The Revelations (9 page)

Here he put his hand on the Bible that sat on his lectern, closed his eyes and nodded. From his vantage point at the back of the church, Marcus could see Leo, the lighting and sound engineer, slowly increasing the intensity of the white light until it looked as though the priest had a halo. David opened his eyes suddenly and fixed the room with a fierce gaze.

‘What happens when it gets difficult? When the doubts that we – quite naturally – feel grow into something more fundamental, more painful? What happens when we lose our ability to speak to God? For me, it was to do with suffering. You may know that the Course runs a charity out in South Africa that buys a Bible for every schoolchild in Soweto when they reach the age of twelve. I went out there seven years ago and it was quite wonderful to see the joy on the faces of those young people as they were handed their Bibles and given a blessing. But I also saw some very painful things. I went with a group of the children to visit their parents in an AIDS clinic. I took two of the kids to get tested there themselves. One of them had the disease. I spent time talking with this wide-eyed, happy little girl, and I knew that, because her mother was sick and she had no other family, she wouldn’t be able to get hold of drugs to treat her condition and would very likely die young and alone.’

David looked up, his pale eyes moist.

‘I found myself assaulted by some very serious doubts. What were we doing giving these children Bibles, I asked myself, when there were things they needed so much more? And how could my God, the God I’d given my life to serve, allow this to happen? These doubts caught me quite by surprise. I think that many of us feel that once we have filled that God-shaped hole that we all feel inside us, that we’re there, that we’ve done all of the hard work. But faith requires constant attention. It took me a lot of prayer, a lot of late-night discussions with Sally, and the Bishop and other Course members, before I found my faith again. The problem of suffering is one of the great struggles for the believer, and it’s one you must continue to fight. Now let us pray.’

Marcus made his way tiptoeing down the aisle and took up his seat beside Abby, who was bent over in prayer, her hair hanging down in fronds that were caught in the candlelight. After a few moments he was standing again as they made their way to the stage. He hadn’t been able to attend the last band practice and knew that he was going to struggle to keep up. His fingers felt fat and lethargic, he was still thinking about the case Michael Faraday had brought him in on, was still mentally outside the church, unprepared for the shift away from the everyday world.

As the weeks passed, Course regulars were allowed to move further forward in the church, so that the new members grew used to the sense of being part of a revelation, a happening. Marcus looked at the congregation as his guitar stumbled its way through the first song. Three blonde girls stood with their faces turned upwards, broad smiles unleashed at the stage. They sang along with Abby, swaying as they sang. They were the wives of three of the Course’s largest donors – a trio of hedge-fund entrepreneurs who were millionaires by twenty-seven. One of the girls was enormously pregnant. Her belly rocked from side to side as she moved. Marcus could see the outline of her belly button pressing against her black T-shirt.

Abby had sung the first song standing very still, her hands pressed together in prayer, her eyes closed, her face turned upwards. The next song was faster and Marcus had to lean over his bass and watch his fingers, looking up every so often to try to work out which chords David was playing. Marcus felt that the band was only a small step away from catastrophe. He was certain he was about to lose track of the music altogether. Lee was slumped at the piano, dejection hovering in a cloud over her, her chords thin and without feeling. Mouse was spinning his sticks in the air, half an eye on the three girls in the front row. Only David held them together, his rhythm guitar accelerating as the song moved towards the chorus.

It was then that Abby started to dance. David approved of dancing. He believed that it helped the congregation draw closer to a state of ecstasy. But Abby was really moving, lifting the microphone stand off the ground and slamming it back down, kicking her legs up in the air and whooping between the lines of the chorus. Slowly, the audience picked up on her energy, and the three girls in the front row raised their hands above their heads. Neil, Maki and Philip, standing in the pew behind the girls, began to shuffle awkwardly. Some of the younger members off to the side stood on their chairs, people moved to the open spaces of the aisle and the Lady Chapel and danced wildly, shaking their heads and holding their hands up to the stage, which was now flooded with bright white light. The twins spun in a tight circle in the centre of the aisle, gripping each other by the elbows. The stained-glass window behind the band was luminous, the altar cloth glowed gold. When the final chorus arrived everyone was singing, the music pounded with the rhythm of their hearts, the dancing reached a frenzy and the three girls at the front were shrieking, thumping their chests and then screaming out. Then the final chord and the last echoes swirled up into the high silence of the roof.

