Submersion

  ‘It’s not that at all,’ I cut in. And it wasn’t. For all my annoyance with Esther and her peculiar ways of showing love and devotion to her family, she wasn’t the issue. It went deeper, further back than that. And suddenly I had the urge to open up - to tell Jessie a little more than I had before, to justify what must have seemed like an irrational objection to the work he had sourced us both. ‘There’s corruption in these stones, Jessie. Corruption you can’t even begin to imagine.’

  ‘What kind of corruption?’ he asked, but he wasn’t really interested and his voice continued with its tone of dulled exasperation.

  ‘They took him in and protected him, Jessie. They took in the most dangerous man I’ve ever known and hid him from his pursuers and they did it for money.’

  But he didn’t hear the words I confessed, as they were swallowed up in the wind as we turned a corner, sped into open water and were caught by the suddenness of a breath-vacuuming storm.

  ‘What did you say?’ Jessie asked, his own words battling to be heard.

  ‘Just corruption,’ I responded, my resolve to confide in him waning. His demeanour told me he wasn’t in the right mind to listen properly. Not at that moment. ‘How about we just get on with it? I’ll put my principles aside and you can stop with the twenty questions?’

  Despite the onslaught of blustery air, he must have caught some of my words and he nodded.

  ‘Just another five minutes!’ he shouted, pointing ahead to a small building with a steeple. A small building that rapidly grew in size the closer we got and, despite my offer to put reservations aside, I felt an age old anger rise up in me, pausing in my throat, where it gave me a bitter squeeze, punishing me for my impending betrayal.

  The church was set right at the edge of the open water we had sped across. Behind it, I could see a community of tightly packed-in houses, spreading out to the left and right of the holy building, giving the impression that the church itself was leading the way, pointing out to the water, with the other less grand red-bricked constructions following on behind. There was no denying its beauty. Constructed of flint stones, its arched entrance soared the height of two-men and its arched door was almost as high, built from a sturdy oak that appeared to have survived the rotting you might have expected. Protected by God, Esther would no doubt have claimed, but I would have put it down to decent preservation work and good luck. And money – everyone knew the Church had money and paying for re-construction work on places like this had no doubt been its priority after the Great Drowning. If the building was protected by an invisible deity, it hadn’t completely escaped ruination. The waters were high on this side of the city and depth of the flooding was waist-high, rising over the pews where parishioners would once have prayed. Yet, the heart of the church was tall enough that a platform had been constructed that ran across the majority of the floor – much like the fated platform I had left Elinor on that day, awaiting her school boat. Only, this one was ten times the size at least, and it was lined with row after row of chairs, with rusting metal legs and orange, plastic moulding. At the far end of the platform was a lectern; it looked like an original, but up close it appeared water-damaged, suggesting that maybe it had been salvaged from the waters below it. Adjacent to this was another ancient item – a stone font that held a pool of holy water in its rock palm. The platform itself was accessed by a ladder that crawled up out of the water just beyond the arched entrance.

  As we entered the church, we were approached by a man dressed similarly to ourselves – head to toe in protective gear. Jessie referred to him as Father and they shook hands.

  ‘Take yourselves up and I’ll shut these doors,’ we were told and so Jessie and I climbed the ladder and stepped aboard the extensive platform. ‘Careful how you go,’ came a mask-muffled call below. ‘That’s where those rotten boards are.’

  The sound of large, thick doors slamming, followed by the clunk of bolts informed us the outside was shut out and we pulled off our masks and undid our outdoor clothing. Seconds later, the man I knew only as Father climbed the ladder and joined us.

  ‘Neil,’ he offered, holding out a hand.

  I took it. ‘Tristan,’ I returned.

  ‘Oh, I thought I recognised you,’ he continued, shrugging off his own government-issue gear. ‘But I can tell from your expression that you don’t remember me at all.’

  I studied him for a second or so. He was shorter than Jessie and I, slight, too – he didn’t have our build. He had grey hair, which aged him, but looking closer at his face, he was probably no older than me. But I couldn’t place him. Not at first.

