The War of Immensities (12 page)

The chilled
hand of God reached out and touched Lorna as she came in from the
bright sunshine to the shadowland of the church. She shivered as
the holy spirit entered her body, discerned that she was of no
interest and passed on, leaving her sullen and alone.

She walked into
the church fully conscious of the fact that her body, as well as
her mind, exhibited an inappropriate attitude. Her heels clacked on
the floor and rang through the chamber about her, defying any
attempt she might have made to creep along. The cold touched goose
bumps on the flesh above her neckline and made her nipples stick
out prominently. Her blue-green skirt was way too short and her
blatant young thighs were a clear challenge to the sanctity of the
faithful—even St Peter would have been obliged to leer and let her
in through the Pearly Gates, despite a life led as sinfully as her
circumstances allowed. And the green beret perched on her brilliant
red hair was at just the right insolent angle to offend the
stained-glass saints gathered in the windows to right and left.

Lorna was
letting them have it, right below the belt and she knew it as she
pouted sexily and cast her eye about for mischief. But she was as
surprised to be here as Jesus would have been to see her, even if
it had been arranged for a long time. This was the particular
church where Chrissie had planned to be married, on this very day,
just one hour ago in fact, and Lorna had always been projected as
first bridesmaid.

“If the
building doesn’t collapse when you walk in,” Chrissie had
joked.

Well, here she
was and it hadn’t, but they built these places solidly, perhaps for
that very reason. As her eyes accommodated the depths of the vast
chamber before her, she could make out the shiny things and silken
cloths of the altar at the far end of the long aisle. She would
have been standing down there, in the long mauve dress that
Chrissie had planned for her, shoes and handbag to match, her hair
up and flowers woven into it. The other two bridesmaids—John
Burton’s sisters—were flat-chested and protested when they saw the
designs and how their necklines were planned to plunge, for the
dress had been conceived to Lorna’s specifications. Now that bit of
fun would never be had. It was sad, so sad.

Lorna started
to move again, her heels incriminating her, looking to right and
left as she went. There was only one other person in the chamber,
huddled in prayer right down the front, just a lump of hunched
shoulders from Lorna’s perspective, but she knew it had to be
Chrissie—in the saddest and most unloved moment of her life.

Lorna had been
out searching for hours now, at all their friends places and every
bar and cafe they frequented and it only occurred to her very
belatedly that she would be here. Burton the Bastard—well, you
couldn’t blame him really: who’d want to marry the fruitcake that
Chrissie had become—had called it off two months ago when he got
out of hospital after his so-called beloved had bounced a vase off
his head in a fit of irrational jealousy.

It was the
second time she had hospitalised him—on the first she had run him
down in her car when she saw him crossing the road arm in arm with
a female that in her blind rage she had failed to recognise as
being one of his sisters. But it wasn’t just that. Chrissie had
worked herself into such a state of nerves with her mad fears that
this or that would go wrong and the wedding would be a disaster
that, in the end, when it was called off, it came as a blessed
relief.

Chrissie had
lost her driver’s licence, she was on a good behaviour bond, she
had lost her job and all of her friends except Lorna. All this from
Chrissie the Mouse, the quiet thing in the corner whom Lorna had
originally befriended on the ski-slopes because her skinniness made
Lorna look all the more voluptuous and her quietude emphasised
Lorna’s smallest moments of outrageousness.

Now there was
only Lorna left—the falsest of friends had been the truest in the
end. It was she alone who was there to keep count of the pills in
the bathroom cabinet and, eventually, to rush Chrissie to hospital
when she did, at last, make a complete hack of slashing her
wrists.

Lorna made her
way forward, closing in on the pathetic heap in the front pew that
her friend had become. It was Chrissie, all right, who had never
shown pronounced religious leanings in the past, but revealed now
that she knew how to get deeply into prayer. A childhood confined
to a convent had not been a total loss.

