The Bellwether Revivals

by Benjamin Wood

  The woman paused and cleared her throat. ‘That might be true,’ she said, ‘but hypnosis, music therapy, quite frankly they’re just complimentary treatments. We call them Mind-Body Interventions. They’re no more scientific than dance therapy, or herb therapy, or, well, I was going to say prayer.’

  The barrister shook his head. ‘Dr Reiner, forgive me, I was under the impression that numerous clinical trials have proven the efficacy of music therapy. Are you telling me I’m mistaken?’

  ‘There’ve been clinical trials on music therapy, yes, but they haven’t proven anything except the obvious. Certain types of music can reduce a person’s heart rate or blood pressure—that’s natural. Music helps anxiety. Less stress equals better health. I don’t think we needed a clinical trial to tell us that.’ She scoffed, smirking at the jury. ‘It certainly couldn’t heal a Grade Four brain tumour. And anyone who says so is severely deluded.’

  ‘Objection, Your Honour. Conjecture.’

  ‘Sustained. The jury will ignore Dr Reiner’s last comment.’

  As the barrister continued to question her, Eden sat grinning in his seat. He seemed thrilled to be the centre of attention, knowing his ideas were being openly discussed, even endorsed. He kept toying with the furls of his fringe, and spreading his fingers on the tabletop, as if he was dreaming up some new musical arrangement, picturing the desk as an organ and the court as a cathedral.

  The jury returned a verdict of voluntary manslaughter the following afternoon. Oscar thought he would feel relief at the judge’s decision to hand down a life sentence, but all he felt was a vague satisfaction in seeing Eden led away by the bailiffs towards a darkened hallway, an expression upon his face like a climber staring up a mountainside.

  Afterwards, Oscar didn’t know where to go. He stayed in the courtroom until everyone else had gone, feeling hollowed-out, redundant, wondering if there was enough strength in his legs to carry him home.

  On his way out, he saw Theo conferring with his lawyers and a uniformed policeman by the balcony. He went over, and Theo looked at him wearily. ‘They want me to face the rabble out there, Oscar. Make some kind of statement. What do you think?’

  He sat down on the bench. Outside the window, the sky held clouds as dense as battleships. ‘If you feed them,’ he said, ‘they’ll keep coming back.’

  Theo rubbed at his scalp. ‘Yes. I expect you’re right.’

  Now, in the quiet foyer downstairs, Oscar could see Marcus and Jane at the end of the corridor, standing under the tinted hood of a payphone. They were ordering a taxi: ‘We don’t exactly know yet,’ Marcus was saying. ‘Can’t we just tell the driver when he gets here?’

  ‘Tell them to pull up outside,’ Jane said. ‘There might still be reporters in the car park.’ She looked drawn, her eyes rimmed with darkness. She lifted her fingers slowly when she saw Oscar, leaning her head back against the wall. ‘Are you coming with us?’

  ‘Where are you going?’ he asked.

  ‘Somewhere quiet,’ she said. ‘You should eat something, too.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Come with us,’ she said. ‘We miss you, Oscar.’

  He gave a narrow smile. ‘Another time maybe.’

  Yin came down the stairs behind him then, carrying a coffee from the vending machine. ‘Oscar, hey,’ he said, almost whispering.

  ‘Hey.’

  For a moment, Yin just stood there, blowing across his plastic cup with fey little breaths. The harsh scent of coffee made Oscar feel queasy. ‘You see his face when they took him away?’ Yin said. ‘He seemed kinda—I don’t know—terrified.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Yeah. Still, though—’

  ‘Still what, Yin?’ He stared back coldly.

  ‘Nothing. Forget I opened my mouth, okay? It was stupid.’ Yin took a few strides along the corridor, then halted, twisting around. ‘Look, we’re going to eat lunch or something, try to get back to a little normality or whatever.’ Further up the hall, Marcus had hung up the payphone and was coming towards them. ‘What do you say?’

  ‘I think I’m just going to go home,’ Oscar said.

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘I’m exhausted.’

