by Julia Bell
‘I won’t make it! What if I don’t make it?’ He babbles about heaven’s gate and auras and lights in the sky, but he’s not making any sense. Alex looks horrified. I don’t want her to see us like this; it isn’t what we’re about. This isn’t what usually happens here. I talk to him softly. It’s OK, calm down, everything’s going to be OK.
When Jonathan first came to the island he was still withdrawing from drugs. He would cry in the prayer services, big heavy sobs, and when he gave his testimony he could hardly speak he got so upset. He said he left home at fourteen because he was being abused, and never knew a real family until he came to live with us. He said he was so grateful to be accepted at last, that he had never felt a love so strong and true. He struggles every day and has to get extra prayers from the elders to help him with his bad thoughts. Thoughts which he says come straight from the devil, that tell him to do bad things to himself.
As the fire rises I shovel on more and more coal and he stands awkwardly in front of it, his clothes steaming in the sudden heat.
As the shaking subsides, he notices Alex.
‘Who’s that?’ he says in a loud whisper to me as if Alex can’t hear.
I put my hand on his arm and he nearly jumps clean out of his skin. ‘It’s OK,’ I say. ‘She’s come here to live with us for a while. We’ve been away, remember?’
‘You’re her!’ he says, backing away from Alex. ‘You’re the reason we’ve been praying all week! Mr Bevins said that a visitor would come from the mainland. It’s happening . . . just like he said!’
Alex stands up, holding Paul on her hip, and backs away from him. ‘You’re nuts,’ she says.
‘Where are the others, Jonathan? Where’s Mary? Why were the twins locked in the cellar?’ I talk to him slowly. ‘What’s happened?’ But I can tell he isn’t taking anything in. He kneels in front of the fire, his hands pressed together, muttering prayers.
‘What the hell’s wrong with him?’ she hisses, sounding scared.
‘It’s OK,’ I whisper. ‘He’s just a bit intense.’ We back away from the fire and settle back at the kitchen table, while he ignores us. I look at the pot on the table suspiciously and sniff it. It smells bitter, of mud and of something else, something chemical that I don’t recognize.
Then there is the suck of the door opening and the fire draws, logs sending out sparks. Father and Mary Protheroe come in.
Mary is tall, with a strong, serious face and red rosacea on her cheeks. This makes her look as if she’s just been scrubbed, especially when it flares, which it always seems to in the summer. Her hands are gnarly from all the work she does and the beginning of arthritis. She was already quite old when she gave birth to the twins, I don’t know how old she is exactly, but Mother told me once that she was over forty, and that was a few years before she got pregnant.
‘Where have you been?!’ I ask. ‘The twins were locked in the cellar!’
She raises her eyebrows at me as if I’m making a fuss. ‘They needed to be safe while we were gone,’ she says with a shrug, as if it doesn’t matter.
‘But . . .’
She gives me the kind of look that makes it clear that she doesn’t want to talk about it. ‘Welcome back,’ she says tightly, as if she doesn’t really mean it. Her hair is wet and her face is raw.
‘But why were they in the cellar?’ I want her to explain this to Alex as much as to me.
She tuts and shakes her head, she looks at Peter, lifting his eyelids and checking his pulse. ‘They’re fine! Take them upstairs,’ she says, and then, pointing at Alex, ‘and her too. She can share your room till we sort something out.’
‘But where were you?’ I ask. ‘No one was here. We thought . . .’ but I don’t tell her, because now she’s here it sounds presumptuous.
‘Praying,’ she says curtly. ‘In fact, the others are still up there.’
‘But the chapel lights were off. And Jonathan . . .’ He’s still kneeling by the fire.
‘We were outside, up at the rock.’ She says this like a rebuke, as if she’s angry with me. Something’s been going on while we’ve been away that I don’t understand.
‘Oh.’ I look at the twins.
‘We were praying for . . .’ She nods at Alex.
‘But why didn’t anyone come? We had to unload the boat by ourselves. And why has no one harvested the crops? Where’s Mr Bevins?’
