Hill of Grace by Stephen Orr

Life without Christ is stew without meat. 22. Dr Mosse and his Indian Root Pills cannot cure their way to Heaven. 23. Heaven is no seaside resort reached by steam train.
    Ellen turned to Joseph. ‘I’ve read your brochure,’ she said.
    But now Joseph refused to answer.
    â€˜This can’t go on forever,’ he whispered.
    Seymour thought he could make out Joseph’s words. Unsure, he decided to say nothing, although he had before, late one night a year ago. ‘If you’re unhappy, leave, but if you think my daughter will go with you . . .’
    Both Joseph and Seymour stared at Ellen.
    â€˜Don’t be stupid, we’re perfectly happy,’ she replied, intent on damage control, taking Joseph by the arm and soothing his fiery temper.
    Arthur opened the back of the hearse and climbed in. ‘Sorry.’
    Followed by William and Bluma who, they claimed, had left Nathan inside with a book on the history of the Railways. The hearse set off, stopping next to pick up Julius Rechner, William telling the teacher how he shouldn’t feel bad about Nathan, having only done his job.
    â€˜Nathan could repeat,’ Julius consoled. ‘He still has it in him.’
    â€˜He could, but he won’t,’ Bluma interrupted, shaking her head.
    â€˜I could talk to him.’
    William shook his hand in the air. ‘At that age, they can’t be told.’
    Detouring via Gruenberg they picked up Ron Rohwer and his young wife, then made for Lyndoch, only a few miles down the road, for the second outing of the Langmeil church’s social club.
    The first, they laughed and remembered as they drove, had been a trip to the South Australian Museum in Adelaide. Pastor Henry had shown them around the Micronesian and Aboriginal galleries, commenting how, although the Aborigines had been denied the good news of Christ, they’d nonetheless manufactured some very charming artefacts. Ian Doms, who couldn’t come this year, had actually picked up a boomerang and said, ‘They produced this , as Michaelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel.’
    This missed the point altogether, Henry explained. Without the light of Jesus there could be no Sistine Chapel. Therefore, the boomerang affirmed the message of Christ even more.
    But worse was to come. They were joined by a natural history guide who showed them around the stuffed animals, stopping in front of a wedge-tailed eagle and saying, ‘In evolutionary terms, the birds of prey pre-dated most of our . . . garden varieties.’ Going on to relate this to Charles Darwin, the pigeon-fancier, who had compared the English carrier and short-faced tumbler, outlining differences and similarities in their beaks and skulls, explaining how their elongated eyelids and nostril orifices proved their brotherhood beyond a doubt.
    Like the Negro and the Asian. Eskimo and European.
    Moving on to Annie, Darwin’s daughter, whose death the guide described in the most Dickensian terms. ‘After she died, Darwin realised . . .’
    â€˜What?’ William asked.
    â€˜The purpose of all this.’
    Turning on his heels and presenting them with a whole gallery of dead things, caught in the act of hunting and eating, preening and sleeping.
    â€˜The purpose being?’ William asked.
    â€˜Nothing. Life was meaningless. God couldn’t expect to take the credit for all Creation and at the same time strike down innocent children. It didn’t add up.’
    Silence. William shook his head. ‘And all this came from Mars?’
    The guide smiled. ‘Perhaps.’
    William stepped forward but before he could say anything else, Bluma was dragging him off towards the cafeteria.
    No such dilemmas at Dinkum World, the social committee had decided. Here was a place, according to the brochures, where the best of Australia was celebrated. In the spirit of a Lawson story, read by a sheepless Rafferty around a roaring fire as cattle moaned in the