A. Kennedy - All the Rage

It helps.

It definitely helps.

HOW IT CAME to be that he ended up here was among the many mysteries. He’d been following — or not quite, because how could he? — this guy, probably a guy, on a scooter. Dandy cream-and-red Vespa and somebody riding it wearing a cream cut-off raincoat and cream helmet — there’d been a theme going on, cream theme — and it had drawn his eye and he’d ambled along in the wake of the stylish scooterist, kept walking on inside this persisting slipstream of mild coolness, the impression of someone else’s sorted life gently peppering his face, uncaring. And once he’d been tempted away from his customary track, it was then apparently much more than possible for him to find that he’d gone and sat himself down in a church.

Bloody Christmas.

They got you through the door with Christmas.

The whole of the city centre was already mental because this was the morning of the Santa Dash — runners in cheap felt Santa get-ups jogging about the Sunday streets and ruining the magic for any children they happened to pass. He’d seen this girl, all of her nothing but a sudden shine and full of big breaths and about to call out, or laugh, or just make some personal noise of completed joy, because there, as far as she could tell, was Santa Claus — truly and in person Santa Claus — pelting up towards her on Nike trainers. Good news all round. Only then behind that Santa came fifteen other bastard Santas — a sense of feral pursuit in their demeanour, you might almost say — and you could entirely hear the kid’s heart breaking — tump, tump — and watch the sink in her chest beneath the quilted anorak — mauve and with a fur trim and almost new, she clearly had attentive parents — as she works out, one ugly piece at a time, that the reindeer and chimney stuff were utterly some revolting scam and that people lie and fine ideas are better left unrealised. Premature adults were being created throughout two postcodes and this would continue at least until lunchtime.

So he’d gone inside to get away from tump, tump .

His arrival at this location was less about the scooter, then, and more about fleeing epidemic grief.

That and the door had been open and a jolly sign right by it announcing the high probability of Christmas carols as if they were mince pies and not so much religious as just sweet and, peering past the threshold, he’d seen candles ranged out in the season’s proper colours and atmosphere music was being provided: posh and twiddly ladders of festive notes making heavenward scampers and proving the organist was both classy and keen to demonstrate the fact. And in most directions also was a sense of healthy families, handshakes, gathering, a comfortable knowledge shared.

The combination of elements had caused him to stride in, as if belonging, and to good-morning nod at one, two, three strangers who good-morning nodded back, probably more as a reflex than as a comradely response, because they afterwards seemed bewildered and looked away.

He’d sat himself near an edge, the leftward extremity of the forthcoming events. This wasn’t because he felt out of it or unclean: rather, he’d spotted a radiator that he could lean beside. The church being one of the cold traditional stone and arching roof-beam type — picturesque and making its point with flair — he knew he’d get chilly if he fitted himself in the wide-open midst.

Before he settled, he’d neither dipped his finger in the magic water, nor dipped his respect to the watching mind hung up above the magic altar. He’d not even slotted a glance along the central aisle to where, no doubt, the flame of forever was burning and where, no doubt, the blood of forever was moulded, recorded, elevated, shown flowing to indicate the likelihood of sympathy between the small and the omnipotent — tump, tump: we’ve each been disappointed in the heart. No doubt.

It seemed no one had disapproved of his laxity. It seemed no one had noticed.

Hi, I’m Sandy. Hi, I’m Douglas. Hi, I’m Martin, Richard, Nigel. He tried on the names he might use while he was here, could offer to fellow congregants in the drift and scuffle at proceedings’ close. Or else he might murmur as he filed out — lovelysingingsuchagiftitwasthankyou — past the master of the ceremonies — I’m Adrian.

No, Douglas would be best. Douglas felt comfortable.

For some reason, Douglas would rather his actual name didn’t have to be heard at present and in these surroundings.

I’m Lawrence. I’m Steve and I’m visiting from out of town. I work in IT. Actually, I’m a naval architect.

Or he could leave without an explanation.

Doug, Doug Fordyce. I have been disappointed in my heart.

He would be Douglas, or sometimes Doug. Doug, who was here on the way to somewhere, at the limit of everything, and maybe unable to tell wrong from right without assistance. That was the assumption in this place, that his morality was not inherent for him. Poor Douglas. He needed help.

Although it could be, in his finer moments, that Douglas did okay. Blessing him might be an imposition and he might, in actuality, already walk along narrow paths of peace and cleanliness and have been born for nothing else. You never knew with Douglas.

The bell sounding to bid them stand, Doug was up and swaying from heel to toe with perhaps anticipation and perhaps unease. A welcome, quite sincere, was issued and then a civilian gave the initial reading, which spoke of God commanding Abraham to murder Isaac.

‘Kill your son for me.’

‘All right, then.’

Which was a bit of a weird choice, given the season and the presence of youngsters, although there was, Doug supposed, the happy ending after the period of mountain-climbing and suspense.

‘On you come, then Isaac. We’re there. Sorry again and all that. God’s orders.’

‘Thanks for letting me get my breath back.’

‘Well, that won’t be permanent.’

‘What?’

‘Least I could do, son — give you a bit of a pause. If there was any other option. .’

‘No, it’s fine. I’ll be fine. Not to fret.’

And then God sweeping in with, ‘ ABRAHAM, ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND? OF COURSE DON’T DO IT. WHY WOULD I ASK YOU TO DO IT?’

‘You did ask me to do it.’

‘ I WASN’T SERIOUS .’

‘I’ve a knife at my son’s throat, we’re both exhausted and you’re not serious. What’s he going to think of me hereafter?’

‘It’s fine, Dad, I said.’

‘I cut him a bit. Look. Shaky hands and that.’

‘I didn’t feel it.’

‘He’ll not be taking voluntary country strolls with me now, God, will he? He’ll be watching the cutlery at mealtimes is what he’ll be doing. Asking me to kill my son. .’

WELL, YOU’LL DO IT TO ME LATER .

‘What?’

AND I’LL LET YOU.

‘Sometimes, honest to God, God, I’ve got no idea what you’re on about. I’m not sure that you do, either.’

LEAVE ME BE .

‘I’m fine, Dad. I’m fine, God.’

DON’T BE RIDICULOUS, OF COURSE YOU’RE NOT FINE AND DON’T CONTRADICT ME. I KNOW EXACTLY HOW YOU ARE. AND YOU DID FEEL IT.

When Doug thought about it, he was pretty quickly sure — as usual — that no one should think about it, no one should consider anything to do with God. Drowning everyone and then inventing rainbows to make up for any inconvenience and THIS SHALL BE A SIGN THAT I WON’T DROWN THE WHOLE SAD PACK OF YOU AGAIN WHEN I FEEL LIKE and then Job being given it hard from every possible direction to basically settle a bet; the Bible did tend to show that God could not be relied upon for much, would turn your wife into a pillar of condiment, would tempt you, plague you, write on your wall, send you dreams that would leave reality tasteless for you, grey-bland.