True Love

God, as I knew, was very unforgiving. Most folk think of prophets as old guys with long beards. She said cheerio to half the people in the room. That was the ones she’d spoken to. The other half of the people she hadn’t spoken to, she went back to apologise. Nearly at the door, she caught up with me again. Then she was off, talking to her sister.

‘For fuck sake,’ I cried. ‘Hurry up, or we’ll ne’er get hame at this rate.’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Of course.’

Her sister scooted across, flapping hands, pink cheeks and all out of breath as if she’s been running. She was a bit of a lump, with fox-coloured hair, but with none of the luminous sparkle. I could taste her fear like owl pellets, strongly spiced in perfume.

She jiggled her big tits and sniggered. Inviting me to join in. ‘Wee Patsy told me, you were the devil.’

 ‘Aye,’ I said. ‘I’m ur.’   

‘I felt I just had to talk to you.’ She babbled on in that pleasing anxious way, like a voice from the tomb. I grew restless to shut her eyes and rest my ears. Instead, I gave her a long lingering look, which silenced her and she slumped to the floor.

That causes a bit of a kerfuffle. Ring-a-ring-of roses. They insisted on rousing her. Resurrection. Patsy was good at that kind of thing.

I accepted another drink, gin—with ginger in it, for some reason—whilst a close friend and neighbour went to locate Patsy’s sister’s husband. I could have told them where he was. Which Chat Room. He was filling his soul with the voices and images of a child being raped, but nobody asked. And I wasn’t one for telling, unless some kindred spirit became over mindful of their fate and needed that little nudge.

‘I haven’t seen you for ages!’ She touched my arm and smiled like the mirrored weary world she inhabited smiled back. Drunk, of course, which made her grey eyes brighter. Late thirties, yes, attractive. She presumed I knew her name, which I did, of course. Her husband, with the booming voice, was on the other side of the room, trying to cheat on her again. But he wasn’t having much luck. Rapist’s regret. He didn’t really mean any harm.

‘Nah, yeh huvnae,’ I replied. Easing myself more comfortably against what used to be a chimneypiece, a young man once hung with a rope around his neck. ‘We really should talk more often. But I really, really should get you another drink first.’

I handed her mine and she looked down and smiled into it, taking a sip, and grinned back at me.

She ducked her head and whispered. ‘That would be so nice. But he said I wasn’t to make a fool of myself, again.’

‘Nonsense, Caroline, yeh huv ne’er made a proper fool aw yersel, yet. There’s still plenty aw time.’  

A tall lank couple helped ease the hostess into a chair and plumped the cushions behind her back. ‘You must have had a shock,’ the elegant women said.

 I nipped across the room and grabbed a bottle of Whyte and Mackay. Scooping up some ice with my fingers and spitting into both tumblers. Patsy was watching me, and I glowered at her.

I pressed the glasses into Caroline’s hands. ‘Do yeh still paint?’ I asked her.

She looked hard into the glasses of whisky as if remembering.

‘I used to.’ Her voice choking up with tears and snot. ‘Mostly landscapes, until the accident.’

‘It wasnae yer fault...’

‘No, it wasn’t.’ An unfunny little grimace. The drink bolstered and propped up her equanimity.

‘Terrible,’ I said. ‘The death of wee twins like that. Pretty much the absolute hell for maist people. Trying tae get those images oot yer heid.’

She looked puzzled, with the empty glasses in her hand. Part of her found missing. She’d need another glass of whisky. Step by step, she’d find the pieces. Glass in hand. All this business would come to an end with sleeping tablets.

I addressed her retreating back. ‘I’ll see yeh soon, Caroline. The twins send their baby love.’

Patsy was standing by the buffet table and doled out a cold sausage roll to Caroline like a communion wafer. Their heads bent together as if in prayer. They sunk to the floor.

‘Two baby killers, together,’ I said aloud, not thinking, smacking my lips. ‘It’s written in the great book.’

‘What was that?’ Caroline said.

‘Nothing.’ I shook my head. Having already said too much. Patsy blamed me, of course. Most folk do. She passed two lie-detector tests. And at the High Court in Glasgow, her case was found ‘Not Proven’.

Her purity was her curse. Parthenogenesis. Virgin Birth. Child Sacrifice. The Sun and Daily Record ate it up. Four or five-page spreads, reducing her to a media caricature that was easily digested.

God couldn’t resist testing her. He never can. A late morning in the middle of May. Light shimmered through thick trees. She wasn’t much more than a wee girl. And she carried a squawking bundle up the dusty road. Over the wrought-iron bridge at Kilmahew Burn and climbed the almost vertical slope.

The roof was missing from what used to be a church. Harled stone. No windows or doors. A purpose-built dome that had no purpose.

God told her to put her baby son on the altar and slit his throat. I was waiting. A ram was caught in a thicket of thorns. We all know how that went.

Patsy said in court, she saw her son rising up to heaven within the glory of God. The Ark Angel Gabriel clutching him to his bosom. A trumpet sounded and a heavenly cry was heard, ‘His blood will be avenged’.

Four decades of fire damage, vandalism and decay. The polished shell gone. God’s altar overgrown, broken apart and reclaimed by nature. Someone daubed, in black and white, an iconic picture of the Virgin Mary on one of the pillars that didn’t seem to fade.

The payment for blood spilled was overdue. I waited until Patsy and Caroline had finished praying.

Patsy looked up at me and frowned. ‘Give me a minute,’ she said.

‘Get yer jacket. Yeh’ve hud aw the time in the world. Yer goin hame, noo.’