'Is that Him, Gran?'

Gran always liked to take me to the woods when I was young.
On Saturdays, Mum would want me out of the house and Gran would miraculously appear to take me away.
We always went to the same woods.
Her eyesight had started to fail and, being deeply religious, she'd suddenly stop in her tracks and ask if I could see Him.
'Can you see Him, Joe?' she'd ask, gasping, as we arrived at one part of the woods or another. 'Look hard, Joe. Can you see Him, over there by the lakeside?'
I never could, but it helped when I made it up.
At school, Jesus came in many shapes and forms.
'Is that Him, Gran, feeding the ducks?'
'Yes, Joe! That's Him.'
On our way back, she gave me sweets from the shop that day, so I thought I'd better ask Mum if I could go to Sunday school to get a better picture of Him for next time.
A week or two later, Gran took me to the woods again.
We took a different path from the times before and I started to see smoke coming from the distance ahead of us.
'A fire,' I thought to myself. 'Maybe there's some kids there to play with.'
As we got closer to the smoke, the trees took a dip and I could see a man dressed just like Jesus in the bowled clearing below. He had a beard and wore scraggly old clothes; the spitting image.
He hadn't seen us, I was sure, because he carried on with what he was doing.
'Gran,' I said quietly, not wanting to disturb Him. 'Can you see Him?'
She looked to where I was looking by squinting her eyes and looking downwards. That's when I got a clip round the ear.
'That's not Jesus,' she said, disgusted by the sight of the man below. 'That's a tramp, you stupid boy.'
We walked back to the car, Gran cursing my mistake and telling me that Mum would hear about this as soon as we got back.
'You're lucky he didn't see us,' said Gran, panting, peering behind her as we got to the car. 'You never know with these people.'