The Dark Light (16 page)

I didn’t know what he meant. Or rather, I did, but I didn’t want to think about it.

‘Do you find him attractive?’ I didn’t even want to look at Thomas. His doughy face and bad teeth, his hot breath on my cheek.

I shrugged.

‘He’s an example of one who lives in the light. He is walking with the Lord. If the world was not going to end, would you lie with him as his wife?’

I felt Thomas’s arm muscles tighten. I didn’t like the way this conversation was going. ‘Would you give yourself to him? Would you carry his children?’

They walked deliberately slowly. All the while Bevins going on about what me and Thomas might do together if we were married in a holy union sanctioned by God. It sounded like muffled porn talk to me and I could tell Thomas was getting excited. His breath grew heavier on my cheek, his thigh pressed hard against mine as we walked. I was afraid they were going to make me do something I didn’t want to do.

‘He needs to know that if the time was right, he could marry someone. That he could marry
you
. What do you say?’

I felt trapped, muddled. ‘Don’t I get to choose?’

‘There is the problem.’ He tutted. ‘
There
is exactly the problem. Women need to learn to submit to men. Don’t you want to be saved? Aren’t you going to walk through the gates of heaven with us?’

I felt like he was testing me, like he was testing both of us. And for a second, before I saw the desperate expression on his face, I felt a small flash of sympathy for Thomas; Bevins was controlling him, the same way someone might pull the strings on a puppet.

Then he dismissed Thomas with a wave of his hand. ‘Off you go now, Thomas. Go and make sure the church is ready.’

And Thomas moved away from me, though I could still feel the press of his body against mine. He walked awkwardly for a few steps, then started to run, his shoulders hunched as if he was embarrassed.

When he was out of earshot Bevins said, ‘Listen now, listen. You see how excited he gets? You see how he is like a wild dog? You know that this is because of you? Because of how you are
dressed
.’ He pointed at my jeans. ‘You can see the very shape of your legs through those.’

I wanted to laugh. If
my
skinny legs were a turn-on, then they really didn’t get out enough.

‘He can’t help himself. It’s what happens when men are confronted by women, which is why it’s so important for you to be modest. To show that you know how to submit to a man, who in turn submits to God. Such is the natural order of things. You should talk to Margaret; she was like you. Before God brought her to us she lived in wickedness, like a prostitute.’

He let go of me and we walked along side by side.
Prostitute?
I thought. What the hell was he on about now? I could see the roof of the farmhouse and the cabins.

‘Humanity has lost its dignity, Alex. Out there, on the mainland, people live like animals. Corrupted, base, impure. Anything goes! Everything is permitted. But here we keep God’s laws.’ He pats the cover of his Bible. ‘We keep to the path laid out for us. Will you do something for me? For Thomas?’

He looked at me pleadingly.

‘What?’

‘Will you wear a dress? Like the others? A headscarf?’

I didn’t want to say yes. All my instincts said no
no
NO, stand up for yourself, tell him to go to hell. But another part of me was frightened; I thought of Mr Bragg dragged off to the Solitary and wondered what he might do if I refused.

‘I can’t vouch for Thomas if you don’t. He is made so excitable by your presence. Will you?’

He was asking me, but I didn’t really have a choice.

‘OK,’ I said.

He put his arm around me again. ‘Good girl,’ he said, his voice breaking. His eyes glittered with tears. ‘There is nothing more holy than a woman who keeps herself modest in the name of the Lord.’

When we got to the church everyone was waiting. The low talk gave way to silence as we walked through the doors.

‘Brothers and Sisters, I bring with me the sinner who repents!’ he said, holding my arm above my head, like the winner in a boxing match. He led me up the front, but not before he had whispered something to Mary, who immediately rushed off and returned a few minutes later carrying a bundle of black cloth.

‘Here.’ She held it out to me.

But Mr Bevins took it and bunched it up around the neck and put it over my head. The cloth fell over my body like a sack. I wanted to take it off right away. But I couldn’t. I felt the hard stares of everyone looking at me. I just stood there stiff as a stick.

Then he took a headscarf and tied it around my head. ‘No . . .’ I mumbled, but it was too late.

‘Praise Him!’ Hannah said, and a few others muttered prayers until the room became loud and discordant.

‘See He has sent us sinners who repent!’