Abby bent double, her arms hanging down at her sides. Marcus was breathing heavily. His fingers were numb from playing, small blood blisters grew in the channels that ran across his fingertips. The cheering started. Throughout the church they applauded, calling out and laughing and shouting their approval. Even Lee was smiling. Mouse was juggling his drumsticks and then played a quick roll on the snare. When the cheering stopped, they left the stage and made their way downstairs for the discussions.

Marcus and Abby were still flushed, their cheeks red and their chests rising. Marcus knew that it was in music that he came closest to God, came nearest to the appreciation of the divine that Abby seemed to find so easy. It allowed him to escape himself and the cynicism that questioned religion in a mocking voice, that laughed at Abby’s credulousness. There was another round of applause from their group when they walked into the small room in the crypt. Marcus took Abby’s hand and they bowed together.

‘Thanks, guys,’ Marcus said, sitting down. ‘I enjoyed that. Now tonight I’d like to talk to you about the issue of suffering. Because, as David said earlier, it’s one of the biggest questions we face. I almost ended up leaving the first time I did the Course, just because I couldn’t get my head around it. And I still have trouble with it. I still have doubts. So I’m going to ask my lovely wife to help out if I go slightly off-message.’ He looked at Abby and smiled. She still seemed wired: she was sitting on her hands and rocking forward on the balls of her feet, leaning into the centre of the circle.

‘You heard David refer to it in his speech, the fact that there are much easier ways of explaining away suffering. Either that God isn’t able to stop children getting leukaemia or whatever, or that He can’t be everywhere at once and helps some but not all, or that He doesn’t want to end their suffering. And when you watch the news at night it makes it very difficult to believe that an omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent God exists.’

Marcus saw David in the doorway watching him. He paused for a moment, looked at the faces all turned towards him, saw that Abby was still sitting on her hands, although she was now rocking her chair backwards, coming perilously close to falling. Marcus rose and stood behind his wife, his hands upon her shoulders. He knew he was mimicking David’s tone, his modulation.

‘When Eve ate the fruit in the Garden she took a decision that would affect everything that came after. She acted with her own will rather than being a slave. And thus the moment of Original Sin was also the moment when we gained freedom. And every small victory, every freely willed act, is a celebration of that first rebellion. God punishes us through the suffering in the world. He punishes us because that is the natural balance of things: we had the chance to stay in Eden, to live a life of comfortable slavery, but we chose freedom. And how much richer even the most tragic life, even a life cut short, knowing that we have the freedom to make our own choices, to carve our own way through that life . . .’

Marcus felt like he was growing, inflating to fill the room. It was not a feeling that he enjoyed. He stared down at the faces of the members of the group, the young blonde girls and their boyfriends, Neil, Abby; he looked over to David, who was smiling broadly in the doorway. He continued to speak and there were no questions, no interruptions, just the purity of thought expressed in clear, calm words. But all the time there was humming at the back of his mind the static of hypocrisy. He knew he sounded slick, knew they were all hanging on his words, that Abby would be proud of him. But he felt fraudulent and spivvy.

When the session was over he tried to slip away from the group. He wanted to sit in the car in darkness until Abby had finished helping Sally clear up the dinner pans, then drive them back to the flat to continue their reclusive life. As he climbed the pale stone stairs into the church he felt an arm around his shoulders. It was David.

‘That was wonderful, tonight. You seemed inspired. Did you feel like the Spirit was moving in you?’

Marcus paused. David began to rub his thumb gently down the line of Marcus’s collarbone. Marcus shivered.

‘I don’t know. It felt very fluent and easy, but I don’t know if it was spiritual. You know that I had a problem with this part of the Course, and so I’ve worked really hard to make sure that I’m on top of it, that I know all of the arguments and can regurgitate them almost without thinking.’

