‘Hello,’ called the assistant. ‘Why don’t you start as a browser and take over from one of the girls when it’s time to move round?’
‘Where am I?’
‘Where everyone is who can’t make the ultimate decision, this is the city of Lost Chances, and this, the Room of the Final Disappointment. You see, you can climb as high as you like, but if you’ve already made the Fundamental Mistake, you end up here, in this room. You can change your role, but never your circumstance. It’s too late for all that now, toodle-ooo, I’m about to become a buyer.’
‘Jeanette,’ said Melanie, ‘I think you’ve got a temperature.’
She was sitting beside me, drinking a cup of tea. She looked tired and crumpled like a balloon full of old air. I touched her cheek but she winced and pulled away.
‘What did they do to you?’ I asked.
‘Nothing, I repented, and they told me I should try and go away for a week. We can’t see each other, it’s wrong.’ She started to tug at the quilt and I couldn’t bear it anymore. I think we cried each other to sleep, but somewhere in the night I stretched out to her and kissed her and kissed her until we were both sweating and crying with mixed up bodies and swollen faces. She was still asleep when I heard Miss Jewsbury sound her horn.
The next thing that happened to me was glandular fever.
‘It’s her Humours,’ my mother pronounced.
Certainly it was the belief of the Faithful that God was cleansing me of all my demons, and there was no doubt that I would be welcomed back into the fold as soon as I recovered.
‘The Lord forgives and forgets,’ the pastor told me.
Perhaps the Lord does, but my mother didn’t. While I lay shivering in the parlour she took a toothcomb to my room and found all the letters, all the cards, all the jottings of my own, and burnt them one night in the backyard. There are different sorts of treachery, but betrayal is betrayal wherever you find it. She burnt a lot more than the letters that night in the backyard. I don’t think she knew. In her head she was still queen, but not my queen any more, not the White Queen any more. Walls protect and walls limit. It is in the nature of walls that they should fall. That walls should fall is the consequence of blowing your own trumpet.
The Forbidden City lies ransacked now and the topless towers are all gone. Only a stone’s throw separates the Black Prince from Amiens, and a pebble will fell a warrior today. Old men that dribble and huddle on any of these benches will tell you where their sweetheart’s house once stood, will tell you how her garden grew, and how they daily beat a path to her door.
She had a heart of stone.
Who will cast the first stone?
Where the world ends in the East you will find a stone lion, and in the West, a gryphon made of stone. At the Northern corner a stone turret will baffle you, and in the South a gritty beach for your feet. Do not be afraid. These are the ancients. Weathered and wise as they are, respect them, but they are not the everlasting substance. The body that contains a spirit is the one true god.
It is the nature of stone to convert bone.
At one time or another there will be a choice: you or the wall.
Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
The City of Lost Chances is full of those who chose the wall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men.
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.
Then is it necessary to wander unprotected through the land?
It is necessary to distinguish the chalk circle from the stone wall.
Is it necessary to live without a home?
It is necessary to distinguish physics from metaphysics.
Yet many of the principles are the same.
They are, but in the cities of the interior all things are changed.
A wall for the body, a circle for the soul.
‘Here you are,’ said my mother, giving me a sharp dig in the side. ‘Some fruit. You’re rambling in your sleep again.’
It was a bowl of oranges.
I took out the largest and tried to peel it. The skin hung stubborn, and soon I lay panting, angry and defeated. What about grapes or bananas? I did finally pull away the outer shell and, cupping both hands round, tore open the fruit.
‘Feeling any better?’ Sitting in the middle was the orange demon.
‘I’m going to die.’
‘Not you, in fact you’re recovering, apart from a few minor hallucinations, and remember, you’ve made your choice now, there’s no going back.’
‘What are you talking about? I haven’t made any choice.’ I was struggling to sit up.
‘Catch,’ called the demon and vanished. In my hand was a rough brown pebble.
