The Bellwether Revivals

by Benjamin Wood

  When he finished speaking, there was silence in the room. He felt Iris’s hand sliding over his, and the squeeze of her fingers. Marcus and Yin looked away. Theo was thoughtful, dazed. Mrs Bellwether sipped at her sherry.

  Then Eden said: ‘I forgot to mention that Oscar is an atheist. It completely slipped my mind.’

  ‘Are you really, Oscar?’ Mrs Bellwether said, apparently shocked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You don’t believe in any kind of higher being whatsoever?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No grand scheme for our lives?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘I feel sorry for you, Oscar, if that’s the case.’

  ‘It’s alright, Ruth,’ Theo said. He stared at Oscar with an unswerving focus. ‘Everyone is entitled to a belief system. We respect the views of others in this house, don’t we?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Well, then.’

  ‘Does it concern you that Oscar is an atheist, Mother?’ Iris asked.

  Mrs Bellwether gave a tight little shake of her head.

  ‘We should remember our Thomas Aquinas,’ Eden said.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  Eden stared back at Iris, blankly. ‘For those with faith, no explanation is necessary. For those without, no explanation is possible.’

  ‘Yes, God has a plan for all of us, I’m sure,’ Mrs Bellwether added.

  ‘Mum, that’s so condescending.’

  ‘What your mother means,’ Theo said, ‘is that she doesn’t think of Oscar any differently just because he doesn’t believe in God. Because she knows the Lord believes in him, and that’s all that really matters.’

  ‘Oh, please.’ Iris gave a scornful laugh. ‘I don’t know how you can sit there decrying Eden’s ideas about the soul one minute, and then come over all pious on Oscar. It’s total hypocrisy.’ She moved her body closer to Oscar on the couch—stiff, resolute.

  Theo set his sherry glass down on the side table. ‘It’s nothing of the sort. Just because I don’t believe in Descartes’s idea of the soul, it doesn’t mean I can’t believe in the soul itself, or in God, for that matter. How many doctors do you think go to church every Sunday morning?’

  ‘They’re all hypocrites too.’

  ‘Iris!’ Mrs Bellwether said. ‘Where is this coming from?’

  Theo waved his hand at his wife to quiet her. ‘There was a recent study in America. Seventy-odd per cent of doctors said they believed in God. Ninety-odd per cent said they regularly went to church.’

  ‘Don’t go quoting random statistics at me,’ Iris said. She leaned back against the cushions. ‘Statistics prove nothing in this case.’

  ‘Look,’ Theo knuckled his beard, widening his stance, ‘a man can belong to science and to God, darling. They don’t make such awkward bedfellows. Ask Francis Bacon, ask Isaac Newton, Faraday, Boyle. Even Einstein believed in God.’

  ‘Rubbish!’

  ‘Oh, I think you’ll find he did.’

  Eden spoke up: ‘Actually, he’s right. Einstein agreed with Spinoza’s idea of God. He said God reveals himself in the harmony of what exists. That the universe without a creator is an impossible premise.’

  ‘There you go, son, I knew I’d taught you something sensible.’

  Marcus leaned forward, pleased with himself: ‘Science without religion is lame, but religion without science is blind. I believe that’s what Einstein said. Or maybe it’s the other way round …’

  ‘Oh, listen to you all, quoting famous men,’ Mrs Bellwether said. ‘And here I was wondering where those school fees were going.’

  ‘I’ll memorise some quotes for next time, too—make myself look more intelligent,’ Jane said, and let out a high laugh that nobody else participated in.

  ‘Iris, my darling, you’re going to find this out for yourself one day. Medicine is not a godless pursuit.’ Theo’s voice was softer now, more fatherly, but it reminded Oscar of the tone in which Eden sometimes spoke—lofty, self-congratulatory. ‘When you do your first residency and come to deal with life and death on a regular basis, you’ll find yourself reaching out for God. I’m certain you will. Why? Because it’s in your nature, much as you rail against it. You should be more like your brother. He might have misguided ideas about life, but at least he’s smart enough to appreciate the fundamentals. He knows better than to question the values of his parents.’

  ‘What?’

  A bell sounded at the far end of the room. Another woman in a black uniform retracted two sliding doors, revealing a large mahogany table set with white linen and silverware. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, the first course is ready to be served.’

