The Gospel According to Luke Read online

  But then one day in Year Nine when Honey was sharing a fag with a couple of seniors in the dunny, Haley Morris (who was seventeen) told her that semen had a whole lot of male hormones in it, so if you drank too much, you would grow hair on your chest. Clara Piper (who was younger than Haley, but whose boyfriend was, like, thirty) said that Haley was full of it. There were fuck-all hormones in spunk; but there was a shit-load of sugar, so if you were watching your weight – and who wasn’t – you should spit. Honey was about to ask what their boyfriends thought about them not swallowing, when she was hit with the realisation that what Marcus had told her was utter crap. Not feel a thing, he said! Well what the hell was all that hair pulling and moaning and shit? Geez, she was a twit. Thank Christ she hadn’t said anything in front of Haley and Clara; they’d never speak to her again if they knew how stupid she was.

  So Honey went back to spitting out and found that the boys she went out with liked it just fine. Ricky complained the first time, but she told him about the hairy chest and the putting on weight and after that he always had a tissue ready for her. But Steve was different. He said she didn’t have to do anything she didn’t want to, but if she loved him then why wouldn’t she want to drink his stuff? And he didn’t think she understood how horrible it felt to have a girl spit out part of you. How would she like it if he spit her stuff out because it was so gross? She almost said what stuff? But she got his point and she did love him and it wasn’t so awful really. You could get used to anything.

  Sixteen, up the goddamn duff, she nicked Your Body: A Guided Tour of Womanhood from the school library and sat on the disabled dunny with the book open to Pregnancy: Do’s and Don’ts, a cig between her lips to calm her nerves. She wanted to know what not to do so she could do it. She made mental notes: excessive drinking, smoking, amphetamine use, heavy lifting, starvation. And then, in amongst the prescriptions for trouble-free pregnancy, she read the truth, finally, about swallowing.

  Swallowing your partner’s semen, the book said, desensitises your body to his DNA, reducing the likelihood of rejection (pre-eclampsia).

  So, that was it. If only she hadn’t swallowed, maybe her body would have recognised Steve’s stuff for the foul, poisonous invader it was. Maybe her body would have done what her mouth should have: spat that crap out. Then, maybe, she wouldn’t be in this condition.

  She dropped the book and her ciggie in the toilet and went to try and score some speed.

  10.

  When Luke woke on Monday morning it was like his skull was trying to break free, like his guts were searching for a way out. And down there his skin was so tight he was sure it would split. Even during his morning prayers, a time when he rarely felt anything but peace, his body battled to be freed.

  He skipped breakfast, stayed in the shower until the hot water ran out, and then stood, head against the tiles, hands determinedly by his sides, and let the cold water run over his spine and buttocks until he was shuddering. If it had not been Monday morning, he would have knelt naked on the freezing tiles and prayed some more, but he was already late for the staff meeting.

  They were waiting in the rec room. Belinda perched on a stool, her long brown legs crossed over each other, a folder open across her thighs; Greg sprawled across three giant floor cushions, looking as though he’d been there all night; Leticia and Kenny side by side on a beanbag, the way Luke and Aggie had been just last week.

  ‘We missed you at breakfast,’ Belinda said.

  ‘I wasn’t hungry.’

  ‘Must have been a great dinner last night.’

  They were all staring at him. ‘Great,’ he said.

  ‘You always get so darned spoilt after a sermon, Luke Butler. Talk about perks of the job. What was it last night? Another one of Mrs Stevens’ roast chickens? Or was it Clarissa Heywood’s beef stroganoff?’

  ‘No, no.’ Luke cleared his throat. ‘I had a dinner appointment with Miss Grey last night.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Belinda.

  ‘Like, a business appointment, or . . .’ Kenny shrugged.

  ‘A dinner appointment, I said already. Now, what’s on the agenda?’

  ‘So, a date?’

  Luke sighed. ‘I had dinner with Miss Grey, at her home. She served salad and vegetarian lasagne. I talked to her about God, she raised the usual uneducated atheistic objections and I did my best to counter them. Any other questions or can we get this meeting started?’

  They got the meeting started, but there were other questions. He saw them lurking in their eyes. He felt them inside himself, straining to get out.