By that summer I was my old self again. Melanie had gone away before starting university, and I was preparing my sermons for a tent mission we had all planned in Blackpool. No one mentioned the Incident, and no one seemed to notice that Miss Jewsbury had picked up her oboe and left. My mother spent most of her time singing Bringing in the Sheaves, and collecting tins for the Harvest Festival. She disapproved of perishables on account of the Holocaust, and had made it her campaign to persuade the other church women to contribute to a giant War Cupboard hidden beneath the vestry. ‘They’ll thank me when the time comes,’ she always said.
So one sunny Saturday we piled into the bus and set off for Blackpool.
‘I wish we had Elsie with that accordian,’ Mrs Rothwell sighed.
‘She’s better where she is,’ returned my mother rather sharply.
In the past these remarks would have meant nothing to me, now I wasn’t so easy. I had often thought of questioning her, trying to make her tell me how she saw the world. I used to imagine we saw things just the same, but all the time we were on different planets. I went to sit at the back to help May with her pools. My mother obviously felt slighted at my departure and buried herself in the Band of Hope review.
‘It’s a funny bugger that one,’ said May sourly.
By now I was inclined to agree.
Our first meeting that night was a great success. I was down to preach, and as usual a great number found the Lord.
‘She’s lost none of her gifts, has she?’ May grinned at my mother.
‘I got to her in time, that’s why,’ was all my mother could say, and she went back to the guest house. After she and a few others had left, the rest of us decided to rejoice in the Lord. We got out the tambourines and the chorus sheets, and praised far into the night. At about 11 p.m. the tent flap billowed, and we heard a great commotion in the field out-side.
‘It’s the Holy Spirit,’ cried May.
‘It doesn’t sound holy to me,’ declared Mrs White.
‘What shall we do?’ whispered one of the newly converted to me. I put my arm round her. She was very soft. ‘I’ll go and see,’ I reassured everyone.
‘If it’s the Lord, don’t look,’ May urged as I disappeared through the flap.
It wasn’t the Lord, it was five angry men from the boarding house nearby. They had lanterns and a few bits of paper that they waved at me.
‘Are you in charge?’
‘Yes, you could say that. I’m leading the prayer meeting, come in.’ They followed me into the tent.
‘We don’t care about no prayer meeting …,’ one of them began.
‘The Lord strike you down,’ spat Mrs Rothwell, who had just woken up.
‘What we do care about,’ he continued, glaring at us, ‘is a decent night’s sleep for decent folks. We’re here on our holidays, and we don’t want no holy Joes banging ‘n’ screaming fit to wake dead.’
‘On the last day the dead will walk, and you’ll be with goats,’ May said scornfully.
‘Listen you.’ One of the others came forward poking his paper at her. ‘It says here, in these boarding house regulations, that there’s no din after eleven o’clock. This is boarding house field you’re all on.’
‘Come and join u
s,’ I suggested.
‘Look, we work all year round at the British Rope Factory in bloody Wakefield, and we come here for a bit of peace, so stop it or cop it.’ There was a moment’s silence, then,
‘Come on lads, let’s git to bloody bed.’
‘Well,’ breathed Mrs White.
‘No point,’ I said. ‘We can start again tomorrow, let’s pack up.’ And so the Faithful put away their joyful noises, leaving me and newly converted Katy to blow out the lanterns.
When I got back to the guest house my mother and I had taken, she was lying propped up against the pillows reading her new book from Pastor Spratt. This one was called Where White Man Fears to Tread.
‘Do you know,’ she said, ‘they fed these white mice on the same food as Injuns eat and they all died.’
‘So?’
‘So it just shows the Lord provides for Christian countries.’
‘I don’t think they’d survive any better on hot pot.’
‘Beezum, thank the Lord for his goodness, now I want to go to sleep,’ and she put out her little light, and began to snore.
As for me, I had other things to think about.
