The Dark Light (3 page)

‘You need the toilet, Sharon?’

‘No,’ she hooted at me.

‘OK then.’

And I wheeled her to the disabled toilet, which was out the swing doors by the lobby. We were supposed to wait for her to do her business and then wheel her back in, except I didn’t. I left her there and shut the door on her, knowing she couldn’t get out on her own.

When I came back my new mother had moved on and I hopped from foot to foot, nervously waiting my turn. I didn’t know what I was going to say, except I hoped that if I looked smart or clever enough she’d notice me right away. But before that could happen Sue the Social Worker came over.

‘Alex, I want to introduce you to someone.’

And standing right in front of me, blocking my view, were this lumpy looking couple; Bridget, with her weird haircut and socks and sandals, and Ron, in a purple jumper with holes in it. I scowled at them.

‘Hello, Alex,’ Bridget said, reaching out a hand to shake mine, but I ignored it. This wasn’t supposed to happen. ‘I’m Bridget. And this is Ron. We’ve heard lots of good things about you.’

‘Ron’s a lay pastor,’ Sue the Social Worker said, like that made everything OK.

‘But . . .’ I started to cry.

‘Oh dear,’ said Sue the Social Worker. ‘These occasions can be a bit overwhelming. Perhaps if we go outside?’

A month later I was living in a house near Billericay with Ron and Bridget, going to church every Sunday. If they were the answers to my prayers, then God was having a big laugh at my expense.

I figured out early on that they only really saw what they wanted to see. They never had kids, and at forty-six it was making Bridget depressed, so they prayed about it and went to an adoption agency and ended up with me. But by the time they got me they were so used to their ways that it was like I was a visitor rather than part of their family. As if I was lodging with them, not living with them.

Even after all that time, whenever Ron caught me coming out of the bathroom he’d say sorry and run to his bedroom and hide until he was sure he wouldn’t see me. And Bridget would always knock before she came into my room. In fact, having me there didn’t seem to lift her out of her depression at all. She spent long afternoons in bed with the curtains closed. Although every now and then she would seem to snap out of it enough to take me to McDonalds and say vague things about how she knew I’d had a hard start in life, but that now I was walking with Jesus everything would be much better for me. I learned quickly that as long as I was quiet and went to church on Sundays I could pretty much do what I liked.

They were the last to know that I’d stopped going to school halfway through Year 11. And when I got my lip ring Bridget didn’t notice for a whole three days, until finally she said, ‘Did you have an accident? You’ve got something funny in your lip.’

But she never made me take it out.

By the time we got to Wales I was tired and a bit carsick from all the twisty roads. The minute we got to the mountains it started to rain, a thick drizzle that seemed to settle on everything like one of Bridget’s damp blankets. I felt cold just looking at the scenery, even though it was warm and dry in Ron’s overheated Volvo.

When we got to the town Ron got cross because he messed up the one-way system and the car park had no spaces and we had to park on a road miles away from the seafront. We got soaked trying to find the mission. It was a total joke. It was supposed to be the height of summer, and it was more like the middle of January.

The minute I saw them, my heart sank. Huddled together under the bandstand like ducks. I wanted us to drive back to Essex right then and face whatever punishment Dick the Pig wanted to lay on me. I didn’t care. I got this bad feeling in my stomach like a stone had settled there, hard and indigestible. I wished I’d never agreed to this stupid plan.

A man and two women – well, a woman and a girl. The girl looked thin and cold, but her face shone in spite of the weather; pale almost translucent skin, so I could see the blue traces of veins in her face. When she looked at me she blushed, her whole face showing her feelings, and I blinked, because she’d caught me staring.

Ron and Bridget acted like they were meeting the Pope or something, all over excited and bleating. ‘Oh, you’re such an inspiration!’ ‘We love your ministry!’ It made me want to puke. And Bridget made this big deal of taking my phone. Normally she didn’t care.

We drive back to their church, which was in an old cinema away from the promenade. Outside were banners with Bible verses, a few sagging balloons. Inside, in the lobby were books and leaflets and a donation box and a table with an electric urn and plates and cups. There was a crash of drums and tambourines coming from the auditorium. On the doors was a poster that said
Tonight – Songs of Praise and Worship.

