Kate Hamer: The Girl in the Red Coat

‘Carmel,’ he calls after me. ‘Carmel, come back. No one else wanted you. There — that’s the truth.’

I feel my head drooping as I walk.

‘Carmel, please. Please.’

I hear his pitiful cries and I walk on a few steps further, then the energy seems to run out of me. I look back — he’s standing there, bent and huge, and I can only see him from the knees up because he’s standing in the ditch. But it doesn’t make him look funny. It makes him look creepy and powerful, like a wizard.

‘Carmel, help me. Help me to get out. You can’t leave me here.’

I don’t feel angry any more, just limp and useless.

‘Carmel, let me phone the pastor. At least at the gathering we’ll be fed and watered, they’ll take care of us.’

I don’t know what it is. Whether it’s the years of being with him and trying to remember I’m Carmel and not Mercy. Or all the missing Mum and Dad I’ve done. Or being dressed up and shown about like someone from a circus. But all of a sudden I feel perhaps one night he’d done this thing to me. He’d cut me open and taken Carmel out and she’d looked like the solid doll in the middle of Russian dolls. She had my face. And he’d put in its place a doll with his face painted on and set it with a timer, ready to go off at this exact moment at the side of this road.

I start feeling sorry for myself. How I long to be normal. To chat with my friends and try on scarves and shoes, and have proper birthdays with presents like mobile phones. To sleep in a proper bed with coloured fairy lights around it and my school bag ready for the next day. I see these kids in every town we go. They’re inside the diners and giggling about secrets, the way me and Sara used to. As they talk and laugh they stir their tall ice-cream drinks with the long spoon in their hand. Their nails are pink, the colour of sweets, and their eyelids have sparkly stuff on them.

I feel the Gramps doll inside of me and I wonder how I’m ever going to get it out. He doesn’t look powerful now, he’s bent over, making little cries like a kitten.

‘It’s OK, Gramps. I won’t leave you here.’

I sigh and my energy inside seeps onto the road, ready to drip, drip into the ditch and round his feet. I close my eyes and feel the wind on my face. ‘Don’t worry,’ I tell him. ‘Everything will be alright.’

‘That’s my girl,’ he says, and holds out his arm to be helped out of the ditch. ‘Now then, we mustn’t fall out like this again. Now it’s only the two of us — we have to take care of each other.’

Gramps says Munroe’s been waiting for us all this time, waiting to welcome us back into his fold. He seems to have forgotten how we wanted to get away from him. When I think of him waiting, though, it’s more like he’s a spider. He’s got his web in Texas and that’s where we are now.

‘I always knew we’d end up back with him,’ I’m muttering as we walk up his drive with our few belongings in our arms.

‘What was that? What was that?’

Gramps may be half deaf in his right ear but he can hear alright when he wants to.

I say, ‘What a lovely house our friend Mr Munroe has. Was it bought with all the money he made from those poor folks he brought along to me to lay hands on — the babies with spina bifida and the man with the shrunken arm, the woman that couldn’t stop miscarrying and the fella who thought losing his hair was worthy of a healing …?’

Gramps stops in the middle of the drive and fixes his pale eyes on me.

‘Mr Munroe is a man of God. He should be respected by us. He’s taking us into his home at this time of need. You have to behave, Carmel. This could be the start of a new life for us. If Mr Munroe decides he wants us around, it could be the answer to our prayers. Don’t go ruining it by being snippy. Honestly, I don’t know what’s got into you lately.’

I say I don’t know either and I mean it.

‘This is important for us, Carmel, real important.’ He’s standing right outside Mr Munroe’s front door though he hasn’t rung the bell yet. There’s a white pillar either side of the door — like at the hotel where we first met the pastor years ago.

I look at the sticking plaster Gramps had to mend his glasses with on the coach ride here because they broke when he took them off to clean. I see the way his hands tremble as he holds his things — his spare shirt, his Bible and his socks stuffed into an old sports bag. I see the way he’s putting off ringing the doorbell.

‘Alright Gramps.’ I need to calm him down now. ‘Everything’ll be A-OK.’ And I press on the doorbell myself.

*

Munroe drives us to the gathering in his great big SUV. Me and Gramps are like the king and queen riding in the back, we’ve even got a cosy check blanket covering our knees. We’re so high up I want to wave to the people walking on the road beside us, their faces look up at us as we pass and I smile down at them.

Munroe’s driving but he keeps looking back over his shoulder because he’s so excited and wants to talk.

‘Hey, just ye look at them, Dennis. Just ye look. Our little Texas gathering and see them come. It’s biblical. That’s what it is. It’s like the crowds that followed Jesus into Jerusalem.’

‘’Cept they didn’t do it in SUVs.’ Gramps gives me a look when I say this. A warning look. I wish he’d get his glasses mended. They’re embarrassing.

Gramps changes the subject to get away from what I’ve said though I don’t know what’s so bad about it, it’s just factually correct. Actually, that’s a lie. I knew how it would annoy him.

‘I heard on the radio there’s weather coming. Blasting on down from the north.’ He sounds worried.

‘Oh that. It’s ’cos of the fact they’re so Godless there. It’ll stop dead in its tracks before it gets to us. Its icy breath’ll lick at their toes to show them how hell is and how one day it’ll be fire licking there.’

Gramps chuckles. He’s always been led on by Munroe, even though I think Gramps is sort of cleverer than him. Somehow all the hell talk makes Gramps feel big and safe. He thinks he’s one of the chosen ones who’s not going to the fiery lake. But I know there are times when he’s not so certain.

‘Sure. There’ll be a wall of ice around us and those on the outside will see us within. They’ll see our shapes moving round inside and wish they could be with us, but it will be too late. We’ll be in the inner circle and they’ll be on the outside …’

Munroe glances over his shoulder. Truth be told, Gramps often sounds a bit weird these days with the stuff he says. He can’t quite hit the mark. It’s like he’s trying to play a part that doesn’t quite suit him, even though he wants it real bad. I feel a bit sorry for him then, with Munroe looking over at him and probably thinking ‘What a freak’ — which is something, coming from Munroe. So I shout out, ‘Amen,’ and Gramps nearly jumps out of his skin I’ve been so quiet up till now.

Munroe’s chuckling. He’s forgotten about Gramps being weird. ‘Amen,’ he yells. ‘Hallelujah.’ And Gramps looks out of the window like it’s hurting his ears. I can see he’s going into one of his moods and he turns and looks at me.

‘Are you wearing cosmetic products?’ He’s right, it’s lipstick and some powder I found in Munroe’s bathroom that belonged to his wife and I tried such a teeny bit on that I didn’t think they’d be able to see or notice it had gone.

‘No, Gramps. Where would I get make-up from?’

He grunts and leans closer to me. ‘You look like a woman today.’

‘Well, she’s a growing girl.’ Munroe tries to interrupt but Gramps is deep in one of his moods now. He knows his trying to impress Munroe has fallen flat again.