The Bellwether Revivals

by Benjamin Wood

  With a dull flicker, the screen went blank. Crest kept staring at the TV set, though it was playing nothing but a flatline of grey. He scratched his scalp. ‘How many of these tapes do you have?’

  ‘This is only the first one. I’ve got twenty-odd more just like it.’

  ‘Are they all the same?’

  ‘Identical, more or less. Apart from the music—that’s the only thing that changes. He did the same thing every day for four weeks, but he played a different piece of music every time. Until she got better.’

  ‘In four weeks she recovered?’

  ‘She was on her feet by the new year. You’d have to see her to believe it.’

  Crest sniffed. ‘Well, her leg couldn’t have been too badly broken—’

  ‘It was. I can show you the X-rays.’

  ‘X-rays can be deceptive.’

  ‘You’re right, it doesn’t make sense, I know it doesn’t. But what can I say? At the start of December, her leg was basically held together by screws and nails. The surgeon told us it would be at least six months before she could put any weight on it. By Christmas, she was up on her feet. Now it’s February and she’s walking around the place like nothing ever happened.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ Crest said. He snapped his head away. He rubbed his jaw. He sighed. ‘How do I know you’re not playing me for a fool here? No offence, but I hardly know you. Why should I trust anything you’re telling me, just because you know Bram Paulsen? Hardly a ringing endorsement. No, no, this doesn’t change anything, not really.’

  There were noises now in the hallway: the latch on the front door snapping shut, a set of keys being dropped onto the telephone table. A deep, Caribbean voice called out: ‘Herbert, I’m back. Everything okay?’

  ‘I’m in the bedroom!’

  After a moment, the nurse came to poke her head around the door. ‘Oh,’ she said, seeing Oscar was still there. ‘Didn’t mean to interrupt. Did you take your Dilantin?’

  ‘Yes, yes, stop fussing,’ Crest said.

  ‘Alright, I surrender. Just making sure.’ She closed the door.

  Crest waited a second, listening to her disappearing footsteps. ‘Let’s not tell her I lied. One missed tablet won’t kill me.’ Then he turned his eyes again to the TV screen. ‘The thing with the towels—what was that?’

  ‘You really want to know?’

  Crest nodded.

  ‘He wraps them around the pipes of the organ.’

  ‘When they’re wet?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Huh.’

  ‘All I have to go by are the videos, and what Iris can remember.’

  ‘She doesn’t remember all of it?’

  ‘No, just little things. The before and after.’

  ‘Are you suggesting the towels absorb the music in some way?’

  ‘I’m not suggesting anything. I’m just telling you what I’ve seen.’

  Crest began to bend his ankles up and down, as if he wanted to stride across the room but his body wouldn’t let him. ‘Normally, these people pretend they’re channelling some ancient spirit or other. They say their souls have been possessed by some religious character, always with a name like Jehosephat or Jeremiah, and they always happen to talk like Hannibal Lecter whenever they’re channelled. I’ve seen so many of these idiot charlatans, and they’re all the same. This guy, though—he’s not pretending to be channelling anything, is he?’

  ‘No, I suppose not. He talks a lot about Johann Mattheson, that’s all.’

  ‘Mattheson, huh? That’s interesting.’ Crest went quiet again, scratching the same dry spot on his scalp. ‘Alright, so tell me this, kid—what’s in it for you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Come on, don’t play coy. You know what I’m talking about here. Why should I help this guy? What are you getting out of it?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Bullshit nothing. You want this guy out of the way. He’s making problems between you and this girl, right? This, what’s her name—Iris. That’s what your agenda is here. No need to be ashamed about it. I just want you to be upfront with me.’

  When Oscar looked at Crest, he couldn’t help but think about what Dr Paulsen had said—about the two of them being alike, how they both thought about life the same way. He stared down at Crest’s gaunt face and those dark, swollen eyes that wrinkled at the corners, wondering if he was seeing a reflection of himself in another fifty years.

