The Revelations

by Alex Preston

  It was then that Abby started to dance. David approved of dancing. He believed that it helped the congregation draw closer to a state of ecstasy. But Abby was really moving, lifting the microphone stand off the ground and slamming it back down, kicking her legs up in the air and whooping between the lines of the chorus. Slowly, the audience picked up on her energy, and the three girls in the front row raised their hands above their heads. Neil, Maki and Philip, standing in the pew behind the girls, began to shuffle awkwardly. Some of the younger members off to the side stood on their chairs, people moved to the open spaces of the aisle and the Lady Chapel and danced wildly, shaking their heads and holding their hands up to the stage, which was now flooded with bright white light. The twins spun in a tight circle in the centre of the aisle, gripping each other by the elbows. The stained-glass window behind the band was luminous, the altar cloth glowed gold. When the final chorus arrived everyone was singing, the music pounded with the rhythm of their hearts, the dancing reached a frenzy and the three girls at the front were shrieking, thumping their chests and then screaming out. Then the final chord and the last echoes swirled up into the high silence of the roof.

  Abby bent double, her arms hanging down at her sides. Marcus was breathing heavily. His fingers were numb from playing, small blood blisters grew in the channels that ran across his fingertips. The cheering started. Throughout the church they applauded, calling out and laughing and shouting their approval. Even Lee was smiling. Mouse was juggling his drumsticks and then played a quick roll on the snare. When the cheering stopped, they left the stage and made their way downstairs for the discussions.

  Marcus and Abby were still flushed, their cheeks red and their chests rising. Marcus knew that it was in music that he came closest to God, came nearest to the appreciation of the divine that Abby seemed to find so easy. It allowed him to escape himself and the cynicism that questioned religion in a mocking voice, that laughed at Abby’s credulousness. There was another round of applause from their group when they walked into the small room in the crypt. Marcus took Abby’s hand and they bowed together.

  ‘Thanks, guys,’ Marcus said, sitting down. ‘I enjoyed that. Now tonight I’d like to talk to you about the issue of suffering. Because, as David said earlier, it’s one of the biggest questions we face. I almost ended up leaving the first time I did the Course, just because I couldn’t get my head around it. And I still have trouble with it. I still have doubts. So I’m going to ask my lovely wife to help out if I go slightly off-message.’ He looked at Abby and smiled. She still seemed wired: she was sitting on her hands and rocking forward on the balls of her feet, leaning into the centre of the circle.

  ‘You heard David refer to it in his speech, the fact that there are much easier ways of explaining away suffering. Either that God isn’t able to stop children getting leukaemia or whatever, or that He can’t be everywhere at once and helps some but not all, or that He doesn’t want to end their suffering. And when you watch the news at night it makes it very difficult to believe that an omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent God exists.’

  Marcus saw David in the doorway watching him. He paused for a moment, looked at the faces all turned towards him, saw that Abby was still sitting on her hands, although she was now rocking her chair backwards, coming perilously close to falling. Marcus rose and stood behind his wife, his hands upon her shoulders. He knew he was mimicking David’s tone, his modulation.

  ‘When Eve ate the fruit in the Garden she took a decision that would affect everything that came after. She acted with her own will rather than being a slave. And thus the moment of Original Sin was also the moment when we gained freedom. And every small victory, every freely willed act, is a celebration of that first rebellion. God punishes us through the suffering in the world. He punishes us because that is the natural balance of things: we had the chance to stay in Eden, to live a life of comfortable slavery, but we chose freedom. And how much richer even the most tragic life, even a life cut short, knowing that we have the freedom to make our own choices, to carve our own way through that life . . .’

  Marcus felt like he was growing, inflating to fill the room. It was not a feeling that he enjoyed. He stared down at the faces of the members of the group, the young blonde girls and their boyfriends, Neil, Abby; he looked over to David, who was smiling broadly in the doorway. He continued to speak and there were no questions, no interruptions, just the purity of thought expressed in clear, calm words. But all the time there was humming at the back of his mind the static of hypocrisy. He knew he sounded slick, knew they were all hanging on his words, that Abby would be proud of him. But he felt fraudulent and spivvy.

