GALLEY BEGGAR PRESS SHORT STORY PRIZE 2022/23
NAOMI KRUGER
‘In My Father’s House Are Many Mansions’
IT TAKES A WHILE FOR THE BOYS to reach the corner of the chapel where Keeley sits. They move back and forth in their dark suits and white shirts, each one holding an arm behind his back, passing the trays from row to row and watching carefully to make sure nobody gets forgotten. The members reach out when it’s their turn – always with the right hand – to take a small piece of sanctified bread, freshly ripped and prayed over, then, afterwards, a tiny plastic cup filled to the brim with tap water that stands in for the blood of Christ.
It’s meant to be silent, but the room is full of noise. Lorries rumble past on the dual carriageway outside, beyond the car park. A baby in the row behind Keeley yawns and bristles for food, its mouth plugged up with a bottle. The rhythmic sucking that follows. There are children everywhere. Children calling to their mothers and whispering to each other. Toddlers rummaging with their sticky hands in snack bags, playing with the Velcro fastenings on their shoes and soaking their bibs with endless spit bubbles. She watches one little girl throw her Book of Mormon sticker book onto the floor. Her mother lets her scramble down to retrieve it, but the girl crawls away instead, disappears between the legs of the chair in front, and at the last moment is grabbed roughly, caught, and dragged back through by her ankles.
As the wailing starts, Keeley strains in her seat to try and see Seth’s face. He’s sitting right at the front as usual, on the stand with the other leaders, partially obscured by the lectern. She wishes he’d look up as the boys finally reach her row, see the way she keeps her hands still and abstains as a symbol of her repentance. You see? she wants to tell him, I really am trying to change. But he doesn’t look so she tries to fill her mind with images of the Saviour. Jesus and the lepers, Jesus and the woman at the well. Jesus kneeling in Gethsemane in so much agony he was sweating drops of blood. All the promises she’s made to follow Him, and how many she’s managed to break this week. It’s hard to concentrate because the cramps have started. Her period will come any day now (Jesus and the woman with the issue of blood). The relief of it’s almost too much. As if her body is listening to her own selfish wants however much she tries to overcome them. And always the guilt that follows.
When the boys sit back down with their families, Bishop Slater stands up to announce the first speaker. There’s a low eruption of conversation, people shifting and coughing and coming back from their reveries, passing out paper and colouring pencils to the children now the most sacred part of the service is over.
Brother Hicks smiles out from behind the microphone. ‘Good morning brothers and sisters,’ he says, ‘today I have been assigned to speak on the subject of the second coming.’
Keeley closes her eyes and resists the urge to reach for her bag. There’s a notebook and pen in the front pocket – not as exciting as the crayons the children use, the small rainbows of colour spread out on the seats of empty chairs – but she could still draw, still sketch the shapes and contours around her. The back of someone’s neck, her own hand, random shapes and patterns. She hasn’t done it for so long. Her portfolio of life drawings still gathering dust in the junk room at home. There was never the time to polish it up and finish the university application, not alongside extra shifts at the supermarket. Not with the pittance Seth got paid at his graduate internship. And now he’s finished there’s the baby to try for. All the tests they’ll have to go through if she doesn’t manage to conceive at some point within the next few months.
‘I know for some of us this might not be the most welcome of subjects,’ Brother Hicks is saying, ‘we might not want to dwell on the way the earth is sinking, right now, into apostasy. All the signs of the times we see around us. The way men’s hearts are starting to fail them. The rising worldliness. Wars and rumours of wars. Natural disasters. We even had an earthquake down the road in Blackpool not so very long ago.’
A small wave of nervous laughter washes over the congregation.
‘We are blessed in this part of the world that many of these things are still rare. That doesn’t mean we have room to be complacent. It doesn’t mean we can continually procrastinate the day of our repentance. We must stay vigilant. We must put our houses in order. But above all, we must not let ourselves be overcome by fear.’
