She saw the girls outside the church.
They stood together, hand in hand, their backs to the entrance.
The tall girl was the first to speak. ‘I’m Matilda.’
‘And you’re Betty,’ Mae said.
Betty smiled but took a step back into the shadow cast by the cross.
‘Reverend Baxter thinks we’ll burn,’ Matilda said. Her hair was dark, pixie short.
Betty was surfer blonde, softer, shy. ‘We’ll be at the beach. Every night. We’ll be there.’
Mae watched them leave.
She found Theodore inside.
The air cooled, the heat of summer edged off beneath the towering stone and painted glass.
Mae took a seat at the back, alone, only a handful of others were scattered around as Sally Sweeny played the old organ.
Mae watched them sing, their voices one, till Theodore stepped forward and stole all the light in that quiet way he did. His voice soared, filled the cavernous space and brought tears to the eyes of Miss Holmes, the music teacher, who sat there and watched Theodore like she’d caught a glimpse of heaven and realised death was nothing to fear.
‘Laudate dominum …’
‘The boy can sing,’ Reverend Baxter said, as he settled in beside Mae.
‘That’s what they say.’
She looked at Felix’s father, his kind eyes and the way he tapped his foot slightly, like a tremor was shaking the floor beneath him.
‘I’ve been hearing things, Mae.’
She watched the flickering candles.
He cleared his throat. ‘What Abi said, it … it was powerful in its way. I don’t like the idea of us and them.’
‘There are those who believe, and those who don’t. You should know that better than anyone.’
‘I spent a long time shadowing the old vicar before I took over. There’s room for questions, even for doubt. I speak of forgiveness and that’s –’
‘Some things are unforgivable.’
He looked sad then, but managed to nod. There was a lot she could have told him, maybe asked him why God could forgive repenting murderers but he himself could not forgive his son’s lack of belief.
‘I do worry about him,’ he said, quiet, reading her.
‘You should.’
‘He was always a strong-willed child.’
‘He’s still strong. Did you see what he wore to school today?’
‘I know he’ll be happier when he finds God.’
‘They say faith is blind.’
‘Do you pray for Abi?’
‘Do you?’
‘Of course. And I pray for you, Mae. Do you ever visit your parents’ grave? I think it might help you. I know that you’ve struggled. I’m here for you.’
‘I know where I belong, Reverend Baxter.’
He smiled again, touched her hand and moved off.
She spotted Sullivan Reed sitting in the far corner, his head bowed. Maybe this was where they came, those who didn’t fit.
‘Isn’t Theodore sublime?’ Jeet Patel said, as he stopped beside Mae.
Sally’s words came back to her, Jeet Patel being the eternal understudy.
‘The Forevers – that was beautiful, Mae. I can only dream of a world like that.’ He smiled again and moved to the front as the Sacreds filed out.
Only Theodore remained.
He didn’t notice her, sitting beside the arch, so small she paled into the stone. She was about to walk over when he dropped to the stone floor so hard she heard the crack of his knees echo. She thought of the bruises, the cuts across them that day on the bus.
He bowed his head low, clenched his eyes closed in a prayer she could almost feel.
Something about the desperation, the pleading, made her think of Abi. Theodore was atoning.
Mae waited for him to finish.
Blood trickled down his shins but he made no move to wipe it. He took a seat beside her, before the heavy cross, the depictions.
‘Hunter said you didn’t want to sleep with Abi. But I think you did.’
‘You’re back to this?’ he said.
‘I’m just getting started.’
‘You don’t understand.’
‘Then make me.’
‘My parents liked her. They liked that I had a girlfriend. And that she was in the choir. Abi … she was everything. We used to play church songs, she got us into Nirvana.’
Mae almost smiled.
‘I loved Abi. People didn’t get it, and that’s all right, but I saw something in her that I needed. And she gave it to me. And you want to make it about sex, but it was so much more than that. It was something real to us, in a world where kindness is getting lost.’
She watched him speak, the way he looked at the cross. ‘Sex … we didn’t have sex. We’re seventeen, Mae. We are capable of something different.’
She thought about what she’d found in Abi’s room, the way Abi had scored out Theodore’s initials in the desk.
‘You broke up.’
‘I think she was seeing someone else.’
She heard the faintest trace of something harder before he caught it, reined it in.
‘There’s no hatred, we don’t marry the people we’re with at school. It’s fine.’
‘No one wants to be rejected, Theodore.’
He took a breath. ‘There’s a bigger picture. What we desire in this life –’
‘Who was she seeing?’
‘I didn’t ask. Does it even matter? She changed, she lost her … she was just lost. I tried to help her but she … she was quiet. She drank more.’
Above them the church bell shook the building.
‘You know she saw you on the beach, Mae. She’d walk to the window in her new bedroom and see you sitting down there alone.’
For a year she waited for her friend to come back to her, waited by the dark water, some nights in the rain, the howling wind, the biting snow.
He stood, the blood on his knees had dried dark. ‘Those girls outside, they never come in.’
‘Your god doesn’t make them feel welcome.’
He smiled, like she’d disappointed him, then walked away.
‘Theodore.’
He turned by the door.
‘What were you praying for?’
‘The same thing everyone is. Forgiveness.’