Ellie & the Shadow Man

by Gee, Maurice

  She moved her binoculars and found Derek in a group of three behind the women – probationers, she supposed, not yet admitted fully to Gethsemane. She saw how easily he could slip away once the baptisms began. She moved the binoculars – found several of the young men looking at her, in response to Robert Early’s outflung arm. She shifted further into the shade, feeling guilty and ashamed – voyeur – but did not think he would recognise her in her dark green trousers, with an autumn-leaved scarf tying up her hair. He’s using me for the evils of the world, she thought.

  His voice came up the river but she could not separate words from the noise of the waterfall. Perhaps he was saying ‘Jezebel.’ Ellie shook her head. That’s not me.

  She did not use the binoculars again but watched as two men led a woman down the shingle bank. Robert Early spoke to her, softly, it seemed, intimately, then gave his bible to one of the men and walked into the river up to his waist. His lower half darkened underwater, his shirt stood rounded like a spinnaker. The woman waded to him. Her blue skirt billowed and she pushed it down, sinking it. He took her in the crook of his arm and called out again, ritualised words that came like dog barks through the sound of the waterfall. Ellie saw how helpless the woman was, yet felt her compliance as he bent her backwards with a hand on her chest. Her long hair fell from her scarf. He pushed her under the water and held her down – too long – while he cried out, cleansing her. What would the words be? Something about being born again and raised into the body of Christ? Whether mistaken or not, that faith was acted out in a ceremony reaching back in time. See how they stood together, watching the man in the river – watching ‘then’ as well as ‘now’. Ellie envied them the continuity. But her place was over here, not bunched up in the hands of Robert Early.

  He raised the woman. Her scarf had slipped from her hair and she pulled it into place, wading ashore. Men and women gathered round and hugged her. Robert Early waited, waist deep in the water.

  Ellie looked for Derek. He was gone. She hurried through the trees into the scrub, found the track, started across the paddock. A car drew up behind hers, and two youths got out and climbed the fence. They came towards her, one ferrety and leathered, the other fat and pink. Ellie pulled her scarf off.

  ‘Hey, lady, don’t say it’s over.’

  If they came too close she would club them with her binoculars.

  ‘Are you saved?’ asked the pink one with a leer.

  She passed them, slid through the fence, got into her car. Such feeble hoons. The world, even in Golden Bay, should be able to provide more convincing evil than that.

  She turned the car and drove to Gethsemane. Derek was opening the gate. He smiled at her tightly.

  ‘Get in,’ she said.

  ‘Hold on. Someone might be coming. I’m not sure.’

  ‘Who?’

  A woman came out of the building alongside the dining hall. She looked about her, blinded by the sun; saw Derek at the car; started forward in a lopsided run, holding up her skirt.

  ‘She made it. Good on her,’ Derek said.

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘Have you got room? She’s my friend.’

  ‘Derek –’

  ‘Don’t worry. They’ll be down the river half an hour yet.’

  ‘I’m not getting mixed up in kidnapping.’

  The woman was growing younger, turning into a girl, while her progress increased in uncertainty.

  ‘I want her to get out the gate all by herself,’ Derek said.

  She came through with a moaning sound. Her face was unseeing, as if the world outside Gethsemane burned her eyes. She pushed out her hands to find her way. Derek caught them, one, two, like paper darts, and guided her into the back seat of the car.

  ‘OK?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she panted.

  ‘Take it easy. Breathe deep.’ He slipped in beside her, closed the door. ‘OK Ellie, it’s all right to go.’

  ‘How old is she?’ Ellie said.

  ‘Seventeen.’

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Paula.’

  ‘Paula, listen to me.’ She waited until the girl unclosed her hands from her face. ‘Are you sure you want this? You want to leave here?’

  Paula made a small explosion of breath.

  ‘Was that yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘All right. And you’re seventeen?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Ellie nodded.

  ‘Wait,’ Derek said. He got out of the car and closed the gate. Gave the name Gethsemane a pat. Ran back and got in beside Ellie. ‘Let’s go.’

