The Shepherdess

The Shepherdess Iain Brimswall

Urban Rim Publications

2009

The Shepherdess © 2009 Iain Brimswall First published 22 June 2009 ISBN 978-0-9554071-3-0 Published by Urban Rim Publications Hull United Kingdom www.urbanrim.eu

Normal copyright protection applies. Permission is required from the publisher to copy any part of this work except in the case of brief extracts used for review purposes. A CIP catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library.

For by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved. – II Peter 2:19

This is a work of fiction. Characters, their ‘published’ material quoted within the story, and community organisations are the product of the author’s creativity. The period is the present. Locations are the west coast of Africa, briefly London, fleetingly Amsterdam, but are mostly near or in an unspecified city in the north of England.

Other novels by Iain Brimswall The Zoo Keeper Missed Chapters blrlnd

The Shepherdess is the final book of the Zoo Keeper trilogy. There is no requirement to have read the earlier books in order to enjoy this one.

1 The green elephant was the most invasive of the callers. Luminescent, lurid; intimidating as it reached down with its long dark trunk to dab away the spreads of sweat from her brow. There was also the fuzzy-topped lion and sleek-faced gazelle, appearing as some kind of conjoined animal; hunted and hunter sharing the same body; a body with two heads – white and black, black and white, floating inquisitively above her as she lay pinned and paralysed. And always the silver needle bird hovering to one side, awaiting the opportunity to plunge a piercing beak into her arm. To bring merciful riddance of the crazy gathering. “Where am I?” she asked when next her eyes opened. It came out as a slurred croak. All she could see was fine-mesh netting, spread out to entangle her like a spider’s web. She tried to panic, and must have been louder in volume on repeating the question, and more distinct, because someone answered. “Calm, now. You are going to be healed. I think so.” The voice was both strange and familiar: female, nameless, African – yes, African. It would be. This was Africa. “Who —?” “Rest. Talk is for later.” Her effort to raise herself was a complete failure. She sank back into the position from which she had not moved, probably ever. There was no strength to her body – arms, legs, anywhere; and still she had not seen the face of the voice. Later, maybe minutes or hours or a day, the net was gone. But not the voice. “You will be very very weak. This is to be expected. You must take nourishment.” –1–

A powerful black arm from a green half-sleeve brought her to a sitting position. Very very weak is how she felt as her straw frame bent to an angle, and newly discovered sores produced momentary agony. She observed her nurse for the first time. The nurse observed back, making no attempt to conceal prognostic misgivings. “What is your name?” she asked the women, vaguely aware she should know it already. Perhaps she had been told, only to forget. “Gentille.” This was pronounced in the French style. Zhonnteel. The big woman spoon-fed her broth from a deep enamelled bowl. It tasted of nothing but was surely of something. “Where is this – this place, Gentille?” she asked, between mouthfuls. The room was square and large enough to contain four metal utility beds, of which only hers was made up and occupied and complemented by a padded wooden chair and low cabinet. Plain walls of peeling faded limewash were broken by a doorway, opening into a corridor, and a window covered by a roller blind pulled down to diminished the sunlight, though diffused patches leaked around the edges. A small crucifix graced the wall above her bed. From a cracked once-white ceiling hung a fan, not turning, its bulbous hub and three substantial blades flanked either side by long shaded unlit strip lights. She caught a countering mix of disinfectant and neglect on the undisturbed warm air. The woman’s reply came between other spoonfuls. “Nowhere in particular. It is where you return to the living. That is all.” Gentille went and she slept, and Gentille came again with broth, and she consumed it, and slept. Such was her return to the living. Soon, though, she was able to raise herself. The pain of her sores was no less, and a private exploration of her physical self shocked her. A lissom body reduced to skin and bone. The injections continued. –2–

She awoke to two new faces. One was white; male; hairy on top and all around; the body beneath dressed in a crumpled beige suit and open-topped shirt; a weathered face having crows’ feet around kind eyes. The lion of her fantasy. The other was ebony black, as if the cheeks were polished; female; smiling without fluctuation; eyes that were wide and shiny and latched on to hers. This body was slim in a nurse’s smart white tunic. The gazelle of her fantasy. Lion and gazelle stood together. “Note the patient is still with us,” the lion said. A confident tone, British professional accent, tinged with humour. She lifted herself, trying not to wince. “What happened to me?” “Lucid, too.” He held her wrist and checked her pulse. “Bout of TBG. Nearly the finish of you.” “How did I get to be here?” “I often ask that of myself.” The man leaned over to look closely and clinically into her own smarting eyes. He straightened and stood back. “You are one lucky white lady. You might even make it out of here.” “TBG, you said.” “It could still be the early death of you. Be warned.” It was, she sensed, the truth said as a joke. “Are you the resident doctor, here?” The lion gave a gasp of amusement. “Doctor, yes. Here and elsewhere – an elsewhere to swallow several shires, with a patient list enough to fill a small town. Madame is my interpreter,” he indicated the gazelle, who refreshed her smile. “Not needed for the Queen’s English.” “So tell me —” “Air time over. Think rest, do rest. You’re still scraping by on reserve.” The day after the doctor’s call, she pulled herself out of the bed and attempted a few steps, using arms for assistance –3–

along its length. What would she give for a shower or a bath instead of a dab and wipe, right now? She felt a mess, was a mess. And anyway, where was the toilet in this place? It was surely a priority to relieve Gentille of her bed pan duty. Inhaling deeply, she left the safety of the bed to make for the window at the end of the room, which was reached by determination augmenting strength. Lifting aside the blind, she looked through the dirty glass and exterior vertical bars. The sun was veiled by haze. It seemed the building was part of a compound. An earth yard, surrounded by a mud-brick wall. Some oil drums, and a few sheets of corrugated metal stacked upright against a nondescript outbuilding in the near distance. Nothing else to inform her of the location. No movement. No sound, until from the room behind her: “Miss Cade! This is wonderful.” She stumbled at the window; grasped the blind; which detached from the batten and fell dustily on top of her. Her visitor rushed over. “Oh, my goodness – let me help you.” The man offered support before assessing that the only thing to do was to carry her bodily back to the bed. He laid her on it. She pulled her shift down her thighs, and sought a grip on the turned-back blanket. “Pastor Mchungaji. Thank you.” The black-clad black pastor fussed around her, showing propriety. “I hope you are not harmed, Miss Cade. Forgive me. I did not mean to startle you in that manner.” “It’s all right. I’m very very weak, I suppose.” “That is what I heard.” The visitor adjusted his heavyframed tinted spectacles and tugged at the ends of his jacket sleeves before continuing. “A miracle has happened to you, Miss Cade. No less than a miracle.” Miss Cade looked up at the pastor. Grey hairs in otherwise black tight curls gave him the appearance of being wise, –4–

which she knew he was. She motioned the chair. He carefully sat on the hollowed cushion. “Pastor. Will you please tell me where I am, and precisely what I’m doing here?” The man gave a short laugh. “The Lord moves in a mysterious way. That’s for sure.” She swept back her long hair, which felt like it had not been washed for an age. Was it on purpose there was no mirror in the room? Her bony shoulder throbbed from the fall. The miracle of which the pastor spoke was surely that of his being able to actually recognise the wreck she had become. “He does, I know, Pastor. But for our ultimate good.” “He led me to you, when I considered you were taken.” “Taken?” A pause before the reply. And then not a reply. “Miss Cade, what is the last thing you can remember? Before this place.” What could she remember? Good question. “The animals. The park. Quite some park, I’d say.” “Anything else?” “You. Me. The children. The others from the mission.” Her visitor waited. “And then… I don’t know. We were back at the mission and…” “You became sick. Most overwhelmed. Do you remember that?” No, she could not. Pastor Mchungaji told Miss Cade how she had been the victim of the tsetse fly, which is attracted by movement and contrasting colours. She had sensibly worn khaki for the park, but would possibly have carried bright garments discarded by the children. The circumstances were conjectural, the pastor admitted, though the curse carried by the insect was fact. The evil could not be vaccinated against, nor was the tsetse repelled by body cream or spray. She went down with the –5–

fever which they tried to treat in the mission’s tiny hospital. Her flesh must have received repeated attack by the tsetse because deterioration was rapid. The only hope of saving her lay in administering the resurrection drug. That, of course, was the problem. Gentille entered the room holding a small white plastic tray. The nurse threw the pastor a look which told the girl on the bed that there was animosity between the two. It was probably tribal – something she would never understand. It went with the territory. Literally. The patient saw her chance. “Look, as I have you two together, will at least one of you tell me where I am? I keep asking but nobody seems to want to tell me. Is it a secret or something?” Gentille answered first. “It is not a secret.” The pastor followed. “It is a place which I do not normally wish to visit.” Gentille again. “It is time for your injection.” To the pastor: “Please excuse us.” “I shall visit to you again, most soon,” he said to the patient as he stood. He tapped her bible, which he had brought and placed on the bedside cabinet. “Be assured, the Lord is with you.” The needle bird put her to sleep. The lion and the gazelle – they would have the answers. Where were they? Several shires – where in those several shires? This was a big country. The lucky white lady asked room service for bathing facilities and was brought a baby-bath bowl of hot water, a rounded piece of antiseptic soap, and a towel embossed with the logo of an international chain of hotels. Also a mirror. The reflected image was that of a gaunt Nordic beauty in the prime of her narrowly saved youth, possessing limp blonde hair, scabbed lips, and red-rimmed blue eyes. After an unhurried entire body wash, she felt decidedly spruced and sweeter smelling. Was she strong enough to investigate the –6–

corridor? There must be a loo hole somewhere. The bedpan routine had been replaced with a bucket left by the bed, which was only marginally more dignified. To have a pee and poo without the aid of Gentille would be a significant step forward to personal relaunch. Daylight filtered into the corridor through grill-covered ventilators high in one wall. The floor was paved and at first uncomfortable to unprotected feet after the straw matting boards of the room used as a ward. To her left and quite near, a stout door sealed one end of the corridor. To her right, the corridor stretched into brown-walled uncertainty. Choosing left, she clasped the ring handle while visually examining the long sliding bolts which secured the door top and bottom. With an effort, she pulled back the stiff bolts, and expected further impediment. But the door pulled towards her, letting in the outside. She stood on the worn stone threshold and surveyed the surrounds. Her earlier guess had been correct: the building did stand within a compound, which was far more extensive than she had deduced from the window. Roofed towers separated sections of wall. The ground was certainly of earth, compacted and smoothed by much use, the margins punctuated by clumps of weeds. It was a grim environment, made more so by a clouding sky. A prison; she was in some sort of empty prison. Aware of her vulnerability – alone and kitten weak with only a knee-baring shift to cover her body – she heaved home the bolts, painfully trapping a finger in the action, and returned to her bed. “Gentille, you have to tell me why I am in this place. I have to know when I can go. You can’t hold me against my will.” “You are yet too feeble. When the doctor says you are no longer too feeble, you will leave.” “This is a prison, isn’t it? It’s like a prison, anyway. Why am I here?” The big woman sat on the chair, carefully like the pastor had, and clenched her hands. –7–

“Yes, this is like a prison. Your people built it to hold slaves. My country’s black gold for many many years.” Patient studied nurse. “Slaves? This is – was – a slave fort?” “Built by your people.” “My people were Scandinavian – on my mother’s side. I don’t think they had anything to do with the slave trade.” “They did not have the Americas.” The girl pulled up her legs and wrapped her arms around the knees. “But that was a long time ago, surely. What is it used for now?” “The military was here, since I was a child. Before then. La caserne.” “Barracks.” “It will be a slave fort again.” “How do you mean?” Hands unclenched, fingers spread across thighs. “There is soon a heritage project. This place will be a museum of colonial cruelty. Many visitors are expected. Wealthy black people from America will come. They will learn about the evil done to their ancestors. Their dollars will be welcome.” The patient changed the subject to one of toilet facilities. That same evening, Gentille brought a change of magazines and a pair of woven mules. “Come.” She led her charge the length of the corridor. The girl was shown into a gloomy room about as large as the one they had left. A drainage channel, cut into the stone floor, was lined with low-mounted wooden planks to support the communal relieving squat. The air was stale and unpleasant. As the girl fought a retch, the nurse explained. “This is les latrines. The soldiers shit here. Slaves before them did not have the luxury. Now I will take you somewhere better.” The patient had recovered sufficiently to be discharged. That –8–

was the doctor’s opinion, and that was what the patient was impatient to hear. She asked the lion about the disease. “TBG, you called it. Am I right? What is it, exactly?” “Trypanosoma brucei gambiense. Informally known as West African sleeping sickness. Delivered direct, courtesy of Glossina – a spiteful little bounder who obviously mistook you for game.” “Do you think I was bitten a lot of times?” “No idea. What makes you ask that?” “I nearly died, didn’t I?” The lion nodded his head. “It would have been the best thing for you, one time, after the poison they pumped into you up country.” “Poison?” “As good as. Melarsoprol – arsenic mixed with antifreeze. Check the chemistry, if you don’t believe me. Some of the cheapo stuff actually dissolves plastic. Dissolved you, anyway. Do the world a favour and don’t donate your organs.” The patient was not reassured. “The pastor – my sponsor – he mentioned the resurrection drug. Is that what I’m being given here?” Enough questions, the lion told her. His remit was to sign off the dead and suss out malingerers. She was now one of the latter. He bade her goodbye and good luck, and advised against any activity that sounded remotely like fun. She asked Gentille again: why had she been brought to the fort? Why was she the only patient in the place? What was going on? The big woman replied that, when the Land Rover arrived from the bush with a sick white lady, the local hospital was full because of an outbreak of dysentery in the town. It was decided to isolate the white lady, to take her to the caserne, because she was so sick. The infirmary at the caserne was no longer in use but it had not been destroyed. She was expected to die. “Decided by whom?” asked the girl. –9–

