Crusaders (29 page)

His mind cringing still, Stevie felt his feet move bravely beneath him. He was jogging, then running, down toward the gateway. But when he reached the road the bike was already a quarter-mile hence. He pressed his palms to his temples. What had he seen? What the fuck was it? Had anyone seen it? He whirled about him, looking for the twitch of curtains, for concerned faces at windows. But the double-glazed windows of Halcyon Heights were blind.
The gun
, he told himself – heard himself telling Roy, telling Shack, reporting back –
The gun, it jammed. I’m fine, aye, but only cos it
fucking
jammed, man …

He tasted bland sizing in his mouth, swallowed, then smartly crouched and bent, and the sky rolled over him as he vomited forth his breakfast, once, twice, onto somebody’s discreet paved driveway. He held the crouch for one or two minutes, until he was sure he was voided, then straightened, spat, and strode unsteadily back to Karen’s door.

No time for faint hearts, Gore told himself, no fannies in a fit. True, he had expected a cakewalk today, money for old rope. But he was tense and out of sorts, even as he grasped the trusty lectern, texts arrayed before him in good order. Stakes were higher second time out of the traps.

Last week’s turnout had been matched, possibly surpassed – media, word of mouth, what Lockhart had been wont to call the ‘
Songs of Praise
factor’. A pair of showy flower baskets had come from some anonymous well-wisher. But rain too had come early and relentless this morning, congregants had shuffled indoors looking damp and harassed, and a rank air of discomfort lifted from the seats. A pair of fluorescent light-poles had packed up, settling deeper gloom upon the hall. Worse, a few volunteers from Sunday past had absented themselves. Though Steve Coulson’s associates Simms and Robbie had pitched up in the transit with the pool table, they also carried a mumbled apology for the absence of the boss.

Gore might have written off these minor impediments as the devil’s share, were it not for the presence of the small crew from local television, now loitering intently behind the last row of chairs, their director whispering urgently to his lighting
cameraman
, making frames in the air with his hands. Gore at first
suspected
an escalation in his sister’s campaign of unsolicited PR. But the director claimed only a sincere interest in what he had lately seen in the papers.

He was as ready as he could be in the circumstances when came the unheralded entry of Susannah Gore herself, swishing in just
one minute before ten in navy woollen coat and scarf, sitting
herself
serenely near the back, a handful of seats down from where puffa-jacketed Lindy Clark was trying to settle her Jake. Two more taxing eyes upon him, then.

And the remainder of the audience? Some dutiful couples and their kids, then a bloc that could have been an over-sixties outing, bussed in and bribed with tea, struggling nobly with digestive disorders, waiting for the preacher if a preacher was booked – as opposed, say, to a jolly seaside stand-up.
Lest I get carried away
… thought Gore, minded anew of a stock sermonising gag – the one about the woman who called on her priest to confess to the sin of vanity, the hours she wasted before the mirror in thrall to her beauty, only to be told, ‘You’re not sinful, child, you’re
mistaken
.’

The opening hymn – ‘The Lord’s My Shepherd’ – was no
disgrace
. Susan Carrow, having insisted, read clearly if flatly from the Gospel of St Matthew, damning the scribes and Pharisees, ‘for they say and do not.’ Gore gave out some scant announcements, asking that any drivers with a spare seat, or any ladies able to devote some hours to a crèche, might dally and consult with him afterwards. He was consoled when, at last, he reached his sermon, sure that a strong performance would marshal his spirits.

‘In Joshua we read of how, after the death of Moses, the Lord restated to Joshua the selfsame promise he had made to the lawgiver. Namely, that all lands lying across the Jordan, down to the Euphrates – wheresoever Joshua set foot – were promised to the children of Israel.

‘And so Joshua sent forth two messengers to venture ahead, prepare the way, spread the word. They came first to the great walled city of Jericho, and the king there was alerted to their presence, and wished them harm. But it was a woman called Rahab – a harlot, a common prostitute – who offered Joshua’s men a refuge within her own home, safe from the king’s soldiers. She resisted the king’s orders, and enabled the Israelites to escape, at no small risk of peril to herself. But mark you the aftermath. For when Jericho fell, it was Rahab and her kin alone who were spared the sword.

‘Now, the Apostle James tells us, “By works is faith made perfect. Was not Rahab the harlot justified by works? When she had received
the
messengers, and had sent them out another way? For as the body
without
the spirit is dead, so is faith without works.” And that is a message I consider endlessly, undyingly relevant.