One space had
been left as if Chrissie expected her and Lorna sat in it, leaning
back, folding her arms, crossing her legs to give God the very best
aspect of her thighs. Chrissie did not respond, on her knees, hands
locked under her chin, head retracted into her collar like a
turtle, tears dropping from her nose and chin to a not
inconsiderable puddle on the polished timber beneath.

This scene
Lorna regarded for as long as she could stand it. Eventually, she
reached and tapped Chrissie savagely on the shoulder with her
clawlike fingernail.

“Lorna, that
hurts.”

“Pain therapy,
my sweet. To burst you out of your melancholy and back into life.
Get up before I start kicking you.”

“I’m not
melancholy,” Chrissie said, but she did not move.

“Sure you
ain’t. Chrissie, I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

“Yes, I know. I
meant to leave you a note but I forgot.”

“Chrissie,
being here isn’t doing you any good, you know.”

“I’m at peace
here, Lorna. Why don’t you try it? Come on, kneel.”

“No way. Come
on, sit up or I’ll drag you.”

“Just let me
finish this prayer...”

“Not a chance.”
She grabbed her by the shoulders, pausing only to eye the altar in
mock apology. “Sorry to interrupt, Mr God, but I want to talk to
her now. You had your chance and you blew it. Now it’s my
turn.”

“Merde, Lorna,
don’t you know anything about going to church.”

“Only those few
things I haven’t managed to blot out of my memory completely. Come
on, sit like a person. Tell the deity goodbye and talk to me.”

Chrissie
managed a few, doubtless more appropriate, parting words with God
and then wearily moved back to a sitting position. Lorna
immediately saw that the situation was worse than she imagined.
Sure, there were tears still streaking her cheeks and her mascara
was everywhere and her nostrils flaming and lips blubbery, but none
of that was unfamiliar in recent times.

What was
strange was her eyes, which had suddenly taken on a far-away look,
a weird tranquillity and penetration that Lorna had never seen
before. Had the poor girl finally, completely and utterly, tipped
right over the brink?

“Okay,”
Chrissie smiled limply. “What can I do for you?”

“Chrissie, why
torture yourself like this?”

“This isn’t
torture.”

“Oh no? Being
the only person to turn up for your own wedding sounds like torture
to me.”

“I’m not alone.
You’re here. And God is here.”

“Maybe, but him
and me ain’t on speaking terms.”

“You can speak
to Him through me.”

“Cut the crap,
Chrissie. And let’s get you out in the sunshine and away from this
forbidding place.”

“Why don’t you
try opening your heart just a little, Lorna? It can’t be all glass.
God only needs the tiniest crack to shine through.”

“It isn’t my
heart that needs repair, Chrissie.”

“It doesn’t
matter, Lorna. I can do it for both of us.”

“Do what?”

Chrissie
glanced about. She took a tissue from Lorna and began working as
putting her face back together. That, at least, seemed to be a good
place to start.

“I didn’t mean
to come here,” Chrissie said, and then she ran an eye over Lorna’s
appearance and shook her head in dismay. “And I sure didn’t mean to
drag you into this. But I was thinking about what might have
been—you know how I am. Just lying in bed this morning, letting the
thoughts flow.”

“At present,
that is about the most dangerous thing you could do.”

“Well,
suddenly, it hit me. I knew!”

“You knew what,
exactly... or don’t I want to hear it?”

“I had this
image. You know. Me in my wedding dress, standing before the altar
all by myself.”

“I’m thankful
you left the dress at home.”

“All of a
sudden, I knew I wasn’t alone at all. I might not have been
standing in the church for the reason I expected but I was still
standing there for a reason.”

“You lost
me.”

“I was here
because God called me.”

“Oh fuck,
you’re going back to the bloody nunnery, aren’t you?”

“No, silly.
After all those years in the convent which made no impression,
suddenly it happens now.”

“What happened
now, exactly?”

“The ... the
feeling... Whatever it is that sent us running all over like mad
things. Don’t you see? That’s what happened to us.”

“It didn’t
happen to me...”

“That’s why we
went to Australia. We were called there by God.”

Lorna rolled
her eyeballs toward Heaven where, she suspected, many other
eyeballs were also being rolled upward. “I doubt that God is
waiting for anyone in Bendigo.”