“Decided by those who do the deciding,” replied the big woman. There the matter was rested – the carer’s tone indicated her conversation quota was filled for the day. Gentille was about to do her disappearance act. Where exactly her quarters were, the girl did not know. Although the corridor allowed access to a half-decent toilet room, other doors required keys. The nurse had keys though made it clear the patient must stay within the bounds of the lonely, nocturnally spooky infirmary. But that would be not for much longer. “I’m discharged. It’s official – you heard the doctor. I can go.” “Do you know where to go?” Before the girl could reply that it would of course be back to the mission, she was informed the pastor had her clothes and would be coming to collect her in the morning. Which he did. Shown in wordlessly by Gentille who immediately left, Pastor Mchungaji was once more initially effusive. “God has given you knew life, Miss Cade. It is truly a miracle of our times that you are looking so well.” “I’m getting there, Pastor.” She gestured towards the familiar charcoal-grey travelling case he had laid flat on the wires of the adjacent bed. “Are those my things?” The man waited in the corridor while she dressed. The clothes were not fresh but would have to do. Rural Africa had purged her of a previous fastidiousness. She called him back in. “Right. I’m ready.” “Yes. We shall go. I have reserved you a room at a pension in the town. It is modest but comfortable. I have been staying at the same myself while —” A freezing of movement as she sensed a pivotal problem. “Can’t we start off for the mission straightaway? We’ll find a lodge on the way, or sleep in the Land Rover.” “Miss Cade. You are not returning to the mission.” Definitely a pivotal problem. – 10 –

“I’m not? Why is that?” “I am sorry, but you are too debilitated. If you continue working in the field, your life’s health will suffer. I cannot permit that to happen.” Miss Cade sat on the edge of the bed she had nearly died in. “I’m getting stronger by the day. You said how well I’m looking.” “You are looking well, it is true. But you will never regain your strength. A child’s common ailment could affect you mortally. I am sorry.” “So what shall I do? Where shall I go? I want to help Africa. I want to do God’s work, here.” The pastor sat beside her. “You must return to England, Miss Cade. The Lord has saved you for a purpose.” “I thought it was the resurrection drug that saved me.” “The Lord saved you, Miss Cade. He located a source of the drug for you.” She moved to face him. “Why was I given the other stuff – arsenic mixed with antifreeze – at the mission?” “That is all we can obtain. It is effective in early stages.” “Why can’t you obtain the resurrection drug for the mission?” “Because it is too expensive.” “You could have sent for some, when I went down.” The holy man emitted a deep sigh. He dropped his gaze to open pink-black palms. “Because it is too expensive for Africa. The company cannot make profit from this continent. Therefore, the company stopped sending the drug to Africa” “They have it here, in this place, surely.” Rising, the pastor said they must go before the rain. He carried the case for her, along the corridor, out through an exit into an extension of the compound, and opened the door of the mission’s Land Rover. The girl turned towards the – 11 –

building, which she was now able to confirm, just as her imagination had pictured, to be a long low sombre block. There was even, in reality as in fancy, a centrally positioned clock tower to break the monotonous parapet, the clock’s face handless and timeless. “I want to say goodbye to Gentille. To thank her. She has been kind to me.” “A most honourable gesture, Miss Cade, but she will receive her thanks.” A hand helped her into the vehicle. As they drove down the hill into the town, large drops began to fall. In hardly any time, the heavens opened. “The rains,” the pastor said. “I thought they came later,” mused the girl. “This year, they are on time. You have been away, Miss Cade.” “So it would seem.” Miss Cade took a dislike to the hotel as soon as she saw it, through short-lived arcs cleared by the windscreen wipers. True, there looked nothing wrong with it by West African small town standards, but nothing was right with it as regards the pastor’s bringing her here. “My things – they’re at the mission,” she suddenly remembered. “The rest of my clothes, and my notes. My papers – I must have my visa. I have to go back.” “You have them here. I brought them with me. They are in the rear.” Twisting in her seat, she identified the cases and bags with which she had left England only a year and some months earlier. At that time, they represented her reinvention. But now, if she let it happen, they would signify failure and rejection. “I do feel much improved, Pastor. Really. Please let me return to the mission. I’ll be careful.” The engine was switched off. Without the windscreen wipers, the effect was that of being behind a waterfall. She – 12 –

felt a shiver; the air was cool; the rain was absorbing heat. Her companion held the steering wheel as if still driving. “I am most sorry, Miss Cade. The decision has been made.” She blew loudly, and stared through the side window at a deserted distorted street. “Everyone is making decisions for me. Don’t I have a say?” “While you were sick, very sick, certain decisions had to be come to.” The passenger looked over to the stationary driver. Their eyes met briefly, though she averted hers to be vexed. “I’m back from the dead – a walking miracle. Hey, I’m compos mentis, as well. I have a future once more, which I’d like me to be part of.” “I truly regret what has happened.” The man got out into the deluge, slammed one door and opened another to reappear at the rear platform. He filled his hands with handles and scurried comically to the entrance of the hotel, a narrow building of stacked balconies wedged between similar premises. After a low-voiced ‘shit!’, the girl opened her door and followed his example. In the hallway, the girl’s packed belongings were assembled at the foot of varnished stairs. “That’s not mine,” she said, dragging to one side a valise she did not recognise. They carried the luggage up a floor where a tall slim man of possibly north-east African origin grinned with a half-skeletal face of uneven teeth and opened a room door for them. The exercise exhausted the girl. She sat on the bed, then lifted her legs on to it, and rested her back against a pillow against the headboard. Outside the open French window, rainwater poured streetwards noisily from the balcony above. It was not a large room, offering little space for movement between double bed and basic furniture, though she did not care. She had other problems. “Pastor Mchungaji. I simply have to return with you. I cannot leave Africa.” “It is for the better that you do leave Africa.” – 13 –

“I have nothing to go back to. No money, no job, no reason.” “You say that, yet many people having nothing risk their lives to enter your country for the hope of prosperity that it will bring.” One arm rubbed the other to generate heat; she was shivering. It occurred to her that there would be no injection today. She wanted to sleep, desperately. “They don’t know what they’re letting themselves in for – that’s all I can say.” “You are tired. I must say goodbye and leave you to rest.” From inside his coat, the pastor produced an envelope possessing a thickness which he placed beside her on the bed. “Please accept this. It will help you. Consider it as inadequate remuneration for the good work you have done.” “But —” With an effort she sat up unsupported. Her sponsor appeared uneasy. “Miss Cade, there is something else.” He waited for her still attention. “A friend of mine has asked if you will deliver something for him.” “What?” “This.” The pastor lifted the valise. A headache had started, and her throat felt sore. “I had trouble keeping my own luggage together. It would be safer by parcel post.” It sounded mean, and she changed her tone. “I’ll try.” “Thank you. My friend would be most appreciative.” “Where to? What’s the address, exactly?” “A contact will collect it from you when you are in England.” Her eyes were closing. How would the contact know where to find her? She lay back and wanted to be alone. “What’s inside it?” “That is a private matter. I do not know. Be assured, the request is perfectly appropriate.” “Appropriate? What d’you mean?” – 14 –

“Please understand, Miss Cade, I have incurred obligations since you were brought here. Without the help of my friend…” She heard the shrug in his voice. “You must rest before the journey ahead. My presence is suddenly necessary at the mission, otherwise I would stay with you. I have arranged for the concierge to give you special service.” A brief silence, perhaps of apology. “Goodbye, Miss Cade. I will pray for you.” Sleep, but not restful, until something woke her. Her brain throbbed behind overlarge eyeballs and her tongue had grow a sand-paper surface. It was the same daylight; the rain still teemed. Cold, it was cold, she was cold – shivering. She had dozed in her clothes which, she supposed with annoyance, must have been damp from the rain that fell on her between Land Rover and hotel. An unsearching hand found the envelope left beside her on the bed by the pastor, after he had fired her and before he abandoned her. Still recumbent, she picked at the contents. Money, notes in local currency, notes in sterling, and tickets. And a small printed card introducing a B&B in Kings Cross. She started to laugh, not knowing at what exactly. Her throat threatened to block; a retch to clear it increased the pain in her head. As she rolled to one side, the envelope slipped over the edge of the bed and she heard the spill of its items. She emitted a long groan, and laid awhile. “Come on, that girl. Pull yourself together.” The selfadmonishment had a result. Bringing her legs round, she sat and took breath before lowering to gather up the envelope. She straightened and looked over to the door as she briefly tidied herself. That was what had woken her – someone had opened then closed the unlocked door. She checked the landing to find no one there. Taking the key from the inside, she secured the door from the outside. Downstairs, she stood in the small entrance of the hotel. The sky was brightening. It meant the rain should lessen, maybe stop altogether. Someone was by her side. She turned and looked up at the – 15 –

skeletal grin of the tall north-east African. “Oh, I —” The grin, directed towards the street, turned her way. “Excuse me, is there a chemist, pharmacy, drug store nearby?” No verbal response, just polite crooked teeth. “Ya-t-il une pharmacie tout près?” This time a nod, but not of comprehension. “Tafadhali, kuna kituo cha…?” She was searching a limited vocabulary with an unsure open mouth when, from behind, a small cheerful man approached. “Boud doesn’t speak any language.” A stocky man with a South African accent. “That right, Boud?” He stopped in front of her. “I can’t state as fact his name is Boud, but he answers to it, and that’s all that counts.” An extended hand. “Miss Cade, isn’t it? Antoine Van Demeer, at your service.” Miss Cade shook the hand and smiled in affirmation. “The pastor said to look after you. You’ve been down with the fever, I understand.” She tried not to be obvious in dropping her gaze: Antoine was less her own height than the man called Boud exceeded it. Two men from opposite ends of the continent, and just as opposite in type. In the middle, one lucky white lady from the Queen’s England. What could be the attraction of this place? “Yes, I’m afraid so. Drinking at the wrong waterhole, I guess.” There was no need to repeat to the short man the question asked of the tall man. He had heard her, he said, from his office in the back and had brought her something that would make her right. After hesitation, and prompted by a knowing lift of eyebrows from Antoine, she took the little plain-foil wrap, returned to her room where she locked the door, tilted a chair under the knob, and retired to another world. The following day brought initial promise. Head clear, rains – 16 –

stopped, sun warming. She went to the main square to obtain the coach departure times for the airport city down the coast. Small town Africa had returned to the streets after the rain to get on with life and business before the next downpour. At the newspaper and confectionery cabin that served too as a travel information point and whatever else, she learned there would be a delay of road transport until a bridge on the outskirts of town had been repaired. An accident of some kind. Hours, tomorrow, the day after that – the man behind the heaped counter could not give a closer estimate. She walked the couple of pleasant tree-lined streets in the centre of town and along a couple of scrappy streets beyond, growing steadily sweatier and depressed. The headache returned. Back at the hotel, Antoine the Man had just the thing. A nap was taken, after which arrived a gripping urge to go and see Gentille up at the fort. The nurse deserved a faceto-face thank you, if only for her devotion to bedpan and bucket. An uphill trek on foot under a sun become hot is a longer journey than the same distance taken downhill as passenger in a motorised vehicle. At a bend in the road, she sat on a conveniently sited flat-topped stone from where the sea could be seen, and sombrely compared the beauty of the wide and blue horizon to the dark stinking holds in sinister ships crammed with terrified souls on their way across the ocean to toil for white masters. Scandinavia did not have the Americas. Her people – her mother’s people – carried no guilt. Her father’s people…? A while passed on the stone before a crash of thunder in the near distance made her turn and scan the sky. The rains were about to resume. Surely these clouds should be storming in off the Atlantic, not creeping up from behind. ‘You really don’t know anything about Africa, do you?’ she had been told, on more than one occasion, at the mission. She told it to herself as she watched the clouds, and continued. – 17 –

‘The big end of two years – and all you have to show is…’ She fell to her knees, unprotected on the gritty surface, and prayed aloud. “Please, Lord. Please show me the way. I am your humble servant. Make me strong again. And let me serve. Let me do some good in the world.” The change in weather produced a change of plan. It had been a crazy plan, anyway. Within a few minutes of her starting a retrace of steps to the town below, random bullets of water fell either side of her, then in a common descent on to her. There was shelter, under the occasional tree and at one point in the shadow of a rocky overhang, but shelter was pointless from rain that could last forever. Anyway, you can’t get wetter than drenched. She walked. A car overtook her and stopped, its brake lights glowing red as she came abreast with it. Mercedes-Benz, large, recent. The passenger door was opened by a formally clothed arm from the driving seat. She bent forward to look in. “Would you like a lift?” The speaker-driver was a black man dressed in a suit of expensive cut. “It’s all right, I won’t eat you,” he added. Aware that standing angled and motionless and silent in a downpour might be construed as not only rude but brainless, yet at the same time appreciating the security of hesitation, she looked down at her dress. “I’m wet.” “I think that is due to the rain. Would you like to get in, and I will take you down the hill.” “I mean – your upholstery…” She climbed in. “Thank you, it is very good of you to stop.” The man waited for the click of the safety harness before unhurriedly pulling away. “It is very normal of me to stop when I see a lady caught out by the rain on an unfrequented road.” – 18 –

