He had walked for an hour around the roads, in and out of cul-de-sacs, down avenues full of houses. Car in the drive, lights in the windows. Car in the drive. Lights in the windows. On and on. He had come out near the Hill and thought he might climb up there but it was pitch black and he had no torch. He had walked back, veered off, not wanting to go home, walked halfway into the town but changed his mind and walked back again. He didn’t want to meet anyone, couldn’t talk. What he wanted to do was cry. He wasn’t angry with his mother, though he didn’t understand her, but maybe it was the shock of the accident, maybe she didn’t know what she was doing. Maybe? He was sad and upset. Phil Russell. OK, so he, Tom, was off to the States, leaving home, and would have little to do with him, but the knowledge that Phil Russell was his stepfather, had married his mother and was filling her mind and heart full of atheistic poison, sneering at the Bible, turning her against it with clever intellectual talk, making her feel a fool, probably stopping her going to the cathedral singers c He knew in his heart that God was asking him to stop this thing, that Jesus was relying on him to bring his mother to salvation and Tom wanted to, but on his own it seemed impossible.
“You are not on your own, Tom,” a voice said in his heart. “Behold, I am with you always, even to the ending of the world.”
He smiled. The fleeces of the two small boys glowed.
“For my sake,” the voice said, “is there not more rejoicing over one lamb which was lost and is now found c”
“Yea, Lord,” he said, “bless your name. I know it’s down to me, I know what you’re asking me to do. It’s just c”
“Nothing is too difficult for God. Ask and ye shall receive. Knock and it shall be opened to you.”
The woman next to him clutched his arm and the room was filled with the babble of people speaking in tongues. She spoke in tongues. Her eyes were rolling. Tom tried to move her hand gently from his arm but her grip was too strong.
“Amma jambagrisalamoralamma fornamo jammay jammay canfalabedei.”
Tom opened his own mouth, trying to remember what he had been taught by the pastor after his baptism.
Relax, take a deep breath, let it out slowly, and focus your mind on the God and the Lord who love you immeasurably. Thank them for having filled you with the Holy Spirit, take another breath, and let it rip—speak forth words of praise, thanksgiving, and worship. And that is exactly what you will be speaking. And be BOLD—the words you are hearing are the proof that Jesus is alive and well—and that so will you be—forever! It cost him his life for you to be able to praise and worship God in this wonderful way, so get into it!
He closed his eyes again but by now the pastor was back on his feet, waving his Bible and calling out to them to hear the words of Jesus.
“‘Come to me, all ye that labour and are carrying a heavy burden. I will give you rest.’”
“Which of you here works hard to pay the rent, to fuel the mortgage, to feed the little ones, to buy the clothes, to run the car? Which of you gets up before light and trudges off to a job they don’t much care for and stays at it all day and trudges back home in the evening, tired out? Which of you here? I guess all of you here, those of you of an age to be in work. And those too young, well, I guess you go to school, don’t you, you sit through your classes and do your homework, day after day. You carry a heavy burden. Now what does the Lord Jesus say? Does he say I will give you a load of riches so you can stop work and fly to Florida and lie by a pool all day? Does he say, OK, I’ll see to it that you quit school and have fun all day and never have to learn a spelling or a chemistry formula ever again, Ay-men? No, he does NOT. What he says is, “I will give you rest,” but does this mean idleness. It does NOT! Was Jesus idle? Were the disciples idle? No, they were NOT. The words of Jesus need to be thought through. Rest. I will give you rest c”
Feet shuffled. Someone sneezed violently. The boy in the blue fleece pinched the boy in the red one. The woman next to him leaned against Tom. He moved away and she leaned further. She smelled of fish.
He hung about the chapel after they had all left, until the pastor came out from the side room to tidy up.
“Tom? Sorry not to have you up there playing for us tonight—everything all right?”
He came nearer, looked closely. Sat down beside him.
“You don’t look good. You hear the words of God just now? ‘Come to me all ye that are burdened’? Whatever’s wrong, boy, take the words to heart.”
“I’m trying. It’s just—difficult.”
“I’m here for you if you want to talk, but if not, try Jesus. He’s always there for you.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“So c I’ll just get on with the clearing up, you do what you decide to do, Tom. We’re both of us right next to you.”
“Thanks.”
He bent his head. The floorboards were scuffed and dirt-stained. Thousands of feet, he thought, thousands of feet.
He didn’t know if he wanted to talk to the pastor or not but he couldn’t talk to God, and in any case, why should he need to, he knew his innermost heart, he knew what was wrong. He ought to do something to sort it, that was all, he ought to stop it happening. He couldn’t want this marriage, Helen Creedy to a militant, arrogant, atheist who sneered at Jesus and had once drawn a pair of spectacles on his image on one of Tom’s leaflets. His mother wasn’t reborn yet but she was a good person, he knew it was only a matter of time before she saw the light and welcomed Jesus into her life, but there wasn’t any hope for Phil Russell and if she married him c
No, you couldn’t say there wasn’t any hope. There was hope for everyone to turn to Jesus before it was too late. Only just now Tom couldn’t see how it would ever happen to Phil. Proud and stiff-necked, he thought. That was him. The Bible always had the right phrase somewhere.
The pastor banged shut the wooden box full of hymn books and paused.
“Tom, I have to go in ten.”
Tom got to his feet.
“You need to talk through something, give me a call. I’m back in later, you ring me, now? No fretting, OK?”
“OK. Thanks.”
“You on your motorbike? Frighten the pants off me those things.”
Tom laughed and followed him out. The bike was parked up in the schoolyard next door and when he had trundled it to the gate and buckled his helmet he sat for a moment looking down the street. He couldn’t have told the pastor but while he had been there on his own in the chapel, he had prayed for the last time to be told what to do and it had come into his head at once, shocking him, taking his breath away. But the voice had been clear. The words had been unmistakable. He didn’t under stand why this was what he should do because it was so off the wall, he’d never expected anything like it. But the more he thought about it now, sitting astride the machine in the evening dark, the more it seemed the right thing and clear. If nothing else, it would wake her, make her understand, show her the right way, this would. That was why he had to do it. It wasn’t for himself, it was for her. The sacrifice was for her. She might not see it straight away but she would see it pretty soon because that was what his answer had been and God’s answer could never be wrong.
He kicked the bike into a roar and turned out of the gate. Behind him, locking up, the pastor shook his head and said a word of prayer for the boy not to speed into an accident.
Sixty-five
“You’re happy with all of this, I take it?” Peter Wakelin asked again.
“It all seems fine.”
“I’m not very good at delegating, I’m afraid.”
Jane laughed. “That much I gathered. Honestly, Peter, the place will still be standing when you get back.” She got up and gathered the papers on the table into her folder. It was a mild morning with shafts of sun breaking through the inevitable Cambridge mist. She wondered how many more times the Dean would want to go through the arrangements and timetables for everything due to take place during his absence. Now she had her doctorate supervisor to see and an undergraduate to visit in the acute psychiatric ward, but as she reached the door, Peter Wakelin said, “Jane—are you busy later?”