The conversation died, until Matilda picked it up again. “That’s probably why I never came as a teenager. I was never sent, and I thought church must be the most boring thing in the universe from what the kids that went said.”
“But you said you did come – just before you moved.”
“I did,” explained Matilda. “I met someone. Well two people really. The first was Mr Evans over there, who helped us all through Jack being blinded, and the second was Jesus himself. It was, like, Mr Evans introduced us. Once I started talking to him – praying to God, that is – I began to understand why church was so… important, even special. When it makes sense, it isn’t boring. And all the decorations and all the ceremony – even the statues and the incense if you have ’em – make sense too. It all depends on whether it’s about worshipping the Creator, or just decoration and ceremony for the sake of it.”
The table was silent again. This was serious stuff. Then the quiet woman agreed. Jesus was what counted. She began to talk of her own experience of God ‘in her life’ as she put it.
“You’ve never told us about this before,” commented Cynthia.
“No? Well, I didn’t think you would be interested. But hearing Matilda talk it has made it sound like… something I could share.”
“We’re all very serious tonight!” laughed a woman with increasing hollowness. “We’re not at a wake!”
“No,” said Matilda, “but we are here to give thanks to the Creator for the wonderful gifts he has given us and to ask him to safely ‘gather us all in’… right now…” she glanced around at a set of stunned open-mouthed faces, and then laughed. “I didn’t mean die you idiots! Aren’t we at the Lord’s banquet here tonight? We can be ‘gathered in’ to his Kingdom before we die, can’t we?”
“Indeed we can,” said the vicar who had come over. “You’re clearly having an enormously enjoyable conversation.”
“Indeed we – hic – are,” said Fiona with a slightly glazed expression. “Vicar,” she called out loudly, “you’ll know. Whatever ever happened to that gorgeous Father Christmas?”
***
The Sunday service was one that could not fail. All the traditional harvest hymns and the Eucharist in contemporary language. There are few things in the universe, thought Jack, to rival an English Harvest Festival with use of all five of the senses so intensely. Bandi was being helped to follow the service by an attractive young blonde girl. Matilda hoped that he would survive till Wednesday, but then realised she was the Vicar’s daughter and scolded herself for not trusting these young folk. She recalled with horror how she had behaved at their age. By contrast this was tame stuff indeed!
***
Sunday lunch was enjoyed at the Red Lion. Jack asked Bandi how much he liked the young lady.
“What young lady!?”
“The one you’ve been cuddling up to most of the morning – and some of yesterday evening too.”
“I haven’t been cuddling up to anyone!”
“No, perhaps not. But you’ve got very close all the same. You smell of violets or whatever they call the perfume she sprayed on herself this morning. And you’ve got that wistfulness about you which means that something inside is a bit pre-occupied.”
Matilda laughed. “And I saw her. Pretty, tastefully dressed in a not too revealing top and nice clean jeans. Blonde – natural perhaps – lots of it.” And she picked a strand off of Bandi’s shoulder. “Vicar’s daughter I think.”
Bandi shrugged. Why did he have to be blessed with detectives for parent and grandparent?
“OK. Good taste,” said Jack. “Go for it. Only don’t get heart broken in the next two days…”
“Her name’s Abby,” said Bandi blushing, “…and nothing serious is going to happen, is it?”
30
The next day, which was blowy but fine, the trio spent catching up with the changes in Persham. Bandi got a bit tired of his nan saying, “Oh look, the bakery’s gone!” and, “Well, I never, they’ve changed the crossing arrangements again. I always said it wouldn’t work. Should have listened to me before they did it,” and similar remarks.
They had lunch in the indoor market and Matilda was happy that the standard menu hadn’t altered, so she had the all-day breakfast she had usually ordered.
In the afternoon they went to the library beyond the middle school and explored the history of the children’s blind school initiative. Then they wandered back down the hill and through the park just as the Renson Park High students were coming out of the school on the far side.
