Winter of Grace Read online

‘Oh, Jay, I love you,’ murmured Stella, leaning against his chest, and Jay flushed sunburn-pink beneath his bandages.

  Bailey Hahn muscled in again. ‘I mean it, Bridie, you’ve got to leave now.’

  ‘Or what? You’ll call security?’ Then it occurred to me that he could do exactly that.

  ‘Just let me clean her up, okay?’ I snapped, and together Jay and I led Stella inside. I pushed her into a bathroom and sponged her face and made her rinse her mouth. She threw up again, in the toilet this time, thankfully, but when we emerged, she was looking pretty white.

  Jay was waiting. He offered Stella his arm and escorted her through the crowd as if they were the prince and princess leaving the ball.

  ‘Thanks for a wonderful party,’ he said politely to Bailey’s dad, who was hovering at the door, presumably gearing himself up to kick us out, or maybe just checking that Stella didn’t heave on the good cushions on the way.

  ‘Yeah, it was fabulous.’ I swept past. ‘Great idea, tipping all that vodka in the punch.’

  Stella waved blearily at everyone from Jay’s arm. She stumbled at the door and I thought she was going to crash down the steps, but Jay and I steadied her. We made it onto the footpath and some way down the street without major injury. Then Stella kind of swooned onto the nature strip, giggling, and Jay sat down abruptly, clutching his side.

  ‘Oh, no, your ribs! I’m so sorry. I forgot …’ ‘Not your fault.’ He winced. ‘Hurts though. Elliot’s on his way. Probably about fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Thanks so much, Jay. I don’t know what to say. Stella’s not … She’s never done this before, truly.’

  Jay didn’t say anything. He sat on the grass beneath a streetlight, looking at me. I felt my face glow hot. Stella was lying flat on her back a short distance away, crooning softly to herself.

  ‘You’re a good friend,’ he said at last.

  ‘I never wanted to go to this stupid party in the first place!’ I blurted. ‘I’m not … I’m not really a party person.’

  ‘Me neither,’ said Jay. ‘Not this kind of party.’ He turned away and mumbled, ‘I’ve never been to a party like that before.’

  ‘I don’t think I ever will again, after tonight,’ I said. ‘And I’m pretty sure Stella – well, maybe Stella will. I guess she won’t remember much about it.’

  Jay smiled his quiet smile and I found myself liking him more and more. ‘Elliot talked my parents into letting me come. He said I should see for myself what it was like.’ He nodded towards Stella, who’d fallen silent, gazing dreamily up at the clouds. ‘I don’t understand why anyone would do that to themselves.’

  ‘Fun?’ I said vaguely, and we caught each other’s eye and laughed. Jay clutched his ribs. ‘Oh, sorry!’

  ‘Sneezing’s the worst,’ he said. Then, very seriously, ‘Bridie.’ So he did know my name. ‘Hello.’

  ‘There’s something you ought to know about me. Something pretty important.’

  Oh, God, I thought. He’s gay? He’s got a terminal illness? He’s going overseas? He’s married? – I don’t know where that last one came from. ‘Okay,’ I said in a nervous squeak.

  ‘I just think, you know, if we’re going to get to know each other better … I mean, I don’t know if you, if you want to be friends, but …’

  ‘Okay, what?’

  He took a deep breath. ‘I’m a Christian.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Oh,’ I said weakly at last. ‘Okay. A Christian … wow.’

  It explained so much. The way he flinched when Stella blasphemed, the not drinking, the awkward way he’d looked around at the party, as if he’d landed among aliens. Hook up? Of course he didn’t mean hook up. He was a total innocent.

  But … in a nice way.

  Behind us, music throbbed dully from the Hahns’ house. A car roared past, stopped for an instant, disgorged a knot of party guests with a flurry of slammed doors, and roared away. Stella was singing again, a Zita Mariposa song: the taste of honey is on your lips; your tongue is honey for me.

  Jay said, ‘Bridie? You’re not saying anything.’

  ‘I’m just getting used to it. I thought you were going to say you were a werewolf or something. A Christian, that’s … interesting.’

  ‘I was scared to tell you. I thought you and Stella would think it was uncool. I was … I guess I was embarrassed. And tonight, when I saw your friends …’ ‘They’re not my friends,’ I said quickly. ‘Not really Stella’s either, she only knows Bailey from soccer.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘You really think it’s interesting?’

