ON MARTHA’S RETURN visit, the Tanner Radford building was packed to capacity. Those queuing outside were told there was no possibility of a seat and advised to go home. Martha experienced a sudden burst of stage fright on seeing the crowd, and quaked at the long line of people, filing up to meet her, but the wave of good will that enveloped her as she stepped up on the podium helped to settle her nerves. Ruth had insisted on listing those who were severely ill or disabled and seating them in the front two rows, so that Martha could step down to them.
‘We don’t want any accidents, believe me!’
Overwhelmed by the immense faith people had in her healing skills, Martha knew full well it would be impossible for her to help everyone, but even if one or two were relieved of their pain it would be something.
She began by saying a quiet prayer, asking the Lord God and the Good Earth to help and guide her as Evie led an elderly man towards her. It always amazed Martha how many elderly people came to the healings, pushing their way forwards, demanding to be seen, clinging to life. She talked and prayed and laid on her hands until the sweat ran off her, repeating it all the following week in a small school hall in Bronxville, New York, where the hushed crowd of only a hundred people broke into a tumultuous cheer when a middle-aged woman began to weep and declare that the chronic back pain that had twisted her spine had lifted. In Manhattan some of the people had arrived in expensive cars and limousines to the racquet ball club hall they’d hired; Martha noticed it made no difference, as they were plagued with the same illnesses and fears as others.
Ten days after she got back Joshua Harris came to see her totally out of the blue. He’d phoned asking her to come to his apartment but she had insisted that he visit the upstairs room, Kim fixing an appointment for him. Casually dressed, his dark hair unwashed and unkempt, pale skinned and nervous, he’d lit up the minute he sat down opposite her. She was tempted to ask him to put out the offending cigarette, but realized he was only smoking it in order to distract himself.
‘How are you doing, Josh?’
‘Have you seen my father lately?’ he asked, fixing her with his green eyes.
‘No, actually I haven’t.’
‘OK,’ he said, relaxing a little.
‘How are you?’ she repeated.
‘I’m crap, I feel like crap. Every bit of me is sore, the pain is so bad that I can’t eat or sleep or think. I’m screwed!’
‘Have you taken anything?’
‘I’m not using, if that’s what you mean. If I was I wouldn’t be going through this!’
‘Maybe the clinic or the doctors you saw the last time might be able to help you better,’ she suggested, feeling out of her depth.
‘Screw them. You told me that you could help me. I got your fucking card and I came!’
‘I’m sorry, Josh, I’m not sure that I can help.’
He looked up at her, the expression on his face lost, scared. Martha saw that he was in such a deeply agitated and unhappy state that there was no way she could turn her back on him or reject him further.
‘It’s OK, Josh, really it’s OK. Your body has gone through huge turmoil and change and physical shock. It’s probably totally out of balance and that might be why you are feeling so bad right now. The healing should help.’
‘For sure!’
‘For sure.’ She smiled. ‘Is it all right if I lay my hands on you and just get a sense of what is happening to you? My fingers and hands might feel rather warm but that’s just a part of the healing process.’
She got the young man to stretch out on her table, ordering him to kick off his trainers and heavy Abercrombie and Fitch hooded sweatshirt as she walked around him, getting a sense of what his energy level and life force were like. She stopped, confused. Both were scattered and weak. The brightness and spirit she usually associated with youth were absent and she felt the darkness and almost impenetrable depression that engulfed him. Every cell of his body had been affected and Martha had to control her expression in order to mask her dismay. He was healthy in that his heart pumped, perhaps a little faster than it should, his blood flowed, his lungs and kidneys and other organs worked yet he was deeply deeply wounded and carried an intense grief and pain, which he obviously had used drugs and alcohol to relieve. This internal wound was festering, poisoning every part of him as sure as if he had a septic cut. He’d been carrying this pain for a long long time and Martha felt that unless he released it his physical body would be overwhelmed.
Laying her hands over his heart she tried to send light into that darkness and to draw some of it away from Joshua.
A shudder went through him. As she worked, Martha realized how sensitive Glenn Harris’s only son was.
‘Where does it hurt the most?’ she asked gently.
‘All over, I told you!’
‘I know but where is the pain really bad?’
‘My shoulder and head, I guess.’
Concentrating on those two areas, Martha tried to unravel the tension and fear that had buried themselves deep within the walls of his muscles. Finishing off by placing her finger and hands over his head, she had to stifle her own gasp of pain. His mind was in utter turmoil, anger and self-hatred snaking through his thoughts. He had closed his eyes, no longer staring at her, which she found strangely disconcerting. She wanted him to feel a calming sense of peace and to open himself more to receiving the love which he so yearned for.
‘You OK, Josh?’ she asked afterward as she washed her hands.
He nodded, his head bent down as he retied the laces of his expensive trainers.
‘I’d like you to come see me again. What about next week?’
He looked up and she could see a flicker, only a tiny flicker, of hope in his eyes. ‘All right,’ he agreed.
‘Same time.’
Watching him walk out in the street and climb into the old beat-up Chrysler, Martha wondered how father and son could possibly be so different and have ended up causing so much pain to each other.