The Pattern Maker

by Nicholas Lim

  There are fields with sheep. Orchards. Flower meadows.

  Christmas took a shuddering breath filled with sadness. He would never make the journey again.

  Continue on the path up into the valley.

  A sharp pulse thudded in his temples. The air came and went from him in short pants. Repeated shivers ran through his body.

  You reach the source of the stream where the water runs clear in pools that reflect the sky. You have arrived at the place of faith. You see sets of stone steps cut in the earth. They lead down into confusion and darkness. Choose.

  He chose the path of action, as he always did.

  Good. You have chosen well. There are candles. Light one.

  The candle flame was white, like the thudding pain in his head.

  You are in a maze with corridors branching in all directions. Follow the sequence of personal growth as you have been taught. Find your way through the darkness.

  He opened his eyes. Pale whites stretched to the horizon, the light of English seaside summer mornings.

  You stand in the Circle of the open secret, where the Unseen is made visible.

  Christmas studied the cooling distances. Bible white, sea and sky. As above, as below. He closed his eyes again and waited. His head was aching. Sweat cooled his back.

  This is where the central truth can be revealed to you.

  He watched his breath.

  “Sorry – are you working?”

  In…Out…

  “Hello?”

  In…Out…

  “It’s too early.”

  “He’s got his sign out. Scuse me?”

  Christmas opened his eyes. A woman in a pink beach dress knelt in front of him. Behind her a man held a Frisbee with two hands; he was looking away. The woman gestured at a cardboard sign propped up on pebbles.

  “Hi. Are you working?”

  His fingers found the buttons of his music player and stopped the track.

  “What do you want done?”

  They discussed prices.

  “How long will it take?”

  Christmas looked at the woman and estimated her pain threshold. “Maybe an hour.”

  It was still early on Brighton’s Palace Pier beach. The tide was in, the sea flat beneath a white sky. Scattered irregularly along the dunes, fluorescent-coloured sleeping bags twitched and rolled like the pupating cocoons of some exotic giant moth.

  Christmas sat cross-legged on a striped cotton mat at the top of the highest dune. His eyes, widened in concentration, were of a startling green, the colour of glass pebbles found on the shore and held up to the sun. Barefoot and shaven-headed, wearing faded jeans and a cotton waistcoat, he was weathered down like an old piece of driftwood. Between his legs a power cord snaked down to a small battery-pack.

  He held a buzzing needle over the outstretched arm of the woman in the pink dress. Her skin was good to work on, smooth and unmarked. Sheets of muscle bunched and folded like heavy cloth over his shoulder blades as he worked. His movements held the compact threat of a boxer.

  He lifted the needle’s tip. “We’re done.”

  She blew out her breath. “Nice one.”

  “That’s twenty-five?”

  Christmas waited while the woman searched in her waist pack. On her right forearm a small butterfly gleamed wetly. Many more insects stood out across the caramel skin of the tattooist; separate swarms of flies encircled left and right forearms; half-a-dozen beetles spotted his chest and abdomen; a large moth shadowed his neck. The woman counted out five blue notes into his hand.

  “Don’t forget, the Thousand Names of God.” Christmas held out a leaflet. “Here, take this.”

  “I don’t–”

  “Just read it in your spare time.”

  “I’m not really… Well, okay. Thanks. How long till it’s fully healed?”

  “Couple weeks. Best you cover it. Don’t pick. Don’t scratch. No swimming.”

  He adjusted his ear buds, ignoring the thanks. His customer turned away.

  Latin plainsong echoed out across the unbroken mercury surface of the sea, backed by a drumbeat and a flute. When he held out both hands and flexed muscles, a swarm of flies settled on his right arm; beetles scuttled across his chest and abdomen, crawling down under his jeans and waistcoat as if seeking shade.

  The sun, a perfect pink disk, slid up out of cloud like the opening of a great eye. Words from Sri Ramakrishna rose in his mind. Longing is like the rosy dawn; then, like the sun, comes the vision of God. When he bowed, a deep bow from the waist, his tattoos were brought to sudden illuminated life, like panes in an Advent calendar opened all at once, Christmas morning. Arms raised, he called out in a clear voice.

