The Bellwether Revivals

by Benjamin Wood

  ‘I’m sure the feeling’s mutual.’

  Eden didn’t look amused. ‘Be that as it may, he said you’d take care of it.’

  ‘I’ll send them tomorrow.’

  ‘Good. He’s very eager to watch them. Don’t keep him waiting.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘No.’ Eden pursed his lips and waited, pushing back his cardigan sleeves. He pointed to the bookshelf where Oscar’s telephone sat with its cord in an unsightly tangle, and where the tiny red bulb of his answer machine was blinking. ‘You should really check your messages more often. What if it’s good news?’ He placed two hands on Oscar’s shoulders, gripping his collarbones, peering down into his face. Then, with a click of the door latch, he was gone, and the flat felt suddenly empty. The only movement was the persistent red flash of the machine against the wall.

  The message went like this: ‘Call me, kid. Call me as soon as you pick this up. It’s Herbert. Just—just call me back, okay? There’s been a development.’

  The next morning, Oscar stood in Jean’s office at Cedarbrook, waiting for a fax to come through. He had the telephone clutched to his ear, and Crest was talking away on the end of the line. They’d spent the last twenty minutes back-and-forthing about technical matters; about which buttons to press and which numbers to dial, and it was all starting to get chaotic. He wasn’t due to start his shift until eight, but Jean had already passed by the corridor a few times to remind him that she wanted her office back sooner rather than later.

  ‘Hey, I think it’s sending.’ Crest’s voice rose with delight. The fax began to bleat out electronic cat-fight noises, and the blank paper fed through the machine and came out printed in greyscale: four near-identical square images, each of which housed a black-grey oval with a white daub at its centre.

  Oscar had never seen a brain scan before. It seemed to him like four little weather charts promising torrential rain. ‘What am I supposed to be looking for?’

  ‘The grey stuff, that’s my brain tissue,’ Crest replied. ‘The white stuff in the middle—that’s the cancer. What you’re looking at are my last four MRI scans. The picture on the bottom right was taken a few days ago.’

  Oscar squinted to focus on the images. In the oldest scan there was a large white glob in the centre of the brain, about the size and shape of a hazelnut. The newest scan seemed to be darker overall, but how much could he really see from a fax machine printout anyway? It was hard to tell black from dark grey, and light grey from white.

  There was a rustle on the phone as Crest transferred the receiver to his other hand. ‘Take a look at the two pictures on the bottom row. They were taken a month apart: the newest and the second newest. You following me?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘See any difference between them?’

  Oscar studied the two scans closely, the way he would study the wordsearch in the back of the paper at breaktime. In each of them, there was a cluster of tiny white spots at the centre of the brain, covering about the same area. ‘Not really.’

  ‘The white splotches—they’re the fingers of the tumour. That’s the cancer left behind after surgery. They look about the same size to you?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Crest paused. ‘Well, there you have it, kid. The tumour’s stopped growing. Millimetre for millimetre, it’s not getting any bigger.’

  ‘Jesus, Herbert. I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Just don’t say congratulations—please. That’s what the consultant said. Dumbest thing I ever heard come out of her mouth.’

  ‘I thought you’d be thrilled.’

  ‘Hey, don’t get me wrong, I’m happy about it. But congratulations are a little premature. This is just a plateau, that’s all, not a remission.’

  There was something different about Crest this morning. He was playing the whole thing down, as if a good night’s sleep had given him a sober new perspective on the matter. Last night, when Oscar had called him back, swing music had been pounding in the old man’s apartment—a huffing, exuberant brass section that distorted in the earpiece, with Nat King Cole singing along brightly. ‘Hang on, Oscar, hang on, I gotta turn this down,’ Crest had said, almost shouting over the music. A gentle fizz had settled on the line. He’d underplayed it, but there’d definitely been a kind of elation in the old man’s voice as he’d told Oscar the news, talking him through the details of his last appointment with the neurosurgeon, describing the tests, the bloodwork that had been taken, the scans that he’d been put through. He’d enthused about the look on the surgeon’s face when she announced the news—‘gleeful and bemused’ was how Crest had described it. And he’d insisted on faxing over the scans so that Oscar could see them. But this morning, Crest seemed more pragmatic about the situation.

