London When it Rains

by C. Sean McGee

  “Her solution was to have a threesome.”

  By now, half the table was listening. Charisma wanted to be she couldn’t on account of how far she stood, and how quietly they spoke. Her bowl of soup sat beside her on the floor. It was only half eaten. Clearly frazzled, Charisma tapped quickly and quite aggressively on the side of her left hand saying to herself; “Even though I am excluded from the group, I completely accept…”

  She almost burst into tears. She’d never been excluded from anything, not here at least, not in her community. She hadn’t felt this rejected in years. Immediately thoughts rushed to the surface, thoughts and feelings that were supposed to have been dealt with – that should have been left behind. All of her inadequacies rose to the surface and in an instant, she remembered all those silly and embarrassing things she had done and even the worse things that she had said, and all those things she would have done differently were she given an edit or a do-over to her life. And she didn’t remember them as much as she did repeat them, over and over in her head. And as such, she had no recourse but to tap harder and harder, and faster and faster. “Even though I am excluded from the group,” she said, loud enough to drown out the chorus of shame in her head. “I completely accept myself and how I feel at this moment because I know that even though there isn’t a place for me, I am still super-duper awesome.”

  She chanted this over and over again. As she chanted – which was more akin to defensive shouting – she tapped wildly on the side of her hand, then on her forehead, then on each side of her eyes, then on the top of her lip, on her clavicles and finally, she tapped stern and so damn fast under each armpit looking like some deranged and frightened, flightless bird.

  “I know what you’re thinking,’ said Greg. If tone had a colour, his would be amber. It would warn his avid listeners to slow down and be cautious for what he had to say would be the complete contrary to what he was expected to say.

  The Old Man loved amber. It reminded him of car crashes. It was the colour that immediately proceeded blue and red. Amber was always a quiet colour.

  “I mean what guy wouldn’t be thrilled? If you asked me this, fifteen years ago, when I was single I would say ‘Sure, why stop at three?’ But here’s the thing, you can’t just do something like that and not expect it to change you – not expect it to change your marriage. Fantasies are fantasies for a reason. You’re not supposed to go chasing them. You’re supposed to do normal shit. I mean, what happens when everyone cums? Worse yet, what if it’s a ploy, you know? I say ‘fuck yeah’ let’s do it and it’s just a test to see if I’m unfaithful or I wanna fuck someone else, and if she’s gonna pull that ‘you don’t find me attractive’ bullshit, you know?”

  He looked around the table. Surprisingly, nobody had an answer.

  “And what if we get a girlfriend? What if she falls in love with her? And what if the girl falls in love with me? How the hell am I supposed to manage that? Do we only have sex in threes? Do we take turns doing one on one? Should I feel guilty when it’s my turn? Should I fake it? And what if she is a lesbian you know? And I can’t fuck her. Or if she does, just to please Hillary, but she making faces while I’m doing it and she’s not into it. If she’s bi then maybe, but Hillary’s looking at these girls who are full blown lesbian, and they don’t want dick. Think about it, we bring this girl into our bed and then she starts working her way between me and my wife and before you know I’m being pushed out completely. They’re going to the cinema together and they’re showering together. They’re now going organic because that’s what she likes and Hillary’s even drinking wine now, even though she can’t stand it. And pretty soon it’s them sleeping together and me, tucked up on the other end of the bed with the cat. And now they’re in love and I’m just some sad fuck whose wife has gone gay and left him.”

  “I’m sorry,” said a nun sitting opposite. “Did this all just happen or…. I’m a bit lost.”

  There was a consensus of sorts. The table all nodded, looking just as confused.

  “This is what could happen, you know? What if? There’s that – her becoming a lesbian, and then there’s the other scenario, the one that could either be awesome like when we do have our sexy, passionate sex; or it could be horrible – full of instant shame and regret the second we all cum, like every time I masturbate.”

  The nun nodded. The others did so too, but vaguely as if they agreed but didn’t quite understand. It was more of a moral support than a taking of any one particular side. As for the nun, though, Greg may as well having been saying the weather was hot and that the bugs were biting. If she nodded any harder, her head would pop off.

  “And that’s why we’re here. Supposedly anything goes. Get away from the city. Get off the grid. Get back to the wild oats of nature. Find your inner light. Manifest your blah, blah, bloody blah. I smell terrible – like some rancid old boot. We all do. I’m constantly hungry. The ayahuascan is giving me heartburn and diarrhoea. Not to mention the purging classes. Who the hell drinks pure nicotine? I’m pretty sure I’m a smoker now, so that sucks. I’ve had a fever eight times now from these bloody mosquitos and the rash in my crotch won’t disappear. Oh, and did I mention that I have to shit in the woods? What the hell? You know, I haven’t even bathed in a month now because I’m sick of peeling leeches off afterwards. Then there’s the whole lesbian thing. The only woman here pretty enough to fuck is already pregnant. No offence.”

  “None taken.”

  “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

  The Old Man loved the drama. This was a good high.