  “Sri-kalki. Arshu! You who showed us the unseen through the Eye of Faith: many are Your names and infinite the forms through which You may be approached.”

  An old woman, up to her waist in the flat sea, glanced over her shoulder. She raised a hand to her blue shower cap for balance as she stared at Christmas, then turned and stepped out into deeper water. Her dog, a black and white border collie, ran back and forth along the shore, barking and snapping at invisible enemies.

  All along the beach the overnight sleepers were waking – rolling, sitting up, splitting the sides of their fluorescent cocoons to stand two-legged, blinking at the sunrise. New arrivals were spreading out over the flats, intent on securing a pitch for the day. Up on the boardwalk a hotdog vendor pushed his cart between drifting holiday-makers. Shopkeepers were opening, putting out signs, hoisting awnings, laying out tables and chairs, securing their trading spaces for the day.

  He could see the old woman with the blue shower cap doing a slow crawl fifty yards out, watched over by her anxious dog. Should he go for a swim, before the real heat? He turned off the music and stood in one smooth motion.

  He swayed on his feet. Blood thudded in his skull. He sat down again.

  The muscles in his legs ached. He could hear his quick breaths. He stared at the water’s edge. His time of trial was coming. Maybe perform his Dues?

  Breathe in, deeply and smoothly. Now breathe out. Do not try to control the breath. Just watch. How it is. However it is.

  The sun rose, yellowed and gathered strength. The sea was suddenly molten, heaving heavily as if out of sleep. It was going to be another scorcher. Christmas put a cold arm across his hot neck. Sweat poured down his back.

  The Palace Pier stretched out into the sea like an anchored liner. Pale strings of multi-coloured lights beaded the ivory superstructure. How many times had he sat on stones and gazed at the same floating whites, of Indian ghats, Greek fishing villages, Venetian palazzos? Aged and feminine, the pier seemed like some grandmother spirit brooding over her waking children. He could see movement beneath the wrought-iron arches of the pier.

  Was that Jade?

  How was she doing this morning? She had been worse last night. Drunk, feverish, they had lost each other near Juicy Fruity’s last night. Christmas held his knees. Moisture trickled wherever skin touched. He raised his shoulders. If only the aches would go. Were they getting worse? He had been warned.

  The sun’s disk brightened, shrank, became an invisible point. The last cotton-white clouds began to fray at the edges and disappear. Out across the beach the noise reached the continual scream of a school playground. Christmas shivered in the sunshine and drew a hand across his forehead. It came away shiny. He shaded his eyes, scanning the crowds. His glance alighted briefly on each person, probing momentarily for opportunity.

  ***

  Dr William J Prenderville’s practice was in north Oxford. It was only two hours from Brighton. Garrett parked outside a tall residential house, an Edwardian end-of-terrace building that leaned a little crookedly over its neighbours.

  In his seventies, Prenderville was now semi-retired, a part-time clinical psychiatrist and Oxford lecturer. Garrett knocked on an orange door. It opened almost immediately.

  “Carl, get down! Now!”

  “Hello!�
�� Garrett caught the sharp paws of an ash grey Persian. She knelt and when the cat stood still for her, picked it up and handed it back to its owner.

  “Thank you.”

  Dr Prenderville was tall, with a long face. He moved with a slight limp, favouring his left leg. With one hand he combed white curls across a spider angioma high on his forehead.

  “Christine Garrett?”

  “Yes.”

  “Please come in. I won’t be a moment.”

  Prenderville showed Garrett into a study. A long récamier couch and a wooden ladder-back chair faced a desk. Irises stood in vases on occasional tables between glass-fronted bookcases. The grey Persian and what looked like its twin, only snow white, drifted into the room. They floated around her legs and nibbled at furniture, silent as fishes.