  ‘So do you actually feel any better?’ Oscar asked. He folded up the scan and put it in his pocket.

  ‘Well, that’s hard to say. On the one hand, it still takes me an hour to get myself dressed in the morning, and on the other, I have fewer headaches, fewer seizures, fewer dizzy spells. I’ve got more energy, but could I run to the post office and back? Hardly. I used to do a lot of running, you know. Five miles a day.’ Crest allowed a moment to pass, and Oscar could hear the London traffic rolling by his apartment. ‘Look, kid, I meant to bring this up last night but it got kinda late and I didn’t want to get into it, and I guess I was a little reluctant to tell you about it. I arranged to see the boy again.’

  Oscar had been waiting for him to mention it. ‘Yeah, I heard,’ he said.

  ‘You did?’

  ‘These things tend to filter down.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to go behind your back. We’ve all been doing enough of that lately. That’s just how it worked out.’

  ‘It’s okay.’

  Crest sighed. ‘First off, I wanted to get a look at the tapes again, that was all. But once I had him on the phone—I don’t know—I guess he was talking in a way I hadn’t heard him talk before. He seemed depressed about something. So I asked him what was up, and he said he was feeling down because his sister was in hospital. I said, Oh, I’m sorry to hear that, what happened? And he said she’d broken her leg again. That’s when I realised: the kid was reaching out to me.’

  The gardeners were firing up the lawnmower outside now, and Oscar was aware of Jean walking by the office.

  Crest went on: ‘He didn’t have to talk to me about it—usually he wouldn’t—but he did, and I knew it was a breakthrough. Then he asked me how I was doing and, well, I guess there was no reason to lie to him. But once he heard my news about the tumour, it was like he went right back to his old self. That’s classic NPD behaviour. He wasn’t upset about Iris being injured—he was upset for himself, because of how it made him look—and as soon as he heard my news, well, a light just switched on again. Started telling me how I had to come back for more treatments right away. I told him I’d think about it. He got pretty insistent, and I thought: this could be a chance to really help the kid, you know? I could really sit down with him and help him understand himself a little better. He said three weeks, come over in three weeks, and I agreed, with one condition: I get to meet his parents. He told me it could be arranged. That was the last I heard.’

  ‘It’s a relief to hear it from your side,’ Oscar said. ‘The way Eden told it, it was like you came begging for his help.’

  ‘I wouldn’t expect anything different. But you can tell your girlfriend I’m gonna see that he gets some help, okay? I’m gonna talk to some top-level psychiatrist friends of mine and see if they’ll take his case.’

  ‘That’s all she ever wanted.’ The day Iris had first asked for his help was a distant memory to Oscar now. Somehow they seemed further than ever from achieving what they’d set out to do. ‘She told me something yesterday. She’s been thinking about what you asked her, about a trigger moment.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ Crest said. ‘She remember something?’

  He told the old man Iris’s story about the summer
day at the Bellwether house with Eden and the dead blackbird. Crest didn’t interrupt, and he made Oscar wait for his response. He gave no suggestion that the memory was significant. All he said was: ‘Thanks for the info. You tell your girl to get well.’

  FIFTEEN

  A Light Went Off in the Organ House

  Under the heading VOLUNTARY in the Festal Evensong programme were the words ‘Toccata in B Minor (Gigout), arrangement for chamber organ (E. Bellwether).’ There was no applause when Eden took his place at the modest-looking instrument at the far end of the chapel—the awkward etiquette of the occasion demanded it. He stretched his fingers, straightened out his back, and carefully set his hands upon the keys. The music came fast out of the pipes like greyhounds breaking the traps—a hard-sounding, impatient melody. Powerful chords blasted through the chapel, and layer upon layer of frenzied notes clambered for the ceiling. Half the congregation took the organ voluntary as their cue to leave, gathering their coats and heading for the exits, but the people who stayed behind kept their eyes trained on Eden. As his fingers sprawled across the keys, the music began to thicken. It flooded the cavernous building like a mist.