  ‘I’m here because, deep down, I know that Eden’s ill. And if everyone goes on allowing him to think he’s got some godly powers to heal the sick—even if he’s clever enough to make other people believe it too—something terrible’s going to happen. You’re right, I love his sister—and I don’t want to ever see her in pain again—but that’s not what this is about.’ He stopped, feeling the weight of Crest’s attention. ‘Because I’m also willing to accept that I might be wrong—that there’s the tiniest, remotest chance that Eden has some kind of power or understanding that nobody else has. And, knowing that, how can I not report it? Isn’t it my duty to tell somebody who might be able to figure it out one way or another, who might even stand to benefit from it himself? The way I see it, we have nothing to lose.’

  ‘We’re not the only ones to consider here,’ Crest said, steepling his fingers. ‘You’re not thinking about what might happen to the kid when I prove he’s not so special after all. A realisation like that can tear someone apart. Look what happened to Jennifer Doe.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ve thought about that.’ Oscar turned off the television and pushed the button to eject the video. He waited, tapping the lid of the VCR.

  ‘It doesn’t concern you?’

  ‘Not when I remember she drowned a five-year-old.’

  The video slid out of the machine with a robotic noise. Oscar already had his fingers on it, pulling it free, but Crest said: ‘Leave it.’ His voice was weary, sore-throated. ‘No promises.’

  NINE

  Near Allied

  Oscar waited for Iris to finish her second cigarette on the steps of the University Library. It was past nine, but the building was still open, and there was a warm light behind the carousel doors. She was telling him things he’d long grown tired of hearing: how she would never be able to thank her brother enough for what he’d done but, oh, what a drag it was to be back on her feet again, how sometimes she wished she could’ve just stayed in bed all year. ‘I keep thinking back to being in the hospital,’ she said. ‘It was so lovely to be taken care of like that—all those doctors and nurses making sure I was okay, bringing me things. Nobody expected me to study when I was in there. My father didn’t even talk about coursework. All I was expected to do was watch the telly and read Cosmo. And I know that life can’t go on like that forever, but now we’re halfway through term and I’m feeling guilty about having one measly cigarette break, I just get this horrible urge.’

  ‘What kind of urge?’

  ‘I don’t know. To run out and break the other leg, I suppose.’

  ‘Don’t say things like that,’ Oscar said.

  ‘Alright, calm down, I was only kidding.’ She tossed her cigarette to the ground and trampled it. ‘I just wish I could spend the whole night with you instead of Moore and bloody Dalley.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ She looped her arm through his. ‘Can’t we just hide out here for a little bit? I don’t want to go back in there yet.’

  The change in Iris was becoming more obvious and troubling to him. Now that she was back on her feet again, there was a general impatience about her. She was easily distracted, unable to settle, and smoking more cloves than usual—at least a pack a day. They could hardly get through a meal together without her telling him she needed to rush off somewhere. Back in January, they’d been midway through dinner at their favourite Algerian place and she’d told him she was so bored of the food that she never wanted to eat there ever again. Last weekend, on a perfectly nice February afternoon, th
ey were having coffee in Market Square and she’d emptied out her cappuccino onto the ground and told him it was ‘an insult’, then gone into the café to demand a refund. When she’d moved back to Harvey Road for the start of the Lent term, he thought it would make things better, bring everything back to normal. He thought it would be easier for them to find time for each other without the constant commuting to Grantchester, but it had only become more difficult. Lately, they’d relied on these fleeting moments of togetherness between her study sessions and his shifts at work. ‘What can I say, sweetheart?’ she would tell him. ‘I’m playing catch-up with everything now. I’ve got to read seven chapters before my supervision tomorrow or it’s game over for me on the entire Tripos.’ But this wasn’t what troubled Oscar most. Even when they did find time to be together, the spectre of Eden was always looming over them.