There were information boards about New Canaan.
The Great Revelation
, it said, and underneath this black and white photo of their preacher, who was supposed to be blessed with the spirit of God. He had wild hair and piercing eyes looking up to heaven, like an old painting of Jesus.
Pastor Bevins, Miracle Worker
, it said underneath, and,
Live for the Victory!

Next to that was a map of the island with stuff about wind energy and self-sufficiency. There was a photo of the community, about forty people standing together in front of a church, their faces squinting into the sun. I could see the girl, Rebekah, younger then, in front of a woman with a red headscarf who held her by the shoulders.

Bridget and Ron told me to wait while they went off with Rebekah’s father to talk to this Pastor Bevins on the satellite phone. Seemed like it was down to him if they were going to take me, although Bridget had made out like it was already happening. I thought about going to the toilet to scratch my arms but I counted to ten like they taught me in CBT. I went and sat on a chair by the doors. Rebekah sat next to me. She was wearing a dirty blue headscarf, which was knotted under her chin too tight, and it made her face stick out like the moon.

I smiled at her but she looked away. Neither of us spoke. I played with the zipper on my top. I went on an outward-bound course once when I lived in the home. I imagined this place would be a bit like that, except for two months rather than a week. We did survival skills, learned how to make fire by rubbing sticks together, how to make a compass from a needle. I liked outdoors stuff. I could deal with digging and harvesting and whatever, as long as there wasn’t too much church.

‘You OK?’

For a moment I wasn’t sure if I’d imagined it, the voice was so small and quiet. I looked at her, but she turned her eyes to the floor. I knew she wanted me to say something, but I didn’t. Being quiet when you’re expected to speak is a good tactic. It makes people scared of what you might be thinking; either that or after a while they reckon you’re stupid and leave you alone. Also there was this kind of weird feeling between us that seemed to have come from nowhere. Although I didn’t want to admit it, she made me feel shy too.

‘You know we’re Christian?’ she said eventually. ‘On New Canaan.’

I nodded.

‘We’re in the world but not of it,’ she said, arranging herself on the seat all neat and prim.

I reached out a hand and pinched her on the arm.

She flinched. ‘Ow! What did you do that for?’ She leaned away from me and rubbed her arm.

I shrugged. ‘Just checking,’ I muttered.

I never got that idea anyway. I mean, if we’re supposed to be in the world but not of it, then where are we? I could never think of an answer that made sense.

‘Do you walk closely with God?’ She looked at me earnestly and gave me one of her leaflets. ‘All around us the air is thick with spiritual battle.’

I snorted, but her expression was so sincere that I kind of felt sorry for her. I took the leaflet. The text explained all about how Mr Bevins came over from America and set up New Canaan. It was the same stuff that was on the boards except there were more photos, of a beach and farm buildings and a windmill. It made a big deal of their self-sufficiency and their special mission from God. It said that Mr Bevins
heard
God’s voice directing him to go to Wales.

‘What are you laughing for?’

I pointed at the leaflet. ‘This.’

‘Don’t you ever hear the voice of God?’

‘
No
.’

‘Mr Bevins has a special gift,’ she said, nodding at no one.

‘Oh.’ Suddenly two months seemed like a really,
really
long time.

We were quiet for a bit. I picked my nails, aware that she was watching me, like properly staring at me. I deliberately didn’t look. ‘What’s that?’ she said eventually, pointing at the tattoo on my thumb.

‘The moon,’ I said, turning my thumb to show her. ‘Did it myself.’

‘Your parents let you do that?’

‘Ron and Bridget? They’re OK.’

‘Why do you call them Ron and Bridget? Aren’t they your parents? What happened to your parents?’

God, she was nosy. I shifted in my seat. I wasn’t sure I really wanted to tell her. Though I supposed Ron and Bridget were off somewhere telling one of the pastors anyway, so she might as well hear it from me.

‘My real mother died of an overdose,’ I said, swallowing a familiar sense of shame. ‘Heroin.’

‘What’s that?’

I looked at her. She
seriously
didn’t know. ‘Drugs.’