  “I suggested sleeping on different sides of the bed – something basic you know, but to rewire the head. Sleep with no clothes on; maybe dress up more at home – not just at the supermarket. I miss my bed. I miss not having to distill water. I miss my toilet. I’m not a cat. I don’t want to have to bury my shit. And nobody really says anything but let’s be real guys,” he said, now inviting the whole food hut into his discussion.

  At this stage, his words were like a freshly pricked syringe, and as for his misery, The Old Man could taste it on the back of his throat. It was like warm heroin. The more Greg talked the less pain The Old Man could feel. The Old Man’s constant and buggering itch was buried neath the numbing sorrow of Greg’s shitty existence.

  “Seriously,” said Greg, sounding like a concerned and outspoken investor. “How many people here have stepped in someone else’s shit?”

  His hand in the air made one, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t happened before.

  “When’s the next bus Charisma?”

  She couldn’t hear. She was locked in her own internal battled. She wasn’t so much tapping anymore as much as she was, thumping her pressure points with the ball of her hand. By now, her mantra had taken a neurotic and somewhat precarious tone. “Even though I wasn’t as popular as everyone else; and even though my shoulders were too wide and I couldn’t wear dresses; even though everyone sucks and everything is stupid; and even though nobody respects me and nobody listens to me and nobody takes me seriously…”

  She stopped beating her hand against the wall. It was red and on near bleeding.

  “I completely accept myself and how I feel at this moment because I know that my interpretations of people’s interpretations of me are not how I interpret myself, and thus, regardless of my past life in the city, and the one where in London where I was a prostitute and I was murdered, I am still super-duper awesome.”

  “I don’t give a shit,” said Greg. “I’m on the next bus out of this whack hole. Get back to civilisation.”

  The Nun laughed.

  “Is that funny?”

  “You haven’t heard?” said The Nun.

  “Heard what?”

  “Everything has gone to shit,” said The Girl interjecting.

  “What do you mean?”

  “There may not be much to go back to.”

  Greg looked distraught. The Girl and The Nun took pity on him – their looks said so. T
he Old Man, however, looked like he had eaten an entire pig. He looked as if he had gone through a year’s supply of weed and methadone in one gluttonous hit. He looked sick from all the misery he had ingested, but oh did he look pleased. While the rest wore frowns and crooked grimaces, The Old Man was boasting a terrific grin.

  “Excuse me, who’s in charge here?”

  The mood was interrupted by a belligerent man in a purple dress and robe.

  “I was told there would be a school,” said The Cardinal.

  Charisma stopped her tapping, and a smile washed over her face once more.

  “Sure, yes, wow, awesome. Yes, we have a school.”

  “Where's the children then? I haven’t seen any kids since we got here.”

  “They’re inside,” said Charisma, spinning like a ballerina.

  The Cardinal followed her, scanning the room and looking irate.

  “Where? I don’t see them. I was told there would be children.”

  “But there are, inside each and every one of us is a child longing to be held.”

  “Yes, but I was told there would be real children. The kind with little hands and little feet. What the hell am I supposed to do with no children? I was promised a school and I was promised lambs.”

  “The school is for us, to teach our inner children about love and light and interdimensional harmony.”

  “I was promised, kids.”

  “Well, I don’t know what to say. You were promised wrong.”

  Her smile was replaced with a heavy furrow in her brow.

  “Who did you speak to?” she asked.

  “The Leader said there would be a church. If there are no children then all of this has been a waste. Where am I supposed to plant my seed if not in the innocence of a child?”

  The Nun lowered her head.

  “He’s right,” she said. “The Leader said that our mission here was to spread the word of Jesus Christ, but if there are no children, then how can the message grow?”

  “You see here we have many messages. There are many paths to equanimity. There are many noble truths and they are all true, as long as one does not exclude the other. None are better or worse, but each has their own unique spin. No language is more right than another, but some can express in ways that others cannot. Though they may play different chords and sing in different keys, for the most part, they each describe, in their own way, all there is to this human experience. And a symphony cannot be played on one instrument alone. So there is harmony in all religions and all sciences, and all spiritualities co-existing and singing their song at the same time as long as there is someone, like me I suppose, who can conduct and direct their messages.”

  “Airy-fairy bullshit. Find me some kids.”

  The Girl tried to hide her belly. It was no good, though.

  “Well we have one brewing right here, don’t we sweetie?”

  The Cardinal looked at her.

  “Mam,” he said, bowing to her. “Not that child.”

  He sounded fearful and ominous. He looked like a whipped dog.

  The Girl shut her eyes.

  “I need children,” said The Cardinal, sounding cheery once more. It was a second later before he picked up on the group’s uncomfortable vibe. “For my work and uhh...For my work. They must be at least seven, and no older than eleven. And boys,” he said, sticking his head back in the door. “They best understand the way of the lord, boys do. So, boys, ok? Seven-year-old boys. I’ll be in the school.”

  The Girl looked at The Old Man.

  “There was nothing creepy about that?” said The Old Man.

