The Testimony of Taliesin Jones (63 page)

'Amen
.'

The awkwardness returns once the amens are said.

'That was strange
.
I felt something then
.
Did you feel anything, Will?' Luc asks
.

'I think I did. I think I felt something
,'
William Jones says
.

'I'm
sure I felt something,' Luc say
s. '
Did you
feel it, John?'

'Just
after Taliesin said the prayer I thought I did. I'm not sure though
,'
John Morgan says.

'
I can't reall
y
describe
it. It was something though
,'
Luc continues,
staring with bright, seen-the-light eyes
.

'Yeah,
it was something,' John Morgan says
.

'Just
think
,
Will, you might never have to inject
yourself again
,'
Luc says
.

'
We might need more than one go to fix it,'
Taliesin warns
.
'I'm not sure how many
sessions diabetes takes. It must be at least two
.
We
should do some more before you stop injecting yourself.'

'Did
you feel anything, Tal?' Luc asks.

'Yeah,
I felt something.' Thinking about it now, he isn't sure that he felt anything
at all. He was too focused and aware of the people around him to notice; too
concerned about what others would think if they saw
.
True, there was a slight tingle at the edge of his fingers; a moment
when he felt something channelling through his hands, but he probably just
imagined it. He's probably just thinking that because he wants to believe it.
Isn't that what his father said, 'Whatever you believe is true for you.'

Perhaps
they should have started with a wart or a cold
.
It
will be a blow to the credibility of the gang if they fail
,
not to mention a severe test of their fledgling
faith. Having done it he feels greater uncertainty. It isn't as easy as it
looks, as easy
as the way Billy made it look
.
He's not so
confident with God that h
e
can't stop looking over his shoulder embarrassed
a
bout what he's doing
.

H
e
r
emembers
th
e
r
esponsibility
that comes with th
e
job: n
ever
r
aise
th
eir
h
opes
too much
;
be reali
stic a
bout it
.
Sometime
s
it w
orks, so
metimes it doesn't. And w
ith
someth
ing
l
ike
di
abetes
th
ere's
n
o
t
elling.

'W
e
sh
ould
t
ry
it
aga
in t
omorrow.'
Taliesin sa
ys.

'Let
's
m
eet
und
er
th
e
tr
ee,'
Lu
c s
ays,
z
ealous f
or
more l
aying o
n
o
f h
ands
.

'
We n
eed
t
o
h
ave a
br
eak, y
ou c
an't
use all the pow
er
up in
o
ne
go,'
T
aliesin says,
tr
ying
t
o so
und e
xpert.

'
Does thi
s
m
ean
th
at
I'm in
y
our
g
ang n
ow?'
William Jones
as
ks.

'
Are
yo
ur p
arents
di
vorced?'
Luc a
sks
.

'
No.'

'We
g
ive
s
pecial pr
ivilege
t
o
p
eople w
ith di
vorced
parents,
a
nd t
o
p
eople w
hose p
arents
d
on't
bel
ieve i
n G
od, ' L
uc
s
ays
.

'
I don't kn
ow if
th
ey
d
o,'
William Jones
shrug
s.

'
It d
oesn't
matter
,'
Tali
esin s
ays, thinkin
g
that this conces
s
ion i
s
unn
ecessary
.
'
Just as lon
g
as you believ
e.'

'
What
i
f th
ey're s
till marri
ed,
do
es
th
at
m
atter?'
William

Jon
es
enquir
es.

'Lu
c's
p
arents
ar
e s
till married,' Taliesin sa
ys.

'
Yeah, but
y
ou
nev
er
know what mi
ght
happen. My Dad
 
i
s
alway
s
aw
ay
and th
ey
argued
l
ast
week
.
My
mother
sc
reamed at D
ad
a
nd thr
ew
a clock
a
t him th
at
he'd
bought h
er fro
m Fran
ce.
It
w
as worth about fifty quid,' Luc
says.