“Hi!” called out Bandi. He had spotted Abby’s blonde hair as she crossed the park. The girl turned and saw Bandi running down the grassy slope and waited for him. She waved off her friends who were watching as Bandi gathered speed. They moved on, but reluctantly; they were curious to see what this vision of boyhood was like. “Not bad,” said one. “Bit keen isn’t he?” They giggled.
Bandi’s feet slipped on the wet grass as he tried to come to a halt without running past. Fortunately he just managed to stay in an upright position and saved his blushes. If he had hit the mud he would have died of embarrassment. He stopped beside his friend rather flustered. He realised too late that his antics had drawn attention – he should have played it cool, but Abby didn’t seem to mind. What her silly friends were saying was their problem.
“Bit steep that,” Bandi motioned to the hill for something to say as he gathered his breath.
Matilda watched from the hill as she led Jack down the much more gradual path. “He seems to like that one,” she observed. “I’ve never seen him keen on a girl before.”
“Abby, the girl with the violets?” enquired Jack.
“The very one. She’s sent her friends off so I think she likes him too. They’re dawdling.”
“Dawdling?”
“Yes, just mooching along so as to give themselves more time to talk to each other.”
Eventually Jack and Matilda arrived at the road and waited for Bandi and Abby to get to them. Dozens of other school children in similar brown uniforms passed them, flowing to the road to catch buses in different directions or else disperse in ones and twos into the local area. It was like a muddy stream that just petered out. Eventually Bandi and Abby drew near.
“Dad?” enquired Bandi tentatively. “Can I… may I go to Abby’s for tea? She says it’ll be alright with her parents.”
“Well, of course. I can’t see why not. You know where we’re staying?”
“The Red Lion Hotel.”
“Where’s home?” Matilda asked Abby.
“Oh, the vicarage. My dad’s the vicar.”
“No problem,” said Jack, “Don’t be -”
“…late. No I won’t.”
“I was going to say to take care walking through the streets on your own at night,” said his father.
“That’s OK. We’ll see him back,” said Abby.
***
When Bandi rolled into the hotel later that evening he was followed by Abby and her father. Jack and Matilda were sitting in the bar to the left of the entrance. They were almost alone, except for a man reading a newspaper and Angie, the receptionist, who doubled up as a barmaid.
“Dad? Dad?” called Bandi seeing his father and grandmother. “Can I go to Oxford tomorrow?”
“Oxford?” queried Jack. “Why Oxford? It’s not just down the road from here.”
“Oh, I know… Dad, Nan you know Abby’s dad?”
“Yes,” said Jack, extending his hand. “Come and sit down, Vicar. What can I get you?”
“Oh, call me Dave. Thank you. Just an orange juice. I don’t drink and drive.” He smiled as he dragged over an upholstered chair.
“Abby?”
“Oh, can I have a coke?”
“Course you can,” said Matilda, “I’ll get these. You just sit down. Ice?”
“Please.”
“Dave?”
“Oh, no. No ice for me. Thanks.”
“So,” said Jack, �
��you’ve been getting to know my son?”
“Indeed we have. A fine young man. He has been saying some very complimentary things about his family.”
“That’s good to hear.”
“So,” broke in Bandi impatiently, “can I go to Oxford tomorrow?”
“Let me explain,” laughed Dave. “Abby has an appointment with the orthodontist at the Radcliffe Hospital. It’s just a follow-up to some work she had done in the summer. She won’t be in there long but it means taking the whole day off and driving up. So, since you have no plans for him tomorrow – well, Bandi doesn’t think you have – Abby wondered if he would like to come with us for the trip. The appointment’s at 10.30 am. After that we could take Bandi into the city and show him the sights – the old buildings, the churches, the colleges and so on.”
“And hire a punt!” put in Abby with some enthusiasm.
“…and, yes, hire a punt,” agreed Dave.
“Well, we have nothing booked except my address for Councillor Bank’s meeting in the evening,” said Jack.
“We’ll be back well in time for that. I plan to be there myself. We’ll feed him and then bring him along to the meeting.”
