by Alex Preston
‘Is this where you’ve been living?’ Marcus asked, turning to his friend.
‘Do you want a drink?’ Mouse walked over and found a half-full bottle of wine. He pulled the cork out and poured it into plastic cups. ‘It was cold on the boat. The heating isn’t all that good. And I knew you’d come looking for me there.’
Marcus sipped the wine.
‘It’s amazing up here.’
Mouse walked over and opened a window. Snow was falling outside. They both stood and looked out over the roofs and down to the dome of St Paul’s. Mouse drew out a packet of cigarettes and offered one to Marcus.
‘You have to lean out, otherwise the smoke alarms get you.’
Marcus held up his hand. ‘I’m not smoking.’ He paused. ‘Abby is pregnant.’
Mouse turned to him with delighted eyes. ‘You’re joking. Sport, that’s grand. I’m so happy for you both.’
Marcus was touched by his friend’s joy. ‘I shouldn’t really tell anyone yet. You might have guessed that we’ve had some trouble before. But I’ve a good feeling about this one.’
Mouse put his arm around Marcus’s shoulder and blew a jet of smoke out of the window.
‘Have you got names yet?’
‘No, that would feel like jinxing it somehow.’
The snow began to fall more heavily. Mouse finished his cigarette and closed the window. The wind had picked up and moaned balefully as Mouse opened another bottle of wine. They sat on pillows with their backs against the wood-panelled wall. The light had dropped outside and Mouse switched on the desk lamp.
‘We’re going away for a while,’ Marcus said.
Mouse looked across at him.
‘Where?’ he asked.
‘David has asked Abby to stay on in New York. I’m going to go with her. Only for a year. Two at the most.’
Mouse’s face fell.
‘You’ll have the baby out there?’
Marcus nodded.
‘Oh. I was hoping . . . I suppose I can come out to visit.’
‘Of course you can. You can come whenever you want. You’ll be the godfather, of course.’
‘Of course.’ Mouse smiled. ‘When are you going?’
‘Straight after Christmas.’
‘Oh. That’s very soon.’ Mouse stared down at his hands. Marcus’s voice softened.
‘I just realised that we had to grow up. When Abby came back, she seemed changed, suddenly an adult. I’m going to be a father; I’m fed up with pretending I’m still a teenager. I want my kid to have a dad he can be proud of.’
‘You’re a Course leader. You’re a successful lawyer. I don’t understand.’
‘All of us, we’re in hiding, obsessed with our narrow little world. I’m not saying that going to America will change all of that, but at least it’ll change something.’
‘But what about me? What about us?’
‘Lee’s death has altered everything. Things can’t go back to how they were. David will find a new group of Course leaders, but The Revelations are finished.’
They drank the remains of the bottle of wine.
‘Listen, I’m going to have to get going. Abby, you know . . .’
‘I know. I understand.’ Mouse looked downcast for a moment, then smiled over at Marcus hopefully. ‘Will you stay for just one more drink? I have some vodka over here somewhere.’ He rose. ‘Here it is. Stay and toast the end of an era. Just while I have one last cigarette.’
Mouse filled both their glasses and walked over to the window. Darkness had fallen, but the lights that illuminated the tower blazed up into the night sky. The snow raged in the beams of light, whipped across their field of vision by the wind, swirling upwards and then exploding in all directions as it hit the building. Marcus watched flakes land at Mouse’s feet and disappear into the parquet floor. He crossed to stand behind his friend.
‘You know the story about the lights?’ Mouse was staring out into the blizzard, the cigarette held in his lips, his hands either side of the window frame.
‘During the blackout, Senate House was the only building illuminated in Bloomsbury. A beacon of light for the German bombers. They never switched these things off. But it wasn’t hit. Through the whole of the Blitz this enormous building stood here, like a middle finger raised to the Germans, and never once did they hit it. Bombs fell either side, they devastated the area up towards Euston and across Clerkenwell and Holborn, but never here.’
Mouse raised his glass.