“It was just
like Moses being called upon the mount, and Saul to Jerusalem, and
Paul to Rome. We were touched by the hand of God and he drew us
along.”

“I’ll ask God
to keep his bloody maulers to himself, thanks very much.” But she
shivered. She always made her best jokes when completely
unnerved.

Chrissie
gripped her arm, leaning close, her eyes aflame. “Lorna, be serious
for a moment. Wasn’t that how it felt?”

Lorna thought
about it for a micro-second. Yeah, sure, that was how it felt.
Lorna and Chrissie, goeth down to Bendigo and sayeth unto them, yet
forty days and Bondi Beach will be destroyed... It would have made
sense, had it not been so bloody ridiculous.

“What were we
supposed to do, Chrissie? Lead the Children of New Zealand back to
the land of milk and honey that they broke their necks to get away
from?”

“It would help
if you would take this seriously, Lorna.”

“I’d need to be
omnipotent to do that.”

“Lorna, whether
you believe it or not, we were drawn to Australia and it was
obviously for some purpose known only to God.”

“That much I
believe. So fucking what? God’s purpose fizzled.”

“No. You said
it yourself that morning. We didn’t get to wherever we were
supposed to go.”

“No one ever
does.”

“We will next
time.”

“There isn’t
going to be a next time.”

“Oh yes there
is. And right away. Lorna, can’t you feel it?”

Lorna reared
back, no longer mocking as she stared. “Feel what?”

Chrissie
tightened the grip on her arm and her eyes with her newfound
limpidity stared into those of her horrified friend.

“Lorna, it’s
happening again.”

One of the
women ran on ahead to raise the alarm at the mission station.

“Demons!” she
was shrieking as she rushed about the dusty courtyard. “The demons
are taking our men!”

She might have
been possessed by the demons herself, such was her state of
hysteria as she finally collapsed in Padre Miguel’s arms.

“The demons
have turned them into zombies.”

Padre Miguel
needed no further explanation. He might have come to this island
from Morocco and before that Spain but he knew all there was to
know about demons, zombies, and throbbing rituals that drove women
to a frenzied hysteria.

He rose, giving
brief instructions to the sister regarding the sedation of the
woman, whom he recognised as one of those from the village directly
above the mission. He started walking in the direction of the
village—the woman’s arms had flailed generally in that direction
anyway, but he didn’t have to go far before he heard the commotion
coming down the path toward him. Female voices, shrieking in
terror, pleading in desperation. It was just a few minutes after
dawn when the men ought to have been heading down the other path to
their skiffs in the roadstead and the day’s fishing. Certainly it
was far to early for such agitation under any circumstances.

Padre Miguel
backed off, returning to the hospital grounds. Plainly the problem,
whatever it may be, was coming to him. They were such a skittish
lot, right along this coast, full of mysteries and rituals and
legends. He called to the sisters, ordering more sedatives, bracing
himself with a brief prayer, and stood in the middle of the
courtyard and waited. The commotion advanced right to him although
what worried him more was a brief moment when the breeze carried
voices from farther off, from another of the villages further away,
where a similar cackle of women’s frantic voices seemed
evident.

The first of
the men entered the camp. They were, indeed, zombies. Padre Miguel
had seen this before, often, but only ever at night when drink and
drugs drove the men to this catatonic state during the satanic
rituals. They walked steadily, eyes wide and unseeing, offering no
response to the women who clawed and buffeted them and shrieked in
their ears. There were about thirty men in all, the full complement
of fishermen from the upper village, he assessed, and every one of
them possessed by the same demons. This was going to take some
stopping.

“Don’t worry
about the women,” he shouted to the considerable band of helpers
that he accumulated behind him. “Stop the men.”

No one moved.
They all knew that such demonic possession was contagious and to
touch the victim was to expose yourself to the risk that the demons
would transfer through the contacting flesh. That the women were
seemingly unaffected did not deny this logic—they were assumed to
be under attack by their own demons, which they certainly seemed to
be.