Grace McCleen - The Land of Decoration

“I know this will come as a shock to you, but I can’t in full conscience do anything else right now. What I came to say is this: It doesn’t mean you have to stop going to meetings: I’m more than happy to take you and drop you off. I want you to do whatever you want to do.”

I don’t know how long he went on talking, I heard him say: “Judith?”

I swallowed. “Is it because you chased the boys?” I said. But it didn’t really matter why now.

“That—and other things,” said Father. He sighed. “I suppose I’ve been doing things my own way for quite a while.”

I was feeling hot and thought I might faint. I said: “But you still believe in God, don’t you?”

Father gave a very small laugh. “I don’t know what I believe,” he said. He stood up. “But if you want to go tomorrow, I’ll drop you off.”

I shook my head.

“You don’t want to go?”

I shook my head.

“OK.” He went to the door. Then he stopped and said: “Oh.” He rummaged in his pocket. “Stan said to give this to you.” I opened the piece of paper. On it was written:

D. S. Michaels

The Flat

The Old Fire Station

Milton Keynes

MK2 3PB

Dear Brother Michaels,

This is Judith McPherson, the one you talked to after giving your talk about the mustard seed. You gave some to me, do you remember? I hope you are well.

I am writing to thank you for coming to our congregation. Your talk changed my life. When I came home I made a miracle happen, and lots after that, but the first one was that night after you told us about faith. I made it snow by making snow for my model world. There is a world in my room made of rubbish. I made snow for it and then it really did snow, do you remember?

After that I made it snow again and then I made it stop snowing. Then I brought back our neighbor’s cat and then I punished a boy at school. But now he is knocking at our house all the time and yesterday his dad threatened Father in the Co-op and called him a “scab.”

The police are not helping. Nobody believes I have done any miracles. The thing is, now I don’t know whether to try to make more miracles or not. Having power is not as easy as it looks.

You said that all we needed to do was take the first step, but now it doesn’t look like I can go back to where I began. I think that it would have been better for me never to have discovered my power in the first place. I am confused about lots of things now, and so is Father.

Brother Michaels, something terrible has happened. I made the boys come to the house, and Father has got into trouble with the elders because he got angry. I should have seen that he would, but I didn’t and as God says, it is easier doing things than undoing them. Father is not himself. I think he may have the Depression.

Brother Michaels, tomorrow Father will be Removed from the congregation.

I know Father will come back to the fold, but I am sure if you came and talked to him, it would help. You could say prayers for us. Would you mind praying right away, because the End is very close?

So many days now I haven’t felt like myself, and I think I am sickening for something. I hope it is not the Depression, as I have heard it is contagious. Brother Michaels, when you came through the hall doors that morning, I thought you must have been an angel or something, and that was why no one could hear where you were from. I am sure if anyone can help us it is you.

By the way, the mustard seeds never grew. If you could tell me where to get some more, I would be most grateful. I hope you didn’t get them in the Bible lands, because if you did it will take a long time to get some more.

IT WAS THE last day of the year. It was a Sunday but not like any Sunday I had ever known. There wasn’t any lamb and there weren’t any bitter greens and there wasn’t any meeting or preaching. The house was so cold, things felt wet to touch, and it seemed to get dark right after lunchtime. I sat by the kitchen window and thought that I had hated Sunday before but this was a thousand times worse. The one good thing was that I didn’t have to wear Josie’s poncho, but the more I thought about it, even that didn’t seem a bad thing now.

“What can I do about Father?” I said to God.

“He’s lost faith,” said God. “There’s nothing you can do.”

“He hasn’t lost faith,” I said. “He’s just confused.” But I looked at Father, at his neck jutting forward, at his hands flat on the arms of the chair, at the mug of cold tea, at the mattress on the floor and the curtains half drawn, and I wasn’t so sure.

I went up to my room and sat in the window and drew up my knees and watched the sky change from indigo to black and thought how not that long ago I had watched it turn white and fill with snow. The streets and gutters were running with yellow light. There was music coming from somewhere, and every so often I saw people going by; some were arm in arm, some were laughing, some were swaying and singing. After a while there were fireworks, and in the bursts of light I could see for miles. The fireworks stayed still for a second before they fell. I tried opening and closing my eyes so I would see only that flash of light, but most often I missed it.

At midnight, people began singing somewhere, the song about old acquaintances and cups of kindness that they always sang at the end of the year, and then I couldn’t sit there anymore and got up.

“I chose the stone,” I said out loud. I took a deep breath. “I chose to be powerful.” I swallowed. “If I think hard enough for long enough, I will be able to think of something to make things better. But I am not making anything because that always goes wrong.” I couldn’t think of anything to make anyway. I pressed my head really hard with my hands and screwed my eyes up. But I couldn’t think of anything at all.

I said: “Go back to the beginning,” and I asked myself when things had begun to get bad and thought it was actually around the time of the strike.

I had made a factory in the Land of Decoration a long time ago. It wasn’t the sort of thing I usually made, but I had seen the chimneys at the factory in town and thought how much they looked like toilet rolls, so I made them and put ladders from a toy fire engine going up the sides. I made the factory from a shoe box, with clay chimneys and cellophane windows and straws for the pipes. There was a Lego fire escape and a car park and a wire-mesh fence made out of a net that oranges had been in. I went over to the factory now and turned it round in my hands. The chimneys wobbled, but there was no sound inside, because it was empty. I’d taken the people out because I needed them for other things. And then I wondered what would happen if I filled it, if I made an inside.

“It might work,” I thought—and it was such an enormous thought I didn’t dare say it out loud.

Then I said: “But I said I wouldn’t make anything else.”

Then I said: “But what’s the worst that could happen?” This wasn’t like making a person. The situation at the factory couldn’t get any worse. But then I thought I might be fooling myself. I walked round and round the room, thinking maybe I shouldn’t and maybe I should and trying to think what else I could do instead, but I couldn’t think of anything. I felt very excited and then I felt very scared, and then I felt tired of being excited and scared and just wanted everything to be over. “God,” I said, “is this possible?”

“Most of the time, everything is possible,” said God.

“But can I really make things better?”

“Yes,” God said, “you can.”

“All right,” I said. And for the last time I went to the trunk and lifted the lid.