Demons Read online

  I used the word ‘beautiful’ deliberately, trying to soften the increasingly rough edge of Mum’s tone. I’d decided, too late, that this was information I could have done without. But Mum was on a roll. Now that she’d started on Gran she had to carry on unburdening herself.

  ‘Exactly, she didn’t think. Not ahead. When she heard our news she realised for the first time, properly realised, that the chances were he wasn’t coming back. Not to live.’

  ‘But what’s all this got to do with happiness?’ I asked.

  ‘Your Dad finally persuaded Gran to come and

  live with us,’ Mum said. ‘He wanted her to be with the closest family she had left. She agreed, reluctantly, but she agreed. I thought we’d help her find a small flat nearby but, as things turned out, she

  ended up staying permanently with us.’

  ‘And you didn’t want her to?’

  Mum sighed. ‘It’s not as if I didn’t, exactly. In principle as much as anything else I believe that younger people should carry some responsibility for looking after older ones, but Gran . . .’

  ‘She still wanted the power she was used to?’ I said, pleased with my perceptiveness yet finding it hard to know what Mum was on about. Gran and Mum involved in a power struggle? It didn’t seem likely. I’d never heard them shout at each other. They seemed to agree more often than not.

  Mum nodded. ‘I know it sounds like something out of a soap opera and most of the time I can treat it like that and just laugh it away but other times, the whole thing becomes almost . . . malevolent.’

  ‘But all she did was make us pray the rosary together and that stopped when I started primary school.’

  Gran was a strange contradiction, true enough. As Mum paused before replying, I saw in front of me pictures of Gran and me.

  The two of us walking in the park, Gran

  unexpectedly tackling the playground equipment, sliding the slide, swinging the swing.

  Gran reading to me before I went to sleep, stories from the Bible of course, but not a child’s version, the real thing. Scary but thrilling Old Testament tales of violence, revenge and seduction, as well as nicer but not as interesting New Testament parables about

  being kind to strangers, turning the other cheek and labouring in the vineyard.

  Gran in silent prayer, falling asleep as her rosary beads slipped from her hand to the floor. Sometimes

  she prayed without her rosary, her lips moving but no sound coming from them. What were you praying for

  I’d ask her when she woke up. But if she could remember, she never told me.

  Gran supporting my childhood desire to be a priest.

  Gran and I poring over Michelangelo’s painting The Creation of Adam.

  These days the finger of God seemed to be retreating, rather than coming closer.

  ‘There were other things,’ Mum continued. ‘We didn’t really mind doing the family rosary thing for a while. Salved our consciences, at least.’

  ‘What other things then?’

  ‘Sometimes Gran tried to come between your dad and me. Not often, but occasionally and subtly. When we didn’t expect it. It was never to do with the big, important issues just about small, silly things. A grizzle here, a moan there. Feeding an argument, fanning the embers of a dispute, that sort of thing. Made it worse really because there was never anything specific to accuse her of. And because I’ve never talked about it with you before, it probably all sounds a bit ridiculous and power seems far too big a word to describe it, but power is what it was all about. Anyway, it hasn’t happened for a while. Gran’s an old lady now. She’s tired. She’s helped, she still helps, she’s done a lot to make life easier for all of us, and yet and yet . . . there’s something between us that hasn’t ever gone away and probably never will.

  ‘Maybe it’s time to let the anger go,’ I said. ‘And that line did come straight from a soap opera, by the way.’

  Mum laughed, and so did I, and we both felt a little better for it. ‘You’re undoubtedly right,’ said Mum. ‘I’ll keep trying. Anyway now that I’ve heaped

  my troubles onto you I feel appropriately guilty and probably haven’t done a thing to help you with yours.’

  ‘Mine,’ I said. ‘What troubles do I have?’

  Mum laughed again and hugged me. ‘Weren’t you just telling me about them?’ she said.

  That’s how our talk of journeys ended. The facts of life I’d learnt that day were not the ones I’d expected. My ideas, my perceptions, about Gran and about Mum had changed and I didn’t know if, or how much, it mattered. This new Gran was still the old Gran as well. The new Mum was the same as the old. The same but different.

