‘Do you know who it is?’ he asked him.
‘No,’ Christopher whispered. ‘Do you?’
‘Oh yes.’ Clemitius smiled smugly, adding, ‘Don’t worry, it isn’t you.’
‘I didn’t think for one moment …’ spluttered Christopher.
Then Peter appeared, emerging from the end door of the building on the far side of the grass. He was a tall, thin, black man who walked with a measured elegance that somehow made him look sad. As he did so, everybody stopped whispering amongst themselves. Peter had presence. His height helped, but it was his physical grace that spoke to you first. Christopher always thought he looked as if he had been a dancer and, while he probably hadn’t danced for a millennium, his walk said that he could if he chose to. His brown, slightly hooded eyes glistened with thousands of years of seeing. Peter never rushed anywhere. When he got to the centre of the clearing, he paused for a moment, looked up, and said,
‘Welcome. I should start by telling you that what you are about to witness is—I am pleased to say—not common. Indeed, as new residents, there is a strong case suggesting that you do not need to see it at all. This really has nothing to do with you.’
He paused. Christopher watched anxiously. He liked to think of Peter as a force for good. This elegant old black-skinned angel embodied the calm certainty that was godliness. He spoke with the words of God. Words the angels already knew but expected to hear now and again anyway. Everyone looked up to Peter.
‘However, this is a place of openness. And as some of our more senior therapists pointed out, how can we tell you that in being here you are engaged in a transparent process of healing and sharing only to hide from you the indiscretions of one of us?’
He paused again. He seemed to be wondering if he had said enough. He apparently decided he hadn’t. ‘Others said that this could create the wrong impression for you and hinder your understanding of what this place is about. It is a place of hope, of clarity and self-improvement. And I sympathise with that view, but if seeing this means it will take longer for you to feel safe here … which it needn’t, but it might … well then, we will take more time with you.’
Peter looked around, knowing that anyone present who wasn’t an angel couldn’t possibly understand what he was talking about. He smiled. Julie noticed he had yellowing teeth. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I’m talking too much. You are here to witness a banishment.’
Christopher felt sick. He didn’t fear for himself, although he did feel a floating uncertainty about himself and the rules of therapy. But banishment didn’t come on the back of some wrong words or an uncertainty. Someone had broken the rules. The light clouded over a little and Peter looked across the grass to a breaking angel and nodded. He said, ‘I think you know who you are.’
She was a short, handsome woman, a brunette with long separate curls running past her shoulders and large eyes that glistened in the sunlight. She had been a watcher of people, like Christopher. She looked down at the ground for a moment then, raising her eyes to meet Peter’s, she strode purposefully toward him. There was a quiet murmuring. Christopher glanced at Clemitius. He was licking his fat lips.
The broken angel stood beside Peter and stared at him: defiant, afraid, and powerless, as if she had already stopped being an angel. Peter placed his hand on her shoulder and looked at her for a moment, before turning away to address the crowd.
‘Estelle. You have been a watcher for more than ten thousand years. You have been a friend to many and a saviour to more.’
Christopher thought that what should have followed was some warm applause, some kind of Angel of the Millennium award and an embarrassed speech, but instead there would be only ritual humiliation and exile.
Peter looked into Estelle’s eyes. ‘All the things you have done, all the service you have offered and the devotion you have shown amount to nothing now …’
‘What did she do?’ whispered Julie.
‘Sshhh,’ chided Clemitius, before asking in a whisper, ‘Do you think Peter is good at this?’
‘At what? What is happening?’ asked Gabriel.
‘She is being banished. She broke the rules.’ Clemitius was staring at Peter. He began bobbing up and down very slightly on his toes.
‘Do you have anything to say?’ Peter asked her.
Estelle shook her head quickly. She was still staring into Peter’s eyes. Holding on to herself, just. Then she seemed to change her mind. ‘Yes,’ she said quietly. Peter gently put his hands on her shoulders and waited.
‘What I did,’ she said hesitantly, ‘I did for love.’
