The Rapture

by Claire McGlasson

  ‘Thank goodness you’re here,’ says Betty, holding the door wide and waving us to go in.

  ‘Dear Ellen is going to help us,’ I say. She is going to help us leave.

  ‘No,’ Grace says, squeezing my arm too tightly. ‘Ellen is—’

  ‘Is Dilys here?’ shouts a voice from the top of the stairs. ‘Has she come?’

  It is Octavia. I don’t understand.

  Betty nods to me, her eyes wide.

  ‘Come up,’ Octavia calls. ‘I’ve been waiting. Where have you been?’ Her tone has a forced calm but the words are coming out too fast, there’s something wrong. I start to climb, unsteady on my feet. The bannister underneath my hand is shaking, it feels as though the world is trembling, but as I reach the top I see that it is Octavia, knocking her knuckles against the wood. She doesn’t appear to realise she is doing it.

  ‘Ellen has been asking for you,’ she says.

  ‘Ellen. Why?’

  She reaches up and rubs her temples. ‘She has been rather poorly and anxious.’

  She is looking down, she won’t meet my eyes.

  ‘What’s wrong, Octavia?’

  ‘I’m afraid she has got it in her head that … that she is going to die.’

  ‘And is she?’ The words choke me as I speak them.

  Not Ellen.

  She can’t be.

  There’s too much happening at once, the world is spinning too fast and I can’t keep up.

  Octavia looks up, her voice suddenly irritable, angry. ‘Of course she is not dying, Dilys. The Lord has promised us eternal life. You know that. And so should she. But I can’t make her see sense. I’ve told her over and over again – she just won’t listen!’

  She means she won’t agree, won’t do as she is told, won’t sit up, won’t get better. I used to believe that none of us would die, not while we lived here in the garden, not when we had so much to prepare for Christ’s return. But that was before.

  Nothing is certain any more.

  ‘All Ellen needs is the Water,’ Octavia says, ‘then she will be well again. Perhaps if you have a word with her, Dilys … Reason with her … Do you think you could try?’ It is the first time I can remember her asking me to do something rather than telling me to.

  ‘All right.’

  Octavia nods and moves as though she intends to pat my arm, but she changes her mind and turns to walk downstairs, already saying something about seeing whether Betty has made another pot of tea, already pretending that it’s all a lot of fuss about nothing. She has taken her leave and taken her lamp so I am left to feel my way along the landing to Ellen’s bedroom. I knock gently on her door but there is no answer.

  ‘Ellen, it’s Dilys,’ I whisper as I step into the room. I can smell the stale darkness that has gathered in every corner; it is creeping forward and suffocating her, making her breath heavy and laboured. Her face is illuminated by a single lamp that is standing on her bedside table; her eyes are closed, her arms are folded over her chest, too tidy, too perfect, too symmetrical somehow. She looks as though she has already been laid out.

  ‘Ellen, I’m here.’

  ‘Dilys …’ It is an effort for her even to open her eyes. ‘I’m so glad to see you. I’m so sorry.’ Her voice is quiet but unmistakably Ellen’s. Even now she has a tone of polite apology, as though she is merely leaving luncheon before the petits fours are served.

  ‘Ellen, what’s all this Octavia is telling me? That you think …’ I can’t say it. ‘Ellen, you are strong.’ My attempts to rally her sound pathetic.

  ‘No, Dilys, I am dying. The Lord has a new plan for me, a new calling. I have accepted it.’

  But I can’t, I say silently. I won’t.

  ‘I’m not afraid,’ she says, ‘and you shouldn’t be – not any more. You’ve spent your life in fear. It’s time to be brave.’ She looks at me and gives me as much of a smile as she can muster. ‘What do you always say to me, Dilys? Think of Mrs Pankhurst.’

  I laugh and the shock of it spills tears onto my cheeks.

  ‘Tell me about the box,’ she whispers, closing her eyes again. ‘I want to hear all about it. Was Mr Price humiliated?’

  ‘Yes, it was just as Octavia said it would be.’ I speak the words before I have had a chance to think them. But how could I tell her the truth?

  ‘So it won’t be long now, before the bishops come?’ she says.