‘Let’s be clear. Any one of us, whatever our station in life, whatever our past indiscretions or failings – any one of us is capable still of the very best and finest actions in this world, if and when the right moment comes. It’s not just a case of who’s been most pious for longest – we can’t store up moral treasure on this earth that way. No, sometimes … I think it’s only when the
circumstances
fall into place that we really find in ourselves the grounds of a burning faith, one that drives us to action. How easily we can come to think ourselves lost, our efforts doomed or pointless. Cometh the hour, though – cometh the hour – and the soul will rise.’

After a modest Eucharist, the hall fast emptied save for a thirsty two dozen or so, a good few so immobile as to need their tea fetched to them where they sat. Gore stood supping his brew with Jack Ridley in contemplative silence, trying unsuccessfully to locate his sister amid the bodies, when Monica Bruce weaved up to them.

‘Sorry about them lights, John, they’ll be right for next week. I’ve got to shoot off, but you’s can see to the lock-up, can’t you? Now how are you’s fixed for your supper the night? I’d like to have you both round to ours.’

Gore could muster no immediate excuse, for his diary was bare.

‘How about you and your missus, Jack?’

‘What are you making?’

‘Shepherd’s pie.’

Ridley licked his lips. ‘Champion.’

To the TV crew Gore granted a short, upbeat, anodyne
interview
. As he glanced at the small tight circle of congregants drawn in to witness, he saw at last his sister, smiling crookedly, coolly amused. When he stepped aside from the lens she took his arm, kissed his cheek, commandeered him. ‘Well, hello there, Reverend. Is it nice to be a local celebrity?’

‘It’s got its problems, I have to say.’

‘You seem to cope. I must say, though, this room could do with a lick and a promise. Nice little service you give, but. Very thoughtful lesson. Good of you to tell us what we can all learn off of the common whore.’

‘My pleasure. Take it away and use it.’

‘I will. You read that Bible like you wrote it, mind.’

‘Is this the best you can do? I thought you were in the praising business.’

‘That’s you, kidder. I speak as I find, me.’

Gore could see Lindy Clark, hovering behind Susannah, desirous of a moment, her coat zipped, her son tugging her towards the outdoors. He saw his sister’s dissatisfaction, too, in not enjoying one hundred per cent of the available attention.

‘Hello, Lindy, hi there, Jake. This is my sister Susannah.’

‘Hiya.’

‘Was that useful today?’

‘Canny enough. Has anybody said owt about the crèche?’

‘They haven’t. Not yet …’

She sighed. ‘And I thought I’d be seeing you again. At ours?’ Gore detected the flicker of Susannah’s eyebrows. ‘Weren’t you gunna come round to do them shelves and that? I don’t mind, I can get ’em done for us nee bother, but they need doing and you said you would, so …’

His sister, he knew, was unabashedly weighing Lindy in the balance. He couldn’t imagine how she might score, but he worried – for the puffa jacket, the vivid cosmetics, the little boy wrapped around her legs and fishing down the back of his trousers. He was not sure that Lindy herself would care more than a speck – until he saw her eyes flit sharply in Susannah’s direction. Susannah, though, was glancing repeatedly between her slender silvery wristwatch and the exit.

‘Look, I can’t stop, John, but I’ll call you, okay?’

‘You haven’t got my number.’

‘It’s in this from when you called me.’ Impatiently she flashed a mobile phone lodged in her palm like a gemstone, waved at him, then turned in a swirl of dark coat-tail and was gone.

‘Lindy, yes, I know, I’m sorry. Can it wait until next Saturday?’

‘I suppose. Aye, fine. That’s a date then? Come for around three-ish and I’ll give you your tea.’

‘Okay. Saturday then.’

‘Aye, right.’ Lindy smiled fleetingly at him, then she too was being yanked in the outward direction.

He was feeling perplexed, somewhat dispensed with, as Kully Gates stepped forward, her hands slotted demurely in the pockets of her multicoloured cardigan, her caramel hair plastered in
wet-look
waves.

‘Yes, well done then, John. For getting started. You’re quite a
talker
.’

Gore was unsure if he was on the horns of another teasing. This odd little woman’s whole face seemed to stretch with her broad piano-key smile, but behind chic little slot-like spectacles her almond eyes had a patronising cast. ‘Yes, but I must say, I am a
little
disappointed
in you.’

‘What have I done?’

‘What have you
not
done? What about all we talked about at your meeting? What use are you making?’

‘Kully, you can see my congregation. It’s toddlers and
pensioners
.’

‘You have to
make
it. You don’t just go to work on a Sunday, do you? Now, come on. I have an
invitation
for you. What are you doing now? Are you busy?’

‘
Right
now?’

‘Within the hour. I have my drop-in at the youth centre. Crossman Estate.’