  ‘Oh, thank heavens for that,’ Eden said. ‘I could eat a pony.’ He jumped up from the chaise, Jane following at his heels. Everyone filed into the dining room. When Oscar passed by on the way to his seat, Eden touched his shoulder, whispering: ‘Thanks for coming. Isn’t this a blast?’

  Oscar was relieved that Iris’s place setting was next to his. They sat across from Eden and Jane, while the Bellwethers took either end of the table. Marcus and Yin filled the space that was left. They were wearing different shades of tweed but with the same broad pattern; when they sat down, Theo referred to them as ‘Holmes and Watson’, and the two of them remained unusually subdued for the rest of the evening. (Oscar noticed that Marcus and Yin weren’t quite themselves around Theo. They seemed scared to say anything he might disagree with. And they were always so eager to impress Mrs Bellwether by complimenting her home, her furniture, her crystal. All evening, they were an awkward double act: Marcus would say something toadying, like, ‘You’ve got such an eye for these things, Mrs B,’ and Yin would follow up with the same few words of agreement: ‘Oh, yeah, totally.’)

  The caterers served up a starter of goat’s cheese with a rocket salad. Oscar understood about the cutlery—the working from the outside in. He knew about holding a wine glass by the stem. But what he didn’t understand were the other etiquettes of formal dining—when it was appropriate to speak, and to whom, and of what. He was so worried that he might embarrass himself that he said almost nothing until the main course was served: a loin of beef with organic vegetables and tiny horseradish potatoes, with a wine that Theo took great pleasure in announcing as ‘a deft little Barbaresco’. It had been a long time since Oscar had eaten so well. He was used to the meals at Cedarbrook, where the flavour of everything was boiled out and there was a taste of communality to it, of food left waiting in great metal vats.

  ‘So, Oscar,’ Mrs Bellwether said, ‘why don’t you tell us something about yourself. We know you’re an atheist, but that can’t be the sum total of you.’

  ‘Well, what would you like to know, Mrs Bellwether?’

  She smiled. ‘Iris has said you’re not at Cambridge. I presume you have a profession of some kind.’

  ‘I work at a nursing home—Cedarbrook.’

  ‘That place with the wisteria,’ Eden added.

  ‘Ah, yes.’ Mrs Bellwether chewed her beef for a moment. ‘So you’re a nurse?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘Surely one’s either a nurse or not a nurse.’

  ‘I’m a kind of nurse. A care assistant. I’m unqualified.’

  ‘I hope you don’t mean you’re unqualified for the position itself,’ Theo said.

  Oscar just smiled.

  ‘Well, I think it’s very selfless of you to do a job like that. Very noble. You might even say Christian.’ Mrs Bellwether paused. ‘You’re helping people every day. Like my husband. Did you know he was a surgeon?’

  ‘Yes. Iris told me.’

  ‘I don’t practise any more,’ Theo said. ‘I retired young. These days I’m more involved with the training side of things.’

  ‘He teaches surgeons to become better surgeons,’ Mrs Bellwether said.

  ‘Getting into the robotic surgery game before anyone was taking it seriously—that was my biggest achievement. People laughed at me at the
time, but they’re not laughing now.’

  ‘So, not meaning to be crude about it,’ Jane said, ‘but do you have to, you know, clean up all the old people?’

  ‘She means do you have to wipe their dirty bottoms,’ Eden added.

  Oscar expected an outcry from Mrs Bellwether, but it never came. She simply looked down at her plate. Theo said: ‘Eden, come on now. Dinner table.’

  There was a pause. The room’s eyes fell on Oscar. He set his knife and fork down across his plate. ‘Yes, actually, that’s exactly what it means. That’s what caring is—helping people when they’re helpless.’

  ‘But doesn’t that make you feel—’ Jane checked herself. ‘I don’t know—undignified? To have to do that. To wipe up after them.’

  ‘Actually, no. Just the opposite. It’s the patients who feel undignified.’

  ‘Yes, but, really … I don’t know how you can do it. Just on a practical level.’ Jane shivered at the thought. ‘I wouldn’t even do that for my own mother.’ She picked up her bread roll and began to butter it fiercely. There was a quiet in the room; eyes flitted across the table. It was as if everybody was looking at each other, wondering: Would I do that for you?

