Crusaders Page 51

  ‘No thank you, Jack, I’ve been fed.’

  ‘My, you’re a misery. The pair of you.’ And Susan flounced away, presumably to find the fun-loving people.

  Ridley and Gore stood awhile. Gore found nothing to say.

  ‘Was a church dance that Meg and I met, matter of fact. 1951. Not a great deal like this un, I might add.’

  Gore tried a smile, wondering how long he was reasonably bound to stay.

  ‘Busying yourself, eh, John? I saw you’d an advert in our church gazette. Looking to go freelance, are you?’

  ‘I’m told I might have to … I don’t know. Sorry Jack, I’m not quite functional tonight.’

  Ridley looked on as if unsurprised.

  ‘Fact is, I’m in a – I’ve got a few bits of bother.’

  ‘Oh aye? Owt I can help you with?’

  ‘You’ve done more than sufficient. Anyhow. I know your feelings.’

  ‘I see. Heavy mob then, is it? I’m sorry to hear that.’

  Ridley was watching him, he knew, as he watched others sightlessly.

  ‘I’d not want to see you stuck. Not if there was summat.’

  Gore exhaled. ‘I could maybe do with … your advice.’

  Ridley nodded in satisfaction. ‘Well, I’ll call on you the morra morning. Good and early, like. Before you start your shift.’

  The volume of the pop music had faded out and up on the stage some poodle-headed musicians in shiny shirts and skinny denims were tweaking and plucking their instruments. Simon Barlow skipped across wires and packing cases to grasp the frontman’s microphone stand.

  ‘We on? Okay, good evening everybody. Most of you know me, but to one and all let me say a big welcome to St Luke’s School, where we’ve been trying lately to bring God’s word to a whole new service. But it ain’t easy, folks. And tonight is all about lending a hand to that cause. So thanks a million to you for coming. Special thanks to Stuart and Tina Grieveson, you guys, great efforts as always. And most of all, thanks be to Jesus, praise Him, cos I feel his presence tonight, and I think you do too.’

  Gore heard Barlow’s dedication being echoed keenly all around him.

  ‘Now I just want to take a moment here, cos I’d like to share with you, if I may, a personal feeling.’

  Barlow bit his lip, raised his eyes, nodded as if affirmed.

  ‘Y’know, God was never cool when I was a kid growing up in Essex. My mates, they were mods, punks. Some of ’em wore blouses and girls’ make-up. Like that was cool. Bit confused, you might say. Now don’t get me wrong, me and the boys in Christian Union, we didn’t look a whole lot better. They said we were a load of spotty Herberts with body odour and bowl haircuts. And you know what? They weren’t so far wrong. That was me, oh yes, my brothers and sisters, I was that Herbert …’

  Barlow stroked his goatee, acknowledged the warm and encouraging laughter with his own skewed smile. An actor, thought Gore, at the peak of his powers.

  ‘Tell you what, but – I look back and I think, who looks silly now, eh? Cos the way I see it – atheism is yesterday’s thing, it’s last year’s colour. But one thing that’s never out of fashion is God’s word. Yesterday, today, for ever … I don’t want to start preaching here. I see some of you, you’re thinking, “Off he goes …” No, but I want to say is, it’s right that we take some time and care with how we look. We should try to make ourselves more presentable, more approachable. Change the old stereotypes. But, see, I look around at you people and I see a great-looking bunch. And most of all I want Christian men and women in this country of ours to never, ever be ashamed of who they are in front of their peers. Because you are the silent minority. Good people, hard-working families. I always say, you don’t have to be saints to join our church, you just have to want to hear the good word, and want to live by it. So let’s not go about it quietly, let’s not hide our light in a corner, when it’s the culture around us that’s the problem. The media doesn’t want to hear us, we know that. But we need to let this culture know we reject it. We’re going to go our own way, make our own spaces, our own arrangements. Cos our faith is far stronger than the cynics and the trendies. And if the culture’s not careful, hey – it’s gonna look around one day and find that our numbers are stronger too. How about that, eh? Can you wait for that day?’

  This struck Gore as vintage Barlow – the switchblade holstered by the cross.

