The Four Last Things. Andrew Taylor

evening for a walk.’ Idiotic or not, the remark seemed to have a relaxing effect on Lucy. She turned back to him, peering up at his face.

      He rested his arms along the top of the gate. ‘Are you going out?’ he asked, politely interested, talking as one adult to another.

      Again the toss of the head: this time inviting a clash of wills. ‘I’m going to Woolworth’s.’

      ‘What are you going to buy?’

      She lowered her voice. ‘A conjur—’ The word eluded her and she swiftly found a substitute: ‘A magic set. So I can do tricks. See – I’ve got my purse.’ She held it out: a substantial oblong, made for the handbag not the pocket; designed for an adult, not a child.

      Eddie took a long, deep breath. Suddenly it was hard to breathe. There always came a point when one crossed the boundary between the permissible and the forbidden. He knew that Angel would be furious. Angel believed in careful preparation, in following a plan; that way, she said, no one got hurt. She hated anything which smacked of improvisation. His heart almost failed him at the thought of her reaction.

      Yet how could he turn away from this chance? Lucy was offering herself to him, his Christmas present. Had anyone ever had such a lovely present? But what if someone saw them? He was afraid, and the fear was wrapped up with desire.

      ‘Is it far?’ Lucy asked. ‘Woolworth’s, I mean.’

      ‘Not really. Are you going there now?’

      ‘I might.’ Again she glanced back at the house. ‘The gate’s locked. There’s a bolt.’

      The gate was a little over four feet high. Eddie put his left hand over and felt until he found the bolt. He had to work it to and fro to loosen it in its socket; it was too stiff for a child of Lucy’s age, even if she could have reached it. At last it slid back, metal smacking on metal. He tensed, waiting for opening doors, for faces at the windows, for dogs to bark, for angry questions. He guessed from her stillness that Lucy too was waiting. Their shared tension made them comrades.

      Eddie pushed the gate: it swung into the yard with a creak like a long sigh. Lucy stepped backwards. Her face was pale, intent and unreadable.

      ‘Are you coming?’ He made as if to turn away, knowing that the last thing he must seem was threatening. ‘I’ll give you a ride there in my van if you want. We’ll be back in a few minutes.’

      Lucy looked back at the house again.

      ‘Don’t worry about Carla. You’ll be back before she notices you’re gone.’

      ‘You know Carla?’

      ‘Of course I do.’ Eddie was on safer ground here. ‘I told you that I worked for Father Christmas. He knows everything. I saw you with her yesterday in the library. Do you remember? I winked at you.’

      The quality of Lucy’s silence changed. She was curious now, perhaps relieved.

      ‘And I saw you at St George’s the other Sunday, too. Your mummy’s called Sally and your daddy’s called Michael.’

      ‘You know them too?’

      ‘Father Christmas knows everyone.’

      Still she lingered. ‘Carla will be cross.’

      ‘She won’t be cross with either of us. Not if she wants any Christmas presents this year.’

      ‘Carla wants to win the Lottery for Christmas. I know. I asked her.’

      ‘We’ll have to see.’

      Eddie took a step down the alleyway. He stopped, turned back and held out his hand to Lucy. Without a backward glance, she slipped through the open gate and put her hand in his.

1

      ‘Who can but pity the merciful intention of those hands that do destroy themselves? the Devil, were it in his power, would do the like …’

      Religio Medici, I, 51

      ‘God does not change,’ said the Reverend Sally Appleyard. ‘But we do.’

      She stopped and stared down the church. It wasn’t that she didn’t know what to say next, nor that she was afraid: but time itself was suddenly paralysed. As time could not move, all time was present.

      She had had these attacks since childhood, though less frequently since she had left adolescence behind; often they occurred near the start of an emotional upheaval. They were characterized by a dreamlike sense of inevitability – similar, Sally suspected, to the preliminaries to an epileptic fit. The faculty might conceivably be a spiritual gift, but it was a very uncomfortable one which appeared to serve no purpose.

      Her nervousness had vanished. The silence was total, which was characteristic. No one coughed, the babies were asleep and the children were quiet. Even the traffic had faded away. August sunshine streamed in an arrested waterfall of light through the windows of the south-nave aisle and the south windows of the clerestory. She knew beyond any doubt that something terrible was going to happen.

      The two people Sally loved best in the world were sitting in the second pew from the front, almost directly beneath her. Lucy was sitting on Michael’s lap, frowning up at her mother. On the seat beside her was a book and a small cloth doll named Jimmy. Michael’s head was just above Lucy’s. When you saw their heads so close together, it was impossible to doubt the relationship between them: the resemblance was easy to see and impossible to analyse. Michael had his arms locked around Lucy. He was staring past the pulpit and the nave altar, up the chancel to the old high altar. His face was sad, she thought: why had she not noticed that before?

      Sally could not see Derek without turning her head. But she knew he would be staring at her with his light-blue eyes fringed with long sandy lashes. Derek disturbed her because she did not like him. Derek was the vicar, a thin and enviably articulate man with a very pink skin and hair so blond it was almost white.

      Most of the other faces were strange to her. They must be wondering why I’m just standing here, Sally thought, though she knew from experience that these moments existed outside time. In a sense, they were all asleep: only she was awake.

      The pressure was building up. She wasn’t sure whether it was inside her or outside her; it didn’t matter. She was sweating and the neatly printed notes for her sermon clung to her damp fingers.

      As always in these moments, she felt guilty. She stared down at her husband and daughter and thought: if I were spiritually strong enough, I should be able to stop this or to make something constructive out of it. Despair flooded through her.

      ‘Your will be done,’ she said, or thought she said. ‘Not mine.’

      As if the words were a signal, time began to flow once more. A woman stood up towards the back of the church. Sally Appleyard braced herself. Now it was coming, whatever it was, she felt better. Anything was an improvement on waiting.

      She stared down the nave. The woman was in her sixties or seventies, small, slight and wearing a grubby beige raincoat which was much too large for her. She clutched a plastic bag in her arms, hugging it against her chest as if it were a baby. On her head was a black beret pulled down over her ears. A ragged fringe of grey, greasy hair stuck out under the rim of the beret. It was a warm day but she looked pinched, grey and cold.

      ‘She-devil. Blasphemer against Christ. Apostate.’ As she spoke, the woman stared straight at Sally and spittle, visible even at a distance, sprayed from her mouth. The voice was low, monotonous and cultivated. ‘Impious bitch. Whore of Babylon. Daughter of Satan. May God damn you and yours.’

      Sally said nothing. She stared at the woman and tried to pray for her. Even those who did not believe in God were willing to blame the shortcomings of their lives on him. God was hard to find so his ministers made convenient substitutes.

      The woman’s lips were still moving.