Demons

by Bill Nagelkerke

  I wished I could have talked to you again Gran. I wished I’d talked to you more. All those stories in your head, I only ever heard a tiny fraction of them. They’ve all gone with you, to wherever you are.

  I’d asked myself, not that long ago, did I still believe in a life after death.

  That night I decided I did. What choice did I have? If there was only this, only us and the rest empty infinity, what was the point? I knew what Chris’s rational response would be. I’d thought it myself the day we buried Gran.

  Dead and gone

  Life’s a song

  So sing it while you can.

  But I couldn’t help it. Not all things had to be rational. Love wasn’t, for one.

  That night all I knew was that I wanted the song of my life to go on forever. I didn’t know that it would. I could never know, not at least until the physical part of it was over.

  Big Bang.

  Crunch time.

  Judgement Day.

  In the end there could be only hope or not-hope, belief or not-belief, faith or not-faith.

  Never proof.

  Chris broke the long silence when he said, straight into my ear so I was the only one who could hear him, ‘One day we’ll visit the Tower of the Winds and we’ll secretly add our own small piece of graffiti.’

  ‘Why?’ I whispered back to him.

  ‘So we can live forever even if neither of us believes in an afterlife,’ he replied.

  ‘Chris . . .’ I was about to say what I’d been

  resolving in my head but I stopped myself. I didn’t want to disappoint him. I tried to convince myself that it wouldn’t matter to him, and that now wasn’t the time to say the gap had started to close for me.

  He went on: ‘And I already know what we can scratch on the stone.’

  For a second or two I felt a small thrill, imagining us making our mark on that ancient stone but, even as I was visualising it, I knew it would end up a futile gesture. There was no real permanence in stone. Like bodies and bones, it would all eventually turn to dust and blow away.

  ‘What will we write?’ I asked.

  ‘Life is a story.’

  ‘I like that.’

  Had he been able to read my mind after all? Life is a story. Even when it ends it continues forever. When I was small I often asked Dad and Mum to tell me stories. Tell, not read. Dad was best at it. This was my favourite:

  There was once a girl who asked her father to tell her a story. So the father told the girl this story. ‘There was once a girl who asked her father to tell her a story. So the father told the girl this story. “There was once a girl who asked her father to tell her a story. So the father told the girl this story . . .”

  Chris and I snuggled closer together to try and stay a little warmer. I was quietly happy and felt a surge of confidence. Everything would work out for us, wouldn’t it, the uni-candidate and the undecided, the atheist and the still-believer in a Happy-Forever-After place, the ‘re-converted’ as Kristy MacGowan might have said if she’d been here tonight.

  We didn’t see the photographer turn up at the foot of the steps and take our picture for the next day’s paper. Not until the flash went and he came up and asked for our names.

  Extracts from Chris’s notebook

  Dear Andrea,

  Dad saw it of course. He was raging. I’ve never seen him so angry.

  He thrust the paper under my nose. A close-up of you and me on the steps of the South Bank, a couple of protestors with candles in their hands and soppy looks on their faces. What better way of inducing sympathy or derision. We could have been younger versions of your parents in the eighties, rugged up in coats and woollen hats, just not as angry. Some things never change.

  I told Dad that it had been a peaceful protest and for a good cause. ‘I’m glad I went,’ I said to him.

  He said to me that I hadn’t been thinking. ‘What was there to think about?’ I replied. Then he went on about us having given our names to the reporter and now everyone would know what his son had been doing. I tried to explain how pushy the reporter had been and what did it matter if people knew whose son I was? We believed in what we’d been doing, that was what mattered.

  Then he told me what was bothering him so much. ‘I’m involved in this damn fiasco,’ he said. ‘I signed off the renovation plans for the Chambers. I gave them permission to go ahead.’

  ‘But you didn’t know they were going to uncover a burial site,’ I replied.

  ‘Of course not,’ he said ‘But they’ll say I should have.’

