by Daniel Shand
One of the hippies down the front said, ‘Well…’ but was immediately silenced by the man in the mac. He plunged his fist through his upheld notebook and into the face of the hippie who had spoken. Quick glances flew around the roadside like gunfire. Had he really just done that? Where were these fuckers from?
Then the scuffle broke out.
The paunchy men laid into us with gusto. They had the sleeves of their mackintoshes and suits and donkey jackets rolled up as they cuffed us and knocked us and pushed us. I dodged through the melee, doing my best to avoid any violence directed at me while maintaining a presence in the group. I saw Baldy being rolled down the embankment. I saw Mairead batter away a man wearing Cuban heels and a handlebar moustache with the stick of her sign.
Where was Mikey?
The men in suits were shouting orders to each other, telling their colleagues to restrain us. They weren’t having much luck. Like me, the protestors were slippery, resisting but never assaulting their attackers.
Then I saw him.
He was cowering behind the tallest policeman. As the copper ran and hustled and tried to pin down the hippies, Mikey shadowed him, ducking and dodging to remain unseen.
‘Mikey, you clown,’ I shouted over the noise.
He stopped and looked up. The tall policeman’s elbow went back and caught Mikey on the cheekbone. My blood started kicking in from the noise and from Mikey getting hit. I pranced through the bodies and kicked the tall policeman in the back of the knee. He went down on the ground. I got Mikey and off we went into the trees behind the road. The rest of them could deal with the palaver they’d started. The land above the road was steep. We scrambled up it on our hands, away from the shouts and roars behind us. We hoisted ourselves up by the bare roots spilling from the hillside and managed to hide in a dense copse, halfway up.
‘Shite,’ I whispered, over and over again, peering out, seeing nothing.
Mikey continuing to gulp and to shiver.
They’ve found us, I thought. They’ve fucken tracked us down. The police were probably holding down the protestors, showing them a photograph, saying, Have you seen this man? We’ve had reports that he’s in the area. See, he was put away for doing in a bairn years and years ago and now he’s gone missing, not been present for his parole meeting. Yes indeed, a very suspicious figure. Not only that but we’ve got two missing persons on our hands now and we’re very concerned that they may be linked. I put my arm around my brother, feeling his ribs jitter. His hand went up to clear off the gore from his face.
‘Leave it,’ I said. ‘They won’t recognise you all fucked up like that.’
‘But it feels horrible,’ he whispered.
‘Just leave it,’ I whispered back. ‘It’s better.’
His voice was bloated with frustration. He said, ‘I want to take it off.’
I held him closer than ever. I gripped his bones. I said, ‘Listen to me. Just leave it, all right?’
He wriggled himself free a little and made a noise of protest.
My blood was moving through me like music. ‘I swear to fucken God…’ I spat.
‘Fine,’ he said.
We waited up there, in the wet vegetation, until the bodies below thinned away, until we stopped seeing the blue lights sift through trunks. Then we slid down the hillside on our arses, back to the road. It was empty.
‘Oh,’ I shouted, the air rushing from me. My blood coming back down again was like emerging from beneath water. ‘Oh thank fuck!’
Mikey was less enthusiastic than I was. He lurked at the roadside, nursing his injuries and keeping his eye trained on me.
I laughed. ‘We were this close,’ I said, showing him the space between my fingertips. ‘Who knows what you might have told them.’
He nodded.
‘Come on,’ I said. ‘I’m starving.’
I went off down the road but didn’t get far before I realised he wasn’t following. I turned back. ‘Well?’
‘It was you that chucked the stone at the bloke’s motor, wasn’t it?’ he asked. His face was squeezed with anger.
‘Was it fuck. It was probably one of them hippies. They were dying for it all to kick off.’
‘I seen you, man,’ he said, a tiny crack in his voice. ‘I seen you throw it. Why’ve you got to be like that?’
‘You’ve lost it,’ I told him. ‘You’ve only been here a day and already you’ve gone loopy. You’re going to be easy pickings.’
‘I haven’t lost it. You chucked the stone. I saw it. Why’ve you got to be like that when…’ He couldn’t go on and his chin was dimpling with emotion.
