© Denis Fitzpatrick,
2015
Throughout most of the
angriest marital argument that Elijah and Janette d’Israeli had ever had both
parties were fully aware that their anger was completely unfounded. Their other
half deserved much better than this they both knew but at the time each could
not stop the hostility. The fight was the natural result of either fear of the
unknown or a long pent up release after decades of carefully and
conscientiously raising a family. Their twin girls had been easy enough to
raise but it was naturally still a very, very hard job to bring them up as
worthy citizens, eager to contribute to society. The youngest daughter, Maria,
had flown the nest two years ago and had fallen into bad company. Her parents
had had absolutely no contact with her for the past nine months, despite their
best efforts. The eldest of the two, soon after her twentieth birthday, had
flown the nest a few hours ago and neither of her parents could secretly see
the sense in now fighting over the most suitable restaurant to celebrate their
having their lives finally back under their own complete control.
Their fight was interrupted by a very
loud, urgent knocking.
‘Don’t you worry, Eli,’ said Janette on
the way to the door, ‘If we’re not going to Domenico’s I’ll bloody well go
there on my own!’
Janette didn’t initially recognise her eldest
daughter, carrying two large, full sports bags in each hand, looking expectantly
at her from the doorway. It was the last thing Janette was expecting.
‘Blanche!’ she exclaimed when she did
recognise her progeny. ‘What are you doing back here?’
‘May I come in, Mum? I’ve been having the
most horrible time.’ Janette stepped aside to let her daughter enter. ‘Hello,
Dad.’ Elijah was coming up the hallway, also not able to believe that it was
Blanche at the door. She put her bags down.
‘But you’ve been gone only a few hours,
sweetie. There must be some really cataclysmic reason why you’re back here so
quick,’ continued her mother.
‘There is.’
‘Well, let’s have some tea and talk about
it,’ suggested Elijah.
‘Can I stay here for the night?’ Mum and
Dad were silent. ‘Please.’ Elijah allowed her mother to speak.
‘Only for tonight, darling. Unless you’ve
killed somebody you’ll be leaving in the morning.’
‘And if you have killed somebody we’ll
ring the police to come and take charge,’ pronounced her father.
‘I haven’t killed anyone, I . . . Let’s
have some tea, I can’t talk about it yet.’
But over the tea Blanche was still
unforthcoming and her parents suggested she make an early night of it and see
if she was able to talk about it in the morning. They would help her all they
could with her obvious distress, falling short however of allowing her back to
live with them. So Blanche agreed on the early night, feeling tired anyway
after the stress which she was unable to vent.
Her room was unchanged and Blanche got
into bed with her clothes on, the first time she had ever consciously done
that. Her parents left her to herself and Blanche fell off to sleep without
expecting to.
*
Blanche did as a result
feel able to tell her parents why she had returned at the breakfast table the next
morning and while Elijah was cooking. When everything had been laid out, Grace
said, Blanched opened the conversation with,
‘Satan visited me soon after my great
flight.’ Her parents remained cutting their breakfast, looking at Blanche
quizzically. ‘Soon after moving into the new place I decided on a nap. That way
I could stay up all night for a good party.’
‘You know dreams aren’t real, sweetie,’
said her mother.
‘Well this one was. He showed me that you
were going back to your Speaking Nights, both of you prophesying and preaching
on random street corners, like when you both first met.’
‘We are.’ Her parents both replied.
‘Well, Satan told me that for your
preaching to be really truthful you must also preach Evil, the only thing that
defines Good. The Two rely on each other.’ Her parents paused in their chewing.
She had a point. She had a point.
Elijah sipped some orange juice, to
counter,
‘But Satan is always lying.’
‘Dad, that dream was so real, able to
touch, to smell, to see, to hear. I was there with Satan just as I’m here with
you, that’s how real it felt. In Hell. Unable to leave. It was the worst
experience I had ever had because it
was so real: stuck in Hell, with its screaming, stinking, vile, hot and
scorching beating, Satan himself beating into me that you were both doomed if
you went back to preaching because of basic logic. Satan may have been lying,
or he may not, to define his lies with counterbalancing truth, but it sure felt
like he was revealing a secret.’ Blanche paused a short while, gathering
herself.
‘And he does have a good point. Dad, Mum,
if you both go back to your Speaking Nights you will have to do the work of
Lucifer as well. Good and Evil are the only things that define each other; you
can’t have one without the other. Your efforts may sum to nought,
counterbalancing each other. You would cease to exist, logically, during these
Speaking Nights and their consequent, dependant times. I too then, and my poor
sister, Maria, will be nothings, all the d’Israelis since we’re all
interconnected, products of each other. So that’s why you’ve got to let me move
back in. To protect you.’
‘No way!’ exclaimed her parents,
unanimously again. Certainly not as the result of lies in a dream.
And try as she might she could not
convince Janette and Elijah to allow her to return. She was only able to manage
an extra day’s stay considering that her parents, always very religious and
upstanding, found it all too easy to believe that she was petrified of meeting
Satan in a dream again soon. They easily conceded that she needed a bit more
time to learn to fly.