  ‘Yeah.’ I thought about it. ‘Yeah, I do. I don’t know much about God and religion and … everything.’ As far as I knew, I’d never met a Christian before, not a proper one. Apart from Nana Kincaid. And Jay and Nana Kincaid were not the same thing.

  Jay cleared his throat. ‘If you wanted to, you could come to our church, check it out? My dad’s the pastor – Pastor Matt. It’s Northside Church, have you heard of it? And Elliot’s a youth leader.’

  ‘So it’s a family affair.’

  ‘Yeah, kind of … anyway, you’re welcome to come along.’

  My mouth was open to say, thanks but no thanks, I’m not really a church person, but instead I heard myself say, ‘Okay, maybe I will.’ The vodka must have still been racing round my veins; but the weird thing was, at that moment, I was interested. Since the war was declared, there’d been a lot of talk about God – our God and their God – so maybe it was time to find out what all the fuss was about.

  ‘Stella’s welcome, too. Do you think she’d come?’

  ‘She might.’ I looked doubtfully over my shoulder to where she was lying on the grass, singing to herself. ‘I’ll ask her.’ I glanced sideways at Jay. ‘It’s interesting to meet someone who … believes in something.’

  ‘It would be so great if you could both come,’ said Jay earnestly. ‘I’m sure God sent you for a reason. You know, last Saturday. You saved me. Wouldn’t it be amazing if I helped save you?’

  ‘Um … yeah.’ I didn’t know what to make of that. Saved? From what exactly, what did that mean?

  An old blue car drew up to the kerb and Jay jumped to his feet. ‘Elliot! Over here!’

  ‘Hi there,’ said a dry voice, and Elliot leaned out the window. I scrambled up and brushed myself off. ‘Got a casualty, have we?’

  ‘She had a bit too much to drink,’ I said.

  Elliot grimaced. ‘Think she’ll chuck in my car?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I said cautiously. ‘She’s been sick twice, I’m pretty sure it’s all gone.’

  ‘Nice,’ said Elliot. ‘All right, hop in. I suppose you want to sober her up before you take her home? We’d better find a cafe.’

  I hauled Stella to her feet and she weaved her way over to the car. ‘Hi!’ she said brightly to Elliot. ‘Have we met before?’

  ‘You might want to—’ Elliot gestured to his chest.

  I thought he meant me; involuntarily I glanced down, my cheeks burning.

  ‘Her top,’ said Elliot. ‘Before we go anywhere in public?’

  ‘Oh, right.’ Hastily I buttoned Stella back into her shirt and shoved her into the car. ‘This is really nice of you,’ I burbled as I struggled to fasten Stella’s seatbelt.

  Elliot shrugged as he pulled out into the street. ‘What goes around,’ he said enigmatically, and ruffled his brother’s hair. ‘How are you, mate?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘Yeah, good,’ said Jay, but he sat there in silence, either from exhaustion or shyness or sheer embarrassment, while Stella sang along to the radio and told us all how much she loved us, and Elliot drove on grimly, a scowl set on his face.

  He found a cafe and we poured herbal tea and water into Stella and she started to look less pale and more connected to reality.

  ‘Make her drink plenty of water before she goes to bed,’ said Elliot. ‘You staying at her place?’

  ‘She’s staying at mine.’


  ‘Good. She’ll be pretty sick in the morning.’ He said to Jay, ‘Drink up, mate. We’ve got an early start.’

  Jay swilled his hot chocolate. ‘First service is at ten,’ he told me. ‘Dad likes us to go.’

  Elliot’s eyebrow shot up; obviously he was surprised Jay had told us about their church. Perhaps he knew from experience that it wasn’t the world’s best pick-up line.

  ‘You can come, too, if you like,’ said Jay.

  ‘I don’t think they’ll be going anywhere tomorrow morning, Jay,’ said Elliot, and he flicked a quick sceptical glance at me that said more clearly than words that he didn’t expect us to turn up to their church ever. I stared right back; he might get a big shock one day.

  The whole exchange went right over Stella’s head; she was squinting at a sugar tube. ‘How do they get the sugar in there?

  It’s such a weeny little hole …’ Elliot threw some money on the table. ‘Let’s go,’ he growled. ‘The Elliot Ridley Taxi Service turns into a pumpkin at midnight.’