  When the session was over he tried to slip away from the group. He wanted to sit in the car in darkness until Abby had finished helping Sally clear up the dinner pans, then drive them back to the flat to continue their reclusive life. As he climbed the pale stone stairs into the church he felt an arm around his shoulders. It was David.

  ‘That was wonderful, tonight. You seemed inspired. Did you feel like the Spirit was moving in you?’

  Marcus paused. David began to rub his thumb gently down the line of Marcus’s collarbone. Marcus shivered.

  ‘I don’t know. It felt very fluent and easy, but I don’t know if it was spiritual. You know that I had a problem with this part of the Course, and so I’ve worked really hard to make sure that I’m on top of it, that I know all of the arguments and can regurgitate them almost without thinking.’

  They were now walking down the aisle together. Their voices were distorted by the height above them. Marcus watched Abby collecting forks in a bowl; Sally followed after her throwing paper plates into a black plastic bag. The priest dropped his hand from Marcus’s shoulder. They sat down together facing the altar. Marcus tried to explain himself, but he felt his words were now muddled and fumbling.

  ‘When I was speaking earlier it felt a lot like it does when I’m arguing a case at work. You know it’s very rare that anyone I’m defending is innocent. We’re expensive, so we usually get the guilty guys. I don’t ever get to do anything as glamorous as speaking in court. But I always get sent in to speak to the other side’s legal team. And it’s because I can speak like that, with that fluency, giving the impression of being totally in charge, totally on top of things. When, in fact, I’m peddling half-truths and relying on intimidation and legal sleight of hand. It was like that tonight. All that stuff about Original Sin and Free Will – it’s not enough. It’s not enough of an excuse for the bad stuff that happens in the world. And I know it’s bullshit, but I spout it anyway.’

  The priest was silent for a moment, then stood up slowly. He hovered over Marcus. Marcus could see the muscles in David’s jaw working. He watched the priest’s hands. The right hand seized the fingers of the left and squeezed until they were white, corpselike.

  ‘I’ve built something astonishing here, something that will outlast all of us.’ David’s voice was icy. ‘I’ve been watching you very carefully. I’m worried that I made the wrong choice when I decided to bring you into the inner circle of this church. Look around you. You could be someone here, really make something of yourself. The Course is exploding. It’s going global.’ He focused his eyes on Marcus’s and extended his cold, thin hand to Marcus’s shoulder again. He pressed his thumb on the collarbone.

  ‘I’m trying. I just thought that I should tell you if I was having these doubts, rather than keep them to myself.’

  David continued as if he hadn’t heard, increasing the pressure on Marcus’s collarbone.

  ‘Have you stopped to think about why two of your members left after the first week? Because it certainly wasn’t Abby’s fault. People can sense the contradictions in you, how you struggle against yourself. You drink too much, you smoke too much. I watch you; I can see all that excess. I see the flames of hell lapping at your feet. Remember that the Devil is always there. He is desperate for me to fail, for the Course to fail. So I have to look for him at ever
y turn. Don’t let the Devil work through you, Marcus. Don’t let it be you that he uses to bring this all down. I am watching you.’ The priest dropped his hand from Marcus’s shoulder and began to walk away from him. Course members scuttled in the shadows of the north and south aisles. David turned back towards him, his hand held in the air, fingers still in pincer grip.

  ‘I’ll see you on Sunday. Remember what I said.’ David’s voice had returned to its public register. Marcus watched the priest make his way to the door and out into the night.

  Marcus sat for a while longer, feeling flat and confused, his collarbone throbbing. Then the lights began to go out, and he was sitting in darkness. He knew the layout of the church and found his way in blindness to the door and out into the damp autumn night. He sat in the Audi and listened to the radio until Abby’s outline appeared against the warm yellow of the open rectory door. She bounded towards the car, climbed into the passenger seat, and let out a long, contented sigh.