  Oscar searched the last of the crowd, looking for the Bellwethers. It had been a long, dreary service, and Iris had given him the impression that her parents would be there. ‘If I can’t go myself, I at least want to experience it vicariously,’ she’d told him. ‘God knows I can’t rely on my father to describe it. You’re the only person who understands why I love that choir so much.’ In fact, the choir was the only thing that had made the service bearable, until the moment Eden took to the organ.

  Oscar tried to focus on the music and forget about who was making it. He tried to detach himself from everything and enjoy the sound. But he couldn’t. The more the music came surging towards him, the sadder he felt—because as surely as he could picture Eden as an organist at a magnificent cathedral like St Paul’s or Notre-Dame, he could also picture him as a patient in some white-walled psychiatric wing, playing silent toccatas on the windowsill.

  After a while, Eden held down the final chord like he was damming some great power below his fingertips. He released the pressure with a flourish and the chapel fell silent. What was left of the congregation rose to its feet, applauding. Eden hardly smiled. He stepped away from the organ, gave the slightest of bows towards the pews, and walked along the aisle, into a private room near the choir stalls. The ovation subsided, and Oscar filed out with everybody else.

  Rain was slanting steadily across the Front Court. People were sheltering in the vestibule, waiting for it to ease, but Oscar headed straight out into the downpour. His umbrella was cheap and water ran down onto his shoes. He was relieved that the others weren’t around to ask what he thought of the performance. If Jane had been there to tug at his sleeve and say, ‘Scale of one to ten: how good was Edie tonight?’ he would’ve had to admit what he’d left the chapel feeling—that, despite it all, Eden Bellwether was a genius.

  He made it as far as King’s Parade before he noticed Mrs Bellwether on the roadside. All around her, the rain was tinged blue by the old-fashioned streetlamps. There was no way to get by without her seeing him, so he made a point of calling out to her. She turned around, curious. ‘Oh, hello there. Theo’s just bringing the car. Can we give you a lift?’

  ‘No, it’s alright. I don’t live too far from here.’

  ‘Okay. Well, do keep dry.’ She turned away, seeing a spray of headlights in the distance, but when she realised they didn’t belong to Theo, she looked back at him, lifting her eyebrows. There was an awkward moment of quiet.

  ‘I didn’t see you in there,’ Oscar said. ‘Did you enjoy the service?’

  ‘No. I’m afraid I didn’t.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Much too secular for my taste. It felt like a concert in there, not worship. When I go to church, I expect people to be reverent. But there was so much chattering I could hardly hear the lessons.’

  ‘Well, I’m not really qualified to judge any of that.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘No.’ And she turned away again, staring down at the slick cobbles. ‘Eden was wonderful, of course. He plays so well.’

  ‘You didn’t want to stay and talk to him?’

  ‘He’s always so busy after a service. No point in waiting. And, oh, perhaps I’m just being a stick-in-the-mud, but a chapel is really no place for a standing ovation. I can’t understand how the vergers allow that kind of rowdiness. My old uncle Charles would’ve been appalled.’

  Oscar didn’t know what to say. ‘Sorry you didn’t have a good time.’

  ‘I’m sure I’ll get over it.’

  They stood there quietly as two giggling women sharing a golf umbrella emerged from the Gatehouse, heading for Market Square. Then Mrs Bellwether looked his way again and said: ‘Do you mind if I ask you something, Oscar?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  She waited, drawing in the corner of her mouth. ‘Would you say that my son is liked by people? I don’t mean popular exactly, just, you know, liked.’

  He wasn’t sure how to respond.

  ‘Oh, look,’ she went on briskly, ‘I know he has friends—but Jane, Marcus, Yin, they were raised in the same sort of environment. Prep school, boarding school, Cambridge. You know what I mean. Sometimes I wonder how the average person sees him. I wonder how he’s going to cope in the outside world. I look at other boys his age—boys like you—and I can’t see him ever fitting in.’

  ‘Everyone’s trying to fit in somewhere, Mrs Bellwether. Me included.’

  ‘Yes, well, I’m sure that’s the case. But sometimes I worry that it’s all been handed to him much too easily.’ She didn’t seem interested in his answer to her question any more. The tension was easing from her voice. ‘The only trouble he’s ever had was being born, and heaven knows he was a difficult birth. But all we’ve done since then is try to keep him comfortable. No stresses or struggles. We’ve sheltered him, indulged him. I don’t think he’s learned to cope with disappointment.’

