The Gospel According to Luke Read online

  Afterwards, Luke attended a counselling session for the parents of a suicide. He had never met the parents, because they attended services at the church in Castle Hill, and the child who’d died had never come to youth group, but Pastor Riley had asked him to come along because of his expertise on youth issues. It wasn’t until he was leaving the grieving family’s home that he realised how useless – how cruel even – it was to have a youth pastor talking about youth issues when he himself was the youngest person in the room.

  Driving back through the wide, tree-lined avenues of Castle Hill, he could not understand why Jonathan Cranbourne, an eighteen-year-old Computer Science student with a passion for tennis and Coldplay, had shot himself because he believed he could not be with the person he loved.

  By the time he got back to Koloona Street, it was almost midnight. He drove past the entrance to the NCYC car park, turned into the lot across the street, parked next to Aggie’s car in a space marked Reserved for Staff and sat for a moment to pray. Lord, give me strength he began, and then stopped because what he really meant was Lord give me Aggie. ‘Forgive me,’ he said, checking his hair in the mirror. ‘I have to know what it meant.’

  Luke rang the night buzzer. There was a scuffling sound from inside, and then her voice came through, low and menacing. ‘You’re under surveillance by armed security guards who are less than a minute away, and I have a gun pointed at the door right where your head is. Now, who are you and what do you want?’

  Luke smiled at the intercom. ‘You hate guns and have a barely adequate burglar alarm from Kmart. But you do sound very tough, so I’m a little scared anyway.’

  He heard her muttering profanities as she unlocked the deadlocks, and then the door opened. She nodded, but did not smile, as he stepped inside. He helped her relock the door and then reached for her hands, but she snatched them away and held them out in front of her.

  ‘You’re pathetic, you know that? Acting like you were about to throw up just because someone might have caught you kissing me. And what’s with waiting until the middle of the night to come and –’

  ‘I just spent six hours praying with a couple whose son killed himself.’

  ‘Oh, Luke.’ She dropped the keys and wrapped her arms around his neck. ‘One of your kids?’

  ‘No. That’s the . . . I keep thinking that if he’d come to the centre, or if his parents had called me to come and talk to him . . . But then, I don’t know what I could’ve said, anyway. Thinking that I would have made a difference is just a way to feel better about myself. To feel less useless.’

  ‘We can’t know what might have been. Don’t torture yourself with it.’

  ‘He was a . . . He was involved in a relationship with another boy. His parents found out and they –’ Luke stopped, feeling Aggie’s arms stiffen, her body move almost imperceptibly away. ‘I prayed all night with them, Ag, but I was on automatic pilot. I told those people, those poor, heartbroken, decent people, that they were right, that they had done only as God would’ve had them do, and it’s true, I think. I mean, if he had come to me, what could I have told him?’

  ‘You would have told him, I’m sure, that you can’t help who you love, and that in this violent, war-torn, hate-filled world, love in any and all of its forms is something to be cherished and celebrated.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have said that. It sounds good though. It sounds like it should be true, but it just isn’t.’

  ‘You break my heart, Luke. If you feel that way about . . .’Aggie sighed, her body deflating and folding itself into the creases of his own crumpled form.

  ‘I have to get home, Aggie. I shouldn’t have even –’

  ‘Yes, you should have.’ She kissed his forehead. ‘You should always come to me. I always want to see you.’

  ‘I don’t understand that. I offend you. I make you sad.’

  ‘True, but I’m tough and I love you –’

  Luke kissed Aggie with such force that she gasped and stumbled backwards. He grabbed her hips and hoisted her on to the edge of the desk, stood between her knees, kissed her again while he unbuttoned her shirt, buried his face in her chest, pushed the cold white satin of her bra out of the way so he could take her right nipple in his mouth, ran his hand along the outside of her thigh, accidentally bit her breast when she grabbed his buttocks, told her he loved her when she slid her hands around to his crotch, told her she was amazing when she stroked him through his trousers, told her he needed her when she unzipped him, moaned YES when she asked if he was okay with this, lifted his face and kissed her mouth while she slid her hand under the waistband of his underwear and then when her fingers closed around the top of his penis he at last came to his senses and shouted NO, but by then it was too late.

  ‘Oh!’ Aggie held him tight. He pressed his face into her shoulder.

  ‘Oh, sweetie, please don’t cry. It’s totally fine. Just let me –’ Aggie eased her hand out of his underwear. Luke kept his face hidden, while she groped around behind her with one hand. ‘I know there’s a box of – aha! Always a box of tissues on a counsellor’s desk.’

  She wiped him clean and zipped up his pants, then with both hands, lifted his head from her shoulder and looked into his face. ‘I love you, you know that?’

  ‘Yes.’ Luke bent his head and sobbed into her still bare, so warm chest and wondered if this was what young Jonathan Cranbourne felt like before he shot himself in the head.

  17.

  From the window of the school bus Honey counted eight posters of herself on telegraph poles. She rested her head on the seat in front and tried to stay calm.

  Steve was waiting for her at the gate. He was shortsighted but refused glasses on account of them looking faggy, and so she was almost level with him before he noticed her face. He squinted, scowled, spat off to the side. ‘What happened to you?’

  Honey ignored him, leaning against the fence and lighting a smoke.

  ‘You not talking to me?’

  Honey turned around and blew smoke into the teachers’ car park.

  Steve kicked the backpack at his feet. It skittled along the footpath a few centimetres. Steve shuffled along behind the bag until he was by her side. ‘Your old man do that?’

  ‘He’s not my old man.’

  ‘Right, so why’d you let him beat on you?’

