This Still Happens

Chapter Thirty-Two - Calling: Tim

I close my Bible and put it on the little crochet mat Mum made for it. Since she died, it's been home to her photograph as well, one of her at a garden party at Sophie's. She's wearing a blue dress with tiny white flowers all over it, and she's posing smartly, smiling in front of a rhododendron with cream blossoms. Dad took it, and gave it to me in a frame, the week after Mum died.

She used to like reading the Bible almost as much as I do. There's just something about it that feels steadying, like coming home, and maybe that's because she used to read it to me, or maybe it's because I used to read it to her, but I know it's something to do with her. Dad's never quite understood it. For him, reading the Bible is like going to school; a means to an end, but not something to return to, and return to, and return to, "As if the meaning might have changed! All the words are still there, right where you left them, Tim!"

He says it now, and I look up, to see him standing in the doorway, grinning at me. He's a skinny man, tall and skinny, which I guess is how I get my height. Not that Mum was short, and, of course, none of my aunts and uncles are short, but having Titans on both sides of the family might have been the reason I towered over my friends--and my cousins--from the first day of primary school.

"I know," I say, as I always say, "I just like to check." Strictly speaking, it's not as much of a joke as it sounds. Sometimes, reading the Bible really does feel like I'm making sure it's all still as I remember it.

Because sometimes it isn't. Because sometimes, when I come back to a verse, it means something completely different to what it meant when I last read it. Things are clearer, somehow, like I'm looking at them through binoculars, instead of squinting into the distance, trying to decipher a blurry, shapeless mystery.

Dad steps into my room and puts his arm around my shoulder. "Go and do something else for a bit," he says, "Have a little walk or something. You've barely been outside since you got back from Kirk Yetholm yesterday."

"Ah, but I walked all the way there, and all the way back," I point out, "And I've spent all today at school, so... you know... maybe I've been outside without you realising."

He laughs. "I'm sure you have." He looks around my room, and his eyes fall on my school bag "Have you caught up on your homework?"

"Of course."

"Good lad," he says, "Now, come and sit downstairs. I want to see you relaxing in the front room within ten minutes, or there'll be trouble. I'm popping the kettle on. Do you want a cuppa tea?"

"Please," I reply, picking up my BSL dictionary with the intention of learning twenty new signs--my daily goal--and moving to follow Dad out of my room.

But he turns around in the doorway and says, "Ah, no, you put that down. Watch telly or something."

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I don't watch telly, but I do settle on the sofa, and I do take out my phone, and open up the Rainbow Room. Unlike the Bible, the words change every day, usually several times, and there's guaranteed to be something new to read.

Today, someone has written into the website, and Iris has written a response.

I read the letter first, just to have some idea of the background. Iris usually answers her letters--if Iris is a woman--with articles she's written, so that, sometimes, you don't have to read the letter first. Sometimes she doesn't publish the letter at all, just puts a little note at the top of the article, saying, "This article was inspired by a question from one of my readers," and then she puts the main question as the headline, and leaves the rest of the letter out.

But, today, Iris has published the letter as well, and, much as I often scroll past, to read the article, there's something about this one that pulls me into reading it properly.