Flying Under Bridges (33 page)

‘After
several meetings at the centre, others there begin to talk about “coming out” to
their parents. Then some older guys invite him to the movies. Later, his new
friends invite him on a camping trip, and one night on that trip an older guy
comes into his tent and begins to touch him. It feels good. He believes that
homosexuality is okay, and now he’s sure that he is a homosexual.

‘Back
at home, the counsellor helps your son become secure in his homosexuality, and
they plan how they will tell you, his unsuspecting parents. At the age of
fifteen your son tells you that he is a homosexual. Is this just a story? No,
that’s how it can happen. Your son wasn’t born a homosexual. He was recruited.

‘And
what does God say about this? Read St Paul — one Corinthians, Chapter six,
verses nine to ten.
Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit
the Kingdom
of
God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor
idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor
drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the Kingdom of God.’

Eve
leant across to Inge again.

‘I don’t
understand. I thought God loved everyone.’

The
helpful woman beside her gave the only reaction to Eye’s comment. She patted
Eve on the hand and whispered, ‘He does. It’s because he loves us that he wants
the best for us.’

Eve
felt bewildered. This didn’t seem like a very nice message. Where was the nice
guy with the beard reaching out to her? Was he really willing to let some
children grow up believing themselves to be evil? Undeserving of God’s love
from birth to death? Lawrence was sweating now and pacing furiously towards
some kind of climax.

‘You
can watch the Mardi Gras from Sydney or see people on television talking about “gay
pride” but you only have to read the ancient story of Sodom and Gomorrah and
you know what being gay actually is — it’s a manifestation of a depraved
nature. It is a perversion of divine standards, and nothing will change that.’
The bringer of the good news stopped and took a sip of water. He never looked
at his son or his wife. He was transported to a higher plane.

‘Okay,
what if you still find it hard? What if you need some rational explanation as
well? That’s all right. If you want to be scientific about it, let’s do that
too. Let’s think about biology. If a man and a woman come together before God
they are able to create something so precious — new life. Can homosexuals do
that? No. You know what they say — God made Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve.’

This
caused much laughter as Lawrence burst his rather serious bubble with a boyish
grin. Eve looked around the room at the gathering of mostly young men and
women. So they were all here to make babies. That was why they had come. Adam
and Eve of Eden had done that and now it was Adam and Eve of Edenford. But in
her heart Eve knew that she and her Adam had thought different things from the
beginning. She thought you could have sex with someone if you really loved them
and Adam thought you could if they’d let you. Was that what she had been
created for? As a bearer of children? What about Tom’s all-female fish in the
Gulf of Mexico? What about those Amazon mollies? Lawrence steamrollered through
her doubts.

‘And
what do we say to all those people who would change our minds? Are we
homophobes? Do we hate our fellow man? No! We surely can love their souls but
we must be vigilant against their wicked agenda! The unrighteous will not
inherit the Kingdom of God! Let us join together and sing hymn number four
hundred and eight.’

Everyone
smiled as they stood, they smiled as they sang, they smiled as they hugged at
the end and they smiled as they shook hands with Lawrence on the way out. It
was the most smiley group of people Eve had ever seen in her life and she
envied them. Outside the church a group of teenage church members were
accosting passers-by on their way to B&Q or whatever. A middle-aged,
middle-fat, middle-class woman like Eve trundled past in her coat of many
seasons.

‘Excuse
me, wouldn’t you like to be enlightened?’ asked the smiley people. The woman
never broke stride.

‘That’s
very kind,’ she said, ‘but I’m afraid I just don’t have the time.

Lawrence
stood outside his church in the bright sun and chatted to his flock. His son
approached and Lawrence pulled him close. They stood hugging and Eve, Kate and
Inge could see such love. There was no doubt that the father who gave his only
begotten son truly believed he was doing the right thing. Shirley and John were
caught up in a group of friends, all laughing and smiling. If it was so clear
then why couldn’t Eve see it?

Inge
was surrounded by people getting her to autograph bits of paper, the back of
old phone bills and even a couple of Bibles. Lawrence stood in attendance,
receiving his own praise from the congregation. He hugged his people and made
idle chatter with the TV star who had entered his flock.

‘Perhaps
we could persuade you to read in the carol service as well?’

Kate
stood shaded under a tree. She looked at Patrick who looked away and pretended
he didn’t know her. Eve wanted to ask Lawrence about the swimming baths. Whether
her group could have them. Whether God wouldn’t want the charity to have them
but she couldn’t get to him. John came over.

‘Let me
take you to your car, Eve,’ he said. He took her arm as if she were in imminent
danger of falling over.

‘I
wanted to ask about the baths. The pool the church bought.’

John
tutted. ‘I know, Eve, I’m so sorry for you, but the church will be needing it.
They’re going to do baptisms, full immersion, so they just can’t have it empty.’
They got to the car with its snapped aerial and trailing balloons. ‘Thank you
for coming. It’s meant so much to Shirley.’

When
Eve got home her house was silent. Her mother slept in the dining room, her son
would not come out of his bedroom and Adam had departed for a security
conference in Birmingham. He hadn’t wanted to go. He wanted to lock the door on
his shame, but Eve had persuaded him. He had done nothing wrong. He had to
carry on.

Eve sat
in her kitchen as the light faded from the day. It was dark when the doorbell
went. Kate stood on the front step. She stood outside the security gate and Eve
couldn’t open it. Kate was sobbing and clinging on to the bars to hold herself
up. No matter how hard Eve tried she couldn’t get the gate open to let Kate in
and in that moment she hated Adam and his bloody security. Eve tried to hug her
friend through the bars but it was hopeless and she was in such a state that
Eve was afraid to leave to come out of the back door. Kate could hardly speak.
Her whole body was eaten up with crying. That was when Eve found out about
Patrick. Lawrence’s son had been found dead in the school basement. He had
hanged himself.