“It seems OK with us,” said Jack smiling, “if you’re keen to have a strange boy along with you when you have to see a doctor.”
“Oh, no problem, he can wait outside. There’ll be stuff he can read in the waiting room.”
“And probably toys to play with,” joked Matilda.
“We’ll have to set off around nine though,” explained Dave.
“Oh, that’s not early. No problem.”
“Well then, if that’s settled we’ll get along home, Abby. See you here tomorrow at nine.”
“I’ll be ready,” said Bandi as he walked them to the door.
“It sounds as if you’ve made a hit there,” said Jack when his son got back. “I have to say this. Don’t be cross with me. I expect that we will return to White Gates Cottage on Wednesday morning. And after that we may never come back again. Look how long it’s taken us this time…”
“I know, Dad! I know,” said Bandi a bit vexed.
“Well, just so long…”
“You don’t have to say it, Dad!” repeated Bandi with exasperation.
“OK.” Jack held his hands up. “Make the most of it, lad. Have fun while you can.”
“Now that’s something I always wanted to do,” mused Matilda.
“What?” enquired Jack.
“Ride in a punt. A punt propelled by a handsome man in a boater. All suave and debonair…”
“Sounds like a disaster. He sounds rather eccentric and likely to fall in,” suggested Jack.
“Abby’s Dad went to Birmingham Uni,” commented Bandi.
“I always had this dream of a date in a punt,” Matilda was going a little glassy eyed.
“But my dad never took you?” queried Jack.
“What? Who? Shaun. You must be joking!” she sighed. “And now my young grandson from another planet has got a real chance! Oh, well. I don’t suppose I’m invited too?”
“Not unless you can find yourself a handsome, debonair young man by nine o’clock tomorrow morning,” teased Jack.
“Well you can’t have everything… now I’m going to bed. Goodnight!”
“I think that’s a good idea,” agreed Jack. “Time to dream. I’m tired. Goodnight, Mum.”
Jack went to bed happy, but it didn’t stop him wishing Jalli was with him.
***
For Bandi and Abby sitting in the back of the car, Oxford didn’t seem very far at all. Time swept by as Bandi told Abby all about their life on Planet Joh and how his parents had arrived there more than twenty years before. He told her how they had had lots of adventures until the babies started to come along and the white gates stopped appearing. But now the portals had started up again. He described the fantastic week-end they had had in Pero’s hotel. It was all a wonderful dream. “The only thing,” he explained, “is that you can’t decide yourself when, where or how long. It is all planned for you. So tomorrow I expect we shall be back on Joh and after that the white gate to Persham will disappear behind us – perhaps for ever.”
“That sounds so dreadfully final,” retorted Abby. “That’s not fair. That’s, like, mean. You just meet someone and get to know them and you can’t even text them!”
“I know. But Dad and Nan, they used to live here and this is the first time they have been back in twenty-two years.” “But they are together. Your family isn’t broken up.”
“That’s true.”
“Yeah. I know people who are refugees who can’t go home. Some don’t know where their parents or children are, or even if they’re still alive. That’s really bad. We have this girl at school from South Sudan. She ran away when soldiers came through her village. She hid in the bush but her mum never made it. Her brothers had run in different directions. Her dad had already left to fight for the rebels and she has no idea where any of them are. She was only seven. Some strangers fleeing through the area picked her up. They took her to a refugee camp over the border but then abandoned her. Nobody claimed her. Eventually she ended up here in Persham. Her name is Rebecca but she doesn’t remember any of her other names.”
“That’s terrible. Has someone adopted her?”
“Well, kind of. It’s a long-term foster family she’s with. They get money to look after her until she’s eighteen and she’s hoping she can stay with them at least until then. She works very hard at school. She’s determined to be a doctor.”
“What about you? Have you decided what you want to do?”
“No. Not really. Not a doctor though. It won’t be anything with science or maths. What about you?”
“Well, I was thinking about computer science.”
