Demons (17 page)

Part Four: The Mysteries of Light

Acronyms

It was in the paper the next morning. The
headline ran:

SCUFFLE AT RESTAURANT

Underneath, the story read:

Police were called last night to the classy
South

Bank Restaurant, located in the partially
restored

former Memorial Chambers. Protestors
attempted

to prevent patrons from entering the
restaurant,

claiming that they would be violating Maori
tapu.

Builders engaged in ongoing renovations to
the

building, intended for restaurant
expansion,

yesterday uncovered bones from an ancient
Maori

burial site. The restaurant owners,
protestors say,

need to close down their business until

investigation of the site has been completed
and

appropriate tapu-lifting ceremonies have
been

performed. Diners and protestors
exchanged

blows after a placard was levelled at one of
the

diners. The police were called to intervene
but no

arrests were made. Diners were allowed in
soon

afterwards.

‘
What a load of bull!’ I
exclaimed.

‘
What is?’ asked
Dad.

‘
What they’ve written here.
It didn’t happen like that. He was attacked by one of the people
wanting to scoff a meal. It’s all lies.’

I passed the paper to Dad.

‘
That’s the news for you,’
said Dad after he’d

skimmed the article, with Mum looking over
his shoulder. ‘Preferring sensation to truth. Thus has it always
been.’

‘
At least they put the
protestors’ view,’ said Mum. ‘Is this where you went?’

‘
Where I’d planned to go,’
I said. ‘Until we found out what was going on. We ate our usual
pizza instead.’

‘
You were very late then,’
said Mum.

‘
Were you listening out for
me?’ I said, annoyed, feeling as if I was suddenly in the spotlight
again.

‘
No,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t
sleep, that’s all.’

‘
If you must know, we went
back to Chris’s place for a while,’ I said. ‘Seemed a pity to come
home early when we’d planned on a late night anyway.’

Mum looked at me but she made no
comment.

Dad, who may or may not have been paying
attention to us, said, ‘I wonder if this will come up at tonight’s
BDFA meeting?’

‘
What’s BDFA?’ I asked, not
terribly interested in knowing but preferring to steer the
conversation away from Chris and me.

‘
Better Deal For All,’ said
Dad. ‘It’s a Church social justice action group I belong to.
Thought you knew that?’

‘
I knew you’d joined
something’ I said. ‘I just don’t think I’ve heard you call it that
before. Why would they care about the South Bank
affair?’

‘
Well, it’s a justice
issue,’ said Dad. ‘And it has a spiritual dimension.’

‘
I guess.’

I used to have a spiritual
dimension once
.

‘
If you’re feeling outraged
by what happened, come along,’ said Dad. ‘Get involved.’

‘
Dad,’ I said. ‘You know
I’ve finished with church things.’

‘
It’s on the fringes,’ said
Dad. ‘I don’t think anyone will try to win you back. Not unless you
want to be won back.’

‘
Well, maybe I will,’ I
said, a spur of the moment inspiration. ‘The whole thing made Chris
angry too. I’ll ask if he wants to come.’

‘
The more the merrier,’
said Dad.

‘
If he’s interested, ask
him to join us for a meal tonight,’ said Mum. ‘Then the three of
you can all go off together.’

‘
Why not you Mum? You would
have been champing at the bit once.’

‘
Conflict of interests I’m
afraid. Tonight the WKTP group is meeting as well.’

‘
The
what
?’

‘
Women Knowing Their
Place.’

‘
Oh, right. I should have
guessed that one.’ What was it with all the acronyms suddenly, I
wondered.

‘
They’re meeting here as it
happens,’ said Mum. ‘It’s not often you get such a good choice of
protest options. You could come to that instead. I think I’ve
convinced Kristy MacGowan.’

‘
Have you?’ said
Dad.

‘
Yes, she’s been thinking
about it since we talked,’ said Mum. ‘It’ll be good to have someone
my age attending.’

‘
I’ll stick with Dad’s
BDFA,’ I said.

‘
Meeting’s at seven
thirty,’ said Dad.

‘
I was wearing my Maori
pendant and I hid it,’ I suddenly remembered. ‘In case the angry
thug man saw it. He might have taken a swing at me instead. The
South Bank thing isn’t just about justice and spirituality is it?
It’s a race relations thing too.’

‘
Nothing’s ever simple and
one dimensional,’ said Dad. ‘Not when you start to look deeply into
it.’

BDFA

I gave Chris a call and explained about the
meeting.

‘
It’s tonight, ‘I said.
‘Want to come?’

‘
I’d rather just be with
you,’ he said.

‘
I’d rather spend more time
together alone too,’ I said, ‘but abstinence makes the heart grow
fonder. And this is important, right? You said so
yourself.’

‘
I did.’

‘
Mum’ll cook for us,’ I
said.

‘
Bribery and corruption,’
said Chris. ‘OK, I’ll be there.’

After we’d eaten, we set off to the meeting.
The women in Mum’s group, including Kristy who looked uncertain but
determined, started to arrive just as we were leaving.

I was surprised at how
respectable, how
matronly
, they all appeared on the
outside. According to Mum, who hadn’t been able to stop herself
giving Chris a little lecture about Women Knowing Their Place,
they’d set themselves up against the Catholic Church by asking for
a greater share in its power structure. Not only that, they’d made
the suggestion that women, if called by God, should be allowed to
enter the priesthood.

Rebel women, all of them.

I was very tempted to stay behind and listen
to what they had to say. I couldn’t help wondering if any of them
had ever played at being priests? And if any of them, despite their
average age of sixty-something, still desired to play that game for
real.

