With and Without, Within and Without

by Euan McAllen

  Grimble tried to show her his room. A stale, stained sign on the door read ‘keep out!’ Sinead took its advice for a bad smell emanated from his room, and she did not want to see or know the cause of it. This was a boy’s room: best not to enter.

  She asked if he lived alone, for he gave that impression.

  ‘Mostly’, Grimble replied. ‘Rarely see her these days.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘My mum.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Spends all her time with her new man. No time for me. I’ve no time for her.’

  Suddenly Sinead switched to ‘mother’ mode. It was an unconscious decision.

  ‘Can you cook? Do you eat properly?’

  ‘Just about. Mainly snacks.’

  On hearing that admission, Sinead decided to make it her duty to cook him a decent meal every once and awhile. It would be like feeding the dog.

  Grimble ached to show her his second home, and would not stop asking until she agreed.

  ‘Let me take you somewhere high.’

  ‘High?’

  ‘Up my tree. We sit up there, to escape. Climb higher, and we can see over the walls.’

  ‘What do you see?’

  ‘More walls. Just walls. Just The Maze. Always The Maze, the same fucking Maze.’

  He sounded disappointed, angry, as he had every right to be, as did she. A previous generation of strangers had built this Maze, as if wishing to meddle with the lives of all future generations to come, as if wishing to be remembered as the ultimate spoilsports.

  When Sinead finally conceded a ‘yes’, Grimble grabbed her hand and took her on a journey off the ground and out of her head. It would prove a thrilling experience for her and, on a subsequent visit, for both of them. He led her out of The Village towards his tree. Two of his gang were there. He told them to come down and get lost. They got the message and got lost quickly, wishing him luck.

  ‘What do they mean by that?’ she asked.

  ‘Ignore them – idiots.’

  As promised, his second home – his true home now – was a wooden platform build up a tree from where you could look out across the land and dream, and desire, and take in the measure of the Maze. He persuaded her to climb the rope ladder and followed, repeatedly promising her that she would not fall. On reaching the platform the two young hearts – neither sweet – sat, satisfied for no reason other than for the fact they had the whole place, and all they could see, and the entire ‘now’ all to themselves. Sinead even managed to keep God out of her mind while she took in the scenery and the maze which confounded it and contained it. She looked out across the land, and despite her privileged view, she still felt boxed in.

  ‘Do you ever feel like you’re living in a box?’ she asked.

  ‘All the time. I have to keep punching my way out.’

  ‘Have you punched anybody?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because they deserved it.’

  ‘Who did you punch?’

  ‘My dad.’

  ‘Your dad? Why?’

  ‘Because he deserved it.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Because he kept punching my mum.’

  ‘Does he still punch her?’

  ‘No. He’s gone.’

  Sinead tried to imagine her own father hitting her mother. He never had, except with words, as he had hit all his family. One day, she thought, he would talk her mother to death, having already talked her into submission. Suddenly Sinead wanted to punch someone: like Fargo, for letting her down; like her father, for always telling her what she could and could not think; like her mother for never fighting back.

  Without realising it, up on high, the two became different people: the burden of his Village and her God, and her Church temporarily dumped, like a heavy rucksack whose contents were no longer critical to the success of the journey. But it could not just lie there: sooner or later, the weight would have to be lifted. Neither had an audience to cater for, to perform for, to run from, so they talked. And in talking they almost slipped back into innocent childhood where any question could be asked, and the answers kicked away if they didn’t make you feel good.

  They compared mothers and fathers, and other notes; though using the minimum of words. Both fathers had been controlling, tedious, distant, overbearing, and repetitive in their relentless pursuit of what was important to them. Hers was intelligent. His was not. Hers lived by an absolute code from which you could not stray. His had no rules. Hers had caged her mother. So had his. Her mother never fought back against anything. She was weak – likewise, his. Her mother sowed a lot, lived by needle and thread, and washed a lot, and cleaned a lot, and baked and cooked a lot; but complained little. His mother drank a lot. Her brothers were cowards. His brother was dead.

  In time, Grimble produced his special, most prized leather pouch. And from the pouch, he pulled out some dried leaves. He rolled them up and stuck one end into his mouth – all the while, his guest watching in bemusement.

  ‘Watch,’ he advised, and lit the other end with a match.

  Sinead watched. She watched Grimble puff on it, slowly; taking in its smoke, and exhaling slowly; smiling in between drags; looking more and more satisfied, more and more distant. He nudged her as if she was the one falling asleep.

  ‘Here, have a go. You’ll like it, I promise.’

  ‘What is it? Alcohol? I don’t drink alcohol.’

  Grimble giggled.

  ‘No, definitely not alcohol. Medication. It’s what we call medication. It will smooth the mind, kill the headaches, and give you wild thoughts if you let it.’

  ‘Will it make me ill?’

  ‘No, never. It relaxes. Helps you to cope.’

  The last phrase was the one which sold it. Sinead knew she should just say no, but the devil hiding inside said ‘what the hell, live a little’. So she took the smoking gun and took a puff, and it felt good. It tingled. It excited for it was wrong.

  ‘Does my brain in,’ said Grimble.

