The Grin of the Dark

FORTY-THREE - ST SIMON'S

'I'll bet my pension you've never been out driving so late before, Mark,' says my mother.

'Only on my computer.'

Natalie frowns across me at him. 'It's news to me. Just when was that?'

'When I was looking for things for Simon.'

'That's kind of you, Mark,' I say, 'but you mustn't lose your sleep at your age.'

'I couldn't anyway.'

'I'll bet you've never been out at midnight, though,' my mother insists. 'You're going to be in at the birth.'

Mark giggles with embarrassment or in case her comment is a joke, and Natalie sends him another frown as she sits back. I wish we'd used her car, but I didn't want my father to think we didn't trust his driving. With three people on the rear seat the Mini seems insanely straitened, as Thackeray Lane might have put it while he was coherent. I feel as if I'm being transported in a cell along a barely distinguishable route – glimpses of houses clogged with darkness, the flickers of lit windows, the occasional reveller who grins at the car. 'How far are we actually going?' I ask.

'Listen to him, Mark. He sounds younger than you, doesn't he?' says my mother.

Didn't she make a similar quip last time they took me for a drive? As if the memory has created a physical link, a Christmas tree rears up beyond the windscreen. I could imagine that its lights are trying to fend off the darkness that leads to it along five roads. 'Isn't this where you brought me before?' I protest.

'You've been here before all right,' my father says and laughs.

When my mother joins in I have the unpleasant idea that they're trying to project their confusion onto me. The tree brandishes its glaring multicoloured branches as it pirouettes with massive sluggishness while the Mini takes the first exit, beyond which I can't see anything except two ranks of houses squashed tall and thin. Curtains seem to shift as if we're being watched, but perhaps that's the restlessness of Christmas lights. 'It does seem rather a long way to come to church,' Natalie says.

'We thought we'd give you an extra treat,' says my mother, 'since we've got a bit of time.'

'We'll show you where he came into the world,' my father says.

For a moment I'm unable to ask 'Who?'

'Now who do you think?' cries my mother.

'Is it Tubby?' Mark responds with at least as much enthusiasm.

'Lord love us, no,' my father declares. 'Don't tell me Simon's got you as obsessed as he is.'

My mother twists around to smile at us. 'Who else is it going to be except Simon?'

'I don't remember this,' I say like a contradiction of my ringtone.

'Of course you don't, you silly boy. How could anyone?'

At once the car is flooded with illumination that suggests spotlights have been turned on. They're lamps on a street that crosses the one we're following. As the car swings left my mother says 'Here it is. Do you think they'll put up a plaque one day, Mark?'

Both sides of the road are lined with pale misshapen bungalows approached and separated by a maze of paths sprouting toadstool lights. I might be amused by the appearance of a gnomes' village if I weren't so troubled. 'We never lived here,' I risk saying.

'Isn't this it, Bob?' my mother pleads. 'I was sure it was.'

My father glares at me in the widescreen mirror. 'You're doing it again,' he mutters.

Is he accusing me of making the car veer as he looks away from the road? 'Be careful, Bob,' my mother exhorts. 'You've got a child in the car. You should have let his mother drive.'

'You can't, Sandra.'

If he was blaming me for confusing her, I could equally blame him as she says 'That's where I used to hold Simon up for you to see.'

She's gazing at the window of a bungalow. Despite the pallor of the curtains, the room appears to be dark. As the car slows to give everyone more of a look, Natalie says 'I thought you said he was born in a hospital.'

'I'd have been frightened to have him at home,' my mother says and laughs. 'They've pulled it down and built these.'

'She's not that far gone yet,' my father says.

The relief I was starting to feel snags on his comment. As the car regains speed, Mark wriggles to keep the bungalow in view. 'Was that Father Christmas?'

