The Bellwether Revivals

by Benjamin Wood

  Eden paused, letting the boat drift along on its own. He crouched down to put his hand on Yin’s scalp like Pastor John, calling out in a faulty Southern accent: ‘Praise Jesus, son! For he has redeemed you for your sins and healed you of your ailments! Praise Jesus our Lord in Heaven!’ He stood up, stomping around on the till for a while, flailing his mad preacher’s hands before settling down. Yin was smiling now, but Eden wasn’t. There was a steely concentration in his eyes. He took up the pole again and propelled them downstream. ‘Next thing, the kid falls back into Pastor John’s arms and starts clutching his throat, like all the pain has been suddenly lifted out of him. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Oh, I’m telling you, it was an amazing thing to behold. It went on for hours. The preacher kept dragging people out of the crowd. People were wheeling their relatives up the ramp and Pastor John was blessing them. He had them eating out of his hand. Everyone was in this state of delirium, just complete and total ecstasy. People were fainting in the aisles … And I remember seeing my mother standing there, waving her hands in the air like some little kid at a pantomime, just dying to be chosen. She was actually shouting Over here! Over here! I’d never seen her quite so animated before.’ Eden stopped to take a rest. Holding the pole across his chest like a rifle, he stared down at his wavering image in the spreading wake. They coasted towards the bank at the foot of the Bellwethers’ garden. Everyone was waiting for him to finish, but Eden didn’t say anything further, and the punt gradually lost its momentum.

  Oscar leaned forward. ‘Did she get chosen?’ he asked.

  Eden seemed to be expecting the question. He smirked and tore his eyes away from the water. ‘That’s not the point of the story.’

  ‘Of course it is,’ Iris said. ‘If Mum got up there, I want to know about it.’

  ‘I was trying to explain something, that’s all.’

  ‘That there are crazy old people in Florida?’ Yin said. ‘Big revelation.’

  ‘Did she get up there or not?’ Iris asked.

  Eden stayed quiet.

  ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘I’ll ask her myself.’

  When they reached the bank, Eden jammed the boat against it with the pole. He took Jane’s hand and helped her onto dry land, then reached out for Iris’s. She let herself be lifted, but skipped over the side by herself. ‘All I’m trying to explain,’ Eden said, staring after her, ‘is that there are plenty of people in the world who believe a preacher can rid them of their pain.’

  ‘So what?’ Yin said, climbing out.

  Eden threw him the tether and huffed out a heavy sigh. ‘So if Pastor John Hoolihan can do it with nothing but a spray-on tan and a smile, what makes you think I can’t? I’m better equipped than he is. I understand things that he couldn’t even come close to understanding.’

  Oscar jumped onto the bank, linking arms with Iris. The fresh air had roughened her skin.

  ‘That’s different,’ Yin said, hitching the rope to a stump. ‘Nobody can argue with Jesus.’ And he went off through the tall grass, laughing, before Eden had a chance to respond.

  Every night at seven, Andrea would drop Crest off at the house, leaving the engine running while she helped him to the front door. She’d ring the bell and leave the old man standing there by the great glass entrance, and wouldn’t return until around ten thirty, the milky daub of her headlights brightening the flowerbeds. Oscar would go to greet Crest in the atrium and he’d take him to the drawing room and pour him a glass of water. The old man would sit there gulping it down every time, like it was the first drink he’d had in months. Then he’d hand the glass back and ask for another. He’d drink the second more slowly and, if the others were around, he’d take the opportunity to ask them a few questions: How did they all know Eden? What were their best memories of Eden? How did they all learn to play so well—did Eden teach them? What could they tell him about Eden’s parents? After a while, they seemed to get tired of these questions. They started to avoid being in the house when Crest arrived each night, and would wave at him from the far end of the garden, or from the top of the stairs.

  Oscar couldn’t tell what Crest thought about Marcus, Yin, and Jane—or if it really mattered in the scheme of things—but Crest did seem to care about the impression he was making on them: ‘I bet they see me as a sad, strange old man, huh, coming here every night to get my head wet? They must think I’m desperate as hell.’