Chapter
Twenty-one

25
January

Holloway
Prison for Women

London

My Dear Inge,

For
Better or for Worse

Let
Marriage be held in honour among all…

(HEBREWS
13.4)

The shrink wants to know
what I’ve been thinking about. Actually he’d like to get right inside my head
if he could and have a good rummage. I tell him, ‘Brigitte Bardot.’

And he
says, ‘Sexually?’ which is ridiculous. The man can’t get his head out of other
people’s trousers.

I never
know where to begin with any of this. You see, they have the tabloid papers in
here. Everyone reads them. That and
Hello!
magazine. I don’t know why.
It couldn’t be further from real life. Anyway, there’s been a good deal in the
papers about Brigitte Bardot and her particular batty problems. Now I’m not all
that interested in the intrigues and wherewithals of the famous but lots of the
girls on the wing are. I never tell them that I know you.

‘You
seen about Brigitte Bardot?’ they say to me in the lunch queue, so I have to
have a look and I do find I read on. Well, I am curious about how much people
can live with on their consciences. I am plagued with my conscience and I am
not sure it is always a good thing. I don’t think Martha is. In fact, I’m sure
she isn’t. Not because she has religion, she just isn’t and I envy that. Why
didn’t I get that clear head instead of her?

I used
to think I had to let every pushy swine on the road nip in ahead of me or they
wouldn’t think I was a nice person. Now I realise, of course, they don’t give a
monkeys about me anyway and if we were in New York I’d have been shot by now
for slowing down the car behind. Anyway, for those of us who lack religion,
the guidelines for the conscience are a tricky business. There’s a woman in here
who’s had such a difficult life that she says to me, ‘Eve, I know it’s not
right but I can’t remember what it is I’m supposed to feel bad about.’

Which
brings me to Miss Bardot. She feels bad about animals. So bad that she has
given up her career, her money and her jewels to save rabbits from perfume
trials, dogs from cigars and ferrets from inflammable kitchen equipment or
whatever they use ferrets for. Brigitte (if I can be so familiar) has also
given up her home to the critters, but they are letting her live there till she’s
dead, which I call downright decent. So there we have this caring, sharing
woman who has deserted her good looks and glamorous life to mess about with
cats and spend a life covered in dog hair. Good for her. Then she falls in love
with and marries a National Front politician. Now I know you can’t help who you
fall in love with. You meet the most unlikely person when you least expect it
and bam! — your body is awash with chemical impulses, teeming hormones and
sweaty palms. But if you then learn that this person ‘adheres to views that you
personally find reprehensible’, as Martha would put it, would you go on to
marry them? Bardot says she hates his politics but she loves him. So how do you
separate the man from the message, particularly if he is an up-front,
campaigning tub thumper?

Love is
a curious business. I would have thought that when people hold very strong
political views, that’s a big part of who they are as people. You can’t just
say, ‘Oh, it’s a phase. He doesn’t really mean it,’ if he is a full-out
campaigner. Yet Adam was and I loved… love him.

‘Did
you love Adam? Were you awash with him?’ the psychiatrist persists, and I don’t
know what to say.

‘I’m
not sure. I was young. Just eighteen. I do remember thinking that marriage
sounded more fun than biology A level.’

How odd
to end up pregnant with a mortgage just because you were once bored by the
details of the aorta.

I didn’t
know what to do about Patrick. It was the religion thing that was so difficult.
I had never really thought about it. I suppose I’m C. of E., but I’m not sure
that counts. Shirley says it’s not so much a religion as a commitment to cream
teas and fêtes, and I think that’s true. Both my mother and my daughter
believe, believed, and I didn’t get it.

‘How
did Patrick’s death make you feel? What did you do?’ My shrink feels he is
homing in on something.

‘I went
to Safeway’s. They’re open twenty-four hours now. After Kate had gone home to
wait for Inge. I offered to go with her but she looked unwell and I think she
wanted to be alone. I was so angry by the time I got the gate open that I had
to do something.

‘So you
went shopping?’

‘No.
First, I went through all the old newspapers in the recycle pile.’

‘And?’

‘I cut
out all the pictures I could find of the famine in Ethiopia. All the kids with
big eyes and bulging bellies, all the close-ups of ribs and pleading faces and
I took them with me in the car. To Safeway’s.’

‘What
did you do with them there?’

‘I put
them all over the counter of the delicatessen and I left.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t
know.’

I had
wanted to talk to Adam about it but we seemed to have lost the knack. He phoned
from his hotel.

‘Hello,
darling,’ he said. ‘I won’t chat for long because it’s very expensive.’ I was
glad he’d phoned, but it wasn’t a great conversational opening.

‘Yes.’

‘Quite
nice hotel really. Very nice selection of biscuits with the in-room
tea-and-coffee-making facilities.’

‘That’s
nice.’ We paused for a moment. ‘You know Lawrence Hansen?’ I asked.

I could
hear Adam opening a ginger snap. ‘No.’

‘He’s
the priest at Shirley’s church.’

‘Oh,
yes.’ He crunched into the biscuit. ‘No, I don’t.’

‘His
son died.’

‘Oh, I’m
sorry.’ There was a pause. ‘I’m glad Shirley’s found an interest,’ he said, and
then we rather ran out of things to say. I don’t think men and women do chat
all that well. Not that men and men do any better. Adam and Horace have known
each other since they both started first school. They feel they’ve been
intimate with each other if one of them admits his stamina on the squash court
isn’t quite what it used to be.