  While she waited, Garrett walked down shelves reading titles. ‘God's lamps’, ‘Self and Belief’, ‘Feet of clay: a study of gurus’. The books were grouped by subject and sub-subject: Schizophrenia, the Holocaust, Thought Reform / Coercive persuasion / Deprogramming / Exit counselling.

  She picked out one of Prenderville’s own, ‘A Study of Modern Cults’, from a row of twenty copies, and riffled pages.

  What is a cult?

  The term is usually pejorative, denoting a group whose beliefs or practices are considered strange. I define a cult more specifically to be a group led by a charismatic leader who employs techniques of thought reform. Such groups typically exhibit many of the following behaviours: demands for purity, continuous confession, exclusive membership terms, production of transcendent experiences, no-complaints cultures, planned spontaneity, imposed punishments and rewards, closed repetitive language, personality worship, doctrines superseding experience or persons, milieu control, sacred science…

  Garrett took out her phone and redialled a number.

  “CDSC Colindale, how may I help?”

  “Simon Kirkpatrick please.”

  The telephone system began to play Kenny G. Four bars into ‘The Girl from Ipanema’ the music was interrupted.

  “Simon Kirkpatrick, CDSC.”

  “Simon, it’s Christine Garrett from Sussex Epidemiology.”

  “Christine, yes. I got your voicemails.”

  Three of them. “Thank you for taking my call. We referred some malaria cases to you yesterday–”

  “Well I looked – we’ve not received anything from first line support.”

  “A priority lab request should have been sent to you last night with the notifications.”

  “I’ll look again.”

  Garrett heard faint clicks of a mouse. She thought about Rafal Dudec. Had he not sent it? It was possible. Damn.

  “Can’t see anything.” The man sounded bored. In the pause Garrett heard paperwork shuffling in the man’s mind. She needed him to push a button. He was probably staring at it on the screen in front of him. She prepared for a game of bureaucratic chess. Love it or hate it, everyone in the National Health Service knew how to play.

  “No. Nothing.”

  “Perhaps there’s been a mistake at our end. I’ll check. Would you be able to put in an emergency lab request? It is an urgent case.” Garrett gesticulated as she spoke and moved in reversing circles with small stopping steps, balanced trim on her feet for any direction.

  “We haven’t even opened a case file yet. Without the notices and the E244 requisition form–”

  “Did you receive a call from Colin Jenkins?”

  “The Sussex county medical examiner?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is this what he was calling about? I was at lunch.”

  “I have the biopsy material ready. As soon as I know the lab–”

  “As I say, we’ve had no paperwork.”

  “I’ll send you the forms today.”

  “You’ve actually been coming through to the wrong person. I’ll be away for the long weekend. Going forward, ask for Clarice Konstantis. Please take down this case reference.”

  Garrett ended the call. She stared down at the book in her hands.

  Sacred Science:

  a marriage of the religious and the rational

  A four-hundred-year retreat of competence has left its mark: most modern religions attempt at least passive reconciliation with science. Such accommodations are rarely simple because, beyond the embarrassments of history, there is theology. To claim to know anything of the mind of God is an assertion of authority; such authority – if it is to have consequence in the temporal world – must negotiate with scientific truth and its technical utility.

  Many cults attempt a more active marriage of convenience, using a technique of mystical revelation I call sacred science...

  Prenderville re-entered the room. Garrett put the book back.

  “Please, have a seat.”

  She chose the chair.

  “Now, what can I do for you?”

  There was a moment of silence.

  “Would you like some tea?” Prenderville asked.

  “No thank you.”

  “Water?”

  “No. Thanks.” Garrett felt for her mobile. She considered turning it off.

  Prenderville waited.

  “Thank you for seeing me at such short notice.”

  Prenderville sat back. “Not at all.”

  Garrett held her fingers and watched the sunlight on the window glass behind Prenderville’s head. She remembered what she had learned when she had looked up the psychiatrist, that his daughter had entered the Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon thirty years ago.

  “Jason is due to call me, in twelve days. I haven’t heard from him in six months. If he does call, I’m not sure what to say to him – what’s the best thing.”

