The Pattern Maker

by Nicholas Lim

He looked along the beach. The sky was the palest blue, white along the horizon. He heard the rumble of morning lager in his stomach and took another drag on the cigarette. Breakfast of champions.

  He bent to peer in under the pier floor. The weight of his pack pulled down on his shoulders. He felt moisture trickle down his arms. I’ve performed the Arshu Awareness. Twice.

  He straightened up. His cigarette smoked with faint heat between his fingers. Disease is the tax the soul pays for the body. Ramakrishna’s line rolled round and round his mind like a marble in a glass bowl. These sweats – yes, they are price I must pay. No matter. This is the holy time of the Chosen!

  At the top of the beach a refuse lorry moved slowly along an access road under the chalk cliffs. A vast flock of seagulls wheeled overhead as if above a fishing trawler. Wish I could be flying up there, in the cool.

  Christmas watched Jimmy the Suit collecting abandoned deckchairs into stacks. Up and down the dunes. The sight tired him. Everything tired him at the moment. After a while Jimmy gave a noticing wave.

  The Exodus was already under way: Osei and Kirtananda, the last House Heads, they would be going soon. Jade and Lizzie too. So many going without him. An emptiness filled him, and something else he wouldn’t name, deeper than his tiredness. His head thudded. His arms were wet where they rested against his legs.

  The trouble with Acceptance – it was a healing spell, but you could apply it to anything. It could make you numb. Christmas closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on his breathing. He wished he was back in the silence of Asari Valley. No television. No internet. No mobiles. Such silence. The thought that he would never return there made him feel very alone.

  Arshu said you carry your silence within you. But there was a silence he heard in the Valley which he had found nowhere else. On each return – every time he rode the rolling road out of Aberystwyth, saw the first glitter of the sea from the cliff top and followed the familiar wooded turns of the stony footpath down into the valley – Christmas loved the feeling of passing over, into a place held apart. As above, as below.

  Over the years his meditations had got stronger. With each Retreat his self-control had increased. When he had been Chosen, it was like all his birthdays in one, like when his father had come home that year. He had never expected it. One of the Five! Chosen by Arshu himself. He had felt such peace!

  He understood now. It was just a word. But the feeling! He’d never been chosen for anything before. Not like this. Finally he understood what it was all for. The meaning of life. The purpose. What was it Arshu had said? When you are ready, the purpose will appear.

  Yes it was frightening too. Losing his name: he had been surprised at how much that had hurt him. Tarin. A good, strong name. A name he had earned. Arshu was right: all attachment is suffering.

  Then there was the approaching pain. But that was okay. He was expecting it and had been trained to cope. And simple pain was nothing compared to the responsibility he had been given. One of the Chosen Five. A Christmas for each continent, bringing Rebirth, healing the world – the forests, the warming, the species, Arshu had explained it all.

  Maintain the Discipline. Keep moving. Keep breathing. It was his only work now. To live. To breathe. To spread the Word. As long as he could. To the end.

  Holy work. He looked out over the beach to where Jimmy was still stacking chairs. The first arrivals were climbing down the cliff steps, lugging their beach gear. Nasari. Outsiders. The faithless. He flicked his cigarette butt into the pebbles. Somewhere up in the town an emergency siren wailed.

  He was on a sacred path, with footsteps to follow. Arshu had promised. For the next thousand lives he would be there leading him higher; because he was one of the Chosen. Christmas trembled with the thought of it. That a being such as Arshu would delay his departure from Samsara a thousand lifetimes to be his guide!

  Even Kirtananda had been impressed. Impressed but sad when he had heard the news. The thought of his friend made him smile. He would miss the old soldier.

  He began climbing, long rattling strides up the beach. The effort forced him to gulp air like a landed fish. He reminded himself each breath was holy. At the edge of the fairground, two stalls switched on their displays side-by-side, suddenly colourful. A ride began to move, its empty seats spinning silently. Christmas reached the first line of shops along the seafront and stopped in at a cafe.

  The owner was expecting him. He wheeled out a motorbike from the back of the store. Its chrome and black coachwork gleamed in the morning light.