The following day we were all due to meet under the tower to give out tracts for the coming evening’s meeting. May had her big sandwich board that said SEEK YE THE LORD WHILE HE MAY BE FOUND. ‘My name’s in that text,’ she told everyone, with pride, ‘so I know it’s me duty to carry it.’ We did quite well, for a tract session, we had three street conversions, and a few people who promised to come back for the night. ‘Afternoon off,’ the pastor told everyone.
‘What about the zoo?’ asked May perkily. ‘I want to see them little monkeys.’
‘She’s coming up the tower with me,’ announced my mother stiffly, ‘they’ve got an exhibition of great film stars.’
‘I’m going for a walk on the prom,’ I told them both, and set off.
Katy sat in a deckchair and Katy looked at the sun.
Katy ate an ice-cream and Katy looked like fun.
‘Hello.’ I sat down beside her. ‘Are you staying near here?’
‘No, I came on the tram, thought I might as well in time for tonight.’
‘You don’t live far away from our church at home though do you?’
‘No, Oswaldtwistle is where we live, it’s a bus ride.’
‘Well, we’ll see each other then.’
She looked at me for a moment, and I thought it best to go and inspect the gospel tent….
It had been a glorious week. Many of the souls who found the Lord lived close by our main church, and those who came from far away were given letters of introduction to their closest meeting house. On the last day of our campaign we held an open air thanksgiving on the beach, which would have ended everything perfectly, had not Mrs Rothwell gone off by herself to commune with the Spirit. She was old and deaf and so engrossed that she never saw the tide come sloping in.
‘Are we all here?’ The pastor counted as we filed on to the bus. ‘Who’s got the banner?’
‘Me,’ shouted May from over the wheel arch.
‘That it then?’ asked Fred, our hired driver.
‘Except for Mrs Rothwell.’ Alice pointed to the empty seat.
We looked about us, and only by a miracle were we in time to catch sight of Mrs Rothwell’s waving arm as she sank below the surf.
‘Is she waving?’ May wondered anxiously.
‘Drowning more like,’ exclaimed Fred, peeling off his jacket and tie. ‘Don’t fret, I won all the badges in me youth.’ And he thundered off through the breakers. Immediately the pastor led everyone in prayer, and Mrs White started up with We Have an Anchor. We had hardly got to verse 3 when Fred reappeared carrying Mrs Rothwell over his shoulder.
‘Fred, her underslip’s showing,’ tutted my mother, tugging as best she could.
‘Niver mind her underslip, what about my blue suede shoes?’
They were ruined.
‘Is she still with us?’ the pastor interrupted impatiently.
‘Oh I am, I am,’ wailed Mrs Rothwell from somewhere in the middle of Fred’s spine. ‘I thought I would be in glory this time.’
‘But you were signalling for help.’
‘Nay, I were waving goodbye.’
‘I said she were waving.’
‘Someone give her a towel,’ the pastor shooed, ‘and let this poor man drive us home.’
Fred squelched to the cab muttering about compensation and why he bloody bothered and with a sudden flood of exhaust we were off.
The Harvest Festival came and went, my mother having achieved a record number of tins for the War Cupboard, with plenty left over to distribute to the poor. Not everyone was satisfied.
‘What do I want with four tins of black cherries and them water chestnuts in brine?’ blind Nellie grumbled when my father took her carrier bag. ‘In the old days, we got bread and fruit and a few nice bits of veg. It’s new-fangledness, that’s what it is.’
When my mother heard about this, she was furious, and crossed Nellie off her prayer list. My dad put her on his instead, so she didn’t miss out. Then as the wind got up and the nights started drawing in we turned our thoughts to Nativity, and how best to explain the Christmas message. As usual we were going to take a stake in the town hall crib, and gather under the Heathen pine to sing Christmas carols. This meant regular rehearsals with the Salvation Army, always a problem because our tambourine players invariably lost the beat. This year, the General wondered if we’d like to stick to singing.