‘Because we’ve been praying for your mission. Every day.’ When she sees Jonathan she raises her eyebrows. ‘Especially him. You know how he takes things to heart. We’re very close now, Rebekah. There have been signs, movements, the end is in sight.’
‘Go on then, off you go. Upstairs,’ Father says. ‘Everything’s OK.’
He goes over to Jonathan and touches him on the shoulder.
‘But . . . what about Mr Bevins? What about supper?’ I ask.
‘He’s deep in prayer. You’ll see him in the morning. And you don’t need any supper after that journey! Best to let your stomach settle!’ Father says.
Mary pours us each a glass of water. ‘Take this in case you get thirsty in the night.’
They seem desperate to be rid of us.
‘But the twins . . . need changing.’
‘You can do that, can’t you?’ She sounds really irritated. ‘Just put the dirty clothes in the corner. I’ll deal with them in the morning.’ She comes over to me and smooths Peter’s hair with the flat of her palm. ‘They’re fine,’ she says, ‘just a bit dirty.’
I look at her face. Something odd has happened to the person inside her body and, although she sounds like Mary and looks like Mary, she is not being herself.
It’s hard to walk upstairs carrying Peter and a lamp and a glass of water. Halfway up I spill most of it down the stairs.
There are two small attic rooms at the top of the house, where the servants used to sleep. I sleep in one and the twins in the other. More often than not they will wake up in the night and get into bed with me.
‘I can’t believe she’d lock them down there,’ I mutter to Alex. She helps me undress them and put them in clean clothes. ‘Something weird has happened while we’ve been gone.’
‘Well, duh,’ she says, like I’m stupid.
I cringe. I don’t want her to judge me. ‘It’s not usually like this, honestly.’
But she just tuts like she doesn’t believe me.
Once we have the twins changed and tucked up under the blankets as best we can, we leave the door open between the rooms and go into my bedroom, which is cold and dingy in the weak lamplight. From the window I can just see the church if I stand on tiptoe. There are lights and people now. I can hear voices outside and see the floating orange glow of lanterns. They must have come down from the Devil’s Seat to pray in the church. I wonder what revelations Bevins has had now. I don’t know what time it is, but my stomach is grumbling. I suppose if I go to sleep now, the morning will come quicker.
Alex lies down in my bed and burrows beneath the blankets with all her clothes on. I blow out the lantern and get under the covers. Her arm presses against mine and there’s a warmth that spreads between us that makes me suddenly awake. I don’t know why, but there’s this electric tingle, like an energy between us. I can feel it all through my body. I wonder if she can feel it too.
‘In the morning,’ she says, ‘we’re going to find that satellite phone.’
‘OK.’ Although I don’t know how. Mr Bevins keeps his cabin locked, and if anyone saw us we’d be in trouble. She’ll learn soon enough that it’s hard to do anything here without being seen. And anyway, I don’t want her to leave. Maybe in the morning she’ll change her mind. I want her to stay here and love this place as much as I do. She just needs to meet Mr Bevins, then she’ll see. The wind has dropped and the rain stilled to a constant flat drip. I close my eyes and make a short silent petition to God that, whatever has happened, He will look kindly on me and take me to be with Mother in heaven, and in the meanwhile help me to be a good example t
o those who are not yet saved, in Jesus’s name. Amen. But all night I dream that I am locked in a cellar, running around alone in the dark in a panic because everyone has gone and I have been left behind.
EIGHT
ALEX
I woke with the dawn barely edging the curtains, wide awake, damp. I’d hardly slept all night, thinking, planning how I was going to get my hands on that satellite phone. I fell asleep dreaming about it. I wanted to go back and I didn’t care if they pressed charges. There was something off about the whole place that made it hard to breathe. The way those boys looked, dirty and disorientated. That woman Mary said it was to keep them safe, but I didn’t believe her; someone had given them something to keep them quiet.
I turned over and looked at Rebekah, who was sleeping on her back, one arm flung above her head, her mouth moving gently with the rhythm of her breath. She was so innocent it was dangerous. Anything could happen to her. I wanted to take her away from here. Someone needed to know what was going on. None of it was right.
