I’m very sorry, Oscar, for putting you through that silly ordeal the other night. For making you feel embarrassed. For hurting you. I’m deeply sorry for it all. I’m afraid I rather lost control of myself. I hope you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me. Oh please please please.
But that isn’t what I’ll say. I won’t insult your intelligence or your integrity with that kind of tripe. Because I know you don’t need an apology from me. What you need is my approval.
Iris tells me that your hand has more or less completely healed. I am tremendously glad about that, though I’m not in the least bit surprised. I had no doubt that it would be better by morning. The other night was probably an unusual experience for you, Oscar, but for me it was quite ordinary. You wouldn’t believe the extent of my capabilities, though perhaps you might permit me to show you one day.
I know what Iris thinks about me, and I’m really very glad that you’ve taken it upon yourself to help her. She has her reasons for trying to make it seem like I’m ill (most of them are quite worthy reasons, too). But, Oscar, I’m not ill (and even if I were, I certainly wouldn’t be stupid enough to write to you admitting it). So I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t pronounce me a lunatic just yet, because, contrary to what you thought were my cruel intentions the other night, I do actually like you. I find you interesting—much more than any of my sister’s former objets d’affection. There’s a depth to you that isn’t clear from the surface. I always find that an intriguing quality in a person.
In any case, I’d prefer it if you didn’t reply to this message. I’m not interested in having a pen pal. But what’s become very clear to me these last few weeks is how much my sister seems to like you. Really, she’s never talked about anyone as much as she talks about you. Just between us, I think she might be in danger of falling in love, and that’s certainly never happened before, not with any of the awful rugby types she tends to go for.
So, instead of an apology, I’d like to invite you for dinner with my parents on Thursday night. Iris will be there, naturally, and I’ll invite the others, too. It’ll probably be an enormous bother for you to come all the way out to Grantchester, but I’d be very happy if you did. The food is always good (my parents hire caterers). Dress smartly but don’t try too hard.
Yours madly (cough cough),
Eden B
FOUR
The Harmony of What Exists
Oscar watched the dark, distant meadows of Grantchester become a colourless blur in the passenger window. The dim headlights of Iris’s Saab shone down on the gravel, presenting only a narrow band of the road ahead, and it seemed as if the night was being projected on the windscreen—a corner of the world, right there, for them only. As he finished reading Eden’s email aloud to her, keeping his voice steady, Iris barely looked beyond the steering column to see what was approaching; she just turned the wheel left and right, and the road seemed to follow her. ‘And that’s everything he wrote? There wasn’t some PS you didn’t read?’
He folded up the printout. ‘See for yourself.’ He reached into the footwell behind Iris’s seat and slipped the email into her bag. ‘He’s on to you.’
‘On to us.’
‘Right.’
‘I can’t believe he said you needed his approval. Who does he think he is?’
‘I know.’
‘He’s so unbelievably arrogant. And what he said about me falling in love and rugby types—I don’t go for rugby types! I mean, really, that’s just plain devious. To presume that just because we’ve been—’ She broke off. Her mouth closed abruptly. The car slowed and she steered into a clearing, flanked by tall evergreens. ‘I should never have let you agree to this. Eden is one thing, I can handle him—but my parents? God, you’ll never want to see me again after this.’
‘It’ll be fine.’
‘It’s too soon for you to be meeting my parents. They’re the kind of people who scar you if you don’t know them very well. I hadn’t planned for this.’
‘Well, if I don’t make an effort with Eden, I won’t get him to open up to me. And isn’t that what you want? He might be less guarded tonight.’ He put his hand on her knee and she looked at him, soothed. ‘Compared to mine, your parents will seem like John and Yoko.’
She laughed, as if a bug had caught in the back of her throat. Then her face turned solemn. The light of the road flickered on her taut skin. ‘You don’t have to put yourself through this—not for me. Not if you don’t want to.’
He didn’t answer, and she seemed to accept this as a resignation. But his silence was for something else. There was another reason that he’d agreed to go to the dinner—something in that email, one simple line that rattled him every time he read it: There’s a depth to you that isn’t clear from the surface. He’d imagined that Dr Paulsen might offer a compliment like this one day, perhaps when they were discussing a book of poetry or going through the Review section of the newspaper together. But the words had come from Eden, and part of Oscar wanted to find out if they were genuine.
