Submersion

  PAUSE

  6. Agnes

  When the young man in the suit appeared on my doorstop that morning, upright in his boat, floating but still, balanced, offering me hope, his very words – Hello, I’m Reuben, and I’m here to talk to you about Hope - I took it as a signal. A signal of what, I couldn’t exactly define. But it acted as a stopping device, a pause button.

  And I did something very uncharacteristic - I invited him in, then and there.

  Whilst he was dressed just like all the other young Christian missionaries that floated in on the weak and needy, he could have been anybody, and he could have done anything to me.

  But my instinct told me he wouldn’t and inviting him in was what I needed to do.

  I knew him, something in the back of my head told me. And when I looked into that face, it was somehow familiar, only I couldn’t quite tap into my memories. It was as if how I knew him, and who he was, was trapped behind a screen of blurred perspex.

  Once we were stripped of our protective gear, I set the kettle on the stove and left Reuben seated at the kitchen table. Then I made a call that changed the course of things for a while, a call to work. I was through to Jerry Carter, my boss at the government office, in a matter of seconds.

  ‘Hello, Agnes, I’ve been wondering when I’d hear from you,’ Jerry opened, his calm, soft voice instantly putting me at ease. ‘We’ve all been wondering how you have been.’

  ‘I’m not as good as I thought, Jerry,’ I told him, before reciting a dialogue I hoped wouldn’t sound too well practiced.

  I’d stepped out the front, I continued, keeping my voice low – I didn’t want Reuben hearing my every word - and knew I couldn’t go any further, not yet, I wasn’t ready.

  Jerry was understanding, like I knew he would be; you take your time, we’ll cope without you for now, but just stay in touch.

  I promised I would and that was that. At least, it was for now. I had every intention of going back – and eventually fulfilled that intention – but for now something else was demanding my attention: Reuben.

  I still wasn’t entirely sure what I was going to do with him, what the purpose or outcome of inviting him in would be. But I felt driven all the same. There was something so familiar about him and that was both compelling and comforting.

  The telephone was attached to the wall on the first landing, where the stairs down to our waterlogged ground floor met the set that ascended to the dry, upper quarters. I could spy Reuben from there without being seen myself – just a thin strip of him in the gap between the living area door and its frame. Black suit, white shirt, black tie and shiny black shoes, all of which came out unscathed from the rough rubber and waxy fabric of his outdoor garments. Dark hair – not quite black – short and smart, and a clean, shaven face; decent looking, my mother would have labelled him. He was neatly folded up at the table – perfectly horizontal from his head to his waist, where he folded at a right-angle along to his knees, falling horizontally again to his ankles, where there was another 90˚ angle at the vertical shelf of his feet.

  Just like you all those years ago, I felt my lips mouth, silently, remembering.

  The kettle whistled on the stove behind him and he jumped, his perfect poise crumbling a little with this sudden jerk. I stifled a laugh and rejoined him.

  ‘Tea or coffee?’ I asked him, striding towards the cupboard where we kept the mugs.

  ‘Tea,’ he answered, clear, precise, clipped.

  Rehearsed – my mother’s voice again.

  Yes, I thought to myself, thinking back, recalling another man at my mother’s own kitchen table, dressed just as smartly and acting just as politely, as if he had been coached to perfection. All those years ago.

  ‘Penny for them?’ Reuben asked, interrupting my far-off gaze.

  Penny for them. Old fashioned words from such a young man, delivered in a formal tone.

  ‘Your thoughts?’ he added, mistaking my pause for misunderstanding.

  I knew what he was; under no illusion there. I recognised the black uniform from the uninvited visitors I received when Mother died. Could still see the blood-red fury in Ronan’s face when he shouted one of them back out onto the street. Reuben may have offered me hope when I opened the door and found him there, but he meant God. Yes, I knew all that. So why had I still let him in?

