11

Henry parks the Hyundai near the Vic Market. Weeks can go by, months, but sooner or later he finds himself drawn back to the two-storey bluestone. The Spiritualists’ Union is a modest presence on a narrow street, rising hard against the footpath.

He climbs the stairs to the first-floor landing. The walls on either side of the staircase are crowded with portraits: bearded presidents and church founders, sketches of psychics and healers, and of spirit guides and sages bent over parchments, penning messages received from ‘the other side’.

A woman by the auditorium door hands him a blue folder songbook. The songs are an eclectic mix of hymns and popular classics: Satchmo and Cat Stevens: ‘What a Wonderful World’, ‘Morning Has Broken’. An organist plays ‘Abide With Me’; then switches to a medley of waltzes. Up the back an elderly couple dance to ‘When Irish Eyes are Smiling’. They step lightly, swaying cheek to cheek in mock intimacy.

The hall is carpeted in blue, as are the three steps that lead to a small stage. The navy-blue curtain drapes the back wall. Centrestage stands the speaker’s mic and to the left, a wooden lectern. The piano and the stage are decked out in bouquets of fake flowers.

Henry sits in the front row and glances about him. The chairs are white plastic, with seats upholstered in red fabric. For the first time in weeks, he switches his mobile to silent.

He looks up at the exposed beams of the ceiling. He surveys the congregants seated against a wall on blue upholstered benches. Most of them are casually dressed in jeans, open-necked shirts and jumpers, the women in denims and plain dresses.

They are at home in the modest surroundings. Many are lost in contemplation. Several old men are slumped back, chins fallen upon their chests. Dozing. Above them hang brass plaques with honour rolls of past members, long-dead notables of the union. The wall is lined with framed pencil drawings, swirls of colour said to represent states of feeling.

Henry closes his eyes, and straightens his back. He rests a hand on each knee, palms up, thumb and forefinger lightly touching. His breath is slowing, his mind settling. His eyes remain closed while the leader of the service steps up to the lectern and recites the dedication and invocations, instructions to tend the poor and downtrodden.

Henry listens with rapt attention. He leans forward to take in her homilies: On this earthly plane we need just three things—food, warmth and comfort. That’s all we need to be content and protected… As you give, so you will get back…Yesterday I was clever and I wanted to save the world. Today I am wise and I’m saving myself…

Henry nods his assent, sings: ‘Just a Closer Walk with Thee’. Drifts in and out of meditation. He is both present and lost in reflection.

He has sought the truth for many years, answers to that nagging question: What is life’s purpose? He has consulted psychics downstairs, behind the drawn curtains of the ground-floor cubicles. He has sat in the polished pews of churches and synagogues, on cushions in Buddhist temples, and on the hard marble floors of ashrams. He has attended séances and study groups in the reading rooms of the Theosophical Society.

He has consulted mediums and conversed with priests and rabbis, and has accumulated books on many traditions, treatises written by philosophers and self-styled healers. He has been to India and sat at the feet of gurus. He has attended international multi-faith gatherings and travelled the islands of the Philippines to study with faith healers, catching them out in their deceptions.

He is drawn to the quest rather than the argument, to fellowship more than definitive answers. As long as he is among people of good will he is placated. He is an agnostic rather than a disciple, neutral rather than impassioned, seeker rather than believer. But if a door is open, he will enter. If there is discussion he will join it. And if there is meditation he will close his eyes and, at long last, he will cease running.

There is space in this modest hall, blessed space within which to release himself from his body, and to drift a while. And time in which to relive and reflect on his day-to-day encounters. On this Sunday afternoon, Henry is thinking of a dying man. The image is lucid. The man is lying on a hospital bed. He is in intensive care, on life support, a captive to machines, and to the tubes of mechanical ventilation.

Henry has known him for thirty years and long tended him in his heroin addiction. He received the call from his family yesterday evening. The man was found in a coma, slumped on the sand against a seawall, spent syringes discarded beside him. He has days to live, perhaps hours.

‘Please visit him, Henry,’ his elderly mother pleaded.

Henry sat by the man’s hospital bed into the early hours of the morning. He talked to him, told him to hang in there. Told him he loved him. Urged him to fight on, told him he could make it. When the service ends he will return to his bedside, but for now he has time. His mind is loose to wander.

Mum, poor girl. If only the healers and mediums could have helped you. If only I had a clairvoyant’s eyes, I might have seen the ghosts and phantoms. If only I had psychic powers—perhaps I could have discovered your secrets. Maybe understood you better. Maybe saved you.

Mum, poor girl.

The mantra is engraved in his consciousness.

It surfaces now in the auditorium of the Spiritualists’ Union, and with it the image of a single-fronted brick house, and a glimpse of a father’s despair. A mother’s fury.