by Alex Preston
Mouse had stepped into the road without looking. He had crossed the park and was walking down Queen’s Gate. The sun had sunk from the sky and now it was almost dark. The yellow taxi lights that flashed past seemed like the warmest lights he had ever seen. Finally, he was on the King’s Road and he could see St Botolph’s spire black against the dusk sky. Mouse rapped out a tattoo with his drumsticks on a wheelie bin. He was looking forward to playing later.
He made his way past the vicarage, keeping to the shadows. He could see Abby and Sally Nightingale in the rectory’s kitchen. Abby was talking and helping to roll out sheets of pastry, while Sally nodded and smiled every so often. The church was empty when he went into it. A flickering lamp glowed in the Lady Chapel, and the ceiling was lit by the spotlights that illuminated the church from the outside. He relished being in the church on his own. He reached down and pulled out a prayer cushion, knelt upon it and rested his head in his hands.
‘O, God, protect my mum. I’m sorry that I’m not always there for my friends. I’m sorry that I sometimes think and do things that I know disappoint you.’ He spoke the words out loud in a small, soft voice, more Scottish than his everyday accent. ‘Please, Lord, I pray that I might achieve all the things that David asks of me. I pray that the Course might grow and flourish. O, Lord, let all be well.’
He bent forward until he was almost lying flat and pressed his hands to the cold stone floor. He felt safe in the darkness of the old church. He understood the age of the place, recognised the terms for its distinguishing features, knew the faces of the saints in the main altar window as he knew those of his friends. He had a photograph of the inside of the church pinned to a cork board on the wall of the boat. Lee had taken the picture just before the start of a Course evening, looking up through the candles towards the spotlit altar. He liked to line up his eyes with the shot when he came into the church. He laid his cheek against the stone floor, shut one eye, made a soft clicking noise and then slowly rose to his feet.
He felt islanded that evening: very distant from the other members of the Course; not scornful, or resentful of their privilege, but as if they were from a reality so profoundly different from his own that they might as well have been characters from a novel. He sat slightly apart from Lee as David stood to introduce the guest speaker – a well-known artist who had been a heroin addict until he was persuaded to attend the Course. Mouse half-listened to him, keen to get on with the music and the discussion session when they would talk about the Retreat.
It was Lee who had suggested they form a band. She used to take Mouse to the college music rooms late at night when neither of them could sleep that first cold winter at university. She’d play the ‘Promenade’ from Pictures at an Exhibition in the dark, and Mouse would sit very still as Lee rocked backwards and forwards, humming softly behind the music. Marcus was a decent guitarist and played after dinner parties when everyone would smoke and sing, Abby’s voice standing out above the others, high and clear. Mouse had learned to play the drums. He was co-ordinated and had a good sense of rhythm, and Lee was endlessly patient playing alongside him as he bashed away on the college’s kit until one of the serious musicians came and told them to stop. For Christmas that year Lee gave him a snare and a high-hat which he carried up to Scotland on the train and practised as the snow built up outside his window.
They played gigs in bars and clubs throughout university, had a regular slot in a pub on Sunday afternoons, did friends’ birthdays, the wedding receptions of their friends’ older siblings. It was another way to spend time together. It was only when Lee introduced Mouse to the Course, and they met David, that they realised that music was a way to God. When they moved to London, and Abby and Marcus joined the Course, David persuaded Marcus to take up the bass, implementing a stricter regime of band practices. It was David who chose the name of the band and had The Revelations printed across Mouse’s drum kit. David and Lee had regular songwriting sessions, where Lee would adapt lyrics from the religious texts she studied at university and David would set them to music.
That evening at the Course they played one of these songs. The older Course members knew the words and stood with their arms wide and their faces towards the roof, singing. Staring out over the candlelight, Mouse found himself mouthing along as he drummed. Lee had taken the lyrics from Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Divine Love; he remembered her scribbling them in an old exercise book one afternoon at her flat, thumbing through a tattered copy of the mystical text as she wrote. Now the ancient words were new-made, sung over driving rock music.
