Dean stood on the beach while I was seated in a circle of teenagers on the sand. The parson engaged his moralising tone in prayer, blessing our day spent together. He reminded us that we were sinners, and some were bigger than others.
He gave a Christian pep talk and, in sermon mode, delivered, " Your flesh is weak and will corrupt your spirit unless…."
And nature cut him off!
Or God through nature!
The wind swirled wildly. Loose towels and tops balled and rolled across the sand like tumbleweed. An empty lunch trestle table whooshed aloft, perched end to end and pancaked with a thud. The squally sand stung bare legs and peppered faces as we remained in our circle.
My shielded eyes were fascinated as the coastal grass and pollen seed mixed through the gust. Spores swirled and danced in the air.
Dean's words cut off, forever unfinished, as the waves rolled white-capped and choppy on the bay.
The parson exhorted, arms thrown wide, not quite to heaven, "Everyone help!"
All and sundry scattered, including me, grabbing Tupperware, towels and plastic cups flung into the wind and now doing a crazy dance across the sand. Chaos dominated in the next minutes. Until as quick as the gust swirled, it died.
God or nature restored calm.
Soon after, parents started arriving. Kids commenced going home with family or on the provided buses. I waited, kneeling on the sand, because Dean had phoned my mum. He used the telephone box across the road from the beach.
My parson had directed me to grab my beach bag and wait at the edge of the outer car park. I fished a T-shirt and shorts from my bag, slipping my pants over my swimming togs. I used my T-shirt sleeve to wipe the sand grit between my toes before shoving and lacing my sandshoes. Dean waited patiently as I stretched into my blue top.
I walked through the dune gap, across the playground and the inner car park behind him. Nearby, James and Mary spread on the grass at the outer car park edge. They entertained themselves by picking yellow paper daisies.
Along with my younger brother and elder sister, I realised my family remained the last group waiting to go home. Mary kept James close to her, well away from me, halting him with an arm when he waved in my direction.
What had Dean recounted to my sister?
Dean's account to my mother via a public phone was a more significant concern.
The parson stood, arms folded, staring along the road. Across the road, I saw the bus stop and the phone box.
Next, I realised my mum would be double-peeved. Collecting us, instead of us getting the hired bus home and — she had to deal with me!
As I waited, I pictured Jenny.
I wondered why she departed before the fellowship circle formed. A lift — likely her parish friends.
God, I hoped her early departure wasn't because of me!
I yearned for another opportunity with her to get it right.
My head sank between my knees, propped on the car park curb.
You don't get second chances in life.
Heartsick, I yanked at tufts of grass.
You'll never get a second chance with her!
A heartache expanded I couldn't explain — she was cute.
I tore off a nearby white straw flower and absently began the game after removing a few petals; she loves me, she loves me not, now delicately plucking the petals.
My mother's station wagon arrived and parked. She strode straight to Dean as I dropped the half-plucked flower.
God, only Dean paid me attention today!
My parson and my mum began talking. My mother's hands flew open, palms spread. The longer their conversation transpired, the more I brooded; not good for me.
By and by, they prayed in unison, their heads bowed.
Dean placed his hand on my mother's shoulder, accessible at his Babel height.
He swivelled on his heels and strode to his VW beetle without a backward turn.
My mother stooped. She gathered herself and weakly motioned for me to get into the car. I mentally pleaded that Mary or James would wrestle over the front seat.
They beelined for the back, sitting quietly. I slumped in the front passenger seat.
My heart rate increased as Mum didn't speak to me.
She concentrated on entering the traffic. I figured she would thunder and berate me at any moment. Her voice wavered, combining rebuke and concern.
My mother's distressed tone made me reflect on her words as my head dipped.
Her voice expressed her disappointment as a mother raising a boy, "Luke, behave around girls!"
I saw Mary smirk in the rear vision mirror and abruptly stop — as I noticed my mother's chin tremble.
I quietly thanked God; Mum had no inkling of the actual events in the water. And like the parson, she didn't ask me.
Shy and quiet may have saved me!
I don't know — A lie or the truth.
I never had to make that choice.
"You're grounded," I heard it.
My mum stated, fair and firm.
I bit my lip. They were the words I listened for. I tuned in even more attentively, wondering how long.
"Two weeks," rattled mum as she came close to running a red light.
Two weeks!
That's a teenage lifetime!
I chewed a nail, the one whose cuticle peeled, and it bloody stung.
"For a start!" she finished.
Her voice flagged, bewildered — like she thought: Who was this boy next to her?
She made a grinding gear change.
My mother didn't tell me off as I bit hard on another nail. I closed the world off during the rest of the drive home.
I spent those two weeks at our house.
My mum was the disciplining parent. I didn't have school to attend. My grounding became home detention because it was the fricking' school holidays.
No phone, Josh and Coral were added as extra clauses of my grounding.
On Sundays, I did get to go to church with my mum.
Every grass blade in our backyard became familiar. I moped, bored but not insufferable. James played card games when he stayed home. The prick spent whole days with his friends — it was high summer.
My dad remained his subdued self and taught me how to turn wood in the evenings. He stayed patient as I made endless blunders and shaped a misshapen bowl.
His broader advice was contained in the wood lessons — I garnered later.
In his laconic way, he mentored, 'Make mistakes, we all do, learn and don't repeat them.'
On the third day of my 'incarceration,' my mum gave me a bible booklet.
She knocked on my bedroom door, and I let her in.
Her upbeat belief in God's voice enthused, "Parson Dean wants you to read this! Luke, please read it."
She placed the booklet on my bedside table, determined it would help me.
I sat on a chair by my window; curtains opened, staring at the clouds. When she closed the door behind her, I flipped the pages.
Dean gave me a self-contained St Luke's gospel. I would have liked to share a laugh with Coral; however, she was temporarily outside my boundaries.
St. Luke, I relaxed — Dean had a sense of humour!
No, a test.
This hardened in suspicion as I flicked the pages of the tract and the inside back cover caught my attention. The page intrigued me. Every day, I returned to the last page for the next eleven days.
One page became a dog-eared fixation.
Whenever my mum knocked on my bedroom door and asked to come in, I opened the little tract in my hands.
On the surface, I followed my mother's request.
I had no intention of my grounding receiving an extension—the only book unread in my room, St. Luke, during the next two weeks.
No verse, parable or chapter.
I kept returning to the last page of the tract. The final few words occupied a page on their own. They were not bible words.
In italic print: Having read this testament of my own free will, I accept/reject the Lord as my Saviour.
I declined to read Dean's offered gospel.
Yet, I pondered that these words at the end were wrong.
I couldn't pinpoint it as a teenager.
I know now only the word 'accept' should have been written in all eternal human mercy.
In my grounded days, I faced another real temptation: to circle the word 'reject.'
Not because I felt lost nor to spite my mother. Apart from virginal fears, I believed I was too young to die. I lived in a world of my flawed adolescent ego.
My grounding eventually came to an end.
I tucked the St. Luke tract into the bottom of my bedside drawer. Years later, I threw it away when I moved out of the family home.
My life regained rhythm in my final college year, and beach days were part of my time with friends — especially Coral.