  ‘I think they just feel sorry for the pain you’re in,’ Iris told him.

  ‘Well, haven’t they heard? Sympathy’s a waste of time.’

  When he was done with his third glass of water, Crest would go out to the organ house and rap his knuckles against the oak. Eden would let him inside and they’d spend an hour together, just the two of them, with the doors locked. Crest liked to call these moments ‘our little sit-downs’. As much as Oscar tried to see in through the windows, as much as he leaned his ear against the gap in the doors and tried to hear what they were discussing, all he could make out were a few dull mumbles and two fuzzy shapes. He couldn’t even tell which of them did most of the talking—from outside, their voices had the same rhythm, the same dry timbre—and Crest would never tell him anything afterwards. He said it would be wrong to betray Eden’s confidence, and if it was all going to end up in the book anyway, what was the problem?

  On the phone each morning, he’d be just as elusive, speaking to Oscar in vague phrases he knew would placate him: ‘Oh, it’s like drawing blood from a stone in there sometimes, but I’m satisfied with how things are going’; ‘We still have a long road ahead of us’; ‘I know I don’t have much time to play with here, Oscar, but I’ve never rushed anything in my life and I’m not about to start.’

  The longer it went on, the less they all seemed to think about what they were involved in. What took place in the organ house each night became perfunctory, an ordinary social event as mundane as a band rehearsal or a visit to the cinema. Around eight o’clock they would file into the organ house, barely a word passing between them. They’d take up their usual positions and go through the precise routine of it all over again. There was something quite pacific about the ceremony of it.

  Iris would go straight to her cello to tune it. Marcus and Jane would kneel, opening their folders of notation. Yin would stand with his arms folded, staring down at Crest with a kind of pity. Oscar would change the tape in the camera, clean the lens with his jumper. Crest would dust off the tuning forks and ready himself without a smirk, without a shrug, accepting each wet strand of muslin like a Catholic taking his communion wafer. As soon as Eden struck the first organ note, they fell into gear—the music took over them; the thrill of playing, of being involved in something, no matter how crazy, held a certain power over them. They knew their parts well and performed them with a kind of involuntary focus. And although they knew better than to glance towards Eden for a nod of approval when they sang their counterpoint harmonies in perfect sync, Oscar would catch some of them doing it now and then.

  Only Iris wavered from the routine: she couldn’t help but embellish moments of her cello line, adding new runs, new flourishes. For the most part, she would stick to the pattern of things, but there were chords that she bowed differently, notes she held a fraction longer every night. Oscar knew that she wasn’t doing this to steal the limelight from her brother; it was just how she played. If she couldn’t add her own individuality to a piece of music, she grew bored. Eden must have noticed it. But he seemed to tolerate her ornamentations; he’d furrow his brow or give a little shake of his head, but wouldn’t admit to his frustration.

  Then, late on Thursday, after Crest had gone home and the others were winding down in the drawing room, Oscar looked through the French doors and saw the two of them arguing outside the rectory. He didn’t like the way Eden was clutching so tightly at her elbow, how Iris was struggling to prise herself from his grip. Her face was flushed and the sleeve of her cardigan was snagged between her brother’s fingers. Oscar could hear their raised voices as he hurr
ied out through the back door. ‘Come and look,’ Eden was shouting. ‘Come and look at it on the page, if you don’t believe me. Don’t argue.’

  ‘No. I’m going inside. Get off me!’

  Oscar was ready to put himself between them. But when Eden heard him calling out, ‘Iris, are you okay?’ and saw him running down the path, he let go of his sister’s elbow with an easy motion, like he was releasing a kite string.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Oscar said again, facing her.

  She wouldn’t look at him. She smoothed out the twists in her cardigan. ‘I’m fine. Everything’s fine.’ There was an unusual flatness to her voice.

  ‘Was he hurting you?’

  ‘No. We were just talking.’

  ‘Sounded like shouting.’

