If Anna had been a boy, the Methodist congregation might have remarked upon her godliness and not only upon the godliness of her brother. She wore her red Sunday School dress, and she mounted the pulpit confidently, clasped the dark wood, leaned into the stifling air: The word of God is like an auger, drilling out the badness in us all. But Anna had over-reached again. The congregation yawned, ricepaper fans whipped before crepy necks, and fingers tugged at collars and ties, and when Anna saw her father glance doubtfully at his finger, cut off by an auger, the words died in her throat. She felt blood rush to her cheeks—Miss Smartypants, guilty of trampling her clodhopper boots over someone’s feelings again. She stepped down. Hugo took her place. The dear little boy, whispered the congregation. His gaberdine suit, his angelic smile, his voice as clear as a bell: The lesson for today is. Anna suspected that her mother pictured him in a clerical collar. She saw her mother blink, a handkerchief balled in her hand. Every Sunday after that, Anna fought against buttons and bows: Is the Queen going to be there or something? When Anna was fourteen, Maxine urged her to join Youth Fellowship. I can’t stand that God stuff, Anna said, but Maxine said: It’s not like that, just a short prayer, a bit of a discussion, then table-tennis, charades, dancing to records. Reverend Allen leaned forward in his fold-up chair, his freckled, thick and hairless forearms solidly upon his knees, and looked around at the semicircle: Tonight we’re going on a moonlight ramble around the town, but first let’s spend a few minutes discussing what it is we should look for in a marriage partner. Those drones, their sweet voices piped up: a Christian, honesty, goodness, good manners. Anna lifted her chin: Physical attraction. She faced them all down. They hated her, those buttons and bows, but she had an unexpected ally, for the Reverend Allen held up his palms: Just a minute, everyone. Anna’s right, physical attraction is very important. Suddenly Mrs Allen was there in their minds, eight months pregnant. Then they walked in the moonlight. Country towns hug the earth at the fall of night. A distant screen door complained on its hinges, a streetlight hissed and popped, the moon caught the glass shards in the roadside ditches. Otherwise there was only the darkness, their scratchy footsteps where the bitumen became dirt and gravel, and spurts of conversation which faltered under the ear of the stars, the ear of the Reverend Allen. Then the air got to their spirits; nothing could keep them down for long. Anna and Maxine swaggered shoulder to shoulder down the centre of the road while boys drifted across in front of them, slowing, slowing—like Anna and Maxine, those boys were scarcely breathing by now—until there was the unmistakeable poke of superstructured breasts between their shoulderblades. They bounced away again, back into the night. The syllogism was framed like this: A large family is a poor family; a poor family is a no-hoper family; therefore Lockie was the son of no-hopers. Anna’s father did not quite come out and say that Lockie was also a Catholic. Look at that, would you?—the shells of cars rusting in the yard, fences falling down, skin-and-bone sheep panting in the dirt around the scummy troughs. Priest-riddled, ignorant and superstitious. Anna flared: I don’t care, you can’t stop me from seeing him. But God came between the lovers in unexpected ways. Lockie, it’s yours and it’s beautiful, Anna told him. It doesn’t put you off? Of course not, she said. She didn’t tell him that she felt wonder, curiosity and a kind of heat in equal measures. She heard a faint phsst and saw the gluey mass flip and flip out of him, splashing onto his stomach. He groaned softly, turned away, cleaned himself. A little death. What’s wrong? Nothing. Anna pursued him: What’s wrong? This, Lockie said, guilt, misgiving and desire heavy in his face. What we just did. In her room at Women’s College he would restlessly pick up and set down one book after another. Arguments For and Against the Existence of God: You’re leaving me behind, he said. Then, blurtingly: Marry me? Lockie, come here, come on. But Lockie lolled in pain against the door. Anna’s children were christened by the Reverend Allen. He muttered automatically under the domed roof of the Pandowie Methodist church and traced a damp fingertip over their foreheads. Their responses were typical. Michael opened his eyes for a moment, closed them, and briefly wriggled his arms and legs, but a drop of water ran cold and unwelcome from Rebecca’s temple to her ear, and she heaved and roared to be free. A few months after Sam broke with his father, Mrs Jaeger wrote to Anna: I felt I must send you this little book, dear, with a sincere desire that it may open your eyes. Mr Jaeger and I were thirtyish before ours were opened. You will probably be bemused, to say the least, if you have never heard what the author has to say. Believe me, it is all one big conspiracy. Mr Jaeger and I were horrified when we learned the true extent of it, which, of course, is never revealed in the popular media. I find the ABC particularly biased and I listen for the alternative viewpoint but it never comes, and never anything remotely uplifting. Even the wildlife programs refer to evolution and the earth’s age as billions of years, when scientists whose work goes unrecognised put it at no more than 10,000 years. It is sad that people have used their own free will and turned their backs on a mighty God. Don’t let this happen to you, dear Anna, for the Lord will have the last say when he says, Enough! My love to my darling grandchildren. When Mr Jaeger died, the cars with the out-of-state plates appeared in the Jaegers’ yard overnight. Those holy rollers, fumed Sam after the funeral. The bastards have been helping themselves to the old man’s petrol and diesel. Anna said: I’m surprised the pumps weren’t padlocked, and got a dirty stare. Those holy rollers also had an eye on the farm, but they didn’t know what Anna knew, that the Jaegers of this world might give up their souls to God but never their worldly goods. Rebecca has begun to attend a little High Anglican church in North Adelaide. Meg affects amusement, but Anna can sense the chagrin under it. According to Meg, Rebecca is pretty well representative of the congregation—a few gay academics, a few yuppies, no one younger than twenty or older than fifty, dress casual but expensive. Meg laughs, a harsh bark in the little house: The new face of the church. I myself haven’t the time for self-examination. Anna doesn’t know her daughter, and wonders if that matters. She doesn’t ask, she doesn’t meddle, but she does wonder what drives Rebecca. She wonders if it has anything to do with that old wariness, Becky’s watchful gaze from the passenger seat. Anna will grow old wondering it. For her part, Rebecca will not forsake her mother, but she will keep a door closed between them.