The Gospel According to Luke (15 page)

BOOK: The Gospel According to Luke
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‘From Belinda?'

‘Among others. I usually eat breakfast in the kitchen with my staff, but this morning I needed something stronger than tea and all-bran.' Luke held up a hand while he ate a Bacon McMuffin. Three huge bites and it was gone. He wiped his mouth on a napkin and smiled. ‘Sorry, I'm absolutely ravenous.' He picked up a hash brown and devoured it in two bites. ‘Oh, how I miss grease. You know we don't even have oil to cook
with? We have low-fat cooking spray.' He sucked his index finger. ‘Oh, I love this greasy junky rubbish.'

Honey screwed up her nose. ‘That's just because you never get to have it. If you were having it all the time, you'd want apples and radishes or whatever. Like my boyfriend Steve eats nothing but fried crap, because he can't cook and there isn't anyone else to cook for him, and all he can afford is hot chips with sauce. One time I made him a salad and he just about blew his load he loved it so much.'

‘Must have been a pretty great salad.'

‘Not really it was just – oh, I shouldn't talk like that around you, should I? I should've said, he loved my salad so much he just about turned cartwheels.'

‘You should talk to me the way you talk to anyone else. Being a Christian doesn't make me a prude, you know.'

‘Really? But yesterday when you swore at Aggie, you were so sorry you had to race off and flog yourself.'

‘No, no, not me. I don't believe that God wants us to flog ourselves for our mistakes. He just wants us to be sorry and to do everything in our power to avoid repeating them. He wants us to learn and grow and keep trying harder to be better.' He closed his eyes like he was praying. Either that or he had fallen asleep sitting up. Honey slurped loudly on her juice. His eyes snapped open. ‘Why do you want to have an abortion?'

She shovelled a forkful of mushy eggs into her mouth and chewed them slowly while she thought of what to say.

‘Is someone making you do this, Honey?'

She shook her head, swallowing the eggs with difficulty.

‘You sure about that?'

‘I've been through this with Aggie already. She's a counsellor, so she'd know if I wasn't telling the truth. Counsellors are trained to know when people are lying.'

Luke smiled. ‘Maybe. But I don't need a social work degree, which I have by the way, to figure out that someone has been putting a heck of a lot of pressure on you about something.'

‘You're a social worker?'

‘No, I'm a pastor who happens to have a degree in social work. Did Steve hit you when he found out you were still pregnant?'

‘No.' Ask me again tomorrow, Honey thought. If I don't work out a way to get five hundred bucks.

‘Because I've seen my fair share of bruises and yours look at least ten hours old. There are several points of impact, too. I just don't believe you fell over four or five times hitting a different part of your face each time.'

‘You're a doctor too, huh?'

‘You know you could charge him for doing that to you. Being your boyfriend doesn't give him the right to hurt you.'

‘Pay attention, will you? Steve did not hit me. Got it?'

‘
Nobody
has the right to lay a finger on you. Your body is your own, Honey, and you should demand that other people respect that.'

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nobody has the right to touch me in a way that makes me feel uncomfortable or to hurt me physically in any way. If a stranger or family member touches me in a way I know is wrong I should tell a teacher, my minister or another trusted adult. Got the message when I was like, six, so you can lay off with the lecture.'

Luke pushed the tray to the end of the table and reached across to take Honey's hand. ‘Maybe you didn't have a trusted adult to talk to when you were six.'

‘And now I do. Saint Luke is going to save me and heal all my childhood wounds.'

Luke held her hands and did not blink.

18.

Before she had even pulled into her parking space, Aggie saw the red paint splattered across the newly replaced clinic window. She had hoped, but not really believed, that yesterday's attack was a one-off, and here, splattered across the glass, was confirmation of her fears. She leant against the bonnet of her car, staring at the graffiti, preparing herself mentally for the day ahead. There would be police reports, cleaning, arguments with Mal over security measures. And there would be cancelled appointments, frightened clients and the catastrophising of local reporters hungry for a story with teeth.

And it didn't matter, because somewhere in there, amongst the turpentine and hard-eyed policemen,
somewhere between the stress headache and the unprofessional loss of temper, Luke would appear. He would bring peace, just a little. Happiness, just enough.

The same two young policemen from yesterday filled out the same yellow form, looked at the same piece of pavement and checked the same nearby garbage bins. They wanted to talk to Malcolm but he wasn't there when he should have been, and Aggie could not reach him on the phone. The cops exchanged glances. One of them asked if there had been any threats made against Malcolm, while the other began sifting through the papers on top of Mal's desk.

‘Like death threats or something? No, not that I . . . no.' Aggie laughed. The cops did not laugh with her; they exchanged glances again, told her they'd be in touch if they got any leads, then, as they were leaving, the older man tapped the front window with his fingers and said, ‘You might want to consider something bullet-proof. Either that or stay out of the way of the window. Just in case.'

She tried phoning Mal again without success. She couldn't keep still, waiting for the graffiti remover to come. She felt like there was a big red dot in the middle of her forehead. Every backfiring car made her freeze, waiting for the heat of the bullet, the paralysis in her spine. Last year, Will had been robbed at gunpoint as he closed up the till at his restaurant. For months afterwards he woke in the night holding in
the brains he was sure were spilling out the back of his head. Aggie understood now. By the time the cleaner arrived her shirt was damp with imagined blood.

She locked up, asking the cleaner to tell Mal to call her mobile if he turned up before she was back. The bloke knew Mal, from back in the old days when the attached abortion clinic meant almost daily wall and window scrubbing. He told Aggie he would be sure to pass on her message, and also, to tell Mal that he shouldn't leave a lady alone in such a dangerous place. She smiled and waved off his comment, but as she crossed the road she felt exposed in a way she never had before. She would have liked someone beside her.

Greg was on greeting duty at the centre. He stood when she entered the courtyard, placing his book on the bench beside him and taking both her hands.

‘Aggie, good to see you. I saw what happened. Bummer, huh?'

‘Yeah.' She reclaimed her hands. ‘Is Luke in?'

‘He's in a private counselling session. Some emergency, Belinda said.' Greg gestured to the bench. ‘You can wait out here if you want.'

She sat down, hoping Luke's emergency would be over soon, hoping Mal would call. She glanced at the spine of Greg's book:
The Four Loves
. ‘Any good?' she asked.

Greg picked up the book and smiled. ‘Oh, yeah, it's awesome. Have you read any C.S. Lewis? His writings on Christianity?'

‘Afraid not.'

‘Oh, you'd like this one, really. It says this thing about –' Greg flicked through the book, squinting and furrowing his brow. ‘Here: “Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.” Awesome, huh?'

‘Actually, yeah.' Aggie smiled. ‘It sounds like something my mother would say.'

‘Cool. Is your mum a Christian?'

‘Oh, no. She says all religion is a crutch.'

‘And she doesn't limp?'

‘My mother not only doesn't limp, she doesn't even walk. She leaps, bounds, flies. She treks and hikes.'

‘Cool. Maybe you can talk her into leading a hike for some of the kids.'

‘Ha. As amusing as that would be, it's quite impossible. Mum's hard to get hold of. She moves around a lot.'

He nodded. ‘You miss your mum?'

‘Sometimes. I'm used to not having her around. She's never really been around.'

‘And your dad?'

‘He's not around either.'

Greg considered her a moment. ‘No sisters or brothers?'

She shook her head.

‘Makes sense.'

‘What does?'

‘You and Luke. You know he never had a friend outside of church before? Not since I've known him anyway. I've seen him sit in a gutter all night, talking to a drunk until he was sober enough not to hurt himself. One time he sold everything he owned – from car to sports jacket – to raise money for Kosovan refugees. Nobody at the church would have known except a whole bunch of Kosovars turned up one day to thank him. Another time he . . . well, I could tell you a hundred stories, more than that even. But he's never had a friend who was just for him.'

Aggie closed her eyes, feeling the heat of the sun on her bare arms, remembering his fevered skin, the hot surprise of his orgasm, his grief.