  ‘That was just marvellous. I’m still buzzing.’ She fiddled with the radio as they pulled out onto the King’s Road. Marcus stared ahead into the dark.

  ‘It’s the first time I’ve felt really properly alive since the baby,’ she continued, speaking over a stuttering procession of different radio stations. ‘It’s amazing how music can lift you out of yourself. It’s what David always says, isn’t it? That we’re nearest to God in music and silence.’

  Marcus accelerated through an amber light, clenching the steering wheel hard. Abby found a channel that played buoyant dance music and sang along happily as they made their way through thick traffic homewards.

  *

  Marcus reached for a bottle of red wine as soon as they walked in the door, slumped on the sofa and opened a copy of the New Statesman. Abby knew he had read it weeks before. She watched his eyes, which didn’t move with the text but instead seemed to stare through the paper into the distance. He slurped the wine as he drank it, rolling it in his mouth and sucking air over it on his tongue. It sounded disgusting but Abby sat at the table watching him and didn’t say anything. She felt suddenly terribly far from him, unable to bridge the distance between them. When they brushed their teeth she saw him spit purple into the sink and noticed that his lips were still stained black from the wine.

  Later in bed she tried to talk to him. She knew he had drunk enough to make him irritable, but she needed to connect with him. She needed to let him know how proud she was of his preaching – because that was what it was, he had preached and it sounded just like David. She pressed herself against him, felt the familiar boniness of his body, the muscles under his armpits and along his neck, the hard curve of his arse.

  ‘You were amazing tonight, darling. I know you must be exhausted, but I want you to know how proud I am of you.’

  Marcus stopped himself speaking for a moment. He knew he was irrationally angry. He hadn’t eaten dinner and had drunk just enough to pull a black veil over his mind. He always regretted these rages in the morning, even though in the moment he felt such enormous clarity, felt as though the world was transparent and he could finally see the workings of the machine. But he loved Abby, and he struggled to keep his thoughts inside.

  ‘I’m so tired. Please, let’s just go to sleep.’

  ‘But I can’t. I want to talk about it with you. Did you feel my energy? I mean, the way I danced in that song it was like I was full of something burning. I think we’re going to do an amazing job this year. It’s sad that we’ve lost a couple already, but I really think the rest of them will stick it out. Wouldn’t that be marvellous?’

  ‘Yes, that’d be great. ’Night.’

  She was quiet for a moment. Then, slipping her hand slowly inside the tracksuit bottoms he wore to bed, she took hold of his cock.

  ‘Let’s have sex, darling. I really want you. And I think what happened tonight might have been a message. I think it’s maybe a sign that if we do it tonight it’ll all work out.’

  She felt Marcus growing hard, wrestled her nightie over her head and switched on the bedside light. When she turned back to him she saw Marcus lying staring up at the ceiling. He was cracking his knuckles.

  ‘What is it?’ She placed her hand on his stomach.

  ‘I don’t want to have sex. Not after tonight.’

  ‘Come on, darling. You were just like David in that discussion group, magnetic.’ She took his cock in her hand again and found it small and limp.

  ‘I’m sorry. I just don’t find things as easy as you do.’

  She began to tug gently at his penis, taking his hand and placing it over her pussy.

  ‘I don’t find it easy, darling. But it gets easier the more you do it.’ She began to move herself back and forward, pressing herself against his fingers.

  ‘But I get the impression that with you it’s instinctual, something that comes naturally. It’s a real struggle for me.’

  Abby was panting slightly. Marcus’s cock was still small and shrewlike in her hand.

  ‘Why do you always have to make everything so difficult, darling? Just relax and go with the flow. Good things will happen, I promise.’

  Marcus pulled his hand away from her and sat up in bed.

  ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Jesus, I don’t know if I can handle this.’ He wouldn’t look at her as he spoke.

  ‘What do you mean, this?’

  ‘I mean us, a baby, the life you have chosen for us. I’m beginning to wonder how we got old so quickly.’