  Afterwards I wish I had talked to Gran about what Mum had told me but I didn’t and soon it was too late.

  Later

  Not long afterwards, one day after school, I re-membered what had started our one-child-only conversation. I felt an urge to go back to it.

  Mum was frantic making tea, running late for a night shift at the hospital

  ‘The other day you really meant that you didn’t - don’t - actually care about the Church’s rules,’ I said.

  Although Mum and Dad not seeing eye-to-eye with the Church was something I had been vaguely

  aware of since dressing-up days, it hadn’t occurred to me to wonder how deep it might go. Now I was eager to know where she and Dad stood. I wanted to know where I myself might stand in the future.

  Mum did a double take. Then she clicked. ‘Oh, I see. Artificial birth control?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  She paused briefly from forking mince in a mixing bowl to calculate her answer. ‘Well, there are some things that I think aren’t really any of the Church’s business.’

  ‘You can’t believe some things the Church says and not others,’ I said piously, hearing uncanny echoes of Ms Proctor and other religious education teachers coming from my own mouth.

  ‘Of course you can,’ said Mum, throwing tomato sauce into the mince. ‘The Church can be - has been - wrong, many times,’ she declared.

  ‘So why do you and Dad, and me, still go to Mass every Sunday?’

  ‘Can you get me the mixed spice please Andrea. You’ve heard of Vatican Two, the big Church Council?’

  I nodded and went to the pantry. Young Father Wright, parish priest of our church since old Father Brady had retired, had visited each class a couple of times a month to deliver a pep talk. During one of his visits he had spoken about a big, ages-ago church

  conference called Vatican Two and how what he called its ‘winds of change’ had ‘blown away the cobwebs’ and changed everything. I got the impression that he wasn’t too happy about it.

  ‘Well Vatican Two changed a lot of things,’ said Mum. ‘Thanks.’ She tipped in the spice. ‘Blow, that’s far too much. Gran will complain of indigestion. Oh

  well, never mind. Breadcrumbs please.’

  I went back to the pantry.

  ‘There were new understandings, new rules,’ said Mum. ‘People could see that the old rules hadn’t

  been written in concrete. It was a confusing time but quite liberating too. That’s why we stayed. And because we choose to believe in Happy-Forever-After

  or, should I say, Heaven.’

  ‘But still rules,’ I pointed out, passing the breadcrumbs. ‘Do you need an egg?’

  ‘Yes and some milk as well thanks. I prefer to think of them as guidelines.’

  ‘So, basically, we can do what we like even if the church says we can’t?’

  ‘That’s not what I said.’

  ‘But it could be what you meant,’ I explained.

  ‘Only if you take a black and white view of what I said,’ said Mum. ‘Can you wipe up the milk I’ve just spilled?’

  ‘Why can’t Dad get tea?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s off to a meeting tonight,’ said Mum.

  ‘What sort of a meeting?’

  ‘Something about the Pope’s encyclical on social ju
stice,’ said Mum.

  ‘His what?’ Father Wright had used the word but now I couldn’t remember what it meant.

  ‘His letter to the Church. Oven on low,’ Mum muttered to herself. ‘What were we talking about

  Andrea?’

  ‘Black and white,’ I reminded her. ‘That’s interesting because it’s sort of what we’re doing at school right now. Looking at how different people interpret the same things. Taking opposing views.’

  ‘Yes, well,’ said Mum. ‘That’s good.’

  ‘So if I wanted to,’ I said, knowing I was being

  provocative, ‘I could have sex before I got married.’

  ‘I didn’t say that either.’

  ‘No but I’m asking. The church says I shouldn’t but you’re implying I can. If it’s a guideline and not a

  rule. Everyone has sex before they’re married these days.’

  ‘Not everyone,’ said Mum. ‘Don’t generalise.

  What are they teaching you at that school?’

  It’s not what the teachers are teaching. It’s what we talk about out of the classroom,’ I said. ‘Most people then. And most people don’t even get married.’