  He stood just inside the doorway, watching her. She was behind her desk, the phone cradled between her left shoulder and her ear. She was facing him, but her eyes were closed. She murmured into the phone and massaged her temples with her fingers.

  ‘Hangover.’

  ‘What?’ Luke spun around. Behind him was a fat man in a navy tracksuit.

  The man stepped past him. ‘Reckons the light makes her head want to split open. I told her she’ll get mugged sitting there with her eyes closed but she doesn’t listen. Ha! Nice!’

  Aggie’s eyes were still closed, and she continued murmuring into the cradled receiver, but she had extended one arm and raised a middle finger.

  ‘So,’ the man said, ‘what can we do you for?’

  ‘I’m . . . ah, I’m here to see, ah, Miss Grey?’

  ‘No need for formalities, mate. It’s just Aggie. And I’m Mal. Take a seat, she won’t be long.’ He scrunched a piece of paper and threw it across the room. It hit Aggie on the top of her head. She opened her eyes, closed them, opened them just a crack, mouthed an obscenity at Mal, then, turning in her chair she noticed Luke sitting against the wall. Cringing, she sat up straight, mumbled into the phone again and hung up.

  ‘Luke!’

  ‘Hello.’ He couldn’t help smiling. ‘Rough night?’

  ‘I disgraced myself. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have just left like –’

  ‘Whoa! Hold it!’ Mal was striding toward Luke. ‘You’re the bloke who got her trashed last night?’

  ‘Ah, I didn’t –’

  ‘Aggie! Why would you not tell me about this? This is –’ Mal looked Luke over and turned back to Aggie, ‘– very nice.’

  ‘Oh, shit,’ Aggie said. ‘Had to happen sometime. Right, Mal, this is my friend Pastor Luke Butler.’

  ‘Pastor? Like, a minister?’

  ‘Yes, I work just across the –’

  ‘You’re from over there?’ Mal turned to Aggie. ‘This is the fucktard who – But he’s gor– Jesus Christ, woman, are you insane?’

  Aggie laughed. ‘Settle down, Mal, alright?’ She stood up, wincing and closing her eyes for a moment. ‘Don’t mind him, Luke, he’s jealous.’

  ‘I’m telling you, Aggie, I am going to kick your –’

  ‘Let’s go for a walk.’ Aggie was beside him. Her hand was on his arm. Mal was still talking but Luke had stopped listening. Aggie was leading him out the door. She was saying she was happy he had come. She was reaching down and taking his hand.

  ‘So that’s your boss?’

  ‘So he reckons.’ She dropped his hand. ‘My head is killing me. Can we sit?’

  They sat on a bench at the edge of the reserve. Their view was of the car park.

  ‘I’m sorry about last night,’ she said.

  ‘’S okay.’

  ‘I don’t usually drink so much.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear that. It isn’t healthy.’

  ‘You’re so strange.’

  She picked up his hand, and he breathed deeply of the morning air – grass and petrol. He held tight to the warm hand.

  ‘Mal thinks I’m mad,’ Aggie said. ‘I mean, he thought that anyway, but now . . .’

  ‘Is he . . .?’ Luke cleared his throat. ‘Is he in love with you?’

  ‘What?’ She laughed. Her arm jerked around a little, pulling his hand with it.

  ‘You s
aid, ah, that he was jealous. Just before, when I –’

  ‘Jealous of me, sweetie.’

  ‘Why would he be – Oh! He’s – oh, you mean he . . . he’s a gay?’

  She dropped his hand and slid to the far end of the bench. ‘You don’t have to sound so disgusted.’

  ‘I can’t help it. I’ve never had a homosexual eyeing me off before. You could have warned me.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake! Perhaps I should erect a sign: “Beware of the faggot.” Then you’d know to wear protective clothing and carry antiseptic spray when you came to visit.’

  Luke clamped his mouth shut and stared at his knees.

  ‘Scuse me, Sir. Scuse me, Lady.’ An old man shuffled towards them. He was wearing a red baseball cap, brown sandals, purple jeans and an overcoat that probably used to be black. A hole in the front revealed a patch of curly grey chest hair. ‘Could I trouble you for some change?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know,’ Luke said to the man. ‘What do you need it for?’