‘Cheers, by the way. Anyway, after the war they found out that Hitler was planning to base the Third Reich in Britain in Senate House. I mean, it has the right feel about it, doesn’t it? The size of the place, the sense that it’ll be here in a thousand years when all the City skyscrapers have been burned to the ground. If Oswald Mosley had won power, he intended to move parliament here.’
Marcus finished his drink and placed the cup on the trestle table.
‘I really have to go now.’ It was almost seven o’clock.
‘Just . . . I need to speak to you.’ Mouse didn’t turn around, but drained his plastic cup and sent it spinning out into the snow. Marcus stood in the middle of the room, hands hanging at his sides, looking at his friend’s squat frame silhouetted against the white world outside.
‘I want to go to the police,’ Mouse said. ‘I want to hand myself in. Tell everyone exactly what happened. I just can’t stop thinking about Lee’s dad. I’m responsible for his hope, and it isn’t fair. Every time the telephone rings, every time there’s a knock on the door, part of him – maybe an increasingly small part of him as time passes, but part of him nonetheless – will think it’s her. He’s an amazing man. I always loved speaking to him whenever I went up there. He deserves better than this. We shouldn’t be covering this up.’
Marcus’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He ignored it, stood lost in thought for a moment. Mouse continued.
‘I’ve been thinking very hard about this. I almost called D.I. Farley last night. I don’t know what’ll happen to me, but it really doesn’t matter. I’d be fine in jail. I’d cosy up to some big gangster type, offer to soap him in the shower. I’d be grand.’
‘Here, give me one of those.’ Mouse passed him a cigarette. Marcus took a long drag and sighed as he let the smoke out through his nose. He pulled the chair out from under the trestle table and sat down.
‘But it’s more than that . . .’
‘Go on,’ said Marcus.
‘The Course used to be about making us better people. I used to believe that, despite the showiness and the money sloshing around, it was a genuinely good thing. But it has changed, you know? The Course has become a corporation. It’s bigger than Lee’s death, and that just can’t be right. Because that’s what David’s saying, isn’t it? That it isn’t worth jeopardising the American expansion for the sake of telling the truth about Lee. The Earl has turned David’s head. Because David is a good man. He would have done the right thing if this had happened a year ago. He wouldn’t have let us cover up Lee’s death.’
Marcus’s phone buzzed again. He answered it.
‘I’m sorry, Abby.’ He knew he sounded drunk. He made an effort not to slur his words. ‘I’m with Mouse. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Eat without me.’ He hung up.
‘Will you come with me to the police station? Will you help me through this? I’m pretty scared. I want to do the right thing, but it isn’t going to be easy.’
Mouse paused, walked over to find the vodka, and took a swig from the bottle. He passed it to Marcus. Marcus gulped, wiped his arm across his mouth and rocked back on the chair.
‘I’ve obviously been thinking about it, too,’ he said. ‘It’s weird, but I’ve changed so much over the past few weeks. I used to think I was in control of things. I always used to feel like I was the centre of the room, at the heart of things, but these days . . . everything seems so different. As if life is just rushing by. Like I’m on a train travelling very quickly and I lose sight of things flas
hing past, have to really concentrate to catch sight of the world. Things are just happening to me.’
Mouse turned to Marcus and looked at him. Marcus found it difficult to meet his friend’s eyes.
‘I agree with you about the Course and about David,’ said Marcus. ‘This whole American dream has given him visions of global domination. He thinks he’s going to be some flashy televangelist preaching to thousands in aircraft-hangar churches, beamed out on prime time to the homes of a million fawning fans.’
Marcus stood, took a last drag on his cigarette and flicked it out into the snow.
‘But the Course is a force for good. In this fucked-up world you have to think that getting people to believe in a mild, forgiving God is a good thing. We forget how much the Course has done for us. Imagine who you’d be without it. I’d be a monster, I’m sure. You have to realise that David is right. Letting people know about Lee will destroy the Course. To have a story like this break would wreck it.