  ‘Any day now. Ellen, you must get better so you can be there to see it.’

  But I am not sure she is listening. Her eyes are closed, the only sound is the rattle of her breath.

  Now she is sleeping I can pull myself together. I should be an expert by now, but I’m not quite the same as I was before, nothing seems to fit back quite as it did, and it’s getting harder to find the scattered pieces of myself.

  There’s a gentle knock on the door. ‘I’ve brought you some tea,’ Grace says. I don’t want tea, I don’t want anyone to interrupt this time I have with Ellen. Even Grace. But she is coming in anyway, laying the tray on the dressing table.

  ‘How is she?’ she says.

  ‘Weak, but she’ll come round.’

  She’ll have to.

  I can’t bear to lose her.

  Grace pours the tea and carries the cup to the bedside table beside me. I feel her hand on my shoulder.

  ‘She won’t,’ she says. ‘Dilys, it’s cancer. She’s known for some time.’

  I don’t want to hear this. I don’t understand why she is telling me these things. Why she is saying them out loud.

  ‘The night of the strike when you were late,’ she says. ‘She told me she’d found a lump.’

  I turn towards her so suddenly that her hand is knocked off my shoulder. ‘She told you? But why didn’t—’

  ‘She has been concerned about you,’ she says. ‘We both have. She didn’t want to worry you.’

  ‘Then you should have told me,’ I say. ‘I thought we told each other everything.’ But we both know that’s a lie: it has always been secrets that have bound us together.

  ‘It is too late,’ she says. ‘She should have seen a doctor. She wanted to but Emily insisted that the Water was all she needed. And of course Octavia agreed. She forbade it, said that medicine was unnecessary when you have the Lord’s healing. And you know Ellen – she would sooner die than disobey Octavia.’ She looks down at her, still sleeping in her bed, then kneels beside me. ‘Dilys, I know this isn’t what you want to hear. I’m sorry about Ellen, I’m sorry for all of this. But did you mean what you said tonight? About leaving?’

  ‘I can’t talk about this now. I can’t think about it. I need to be here for Ellen. She might wake up, she might hear us.’

  ‘It’s too late for Ellen,’ she says. ‘Look at what they have done to her. Look at what their rules have done. The Water won’t save her. Nothing can. Not even you.’

  ‘That’s enough! You’re talking over Ellen’s body as if she is already dead.’

  Grace gets to her feet and leaves the room without a word. As she pulls the door shut behind her, Ellen whispers: ‘Don’t be too hard on her, Dilys. She is a good friend to you.’

  ‘She shouldn’t have said—’

  ‘That I am dying? Dilys, I am.’

  ‘No, you are not. You just need to get some rest. Octavia has promised we will never die, we are the chosen …’

  How much I want to believe that now, what I’d give to make it true.

  She is looking at something in the corner of the room. Her eyes wide open now. ‘I’m ready,’ she says, but she is not speaking to me any more, she is talking to herself, smiling at a joke only she understands. ‘He will forgive me,’ she says. With the lightest squeeze of my hand she closes her eyes again.

  ‘Ellen,’ I whisper. ‘Ellen. Don’t go. I’m frightened. I’ve been hearing voices. Just like she did. Like Octavia. Ellen … please!’

  But she isn’t listening any more. I shake her hand but it is limp in mine. Her breathing is fast and shallow and t
hen it stops. I am losing her.

  ‘Ellen, wake up!’

  ‘Tell Octavia I am sorry,’ she says between snatched breaths. ‘It is my fault … I should have been better … The Lord might have let me stay if I was worthy to serve Her … I have let Her down.’

  ‘No, Ellen. You are the best of us.’

  ‘I had doubts,’ she whispers, ‘about the Divine Mother. My faith was tested and I was found lacking.’

  ‘No, Ellen, wait, there is something I have to tell you … about tonight. You can’t go now. Not before you know the truth. Octavia was wrong, all this is wrong, there is no box, there is no answer, there never was.’ Her eyes flicker open and find mine. She inhales slowly as if she is savouring a sweet flavour, but her outward breath is a violent splutter: the bitter taste of death. And then nothing. There’s no struggle. No gasp. Just silence. And stillness.

  She is holding her breath.

  *

  My tea has gone cold.

  When Ellen wakes up we’ll have a fresh pot and I’ll call down for some biscuits. A little sugar will do her good. And it must be nearly time for breakfast, I can see the dawn starting to creep through the curtains already.

  I’m so cold. Though I’ve still got my coat and hat on. I never did get round to taking them off. I hope she doesn’t think me rude. No, Ellen doesn’t worry about things like that. She never did. She’s wearing only a nightdress, she’s got goosebumps on her arms, I will climb into bed beside her, that will keep her warm, I’ll pull the blankets up around us, and blow out this lamp, so it doesn’t disturb her, and we can lie together in the darkness and talk about her days as a suffragette.

  There is light in the doorway, and a voice. It says why are you sitting in the dark, Dilys. It says, where are you. Emily steps forward and holds up her lamp to cast its light around the room. Dear God, she shouts, what are you doing in bed with her?

  She thinks she is so clever but she isn’t.

  Isn’t it obvious, I say. I’m keeping her warm. She is freezing. Emily reaches out and touches Ellen’s cheek but her hand jumps back. I say, see, I told you she was cold. Ellen is sleeping. She will feel better when she wakes up. And then we’re going to have tea and biscuits.

  Emily stops the clock above the fireplace and covers the dressing table mirror with a blanket so that Ellen’s soul does not get trapped inside it. She opens the window to let her spirit fly out of this room and up to Heaven. She thinks she is so clever but she isn’t. Ellen isn’t dead. She can’t be. But I say nothing. There is no point in arguing with that woman. I’ll just wait until she is gone and then I’ll climb out of bed and shut the window myself. I can’t have Ellen sleeping in that draught. It will give her a stiff neck. And she wouldn’t like that. Not at all.

  I pull back the curtain and see morning flooding the street below. The milkman is making his deliveries and there is a man standing just across the road, wearing a dark coat with the collar pulled up around his neck and a hat, a homburg I think. He is absolutely still. Watching. Waiting. Looking across at Number 12. And he sees me. I know because he looks up, he looks straight at me and I see into his eyes.

  They are the eyes of my brother Adrian.

  It’s the Devil, I whisper, pulling the curtain back across the window and climbing back into Ellen’s bed, don’t worry, we are safe in here, he cannot reach us in the boundaries of the garden, and death cannot come to snatch us away.

  I hear a voice outside the bedroom door. It says, no Emily, she can’t be dead, the Lord gave me His promise, eternal life for all who believe in me.

  Then there’s another voice. It says, Octavia, have faith and remember that our Lord Jesus was resurrected after three days.

  It says, perhaps the Lord is planning another miracle.

  It says, we need to keep her body warm so she can rise again.

  The Visitor

  I am sitting up. The curtains are open. Grace came to me, she helped me out of Ellen’s bed, and back into the chair, then she wrapped me in a blanket. She tucked Ellen in with extra layers too and slipped a hot water bottle beneath her covers. There is one by her feet. That was my idea, she hates having cold feet.

  I’m still holding Ellen’s hand. I squeeze it to tell her everything will be all right, but there’s nothing in return. All the tenderness has gone from her fingertips. And all the warmth.

  There are purple bruises on her translucent skin. When Octavia came she said it was time for someone else to take a turn to sit by the bed. Emily tried to drag me away, she prised my fingers from Ellen’s hand, but when I let go her arm didn’t fall back to the bed. It stayed just as it was. It was reaching out to me.

  You see? I said. I can’t leave her. She wants me to stay.

  I’ll think I’ll brush her hair. Soon the angels will come and she’ll want to look her best for that. I see their light flooding in, rays falling across the bed. I told Grace I’d go, I whisper. I said I’d leave. But Ellen, when you come back, when God sends you back, I’ll stay in the society. I will believe.

  The hands of the clock are stopped at ten past three. Time has stood still. But at intervals Betty appears. She brings tea and toast. They stand on the side untouched. Sandwiches. Soup. Cake. Ellen opens her eyes and says Dilys you have to eat. Keep your strength up for when I come back. I know she’s right but I just can’t face it. There are pillows behind me and more blankets. And my clothes are different. Though I can’t remember changing them.