She lets his voice drift into the high space above her and rides the dull ache of another cramp. Outside, rain has streaked the tall windows with patterns like tree bark, the sun catching the long shapes, the shadow of a passing seagull projected onto the beige chapel wall just for a moment. No one else seems to notice. She wishes there were stained-glass windows like in other churches, patterns of light that would change as the day wore on. And proper wooden pews rather than plastic chairs that stack away neatly, pillars and carved wood instead of industrial carpet and plain hard-wearing wallpaper. Not that any of this should matter if her heart and mind are truly open to the spirit.
‘It’s important to remember that here, in this very moment you are in the best place you could possibly be,’ Brother Hicks says, his voice charged with conviction. ‘What has the Lord told us time and time again? Stand ye in holy places. If ye are prepared ye shall not fear,’ he pauses and picks up his heavy, leather-bound scripture set. ‘But what does it mean to be spiritually prepared in these last days? Let’s remind ourselves of what the Saviour taught in the Parable of the Ten Virgins.’
As he starts to read from his Bible, the chapel door opens and Brother Phillips, on usher duty as usual, steps in, hunching in an exaggerated way to show he’s trying very hard not to disturb. He waves at the men on the stand. She can’t see his face, but he must be mouthing something because Seth gets up and walks briskly down the side aisle, confers briefly, then follows him out into the foyer. He doesn’t stop to smile at her or beckon her to come too. There’s no reason why he should. Not in his position. He has to be ready at a moment’s notice to help any fellow member who might be in need of his counsel.
‘And the foolish said unto the wise, give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. But the wise virgins knew that they could not share the oil,’ Brother Hicks explains, ‘if they gave away some of their supply their lamps wouldn’t last long enough to meet the bridegroom when he came.’
She knows it’s all symbolic, knows the virgins aren’t virgins, the oil is not oil, and the bridegroom is standing in for Jesus. This is about being prepared. Building up your spiritual reserves because no one else can do it for you. Still, she can’t help picturing the virgins. Nine too many for one bridegroom. Why are there so many? And how long have they been expected to wait? Like the black and white photos of the nineteenth century prophets, their long beards and staring eyes. All the women arrayed behind them. An embarrassment of wives. A deluge of daughters. And how in a Sunday School lesson one week, Seth had joked that he didn’t know how they stood it, these men, how he was glad the doctrine of polygamy was no longer practised. How exhausted the men must have been – emotionally – he added quickly when laughter broke out – how one wife – just one – was more than enough for him.
She manages to wait until the end of the talk, until the organist has played the opening bars of the intermediate hymn, the chorister standing with her arm raised, ready to keep everyone in time. Then, she slips out (guide us, oh thou great Jehovah) past the missionaries trying to help an investigator find the right page in the hymnbook, through the door and into the foyer. There are women sitting out here on the long sofa that looks like it should be in the reception of a budget hotel. They talk in low voices and push their prams back and forth, trying to get their crying babies to sleep.
She’ll find Seth and, if he has a moment, she’ll tell him how sorry she is that they always seem to fight on a Saturday when he’s trying so hard to prepare for the sabbath. It’s probably hormones. No part of her cycle seems to be smooth sailing these days. But that’s no excuse for giving into the spirit of contention.
Brother Phillips is leaning against the wall. Right next to the painting of Jesus in pastel robes. Jesus descending from heaven, flanked on both sides by angels and standing with his arms outstretched. When he sees her approaching, he steps quickly to block the doors that lead to the corridor, smiles so hard his eyes almost disappear.
‘Seth’s in the office,’ he says, ‘but I’m sure he won’t mind if you want to wait outside.’
He opens the doors with a flourish, then. As if she’s a celebrity or some kind of VIP.
