Grace McCleen - The Land of Decoration

“But that would mean something could happen at any time,” I said, “that things come from nothing—out of thin air!”

God said: “It’s worth considering that that model world has got a life of its own.”

“Then I’ll throw it away!” I said. “I won’t keep it! Anyway it isn’t me! It’s You! It’s not me who makes things happen! You made the fire! I said I wouldn’t make anything else happen and I meant it. I don’t want the power! I don’t want anything to do with it!”

“Power can be a difficult creature to tame,” God said. “Sometimes it’s not certain who the master is and who the servant. Anyway, I’m afraid you can’t just hand it back.”

“Why not?” I said. “No one said anything about having to keep it.”

“Well you’re becoming very useful to me. And anyway, you can’t switch the power on and off, you know.”

“Then it’s simple,” I said. “I won’t do a thing—ever again.”

“Easier said than done.”

“Watch me!”

“The power won’t leave,” said God.

“Please take it,” I said and I bit down hard on my lip so that I wouldn’t cry. “Nothing happens the way I think it will. Something always goes wrong.”

“That’s because Something and Nothing are more closely related than people think,” God said.

FATHER TOLD ME that there is a lot of Something in the universe and we can see it and measure it and it takes up space and things bounce off it and go on their way again. But for all of the Something there is just as much Nothing which can’t be seen and can’t be measured and people only stumble upon it by accident.

I have wondered if God made the Nothing or it came about by itself. Perhaps there could be no Something without Nothing. Just because the Nothing is invisible doesn’t mean it isn’t strong. It’s more dangerous than Something, because you can’t see where it is and it makes things disappear. In some places the Nothing is so strong that everything we know vanishes altogether. This is called Dark Matter.

Father said Dark Matter was what God used to create the universe. It drew things into itself, and those things were never seen again or came out the other end so misshapen they didn’t look like themselves anymore. He explained Dark Matter as the outside surface of a box and matter as the inside surface. We are inside the box so we see only the Something. But if you took the same piece of cardboard and unfolded it, you would see that both are simply different sides of the same thing. In fact, if you folded the box back up again the wrong way, you wouldn’t know the difference. This shows how close Something and Nothing really are.

How can you tell if you are dealing with Nothing or Something? How can you be sure if you’re inside the box or outside it? You can’t. And this is the problem: The inside and the outside, depending on where you’re standing, look just the same.

I WAS WRITING in my journal when I looked up and saw Father standing in the doorway. I pushed the journal away and said: “Are we going preaching?”

“No.” His eyes were dark. “Put on some rough clothes and come downstairs.” I didn’t have time to ask any more, because he was gone. A minute later I heard the back door slam and some clattering. I put my journal underneath the floorboard and pulled on my dungarees and sweater and went downstairs. Father was hauling planks round to the front of the house. He thrust a bucket of nails into my hand and said: “Take these out the front,” so I went into the garden and waited.

The world was blue and yellow and glittering like diamonds, and the air was so cold it burned the inside of my nose. The outline of the mountain looked like it had been drawn with a pin. A robin perched in the branches of the cherry tree and began to sing, and the notes cooled like drops of lead as they fell around me.

Father appeared after a minute with a saw and planks and two milk crates. He set up the milk crates and laid the first plank across them. “Hold it tight,” he said to me and I held the end of the plank. Then he started sawing. His body shuddered with each stroke and the sound tore the air. His face was red. A plank fell to the ground and he reached for another. It was horrible holding the planks.

When the saw’s teeth stuck, the plank brought me up with it. When the saw bent, my own teeth jumped.

Father began ramming the cut planks against the garden wall. I didn’t know where he would put them, because there was already a wall around our garden and above the wall railings, like in all the front gardens, but I began handing him nails. He put the planks on either side of the railings and smashed the nails so far into the wood that it splintered, so far in that the heads disappeared. He hammered nails all over the place, at all sorts of angles; once he hammered his finger, and blood ran down his hand.

The planks were different sizes and different thicknesses. They began and ended in different places. If they weren’t long enough, Father hammered on another one. If there was a gap, he threw cement into it, and stones, or pieces of brick. I thought he would throw himself in too if he could.

He didn’t look at me and he didn’t speak to me. Around about ten o’clock he started making noises like an animal. The noises made me sick in my chest and my arms feel like liquid. He said: “What are you staring at?” and I turned my head so he couldn’t see that I was crying.

He worked all morning, not stopping to eat or drink, his breath filling the air in great clouds. I kept passing him things as fast as he shouted. He threw off his sweater; his shirt was wet with sweat.

A small group of people gathered on the opposite pavement. Mrs. Andrews was there and Mr. Evans and Mr. Andrews. I don’t think they had ever seen a fence go up so quickly. At half past eleven Mr. Neasdon came out of next door and stood on the pavement. He had his hands on his hips and was blinking fast.

Father either didn’t see him or pretended not to. “McPherson!” Mr. Neasdon shouted. “What’s going on?”

“Fence!” said Father.

Mr. Neasdon said: “Did it occur to you to let us know before you started?”

“Hammer!” Father shouted. I handed it to him.

Mr. Neasdon looked up the street and back again. He shook his head, then he looked the other way. He threw his hands in the air. Then he finally looked back at Father and said: “How high is it going to go?”

“Don’t know!” Father said. He swung the plank into place. “Nails!”

Mrs. Pew poked her head over the railings at the other side of the garden wall and said: “John, would you like a cup of tea?”

“No tea, thank you, Mrs. Pew!” Father said.

She fiddled with her hearing aid. “I have Tetley if you like.”

“No tea! Thank you, Mrs. Pew!” Father said.

Mr. Neasdon said: “Whoa, whoa! Just a minute! I want to know how high this fence is going! It’s already blocking out the light at our front and it looks bloody awful! You just don’t do this without asking us.”

Father continued to hammer.

Mr. Neasdon’s chest began to go up and down. “You know, we’ve just about had it up to here with you! What with your proselytizing and your End of the World this and Armageddon that and you’re not striking—but this is the limit! I’m not going to stand for it!”

Father shouted: “Nails!”

Mrs. Pew reappeared and said: “What about herbal?”

Mr. Neasdon’s eyes bulged. He went inside, slamming the door.

Mrs. Pew came back later, but by that time we could only hear a voice saying: “John! John! I’ve peppermint if you’d like!”

IT BEGAN TO get dark at five o’clock. The group of people on the other side of the street went indoors. I expect they wondered if Father was going to go on all night, but no one came to ask him to be quiet.