Intervention

by Rob Mclean

  Angela sighed quietly and sunk back into her task. She stole another quick look at the wall-clock and silently berated herself. Chelsea had taken the battery out and the hands were fixed on 9:08am. She wasn’t allowed to have her phone with her while she was on the shop floor, so she had no way of knowing when it was lunch except for the grumble of her stomach. It was just another subtle way her life was being made miserable, but again she resolved to not let it get her down. She couldn’t believe how quickly Chelsea had gone from being what she thought was a friend to being this distant, nasty witch.

  She went back to sorting and cataloguing the books, but couldn’t help but to feel her heart sink in her chest, despite the spiritually uplifting titles of the books she sorted.

  The babble of voices drifted into her mind as she worked. Chelsea sounded so chatty and friendly, so much more than she usually was. The other voice she could barely hear, but thought the gentle, older masculine tones sounded familiar. As she listened, she heard them coming closer.

  Risking a look, Angela peered around the bookshelf into the aisle. Chelsea walked towards her with her head turned back, still chatting with the owner of the other voice behind her. She went back to her work with renewed dedication as they approached.

  Moments later Chelsea appeared around the corner. Angela saw her feet out of the corner of her eye, but didn’t look up. Instead she preferred to appear to be engrossed in her work.

  “Here she is,” Chelsea said. Angela looked up, pretending to have been miles away. She was greeted with a fake smile. “Hiding away all by herself.”

  She turned to the visitor. “I’ll leave you to it. I have a lot of things to do.” She then strode away purposefully. If she had a set of keys, the jail-keeper illusion would have been complete.

  Pastor Greg’s familiar face appeared around the corner of the bookshelf as if floating of its own accord. The rest of his body followed, thin and unassuming.

  Angela jumped up and gave him a quick hug. “I am so glad to see you.”

  The Pastor returned her hug, and then held her by the shoulders at arms’ length. “Is everything okay?” he asked, studying her face. “I was worried about you after last Sunday.”

  “You mean after Zeke’s car-park drama?” She craned her neck to see where Chelsea was, but couldn’t see her.

  “Did you want to go somewhere more private to talk?”

  “I’d love to, but I don’t think it’s my break time.”

  “Surely Chelsea wouldn’t mind if you took a few minutes?”

  “She wouldn’t mind if you asked.” Angela picked up another book and scanned it into the inventory. Pastor Greg nodded with understanding.

  “Stock-take time?” he asked, noticing the piles of books about them as she put one back on the shelf. Angela nodded.

  “But it’s August.”

  “Yeah, I know, but they want it done now,” she jerked her head towards the counter where Chelsea usually was. “Something about insurance and liabilities.”

  Pastor Greg nodded again. “A big job.”

  “Normally Chelsea would help. We’d sit and chat while we worked, but now…”

  “Now, after last Sunday, she’s the boss and you’re the worker?” He finished the sentence for her. He then picked up a book from the top of the nearest pile and handed it to her.

  She took the book from him with a grateful smile and scanned it into the inventory. “I suppose you know all about how Zeke and I are on a break?”

  “Yes, it seems a shame, but now you’re keeping company with John, the man who took you home the night you were drugged.” He said it as a statement, not a question, Angela noticed. She put the book on a different shelf, nearby.

  “Yes, but it’s not like how things were with Zeke,” she said, starting to feel her cheeks burn as she remembered the things she and Zeke had done and then having to explain them to the Pastor.

  “Yes, I was pleased to meet him on Sunday.” He took another book from the same pile and handed it to Angela. “It was good of you to bring him along. How did he find it?”

  “I think ‘interesting’ was how he described it.” She scanned the book and put it on another different bookshelf. “He’s not a Christian, you know.”

  “Yes, your father told me it was his first time,” the Pastor smiled.

  “You don’t mind me seeing a non-Christian?” Angela asked, grabbing a book from the pile she had previously been working on. She hadn’t thought to ask her Pastor before this and didn’t know what she would do if he did object.

