David

This one’s a tricky one. I’ve struggled for a month over whether to publish it or not. Partly cos I’m not really sure about it myself but partly cos I’m not sure what you’ll all make of it…

After some consideration, I decided to post it and let you decide.

If nothing else, it is honest. If a bit sweary…

I should also mention it fits in several years before the first Outdrawn chapter.

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David had never married. He wasn’t sure he’d ever had the opportunity, and it seemed rather too late now. Life had taken him down a different road, and he did have friends.

Well, he supposed they were his friends – his parishioners certainly treated him very well. A lot of them were quite a few years older than him but there were the families that came along too – mostly mums with kids. There were Dads of course but they mostly had sport and DIY, and other friends… so they were busy on Sundays. But the families were lovely – the mums tended to cluster around before and after services with a little orbiting swarm of children. It brought it bit of life to the place, and stopped it smelling too much of mothballs. And everyone was always very kind as they left services.

It was a calling of course. One didn’t join the clergy for the benefits… but the calling bit seemed a bit of a distant echo nowadays. Not so much a call as a memory – indelible, but fuzzy and a bit indistinct. Like a faded tattoo.

You had to believe in God. 

Obviously. 

But it worried him lately. He did believe, he supposed. He certainly knew a lot about how you should behave when you believed. It just seemed a bit… well a bit unnecessary. Like an optional extra that most people seemed to manage just fine without.

Or it had until yesterday. 

He strode along the narrow path past the damp swings and slides only a little aware of the drizzle, calling a few automatic Good Mornings to familiar faces but otherwise lost in a determination to reach the church. Reaching the top of the grassy park, he caught sight of the spire of St Edwards and stopped, slightly nervous.

Tim’s funeral had shaken him. He suddenly wasn’t sure he was ready to be in that space again. The drizzle was starting to accumulate on his glasses and he shivered a little. Not so much from the cold but more a reaction to the sheer bleakness of the day.

Just on his right stood the little Methodist chapel. He walked past almost every day but couldn’t remember ever visiting. Right now though, the door stood open and he could see a little artificial Christmas tree lit with colourful lights. The kind he remembered from warm simple Christmases, before there had had to be Meaning in it. Just a magic and mystery that invited wonder, and needed no theology.

Hesitantly he opened the little gate and walked up the stone pathway, around the puddle by the door, and into the tiny entrance porch. It smelled of dusty books and old crayons. He stepped further in, past a stack of plastic chairs to the closest row of pews. The floorboards squeaked through the thin blue carpet as he glanced around: there appeared to be no one else there.

The dull light from the windows barely lit the small sanctuary and the tree lights sent soft coloured shadows up the wall to his right. As his aloneness sunk in he relaxed, breathing out slowly and audibly.

“You know you let her down? You screwed up…”

The voice startled him, even though it was his own. The syllables fell dead in the stifling silence.

“… you let Emma down because she deserved better than that. To have her husband taken away, like… like… well, like that! You know…

…In fact you knew… Didn’t you? Before it happened. ”

David stopped and stared again at the little Christmas tree.

“…But it still happened. Right before Christmas…

And Lucy…”

His voice broke, “…her Dad… at Christmas. For f*ck sake … how does that even begin to make sense?”

The expletive shattered into the sacred little space around him.

“I’m not bloody covering for you! I won’t justify it… it’s wrong. I feel… I feel…”

He stopped, struggling for expression.

“I feel like the ambassador for some sh*tty little banana republic… like you expect me to tell the world that it’s really all ok. That you really are actually the good guy…”

The drizzle had turned to rain and a sudden gust clattered against the windows. Years of stuffed-down theology rose and was swept aside by a furious childlike indignation. He looked to the front of the chapel, at the simple manger scene beneath a rather spindly cross.

“And if you coming down to be with us… and dying… and all that stuff I keep bleating on about, that stuff I keep telling people about… if that’s meant to make things better, it’s not working. It’s not working… it’s not helping here. It can’t bring Tim back to Emma and Lucy.

And all that crap about resurrection and living forever? It’s not bringing Lucy’s daddy back is it?

It’s not bringing Emma’s husband back…

It’s not bringing my friend back.”

He felt scared, like he was leaving the safe places he knew… he paused nervously, but it felt also expansive. It felt necessary, and scary, and safer than he expected. Reserves of unexpressed frustration drove him on and he spoke, more quietly but firmly.

“I did the stuff I was supposed to… I led the funeral and said all the words. You know that, because if any of this whole charade is true then you were there… and you saw. You saw Emma and Lucy… you saw them crying. You saw them like I did.

And all I had was a bunch of stupid words. You had more. Surely you had more? Surely – because if you’re anything like I’ve been telling people for years then you must have more. But you did nothing. There was no resurrection… I saw no comfort… I saw no wiping away of tears. Only Emma, desperately trying to keep it together for Lucy’s sake because the one person she needed the most right then was the one you took away. The one you allowed to be taken. By depression… illness, whatever.”

The last sentence came slower… more quietly.

“If you had come when they asked… if you had cared enough… then none of this would have happened.”

David looked around the now-silent chapel. It was cold enough that the breath from his last few words still hovered. The rain was tapping at the glass and the colours from the tree still flickered on the wall; pink, then green, then blue.

He walked slowly to the front of the church. A simple wooden communion rail stood between him and the rather basic nativity scene. A thin-legged wooden manger was flanked by a couple of child-sized chairs covered with some kind of fleece. In the manger some prickly straw awaited the arrival of a plastic doll, presumably meanly-wrapped in tea towels. A cardboard star, generously coated in gold and silver glitter, looked down on proceedings from the wall behind.

He stared at the straw… something was nestled in the manger in amongst the dusty strands. Without really thinking he reached in and pulled out an ornate brass button. It was cold and heavy and bright in his hand. It looked old; around the brightly polished briar pattern the darkly tarnished metal betrayed some age. There was a deep blue thread still firmly attached to the loop on the back. 

David stood staring at it… wondering why it seemed to hold such mystery. It was just a button after all: presumably whoever had set up the manger had lost it from their coat. Probably an old lady. Still, the weight, and the way the dim light played along its ornate shape made it feel special. He wondered if there was a lost and found place he could drop it off? Or maybe he should just pop it on the front pew?

He turned to look for a safe place to deposit it, and froze. A young girl, a woman really, stood at the top of the aisle by the back row of pews. She was perfectly still, her head to one side, simply looking at him. She wore a rich blue coat and the brass buttons caught the coloured Christmas lights.

A thousand thoughts ran through David’s mind. Foremost were how long she had been there, and had she heard his bizarre monologue? He cleared his throat unnecessarily, “Erm, hi! Um. I’m sorry I didn’t see you there…”

She simply looked at him, backing away slightly.

“Are you ok? Please do come in… in fact, I wondered if this was yours?” He held out the button.

She stopped and stared, transfixed by the button and a profound sadness glistened in her eyes. Soundlessly, she turned and walked out into the rain. A sudden gust swung the door and carried a wet flurry into the porch.

David found himself quite alone again, still awkwardly rooted to the spot. The tree lights flicked, pink, then green, then blue.

The button felt heavy and warm in his hand.