  ‘My brain is already done in,’ said Sinead as she took another puff, and another, and it was glorious.

  Now she had God in her sights – as an equal – as she had the Maze in her sights. Both all around her. Both were surrounding her, trying to take her prisoner, trying to consume her. Both a permanent fixture she could never remove. Both a mystery. Both were dictating her actions. Both unbreakable, both an absolute, undeniable truth. There would always be the Maze to hinder, hide. There would always be God to help, heal. And with this dried-up piece of weed, both were magnified a thousand times inside her head.

  Grimble stared across the land at another treetop – so close, yet so far away. It was shaking in the wind, screaming to be heard, crying out to be noticed, included. In the mass of shaking foliage, he saw startled leaves, and in the startled leaves, he swore he could see faces of all sorts, of all expressions; faces of frightening monsters and the usual manic men. He saw faces bashing together, head butting in a game that did not stop, and did not tire them out. He saw the head of a battered old man chewing on what looked like a large, slightly bent brick – or was it a piece of wood? Grimble could not work it out, or keep up with the changing shapes that were hiding in the tree. The head that chewed looked like it was badly carved out of a piece of crumbling stone. And in it all and around it all, he saw the colours of green and brown, white and blue, flicker and dance, become lighter and darker. He wanted to join in the dance – the game – but he was stuck, up a tree, and he felt a bit sick. Life sucked. Someone or something did not want him to enjoy life. He looked across at his crazy girl: she was enjoying it. Perhaps she would like to enjoy him.

  Sinead saw her fabulous, fear-provoking, father being crushed beneath the weight of a falling wall – no, the wa
ll was his big black book. She saw him as fat – fat beyond fatal. She heard herself laughing, madly, and saw herself pointing a finger at him as if to say ‘caught you!’ or ‘fraud!’ The finger had been dipped in full fat cream and she wanted to lick it and taste the sin. And then she redrew from that nightmare into an earlier one: she was lying down in the mud, face down; being lashed by cold rain; being gently kicked by her brutal big brothers as they shouted at her, telling her to get up and not be a cry-baby.

  Her head spun out of control, and she began to feel sick. Grimble took back control of his weed, not wishing her to drop it. She saw her father shouting at her from the ground, louder and louder, and her mother saying nothing, louder and louder.

  ‘No more,’ he said. ‘Another time.’

  Sinead agreed. ‘Yes, another time. Help me down, please. Think I’m going to be sick.’

  Not wishing her to throw up in his new home, Grimble helped her down fast, not that there was much he could do except persuade her down, step by step, as he watched from the ground. He grabbed her body as she reached him and the contact created an energy which swept through her body, sweeping away the old order. This was no old man touching her. This was no fake love. This was a sexual desire, and she could not continue to ignore it: it came with the body, as a package. She was going to be sick.

  ***

  The Vicar was furious upon hearing of the second church and did not hold back when he gained an audience with the Elders. They had promised him: no second church! As he remonstrated before them – showing no respect, no decorum – they were taken aback for none of them appreciated how seriously he took his job. Quite unlike the previous Vicar, one noted. As always, they closed ranks.

  ‘A misunderstanding,’ said one.

  ‘Our Senior had a change of heart,’ said another. ‘And we were persuaded.’

  ‘As he, and we, have the right to,’ said a third.

  Tassilo demanded they change their minds but was told in no uncertain terms that Elders did not change their minds. Not put off, he put a strong case for why a second church was a bad idea. (Secretly most agreed with him, though would never admit that to him, or each other for that matter.) Two churches would split the community, he argued. They would split souls; set man against wife, mother against child, sister against brother. They would give God two faces.

  ‘Make him two-faced?’ asked one Elder.

  ‘Yes, if you like.’ Tassilo didn’t like the sound of his own answer but did not fight it for he had just said it, and that would have made him look silly.

  He argued that this girl – a girl from outside The Village – was unstable, a danger to the natural order of things; even a danger to herself. She would put stupid ideas into stupid heads. Her church would collapse, and he would be the one to have to clean up the mess of damaged souls.

  An Elder raised a finger to interrupt. ‘She’s from the Outside, you say? Like that awful man Fargo?’

  ‘No, just outside The Village.’

  ‘Outside the Limits?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Likes Farmer Giles!’ laughed another. ‘Let’s make him the second Vicar!’

  Two Vicars as well as two churches! thought Tassilo. A nightmare!

  The Elders dug in. They would not admit to a mistake in public, not even to a non-Elder in private. Theirs was a closed circle, a wall of solidarity; never any dissent or disagreement. They might vote against each other in private, but in public, they were one voice – the same tired old voice.

  ‘No mistake,’ one said. ‘Competition is good. Your church could do with some competition.’

  The others nodded or murmured in agreement.

  Competition? thought Tassilo. I have no idea what you idiots are on about. God isn’t a competition. There’s no race. There are no quotas to fill. I know what it is, he thought. This is revenge. They never wanted me to have this job.

  He complained that the church was in decline: attendances were down; it was barely half-full these days. A second would dilute it further. A second was redundant! Some village people didn’t bother to get married anymore. They just lived together in sin and started families without the blessing of the Church! Less and less of them showed him due respect. Hardly surprising, thought one Elder. Always too much to say for yourself.