‘I should warn you about a few things,’ Iris said. ‘Shoes off at the door. If they offer you wine, don’t ask for white—they’ll think you’re a philistine. If my father offers you brandy after dinner, that’s a good sign, but you should politely say no, because it’s oh-so-expensive and he secretly hates wasting it on people.’ She paused. ‘Call my mother Mrs Bellwether—my parents don’t shirk pleasantries. Shake my dad’s hand firmly but not too firmly and make sure your palm isn’t sweaty. He thinks you can tell everything about a man by his handshake. What else …? Yes, right, this is very important. I don’t smoke. Never have, never will. Got it?’ He nodded back at her. Loose gravel snapped against the body of the Saab. She peered at him from the corner of her eye. ‘You look very handsome in that suit, by the way, or did I tell you that already?’
‘Actually, you didn’t. But I’m glad you like it.’ It was the only suit he owned, plain navy, single-breasted. He’d worn it to his interview at Cedarbrook three years ago, and to his grandfather’s funeral last February; it was a fraction tight across the chest now, but he could leave it unbuttoned. ‘And you look stunning, as always.’
She was wearing a long leather overcoat the colour of butter-cream, with saucerlike buttons done up to the top. Her hair was raked back and she had on tiny earrings, two little beads of gold. She was driving in stocking feet because she couldn’t work the pedals with her heels on. ‘I haven’t even shown you my dress yet.’
‘I don’t need to see it. I know how you’ll look.’
‘Don’t. You’re getting me all flushed.’
Ahead of them, the Bellwether house came into view. Oscar had to take a breath. It stood, wide and tall and flawlessly white, nestled in an acreage of countryside so verdant that it could almost be seen in the dark—not in clear detail, but simply as a presence, as a sway of grass beyond his sight, a motion of branches, a shimmer of water far away. Fallow farmland lay behind the canopy of the firs and pines that edged the driveway, and as the car surged forwards, the trees flashed by him like some flipbook animation.
He had never seen a house so well designed before. It was grand but not imposing, expensive but not tasteless, homely yet palatial. It was hinged at the middle by a large glass atrium, and the upstairs windows were set with cast-iron balconies, overlooking the immaculate lawns of the front garden and the straight line of the driveway. There was a circular fountain in the approach, babbling gently, and Iris brought the car around it in a slow turn, tyres crunching on the shingle. She stopped at the face of a double garage. The doors lifted automatically and she parked up beside two other cars: a Land Rover and a silver Alfa Romeo. He guessed that the Bellwethers’ garage had about the same square-footage as his parents’ terrace. It was as neat and organised as a show-home, all polished concrete and halogen bulbs. He could only imagine the amount of material his father could hoard in a place like this: enough timber cut-offs, aluminium joists, and salvaged kitchen cabinets to last a l
ifetime.
‘We’ll go in the front way,’ Iris said, ‘otherwise I’d have to take you through the kitchen and, God knows, my mother wouldn’t want you to see the caterers at work—spoils the illusion.’ Iris had a key, but she didn’t use it. Instead, she rang the bell and stood waiting with Oscar, holding his hand lightly. After a moment, the door was pulled back by a woman in a black uniform. She nodded and smiled, but said nothing, extending her palm to the atrium.
They went inside and the woman took their coats. Iris had on a filmy dress with a floral pattern that hung loosely from the ridges of her shoulders, and the fine bones of her clavicle stood out in the serene light. She was beautiful, Oscar thought, but not quite herself. He noticed the chandelier above them—an arrangement of icicle crystals, hanging together to form an abstract shape, like an elaborate baby mobile. A magnificent wooden staircase peeled downwards from the second storey, ending at the great woven tapestry under their feet.
‘Iggy, is that you out there?’ came a voice from an adjoining room.
‘Yes, Dad,’ Iris called back, ‘we’re both here.’