'T
hat
was j
ust
a s
tupid rul
e.
A
s
long as you believe,
that's what m
atters,'
Tali
esin
r
eiterates.
'It doe
sn't
matter what your p
arents
beli
eve
.
'

H
oop
Th
e
Phili
stine,
Kin
g o
f
Bull
ies,
H
ater
of
the Weak, D
efender
of the Str
ong, a
pproaches w
ith
hi
s c
ronies. Taliesin st
ands
o
ver
his s
atchel
shieldin
g
hi
s
B
ible.
John Morgan's book lie
s
in front of h
im
.
H
ooper
lo
oks a
ngry and in need of
a
victim
.
Sin
ce sav
ing his Dad in that tractor accident he
's g
rown m
ore
tyr
annical
in hi
s
demand for respect
.
Most p
eople g
ive
i
t t
o
him
. everyone
e
xcept
Worm
,
who tr
eats
him w
ith a
br
ave
disdain th
at
belie
s
his physique
.
Hooper w
ould
lik
e
t
o
cru
sh
th
e s
ource of this di
sdain w
herever it c
omes
fr
om.
It i
sn't
n
atural
that someone as
pun
y
as
Worm
s
hould
s
tand
aga
inst him
.

'H
ey
W
orm, w
hat
y
ou r
eading
there
?
Let m
e
hav
e
a look
.'
M
ore
p
ointless v
iolence
i
s co
ming
.
Hooper
pick
s
up John M
organ's
n
ovel a
nd thumbs it
as
if h
e's
ne
ver
s
een
a book
in hi
s
l
ife
.

'L
aurie,
L
ara,
Lo
rry…
L
ee.
More bl
oody
girl
s'
books
.
Wh
at a
dumb t
itle
,
'
h
e sa
ys
.
T
aliesin
thinks abou
t
pointing
o
ut H
ooper's
misp
ronunciation
but decid
es
not to. One of th
e c
ronies t
akes
th
e
b
ook
and flick
s
thr
ough
it.

'
Hey, lo
ok
H
oop
.
It
's go
t p
ictures,'
he
s
ays.

'
Whorrof?'

'
There's
a ch
urch. And
a
d
onkey a
nd h
ere's
a soldier.'

So
mehow -pr
obably a
mir
acle
-th
e
book doesn't spill
o
pen
o
n p
age 11
6
w
here th
ere's a
pictur
e
of the topl
ess
Spani
sh g
irl th
at
J
ohn
Mor
gan w
as sho
wing
them earlier.

'Ca
n I h
ave
it
bac
k now
',
John M
organ s
ays. 'It's my b
ook.'

T
aliesin
i
s
pr
aying
f
or
mu
scles a
s thi
ck
as a Minotaur
's
thi
gh.
H
ooper
t
akes
the b
ook
fr
om
Croni
e
One and
starts fli
cking
thr
ough
th
e pages, a
bsently. T
aliesin
w
ould
lik
e
to know
w
here H
ooper
l
earned
t
o
b
e so e
vil. Is
it becau
se
o
f
his par
ents?
I
s
h
is
f
ather a
tr
og?
H
is
m
other a
v
ampire?
He's an anim
al.

Th
e
d
espot
pulls up
a s
prig
o
f
g
rass
a
nd
s
tarts to ch
ew i
t lik
e
h
e's
th
e fas
test
g
un
in
W
est
W
ales o
r
so
mething. Th
en
h
e
l
ets o
ff h
is
l
augh, a
f
orced
l
augh
th
at
Croni
es
On
e a
nd Two aut
omaticaly
r
eciprocate.
T
aliesin
k
eeps
hi
s
m
outh
ti
ght.

'Wh
at's yo
ur pr
oblem
H
ooper?'
Lu
c
Th
e
R
ash
s
ays,
prob
a
bly
ov
er taken
w
ith th
oughts of ga
ngs
.

Hooper
doesn't like this
.
It interrupts his train
of thought which was gathering momentum nicely, moving towards the
inevitable hitting of Worm.

'You
keep out Daniel.' A sneered surname is all he can muster. He tosses the novel
away behind him as if it were a sweet wrapper and sees the Bible. Taliesin was
hoping he wouldn't see it -that like a shark temporarily distracted by a
small tiddler from the main quarry, Hooper would miss the
Bible and pour his destructive energy into
When I Walked Out One Midsummer
Morning
(which isn't as bad a title as Hooper
s
uggested).

