Not My Idea of Heaven. Lindsey Rosa

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СКАЧАТЬ wasn’t that I especially wanted short hair or a fringe. I just would have liked the choice to have been mine.

      Men had an easier time with the Fellowship’s dress code. They were forbidden from having long hair, moustaches or beards, but that hardly put them out of step with the fashions of the day. If anything, they just all looked middle-aged. On top they wore open-necked shirts, which were usually a sensible light blue or white. These were tucked into a pair of slacks cut in a classic style. It was all fairly standard stuff, but, when everything was added together, it pretty much amounted to a uniform. A worldly person would probably have trouble distinguishing a Fellowship man from a chartered accountant, but I could spot the difference a mile off !

      Equality for women wasn’t exactly a priority in the Fellowship. From the top down, everything was run by men, and, as far as the Fellowship was concerned, they were chosen by God. Nowhere was this more obvious than in the meeting rooms used for Bible readings.

      We all sat on tiered rows of benches, which surrounded a central stage and a single microphone on a stand. Men were seated at the front, women and children behind. The men took turns speaking into the microphone, reading from the Bible, while the women tried to pay attention. This was difficult for us girls as we rummaged in handbags, hunting for pencils and paper to scribble notes on, chatting together in loud whispers.

      Women weren’t permitted to get up and speak during meetings. Their job was to announce the hymn numbers, and any woman was more than welcome to have a go at that. It meant standing up in front of everyone, and sometimes there was a long silence while the women looked at each other, hoping it didn’t have to be them. The singing was started by the men, but, if the choir lead got it wrong, we’d all end up desperately screeching at the tops of our voices.

      What I loved better than wine and bread was seeing Ester and her brother Gareth. He was my age, but ‘Stelly’, as I lovingly called her, was a couple of years older. I’d often go to their house to play, while my mum and some other Fellowship women gossiped in the kitchen. One time I was running madly around their house, playing a game of hide and seek. One by one I searched all the rooms, looking in every nook and cranny. I wasn’t having any luck in the bedrooms, so I checked the loo. But when I peeked round the door and saw Gareth, I saw something else, too.

      ‘Hi, Lindsey,’ Gareth said.

      I had never seen a boy with his trousers undone, and I revelled in my good fortune. The real ambition of a Fellowship girl was to get married and have loads of Fellowship children, and Gareth was the boy I’d already decided I’d marry when I was grown up. Now I could be certain.

      That night when I said my prayers I thanked God for letting me see Gareth’s willy. He certainly worked in mysterious ways.

      Chapter Four

       The Carpenter, the Dreamer, the Romantic and Me

      When I was little, I shared a room with my sisters, Alice and Samantha. Our beds were lined up side by side, mine being the small one in the middle. There was just enough room to squeeze between them, but I didn’t mind that it was cramped: I felt safe, flanked by my two big sisters. No bogeymen would come and get me in the night.

      Our room had a very posh-looking set of fitted wardrobes covering one wall, but in the middle there was a recess to accommodate a little dressing table and its mirror. It was there that Alice sat to prepare herself for bed every night, but Samantha and I were rarely awake to see her. Being older, she attended the evening meetings, and Samantha and I had usually fallen asleep by the time she returned home.

      One evening I awoke and saw her, lit by the little pull-string light above the dressing table, peering intently at herself in the mirror. I spied on her from beneath my blankets, hoping she wouldn’t notice me. She was talking to herself gently, slowly plaiting her long hair. I watched her carefully secure two plaits with hair bands. Then came the part I remember most clearly. She opened the dressing table drawer and took out several curlers. These were not the old-fashioned tubes, but plastic clasps, covered in foam. Taking the tassel of hair that hung below her hair bands, she wrapped it around the curlers and fastened them. I shivered with excitement. How daring my big sister was! We were not supposed to try to make ourselves look pretty in any way. I wondered how she managed to sleep with those hard lumps on her pillow, but I guessed it must be worth it.

      Alice really wanted to look her best because she was madly in love. She had met the man of her dreams – another Fellowship member. They had eyed each other during meetings, and, despite the seating plan, a Fellowship courtship had ensued. As far as anyone knew, Alice and Mike had never kissed or as much as held hands, but they did speak on the telephone. They spent hours talking each evening.

      Young adults in the Fellowship typically met future spouses during a special three-day meeting that could take place in any country where Fellowship disciples were found. The Fellowship made no secret of the purpose of these events, which were a unique opportunity to widen the gene pool. Fellowship women were required to follow their husbands, which meant that as a woman you could end up living almost anywhere in the world. In Alice’s case, she struck it lucky: her beau lived just around the corner!

      Alice was so busy with her love affair that she failed to notice that everyone else her age was doing their GCE O-Levels and ended up leaving school with barely any qualifications. As it happens, this wasn’t much of a problem.

      Fellowship women were not expected to have careers, just a short stint working in a local office, as Alice did, and then on with the business of marriage. Their job was to reproduce and look after the household. The men were encouraged to gain skills as apprentices at Fellowship firms. University was out of the question, as it was seen as a place where subversive ideas circulated.

      The biggest ambition we were expected to have was to get into Heaven. That was the dream.

      If Alice was the romantic, Samantha was the dreamer. Actually, she was a romantic too. I can’t say how she got on at school, being six years younger than she was, but academia was never her strong point. Still, if there was a qualification for fantasizing about romance and other lives, she’d probably score even better than I would.

      I can only assume that Samantha’s teachers gave her a hard time for doing badly in class, because that is what she gave me when we played teachers and pupils in one of our favourite games. Well, it didn’t remain one of my favourites for very long, but she certainly liked it. It always seemed to revolve around her telling me off, saying I hadn’t done my maths properly. Samantha’s persona took the form of an extremely strict teacher who frequently made me cry. I was an easy target, of course – I hadn’t even started school yet!

      When we played shops, we’d take tins out of Mum’s kitchen cupboards, and tubes of toothpaste from the bathroom, balancing all of our stock on top of a wicker linen basket. It lived on the landing at the top of the stairs, where it was ideally placed for receiving reluctant customers on their way to the toilet. On top of the basket we’d place a plastic till, which we were both desperate to operate. Whoever got to the shower cap first could transform themselves into the shopkeeper by pulling it over their head. This shop uniform made us feel very professional!

      Samantha and I didn’t play together for as many years as I’d have liked, simply because she was six years older than I, and soon tired of my childish antics. But what really brought the whole thing to a premature end was something I did to her, which I still feel bad about even now. I stole her only worldly friend away from her. Natalie had been a lifeline for Samantha, connecting her to the world outside of the Fellowship. For many of us, those links kept us sane. I think it broke her heart, and I don’t think she ever forgave me for that.

      From then on, I felt as if I were the only child in the house. While she became СКАЧАТЬ