  ‘You know, I don’t even think about it any more,’ Oscar went on. ‘It’s just something that needs to be done, so I do it. It’s a perfunctory thing. Like it is when we all go.’

  ‘Stop. You’re ruining my gravy,’ Marcus joked, pushing his plate away. Everyone laughed.

  Oscar thought back to his shift that morning. He’d gone in to see Mrs Kernaghan in Room 3. As he’d helped her out of bed, he’d noticed the smell, and then seen the way her nightdress was clinging to the backs of her legs, the liquidy stain on the bedsheets. Mrs Kernaghan had never had trouble with incontinence before. She’d given him a look of terror when she realised what had happened. She’d said: ‘I knew it, I could smell it, but I hoped it was a dream.’ He’d drawn a bath for her immediately, and sent for one of the female nurses to wash her and clothe her for breakfast. Later, he’d spoken to Dr Paulsen about it, to warn him that he should be especially considerate of Mrs Kernaghan’s feelings today. ‘The old dam finally burst, huh?’ Paulsen had said. ‘I knew she wouldn’t be able to last out. It comes to us all in the end.’ Oscar had lost count of the times he’d bathed Dr Paulsen, sponged off the backs of his frail old legs. The first time, Paulsen had been silent, resigned to the indignity of it. The second time he’d said: ‘Now you’ve seen the worst of me.’ The last time, he’d said: ‘I shit more sense than I speak these days,’ and giggled.

  ‘Let’s change the subject, shall we?’ Theo said.

  For the rest of the meal, Oscar evaded further interrogation from the Bellwethers. They talked mostly of things that affected the family: the upkeep of the house at Harvey Road, the débâcle (as Iris put it) of her last recital, her continuing progress with her studies. ‘She really set the benchmark with her transcript last year,’ Theo said, ‘but, Oscar, I keep telling her there’s still room for improvement.’ It was noticeable that when Theo pressed Iris about her grades, Mrs Bellwether held back from the discussion, and Oscar couldn’t tell if this was out of discretion or indifference. She was quick to ask Eden about the new Dean of his chapel—’Which seminary did he come from again?’—but seemed less interested in the scheduled repairs to the Harrison organ. Eden made no mention of Johann Mattheson or his theories in explaining how everyone had come to know Oscar. ‘It was one of those happy accidents,’ he said. ‘Iggy got talking with him outside the chapel after evensong, and I suppose we all just hit it off.’

  Mrs Bellwether sat up, looking at Oscar with a new enthusiasm. ‘What were you doing at evensong? I thought you weren’t religious.’

  ‘The choir,’ Iris said. ‘He went to hear the choir.’

  ‘Oh, yes. The choir is magnificent.’

  ‘They’re a national treasure.’ Theo topped up his glass. ‘Jane, I meant to ask, how are your parents faring in Tuscany?’

  ‘They love it out there. Slowly getting used to the language.’

  ‘I should think so. Will you be going out to see them?’

  ‘After the exam term, maybe.’

  ‘School first, eh? That’s what I like to hear.’

  While Theo quizzed the rest of them about their post-graduation plans, Oscar stayed around edges of the conversation, politely responding with smiles. Jane said she would likely take a job in publishing after her degree, though she really wanted to be a war correspondent like Kate Adie—‘Anyway, I’ve still got a whole year to decide on things.’ Yin was considering a return to California next year; he’d had some interesting offers from acquaintances in Palo Alto. ‘I know exactly zero about IT, but somehow they don’t see that as a drawback.’

  Mrs Bellwether seemed to take for granted that Marcus would be going on to a Master’s programme: ‘There’s marvellous security in academia, if you’re smart enough,’ she said. ‘Just think, you and Eden, postgraduates—and Iris not far behind.’ Then, as if it were an afterthought, she turned to her daughter and said: ‘You haven’t said anything about my new paintings, by the way.’

  ‘They’re good, Mum. Accomplished.’

  ‘I think they’re fabulous, Mrs B,’ said Marcus.

  ‘Oh, yeah, totally,’ said Yin.

  Mrs Bellwether clasped her hands together. ‘I’m so thrilled with them, I can’t tell you how much. And the artist is really quite lovely. So humble, for someone so talented.’

  ‘You make her sound like Rembrandt,’ Eden said.

  ‘Well, even Rembrandt was an unknown painter at one time in his life. I saw the sketches for her new exhibition—so wonderful.’