  She talked about her brother differently now—so lovingly and magnanimously. Gone were all the hopeless doubts of November. She was convinced by him. Conscripted. ‘He’s really an extraordinary person, you know. There’s a selfish side to him, of course, but that’s true of anyone,’ she would say. Often, Oscar would catch her examining her leg like it was a prosthesis she was trying on for the day; or he would overhear her talking on the phone to her parents, saying: ‘You should really come down to King’s one night and hear him play. I think he misses seeing you in the crowd. Oh, alright, if you’re going to be pedantic, the congregation. Will you just come out one night? He wants you there, I can tell.’ Sometimes it took all of Oscar’s strength and resolve not to shake her by the shoulders. He wanted the old Iris back, the girl he’d known before the accident, who could finish a meal, and find time for him each night, and talk about her brother reasonably, without such blinkered sentimentality. Most of all, he wanted to remind her of the plan they’d made before Christmas.

  Now they were both looking out from the steps of the library for somewhere to go. Across the street, the windows of the West Road Concert Hall were bright yellow, and beyond the surrounding trees, a private tennis court for the Fellows of Trinity College was bathed in the shimmer of lampposts.

  Iris noticed the soft, inviting light hanging above the fence. ‘Let’s go in there,’ she said.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I don’t know. We’ll improvise.’ She strode off towards it, without looking back to see if he was following.

  He could hardly believe that she was the same girl whose bedside he’d been tending just a few months ago. She walked with only the slightest trace of a limp on her left side. There was a bounce in her step, more poise and purpose. The scarring on her leg was still visible, but barely. He wanted nothing more than to get near enough to touch her again. She seemed to have been keeping him at arm’s length since coming back to Cambridge. If she took a shower before bed, she would dress herself in the bathroom and emerge in baggy, washed-out pyjamas, and sleep with her back towards him. If he tried to kiss her neck, she would flinch, pull the covers around her. And if he ever tried to raise the subject of the plan they’d made, or mention the idea of meeting Herbert Crest, she’d divert the course of the conversation to something else: the follow-up appointments with her surgeon, the lymphocyte slides she was studying with her lab group, her exam timetable. It worried him.

  The tennis court was coated in leaf skeletons. Iris went over to tighten the sagging net with the crank-handle. Then she hunched down on the service line, awaiting some invisible top-spin serve, twirling her make-believe racket in her hands. ‘Come on, Oscar,’ she said. ‘I’ll let you be Agassi.’ She lunged to the right, to the left, swatting the air with her fist to practise her imaginary strokes, making pock sounds with her lips. ‘When we were kids, Eden always wanted to be Ivan Lendl. We made our own grass court in the garden. He wasn’t very good, but he tried very hard, took it all very seriously. He’d come out wearing his tennis whites, sweatbands and all. I don’t know why anyone would want to be Ivan Lendl.’

  Oscar let it go. He moved to the opposite side of the net.

  ‘Here comes my serve.’ She threw the invisible ball into the air and smashed it towards him. It bounced in, somewhere close to the tramlines, or so she claimed with a pointed finger. ‘Fifteen-love. Don’t be holding back on me now. I want to see your best groundstrokes.’ Her exhalations steamed.

  He felt a little self-conscious, swiping at the air and pretending to follow the path of the ball, though he found himself anticipating her returns and considering his footwork. They back-and-forthed like this for several points. He assumed she’d grow bored soon enough. ‘Advantage Agassi,’ she called out. The faint moonlight settled on her face.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be taking it easy?’ he said.

  She shrugged. ‘Dad says I’m okay to run on it.’ She swung her arm and hit another imaginary serve. He just stood there. ‘That was a let.’

  ‘Iris—you need to be careful.’

  ‘I’m fine. You heard what the doctor said—I’m the fastest healer on the planet. And if I break it again, so what?’ She hit another serve. ‘I’ll just get Eden to fix it for me.’

  He folded his arms. ‘You can’t be serious.’

  ‘Hey, I thought you were Agassi, not McEnroe.’

  ‘You don’t really believe that, do you?’