  “You alright Chrissy? You look like shit.”

  “Fine. Rough night.” Christmas leaned on his knees to catch his breath. He spat. Pink saliva hit the cement. He straightened and strapped his pack to the back rack.

  “Where you off to then?”

  Christmas swung onto the bike and kicked the stand. “Heading over to Glasto.”

  “Jade left her diary here. Will you see her–”

  The bike's engine caught first time, the big four-stroke settling into a low popping beat. Christmas grinned and shook his head. “Time to spread the love.”

  The caff owner grimaced and looked back over his shoulder. “Nowadays, the only thing I get to spread is butter.” He raised a hand as the bike moved off. “You take care yourself Chris.”

  Christmas rode slowly along the seafront. Reaching the access ramp up to the cliff-top he picked up speed, overtaking the climbing refuse lorry with a sudden burst of acceleration.

  ***

  The bone-white line of Palace pier extended out into sparkling water. Garrett fingered the beginnings of a blister on her left heel. Her shoes were white and her ankles hot. She was beginning to know this beach too well.

  She had slept angry. Four hours knotted in the sheets. Then waited like a hunted animal for dawn, her right hand a fist held ready by her cheek. Rising, she had headed straight for the beach. This place was the point of connection.

  She rubbed at her heel again. She must have walked over ten miles across the same patch of hot pebbles.

  “Melonade!” The waitress rollerbladed to a stop in circles. She had the bounce of a darts compère.

  “Thanks.”

  Garrett picked up her drink and retreated to a line of deckchairs.

  It was midday. She had emailed Skinner a promise to return soon to review the DNA analysis. It was probably ready. An image of Rheinnalt Bryce returned, of his stepping around a dip in the pavement, for her to notice. Why did he do that? Was it calculation? No. That was unfair. What was it then? Their meetings had unsettled her.

  She dropped down into her chair and pulled out her notebook. Concentrate! She sucked thirstily at green ice.

  Her book was full of new scribbles. She had talked to every beach regular prepared to stop and exchange a few words. A hotdog vendor, lifeguard, fairground attendants – many had heard of the deaths. A few had witnessed surrounding events. This beach… she felt it was important, in some way she should trust. She sucked repeatedly on her straw, as a smoker on a cigarette for distraction. Rereading her notes, she felt thoughts adjust focus, like the millimetrical to-ing and fro-ing of a microscope’s stage.

  Bryce had reassured her, but she couldn’t shake off her sense of foreboding with this case, that somewhere out of sight, unseen, a terrible thing was taking shape, that she was the only one in place trying to see; and that now, when she needed it the most, her skill had deserted her.

  Her notes suggested nothing new. She decided to carry on walking and talking. It had not yet proved useful, but she knew from experience sometimes you just had to make up a catching pattern. She must be a grass spider, a conscientious weaver with eight eyes, waiting for some movement, some caught signal. The ice began to gurgle. She peered into clear crystals and put the empty beaker down.

  “There's a bin over there.”

  Garrick blinked into the sun. An old man in a faded and frayed suit was standing over her. He was barefoot. A tattered straw hat covered his head. He gest
ured with a hand up the beach. “I'll take it if you like.”

  Garrett watched the old man track over the pebbles and back.

  “Done.”

  Bushy grey eyebrows gave a conspiratorial lift. He settled into a neighbouring deckchair. Garrett opened her mouth then closed it again.

  “Well, here we are.”

  The man dropped crossed arms on his legs a few times with the happiness of it.

  “Beautiful day.”

  He looked around as if waiting for the entertainment to start. The sea sparkled. The pier stood white and unmoving against the shore. The man rocked in the sling of his chair, seemingly content with what was on offer.

  “Thank you.”

  “Not at all. Not at all. Consider it a quid… a quid–” He smoothed his eyebrows hurriedly with both thumbs and tried again.

  “Let’s consider it a quid–”

  “–pro quo?”