The circulating air inside the car carried the fragrance of an expensive deodorant. “I was on my way to the fort – la caserne.” A hand reached forward to adjust the air conditioning. “Indeed, such was my assumption.” She looked over at him. His was a confident smile, perhaps approaching complacent. He explained his assumption. “It is very simple. You see, this road leads to the establishment you mention and there terminates. It is the only destination you could hope to achieve by enduring this road. Also, I am driving my car away from the said establishment. Ergo, that is where my business took me. It is possible that, during the course of my business, I learnt of a recent patient, since the establishment’s sole function of late has been to offer care to the patient during medical crisis. It is possible that the patient has been adequately described to me. I see a young woman on the road that leads only to the same establishment, a young woman of corresponding description, and I am at once able to exercise the deductive skills of your renown detective, Sherlock Holmes.” “I was on my way to see Gentille. To thank her – properly.” A soft laugh from the other side of the car. “Your wetting has been in vain. Gentille is no longer at the fort. She has gone I know not where. Her skills are a precious resource for many hospitals in this country.” The last sentence smarted. It made her feel selfish and treated with a priority she wanted completely to avoid. Why had a precious resource been allocated to her – exclusively to her? Her stupid coming down with the fever had denied a lot of people the attention they were in desperate need of. “Are you a doctor?” The smile lost its outer stretch of self-satisfaction. “No, I am not of that noble profession. Alas, I am not gifted with the required qualities.” She waited for him to go on, to tell her his position, his purpose at the fort, but he did not. They had reached the – 19 –

bottom of the road and were entering the town, and streets once more distorted by rain on side-window glass. “Who are you?” she blurted, and immediately wished the words could be drawn back in. He negotiated a corner made tight by a badly parked truck of enormous dimensions before replying. “It does not matter who I am.” “It does matter.” She sighed. “Look – I don’t wish to sound ungrateful, I mean as regards being looked after and everything, but I don’t feel I’ve had any control over events.” The car pulled up almost opposite the hotel. She reached for the release, but did not move her body: she wanted a response. It came with a laugh. “You did not have control while you had the sickness. No one will have control under those conditions. The spirits take residence. They have a ball.” She arched her back by pushing against the head rest. “You can say that again,” she said, half to herself. Still she did not move, though spoke to be heard. “But it seems everyone went out of their way, like I received special treatment. I am not special. I’m just a silly aid worker who doesn’t know Africa and got ill.” “Perhaps you are special to God.” She turned to him. “To God…? Why do you say that?” And he turned to her. “You put your life at risk to help others. That makes you special, in God’s eyes. That is maybe why you came to Africa.” She was conscious of looking puzzled. Through the rain, across the street, she saw the tall man standing just inside the hotel entrance. “I came to Africa because I wanted to help those less fortunate than myself.” “Are there none less fortunate than yourself in your own country?” – 20 –

“I came to Africa to help Africans.” The comment sounded not very intelligent, somehow patronising, and she wished the stress had been different. It was time to go. She reached forward. The man had not finished. “La culpabilité des colons. Occupy, enslave, exploit, then send along your pretty young things to clear up the mess. Is that how it works?” The smile had vanished. His black face was serious, his black eyes hard, as if conveying anger and accusation. She felt miserable: wet to the skin, cold, tired, headachy. Definitely time to go. She pulled the door release and a gap appeared. He continued. “I apologise for the natives, Miss – Cade. God gave Africa to man. This is where we stopped being monkeys. Since the first of our kind, the African has had plenty time to – as you say – get his act together. Longer than anyone. Yet, here we are, waiting for our pale progeny to drop by and show us the way.” The door was open; rain fell on to her arm. And still the man went on. “They call this particular country ‘Africa in miniature’. A microcosm of the continent – we are proud to think of it as that. Here we have everything. And here we have nothing.” Reversing the earlier sequence on the hill road, the girl was out of the car and in the rain. She angled forward. “Well, you don’t seem to be doing so badly out of it. Thanks for the lift.” The door was slammed, the street dashed across, the hotel entered, the tall man brushed by. In her room, she peeled off wet clothes and dried herself with towels. A cold was a certainty, pneumonia a distinct possibility. Pastor Mchungaji had warned her that a child’s ailment could affect her mortally. What, then, would an adult’s ailment do to her? And all for what, exactly? To hear the cynical side of Africa. The situation justified a glass of Napoleon brandy, travelling brandy, medicinal brandy, brandy she wished she’d had when – 21 –

in the infirmary. She unfastened a suitcase and rummaged for a book before closing the wooden blinds at the window and climbing into bed. The inside title page of the book bore the ink of the author. To a lovely young lady who will surely make her mark on the world. ‘Surely’ was her word, she held the copyright. The author had picked up her affection for the word and had presented her with it, unexpectedly sending a signed copy of the book through the post. When this particular book was opened out, the entire contents were supposed to be revered as if written with the same hand, personally for her. Ha! She did not read the text in order of line; instead, she gave her eye freedom of the page while she imagined the author’s voice paraphrasing the sentences, a voice actually heard and indeed replied to on two dinner-party occasions. The African was God’s earthly image of Himself. Actually, of themselves. He talks of our image, after our likeness – there must have been someone with God at the time of making the first man. In any case, to whom would he be talking, in the beginning and before there were men, when ‘God said…’? Africa. Frightful place, Africa. Full of nasty creepy-crawlies and fierce carnivores made by God in the opening week. Therefore, the first man was moved to the safety of the Garden in Eden.

A little further on. By the sixth verse of the sixth chapter of Genesis, a mere handful of pages into the Bible, God was ‘sorry that he made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.’ Then he threw a real wobbly. ‘I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the ground, man and beast and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them [too].’ He did no such thing, of course. Otherwise, there would be no bible, no religion, no god worship, and that would never have done.

– 22 –

She let the writer tell her, in his favoured shallow tone adopted and employed before an eventual rounding on the intellectual core, that no one who likes to be taken seriously ever doubts the African origins of the species, no one clever contests the ancestral home of sapient Homo. Fortunately, there is no mention, in the Bible, of Africa as the site of construction of Adam. The mighty religions of the world would be appalled by the idea that Adam and his other half were African. Bloody handy, then, that God had the foresight to shift the couple to a more upmarket address. The fact that they would have been black – well, you can see why it isn’t mentioned. The author’s work had once been described as half substance, half bullshit, all right-wing cant. It was, it wasn’t. She hated every word, but had read every word. The occasions she had met the apparently ascendant author and talked with him, and discussed her beliefs with him – the conversations had been like debates she had not won, and therefore frustrating, but the experience was undoubtedly nominated for the golden memory file. This was not the bit she was looking for: next chapter. …if God had wanted everyone equal, he would not have colour coded…

Next page, next page. White Man feels the imperative to announce aid, to set up appeals, to rush to the rescue in an armchair, whenever it is convenient to acknowledge a crisis of humanitarian dimensions. The ersatz generosity makes White Man feel good about himself. Visits by fabulous photophiles; pop concerts in the park… You can almost hear the starving as they squat in their dust: ‘Give us a song, Bob.’

– 23 –

With a snarl-like twist of the left upper lip, she lowered the still open book. The sudden change of mood by the driver of the Mercedes-Benz, from acting the smoothie to one of hostility, had left her tingling with annoyance. More so on returning to it in thought. More so on reading a book that should have remained in the suitcase or, better still, should never have been brought from England in the first place. But surely the driver did no represent Africa, the real Africa. He was not a true African; he had allowed himself to become westernised. The true African was grateful. At the mission, the children had said prayers thanking the Lord for the help they received. Pastor Mchungaji had often expressed gratitude. Once, when she had been supervising a playtime, running after the quick and inquisitive who were attracted by the nearby activities of a drilling crew, the pastor had stood on the porch and called out that she was a shepherdess. She rather liked the idea and decided one day she might adopt the momentary appellation as a permanent nickname. Anyway, the Lord had sent her to Africa. To help Africans. The Lord knows where help is needed most. Now the Lord had need of her in England. It didn’t matter what the Mercedes man had said. His comments had merely been a test. It didn’t matter. She had passed the test with flying colours. The book that was dedicated to a lovely young lady was closed inside a clap of hands. Loudly, almost to a shout, she said: “You can’t get me. I’m too tough for you.” She dropped the book to the floor, turned sharply, and buried her face in the pillow. “Too tough, too tough, too tough, too tough.” A pause. No breathing. Face out of pillow, cheek on to pillow. A tear tickled the corner of an eye. She felt lonely, more lonely than in the infirmary at night in the fort, the loneliest person in the whole of being. More tears. Folding back the spread, she climbed from the bed and stood for a few seconds. She took an Antoine, washed down – 24 –

with brandy. Crossed wrists pulled her shift up her body and over her head. She removed her pants. Naked, she knelt by the side of the bed, arms resting on it, hands to chin in prayer. “Notre Père, qui es aux cieux, que ton nom soit sanctifié, que ton règne vienne, que ta volonté soit faite sur la terre comme au ciel. Donnenous aujourd'hui notre pain de ce jour. Pardonne-nous nos offences comme nous pardonnons aussi à ceux qui nous ont offensés. Et ne nous soumets pas à la tentation, mais délivre-nous du mal, car c'est à toi qu'appartiennent le règne, la puissance et la gloire, aux siècles des siècles. Amen.”

– 25 –

2 Another day, another hotel room, another city, another country, another continent, another bloody planet. She blamed jetlag for her tiredness, although she well knew that diurnal body rhythms are affected only when traversing the latitudes, and her movement had been mostly longitudinal. It had been a long journey: bus, train, plane, again a plane, tube, cab; with delays and security checks at international borders. However, the young woman of English good name and Nordic good looks, weak and pallid but lighting up an innocent smile whenever it might help, was not specifically hindered or personally challenged at any of the stages. In the latest room, cheap and bland though thankfully free of bugs, she brought out her bible. Dear Lord, guide me. I am your faithful servant and await your command. She counted her money, her total wealth, from the envelope which the pastor had left by her side as reward for her readily volunteered work. It seemed wrong to accept the payment at the time, and seemed wrong now. But surely that would be because she was not yet privy to the Greater Purpose. She returned the money to the envelope. The valise belonging to the pastor’s friend bothered her. Had she been asked to open it by an official at any point in the journey, embarrassment would surely have ensued. Stout lock, no key. No clue as to the contents. No knowledge of its rightful owner, not even a name. Attempts to open it, to pick the lock, had resulted only in scratch marks on the metal and a ragged fingernail. Who was to collect it, and when? And how, exactly? She hoped a hand-over would not be long in coming – the quicker the thing was out of her possession, the sooner she could forget about it. – 26 –

London was too expensive, and pointless. There were people living in and around the capital whose contact details she retained in the little red address book given her as a gift on her sixteenth birthday by her father, its stiff cover the worse for wear but the entirety no less a part of her. Those same people, the names in the book, would be strangers now, even if they remembered her. Especially if they remembered her. To them, she was her father’s daughter. Staying in London was pointless. Nonetheless, she decided to occupy a bright blue-sky morning by looking at the type of work that might be available. The area offered barmaid, waitress, masseuse, chatline teaser – she’d give those a miss. An advertisement in the vacancies pages of the newspaper – copy accompanied by a picture of gleeful females of different ethnicities – caught her attention, sufficiently so for her to call in person at the stated address for an application form. A former bank was now home to a number of organisations acting on behalf of various sections of the community. Most were represented by stark initials or a contrived acronym in place of a clear name. The stepped entrance to the building looked like a child’s spelling puzzle – a jumble of letters of the alphabet scattered across signs of every colour. A boiler-suited handyman standing on a pair of step ladders to dismantle an outside lamp asked her who she was looking for and, when she said, directed her to the first floor. Directly opposite the stairs was the door as verbally indicated by the handyman. It opened into a tiny reception area, screened from whatever lay beyond. There was no one behind the counter. After a cursory scan of notices and flyers pinned or stapled to a cork wallboard, she pressed a button on the counter. A woman appeared from behind the screen. “Can I help you?” The woman had the air and dress of someone more senior than a receptionist. “Yes, I’d like an application form, please.” A job reference – 27 –

was given. “You’re interested in that line of work, are you?” “I have a lot of experience.” There was a moment of silence as she sensed her plausibility was being assessed. The woman adjusted her tone, from mild formality to mild friendliness. “Katerina’s had to go out for a few minutes. I’m sure there’ll be a pack ready.” Another instant of silence, and a decision made. “Look, why don’t you come through with me, and I’ll dig one out. We can have a little chat. What’s your name, by the way?” “Fiona Cade. Fee.” The woman opened the counter flap and led the way through a small office containing two burdened but unoccupied desks to a further office of similar dimensions having one desk, and shelves and shelves of files. She tapped the back of a chair in front of the desk. “Please take a seat. I’m Clare Sinclair. Parents’ sense of uniformity.” A back-step by the woman into the outer office; a short delay; a return. “Here we are.” A slim wad of documents was handed over as the woman took her seat behind the desk. “You say – Fee, yes? – you have a lot of experience. Who would that be with?” “Well, I’ve just returned from Africa —” “Africa? Goodness.” “Yes, on the west coast. I was there for the most part of two years as an educational aid worker. Before that I was with a regional agency in the north of England called Community Advance. It’s —” The woman was supporting her chin on the knuckles of intertwined fingers, elbows on desk. “Community Advance? I think I’ve heard of them. You’ll know – come on, memory – Su, Su, Su – Gardeen, yes? I met her at a conference only a few weeks ago.” – 28 –

