Only Strange People Go to Church

by Laura Marney

  Maria knows from the endless meetings she has attended the strength of feeling among parents. People here feel politically powerless and dread sex offenders being dumped amidst them. Really she has no other option. For the safety of all the community she has to cancel the show.

  Chapter 52

  There’s no point in causing a scene. Better to tell the various group leaders and let them quietly disseminate the bad news, preferably later on, once everyone has gone home. If the groups make a fuss they can say there’s a problem with the church building.

  Luckily Ray is still absorbed with his guitar; he doesn’t even look up when she comes out of the office. The first person she finds is Marianne Bowman, who has just finished conducting the choir through their interpretation of Rihanna’s Umbrella. Marianne’s leading the girls off the stage.

  ‘That’s great that you’ve managed to squeeze Ronald in,’ says Marianne. ‘I don’t think you’ll regret it.’

  Maria allows herself a little ironic laugh.

  ‘I need to talk to you Marianne.’

  ‘Up to my eyes at the minute…’

  ‘No, seriously, this takes priority over everything else. I’m going to round up a few others, meet me in Ray’s office and please, keep it quiet.’

  Marianne nods and puts up no further argument. Maria makes a mental list of those she’ll need to tell: Mr Spencer the orchestra leader, Pastor McKenzie for the Victory Singers and Alice of course for Autumn House. Unfortunately these last two are in Ray’s camp but there’s nothing she can do about that. They’ll have to be told.

  They crowd into the office, the air in the small room being quickly overwhelmed by Marianne’s perfume.

  ‘I’m really sorry to have to do this,’ Maria tells them, ‘but I’m afraid I’m cancelling the show.’

  As expected this is not well received.

  ‘You’re what?’

  ‘I’m cancelling the show.’

  ‘No, you’re bliddy not!’ shouts Alice. ‘On what grounds?’

  ‘I’d really rather not to go into that at the moment but if you need to tell your group something, tell them the building is hazardous.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with the church, it was here before you came along and it’ll be here after you’re gone,’ says Alice.

  ‘Nevertheless…’

  ‘On what authority are you cancelling?’ Marianne asks.

  ‘On the authority of the Hexton Adult Learning Centre, under whose auspices the show was set up.’

  ‘Has Ray cancelled the show?’

  ‘No. Ray hasn’t been involved in my decision and I’d prefer it if…’

  ‘Well, unless Ray says the show is cancelled then it goes ahead,’ says Alice. ‘We don’t need your centre. Autumn House has spent time and money on this and we’re not cancelling. If you want to pull out that’s one thing but you can’t cancel the whole show and not even give us a reason.’

  ‘Alice has a point, Maria,’ says Marianne as the others nod their agreement. ‘Why, if the building is sound, do we have to cancel?’

  ‘Certain irregularities have come to light, for security reasons I’m not at liberty to discuss.’

  ‘Who do you think you are?’ spits Alice. ‘MI 5? Sorry Pastor for swearing, but this is a bliddy joke.’

  At this Pastor McKenzie comes to life and moves to stand between Maria and the rest of them, who are lined defiantly against her. He opens his arms wide either to protect Maria from Alice or in an all-encompassing gesture.

  ‘Shouldn’t we all sit down and discuss this calmly?’

  Maria, grateful for his intervention, is the first to take a seat. The rest follow except the Pastor himself who has his own announcement to make.

  ‘I think I know what this is about and it may not be as big a problem as it might seem. This is something we can sort out if we work together. Maria is quite right to say there’s a need for confidentiality but we must be able to trust each other and our colleagues deserve an explanation. So, please, can I rely upon you to keep this discussion confidential?’

  They all agree immediately.

  ‘Praise the Lord.’

  Maria is relieved, they’ll understand her reticence once they know and this will take the heat off her.

  ‘There’s no need to name names but suffice it to say that there is amongst us, not amongst us here I hasten to add, but amongst the company of performers, a person whose past deeds are, understandably, causing concern to our organiser, Maria. But I can assure you all that any risk, while it can never be completely eliminated, is absolutely minimal.’