Her father emerged into the atrium, clutching a tiny glass of sherry. He was a lot shorter than Oscar had imagined. A horseshoe of grey hair was set around his bald crown and a few straggly wisps were jutting out where a fringe should be. His beard was ghost-white and neatly trimmed. He went straight to his daughter and gave her a gentle kiss on the forehead. Then he stood back, awaiting an introduction. Oscar dried his hand against the lining of his pocket.
‘Oh, right. Oscar Lowe, Theo Bellwether. And vice versa.’ Iris grinned, and gestured towards Oscar like he was the newest Bentley on the forecourt.
Her father held out his broad palm. ‘Hello there. So glad you could come.’ They shook hands thoroughly. ‘Can I get you both an aperitif?’ Theo lifted his glass and studied it under the light. ‘I must say, the sherry’s somewhat overtly dry tonight. I prefer something with a lighter touch, but still—can I?’
‘No, Dad, I’m driving.’
Theo flicked his eyes to Oscar expectantly.
‘No thank you, Mr Bellwether.’
‘I suppose I’m a bad salesman. Come inside, the pair of you. Everyone’s here already. We’ve been having an impossible discussion with Eden. You can both weigh in.’
Iris raised her eyes. ‘Oh, that’ll make a nice change.’
‘I’m afraid my son is quite unstoppable when he gets the wind in his sails,’ Theo said, walking across the atrium, his back towards the pair of them. ‘I keep telling him he should join the Debating Society but with all the other things he’s got going on, he just doesn’t have the time. Still, he’s inherited his father’s flair for the dialectical.’ He led them into an expensively arranged sitting room. It was decorated with matching cream settees and footstools, bespoke wall cabinets that held crystalware and ornamental plates, towering shelves that housed a vast collection of hardbacks, thick textbooks, innumerable encyclopaedias. The Bellwethers’ collection made Dr Paulsen’s seem like a book-stand at a jumble sale. Oscar wondered how many of them had actually been read.
The room was edged with a moody light, and angled lamps were glimmering softly above the paintings on the walls. ‘My wife would want me to point out the pictures,’ Theo said, stopping to check his watch, which he wore with the face on the underside of his wrist. ‘They’re new. She’s been collecting this young artist lately. Candice Feldman—have you heard of her?’
‘No,’ Iris said.
‘Me neither,’ said Oscar, studying them from afar. They were abstracts: splotches of iridescent oils on newsprint, hung in clean white frames.
‘Oh, well, I’m sure you will have in a year or two. Come, sit.’ He motioned towards the settees.
Eden was leading a discussion from one side of a chaise longue, with Jane sitting blank-faced beside him. Marcus and Yin had an armchair each, and both were wearing tweed, as if they’d arrived from a clay-pigeon shoot. A blonde woman in a plain red dress was perching on the lip of the settee—Mrs Bellwether. She bore no obvious resemblance to her daughter, other than her shade of blonde and a general air of calmness and contemplation. She was wearing a silver necklace with a locket, which seemed slightly faded, perhaps antique. They were all holding their sherry glasses the same way, with one hand pinching at the neck of the crystal, the other cupped underneath the base. It reminded Oscar of the way his father used his free hand as an ashtray when he smoked indoors.
‘Yes, sweetheart, except you’re failing to grasp the most important part,’ Eden was saying to Jane, who now looked perplexed. ‘The only way that man can truly have free will is if the soul is a separate entity. Otherwise, we’re all just products of our neurons, of chemical processes that we’re not in control of. Let me explain it simply.’ He paused. ‘If I want to move my glass to my mouth to drink, I can do so, but I haven’t chosen to do so—the thought is just a chemical function. It’s an event that my brain has conspired to create, because it likes the taste of sherry. Whereas, if a man has a mind, a soul that’s distinct from the body, he is the engine of his own actions; he determines when his hand moves towards the sherry glass. You see?’ Jane creased up her face. ‘Okay. Imagine a man in a coma. He wants to move, but his body just won’t respond—yes? Well, there are people who have such a conception of their own free will that they can recover from those kinds of accidents; they can make use of what bodily functions they have left. They blink, they sniff, they twitch their noses to communicate their will. The soul awakens the body.’