  ‘What? About Eden?’

  ‘Forget it,’ he told her, and walked away. ‘I don’t want to hear it.’

  ‘Oscar—’

  She came after him. He heard the shuffle of her steps over his shoulder as he reached the fence.

  ‘I was just kidding. God, you’re no fun lately—what’s the matter with you?’

  He turned and looked at her sternly. ‘Me? There’s nothing up with me. It’s you, Iris. You’re practically another person. It’s like the last few months didn’t even happen.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said, flitting her eyes away.

  ‘Do you know how often you bring him up?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Iris, you know who.’

  ‘Well, he is my brother. And he did fix my leg. I’m just proud of him, that’s all.’

  ‘You really believe he healed you.’

  ‘Of course. It’s my body, I should know.’ Her fingers groped for his arm. ‘Sweetheart, look at me. Look.’ She gestured to her legs, as if presenting a new pair of shoes, jumping on the spot, dancing around. ‘Look at what he did. How can I not believe him any more?’

  ‘It wasn’t him, Iris. It just seems that way. It’s a coincidence.’

  ‘Of course it was him. It had to be. I know I was sceptical about it before, but—’

  ‘Sceptical? Iris, you thought he was mentally ill. You begged me to help you prove it.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, and paused. ‘That was before.’

  Oscar had seen her change of heart coming. It had been a gradual thing: an occasional compliment about Eden on the phone had turned into questions about the ethics of their plan each time Oscar had come to visit, and finally a lack of interest in seeing the videos, an unwillingness to even acknowledge them. Somewhere between the first towel Eden placed on her leg and the first free steps she took across the organ house floor, she had given herself the licence to trust her brother completely, after so many years of resentment and accusation. It had brought her a new kind of happiness, and sometimes Oscar felt guilty for trying to dismantle it. But he kept reminding himself of the conversation they’d had back in November, when she’d sat with him by Magdalene College and made her first appeal for help. How distressed she had seemed then, how close to breaking.

  He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. ‘Look, there’s something I need to tell you, Iris,’ he said, then waited, wondering if it was the right thing. ‘I know you said you didn’t want me to do it, but I went to see Herbert Crest last week.’

  She stared back at him, deer-eyed. The slightest noise came from her mouth—a gentle wash of air. All she said was: ‘Oh.’

  ‘D
on’t you want to know why?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘We had a plan, Iris.’

  She stayed quiet.

  ‘I know you feel differently now, but I’m trying to keep to that plan we made. We decided it together, didn’t we? We promised we wouldn’t back out. One of us has to see it through. I promised to help you with your brother, and that’s what I’m going to do. No matter what.’

  She looked down at her leg as if it were some toddler who’d come clinging to her side, overhearing a conversation much too adult for its ears. Her smooth, pallid kneecaps showed through the rips in her jeans. ‘Fine, if you want to get Crest involved, get him involved.’ He could tell from her tone that she wasn’t serious. ‘But he’s only going to find out what I found out. And he’s probably going to wish he hadn’t.’

  ‘You’re not mad about it?’

  ‘Your heart’s in the right place, I suppose.’ She removed the pack of cloves from her coat and shook the last one out, holding it tightly between her lips. The matchflame brightened her face. She took a long, laboured drag and blew the smoke out, slow and even. ‘Do you know how hard it is to sit in a library, learning about the clinical relevance of blah-blah-blah when you’ve seen what I’ve seen? I can’t care about what it says in textbooks any more—all that pointed, straight-down-the-middle science talk. It used to make complete sense to me. But now I can’t even get to the end of a chapter without thinking about my leg, and what Eden did. It makes a mockery out of everything I’ve ever held important. Those textbooks seem so out of step now, so conventional.’ She gave another limp shrug of her shoulders, peering up at him. ‘So, maybe you’re right. Maybe I have changed lately, I’ll admit it. But only because my whole world just feels so bloody different now. I don’t know how to go back to where I was from here.’