  Eden’s face tensed a little. His eyes fell towards the tabletop and he began meddling with the salt cellar. ‘I’m sure they’ll make you a decent profit.’

  ‘That’s what your father said. I might auction one off for the church.’

  ‘Yes,’ Eden said, dourly, ‘that’ll go down well.’

  They all retired to the drawing room after dessert. It had the conscious extravagance of a hotel lobby: leather sofas, candelabras, a grand piano, and a marble fireplace. Theo stood behind a rosewood cabinet, stacked with cut-glass decanters, and began removing the stoppers and sniffing the contents of each bottle, as if about to commence some explosive chemistry experiment. Eventually, he chose one and lifted it. ‘Alright. Who’ll share some Delamain with me? Oscar, I know you’re game.’ Theo raised one eyebrow.

  ‘Thanks, Mr Bellwether,’ he said, ignoring Iris’s suggestive cough.

  ‘Some of the best cognac you’ll ever drink, this,’ Theo went on. ‘Three grand for seventy piddling centilitres.’

  ‘Let’s all have some!’ Eden said.

  ‘Yes, I’m always up for Delamain,’ said Marcus.

  ‘Oh, terrific.’ Theo stared downwards, glue-eyed. He took eight glasses from the cabinet and poured a conservative measure of brandy into each of them. When he finished pouring, he looked at the decanter, as if trying to aggregate how many precious centilitres he had wasted on his guests. He dished the glasses out, one at a time.

  They all sat drinking for several minutes, talking very little, until Eden jolted forwards in his armchair and said: ‘Would anyone like to hear something interesting?’

  ‘Depends what it is,’ Theo said.

  ‘Just a little article I found. I meant to tell you about it at dinner.’ He set his brandy down and stood up, digging his left hand into his trouser pocket. Oscar had never seen Eden dressed so smartly. The suit he was wearing was not ill-fitting, but it looked unusual on him, the way a military uniform looks on a child. He had on a pair of brown Oxfords that clashed with the whiteness of his pinstripes, and the loop of his tie was visible underneath his collar. After a moment, Eden removed a folded square of paper and sat down again, opening it. ‘Really is an amazing story. I discovered it online, in the New York Times archives. Shall I read it to you?’

  ‘What’s it about, dear?’ Mrs Bel
lwether asked.

  ‘Hypnotism.’

  ‘I’m not sure I like the sound of that.’

  ‘Trust me. It’s fascinating.’

  Iris drew herself forward on the sofa, but said nothing. She flashed a glance at Oscar.

  ‘Hypnosis by Handel in Downtown Manhattan,’ Eden began, reading in a slow, steady tone. ‘Dr. Marcelo Fernandez escorts his final patient of the day into his office and asks her to lie down on the couch. “Close your eyes. Try to relax,” he tells the woman. “Let me know if—” ’

  ‘Where exactly is this leading?’ Theo interrupted.

  ‘If you listen, you might find out.’ Eden opened his mouth to continue reading, but Theo stopped him, thrusting one arm forward as if to halt a train. ‘But it’s so interesting,’ Eden said. ‘There’s this man in New York who can hypnotise people in lieu of anaesthesia.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ Theo gave a pitying laugh. ‘What is he, some kind of shaman?’

  ‘No, he’s actually a qualified doctor like you. Listen—’

  ‘Alright, son, put it away now. Let’s get back to our evening.’

  ‘Dad, he only wants to read it. You’re being a bit extreme,’ Iris said.

  Oscar could tell by the calmness in her voice that she didn’t so much want to hear her brother’s article as to watch him expose his strangeness before their parents, but she was smart: she made it seem to Eden like she was firmly in his corner.

  Theo said: ‘No, I’m being perfectly rational. I’ve seen the results of that kind of witchdoctory in my clinic too often, and I won’t hear another word about it.’

  ‘It does sound a little profane, darling,’ said Mrs Bellwether. ‘Your father doesn’t have to hear it if he doesn’t want to.’

  Marcus and Yin remained silent, making eyes at each other.

  Eden smiled. ‘Well, how about if I just leave it out for people? Over there on the piano. And if anyone wants to look at it, they can do so of their own free will.’

  Theo inhaled his brandy and sighed. ‘Alright. Fine.’