With that settled Elijah and Janette
easily settled back into the old ways of home, also being aware that their
nasty argument of yesterday was utterly meaningless. Blanche unpacked her bag
after breakfast.
*
‘Do you both plan to
resume your kerbside preaching using home as a base, or travelling around?’ Blanche
had awoken to the feeling, the next day, that this question over the family
breakfast may lead to what she sought: a safe, yet varied life, with no
possibility of the Devil. She doubted that he could penetrate her parents’
home.
‘We’re really going to travel around Aus,
maybe the world if there’s still time.’
‘Won’t that be uncomfortable? Living in a
tight space. Living out of a van, basically. Where’ll you get your running
water?’
‘We’ll manage. Sure things’ll need to be
organised more but we’ve got plenty of time to do that.’
Blanche suddenly realised the answer she
had gleaned upon waking. ‘If you let me travel with you I’ll take care of
everything, everything and anything that’s involved in travelling around the
country in a motor home. You are getting a motor home?’
‘Yes,’ replied Elijah. ‘The best way to
travel in comfort.’
‘Well if you have me along you’ll have
guaranteed comfort. I’ll hand over my entire dole, to pay rent and for my own
upkeep in general. I swear you’ll never want for a thing on the road.’
Blanche’s offer was surprisingly vaguely
tempting to her parents, and vaguely reasonable. After all the first thing they
had talked of when discussing hitting the road was how inconvenient everything
would be, and how thus they’d come to hate travelling but would be stuck with
it. They could of course have asked Elijah’s parents to reinstate his Trust
Fund but that would be very embarrassing at his white-haired age. Elijah had
asked his parents to cancel his Trust Fund allowance because he wanted to raise
his own family himself, not have it done by his parents. And, Elijah just now
realised, this was the only time he had regretted cancelling that easy money.
Janette expressed this mutual tentative, possible
interest with the question,
‘Wouldn’t you miss the young men, Blanche?
You’ve always loved a good time and bringing forth life with someone special may
be the most joy you could wish for.’
‘I can raise the child with you. And if I
do marry it’ll be while I’m still young and so the man too will be young. He
should then have no ties to cut loose from and be well able to travel in order
to be with me.’ Her parents didn’t quite accept this last point but romance was
something that could never be planned for anyway, or accounted for in any way, come
to think of it.
Naturally though Elijah couldn’t let their
eldest daughter give them all her money, let alone any of her money. And anyway how was Blanche to legally receive the
dole if she was simply travelling rather than doing the required search for
work to qualify for the dole? She’ll have no choice but to work, not then being
able to fulfil her guarantee. Mind you if she stopped off in a town every two
weeks for ten minutes and looked for employment from two employers she’d
technically qualify for regular dole payments. Yes, certainly something to
consider. But then again if they travelled overseas Blanche would definitely
need to work. But if Blanche somehow managed work and travel, again, how she could
look after them as greatly as she promised?
‘I’m sorry, sweetie, it’s just not
possible. The dole is not much money and probably couldn’t support an uncertain
lifestyle. It’s impractical,’ Elijah pointed out to her.
‘Would you accept all of my dole payments
every two weeks if I told you that I would be gaining stability whilst also learning new things? Sure I’d still
be at home with my parents, but I would also be travelling new somewhere every
day. Always learning. Adapting. Growing. For the experiences I’d gain the dole
money would be very, very well spent.’
Again, she had a point. Travelling along
with them throughout Aus would mean that Blanche simultaneously remained in the
family nest as well as was always flying from it and learning new realities.
Her new skills would teach her the art of budgeting well on her small dole. And
who knows, maybe the welfare would be a bounty, what with Blanche always
indoors, not needing to go out as the outside was coming to her.
‘I don’t know about you, Eli, but I’m now tempted
by the offer. She has a point there. And a bit of extra help on the road would
be great from what I’ve heard. You?’
He mused inwardly briefly. ‘Very tempted,
Jan.’
And it was soon settled. They had no
argument in choosing a restaurant to celebrate their new arrangement and they
spent the next eight weeks in preparing for the road. Blanche was of course of
tremendous assistance, making preparations virtually effortless. Her parents though
refused to let her drive the new motor home as they said it was being behind
the wheel that the whole trip was about. Apart from that Blanche was true to
her word during the first few days of all their wilful wandering. Things
certainly looked promising.
~~~
If you've been enjoying Denis' stories here his previous such stories, from September 2013 to February 2015, are also available as a Kindle book, Amongst the Ways of God, at http://amzn.to/1IcruuX, which also includes several completely new ones. You may also enjoy his debut novel, This Mirror in Me, which tells the story of how Tonia achieves her life's fundamental aim of having her home as a social hub, by staring at herself in the mirror. It is also available as a Kindle book at http://amzn.to/1gXGF9h. Denis also has a short non-fiction book available, King Street Blues, which is an encouraging tale of Denis' willfully chosen five years of homelessness in the inner cities of Sydney and Melbourne. It too is available as a Kindle book at http://amzn.to/1xwiVGb. If you don't have a Kindle you can download the Kindle app for free onto your smartphone, tablet, or computer through your local app store.
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