Clemitius grunted with contempt; a few other angels murmured. Peter just gazed into her eyes and said quietly, ‘But not love of God.’
Estelle seemed to wilt, buckle, but Peter held her steady for a moment, before nodding and releasing her. As he let go, she seemed to pale. Any colour, whether hers or lent to her by the light of eternal September, simply left her. Slowly she turned away from Peter and faced the still, dark lake that rested at the foot of the compound and walked toward it. Everyone stared.
‘Is she going to be cleansed?’ guessed Julie.
‘Oh no, she’s way past that,’ said Clemitius
‘What’s in the lake?’ asked Gabriel.
‘I bet its crocodiles,’ said Kevin. The group all looked at him. He shrugged. ‘Well, if it was my lake, it would be crocodiles.’
‘It’s not crocodiles,’ said Clemitius irritably.
The broken angel reached the lake and half turned, raising her hand as if to wave, then changed her mind and let it drop back to her side. She paused for a moment and then stepped into the black water. She didn’t stop again; she waded out as the clouds grew darker and a slight wind picked up and made the water ripple slightly. She was quickly up to her shoulders. Again she turned. Her face was pale.
Christopher moved his arm as if to wave but didn’t quite, returning it to his side and watching her carefully, looking for some peace in her expression, thinking he could see it. A few more steps and she was under the water. The wind stopped, the clouds faded, and the lake was still again.
The compound was silent. Peter stood still in the centre, his shoulders slightly hunched. He might have sighed. Then he turned and walked slowly back the way he had come, back inside and out of view. After a moment the angels began to lead their groups away as well. Julie turned to Christopher.
‘What did she do?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Christopher.
‘You must.’
‘She sent an email,’ said Clemitius without looking at anyone.
‘What?’
‘She was a watcher, like Christopher here, and she became a little too involved with her clients. Very poor.’
‘Who did she send an email to?’
‘The daughter of a member of her group. The girl was distraught at the loss of her mother. Estelle felt she was at risk of taking her own life. She was spending more energy watching the child …’
‘Child?’ said Yvonne.
‘Yes she was about fourteen, I think, very close to her mother, but she would have been OK. I mean, if we can’t show a little faith who can, eh?’ He smiled at his little joke.
‘What did the email say?’
‘It said, “hush Deedee, know I love you, make me proud.” Her mother was the only person who called the girl Deedee. Dreadfully irresponsible.’
‘How do you know all this?’ Christopher asked.
Clemitius smiled. ‘Peter sought my counsel.’
‘And she was banished for that?’
‘Oh yes, it’s not our job to interfere or comfort, it’s not for us to get involved. Anyway’—his tone changed from judgmental to contemptuous—‘she showed no regret. She had to go.’
With that he turned away. ‘Enjoy your dinner, see you tomorrow. We have work to do.’ And he went inside.
14
Izzy was trying to persuade an exhausted Ellie to leave Gabriel’s bedside and go home with her
to get some rest. ‘If he wakes up they will phone,’ she had said about a hundred times, before trying a wide range of strategies geared to moving Ellie out of the oppressive room with wires and machines and into something like the real world. Her tactics had ranged from ‘You have to get some rest or you will make yourself ill’ to ‘Do you want him to see you like this when he wakes up’ and then, ‘Ellie, you can’t stay here forever.’ Finally, she looked at her friend and said quietly, ‘If you are going to give yourself any chance of getting pregnant, you have to get rest. You have to stay healthy.’
Ellie stared at her, at first just trying to understand the words. Izzy had said so many things but Ellie hadn’t heard one of them until the word ‘pregnant’ passed her lips. Then, as she saw Izzy for maybe the first time since the accident, a plan began to emerge, a plan to take back some small control of a life that had been wrested from her when she wasn’t even looking. It was a daring plan that required delicate timing, good planning, a fast car—and a sterilized specimen pot.
‘I need your help, Izzy.’
‘Of course sweetie, anything.’