  ‘Sorry. Have we worked for you before?’

  Father Neil chuckled.

  ‘It was a long time ago, Tristan, but I knew you from Albert’s.’ He watched my face, checking if he had the memory correct himself. ‘Albert’s Film Emporium,’ he expanded, in case that helped my recollection.

  ‘I remember Albert’s,’ I eventually answered, after a longer, second glance at those salt-and-pepper, holy features, ‘but I don’t remember you. Sorry Father.’

  ‘It’s Neil,’ he corrected, and added: ‘Well, never mind,’ shuffling ahead, trying his utmost to hide his embarrassment. ‘The damage is this way.’

  ‘Was that necessary?’ Jessie hissed at me, as we followed behind the priest. ‘I’d quite like to get paid for this job. Couldn’t you have gone along with him? Couldn’t you just have lied?’

  ‘I could have, yes,’ I responded, giving nothing else away. Truth was, I had now remembered him. As I’d stared into those eyes that were as grey as his thinning hair, I remembered only too well. But if Father Neil thought I didn’t – and he’d persisted, just to check, he really wanted to be sure – it might work to my advantage.

  The job itself was simple enough. A number of the boards on the platform needed replacing and the rest stripping back and treating with a few coats of a protective solution.

  ‘A few rotters amongst the good ones,’ Father Neil explained, leading on, pointing out the culprits as he spoke. ‘But quite a few days’ work here. And we are very, very grateful.’

  ‘That’s not a problem,’ Jessie replied, shaking the priest’s hand. ‘Happy to help.’

  As the holy hand was offered in my direction – I shook it, I didn’t want to upset Father Neil any further than I had already – this final exchange struck me as odd. Then, as we headed back to Jessie’s boat to collect tools, it came to me.

  ‘You’re not getting paid, are you?’

  Jessie read the exasperation in my voice and sighed impatiently.

  ‘But you are, Tris. Is that a problem?’

  We were outside, back behind our protective masks. Yet, even through the steamed-up visor of his mask, I could feel the burn of his glare. Without intending, I had ventured into forbidden territory. This was for Esther. Jessie was doing this for Esther – the mother of his nephew, sister of his former lover. Hardy as Jessie was, occasionally he did things on sentiment, and this was such an occasion. Somehow, I’d found a raw nerve and pinched it.

  ‘No,’ I said, and my tone and the short nod I received in reply confirmed we were moving on. ‘So, where do you want to start?’

  It turned out we weren’t the only workers on site. Father Neil had roused a whole army of helpers - men and woman parishioners who pitched in to do anything from stacking and removing the plastic orange chairs to sanding down the planks that we were keeping. Even some older children were roped in for carrying and clearing up. It took three of us to hoister the old lectern onto a set of wheels and roll it away from its original position, and five of us to complete a similar operation with the old stone font; it was underneath this latter item that the worst of the rot had occurred.

  ‘There’s a crack goes right through it,’ Father Neil explained, warning us to be careful as we shifted the bulky relic. ‘A slow drip, drip, drip out of sight. Noticed the sponginess in the wood a few weeks back half-way through a Christening.’

  ‘You�
��re lucky it didn’t go through to the water below, Father,’ Jessie informed him, crouching, inspecting the damage once the stout font had been carefully wheeled off.

  As we began the bulk of the work – ripping out the rotten wood and cleaning up the boards that remained – I couldn’t help but reflect on the dedication of those around me. Alien as it was to my own ways, there was something to be admired. Given what had happened – the years of terror as wild dogs had reigned the streets and the abduction of children in the name of progress; the relentless flooding and apology that the authorities eventually offered as the only answer to these the crimes they had committed – given all that, it was quite something that these people turned to faith to keep them sane, to see them through. Despite all the manmade calamities that surrounded them, that invaded their histories, and without a single divine intervention or celestial sighting along the way, they still put their fate in the hands of the something invisible. They still believed.