‘Oh. Sorry.’

‘Wasn’t your fault. I was only little. I don’t really remember her. They found me two days later still trying to wake her up.’

These things were in my case notes, the fat file that Sue the Social Worker used to carry around with her to meetings, stained with mug rings and drips of grease from her desk lunches, then on her iPad with the cracked screen.

Early years chaotic, mother drug abuser, father unknown . . . Alex is a lively child who loves playing with her toys and lots of cuddles! . . . Wary of strangers, would be best placed in an environment where she is the only child . . . Has difficulty relating to others, presents as detached and unresponsive . . . tendency towards living in a fantasy world . . . self harm is an issue.

She let me read it once. ‘It’s only fair you should know what has been written about you.’

Fair, maybe, but I’d rather I hadn’t. It made me angry, all the things other people had said about me as if I wasn’t an actual person, but a specimen to be dissected and studied. And no matter how many people told me it wasn’t my fault, I still wondered if maybe, if I’d been a different, better, nicer person, she might have lived. She might have fought for me, for us.

Rebekah blinked at me. ‘Quite a few of our number have had drug problems or been possessed by alcohol. All who repent are welcome at the Lord’s table. We don’t judge.’ She said this like she was offering me a favour.

‘
Thanks
,’ I said sarcastically.

What was it with the God botherers that they couldn’t open their faces without sounding like they were patronizing you? I wondered what she’d say if I told her I was gay. Although I doubted she’d have a clue what the word meant.

I’d known since I was about twelve, ever since I had seen Carrie Matthews winning the 800 metres on sports day. Her legs were the colour of smooth peanut butter and I wanted to touch them in wonder. And I knew too, without anyone telling me, that these feelings weren’t something I was supposed to share with anyone. Especially at Ron and Bridget’s where no one spoke about sex, ever, and in the Church where they only talked about it as a sin.

Other girls, normal girls, liked boys. They obsessed about whether they were friends with them. About who was crushing on who. They were like Kaitlin Watts, bitchy, territorial. I didn’t know what my territory was, if I even had a territory. Mostly I just felt bad. Bad about being different, bad about being the one with the tragic story that everyone felt sorry for, bad that I didn’t want to dress girly, bad that I was even on the planet at all. I touched the white scars on my arms. Sue the Social Worker had been getting me help with that, but I still wanted to do it all the time.

Being gay was the worst thing some of the Church people could think of. The way they went on about it you’d think it was worse than murdering someone or being a paedophile. But if God was supposed to be all about love, how could He hate people for feeling it? It wasn’t God who hated; it was people. People like Ron and Bridget and Dick the Pig and that other woman, Hannah, who kept staring at me. Her disapproval was like a force field. I got it all the time; I knew I looked a bit like a boy. I always got mistaken for one. I glared at her until she looked away.

‘Is that your mother?’ I nodded at Hannah.

‘No!’ Rebekah said this like she was shocked. ‘My mother’s dead. Like yours.’

I looked at her properly then, and smiled, and a current of understanding passed between us.

‘She got sick.’ She turned away from me like she didn’t really want to talk about it and her eyes shone like she was holding on to tears, and I wanted to be nice to her and tell her I knew how she felt. That whatever anyone said about it being OK, nothing was ever going to make up for that emptiness.

‘How old are you?’ I asked.

‘Nearly sixteen,’ she said.

I sat up. ‘
Seriously?
’ She was lying, had to be. She didn’t look a day older than twelve.

‘Why, how old did you think I was?’

‘Maybe thirteen or something.’

‘
Thirteen?
’ She sounded offended. ‘How old are you then?’

‘Sixteen in two months.’

‘Then we’re nearly the same age,’ she said impatiently. ‘Anyway, if I don’t look my age, then
you
don’t look like a girl. I thought you were a boy back there on the prom. You even sound like one a bit.’ She said this like she was telling me off.

‘
So?
What do you think a girl should look like?’ I said this more cockily than I felt.

‘Well, you wear trousers. In New Canaan women must always wear skirts, and cover their arms for modesty.’

‘But we’re not Victorians! Girls can wear trousers too.’