  She paused, switching her umbrella into her other hand. ‘Oh, I’m getting myself into bother here. I shouldn’t be saying any of this. You don’t want to hear it, I know. It’s just that everyone in my family went to boarding school, then Oxbridge, and there’s an assumption that it didn’t do any of us any harm. That we’re all somehow better off. But I wonder about that. I look at my son in there and I think, have I raised someone exceptional or someone abnormal?’

  She let her words hang in the air. It occurred to Oscar that this was the first time he’d ever thought that Iris and her mother were similar. There was something about the way she looked as she waited under the streetlight: she had the same shallow slope to her face as Iris, the same straight hairline that bent when she frowned. But hers was a beauty that had aged into something ordinary. ‘You know,’ he started to say, and she squared her eyes at him eagerly, ‘I’m not sure it’s possible to be exceptional without being a bit abnormal too. Goes with the territory.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure you’re right. I really don’t know why I brought it up.’ Right then, Theo’s Alfa Romeo rolled up to the kerb. The passenger door swung open. She collapsed her umbrella, calling: ‘Goodness, Theo, what kept you? My shoes are ruined.’

  Iris was discharged from Madigan Hall on Easter Monday. She phoned Oscar from her parents’ house that afternoon, sounding less than enthusiastic about the prospect of spending the whole of the exam term in the company of her father. ‘You have to come over for dinner tonight,’ she said. ‘Dad’s roasting a lamb—he’s driving me spare. It’s supposed to be family only, but that means Eden will be coming and I don’t think I can face him on my own right now. Please tell me you can make it.’ He took the call in the front garden at Cedarbrook. Inside, the residents were tucking into their own lunch, and the smell of lamb and mint sauce had pervaded the corridors all morning, making him nauseous. But he told her he’d be there.

  It was Theo who answered the door. Eve
rything he had on was white—his trousers, his shirt, his shoes—apart from a red cooking apron, which was so shiny that it seemed to strobe when he moved. ‘Ah, Oscar, good,’ he said, ‘do you like your lamb pink or brown? Say brown and you’ll break my heart.’ He took Oscar’s umbrella before he had a chance to reply, dumping it into a large ceramic pot by the door. ‘Go on through, why don’t you? I’ve got to run upstairs quickly and change.’ He gestured to the blots of oil on his shirtsleeves. ‘Chef’s prerogative.’

  Oscar found Iris reclining on the sofa in the drawing room, her leg braced in the foam and metal contraption she hated so much, elevated on a velvet cushion. She had on a pair of jogging bottoms with one leg snipped off above the knee, and a hooded varsity sweater. Eden wasn’t in the room, but Jane and Mrs Bellwether were there, and he could see that a light was on in the organ house outside—a simple glow behind the misted-up glass of the French windows. ‘Hey, there you are—finally,’ Iris said. ‘I was starting to worry.’

  ‘Sorry. Held up at work.’

  Mrs Bellwether opened her palm out towards the furniture. ‘Sit yourself down, Oscar. Can I get you something to drink?’

  ‘No thank you, Mrs Bellwether.’

  ‘Please. Call me Ruth.’ She smiled at him.

  Jane waved hello. ‘Eden’s out in the O. H., in case you’re wondering.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Tinkering,’ she said. ‘Like always.’

  He bent to kiss Iris on the cheek and took a seat beside her. Ruth picked up the conversation they’d been having when he came into the room—something about a certain style of property that you only ever saw in a certain region of France called the Auvergne, where she was taking a trip with Theo next week; they were going out there to look at some holiday houses.

  Soon, Theo came bounding through the drawing room in a clean shirt, retying the cord of his apron. ‘Alright, I hope you’re all hungry.’ He went into the kitchen and they heard him opening and closing the oven. After a moment, he popped his head back around the door. ‘Another few minutes for the potatoes,’ he said. ‘How about some sherry to get things going?’ He brought out six little glasses on a silver tray and handed them out, one by one. ‘Where’s Eden? Will somebody bring him in, please? I want to make a toast.’