‘I think about Abby, too. I’ve been a shit husband. I realise that. And I need to try to make things up to her. I’m going to do everything I can for this baby, for her, for the Course. I’m not trying to change your mind. Or rather, I’m just trying to make you see that if you tell the police it’s going to have huge repercussions.’
‘But isn’t it the right thing to do?’
‘I don’t think anything is as simple as that. I don’t think there’s such a thing as right and wrong any more.’
‘Do you think Abby would be terribly hurt?’
‘Of course. I worry . . . I worry about the baby. What the shock would do to her, to the baby.’
‘Oh, Jesus, you can’t use that. You can’t use that against me.’
‘It’s something that I think about, of course it is.’
‘What will you do if I do tell them?’
‘I can’t stop you.’
‘But you won’t come with me.’
‘I don’t know that I can.’
‘Please?’
Mouse’s breath misted in the air blown in from the window. Marcus was staring out at the snow.
‘I didn’t know what to do,’ Marcus said. ‘I was totally lost. This move, it gives me a second chance. I know I should help you, Mouse, but I can’t. I’m putting everything in God’s hands. I think, perhaps, it’s God who has been directing things, that’s why I feel like I’ve lost control. I’ve decided to embrace that, to let Him lead me from here on.’
‘That’s really dumb. You can’t mean it?’
‘I just don’t know what else to say. I’m so sorry.’
Marcus put his arms around Mouse and they stood there for a few minutes. Marcus reached over and gently pulled the window closed. There was a line of white snow across the diagonal Vs of the wooden floor.
‘I have to go.’
Mouse’s mouth hung open. His eyes, which had been wide and questioning, suddenly narrowed.
‘OK. I understand. Let me show you out.’
They walked down the long flight of stairs together in silence. Mouse went first, breathing heavily, slowing as they descended. Finally, they stood by the turnstiles in the yellowish glow of the library lights. Mouse’s eyes were red.
‘Goodbye, sport,’ he said. ‘Give my love to Abby.’
Marcus reached out to hug his friend again, but Mouse pulled away.
‘Tell her I hope the birth . . . that everything goes well for her.’
Marcus felt in his pocket.
‘I have something for you.’
He dropped the pair of earrings, one turquoise, one blue, into his friend’s hand. Mouse’s eyes filled with tears.
‘Thank you,’ he said, his voice breaking.
Marcus stepped into the lift.
‘I’m sorry.’
Mouse shook his head, tears streaming from his bright, buoyant eyes.
‘Bye, Mouse.’
Mouse stood at the lift doors until they closed, then Marcus rode downwards in the wheezing, clanging contraption. Outside, the snow had begun to drift in Russell Square. Marcus hailed a taxi and made his way back to the flat.
When he got inside, Abby was sitting cross-legged on the bed reading a book about child-rearing, one of a large pile that sat on the dresser in their room. Marcus brushed his teeth and lay alongside her. She closed the book and took his head in her lap, bending down to kiss him.
‘You found Mouse,’ she said.
‘Mmm. He was at the library.’ Marcus stared up at her.
‘How is he?’
‘He’s OK. He’ll be fine.’
‘D’you think he’ll come back to the Course?’
‘I don’t know. I think maybe he will. But I’m so tired. Can we go to sleep?’
‘Of course. We can talk tomorrow.’
She reached over, turned out the light and stretched out with her back to him. Soon she was snoring. Marcus lay in the darkness and heard, echoing through his mind, the wail of a baby, the howling of the wind in the library and the sound of Lee picking out the ‘Promenade’ from Pictures at an Exhibition on her piano. Above all the other sounds, and yet somehow containing them, he heard the high wailing beauty of the tongues.
