1915 by Roger McDonald Page B

scene but it sounded merely everyday. He rattled through its moral as if the thing he really believed in was lightning, and it had cracked once to show a black torrent and glistening rocks and bobbing white faces: and that was that. He seemed to have discovered something for himself in the sermon, and now he could feel it slipping away. But he squared up to his obligations and presented a sensible gift to a parish that had more than once addressed veiled queries about his capacity to the moderator. He called the nativity a light, the star over all our dark nights no matter how gloomy. This is what Christmas means when we recall it in our worst hours, as we should — as, if we are to find the Lord, we must. For He is the Shelter in the storm, the Lamp in the depth of night, the Beacon on the dangerous shore.
    There was more of this, but the Christ part meant nothing to Walter — though heads nodded wisely and booted feet scraped on the gritty boards in agreement. He watched a line of dust motes climbing to the bare window pane — pollen-coloured swirling atoms held to the shape of a plank. Again through the glass he saw the dense cross-hatching of pine needles, and suddenly the tree moved. The needles shook as if a current of air were striking the tree continuously in one place. Wind? But wind moved around, wind went everywhere: then a glimmer of white appeared among the green. Itgrasped a small branch and pulled it aside. Douggie’s face peered down, a white disc that had floated up from Bible class and was now suspended bodiless in the branches. Then the face and hand just as suddenly disappeared, and the tree was still.
    All this time Billy had been asleep. As the congregation made its finishing up noises a dream flew from him in which his mother — to be buried in the small graveyard outside — thanked him for his concern and said, “God will speak to me in his sauce bottle.”
    He woke infuriated.
    Mr Fox removed his glasses and slipped them away through a rent in his cassock.
    â€œTherefore, Rejoice! ”
    The word travelled slowly this time and padded on the hot underside of the roof.
    After a pause he uttered a low whispered “Amen”.
    The organ in the corner gasped with relief.
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    After the service Walter posed with one foot propped on a pine root.
    â€œI saw you up the tree.”
    â€œWhat tree?” Douggie adopted the “at ease” position of a well-behaved Great Public Schoolboy.
    â€œThis tree.”
    â€œI didn’t climb a tree.”
    â€œYou did.”
    â€œI didn’t.”
    â€œYou did, you little liar.”
    â€œDon’t call me a bloody liar.”
    â€œYou’re a liar. And don’t swear.”
    â€œ Bloody . I’m not a liar.”
    â€œWho’s a liar?” asked Billy. He approached Douggie from behind. “You’ve got pine needles stuck in your hair.”
    â€œDunno how I got those.”
    â€œYou’ll be at the Bindogundra hop, won’t you? Aunty Bea and Uncle Len will be there” — he lowered his voice to exclude Douggie — “but a short leash never worried Ethel.”
    Walter glanced at Ethel who was perched on a shaded ledge of the tankstand: she fluttered a hand, made to get down, but was intercepted by Duncan Grieve who blocked her with a massive palm resting on the tank’s rust-streaked corrugations.
    â€œHe treats her with respect,” observed Billy, sneezing and flinging a string of snot to the grass — the rest was carried into his pocket. “Nothing turns off a good sport quicker.”
    All this talk about Ethel made it hard to bring up the name of May Armitage. Walter opened his mouth to ask but Billy elbowed him — “Just watch her.”
    Though Ethel rolled her eyes at Walter and had butted his hip at the show, and, he supposed, would do with him all those things Billy promised she would, still he felt she disliked him. But he said: