Chapter 76

"Are you alright?"

Marcus sat on the grass beside Hope as Shawna trekked down the slope towards the burger van.

"I'll be fine," she sniffled, wiping at her eyes with a handkerchief.

"So that's a no, then."

He wrapped his arm around her shoulder, pulling her in close, liking the feel of her settled beneath his shoulder.

"I suppose it is," she said with a rueful smile, dabbing at her eyes again.

"What is this?" Marcus said, pointing over his other shoulder at the towering monument dominating the otherwise unremarkable hill.

She looked up.

"It's the Iolaire memorial," she said, folding the hankie back into her pocket. "It was a ship bringing soldiers back from the First World War that sank just outside the harbour — there are some bad rocks out there. They don't know how many people died. There wasn't a proper count of the crew or passengers."

"Kind of morbid. I wonder why people put so much effort into reminding themselves that people die? I mean, you get war memorials and headstones and mausoleums..."

"War memorials are about remembering people who fought in wars, Honey."

"But only the dead ones." Marcus shrugged. "I know it was a sacrifice, but everyone who went faced the same risks. Why do we only build reminders of the fallen? Surely it's the fact that they went that's important, not the fact that they died."

"Maybe you were right. Maybe it's about making sure we get to heaven rather than them. If we remember all the people that went away to war, killed people, and came home again it wouldn't discourage us from having the next war as much."

"You're a pacifist?"

"Isn't everyone? Does anyone want another war? I'm a realistic pacifist, though. Faith's husband, Mark, is in the army, and I don't have a problem with that. Whilst there are people, there's the possibility of one group of them invading another group. We need armies. We just don't need more wars."

"Wars?" Shawna asked, trudging up alongside them. She sat on the grass and passed the food out. "I figured you guys'd be trying to take your minds off of people dying."

"I guess we should," Hope shrugged, unwrapping her little bag of chips and tugging off a glove to pick them out of the wrapper. "It's not easy in a cemetery, though. It wasn't really about people dying, anyway. I mean it was, but it was sort of philosophical dying rather than people we know."

Shawna reached out with one hand — the one not desperately trying to keep the mushrooms in her burger, Marcus noted — and gently held Hope's hand. Wrapping his arms around both of them he pulled them in tight against his sides and waited for them to finish before he started on his own food.

"Come on, then." Shawna smiled, pulling her hat down over her ears. "Snow! In April! Let's build a snowman, and then we can let Marcus buy us a coffee in town."

With her hands wrapped around a bacon roll, Hope tucked the blanket in a little tighter around her legs and shook her head.

"The snow'll still be there this afternoon, and the café's closed."

"Really? Is it ... Hang on. Easter's next weekend."

"It's Sunday, Sho. Pretty much everywhere's closed. I have to get ready for church in a minute."

"Somewhere's got to be open, surely. What do people do on a Sunday?"

"They go to church," Hope said. "Are you going to come?"

"I don't think so. It'd be a bit hypocritical of me, don't you think? Will your dad be going?"

"Of course."

"And the maids?"

"Yes." Hope smirked, picking up her tea to wash down her breakfast.

"So," Shawna reasoned, settling down in her seat with a broad grin of her own, "Marcus and I should be able to steal some time together."

"Nope."

Hope's expression showed she was a step ahead.

"Why? Who'll be here?"

"Just you."

"So who'll stop us then?"

"No, you misunderstand," Hope said, laughing as she dropped the blanket and stood up. "Just you; Marcus is coming to the church with us."

"He's what? Marcus doesn't even believe in God!"

"I know, but I asked him to go, and he said yes."

"Why?"

"Why did I ask him, or why did he say he'd go?"

"Either."

"I'm going," Marcus said from the doorway behind them, "because she asked."

"Who's she?" Hope asked him, setting her hands on her hips.

"You, obviously."

"It means it's rude to refer to someone as 'she' while they're in the room," Shawna pointed out turning to face him.

"Why? It's just another pronoun."

"I don't know why. It just is," Hope said.

"That still doesn't answer the question," Shawna pointed out. "Why're you going?"

"She — Hope — asked," Marcus said. "I've done things for you just because you've asked: shopping for a new shirt, the New Year's Eve party. It was enough that it was important to you. Same thing."

"OK, that's fair, I guess," Shawna admitted, turning back to Hope. "So, why'd you ask him?"

"I want people in the town to meet you, which happens at the Church. And Church is important to me. I wanted to share it with you."

Shawna was about to make another joke when she caught Hope's face in the mirror.

"Why didn't you ask me?"

"I ... I didn't think you'd say yes," Hope admitted, after a brief pause.

"You were probably right."

Hope nodded at Shawna's admission.

"Were?" Marcus asked, and Hope turned as he said it.

"Yeah, I suppose if you can drag yourself down there, so can I," Shawna conceded with a smile.

"Really?" Hope squeaked, popping up on her toes.

"Seeing as everywhere else is closed," Shawna said, chuckling at Hope's mock frown. "For you, honey, of course."

Hope squealed in delight and launched herself into Shawna's arms until a gruff throat being cleared distracted them.

"Daddy, Shawna and Marcus are going to come with us to the church."

"I see."

He didn't obviously see that as grounds for such an outburst, and Hope gradually detached herself from a reluctant Shawna's grasp.

"That's ... I hope you enjoy the service."

"I have to get ready," Hope announced, with a bounce. "I'll be back in about half an hour. Come on, Marcus, I'll pick you out something to wear as well."

"But..." he stared pointedly down at his outfit. "What's wrong with this?"

"Some advice, Marcus," Mr. Nakata offered in a stage whisper. "There doesn't have to be anything wrong with it for them to want you to change."

"Them?" Shawna asked, as Hope grabbed Marcus' hand to pull him with her.

"Women," he said. "My wife, bless her, was no different."

"Maybe, Daddy, you just couldn't see what was wrong with what you were wearing," Hope observed archly before turning out the door with Marcus in tow.

"It wouldn't be the first thing I'd not noticed in time," he observed, a little sadly, once she was out of earshot.

"I really can't understand you, you know."

Shawna settled back into the sofa in front of the fire, wrapping her hands around a hot mug of tea.

"Oh? Are you trying to?"

He gestured towards the other end of the sofa, asking for her permission to sit which put her off-guard.

"It's your sofa. You shouldn't have to ask me."

"Perhaps, these days, and perhaps not. My father spent a long time trying to learn the rules and rituals of life here — he was born on the mainland, but his father, who was born and bred in Japan brought him up that way.

"I was taught that you always ask a lady's permission before sitting with her, to avoid forcing unwanted attentions on her."

"You think of me as a lady?"

"I was also taught," he laughed, "that you assume any woman is a lady until you have proof otherwise."

Shawna considered that for a moment, sipping at her tea.

"So I ask again, you think of me as a lady?"

"I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt."

"But it's a struggle, isn't it?"

"Yes," he admitted, staring at his hands for a moment. "It's ... Time moves on. The acceptable behaviours change."

"But the Lord's word remains the same?"

"The Lord's word always remains the same. The interpretations, of course, change with the times as well."

"Is it just..." Shawna began, and then stopped, sipping at her tea again before she finished the question. Is it just me? "She's incredible. You know that?"

"I knew that before you'd even met her," he confirmed.

"So why don't you trust her?"

"I don't understand what you mean."

"You'll take the revised and reworded interpretations of the mistranslations of the probably spurious accounts of an iron-age virgin, celibate, middle-eastern, Judaist carpenter over Hope's own understanding of what will make her happy?"

"It's ... I don't doubt that you can make her happy, probably happier than the Church. That's called Hedonism — and it's as much of a sin as anything else she's doing. Perhaps more."

"Why is it wrong?"

"I don't know. I don't know for sure that it is," he admitted. "When I see how she lights up when you come into the room, it's hard for me to say. When she's walking with Marcus and just as obviously happy, that seems right in a way that you and she don't."