  She stood up, clasping her nightie in a ball at her chest. Her voice came out very clear and controlled.

  ‘It’s not my fault. Your life is not my fault.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  Her voice when it came was still soft, but cold and spiked.

  ‘It means I think sometimes that I’m making the same mistake my sisters made. Marrying weak men. My mother always said that we would never be happy together. I think she might have been right.’

  She was breathing heavily, twisting the soft cotton nightie into a ball. Marcus still wouldn’t look at her. She tried to take his hand, but he drew it away.

  ‘I’m sorry, darling. I didn’t mean it. I love you. That’s my problem, I just love you so much. And I need for us to be together, for us to have a child. I’ll try very hard to make things better for you.’

  But Marcus was already gone. Whenever they argued like this he would retreat into himself, draw up his defences and become as still and silent as a monk, lost to Abby.

  ‘Don’t do this, please don’t do this. Speak to me. What are you thinking?’ He sat immobile as she stroked his hair. Abby began to cry, large hot tears rolling down her cheeks.

  ‘Why are you crying?’ he asked, his voice very cold.

  She looked down at him as she stood, her nightie clutched to her chest. ‘Because you’re not,’ she said, and ran from the room. She slammed the door as she left.

  Marcus sat on the bed and watched the windows of the high Edwardian houses opposite. Scattered yellow squares of light glowed against the dim white walls like the doors of an advent calendar. A train rattled somewhere. When he went to look for Abby he found her sitting very still on the sofa, her nightie on, the main lights in the room casting her shadow on the wall behind her. Marcus sat down next to her and placed a kiss on her wrinkled brow.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry, too.’ She turned to him and draped her arms around his shoulders. He felt her hot breath on the skin of his neck.

  ‘All I want is for you to be happy. I know I haven’t always been there for you, but this time I am. We’re going to make a baby, and you’ll be an amazing mother. And I’ll love the baby all the more because half of it is you.’

  ‘Oh, darling,’ she said, and pressed her wet face into the hollow of his neck.

  They made their way back to the bed in the spare room. A bird was singing somewhere in the darkness outside the window. They slept tightly curled together that nigh
t as they had done when they shared his single bed at university, and he fell asleep with the beating of her heart thumping against his cheek, the words of a prayer circling his mind. Don’t let me die just yet, Lord. I don’t want to die.

  Seven

  This girl was very good. Mouse liked her expressionless face, the clinical air she had about her. Once he had walked out without speaking to the masseuse. There had been a lasciviousness in the way she greeted him, something sluttish in her clothing and smile, something that suggested she was open to going further than a massage. But this one clearly understood what he was looking for. When her fingers rested on his perineum, he allowed himself a brief sigh of contentment, encouraging her to stay there. She was naked. There was a long mirror down one wall of the room and he watched her breasts move as she ran her hands up the inside of his thighs. Dark nipples. She sucked her lip in concentration. She looked a little like Lee. Brown hair but the same sense of seriousness. He thought she was Swedish, but didn’t want to ask.

  Mouse had slipped out of work early and made his way to the large Georgian house on Gloucester Place. He was always staggered by the economics of it, that a place of such grandeur could be maintained by six or seven masseuses and their balding, unthreatening male receptionist. He paid one hundred pounds for his forty-five-minute session. Something soothing and Eastern played on a hidden stereo. A gamelan, a sitar. She sat astride one of his thighs as she massaged his arse and he could feel the soft slick hair of her pussy on his skin. It amused him that these girls – some of whom were English and well-spoken, a step above the sex-trafficked skag addicts in the brothel next door – fooled themselves into thinking that what they did was somehow better than prostitution. Eastern mysticism was in high vogue, and they must have felt that it lent dignity to their compromised lives. He had found the place through a website that promised ‘enhanced consciousness’ and ‘a way to rebalance the chakras’. Of course it was nothing more than a posh handjob. But the pretence suited Mouse, who didn’t want to have sex with these girls, just needed an hour of being touched, an hour when he could lose himself in physical pleasure without feeling that he was breaking the rules of the Course.