  ‘Now you’ll have been given a little something to read about The Shield Society as you came in, and if you’ve not come across us before and you’re interested then please do look us up.’

  It was only now that Gore thought to glance at the pamphlets crumpled in his hand. On the front of each was the logo of a red cross within a white shield – a Crusader shield, as the history books would call it.

  ‘Now tell you what, though – all those people who say God’s not cool? I tell ’em, “Listen, mate, you need to hear God’s rhythm. Alright!”’ He punched the air. ‘I said alright!’

  Fists were aloft in the audience too. Gore ground his fists deeper into his pockets.

  ‘Now, it’s my very great pleasure to introduce the band, they’re friends of mine, they make a brilliant sound, and if you like what you hear then the CD’s for sale at the door. So please give a hand for the mighty Sentinel …’

  Barlow led the clapping as he departed the stage, the drumsticks clicked and the band struck up on a synthesised current of airy rock, the vocalist squinting as he wrapped himself round the mic stand.

  Heavenly trumpets, all around, angels singing, do you hear that sound?

  Join the queue, at the gate of life, son and daughter, man and wife …

  He should have walked right then, replete as he was feeling with the teeth-baring self-love of certain parties. And yet he let himself drift into desultory small talk with Archdeacon Mercer, knowing this for a hopeless cause even before Barlow muscled into it.

  ‘A rousing address to the troops there, Simon,’ Mercer nodded.

  ‘Well, you know my thing. It’s all about the grass roots, that’s how we’ll thrive. Make the congregation the driving force. Not to usurp your role, Michael. But nobody wants too many straitjackets and committees on high. Give the people their head. My troops know what to do – long as they’ve been properly rallied.’ He glanced at Gore.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ Gore murmured. ‘Give it another six months and you’ll be ready to invade Poland.’ And he smiled over the startled brows as Henry March drew near. Barlow seemed to be scowling too at a sparkling stud in Henry’s ear, though Gore could see a silver hoop in Barlow’s own left lobe.

  ‘John, what time should I stop selling raffle tickets?’

  ‘Uh, whenever you like.’

  ‘No, you want to crack on, mate.’ Barlow was testy. ‘It’s all good money, John. Least another half-hour.’

  Henry nodded coolly. ‘John, something else. Can I talk to you?’

  ‘Of course, what is it?’

  ‘Just a little problem on the door …’

  ‘Oh dear, John,’ smirked Barlow, visibly cheered. ‘Where’s your skinheads when we need them?’

  Henry hastened Gore aside. ‘John, there’s a couple of girls just rocked up and I’d say they’ve got plenty drink onboard. I only asked for the door fee and they said something a bit unrepeatable.’

  ‘Well, Henry, they probably shouldn’t come in. Are they –?’

  ‘No, but they’re already in, see. Thing is, they said they know you.’

  The frame very suddenly found focus. ‘Did one of these girls have her hair very short?’

  Henry nodded. ‘Oh yeah. Thing is, they just steamed past us and went off. I’m worried they might be on the loose round the school.’

  *

  He wandered the cool and darkened corridors, through patches of clean moonlight on the linoleum, passing each closed and silent classroom. As the hubbub from the hall receded, replaced by the carbolic odour rising from the floors, Gore felt a kind of relief suffuse him – the disap
pearing act, his favourite trick. And tonight it had a special utility. The illusion of solitude persisted for some privileged moments before his ears picked up exuberant feminine giggles, drifting from around the next corner.

  There before the Year Two art board were Lindy and her young Slavic friend, in clingy frocks and high spirits.

  As he drew near they were unabashed. Even in the half-light he could see Lindy’s self-satisfied slightly inebriate smile as she pushed a drawing pin through one of her son’s drawings, so reinstating it in prime position.

  ‘Oh, hi you. What do you think of that?’

  There was, he had to admit, a certain justice.

  ‘You’ve met Yulia, haven’t you? Doesn’t she look nice?’

  The Slav girl was in a pink dress like a shiny tube that pressed her slight figure flat, suspended by spaghetti straps running up to a neck-piece. He recognised Lindy’s black halter dress with its ruched tutu-like hem, for he had seen it hanging in her bedroom. Side by side they were like a pair of rowdy cocktail princesses.