  ‘My ‘that’s irrational’ line didn’t go down too well despite it being something that Dad says to me all the time. He really believes that if the Council wants to blame someone then he’s going to end up being the fall guy.

  And then he said the worst thing. ‘It’s all be-cause you wouldn’t listen to me. Carrying on with that girl. If you hadn’t, you wouldn’t have ended up here, on the front page.’

  I told him I didn’t have to listen to that. That didn’t stop him. He accused me of being prepared to throw away everything I’d worked so hard for. I told him that was rubbish, that it was obvious that all of this was about Andrea and me, not what was in the paper.

  He didn’t deny it. He told me that I should finish with you Andrea and concentrate on myself. He said I should think about studying somewhere else.

  ‘I’m not interested in anywhere else,‘ I said to him.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said. ‘Maybe you should change your study plans altogether. Don’t stay here. Go overseas instead. Go now.’

  I lay on my bed. I thought, only a few days ago Andy was lying here beside me. The past was now. The future was here already. What’s changed? Has anything? Has everything? Talk about Dad’s demons. What about mine? Is ambition a demon? Is temptation?

  Ho bios mython estin.

  Life is a story.

  How does it end?

  Tipping the balance

  I told myself I didn’t know why I was doing it. The rebel in me? But I’d already done the rebel bit.

  Looking back though, it seemed obvious that everything had been leading up to this.

  I could have blamed Mum for reminding me of how I’d once inspired her. I could have blamed Kristy MacGowan for re-converting.

  But it wasn’t fair to blame anyone else.

  It was me all the time. My demon.

  It wasn’t rational but maybe I couldn’t be rational any more. Not after having been a churchgoer for the first fourteen years of my life.

  I had to do it, take that first step on a new path.

  The Saturday after the candlelight vigil I rang the presbytery where Father Mike lived. I didn’t tell anyone not even Chris.

  I was expecting Father Mike - counting on it on, to be honest - not to be at home. He seemed the sort of person who would be out a lot of the time so I didn’t feel I was taking too big a risk.

  He answered in person.

  ‘Oh,’ I said.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Oh,’ I said again. ‘Um, hello, it’s me, Andrea. Andrea McNamara. I was at . . .’

  ‘Hi Andrea,’ he interrupted. ‘Thanks for your support the other night. Sorry you got your mugshots in the paper. Hope that wasn’t too much to cope with?’

  ‘No it was fine,’ I said.

  I’d talked to Chris the evening following the vigil and he was also cool about the photo.

  ‘Not the best picture of the two of us,’ he said.

  ‘Actually, it’s the only one of us,’ I said. ‘We’ll have to do something about that.’

  ‘We will,’ Chris said.

  ‘What did your father think?’

  ‘He . . . he didn’t have much to say,’ said Chris.

  I said to Father Mike, ‘I wondered. . . I wondered if you’d have time to . . . if I could make an appointment to see you, sometime, anytime. Whenever suits.’

  Keep it vague so it won’t ever happen.

  ‘I’m home
now,’ he said. ‘Does that suit?’

  Oh shit. ‘Yes Father, that’d be good. I’ll be over soon then.’

  ‘OK. See you.’

  Damn. Why had I done it? I had no choice now but to go. I asked if I could borrow the car. ‘Just for a half hour or so.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Mum. ‘Returning something to the library?’ Chris worked at the public library every second Saturday.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I have to go somewhere else.’

  ‘Is everything all right?’ said Mum.

  ‘Everything’s fine,’ I said. It was. Nothing was wrong except the state of my poor confused mind.

  ‘OK. See you later.’

  ‘See you Mum.’

  The roads were busy and I lost the way a couple of times and had to pull over to the side of the road to get the street map from the glove box and check the route. I’d only been to Father Mike’s church the once and then it had been dark and Dad had done the driving.

  I eventually found the church and the presbytery. In daylight the church wasn’t much to look at. From the outside it looked even more like a hall than it did inside. The presbytery was a smallish brick house, off to one side.