  I say, Ellen you must be thirsty. I take a square of linen from her bedside table and put it into the glass. Then I put the glass to her lips. They are black now. There, take the Water, it will revive you, I say. But she won’t. I tip a little into her mouth but it pools behind her teeth then seeps out down her chin.

  *

  They are coming for her. The angels are coming. I thought they would fly in through the window but I hear them on the stairs now. An army of angels on the landing. I wonder if they will take me too.

  If I ask them. Nicely.

  They file into the room in line. No wings. No halos. No white robes. These are angels clothed in black. A heavenly host in mourning weeds. Long skirts, high-necked jackets. There’s a flash of white handkerchief as they dab the grief from their faces. But most just look frightened. A look in their downturned eyes that gives them away: She said we wouldn’t die, if it could happen to her then it could happen to me. There is an awkward shuffling by the door as those trying to leave the room squeeze past those who have yet to come in.

  We have not gathered to mourn, Octavia says, we are here to give praise. For Ellen shall be resurrected. Soon she shall return from Heaven with news from the Lord.

  The angels say Amen.

  Then I am alone with Ellen once more.

  *

  Night comes. Lamps are lit. And I watch the heavenly light creep round the edges of the curtains again. There are roses placed in vases around the room, and someone has put a posy of lavender in my hand. It must have been Grace.

  She is standing beside Ellen’s bed with a man I have never seen before.

  ‘Have you come to take her to Heaven?’ I ask them.

  ‘No, Dilys, this is Dr Williams,’ Grace says.

  ‘Miss Barltrop, I haven’t seen you for very many years,’ the man says. ‘Do you know me?’

  I don’t.

  ‘I used to treat your family when you were a child.’

  Perhaps he is right, but I don’t remember. He has come to make Ellen better.

  ‘No, Dilys, he needs to sign her death certificate,’ Grace says.

  But she won’t be dead for much longer.

  Octavia said so, she said Ellen will rise after three days.

  ‘It has been four days, Dilys.’ Grace turns to the man I don’t recognise. ‘Doctor, she has been sitting here all this time. You understand my concern?’

  He nods.

  ‘I will leave you to it,’ she says. ‘I’ll make sure you are not disturbed.’

  The man puts on his g
lasses and uses a handkerchief from his pocket to cover his mouth and nose. He leans in to inspect Ellen’s body. I could tell him that she is coming back, I could try to make him understand. But he won’t. He is a man of science, so married to the religion of rationality that he cannot see the truth. That’s what Octavia would say.

  He takes a notebook out of his brown Gladstone bag and starts to make notes. ‘Ah, the date … It’s gone clear out of my mind. Do you happen to know it, Miss Barltrop?’

  He lifts his pen and looks to me for an answer. But I have no idea.

  ‘Do you know what day it is?’

  I don’t.

  ‘Or the time?’

  I shake my head. The clock is stopped at ten past three.

  He returns to his notebook, glancing at Ellen occasionally while he makes his notes.

  ‘You have been here for four days,’ he says gently, screwing the top onto his pen and looking at me. It squeaks as he turns it. ‘She is gone, Miss Barltrop. I am a doctor, do you understand? Ellen is dead.’

  I can’t bear the squeaking sound. Now he is tapping his pen on the edge of his notebook. What has he written in there? Has he made a note of my sins to report them to Octavia?

  ‘Miss Barltrop, do you understand? Ellen is dead. She is not coming back … whatever you may have been told. Arrangements are being made for her funeral.’

  The truth rips through my body, tearing out the flesh inside my chest and leaving only my heart behind. It knocks against my bare ribs, bruising with every beat. They are going to bury her in the ground. She is gone. She is not coming back.

  ‘She killed her,’ I say.

  ‘I beg your pardon, Miss Barltrop?’

  ‘Emily killed her.’

  He says, ‘I see.’ But I can tell he doesn’t see it at all. I can tell by the way he is looking at me that he thinks it was me. It was my sin. I was going to run away. I was going to leave. He thinks that’s why the Lord took Ellen. He thinks that’s why she is never coming back.