  ‘Have you just come to take the piss?’ he murmured.

  ‘Whey, naw, John. Come to see you. And to take the piss.’ More giggles.

  Gore heard squeaking steps behind him. It was Henry.

  ‘There you are. Barlow wants you. The band are finished and he says you need to say a few words?’

  Lindy tilted her chin at the younger churchman. ‘He’s handy at that. Sorry about earlier, mate, no offence. I can be a bit of a cee-you-en-tee meself sometimes.’

  Playtime over, back to the hall Gore strode, shoulder to shoulder with Henry, the snorting mirth of the ladies audible in his wake. Through the hall he ploughed, toward the stage that lay in wait. From his vantage at its side Barlow offered Gore an unfriendly nod and a hastening gesture.

  He grasped the microphone. ‘Good evening. One or two of you may know me, I’m John Gore, the vicar of this, uh, this little experiment. I really don’t want to take up much of your time – or any of it, really – not with all the fine entertainment. To our visitors I just want to say I do appreciate your efforts and donations on our behalf, and for sprucing the place up. We’re a poor man’s church and here you’re quite turning our heads. And those of you who have come before, well … we’re up and running now, and I trust we’ve got accustomed to one another, and in a few places I hope I’ve made some impact.’

  A whistle pierced the air, eliciting a murmur that wasn’t quite approving.

  Gore stepped down to perfunctory applause and found the girls pestering Stuart at the record decks, he delving with one hand into a wooden crate.

  ‘Have you not got the Fugees, man? Not got owt good, have you?’

  ‘No, I reckon … I’ve got the single, it’s just at the bottom. It’s jammed into a bit of a crack, like.’

  Lindy laughed hard, causing Yulia too to spit her punch back into her cup.

  Gore angled his brow at Lindy. ‘Having fun, are we?’

  ‘Fun? Get away. I’m trying, but. Divvint worry, John, I’d never ever not want you to think well of us.’

  She had been drinking, undoubtedly, but her exuberance seemed made out of something stronger, some more potent spirit within – an aggression, he would have called it, and a quality quite apart from the razor-cut hair. For her lips had their mauve gloss, her black-lined eyes their brazen sparkle, and in that dress she was irrefutably girly.

  The lights were a little dimmer and it seemed that Lindy’s record was playing, a slow number, a woman’s creamy voice against spare percussive backing – her choice it surely was, for now she was hopping around him, making up to him, swaying and making diving shapes with her hands, mischief in those eyes.

  She giggled, grabbed the hem of her cocktail dress and flipped it, then stuck out her tongue.

  It was a sort of a challenge, Gore knew, for as usual he could feel unfriendly eyes trained on him. In former days he might have felt the skin prickling all across his body, the dire need to recede into the wall. But to defer to the decorum of these suburban crusaders seemed to offer nothing in return. Whereas this irrepressible woman now courting his attention was one with whom, after all, he had enjoyed some strenuous intercourse. It was with a very sudden relish that he realised the censors and the spoilsports could all take a running jump into the Tyne.

  As she weaved about him, he made himself move from foot to foot on the spot. However foolish he felt, Lindy’s face seemed puckishly pleased – not, at least, contemptuous. It was only as she veered a little to the starboard side, ramming the rear of an unfamiliar couple, that Gore decided she should probably be escorted homeward. When he wrapped an arm round her shoulder and guided her aside he was relieved to find her willing.

  ‘Not ducking out, are you, John?’ was Barlow’s curt goodbye.

  ‘Yeah. I expect you’ll manage. Good luck in Poland.’

  *

  It hardly surprised Gore that tonight’s sitter at number thirty-two was a lithe and dimunitive Asian girl, Eskimo-like as she zipped herself into a voluminous quilted parka.

  ‘What did Lindy say she’d give you?’

  ‘Ah, she say thirty pound? Cos it Saturday yah?’

  This was the extent of what Gore had in his wallet. As he handed over the notes he peered past the girl’s padded shoulder to the drained bottle of Smirnoff Red and smudged glasses on Lindy’s low coffee table. This, he assumed, was one the cocktail princesses had polished off earlier.

