Blinded by the Light

by Sherry Ashworth

  Nick opened it and seemed to recognise me immediately.

  “It’s Joe!” he shouted. There were footsteps and Kate appeared, her hair flowing loose.

  “I knew you’d come,” she said, smiling.

  3.

  From Rendall’s Laws Governing Purity: Abstinence

  White Ones, and those aspiring to be White Ones, should refrain from those substances and impure actions which cloud the vision. You shall not imbibe alcohol or caffeine; neither smoke tobacco, nor use any artificial substances – legal or illegal – to alter your consciousness. You shall not gamble nor overeat. You should not fix your mind on worldly success, nor love another as much as you learn to love the Light. Purity leads to enlightenment. I have spoken.

  Funny how as soon as you cross the threshold of a new place you yourself become different. The place exerts an influence. Like I’m different collecting empties at the Red King from the way I am at Electric Avenue. Different again when I’m with my mates. With Kate and Nick I was different once more, and I liked this new me.

  They ushered me into the house, made me feel welcome immediately. They said they’d been talking about me and felt they should have stressed more strongly that they had meant the invitation for tonight. I was flattered I’d made such an impression on them. In my fantasies, people sought me out. Now it was happening for real.

  I don’t know what I expected their house to be like. In fact it was a rambling old farmhouse and the centre of activity was a large kitchen. That was where they took me. In the middle of it was a wooden table laid out with food and drink, and around the table a few people were seated, late teens, early twenties. More people were standing around. Naturally they all turned to see who I was. Then some people made a space for me at the table, although I wasn’t ready to sit down yet. I put my Bacardi Breezers down on the table and hoped that would be the sign for someone to offer me a drink. I know Dad had lectured me about drinking and driving, but one drink now would help me relax, and I’d stay long enough for it to have time to wear off.

  Then Nick came over, holding a bottle opener.

  “Do you want one of those?” he smiled, indicating the Bacardi Breezers I’d brought with me.

  I did. I drank it straight from the bottle. I suggested he have one but he shook his head ruefully.

  We were joined by Kate and a bloke about my age. Then a slightly older man came up to us as well. Instinctively I straightened, stood to attention. Some people have that effect on you.

  The younger bloke turned out to be called Will.

  “This is Fletcher,” Kate said, smiling at the older one. “I told you about Joe, Fletcher. He’s the person Nick and I met on our way back from Wolverhampton. Fletcher’s the tenant of the farm, Joe. We’re all responsible to him.”

  I gave him the once over. He was tall, cool blue eyes, rather intense. He wore a white kaftan and I immediately had him down as one of those ex-hippie types who are into ecology and tree-saving and that. He seemed friendly enough, though.

  It turned out Will ran a charity shop in Hebden Bridge, and Fletcher was the tenant of the farm. He grew stuff in the adjoining land and looked after the place. Will seemed more normal. He grinned quite a lot, out of shyness, I reckon. His head was shaved; he wore a white football shirt with the name of some bloke I didn’t recognise on the back. They asked me quite a bit about myself, and as the Bacardi took effect, I found myself more and more ready to answer.

  Quite an adult party, I thought, looking around me during the lull in conversation. It was all talk, no music. Maybe this was just a warm-up session. The other thing I noticed was, I was the only person who seemed to be drinking. There were jugs of fruit juice on the table, and bottles of water, but that was it. The food was mainly dips, hummus, vegetable sticks and hunks of bread. The lack of alcohol puzzled me, and I wondered whether this was because they did something else. This was just the sort of place you could grow your own. I looked around the kitchen. Sure enough there were things growing in pots, but nothing that looked to me like cannabis.

  It’s a bit weird being the only person drinking. You feel like you’re undressed in a room full of clothed people. Still, that didn’t stop me helping myself to another bottle. I looked around the room again, and saw Kate talking to a girl. She was stunning. Shorter than me, with loose blonde hair and dark eyes. Kate noticed my repeated glances in their direction, and brought the girl over.

  “This is Bea,” she said.

  “B?” I said, puzzled.

  “Beatrice,” the girl explained. “Which is a bit of an embarrassment, so I get everyone to call me Bea.”

  I was going to say something stupid like, to be or not to be, but luckily I stopped myself in time. I grinned at her. I could see now that her eyes were brown, contrasting dramatically with her fair hair. Kate didn’t seem to be there any more. I asked Bea whether she lived on the farm.

  “No,” she said. “But I’m going to. They said I could move in during the week.”

  I nodded. “So where do you live now?”

  “In Rochdale,” she said. “With a sort of friend. I’m studying at the college. But I sing too.”

  This was getting better and better. I definitely fancied her and she looked around my age. I had a good feeling about tonight. I gestured in the direction of the Bacardi Breezers and asked her if she wanted one. She shook her head. Then she smiled at me impishly.

  “Why are you drinking it?”

  I shrugged. “It’s a party, innit?”

  “So?”

  “Well, everybody else…” My voice trailed away. I was the only person drinking. I tried to defend my position.

  “Well, OK. It relaxes me, makes me feel good. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Do you need alcohol to make you feel good?”

  “No, I don’t need it, but I choose to have it, which is different.”