  Maria would love to tell them, especially Marianne, about the lovely Ronald and his most recent exploits but she fears that if it got out his life would be in danger.

  ‘I and Ray have undertaken to supervise this individual at all times,’ says the Pastor.

  ‘Well, if the Pastor and Ray have got it under control that’s good enough for me,’ says Alice.

  Mr Spencer speaks for the first time.

  ‘Not a problem for me,’ he says with a shrug.

  Marianne nods.

  Maria set this show up but it seems she’s no longer in charge. It has grown legs and run away from her. The lunatics have taken over the asylum. If they want to carry on with the show, and it seems they do, there’s absolutely nothing she can do about it.

  ‘Well, if that’s it,’ says Alice, standing up and pushing back her chair, ‘I can’t hang about gossiping. I need to get back to my kitchen.’

  ‘Hold on,’ says Maria, jumping to her feet. ‘I’m afraid there’s more to it than that. I also have concerns about the very man who is supposedly supervising.’

  ‘Me?’ says the Pastor, aghast.

  ‘No, sorry Pastor, not you.’

  ‘Ray?’ says Alice, with her mouth open as Ray walks into the office.

  Chapter 53

  ‘Oh sorry,’ Ray says, ‘didn’t mean to disturb your meeting, I’m just in to put my guitar to bed,’ he says with a self-effacing smile as he squeezes past them in the cramped space to put his guitar back in its case.

  There is a shocked silence that he must be aware of. As soon as he has put away his guitar he turns to creep unobtrusively out of the office and as he makes it to the door Alice calls him back.

  ‘Ray?’

  He sticks his head round the door again.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Can you come back in, please?’ Alice says, all the while staring hard at Maria.

  Maria feels the blood drain from her face.

  ‘You’re all very serious, what’s wrong, financial crisis?’ says Ray chirpily as he finds a seat.

  No one answers or even looks at him but once again the Pastor takes the floor.

  ‘Alice is right. In the spirit of openness and with the promise of confidentiality I think we should continue to speak plainly. Maria, you were saying?’

  ‘Yeah,’ says Alice, daring her, ‘you were saying?’

  Maria inadvertently makes a loud noise in her throat as she gulps a mouthful of acid saliva.

  ‘I was saying that…of course I can’t prove anything, but this morning I witnessed Alice hand over to Ray a large amount of money. This appeared to me to be under duress. Aldo, Ray’s constant companion, is known to have links to local drug dealers. Make of that what you will but another thing is this ‘zapping’ business. You may or may not be aware that Ray is hypnotising people. He has a selection of books on professional hypnosis in that drawer there. Look, if you don’t believe me. I’m afraid these suspicious circumstances give me no confidence in Ray. I can’t guarantee the personal safety of anyone entering this building and for this reason I am forced to cancel the show.’

  No one says a word but all eyes are on Ray who sits with an expression of bemusement on his face.

  ‘Ray,’ says Pastor McKenzie gently, ‘these are rather serious allegations, is there anything you want to say?’

  ‘It’s none of her bliddy business making allegations about
him and me!’ shouts Alice.

  Ray smiles.

  ‘Alice, Alice. Calm down,’ he says dismissively. ‘Business conducted between Alice and myself is nobody else’s concern.’

  ‘We’re all friends here, Ray,’ says the Pastor. ‘We’ve already promised that what is said at this meeting will not go beyond this room.’

  Ray smiles again but remains silent.

  ‘He’s a gentleman, that’s why he won’t say,’ says Alice. ‘I took eighty quid off Aldo in a snooker game, gambling. Ray convinced me to give it back. There, happy now?’ she fires at Maria. ‘Oh, and I might as well tell you because Ray won’t: Aldo’s off the junk, he has been for weeks. And the only reason he’s off it is because that man there,’ she says, pointing at Ray, ‘helped him untangle himself from the drug dealers. Ray’s helped a lot of folk around here one way or another and this is the gratitude he gets: to be accused of being a drug dealer.’

  Again she looks directly at Maria.

  ‘You make me sick.’

  Nobody speaks for a few minutes.

  ‘Is what Alice says true, Ray?’ asks the Pastor.

