The Healing (10 page)

In about an hour they had exhausted the amusements and decided that they would make their way to the station. As they were leaving the arcade there was the sudden sound of screaming and swearing, and as they emerged into the daylight they saw the group of skinheads huddled round one of its members. His mother tried to usher him past, but he turned to stare at the youth in the centre of the gang who was straightening himself up and shaking off the supporting arms draped over his shoulders. As the youth stood up straight, he held his head back and shook his head from side to side like a dog which had just come out of water, and as he did so, bright gouts of blood splashed his white T-shirt. His mother quickened her pace and hurried him on, and as he twisted his head to look, the parrot slipped out of his fingers and soared into the sky. It streamed upwards, the string wriggling like the tail of a tadpole. His mother smiled wryly at him but did not lessen her pace.

The train journey home was long and tedious and the countryside which streamed past seemed flat and lifeless. His mother was quiet now, resting her head against the side of the seat as the rhythm of the train lulled her. He watched her eyes slowly close as she slipped into sleep. Her fitful doze allowed him to study her face and his gaze traced the blue half-moons under her eyes, the fine grey hairs filtering through the brown. She never wore lipstick or make-up and her whole face looked open and vulnerable. He knew the day had been a disappointment to her. She had tried hard to make it work, to grasp hold of something that couldn't be grasped because it had disappeared into the depths of the past. Like so many of her
other memories it would be damaged now, splintered into a thousand pieces like glass and the little box in which she stored them would be open for prying hands to finger and destroy.

As he sat and watched her, he knew now that neither of them could escape so easily, and he knew, too, that happiness was not a place to which you could travel. Empty fields flashed by, bound by broken lines of hedgerow. His mother looked sad and lonely, her sleep separating them from each other, and he felt shut out from her, thrown back onto himself and pushed deeper into the safer world he had sought to build about his being. It was a world in which he was sometimes secure, but at this moment he wanted to slip out from the shadowy silence and step towards her, touch her gently and tell her that everything would be all right. He dipped deep inside himself for words, but they spilled like water through his fingers and seeped away into secret places. He felt ringed and hooped with silence and though he stretched out his hand again and again to grasp them, each time he drew it back empty.

A sudden squall of rain slanted across the window. He forced himself to try once more, searching desperately to find some key which would unlock the door he himself had shut, but it could not be found and the knowledge shocked him. Suddenly, what he had thought of as a safe place had snapped closed about him, trapping him in a world he no longer controlled. Opposite him, his mother stirred a little then settled again. Outside it had grown darker and as the lights in the carriage came on, he saw his reflection watching him, his mouth forming silent words, rain running down the glass like tears.

The boy followed him through the gap in the broken fence and into the field at the back of the houses. Samuel stayed close to him, stepping in his footsteps, shadowing his path up the slope, stopping when he stopped for breath, mirroring his movements. He felt the comfort of his presence and the strength it lent to his resolve. A rising wind blew against them as they zig-zagged up the slope, but they pressed on, his body sheltering the boy from the wind. Sometimes his feet slipped a little and he placed a hand on the ground to steady himself. The sky was a vague, pale wash, as if the deepest colours had been drained from it and all about them the wind pushed the sharp-edged grass in broken rhythms.

There was a rocky outcrop about half-way up the slope and he headed doggedly for it. He pointed it out wordlessly to the boy and knew he understood. There was so much the boy understood already. They had spent a lot of time together in the past few weeks and had managed to get the garden into some sort of shape, tackling a small
section at a time, but it was only a trivial prelude to the task that was in hand. He felt himself flowing towards that moment, carried irresistibly towards his appointed destiny. Part of him shrank from that responsibility in the old consciousness of his own inadequacies, but part of him longed for the healing to begin. Every day brought new victims, new names to be added to a long list. As his mind began to reflect on his weaknesses he heard the boy's voice inside his head saying, ‘I will be thy mouth and teach thee what thou shalt say,' and in that instant his fears began to subside. They were almost at the outcrop. He turned and smiled at the boy, nodding his head to show that he had heard and understood.

When they reached it they sat down on the blunted slabs of grey rock which jutted out of the slope, sitting side by side to rest and get their breath back after the climb. They looked down at their own houses and then over the terraced levels of roofs into the city below. The boy plucked at some grass and threw the broken blades down towards it, but the wind swirled them aside like bits of confetti.

‘There are important things we have to talk about. Some you know already in your heart. You haven't come to this city by chance – it's part of the plan God has for us both. You are not on your own any more, you have been lent unto the Lord.'

He glanced at the boy but he was still staring down into the city below.

‘There is a great sickness down there and every day it consumes more and more – men, women, children – it infects everyone, sweeps them into the pit. It's just like
in the Bible all over again, when the children of Israel were wandering in the desert, trapped in their sin and backbiting against God, and the people were bitten by fiery serpents. For twenty years the people down there have been stumbling deeper into sin, lost in their hatreds and their prides, turning their hands against each other, turning their backs on God. But God is not mocked, and now we have the fiery serpents and each day the news brings the names of more people who are bitten. Each day there is fresh blood on the lintels and the people are weary and sick, and looking for a way to heal their souls.'

He paused and moved his hand slowly across the view.

‘Look down there, Samuel, see how many churches there are. Everywhere you look. See them? Everywhere. But the sickness goes on despite them because they have been weighed in the balance and found wanting. The sickness spreads everywhere all around them and they cannot stop it. And you know why, Samuel? Because the salt has lost its savour and all those churches down there don't mean anything but savourless salt. Thieves in the temple have defiled His house and now they sit down there like empty shells.'

The boy was looking up at him, his pale curious eyes searching to grasp the truth of his words.