Hooper
circles the Bible
,
picks it up and almost
sniffs it. For a time he is emasculated by the sheer oddness of ho
lding
a
bible
in his hand; he looks clumsy and confused. He has aı vague respect for it
which no amount of bravado can dis
guise.

'A
bible,' he observes correctly, although he had to read the cover to be sure.
'The
Children
Illustrated Holy Bible?
When you goin' to grow up Worm? Hey! Wormy Wormy

Wormy. Why is it holy, I don't see any holes
.'

The Cronies anticipate what's coming and snigger.

'
It needs a hole in it
to make it a Holy Bible,' Hooper says.

The
Believers know what's coming too and they rely on their disbelief to prevent
the act.

Hooper takes out his knife -'That's Swiss', Luc observes.

He selects a blade -the short thick blade for spiking
mountain sides
.

Taliesin
is saying prayers in the form of wishes
.
If
only he were twice his size; if only the heavens would open now and
emit a clear, electric-blue bolt oflightning that would
burn a hole in Hooper's head
.

John
Morgan, who appreciates a good book, feels forced to speak.

'That
book's expensive
.
You can't do that
.
It's a Holy Bible,' he says.

'So?' Hooper holds the book and pushes the head of the
blade into the hard and holy middle, testing the pressure required to pierce
it. It is strong.

Hooper presses the blade into the cov
er
and a small split
sounds. Thi
s
prompts
Luc to move forward a pace
.

'If you do
.
..' he says.

There is a long silence -a gap of such excruciating
awfulnes
s
at
wh
at
is
going to happen next and all of them looking at th
e
blade poised at the
flesh of the book. In Taliesin's head an obstinate inner voice tells him to
charge at Hooper. Instead he shouts, 'Eat shit Hoop, you fucking dick brained
sp
anner.'
It
all comes out in a garbled mess with the wrong emphases, all the worst words he
can think of crammed into a kind of swear-grenade
.
Hooper isn't too concerned with
the poor delivery. He gets the gist
.

The first hit feels like a conker on the side of
Taliesin's head
.
It sets off a ringing and the surprising thing is that it
doesn't hurt one bit
.
The second blow lands smack on his nose
a
nd sends sparks back
to his brain, racing through a black thoughtlessness
.
Somehow his brain
finds the time to remember Hale in
Brighton Rock
'getting it' in the
gents; not th
at
Mr Greene des
cribed
what happened. That's what made it worse: never know
ing
exactly what
happened to poor Hale in that gents.

Oddly he finds himself on the ground, on hi
s
knees, with Luc
sprawled by his side, clutching his arm
.
Hooper is standing over him as big as the Empire State
Building in America
.
Capital
:
Washington. One finger. Two fingers
.
How many fing
ers?

Cronie One is standing reluctantly by, shuffling his feet
uneasily
.
Luc
moans something about pain in his shoulder.

'C'mon Hoop
,
let's leave 'im, yeah?' Cronie One says, losing a taste
for
v
iolence.
Hooper shows he's human by hesitat
ing
at the sight of what he's done. A show of remorse perhaps
?
Maybe he'll turn out
all right in the end
.

'Worm
,'
he
says,
bor
ed
with hi
s
own cont
empt.
Being n
asty
to p
eople
all of th
e
time takes concentration and
s
kill and
eve
n Hoop
er, a ge
nius in the
art
o
f di
shing
out unpl
easantries,
run
s o
ut
o
f in
spiration
on certa
in
d
ays.

T
he Bibl
e
li
es o
pen
so
mewhere
in the middl
e,
to
ssed
as
ide in th
e o
nslaught, th
e
pa
ges
dirti
ed,
th
e
hole in
its cov
er
l
etting
li
ght o
ut
a
nd
in
.
Turn the
o
ther
c
heek, that
's
wh
at
th
e
b
ook sa
ys:
a
h
ard
thin
g
to d
o
wh
en
your
first che
ek
has b
een
ca
ved in.