  Ray shrugs and continues to look at the floor.

  ‘It seems to be an admirable thing to do and certainly nothing to hide.’

  ‘Listen,’ says Ray in a slow disappointed voice, directly addressing Maria. ‘I don’t know what you were doing going through my drawer but you’ve got the wrong idea. And as for zapping, as you call it, it’s assisted self-hypnosis. It’s good for pain management and relaxation. I just showed a few people how to do it: Jean Anderson, Harry McCabe and wee Maggie. They can do it themselves whenever they need it.’

  ‘And Aldo,’ says Alice.

  ‘Yeah, and Aldo.’

  With long exhalations the release of tension from the group is audible.

  ‘Right,’ says the Pastor. ‘I’m satisfied with Ray’s explanation. What does everyone else think?’

  Everyone else is nodding, plainly embarrassed, all except Alice, who is plainly furious with Maria. She stands and addresses the top of Maria’s bowed head.

  ‘Your problem, young lady, is that you’re a snob. You think everybody’s a criminal. Well, we might all live in Hexton but we’re not all the same. Believe it or not there are good people here. And bad people, good and bad, smart and stupid, sick and healthy, but that’s a community. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?’

  ‘Alice,’ says Ray, ‘leave it.’

  Alice stares defiantly at Maria.

  ‘Alice,’ Ray repeats, which seems to break her enchantment.

  Alice leaves, Marianne goes too, followed by Mr Spencer and the Pastor.

  Maria is left alone, shamefaced, in the office with Ray.

  Chapter 54

  Maria and Ray sit in silence, their eyes cast down.

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ Maria whispers. ‘I feel awful.’

  Ray laughs.

  ‘Well, don’t ask me to zap you. Zapping’s off the menu. I’ve already got a reputation as some kind of evil mesmerist.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says and starts to cry, ‘I feel such an idiot.’

  ‘Oh no,’ says Ray when he sees her tears, ‘now I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry.’

  ‘You didn’t. It’s just…Everything.’

  Worse than falsely accusing a well-meaning man and suffering the humiliation of being proved wrong, on top of all this Maria’s had to swallow the fact that, quite literally, she’s no longer running the show.

  ‘Need a hanky?’

  She nods. Ray takes the white toilet paper from his desk, unrolls a wodge and hands it to her.

  ‘Got to keep the bog roll in the office now,’ he says by way of explanation, ‘some bastard keeps stealing it out of the gents.’

  Maria blows her nose and smiles. She echoes Alice’s words, but without rancour.

  ‘Well, that’s a community for you,’

  ‘I suppose so,’ he agrees, but he smiles too.

  Ray settles himself in his chair and opens the desk drawer. He pulls out the bottle of wine and plants it on the desk.

  ‘Want one?’ he asks.

  Maria nods.

  He pulls out two glasses and the corkscrew.

  ‘Hypnotism’s good for all sorts of things, you know.’

  ‘Ray, please, you don’t have to explain…’

  ‘Surgery: amputations, tooth extractions,’ he continues, ignoring her. ‘Much better than opiates. Pain, relentless acute pain, that’s the cruellest thing in the world, and what everybody fears the most. I was married.’

  This is a swift change of subject but Ray keeps his pitch light and so it takes a while before the full impact of what he’s saying hits Maria.

  ‘Her name’s Suzanne, Suzy. She had cancer of the cervix. The stupid cow wouldn’t go for the smear tests. She said she wouldn’t let anyone stick a cold metal duck bill up her box; said she’d rather have cancer.’

  Maria lifts her head and turns towards him.

  ‘It was hard. A lot of pain. We were in and out of hospital for a year and a half. We never knew how long it was going to be.’

  Ray peels the soft metal from the neck of the bottle and slowly works the screw into the yielding cork.

  ‘At first we didn’t know how long it would be before they got rid of it. And then, after all the shit: all the chemo and the sickness and hair loss and pain when they couldn’t get rid of it, we didn’t know how long it would be.’

  He pours two large glasses and hands one to Maria. She’s keen to get to the end of the story. This seems like pretty grim stuff but going by his tone it must have a happy ending.

