After Before

by Jemma Wayne

  They drew closer. As they did so, the volume of the men’s chants increased and Emily felt her limbs involuntarily tighten. Still, she didn’t truly believe that the men would harm them. Not an unarmed child and his scrawny, barely-there sister. Not them. Not so near to home. Not until Cassien fell.

  Cassien.

  Turning frantically, the first thing Emily noticed was that his football had rolled away and was already lost in the crowd of stamping feet. Instinctively, she began to go after it for her brother, but from the floor, Cassien yanked her back.

  “Cassien!” she protested.

  “Shush Emmy.”

  The man who had smacked him towered suddenly over them both: tall, broad, wild, stinking of beer and lust and power. Cassien, at 12-years-old drew himself up before him. His nose was bleeding.

  “Inyenzi Inyenzi! Cockroach!” the man bellowed, spit spraying from his mouth. Other men grew interested and moved closer.

  “We are not.” Cassien wiped his face with the back of a hand that to her horror, Emily noticed was shaking. She looked up. The men held masus, clubs spiked with nails, and bottles of beer. One of them was fondling a spear grotesquely. Cassien took his sister’s hand and kept her tucked behind him. “Come on Emmy. Let’s go back.”

  “But school,” she protested. “We’ll miss school. And your football - ” Some of the men were kicking it now between them.

  Cassien’s glance back was only fleeting, his last seconds of childhood rolling away as fast as his prized possession. As they ran, the dirt and dust kicked up from their feet settled over her new uniform.

  At home, their father took one look at Cassien’s nose and started shouting in language he never used and they were not allowed to. But he didn’t go after the men who had harmed his child. Instead, he ran to the factory where Gahiji worked, and to Simeon and Rukundo’s school and brought all of his boys home. Then he bolted the doors and told them they were not to leave the house. Mama fussed over Cassien and heated a pan on the stove to make them all tea with muffins. She suggested they sit at the table and play a game, and for a while it was almost as if their togetherness was due to a public holiday, or a birthday, or Christmas. They even laughed. Emily sat next to Gahiji and puffed up proudly when in his bird-like way he tilted his head and declared that she was to be on his team. Cassien’s nose stopped bleeding and the drama of the afternoon seemed to melt beneath the hot liquid in the mugs so that soon it felt almost like an adventure survived, and a reason for festivity. But Emily hadn’t realised that this would be her last memory of them all sitting together like that, smiling, though even then they knew deep down that the smiles were only for each other’s sake, because it was better than crying, and because they hadn’t yet seen the first body in the street.

  That would come in the morning. And that was the day that Mama made the rules: If they come, run. Be quiet and run. Into the graveyard behind the house. Into the bushes. But not together. Never together. No matter how scared you are. If one is found, at least the other survives. You run, you be quiet, you hide alone.

  The adults spoke directly to their offspring now, they told them what was what, they gave them warnings. It was too dangerous to keep them hidden in cotton-padded childhood.

  Sometimes, before her first cleaning shift began, Emily returned from her new course, or from her city wanderings, to her flat, lay a blanket on the floor, and prayed the rosary. “I believe in God, the Father Almighty… ” she began, making the sign of the cross and sitting on her knees, just as her mother had taught her. “… He shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting… forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us… ”

  She meant none of it. Not anymore. When she used to kneel with her mother, solemnly bow her head, and utter the sacred words, she felt she was whispering to a trusted confidante. Infallible. Unerring. God was her friend then, her saviour. But how could she trust Him now? How could she trust in anything? How could He even exist and let what happened, happen? She didn’t believe in Him. Or in resurrection. Or in some ethereal supreme judgment. It was as cheap a promise as democracy, or community, or help from the UN. Besides, she didn’t want to forgive. She wanted to cling instead to her fury and her hatred; it was all she had.

  When she said the rosary now it was with defiance, as a gauntlet, and because it was her only means by which to talk to her mother.