  She drove without speaking. The girl had thrown a swift look out the back window, then lain down out of sight on the seat.

  ‘Shouldn’t you sit with her?’ Ellie said.

  ‘I want to leave her alone. Do you mind being quiet, Ellie?’

  She drove through Takaka and up the hill, where Paula sat up, looked into the valley and made a thin sound of pain, stretching her mouth. She lay down again.

  ‘Does she need something to eat and drink?’ Ellie said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘Just keep going.’

  ‘To my place?’

  ‘Yes, that’ll be good.’

  ‘Won’t they follow us? Try and take her back?’

  Derek frowned and shook his head. He made a shushing sound.

  They reached Ellie’s house after midday. She imagined it would look welcoming, although she wasn’t sure that she was welcoming herself; but Paula turned her head neither left nor right as Derek led her in by the arm.

  ‘Bathroom?’ he said.

  ‘In there.’

  He took Paula in, whispered for a moment, then came out and closed the door. Ellie carried the chillibin inside. She put it on the kitchen table and switched the kettle on.

  ‘Tea?’ she said, when Derek came in with his bag.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Some chicken?’

  ‘Yeah. Good.’

  ‘Now, Derek, tell me what this is about.’

  ‘She’s leaving, that’s all. Or trying to.’

  ‘Did you talk her into it?’

  ‘No. She came to me one day. She said she wanted to, and would I help.’

  ‘Is she part of Robert Early’s family?’

  ‘No. One of the others. They joined when she was six. Up in the Manawatu. That’s all I know.’

  ‘I can’t believe they won’t try and find her.’

  ‘They won’t. She’s been baptised, Ellie. Now she’s lost again. They won’t come chasing her. She’s got to go to them. And repent. Until then she’s –’ he shrugged – ‘castaway.’

  ‘Do I get a chance to talk to her?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  The toilet flushed. Derek stood up.

  ‘Is there a bedroom I can put her in?’

  ‘For both of you?’

  ‘No. She’s not my girlfriend. I hardly know her.’

  Ellie opened the spare room. The bed was made up. She drew the curtains back but Derek said, ‘Better close them, eh?’ He sat Paula on the bed. ‘I’ll be out soon.’

  Ellie went out and closed the door. She drank tea and ate a chicken leg, stopping now and then as little surges of alarm ran through her. This Paula was a child, and she and Derek had abducted her. Someone must be hunting. They might have called the police. Then that alternative world imposed its images – Gethsemane. The man in the river, the women in their medieval skirts, the assembled community on the bank – and it seemed possible that Paula was, as Derek had said, castaway. Cast away.

  Ellie stood up and went out into the sun, into her garden. She walked past her studio and was momentarily shocked to see nothing on the easel; and was shocked then by Paula’s life, which must be equally bare now that she had fled. But surely inside Gethsemane there had been a poverty even more terrible, a denial that left one stripped to the bone with only a few responses left. It was a prison – but there are monst
ers outside too, Ellie thought. Where could a girl like Paula go?

  Derek came out the back door and crossed the lawn, bending under a peach tree.

  ‘She’s all right. She’s going to have a sleep.’

  ‘Does she need anything? A nightie? Pyjamas? She’s got no clothes.’

  Derek shook his head. ‘She can’t, Ellie. Thanks anyway. But she can’t touch stuff. I mean out here in the world. She can’t even look at it. Your paintings and ornaments. And your soap and stuff.’

  ‘They must have soap.’

  ‘Sure, but different. Everything is different. It’s …’

  ‘Filled with the devil?’

  ‘Yeah, I guess. I think your pyjamas might freak her out. It’s going to take time.’

  ‘Are you frightened she won’t make it?’

  ‘Not frightened. I think she had to see the world.’

  ‘She’s not doing much of that.’

  ‘No. And when she’s seen it and knows she can live here, or she can’t …’

  ‘Are you saying she might go back?’

  ‘Yeah. Maybe. Part of it is, she’s seventeen. She’s late getting married. She said no when her parents chose the first guy. Robert doesn’t like that. She’s not going to be able to do it again.’

