“I need to be needed by someone who chooses to need me. It's about choice, I guess. I want you to choose me.”
“We want to have choice and purpose and meaning and be loved,” you said. “Why have all these yearnings if they're not for something?”
“Biology, baby,” I said, a little too nonchalantly. “It's all about making us the sort of creatures that have taken over the planet and shaped the world to the way we've wanted. Who can make frickin' cyborgs!”
“Biology! Evolution!” You spat the words at me. “It's a piss-poor” (I'd never heard you say 'piss-poor') “way of saying that human beings – and sometimes I'm glad I'm not one – are too proud and arrogant to admit they know so very little about the universe beyond their own backwater solar system. Is it not possible,” you asked, “in all the unknown infinity of existence that things like souls and God exist? Isn't it possible that inter-dimensional, time-travelling pink bunny rabbits exist?”
Gardner chuckled and repeated your bunny rabbit phrase back to himself.
You continued. “And, if maybe they can exist, then isn't it worth following incredible things that I think I really can sense and see and feel? And if calling them 'God's work' helps me to do that, then isn't that okay for now? Remember, Tim, I don't have forever to play about with this stuff. A couple more years and that's it for me.”
Rupert Gardner roared with approval. “That's the stuff!” he exclaimed loudly. “This is why I love hanging out with religious people, it's all about the discussions.” He shook his head, a satisfied grin beaming across the old man's face. “Great, great discussions.”
****
We came to a field in Dunchideock, the next village over from Ide, still several miles from the moors and well within your hab zone. The going had got tough and the old 4x4 had come into its own as we made our way along muddy lanes where the tracks had been worn down to deep crevices; many a modern, hydrogen-powered hatchback would have bottomed out there, with their characteristically low ride height.
Rupert Gardner stopped on the lane, near the field's rusty metal gate. Trees full of returning leaves formed a virtual canopy over the lane but, looking towards the field, I could see how it was still a nice day. The brilliant blue was fading a little, maybe with a few wisps of hazy clouds floating over. It was bright enough, however, and warm for the time of year.
Gardner turned to look at us, his expression serious. “Okay, this is confession time. There are one or two things I must tell you both before we go any further. And, if you so decide, I will take you straight back home again.”
Here we go, I thought. But whatever I had been expecting to be the next words out of his mouth, I hadn't been expecting to hear what came next.
“The AGC has been shut down,” he said. “I don't really understand why, but isn't that always the point? The less reason they give us the more we are supposed to marvel in Big Brother's astonishing authority to shape the world in whatever way 'they' want. It could really be anything or nothing, but we've attracted the wrong attention for whatever reason and that's all that matters.”
I was genuinely shocked and even a little sorry, yet the sympathetic platitudes that came out of my mouth at that point did not sound genuine to my own ears at all, and I quickly stopped trying to make them.
You looked shell-shocked, saying nothing at first. And then all you said was, “What if it was me?”
Gardner reached out and touched your arm then. I realised that he had beaten me to this simple gesture of comfort, that I should have thought about the small measure of strength my hand on your arm might have brought you right then.
“No, no, Mina!” he said. “You must not think that!”
“But what if CyberG has been tracking me?” I mean, I brought them all the way out to Drewsteignton, didn't I?” You bunched your fists, looked almost about to strike yourself for a moment, but didn't. “Stupid! STUPID!” you cried.
“No!” Gardner called more sharply this time. “You have no way of knowing this. Groups like ours are shut down all the time – more and more so with each passing year.
“But, more importantly, you must not feel guilty right now. Not now of all times, because I have something to ask you, and if you say 'yes' then it can only be out of choice, not guilt. Do you understand, Mina?”
Tears were streaming down your eyes; you didn't look like you appreciated this point of view, but you nodded anyway.
“The rest of the group are in a grove of trees at the far side of this field.” We couldn't see them then, the field rose away as a hill before us and looked like it fell away again after a hundred metres or so. “They're waiting for us – for you, if you are willing to come. One last meeting, but this time more of an act of worship.
“In the beginning, God's Church existed only in the hearts of Christ's followers – the churches, the grand cathedrals like the one in the city complex only came later. And, as glorious as they are, they are only, at the end of the day, buildings. With our weekly meetings in community centres and people's homes we have become again more like the early church – 'guerilla' worshippers finding our spirituality wherever we stop, wherever we gather together. So we want to gather together one last time, under God's sky and amongst God's creations... With you, maybe God's greatest creation so far.”
* * *
Chapter 18
I knew you would say 'yes'. And why not, huh? Like you said, you were on a very limited clock – more limited, even, than we realised then – and you didn't have time to say 'no' to very much. Of course saying 'no' and ultimately running out of time to say 'yes' is a very human trait, I think.
For once I didn't protest, inwardly or outwardly; somehow I knew this had to happen.