  ‘If you can square things with your conscience,’ said Mum, ‘I suppose so. Right, that’s the casserole done.’

  Conscience again. I was starting to enjoy this and wished Mum wasn’t in such a hurry. As I’d told her, our teacher encouraged debate and discussion. Taking sides you might disagree with but had to argue for. Taking sides you agreed with and arguing against. We had a class debate once every month. He would have been delighted to hear how well I was doing now.

  ‘What about it?’ said poor Mum. ‘Have you seen my watch?’

  ‘It’s on your dressing table,’ I said. ‘I saw it there yesterday.’

  ‘Good girl.’ Mum made a dash for the bedroom.

  I followed her.

  ‘Ms Proctor used to say that conscience was the little voice inside your head that told you whether something was right or wrong and we had to listen to the voice so we did all the right things.’

  ‘Hmm . . . Ah, there it is.’

  ‘Well. If my little voice said it was OK to have

  sex before marriage then I wouldn’t be doing any-thing wrong if I did it. Right?’

  ‘You’re trying to paint me into a corner,’ said Mum. ‘And you’re far too young to even be

  considering any such thing.’

  ‘Go on, answer me.’

  Mum sighed. ‘I suppose so. Depends on how

  well you’d considered all the facts relevant to the situation.’

  For the sake of the argument I disregarded that and went on:

  ‘So, if I decided to murder someone and my little voice said it was OK then I wouldn’t really be a murderer, would I?’

  ‘If that were the case,’ said Mum slowing down for a second, ‘your little voice would be coming from one hell of a deranged personality. And you’d have a tough time convincing a judge and a jury.’

  ‘But it’s no different . . .’

  ‘Of course it’s different Andrea.’ Mum snapped on her way out the door. ‘In the first scenario, the sex before marriage one, you’d most probably end up hurting only yourself if you did it before you were ready; but as far as the second one goes you’d be hurting lots of other people not to mention the person you murdered.’

  ‘I know Mum,’ I said pacifying her. ‘I was only being the devil’s advocate.’

  We both had to laugh when we realised what I’d said. As she got into her car Mum tried to have the last word. ‘How would you know your ‘little voice’ wasn’t the devil whispering in your ear?’

  ‘Well,’ I started, ‘does the devil really exist?’

  ‘I’m out of here!’ said Mum. She started the car, began backing down the drive, before putting on the

  brakes.

  ‘Hurt emotionally is what I was really talking about,’ she said, a lot more seriously this time. ‘People who think sex is just a physical thing try hard

  to separate it from feelings, one of which may be love, but I don’t think it’s possible. So, the way I look at it, sex has to be more than just ‘doing it’, it’s got to

  be with the right person at the right time for the right reasons.’

  ‘Yes Mum, I know all that,’ I said.

  ‘But do you believe it?’ she asked.

  Entranced, not

  If I hadn’t believed it then, I certainly did a few years later when I was at high school. The reason was simple. I went to a Year Ten dance with a guy called Robbie. It was the first time I’d been out with a guy so I was pretty agitated about the whole thing even though it was just a school event. I had friends in the youth group who were boys and made new male friends at high school but that’s all they were, friends. No boy had ever seemed especially interested in me for any other reason. At that time I thought it was because I had grown too tall and too oddly shaped to

  be regarded as proper girlfriend material. My (admittedly) very brief experience with Robbie made

  me in no hurry to get more intimately acquainted with

  the masculine gender, not until Chris came along three years later.

  Robbie was really keen on the live band that was going to be playing and he said he was keen on me. That was a new experience so I said I’d go with him.

  I quite liked Robbie, in a passing sort of way. He

  was moderately good-looking, from my point of view and, unlike most of the boys I knew, his sense of humour wasn’t too silly or smart-arsed either.

  ‘Who’s the band?’ I asked, more out of politeness than genuine interest.

  ‘TranceSonic Boom.’

  ‘Haven’t heard of them.’