I stood there up the front, hot and ridiculous, aware that everyone was staring, especially Thomas Bragg, who smirked at me while Bevins went on and on about how the time was now, how we had to give thanks, how we had to prepare. He was sure that he had the date and the time. More sure than he had ever been. ‘Next week – next week the moment will be upon us and all our earthly suffering will be ended!’

Eventually he started leafing through his Bible and motioned for me to sit down next to Rebekah. She raised her eyebrows at me as I sat down, the cloth bunching around me like a heavy curtain.

‘You’re wearing a dress!’ she said.

‘In case you didn’t notice –’ I hissed at her – ‘I didn’t have any choice!’

‘You look weird.’

‘I
feel
weird.’ I did. I felt like a fake version of myself. Like I was in a play or something and all I had to do was say my lines.

‘I’ve got a plan,’ she said, pointing at the doors. ‘In a minute, follow me.’

Mr Bevins asked everyone to sit. Then he read us the story of Jonah who was swallowed by the whale.

When he had finished, Hannah stood up, hands raised to the ceiling. ‘Oh Lord, thank You for this encouragement, for this sign that You are near,’ she said. I watched her in prayer, eyes squeezed together the tightest, hands lifted higher than anyone else’s. She was showing off.

Bevins said we needed to kneel and contemplate the last days. To become still so we could be even nearer to God. There was the hush of a deep concentration and I closed my eyes, except I couldn’t concentrate. This was all getting too weird too fast. The end of the world wasn’t going to happen; it was a load of mad rubbish. Wasn’t it?

I didn’t know how long I’d been sitting with my eyes closed; for a moment I wondered if I’d fallen asleep. One of the twins was whining and wanting to play with their toys, which dropped with a loud clatter on to the stone floor.

Rebekah poked me. ‘Come on,’ she said in a ticklish hiss close to my ear. She stood up. ‘You need to pee.’

‘No, I don’t,’ I said. And then it was her turn to give me a you-must-be-stupid-look. ‘
Oh
. OK.’

We stood up, and the women turned and stared.

‘She needs the toilet,’ Rebekah said to Mary, who raised her eyebrows at me but said nothing. Everyone else was still praying, their eyes closed, and no one seemed to notice us. But I knew Bevins was watching. He had eyes in the back of his head.

Once we got outside Rebekah raced away from me, towards the cabins. ‘Come on, we’ve got to be quick!’

I tried to run, but I kept tripping over my dress. ‘I fucking hate this thing!’ I said, trying to flap my arms free of the material.

‘Why are you wearing it then? You look ridiculous!’ She laughed at me.

‘Because I was scared, OK?’ I tore the headscarf off my head. ‘Of what they might do.’

We both looked at each other, suddenly serious. ‘Let’s get that phone,’ she said.

His cabin was close to the church. Rebekah tried the door but it was locked. We went round and peered through the window. Inside was a bed with a blanket folded on it and on the walls were pinned sheets and sheets of paper with writing on them so dense that some of the pages were almost black. Some seemed to have red lines connecting them, and bits of string pinned between the pages.

‘Wow, look at that.’

On one piece near the window I could see the words
His salvation comes into the world as a dark light
, written over and over in biro so the paper was dented by the marks of the pen.

I ran my fingers underneath the rim of the window.

‘I could probably force it. If I had something to lever it with.’ I looked around me. ‘There,’ I said, pointing at a stick lying in the grass. ‘Pass me that.’

Rebekah gave it to me and I tried to drive it under the window frame. There was a splintering sound, but all that broke was the stick. Panic rose through my body.

‘Too rotten.’ I stepped back. ‘I don’t care if we get caught. We need to get a message out there. Someone will come and help us. Find a stone, find a stone!’

I looked about but all I could see was dense tufts of yellowing grass. The dress and my panic seemed to make all my actions slow and difficult. We were running out of time – Mary would soon realize that we had gone out for more than a bathroom break.

Finally I found half a brick underneath the cabin, I picked it up and threw it at the window, but the window wasn’t made of glass, instead some kind of cheap plastic, which cracked and bent, and the brick came bouncing back at us, narrowly missing Rebekah’s head.

‘Careful!’