We followed Rupert Gardner down to where the other's waited in a grove of old-looking trees. I mean, most trees look pretty old, I guess. I wish now that I knew what type they were. The others were there, some dressed normally, some dressed in weird robes not too unlike the one that you had set fire to earlier that morning. I'm not quite sure why, but the robes really freak me out. Maybe it’s some association with those negative images of religion that Gardner had been going on about in the car; maybe it’s just a symbol of something I don't understand, and that's enough to earn my fear and dislike. Either way, the robes freak me out.
I'm not really sure how to describe what took place in that grove; I expect you could do a much better job of it than me, but this is my story, so tough. It all kind of revolved around the trees, which stood roughly circular around the small clearing we used, not unlike the rings of standing stones at places like Stonehenge. I went there once with my parents when I was young and there is power in those stones. Whether that power lies simply in their appearance or in the significance that everyone gives them, I don't know, but seeing them sticks with you afterwards. I've never been a spiritual man, as our little story illustrates, but those stones have brought me closer than anything else to such feelings.
It was a bit like this in our little grove. Except that maybe our relationship with those trees was two way. They stood guard over our little circle, protected us as we chanted and prayed and danced and drank and... dreamed, maybe. And we put all of this back into the trees. So that they might grow to guard us better and guard those who came after us...
But they couldn't guard us that day, not from the policemen coming for us.
I'm not sure what I saw and felt in that field, in that grove of trees on that sunny morning. I think a small part of me had expected magic, after what I had thought I had seen in our lounge that morning and what Gardner had said about you. But nothing shone or sparkled, nothing floated, no trees came to life or anything else definitive at all.
Except maybe a small feeling of connectedness inside. To you, to the others, to that place and those trees. Is that what you feel...?
Anyway... then, like I said, the police came.
It was a bit like the end of this movie I saw once, a really old film by a bunch of comedian
s called 'Monty Python'. They made a film about King Arthur questing for the Holy Grail, and the whole thing was a bit of a farce – for instance, instead of riding a horse, King Arthur pranced around, pretending to be on a horse, with a servant banging two coconut halves together to make the sound of the hooves.
The film climaxes in a big medieval-style battle, but then suddenly – pulling the world abruptly out of its medieval setting – an army of police in riot gear and with horses and so on turn up and start arresting people, including King Arthur and his knights, dragging them off and shoving them into the back of police cars, like they've been involved in a Saturday night pub brawl.
It reminded me of that, our drama at the edge of that field. On a smaller scale, yes, but somehow just as absurd, these people dressed as if from another time being dragged off by policemen, like common criminals. Not that funny at the time, maybe not that funny at all, but maybe there's a poignancy in the fact that it should remind me of something so absurd.
Yes, I wish I had shown you that film too. Maybe I'll see if I can get hold of a copy.
****
We haven't, of course, seen Rupert Gardner or any of the others since that day. I don't know why the police came; but I know that you blame yourself for that. In my mind I'm not sure that it matters. It was the AGC's last 'hurrah' anyway. Maybe it's best to go out with a police raid. I can see now the absurdity of it all. What harm did they really think we were doing in that little corner of a field in the middle of nowhere? Who were we corrupting out there?
Lessons learned about judging these things, maybe a little too late. That's me all over!
I'm not really sure quite how all this affected you at the time, but either way it drove us closer together. And maybe that would have been an okay place to end my story. But if that was the case, I might have been telling this story in another year and a half, two years’ time. And I'm not.
I'm fucking-well not.
No... no, baby! I don't blame you. How could I blame you?
...Yes, yes you did it. But you did it because you are you, and that is what you were bound to do.
****
It was about three weeks later and we were happy somehow. Despite the disappointments of the AGC, it turned out that no one got prosecuted and there was none of the expected contact from CyberG; you were able to get on with your worship in your own way. The great oak tree in the park (yes, I know the species of that one, about the only tree species I would probably ever recognise) became your new best friend, and you went down to commune with it most evenings. I began to think that a dog might be a good idea, then you wouldn't look quite so odd. I had finally learned, however, not to care too much about what people thought.
I asked you once why that tree was so important to you, and you said only that its roots spread as deeply into the ground as its branches did into the sky. It reminded me of a history programme I had once seen about ancient worship, and the things that these old tribes constructed to do their worshipping. There was this tree buried upside down at the edge of a beach somewhere, and the historian talked about connecting three realms together, the realm above, the realm below and 'middle earth', the realm inhabited by us. It sounded like Gardner's 'Heaven' above and 'Hell' below. And it appears to me that a desire to transcend these worlds is a natural thing. What greater transcendence is there, for instance, than the movement between life and death?
I know, I almost sounded spiritual there, didn't I?
But then one evening came when you rushed in from your visit to the tree all upset and flustered, a piece of paper gripped in your hand. You shook it at me mutely and I grabbed it off of you. It was a notice stating that the tree was due to be felled ahead of a three year project to bring St Thomas within the High Street Complex.
“How can they do it, Tim?” you finally managed to ask me. “I've seen the High Street Complex, nothing ever flows there.”