  With tea brewing in the pot and two tannin stained mugs on the table between us, the answer continued to elude me; an absolute explanation just out of my conscious reach. But I did know that someone needed saving – Elinor, him, or me? Another question I couldn’t answer, but in this instance I was prepared to invest. And, despite what Reuben had meant, it was hope I found in him. Hope, and that reflection of another man from the past.

  ‘I was thinking about another visit from a smart young man,’ I said, finally replying to his question, pulling my chair in towards the table. ‘A confident young man who entered my family home and changed my life forever, a long time ago, though.’

  ‘Would you like to talk about him?’

  The question caught me off guard completely and I felt myself bristle, annoyed with him and myself in an instant. I never spoke about him – why would I want to speak to this complete stranger about it? And what would he do with the information I gave him? Would he use it to his advantage, manipulate me along a path that led to his true purpose - to recruit me? And yet, I had spoken about him, hadn’t I? I had started this whole business, in fact.

  ‘I didn’t mean to pry…’ he added, and his voice and face revealed a little discomfort. He’d sensed my irritation. Suddenly, I had the sense he was new to this. He could have used my switch in emotions to pry further – you look uncomfortable with that question, maybe we should talk about that, I clearly hit on an area that we should explore, you will feel the benefit if you open up – but instead he simply looked embarrassed. And a little lost.

  I shook my head, shaking out the mess of thoughts and unspoken conversations.

  ‘It was me that brought it up,’ I said, almost apologising, as I poured us both a mug of weak, pale tea.

  Handing the tea over, I had that feeling again, the one I’d had when I opened the front door and invited Reuben in: instinct. Instinct that here was an old friend before me. And instinct to change the course of things.

  ‘Maybe it would help,’ I heard myself say.

  But you never talk about him, ever, a sharp inner voice reminded me.

  ‘It usually does,’ he replied, his awkwardness subsiding, as proceedings followed a more expected route.

  Agnes, don’t say a word! This is private. You’ve kept this secret for a reason! He’s just using it to lure you in…

  ‘Okay, here goes. I’ll tell you about him,’ I agreed, saying it aloud to confirm to myself as much as him. ‘I think it will help. But I hope you’ve got the time – it’s a long story.’

  ‘Plenty,’ Reuben replied, suppressing an eager smile. All that training they’d given him at religion HQ was paying off…

  Embracing my heart and ignoring my head, I took a deep breath and broke my silence on a closely guarded family secret to a young missionary I had met only minutes earlier…

  ‘One summer’s night, when I was thirteen, I was taken from my parents’ house in the middle of night and placed in an isolated facility. I have only glimpses of memory about what happened. Big shadows looming over me in the darkness, a pricking sensation in my arm as if something had been injected there, the sense of thick arms sliding under my body, lifting me up. But none of this is true. It’s just my imagination compensating for the poor job my memory has done. In truth, I have no idea how I was taken that night. And for a while, my parents were equally in the dark, as were the many other families affected.

  ‘The school was involved, we later found out. Something that shocked us all, that an institution we put so much natural trust in could have betrayed so many. St Patrick’s – the place we considered our family school, attended by my mother, father, sister, aunt an
d uncle, my friend Jessie, too, if you count unofficial extended family – had been testing us all. Dividing us up into categories of skill and intelligence on a number of subjects. And those who fitted a certain demographic were then taken from their families. For the greater good the shamed authorities later admitted. But at first, they denied everything. A foolish move, really, when the connection was so obvious. But that’s the authorities for you. Denial is their natural default. Their policy.

  ‘That’s when I first met him – at the place I was taken to. He didn’t remember - least he said he didn’t - but I never forgot.

  ‘Like the night I was taken, I don’t remember a good deal of the details regarding the facility they took me to. But I remember how it made me feel: terrified, isolated, exposed, wondering why I had been taken and whether I would see my parents and sister again.

  ‘They kept me for four weeks. I spent the whole of my waking hours in that same state of terror, largely sat at a desk in a huge, echoing hall, alongside other equally terrified children of a similar age to me. Each day, we completed written tests, one after the other. We sat in silence whilst each one was collected and marked. Then we would receive another test and the process would be repeated.