  ‘Alright, man. Catch up soon, huh?’

  When he got back to his flat, Oscar found it was a clutter of unlaundered clothes and unwashed plates. There was no relief in being home at all. Everything reminded him of Iris: the CDs she used to browse and moan about, the books that she’d pull down occasionally from the shelf and skim through, the saucer on the bedside table still holding her clove ashes, the picture of her still tacked up on his wall. He couldn’t bear to disturb any of it. It was still too soon. He didn’t turn on the TV because he didn’t want to see the news headlines; he didn’t turn on the radio because strange voices would be passing the subject back and forth, and he would only have to hear the name again, over and over—Iris Bellwether, Iris Bellwether—like the whole world was out to haunt him with it.

  He wanted to talk to her, that’s all. To hear her voice. He wanted to spend his next shift at Cedarbrook knowing that even though he couldn’t see her, she was out there somewhere, in the quiet hustle of the city—rehearsing for a chamber group recital, say, or studying at the University Library. He wanted to take her existence for granted, the way the ocean beats against the shore without anyone having to monitor it. All he had now was a dirty flat and a week of double shifts and thirty-four residents to tend to. He needed sleep, so he lay down on the bed, but he could only think of her. She was an apparition who lived inside his skull. Her face flashed before him whenever he blinked, as if she were drawn on his eyelids. She wouldn’t let him sleep. She never let him sleep.

  By midnight, he was still awake. His mobile was vibrating on the nightstand, and he was so tired he thought it was a dream. It kept on buzzing until he answered. ‘Yeah? Hello?’

  There was a moment of quiet. He could hear what he thought was motorway traffic on the end of the line. ‘Oscar, it’s me—did I wake you?’ Theo’s voice was solemn and husky.

  ‘I don’t really sleep these days. How are you, Theo?’

  ‘I don’t sleep either. I wrote myself a script for Zimovane, but I can’t bring myself to take any. Want me to prescribe you some?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Probably not a good idea,’ Theo said. ‘I’m just calling to let you know I’m going away for a few weeks.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘In case you need me. That’s why I’m telling you. I’m going to stay with some friends in Devon. Need to get out of the circus for a while.’

  ‘Right.’

  There was a long quiet. He could hear Theo’s steady breaths, then a rising, desperate noise like a sob.

  ‘Are you okay, Theo?’

  ‘No. Not really. I’m lower than I’ve ever been in my life, but thank you for asking. You’re a kind boy—Ruth always said that about you. I know she never said it to you directly, but …’ Theo cleared his throat. ‘I was just thinking about them, that’s all. The circus. Iris used to like the circus—did you know that? Ruth and I would take her in the summer holidays. There was one every year on Midsummer Common. She liked the elephants.’

  ‘She never told me that.’

  ‘Oh, yes. It was a big thing for her. When she was a little girl and she got in a strop, she’d say she was running away to Paris to join Cirque du Soleil, until we told her there weren’t any elephants in Cirque du Soleil, only acrobats, and that Cirque du Soleil were from Canada.’

  Oscar found himself smiling. ‘Really?’

  ‘Funny girl. She begged us to take her to see them when we visited Montreal—Cirque du Soleil, I mean. I’ve never seen anybody so thrilled. But somewhere along the way, I suppose she lost her passion for it.’

  It was nice to think about Iris as a little girl, in a time when everything still lay ahead of her. ‘Do you remember taking her to Florida?’ Oscar asked. ‘She mentioned a church you all went to.’

  ‘We
had a holiday in the Keys, years ago. I don’t recall the church. Why?’

  ‘Just something she talked about, that’s all.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Theo paused. Traffic thudded by. ‘Listen, there’s something else I’ve got to tell you. I thought you should hear it from me first. It’s about the book, Herbert Crest’s book. I’ve been speaking with my lawyers about it.’

  ‘Lawyers? Why?’

  ‘I’m filing an injunction to stop publication.’

  Oscar didn’t quite know what to say. It hardly seemed important any more.