  ‘Okay fine, we were arguing. We’re allowed to argue sometimes.’

  ‘What were you arguing about?’

  ‘Nothing. Just—’ She began to rub her arm where Eden had been holding her. ‘Just leave it, okay? I’m getting cold out here.’ And she went striding off, brushing his hand away as he tried to stop her.

  ‘Iris, wait.’

  She kept going until the security light came on at the back of the house, and went into the kitchen.

  Oscar turned to find Eden leaning against the wan bricks of the rectory. The light blinked off again, darkening the space between them. ‘She’s been ornamenting her cello parts all week,’ Eden said. ‘It was getting so bad it seemed almost like sabotage. But it’s okay, we’ve talked it through now. You can climb off that high horse you just rode in on.’

  Oscar realised he was breathing heavily. Steam was rising from his mouth. ‘You were hurting her.’

  ‘Oh, please. I was barely even touching her. Why don’t you just go back inside and enjoy the fruits of my hospitality? There’s a good chap.’ Eden pushed himself away from the wall abruptly, and shuffled off, into the safety of the organ house. Oscar heard the cold slide of the bolt across the door. He looked back towards the kitchen. Iris was standing at the sink with both taps running. When he headed up to meet her, she moved into the drawing room to sit with the others, and for the rest of the evening, she avoided the subject.

  In bed that night, she was quiet, distracted. She turned off the bedside lamp and rolled away from him. He could tell by the way her fingers kept tapping on the mattress that she was thinking about what had happened. But she refused to talk any more about it and he fell asleep an arm’s length from her.

  She woke him a few hours later, kissing his neck. Her mood seemed brighter. ‘I was thinking,’ she said, and began to walk her fingers down his body, from his chest to his stomach. ‘We aren’t using the hours of two a.m. to four a.m. very effectively.’ She moved lower. Her hand felt dry and hot around him. ‘I think there are better things to do than sleep, don’t you?’ And she ducked her head beneath the covers.

  The next night, there were no hints of elaboration in her cello line. She played robotically, her back straight and her shoulders tight, and that was how it stayed for the rest of the week. The music seemed better because of it—more unified—but something else had been lost.

  Through all of this, Herbert Crest showed few signs of improvement. He was still ashen-faced and walked away from the organ house each night with a heavy gait, crooked and unstable. He tired very easily and complained of the cold. His dizzy spells were just as frequent. He still got headaches. Sometimes, he would lose words or slur them: he’d mean to ask for a coaster for his glass but would struggle to remember what to call it; he’d mean to say ‘wonderful’ but it would come out as ‘wandffer’, and when these things happened, his eyes would glaze over with fear. Other times, he seemed perfectly tuned in. Though it was clearly an effort, he’d play old songs on the piano now and again, just a few bars to amuse himself. ‘I play worse than a horse,’ he’d say. Often, he’d wander through the house looking at family photographs in silver frames—’Your mother’s a good-looking woman, huh? Strong genes’—and each night, he’d wait in the drawing room for Andrea, reading the paper, quoting news stories that took his interest: a maths prize founded by the King of Norway, a new strain of flu that was taking over China. He still had the vocabulary of a debate team captain, and would point out grammatical errors in most of the articles (‘An apostrophe in “yours”—how do they get away with it?’). At the very least, his condition didn’t seem to be deteriorating; he was holding steady. The hair was even beginning to grow back on his head in thin, babyish tufts of blond and his eyebrows were fuller, darker. But every time Oscar asked if he was feeling better, he’d shake his head wryly and say: ‘No dice.’