  ‘God, just give him some bloody change.’

  Luke stood up and stepped close to the man. The stench overpowered him for a moment, but he used the trick he had learnt while ministering to the street people in Darlinghurst: look straight into the person’s eyes and acknowledge the presence of Jesus Christ. He heard Jesus’ voice, soft and a little sad, ‘I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’ Now Luke was able to put his arm around the old man’s shoulders as though the smell of alcohol and piss was as pleasant as chocolate and roses.

  ‘Where are you sleeping, friend?’

  ‘Here n’ there.’

  ‘Your coat looks kind of worn out.’

  The man nodded. ‘’S why I need some change, see?’

  ‘For a new coat?’

  ‘For God’s sake.’ Aggie joined them, thrusting a five-dollar note at the man. ‘Here you go, mate.’

  ‘Thank you, darlin’ – Hey!’

  Luke snatched the note away and stepped in front of Aggie, ignoring her foot-stamping protests. ‘This is not going to get you a new coat. This –’ he held the five-dollar note in the air, ‘– is only going to get you a bottle of cheap plonk.’

  The man sighed. ‘Warm as a new coat.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’ Luke patted the man’s shoulder. ‘If I get you a new coat, and something to eat, will you promise me you won’t spend this money on grog?’

  ‘Yessir.’

  ‘Okay?’

  The man nodded.

  ‘Just across the road there. You go right on in and ask for Greg. Say Luke sent you over for a coat and a feed.’ Luke gave the man Aggie’s five dollars and, bowing, the man headed off in the direction of the NCYC.

  ‘You know he’s going to spend that money on grog,’ Aggie said.

  ‘Yeah.’ Luke sat down. ‘Wouldn’t you if you were him?’

  Aggie sat beside him and put her head on his shoulder. Her hand was wrapped in his, just like that. ‘You confuse me.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I like you too much.’

  He pressed his face to her hair for just a moment. ‘How can it be too much?’

  ‘Don’t be disingenuous.’

  ‘I’m not. We like each other. That’s good.’

  ‘No, it’s not. I like you so much, but you can never . . . you hate everything about me.’

  ‘I don’t hate, Aggie.’ He returned his face to her hair. ‘There’s a way to help him, you know.’

  ‘The alco?’

  ‘Mal. There’s a group in America – I met this man at a conference – they help people like Mal. This man used to be one of them, but God cured him and now he has this organisation – No! Aggie, wait a minute. Don’t go! Hear me out.’

  ‘Fuck you.’ She was halfway across the car park already.

  11.

  Aggie forgave him, of course. She let him take her out to yum-cha, where he greeted the hostess by name, ate two plates of chicken feet, and five custard buns. They went to a movie, an awful American cartoon about a duck and a dog solving a mystery. He laughed loudly throughout, and squeezed her hand too tight when the dog told the duck that their friendship was strong enough to overcome the species barrier. Three Saturdays in a row they ate dinner at her house; three times a week they ate lunch together in the park, or her office or his. She helped with his youth group almost every night and stayed up late drinking coffee in the NCYC kitchen.

  She didn’t want Mal to hate her, so she lied about her chaste and pure romance. Then she started to hate herself, so she told Mal the truth, how happy and lost and in love she was. He told her she was replaying the dysfunction of her childhood, falling for someone who will inevitably leave her. He reminded her that Luke was a bigot and a fanatic. She told Mal that Luke’s goodness outweighed his occasional ignorant prejudice, and even as she said it she wondered what the tipping point was, whether it would make the slightest difference to her heart.

  She found it hard to sleep after spending an evening with Luke. When she undressed she found her underpants were soaked through. She had rarely in her life felt the urge to masturbate and found now – to her shame – that she was horrible at it. She wore herself out trying to relieve the unfamiliar tension. She tried reading Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller and Colette, and applied the silver bullet vibrator her mother gave her last Christmas until the batteries went dead, and then stayed in the bath with the shower nozzle massaging her throbbing clitoris until the water was cold and her fingertips were wrinkled. She continued to see him every day, and every night she tried but failed to convince herself that the hands between her legs were Luke’s.