‘In falling and rising again,
We’re always kept in that same precious love.
Between God and the soul there is no in between,
So we pray and our prayers fill our hearts
with your endless love.’
He thumped his foot down on the bass drum, smashed the cymbal and tapped away at the high-hat: it was the perfect instrument for him. Only when he was playing the drums did he lose the feeling of jittery energy that had once sent him running in mad bursts around the quads at university, that caused him to fiddle and jiggle and jerk his way through life.
In the discussion group they talked about the Retreat. Mouse stood up immediately as the group settled in the room in the crypt.
‘It’s the most brilliant experience. It should really be viewed as the pinnacle of your time here. Although there are sessions afterwards, they draw heavily upon what you learn at the Retreat. It’s a time for us to bond, for us to really talk – not in the way we do here, but with real depth. There’ll be a few wee services to go to, but the rest of the time is yours to speak with David, speak with us. I have to say I’m jealous of you. I’d love to have my first Retreat all over again.’
‘My first Retreat’, said Lee, ‘made me feel like a child.’ Her voice took on a dreamy note. ‘It was all so simple, and so perfect. Beautiful autumn weather and time to spend with friends. And they’ve all been like that, ever since. The Retreat is an oasis.’ She was wearing a short denim skirt over dark tights and her hair was tied with an elastic band in an untidy pile on her head. Mouse could smell something rich and unwashed when he moved close to her. He noticed that her tights were laddered.
‘Do you ever get anyone who freaks out? I’ve heard it can be pretty intense.’ Philip was looking at Lee, but Mouse answered him.
‘It’s such a friendly atmosphere. We’ll all be there, you know. It’s like a massive, brilliant sleep-over.’ He smiled.
‘But someone told me you have to speak in tongues. I don’t know if I want to do that. It sounds a bit weird.’ Maki looked at Mouse with her eyebrows raised, but he just smiled and nodded. David had prepared them for this.
‘Don’t worry too much about what you hear. The whole speaking in tongues thing is just a small part of the Retreat. It’s . . . it’s a bit like those Magic Eye books. Some people find it really easy, some people just don’t get it. If you let yourself go with the flow, you’ll get there. Just don’t fight it.’
Lee nodded.
‘You know David is always going on about how empty the world feels?’ she said. ‘How our lives are so fragmented and superficial? When you hear the tongues, this beautiful, eerie music, and everyone is chanting together, it makes all of that go away for a while. It’s this most extraordinary feeling of release, as if everything suddenly makes sense. And the silence afterwards, it just blows you away . . .’
When the discussion groups were finished, Marcus and Abby said goodbye. Mouse watched them walk off towards the car, Marcus’s arm around Abby’s broad shoulders. A police siren wailed down by the river and Mouse shivered. Lee came up behind him and slipped her arm through his. Huddled together, giving the impression of one body, so closely were they linked, they made their way to the pub under misty cones of light that hung down from the street lamps.
Mouse kept her clasped closely to him as they sat in a dimly lit corner. At first, they were quiet, and he felt her breaths ri
se and fall under thin ribs, let her pale, drawn face rest on his shoulder as they watched people go to the bar and play fruit machines and walk out to smoke cigarettes. Lee sighed.
‘You know that image from Bede?’ she said.
‘Hmm?’ He had been enjoying the silence and now brought her into focus with difficulty.
‘The one that says our lives are like the flight of a sparrow through the night into a bright mead hall? We fly from darkness into light and laughter and then out again into darkness. Sometimes I feel like I’ve already come out the other side. That my teenage years were my real life, when I lived everything so intensely, when I was completely carefree and wild. And these days I’m just in darkness, flying along without any idea of where I’m going.’
Mouse took a sip of her drink and lifted his arm from around her shoulders. He turned to face her, frowning.
‘Honestly, cheer up, will you? The Retreat’s almost here. Things can’t be as bad as all that now, surely?’
‘I’m afraid they are.’ Her voice was very low.
‘Jesus, Lee, will you get a grip? This self-pity, this constant misery, it’s just exhausting. I could strangle you sometimes.’ His voice rose in pitch and Lee winced. ‘You’re young, you’re very beautiful, you’re scarily clever. A lot of girls would die to have what you have. You need to pull yourself together. This can’t go on.’
‘Please don’t do this. I’m really tightroping at the moment. I need you to keep me steady.’ Lee was knitting her hands in her lap.
Mouse could see that Philip and Maki, who were standing at the bar, had stopped talking and were watching them. He lowered his voice.
‘Your problem, you know, is that you have forged this identity for yourself around religion. Lee the sexy little party girl has been replaced by Lee the pious saint. But it’s not a good religion, not a real one. It’s based upon those hysterical women you are such an expert on.’
‘I’m going to go . . . I’m leaving now.’
Mouse gripped her wrist and spoke in a violent whisper.
‘No you’re not, you’re going to sit here and listen to me. What you believe is a heavily mediated, crackpot version of religion. Two hours, two short hours is all we have of Jesus, if you read out everything that he actually says in the Bible. Our entire religion is founded on those two hours. Your problem is that you concentrate too little on Christ’s words and too much on the hysterical writings of a bunch of madwomen.’
‘Some of their stuff is amazing. You’ve said so yourself.’ His hand still gripped her wrist painfully.
‘Some of it is beautiful poetry. I can see how it’s helpful alongside the real thing. But not as a replacement. I’ve met some girls in the Course over the years who seem to have based their belief on St Francis, St Augustine. Both heavily mediated versions of real faith. But at least those saints were adepts, at least they were fully schooled in the doctrine, and could serve as reasonable proxies for Christ. Your women are just early incarnations of Christina Rossetti, wringing their hands and moaning and pretending it’s a religious experience rather than just frustrated sexuality and thwarted ambition. Hildegard, Catherine of Siena, Margery Kempe – hysteria and weeping were to them what sex was to the Wife of Bath. They won’t help you.’
‘But they do help me. They make a huge difference to me. And you didn’t mention Julian of Norwich. She’s no hysteric.’
‘Julian spent all her days locked in a cell meditating on Christ’s suffering on the cross, fixated on his wounds. This is exactly why you’re such a mess. You’ve put suffering and guilt at the very centre of your conception of faith. These women were writing about their religious feelings, but they were also conveying the very painful truth of what it was like to be a woman in fifteenth-century England. Don’t confuse the two. They’re leading you in completely the wrong direction. Faith should be a comfort, not an ordeal.’
‘They’re my role models, and I won’t have you talk about them like this. It’s fucking hard to say how I feel. When I’m right down in my slumps, I can’t find my own words to express it. And not only do the women mystics help me say how I feel, they rephrase my unhappiness as something positive. They make me feel that there might be something good the other side of all this pain.’ Her eyes were bright with angry tears.
Mouse let go of her wrist, a little ashamed.
‘Do you remember when those boys slapped me?’ Lee said, looking at him sharply.
Mouse did remember. They had been walking down the King’s Road on the way to the Course the previous summer when two gym-inflated bankers stumbled out of a pub and stood blocking the pavement ahead of them. The bankers had taken their suit jackets off and their ties hung loosely around thick necks. They were sweating and Mouse could see their muscular chests pressing wetly against shirt fabric. As Mouse and Lee passed, he heard one whisper to the other and then, so quickly that he could hardly register it, the banker had turned and slapped Lee hard on the arse. The two men stood, laughing, as Mouse and Lee continued up the road.
‘Just keep walking,’ Mouse had said, clutching Lee’s arm. ‘It’s not worth it.’ Shame and fear sent blood to his round cheeks and goggled his eyes. Lee’s mouth hung open and he could see her mind whirring. The bankers’ laughter still reached them through the warm summer air. Suddenly, her mouth set in a hard line, Lee had ripped her arm from Mouse’s grip, turned, and started running back down the road towards the bankers, rummaging through her handbag as she went. The one who had slapped her, his thinning hair gleaming in the early evening sunshine, looked bemused at the sight of the madly rushing girl, her blonde hair flying out behind her like smoke from the fire of her rage.
As she reached the banker, her pace unchecked, he half-raised his arms to fend her off, an uncertain smile on his lips. At the last minute before impact, Lee leapt into the air, at the same time drawing something out of her handbag with her right hand and plunging it into the banker’s neck. Mouse started running towards them, his heart thumping. The banker sat down heavily as Lee rolled away from him, picked herself up, and turned to look at Mouse, a triumphant grin stretched across her face. The second banker was bent over his friend, slowly drawing what Mouse could now see was a black and yellow Staedtler pencil out of the knot of muscle that ran between the banker’s neck and his shoulder. A thin plume of blood darkened his white collar. The two men, one crouching, twirling the pencil in his fingers, the other leaning back and breathing heavily, looked at Lee as she walked away from them, awe in their eyes.
‘Of course I remember,’ Mouse said, taking his signet ring off and spinning it on the table. ‘How could I forget?’
‘Well, when I was running towards them, all I could think of was Judith slaying Holofernes. How none of the men around her would protect her, and so she had to become a hero herself.’ She looked at him pointedly, and he felt again the shame of that evening when she had expected him to protect her and he had only felt how plump and childlike his body was next to those brawny bankers. ‘And while not all of the women I study are as physically heroic as Judith, they do show you how to act in the world. That enduring can be a heroic act in itself.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Mouse said. Lee hugged him towards her, her voice softer now.
‘I’ve got my demons at the moment. I need you to help me fight them. If the Retreat goes well, I’m sure it’ll pull me out of this slump. It has to. Otherwise, I don’t know what I’ll do.’
They finished their drinks, waved to Philip and Maki who were still talking at the bar, and walked out into the cold night. Mouse escorted her to her bicycle and then strolled home, up through Holland Park and past the tree-hushed squares of Notting Hill.
The boat rocked him slowly to sleep that night as he lay with the Retreat bright in his mind. He pictured Lee running laughing ahead of him, saw David standing above him and looking down with pride. There was a sudden stab of guilt as he recalled the massage earlier, but then he remembered standing in the church at the last Retreat and hearing t
he heavenly chanting of the Course members, the tongues and the tears and the happy loss of control. Mouse slept as the moon passed through the sky, its reflection crossing the water of the canal. The boat sighed as a breeze whipped up early in the morning and then dropped again, leaving the water very clear and still in the first brightness of dawn.
Part Two
The Retreat
One
Marcus parked on the crest of the bridge and looked down the canal. To the right the horse chestnuts of Kensal Green Cemetery trembled in the breeze. The graveyard’s wall was crumbling and Marcus could see through a gap to the rising ground which stretched up from the shrunken tombstones of the children’s garden to the vast mausoleums of colonial grandees. Marcus occasionally came up to visit Mouse on Sundays in summer, when they would sit and drink cans of cider on the roof of the boat and then wander through the cemetery inventing stories for the dead. Foxes would leap surprised from undergrowth as they passed, woodpeckers sweeping in bouncing flight over their heads. Now Marcus could see Mouse making his way up the towpath pulling his old suitcase with one hand, holding his snare drum and high-hat over his shoulder with the other.
Abby was trying to get the car’s radio to work. A long blare of static came from the speakers. Lee sat in the back pressing her temples with her fingers, taking controlled breaths. She had cut her hair very short the previous night. She told Marcus and Abby how she had been suddenly infuriated by the long blonde hair and had cut it herself in the bathroom sink. Jagged edges stuck up on top of her head; Marcus thought she looked like an adolescent boy. The shortness of her hair made her blue-green eyes and angular cheekbones seem unearthly and disturbing, shorn of the softening frame of her long hair. Lee’s neck, where she had cut the hair in a severe line at the back, was as slick and white as a scar.
Marcus was impatient to be on the road, to head westwards and shake free of the grim city. He leapt from the car when Mouse appeared on the pavement and squeezed the suitcase and drum into the boot. Mouse climbed in beside Lee, lifting Marcus’s guitar onto his lap.