  “But you said before it relaxes you, which means you were feeling tense when you came in here. It sounds as if you’re using alcohol as the solution to a problem. So it’s a necessity.”

  “OK. So I walked into a place I’ve never been before. Of course I feel on edge. Drink isn’t a necessity, but it helps. And I like it.”

  This was different. This was not normally how I chatted up girls. But somehow this argument was fun. We were sparring, sparking off each other. It was more meaningful than the usual crap. I swigged down a mouthful of Bacardi as a challenge. Bea laughed.

  “I don’t drink,” she said. “I can feel good without it. As I do right now.”

  I wasn’t sure what she meant. Was she flirting with me? I hoped so. I had to admit she seemed much more relaxed than I did, but then she knew these people. There was something about her, too, that was centred and peaceful. I’d not met any girl quite like her before. Tasha had been like me, a bit mad, a bit of a piss artist. Bea was completely different.

  “Let’s forget about us,” she said. “Think of other people. It’s Saturday night. The pubs are full. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people all over the country are getting wasted. If you were a Martian and came down here and looked, you’d think we had a problem.”

  “Drinking’s just a recreation, like football,” I said. “Or music.”

  “Music is harmony and order,” she said. “Drinking leads to disorder, fighting, illness. Even football is controlled. Drinking leads deliberately to a lack of control. People are giving themselves permission to do things they wouldn’t otherwise do, not if they had their judgement intact.”

  This was strong. I realised then she may have had hidden reasons for speaking the way she did. What if her father was a drunk, say? What if she’d suffered from other people’s drunkenness? I back-pedalled a bit.

  “Sure. I’ll concede that in some cases, drinking controls the drinker. But most people enjoy drink as much as they do a walk, a concert, ice cream, whatever. Alcohol is a naturally occurring substance.” I knew that was illogical, but that was the drink talking.

  Be
a shook her head and her hair moved in ripples. “Men brew beer and distil whisky It ain’t natural,” she said.

  Then we were interrupted. A bloke came over to us with a guitar and asked Bea if she was ready to sing. She eagerly agreed and left me. There was a general exodus into another room and Kate swept me up and took me with her there. I picked up the third bottle on my way.

  The room we arrived in now had a low beamed roof, and cushions and beanbags were scattered around it, some creamy leather, others a grubby white corduroy. There were plants, more than you would normally see in a house, and a poster of the planet Earth. I noticed the faint smell of incense and watched while some people lit candles. I reckoned I was right about the hippie thing. I imagined myself laughing about these people to Phil on the phone tomorrow.

  Anyway, we gathered round, and the guy with the guitar played a few chords. It sounded as if it was going to be some kind of folk music. Definitely not my scene. Then Bea began to sing and I changed my mind.

  Her voice was liquid and golden. The song she sang wasn’t folk; it was simple, like a hymn, almost. The words were strange and sounded old-fashioned, like Shakespeare, though it wasn’t Shakespeare.

  They are all gone into the world of Light!

  And I alone sit lingering here;

  Their very memory is fair and bright,

  And my sad thoughts doth clear.

  It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast

  Like stars upon some gloomy grove,

  Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest,

  After the Sun’s remove…

  Another thing alcohol does for you is make you appreciate music more. Bea gave the words such significance that they seemed true to me. I related to them. They made me think of this night, the moors, the feeling of being left alone. She sang with a rich melancholy that sent shivers through me. Candlelight flickered, shadows played on the ceiling, there was complete stillness as we were all held spellbound by her voice.

  At the end of the song, there was silence. Then a ripple of applause. My clapping was the loudest of all and I regretted my enthusiasm immediately, as everyone looked round and smiled. Then there was more guitar music. I drank quickly, then. This time because something had moved in me that I couldn’t put a name to. I felt different, spaced out, kind of emotional. Bea came and sat by my side.

  “Nice one,” I said to her.

  “Thank you.” She paused for a little. “I set it to music myself. It’s a metaphysical poem.”

  “Come again?”

  “Metaphysical. Seventeenth century. The poet was called Henry Vaughan. Metaphysical means beyond the physical, beyond our everyday experience.”

  I thought to myself, that was how I felt. Metaphysical. I didn’t say that, though. I wondered if I could reach out and take Bea’s hand, but I noticed no one else in the room was touching, even people who looked like couples. That inhibited me. You don’t like to stand out from the crowd. It was enough that she was sitting by my side.

  “Who are all these people?” I asked her.

  “I suppose you’d call them a kind of commune. They have a vision about the way they want to live.”

  “They’re not religious nuts?”

  “Oh, no. Not in the conventional sense. Fletcher runs the place; Nick, Will and some other guys live here. So do Kate, Layla and Auriel. For now. But there are more of them that just visit.”

  “Why?”

  “For enlightenment,” she answered.

  “What do you mean, enlight—”

  People were making hushing sounds. Someone else started to sing, a bloke. It seemed rude to carry on talking, so I stopped. I took a closer look at the people around me now. At first glance, they looked dead ordinary. A few ugly blokes, a rather chubby girl in a white dress that made her look like a bridesmaid, faces you might see anywhere. But on closer examination they did look different. And then it dawned on me why. Everyone seemed remarkably happy. Most people look fed up seventy-five per cent of the time. These guys gave the impression that here was where they most wanted to be. I wasn’t jealous exactly, but I decided I’d go and get the last Bacardi.