Epilogue
Spring
Abby walked down the main street of the quiet university town. Students were streaming out of classrooms and heading back to their dorms. Some made their way through the gates and across the main road to the shops. It was a balmy March day. The winter had been a cruel one, much colder than she was used to at home, but the past few weeks had been mild. She was growing to like these North-Eastern university towns: Princeton, New Haven, Cambridge, Ithaca. They were manageable, even to a foreigner. She smiled as a man stood aside to let her pass along the narrow pavement. She wondered if he could tell she was pregnant. She was at the annoying stage where she might be mistaken for merely fat.
She stepped into a bar on the main street. It was across the road from the town’s famous record exchange, a white brick building that managed to attract a constant stream of pale, acne-scarred students despite the increasing obsolescence of its wares. The bar was almost empty. She bought herself a glass of wine and then sat at the table in the window, overlooking the university’s main quadrangle. A huge Henry Moore sculpture stood, bright with verdigris, in the centre. The bartender looked over at her. She put her handbag in her lap to hide her bump. She knew what Americans thought about drinking during pregnancy. But she deserved a little celebration. The past few weeks had been marvellous.
She had called her mother the night before and told her that she would be staying for the rest of the year, would be having the baby in New York. Her mother, unusually emotional, had started to cry. Abby’s middle sister Susie had moved back home, after finally divorcing the maths teacher. Abby could hear her shouting at the children in the background.
‘And you really think this is what you went to that wonderful university for,’ her mother was saying. ‘To run a cult thousands of miles away from your family?’
Abby had made vague, soothing sounds and hung up. She rarely spoke to her mother any more. Sally and David were her new parents. And she knew that they were very proud of her. She took a gulp of wine.
A group of students came in. She realised that they had been at the meeting earlier. The girls were exquisite-looking: shimmering with health, their hair bounced as they walked. The young men were tall and wore pastel-coloured shirts tucked into their chinos. They sat at a table at the other end of the bar and Abby had to strain her ears to make out what they were saying.
‘It’s exactly what I’ve been waiting for. Almost all my life, it feels like.’
‘The whole thing was so chic. Because that’s what I always hated about going to church with my family. All the unattractive people there.’
‘And the music is so great. I’ve already downloaded some of the podcasts. A bit of talking, some music. I listen to it on the way to class. Oh, hey, look, there’s Abby. Come and join us, Abby.’
&nb
sp; Abby left her half-drunk glass of wine on the table and walked over to the group. She smiled down at them.
‘Can I get you guys a drink?’
‘No. Let us get you one. It’s Ben’s turn to buy. What would you like?’
‘Um . . . Could I have a Diet Coke?’
They sat and talked for an hour. A huge bowl of nachos appeared in the centre of the table. Abby pulled out long strings of cheese, negotiating them carefully into her mouth. She enjoyed spending time with these young, burnished Americans. They had none of the scepticism of their English peers.
‘I’m going out to California next week,’ Abby told them. ‘I’ve never been before. I’m terribly excited.’
‘Oh, you’ll love it. Where are you going?’
‘San Francisco and LA. We’re doing a thing in LA with a bunch of Hollywood actors. The founder of the Course was out there last month and there seemed to be such excitement about it. I suppose a drive to make religion stylish was bound to go down well out there.’
‘I’ve got some friends at Berkeley who’d love to come along. Should I let them know about it?’
‘Sure. Please do tell as many people as you can about the Course. This is just the beginning. It’s really marvellous to be there at the beginning of something. David Nightingale, the founder of the Course, is making a huge speech in London today. Some terribly powerful church leaders from over here have flown out to watch him. With their support, the Course is going to simply explode in the US.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I’m afraid I must go and catch my train. I have to be in New York tonight. But here’s my card. Send me an email if you’d like to become campus representatives for the Course. We need as many people to spread the word as possible.’
She strolled downhill towards the train station. The university buildings were the colour of toast. Ivy grew up the wall beside her. On the other side of the road was a vast chapel built by a private-equity billionaire. It was here that she had spoken to the students earlier. Each time she came to one of these events she expected to be greeted by an empty hall, by spiky atheists intent on disrupting the meeting. But the rooms were always full. To see so many hopeful, upturned young faces, it gave her hope herself.