  Upstairs he found her in half-light stretched out and slumbering on her bed, one knee raised and lolling to the right so that the short dress rode up and exposed her lacy black crotch. As he knelt upon the mattress she rolled onto her right side. He lay down behind her, heard a low snuffled snore. There were goosepimples running down her bare left arm. The framboise brush-strokes on her cheekbones had smeared sadly. He curled his body into hers, wrapped an arm around her. The surface of the duvet was cold and he felt sluggish, a little sick, but consoled by this closeness to her.

  It was, he understood now, a gift she had given him, not yet revoked – not quite. For a while he hadn’t dared seize it for himself, preferring to hole up in his cloister. But still, she had given this gift of herself – her sweet, somewhat strained, somewhat distraining person. He believed he could now see something of the novelty this had wrought upon her. For a while his imagination had failed to extend quite so far. And yet, casting his mind back across her moods and manners since the first real day of their acquaintance – the earnestness, the demands, the dissatisfaction – he saw it now. She had invested some version of hope in him – had needed him, even if that need was never expressed in quite the moment or manner he thought appropriate.

  And for his own part, had she not been a vulnerable embodiment of hope itself? Whatever his failings or misgivings, he had, for once in his life, conducted a romance. This strange Saturday night – hateful at times, at others unnerving – now seemed to him a promising turn in the affair.

  She stirred a little under his touch, clasped hold of the hand that lay across her breast. He snuggled closer, cradling her head with his free arm, pressed his nose and mouth to the back of her neck. The slight scent was citric, teasing, delightful. In which little coloured bottle had she dabbled this evening? Loulou? CK One? Her head twisted, she half-moaned and found his lips with hers. It was a kind of goodnight kiss, soft, lips brushing, until he felt her tongue fluttering at his, her warm tail shifting into his lap. He reached and ran his fingers up her thigh, under the tutu-like skirt, to the fine mesh. There was a yearning hollow in his stomach, the desire to get inside of her was very suddenly insistent. She turned her body into him, now fully alert. But her kiss was withdrawn.

  ‘You’ve still got your costume on.’

  ‘So have you.’

  ‘I mean the head on your Guinness. Get it off, man. Looks daft.’

  She tugged at his clerical collar, held by twin studs inside his high-necked shirt. ‘Dunno why you bother. With all that lot.’ As he groped to detach
it she rolled aside, yawning. ‘Oh aye, I remember, you had that feeling …’

  As he set the collar on the bedside table he heard it – muted but unmistakeable, the childish jingle-jangle of a mobile phone. She groaned and delved into the clutch bag on the floor at her side.

  ‘I didn’t know you had one of those …’

  ‘It’s just for work. He’d not pay the bill otherwise.’

  ‘Can’t you leave it?’

  ‘It’s work, man.’ She was already stabbing a button and pressing the phone to her ear. ‘Aye? Aye … Aw God. Whass the matter wi’ her? … Aw fuck … No, I’m not saying that, just give us ten fucking minutes, man … Alright.’

  She sat up, wincing, and rubbed at her eye with the flat of a palm.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Bother. He needs us the night. At the club.’

  ‘Teflon?’ In reply she nodded. ‘Really?’

  ‘Aye really. One of the bar girls, Jane, she got a smack in the face off some gadgy. They’ve had to take her to the General.’

  ‘Right. Lovely. And you’re next into the ring?’

  She had hoisted herself from recumbent and was rifling her clothes rail, reaching below the hangers where an assortment of footwear was piled up in mounds.

  ‘Lindy, I’m saying, it’s ten o’clock at night.’

  ‘I know that, John. Late for you, I know.’

  From the rack she plucked the black leather miniskirt and a white scoop-neck top, and tossed them onto the bed next to Gore.

  ‘And how do you plan on getting there?’

  ‘He’s coming to fetch us,’ she sighed, reaching behind herself to unzip the short dress.

  ‘So you just drop everything? A bell rings and you answer?’

  ‘I’ve not got a choice, John, I need the work, in case you’ve not noticed.’

  Gore got to his feet. ‘He gives you money anyway, doesn’t he?’

  ‘I’m not a charity case. I’ve gotta earn me keep.’