“Isn’t that a bit boring?”
“Boring! No it’s very interesting.”
“But it’s working with machines all the time. I’d get fed up with it unless I did things with people.”
“I’m quite content not to have so much to do with people. I like thinking on my own.”
***
At the Radcliffe, Abby was taken for an X-ray, after which she saw the doctor who expressed satisfaction with the way things had gone.
“How do you feel about it?” he asked as he prodded around in her open mouth.
“’eels ahK,” replied Abby as best she could with his instruments in her mouth.
“Happy?”
Abby attempted a nod.
“Right, well I think we can discharge you. Come back if you have any trouble – but I doubt you will. Your jaw looks beautiful!” he smiled, and within twenty minutes of leaving them, Abby had re-joined her father and Bandi in the waiting room.
“Well?” asked her father. He had wanted to go in with his daughter but she had insisted that she was old enough not to have her hand held.
“He told me I’m beautiful – well, at least my jaw is from the inside. I don’t have to come back no more.”
“Any more,” corrected her father automatically.
“Dad!” said Abby peevishly. Her father could be a pain at times. She didn’t want to be corrected in front of Bandi. “You know what I mean!”
“That’s good news, then. Now let’s get the bus into the city centre and show Bandi around. I’ve discovered he likes thinking but has no knowledge of any philosophy – not the Earthly sort anyway – and I want to take him to a bookshop.”
Abby could see that the two of them had had quite a discussion while she had been with the orthodontist. They were getting on very well. She would have liked to have had Bandi to herself but knew that was not possible.
In the city, Dave pointed out the colleges and the libraries and told them some of the very long history of the university.
“I didn’t study here though,” he explained, “I’m a Birmingham man. I did my undergraduate degree in chemistry and then went on to Queen’s College to do theology.”
He asked
Bandi if he had plans to go to university in Joh.
“Well, yes … sort of. I thought I would study computing.”
“Ah, very important,”
“But a bit boring I’m told,” smiled Bandi glancing at Abby.
“Who told you… ah, I see. Abby that was a bit cruel, don’t you think? Not everyone feels the way we do about things.”
“No. But it’s still boring.”
“Come on you two. Let’s go in here and have some lunch.”
They went into McDonald’s and Rev Dave asked Bandi what he would like. Bandi shrugged. “Whatever you recommend,” he said. “I’ll get my dad to pay when we get back.”
“No you won’t. It’s our treat.”
“Get him a double layer thingy,” said Abby. “He looks as if he needs feeding up!”
She led Bandi to a table in the corner while her father stood in the queue. Bandi offered to help but Abby told him to sit down, her dad would get it all on a tray.
“Do you like Oxford?” she asked.
“It’s very busy. I don’t think I’ve been to anywhere as big as this city.”
“What Oxford – big! Oxford’s a tiny place compared to, say, London, which has houses and shops that go on for miles.”
“I live outside a town in a kind of village, I suppose you would call it. We have a garden with a house in the middle of it. There are four houses like that in our lane. You have to get into the centre of town before the houses join up with one another like here.”
“So you are a country boy?”
“I suppose so. I’ve never thought about it like that. Mum teaches entomology in an agricultural college and Kakko is learning about tractors and stuff. She likes engines and things she can get herself dirty with.”
“What about you? You’re not so practically minded.”
“I guess not. I like computers and indoor things, and reading and just thinking about stuff. Kakko and Shaun are into sport but I can’t really see the point of it. They get so involved in kicking a ball about or making something, they… they kind of miss things. I mean they don’t ever think about the sand they are playing on, while I get to thinking about how it came to be there. I think about how the rocks were laid down under the sea, then rose up into cliffs, and finally got broken up again by the sea over millions of years. Every grain of sand has a tale to tell. Then I think about how people came to exist. I mean, where did people come from in the first place? I don’t mean babies, I mean, how did it all start? I know we can trace our ancestry here, to Earth, but how did it all begin for human beings?”
Ultimate Justice Page 31