  Chapter

  Eleven

  Underneath a patchwork quilt onto which her mother had sewn roses in a deep, passionate red because they are her daughter’s favourite flower, Vera holds the phone to her ear and listens to her fiancé unravel his anger and unpick the last remaining threads of her armour.

  “She’s dying Vera, she needs us.” His voice is urgent, insistent. Vera imagines him sitting at his desk with neat piles of papers and bills and post laid out in front of him, a pen in his hand hovering over a lone piece of scrap paper on which he’s written, Mother. If only she could contain all of her anxieties to one sheet, to one word. She thinks of the folded piece of paper in her wallet.

  “She needs you. You’re her son,” Vera responds tentatively, standing up from the sofa and turning towards the mirror. This is the third time in a week that they’ve had this conversation. On the first and second occasions she tried to justify her decision with arguments about work and falling behind and missing a promotion; but without telling him what his mother did, and why she did it, and what she knows, and what demons are running wild because of it, there is no real way to explain. She cannot explain. She will not explain.

  Explanation is illusive.

  He pleads. “You know I can’t leave my job.”

  Vera stares into the glass. She has found that if she fixates on something small, something present, a mole, a freckle, it is easier to block out the nursery rhymes and other noise. She studies a fine hair that has strangely appeared on her earlobe. The face in the mirror answers: “There’re other people who can look after her Luke. This charity I’m working with for instance, Home Care. I’ve told you that’s what they do. Why don’t you call them? Or let me arrange it. Let me help that way.”

  “She doesn’t want a stranger. And I thought you wanted to do this? For me?”

  “I did. But I can’t.”

  Luke sighs. “But you offered. You offered. And now you want to unsettle her? While she’s deteriorating? You made a commitment. Is this how you treat your commitments? I suppose it’s good to know.”

  Vera’s chest tightens.

  “You barely tried Vera. It was only a week.”

  “Exactly, it was only a week. And now she’s been alone for a week, and getting sicker, so you do need to find somebody. But she’ll be fine with somebody new.”

  She must have somebody new.

  The agreement has not been spoken aloud, but Vera is clinging to the idea that so long as she stays clear of Lynn, and hides the lingering mark on her neck, then Lynn will not tell.

  Luke’s voice grows thinner. He begins to quote biblical passages. He has never done this before, in argument. Vera feels inadequacy welling inside her. To be better. She surrenders the ear-hair for a moment and lights a cigarette. Why does he have to pull the Jesus card? There’ve been many months now of trying to get something profound from all the hocus-pocus, but she doesn’t know Jesus, she hasn’t ‘met’ Him. Religion is to paper over. To glue together. To cut out. Either that or to hound into compliance. She gets that. She had thought that would be enough. She is ready to comply. With Luke’s verses raining down on her however, she could do with the comfort of really believing. She could do with that feeling of surety and redemption. She could do with Luke.

  “You’re going to be my wife,” he urges. “And she’s my mother.”

  “I know. That’s why… ”

  “I thought you loved me,” Luke says. “I thought you wante
d to be a Christian.”

  Wanted to.

  Vera glances down at her ring, which is in need of cleaning, and considers that probably he is right. Probably, despite what he doesn’t know about his mother’s behaviour, despite the hold that Lynn has over her, and despite the debilitating noise, she should agree. Not despite, because of the noise, she should agree. Not because of the noise, because of the murder. Since Lynn used the word, Vera cannot get it out of her head or off her tongue. It tastes strong and sickly and makes her choke until she can’t breathe. So she should not breathe. She should hold her breath for the duration of the time that Lynn has left. After all, Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice and if she really wants to ‘come to faith’, to be clean again, good again, good enough for Luke, then surely she should embrace the crux of what being a Christian is about.

  Vera stubs out her cigarette, lights another and leans against the sofa and her mother’s quilt. Briefly, she wonders what her mother would advise. The thought of her mother tightens her chest further and if she was able to cry, tears would have welled in her eyes. She looks up. The woman in the mirror looks pale and drawn. As though she has been drawn. As though she is a rough sketch, not quite right, still needing colour. It is hard to pick one aspect to focus on.