I was shaking now, adrenalin making me clumsy, dithery. I tried again, holding the brick in my hand and ramming it into the window. This time the plastic splintered and broke into jagged pieces, making enough of a space to climb through. I tried to jump up, but the material of the dress, hot and heavy, kept snagging, so I pulled it off and climbed through the narrow gap, landing on his desk, sending papers flying everywhere.

I looked around me. I couldn’t see anything that looked like a phone.

‘What does it look like?’ I shouted to Rebekah.

‘Like a small suitcase,’ she said. ‘You have to open it up to get it to work.’

‘Shit.’ We didn’t have any time for all that.

There was nothing much in the room, just papers everywhere, a spare suit hanging up, and by the bathroom bunches of poppies all hanging upside down, drying. There were piles of letters next to the bed, some of them, I noticed, addressed to Rebekah. I took one and stuffed it in my pocket.

I knelt down and looked under the bed. ‘I can’t see it!’ But then – there it was: a grey case. ‘Found it!’ Oh, please let it work. Then I realized it was fastened with a combination lock. Oh hell no.

‘It’s locked!’ I wailed, but Rebekah didn’t respond. ‘It’s locked!’

I looked up, but the face at the window wasn’t hers.

FIFTEEN

REBEKAH

I have never seen him look so angry. His face is ashen, his mouth set.

‘
What
do you think you are doing?’ he shouts. He gets a key from his pocket and opens the door. ‘This is private property!’

Hannah and Thomas and Father are all there. Hannah gasps when she sees the mess.

‘Vandalism!’ she says.

‘No!’ I hear Alex scream, and the sound of a struggle. Thuds against the wall of the cabin as she kicks against them. Thomas and Bevins drag her out. ‘Let me go! Let me go! I want to go home!’

Bevins’s face is flushed and greasy with sweat. ‘See how she lies!’ he says. ‘See the wickedness!’

Hannah shakes her head thoughtfully. She picks up the dress and holds it in a bundle under her arm.

‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ she says, smirking almost like she is pleased. ‘The devil will out.’

‘Leave her alone!’ I say.

‘You need to watch who you associate with,’ Hannah says, pursing her lips at me.

When they come out of the cabin they are holding Alex between them. Father has her under the arms and Bevins and Thomas hold her legs. She is kicking and wriggling.

‘Get. Off.
Me!
’ Her face is red and she is crying, but they are too strong for her. They pin her to the ground.

‘Don’t hurt her!’ I move to stop them, but Hannah puts her hand on my shoulder and pulls me back.

‘Be still, child. It’s not you,’ Bevins says. ‘It’s the devil in you. I know how hard he struggles.’

He tells Hannah to get Mary and Margaret and Mrs Bragg. ‘She must wear the dress.’

‘Fuck off! I’m not wearing your dress. I want to go home! This is illegal what you’re doing! Let. Go. Of. Me!’ she shouts, voice hoarse with panic. ‘Someone needs to phone the police!’

Bevins shakes his head and they hold her even more firmly. ‘See how hard the demon tries to make itself heard?’

‘Leave her alone!’ I shout, but this time it’s Father who is angry with me.

‘It’s not your battle,’ he says. ‘She is leading you astray. If you say one more word. One more word . . .’ He doesn’t have to finish the sentence. I know what he is threatening. Stripes from the rod which has been dipped in oil to make it hurt even more, like it says in the Bible. I stare at him and don’t move, my heart full of anger.

The women come back and Bevins tells them that they must undress her and make her put the dress back on. The men turn their backs to us. Alex wriggles even more, but four women are much too strong for her. As they pull her trousers off there’s a shriek from Hannah. ‘Dear God! What’s that?’ She’s pointing at Alex’s tattoo. ‘The mark of the beast! The eye!’

‘What?’ Alex kicks her legs. ‘What’s wrong?’

They pull the dress over her head and Bevins looks round. When he sees the tattoo on her ankle his face twists and he crosses himself. ‘See, Brothers. I told you that he walks among us, even to put marks on our flesh. You can’t come in with the eye of evil on your body. This is why it’s all going wrong for you. This is why you are so confused. We must pray that demon out of you.’

‘What are you on about? It’s for protection!’

‘It says that in Mary’s encyclopedia!’ I hear myself say, then bite my lip. I must be silent, I must be silent. I bite my lip till I taste blood.

Mr Bevins puts his hands over his eyes. ‘Cover it up!’