  MUM WAS SURPRISED to see us. ‘I told you to call, I was waiting,’ she said. ‘I don’t like you taking lifts from strange men.’

  Mum worries too much. I nearly told her Elliot was a church youth leader but I wasn’t ready to break that news to Stella yet. Instead I said, ‘He wasn’t a stranger, he was Jay’s brother, the guy from the peace rally.’

  ‘That is a stranger. Next time—’ Mum broke off as Stella gave a huge yawn and sagged against the wall. Her eye makeup was all smudged; she looked like a skinny, bedraggled panda. Suddenly I was so tired I could hardly stand up either.

  Mum raised her hands. ‘Off you go. And plenty of water before you––’

  ‘Before we go to bed, yeah, yeah, I’ve got the message.’ I pushed Stella into my room and she promptly collapsed onto the bed and began to snore. I had to wake her up to tip a bottle of water down her throat before she passed out again. I toppled onto the spare mattress like a fallen tree, and suddenly it was morning.

  Stella’s pale, panda face gave me an agonised stare over the edge of the bed. She whispered, ‘Tell me it was all a bad dream?’

  I rolled over in my sleeping-bag and pretended to think hard. ‘Hmm, let’s see … No, pretty much all true, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh, God.’ Stella’s face abruptly vanished. Her disembodied voice begged, ‘Which parts?’

  ‘The getting trashed part, the flirting with Jay part, the throwing up in the pool part—’

  ‘Okay, stop! Ow, my head. I feel terrible.’ There was a pause. ‘I threw up in the pool?’

  ‘Mmm. But on the plus side, guess what? Jay’s a born-again Christian.’

  ‘You what? You’re joking. Bridie, this a joke, right?’

  ‘Well, he’s some kind of Christian. He told me while we were waiting for Elliot to pick us up.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, Elliot … I remember now … Jay’s a Christian?’ Another pause. ‘So I guess he was really impressed with the whole getting-wasted, throwing-up thing?’

  ‘He was cool, actually.’ I propped myself on my elbow, thinking back. ‘He called Elliot to get us, and he was really sweet to you.’

  ‘Yeah?’ said Stella hopefully. ‘What did he do?’

  ‘Um …’ Maybe that was a stretch. ‘He invited us to his church?’

  ‘How romantic,’ groaned Stella. ‘I can’t believe I’ve got a crush on a Christian.’

  I noted that her feelings for Jay had already been downgraded from ‘in love’ to mere ‘crush’. For some perverse reason this annoyed me.

  ‘He’s still the same person,’ I said crossly; my head was throbbing too. ‘Just because he goes to church, so what? Just because he believes in something.’

  ‘Hey.’ Stella pointed her finger at me. ‘I’m the one who goes to Catholic school, remember? I’ve got enough Christians in my life without adding to the collection.’

  ‘I told him we’d think about it.’

  ‘About going to church? Are you crazy?’

  ‘He’s nice. Elliot’s nice. How bad can it be?’

  Stella squinted at me. ‘You’ve never been to church, have you? I have, heaps of times, with Nana, and it’s God-awful.’

  It took a second for that to sink in, then we both giggled.

  ‘I suppose that’s exactly what it’s meant to be,’ I said. ‘Godly and full of awe.’

  ‘Shut up and get out of my way.’ Stella swung her legs over the bed. ‘I feel sick.’

  We went back and forth on it a few times over the next week. Stella was torn between being so mortified that she never wanted to see Jay again, and wanting to show him what a nice wholesome girl she really was. I guess I was just intrigued. I did genuinely like Jay (and Elliot, sort of – not that that was relevant). I thought it was gutsy of Jay to confess something so deeply uncool, and I was curious. No one had ever offered to introduce me to God before.

  We looked up Northside Church on the internet on Monday night, before Mum came home. After her rant about religious schools, I wasn’t about to tell her I was considering going to an actual church.

  ‘Wow, it’s big. They’ve got branches all over the city.’

  ‘It’s a franchise, it’s the Chicken Hut of churches … look!’ Stella’s finger stabbed Elliot’s photo on the screen. ‘There’s grumpy-pants.’

  ‘Youth Outreach Program,’ I read. ‘Do you think they’re just trying to recruit us?’

  ‘Der! That’s what Christians do. That’s their job – they convert people.’