There was noise downstairs, pans and plates being moved around in the kitchen, the sound of voices. Then feet on the stairs, and there was someone, Mary, standing in the doorway. Her face was pinched, weathered, her shoulders stooped like someone who has spent a long time carrying something very heavy.
‘You’re not supposed to be sleeping there!’ was the first thing she said.
I opened my eyes and stared at her. ‘Well, where else was I supposed to sleep?’ I said, but she didn’t answer.
Next to me Rebekah moved, stretching and groaning.
‘Come on.’ Mary came over and pulled the covers off us. ‘Up.’
‘Fuck off,’ I muttered, before I could stop myself.
The temperature of the room dropped. Rebekah flinched, then jumped out of bed.
‘And we’ll have none of that language here, thank you.’
‘Why not?’
‘God is listening.’
‘Oh fucking fuck off,’ I said, even louder. Like God would have the time and the inclination to be personally offended by me. God, if He existed, never listened to my prayers. I’d figured that out a long time ago.
‘Please.’ Rebekah covered her ears.
Mary stared at me hard. ‘Downstairs. Two minutes.’ She wasn’t asking.
When she’d gone to wake the twins, Rebekah looked at me reproachfully. ‘Don’t swear,’ she hissed. ‘That word is one of the worst things you can say. When Jonathan was possessed by demons he started saying it all the time, until he was cleansed by a night of prayer. Mr Bevins strictly forbids it.’
‘Oh fuck off,’ I said again, just to be spiteful. ‘I fucking hate this place, and she’s a complete Nazi. I mean, why is she getting all uppity about where we sleep?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I think I was supposed to make up the camp bed for you.’
Seriously, I had to get out of there as soon as possible. It would be very easy to just start screaming or something, I felt so tense. I reached about the bed and started collecting my clothes. I’d taken my jeans and sweatshirt off in the night.
‘Here.’ She held out a plain black dress.
‘I’m not wearing that.’ I sat up. ‘Are you mad?’
‘But we’re commanded to be modest,’ she said, almost whining.
I ignored her and pulled the blanket around my shoulders like a cloak. ‘But I’m a visitor, aren’t I? Surely there are different rules for visitors?’
‘But you can’t wear those –’ she nodded at my clothes – ‘the whole time you’re here! They’re dirty.’
I got out of bed and shook out my jeans, which were stiff with salt from the boat. I was aware that she was staring at me.
‘What’s that?’ She pointed to my ankle, where I had another tattoo.
‘Eye of Horus. Supposed to be for protection. Like in ancient Egypt.’
‘Protection from what?’
‘Evil spirits, bad people, that kind of thing.’ I pulled on my jeans, covering it up.
I’d had this boyfriend who wanted to be a tattoo artist. He wanted to give me this whole back piece. He drew it out and everything, a whole tableau of mythical beasts. Dragons and unicorns and mermaids. But I’m glad I stopped him. I mean, even I knew that fourteen was too young to make that kind of commitment. One day though I was going to have a whole work of art on my body, something beautiful and terrible. Rebekah was staring at me like I was an alien or something. When I caught her eye she blushed and looked away.
‘Sorry,’ she muttered.
‘You don’t have to keep saying that! I’m starving. Is there any breakfast?’
When we got downstairs her father was waiting with Mary and Hannah.
‘You certainly do look quite the d—’ Mary stopped herself. ‘Tomboy. We’ll have to find you some more appropriate clothes.’
‘Look,’ I said, ‘look, this was all a big mistake. If you can just call Ron and Bridget, they’ll pay whatever to get me out of here. I shouldn’t have come.’
‘I pray for you, Alex,’ Hannah said, her eyes fluttering. ‘We all do.’
‘You can’t force me to stay!’ I said. They couldn’t, could they? All I had to do was call someone – Ron and Bridget, Sue the Social Worker.
Mary laughed, but it had an edge of falseness. ‘Of course not! We’re forcing no one. Whatever gave you that idea? You come to God of your own free will.’