‘I need you to help me get Gabriel’s sperm.’
‘Of course you do, darling … What? What do you mean, exactly?’
‘Look, the doctors won’t help me: they say they can’t invade Gabriel’s body to get his sperm. I need it; I need it the same day I have my eggs taken out, but I can’t be in two places at once. So I need you to take Gabriel’s sperm, put it in a jar, and bring it to the clinic.’
‘Darling, that’s … insane,’ said Izzy, touching her friend’s arm.
Ellie pushed her hand away and stared at her.
‘How … how do I get Gabriel’s sperm, sweetie?’ asked Izzy, already frightened that she knew the answer.
‘You take it,’ said Ellie, ‘the usual way!’
‘Well excuse me, but giving your best friend’s boyfriend a hand job while he’s in a coma isn’t actually the usual way!’
‘Oh come on, Izzy, you’re a nurse.’
‘Not that kind of nurse, I’m a psychiatric nurse, not a willy nurse! And in my professional opinion this is madness.’
‘Izzy, please, I’m begging you.’ Ellie began to cry. ‘Please help me.’
Izzy sat down beside her friend and held her as she sobbed. She tried to imagine helping, but she couldn’t. Yet neither could she imagine being able to say no. Finally, Izzy said quietly: ‘Ellie, sweetheart, even if I agreed, how do you know his bits work? What makes you think anything will happen?’
‘Because I have been here when they’ve washed him and after they left, I touched him … I thought, you know a bit of stimulus might help wake him. I didn’t, you know, fiddle about or anything—but there was definitely a response.’
‘Well, maybe on some level he recognised you. He won’t recognise me, will he?’
‘He’s in a coma. His life systems are functioning, but he isn’t.’
‘It feels weird.’
‘Izzy, this is a matter of life and death. Weird doesn’t come into it. I have lost everything, everything—this is all I have, a slim chance it may be, but it’s all I have.’ Ellie’s eyes were red-rimmed and staring. A few moments ago she hadn’t thought of this; now it felt like the very idea was keeping her alive.
Izzy stared at her friend and looked at Gabriel’s body.
‘When?’ she asked.
‘The day after tomorrow.’
‘What do I do with it once I’ve got it?’
‘You bring it to the clinic. They “wash” it, find the healthy ones, and add them to my eggs. Then we wait. You have to get them to the clinic inside twenty minutes and you have to keep them warm. Hold the pot under your arm.’
‘Ellie!’
‘What?’
‘How do I get them to the clinic in twenty minutes?’
‘You’ll need a fast driver. Sam.’
‘Sam! Sam? What am I going to tell Sam?’ Izzy cried. ‘ “Listen darling, wait here, keep the engine running—I’ve got to run upstairs, give our comatose friend a wank while the doctors aren’t looking, and then you have to drive us with his seed to Ellie”?’
‘Well why not?’ said Sam, who had arrived a few moments earlier and had stood quietly at the door, holding a bag full of fruit and water. ‘How about for now though, we get Ellie home? You need some rest and some proper food if you’re going to try to grow a baby.’
15
The dining room was three-fifths IKEA restaurant and two-fifths college refectory, with wooden floors polished in red and metal-legged tables for six lining the sides. Only one table was occupied when Christopher brought the group in. In the far corner, five miserable-looking non-angels were eating pasta and listening to their angel, clearly the old and nervous-looking one in the long white smock. Only two of them looked up when Christopher and the others entered, and they didn’t look for long. Christopher knew that this was Estelle’s group. It occurred to him that if he were banished today, nobody would look that sad about it. He wondered what that said about Estelle. And about himself. He ushered his people to a table beside the window.
The table was laid, with silver cutlery on a crisp, thick white tablecloth. There were two bottles of wine, one red and one white, and a large jug of water along with a basket of rolls and a bowl of olives.
‘What do you think of our restaurant?’ Christopher asked, adding before anyone could answer, ‘Wine?’
‘Oh about bloody time,’ said Yvonne, pouring herself a large glass of white.