  ‘What will happen?’

  ‘If she goes back? Well, her name’s scratched out of the book. I mean the Book of Life, up in heaven. So she’s got to get it written down again. Go through it all. Repentance and baptism, all that. I bet bloody old Robert’ll hold her down a long time. She’ll have the men’s committee as well.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The group of leaders. It’s a kind of inquisition. She’ll have to confess all her sins and abase herself. It’s like an exorcism. It goes on all day long. All night too.’

  ‘You can’t let her, Derek.’

  He shook his head. ‘I can only do what she wants me to. I brought her out. I’ll help her as long as I can. I’ll even marry her if she wants me to. But if she says she’s going back I’ll take her. You can be quite happy there, you know. There’s lots of happy people.’

  ‘Robert Early isn’t.’

  Derek looked startled. ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘He hasn’t got enough.’

  ‘Oh, sure. More souls for salvation.’

  Ellie did not mean that. She did not know what she meant. The thought of allowing Paula – whom she did not know, had scarcely seen (a chubby face, poppy-red cheeks) – allowing her to fall into Robert Early’s hands stabbed her like a tortured nerve. She said, ‘Tell me what she needs. Underclothes she needs. God, I’ll buy her bloomers if that’s all she can wear.’

  ‘Ellie –’

  ‘We’ve got to keep her from going back.’

  ‘It’s Sunday. There’s no shops selling bloomers, whatever they are. I’ll take her shopping when she’s ready to go. The best thing we can do now is leave her alone. Just let her come out slowly, if she wants to.’

  Paula did not appear that night. Ellie made a bacon quiche, and Derek took some to her in her room. In a moment he was back. ‘I’ll take mine in as well. Sorry, Ellie. She can’t eat alone.’ Ellie wondered if she would be able to sleep alone after the family stalls at Gethsemane. She washed the dishes, tried to read, missing her Sunday paper; put some harmless music on the player; sat with the lights low by the window, watching the brightness fade off the sea and stars wink on the edge of seeing. Her worry about the girl dissipated and she began to wonder about herself: was she lonely? Was her work, which had satisfied her fully, enough? Did she need, like Paula, to run away, find something new and dangerous, even if she turned and ran back home?

  Ellie poured herself a whisky. She pulled on a jersey and sat outside. Were these real questions, or was it simply that for the moment she could not paint? She had come to the end of her shadow man. Was she missing him or just waiting for what, or who, came next?

  ‘I think she’ll stay a few days,’ Derek said, coming out.

  ‘How do you know I don’t charge board? Sorry, I’m joking. Come here, Derek. Give me a hug. Now, do you drink? I don’t have Coca-Cola any more.’

  ‘So she can stay? We don’t have any money –’

  ‘That’s all right. As long as you like. Will fruit juice do?’ She brought a glass out to the yard and they sat in adjacent chairs, looking through the crooked half-lit trees.

  ‘Do you think you’ll fall in love with this girl?’

  ‘Me? No chance. When I said I’d marry her, I meant if it would help her stay outside.’ He smiled shyly. ‘There were a couple of others there I liked better.’

  ‘Did you do anything about it?’

  ‘They were married, even though one of them was younger than Paula. They can marry at sixteen. As long as they’ve got “the flowers of their age”.’

  ‘Which they would have at sixteen.’

  ‘I don’t know much about all that.’ Derek blushed. ‘If I’d stayed there I would have got married. I don’t know who to.’

  ‘Why not Paula?’

  ‘No.’ Derek was quiet for a moment. ‘The trouble is with her, she likes girls.’

  ‘Did she tell you that?’

  ‘I’m not actually sure one hundred percent. But I think she does.’

  ‘And there’s no room for lesbians at Gethsemane. So what does she do?’

  ‘Gets married. There’s no other way.’ He grimaced. ‘Work and worship and prayer. Community. She’ll probably survive better there than here. I don’t think she can make it after living tied to old Robert since she was six.’

  ‘Does Robert know about her?’

  ‘He knows everything. She’ll have a hard time but she’ll get by. She’ll get married and have kids and live and die. She’ll even be happy, as long as she’s got Robert and Christ.’