  Theo seemed to mistake his silence for consternation. ‘You understand why, don’t you? I mean, it’s not because I want to protect Eden or anything like that—we’re far beyond that now.’

  ‘Then why?’ he heard himself saying.

  ‘Because I don’t want people lining their pockets out of this. I don’t mean Crest, I mean the publisher. Nobody has the right to make a profit out of tragedy. Nobody.’ There was a crackle on the end of the line. ‘But it’s not just that. You’ve seen how the bloody media have been salivating over it already. I can’t leave my house without being harangued by some idiot with a camera. I’ve become a celebrity, for heaven’s sake. I’m a celebrity because my wife and daughter were murdered in their beds. There’s something wrong with the world, Oscar. Do people not realise how unseemly that is?’

  There was nothing he could tell Theo now. The man just needed somebody to listen, to agree with him. ‘It sickens me. All of it.’

  ‘You want to know what the worst part is? Eden is a bigger celebrity than anybody. I’m hearing his name every day on the news. I can’t escape him. He’s on the front pages of the tabloids and the broadsheets—I thought they knew better, but I suppose the only way they can sell papers is by pandering to the lowest common denominator. That’s what’s wrong with this bloody country, Oscar. I need to get out. He’s getting everything he wanted out of this. They’re making him a bloody star.’ Theo stopped, settling himself, calming down. ‘So do you see why I can’t allow the book to come out? It’s only going to add more fuel to the fire. And I can’t allow that. I can’t bear it. I’m sorry, I know that Dr Crest was your friend but—’

  ‘Theo, stop,’ he said. ‘You can stop. It’s okay. I understand.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘I don’t want that, either. I told you, it sickens me. The whole thing sickens me. It just—’ He broke off.

  ‘What, Oscar?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘It just what?’

  ‘It just wasn’t supposed to end up this way, that’s all. She only ever wanted to help him.’

  Theo stayed quiet. ‘I can’t tell you how many regrets I have,’ he said. ‘I just want the time back. I just want to be able to talk to them again.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘I want to be able to see them standing in my kitchen in their dressing gowns and their hair all muzzed-up and sleep in their eyes.’ Theo let his words fade. ‘Thank you for understanding about the book. If anything good has come out of this, it’s—well—you know what I mean.’

  ‘Thanks for calling, Theo.’

  ‘Yes. Goodbye, Oscar.’

  He hung up the phone, and lay back on the pillow, studying the bare white ceiling. The streetlights on the pavement below gave his curtains a tireless glow, like the windows of an all-night supermarket. It was too bright to sleep. He got up to get himself a drink of water and stood in the kitchen gulping it down. On his way back to bed, he thought about turning on the radio. There would be no news now, only classic ballads and sports chatter, but even that seemed too much to handle, too much like moving on. Instead, he pressed play on the stereo. He didn’t even know what disc was inside. He got back into bed and closed his eyes. The CD changer went through its motions. After a moment, he could hear a lone chorister singing a high, sweet note. Soon, that one fragile voice turned into several. A slow, delicate melody poured from the speakers and surrounded him. The music thickened around his body. He felt it like a warm fog gathering in the room, like ether lulling him to sleep. And just for an instant—a second, maybe half that—he couldn’t see Iris at all.

  DELUSIONS OF HOPE

  HERBERT M. CREST

  Introduction

  ‘In old age, the consolation of hope is reserved for the tenderness of parents, who commence a new life in their children; the faith of enthusiasts who sing Hallelujahs above the clouds, and the vanity of authors who presume the immortality of their name and writings.’

  EDWARD GIBBON

  I couldn’t save my sister Tabitha from falling off the rooftop of our high school fifty-four years ago, but I saw the whole thing happen. She had gone up to the roof alone—not because she was the kind of rebellious kid who skipped class to smoke hand-rolled cigarettes (like her older brother) but because she was the kind of smart, keen student who liked to raise bacteria in Petri dishes to get extra credit from her science teacher. She would go up there every recess to observe how variables like direct sunlight or extreme shade affected their growth. I am not quite sure how she came to fall. The school building had a pretty high parapet and I don’t think she stumbled. She may have climbed up there for some reason, maybe to find a particularly shady nook for one of her Petri dishes—I don’t know. But I do remember the sight of her falling as if it were yesterday.