‘It sez make a joyful noise,’ May reminded him.
When the General ventured to suggest a less than literal interpretation of this psalm, there was uproar. For a start it was heresy. Then it was rude. Then it meant dissension amongst our flock. Some of us could see the sense of it, some of us were outraged. We argued until the tea and biscuits came round, then the General made his own decision. Anyone who wanted to play the tambourine might do so in their own church, not in his rehearsals, and not at the carol singing itself.
‘I’ll be off then,’ said May.
We looked at one another.
‘We’ll all be off,’ I told the General. ‘Thanks for the tea.’
In the porch of the Quaker Assembly Rooms we found May crying.
‘Eh luv, don’t.’ Someone put their arm round her.
‘It’s nowt.’
‘After all me work,’ sobbed May.
‘It’s only Sally Army, you don’t need them.’
‘Let’s go round to my house,’ suggested Mrs White, ‘and make a plan.’
That night at Mrs White’s we were sure the Lord was guiding us, the Sisterhood Choir and the Male Voice Choir would join forces and we’d take our space at the town hall and even go out to the highways and byways. We had four tambourine players, all taught by May, my guitar and mandolin, and possibly my mother’s harmonium, if it didn’t get too cold.
‘We don’t need them trumpets anyway.’
The next problem was who should write the script for the Nativity play. It was unanimously decided it ought to be mother, on account of her education.
‘Such a one for figures as you never saw,’ May said admiringly.
My mother blushed and said she couldn’t and accepted. She bought typing paper and a new dictionary and told my dad and me to do as best we could. She had the Lord’s work to do. All through the following day she scribbled and sighed in the parlour, surrounded by cheese sandwiches and pictures of Bethlehem in winter. At four o’clock she pushed a fat envelope into my hands and told me to send it airmail.
‘It’s the last posting day for Pastor Spratt.’ Then she was gone.
I was too busy teaching my Bible study class on doctrine to pay much attention to my mother. Katy had been coming to church ever since her conversion in the summer, and had proved a lively addition. She was a particular help to me, often typing out my sermons when they had to go in the district newsletter. I hadn’t seen the orange demon for ages, so I
felt that my life must be back to normal.
Soon came the Sunday of the Nativity play. The children had rehearsed for weeks, and my father had built the set. My mother wore a new hat and I sat next to Katy, holding the prompt boards. The church was full of the Heathen come to see their offspring perform. Even Mrs Arkwright from the vermin shop was there. ‘Little Donkey’ went well, and the first scene, ‘No Room at the Inn’, was under way, when the side door opened and a figure slipped in trying to be quiet. I squinted through the darkness; it looked familiar.
‘Oh Joseph, we’ll have to sleep in the stable.’
There was just something about the way it sat….
‘Don’t worry Mary, others have it hard too’ (there was great emphasis on the ‘h’).
The halo of hair was getting more visible as the shepherds scuttled on with their lanterns.
The last I heard that evening was ‘Do not fear, I bring you tidings of great joy.’ At the back of the church was Melanie.
As soon as the service ended I left my mother to her triumph and went home. I was trembling with fear. As far as I was concerned Melanie was dead. No one mentioned her, and as her mother never came to church, there was no need to remember. At nine o’clock there was a knock on the door. I knew who it was, but praying it might be carol singers I went to answer it, in faith, with a few ready pennies.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Can I come in?’
I moved to let her pass. She had put on some weight and looked quite serene. Over the half hour that followed she chatted about her course, her friends, her holiday plans. Did I want to go for a walk with her one day?
No.
She said her mother intended to move away soon, far away, down south. This would be Melanie’s last time behind the power station. I should come and say goodbye to her mother.
No.
At last she put on her gloves and beret and very lightly kissed me goodbye. I felt nothing. But when she’d gone, I pulled up my knees under my chin, and begged the Lord to set me free.