After the fire, a still small voice - By Evie Wyld Page 0,100

thought about the time he’d opened his lunch box at school to find a tin of sardines, missing the key to open them, and a balled-up sock.

‘It must be quite a lot to take in after all these years. I know that he didn’t always believe, Frank.’ A long silence followed during which Merle took a sip of her drink and blotted her lips on a napkin. Frank could not take his eyes off the embroidery. Merle rolled her tongue in to her cheek.

‘So this place was actually invented by Billy Graham?’

Merle smiled. ‘We prefer discovered. Or saved.’

‘Right.’ He wondered if he would have it in him to get up and leave, just to pretend he never came, ignore Merle as he crossed the room, leaving his scotch finger and lime cordial untouched, a trail of mud to the door.

‘Billy was the biggest thing to happen in Roedale.’ She shuffled forward a bit, lowered her voice like she was telling a fairy tale. ‘When I was a very young girl, I didn’t even know who Jesus was – thought he was something like Father Christmas, I think.’ She sat back in her seat a little, eyes on Frank’s. ‘See, my family weren’t the believing kind. At Christmas the town’d set up this chocolate wheel, and all the kids would line up and buy tickets and hope their number would be called, hope they’d be the ones eating all that sweet chocolate. Only – that chocolate wheel – all you’d ever win were cuts of meat.’ Merle took another sip, blotted, looked towards the portrait. ‘That was an ill-named wheel.’

Frank took his cordial to his mouth, wetted his top lip and took it away again.

‘But when Billy called your number, that’s when you really got chocolate.’ She looked back at him and held his gaze.

‘Right.’ He nodded. This was a mistake.

‘Do you understand, Frank? A place can’t exist on meat alone.’

‘But meat and Jesus works out for you, does it?’ He meant it to sound rude, but she didn’t flinch. Frank imagined what would happen when his father arrived home to find him there, but found he couldn’t picture what his dad’s face looked like. He thought of the silence and looked at the silent television. A show with doctors, all in blue, masks, scalpels.

‘Frank.’ Merle spoke again, with a voice off Playschool. ‘This place, this town, is made up entirely of believers.’

Believers and meat. He thought he might start to laugh. He knew that if he undid his hands from the glass they would shake. ‘I think, maybe I’ll be off – come back later when he’s here.’ He tensed his legs to stand.

But Merle carried on and somehow it kept him there. ‘People who don’t fit in don’t stay. We are here and we are happy, and we are waiting for Jesus.’ She leant forward, clasping her napkin in her hand. ‘He can know that when He gets here there’ll be a safe place to stay. He can know that there is a place He will feel entirely welcomed, a place He can feel at home.’

‘Right.’

‘Your father is out there.’ She pointed with a stiff finger towards the door. ‘In places with less knowledge and he’s trying to help those people, Frank. He’s found something good, he’s trying to lead those people home. Like Billy did. He led us out into the light of knowledge. He showed us Jesus and once you have seen Jesus, Frank, once you have seen Him, you’ll never go back, because it is too dark.’

Frank had left his father upstairs, lying in his own dirt, and on the way down the stairs the violence had come back to him and he bounced back into the kitchen, the skin on his face stinging, blood fast in his veins. The woman in the kitchen was still smiling, holding the remains of a Mighty White and fried-egg sandwich, which she dipped into the hot fat of the frying pan, smoke still touching the windows.

‘Want some snack?’ she’d asked and he went for her, tearing at the dress to get it off, looking for a fastening to rip at; and she dropped her sandwich on the floor, but was laughing. She was strong for her weight and she fielded his attack, changing each scrabbling blow that landed, giggling like a schoolgirl. She hoisted the dress over her knees. ‘Like father like son, eh?’ she said, and Frank smelt egg and beer, and something strong like the bins in