  “Why won’t you do this for me? For us? I know how good you are Vera.”

  She sighs and rubs her head, scratching herself accidentally with the diamond of the ring she still isn’t used to wearing. The woman in the mirror flinches, then pulls a hideous face, in one motion plucking the fine hair from its lobe. Outside the open window, a flock of pigeons circle. Vera feels dizzy. The drone of Luke’s voice both lifts her up and weighs her down.

  “Well I don’t want to shock her to death if I refuse another of her sandwiches.”

  At Luke’s end of the line there is silence, then slowly, inching through the plastic his voice comes, cold and quiet. “That’s not funny.”

  Vera sighs nervously.

  “Are you smoking?” Luke asks.

  A cigarette between her lips, Vera inhales deeply and walks. There is no destination, only an intangible need to move. She walks south from West Hampstead, through St John’s Wood, around Regent’s Park, down Baker Street and into Marylebone. Crowds of late shoppers barge past her with energy and purpose and surety. Without any of this, Vera walks close to the street, out of their way.

  She would like to keep out of everybody’s way, Luke’s particularly. She knows he is going to find out. Find her out. Cast her out. Baa baa, baa baa. A black sheep. Nursery rhymes again. She should concentrate, or rather, distract herself. She should distract herself by concentrating. On him. Or on Lynn. Or at least on how she can fix things with him after what happened with Lynn. But since it happened she cannot stop thinking about someone else. Or seeing someone else. Or listening to and hearing someone else: the baby, her baby, if she even has a right to call him that.

  When she closes her eyes, even for a second, his emerge vivid from the darkness. Blue, still blue, forever blue. She never found out if they would have remained that way. She hears him too, a phantom howl - in the water of the shower, in the wind through the shoddy window glaze, in her head more and more and more. Why did she tell Lynn? Why did Lynn ever have to speak to her of children? Why did she let herself look back? She doesn’t look back. That’s the rule. That’s the trick. But now, now, now she cannot stop thinking about him. And about Charlie, and the lie that she told him. The lie she has now repeated to Lynn, or not quite repeated but let her believe, the lie that is beginning to resurface in her world that was supposed to be fresh and new. And clean. To be clean. Luke’s clean verses batter her brain. She cannot tell Luke. She cannot tell Luke. She cannot tell Luke. But she is sure that at any moment it will explode out of her, splutter from her mouth and smear itself into the cracks between them, cracks that began, again, with abandonment. Again. This time of Lynn.

  Vera turns a corner and crosses the street. In front of her is a rank of taxis. Once, too pilled up to get home, Vera slept in a taxi office.

  The memory hits her unexpectedly.

  She looks up.

  And that’s when she sees it. At the end of the road, the tip of a grand dome has crept into view. She feels her eyes straining towards it and suddenly, with a peculiar deficit of surprise, she realises: it is St George’s, the church that Sally-Ann urged her to try. Until this very moment, Vera wasn’t even aware that she knew where St George’s was.

  For a reason she can’t quite locate, Vera’s hands begin to shake. Inside her bag, next to her wallet with the folded piece of paper, is her bible. She looks down and both seem to taunt her. She looks up and the church confirms it. She closes her eyes. “Ridiculous mumbo jumbo,” she tells herself, and then hears herself repeating the words out loud. She opens her eyes again. The dome of the church glows warmly. “Come on then,” she challenges it. “Come on then. Let’s see.” And defiantly, she strides towards the enchanting hemisphere of stone.

  The structure is vast. An old, stained glass window paints the steps beneath the imposing arch of the façade. Inside, there is a gentle bustle of people despite – Vera gathers from the sandwich board at the front – the evening service still being almost an hour away. She hovers by the entrance and notices a sign for a café in the crypt.