‘God has chosen us to be His instrument of healing. God has chosen us, Samuel. It's not for us to understand why or know His reasoning, but only to submit to His will, listen to His voice. We must prepare, hold nothing back of ourselves, be ready to carry His truth to the people down there, floundering in their own darkness. It will be very soon – it must be soon before it's too
late. I am an old man and God has given you to me as a helpmate. Once I had hoped it might be my own son, but he too has been bitten, bitten by a serpent of hatred and bitterness and now in his blindness and sin he turns his back on God.'

He lifted his eyes to the vague wash of sky and felt the pain of his words. A solitary bird winged overhead, its dark shape printed on the pale background. The boy fingered a stone, turning it slowly over in his hand, holding it as if it was precious.

‘It's just you and me now, who can tell them about the healing. When the children of Israel were bitten by the serpents, God told Moses to raise up a brass serpent on a pole and anyone who looked up at it in faith was healed. You remember it, Samuel – a brass serpent on a pole, and anyone who had the faith to look up at it was healed. Can you see it, Samuel? It's how the healing will come again, only this time it won't be a serpent of brass but if we are ready and listen to His voice, God will reveal what it is we must do. And anyone can be healed. We too can share it. God can take away the fear that clutches at your heart, Samuel, take away the pain of your mother's grief. We, too, can be touched by the healing.'

Now the boy was looking at him intently, his red hair ruffled by the wind. He placed his hand on the boy's shoulder, anxious to confirm that he had understood the magnitude of his words, grasped the full knowledge of what he had imparted, and then suddenly, in a pulse of joy, he knew that everything was well. God had prepared the boy's heart for the truth, and the seed his words had sown would soon bear a great harvest. They sat in silence
as all about them the wind rustled in the grass and wisps of thistledown floated by.

After a long time, they stood up and set off across the field, following a narrow mud path which had been worn flat. In a lower field two horses hugged a hedge and sheltered from the wind which disturbed their manes and tails. Suddenly, something stirred in them, and they tossed their heads and careered in a galloping arc, pursuing shifting patterns of light. They stood and watched for a while and his soul felt free and light, as if it had cast off its fetters and was running free with the horses. His happiness made him want to walk for ever, as if going back down to the houses might destroy the joy he felt inside himself. He saw the boy's mother in her garden hanging out washing. He pointed her out to the boy. He knew she would not mind them going for the walk – they had worked hard at the garden.

He showed the boy all the places he knew, pointing out things, naming plants, telling him where there was a rabbit warren. They came down the other side of the slope where workmen were building new houses and they crouched on their haunches watching the men work. A yellow bulldozer was clearing a new site, pushing great scoops of earth to one side. Then a lorry arrived delivering stones and tipping them into a grey mound. Two men used long-handled shovels to push out the remaining stones, their arms working as if they were paddling a canoe. They crouched in the grass and watched it all, unseen and unsuspected, and he felt as if they were on the edge of the world, looking in and seeing everything, but untouched and untainted by it. Together they were a
secret which had not yet been spoken, a book in which the words had been written but were still to be read. Above all, he felt the deep ties which joined him to the boy, the common purpose which bound their lives together in an unbreakable bond.

They left the field and walked along a road leading them back towards the city. There was one more place he wanted to take the boy, one more thing he had to make him understand. When they arrived at the gates, he felt the boy's fear shooting to the surface.

‘It's all right, Samuel. Don't be frightened.'

But the boy stood motionless, reluctant to go any further.

‘God's hand is on us now. Nothing can harm you or come close.'

He put his arm round the boy's shoulder and they entered side by side, the boy's body stiff under his touch. They walked between the long rows of headstones and he kept the boy close by his side. The path was strewn with the heads of withered flowers the wind had scattered. At the end of a row they stopped in front of a plot marked only by a metal number.

‘This is my wife's grave. Five years ago I buried her here. I stood with my son just where we're standing now. There's something I want you to understand. This place where we're standing means nothing to me because she's not here. Only that body which suffered so much rests here, her soul has gone to be with her heavenly Father which is far better. The soul is what counts, Samuel, and nobody can harm the soul of those who are His through faith. My wife was a good woman and the Lord called
her to be with Him. This world is not our real home, not for you and me, Samuel. Not for your father. Those men who killed your father couldn't kill his soul. Not the devil himself could do that.'

The boy stood still at his side, staring at the metal number. Spots of rain began to fall.

‘“My beloved is gone down into His garden, to the beds of spices, to feed in the gardens and to gather lilies.” That's what happened that day five years ago. He came down into His garden to gather lilies and He gathered Lorna and took her home. Some day I'll join her, just as some day you'll join your father. I brought you here because I want you to understand so that you can hold fast to the truth.'

Brown-edged petals swirled round their feet, and then were gone.

‘Now I know you understand everything, we can go, and we don't ever have to come back here again, because here is just an empty grave; not here but risen.'

The boy followed him as he led the way out of the cemetery. Young trees strained at their stakes in the angry wind and his own coat billowed like a sail. As he pulled it tightly about him and lowered his head to his chest, a cortège of funeral cars drove past them, their windscreen wipers pushing aside the rain. The boy turned his face away and did not look.

He could tell that his mother was not sure about it. Despite the composure of her expression, she was weighing up all the factors in her head, itemising the different little bits of information into some kind of order before she reached a decision. The girl kept pushing her gently towards the decision she wanted.

‘We'll take really good care of him, Mrs Anderson. Won't we, Billy?'

‘Yeah, sure. He'll be as safe as houses. I have the car and he doesn't even have to get out of it if he doesn't want to. But if you're not happy – well, it's up to you.'

‘It's very kind of you,' his mother said. ‘It's just that I'm not sure . . .'