She walks past the toilets and the baptismal font, the library and classrooms. When she nears the office, she slows down. If he’s still in a meeting it could be sensitive. It wouldn’t be right to peer in through the glass door panel as if she’s snooping for information. She hesitates. There’s a dull banging somewhere nearby. The fire exit at the end of the corridor has been pushed open and left ajar. The wind drives it back and forth without enough force to make the latch click shut. Out on the grass she can see Danny Lovat stomping along the perimeter fence, his loping, almost-adolescent frame drowned in an adult man’s suit. White trainers making it even more ridiculous. He reaches up into a tree and grabs at a branch, tries to wrench it free, falls back onto the grass then gets straight up and starts again. And if Danny is there, she knows who must be in the office with Seth. The emergency must have something to do with Danny’s mother, Anita. Sister Lovat. She turns back to the office door, steps forward to glance in quickly. Anita sitting in a chair with her eyes closed tight. Baby Amber in her lap struggling to get free and Danny’s six-year-old brother, Tyler circling around them both. Seth is standing behind the chair with his hands hovering over the crown of her head. His fingers are interlaced, his forehead creased in concentration. He’s giving her a blessing. For healing, or comfort, or strength. Keeley’s scalp tingles as she steps away. The power channelled through his fingers. How her body recalls the sensation even though she can’t remember the last time she thought to request one for herself.
It doesn’t seem safe to leave Danny alone, so she steps out the fire door into the diagonal rain. The wet grass could do with mowing. In a few months the lawn will be used for family fun days, outdoor lessons and picnics. But now it’s halfway to wilderness. She jogs over to Danny, holding her long skirt up, feeling the water seep into her shoes. He’s found himself a stick now, is dragging it along the metal railings.
‘Hey,’ she says, waiting for him to stop and turn, ‘come inside. You’ll get yourself soaked.’
He looks at her as if coming into consciousness, looks at the stick as if he’s surprised to be holding it. Panting hard with his mouth hanging open and rain dripping off his spiked-up hair.
‘Come on,’ she says, ‘it’s horrible out here.’
He glances over to the chapel doubtfully.
‘We could have biscuits,’ she says, hearing the desperation in her voice, ‘I know where they keep some. A secret stash.’
He drops the stick and walks towards the building so fast she has to start jogging to keep up.
Inside, Seth is standing by the notice board now, talking to Anita whose eyes are red and swollen. She’s jiggling the baby up and down while Tyler runs the length of the corridor shooting at each door with an invisible laser gun.
‘I can pop over on Tuesday night,’ Seth says, ‘no problem at all.’
‘Only if you’re sure.’
‘It’s just a skirting board. I’ll bring some of that special glue stuff. It’ll be a ten-minute job at most.’
They both turn to look at Keeley and Danny coming in from the rain. The surprise in Seth’s face. He wasn’t expecting to see her out here.
‘Got yourself one of the good ones, didn’t you?’ Anita calls over to Keeley. ‘Not that I’d need him to come over so often if this one would just be a bit more careful. You should see the state he left his bedroom in this morning.’
‘Piss off,’ Danny mutters.
Anita hitches the baby up on her hip. ‘What did you say?’
This time he speaks louder. Takes his time over each word. ‘I said, piss off.’
‘Now, Danny lad,’ Seth tries, ‘remember that chat we had about showing more respect to your mother?’
Danny kicks one foot against the skirting board. Keeley reaches out to squeeze his arm, but he bends himself back to avoid being touched.
Anita looks up to the ceiling for a moment then starts to cry. ‘D’you hear the way he talks to me? I can’t take much more of it. I’m at my wit’s end. I’m hanging on here by a thread.’
‘Why don’t you go on into the meeting?’ Keeley suggests, ‘take the baby and leave the other two with us.’
Seth nods in agreement. Anita sniffs and wipes at her eyes. ‘Are you sure,’ she says, already turning to go, ‘All right then. But only if you’re definitely sure.’
Keeley looks up at Seth, glad she’s been able to do one good thing. But he isn’t smiling anymore. His mouth is pinched into a line. He pulls her away from Danny, just out of earshot.
‘Why aren’t you in the meeting as well?’
‘I saw him out there on his own. He was getting soaked.’ It’s the only thing she can think of to say.
‘What biscuits have you got, then?’ Danny calls from over by the noticeboard. He picks at the corner of a poster, taking a drawing pin out and stabbing it back in again. Tyler comes to join him. They do it together. Faster and faster, until every piece of paper is scarred and pockmarked. Just managing to miss each other’s fingers.