‘You fucken baby,’ I called him.
‘Why do you keep doing this to me?’ he asked. ‘I’m supposed to be your brother.’
‘Keep doing what?’
‘Keep getting me into… into…’ he looked around himself.
I nodded, getting what he was going for. ‘You get yourself into trouble, mate.’
‘Do I?’
‘Aye. You do,’ I said.
‘I don’t think I do get myself in trouble. I think it’s you,’ he pointed towards me, his arm straight as a rod, ‘that gets me in trouble.’
14
We wandered into camp and stood by the fire in our torn clothes and the blood crusting on Mikey’s face.
‘Hello?’ I shouted, after too long being ignored.
Faces turned to us like satellite dishes shifting towards their signal, none of them I recognised, until Beth emerged from her father’s tent.
‘You pair,’ she said, marching towards us.
‘Aye?’ I said.
Beth said, ‘Hold on,’ and then turned, facing the camp at large. ‘All right,’ she said, her voice raised. ‘Just so everyone knows, I’m making an executive decision. These two here,’ she said, her finger moving between me and Mikey, ‘these two are hereby banished from the camp. Got that?’
I took a step closer to her. ‘We’re banished?’
‘You heard me,’ she said. ‘A pair of fucking liabilities you two.’
I couldn’t think of anything to say. I looked at Mikey and he shrugged. What I would’ve given to show her how powerful I was, how easily I could beat her. Just a moment alone together and I would show her.
‘Just a second, Sister Beth,’ said a voice from behind me.
Beth screwed her eyes up. ‘What now?’
‘You’re being hasty,’ said Brother Terry, emerging from behind the far side of the campfire.
‘Honestly,’ said Beth, holding her hands up. ‘I do not have time for all this. I’ve put up with you for so long Tel but please, just get on with whatever you want to get on with in peace and quiet.’
Brother Terry nodded. ‘I’m happy to do so.’
‘Good.’
‘Unless it interferes with our freedom of religion.’
Beth moaned.
‘You don’t agree, Sister Beth?’
The entire place silent.
‘No, no, I agree. Whatever Tel, I agree.’
‘Then these two stay,’ he said, nodding at us.
I was expecting a gasp from somewhere but none came. Everyone stared at us
‘No,’ said Beth. ‘They don’t. They caused trouble at the protest, meaning these goons start showing up – these plainclothes or private security or whatever they are – and then best of all they come straight back here. Do I have to go on?’
‘You can go on if you like. They stay.’
‘They go.’
‘They’re very brave parishioners, standing up to the authorities like that. Did you know that our very own Jesus Christ was seen as something of a terrorist in his time? A Jewish fundamentalist. Yes, there is a rich tradition of non-compliance in the Church.’
Beth made a face.
Brother Terry smiled. ‘Do we need to get Father involved?’
‘Oh Jesus. Fine, fine. Tell me why they stay?’
‘Because,’ Brother Terry said, circling the campfire and graspi
ng hold of Mikey’s robed shoulder, ‘of this one. He’s who we’ve been waiting for.’
Beth laughed. ‘You don’t mean to say…’
‘I do.’
I’d had enough of their carry on by then. Either we were in or we were out. I put my hand up. ‘What’s the story here?’ I asked.
Brother Terry put a gentle finger against his own bottom lip. ‘How do I put this best?’ he wondered. ‘Hm. Well, your brother is the Christ reborn. In the flesh. How’s that for starters?’
Then the gasp came, from the robed side of camp. Beth started to laugh though her face was untroubled by any genuine amusement.
‘Laugh all you like Sister, it’s true. I’ve read the signs, I have divined the portents. I just never expected he would walk into our laps so easily.’
Mikey shrugged himself free of Brother Terry’s grip. ‘I don’t know what you’re on about mate.’
‘I’m on about you. You’re it. You’re him. You probably don’t know it yet but you are.’
Even under all the blood I could tell that Mikey was rattled. He was tense in the arms and was keeping his back to the fire. ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘You’ve got it wrong.’
