Free Only Strange People Go to Church by Laura Marney Page A

people.’
    ‘Oh excuse me, I know, and you know, that my cousin George gets parked there during the day to take the strain off his Mum and Dad and prevent him going into care. I know you’re doing a great job providing a cheap babysitting service. You’re saving the tax payer a fortune: Saint Maria of the Blessed Finger Painting.’
    Colette and Bethan were quick to jump to Maria’s defence. The next morning Anna apologised tearfully, profusely and repeatedly. Of course Maria accepted her apology but the damage was done. It was clear that Anna had no respect for Maria’s vocation and if anyone felt pity for anyone else it was the rest of the Kelvin Street Kids for Maria.
    Maria seethed. Okay, her clients aren’t undertaking PhDs but they enjoy their day at the centre. It is stimulating. It is meaningful. To a hot shot London-based publicity guru it might only be setting a table or writing a poem but these tasks are challenging and rewarding to someone with fewer abilities. So, with Anna’ssneering words still ringing in her ears, Maria does everything she can to stretch her clients.
    ‘Okay, from the top. Jane, you’re the customer and Martin, you’re the shopkeeper.’
    Maria claps her hands directorially; if she had a riding crop, she’d whip her thigh with it.
    ‘Everybody ready? And, action!’
    Martin takes the floor. He immediately begins miming carrying a heavy box and filling shelves from it. Some of the shelves are taller than he is, forcing him to reach up on his tip toes. When he empties the box he stores it carefully away and begins ticking off items from an invisible clipboard. His face is creased in a frown; he looks worried, perhaps about discrepancies in his shop stock.
    Martin enjoys drama workshop much more than any of the other Blue Group clients. He takes his role seriously and tries hard to bring his character to life by getting inside the skin of the shopkeeper. It is a joy to have a client like Martin. He’s tremendously sociable and throws himself wholeheartedly into every activity. When he loves something he loves it passionately: music, sport, swimming, drama group, breasts, and he embraces life with an enviable lack of inhibition. Every opportunity he gets Martin will look at and attempt to feel breasts.
    Maria thinks that Martin is different from other men, not because his fascination for mammaries is excessive, but because he doesn’t attempt to conceal it. Having concluded his stocktaking, Martin commences checking the contents of the till, playing his part with conviction and confidence. Martin’s elderly parents, who appear to be almost unaware that Martin has a disability, hero-worship him. They find him endlessly fascinating, funny and charming, which, for the most part, he is. Although he’s a small tubby lad, his self-image is of a movie star whose rightful place is in the limelight. It is for Martin’s sake that Maria has kept the Wednesday afternoon drama workshop going, always hoping that his enthusiasm might infect the others. It hasn’t worked so far but now with the exciting news that they’ll share the stage with the cream of Hexton’s talent and perform to a bona fide audience, shehopes it’ll be stimulating for them. The problem is they have to want to do it. It’s her job to encourage, to guide, but it’s a fine line between stimulating clients and traumatising them. She’ll invite the Kelvin Street Kids to the performance, make a week end of it, and Anna will eat her words. All of them will see the work she does here. This is no passive babysitting, it’s hard work, for everybody. The show will undoubtedly stretch Blue Group, but Maria hopes, not to breaking point.

Chapter 16
    Jane, who is supposed to be playing the customer to Martin’s shopkeeper, dithers on the sidelines.
    ‘Jane, what is it?’ says Maria, frustrated.
    ‘What am I supposed to say?’
    ‘Just say what you say when you go into a shop.’
    Jane thinks about this while everyone waits