Although it could be, in his finer moments, that Douglas did okay. Blessing him might be an imposition and he might, in actuality, already walk along narrow paths of peace and cleanliness and have been born for nothing else. You never knew with Douglas.
The bell sounding to bid them stand, Doug was up and swaying from heel to toe with perhaps anticipation and perhaps unease. A welcome, quite sincere, was issued and then a civilian gave the initial reading, which spoke of God commanding Abraham to murder Isaac.
‘Kill your son for me.’
‘All right, then.’
Which was a bit of a weird choice, given the season and the presence of youngsters, although there was, Doug supposed, the happy ending after the period of mountain-climbing and suspense.
‘On you come, then Isaac. We’re there. Sorry again and all that. God’s orders.’
‘Thanks for letting me get my breath back.’
‘Well, that won’t be permanent.’
‘What?’
‘Least I could do, son — give you a bit of a pause. If there was any other option. .’
‘No, it’s fine. I’ll be fine. Not to fret.’
And then God sweeping in with, ‘ABRAHAM, ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND? OF COURSE DON’T DO IT. WHY WOULD I ASK YOU TO DO IT?’
‘You did ask me to do it.’
‘I WASN’T SERIOUS.’
‘I’ve a knife at my son’s throat, we’re both exhausted and you’re not serious. What’s he going to think of me hereafter?’
‘It’s fine, Dad, I said.’
‘I cut him a bit. Look. Shaky hands and that.’
‘I didn’t feel it.’
‘He’ll not be taking voluntary country strolls with me now, God, will he? He’ll be watching the cutlery at mealtimes is what he’ll be doing. Asking me to kill my son. .’
WELL, YOU’LL DO IT TO ME LATER.
‘What?’
AND I’LL LET YOU.
‘Sometimes, honest to God, God, I’ve got no idea what you’re on about. I’m not sure that you do, either.’
LEAVE ME BE.
‘I’m fine, Dad. I’m fine, God.’
DON’T BE RIDICULOUS, OF COURSE YOU’RE NOT FINE AND DON’T CONTRADICT ME. I KNOW EXACTLY HOW YOU ARE. AND YOU DID FEEL IT.
When Doug thought about it, he was pretty quickly sure — as usual — that no one should think about it, no one should consider anything to do with God. Drowning everyone and then inventing rainbows to make up for any inconvenience and THIS SHALL BE A SIGN THAT I WON’T DROWN THE WHOLE SAD PACK OF YOU AGAIN WHEN I FEEL LIKE and then Job being given it hard from every possible direction to basically settle a bet; the Bible did tend to show that God could not be relied upon for much, would turn your wife into a pillar of condiment, would tempt you, plague you, write on your wall, send you dreams that would leave reality tasteless for you, grey-bland.
Doug let his attention romp about a while to save deeper confusions and the outbreak of resentment.
Set in a niche on the opposite side of the church to his own was a statue of God’s mother, who bore God’s son — and who was therefore God’s wife as well, God help her and he did — with only the minimum of warning.
Blue cloak and the star-scattered halo, one foot pressing definitively on a willing, or shocked, or semi-conscious snake.
First carol.
What he came for, the singing. That was his sole aim.
Say what you like about Doug, he was a reckless singer. Out of practice and not able for the higher notes — because how long is it really since he’s sung anything — but he rattles his voice and efforts in amongst the comingbacktohim words and does his utmost with head up and slightly the manner of the child he could have been, had he ever existed. Decades ago, Douglas could have been prone to white aches of passion for an unhuman love and the hope of bigwingedwarmwinged angels with serious eyes and the glow of a wise and approachable baby, laid out amongst animals and presents, like one more of both at once when animals and presents were the greatest things.
He remembered feeling that kids always understood kids. And Doug perhaps shared the common opinion that you could rely on the golden baby to see your side of it. By spring, the tender nipper would have grown up scary, harmed, and that would be totally down to you. He would be an elaborate reproach. It was only at Christmas that he was okay.
The subsequent reading stepped back within more prudent limits — Mary getting her tidings and even another baby on the way to another mother, a mother without hope, and NOTHING WILL BE IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD, which might be as much a threat as any type of promise. There should be a line between impossible and possible, there shouldn’t be crossing and seeping, elsewise the world becomes a trick and not a place, not a home. This was Doug’s opinion.
A lullaby passed and then an anthem, familiar.
The Mary statue over the way remained unimpressed, God-baby in the crook of her arm, but her eyes not towards it — no, both of them were fixing on the middle distance and matters incomprehensible to most.
Wise men arrived and were foolish and spoke, as ever, incautiously and innocents were ended and shepherds had their naked sky torn across by heralds, a night full of terror and din and this need to travel. In Doug’s, or someone’s, head the passages tumbled together until they were refined into one lunchtime at primary school — somebody’s authentic recollection — when a boy spoke up loud and talked about the manger. Gentle word, manger. He took it to be a kind of cradle.
The boy remained a boy for only the usual period. Then he was, as recommended, put away with the other childish things.
And Mary set her foot over the snake, because she could and because it was Sin and she was not. And in the Original Garden, deep at the start of ourselves, Eve was led astray by the serpent and, that so long time afterwards, Mary wasn’t. And plainly the snake is, more properly, the bad maleness of man, the writhing soft-hard wickedness he carries ahead of him into his life, the heat he goes astray with. Mary stamps on it. Bad boy and she stamps it flat.
She reminds the more thoughtful, the put-away boys, that the beast was only cursed to go on its belly after it gave man and woman the knowledge of how they were shaped to fit each other sweetly and, furthermore, shaped for wide, mad catalogues of other pleasure. This meant that, before the curse, there were legs maybe, legs and arms and elbows maybe, the presence of some other, unrecorded man in Eden maybe, one who knew what he was all about and who spread the word and then was reduced to his essence in animal form: side-winding lust with a tongue in flickers and hard eyes.
Doug flinched somewhere at the sharp idea of it. He was quite sensitive, Doug.
I MADE YOU AND HELL MEND YOU.
Which was hardly fair.
DID I SAY IT WOULD BE?
And now another tune washed over him from childhood and shook loose something, nothing, some emptiness that wanted to be filled with apples and angels and promises and releases from sacrifice.
This was customary; you wanted it in a Christmas service: an opportunity to weep.
Douglas, or whoever, shivered and the snag and heave and braveness in his breath surprised him. Wipe at the eyes when he sat and no shame about it.
Before this lifting up of prayers started, the guy with the lectern, quiet and sincere, deliberately named the anxious and lonely and fearful and so forth.
He took pains to make his audience aware of them.