  Downstairs, the walls are flooded with declarations: Let Alpha change your life! Learning to live! Embracing prophecy! Be a Healer! Words of prayer! Becoming a leader! Exploring the difficult verses! Marriage Preparation! She feels deafened just reading them, exclamation marks hitting her with judgement. She starts to wonder why she even came in. But then, at the end of the room, bounding down the stairs appears Sally-Ann.

  “You came!” she exclaims.

  Taking her by the arm, Sally-Ann shows Vera around and one by one they dip into screening rooms and discussion nooks and lounge areas. The place feels more like a fancy conference centre than a church – Christianity for the 21st century – and without the traditional iron crosses, Vera begins to relax. Slowly, more people drizzle into the building and they collect in puddles around the room, young, vibrant, and enthused, just as Sally-Ann had promised. They are dressed in jeans and casual tops, and look like they’ve come straight from a bar or an indie music gig. Looking at them, Vera guesses that not all of their journeys towards Jesus have been without bumps. The thought consoles her, Baa baa black sheep begins to quieten, and for the first time she considers that perhaps such trials are the reason their conviction is now so strong.

  Innocents. Vera cannot help but think this. And laugh at this, to herself. Did she laugh out loud? Vera shakes her head and purses her lips tightly shut. But they are innocents. Or are they sinners? Like her. Doesn’t the bible say something about everybody having sinned?

  Back upstairs, Sally-Ann leads her into the main body of the church. Georgian splendour shapes the space with pillars and balconies, tall, arched windows, a walnut floor, and the domed roof that attracted her from outside encasing everything below it in a warm light. At least 500 seats are laid out facing the altar, in front of which is what can only be described as a stage. On it, stands an electric keyboard, a couple of guitars propped up next to microphones, and a full drum kit.

  “Are you expecting a band?” Vera jokes.

  Sally-Ann merely smiles.

  Together they settle into seats half way up the hall. A few of Sally-Ann’s friends file in next to them and one by one the chairs are filled. Vera sits back and waits. On stage, the band take up their positions and gently begin to play, growing gradually into a soft rock ballad to which the words are projected onto the stone walls of the church and the congregation begin to sing or hum or sway to, some standing, some sitting, some with their eyes closed. Vera shuffles in her seat uncomfortably and can’t help but look at those around her, her gaze not towards the altar, not towards the cross on which Jesus hangs, but to those who unlike her, feel His grace, who are so enlivened by it, so sure. Like Luke.

  Ho
w can he be so sure? Since he got the news about his mother, Vera has so wanted to console him, to hold him, to take him in her arms and tell him that even though his world is falling apart, it will be alright. When she reaches for his hand however, he draws it away, placing it instead on the bible he clings to. And so Vera never knows quite what to say, and on the phone today she said all the wrong things. And cannot even complete the task of helping with his mother. Because of her own lies and secrets and secret lies. And his faith still seems like a secret to her. She has told him she is a Christian now, but all his hope is pinned to a book and a faith that if she is honest, still seems like a bad joke. Where was Jesus when she needed him three years ago? Where was He when she was choosing drugs and deceit, when she fell pregnant, when she made her stupid, stupid, stupid decision that she thought was the right thing? Where is He now?

  From the front of the church, the band plays on and a peculiar lump begins to work its way up Vera’s throat. It is an unfamiliar sensation, not sore but bulbous and she wonders if she has a lozenge in her bag. When she looks up to read the lyrics and tries to sing them – We love you Jesus. For death and life and freedom – the lump grows and chokes her. She coughs. All around her, more and more of the congregation are singing, rocking rhythmically, lifted by the music. Vera feels possessed and paralysed by the lump inside her. Sally-Ann glances in her direction and smiles. The music plays on. We can’t contain our love. We turn it up loud. Louder and louder it comes from the stage: guitar, bass, drums. Voices. Noise. Clapping. Crescendo. Then suddenly: peace. Vera swallows hard. The room swirls around her, not quite real. Everything seems suddenly to be moving fast. Not paused. Not unmoved. Moving.