  “What do you want to say?”

  “Come home.” I’ve kept your room just as you left it. Your car’s in the garage.

  When Prenderville gave a nod Garrett added, “But I can’t say that. He’d resent it.”

  I’ve missed you. What have you been doing? What have they done to you? Have they hurt you?

  “I want to ask him if he’s alright.” Garrett looked up at Prenderville. “I think he would resent that too.”

  “Tell me what happened, from the start.”

  Garrett considered the unwelcome request; as a doctor she would have asked for the same.

  “Alright. Five years ago David my husband – Jason's father – died in an accident, a car crash. Jason was sixteen at the time and he found it very difficult to cope with. He and David had been very close. When he left school – before university – he went travelling. Against my advice.” Garrett hesitated. She forced herself to go on. “Our relationship had deteriorated. Anyway, for two years I received regular postcards and e-mails, from all over, Italy, Greece, Israel, Thailand, Korea, India. Jason started to describe visits to ashrams and alternative communities, and I heard from him less and less. Then a couple of years ago, he turned up out of the blue at our home in Brighton. He’d run out of money. He stayed with me about a month.”

  Garrett watched one of the Persian cats bob along the bottom of a bookcase. It stopped and looked up at her with two large blinking purple eyes.

  “They were difficult times.”

  “Difficult how?”

  “He would appear and disappear without notice. I suspected he was selling illegal drugs. He denied it. We argued. A lot. Then he disappeared completely. No word. No calls. No e-mails. Four months later he reappeared. I barely recognized him. He had shaved his head and wore Indian clothes. He had a number of tattoos. He seemed mentally unstable.”

  “In what way?”

  Garrett dropped her head as though ashamed at something she’d done. “He told me I was only to call him Skyler from now on, and that Jason was dead, and I wasn’t his mother. He would stare for hours at a single object, a window, a tap, a flower, a mug of tea. When I asked him what he was doing he would say things like, ‘You wouldn’t understand’ or ‘You must learn to transcend yourself, mother’ or ‘Contemp
lating reality’. He had obsessive rituals around certain events – sunrise, sunset, mealtimes – when he would say names and phrases again and again, like prayers.”

  “Do you remember examples?”

  “Yes I remember. They were like broken records. Arshu! Father of Light! Triple-born Jewel! He had one phrase ‘Goo-roosh-ree-kal-ki Arshu’ which he was always saying. When I asked him what it meant he just smiled.”

  “Guru-sri-kalki,” Prenderville re-pronounced the first syllables. “They are the words that begin the Arshu Purana, part of a prophetic scripture written in Sanskrit. A rough translation is ‘Divine father incarnate.”

  “Divine father,” Garrett repeated.

  “I recognise it because it is part of a common Asari prayer: ‘Gurusri-kalki Arshu! You who showed us the Unseen through the Eye of Faith, many are Your names and infinite the forms through which You may be approached.’ Arshu is the leader of a community called Asari.”

  Garrett felt a flash of anger. “Jason began asking me for money. Increasing amounts. When I finally refused that was when he left. Actually I will have that water if I may?”

  Prenderville walked with a slow uneven step, a hand down by his right leg. Garrett drank half a glass.

  “Thank you. I waited another month. Then I made a mistake.”

  Prenderville returned to his side of the desk.

  “I went through things he’d left in the loft. There were blister packets of various drugs. Sheets of LSD. He had used our house as a dealer’s store.”

  Garrett stopped and watched the cats circle, allowing their aimless movements to calm her.

  “He had kept a diary. I discovered he had not been happy. It was upsetting to read. Not that I should have. I learned about this group Asari, how he joined up. The meetings, the drugs, the Disciplines as they called them, the donations, the vows of loyalty, bizarre rituals around this leader, Arshu. There were pages and pages about one morning Jason thought he had stepped on this man’s shadow. Fears at what might happen.” Garrett shook her head. “He had to write confessional essays all the time, about what he feared most, hated most, wanted most–”