  ‘It won’t work, Derek. It’s unnatural.’

  ‘That’s what the world says, not Gethsemane.’

  Ellie gave her room to Derek so he would be close if Paula needed him. She slept in Audrey’s workroom among John’s trays of spiders and moths, and was glad to be out of the house. She worked preparing canvasses in the day, not knowing what she would paint on them. Paula was up at dawn, walking to the back fence, barefooted in the dew. Was shoeless a good sign? She still wore her headscarf, with her hair trailing down her back. Later in the day, when Derek, removed by several paces, walked at her side, she kept it knotted in a bun.

  Ellie enjoyed her work. She almost forgot her visitors. On the third day an idea began to take shape. She saw it the way she’d seen that fragment of brick in the river – appearing, disappearing, misshapen by the current. She cut sandwiches for lunch and left them on the table. Paula had still not spoken more than half a dozen words to her or looked in her face, but Ellie’s need to ‘save’ her had disappeared. She would do it if she could say, ‘Stay’ or ‘Go’ or ‘Run, hide’, but did not want involvement any more. Let Derek try. She took a sandwich into the studio, ate half of it, sat with her pad on her knee and started to draw. One page. Two. Three. Four.

  ‘Ellie.’ Derek’s head came round the door. ‘Am I disturbing you?’

  ‘No. What is it?’

  ‘Can I borrow your car? I want to take Paula into Motueka. She needs some things.’

  ‘The keys are on the table by my bed.’

  ‘Thanks. Ellie?’

  She waited.

  ‘I haven’t got any money. Can you lend me some?’

  ‘Bring my bag.’ She wrote him a cheque. ‘It’s cash. Take it to my bank. Is it enough?’

  ‘Yes. I’m sorry it’s like this. We won’t be here much longer.’

  ‘As long as you like. I told you.’

  He went out but came back straight away. ‘It’s important, this trip, Ellie. She’ll have to go into shops.’

  ‘What about her dress? I’ll lend her one.’

  ‘She won’t wear it. We’ll go to an op shop. She can buy one.’

  ‘Underclothes?’
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  ‘She’s washing them in the basin and putting them back on. We’ll buy a pair.’

  ‘Good luck.’

  She sketched again but something had got in the way. Her idea had been coming clearer from page to page: a torso, square; a pushing arm, a shape in folds of cloth underwater; a face with seamed cheeks and stiff-lidded eyes; a wide-open mouth from which might issue a column of sound. There was too much Robert Early. The picture should not be personal. If that girl washing her underclothes and putting them on wet could not have a place, then he, with all his features, should not.

  Ellie puzzled what to do. Get rid of his face? She ran her pencil through it but did not know how to start again. She went into the kitchen, slapped her pad down on the table, then went back to the studio for her half-eaten sandwich. She leaned on the fence by the orchard, watching thinners work in the trees. Later she cleaned the fowl house, shovelling buckets of manure from underneath the perches. There were paintings inside her but they wouldn’t come out. She could not see beyond those hippopotamus eyes and open mouth, that man with huge creative drive but nothing to create. She felt his faith and anguish. Yet he was not the subject she was trying for. Things were out of balance. She must find a way to make him only part, not all.

  The car came up the drive under the pines and turned neatly into the garage. George must have taught Derek to drive – one good thing. She carried a bucket of manure into the herb garden. Derek walked across the lawn to join her, while Paula, in her blue dress, went into the kitchen.

  ‘She couldn’t do it,’ he said.

  ‘Go into a shop?’

  ‘Not even get out of the car.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Parked down by the sea at Ruby Bay.’

  ‘Talking?’

  ‘Not much. Paula hasn’t got much she wants to say. She was shivering and crying most of the time. I don’t know how to help her when everyone walking past is damned.’

  ‘And she is too?’

  ‘Yes. She’s evil. She’s going to burn. So am I.’

  ‘I don’t suppose I could talk to her?’ She watched the girl standing by the kitchen table. ‘Oh my God.’

  ‘What?’