  “Goodness, no,” he laughed. “Especially if it means that you bring him to faith.”

  “You’re not worried that he might lead me away from my faith?” she ventured, a cheeky grin on her face.

  “No, not at all,” he said, returning her smile. “It wouldn’t be a very strong faith if it fell at the first hurdle, would it?”

  “No, it wouldn’t, but I don’t see him coming around to our way of thinking any time soon,” she said, remembering John’s family and his horrid mother. She scanned her book and put on the shelf nearest her.

  “In that case, you had better be careful how serious you become with him.” He passed her another book from the pile nearest him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I know you’ve only just met him, but all I’m saying is that an unevenly yoked marriage can cause a lot of problems in the long term.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said, taking the book, scanning it and standing to put it on a further away bookshelf.

  “I’m not really helping, am I?” the Pastor asked, seeing her sit down again.

  “No, I was working on this pile,” she said as gently as she could, “but thanks for trying.”

  He shrugged and she saw his face redden.

  “Anyway, what’s this yoked thing?” she asked, changing the subject to relieve his embarrassment. “Something to do with eggs?”

  A smile creased his face. “No, it’s an old term to do with how a horse is hitched to a wagon. If you have a horse and a donkey pulling a wagon, they are unevenly yoked. The horse will go where you want it to, but the donkey wants to go his own way. They end up pulling in different directions, and it’s the same with the spiritual direction of your marital partnership.”

  “Oh…” Angela said, “I hadn’t thought that far ahead.” She paused and thought about the possibility of actually marrying John. Since he wasn’t a Christian, the idea seemed to be entirely fanciful. “I don’t think I’d ever agree to marry him, if he wasn’t a Christian.”

  “Then why are you keeping company with him?” the Pastor asked.

  “Well, I do like him, despite him being a heathen,” Angela ran her fingers along the edge of the book she was holding, bending the corner over until it became dog-eared. She remembered how she so wanted to press her body against his and feel his hard, firm body tremble at her touch. Then she remembered how angry she had been last time she saw him. “But it was my mother’s idea for me to see him.”

  “Your mother’s?”

  “Yes, she thought Zeke had had it too easy and that he needed to be shown what he might miss out on if he didn’t propose to me.”

  Pastor Greg bowed his head in thought. After a moment he asked, “So you’re only seeing John to make Zeke jealous enough to marry you?” His frown betrayed his confusion and disbelief. “Is that right?”

  Angela clenched her jaw. When the truth of the situation was put to her so directly, she felt what she had already known for a long time; that she was doing a terrible thing to John and she was indeed using him to manipulate Zeke. Her mother’s reassurances that John didn’t matter because he wasn’t of the faith didn’t hold much currency with her now. She hung her head in shame.

  “I don’t know John very well,” Pastor Greg stated, “but he deserves honesty, especially from you, as does Zeke.”

  At the mention of Zeke’s name, her temper flared. “I’ll have you know that Zeke has gotten everything he has
ever wanted from me.” She raised her voice hoping Chelsea would hear. “I am ashamed to tell you that we have been married in every sense of the word, especially Biblically, except for the ceremony at the altar. Zeke knows what the right thing to do is and when he’s ready, perhaps he’ll do it.”

  Pastor Greg nodded gravely. “But what about John?”

  “John and I have a chastity vow.” She held up her hand, showing him her purity ring.

  “Well, that’s something to be commended, especially in this day and age and particularly from a non-believer. Doubtless he’s agreed to that so that he can be with you.”

  “It was a condition my parents made.”

  “And he agreed to it so he could be with you and, in doing so, keep Zeke from you.”

  Angela shook her head. “You make it sound like a game of chess or something.”

  Pastor Greg gave her a wry grin. “John hasn’t actually given up anything. It’s Zeke who is losing out as I see it.”

  “How do you mean?” Angela tilted her head to the side trying to work out what he was on about.

