Only Strange People Go to Church Read Free Page A

be to find fresh clothes for Fiona and Brian and then herself. That’s assuming of course that, with the excitement of it all, no one else has peed themselves.

Chapter 4
    Bert, the centre manager, insists on the police being called, which, as far as Maria is concerned, is a big palaver for nothing. The two constables, although they are nice–overly nice in fact–struggle to hide their smirks as they interview Maria and her clients. Blue Group are scared by the policemen, intimidated by their uniforms and confused by their official yet über-nice manner. They may have mental disabilities but they know when they’re being patronised and rather than become indignant, as Maria regularly does on their behalf, they meekly hang their heads. Even Fiona is reluctant to tell the police what she knows. She volunteers nothing, only nodding and shaking her head in response to their questions.
    ‘I’m sorry, Miss,’ says one of them, ‘it’s not much to go on: man of average height and weight, skin and hair colour unknown.’
    ‘And you’re certain this was a man?’ says the other, apparently sincerely.
    ‘Yes, Officer,’ says Maria. ‘You may be surprised to discover we are cognisant of basic human anatomy.’
    ‘Of course you are, Miss, just checking.’
    ‘And his hair colour is known,’ Maria corrects him, ‘at least, his pubic hair is. I told you: a kind of tobacco colour. Maybe the hair on his head is the same colour.’
    ‘Tobacco,’ he confirms.
    ‘Yes, you know, golden.’
    ‘Right. Golden pubes.’
    The cop bangs his pencil down hard in his little notebook and closes it. They smile and thank Blue Group for their help, a little tooprofusely for Maria’s liking. They can’t doff their hats and get out of the centre quick enough and Maria knows that they’re probably sitting in their squad car right now sniggering over Goldenpubes and the five dafties.
    Bert also insists that Maria informs parents and carers. She knows this is going to mean trouble, and it does. Jane’s brother, Vince, phones the next morning demanding assurances that his sister will never again be forced to endure sexual intimidation. He makes no actual accusation but his tone of voice implies that Maria is somehow guilty, that she has low moral standards. It is as much as she can do to remain civil to Vince.
    Martin’s parents are much more relaxed; they are chuffed to bits with Martin’s own account of how he single-handedly rescued Fiona from the Bad Man. They are pleased and proud, but quite unsurprised by their son’s heroism. Weirdly there is no call from Fiona’s mum, usually the first person on the phone to complain. But Brian’s dad’s reaction more than makes up for it.
    Brian’s dad, Phil, is furious. This is quite normal; Phil has a constant background level of rage. He’s angry because his son is disabled, angry at Brian for being so in-your-face disabled. He’s angry at losing his job when the factory closed down, angry that he no longer has the means to buy Brian gadgetry that might alleviate his disability, angry that the price of the specially adapted bathroom quadrupled when the word ‘disabled’ was mentioned, angry at the centre bus which picks Brian up and is a daily reminder to all the neighbours of Phil’s complete failure to produce a normal healthy son, angry with strangers’ sympathy or embarrassment, angry at his own sub-standard sperm.
    So it’s quite refreshing for Phil to be angry at the flasher. Maria can see how revitalised he is with this novel channel for his fury. He arrives at the centre wanting to know where and when the flasher flashed. Maria would tell him were it not for the baseball bat he is wielding. His twin brother Billy waits outside similarly tooled up. They both intend to ‘sort this out’ today.
    Maria can’t tell him; what if they go there and find some golden-haired, golden-pubed innocent passerby? They’d stove his head in.And Maria would be responsible. Even if they