The office had a window, behind the desk behind the woman, through the opened vertical blinds of which the blueness of the sky was trapped above the rear of buildings which were old and cluttered and made untidy by fire escapes. An unseen train clattered by: it sounded elevated and tinny rather than solid on the ground. “I do know Su. She was my boss.” “Knows her stuff.” “That’s true.” Clare Sinclair told Fee Cade that the organisation was desperate for a community worker. “Two of my key people left at the same time. One to have a baby, the other – well, gone for good. Do you have qualifications, Fee?” “A degree, actually.” They conversed for about five more minutes and Fee was offered the job. “Of course, you’ll have to fill in the application – and it will have to go through the mill. You understand that.” “How long will it take?” “It doesn’t matter, you can start straightaway.” Another unseen train rattled by. The woman was making a note on a post-it. “And I’ll need to see references. You’ll have to undergo a police check – it’s standard procedure now. In due course. For a reference, I could give Su Gardeen a ring at Community Advance – I’m bound to have her card somewhere. Any problem with that?” Fee shook her head. The action, though slight, started a headache. She experienced a touch of nausea. “No. Not at all. Why should there be?” Back at the B&B, she asked not for the first time if anyone had been inquiring about her. No one had been inquiring about her. In her room, the filling out of the application form stalled during FULL NAME (Please use block capitals) and ADDRESS. Both questions were awkward. She had supplied – 29 –

Clare with an also-known-as instead of her real name, a precaution that could be taken for her having something to hide. And ‘care of indifferent hotel down a back street’ hardly conveyed domestic stability. There was a perfectly logical explanation for having the hotel as an address – surely someone just arrived from two years in Africa might use temporary accommodation – but it looked flighty on the form. Other parts of the multi-sheeted document looked like they would present little difficulty, until the final side was reached. REFERENCES. ‘I could give Su Gardeen a ring’, Clare had breezily proposed. Well, there was only one answer to that: don’t bother. Barmaid, waitress, masseuse, chatline teaser – it would have to be one of these, then, if she was to stay in London – which she was not. A notice in the window of a new and secondhand bookshop advertised for a part-time assistant. In the shop, she perused the display stock and found, without looking for, a copy of the book which she possessed inscribed by the author: To a lovely young lady… And another title by that author. She emitted a ‘chuh!’ and selected a different book from the same shelf, a short study on Matthew Henry, without knowing why. The establishment specialised in religious and spiritual genres, a situation she became aware of as she inspected the aisles but felt she should have identified earlier. So why, if the trade was in the selling of the good, did a shelf carry the output of a writer so critical of faith and religion? She put the matter to a man of about her own age, a long figure bent forward on a stool in a corner near the door, opened book balanced across knees while a CD player on the floor played a Bach choral at almost inaudible volume. “I’m surprised to see Craig Mains on your shelves.” The man looked up like someone disturbed during a fascinating passage. He wore a patterned pullover too old for him – probably a charity shop purchase. – 30 –

“Why is that?” “Well, he’s controversial.” She wished she had not begun. The man examined her with eyes that were a little splayed. “We sell books. He writes books. Not to everyone’s palate, I agree, but there you are.” “Have you read any of his?” She put the study of Henry on the high counter at the man’s side. “Mains, I mean.” “As a matter of fact, I have. I read just about everything that comes into the shop. Perk of the job.” Standing, he reached out and turned the book his way. “Are you having this?” “Yes. I’ll take it, thank you.” Placed in a small paper bag bearing the shop’s name and the sale entered in a modest cash register, the book was hers. She hesitated. “I understand you’re looking for an assistant. Part-time.” “The owner is. Was. The job’s been taken. I need to remove the notice.” He hobbled towards the door. Maybe his legs had gone to sleep as a result of the uncomfortable reading position; or maybe they were faulty. “When? When was the job taken?” Fee did not believe him. “This morning. The owner told me.” “My bad luck, I guess. Oh, well.” The man scraped at the sticky-fixers holding the advertisement to the glass, and said nothing more. He did not even watch her as she departed the shop, or as she walked away. She knew because she looked back. Barmaid, waitress, masseuse, chatline teaser yet to go. She bought a ticket to travel north by rail. Her seat had its back to the engine – that is, if the modern train regards its front section as the engine. Before her was a table, and opposite were two seats facing the engine. At the start of the journey, all four seats at the table were occupied but, after a third stop, she and a male passenger were the only ones – 31 –

sharing the table, one opposite the other. The train once more gathered speed and she looked up from her book to watch the countryside glide by. The other spoke. “Serious choice.” The sudden return to the immediate environment made her start. “What?” He gestured the book. “The title you’re reading there. Something on Matthew Henry.” A softening. “Yes it is, rather.” “Have you read any of The Commentary?” “No, but I’d like to.” The man was perhaps in his thirties. She had seen him remove an overcoat when he first entered the carriage, and he sat in a casual jacket over an open-necked shirt. He was dark and nice-looking. “There’s a lot. Try the internet. Some of it’s online.” “I will.” They fell silent for a while. He restarted. “Are you a believer?” To the point, with no mid-ask hesitation. Should she regard his intrusion into her religious space as impertinence? Or was he checking her out? Was he the collector of the valise? Her reply was controlled. “Yes. Are you?” He smiled. “Yes, I suppose I am.” “Only suppose?” “My faith is assumed. It has never been put to the test. I take it for granted, if you see what I mean.” “I’ve had my faith put to the test. I can tell you it works.” Her story of near death from fever in Africa was related. The man showed genuine interest. He told her he was pleased for her, and that he was impressed by her moral fortitude. Details, implicitly he invited details. She supplied some. The mission, the caserne, the little town near the coast. She wondered at which point the attentive fellow passenger would – 32 –

make reference to the valise. Maybe it was up to her. “Pastor Mchungaji has a friend who asked him to ask me to bring something to England.” “Yes?” “I have it with me – it’s with my stuff.” Fee indicated the rack for heavy luggage at the end of the carriage. “That’s good.” “A valise. A small suitcase.” “A suitcase.” Her companion seemed confused by her prompting, and she changed the subject. They parted at journey’s end, he telling her to take care and to keep reading. The cab descended the slope of the drive to which, even in the rural dark and drizzle and amid the obscuring foliage, she was able to direct with accuracy. It pulled up outside a door illuminated by a lamp mounted under a portico, and the driver unloaded her cases and bags. She paid and thanked him; tyres momentarily slithered as the vehicle’s wheels sought purchase on the wet setts of the incline back to the road. She knew that, on being pressed, the big brass button mounted on the wall produced no sound that would confirm its operation. Inside the house, a signal in the main rooms would inform of someone at the door, and a channel on the television circuit would show a close-up of the visitor’s face. A screen in the inner hall constantly displayed the courtyard immediately around the door, and yet another imaged the courtyard in full. Every movement and non-movement was being recorded. She knew. When the door opened, Dominic stood before her – Dominic, demonstrating a complete lack of recognition. He did not speak, merely stared as if angry, or mad. “Hi,” she opened. “Fiona? Is that you?” She fought a spike of annoyance: she was tired, very tired; – 33 –

maybe that was it. “Have I changed that much? I have been rather poorly.” Dominic suddenly switched to welcoming mode. “This is indeed unexpected. You must come inside. Please.” He stood aside and motioned with an arm. When he noticed the luggage, his smile slackened. “Are you on the move?” he asked. “You could say that. Have you a corner I could flop down in for the night?” “Of course. Indeed. Yes.” The man took hold of a case. “Let’s get this lot inside, shall we? Then you can freshen up while I sort you a room.” And a couple of carrier bags with the other hand. “Are you hungry? I’m afraid Maureen’s finished for the day but I’m sure there’ll be something in the fridge.” Fiona did not know a Maureen. It did not matter. Carrying what she had strength left to lift, leaving the remainder under the portico light, she followed him down the long hallway. The door to the lounge was open, and he stopped to look in. “This is Fiona, everyone. Say ‘hello Fiona’. No need to disturb – we’ll harmonise later.” A small chorus of voices, representing a mixture of ages and the sexes, replied from easy chairs and the floor in imperfect unison: “Hello, Fiona.” Continuing to the paved beamed white-walled octagonal dining room, which acted as a hub for this the single-storeyed end of the building, Dominic spoke cheerfully over his shoulder. “As you saw, we’re rather full at the moment.” “I’m sorry to put you to trouble, truly I am. It’s just that I was sent back to England and had nowhere else to go. I should have called you first – I meant to.” The luggage was let to the floor. Dominic embraced her and responded reassuringly. “My child, don’t give it a further thought. The Lord brings you here, and you must stay as long as you need. My home is – 34 –

your home. Now, why don’t you raid the kitchen whilst I bring in the rest of the effects.” “It’ll only be for a night or two – till I find a place. That’s a promise.” “Shush. The Lord provides.” Dominic went. After a familiarising glance round, Fiona made her way into the kitchen only to discover she did not want a snack. All she wanted was sleep. On her host’s return she told him this, and he led her along a corridor to a room with a bed which she thanked him for and, after partial undressing, climbed into and was very soon asleep. She awoke to a tap-tap on the bedroom door. Seconds passed. These were spent recalling where she was; observing from the watch strapped to her wrist that it was twelve precisely – noon, not midnight, because there was light behind the curtains; deciding that she must have suffered a sweat because her body was clammy; realising that she felt absolutely crap. Tap-tap. “Come in.” A woman entered, holding a tray. “I’m Maureen. You must be Fiona. I’ve brought you a cuppa and some cereal. I tried earlier but you were well and truly in the Land of Nod.” “Thank you, Maureen. Actually, I don’t feel so well.” The woman, a white North Country Gentille, placed the tray on a chest of drawers and helped the girl to sit up in the bed. “To be honest, love, you don’t look over grand. Maybe I should ask Dom to get the doctor in.” “Dom?” Fiona had never heard the abbreviation. Dominic would probably not approve of it. Then again, he might. In the months since she set out from this address for Africa, Dominic had changed. She recalled his too-bright eyes of the night before, and heard the too-loud voice. No, no, that was not right – a thoroughly exhausted lucky-to-be-alive ex-fever patient saw and heard the effects, or imagined she had. – 35 –

“And speak of the devil,” Maureen chirped. Dominic filled the doorframe. “I trust the Lord gave you good rest.” He entered the room, appearing and sounding like the Dominic of two years back. Maureen answered for Fiona. “She’s not feeling well. She doesn’t look it, either – you can see as much.” The woman laid a palm across the girl’s brow then stood back. “Running a temperature, that one. Wringing wet, I shouldn’t wonder.” To Fiona: “How am I doing?” From the bed a brief smile. “A shower would bring me round, surely.” Dominic advanced to the bedside, his own brow furrowing. “I may have something that would help,” he said. “Oh, no you don’t,” retorted Maureen. Again to Fiona: “Let’s have you in the bath, love. Come on, there’s one just down the hall.” When Dominic tactfully withdrew, Maureen told Fiona in a confidential voice that Dominic fancied himself as something of a medical man but his whitecoat days had been a long time ago. Times had changed; new bugs, new drugs. Despite her discomfort and weakness, Fiona pressed to learn more about the man who had guided her through the gateway to spiritual release but of whose personal history she clearly knew so little. In Maureen’s words, the medical authorities and Dominic had parted company over a misunderstanding. Their loss. Not to be outdone, Dominic had decided that if he could not mend bodies then he would mend souls. “He’s a good man at heart,” Maureen proposed as she dipped a bared wrist into the water of the filling bath. “I know he is,” agreed Fiona, softly. Dominic came to see her in the evening, she having returned to bed after the bath to sleep fitfully into the afternoon before nibbling at a teatime snack brought by Maureen. He sat on the room’s only chair and asked about her time in Africa, about her illness, about the treatment she’d received. Fiona – 36 –

told how the resurrection drug had brought her through crisis and back into the world of the living. “I could do with a shot right now,” she said. “I thinks that’s what’s wrong with me.” A gasp of a laugh. “Withdrawal symptoms.” “Hmm. You were probably on a high dosage, which is how the drug works. A sudden stop will always produce an unpleasant sensation.” Dominic watched her face. “There is only one course.” “What’s that?” “That I give you something to make your body relax. It’s clear to me you’re tensed up inside.” “I’m not sure I have any inside left. What is it you have?” “Trust me, my dear. The Lord watches over us.” He left, and returned with a stainless steel kidney dish. They silently prayed together; he administered the injection; she thanked him; the world of the living became a much better place. Fiona’s stay at Dominic’s extended beyond the promised night or two. Recovery to the extent of her feeling up to socialising took the best part of a week. She was harmonised with the other residents, an assortment of individuals from a horizon of backgrounds – as Dominic’s transient flocks always were – but all united in a common objective. Tanya, a self-pruning public relations officer for a major airline, offered to take over from Maureen during the remaining convalescence period, but Maureen held her territory. Fiona was glad, not only because she felt safe in the care of the big down-to-earth woman but also she was finished with the sort of relation Tanya was not too secretly seeking. Dominic came and went, making sudden appearances and taking lengthy disappearances, as was his habit. Fiona, having spent a morning in the laundry room as her contribution to ‘communal benefaction’, sorted out her possessions. There was still the valise. At the next – 37 –