  “You and John weren’t…” the Pastor searched for the right euphemism, “you know…before you made the pledge and you’re not now.” Angela nodded as she followed his reasoning.

  “So he hasn’t actually given up anything, has he?”

  “Only the opportunity.”

  “The potential opportunity,” Pastor Greg corrected.

  “Oh, I see what you mean,” Angela said. “In the meantime, he’s my boyfriend and that makes sure that Zeke isn’t.”

  “Yes, so you really need to sort out how you feel about John, keeping in mind that you are supposed to be a Christian.”

  Angela thought about his words for a moment. She sighed and put the scanner down. “So you’re telling me to forget John and wait for Zeke?”

  “No, not at all. You just have to decide if you’re willing to put up with an unevenly yoked marriage to John, given that he may never come to faith, or a Christian marriage to Zeke.”

  It was Angela’s turn to return the wry grin. “It all sounds so straight-forward.”

  “I’m not saying that keeping company with a non-believer won’t work. You just have to look at your own parents.”

  “My parents?” Her mind reeled. “I thought they had always been Christians.” Her mother had come from a fundamental Christian family and her influences had shaped almost every aspect of their family life, but her father’s family were Catholics, so what was he talking about?

  “You didn’t know?” Pastor Greg returned her look of surprise. “Well, there are Christians and then there are people who call themselves Christians,” his voice dropped to a whisper, “as I think you are finding out for yourself.”

  Angela thought about it for a moment. “So is it better to be with someone who at least calls himself a Christian or a total non-believer?”

  He put his hand on her shoulder. “That’s something you will have to decide for yourself.”

  Pastor Greg stood and stretched. He took a quick look to see if Chelsea was around. “You are blessed with the good fortune to be in the position that you have two suitors to choose from.” He nodded towards the counter, “That isn’t always the case with some young ladies.”

  Angela shrugged. “Some girls just don’t seem to want to get married.”

  The Pastor either didn’t hear her, or had decided to diplomatically ignore it. He took a last look around at the piles of books and merchandise. “I should leave you to your thoughts. It looks like you have a lot of work to do.”

  Angela gave him a little wave and put on a sociable smile as he left. She wasn’t sure if he meant the books or the boys, but no matter which one she thought of, her low mood didn’t improve.

  “I almost forgot,” Pastor Greg’s face reappeared around the corner of the bookshelf. “Zeke has been arrested.”

  “Goodness, no,” she said. That would help to partly explain why Chelsea was being so horrid.

  “Yes. Apparently he was involved at a protest rally last Sunday night that got a bit out of hand. They identified him through facial recognition software and apprehended him at work yesterday.”

  “Is he okay?” Angela felt a confusing swirl of emotions. She wanted to rush over and see him. She felt guilty that she had left him in that angry, agitated state on Sunday. She felt it was partly her fault that he would have gone to the rally in a foul mood and gotten himself in trouble, but another part of her was convinced that he only had himself to blame.

  “He’s fine. His parents will bail him out,” the Pastor said airily. “Anyway I just thought you might have been interested,” he said before waving her a second good-bye.

  “Thanks,” Angela called after him. Judging by the way her stomach was tingling and her heart thumping in her ears, she figured that she still felt that she was.

  Chapter 39

  John got home with the evening take-away meal. Having checked his phone again for a call or text from Angela and having found none, he resigned himself to a battle to keep his mood from sinking lower.

  He found Jarred in front of the television on his laptop, trawling the net while watching the news channels for the latest on the alien visitor.

  Jarred inhaled deeply as the food aromas wafted his way. His nose forced his head to turn. He quickly put his laptop down and leapt up to see what was on offer.

  “What have we got?” he asked, bouncing up and down like an underfed puppy.

  “Thai stir fry, curry and fried rice,” John put the bags down on the kitchen bench. He nodded towards the screens. “What’s been happening in the world?”