‘Don’t do that, mate,’ Seth says trying not to sound angry. He walks over and holds his hand out so the boys can drop their pins into his open palm. Tyler obliges straight away. Danny keeps his held up, ready to stab the board again, ready to swerve away or worse if Seth tries to take it by force.
He points to Keeley. ‘She said I could have biscuits.’
‘Well, it’s nearly time for Sunday School,’ Seth says, ‘but If you give me the pin now and sit nicely in the lesson, I might just be able to find you a little something for afterwards.’
Danny pretends he’s about to give the pin to Seth but at the last moment he closes his fist and puts his hand behind his back.
‘She promised,’ he says.
‘Come on mate, you’ve got to work with me here.’
‘If I don’t get any biscuits, I’m not going to any fucking lessons.’
‘Right,’ Seth says, stepping away and stalking back over to Keeley, ‘this is great. See what you did? Just brilliant.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘He’s all worked up now,’ Seth hisses, ‘I can’t send him in with the other kids. And this is exactly the reason Anita doesn’t usually let him have any sugar.’
‘I didn’t realise.’
‘Because he gets hyperactive. Even worse than normal. And she doesn’t need any more stress. Not with Danny’s dad banging on the door at all hours and threatening to go for custody. So, this is what’s going to happen. I’m taking the little one into Sunday School now and you’ll have to stay here and deal with him. Can you do that? Can you keep him out of mischief for one measly hour?’
She’d like to find a quiet room and sit with her head over her knees until the cramps subside. But Danny’s restless. Hemmed in by the people streaming out of the service to chat in groups, to go in and out of the toilets, to lead the toddlers with their lunchboxes into the nursery room, the older children with their pristine scripture sets ready to sing about Jesus and learn the first steps they must take on the ladder to celestial life. Through the doors to the foyer, she can see Seth talking with the missionaries now he’s deposited Tyler safely in a classroom. Anita is surrounded by a group of women with sympathetic faces. Sister Slater offering a tissue so she can wipe her eyes, then leading her back into the chapel where all the adults will have their lesson together.
‘Come on then,’ she says to Danny. He follows her into their absence, follows her to the wall opposite the kitchen that has a cupboard hidden in it. She shows him how you have to hook your finger under the latch and unlock it from the inside. It pops open to reveal a mess of tablecloths and plastic cups, banners and decorations. Behind a tangled mess of bunting is a Tesco bag tied into a knot. She rips the side open. Garibaldis and Custard Creams, Party Rings and Jammy Dodgers. He chooses the brightest, the ones covered in hard coloured icing, laced with E-numbers. She takes the packet out and pulls it open. Before she can reach in to grab a couple, he’s snatched the whole thing out of her hand and run away with it, laughing.
She doesn’t attempt to wrestle it back. Instead, she sits with him on the sofa while he posts the biscuits into his mouth one after another, eating methodically, as if this is a task that deserves his full attention. It’s the stillest she’s seen him all day. The sound of him crunching and the murmur of voices from the chapel. There are still forty-five minutes to go. She imagines Anita coming out into the foyer right now and seeing them together, seeing him temporarily content and covered in crumbs.
‘Can I draw you?’ she asks, opening her bag and pulling out the notebook and pen.
He shrugs and carries on eating.
‘And while I’m sketching, you can tell me something about yourself. Something interesting.’ She feels the awkwardness in her voice. How it sounds when she’s trying too hard to connect.
He shrugs again.
‘There must be something you like? Something that makes you happy?’
While she waits for him to answer she starts the sketch. She looks at the shadows of his face, not the lines. She hatches out the contours of his nose, cheeks, and eye sockets in blue biro. There isn’t room for hesitation in a pen drawing. No real way back if you slip and make a false mark.
‘Fishing,’ he says eventually.
‘Great,’ she says, ‘and do you ever eat the fish when you catch them or just throw them straight back in again?’
‘Wrong kind of fishing,’ he says, grinning, happy that she’s made this all too predictable mistake. He starts to turn towards her, but she holds a hand up and gestures for him to stay in the same position.