  Back in the kitchen two people I hadn’t been introduced to were sitting in a corner talking intently. They both said hi to me. I took the last bottle and thought I ought not to drink it as I wouldn’t be fit to drive home. But then – what the hell! I opened the bottle and gulped some down. I felt unsettled and alone. I wanted Bea to come back but perversely I didn’t want to fetch her.

  There were stirrings from the other room and people started to drift back. Bea and Kate were among them. They came over and I saw Kate glance at my drink.

  “How did you get here tonight?” she asked.

  “I drove,” I said.

  “You can’t drive back.”

  This was true.

  Kate then invited me to stay the night. “We’ve lots of room,” she said.

  Well, why not, I thought. I was still sober enough to ring my parents and let them know I wouldn’t be back until the morning, assuring them I was fine. Dad told me to make sure I returned the car by eleven. It was weird and uncomfortable hearing their voices. They sounded so ordinary. I was glad to end the call and put my mobile back in my pocket.

  “Come on,” Bea said. “I’ll take you on a tour.”

  She reached out for my hand now and I let her lead me out into the hall. She pointed to a staircase. “The offices are up there. And Fletcher’s quarters. A bathroom too.” She took me back into the room where the singing had been. Now I could see a sort of conservatory adjoined it, roughly built, with wooden benches ranged around inside.

  “That’s the Gathering Place,” she said. She opened the door and I followed her in. It was cold and damp in there. The floor was uneven stone. We went through another door and were outside. The slap of the wind sobered me up.

  “Here’s where the lads sleep,” she said, pointing to a stone-built barn. “There’ll be a bed in there for you.”

  Shit. I had hoped for something else, but never mind.

  We went back inside the house and I finished my drink. There were fewer people about now. We sat by the table in the kitchen and I helped myself to some of the food. It was late but I was suddenly wide awake. I wanted to talk.

  “Tell me about yourself, Bea,” I said.

  “No. I’m more interested in you, Joe. And your ideas. Like – are you happy?”

  “I’m happy sitting here talking to you.”

  “Are you generally happy?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “What is happiness?” she asked me, her voice teasing.

  I began to formulate an answer but then realised this was a hard question. I struggled a bit. “Erm… happiness is when things are going right.”

  Bea looked reflective. “For me, happiness is knowing that you’re exactly where you’re meant to be. Here. Now.”

  For some reason, her happiness seemed better than mine. I wanted it.

  “Joe, has it occurred to you that most of the time life is empty? That we fill it with trivia, which become obsessions?”

  I thought of the computer games I played, of the trashy TV I watched, renting out videos I didn’t like. I didn’t say anything. She continued.

  “We’re just here, we have this life, we don’t know what to do with it. Each of us makes up our own reason for being here. Listen. It’s like Rendall’s Tale of the Traveller, the way he builds himself his shelter.” She paused. “Sorry, you don’t know Rendall’s Parables. I’ll lend you the Book some day. You remind me of the Traveller.”

  I liked that. I am a traveller. It sounded like something vaguely sci-fi. The thought made me smile and Bea smiled back.

  “Come on, Joe. What’s the purpose of your life?”

  It was turning out to be an impossible question. I hesitated. He who hesitates is lost. I shrugged.

  “So you really don’t know,” she said.

  “Does it matter?”

  “It matter
s. Because if the purpose of life doesn’t matter, then nothing matters.”

  “Do you know the purpose of your life?” I asked her.

  “Yes” she said simply.

  Her face seemed to light up as she said that. Like a Madonna. It stopped me doing what I was going to do next, which was to try to kiss her. But it was weird. Not kissing her was almost better than kissing her. Wanting to was more exquisite than doing it. Imagining it was beautiful.

  We sat in silence for a while. I couldn’t believe all this was happening to me. Then Bea took me back out to the barn where the blokes slept. She handed me over to Will, who set me up with a sleeping bag in a kind of dormitory with wooden panels between the beds, giving some sort of privacy. A few people were already asleep.

  Of course I didn’t sleep for ages. I was just thinking, where am I? Who are these people? I was a bit scared they were born-again Christians, but there had been no mention of Jesus. No crucifixes anywhere, nothing. No attempt had been made to brainwash me. Bea made me think, and think deep, but what was wrong with that? Maybe we all need to think a little more. Maybe I do.

  It was true that sometimes I did ask myself what it was all about. Because when you come to think of it, life is incredibly strange. To think that all I can ever know or feel is my consciousness, and yet all the other millions of people on this planet have their own consciousness which I’ll never experience. I don’t know whether I believe in God. I don’t know if I believe in life after death. Though I can’t imagine just being nothing. It occurred to me that what Bea said was right in a way. If there was nothing, if life had no purpose, then I might as well go out and rob and cheat and steal, because it didn’t matter. But I do believe in a basic sort of morality, so it follows I believe life must have some purpose. But what?