  I usually saw this as short-sighted, a waste of effort – take things into your own hands and make change happen was the way forward, surely. But confined inside that building for so many hours across that week, surrounded by the hard work and genial chatter of those volunteers, I sensed that in their own way they were making a difference. And, whilst the authorities had taken away so much from them all over the decades, they couldn’t take their faith, couldn’t take their hope.

  Of course, I kept this view to myself; couldn’t have Jessie Morton thinking I was going soft. Whenever he checked-in on how my morals were coping, I’d sneer and ask him when I was getting paid. I couldn’t let him down; he had defined expectations of me I had to meet.

  Above all else, the hard graft and change of location the church offered was a welcome distraction for me. Whilst the ghost of Elinor continued to haunt every corner of our lives, I was also plagued by more recent activity. There were the tapes to begin with – the video posted through Jessie’s letter box and the recording we had found at the train graveyard. Old Man Merlin had still made little progress on the latter and I was anxious to know its content. Could it lead us to Elinor’s whereabouts, or at least her fate? Or was it just a false hope, a blind faith that kept us going a little further for a little longer?

  Then there was Agnes and her odd behaviour.

  It seemed to begin with her change of heart regarding work. Much as I thought her return was premature – she was anything but ready – her abrupt change of mind on the day itself was distinctly out of the character. Agnes was solid, reliable; she didn’t let anybody down, no matter what the circumstances, she just carried on. And yet her response when I questioned her – I got to the door and I simply couldn’t go any further – didn’t strike me as quite genuine. I had a sense that something was going on; I just didn’t know what.

  One evening I came home early and had the sense that someone else was in the house. Heard sudden movements above me – the scraping of chairs, the swift shutting of a door – as I ascended to the first floor. But, once my outdoor gear was removed and I saw Agnes’ face without the blur my mask provided, all seemed fine. There was nothing but a feeling.

  Yet there had been another incident.

  The day after Agnes had met with Jerry Carter and finally agreed a return-to-work date, I slipped back unexpectedly – I’d left a bag of tools behind, hanging off the bannister of the lower staircase – and I heard voices. At least, I heard Agnes’ for certain, but it sounded as if she was talking to someone else, rather than just herself. I listened out for a second, to hear if they continued, but whatever was in progress was paused. I left, puzzled, but kept my thoughts to myself. It was probably nothing and Agnes could definitely do without me questioning her about who she may or may not have in her company.

  But one thing continued to bother me. Something I heard in the tiny snippet of conversation from Agnes. A name.

  Reuben.

  For now, I kept my thoughts to myself. But, as that name niggled away at me, I knew that eventually I would have to start asking questions; I would have to understand exactly what was going on.

  Whilst the hard graft and the holy venue offered some distraction from my concerns, it unfortunately brought with it fresh unease: that face from the past, Father Neil. It was definitely him, no doubt. As the week progressed, further memories came back to me. And he knew it, too. I saw a shadow of fear crawl across his face and he would glance back at me whenever I caught his eye, at least twice, just to check if I was really staring. Jessie noticed, too. Worried that I was looking to kick off some trouble with the local man of God, he pulled me to one side at the end of the fourth day on the job.

  ‘Will you give up on whatever it is between you and the priest?’ he instructed, his tone seething with irritation. ‘I know you object to this place on principle, but you’re happy to take the money, so can we simply proceed on a civil basis?’

  ‘It’s not that-.’

  ‘I don’t really care what it is.’

  ‘Oh, you don’t? Oh, that’s fine then. I’ll shut up, smother my conscience and just carry on, because you don’t really care.’

  He was taken aback by my near-sulky outburst. It wasn’t the usual reaction he got from me, no matter how sensitive the subject.

  ‘Jesus, he’s really got to you?’ he said, a line that instantly had us both laughing, expecting a lightning strike for his blasphemy at any second. ‘But he has though, hasn’t he?’ Jessie continued, once we’d recovered. The humour had helped break the tension between us. ‘Come on, Tris, what is it this guy has done? Considering he remembers you and you don’t-.’