  The Elders, now exhausted by his talk, stroked their beards and pretended to listen, impatient to get rid of him so they could go back to doing nothing. Afterward, when the moaning, droning, new young Vicar was gone, they had a quick chat and decided, out of the kindness of their hearts, to make him a special one-off donation: a fund for church renovation work. It would mean a special one-off tax, but better that than an unhappy vicar spreading dissent and calling them irresponsible. He would have to keep his mouth shut, of course: that was the price to be paid. Give the man some apples, so the applecart was not upset. No one used the word ‘bribe’. The Elders were above such things, as they were above most things: ‘out of sight and out of mind’ being one catchphrase; ‘keep control’ being another. (The Senior Elder’s latest catchphrase was ‘fuck you all, I’m dying’.)

  Sinead was true to her word and cooked Grimble a proper meal: she bought all the ingredients necessary to make a thick stew and watched him eat the result, eating little herself. She watched him gorge on it like a mother watching her child, home from school, and starving. At night, alone in her lodgings, she fell asleep dreaming of it full, bursting with the souls who had come to her for salvation and a new path through life.

  With her church established in principle and her tent erected in practice, Sinead began her recruitment drive but without success. Her tent remained empty. She either preached to those who were already converted and loyal to the Vicar, or to those who pretended to be just to shut her up if she cornered them in the street, or to those who did not want to convert, and made it quite plain by telling her to fuck off. Some saw her as dangerous and fled as soon as they saw her coming. (She did not see it but now she was ranting more than she was preaching. ‘If they don’t hear you the first time, shout louder’ appeared to be the approach.) Some saw her as another device under the control of the Elders, designed to distract them from dissent. Why had the Elders allowed such a thing? One church was bad enough. Two was taking the piss. Bar three exceptions, the Church Tent failed to attract visitors, let alone converts.

  The first was Esmeralda. She watched Sinead from a distance, fascinated and fearful, and wondering what Timothy would have made of her. The girl had stolen his church. Would he be angry? Curious, she made a visit to the tent to see what all the fuss was about. There was no fuss: it was deserted. She made her way back down to safe ground to where there was no fuss, only noise. Timothy would be pleased. The girl’s failure might be his success. He just had to get home, she told herself. Get home Timothy, now! I’m going to have your baby!

  The second visitor was the intrepid Lady Agnes Aga-Smath: a fighter when only amongst women. She saw the crazy girl’s performances purely for the entertainment value and would laugh out loud when the girl’s thuggish sidekick was not there to threaten her. She visited the tent purely out of boredom and left bored, and slightly anxious that she had been infected by something rotten.

  The third visitor was the Vicar, late at night, in secret, and badly disguised. He popped his head in and took a sniff. It smelt bad. This satisfied him that this venture was going nowhere. The whole thing stank to high heaven.

  Sinead did win over one soul: Simple Simon. Cautiously, he approached her one day, unable to contain his curiosity any further. Spotting an empty, fragile mind, she grabbed at her chance and pulled him on board, into her world, putting him under her spell. They became the crazy gang. He did not fight it for it sounded like fun, and she was nice to look at, and she held his hand when others would not. She gave him purpose, though she did not spell it out. Simple Simon just had to trust h
er. She treated him like a toy: a toy to be wound up and set on its way, in a direction set by her. He thought she was a big toy: like those at the Fete where you jumped on and tried not to fall off.

  When Grimble discovered his crazy girl had befriended The Village Idiot, he told his gang to let him be from now on.

  ‘He’s on her side, which means he’s on our side.’

  That caused a stir, discontent, for Simple Simon had been a major source of fun. But no one dared cross swords with Grimble. He was their leader.

  Simple Simon wanted to hold Sinead’s hand. Simple Simon would stand outside the tent, ready to wave in the crowd when it appeared. Simple Simon said she was the best girl he had ever met. (He had not met that many.) He followed her around, like a dog needing a master – or mistress. She didn’t mind as he would clap vigorously when she was preaching. Simple Simon pounded her with endless questions. ‘Why The Village?’ ‘Why the elders?’ ‘Why the church?’ ‘Why surround us with walls?’ ‘Why a god?’ ‘Why just one god?’ Sinead could only answer the questions about God, but he didn’t get it. He would in time, she promised herself. I’ll make him. Sometimes Grimble would send him packing when he wanted her all to himself.

  After another blast of weed – this time a tiny one – while stuck up high with Grimble; her problems having fled; sun on her face; Simple Simon guarding her tent (for want of something to do); Sinead questioned her rules. A part of her wanted her body to be liberated, like her mind. She argued with herself that if God had designed the body for sex, then surely the act of sex was natural, to be enjoyed, celebrated even when it produced offspring. But making love will produce a baby! Was the warning back. Pleasure comes with a massive cost! The argument swung back and forth, without resolution within her rampant, rolling mind. She had been saving herself for that special moment, on that special day when she had taken her vows and joined in union with the man she loved. (She knew now it was never meant to be an old dog like Fargo. She wanted a glorious future, not a safe past.)