  ‘Haven’t heard of TranceSonic Boom!’ Robbie

  was amazed. ‘Where’ve you been?’ ‘They’re the greatest,’ he repeated. ‘Trance dance is their thing.’

  ‘Is it?’ I said.

  ‘You’ll love it,’ Robbie assured me. ‘Let the music take you out of your mind.’

  I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that. I preferred to keep my mind and me together.

  ‘He’s asked you to do what?’

  ‘Go to the school dance with him.’

  Michelle shook her head at me in disbelief. ‘And you said . . .?’

  ‘I said yes.’

  ‘He’s not worth it,’ said Jo.

  ‘Why not?’

  Michelle and Jo looked at one another deciding whether or not to tell me. ‘You say,’ said Jo.

  ‘Come on, spill the beans,’ I said to them.

  ‘Well,’ said Michelle, ‘we heard him talking to

  Anita and he said to her, “I’m going to ask Andrea out but if you ask me I’ll say yes to you instead”.’

  Anita had obviously declined this invitation.

  ‘He’s a slime ball,’ said Jo. ‘No mistake.’

  ‘It’s too late,’ I said. ‘I’ve already said yes.’

  ‘Well, you’ve been warmed,’ said Michelle.

  Dad dropped me off at school where I met Robbie, as agreed, outside our classroom. He was swigging from a can.

  ‘This event is supposed to be alcohol free,’ I said.

  ‘It is,’ said Robbie, tossing the empty can under a bench. ‘Inside. Come on gal.’

  Gal! Great start, not!

  We walked over to the school hall - me full of

  regrets - as if we’d arrived together under our own steam. As none of us were anywhere old enough to have driver’s licences yet I don’t know who Robbie was so keen to impress. Himself perhaps?

  Electronic music pulsated from inside the hall, a steady and danceable beat with repeating riffs that seemed to loop back into themselves and then explode with a kind of soft grenade sound, something like a muffled sonic boom. So different from the Irish music Dad played endlessly at home, not to mention the trad Catholic songs which were Gran’s speciality (although she hadn’t requested them at her own funeral)
. Their oh-so-familiar tunes, like the family rosary of years ago, had stitched themselves into my brain even though no one sang them at modern-day masses. Of course I knew there was other music but I never seemed to feel a need to listen to it. My musical education, as Michelle and Jo regularly pointed out to me, was sadly lacking.

  ‘Man, listen to it!’ said Robbie. He seemed to have gone into some kind of trance already, before we’d even started dancing. I didn’t like this. I suddenly wanted to go home. Why had he asked me, I wondered. Had Michelle and Jo overheard correctly after all?

  ‘Gidday Rob,’ said several people, who looked

  sideways at me as if I was some sort of alien being. What was this pinhead doing here I was certain they’d be wondering. The dancing was soon in full swing. Robbie dragged me by my arm into the middle of the floor.

  ‘Hey, slow down caveman,’ I said.

  If he heard, he took no notice. Instead he issued instructions. ‘Let yourself go babe.’

  Not likely, I said to myself. Despite this, it

  hadn’t taken me long to understand the attractions of Trance. The music could infiltrate your head so it was as if the pulse of the universe beat inside it and you were an integral part of the world instead of just an onlooker. You were the stars not just the astronomer peering at them through a telescope. Praying an endless rosary, strangely, could be like this I thought, although naturally I didn’t tell Robbie this oddball fact. He wouldn’t have come even close to understanding what I was on about.

  What he did still understand, despite being transported by TranceSonic Boom, was that I was a girl and he intended to take full advantage of that fact. Before too long, he moved in close as we swayed, reaching behind me with his hands, curving his sweaty palms round my bum and pressing his chest, and his groin, hard into mine.

  ‘Stop it!’ I said.

  As I pushed him away, ungluing his hands from

  my behind I couldn’t help but think, this is a sort of sex with no emotion, no feeling, no love.

  He just grinned - leered was more the look - and angled in for another landing. I shoved him again and this time he stumbled backwards, bumping into a few other dancers. I didn’t stay around for a third coming.