  “Yes!” The man agreed with the gravity of the successful. “Quite.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Me? My name?” Fright spasmed across his face. He smoothed his eyebrows again before relaxing and smiling with a delight of childish width. “My name is Jimmy the Suit. I live here. And you are?”

  “Christine Garrett. Pleased to meet you Jimmy the Suit.”

  “Likewise Christine. Are you on holiday?”

  “No. Well, sort of–”

  “You sound confused.”

  Garrett laughed. “Yes, I do, don't I? It is the bank holiday weekend – that's the holiday part. But I'm working on a case at the moment which I can’t let go of.”

  “What sort of case?”

  “It’s medical. I’m a doctor.”

  Garrett sat with Jimmy the Suit and watched the passers-by. Behind a windbreak, a red-faced father was blowing up a ball. A dog ran past. The sea glittered in the sun.

  “Beautiful day isn’t it?” He sat back happily and spoke to the stones as if they listened. “But what are days for? Solving that question…”

  As Garrett joined in Jimmy tilted his head towards her. “…brings the priest and the doctor in their long coats, running over the fields.”

  Garrett smiled. “I haven't heard that in years. My husband loved it.”

  “I used to use him in my sermons.”

  “You're a priest?”

  “Was.”

  Garrett slipped off her shoes. The pebbles were warm under her feet. Jimmy was watching the beach and the sea, humming, and nodding to himself. Garrett returned to her notebook, but the words and lines were dead on the page. She had stared them to death. She sighed.

  “I’m stuck Jimmy.”

  “Yes.” Jimmy nodded agreement, as if at something the pebbles had said.

  Garrett raised an arm to clasp the back of her deckchair and closed her eyes.

  “I was stuck once,” Jimmy said.

  Garrett opened one eye. “What did you do?”

  “Good question. What did I do?” Jimmy adjusted his straw hat and addressed the pebbles again. “I waited. Until I could see clearly. Remember? Till I see what's really always there.”

  “Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,” Garrett squinted at the sun.

  “How come you’re here Jimmy? What do you do?”

  “Oh, this and that.” Jimmy nodded and shook his head at the same time. He gestured at the view. “Mainly this. Sitting. Watching. Seeing. You see all sorts here. Do you know, on a clear day you can see France?”

  Garrett frowned. She couldn’t see anything clearly at the moment. Was it impatience? Fear? Was it Jason again? She couldn't seem to get a hold of it. She studied the distant-silent glitter of light beyond the pier.

  “Have you tried walking? Walking is a great way to get unstuck.”

  Garrett closed her eyes. “No joy. I've been walking all morning, Father.”

  “Hmm. Perhaps you're trying too hard. By the way, it’s not Father any more.” Jimmy rocked in his chair. “I’ve found this beach is very good at helping things get unstuck, if you give it a chance.”

  “I should warn you, I’m allergic to superstition. I’m a scientist.”

  “Well perhaps I should warn you, you’re a doctor of medicine, I was a doctor of theology.”

  They smiled at each other.

  “Medicine is very technical and scientific nowadays,” Jimmy peered at her, “But I’ve always thought science is a matter, in the end, of faith. Just like everything else. Isn’t it?”

  “No.”

  “You’re trying to find an answer. You can’t see it, but you trust you will. You have faith.” Jimmy’s voice was sing-song as if he argued with a child.

  Garrett frowned. “The trust I have is just a sort of common sense, expecting to see around a corner what is seen every day.”

  Lines from another student of medicine, a son of a Catholic doctor, returned to her.

  Not where the wheeling systems darken,

  And our benumbed conceiving soars

  The drift of pinions, would we hearken

  Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors.

  Garrett felt her childhood stories reach out for her with their shadowy saving hands. She frowned down at the web of lines drawn on the page of the notebook still open on her lap and thought about Bryce’s comparisons.

  No! He was wrong. She was not a seer. She found causes and medical effects in the real world. Her predictions were then simply systematic guesses, a net thrown to catch facts not angels. To call that quietism ‘faith’ was not to name the thing she had been taught as a child.