‘We use magnets. Me and Dad,’ he’s finding it hard to keep still now. ‘What you do is throw a rope in. A thick rope. And on the end, there’s a super-strong magnet. Then you move it back and forth for a bit and pull it out.’ He mimes this action, throws his arms about wildly so that she has to lean away from him to avoid getting caught in the crossfire.
She waits for him to go still again and keeps on making marks on the paper.
‘Then you check out your haul,’ he says. The light in his eyes as he lists off the things he’s helped drag out of canals. Old coins, umbrella spokes, screws and nails, Coke cans and ring-pulls, watches and bike wheels. And all she can think of is Anita crying in the office under Seth’s gentle hands, and the whispers about the violent and unreasonable behaviour of her ex-husband – Danny’s dad – who used to slink into church occasionally, who didn’t seem to own a suit or a white shirt, who wouldn’t give up his beer or cigarettes and always put himself in the way of her spiritual progression.
‘And that’s when we found the grenade,’ Danny says, ‘this big,’ he moulds it out of air, conjures it tenderly, the size of a pantomime egg. ‘And Dad had to call the council to come and check it out. And when they looked at it, they said it was probably still live. Said they’d have to detonate it, told us we could’ve both been killed.’
He waits for her reaction. This is his best story, she can tell. His best memory (blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth).
‘That must have been exciting,’ she says adding some detail to his hairline, trying just through gentle pressure, to create a convincing tonal quality in the lips.
He stands up and brushes the crumbs onto the carpet. Paces from one side of the foyer to the other. It might be the sugar kicking in. She feels the fear forming in the pit of her stomach. The disappointment in Seth’s face. Thirty minutes to go. How much damage can one kid do in half an hour?
Danny starts scuffing his trainers on the carpet, kicking his toes against the skirting boards again so that the mud and wet grass lift off onto the white paint.
‘I’m not allowed to go fishing with him anymore,’ he says.
The door opens behind them. Sister Slater coming out from the chapel in her flowery dress and white cardigan. Probably on her way to the toilet. She stops to bend over the sofa and touch Keeley’s arm on the way past, goes to say something but gets distracted by the drawing.
‘Oh, my goodness! Would you look at that. Is it… is it young Danny?’ she turns around to see if the subject is nearby. ‘And here he is! Have you seen this, young man? Have you seen this beautiful portrait?’
Danny shuffles over and peers at the picture which is still only half done. He puts his head to one side as if considering, then nods almost imperceptibly. ‘S’alright, yeah.’
‘I had no idea you were so talented. Have you been hiding your light under a bushel all this time?’
Keeley doesn’t know what to say. She’s rusty and the drawing is nothing special. It’s too much praise for such a little thing.
‘Are you okay, Keeley? You don’t half look pale.’
‘I’m fine.’
Danny shuffles back over to the window and presses his face against the rain-streaked glass.
‘Are you sure you aren’t coming down with something? I’ve got some painkillers in my bag somewhere. I can dig them out for you.’
Another cramp hits as if on cue. A bad one. Keeley puts both hands on her stomach without thinking. Rubs from side to side, feels how bloated she is, cradles herself. Just to relieve the pressure somehow, just to see if she can hold everything in.
Sister Slater’s eyes flick down then up again. ‘Oh,’ she mouths, her eyebrows raised, her whole face a question mark. ‘Oh love… Is it? Are you…?’
Keeley feels all the words dry up, her throat getting tight. She can’t think what to say.
‘I shouldn’t have asked,’ Sister Slater whispers, perching herself on the end of the seat and leaning in, ‘it’s such a private thing. So delicate at the start. You don’t need to tell me anything. But I want you to know we’ve been praying for you two. We’ve been praying ever so hard.’
Keeley nods, feels her cheeks getting flushed. A sudden wave of nausea building, a spreading cramp gnawing away at the centre of her. It is possible, after all. She’s a couple of days late. And the websites say that period symptoms and the signs of early pregnancy can sometimes be indistinguishable.
‘Oh sweetheart,’ Sister Slater says, standing up to go down the corridor at last, ‘I won’t breathe a word, I promise.’