But it was too late. I’d picked my acronym
for

the night. And my present desire was beside
me on the back seat of our car. It was a serious business but it
was fun as well. Chris already seemed part of the family.

‘
I thought you said this
wasn’t religious,’ he hissed at me as we arrived at the church
where the meeting was being held.

‘
It’s not,’ Dad said,
overhearing.

He and Mum knew enough about Chris’s
aversion to things religious, not that it had stopped Mum spouting
off earlier in the evening.

‘
The BDFA’s nominally
Catholic but in reality it’s also interdenominational and
non-sectarian.’

‘
Don’t be so pompous Dad,’
I interjected.

Unperturbed, he continued. ‘The parish
priest of the church where Andrea’s Mum and I go to these days just
happens to be the chair of the local committee. That’s why we meet
here.’

‘
But
actually
in
a
church,’ said Chris.

‘
It doubles as a hall,’ Dad
explained. ‘It doesn’t look or feel like a church if that helps.
The sanctuary is screened off by folding doors. You won’t see
anything church-like.’

‘
Is that OK?’ I
asked.

‘
Guess it’ll have to be,’
he said.

I was surprised at how many people turned
up. The smallish church/hall was almost full by the time we
arrived. There was a certain look, a sameness, to the people there.
It felt like a throwback to earlier times, to turning points like
the Springbok Tour.

Many people wore jerseys, just as the
protestor of the night before had been wearing, and old-fashioned
cords. Lots of the men had beards. Dad, I realised, was one of
them. The women all looked

resilient, strong-armed, but not a lot
younger than the WKTP lot. Surprising really, since there was a lot
of active, physical stuff involved in protesting, as we’d witnessed
last night. There were some younger people, too, our age, sitting
at the back, looking at us as if we were gatecrashers at an
exclusive party. I guess we were the newbees.

‘
There’re some seats at the
front,’ said Dad. ‘Unless you’d rather not sit with me.’

‘
No, it’s cool, ‘I said.
‘OK?’ I checked with Chris.

‘
Fine.’

Chris and I sat beside each other and held
hands. If Dad noticed he didn’t let on.

A few people were huddled at a small table
at the front. A couple of the men looked vaguely familiar but I
didn’t recognize them until they raised their heads, ready to begin
the meeting. They were both priests.

One was Father Brown, the missionary priest
who had conducted Gran’s funeral. He wore his dog-collar, but the
other one didn’t. I didn’t know the other’s name but I had
definitely seen him before as well and much more recently than
Father Brown. He was the man who had talked to Chris and me at the
South Bank, the protestor who had been almost knocked over by the
big thug. A protesting priest.

Actions

‘He’s
the one!’ I whispered to Dad.

‘
What?’

‘
The one who was at the
South Bank. The one who the paper said hit out with his
placard.’

‘
Father Mike?’ Dad raised
his eyebrows.

But Father Mike was ready to start.
‘Thanks

everyone for turning up tonight,’ he said.
‘First up, apologies from me for a change in the agenda. I have a
confession to make about what I’ve been up to.’

A ripple of laughter ran round the room.

Chris and I smiled sideways at one other. We
weren’t about to confess what we’d been up to.

‘
Some of you may have read
about the incident at the South Bank restaurant last
night.’

A murmur indicated that
many people
had
read about it.

‘
Well, I was there,’ said
Father Mike. ‘Not,’ he added quickly, ‘as a patron of the
restaurant but as one of the people protesting outside. My
involvement wasn’t planned, obviously, just a spontaneous reaction
to the unbelievable arrogance of the restaurant management who
refused to shut down for a couple of days. Well, nothing has
changed yet as a result of that protest so I want to put it to the
meeting tonight that BDFA aligns itself with local Maori,
as

well as the various interest groups, to
continue protesting until change is effected and the people who
have a right to be heard are listened to.’

Our spontaneous reaction hadn’t been
planned, either. Or had we been planning it for a long time without
admitting it?

‘
Hear hear.’

‘
Thanks for that,’ said
Father Mike. ‘I see there’re some new faces here tonight.’ He
included me and Chris in his sweep of the room so I made an effort
to pay attention. ‘For their benefit I’ll just sketch in the
background to what this is all about.’

Most we knew already. We also learnt that
the owners of the South Bank had wanted the information about the
bone-find kept quiet. If it hadn’t been for the fact that one of
the builders was Maori himself,

chances were that far fewer people would
have known the bones were there. But this guy had kicked up a stink
when he had uncovered the South Bank’s plan and he’d quickly got
onto his people.

‘
What is the Council doing
about it?’ someone asked.

‘
Being cooperative,’ said
Father Mike, ‘but not to the extent we’d like.’

Another voice. Dad’s. ‘So what are the
issues Mike?’

Trust Dad to ask a question like that. A
question that needed a long reply. Squeezing Chris’s hand, I
drifted off into a happy and still hard to believe recollection of
last night, Father Mike’s words sounding more and more like waves
breaking on a distant beach.

‘
We’ve asked that the
restaurant shuts down and all rebuilding stops until it gets sorted
out. It’s true that the area we’re talking about is in an adjacent
part of the Memorial Chambers so technically the restaurant isn’t
in the way but because the renovations are going to benefit the
South Bank by allowing it to expand and because the burial site may
extend beyond the confines of where the alterations are happening,
we’ve suggested that all operations cease until a thorough
investigation takes place. The South Bank doesn’t want that to
happen, not unless they’re compensated every step of the way and
the Council planners are scared that long delays are going to cost
them big money. The Council actually owns the Chambers you see. I
think, and the BDFA committee agrees, that we should lend our
support. I now want to put that formally to the
meeting.’

Most of the people in the room seemed to
think it was important to support some kind of action.