  It was not Thompson’s Unseen that she drew her patterning net through; nor some world of abstracted Doubt, of wondering if Bishop Berkeley's tree grew out of mind or Mind. She trusted the ideas of her scientific ancestors, their invisible nets of evolution, atomic structure and gravitation, because of the tested evidence. The mathematical lines physicists had found to hold up the sky had proved trustworthy as a falling apple.

  Yes, scientific instinct could feel like a sort of revelation, but only in the sense of ‘I’ve been here before’, like recognizing a timeless tune on the radio then discovering you’d never heard it before.

  It was true, the face of science was forever turned towards the as-yet unseen. And because the faithful claimed knowledge of the Unseen, they would continue to argue science required faith, and continue to see the rollback of religious competence as science moved forward.

  Jimmy was looking at her with a kindly smile. “Why do you hate it so?”

  “It’s important not to pretend to see in the dark.”

  Jimmy the Suit smiled and nodded. “If you let it, this beach helps you see what is hidden. That’s what I’ve found since I’ve been here.”

  “What sort of things?”

  “Each night I watch the stars. I wait and watch and peel back the corners of the sky.”

  Jimmy the Suit stopped to comb his eyebrows. Garrett watched two children chasing a beach ball. With each kick it sailed high over the pebbles. “And what do you see?”

  “When I first arrived, mainly people from my childhood: my father, a teenage friend, a monk from my prep school – my demons. Then I saw the figures we’re taught to see – Orion, Armeros, Perseus; and Christ, early on the horizon, with the evening star; then my face, staring back at me. Now I am peaceful and I see nothing.” Jimmy smiled. “Now I see just the stars themselves. At night, I sit on the end of the pier and stare at them for hours, sometimes until morning. They are very beautiful.”

  “Those myths, I understand why they are there. They are from our childhoods. But they don’t half get in the way,” Jimmy said.

  Garrett, surprised at finding nothing to argue with, held herself still with approval. Then she said, “I can give you a fact instead.”

  “Oh yes, facts are good.”

  “In the centre of those stars you watch, all the heavy elements are manufactured – it’s the only place with the necessary conditions. And when those stars burn out, they expel
this matter. Carbon, oxygen, nitrogen…” Garrett pinched her arm. “These elements are the atomic components of organic matter – what we are made of. So in fact, we are atomic waste; or, if you prefer, made from the dust of dead stars.”

  “What things you know. Facts you say. And yet they sound like magic. Stories that are true.” Jimmy smiled. “Wonderful.”

  “I used to watch the stars with my son Jason when we were on holiday. He saw all sorts of things in them. Before he left.”

  Jimmy watched her. “You miss him.”

  “Yes. Terribly.”

  They watched the children chasing the ball. When it bounced near Jimmy got up. Garrett felt his detachment and was grateful for it. She was just another passerby on his beach. When he came back from playing he was hot and panting. He flopped back into his chair.

  “What were we saying?” He stretched, a writhe of his whole body as if waking from under a duvet. “Oh yes. Missing people.”

  “Can I get you anything?” The waitress called out to them across the pebbles as she rollerbladed backwards along the boardwalk, bottom first. Garrett lowered her arm from the back of her deckchair and shook her head.

  Jimmy threw a stone at a clump of seaweed. “Friend of mine died here last week doc.”

  “Oh?”

  “She was a good sort, you know? Gave me this hat.” Jimmy frowned under the straw brim at the sun. He threw another stone. “It’s always the good ones that go.”

  “What was her name?” When Garrett turned to look at Jimmy her gaze narrowed, like the beam from a pencil torch adjusting in the dark.

  “Her name? Yes. What was her name?” Jimmy lowered his face to his thumbs and worked his eyebrows again. “I don’t remember.”

  Garrett held her body still, aware of Jimmy’s concentration, the thin, breakable thread of it.

  “I forget things. I should remember though. I noticed she was missing.” Jimmy stared at the sand. “When I asked, someone told me she died of malaria, which doesn’t make sense. Not here in England. Doesn’t make sense at all.”

  Garrett shaded her eyes.

  “Do you know where she died?”

  “They said in hospital. Lizzie hated hospitals!”