Living in an Open Prison

When her mother died, Rachel found, with shock, that she had no official existence. At birth it is a simple matter for one’s coming into the world to be recorded. At seventeen it is much more difficult. That she had made her entrance during a period of storms when the valley had been isolated by slips was family history but why her birth had not been registered she did not know and with both parents now dead there was no way of finding out. It was no part of their religious belief. The scripture says to ’let every soul be subject to the higher powers’ and registering a birth is something that the higher powers require. She had remained outside the school system as well. All the other valley children had been bussed to the nearest school and later to the more distant high school. It meant contact with worldly children, with satan’s world. An unsatisfactory situation but the law required it. Rachel had initially been kept back from school because her mother thought her frail and there was always the advantage of putting off the spiritual risk until she was better able to handle it. Attendance not being required at five. Her mother had taken it upon herself to teach her and somehow that had continued and she had never gone to school. Their neighbours had probably assumed that she was in an official home-school program. Her tuition had had a very narrow compass but then the very same thing could be said of her world. There were no books in the house but those of an improving nature which meant the Bible, books of Bible exegesis by men of their own persuasion, and books on farming practice. Her father had subscriptions for several farming magazines and took the local paper, four broad-sheet pages of local news taken mainly for the stock-sale advertisements. There was, of course no radio in the house.. The valley was known as Hallelujah Valley and its inhabitants treated with some

hostility by others in the wider district. The valley was solidly Exclusive Brethren. Sometime in the nineteen twenties, a local farmer, a former Methodist, had been converted by the teachings of John Nelson Darby and inspired to take them to his neighbours. He had not converted them all but had turned enough of them to make those who did not embrace the ‘correct beliefs’ outsiders. What had once been a united community became ‘us’ and ’them’ who, foolishly, continued to reject Christ’s sacrifice and their opportunity for salvation. This second-rate status and lengthy prayer meetings that laid claim to the valley’s only party line helped to lever these others into leaving. The land was particularly suitable for dairying but the prices received reflected the fact that living in the valley appealed now only to believers. It was not that Rachel had been geographically confined. Besides the local communion service, there were the larger gatherings held regularly in various centres. Some a hundred miles or more away. Rachel had travelled and seen more of the countryside than many others of her age. Her confinement was social. There was a wall between believers and unbelievers. ‘Evil communications corrupt good manners,’ says the scriptural warning Unbelievers could be called to the farm, electricians, milking-machine mechanics, spreader drivers but one could have no conversation with them beyond what was necessary. They could be given morning tea or lunch, in fact the rule of hospitality demanded that one do so, but one could not sit with them or eat with them. When Rachel was little, she had tended to hang around such visitors, interested in what they were doing and in the visitors themselves. Such curiosity is normal in a young child but Rachel had always been called away and given warning. Although it was not exactly

spelled out at that stage, she had come to realise that danger lay in these outsiders. But as she grew older, she began to question this and other precepts though only in her mind. It would never do to voice them. That would mean shock and worry for her parents. Yet she could not be like her mother whose conviction, she could see, came not so much from knowledge and understanding as from the belief that if everybody around her said that something was so then it had to be right. Her mother was impressionable, conformist, and would probably have taken on the colouration of any group that she was part of. It was her father that was the true believer. She also came to see that many of the other children were not as their parents imagined them to be: that they had no difficulty or guilt in maintaining two sets of behaviour. A shining example before their elders, less than spotless when outside their ken. This was true of some a little older too. David Bassett was in this category. David had come in to help them when her father was diagnosed as having leptospirosis. Rachel had been thirteen at the time and David four years older. David’s public behaviour was exemplary, he was considered something of a paragon, but, right from the start in his brief moments alone with Rachel, his sly innuendo and careless hands had made clear his carnal ambitions toward her. There was no point in trying to tell anyone. She would not be believed or else she would be the one at fault for taking his words in a wrong way. He was bullet-proof. She had kept out of his way as much as possible. Yet, even though her aversion to him should have been obvious, they were considered

to be a possible match later on when she was old enough. She would come to her senses. Rachel’s father and David’s father Rex were cronies and keen on the idea. It was common practice to have one’s life partner chosen by those in authority and if a young man proposed marriage to a girl she was usually obliged to accept him. To refuse was to be ‘fickle.’ It was Rachel’s fear that at some future time David would make the expected honourable proposal. That would be worse than his continual implied proposals which she could not be faulted for rejecting. The problem became worse with her father’s death. David had been felling a tree under her father’s direct supervision. It had fallen the wrong way. No blame could be attached to David. The scarfs had been correctly placed. It was just one of those things that sometimes happens. Rex Bassett had been chosen by the menfolk to act as her mother’s head in accord with their interpretation of the first letter to the Corinthians which says that. ’the head of the woman is the man.’. Her mother, ever compliant, had accepted that this was the way things should be. It was what the Bible required and it took away the necessity for her to make decisions herself which suited her fine. But it also made him Rachel’s head and she was much less happy with the idea. Rex Bassett became not just their spiritual head but effectively boss of everything they had. David worked the farm under his direction and he and David must both have foreseen a day when David would take over direction as of right. David’s older brother Philip would inherit the home farm.Both sons would have a farm. But that was not to be. The whole situation suddenly changed. Those at the top made world-wide decree that those who lived on farms must sell their farms and move into

town. Speculation became rife that the Rapture was imminent. Every farm in the valley was put on the market as were many in other areas. Land prices dropped as had happened years before. It was at this stage that Rachel’s mother died unexpectedly. It was her heart. They were having lunch, David was away in town, when her mother slumped forward onto the table. By the time Rachet got around to her it was already too late. Possibly because she had no idea what to do anyway. Rex handled the funeral arrangements. There was no published death notice. He was also the one who handled the sale of the farm. It was then that Rachel’s non-existence came to light. There was no will and she had to exist to inherit. Fortunately, the two local women who had assisted her mother at her birth could attest to the fact that she was the natural-born daughter of Charles and Mary Willis. Rex was extremely helpful but it seemed clear that he was basically seeking to advance the interests of his son and his control was much too tight. Rachel wanted out altogether. Not just out of the valley but out of the covert bindings of a system of beliefs that she herself could not hold. They were nice people for the most part but she could not be one of them. On her visits to the lawyer in town, she was a day- release prisoner with Rex as her gaoler. He did all the talking for her. Even if she could slip away, where would she go? She was totally unfitted for the world out there. It took her some time to remember that she had an older living relative, Sarah, her mother’s sister. But a relative who had fallen from grace before Rachel was born and had left the valley just as she was beginning to show. Sarah could take legal custody of her.

That was if she wanted to. Rachel had never met her. Never had a present from her. In the view of the community she would be the worst possible person which would be one of the reasons why Rex had chosen not to mention her though not the only reason. Although her mother should not have kept in touch, she had written often handing the letter directly to the rural-mail contractor an outsider who relished sharing her secret, the putting one over the ‘religos’, and gave a special toot if he thought that he recognized a reply. That toot would have her mother hurry to the gate. Her father had never woken up to this but Rachel had found her aunt’s address and taxed her mother with it.. She had the toll number too but, like her mother, was not prepared to risk a reverse-charge call. The automatic exchange promised when the fifties started had not eventuated. The party line reigned. Although nobody listened in on other peoples calls in that Christian community, they would have been shocked at such a suggestion, it was amazing how private information managed to spread. One might as well shout it from the rooftops. It had to be the mail contractor but her position had now become almost impossible. She had been instructed to move into the Bassett’s house, “ a seventeen year old girl cannot live on her own.” Rex was even more firmly her head. She was under constant surveillance. It was then that the letter arrived with an appointment for her to see a specialist. It was on the official letterhead of the distant base hospital. She was not expecting to see a specialist but knew that her aunt had contacts there. .There was some plan behind this. Her mother had strongly suspected that Sarah had another correspondent in the valley, an underground dissenter, a subversive. Apparently she was right.