opportunity, she showed it to Dominic, who checked it over. “Pastor Mchungaji gave it to you, you say. To bring to England.” “Yes. But no one came to collect it. Maybe I should have stayed in London until the friend turned up.” Dominic suggested the best thing was for him to store it in the safe where they both would know where it was. She could ask for it if and when someone contacted her. In the meantime, she must get in touch with the pastor and inform him of the position. Over a crisp line, Pastor Mchungaji enquired after her health and was sorry to learn she had been ill again but said it was perhaps to be expected; she would require many months of rest. He asked how was England, which he knew from his university and instruction years. On the subject of the uncollected valise, the pastor was strangely casual. He suggested that nothing could be done other than to wait. After a second week, the search for a job was made a selfimposed imperative. And this time, unlike London, it had to happen. She wanted independence and to leave Dominic’s as soon as possible. It was a priority she could not fully explain to herself, or preferred not to. The unusual house with its unusual guests – all of them paying, as she had once done, for their courses on spiritual reawakening and preparation for dialogue with the Lord – the house was the nearest she had to a home. Dominic had told her, in the past and again recently, to look upon it as such, at any time. He had, she felt, a soft spot for her, strictly within the context of spiritual guidance, with never a hint of sexual predation. Yet she served no purpose being here. This was a place of virtuous learning, of precious instruction, not a refuge for strays. All she was doing was occupy a room and using facilities that someone else could be enjoying in their search for inner meaning and true communication. She had offered Dominic board and lodging, which he accepted but – 38 –

only on behalf of the household account, which Maureen was in charge of. Little remained in the pastor’s envelope and soon it would be completely empty. The finding of a job was surely a financial necessity. That part she could explain. Actually, the guests got on her nerves, although Tanya did divert her attentions when Heather arrived. Heather was young and pretty and appeared receptive to the charms of the older woman – as happens. Dominic was not against faithbrothers and faith-sisters joining in a union of sensual quest, or faith-brothers together or faith-sisters together. Whenever the subject of same sex affections was introduced, his recommendation was the scriptures may be interpreted in two ways. It was up to the individuals concerned to square their consciences in the presence of the Lord. Fiona could think of no other topic, no other area of human activity, on which Dominic was so flexible in his responses, and it made her wonder if it was the result of successful repression of homosexual leanings of his own. Of the present guests, a silver hippy with an untidy beard called, or at least known as, Matthew was well on his way to being a fruitcake. A trip in the minibus to a supermarket had been an embarrassment. Matthew approached shoppers to announce that Jesus is Amongst Us. At the checkout, he harangued the poor operator, accusing her of Doubting the Word, until a security man intervened. Matthew was said to be wealthy – very wealthy, maybe in the millionaire’s league. His frequent outbursts during teach-ins were tolerated. Being so wealthy, he could howl at the full moon if he wanted to. Ruhan was dark-skinned and spoke sparingly. When he did, it was with an accent of Asia. During a supposedly silent contemplation hour, Matthew had ill-humouredly asked Ruhan wasn’t he with the wrong crowd. Sitting on a mat with his legs crossed, Ruhan had adopted a serene smile and made every effort to look holy. Only later did he spit. Then there was Theresa, a life and soul of the party type. Chubby, past her first flush, dressed in clothes she – 39 –

presumably considered appropriate for new age religious learning but which made her look a bit like a twenties flapper, was a persistent petty organiser. ‘Why not sit here, next to (whoever) because (whatever)?’ or ‘Shall we have the window open so we can absorb the external?’ Left to Sister Theresa, every evening would be an occasion worthy of contrived celebration. And mopey Lynn, dominated from afar by a possessive mother; and perfectly ordinary George, Mr Average in every conceivable sense. And so on. The only and often chosen alternative to the disparate group for Fiona was the solitude of her room. Like the need of a job, the desire to move on and be her faith-self within her own space could be explained. But the real urgency to change address came from the unseen, or not properly seen. Something was not right. Something was happening around her that eluded the normal senses. The figures skirting the courtyard in the middle of the night, glimpsed when she could not sleep and stood in the dark at the window for air. The twitchiness of Dominic when he personally supervised an upgrade of the security cameras and, afterwards, too frequently checked the screens. The stables that housed no horses though were protected by bars and best locks. Also, something was happening to her. She felt so lonely – lonelier than in the infirmary at the caserne, than in the hotel room listening to the African rain shedding from the balcony, than in London, the world’s loneliest city. At Dominic’s, she was lonely even in the company of others. Dominic himself seemed more distant by the day. There was no one she could talk to – not properly talk to, confidentially, uninhibitedly. Loneliness is the acid of the soul. Please Lord, why have you deserted me? Why have you chosen to ignore me? Tell me, and I will make amends. I have no one, Lord, except you. I am your humble servant, your willing lamb. Lord, I beg you to guide me. – 40 –

So, job hunt. To approach the old firm, Community Advance, in the search for a position would surely be a no-brainer. Not only would Su bin the form but the very act of applying would signal that Fee was back in town. For the present, she would rather Su did not know. Surely there were other organisations. Indeed there were, though few in the city were altogether free of Community Advance connection. She wrote after a support worker vacancy advertised by a refuge for vulnerable women and was invited to an interview. Somewhat to her unreasonable surprise, on the day, a woman and a man were waiting for her. The woman introduced herself as the centre’s co-ordinator, and her companion as a director. “Fiona Cade – is that the full name?” “Yes. That’s correct.” “With a striking resemblance to one Fiona Kemp-Davies, if I may say so.” Fee was taken aback, but the fortyish co-ordinator smiled. “Don’t worry. I know how it is.” From the man, older than the co-ordinator: “Why the name Cade? Is it taken from someone you know?” Fee gave a short involuntary laugh. “Kemp-Davies – KD – Cade.” “Ah, I see,” the man replied. Back to the co-ordinator. “The address you have given – are you living there?” “I’m staying there. With a friend, actually.” A shuffle of papers on the desk. The co-ordinator looked up. “Your reference bears the same address: the Church of the Message of God. That’s rather unusual, isn’t it? I mean, living at a church.” Still the co-ordinator smiled. She exuded kindness and positive understanding, surely a requirement when running a hostel for battered women. Fiona decided there was nothing to lose. – 41 –

“The Church is everywhere. Our faith-principal lives at that address. That’s why it’s on the letterhead.” “Is he – Dr Hope – the friend you mentioned?” “Well, it’s a sort of seminary, actually. We are all friends there.” Fee saw an opportunity to liken the nature of Dominic’s place to that of the present location in terms of shelter and care but was too long in finding the words. The co-ordinator was asking her about experience, specific verifiable experience, in dealing with the welfare and comfort of physically and mentally abused women, many who had young children. When the time for reflection came, Fiona in her room that evening, she saw that her performance during the interview was rather one of applying for a bed at the refuge instead of pushing for the role of support worker. The coordinator was sorry to inform her, in writing a few days later, that it was with sincere regret her name would not be appearing on the shortlist. The dragon’s den had been refurbished. Its light-grey nineteenth century brickwork was cleaned of urban pollution; its generous window frames, freshly white painted, glistened in the morning sunshine. The double doors of the entrance, large and red and proud to meet the pavement of the city street, also caught the light. A new communications device had been mounted at the entrance, through which verbally to gain access past the doors; so too had a redesigned name board. CA serving you, it declared in blue on white. It was smaller and better styled than the sign replaced – less desperate to be noticed. Courage was needed to go to the dragon’s den, but courage she did not lack. She could have turned about or walked straight by. But needs must. She pressed the button which, unlike the one at Dominic’s front door, recorded the action, by glowing orange around the circumference. The orange changed to green and one door was suddenly mechanically – 42 –

ajar. An invitation into the den without words being exchanged. Behind the tall red doors were two equally tall inner ones, the top two thirds of which were mullioned. She pushed one. Refurbishment had taken place inside the premises as well as out. This was a splendid building, an imposing edifice. The restoration did justice to its origins as the town house of a prominent Victorian mover and shaker. It could have been a town hall in miniature, or the chambers of a legal dynasty. But, no, this was CA Central, headquarters of community development for an entire city and its surrounds, the den of the dragon, lair of the wicked witch, palace of Su Gardeen. Fee’s memory flickered and she saw Clare Sinclair in her untidy corner of a repossessed bank with its alphabet scramble. Indira had gone from the reception desk and a girl unknown to Fiona asked if she could help. Fiona enquired if Su Gardeen was available and, no, she did not have an appointment. Su Gardeen was a busy woman who would not normally, hardly ever, practically never, on a point of principle, be available to someone appearing at the desk without an appointment. The girl did not say as much but did not need to. “I’ll find out for you,” the girl said as she started an internal call. “What name is it, please?” “Fiona Kemp-Davies, actually. She’ll know who.” The girl said Su’s PA said that Su was in a meeting and would not be available for some time. To herself, Fiona added ‘if ever’. Putting down the handset, the girl offered to make an appointment and advised it might help if Fiona could say what it was she wanted to see Su about. “It’s personal. I’ll try again another time.” Fiona, about to step into the street and let the red door close behind her, was aware that someone was descending the splendid staircase. From the stairs, the someone spoke to the receptionist. An instant decision was required: Fiona turned and re-entered the inner doors. The someone left the stairs, – 43 –

glanced her way, then stiffened. “Good God, look what the wind’s blown in. I heard you were out of Africa.” “Hello, Su.” Neither moved to close the distance. Su Gardeen placed an elbow on the desk, displaying a false exaggerated casualness. She was dressed smartly, as ever, even smarter, but her war with unwanted weight had battles to go. “Come for your old job back, is it?” “I came to see if there were any vacancies, yes.” “You’re the one who walked out. We had to carry on without you. It was tough, but we survived.” The girl behind the desk looked awkward: the conversation was one she maybe should not be listening to. Fiona stood her ground in the gust of sarcasm. “I did what I thought best at the time. For all concerned. Things have moved on.” “You said it. Forgive and forget, yeh? Welcome back the prodigal daughter – is that the pitch?” Perhaps for the benefit of the receptionist, Su left the desk and changed to a professional tone, though her mood was still on her face. “I’m sorry, we’re operating with a full team at present. Both here at HQ and in the field. If you would like to leave your details, we can always flag you should something come up.” The two women were within a stride of each other. A moment passed which was saturated with their history, not as boss and employee but as lovers. Then the tinted glass of Su’s large spectacles caught the light and the intimacy of eye contact was lost. Su remembered she was a busy woman. “Is that everything?” They were on the balcony: Fiona, Dominic, and two new arrivals, these to replace two current residents who had completed the programme and were about to leave. Dominic had earlier suggested she sit in and monitor the informal induction. He mentioned to her his plans for increasing group – 44 –

numbers to cope with a growth in applications. The balcony was at the ‘Alpine’ end of the house, as Fiona called it. An impressively long building, the single storey that formed the Art Deco end became supported by a lower floor as the land dropped steeply away at the lip of a wooded vale which stretched beyond what was fair for one home to possess as an attribute and potential major selling point. From the roofed balcony, which angled around the sides of the upper house, the view was stunning; it stunned new arrivals, convincing them – if they needed convincing – that they had done the right thing by committing to Dominic’s teachings. The induction over, Dominic told Fiona to wait while he escorted the pair back to their rooms. It did not take long. He sat and replenished his glass of fruit juice. “The Lord’s work is never done,” he said, in a neutral manner. “I know.” She was not sure what he meant. It could have been the makings of a complaint. A complaint was expected, or a further remark on the length of her stay. It was her opinion that Dominic wanted her to leave possibly as much as she herself wanted to leave. If she was counting the number, since her arrival, of new faith-students being stunned by the view from the balcony and completing the course and tearfully departing, then Dominic would be doing that also. Definitely the makings of a complaint. “I’ve been meaning to ask you – how is the famous job search going?” “I’m doing my best.” “But it’s just not happening for you. The winning letter fails to drop on to the door mat.” A reassuring smile. “You have my sympathy.” “It’s taking a little longer than I anticipated, that’s all.” Dominic laughed, caught her glance, and turned serious. “What is it you would like to do, Fiona? Really like to do, that is.” Not sure how to answer, she did not return an answer. This – 45 –

was more than the makings of a complaint – the prelude to eviction, even. He replied to the silence. “I’m asking out of genuine interest and concern for you, my child. You can tell me what it is you would profoundly like to achieve with your life. Let’s discuss it. Let’s examine the options. Two heads have the advantage over one. Let’s together release the demon from your anxious being.” All right. What did she really want to achieve with her life? “Help others. Go back to Africa. Help others there.” “Apart from going back to Africa. That wasn’t the Lord’s intention for you the first time round and there’s nothing to advise it would be for a second time. To oppose the Lord’s plan is to brook disappointment.” A light aircraft passed overhead, slow and droning. The vale must be doubly, three-dimensionally, stunning from the air. She straightened and looked him in the eye: there was nothing to lose, surely. “I know it may sound like a daydream but I would like to start a mission, of my own.” “A mission? Where?” “Here. In England, if Africa is out. An urban mission, in the city.” Dominic sipped at his fruit juice, perhaps to delay replying. He sat back and rotated a loose hand, as if turning a large resisting door knob. “How do you visualise this ‘mission’?” Elbows on table, body forward, Fiona explained. The cities – the worst cities – had their dreadful housing estates where the Lord was not appreciated or respected as He should be. The situation was no fault of the people – that’s the way they were brought up. Evil roamed the streets of these places because there was nothing to stop it. Yet there was also much good among the people – it merely needed bringing out. If the Lord’s word was taken into the estates, introduced and nurtured, then the evil could be countered from within, by the people themselves. Dominic, too, slanted forward. – 46 –