  On Sunday night, as Eden’s organ melody was in full flow and the voices of the flock were falling away, Oscar watched the old man through the camera lens. There was something new about his expression, something not quite at ease. His breathing seemed quicker than usual and he was struggling to stay upright. The music went on—lilting and slowly coming to rest—but Crest only grew more agitated. The tuning fork began to wobble between his teeth. His whole head began to shake. And then his neck, his chest, his arms, his legs were shuddering. The tuning forks fell to the ground—an awkward music, like three bells clanging off-key—and then the old man began to rock in the chair, his entire body convulsing. He rocked so hard that its legs toppled over, and the chair hit the floor by Iris’s feet. She stood up instantly, casting aside her cello. Oscar dropped the camera. Yin, Marcus and Jane stopped singing. They gasped, frozen with panic, as Crest lay there, juddering on the planks like a grounded fish before them. ‘It’s his heart,’ Yin said. ‘Oh, Jesus fuck, it’s his heart.’ Crest was writhing so much that his feet came close to kicking over the oil lanterns before Iris pushed them a safe distance away. The room darkened, closed in on them. Time became heavy. And through it all, Eden carried on playing.

  Oscar knew what he had to do. He could see the fear on the faces of the others, but he tried to keep himself calm. He got down on his haunches, turning Crest onto his side. ‘Give me your coat,’ he said to Marcus, and when Marcus didn’t move, he shouted it louder until he jolted into action, ripping off his coat as if it were on fire. Still the organ kept on playing. Eden hadn’t even turned around to see what all the noise was about.

  Rolling up the coat and putting it under Crest’s head, Oscar tried his best to settle him. ‘Steady, Herbert, steady,’ he said. He waited for his convulsions to slow, and, soon enough, the old man’s body was at rest again. ‘He’ll be okay now.’ He almost had to shout it over the sound of the organ. ‘It was a seizure, that’s all. He’s had plenty of them before.’ Crest lay there, exhausted.

  ‘Thank God for you, Oscar,’ Jane said. ‘I was really panicking.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Marcus said. ‘Well done.’

  ‘Good job, man,’ Yin said, squeezing his shoulder.

  Finally, the organ stopped; the last note choked in the rafters. Eden turned around on the stool. He didn’t seem shocked to see Crest on the floor. ‘What are you all doing?’ he said.

  Nobody answered.

  Oscar looked at Yin. ‘Can you help me carry him?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘We’ll put him in the rectory.’

  ‘On the bed?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Be careful,’ Iris said.

  Eden stood over them. ‘What the hell is going on?’

  ‘Oh, Edie, it was awful. He had a seizure,’ said Jane. ‘But he’s okay now. Oscar was amazing—so calm.’ She turned to look into Eden’s briny green eyes. ‘Didn’t you hear?’

  ‘No. I was—’ He trailed off. ‘I suppose I was somewhere else.’

  Yin took the old man’s weight. Crest was limp as a puppet in his arms, feet dangling, heels clapping. At the exit, he stopped to allow Oscar to unlock the doors. He looked hard at Eden, his big chest heaving. ‘I warned you, man,’ Yin said. ‘I knew we were taking this too far.’

  Eden wetted the corner of his mouth with his tongue and said nothing.

  I
n the rectory, Yin laid Crest down on the mattress and stood at the foot of the bed, hands on his knees, catching his breath. He wanted to stay and help—’Maybe I can just wait with him, make sure he’s okay?’—but Oscar told him it would be better not to crowd him, so he went outside to join the others, looking in through the window.

  Oscar drew up a chair by the old man’s bedside. He mopped his brow with a flannel, checked his pulse. Crest slept soundly on his side, breathing against the pillow. For a while, the only sound was the singing of the crickets in the garden, but soon, the others began to congregate outside. They started to bicker. Their lean shadows stole in through the window and performed a weary pageant on the wall behind Crest’s head. He went over to shut the curtains and put some gentle music on the stereo to drown their voices out, but he could still hear the tenor of their argument.

  ‘It’s not his fault, Iggy. Why do you always have to blame him for everything?’

  ‘She’s right. We’re all in this together.’

  ‘I can’t believe you guys. How long have I been saying this was a bad idea, huh? All fucking week, I’ve been saying it.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, change the record, will you?’

  ‘Ssshhhh. Keep your voices down.’

  ‘He can’t hear.’

  ‘Of course he can hear.’

  ‘Let’s go inside then.’

  ‘I want to stick around, make sure he’s okay.’