They were now walking down the aisle together. Their voices were distorted by the height above them. Marcus watched Abby collecting forks in a bowl; Sally followed after her throwing paper plates into a black plastic bag. The priest dropped his hand from Marcus’s shoulder. They sat down together facing the altar. Marcus tried to explain himself, but he felt his words were now muddled and fumbling.

‘When I was speaking earlier it felt a lot like it does when I’m arguing a case at work. You know it’s very rare that anyone I’m defending is innocent. We’re expensive, so we usually get the guilty guys. I don’t ever get to do anything as glamorous as speaking in court. But I always get sent in to speak to the other side’s legal team. And it’s because I can speak like that, with that fluency, giving the impression of being totally in charge, totally on top of things. When, in fact, I’m peddling half-truths and relying on intimidation and legal sleight of hand. It was like that tonight. All that stuff about Original Sin and Free Will – it’s not enough. It’s not enough of an excuse for the bad stuff that happens in the world. And I know it’s bullshit, but I spout it anyway.’

The priest was silent for a moment, then stood up slowly. He hovered over Marcus. Marcus could see the muscles in David’s jaw working. He watched the priest’s hands. The right hand seized the fingers of the left and squeezed until they were white, corpselike.

‘I’ve built something astonishing here, something that will outlast all of us.’ David’s voice was icy. ‘I’ve been watching you very carefully. I’m worried that I made the wrong choice when I decided to bring you into the inner circle of this church. Look around you. You could be someone here, really make something of yourself. The Course is exploding. It’s going global.’ He focused his eyes on Marcus’s and extended his cold, thin hand to Marcus’s shoulder again. He pressed his thumb on the collarbone.

‘I’m trying. I just thought that I should tell you if I was having these doubts, rather than keep them to myself.’

David continued as if he hadn’t heard, increasing the pressure on Marcus’s collarbone.

‘Have you stopped to think about why two of your members left after the first week? Because it certainly wasn’t Abby’s fault. People can sense the contradictions in you, how you struggle against yourself. You drink too much, you smoke too much. I watch you; I can see all that excess. I see the flames of hell lapping at your feet. Remember that the Devil is always there. He is desperate for me to fail, for the Course to fail. So I have to look for him at every turn. Don’t let the Devil work through you, Marcus. Don’t let it be you that he uses to bring this all down. I am watching you.’ The priest dropped his hand from Marcus’s shoulder and began to walk away from him. Course members scuttled in the shadows of the north and south aisles. David turned back towards him, his hand held in the air, fingers still in pincer grip.

‘I’ll see you on Sunday. Remember what I said.’ David’s voice had returned to its public register. Marcus watched the priest make his way to the door and out into the night.

Marcus sat for a while longer, feeling flat and confused, his collarbone throbbing. Then the lights began to go out, and he was sitting in darkness. He knew the layout of the church and found his way in blindness to the door and out into the damp autumn night. He sat in the Audi and listened to the radio until Abby’s outline appeared against the warm yellow of the open rectory door. She bounded towards the car, climbed into the passenger seat, and let out a long, contented sigh.

‘That was just marvellous. I’m still buzzing.’ She fiddled with the radio as they pulled out onto the King’s Road. Marcus stared ahead into the dark.

‘It’s the first time I’ve felt really properly alive since the baby,’ she continued, speaking over a stuttering procession of different radio stations. ‘It’s amazing how music can lift you out of yourself. It’s what David always says, isn’t it? That we’re nearest to God in music and silence.’

Marcus accelerated through an amber light, clenching the steering wheel hard. Abby found a channel that played buoyant dance music and sang along happily as they made their way through thick traffic homewards.

Marcus reached for a bottle of red wine as soon as they walked in the door, slumped on the sofa and opened a copy of the
New Statesman
. Abby knew he had read it weeks before. She watched his eyes, which didn’t move with the text but instead seemed to stare through the paper into the distance. He slurped the wine as he drank it, rolling it in his mouth and sucking air over it on his tongue. It sounded disgusting but Abby sat at the table watching him and didn’t say anything. She felt suddenly terribly far from him, unable to bridge the distance between them. When they brushed their teeth she saw him spit purple into the sink and noticed that his lips were still stained black from the wine.