“You seem to have it all worked out. A movement rather than a mission, perhaps.” “I do, don’t I? Only one snag, though.” “What’s that?” “Money. Money, money, money. Money to start up; money to keep going. Money to pay me. I can’t see it being selffunding, somehow.” Her elbows were off the table, her hands on the arms of the chair, as if to stand. On her face was a ‘there, I’ve said it’ expression, an exaggerated smile and ‘silly me’ cock of the head. Her companion was still and silent; at first, she thought he was praying. But he wasn’t. His forefinger stroked the ridge between nose and upper lip. Then came a nonindicative ‘mm’. He left the table and went to the rail where he stood as if searching for something in the distant trees. Fiona may as well have not been present. She played with her glass. Eventually, Dominic turned, resting his back against the rail and stretching his arms along its length. “The Lord has eloquence.” She waited. He returned to the table, sitting not opposite her but by her side. “With what you have been saying, it’s as if you stole into my mind.” “Well, I didn’t mean to,” she said lightly. The coming complaint had instead receded; it was good to open up, to share a daydream, to have the attention all to one’s self. Dominic again. “The Lord has caused our thoughts to converge and to forge a single path. You see, in addition to expanding the courses, I must also broaden the message platform.” There was an intensity in his eyes, highly polished black glass with background luminescence, an intensity which at other times of observing it made her less than comfortable; but right now it didn’t matter. He gripped the edge of the table. “If I have it correctly, you used to be a community development worker, before you chose the true path.” – 47 –

“I certainly was.” “So you are indeed acquainted with some of the ‘estates’ you speak of.” “Here, yes.” The geographical reference was to the urban scrawl that lay a relatively short road distance behind them, visually and in whatever other way a total contrast to the tranquil natural beauty accessible from the balcony. “Good. That’s where I want you to go. To go out into those unenlightened neighbourhoods. To do the Lord’s bidding. The Church of the Message of God will afford your mission throughout.” She hesitated before replying. “Are you sure?” “Never more so, my dear. I’m resolute on the matter. There is much to be done.” He was watching her, in that way of his. Tall, dark, hypnotic. “I will do whatever you wish to spread the word,” she said. He leaned back and glanced across the tops of the nearer trees. “Ultimately, it’s not what I wish, Fiona. It’s what the Lord wishes.” “I know.” She looked away from him, over the balcony rail. The rustling of the vale was briefly interrupted by a bird’s angry chit-chit-chet. “Are you up to it, do you think? Is it something you believe you can do?” His words broke her thoughts, which were not thoughts but scrunched up emotions. “Surely I can.” The delivery must have sounded sharp because Dominic verbally reacted. “I had to ask. You’ve been very ill and it’s weakened you bodily. It would be unacceptable of me to expect you to embark on —” She melted. “Yes, I’ll do it. I will take the Lord’s gift out on to the streets of the estates. I owe it to the Lord, I owe it to you, to everyone. Let me do it.” – 48 –

He smiled, and a hand took hers. “You can make a start whenever you’re ready.” Her night callers hovered as birds. Chit-chit-chit. Chet-chet-chet. The valise moved about in starts, first here, then there, then over there. No Maureen but a blanked-out Dominic at the door. Birds – the silver needle bird, too: as always, hovering to one side, waiting the opportunity to plunge a piercing beak into her arm. The silver needle bird was there.

– 49 –

3 Mrs Adamson is chatting to her neighbour, Vicky, over a low waist-high fence of wooden palings which separates the respective front gardens of the terraced houses. She is a woman in her sixties, not well kept. The neighbour is significantly younger but even less well kept. At one side of the fence lies a freshly mowed lawn and a partially weeded herbaceous border; at the other side, the weeds have convincingly won. There, a ripped rain-discoloured settee, pushed against the wall under the house window, awaits collection by the council’s refuse department, as it has for some weeks. Mrs Adamson is telling Vicky about her bad back, and how she shouldn’t be gardening, but the grass won’t cut itself. Vicky knows about Mrs Adamson’s back from previous conversations over the same fence, though affects to listen again as she draws on a cigarette in the warm afternoon sunshine. Mrs Adamson is a good sort – a quiet one to have next door, who can be called upon for a breakfast-saving half carton of milk, a few slices of bread, and the occasional tenner just till the family credit comes through. But she does go on a bit. The opportunity of a break is seized. “Here we go.” Vicky motions across the fence and gardens to her other side. A slim tidy blonde woman is doorstepping. “Jehovah’s Witness.” Mrs Adamson follows the direction and appraises the situation. “No. They always come in twos. Debt consolidation, that one, I’d say. She’s got leaflets.” Reconsideration from Vicky. “Doesn’t look the type. Romanian orphans, more like. Can’t nip in – she’s seen us, now.” – 50 –

The blonde woman, receiving no response from the house she is at, tries the next. Vicky calls out to her. “No good banging there, love. She’s out. I saw her go, not this last half hour.” One garden closer. Vicky to Mrs Adamson: “Betcha she’s bible.” Vicky to the blonde woman: “And they’re Polish, if they’re in.” The Poles were not in, or not answering. Another try, then the blonde woman is at Vicky’s open broken gate, from where she throws a smile. “I’m glad someone’s at home. It’s like a ghost town. Do you mind if I come up?” “If you want,” replies Vicky. Under her breath, she adds, “For what good it’ll do.” The blonde woman includes Mrs Adamson as she introduces herself as Fee and asks if either are familiar with the Word of the Lord. Vicky’s laugh turns to a cough. After a clearing of the throat, and a reapplication of the cigarette, she turns to Mrs Adamson. “There you are – what did I tell yer?” It is said pleasantly. In answer to the caller’s question she pulls a comical face. “He doesn’t come round ’ere so often. Can’t blame ’im, really.” Fee agrees that that is how it must sometimes appear. The Lord, though, is everywhere. He is always at hand when needed. Her words are paced, her pitch is one of friendliness, not fanaticism: the Word of the Lord is not a product to be sold, aggressively, like double-glazing. “Do you know him – God?” Vicky asks. “We exchange emails regularly.” A touch of humour, delivered with a flick of blonde overhang. “Well, you can send him one for me, if you like. Ask ’im when my lottery number’s coming up.” Return humour delivered with a hacking cough which requires a bending of the body, like a resented bow, to clear. Mrs Adamson gives a brief smile but she is waiting to say something. She says it. – 51 –

“You’re the young lady from the Jerome Centre.” Fee is not from the Jerome Centre, a worn community building on the same estate, but she did recently hire the venue. “Yes, I was there last week. You were as well, if I recall.” It is a guess. Hardly a dozen attended the session – these are early days – though faces that do not engage in the event, faces that slide in once the session is under way therefore missing the personal welcome at the door, and sit quietly behind others, and slip out again at the end before a one-toone thank you – such faces are not always retained in the memory. The guess is a correct one. “Yes, that’s right.” Mrs Adamson gives her neighbour a sideways glance, one perhaps of embarrassment. Vicky does not notice. She has had enough, anyway. “I’m leaving you two to it. I’ve got the kids to pick up in a minute. Have fun.” With Vicky gone inside, Fee does not want to appear pushy, but she wants to be next door. “The garden looks well.” “It’s a chore this time of year. All this rain we’ve been having. The grass shoots up no sooner than it’s cut. And the weeds…” Mrs Adamson presses the flat of a hand against the lumbar region. “My back isn’t so sound, either. It’s getting worse.” An expression of sympathy from Fee. “Is there no one who could help?” “Well, there’s some young lads – part of a community project. They do their best, bless ’em, but they’re a bit rough. Always in a hurry. And noisy with it. A friend told me.” Fee allowed a pause. Then: “Did you get anything out of the evening, last week?” “Yes. Yes, it was nice. You were very good.” “Thank you.” Vicky opens her door, steps out, and locks it. “You still ’ere?” – 52 –

“Yes, sorry.” Fee grasps the moment. “I’ll come round to your side,” she says to Mrs Adamson, and strides one path for the other. “I just want to leave something with you to read, if that’s all right.” Mrs Adamson takes the booklet. Her neighbour is in the street, walking away, lighting a cigarette on the move, and does not look back. “Would you like a cup of tea,” she asks Fee. Fee replies she would love one. Fee is invited inside. They sit in the living room and drink their tea. Fee listens while Mrs Adamson tells about her back problem. The doctors are unable to do anything. Genetic abnormality, she has been told. Grin and bear it. Pills till she rattles. Fee says she knows what it’s like to suffer pain, the sort that doesn’t let up. It is Mrs Adamson’s turn to listen, to the Word of the Lord. Before Fee leaves, she has a thought. She thinks she can help with the back pain. ***** Fee was pleased with the article in the local newspaper. Almost everything she had said to the paper’s community reporter was in the piece. She was pleased with the picture. Su would be bound to see it – Su who set great store in selfpromotion, especially her own. This would show Su that there were routes into the community other than through the Su Gardeen network. The Church of the Message of God meant business, and CMG would soon be in places CA could never hope to reach. The Shepherdess was coming. The Su part was merely topping on the cake. Far more important was the way in which Dominic had followed talk and ideas with action and money. The work had just begun. Doorstepping, spiritual awareness events, the Faith Forum; footslogging till the soles were sore, voicing the Message till – 53 –

the throat turned raw. If the traditional denominations were huffy about her activities, which they were bound to be, then surely they only had themselves to blame. Craig Mains had somewhere written that, as far as a modern mainstream church is concerned, there is no mileage in reaching out to the poor. The poor can’t afford Heaven, so what’s the point? Let the competition huff and puff, if they wanted to. Although Dominic paid for the printing and gave her an allowance and let her use the Mercedes, which was like the one on the road to the caserne, the groundwork part was her responsibility – hers alone. If the Lord approved then she would find the strength. The Lord would give her the strength. Yes, make way – the Shepherdess is coming! ***** The guy on the second row wants to know what she means by faith. ‘What is faith?’ he calls out. ‘Faith in what, exactly?’ Fee is prepared for the interruption – he looks the calling-out type, a ‘noisy one’, the sort you identify as soon as you take the stage. You check, in that initial scan, to see if a noisy one has ‘mates’ by his side; you assess if they have been drinking; you instinctively know, if you have experience of these situations, at which points they are likely to add their contribution. A young male noisy one will be all the more noisy when the speaker is a girl. Fee is not fazed; on the contrary, she is pleased that her thread is being followed. Noisy ones liven up the session. She has seen this young man before but can’t recall where. Not recently, but in her past life. He is not a yob-type; yob-types don’t come to her awareness events; she had yet to reach out to the yob fringe. This fellow does not wear a baseball cap or a tracksuit. He is clear in his speech, direct in his gaze. He wants to know exactly what faith is. It’s belief, she replies, immediately giving him her full smiling attention. It’s trust. Belief and trust in the Lord. That He is there, at all times. – 54 –

The young man asks where is the guarantee. She chooses the car analogy – he is probably a car owner. The car analogy goes as like this. You have faith that your car will start in the morning. You trust it will get you to work, or wherever you are going, safely and without breakdown. There can be no absolute guarantee, before you begin your journey, that it will start, and drive. But you believe it will. You believe. You have faith. He responds by saying that that is confidence, based on evidence. His car is in good nick and got him to work and back today. And she tells him the Lord, too, is in good nick (quiet laughter from others), and got her to work today. She does not wish to alienate the young man, and knows the laughter is a risk. Quickly, she moves to Pisa. The Tower of Pisa famously leans, she says. Most people have never been to Pisa and seen the tower for themselves. But we who haven’t been readily accept the tower leans, without first-hand observation. Personal evidence is not necessary for personal faith. No pause for thought: he retorts that anyone could see the tower if they went to Italy. Where do you go to see God? It almost comes to her where she knows him from, and she wonders if he knows her. Is that the reason why he has attended? Unlikely. Her answer to his question is addressed to all three rows of chairs. Only that which is within the range of the senses is provable in a go-and-look, reach-out-and-touch way. He is not satisfied and mutters something about a copout. She says that electricity cannot be seen and is better not touched, but who doubts what it is capable of? It is exactly the same with the Power of the Lord. The young man’s name will not come to her, but he is something to do with youth work. Reaction from the rows informs her that electricity is a far better analogy than the car and the Tower of Pisa, which is usually a dud anyway. The noisy one remains unsatisfied. He throws in a sentence about imagination. The effects of electricity can be tested but the effects of God exist only in – 55 –

the imagination of those who want to delude themselves. The others turn on him. One woman starts off with words Fee does not catch but continues along the lines that, although the existence of God cannot be proved either way, she would rather assume in this life than regret in the next. Another, a black girl, tells him he will need God one day, and when that day comes then he won’t be so cocksure. Fee quietens the small hall by being quiet in voice. In hushed tones of utmost sincerity, she tells how there was a time when she might have doubted. She would have listened to the young man in the second row, and would have sympathised with his reasoning. Then she went to Africa, and there contracted a killer fever. At a time when Death came calling, when it seemed all over bar the tying of the label to her toe, the Lord stepped in. The Lord saved her. His effect was experienced. Not imagined. Her return from the dead was not a delusion. Otherwise, she would not be here, this evening. Fee allows a few seconds before humbly resting her case. Her performance wins applause. ***** Awareness events were mostly awareness evenings. After an evening event, Fee would drive back to Dominic’s and accept exhaustion. A hot bath and bed, and polite avoidance of conversation with any faith-student who might be wandering the corridors. Dominic liked regular verbal updates. She would try to avoid him, too, when tired, even though the news was invariably good in the telling. It was not always possible to avoid him, as on this evening. He was standing in the hall near the security screens and invited her by arm gesture into his neat and tidy office where they sat facing one another across the neat and tidy desk, Dominic under a framed quote from Paul’s letter to Titus, a gift of needlework from a past student: ‘Deny ungodliness and worldly lusts. Live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world’. – 56 –