  Aggie sat on the floor of the darkened rec room and lit the candle propped between her knees. The light it gave out was small, but as the thirty teenagers around her lit their own candles, the room brightened enough that she could see Luke across the room. He looked at her for a couple of seconds, then smiled and began walking slowly around the circle of candles.

  ‘This is better, right? Before we couldn’t see a thing, we were stumbling and dropping our matches, bumping into each other, swearing – yes, I heard you, Matthew.’ There was giggling. ‘But did you notice what happened when the candles started burning? First just one, then two, then five, then all of them? You lit each other’s way, guys. Those who were having trouble finding their matches had their way lit by those who had already got theirs going. Now we can all see each other clearly. Now the room looks bright and lovely.’ He stopped behind a girl with long, red plaits. ‘This is exactly what happens when we invite the Holy Spirit in. We not only get a guiding light for ourselves, but when others see our light they are inspired to find their own. And the more people who are filled with the Spirit, the brighter the world is.’

  Thirty-one faces gazed up at Luke. The kids in front of him had to crane their necks and twist their bodies, but their eyes shone with a calm trust and admiration. Aggie too was unable to look away, and wondered how many of these kids were inspired by his message and how many were, like her, enchanted by the beauty and grace of the man.

  Later on, as she helped him pick up the discarded candles and matchboxes, he asked her whether she had enjoyed the meeting. He always asked her this and her answer was always the same: The company was good, but the same couldn’t be said for the content. Usually he laughed, but tonight he did not. He came to her, took the candle out of her hand and frowned. ‘Why do you keep coming?’

  ‘For you, of course.’ She touched his face.

  ‘You don’t get anything out of it at all?’

  ‘I get to watch you – ’

  ‘No.’ He drew away. ‘I mean, do you get anything out of it spiritually? Are you getting any closer to God?’

  ‘Luke, I don’t believe in God. I can’t get close to someone who doesn’t exist.’

  He scowled. ‘He exists.’

  ‘No, Luke. We exist. We’re real. I’m real.’ She held her arms out wide.

  ‘I know.’ He t
ook her in his arms and pressed his face into the side of her neck. ‘I know, I know.’

  She held her breath, but he stepped away almost immediately. Suddenly the lights went out, and she could hear him breathing beside her in the dark.

  She heard a match strike. ‘Does this candle exist?’ His smiling face was illuminated.

  She sank into the nearest chair. ‘Yes, Luke, the candle exists.’

  ‘And you know that because you can see it, right?’

  ‘Yawn.’

  He leant forward and then it was dark. ‘Okay, what about now?’

  ‘The candle still exists even though I can’t see it. Just like God. Point well made, bravo. Bloody hell, Luke, I’m not twelve.’

  ‘No, you’re not. You don’t get it though, you really don’t. You want certainty and you’ll never get that. Certainty is missing the point. Faith is about this. Just sitting in the dark, feeling confused and scared. Feeling like you just can’t hold on anymore. Like you’re going to just . . . Not knowing if the light’s ever coming back on, but hanging in there anyway. Just letting it be dark.’

  She reached into the darkness and found his face, felt his eyelids, nose, chin, lips. His hand met hers as it travelled down his neck; he held her still. She said his name and he coughed, jolted away and then he was on the other side of the room and the light was back on.

  ‘And just when you don’t expect it . . .’ He gestured toward the bulb, but his eyes were on his feet.

  Aggie picked up her candle, stood on shaky legs and said good night and sobbed harder than she had in years as she drove home. She cried herself to sleep, only to wake after an hour. Disoriented, headachy, mad, she grabbed the candle and pushed it inside herself.

  12.

  Toward the end of Belinda’s Christian Dating? There’s no such thing! presentation, it occurred to Luke that his relationship with Aggie had moved from the white zone of Witnessing to the blue area of Buddies, was currently placed in the yellow band of Special Friendship and was fast approaching the Red Hot Danger Zone of Intimacy. The next step – according to Belinda’s presentation – was kissing. ‘And once the kissing starts,’ she said, ‘it takes a strong, strong person to call a halt. Better to catch things before they reach that stage. Better to prove to your special friend how much you respect them and how much you love the Lord by keeping those lips unlocked.’