  ‘We were fed in that hall, too, uniform meals brought to us on uniform trays. If we needed to use the lavatories, we were escorted out individually by what I assumed were guards, but we were not spoken to. There were not enough guards to overpower us – ten to the fifty children present. But the fear silently generated in that place was. I had no idea where I was, who I was surrounded by, why I was even there.

  ‘Outside of that room, I remember next to nothing. There must have been somewhere that I slept, washed and changed my clothes, but I have little recollection. I recall grey walls, steel doors, rough blankets and lumpy pillows soaked with a frightened girl’s tears. I’ve speculated that maybe there was something in that final meal of the day – a pill or potion that induced sleep. Maybe I was washed and dressed in my sleep. Or maybe something else – maybe further tests or experiments were performed on me. But I think my subconscious mind has probably just done me a favour – blocked it out, made me forget.

  ‘I asked him once – the man I’m going to tell you about. Could he remember what happened to him once the day of testing was over? But he denied even being there. Said he had no idea what I was speaking about. But I knew it was him, and I remembered what he did there…’

  ‘Do you want me to go on?’ I asked Reuben, halting my story momentarily.

  I was certain he had entered my house hoping to fill my head with his tales. But he nodded a yes, indicating he was happy to hear mine first.

  ‘Okay. It gets to the good bit soon,’ I found myself promising, like a real story-teller, like Tristan, taking dark truths and reimagining them for entertainment purposes. Suddenly conscious of myself, I paused. Was I being disrespectful to the truth, recounting it this way? After all, I wasn’t the only victim and others suffered worse. Much worse. Yet, this was my story too, and telling him was helping me. I could feel that already.

  ‘Please do continue,’ Reuben insisted, mistaking my sudden self-awareness for something else.

  I nodded, inhaled and picked up my tale from where I’d left it…

  ‘I think I had been at that place for three, maybe four days when a commotion threatened to collapse the wall of fear that was keeping us all penned in.

  ‘There were no clocks in the great hall, so I couldn’t tell you the time. And the grey walls were windowless, so I couldn’t tell you if it was early or late in the day from the level of sunlight. It was, however, about half-way through our day, as the paperwork from the last test had been collected and the unvarying midday meal was being distributed. My memory isn’t exact, but I recall a bland bowl of something hot, bread, water and an item of fruit; not exactly torture, but definitely short of pleasant.

  ‘I saw what happened as my desk was at the very centre of the rows. He was in the front row. It was a simple and obvious act, and when I think back I wonder why we didn’t all just do the same, cause chaos with a synchronized revolt. But I guess that invisible barricade was sturdy and paralysing to the majority of us.

  ‘Not to him.

  ‘As the tray of food was being placed on his desk, he simply caught the corner closest to him, and flipped it. Items flew through the air amidst a flash flood of hot and cold liquid, battering and splashing the guard who was serving. In that instant, he got up and began a game of chase with the guards in the room.

  ‘I believe it was only ever his intention to cause mayhem, to create a momentary glimpse of what starting a revolution could feel like, and to unnerve those that were guarding us, by reminding them that, no matter how hopeless our chances of succeeding were, they weren’t slim enough to stop us altogether. You see, there was no way of simply getting out. There was one door at the back and, once the guards had filed in each morning, it was locked from the outside. So, his motivation lay in the participation, not the outcome – which could only be punishment. And it was, I’m certain, though later he denied ever being there.

  ‘His game played out to a soundtrack of unruly noise – the scraping of chairs, the clattering of tables pushed across, the stamp of feet and the holler of commands echoing against the walls, juxtaposed against his manic laughter. He charged around the room at sudden speed, leaping over tables, pushing other students aside as he sidestepped the guards that pursued him. One sideways move caused two of the guards to crash into each other, further delaying his capture. But they were relatively quick in seizing him and, eventually, they trapped him in the centre of the room, close to my desk, moving in with pincer-like movements. He surrendered with a wide beam on his face. He had won, it announced silently. He had shown them.

