The Healing Party by Micheline Lee Page B

Chinese, but it never took off like the other Charismatic prayer groups. Mum would count the number each time – for us, twenty-five was a good turnout, whereas the other Catholic groups like Oakleigh had 150. Dad, Mum and Maria would go to great lengths to lift the numbers, preaching to any person they met, ringing them to remind them to come, offering to pick them up. There was a creep who lived in St Kilda whom my parents saw as their project. They would drive forty minutes out of their way to pick him up from his hostel. Once, sitting in the back next to me, he put his hand up my dress. I was too ashamed to do or say anything.
    At these meetings, Maria, Patsy and I quickly learnt the easy guitar chords and beat of the hymns and became the ‘music ministry’. Patsy, we discovered, had the gift of an unusual voice, and she threw herself into the music ministry role.
    Today’s cell group was an offshoot of the old prayer group. It met for morning tea once a week at the parish house, but since Mum’s cancer the ten or so ladies, including Patsy, had been meeting at my parents’ house instead.
    In the kitchen, Patsy and I laid out the cups, saucers and cakes on a trolley that we kept under the stairs for entertaining. We were to wheel it out when the ladies arrived. Mum sat at the kitchen table, watching us and smiling. ‘Everything is just right! Sit down and rest now. Why don’t you two start on the cakes?’ she said. ‘Come on, take your pick. They all look so nice.’ She was looking at Patsy.
    I picked up a sticky pink-and-yellow vanilla slice and took a big bite. Custard squirted out on both sides. ‘Yum,’ I said.
    Patsy, not moving, stared at the cakes. She got up. ‘Anyone want a glass of water?’
    â€˜Sit down and take a cake!’ Mum ordered.
    Patsy selected the smallest – a mini fairy cake in a paper patty. She played with the paper, picked up a crumb with one finger and put it into her mouth.
    â€˜Put it all in your mouth,’ Mum said. ‘Eat it and enjoy it, like Natasha.’
    â€˜I’m sorry, Mum, I just don’t feel like cake. I’ll have an apple,’ she said.
    â€˜Apples, apples, that’s all you eat. Did you have breakfast this morning? You didn’t, did you! You want to go to hospital?’
    â€˜I’m fine, Mum.’ Patsy put the fairy cake back and pushed the trolley into the lounge room.
    I picked up the plates and followed her. Out of earshot of Mum, I said, ‘Go back and have a bit of cake. Can’t you at least pretend for Mum?’
    â€˜Like you?’ Patsy said.
    We arranged the trolley and plates and returned to the kitchen. Patsy pulled up a chair next to Mum. ‘Do we have time to say a prayer before the ladies come?’ she said.
    â€˜Yes, let’s pray. Natasha, you too,’ Mum said.
    I told Mum I had to get ready to go out shopping with Dad. As I left the kitchen, Patsy opened a bible and started to read a verse from Mark: ‘“And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues. They will …”’
    Some minutes later, I was drawn back to the kitchen by the sound of Patsy singing in tongues. She stood behind Mum with her hands laid upon her head. Both faces, so enraptured that I could not say which was young or old or beautiful, tilted upwards as though bathing in life-giving sun. ‘ Ushti, kasha, unak-unay-unay asti, shaya ,’ Patsy sang in a minor key. I shivered at her voice, which was soft yet piercing, angelic yet eerie.
    *
    Dad was still driving the yellow Holden station wagon he had bought thirteen years earlier, soon after we arrived in Australia. The four of us sisters would sit shoulder to shoulder in the back, and since there were only three seatbelts, none of us wore them. The paint was faded and rusting in places, but it was in good shape for its age. He had it