  At recess, I liked to sit with my friends on the bleachers and act tough as other kids went by. That’s what I was doing as my sister fell. I was talking tough, leering at some freshman boy and calling him names, and I guess I looked up for a tiny moment and saw it: a dark shape dropping towards the ground. Then I heard the horrible, haunting smack of her body against the cement parking lot. And I remember my friend Thomas laughing and saying, ‘Holy hell. Somebody just bought it.’

  It is difficult for me to describe the grief I felt when I realized that dark shape was Tabitha. Although I’ve managed to box my grief away over the years, like some old photo album containing too many painful memories, the feeling of loss has never really left me. It is triggered whenever I hear her name spoken (which is not often), and whenever I think about high school (which is often), or whenever I see a Petri dish (which is more often than you might think).

  I wrote about the sensations that come with bereavement a great deal in my book Engines of Grief and I don’t wish to retread old ground or dwell on the issue for too long here. This is not another book about grief, after all, it is a book about hope. But there is one last memory about Tabitha I would like to share here, if only to demonstrate how those two seemingly divergent states of being—grief and hope—are forever linked in my mind.

  Roughly a year after my sister died, I attended a meeting of a local spiritualist church near Boston. Rather, I should say, my parents attended a meeting, and they took my begrudging sixteen-year-old self along with them. I was rattled by the despair of losing my sister, of course, but despondency seemed to affect my parents a different way. It possessed their minds, consumed their every conversation. My mother went from being a happy-go-lucky housewife who always had a smile for everybody and a pie cooking in the oven in case the neighbors dropped by, to being a cheerless, downtrodden person who didn’t like to venture outdoors and saw doom lurking around every corner. My father’s way of coping was to apply himself to the task of investigating the circumstances of my sister’s death. Because he was a scientific man, a math teacher whose favorite phrase was ‘in mathematics there are no accidents,’ he wasn’t satisfied by the police report that ruled Tabitha’s death as accidental. He set out to explain the circumstances of my sister’s death like some private detective. For a while, he harassed one of Tabitha’s schoolfriends, Liz, to such a degree that her parents threatened to obtain a restraining order. My father became so obsessed with finding out what happened that he seemed to forget himself.

  During this desperate process, I think he began to realize that everything in life is not understandable according to the laws of mathematics. Somewhere alon
g the way, I don’t exactly know where or when, he found himself drawn to other things in his pursuit of answers. He started to look beyond what he’d always believed in—beyond the pure reason of science.

  We were not a church-going family. I was not baptized and neither was Tabitha. It was much too late for my father to ‘find God’ in any conventional sense. He’d railed against organized religion his whole life. Instead, he found comfort in what people refer to as ‘the supernatural,’ but which he preferred to call ‘the metaphysical.’ He began—as many grieving people do—to believe in things like ghosts, angels, the spirit world. By the time I was seventeen, he had as many books in his study on spiritualism and mediumship as he had on calculus, geometry, or algebra. He began to attend meetings at a spiritualist church near Boston—the Waltham Church of Spiritism.

  When we moved to Waltham in the spring of 1953, my mother and I thought we were moving to be closer to my father’s work, but later we realized we’d moved because he wanted to be nearer to the spiritualist church. He’d been attending three meetings a week there for several months before he finally convinced my mother to join him. She left for the Waltham Church one summer night, indifferent about the prospect, but when she came back she was giddy about what she’d encountered there.

  The resident medium, she said, had claimed to be receiving the voice of a spirit whose name had the initials TC. Of course, she had taken this to mean Tabitha Crest and raised her hand. The medium had said he was sorry, he had lost the signal from the spirit world, and the voice of TC had gone—perhaps if she came back next week, he could try again? She reported all of this to me in the kitchen over cocoa, while my father stood by the counter, nodding.