  In the end, we decided to go. I stayed over at Stella’s on Saturday, which wasn’t unusual, but I didn’t exactly tell Mum what our plans were for Sunday. We worked out that we could catch the train and walk to the church; it was right at the end of the line.

  ‘Dress up,’ ordered Stella. ‘Nice frocks. Nana always made me wear a nice frock when we went to Mass.’

  Seeing as how we weren’t six years old any more, we couldn’t quite stretch to nice frocks, but we both wore skirts and tights. Knee-length skirts. I wore a neat buttoned-up shirt and Stella wore a skivvy. ‘Very modest,’ she said with satisfaction, turning in front of the mirror. I felt as if we were dressing up as nuns – not the old-fashioned sort, with headdresses and flowing robes, but boring modern nuns, in cardigans, with bad hair.

  ‘Have you noticed how Christians always have bad hair?’ said Stella when we were on the train at last.

  ‘God doesn’t care what they look like,’ I said. ‘He wants them to worry about helping other people, not trivial things like hair.’

  ‘Look who’s the expert now!’

  ‘Shut up,’ I mumbled. Okay, maybe I had read the Northside website, maybe I’d done a little Christian research. I didn’t understand a lot of it, but the parts about helping others and being grateful for the world made sense to me. Wasn’t that what Stella and I believed in? Only we called it being ‘politically active’ and ‘environmentally aware’.

  ‘Anyway,’ I added. ‘Jay’s got good hair.’

  ‘Huh,’ said Stella.

  We nearly got lost between the station and the church. Stella has a problem with left and right; according to her, I have a problem with east and west. We were still bickering when we found it: a big, low, grey-brown building with an enormous cross on the front wall, and a sea of cars all around, and a swarm of people hurrying inside.

  ‘Wow,’ said Stella. ‘It’s bigger than St John’s, where Nana goes.’

  We hung back, watching, both suddenly shy and self-conscious. Our clothes were totally wrong. We’d got the modest skirts right, but I’d never seen so much cleavage. Everyone was certainly dressed up, but not in ‘nice frocks’. I felt like an idiot in my chaste shirt and lace-up shoes. I was on the verge of whispering let’s go to Stella, when Jay shouted our names.

  He was wearing a proper black eye-patch, waving and grinning from ear to ear. ‘I can’t believe you came! Wow, you look … different.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘We’re about tostart. We all sit down
the front. My family, I mean. Do you want to sit with us?’

  ‘Um … I think we’d feel more comfortable up the back, for our first time,’ said Stella.

  ‘Sure.’ Jay smiled again and patted us each on the shoulder. ‘It’s great to see you guys. Meet you after, yeah?’ And he rushed off. He seemed so confident and relaxed in his natural habitat, not shy at all. It was Stella and me who’d turned awkward.

  ‘I think you’re forgiven,’ I said to Stella. ‘I think your sins have been washed away.’

  Stella pulled a face. ‘Funny. S’pose we’d better go in.’

  I don’t know what I was expecting – not so many people, that’s for sure. The building was more like a big theatre than my idea of a church, with the audience in tiered seats facing a stage with another huge cross hung above it. Stella and I found seats at the back, and as soon as we sat down, music began to blast from speakers all around the walls.

  It was weird. Like a rock concert, only all the songs were about God and Jesus. There was a choir on stage, and a full-on band, plus a guy with a microphone and a pretty good voice, who led the singing. It was all mercy and glory and being saved and rejoicing.

  The whole crowd was on their feet, singing their lungs out, clapping and swaying. The words were projected up on a big screen, and a couple of times I found my feet tapping and my lips moving. The music was so infectious that it was hard not to let it carry me away. But Stella stood with her arms folded, stonily silent.

  In a strange way, the atmosphere reminded me of the peace rally: that united feeling, that sense of being part of something bigger than my own small self. Except this time, Stella and I were outsiders, not part of the Northside worship-beast.

  But I had the feeling that it would be easy to slip inside, easy to belong. Every time I looked around, someone smiled right at me – an Asian woman, a red-haired girl about our age, a burly Islander man, a bald guy. This crowd was just as diverse as the peace marchers, and everyone was smiling and singing and being friendly and happy. And gradually I started to relax into it, I let myself be absorbed. By the end I was singing along with everyone else. But when Stella glared at me I stopped, even though we were more conspicuous standing there in silence than joining in.