Perhaps somebody's acting the role. The curtains have parted to let a watcher peer out at the car. The face seems more than fat enough for the image of the Christian saint. It will be wearing a false beard. No whitish mass is foaming out of the enormous grin, no wadding has burst out of the stuffed white face. The next moment the occupant of my birthplace is out of sight, and my mother says 'You'll have to sleep as soon as we're home or he won't come for you.'

I would happily have nothing for Christmas except sleep, but not if it invites the visitor I just glimpsed. The more distance the car puts between us the better, and I'm uneasy when it halts further up the road. 'Aren't we going to our church?' my mother says.

'We've no time, Sandra. This'll have to do.'

She emits disappointed noises as he kills the engine outside the rudimentary church, which is little more than a concrete tent topped by a token cross and extending a long concrete block, breached like the tent by a few stained-glass windows. Then she claps her hands as if a performance is about to begin. 'Why, it'll more than do. Did you know where you were taking us?'

I've no idea why she has changed her mind until I see that a board names the church as St Simon's. I find this less worthy of celebration than everyone else does, even my father. 'Hurry,' my mother urges Mark. 'We don't want you turning into a pumpkin.'

While I realise she has Cinderella and midnight transformations in mind, I can't help thinking of grins carved for Halloween. I would rather not imagine Mark's face swelling up to pumpkin size and expanding its grin to match. My mother waddles rapidly to the open door, half a pointed arch, in the blunt end of the building, and the rest of us straggle at various speeds in her wake. The inside of the small stark porch is decorated only with posters, all of which look old for the church. Before I can read any of them my mother blunders through the inner entrance and pokes her head out. 'It's starting,' she hisses.

A large robed figure and another half as big are indeed proceeding down the aisle to the altar in the middle of the concrete tent. The pews on either side of the aisle are almost full of a decidedly well-fed congregation. My mother flaps a hand at me and indicates the back row. The first part of the gesture sprinkles me with water from the font beside the door as if I'm being rebaptised. Mark follows me so closely that he almost pushes me against the solitary occupant of the pew, a corpulent woman whose face is concealed by a headscarf. Natalie comes after Mark, and then a disagreement is expressed by much pointing with upturned hands before my mother precedes my father. We're all taking black missals from the ledge in front of us when the priest turns to the congregation and intones 'I go to the altar of God.'

We're at midnight mass because my mother thought it would be a treat for Mark. My parents used to take me at his age and somewhat older, but I've forgotten most of the experience, although I seem to recall thinking that the worshippers were huddled in the light as if they hoped it could fend off the dark. Isn't that too sophisticated a notion for a young child? The priest's performance has revived it. However joyous the celebration is meant to be, does he really need to smile quite so broadly? Perhaps it's the modern approach, but it looks uncomfortably like desperation. It isn't improved by his whinnying voice, which is so high that it could belong to a woman in drag, except that his vestments are scarcely even that. I open my missal in case remembering the ritual will distract me from the spectacle of him.

The book is distracting, but not in the way I hoped. The typeface is considerably older than the church. Perhaps I still have to recover from jet lag, because I keep imagining that somebody's spidery scribble has deranged the thick Gothic letters. I don't trust myself to join in the responses to the priest; I'm afraid my versions of them may be as deformed as the text appears to be. I turn the pages and close my jaws so tight that my mouth and teeth seem to merge into a single aching wound. My struggles not to part my lips achieve less than I would like; I can hear nonsense if not worse inside my head, or is the almost inaudible muttering beside me? I'm unable to judge whether it's invading my skull or spreading out of it, and if so which of my neighbours is involved, or could both be? I peer sidelong at Mark, but he appears to be reading far more fluently than me. I can't risk singing any of the hymns or carols either, especially the ones we had to sing at his school play. Even the priest's readings at the lectern offer no relief; another voice, all the more impossible to hush since it's indistinguishable from silence, seems to be parodying his in chorus. He can't actually be reading about Deathlyhem or Hairy the brother of God or declaring 'Undo us, a child is born, unto us a son will gibber.' Everything he reads seems to be in danger of veering into worse inanity, an impression aggravated by the smirks that keep twitching the lips of the altar boy, whose pale plump face looks older than it should, more like a dwarf's. Surely he's amused just by the priest's neighing, not by the words that I imagine I hear – that can't be infecting more people each time the congregation has to sing or speak. Wouldn't Natalie or my parents have reacted by now? Their voices are lost in the general hubbub, and when I peer past Mark their lips are as unreadable as the missal. At least we've reached a point where I needn't feign participation, thank God. It's time for the faithful to take communion.