  ‘Then he was gone, and I didn’t see him again for years.

  ‘The strangest thing I remember about the incident is the silence and stillness from the rest of us throughout the commotion. Inside I felt that instinctive urge to rejoice in some way, to acknowledge his anarchic bravery. But another overriding instinct kicked in, one that instantly programmed my senses and body to remain still. To be one of the unseen. I wasn’t alone. Other than the odd, momentary turn of a head, to take a brief look, we were as uniformly bland in our appearance and behaviour as the food they served us daily…’

  ‘What happened to him?’ my polite, suited visitor asked me.

  I smiled softly at Reuben and shrugged.

  ‘I do not know. When I met him again, he denied it was him, but I suspect it’s just something he didn’t want to talk about. Something he needed to forget.’

  ‘And you? What happened to you after he left?’

  ‘Another three weeks of more of the same, and then I was returned home. Left in a nearby street to wander back, as if I had simply run away. That’s what the authorities claimed at first. Said I must have run away and that I was a silly little girl, making up stories, afraid to tell the truth. The school, too, denied they had any involvement in what had happened to me. But it all came out eventually. With many other children abducted from their homes, all making up stories, it wasn’t possible to deny it in the end.

  ‘For a while, they tried a different tactic – asked for volunteers, claiming it was for the greater good, that the intelligence held within the brains of the smarter children was required by the government if we were to survive in these days of diminishing resources. Some parents did volunteer their children, but the numbers were not high. It turned out very few were that gullible or that patriotic. And so their program eventually came to a close.

  ‘But the damage had been done. And it wasn’t until years later that the authorities openly admitted the true extent of their wrong doing. Years until they admitted exactly what they were involved in. Like everything, it eventually came up to the surface. You can’t keep something like that submerged forever. The people have been apologised to, if not compensated. And, if the extreme stories I’ve heard are true,
I got off likely. Had they kept me longer, things could have been worse. I might never have made my way back to my family. I might have remained one of the missing.’

  This left us quiet for a moment and I wondered if I had said too much, opened up an opportunity for him to explore my soul and preach his intended message. I noticed Reuben check his watch, subtly pulling back the sleeves of his black jacket and white shirt, to glimpse just a slither of his timepiece.

  ‘Do you have to go?’ I asked him, wondering if I’d kept him too long.

  He shook his head. ‘Not yet, but there’s a meeting in an hour. If you’d like…’ His voice trailed, reading my face before he’d finished. His chance to entrap me dissolving as rapidly as it had appeared. He really was new to this.

  ‘Maybe some other time,’ I offered, softening the unspoken refusal.

  ‘Yes, maybe,’ he uttered, filling the space.

  ‘I won’t be offended if you leave now?’

  Reuben smiled at that, acknowledging that I’d read into his face a little, too.

  ‘No,’ he said, firmly, but with a light tone, as if he had decided there and then, ‘I’d like to stay and hear the end. Sounds like there’s more to tell about this man of yours?’

  ‘There is, Reuben,’ I admitted, taking a sip of my cooling tea, before continuing…

  ‘My friend appeared at my mother’s kitchen table one day, four years later. And similar to yourself, Reuben, he had been going door to door, selling his wares – only his were physical, not spiritual. He carried with him a suitcase full of pamphlets and samples. An endless range of cleaning fluids, and it was clear from the outset he had the gift of the gab, as my mother wasn’t one for inviting strangers in, let alone serving them tea and cakes. Further still, offering him a place to sleep.

  ‘My father was not happy at all – we knew nothing about this young man. What was his background? Why didn’t he already have a place of his own? Surely he couldn’t have a job if he didn’t have an address? But Mother simply shushed Father – she saw the lost soul in him, sensed damage that needed caressing. Saw something else in him too. See, I was one of a twin – a brother stillborn. And Mother saw her lost son in this smart young salesman who came knocking, and so Father gave in.