  ‘I do remember him,’ I confirmed.

  We were on our own by then, sitting on the edge of the expansive platform, testing out the replacement boards as they took our weight, our legs dangling over the water that lurked beneath us. We faced the great stone arch that led to the outdoors. The volunteers had all disappeared, returning to their tightly packed-in homes behind the church. Father Neil had popped out on some community errand as he called it and would return later to lock up.

  ‘Not at first, not when he mentioned it,’ I explained, kicking my heavy work boots together, looking into the cold, still sea below. ‘But eventually it came back to me, and he knows I know. The way he’s been looking at me all week. He’s guilty and he knows it.’

  A laugh burst from Jessie, but dissipated from his features instantly when he realised I was serious.

  ‘Guilty?’ he questioned, his brow creased incredulously. ‘What is our local priest guilty of?’

  I shrugged, still staring down.

  ‘You’ll have to do better than that.’

  Yet, I wasn’t sure I could. Also, there were certain people I couldn’t mention; however much I trusted those around me, I’d returned to the city in search of a particular person. In search of Xavier Riley. For all I knew, I could be mentioning his name to the very people who were harbouring him. However unlikely, five years into my arrival, not once had I taken that chance.

  ‘Years ago, before the floods, before I left this place the first time round and before I knew you, I worked in a tiny shop in the Atrium. Albert’s Film Emporium.’

  I checked Jessie’s response; yes, he vaguely recalled Albert’s and the previous conversation we’d had about my employment there. In my head I could see the small shop-come-cinema so vividly. Out the front, Albert sold all genres of film and associated stuff – books, magazines, collectables. Out the back was the tiny cinema, just six seats in total. And I could see us all there, meeting and greeting, getting ready for whatever cinematic delight Albert had unearthed for us.

  ‘After hours, Albert ran a kind of film club – just people he’d invited. He never confirmed what his motive was for running the shop – it didn’t have a great commercial pull from what I could see and it was expensive to lease in the Atrium. Maybe he got a good rate? You never knew with Albert; in the years I’d known him, on and off, he’d always fallen on his feet. Maybe he simply had a
great passion for film, and making money – if he made any – was incidental, a bonus. Who knows? Albert and his motivations had always been a mystery to me.’

  I paused briefly and Jessie asked a question.

  ‘You knew him before this cinema thing?’

  I answered with a nod, but didn’t elaborate on that point. Jessie accepted this and allowed me to continue.

  ‘That’s where I remember him – your Father Neil. Albert disappeared one day, and he, Father Neil, had started coming to the film club in the weeks prior to him going missing. He was a friend of a friend.’

  He came with Xavier Riley, I could have said, but I didn’t, as much as I was in the mood to confess it all.

  ‘I came to the shop one morning to be greeted by a man in a suit who informed me that the shop was closing, that my services were no longer needed. He handed me an envelope of cash, stating that Albert had left me this in his will. Albert had been absent for a week by then and I had been opening the shop up myself and making as best a job of it as possible until then. I couldn’t believe he was dead. Couldn’t believe this man’s ceaseless luck had finally ceased. When I asked how, I was told he had drowned. In a freak accident, near the Black Sea. His death was reported in the papers a day later – the account matched that of the man in the suit, with one addition: no body had been recovered.’

  I saw Jessie react as the parallel to Elinor’s disappearance hit him. We were silent for a moment as we both chewed this over. Then he spoke out abruptly.

  ‘But what is Father Neil guilty of? You’ve still not answered that.’

  I took the deepest breath. I had to be careful what I said. Could I give a clear explanation, without veering into territory I’d rather steer clear of?

  ‘He was guilty by association,’ I managed, realising instantly that it was a feeble explanation. Jessie’s exasperated sigh validated this. So, I went a little further. ‘The man he came to the film club with. He was a terrorist and I suspect that Father Neil was protecting him. Has been and might still be. This man, this terrorist. He took refuge in a place just like this,’ I added, pointing up into the vast cavern above us. ‘Coincidence?’