“How did it go this evening?” It was his habitual opening platitude. “It went well enough, I suppose. Twenty-two heads – not bad for virgin territory. Lively debate.” “Good.” He poured two glasses of wine and passed her one. “Someone asked me, what is faith?” “I expect you were able to tell them.” “I was.” Beneath the needlework quote, elbows rested on the desk top, hands together to form a little church, forefingers a spire under the nose. A faith-lesson pose. Eyes alight, latching on to the eyes of the student, but not seeing. Fee forced herself to be and appear attentive. A faith-lesson on faith might typically roll out as follows. Faith is essential. We cannot experience every single aspect of the world ourselves. As an individual, we must rely on others to tell us of what lies beyond the individual compass. Imagine for a moment the opposite, a default state at which nothing is believed unless it is personally seen, touched, felt, tasted, smelt. This clearly would be impractical. We would be confined in an hermetic bubble, denying the greater world. We would, in effect, cease to exist. The Lord blessed us with the ability to see outside the physical constraint of our sensory bubble. That we are able to so is evidence, if evidence were needed, that the Lord is there, everywhere around our bubble. Through the Lord, we know the world does in fact exist. Obviously, we cannot link directly with every part of the world, we cannot meet with every other individual, one to one. But if we all put our faith in the Lord, there is no need. We share a common link in the Lord. He is our common experience. He is the alternative to believing in nothing outside our own immediate domain, that isolated bubble in which we as individuals be as nothing. Faith gives us our freedom, our hope and inspiration. Faith gives us purpose, our reason for being. Faith gives us our – 57 –

personality – gives us ourselves. The absence of faith is too dark to contemplate. Without faith we occupy a spiritual void. Faith is life itself. There. The message delivered without flailing reference to your car, the power of electricity, or the Tower of Pisa. A faith-lesson would normally be closed by a call to join in prayer. This latish evening’s impromptu half-heard half-lesson did not end with a prayer: Dominic returned to the here and now. “I’ve received a cheque from the council, by the way. Well, it comes from council coffers ultimately. The Faith Revival Initiative grant.” “That’s brilliant!” Her tiredness temporarily lifted. “I thought that would be a thumbs down.” “The council is attempting to counter the spread – the perceived spread – of Islam. It works in our favour.” Fee sipped the wine; quality, always a quality wine for the evening progress report in the office, with the door (as in ‘my door is always open’) firmly closed. Dominic passed his glass under his nose before taking a drink. “There can’t be much virgin territory left to tread.” “There isn’t, not on that estate. All covered according to programme by the end of the month. Really, it’s going well. I’m pleased.” Putting his glass down, Dominic produced a key and unlocked a draw of the desk. He took out a folder. From the folder he pulled a sheet of paper; it was possibly the only item kept in the folder. Fee studied him from behind her raised glass; Dominic studied the sheet. “There’s still a way to go with the other side. We need to penetrate the core demographic, as they say in marketing circles. It’s the challenge.” The name came to Fee. Out of the blue. Just like that. The name of the noisy one at the event earlier. Cliff. Cliff Staniforth. Surely she should have retrieved it straightaway. She had had contact with him while at Community Advance. – 58 –

And he with her. A key worker with a young people’s agency: prickly in manner, suspicious of Su Gardeen (not without reason). He would have recognised her, this evening. Why had he not let on? Why had she not let on? Her thought was broken from across the desk. “Any ideas on that score?” She put down her glass and side-slapped her knees. “Yes. One,” she replied with a smile and confident tilt of the head. “I’m working on it.” ***** Cliff was easy to locate and not difficult to access. He could be found, for instance, most mornings at the youth ‘pop-in’ centre not so far from the Palace of Gardeen. It had once been a fire station. A game of table tennis was being played in the middle bay. The clack of ball on bats, and the unrestrained whoops of the adolescent players, and calls from a handful of lookers on, were amplified by reflection from the hard surfaces of the interior. Everywhere was fire-station bright and clean. Fee had entered by a side door marked ‘main entrance’, and skirted an unoccupied small table with chair. She went over to a figure on foot supervising the hanging, by two youths each up an aluminium ladder, of a large wall banner. “Cliff, isn’t it?” Cliff turned. “Hello, there,” he greeted, as he would a stranger, an unknown anybody. “Remember me? It’s Fee. Kemp-Davies. We met at Community Advance a couple of times, about – oh – three or four years ago, and again – sort of – this week. At the awareness event.” “Fee…? Oh, yes, that’s right.” Prickly and suspicious. “It was an interesting evening, I thought. I enjoyed your contribution.” – 59 –

“Did you?” “Yes, really.” Cliff redirected his attention. He shouted to be heard over the table tennis, or to signify his discomfort with her for whatever reason. “Michael – your top corner up. A tad – bit more. That’s it. Tie it to that bracket.” “A question of faith.” “What —?” His body was towards the job in hand but his eyes were to her. Then he adjusted his stance. “Look, Fee – I’m not being rude or anything, but what do you want?” “I want to hire the centre – here. For an event.” “What kind of event?” “A faith awareness event, like the one you came to.” He went over to hold one of the ladders while the youth descended. Then the other ladder. Cliff thanked the youths and told them to slide the ladders together – they were halves of a double set – and put away. “You think I have none – is that it?” Fee waited for the clanging rattle of ladder reunion to finish. “We each define our faith in different ways.” He rubbed his hands on a cloth he’d been holding and nodded towards a drinks vending machine. He set off; she followed. “When would you want the hire? An evening, I assume.” “Yes, an evening is better. Would that be possible?” At the machine, he sorted coins from a back pocket. “Tea? Coffee? Drinking chocolate?” They sat on white plastic chairs at a white plastic table with their white plastic cups amid red roof supports between walls painted red and white. “What do you hope to achieve by holding an ‘awareness event’ here?” he asked above the noise of a table tennis win. Fee stirred coffee white with a white plastic spatula. “The clue is in the title. Make aware the benefits of belief. An introduction to the Message of the Lord.” – 60 –

“The message being?” “God is on your side. Young people need someone on their side.” Cliff agreed with the second statement. Fee wondered if he ever smiled. They discussed terms and conditions of hire. He advised her against optimism as regards wholesale conversion but assured her of a reasonable turnout. “Will you advertise it – internally, I mean?” she enquired. “I’ll make sure they attend,” he replied. There was little else. Fee did not need anything else. She thanked him, said her farewell, and left. On the way to the smoke-grey Mercedes parked outside the big red fire station doors, she threw the car fob in the air and caught it on its fall with eyes closed. It was all a question of faith. ***** Fee speaks with some of the boys and two girls, afterwards. They are a little awkward in close proximity to her, and less noisy. One of the girls said she thought Fee was going to give them a fag nag or a sermon on drugs. “That’s what awareness means, innit? Drugs.” It seemed everyone comes to yatter on about drugs. Or about not having sex. Mostly drugs. That’s all they, the people who come to give talks, know about. Fee asks no one in particular if there is a problem with drugs where they live. It’s regarded as a daft question, and she admits it is. They laugh; she laughs. “Yeah, there’s a problem with drugs,” comments a gruff youth. He has everyone’s attention. “What’s that?” asks Fee, mildly as possible. “Getting’ fuckin’ ’old of ’em.” They laugh; she laughs. Carefully, she asks his name. It’s Lance, he informs her. “Lancelot,” giggles one of the girls. Lance smiles indulgently, but he punches the girl hard on the shoulder, – 61 –

nevertheless. Fee addresses Lance directly. “Perhaps you don’t pray properly, Lance. That could be it.” Sniggers to either side, but Lance – only Lance – seems to catch a deeper significance to the remark. It is added to. “I can help you pray properly, if you like.” The sniggerers laugh; Fee laughs; Lance smiles. Cliff appears, his eyes covertly running over the small group. “What’s the joke?” is his unsmiling enquiry. The punched girl, still rubbing her shoulder, tells him. “Sir Lancelot ’ere is going to say prayers.” Cliff replies that will make a pleasant surprise. It is clear from his herding arms that Cliff wishes everyone to leave in order that he can lock up. The girl continues. “He’s gonna pray for —” But is cut short by Lance himself. “A ride ’ome in a posh Merc. Let’s see if prayer does the business.” A short silence followed. Fee grips the situation. “All right, Lance. I think it can be arranged.” The shoulder girl is about to speak. “Alone!” Lance announces definitively. Everyone else laughs, except Cliff, who probably never laughs. ***** Craig Mains was book signing in the city, which was by birth his home town and stubbornly remained his base. His latest work opened with the line, ‘Religion must be regarded as disease, for religion is a disease – of the mind.’ The book was already controversial; the voices that questioned it, criticised it condemned it, were the very voices of its advertisement, of its promotion, of its almost certain success. Who was it who declared that, in the arts, controversy and success are both sides of the same coin? Neither Mains’ literary agent nor his publisher would argue against the proposition. His publisher, – 62 –

apparently wise to what can happen at signings of controversial books, had endeavoured to provide a protective environment for the increasing asset. Admittance strictly by invitation only. Fee decided that an application submitted on Church of the Message of God letterhead was a non-starter in terms of getting her in. She sent instead a request on plain paper bearing a simplified version of the address, explaining that she was a fan of the author – indeed had met with him on previous occasions. A photocopy of the title page from one of his earlier books was included in the letter of application. To a lovely young lady who will surely make her mark on the world. It was enough: an invitation arrived within the week. Not a full invite, which would have secured the informal evening session, but one allowing her during the day to listen to the rising man talk about his latest book, to purchase a copy, and to watch with excitement as he opened the cover to the title page and brought down his firmly held pen on to virgin white paper. When the day arrived, she asked herself why had the application been made. Did she really wish to possess a copy of the frightful book, which would not even be discounted? Was it a sad example of the British obsession with (even very minor) celebrity? She wanted to meet the almost famous author, and for him to remember her – and if he didn’t, she would remind him; and for a few brief moments she could imagine sharing his almost fame. Absolutely bloody pathetic. Decided: she wasn’t going. The gateman at the Highfield Hotel checked her invitation through the lowered window of the Mercedes and directed her to an area of parking reserved for guests of the Mandela Wing. A further check was made at the entrance of the recently completed extension that epitomised conference suite blandness. “Do you represent an organisation?” the receptionist asked, – 63 –

scrolling down a screen list. The application form had asked the same question. “Private.” As entered on the form. In a side room off the main arena, people stood chatting one to another or in small groups, most holding drinks acquired from the corner bar. Fee recognised no one. At the end of the room, a small table and chair were set out. A larger adjacent table held a quantity of books stacked in perfectly vertical piles and all bearing the same cover. Behind, and elsewhere in the room, the name of the event’s sponsor – a bookstore in the city – was presented on mounted boards. She bought a fresh orange juice, criminally overpriced, and went over to the book table. A smiling woman, apparently in charge of the stacks, told her it wouldn’t be long now. When Fee reached out to a top book, the woman chose the precise moment to straighten the immaculate pile. Turning, Fee noticed Andrea, a mere few feet away, clutching a glass of wine, in conversation with a couple. Andrea was the author’s wife – Mrs Mains. It would be her role to pump hands and do the rounds. No writer could have a more enthusiastic supporter or so loyal a wife than Andrea was to Craig. A glance towards Fee registered no recognition. Fee moved away. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for coming this afternoon. I am delighted to announce that the title which is the attraction of this event has entered the charts.” A low cheer and patter of applause from the room. The woman in charge of the stacks – fussy attendant turned corporate female – continued. “You heard it here first. Now, without more ado, I hand over the proceedings to author and essayist Craig Mains.” More applause, acknowledged by a gesture as the writer took his seat at the small table. A queue began to form; the signing commenced. – 64 –

“Fiona!” The exclamation of a name was, she reckoned from having listened, a special treat for about one in five of those in the queue, when small talk would follow until Corporate Woman prompted the next in line to approach the table. “Hello, Craig. I thought you were going to talk about your book.” “That’s a pleasure reserved for this evening. Will you be along?” As Craig Mains grew older, navigating his rockier forties, his style of dress steered younger. The ebb of hairline could no longer be disguised. “I’m not invited.” “You are now. Be there.” Confirmation required from Corporate Woman. “That all right, Martha?” A nod from Martha, and a smile from Craig. “It’ll be an opportunity to catch up.” Same side room, a few hours later. Slightly larger crowd. Craig is doing what he likes best: discussing his writing, quoting and paraphrasing his words, responding to the doubters. Actually, not responding but rather explaining. Doubters of his work only doubt because they do not yet understand. The disease of the mind referred to in the opening lines of the latest book, the book newly in the charts, the book with the titled-filled cover – the disease is one of failure to process all that is fed into it, by the sensory organs. Information that cannot be dealt with is dumped in a cerebral skip – dumpster, to our American friends. The skip is marked ‘God’s doing’. The disease is not physical, such as a breakdown of tissue or malfunctioning cells, perhaps the consequence of genetic miscoding or pathogenic attack, or simple structural decay. It is cultural in origin. A capacity exists to handle the information the brain receives from the senses and as a result of experience, but the social culture which the brain operates within teaches the marvellous though delicate organ to be lazy – 65 –