  I wondered if this was the hovel where the Bishop sent rebel priests. For I’d already worked out that Father Mike was something of a rebel. Not just because of his involvement in the initial protest at the South Bank, his chairmanship of BDFA and his participation in the candle vigil. No, the Catholic Church had always been heavily into social justice so that wouldn’t have particularly bothered the Bishop.

  There was just something about his overall attitude that made me think Father Mike might be considered a thorn in the Church’s side. I had a feeling that if push came to shove he wouldn’t be too tied to the church’s rulebook. If I was right . . . I hoped I was right.

  I parked the car, got out and made my way hesitantly down the drive. I noticed a small caravan off to the side, a wire running from its roof into the house. Washing hung on the line, not the priestly kind but a woman’s dress, knickers and bra.

  Rebel? Hmm, I thought. Maybe even more so than I thought. But no, even he wouldn’t be as obvious about it as that.

  I knocked on the door. And waited.

  When no one came to open it I was surprised at how frustrated I felt, not to mention relieved. Part of the problem, of course, was the fact I hadn’t said anything to Chris about what I was doing. It made me feel that I was betraying him in some way, that he’d be deeply disappointed in me if he knew I was coming to talk to a priest especially after all I’d said

  about being finished with religion. And if he knew what I was here to ask Father Mike about . . .

  I was just about to knock once more when Father Mike opened up. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Hoped I wouldn’t keep you waiting when you came. Just had to pop over to the church and help Gerry set up the slide projector.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Father Gerry Brown,’ he explained. ‘His sermon tomorrow’s about India. He’s going back there in a few weeks time.’

  ‘He did my Gran’s funeral three years ago,’ I said. ‘She liked him. I was surprised to see him at the meeting.’

  ‘Gerry’s parents live locally,’ said Father Mike, ‘and he comes home on sabbatical to see them every couple of years or so. Nice guy. I have a lot of respect for him. He does amazing work in India. You might enjoy his sermon if you came along.’

  ‘I haven’t been to church for ages Father,’ I explained.

  ‘Call me Mike,’ said Father Mike. ‘Oh well, you’ll miss a good sermon. Never mind, come on in. Drink? Coffee, tea, juice or water are at your disposal. Or,’ he suddenly had another thought, ‘you’re not here because you want to confess something, are you?’

  ‘Not exactly. Not in that way, anyway.’

  I followed Mike into a small dark hall and into a front room that had a few armchairs, a table, book-case, crucifix. Plain as plain.

  ‘A cup of coffee would be nice,’ I said. ‘If it’s no trouble.’

  ‘Wouldn’t ask if it was,’ said Mike. ‘Black, white. Sugar? Sugarless?’

  ‘White, no sugar,’ I said. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Mine’s black,’ he said reflectively. ‘Black and white. Makes the art of coffee making sound easy even though the experts tell us differently. Lattes, cappuccinos, flat whites, long blacks - it’s a mysterious process unless you’re one of the initiated. A bit like religion I suppose.’

  ‘I’ve never thought of it that way.’

  ‘No reason to. But when you have to give a sermon each week you’re always on the lookout for relevant analogies and metaphors. I am, in any case.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Anyway, make yourself as comfy as you can and I’ll make the coffee. That chair over by the window has the least number of broken springs.’

  So I sat down and waited.

  ‘Only had ginger nuts in the biscuit jar,’ he said when he returned. ‘Help yourself. Probably don’t need to dunk them. They’ve gone soft of their own accord. In fact, better check them for mould.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, as I checked. ‘They look fine.’

  What was I doing here, I asked myself. Maybe I could still go, before . . . before . . .

  ‘What’s happening with the South Bank?’ I found myself asking instead. ‘Any progress?’

  ‘A little. Seems as if the parties are all willing to talk now. So that’s good. It’s a start.’

  ‘Did the candle vigil help do you think?’

  ‘Sure of it,’ he said. ‘And I’m all ready for another if we need it. How about you?’