Gore could picture that squat, menacing seventies build, snug to the Gunnery pub, a pile of damp breezeblocks and rusty wire mesh.

‘I do a
counselling
session every Sunday, free advice. For the ones excluded from school, mainly. We have Cokes and burgers, yes? So you could come with me? Have a burger. Give a little advice, perhaps?’

‘Advice on what?’

‘Oh, I don’t know, John, maybe drugs? Sexual health?’

Gore put a hand to his brow, trying to massage forth an excuse.

‘I’m
joking
, John. Come on. What do you say?’

They walked together out into St Luke’s car park, where the day’s Coulson-appointed labourer was trying single-handedly to reload the pool table into the back of the transit, wrestling with one tilted end from ground level. Gore recognised him as the
affable
young dullard from Middlesbrough he had met on that first useful night in the Gunnery.

‘Alright there, Smoggie?’ Gore called out cheerily as he and Kully passed. The lad straightened, bore the weight of the table awhile, serving up a hard look in return.

‘Me name’s Robbie, pal.’

The truculence surprised Gore, chastened him somewhat. He paused. ‘Sorry, Robbie. That’s a tough job you’re taking on solo. Can I help?’

‘Aw, I doubt that, man. Can’t see it, nah.’

Gore was tending by degrees to the sense that he was being oddly and actively slighted. ‘Sorry, do you – have you got a
problem
with me, Robbie?’

‘I might do.’

‘Well, so you know, I don’t actually want any help that’s not freely given.’

Robbie snorted out a laugh and turned back to his Sisyphean task. Gore had begun to feel this determined oddness rousing his hackles.

‘That’s funny, is it?’

‘Not so very, no’ was thrown back over the lad’s hefty straining shoulder.

‘Striking, the art,’ he murmured to Kully, hoping he sounded approving.

‘Better they do it here than out of doors and get arrested.’

Murals in metallic spray paint adorned all four walls of the Centre – cartoon caricatures of scowling pint-sized hoodlums in outlandishly baggy pants and wraparound shades, carrot-like
reefers jutting from their lips, some toting Russian assault rifles. Incomprehensible slogans and legends were marked up in bold jagged characters, filled with mists of colour. Still, this was a gloomy shed, rank with the reek of the toilet cubicle by the door: in the circumstance, graffiti were not so very unsightly.

He and Kully sat abreast behind a short table,
government-issue
leaflets fanned out across its surface, a hot seat opposite
currently
occupied by diminutive Cliffy, of whom Kully could not seem to get rid, such were his woes. He was pale and freckled, his small eyes wary, a gap between two buck teeth, his sandy hair so thin it already seemed to be receding.

‘They just take the piss out of wuh,’ he was complaining. ‘Doon the Job Centre. Me writin’ and that …’

I hear you
, thought Gore. Like a child new to school he had feared he might be the butt of sniggers. But no one was paying him much mind. He surveyed the dozen or so adolescents
loitering
with little obvious intent. One pair hunched over a computer that had been dragged from cold storage and set on a shaky table. Through a built partition, a pool table and dartboard were the locus of some rowdier activity. But the chief lures were three moulting sofas shoved into a C-shape. A mixed group sat and smoked, lads with their chins in their hands, girls with their hair harshly scraped back. The wardrobe was all sportswear, firehouse red or aqua blue or canary yellow, yet its wearers looked anaemic. Over chugga-chugga music from someone’s improbably
toaster-sized
tape-player they conversed sporadically in a braying argot, thick and complicit.
Is this how you’d talk to adults
, Gore wondered?
At school? Or work?

Such energy as there was seemed to emanate from that games room – the clack of balls, vying cries. Gore stood, politely forsook Cliffy and Kully, and wandered through the doorway. Instantly he knew the boy bent over his baize – the hooked nose in profile, the plump and ruddy face, the close-cut hair. Mackers it was,
straightening
and chewing his inner cheeks. Gore had no trouble
imagining
him ten years hence, planted on a pub stool, caked in drying plaster, sneaking a lunchtime pint with the lads. Mackers’s
opponent 
– cigarette in mouth, his sweatshirt reading
Notorious
– punched him on the arm in passing and settled down to his own shot. Yes, Gore knew this one too. Though his face – sullen,
hollow-cheeked
but handsome – was newly marked by a blackened eye and a two-inch gash over one eyebrow, extravagantly close to a scar, his narrow eyes were memorably hostile. It was the bloke from whom he had endeavoured to rescue young Cheryl
what’s-her-name
some weeks ago on Scoular. If they had yet noticed Gore, they were ignoring him determinedly, and so he stepped closer.