The Land of Decoration (29 page)

Your Brother,

Derek Michaels

I
CAME HOME
on Friday, and turned my key in the front door but it didn’t click. I thought I must have forgotten to lock it when I left for school that morning and was very glad Father was still at work and didn’t know. I went into the kitchen and made a sandwich and a drink and then went upstairs.

I turned along the landing and was concentrating so hard on balancing the sandwich and my drink and thinking about the balloon ride Father and I were going on so I didn’t see that my door was ajar. When I did, my stomach dipped. I pushed it open and I saw two things.

The first thing was Father sitting on the bed. He didn’t look up and his face was red and crumpled as if he had been sleeping and he smelled of beer. The second thing was that he was holding my journal. Then the room shot backward and Father and the journal shot forward. I heard myself say: “Why aren’t you at work?”

“There isn’t any,” he said, and when he looked up I saw that his eyes were glassy and half closed. “Two thousand laid off.”

“What?”

“It’s shut down,” he said.

I blinked. “But you only just started back.”

“The strike finished us. We’ve lost half our customers.”

“It’ll open again.”

“I don’t know,” Father said. “You tell me. After all, you’re the one with the magic powers, aren’t you?”

I felt dizzy.

He laughed. “I expect you knew anyway! Perhaps
you
closed the factory! That’s what you do, isn’t it? You make things happen.
And then write about them in your bloody diary!
” As he said the last words he stood up, hitting his head on the hot-air balloon, and the room swung to and fro.

“And there was me thinking Doug had it in for me because I was working!”
he shouted.
“That the trouble we had at the house was because of the strike! That it was boys being boys! You told me you would drop this miracle business, Judith! YOU GAVE ME YOUR WORD!”

He came close and I saw the veins in his eyes.

I put down my plate and cup and I couldn’t look at him, just kept looking down at my sandwich.

He said: “I
told
you, Judith! I
told you and told you
to drop it—” Then his voice broke, and he sat on the bed and his shoulders shook.

I said: “All I did was have faith,” and my voice was just air. “God did the rest.”

“DAMN GOD!”
he shouted.

“I was trying to help,” I said.

He stood up. He looked like a madman. He said: “This is what I think of your help.” He picked up my journal and tore the cover away. He tried to tear it down the middle, but the spine was too strong and it bent this way and that. It made him even madder. He began tearing out handfuls of pages, and his hands were juddering and shaking. When there were just a few pages left, he threw the journal on the floor and looked around him.

I saw what was going to happen a second before it did but I was still too slow. I screamed and ran at him, but he had grabbed a field in the Land of Decoration, and houses and trees and cattle rained down on us. I clawed at his arms, but he pushed me back and began sweeping rivers and castles and palaces and cities up into the air. He uprooted trees, he flattened mountains, he crushed houses under his shoes.

I hung on to his arms, I hung on to his legs, we fell over, he got up again, he hurled the stars down, he broke up the moon, he toppled the planets. He tore at the sun, and the cage broke apart. The sea cracked with a sound like a plate, and the boats were cast up. The sky fell to earth and the earth broke apart. Beds and chairs, teapots and bushes, rose trees and washing lines, windmills, pitchforks, plum pies, and candlesticks came raining around us. Felt dogs howled, beaded fish flopped up and down, zebras whinnied, lions roared, fire-breathing dragons had their fire put out, scorpions ran in circles. I tried to save them but as many as I held I dropped again and all around us, the air was full of feathers and clay and wires and beads and heads and arms and legs and hair and fur and stones and sand and wings. And pretty soon there was nothing left but a heap of old rubbish.

Father stood panting and swaying. He was panting a little. He looked around, then lurched toward the door. It crashed behind him and I heard him stumble on the stairs. Then I fell down too, but I don’t know where because there were no more places, and I don’t know how long I fell because there was no more time. Dark filled my eyes because there was no more light, and there was no point in ever getting up again because what had been done could never be put right.