‘What about you, Greg? Do you have a friend just for you?'

‘Sure. I have a few I still see. A few who are happy to see me happy, who don't freak out about me being with Jesus now.'

‘Do you have family?'

‘I do, but . . . my mum's okay; she drinks a real lot, so do my brothers. My dad . . .' He looked down at his hands, curved his fingers up over his palms to
examine his nails. ‘Last time I saw him he was begging on William Street. I was a couple of months sober, full of forgiveness and all. I went right on over and said, “Hey, Dad, it's been a while.” And he just looked at me, and I thought, well it has been a long time so I said, “I'm Greg, Dad.” And my Dad said . . .' Greg clenched his fists. ‘“Get the hell away from me.” And so I did. Then he called me back and asked if I could spare a dollar. I gave him fifty and he said, “Thanks, kid.” And that was that.'

‘That's harsh, Greg. I'm sorry.'

‘It's cool. I have my heavenly father now.'

‘You sound like Luke.' Aggie jumped at the shriek of her phone. ‘Mal? Oh, thank Christ! You okay?'

His voice was high, shaky. ‘Yeah. You?'

‘Fine. Where are you?'

‘Office.'

‘See you in thirty seconds.' She hung up, already running toward the entrance. ‘Duty calls. Thanks for the chat.'

19.

Luke took Honey into his office and listened to her rant for an hour or so. She told him about Muzza and her mother, about Steve and Ricky and some other boys she'd messed around with before. She told him about her dad, the Spanish dancer who had another family in Granada, but who wrote her long, funny letters at least every third month. She told him about how her grandmother secretly hated her for being half-Spanish, and that Steve sometimes called her a spic, even though she looked Anglo. She told him how confusing it was sometimes to feel unconnected from part of herself, and Luke understood, because his parents had abandoned him when he was a tiny baby,
and he didn't know
what
he was. Honey told him he looked a bit Arab and he told her how he'd been called everything from Lebanese to Indian to Aboriginal and he used to hate it, but then he realised the mystery of his identity was a gift from God, allowing him to identify with all races and cultures. He found a sense of belonging through his place in God's forever family.

Then he said, ‘Please don't kill your baby, Honey.'

‘It's not a baby.' Honey picked up her school bag from his desk. ‘It's a bunch of cells. I'm going now. I shouldn't have even come here. I'm going right across the street and –'

‘Honey, please just hear me out. I know you don't have the money to do it today, anyway, and if you're so sure that you're doing the right thing then whatever I say will just be water off a duck's back, right? So humour me?'

Honey dropped her bag, crossed her arms and glared. ‘Whatever.'

‘Thank you.' He scooted his chair across to a bookshelf and grabbed a pale blue book the size and thickness of a fashion magazine. He rolled back over, positioning himself on her side of the desk and opening the book in front of her. ‘How pregnant are you?'

‘Twelve, thirteen weeks.'

‘Right, okay, great.' He flicked through the book and when he found what he was looking for he said ‘Great,' again, and pointed at the page. ‘See here, at
only three weeks, your baby already had a heart, the beginning of a vertebra, a closed circulatory system totally separate from yours and the beginning of lungs. And see, look at this! Wow! By four weeks, maybe before you knew he was there, his lungs were fully developed, and the heart started to beat on its own.'

Honey didn't say anything.

‘Okay, Honey, check this out. A twelve-week-old foetus has everything present that will be found in a fully developed adult. Isn't that incredible? And look! The little darling inside you is already wriggling its fingers around!' Luke looked up from the book and smiled; his eyes were shiny. ‘I bet you didn't realise your baby was so well developed.'

Honey stared at the picture.
Twelve Weeks
it said. There were the little nostrils, the stumpy fingers, the heart and tiny ribs. She touched her belly; it was as flat as ever. Was it possible all this growing had happened in there without her feeling it? Wouldn't you know if a whole spine was forming inside of you? But she had known, hadn't she? That was the sickness, the tiredness, the woolly-headed dumbness. All her vitality being drained by the busy little person making itself a body.

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