As he summarised the recommendations of his DRC health initiative to the minister, who would probably read only the first few paragraphs of the 132-page policy document, Luke Hunter felt the weight of the world resting heavily on his shoulders. If he didn’t explain things with sufficient clarity, with enough of a structured imperative as to what must and must not be done, it was likely that the minister would lose sight of the message altogether, or at least his fervour for it, and announce something half-hearted or distorted to the press. Then, thousands of innocent children in the DRC would suffer longer and needlessly, and Luke would have failed. He could not fail. He had to save them.
“I believe that if we follow this framework closely, we’ve got a genuine chance to save her life here,” Luke concluded.
“Her life?”
“Say again?”
“You said her life,” the minister repeated, lifting the first sheet of the heavy document and scanning the page underneath, in what Luke knew would probably be his closest inspection of it.
“Oh,” Luke floundered. “Yes, sorry, by her I mean Africa. After all, she’s a raped woman.”
The minister angled his head up at him, considered this for a moment, and then chuckled to himself. “I like that,” he told Luke. “I’ll use that.”
The Freudian slip did not however escape Luke. At lunch, he shunned the department canteen and walked instead away from the vast government buildings to a small Italian café where he sat alone at a table in the back, ordered a sandwich, and bit the flaking skin around his nails until it arrived. When he discovered that the sundried tomatoes he’d ordered had been substituted for fresh ones, he called loudly across the restaurant to the harassed waitress and sent it back.
“Why is it so difficult to do what the menu specifies?” he asked her, aware of his unreasonableness, and knowing that he wasn’t really talking about his sandwich. But it had never been difficult before - doing what was prescribed. In fact it had been the one thing that made things easier and certain again.
After his father died – of a sudden, massive stroke, aged 45 – Luke had struggled with uncertainty, unanswered questions, and a world spiralling out of his control. Philip had not only been his father but his mentor and inspiration. When there was a decision to be made, it was he who Luke consulted, his approval he sought before deciding what his own opinion would be; and though it had never happened, he’d known that if he was ever in trouble, ever in need of help, it was his father who would rescue him. When he died, Luke was 19. He’d just embarked on his first serious relationship and was in the process of selecting which modules to read the following year. He’d been planning to sit down with his father to thrash it all out when he visited him at his old Cambridge college that weekend. Philip had, with some amusement, been planning his bus and train adventure to get there because the car was being serviced, and Luke had already pulled out his sleeping bag so that his father could have the bed. But the journey, of course, had never been made. Philip had never told Luke what he thought. Luke had spent the following month clenching his jaw to prevent tears he was terrified might choke him. And there had been nobody to come to his rescue.
That was when he’d turned more heavily to Jesus. Philip had always been involved with the church so it felt like an apt way to continue his legacy. But more than that, Luke realised that if he followed the scriptures diligently, if he lived by Christian teachings and did exactly what the bible told him was right, then he would not need to wonder what his father would have thought, or explore that gaping space inside. Slowly, over the years, the void was filled with rules and passages and teachings that at first gently guided his choices, then hardened into principles, and gave Luke strength, solidity and order.
But now, it was all crumbling again. For no matter how diligent he was in his bible study, how much money he gave to charity, how often he prayed, or refused alcohol, or abstained from sex, he could not control the pace at which his mother was deteriorating. Endlessly he searched the bible for answers, but something intangible had been shaken and he could feel his might wavering. At night, he lay awake and worried how he was going to hold everyone up: his mother. John. Vera. Africa!
Vera, he knew, needed him. He didn’t blame her entirely for abandoning his mother. She had never been quite ready. From the moment they’d met he could see the pain that crept so often into her distant blue eyes, the self-doubt that undermined her obvious goodness. He could see her need for Jesus, and he’d wanted so much to help her. There were times of course when her shocking otherness had delighted him. When, weighed down by responsibility, he’d called her just to hear a hint of her recklessness, to listen to her endearing blunders, to remind him (since his father wasn’t there to confirm it), of how far he himself had come. But more often, a spiritual awakening was what he’d wanted for her more than anything. Now that she was trying so hard, he should be nurturing her. But he wanted her to get there faster, to be that pillar of strength he was lacking. And needed. He had agreed finally to let her call Home Care, his mother would have help, that wasn’t the issue. The issue was that Vera had fallen short. She had disappointed him. She had hurt his mother. And of course all of that was his fault. Her failures and mistakes and selfishness only mocked his own weakness.
Luke felt tired.
It was his weakness after all. He should be guiding Vera and instead he was picking on her, pushing her away. He was letting her down. He was letting everyone down. He had to find a way to stem the chaos. With the effort of a shorn Sampson he lifted his head as the waitress returned with his replacement sandwich.
“Mozzarella with sundried tomatoes,” she announced. “Exactly as it says on the menu.”
Luke nodded and took a bite. It didn’t taste as good as he’d imagined.