‘Can I politely disagree? You are. Isaac has told me a lot about you, of the sacrifices you’ve made, of your long years in the desert. I mean, look at today even. You’ve shed blood in order to assist the greater good. What is more Christ-like than that?’
I watched Terry as he spoke, his bulging cheeks working away, his slippery hair blazing. I watched his eyes as he mentioned Mikey’s long years in the desert and then I realised.
He knew.
‘It may not be clear to you just this second,’ he continued, ‘but momentous events are close at hand. Your revelation is coming.’
And then Beth exploded. ‘This is what I mean,’ she was saying, pushing folk out the way and getting her brother by the front of his robe. ‘You are the problem here. Things were fine until you showed up.’
Brother Terry wasn’t looking at her but rather over her shoulder. I followed his gaze and was surprised to see a miniscule, weathered man in the opening of the largest tent. It was their father.
‘What’s going on?’ he breathed, his hand flapping up and down the front of his leather vest.
Beth and Terry fell apart, standing to attention. The old man glowered at them.
‘Well?’ he said.
‘Nothing,’ said Beth.
‘Nothing,’ agreed Terry.
‘Good,’ he said, shuffling back into his tent, pulling the waist of his cords back up his skinny arse.
The camp held its breath, waiting for the next thing to happen. Terry took the lead, sweeping through them all, dragging Mikey along by the sleeve of his robe with me following behind.
‘We can discuss this later,’ he told Beth as he brushed past her.
He deposited Mikey and me inside the largest yurt, closing us in with him. He turned on the electric light that hung from the pointed ceiling and stood in front of us, beaming.
‘You slimy bastard,’ I said. ‘You know.’
‘Of course I know,’ said Brother Terry. ‘Do you think I’m daft? You heard my sermon the other day. Your brother’s case was always very important to me. To the church, I mean.’
Mikey looked baffled. He gave me one of his looks.
‘This one,’ I said, letting my finger stray very close to Brother Terry’s face, ‘knows all about you, Mikey. All about you getting the jail and the wee lassie and everything. It’s all part of this sick thing he’s got going on here.’
‘Fuck,’ exclaimed Mikey.
‘What is it you want?’ I asked. ‘If it’s cash then you’re out of luck.’
Brother Terry nodded. He put his hands together. ‘I do not believe that an evil man cannot also be a good man. Some evil is necessary. Consider Judas, one of history’s most reviled traitors. He is hated, is he not, for the wrongs he committed against the Christ? But why?’
I sighed.
‘Exactly. The whole thing rests on Judas. Without Judas’s betrayal then the rest does not happen. We don’t have the crucifixion, we don’t have the ascension, we do not have our sins being washed away by the Lord’s sacrifice. So why should we hate a man that commits evil if the evil leads to good?’
I knew what he was getting at. He was saying that Mikey doing what he did was a good thing, because it brought him here, to the camp, where Brother Terry and his cult thought he could be Jesus and reveal him. It was bollocks – that much was clear.
‘Do you see what I’m saying, Michael?’ he asked.
Mikey sucked his lip. ‘You think I’m Jesus but only not yet. Something else happens and then I am.’
Brother Terry laughed. ‘That’s a fair summary.’
‘So what do you want from us?’ I asked again.
‘I just want you to stay and be with us so that we can learn from your brother.’
‘And then what?’
Brother Terry looked at me and I was struck by the peace in his face. His eyelids were so heavy they appeared slick, oiled in some way. ‘And then something happens and everything changes.’
I walked headfirst into Isaac as I left Terry’s yurt. He’d been kneeling by the door flap, listening in, and I nearly toppled over him.
He looked up at me, forehead furrowed.
I told him to come with me and I dragged him up, stumbling and lurching, out of the camp and higher on the slope. We didn’t speak until we made the waterfall. The tumbling foam hissed in falling white bundles. I made Isaac sit down on a rock, jutting like a molar from the earth, dark from the fall’s spray.
‘You said you wouldn’t talk about it,’ I said.
He gathered his robes up in twisting hands. ‘I know I did. I’m sorry. It wasn’t the right thing to do but Terry…’ He looked at the water, at the grey lather formed by the colliding streams.
‘What about Terry?’
‘It’s just… He knows stuff. He can tell stuff about you, sometimes without you even knowing it yourself. After I left you guys at the ferry and I hitched up north he could smell it on me. He was like, Isaac, tell me about your travels. And I was all like, Oh naw, nothing much happened Brother Terry. But he knew something was up.’
He finished talking and looked at the falls.
‘So you sold us out, just like that?’
‘Aye.’
‘And what did you tell him – exactly, I mean to say?’
‘What did I tell him?’
‘Aye.’
‘Well you know how he’s, like, obsessed with… Y’know, the wee lassie? Whatever her name was. And obviously…’
I cut him off. ‘Gail Shaw.’
‘Eh?’
‘That was her name,’ I said.
The blood was kicking in. New veins were blooming in my neck, my arms, raised like worms.
‘Gail Shaw?’
‘Aye.’
‘Right,’ he said. ‘I think I kent that.’
He could sense something coming off me, some odour, some pheromone. It was animal, the caution he wore. His head was low as he considered me, watching my stillness.
‘You all right?’ he asked.
‘Me?’ I laughed. ‘I’m fine.’
He swallowed. ‘Are you… Are you going to do something to me?’
We were quiet for a time, him low on the rock, me standing, swaying. He held his hands together.
‘No. I don’t think so,’ I said.
‘Right,’ he said, and then, ‘I’m sorry.’
I found myself smiling from nowhere. ‘It’s fine.’
He smiled too. ‘You look like your brother when you’re happy. I never noticed before.’
‘Folk say that,’ I said.
I wasn’t going to do anything to him, I knew that. My blood was going down and I was growing calmer.
I was getting better.
But though.
But there was the frothing, churning water below us. There were the rocks, jutti
ng over the edge like green fingers.
I wasn’t going to do anything to him. I was going to put my hand out and help him up because, aye, maybe he’d let us down, and maybe he was a snake, but I sensed it would be good for me not to act.
I put my hand out. He looked at it and then took it. I swung him up and there was a moment, mid-swing, where something moved in me, like a snake uncoiling in my belly, like a scorpion’s claws rattling in my throat. He was upright and we were touching and I could do whatever I wanted to.
The evening meal was in full swing when we got back. There was a great cast iron cauldron over the fire, held up by poles, and the clearing was heavy with the old smell of soup boiling. Mikey was sat on his own by the fire, hunched over with elbows on knees. He’d cleaned himself up and his mouth was free of blood.
We went down either side of him.
‘What the fuck,’ he whispered to me, ‘is going on?’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘They think I’m God or Jesus fucken Christ, man. No offence, Isaac.’
‘None taken.’
‘And that Terry knows everything about everything.’
‘Aye,’ I nodded.
I sat beside him for a while and we watched the people preparing food. My instincts were telling me to move, to pack up and go, to drive the van until we reached a place where no lives moved in the vicinity but our own. But there was also the possibility that out there in the winding roads were unmarked vehicles, coasting corners, keeping many eyes peeled for young men matching our descriptions. At least here in camp we had the element of disguise on our side.
‘I say we ride it out,’ I told Mikey. ‘See what happens.’
‘You reckon?’ asked Mikey, locking eyes with the fire’s movements, his pupils flickering from its light – orange on his chin, his jaw.
‘Aye, I reckon.’
‘Maybe,’ said Mikey, and we ate together and were quiet.
I couldn’t shake the comment he had made earlier. What had he meant by me getting him into trouble? I mean, aye, all right, maybe I’d had to make a few tough decisions so far. Maybe I hadn’t always chosen wisely either, I could hold my hands up to that. I wasn’t perfect. Who was? Maybe we should have just run off when all the stuff happened with the archaeologists. Maybe he’d have been happier if we just sat in a cold tent getting probably the police called on us by that nosy bastard whose house we took. Maybe we shouldn’t have picked up the Americans and maybe whatever happened with me and the lad, whatever his name was, maybe that shouldn’t have happened. Mikey’s problem was that he didn’t realise how hard all this was on me.