“Nothing?” I replied. I had never seen anything of what you spoke and still was not sure how much might be real or how much in your head. I loved you and respected you, but a heart that has believed one thing for a lifetime is not so easily changed, however much the mind might not want it to be. Or is that the other way round, I'm never really sure?
All the same, the idea of none of the energy that you saw flowing within the High Street Complex disturbed me. “But... how?”
“I don't know,” you said. I don't know what they are making our world from. “It's like they are making it from nothing. Everything is being made into nothing.”
****
The very next day we took our complaint to the council planning office, but got no luck there. So instead we started a local campaign to save the tree and our park. Although we got a few supporters, I think that most people in St Thomas were scared of raising even the tiniest voice against anything to do with the impending arrival of the High Street Complex. Exeter is divided by a river and so much of its commercial and administrative heart has always lain over on its eastern side. Over there the complex had dribbled and spilt and expanded like a creeping lava flow, penned in by the added expense of crossing the river. The part of the city west of the river had suffered, and had been declining for years as a result. The planned complex expansion was massive and rapid, it would do a lot to help that half of the city gain ground against all the businesses and prosperity in the east. Really, who cared about a fucking tree?
Yes, bless your amazing heart. You did.
You wrote letter after letter, expressed so eloquently that if they could save an ancient cathedral, then they could save an ancient tree. You explained how a tree has as much spiritual significance as an old stone building, how much more sacred the tiniest living thing can be, how precious. They delayed the date a couple of times – and although I'd like to think you had something to do with that, it is also true that no public building project, even the cutting down of a tree, ever actually happens on the originally planned date.
****
“They're here, Tim!” you called, your voice a mixture of stress and excitement. It was almost summer, but the day was wintry one, blowing cold northerly wind and regularly dropping fine, soaking rain showers, so we grabbed our coats, along with our protest signs and went to face the workmen.
Amazingly, we weren't the only ones there, an elderly gentleman called Tony also joined us, albeit without a sign. We tried to stand between the men and the tree and, after a few gentle attempt to persuade us to move, they called the police. It wasn't, after all, their job to manhandle the public.
The police took a while to arrive, and we began to hope that they might give up as the afternoon was wearing on. But then the two officers did arrive, one of whom had no patience with our little protest.
“Come on,” he barked, “don't be stupid. Let these men do their job!”
“But their job is murder!” you retorted. “Hold old are you?”
The policeman baulked at your question. “None of your business!”
So you turned to the lead workman instead. “What about you?”
The man looked mildly amused. He was, after all, on the clock. “Thirty-two,” he answered.
“So this tree is more than ten times your age,” you said. “Imagine all it has seen.”
“It doesn't have eyes!” the policeman scoffed.
“Or all the people who have seen it,” you continued, undeterred. “Imagine all the people who have sheltered under it. Or those who have climbed it or had a picnic by it. All those people from Exeter, all those souls who remember this tree. Maybe some guy first kissed his wife under this tree, then went off to die in World War I. Maybe that kiss under this tree was the last thing he remembered, as he died in a field somewhere in France.
“Then think of all the animals that live on and under this tree. The birds that nest, the things that burrow undern-”
“You can't stop progress!” the policeman barked again. Barking was his thing.
“What the hell does that even mean?” you
exclaimed and I voiced my agreement. Progress, what a stupid word. All it really means is moving forward, and everything moves forward through time. Even the oak tree, slowly growing and expanding its rings. I work in the 'Technology Industry', yet I've always hated the knee-jerk assumption that things are better merely because we label them as 'progress'.
“Right, what's your name, miss?” The policeman was bored of the conversation already and probably wanted to find out if Big Brother had enough of a file on us to give him licence to just arrest us and get us out of the way.
“Mina 'Go Fuck Yourself' McNamee,” you replied. I loved you so much for that. Somehow I had finally lost all my inhibitions, my fear of the law, my fear of the consequences for you. Maybe that last one was a bit foolish in retrospect.
He took all three of our names and moved away a little to call them in. What he said next was, of course, what caused everything else to happen. In a way, that pig-nosed idiot's prejudice is what has landed us here now. I kind of hate that; but, in another way, maybe from the moment we stepped out that afternoon, our fates were sealed.
“Stupid bitch is just a fucking skin job. Fuckin' sex bot, ain't she?”
They were stood thirty feet away and he said it to the other officer, but also very deliberately loud enough so we could hear it. And, to be honest, his attitude to you was clear when he got back over.
“Right, you lot out of the way, now!” He glared at you in particular, his voice twice the bark it was before, a study in impatience.
“No!” you screamed, and it was as if your voice filled my ears, even though the wind gusted noisily about us.
“That's it!” He made to grab you and I moved to stop him. The next moment, his partner had my hand up behind my back. Yeah, I know babe, I'm definitely not much of a fighter. I would say, 'I'm a lover, not a fighter,' but that too is debatable.
I heard you scream out again, and again it was as if your voice was inside my head. I heard such rage in it, such anguish, such frustration. “No!” you cried. “You leave us alone!”
A New Start Page 38