My neighbour plants her open missal face down on the ledge and deals it a thump as it tries feebly to raise itself. Her large hand resembles her chunky off-white overcoat in both texture and colourlessness, and I'm reminded of the garment of the baby across the hall. She reaches inside the coat and, with a papery rustle, produces a biscuit. I haven't time to be certain whether the thin white disc bears a cartoon of a clownish face before she pops it into the mouth concealed by the headscarf. As I resist an urge to peer around the impenetrably black scarf, Mark leans forward to watch the communicants at the altar rail. 'Are they having something to eat? Can I go?' 'It's only for some people,' Natalie murmurs. 'Not us.'

'Why not?'

'We haven't joined the flock.'

Why should my explanation amuse my headscarfed neighbour? Her laugh sounds disconcertingly masculine, perhaps because she's doing her best to suppress it, though it seems less muffled than remote. Mark is silent until he sees another boy in the communion queue. 'He's going,' he complains. 'Why can't I?'

'He'll have confessed his sins, Mark,' my mother whispers.

'I can as well. Shall I?'

He's behaving as if he wants to join the performers onstage at a show. 'I'm sure a little chap like you's done nothing worth confessing,' my mother says.

He looks insulted, and her affectionate smile doesn't help. 'She means to the padre,' my father mutters.

'I don't mind. I'm not scared of him. He's just a man.'

'That's enough, Mark,' Natalie says under her breath. 'We'll talk about it later.'

'But they're making me hungry now.'

I'm suddenly convinced that my neighbour is about to offer him a biscuit. It's my mother who intervenes, however. 'We'll be going home soon and then you can have a snack if it doesn't make you dream.'

'I don't care if it does. Won't that make them when they go to bed?'

He's pointing at the communicants. The downcast eyes and folded hands of those who are returning to their seats put me in mind of sleepwalkers somnolent with holiness. 'Shush now,' my mother says. 'You don't want everyone laughing at you, do you?'

I become aware that people are. There's mirth within the headscarf and smothered laughter elsewhere in the church. It doesn't appear to have travelled as far as the altar rail, where a man on his knees is raising his open mouth like a blind fish. I feel compelled to inject some humour into the tableau, or rather to mime how grotesque the proceedings are. 'What about it, Mark?' I say low as I lean towards him. 'Do we want to make everyone laugh?' I haven't finished speaking when he shows me his Tubby face.

I don't know what expression bares my teeth in response. I'm afraid to wonder how long he has been looking like that. The man at the rail wobbles to his feet, and the sight together with the secret mirth reminds me of the chapel – of Tracy's death. Suppose the man chokes on his morsel? He swings around red-faced and stumbles down the aisle towards me, and I stay apprehensive on his behalf even after he has sidled along a pew and dropped to his knees. Mark thrusts his grin up at me like a parody of communion. 'Do we what, Simon?' he prompts.

'I was telling you grandma is right. We don't want you making a show of yourself.'

'That wasn't what you said. You wouldn't.'

'That's because you put me off.' I might say anything that would change his grinning face, even 'You don't want your real grandma and granddad to hear how you've been acting in church, do you?'

His grin wavers but doesn't collapse as I pray my question was too muted for my parents to hear. 'Now see what you're making me say,' I hiss. 'Stop it if you want to enjoy Christmas. Just stop.'

