was Melly’s death his fault?

  And what was he supposed to do after he got Sharissa’s call? Obey the rules, and risk her death too? Or break them and be damned?

  Lucifer was right – there was definitely something wrong with rules.

  ‘If we don’t have rules,’ said Kamuel, reading my mind, ‘how can we be sure that where one person’s Free Will ends, another’s is not compromised?’

  I sat down again. Well, exactly! Marcus was compromised by the Crow. But did that mean he should do nothing about it?

  ‘The only way we can have Free Will is to have rules,’ he said. ‘If you want to break the rules, you can. But when the consequences descend, don’t complain.’

  ‘I see,’ I said. But I wasn’t happy. Kamuel seemed to be saying that Marcus should have done nothing to save Sharissa and Little Joe – should have left it in the hands of God – and should do nothing to stop the Crow – when it was obvious the police couldn’t. That he should just take care of his own salvation and own skin and stick to the rules. That somehow the Crow would get his comeuppance – and to Hell with Sharissa and everyone else.

  All my fire rose up at the idea.

  And I’m glad you didn’t, Marcus. I’m so glad you obeyed a higher instinct. And I love you all the more for daring to disobey God’s petty rules even in peril of your soul.

  Kamuel put out a hand as if he wanted to stem my thoughts.

  And God, shame on you, for you would have done nothing to help Sharissa. You would have sat back and let the Crow enjoy his ‘Free Will’, wouldn’t you?

  ‘Choice is Free Will,’ said Kamuel carefully.

  There was something in his tone. As if he understood only too well what I was thinking. And I wondered, had he been there when those two great powers disagreed? And if so, which side had he erred on?

  I sighed. ‘So if there really is Free Will then there’s no Divine Fate?’ I said. No omens. No signs. No destinies. No soulmates. I frowned. ‘Is the future not written in the unchanging Book of Days? Doesn’t God know everything?

  Kamuel laughed. ‘So now you want to discuss Fate and Omnipotence?’ he said.

  But if He did know everything, how could He just let some of it happen?

  ‘Have a care, for it was into that abyss Lucifer strayed.’

  Was thinking so dangerous?

  ‘One day you will understand,’ he said.

  How very like an Archangel to be so mysterious.

  ‘Understand Fate?’ I said.

  ‘Of course,’ he laughed.

  ‘If it’s a safe subject,’ I said bitterly.

  ‘And Love.’

  I was sure that wasn’t safe.

  ‘Nothing’s safe,’ he said.

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘Not when it comes to tasting fruit from the Tree of Knowledge.’

  Serafina 28

  The 26th October was past. There were barely four days left until Halloween. And I had to see Marcus.

  Properly. Not as a ghost via the Channel. But so that I could talk to him, in full apparition.

  I could have staked out Curlston Heights, hoping to meet him there, but it was risky. I might only get one shot at another trip, and I needed to be certain I’d find him.

  There was only one place where I could be a hundred per cent sure I would.

  Joey’s funeral.

  The only problem was I didn’t know when and where it would be. So I set myself the task of finding out. I searched the Prair Waves. I listened in to all the obituaries, paid attention to Bible readings, confessions and church schedules. And my diligence was rewarded.

  Strangely enough, it was on a funeral home channel that I didn’t even know we could tune in to. I heard his funeral referred to three times by two different undertakers. Joseph Biggs, Saturday 29th October. 11.30 a.m. St Rita’s Crematorium, full cavalcade, brothers as coffin bearers, wreaths and special requests, polished brass handles, embossed A5 six-page programme: prayers, hymns, tributes, service led by family friend Marcus Montague. Arrangements, Gurn & Soley; hearse and limousines, Murdly & Seagrief.

  He’d be there. And so would I. By hook or by crook.

  It was by crook. I left my curfew bracelet in my cell, sneaked out over the cloister wall and took the fire escape out of Heaven. I slid through the Pearly Gates in the shadows and hid beneath a borrowed cloak of woven mistiness.

  I didn’t have a job spec from the Senior Team and using the spare pass was totally risky. I was bound to be missed, but I just couldn’t use the Channel again.

  When St Peter saw me he scowled and wagged his finger and would have detained me. But since there’d been no further offensive on the part of Satan, things were a tiny bit calmer. So I smiled briefly, flashed Raquel’s spare pass and said, ‘Left a prayer unspoken at a bedside,’ very quickly, and raced through before he could stroke his beard over it.

  It was a hopeless lie. And I realised if I was going to keep breaking rules, I needed to get a lot better at lying. I pulled a sad smile at that, and thought of Marcus. He was right, you know. I really was a liar.

  So step by step, shadow by shadow, lie by lie, I came down to the cemetery, and to the cremation of Joseph Biggs la
te of that parish.

  There is nothing so bleak as an Earthly cemetery. The rows of graves, the dismal dull tarmac of the drive, the pathos – the sadness of forgotten lives, spent and gone, mouldering under slabs of stone.

  Joey was being cremated. I didn’t know how I felt about that. He should’ve been buried in a Christian graveyard with full blessings, not burned in a furnace as if everyone knew he was already roasting in Hell. But I said nothing. What could I have said anyway?

  I got there early. I wanted to make sure I saw Marcus before it started. But as I stood in the chilly morning waiting for the hearse to arrive, for the mourners to gather, a heaviness settled upon me.

  The cemetery was so drear, so gloomy. The crematorium was already creaking from an earlier burning, and except for one lonely figure standing by a grave far away, the place was quite deserted. I shuddered and looked at the plastic roses in their stone urns. The red had faded from their petals. They looked faintly drained, like tired slices of cooked meat, brown-yellow at the edges and lacklustre in the centre.

  Plastic roses, a metaphor for immortality? Roses that never died, never shrivelled, were never alive, could never be full-blooded symbols of love. It made me shudder. I was immortal. I never shrivelled. I never aged, never changed. Was I also dead? Had I never been alive? Was I incapable of love?

  As I mused, over my left shoulder I saw a figure approaching. It wasn’t the lonely figure by the gravestone, but another dressed in a white suit; his golden hair glinted in the morning light. He had on a pair of white gloves and carried a snow-white briefcase tucked under his arm. I forgot about the meaning of plastic roses and turned to greet him.

  ‘Larry,’ I said. I went to fold him in a polite embrace. He smiled as I curled my wings around him and laid my cheek close to his.

  ‘Hey, Cara,’ he laughed. ‘Fab you could make it! Isn’t it fun meeting up like this?’

  I nodded. Although I would hardly have called it ‘fun’.

  ‘We’ll give young Joey a wicked send-off,’ said Larry. ‘You can do Choirs of Angels, and I’ll do Solemn Dignity.’ He laughed and pulled a mad, bad, crazy face, as if it was quite beyond him to ever be dignified.