The Book of Strange New Things(6)

Dear God, please take all the bad parts out of the world – Johnathan.

A child, he guessed.

Yuko Oyama, Hyoyo, Japan. I pray for the children of illness and peace of planet. And I pray for finding a good partner.

Where is the CROSS of CHRIST our RISEN LORD? Wake UP!

Charlotte Hogg, Birmingham. Please pray that my beloved daughter and grandson will be able to accept my illness. And pray for everyone in distress.

Marijn Tegelaars, London/Belgium. My dearest friend G, that she may find the courage to be who she is.

Jill, England. Please pray for my late mother’s soul to rest peacefully and pray for my family who are not united and hate each other.

Allah is the best! God rules!

The next entry was indecipherably crossed out. A nasty, intolerant rebuttal of the Muslim message above, most likely, deleted by another Muslim or by the caretaker of the Prayer Room.

Coralie Sidebottom, Slough, Berks. Thanks for God’s wonderful creation.

Pat & Ray Murchiston, Langton, Kent. For our dear son, Dave, killed in a car crash yesterday. Forever in our hearts.

Thorne, Frederick, Co. Armagh, Ireland. I pray for the healing of the planet and the awakening of ALL peoples on it.

A mother. My heart is broken as my son has not spoken to me since my remarriage 7 years ago. Please pray for reconciliation.

Awful smell of cheap air freshener you can do better than this.

Moira Venger, South Africa. God is in control.

Michael Lupin, Hummock Cottages, Chiswick. Some other smell than antiseptic.

Jamie Shapcott, 27 Pinley Grove, Yeovil, Somerset. Please can my BA plane to Newcastle not crash. Thank you.

Victoria Sams, Tamworth, Staffs. Nice décor but the lights keep going on and off.

Lucy, Lossiemouth. Bring my man back safely.

He closed the book. His hands were trembling. He knew that there was quite a decent chance that he would die in the next thirty days, or that, even if he survived the journey, he would never return. This was his Gethsemane moment. He clenched his eyes shut and prayed to God to tell him what He wanted him to do; whether it would serve His purpose better if he grabbed Beatrice by the hand and ran with her to the exit and out to the car park, and drove straight back home before Joshua had even registered that he was gone.

By way of answer, God let him listen to the hysterical babble of his own inner voice, let it echo in the vault of his skull. Then, behind him, he heard a jingle of loose change as one of the Muslims jumped up to retrieve his shoes. Peter turned around. The Muslim man nodded courteously at him on his way out. The woman behind the curtain was touching up her lipstick, primping her eyelashes with her little finger, tucking stray hairs inside the edges of her hijab. The arrow on the wall fluttered slightly as the man swung open the door.

Peter’s hands had ceased trembling. He had been granted perspective. This was not Gethsemane: he wasn’t headed for Golgotha, he was embarking on a great adventure. He’d been chosen out of thousands, to pursue the most important missionary calling since the Apostles had ventured forth to conquer Rome with the power of love, and he was going to do his best.

Beatrice wasn’t in the seat where he’d left her. For a few seconds he thought she’d lost her nerve and fled the terminal rather than say her last goodbye. He felt a pang of grief. But then he spotted her a few rows further towards the coffee and muffin kiosk. She was on the floor on her hands and knees, her face obscured by loose hair. Hunkered down in front of her, also on its hands and knees, was a child – a fat toddler, whose elasticated trousers bulged with an ill-concealed nappy.

‘Look! I’ve got . . . ten fingers!’ she was telling the child. ‘Have you got ten fingers?’

The fat toddler slid his hands forward, almost touching Bea’s. She made a show of counting the digits, then said ‘A hundred! No, ten!’ The boy laughed. An older child, a girl, stood shyly back, sucking on her knuckles. She kept looking back at her mother, but the mother was looking neither at her children nor at Beatrice; instead, she was focused on a hand-held gadget.

‘Oh, hi,’ said Beatrice when she saw Peter coming. She brushed her hair off her face, tucked it behind her ears. ‘This is Jason and Gemma. They’re going to Alicante.’

‘We hope,’ said the mother wearily. The gadget made a small beeping noise, having analysed the glucose levels of the woman’s blood.

‘These people have been here since two p.m.,’ explained Beatrice. ‘They’re stressed out.’

‘Never again,’ muttered the woman as she rummaged in a travel pouch for her insulin injections. ‘I swear. They take your money and they don’t give a shit.’

‘Joanne, this is my husband Peter. Peter, this is Joanne.’

Joanne nodded in greeting but was too bound up in her misfortune to make small talk. ‘It all looks dead cheap on the brochure,’ she remarked bitterly, ‘but you pay for it in grief.’

‘Oh, don’t be like that, Joanne,’ counselled Beatrice. ‘You’ll have a lovely time. Nothing bad has actually happened. Just think: if the plane had been scheduled to leave eight hours later, you would’ve been doing the same thing as you’re doing now – waiting, except at home.’

‘These two should be in bed,’ grumbled the woman, baring a roll of abdominal flesh and sticking the needle in.

Jason and Gemma, righteously offended by the allegation that they were sleepy rather than maltreated, looked poised for a fresh set of tantrums. Beatrice got on her hands and knees again. ‘I think I’ve lost my feet,’ she said, peering nearsightedly around the floor. ‘Where have they gone?’