I
WAS IN
the dark when I heard a voice. The voice was saying: “Wake up.”

“Leave me alone,” I said.

“Wake up,” said the voice.

“Go away,” I said.

“You have to wake up,” said the voice.

“Why should I?”

“You have to wake up,” said the voice. “Because the world is ending.”

*   *   *

I
OPENED ONE
eye.

In front of me was what looked like a forest. There were fibers sticking up and the fibers were green.

I opened both eyes.

My cheek was pressed against a piece of green carpet. The carpet had been part of the Land of Decoration.

I sat up.

A blanket covering me fell away. Moonlight was coming through the window.

I looked around. Then I leaned my head against the wall and didn’t want to look anymore.

“Get up!” said the voice.

“Go away,” I whispered.

“There’s not a second to lose!”

“Go away.”

“Don’t you know what this means?”

“
Please
go away,” I said.

But the voice wouldn’t. “What do you see?” it said.

“Everything’s broken,” I said at last and closed my eyes.

God said: “Exactly!” He sighed. “Judith, I’m trying to help you here, but time is running out.”

“Running out for what?” I said.

“Think about it.”

I opened my eyes, and this time I said: “No.”

“Yes,” said God.

“No. You don’t mean—”

“I do.”

I shook my head. “That’s impossible.”

“What was that word again?”

“Impossible,” I said.

“Have all the other things happened?”

“Yes, but … that would mean—”

“Armageddon,” said God. He laughed. “You wanted the world to end. You asked Me about it often enough.”

I needed to go to the toilet. I got onto my knees. “When?” I said.

“Imminently.”

“How long have I got?”

“About two hours,” said God.

“Oh my goodness,” I said. I held on to the wall. Then I said: “I’ve got to tell people.”

“You have told people,” said God. “You’ve been telling them for years.”

“They might listen if they knew it was coming tonight.”

God laughed. “Do you think so?”

“They would if they knew it was really going to happen.”

“Then it would be for the wrong reason,” said God. “Anyway, how would you convince them?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve got to try.”

“Judith,” God said, “it’s half past four in the morning. What are you going to do—shout from the rooftops?”

Everything was spinning. I thought how happy the Brothers and Sisters would be: May’s chilblains would be better; so would Elsie’s joints. Nel would walk again. Alf would grow hair. Uncle Stan’s ulcer would vanish. And Gordon would never be depressed again. Josie would be able to make clothes for people for all eternity. And Father—Father would see Mother. And so would I!

“But,” I said, “what about the other people?”

God didn’t answer for a minute. Then he said: “You know what happens to the other people.”

And he was right; I had always known, but now that it was about to happen it was different. “Isn’t there anything You can do?” I said. “Perhaps the world isn’t ready to be destroyed just yet! Perhaps there are still good things in it.”

“Such as?” God said.

I tried to think. “Mrs. Pew!” I said suddenly.

“Mrs. Pew?”
said God. He didn’t seem to think much of my suggestion.

“Yes!” I said. “And Oscar!… And
Auntie Jo
!… And Mike! And Joe and Watson, and Sue Lollipop—and
Mrs. Pierce
!”

“They don’t believe in Me,” said God.

“But You can’t just kill them!” I said.

“You knew this would happen.”

“What about the children … the people who haven’t heard about You … the people who didn’t listen when we went to the door, because they were on the phone, or the baby was ill, or they’d heard bad things about us, or it was raining?”

“I’m sorry,” God said, “that can’t be helped. I can’t hang around forever. There’ll always be those who don’t know or don’t listen or are too busy. It’s not My fault.”

“It’s not theirs either!” I said. I was beginning to feel as though I would like to be sick as well as go to the toilet. “Can’t You just
forgive
them?” I said.

God laughed. “You’re a fine one to talk about forgiveness! Look, I’ve waited since the Garden of Eden to do this. You don’t expect Me to put it off a few more weeks?”

“So Father hasn’t made the end of the world come after all?” I said.