The grin gives way as if I've punched him in the mouth. He looks betrayed, but how does he expect me to react? When I glance at Natalie in the hope that my sternness has found favour, she seems less than impressed. Perhaps she doesn't like to hear her son accused of causing my behaviour. At least the rumbles of amusement have subsided, as if a storm has moved on without exploding. The last communicants return to their places, and the priest puts away his props. He and the congregation utter a few updated versions of old words, and the proceedings are rounded off by a performance of 'O Come All Ye Faithful'. It almost wins me over until I hear an off-key voice repeating 'O come let us abhor him.' If it's mine, surely it's inaudible, although the atmosphere feels oppressively electric with imperfectly suppressed laughter. The carol ends at last with a lusty chorus of 'Cry iced the lord' that may include a chant of 'Twice the lord', whatever sense that makes. As the echoes fade the priest appears to have an afterthought – at least, the extra ritual is new to me. 'Let us exchange the sign of peace with our neighbour,' he says.

He demonstrates by shaking hands with his dwarfish server. As I shake Mark's hand I notice that members of the congregation are kissing each other. This makes me uncomfortably aware of the headscarfed presence at my side, or rather at as much of my back as I can manage. I don't turn away from Mark until an elbow nudges me in the ribs, unless it's a fist; in either case it feels more like a lump of dough or jelly. More to avoid it than in any other response I turn towards its owner, and a hand clasps mine.

It's a hand, despite feeling like a large stuffed glove with very little in it besides padding. Its texture and its coldness suggest leather more than cloth. Leather would have to be old if not positively fungoid to have grown so white, but all this is a diversion from the rest of my predicament. My neighbour wants more than a handshake. As she squeezes my hand so hard that I could imagine my fingers are merging with hers, the draped head swings towards me.

I've just glimpsed a pallid pouchy cheek that looks not much less porous than a sponge when I'm overwhelmed by light and uproar. A spotlight has found me, and a fanfare celebrates it, or rather headlamp beams are streaming through the spidery outlines of the nearest stained-glass window and dazzling me to the tune of a raucous horn. Blindness seems to swell out of the depths of the headscarf and close around my vision, so that the face that's pressed into mine is no more than a bloated whitish blur with eyes and teeth. It comes with an oily smell that might belong to some kind of makeup, though it reminds me of preservative. As the scarf drifts like heavy cobwebs over my face I hear a whisper. 'Have a very special one.'

It's so faint or so discreet that I'm not even certain of hearing it. The engulfing hand releases mine, and my fingers writhe in an attempt to dislodge a sensation of being gloved. I hear more than see the worshippers trooping out of the church. I turn to all my family for reassurance and to be ready to follow them the instant they leave the pew. Eventually they move, and I lurch after them. Isn't the crowded porch unnecessarily dim? My spine is crawling with the sense of a presence at my back. I hurry to keep up with Natalie and Mark as they step into the night. I'm emerging from the porch when another whisper overtakes me. Is it 'Not long now' or 'Lots wrong now?' I'm not sure which I would prefer even less.

As I twist around I shut my eyes, but only to clear my vision. In no more than a couple of seconds I open them. The porch is deserted. I dash into the church and throw the inner doors wide to reveal just the priest and the server at the far end of the aisle. I run into the street to be confronted by Natalie and Mark and my parents. 'What's wrong?' Natalie says.

I could take it as another version of the whisper, not least because it feels as if it lacks the final word. 'Where did she go?'

'Who, Simon?'

All four faces look concerned, but I'm not sure whether anyone's pretending. 'The woman who was behind me,' I tell them.

'We were the last ones out of the church.'

'Except her. She was next to me in the pew.'

'That was Mark. There was nobody in it but us,' Natalie says and shares a sympathetic smile with my parents, to whom she explains 'Too much travelling.' Everyone is wearing the expression as they move towards me, even Mark. 'Looks as if somebody else needs his sleep for Christmas,' says my mother.