mind.’
They faced each other, angry, stubborn.
‘This was an execution, Lucy, clean and merciful. That’s the only way you need to see it.’ He sounded irritated.
‘No, it wasn’t, it wasn’t anything like that. It wasn’t clean, that’s for sure.’
She shook her head and opened her mouth to say something else, but as she did, she felt the grip of some kind of drug travelling her veins, a numbing sensation growing stronger by the second. She stared at his expressionless face opposite her.
‘You … Did you … Is that … ’
Her voice seemed to dry up. She leaned forward on the desk to support herself, shaking her head.
‘Why did you do that — you didn’t need to…’ she managed to say before falling back in her chair.
He put his mug down and stood up. He was businesslike. Nothing unusual was happening, this was just the daily round.
‘We’ll take you upstairs, Lucy. You need to rest. You’ve overdone it, as usual. You can use my room, no one will bother you up there.
However, there is just one thing I need from you first … ’
He searched her pockets for her keys to the building. Finding them, he smiled at her. He dropped them into his own pocket before pulling her upright to take her upstairs. She tried to fight him but could only flop about like a landed fish.
His room was on the mezzanine level behind the auditorium, just above the office. Its louvred windows, covered by steel security grilles, looked over the patch of ground where the two houses had been demolished and to the street the beyond. He sat her on the bed and pulled back the blankets for her.
‘Graeme,’ she forced out, ‘you didn’t have to … ’
‘It’s all right, Lucy. Just rest easy.’
He took off her shoes, put them neatly to the side, and manoeuvred her into the bed and covered her with blankets. She could not stop him, her body was rubbery. The ache of the drug came bearing down on her as her head fell back on the pillow and her eyes began to close.
‘No, you can’t…’ she said, and then slipped away into an airless darkness. She seemed to dream that she was back at her father’s house on the northern edge of the city, standing behind the disused sleep-out on the edge of the small escarpment that was the shared boundary between her father’s block of land and the national park. She was looking out to the north where the eucalyptus forest began its descent over sandstone rock to the Hawkesbury River. The sky was a clear blue; she felt cold wind on her face and heard the drawn-out whistling of currawongs. ‘I’m safe here,’ she said in her dream, so vividly she believed she had spoken aloud.
Her eyes opened onto the small bedroom. She felt her back and her neck cold with sweat, her body paralysed and her breath shallow. In this swimming nausea, she saw Graeme looking down at her in that gentle way of his, his face unsmiling but not unkind. There was a roaring in her ears and then, as the roaring stopped, she heard him say clearly, ‘Yes, you are safe here. You always have been. Soon you’ll be safe for ever, Lucy, you’ll reach a home that’s not on the streets of this city but on the streets of the city of eternal life. Greg can join you there, you can be happy together, you and he can be as one in Christ for ever. I promised you that you’d find peace and I’m going to keep my promise. I always do. The river of death is cold but it is narrow, and once you’re there you will be at peace. You can rest.’
‘You can’t…’ she heard herself say before there was a noise from a distance, the phone downstairs ringing. He left the room.
Stay awake, she told herself, fighting the waves of the drug, stay awake. She had struggled into a half-sitting position when Graeme came back. Gently he pushed her back down onto the pillow.
‘You shouldn’t fight it, Lucy. Just go with it, as you sometimes say.
That was Mrs Lindley. She’s expecting me to dinner, she’s already sent the car to pick me up. It should be here very shortly. I will be back later on tonight because I have a few other things to do as well. I think you’ll sleep through till then. You rest now. You’ve earned it.’
I’m not going to let you do this to me.
Just as she slid away she heard a door banging somewhere, a voice calling out. She thought there was something she should recognise about this voice. Then she had the final fleeting perception of Graeme hurriedly leaving the room.
6
‘I’m just a little puzzled, my friend, as to why,’ the preacher was saying with a slightly baffled, slightly anxious smile. ‘Here you are, knocking at my door, the only door that was open to Lucy in the past, yet I don’t recall you ever showing any noticeable concern for her before today. Is there any particular reason why you should come around here looking for her now?’
Stephen Hurst was surprised to find himself playing mind games with a man he’d thought would be only too happy to help him. When he had first knocked on the door to this office, the preacher had appeared behind him from out of nowhere. He had ushered him in, cleared away the remains of a meal from his desk and then sat Stephen down with a perfunctory smile. Everything about him radiated a tired patience while he generously displayed tolerance towards someone who was wasting his time. He was not someone Stephen would have picked as Lucy’s chosen saviour, even though, from everything she had told him these last few months, this was just who he was.
‘No offence,’ Stephen said, mildly enough in his high-pitched, boyish voice, ‘but I don’t see why I have to give you a reason for wanting to talk to my own sister.’
In reply, the man’s smile was beatific.
‘I always care for my flock, Stephen. I have no idea whether she wants to see you or not, and that is a very important consideration for me. Has she been in touch with you lately?’
Stephen adjusted his round metal-rimmed glasses, watching the man’s face, unable to work out where he was coming from.
‘Yes, she has,’ he replied after a short pause. ‘She rang me last week.
She knows what this is about. From what she said, I thought she’d have told you all about it.’
‘No, I’m afraid not.’
‘I need to find her,’ Stephen said. ‘She needs to think about coming home for a little bit. I’ve got to talk to her about that.’
‘Is that what she wants?’
‘Well, I have to ask her.’
‘And home is — where?’
‘Didn’t she tell you? I would have thought you’d know.’ Stephen saw a slight flush of red cross the preacher’s face.
‘I don’t know that I can help you, Stephen, unfortunately,’ he replied, leaning forward. ‘I am sure you know that Lucy lives a very nomadic sort of existence. In my experience, she finds you. Perhaps that’s what she’ll do if she wants to. Find you. Perhaps she’ll call you again.’
‘Lucy told me that if I ever needed to find her, this is where I should start looking. She said I just had to ask you and you’d help me out. I can wait around if you like. Just to see if she turns up.’
The preacher smiled and shook his head. He stood up and walked to the door of his office and opened it.
‘I’m afraid not. This is private property. People come here to pray and I can’t have them disturbed. I have to say I’m a little surprised at the way you invaded the place. I didn’t realise the back door was unlocked. You should have rung the front door bell, that’s how most people announce themselves to me. But I’ll show you out the way you came. I don’t want you to get lost.’
The combination of his smile and gaze compelled Stephen to his feet. At the door, he hesitated.
‘No, I’ll wait for her,’ he said, taking courage. ‘She said she’d be here some time and I’ve got the time to wait. I need to find her. I don’t want to just walk away from her. You never know what Lucy’s up to or what’s she’s