  ‘That’s when I got into hypnotism. The palliatives knocked her off her head, like bloody horse tranquilisers, so they are. They made her la la, saying crazy things that neither of us wanted to hear but, without them… The worst thing about the pain was how much it embarrassed her. She cried and moaned, she couldn’t hold it in and she hated herself for it. She thought she was letting me down.’

  All of this Ray says as though he’s telling a joke. Maria throws the glassful of wine down her throat. Tranquilising herself against what she’s hearing. She wouldn’t normally touch alcohol during the day but this is different. It’s not everyday you accuse someone of being a brainwashing drug peddler and then they casually tell you the agonies their wife has suffered.

  ‘The hypnotherapy, once I got a handle on it, was brilliant for relaxing her. We used to have a great laugh sometimes. The doctors couldn’t believe that someone whose insides were being eaten away was able to sit up and play cards or sing along with the guitar. But that’s the power of the mind for you. Suzy was a great subject, the best.’

  Ray smiles and leans over and pours them both another glass of wine. Maria swigs this one in relief and pictures Ray and his wife laughing and singing. It is a happy ending after all, thank God.

  ‘And when it was time, it was easy. She went out like a dimming lantern. That’s actually the best way I can describe her: a warm glowing lantern whose light went out. It was soft, she wasn’t sad or scared. And I was happy for her. A bit jealous, but happy too.’

  Ray has a broad smile on his face although he seems to be saying that his beloved wife is dead. ‘We’d wanted kids but in the end I suppose it was for the best that we couldn’t. It was a while ago now. I promised her there’d be no grief but I think that’s a bit unrealistic. I went in to freefall, I lost everything, but I already had lost everything so I didn’t give a shit. My business pretty much went down the toilet.

  ‘Coming here has helped. I’m not saying it’s perfect, I mean, the place is full of weirdos, not to mention the bog roll thief, but it’s been a great experience for me. It’s helped me to accept it; take responsibility. I have to keep moving forward. The pain hasn’t gone away but it’s nothing like as bad as it was and the good thing is that through Suzy’s experience I’ve found ways to deal with it. Suzy was a terrific role model and I’ve got all the books. I�
��ve seen a few wee souls around here struggling with pain, physical or emotional, and I’ve tried to help. I hope it’s helped. I didn’t mention Suzy to anyone else, there’s no use depressing people. Only Alice knows. She’s been fantastic, but I haven’t told anyone else because…’

  Ray tails off and sits quietly.

  ‘Because it’s nobody else’s business,’ says Maria with her head dipped in shame. ‘I’m so sorry, Ray.’

  ‘Don’t be. This has been good. I’m glad I told you, it’s time now. Thanks for listening.’

  Maria nods. They simultaneously sip their wine. They glance and smile and fall into a silence that lasts several minutes. Maria can’t think of anything to say but, and perhaps it’s the effect of the wine, she doesn’t feel she needs to say anything.

  ‘You’ve done a fantastic job getting this show together,’ Ray says finally, ‘I’ve never said it and it needs to be said, you’ve really pulled it off. I don’t think anyone else in Hexton could have done it.’

  ‘I don’t think anyone else is stupid or desperate enough to try,’ says Maria.

  ‘True,’ Ray concedes, and raises his glass.

  Maria lifts her drink and clinks glasses and they both smile. It’s easy to see why everybody loves Ray. In a short space of time he’s forgiven her for trying to blacken his name and for the sake of clarification he’s shared his most intimate and painful memories. And he’s getting her drunk. All with a lovely smile. She likes Ray.

  ‘Bob’s dad was in yesterday asking about setting up five-a-side football. I wondered if Martin was any good?’

  ‘Martin’s great! He’d love to get a game with you. Blue Group is mixed physical ability but some of our other groups are pretty good at football.’

  ‘Well, bring them down here, then.’

  Maria and Ray discuss five-a-side football, and the show, and Alice’s legs, and Pastor McKenzie’s obsession with Ray.

  ‘I think he thinks you’re a modern messiah,’ Maria tells him.