  ‘I’ll be there,’ I said.

  ‘So . . .?’ he asked, expectantly. And fell silent. Waiting for me to speak, no doubt guessing that I hadn’t come here on a Saturday morning just to ask about the South Bank restaurant.

  ‘The other night,’ I said, ‘I started thinking. You know, those big thoughts you sometimes get.’ (Did he get them? I didn’t have a clue. Priests were meant to be sure and steady examples for the rest of us when it came to the unanswerable questions). ‘Stuff about time. The end of time. After time. I was remembering my Gran. I felt she was really close.’

  Father Mike nodded, encouragingly I hoped. He might just have been drifting off to sleep.

  ‘Eschatology,’ he said, although I didn’t work out the word until much later.

  ‘I decided that I wanted to believe that there was life after death, you know?’

  ‘You mean you’d stopped believing that?’

  ‘Yes. That and everything else. I thought I’d tossed the whole thing in.’

  ‘And . . .’

  ‘Now I don’t know if I ever did, not really, well not those big things.’

  ‘Why did you give up the Church in the first place?’ Mike asked. ‘Too much nitpicking?’

  ‘Partly. I also found out that not everyone follows the rules,’ - I had sworn to myself not to name names - ‘and they didn’t care that they didn’t but they still went to church. So it didn’t make much sense, if you see what I mean. And I didn’t like all of the rules myself. Some of them made me angry. And then Gran died . . . she didn’t like rules much either, well, not always.’

  ‘It’s not really about rules,’ Father Mike said.

  ‘Isn’t it?’ I asked, getting straight to the point before I lost my nerve. ‘What about the one that says women aren’t allowed to become . . . well, priests?’

  ‘Ah.’ He was a little surprised but not much.

  ‘I just wanted to ask . . . well, it’s my reason for

  coming here . . . to ask if you think . . . what you think about . . .’

  Father Mike took pity on me. ‘If you want my opinion of how likely it is that Rome will ever change it’s mind about not ordaining women I’d say predicting that event is even harder than proving immortality, not to mention the existence of God. I honestly don’t know. It’s not the first time I’ve been asked the question either.’

  ‘That’s w
hat I was counting on,’ I said.

  ‘My answer, such as it is, has always been not to give up hope. It may happen, one day. The age of miracles is never past. But then ‘never’ is a long time Andrea and there’s no point waiting for it to arrive. If you’re serious about it, then you’ve got to stride out to meet it, drag the never into the now.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Perhaps pray about it for a start,’ Father Mike smiled. ‘See where that leads you.’

  ‘That’s what my Gran would have said.’

  ‘But it’s a radical step, don’t you think, considering that you’ve been away, as it were, from the Church. What’s happened to make you think this way now? I can’t believe it’s all down to the candlelight vigil the other night.’

  ‘That’s just it,’ I said. ‘It wasn’t. It’s not really a radical thing at all. I think it’s a feeling - a knowing - I already had way back when I was a little kid. It’s been building up for years.’

  Mike looked thoughtfully at me. ‘Is this about you or about God?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t understand . . . isn’t it about both?’

  ‘Ideally, yes. But I’m asking if it’s more one than the other? I know your parents and although I never met your grandmother they’ve told me about her. I’ve

  got an inkling of what sort of upbringing you’ve had. The rich mix of piety and protest.’

  ‘You make me sound like a compost heap,’ I said.

  ‘Perhaps you are, in a way. That’s not an insult. Well-balanced compost heaps are full of goodness and nourishment. But I guess what I’m asking you Andrea is do you want to be a priest because you’re angry, disappointed and want to turn the tables? Because if those are the only reasons, they’re not good enough.’

  ‘Aren’t they? Why not?’

  ‘They wouldn’t sustain you. You’d be better off joining WKTP. Does that make sense?’

  It did. ‘I guess I am all of those things,’ I admitted. ‘But not just those . . . it’s hard to explain.’