‘You’re not trying to get us drunk, are you?’ said Kevin.
‘Red, please,’ said Gabriel.
‘Yes, red,’ seconded Julie. ‘So is this still therapy?’
‘No, no. This is dinner,’ Christopher said feebly. ‘It’s a chance to relax a little. We do realise what a shock this is, and we would like to make you feel as comfortable as possible. And give you a chance to get to know each other outside of the group.’
‘You were saying earlier that you thought this was unusual?’ Yvonne said to Gabriel.
‘Yes, sorry about that, I thought it was … just thinking out loud. My girlfriend is a psychiatric nurse. She used to talk about work, not so much lately, but I remember her telling me that in the more serious groups, the ones she described as “full of rich well people in need of some attention”, they have a rule that members shouldn’t mix together outside of group.’
‘Well, you are right—’ Christopher began.
‘What’s her name?’ interrupted Yvonne.
‘Ellie.’
There was silence for a moment, before Gabriel asked: ‘How about you? Do you have anyone?’
‘A son, Anthony—he is twenty-one, studying in Spain. Well he was a few days ago, presumably someone would have called him.’ Yvonne stared into her now-close-to-empty glass. ‘He won’t know what to do; he is a young twenty-one going on seventeen. I may have been a fussy mum. Going to Spain was an enormous adventure for him, studying Spanish and European literature. He’s too young to be arranging funerals.’ She drank, and poured herself another. Turning to Julie she said: ‘ Do you want some of this, love?’
Julie took the bottle of red. Gabriel said to her, quite softly given that she had run him over, ‘How about you?’
‘Not really. I was...’ She trailed off and shrugged. She found herself thinking about Michael and wondering what the answer to that question would have been if the accident had happened a month, a week later.
‘Me neither,’ said Kevin, ignoring the fact that nobody had asked him. ‘An ex-wife and two kids who I don’t really have much to do with. Well I send gifts, you know, and write, but we’re not close.’
‘How old are they?’ asked Gabriel.
‘Oh Christ, the boy must be twenty-three, no twenty-four, and the girl twenty, just about to turn twenty-one.’
‘Do you see them?’
‘Yeah, once or twice a year, we go out for something to eat. The girl writes me emails. That’s n
ice. It’s the only reason I have a computer. It’s her birthday coming up.’
The starter, mushroom soup, arrived. Yvonne ignored hers, pouring her fourth large glass of wine instead. The others ate, commenting on how good it tasted. Julie wondered out loud how they could taste anything when in truth they are not physically there.
‘Well it’s something we gave a lot of thought to and I won’t bore you with all of the reasoning,’ said Christopher. ‘Suffice to say we need to bring as much of whatever constitutes “you” here as we can, and that includes your tastes and your responses to them. For example, if you drink … a lot … you will get just a teensy bit drunk.’ He looked at Yvonne. She ignored him.
‘But our bodies are still on earth?’ asked Julie.
‘Yes, but you are here.’
‘Can we feel anything here that happens to us there?’ she followed.
Gabriel jumped in. ‘Can we see ourselves? Can we see our … can I see Ellie?’
‘Well, actually you can. Eventually. If we think it would be helpful to the therapeutic process,’ Christopher said. ‘There is a viewing room that enables you to look at where you are, if you know what I mean. However, we have to be sure that the act is in the best interests of the work you are here to do.’
Gabriel, who had been hunched and distracted since he arrived, finally came to life. He started drumming his hands on the table and said loudly, ‘When can I see her?’
‘Not yet, I’m afraid. You need to do some work first, and maybe not even then if we don’t think will be helpful.’ Christopher felt embarrassed. He didn’t bring them here to make them even more unhappy, and particularly not before the main course.
Gabriel was staring at the floor, Julie was staring at him. Christopher looked out of the window. When he saw the trees beside the lake, he always imagined he could smell them. Wet bark and orange blossom. ‘I’m sorry. I know this is hard, but please be patient.’
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