  “Not much,” Jarred said poking around in one of the bags. “The mother-ship is still over Cairo, but the ambassador is in Hanoi or somewhere, doing his new world tour thing. They showed him talking to some fishermen in their own language. They say he’s fluent in any language. Amazing, huh?”

  John just nodded. “Probably been studying us for centuries.”

  “The Chinese are talking about setting up a lunar colony, once they figure out how to work the alien shuttle and reverse engineer some more.”

  John nodded absently as he got out some plates and cutlery.

  “Of course it will be a new UN colony, not a Chinese one, or so they say. That must be really pissing off our government.”

  “What I don’t get is why they’re doing it,” John asked. “I mean, why do they want to help us? Us being the ones who have rejected God.”

  “No, not God, just man-made religion. I don’t think they’ve ever said anything about God. But as to why they’re helping us, I can’t answer that one,” Jarred shrugged. “Don’t know enough about them. But if it was me, knowing what I do about humans, I’d be wiping us out before we got out of our system.”

  “Maybe it’s lucky they’re a bit more intelligent or moral than you,” John shot a glance at his brother. He wasn’t disappointed to see Jarred frown back at him. “Or me,” he added with a grin. He knew Jarred hated to think that someone or something was smarter than himself.

  “Doesn’t explain why the RNG in Cairo is still off the scale…” Jarred’s plate hung motionless in his hand and his head tilted to the side as he thought.

  “Duh, there’s a huge spaceship there. Doesn’t your random number thing just mean that people will still be freaked out by it for a while yet?”

  “Yeah, maybe…”

  “Hey, can you serve up?” John clicked his fingers to get Jarred’s attention and pointed at the bags of food. “I have to wash.”

  “The other RNGs have mostly settled down since the arrival…”

  John ignored him and headed off to the relaxing solitude of the shower. Once under the warm and soothing water, his thoughts wandered. He thought back over all the sci-fi movies he had watched where the aliens always wanted to take over the planet and either eliminate or enslave the population. He had to agree with his brother; humanity didn’t have a good record. He wouldn’t be helping suc
h a warlike race to get out into the galaxy.

  He caught himself humming ‘Amazing Grace’ as he was thinking. He stopped, grumbled at himself, and then deliberately tried to find another song to sing, one that didn’t remind him of Angela, but found that the tune wouldn’t go away. He soon gave up and the bathroom resonated to its harmonies.

  A while later, he emerged refreshed and in much better spirits. Jarred had left him most of the curry and had returned to his position in front of the television.

  “That was a long shower,” Jarred said without looking up from his laptop.

  “Yeah, had a hard day,” John said. Eloise’s proposal had plagued him all day. Although he had no intention of going along with her wishes, her tight body conjured up images that made it difficult to finish his report on time.

  “Didn’t you have one this morning?”

  “Yeah, so I like to be clean,” his annoyance was prodded by Jarred’s question. “You should try it sometime.”

  “How’s that celibacy thing going with Angela?” Jarred didn’t wait for a reply. “I assume you’re only having cold showers.” He turned and gave his brother a big, toothy smile. He then cringed as John took a couple of steps over to him and clipped him playfully about the head.

  “Very funny, little bro. Maybe I should take some lessons on abstinence from you.”

  “Depends what you call abstinence,” Jarred said. John gave him a questioning look, so he continued, “I might be a virgin, but that doesn’t mean I abstain.”

  “Oh please, spare me the details,” John screwed up his face. “You’re putting me off my food.”

  Jarred closed his laptop and put it aside. He turned to sit sideways so he could face his brother. “No but seriously, what does she mean by celibacy? Does it include… um, long showers?”

  “I don’t know,” John said serving himself a big bowl of curry. “We haven’t talked about the fine print.”

  “But if you do, you know, think about her in the shower, doesn’t that break the rules?”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Oh, I remember reading in the Bible somewhere that even thinking about that sort of thing is as bad as actually doing it.”