  “Would you?” she asked, shaking her head.

  The Old Man smiled. He had never killed a man outside of an urge. He had never killed a man by request alone. This was all new. What a crazy world. Maybe this place wouldn’t be so bad after all.

  XXXII

  The Cardinal put up a momentous fight. Were The Old Man an amateur this might have gone any other way. It didn’t though. It went entirely as expected. But for a man of God, The Cardinal was filled with the usual dread that one would expect from a common secularist or even a goldfish for that matter. This wasn’t the same childish tantrum seconds before lights out. This wasn’t an end of the party come down. It seemed he just didn’t want to die – not out of a blatant want to rape a few more children, no, this went deeper.

  He felt no guilt and he had no remorse for the things that he had done, at least it looked that way. He made no apologies and he did not cry for redemption – though cry he did. And fear he did too.

  He bargained at first like any man would. He offered money – that which he didn’t have; and he offered power – that which was clearly out of his hands. He offered all the treasures that a lonely clergyman or a corrupt politician could not refuse. He offered the very ghastliness that the concept of redemption itself was built upon.

  But to each, The Old Man politely said, “No.”

  When his pleas to his executioner fell on deaf ears, The Cardinal pleaded to the woman who stood secretly in the shadows watching. He turned the entire of his attention to her. He begged on his knees to the love and forgiveness in her heart for she was a woman and she was blessed by God with the will and the strength to forgive the ill deeds and the misgivings of wayward men. He pleaded to her as a woman and then when that nary worked, he pleaded to her as a mother. Though his every instinct had him wish to use fear as leverage, he did not. He did not use eternal damnation against her. He did not bargain with the fear of God’s wrath. He merely looked into her eyes and spoke of how beautiful his own mother was, and how much he missed and adored her.

  It meant nothing.

  “Do you have hope?” asked The Old Man.

  When he was like this, it was hard to believe that he was all of ninety-two years. He was ferocious. His will was untenable. He had the grasp of a brown bear and the force and persistence of a devastating tsunami. He was a living, breathing act of God if such a thing were even real.

  The Cardinal shook his head violently. “No,” he said, crying.

  “Is there a Heaven?”

  “No,” cried The Cardinal.

  “Is there a God?”

  “No… I don’t know. No.”

  “What happens to the soul?”

  The Cardinal burst into hysterics.

  “What is the soul?” shouted The Old Man.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What is the soul?”

  “I don’t know, please, I don’t know.”

  “What is the soul?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What is it?”

  “I told you. I don’t know.”

  “What is it! What is it! What is it! What is it!”

  “There is no soul. There is no soul. There is no soul. There is no soul.”

  “Say it again! Say it!”

  “There is no soul,” he said, his voice getting softer and quieter until it was barely a whisper. “There is no soul. There is no soul. There is no…”

  The Old Man pressed his knee further into The Cardinal’s chest.

  “Is. There. A. Soul?” he said.

  “There’s no soul,” said The Cardinal. “There’s no soul.”

  “Is there a soul?”

  “No, there’s no soul.”

  “Is there a soul?”

  The Cardinal wept. It was as if he had conceded his throne.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe, probably not. I just…”

  “You just what?”

  “I…”

  “You just what?”

  “I’m a sick man.”

  He sounded spent – entirely exhausted. Were he in the treading water in the middle of the Pacific, this would be the point where - overcome with a moment of peace and acceptant - he would sink into the dark and murky ocean below.

  “Don’t stop.”

  “We all were. The whole organisation – for our whole history. It was never about God.”

  “
What was it about?”

  The Girl watched on, holding the round of her belly.

  “Boys,” said The Cardinal. “It was always just about the boys.”

  The Cardinal stared at The Girl once more. He stared firstly into her eyes. He didn’t look apologetic, but he was, maybe for the first time in his diabolical existence, awash with shame. He only looked in her eyes for a second, though, before they fell upon the child that she carried in her womb.

  The Girl felt his stare. She knew what it meant. She tried to block it. She moved her hands this way and that as if this might distract the very truth of his avid attention. But even if he were to die right at this second, she would know and it would curse her no less to not have heard the truth of the church’s existence. For it mattered little that the last remnant of an empire of rapists lay begging for his life before her. It meant nothing. She knew that and he knew that.

  “There is no God,” said The Cardinal. “And there is no Heaven above. I cannot account for the way that I feel or think or assume, and I am sure one day the great science will lift this veil, but I can tell you that there is no soul. I cannot speak on behalf of other spiritualities, but if even half of them had anything to gain as we did, then I can assure you that everything is an outright lie – a half guess at most; or a joke that went too far.”

  “I asked you,” said The Old Man, an inch from tearing out The Cardinal’s eyes. “Do you have hope?”

  The Cardinal stared once again at The Girl’s belly. He imagined the child growing within it and he thought - in that bare second – long and hard about the man that he would one day become. He knew that all it took for an inferno was an infinitesimal spark. He stared at her belly and imagined the child her womb.

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I do.”

  XXXIII