  Honey shrugged. Steve put his hands on her waist and kissed the back of her neck. ‘I’ll get the boys together, fuck him up real bad.’

  ‘Just forget it.’

  ‘He can’t get away with beating up on my girl.’

  ‘If I was your girl you would’ve come over last night.’

  ‘You coulda come to Rex’s.’

  Honey turned and faced Steve. ‘You expect me to come to Rex’s when I’ve just had a fucking abortion?’

  ‘Oh, man!’ Steve slapped his forehead, then took hold of Honey’s shoulders. ‘I forgot, babe. I was so wasted last night. Shit! How’d it go?’

  ‘It didn’t.’

  His grip on her shoulders tightened. He leant in so close she could see the white down between his eyebrows. His breath was minty. ‘You’re still preggers?’

  Honey tried to step away but he was too strong. When she moved, his nails dug deeper into her flesh and his face got closer. ‘It wasn’t my fault, Steve. There was this protester woman and I passed out and –’

  ‘You’ll go back today.’

  ‘The thing is –’

  ‘Now. You’ll go now.’

  ‘The money’s gone. Muzza found it.’ Honey closed her eyes and waited.

  ‘You know, Honey, that money was very, very hard to get. Rex nearly got his balls chewed off by a Rottweiler. And I cut myself on that fence, you remember? Blood everywhere. Fucking rusty it was, too. I coulda got tetanus or something.’

  She opened her mouth to speak, but his mouth, cold and dry, pressed against her lips. ‘Sssh.’ He leant his forehead against hers. ‘I can see you did your best to hang on to the money. You’re lucky he bruised
you like that or I might have doubted you.’

  ‘I tried so hard to stop him, Stevo, I swear.’

  ‘I believe you, babe. Some blokes wouldn’t. Some blokes would think you were taking advantage. They might think you’re pulling a scam on them. Five hundred bucks is a big deal, Honey, a really, big, fucking deal. But I know you’re telling the truth and so I’m going to go easy on you.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘But you’re on your own now. You sort it out. You sort it out fast, or I’m gone. You understand, Honey? Gone like the fucking wind.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good girl.’ His tongue went in her mouth, his nose smashed against hers. She kissed him the way he expected her to even though the movement made her jaw ache and her lips sting. ‘That’s enough, babe, you’re giving me a woody.’ He stepped away, adjusted his shorts and picked up his backpack. ‘I’d come with you but I’m expelled if I miss one more day.’

  Honey nodded. He reached out and pinched her unbruised cheek. ‘I promise I’ll come see you tonight.’ He pinched her again, winked and ran through the gate, just as the rollcall buzzer sounded.

  When Honey got to the clinic she saw that the window had been replaced, and that the words Arrange the murder of your children here had been spray-painted across it. Just showing through under the red of the final e was a sign which told her the clinic did not open until ten on Thursdays. Honey decided to wait in the McDonald’s down the road rather than the reserve across the street, because the reserve would put her in religious psycho territory. She spent eighty cents of her ten dollar life savings on an English muffin and sat picking at its edges, drinking the free ice water and hoping that Aggie had an idea of how she could get an abortion for $9.20.

  ‘Honey?’

  She looked up. Luke from the Christian centre was walking towards her. His smile lasted half a second before morphing into a horrified grimace. ‘Honey!’ he said again, sliding into the booth across from her. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Fell in the shower this morning. Hit the edge of the tub.’

  ‘Fell?’

  ‘Actually,’ she said, lowering her voice, ‘I fainted. The pregnancy, you know. Speaking of which, thanks for your help yesterday.’

  He frowned. ‘I wish I’d been there to help you this morning.’

  ‘Impossible. I’m not allowed to have boys in the shower with me. But I’m flattered really.’

  Luke got up and walked away. Honey concentrated all her energy on tearing her English muffin into strips of equal width. She had managed three perfect muffin strips when Luke returned carrying a tray.

  ‘Scrambled eggs. Sausage Muffin. Bacon Muffin. Hash browns. Coffee. Juice.’ He pushed the tray toward her. ‘I got two of everything, so dig in.’

  ‘What are you doing?’

  He smiled at her over the top of his coffee. ‘Buying you breakfast.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you need to eat.’

  Honey pushed the tray away. ‘I’m fine, thank you.’

  ‘We both know you’re not fine.’ He uncovered a plate of scrambled eggs and placed it next to her shredded muffin. ‘Your baby needs you to eat.’

  ‘The foetus will be gone by the end of the day. No point wasting good food on it. Anyway, I have to go.’

  ‘Aggie won’t be in for at least another hour. Why don’t you wait here with me and then we can walk down together?’

  ‘You’re going to see Aggie?’

  Luke nodded at his orange juice.

  ‘You’re knocked up too, huh?’

  ‘Wouldn’t that be a scandal?’ He sat straighter and smiled. ‘Come on, eat up.’

  Honey ignored the food. ‘Did you see the graffiti?’

  ‘I did. Incredible.’

  ‘Incredible bastards.’

  ‘I’m certain Aggie agrees with you.’

  ‘You don’t?’

  ‘Oh, I agree with you that destruction of property is an inappropriate means of protest, but . . .’ Luke shrugged. ‘I do agree with their sentiments, and honestly, I admire their tenacity. They must have been up all night, just waiting for the opportunity . . .’

  ‘You look like you’ve been up all night yourself,’ Honey said. ‘Maybe you should go back and get some sleep before you see Aggie?’

  He smiled. ‘Actually, Honey, I’m sort of hiding up here.’

  ‘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.�
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  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.