‘We’re not making anyone do anything,’ Rebekah’s father said. ‘But if you are going to live with us, then you need to abide by our rules.’ He looked at my trousers. ‘You’ll need to take that lip piercing out too.’ They sounded just like some of the teachers at school.
I wondered if they were hearing me at all. ‘But that’s what I’m saying. I’m not going to live with you. I want to go home.’
‘We already discussed this. Ron and Bridget entrusted you to our care.’
I folded my arms. ‘Yes, but I’ve changed my mind. This was a bad idea.’
‘I’m afraid it’s not your decision to make.’
‘Seriously? So you’re keeping me prisoner? Is this like an intervention or something?’
Hannah laughed as if I’d just told a really hilarious joke. ‘Ha! Prisoner!’ I didn’t understand why she thought it was so funny. ‘We’re all prisoners of the Lord! He keeps us safe with bonds of love!’
I glared at her.
‘Come on, we need to get the breakfast ready!’ Mary handed me a pile of bowls. ‘Put these out on the table, will you, please?’
Hannah was staring at me, all smug like she’d won something. I should have run then, but where was I going to go? I needed a plan.
Next to the kitchen was a dining room with a huge wooden table that filled the room and about twenty chairs around it. On the wall was a reproduction of da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper, in which Jesus breaks bread with his disciples and everyone looks at him except Judas, who stares out over his shoulder at the green fields, the blue sky.
I dumped the pile of bowls on the table, but Rebekah came in and told me off.
‘You’ve got to put them out,’ she said, taking them and laying them around the table.
‘Whatever.’ I sat in one of the chairs and folded my arms. This wasn’t what I signed up to. Rebekah put a spoon in front of me. I might as well let them wait on me. ‘What’s for breakfast?’
‘Oh no!’ Rebekah said. ‘We eat separately. Men first, then the women.’
‘What?’
‘Mr Bevins said it was more proper to separate us, and that the men need to be shielded from the frivolous thoughts of women so that they can better contemplate the mind of God.’
I snorted. ‘Yeah, whatever. I’m not moving.’
Then noise came from the kitchen and a few of them filed through. Rebekah’s father, Jonathan the mad guy from yesterday – they all had thick, wiry beards, one huge with hands like shovels that I heard called Micah, the twins’ father, who looked like he could have stepped out of t
he painting on the wall.
As they all came in, quiet, subdued, I could sense there was someone behind them, someone who was like the engine of this place, and when he was there in the room it was unsettling, it was like the whole place belonged to him, and all the people too, and I was suddenly nervous. He was short and wiry, his black hair long and windswept and salted with grey, and his beard grown thick and straggly. He wore a dark wool suit and a white shirt like someone from another century. He looked fiercer and more angry than the man in the photographs. I don’t know why, but I stood up.
Rebekah ran over to him, as if to embrace him, but he just stood still and stared at her, so she stopped and blushed and looked at her shoes.
‘Why are you not in the kitchen with the women?’ he said, coldly.
She looked confused and mumbled an apology and walked towards the door. I moved to follow her, but he made a gesture with his hands meaning I should sit down.
‘Eat with us,’ he said; his accent was a weird mix of English and American.
There was a murmur from some of the men, like they disapproved. But he sat down next to me and smiled and looked right at me, as if he could see straight through and into me. It made me feel shy and I couldn’t help it, but a blush rose up my neck and spread across my face. His eye sockets were set so deep in his face they were like tunnels, at the end of which his blue eyes shone, irises rimmed with black like someone had drawn around them with a marker pen. He spoke quietly so I had to lean towards him to hear.
‘It’s what you want, isn’t it? To be one of us.’ He pointed at the others around the table. Most of them seemed old, well, lots older than me, anyway, apart from one who was young, barely any fluff on his chin, who was staring at me like I was some kind of an alien.
I didn’t know what to say, so I shrugged.
‘To be one of the men?’ He said this more loudly. The young one snorted. I wriggled in my seat, and blushed even harder.
Hannah came in with the porridge. She ladled some into my bowl with a heavy splat. I looked at the grey splodge of congealed oats and suddenly didn’t feel hungry.