In moments like this – when she’s done something stupid – all the other mistakes rush in. A rollcall of mess-ups, a conveyer belt of humiliation. Like the time she mixed up teaspoons and tablespoons in a recipe and had nothing to serve the missionaries when they turned up expecting a meal. Or when she got the number of blue stripes mixed up on the pregnancy test and got Seth excited for nothing. And this whole issue with Danny. Sticking her nose in where it’s not wanted and making things worse than they already are.
‘If I died,’ she’d said to Seth one night, ‘how long would you wait before getting married again?’ She’d been thinking about heaven (In my father’s house are many mansions), and how she always imagined it like a new-build estate: detached houses with American breakfast bars and dens for watching TV. How, in heaven a man could still have more than one wife, but it would work out somehow, because the women would be sanctified, stripped of selfishness and jealousy.
‘What is it you want from me?’ he’d said finally, sighing in the darkness, ‘what exactly is it you want me to say?’
Maybe she can access a measure of it now, that changed, celestial self. She can picture Anita and the kids at the breakfast bar eating waffles, for example. She can imagine Seth being father and husband to them with hardly any pain at all.
‘Jesus looks weird in this picture,’ Danny says, standing in front of the painting. He’s so close that if it was in a museum there’d be some kind of alarm. Sister Slater comes back through to re-join the lesson and frowns at him briefly, but Keeley stands up and gestures that she’ll take care of it.
When they’re alone again she joins him, rips out the portrait from her notebook and offers it up. He takes it with a nod, folds it carefully and puts it in his pocket.
‘They’re not proper angels,’ Danny says, ‘they don’t even have any wings.’
She steps back a bit, so she can see the whole scene. He’s right. No wings and no haloes either. Just bare feet, and unfinished faces. Their robes are pulled in slightly at the waist but still, it’s hard to tell if they’re male or female, children or grown-ups. All of them blowing trumpets to announce the saviour’s return. And Jesus at the centre of them, coming down from the clouds with his modern-looking hair, the folds of his robes blown back as if he’s facing a wind machine, as if the whole thing is some elaborate stage set.
‘I bet you could draw it better,’ he says.
She thinks of Sister Slater’s face. The beguiling hope. A taste of what it might feel like to be the source of someone’s joy. Then the nausea again. It might or might not be a sign. And if their prayers have really produced a miracle, then maybe her prayers can undo it again. Her forehead feels suddenly hot. Sweat prickling under her arms. Please Lord, unquicken it. Please, Lord, take it back. Danny grabs the notebook from her, frees the biro that’s wedged into the spiral binding. He clicks the end of it, so the inky nib is exposed. Puts it into her hand.
‘I want to see it,’ he says, springing up and down, breathing heavily. ‘I want to see you draw a proper angel.’
Surely the cramps are worse than usual. Surely her body is struggling now between the pull of two forces.
‘Please,’ he says, ‘I’m begging you. Please just draw me some wings.’
She can muster enough strength for this one last thing. She chooses a tiny angel near the back of the canvas.
‘Oh my God,’ Danny says, clapping his hands together.
It’s hard to make the lines straight and fluid but she manages. Small marks to give them texture, like feathers. Symmetrical and perfect, like the wings of a swan, partly unfurled.
‘Is that better?’ she says to Danny as the image blurs and the faintness takes over. ‘Is it good enough?’ Or maybe she doesn’t say it out loud. Maybe it’s only in her head. Swallowed up by the darkness and this yearning she has to disappear (take me now, Lord, I’m ready). So that when the nothingness rises to meet her, it feels like a blessing. She’s happy to give in to it. Happy to be taken to a place that’s already been prepared for her. A place where no lamps are needed, and no one will have to lend her any oil.
NAOMI KRÜGER is a writer based in Lancashire. Her debut novel, May, was published by Seren in 2018 and explores the complexity of memory through multiple voices including a narrator with dementia. Her short fiction has been featured in Wag’s Revue, commended in Aesthetica and commissioned for a number of anthologies. In 2021 she was awarded an Eccles Centre Fellowship at the British Library to research her second novel which explores transatlantic Mormon connections in the nineteenth century. She has a PhD from Lancaster University and is a Senior Lecturer in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Central Lancashire.