“Well, yes and no. This is all besides the point. It’s happened; I would have made sure it did one way or the other.”

“And now it’s gone,” I said, and I looked around again. “If only I could put it back together! But I can’t. It would take too long.”

But I wasn’t really thinking about the Land of Decoration anymore. I was thinking about Mrs. Pew and Oscar, about Sue Lollipop and her trip to the Bahamas, about Mrs. Pierce and Mike. I was thinking about so many other things too that it seemed they were crowding into my mind because it might be the last time they would be remembered—thinking of the way the world was in the snow and how it would be in the spring, how the cherry tree would come back to life, and Mother’s Christmas roses, how in the summer the mountain would become green, and how Father and I would go up in the hot-air balloon and see the whole valley. I was trying to imagine it all gone, and it was really difficult.

“So I can’t save them?”

“No.”

I sat down on the floor with a bump and pressed my hands together to try and stop them from shaking. I said: “What will it be like?”

“The biggest thing the world has ever seen.”

“And then,” I said, “the new world.”

God said: “That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

And I didn’t say anything, because it was what I had wanted for as long as I could remember.

I closed my eyes. “No more sickness, no more death?” I said.

“That’s right.”

“And You’ll wipe the tears from people’s eyes?”

“Yes.”

“And Father and I will live there, and we will see Mother, and it will be like it was in the beginning?”

God said: “What was that?”

“And we’ll see Mother again.”

“Not that bit,” said God. “The other bit.”

“And it will be like it was in the beginning.”

“No, no, the first bit,” said God.

“And—Father and I will live there…” I said.

“That’s it,” said God. “You see, that’s the bit I’m not sure about.”

“
What?
” I said.

“Well,” said God, “your father—I mean, can you really call him a believer? His attitude hasn’t been right for some time now.”

I blinked. “Father believes in You!” I said. I laughed. “You know he does! He’s just been tired lately; things got on top of him—”

But God was saying: “No. I’m not sure he believes in Me at all.”

“Are you
listening
to me?” I said. I jumped up. “You have to save Father!”

“It doesn’t change the fact that he’s lost faith in Me.”

“No!” I shouted. “He hasn’t! Can’t You do anything?”

And then God looked at me. I felt Him look, and everything went still and my skin prickled. He said: “If I were you, I’d be asking myself that question.”

“Me?”
I said. “What can
I
do?”

God laughed. “Judith, look at what you’ve done already!”

I blinked. Then I put my head in my hands. When I took it out I said: “I’ve done quite a lot, haven’t I?” And then, in a smaller voice, a voice so small that no one but God could have heard it, I said: “If anyone dies it should be me.”

“Clever girl,” God said softly.

“What?”
I said.

“Well,” said God. “You’re right, of course; if it hadn’t been for you, none of this would have happened. You are the only one who can save your father. He’s sinned, Judith; he’s lost faith—the greatest sin of all. He deserves to die; he
will
die; unless someone saves him.…”

“Who?” I said. “How?”

God sighed. “Don’t you remember? An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth—”

“A life for a life,” I said.

“If someone were to give Me their life instead…”

“Oh,” I said, and my voice was quiet, like a breeze on its way somewhere else.

“It’s the only way,” said God. “The Fundamental Law. Remember?”

I felt wind buffet my face, as if I was standing at the edge of a cliff, and I felt the ground shift under me.

“You love him, don’t you?” said God.

“Yes.” But I wasn’t thinking about Father anymore. I wasn’t thinking about anything just then.

God said: “Now, are you going to save him? Hurry up and decide or you may as well not bother.”

“Yes,” I said, because there wasn’t really any decision to be made; there had been a moment when I wondered if I would get to see the Land of Decoration after all, then that, too, stopped mattering.

But I had to be sure of something. “If I do this,” I said suddenly, “You have to promise me—You have to
promise
me—Father won’t die.”

“Where’s your faith?” said God.

“I need You to promise!”
I shouted.

“All right!” said God. “Dear me! You have My word.”