‘Son, I’m not sure you’ve quite reasoned this one out,’ Theo said, placing a hand on his wife’s shoulder. ‘To say that thought is solely a chemical function shows an ignorance of basic human neurology.’
Iris kissed her mother. ‘Hello, Mum.’
‘Hello, darling. You look pretty.’
‘Thank you.’
‘And this must be Oscar.’ She didn’t stand to greet him, just shook his hand limply, bowing her head. ‘What an interesting suit.’
‘Thank you,’ Oscar said.
Eden paused his discussion to acknowledge their arrival, gently raising his chin—no word of hello. Oscar couldn’t help but feel nervous seeing him again, hearing that haughty, persuasive voice. He sat down with Iris on the settee, a good few feet away from Eden. Jane waved at them and smiled.
‘Look, I’m not saying the Cartesian view is without its flaws,’ Eden said, narrowing his eyes at his father. ‘But perhaps if you hadn’t had the notion of dualism completely quarried out of you at medical school—’
‘Tss! It has nothing to do with medical school. It’s about seeing more logic in another viewpoint.’
‘Like what, Mr B?’ Jane asked, and Eden gave an audible huff.
Theo canted his head. ‘Well, you don’t have to be a dualist to believe in the human soul. A soul is an holistic entity, the way I see it—the mind and the body together. Let’s take that man in the coma: he’s unable to function, not because his body is broken, but because part of his brain is broken. Neurologically, he’s lost certain capacities, and therefore his wholeness as a person has been compromised. His free will has been corrupted. Temporarily, he’s an empty vessel, because his brain is no longer working in combination with his other facets.’
‘So the man may as well be dead—right?’ Yin asked.
‘No, he’s just … out of alignment. Compromised. Temporarily, perhaps terminally.’
‘I really don’t get it,’ Jane said. ‘I can’t ever keep up with these discussions.’
‘I’m saying that the brain has the ability to right itself, given time, like an upturned canoe. And as long as the man’s other facets remain uncompromised—namely, that he is still breathing on his own—his soul can be fully restored.’
‘But what happens to his soul in the time that his brain isn’t working and he’s compromised, as you put it?’ Marcus asked. ‘Does it just cease to exist?’
Theo thought about this for a second. ‘No, no,
his soul still exists, just not cohesively. The same way the picture on a jigsaw is still a complete picture, even when the pieces are lying in the box unassembled.’
‘I can’t stand jigsaws,’ Jane said. ‘The final picture is never worth the effort.’ Oscar thought of Dr Paulsen turning his nose up at the puzzles in the store cupboard.
‘You can always rely on Jane to get to the meat of the issue,’ Mrs Bellwether said. She gave a girlish chuckle.
Marcus crossed his arms. ‘Do you want to know the annoying thing about this argument? There’s no way to prove who’s right. It sort of makes me want to slip into a coma myself.’
Theo laughed. ‘Right!’
‘I mean, all of this posturing over what we are, why we exist, it’s so frustratingly unknowable. Sometimes I wonder why people bother. The answers will come when we die.’
‘But what if they don’t?’ Oscar said. Everybody looked at him. He felt he’d spoken out of turn. It was the first time he’d experienced a gathering like this: people who weren’t afraid to think, express, debate. He’d grown up believing that to reveal your intelligence was to show your weakness to others. It was better to do your homework the night before school, because if it was done on the schoolbus in front of other boys they’d goad and tease and shout—’Swot! Suck!’—and the girls would think you were soft. It was right not to talk about the complex affairs of the world over the dinner table with your family, but to talk instead of sport and weather and television programmes, because nobody liked to think of heavy things as they were eating. This is what he’d been raised to think.
‘Well, go on,’ Theo said. ‘Don’t be shy.’
Oscar began tentatively: ‘I just mean to say that it’s only religious people who believe they’re going to be given answers when they die, that there’s some sort of place, like Heaven’s Gate, where you queue up for a final verdict from St Peter. But really—’ He cleared his throat. ‘What if it’s like the Buddhists say, and we’re reincarnated into another form? Or what if we just die and that’s it—nothing else? Then we’ll just go from one state to another without ever knowing why we existed. That would be the biggest joke of all.’
The Bellwether Revivals Page 9