– to not bother to work things out. And the brain obeys the instruction by indeed becoming lazy. Beautiful intellect is replaced by crass symbols which bypass rationality on a wholesale basis. There is something obscene about the way in which the hard-won reward of evolution is abused like it is. Countless millennia of environmental challenge endured by our ancestors and ancestral species produced a biological thinking machine of a class the world has never before seen, and which science has yet to scratch the surface in emulating. And what do we do with it? We treat it like the dim lumberjack who cannot comprehend the purpose of the engine at the end of the chainsaw so uses the equipment as a handsaw. Unproductive unnecessary stupidity. Whatever we’re too idle to work out, because our brains have been culturally moulded that way, we declare it God’s doing. That’s the disease – spread from generation to generation, from holy teacher to disciple, from pulpit to congregation, from selfstyled shepherd to receptive flock – an inculcated intellectual enervation which we employ as religion. “In my book, I set out the arguments, I build the case. I hear out the case, or cases, against the case. I devise a balance and make a judgement. Perhaps you think I should not pass sole judgement; perhaps you view the reader who has travelled with me, through the pages, as a member of a global jury tasked to form a verdict on my thesis. Well, I have followed that course before, in not one book but two books. Politeness, shyness, a wish for reader involvement – call it what you will. Maybe one or none or all of these. This time, I do not leave it to the reader. This time, I establish a conclusive stance, and I do not flinch from its articulation: religion is a disease.” Question time. ‘Do you think the Catholic Church is as much the antithesis of science and human progress as it used to be?’ (Reference the previous Craig Mains publication.) – 66 –

‘Are we really two species – a great herd of natural followers seeded with a handful of superior activators?’ (Reference the last but one publication.) ‘Are the divisions of geographically-specific religious inculcation – hemispheres of Christianity and Islam, for example – are they potentially compatible or too rooted?’ (Reference possibly the latest publication.) For these and other questions, a single sentence of enquiry would precipitate paragraphs of reply. Conscious of the programme, Corporate Woman called humorously but meaningfully ‘Enough!’ and it was time to mingle. Fee let the mingling writer find her by plotting his direction around the room, downing glasses of drink as he went. Not for her an in-group share, or the filter of Andrea – this girl was going to have him to herself. “Hello again. I’m so glad you could make it. What d’you think?” smiled the man of the day, looking weary beneath the chart-entering author façade. “About the evening?” “About the book.” He stood a little above her, slightly closer than generally considered socially appropriate. This had happened before; she stayed her ground. “I haven’t had chance to read it yet. I bought my copy just this afternoon, when you signed it.” “That’s right. But you dipped, I bet.” “Not yet. I’ve been busy, actually. I’ll try.” It was a tease and she was pleased he knew it. He waved to some people who were leaving. “So – Fiona. What are you doing with yourself these days? Still in community development?” He would remember this. Andrea was in community development – or used to be; a friend of Su’s, going back. How much had passed along the chatvine? How much would Craig have cared? “Sort of. Not with Community Advance.” – 67 –

Change of subject by Craig. “Still believe in deity?” He raised an empty glass for inspection. “Look, I’m going to the bar for a top-up. Can I get you anything? Come on.” Fee went with him, momentarily annoyed with herself for doing so. He motioned to a bar stool which she perched on, again fleetingly annoyed, though quickly convinced it was the right thing to do. They were the only customers at the quarter circle bar. She acquiesced to something more fortifying than orange juice. “Where was I? Oh, yes – deity.” Whisky for the gentleman, Martini for the lady. She thanked him. It’s not every evening a girl is bought a Martini from an author fresh into the charts. “If you mean, do I still believe in the power of the Lord, yes I do. More than ever, actually.” “Then my scribbling is wasted. On you, at least.” “We can agree to differ.” “We can at least bat it around a bit.” A drink before continuing. “You said you were working in the community. I think that’s what you said.” “Good work, too.” “I’m sure it is.” He briefly turned away. More long-armed waves of goodbye, the odd word called out. Resuming his attention, he looked her in the eyes. “I’m looking for a new research assistant. My present one is leaving – had enough.” Fee repositioned herself on the stool. “Has she really?” “Would you be interested?” Her mind suddenly became a whirl, like the snowstorm when the little globe is shaken. “I – you don’t know anything about me. I mean, qualifications. Except that I disagree with practically everything you say – on religion. Surely —” “Pree-cisely.” – 68 –

The room’s waitress arrived to offload empty glasses and to hand over money to the barman. The seated conversation resumed. “Well, I don’t see how that would work. A believer researching for a non-believer.” “As a matter of fact, I benefit from a counterforce. My present girl is a churchgoer.” “You said she’s had enough.” “A mere figure of speech. She’s gone family.” Andrea joined them. She was cheerful and wavy. “Aren’t you going to say goodnight to your fan club?” “Martha does all that. She gets paid to.” Craig downed his whisky and looked to the barman. To no avail: Andrea caught the action and, to Craig, gave her own look. “And this is – of course, Fee. Fiona. I didn’t — How are you?” Genuine surprise; guarded enquiry; other emotions. “I’m very well, thank you, Andrea. And you?” “Battling on. I thought you went abroad…” “Africa.” “I knew it was somewhere hot.” Andrea tapped her husband’s arm. “Everyone’s leaving. They think you’ve gone.” “I must be going, also,” Fee said as she stood from the stool. “Thanks for the drink. Thank you for the invite.” In the Mercedes, she sat and waited until some several minutes later when Craig and Andrea Mains climbed into a hulking SUV with sinister tinted windows and, Andrea behind the wheel, left the car park. It’s not every evening a faithful servant of the Lord is offered the job of it research assistant to a hopelessly deluded god-basher. Lord, are You testing me? Lord, You see that poor mistaken soul – he is so spiritually destitute – and Your desire is to recover that soul. You want me to reach out – to return the lamb to the fold. Am I up to it? Am I the right person? Tell me I am the person, Lord. – 69 –

***** Dominic was on the prowl. Some evenings he was like that. He wasn’t expecting an update; one was not due. Unusually, however, he asked where she had been. She could have told him she was visiting a potential faith-follower, or something. She could have lied and he none the wiser. In truth, he did not seem that interested – it was more a matter of something to say as he padded the corridor past the bathroom. But lying is an easy path to sin. “Actually, I went to a reading by Craig Mains.” “Who?” “The author. Heaven’s Affliction, and —” “That charlatan.” “Yes, that one.” The day and the evening had been a flip-flop of petty selfannoyance and admitted exhilaration. Exhaustion reigned, and a desire for total privacy. She certainly did not welcome a discussion with Dominic; Dominic was too preoccupied anyway. And this was definitely not the time or place to tell him she had actually been offered a job by the charlatan, even if she were to make light of it. He said goodnight, asked the Lord watch over her, and continued his prowl. Shower won over bath. In the last week she had twice fallen asleep in the tub. The shower cleansed but did little to relax. Straight to bed it would be, and hope not to bump into Dominic again, or a hyped-up faith-student wanting a midnight debate. She dried her body and, with the same towel, wiped the mirror to study a naked reflection with loose wet hair. Give me the strength, Lord, and I will succeed. Sleep would not come, she could not expect it, not with that book on the floor, under the bed, half hidden in case anyone came to her room. Craig had bet she’d dipped, and she had replied with the truth, if a few minutes of flicking through the pages was not to count as dipping. Sleep would not come, it – 70 –

not being likely when the excitement of a job offer, working close to the author, resists suppression. So she picked up the book, inhaled its new-book bouquet and felt its new-book stiffness; she ran a light finger over the inscription on the title page, emitted a deep sigh and read for a while, a few pages here, a few there. She learned, or in places was reminded, that religion should be seen as merely a stage in evolution – to be sure, an important one, but nevertheless a phase to be abandoned once the usefulness was expired. Man’s super-evolving brain, a produce of swift and severe environmental challenges, had needed to invent and maintain an abstract explanation dump, a depository of mysterious causation. (As a curious side thought, other simians – and, for that matter, lots of other higher animal life – experienced swift and severe environmental changes at around the same time. Why did only the human line advance so rapidly in terms of mental capacity?) Anyway, early man was overwhelmed by experiential input. Developing a belief in purposeful causes of phenomena instrumented by some mighty being was perhaps a sensible response. The supernatural entity might be appeaseable when the hunt is poor or the watering pool dries up. To plead with the appropriate god arguably gives rise to a sense of at least doing something about the issue, even if it has no effect whatsoever in the grand physical scheme of things. (To return to the earlier side thought: those simian lines from which the human branch diverged were presumably willing to accept the environmental knocks quite passively, and developed no reason for trying to change the situation by imploring a notional potentially persuadable power. Or do apes pray? Maybe they just hope. Maybe they do their best about what is going on and leave it at that.) If gods there had to be, then the various gods of environmental phenomena were sensible nominations for the post of mighty being. And so it went for millennia until, one day, an inspired fellow imagined that his god must be – 71 –

something like the best ever creature to walk the Earth – Man himself. Religion shifted a gear. Gods became manlike; God was manlike. God was not a simian, a reptile, a woman, a man of a different colour – God was someone who understood your thoughts, your culture, your life, and luckily was able to speak your language. God looked over you and others like you. When resources grew tight, God gave you the mandate to go out and grab what you wanted. What would upset God the most, make him very angry indeed, was when he felt threatened by a rival god, someone else’s God. He would seize the minds of the men he was god for, and fill it with hatred, violence and murder. That way, God remained good. Religion approached the end of its useful life some time during the eighteenth century. Gradually, it is being wound down among civilised peoples. But the still evolving human brain has grown dependent on it. It’s a disease, you see – the symptom is the retained dependency on an imaginary mechanism when Man is perfectly capable of rational adaptation to environmental change. Religion is still deeply entrenched among large groups of humans on the planet’s surface today. These people bear the scars of a facet of evolution that took too great a hold. These people are selfdisadvantaged as a result. If the oceans rise and winds shake the Earth, and crops fail and greenhouse gases choke – as is reliably forecast – then what respect can be paid to the voices who fatalistically wail about it being their deity’s doing, or to the kneelers and hand-claspers begging for their deity to forgive them their selfish sins and to please selfishly save them. As fully functional human beings, blessed (if you like) with a superior organ of analysis and calculation, these people should get off their knees, unclasp their hands, put away their silly trinkets and outdated paraphernalia, and instead set their minds to the working out and implementation of solutions for coping, for the benefit of all. That they are manifestly unable to do this is a result of the disease I speak of. At which point, Fee drifted into sleep. – 72 –

4 Fee decided to make a clean breast of it. Figuratively, literally. “I think there is something you ought to know,” she started, making it sound as if the thought had just come to her. “Oh, yes? And what might that be?” Craig asked, agreeably. “I’ve never done it with a man before.” A half laugh from Craig, a half laugh signifying a wish not to be made fun of by being told something absurd as if it were a fact. “No?” “I’m serious.” “How old are you?” He continued to unfasten the buttons of her top. His tone was light as if accepting the admission to be a form of playful warm-up that might be employed by someone trapped in protracted adolescence, which he considered Fee to be. “Old enough.” “Old enough not to be a virgin, therefore.” Her hand stopped his. She wanted the issue resolving before… “I’m definitely not a virgin. Sorry to disappoint, and all that. It’s, well, been a same sex history.” “You and – what’s her name.” “Su.” “That’s right. Su Gardeen.” He leant forward, the two sitting at the foot of the king-size bed, and touched his tongue with a thumb tip. Suddenly, he turned to her. “Do you suppose this is the truth you are telling me – that you have never had intercourse with a male? What about when you were a fumbling teen? Behind the school bike sheds.” – 73 –

Fee pulled the unbuttoned parts of her top together, then let them go. “Mine was an all girl’s school. In Switzerland, actually. There were no bike sheds. There were no bikes. Not in that sense.” The unbuttoning restarted. She hurried it along and slipped off the top. Without waiting, her hands disappeared behind her back and the light-blue bra dropped. Craig raised a hand to a breast. Her hand covered his: the issue still required resolution. “I didn’t fancy boys, that’s all. There weren’t any, anyway. No bikes, no boys.” She released her hold. He played with a nipple – hard and high. Fee’s breast were small and young-girlish but she certainly wasn’t going to make an apology for them, not to a man. “What about later? There are boys in community development.” She closed her eyes and wanted to fall back on the bed; she wanted him to tweak both her nipples, to lick them. But the issues. “There is nothing a girl can’t do for a girl, and without the mess.” “I still don’t believe you.” “Please yourself, I’m sure. I just thought I’d warn you in advance about the lack of know-how. That’s all.” The back fall. He leant over her. She looked him in the eyes, aware of the apprehension in her own. “Aren’t you going to take something off, too?” Craig smiled, but continued to lean as he perused her breasts. “Have you seen a naked man?” Mock indignation. “Of course. Plenty.” In a low voice of admission, “Not in the flesh.” Eyes closed once more. “Not close up. In films. Statues in Rome.” Then, insouciantly, “Is there any difference?” – 74 –

He began to unbutton his shirt, though not hurriedly. “Which brings us to a corollary.” “Heart failure?” She opened eyes wide. “That’s a coronary.” Closing eyes again, she pulled his hands to her breasts and made his fingers cross the nipples. He stroked unguided. A blind sigh of delight. “I thought you were inexperienced,” he whispered. “Hardly. We girls, when we’re together, like to get on with it.” His hands left her breasts and worked on the belt around her waist. She caressed her breasts herself. “What’s the coronary?” “Corollary.” “What’s the corollary?” Her skirt gave and slid over her hips. Down her legs, which were angled over the bed bottom but which she lifted to comply. Over her bare feet and to the floor. “Sweet late twenties and never been fucked. Not to the traditional method, at least. Why now?” Craig asked. “Am I so special?” “I have been fucked, lots of times, with all sorts of things. Su was innovative.” Pants down. She guided his hand to her crotch. A higher plane of delight was expressed as a wide-mouthed gasp. “Are you telling me the truth – about…?” “Guides’ honour. Do men take their clothes off for sex?” A laugh. “Yes, they do.” And a rapid strip. He was on her. This made her nervous, and she momentarily recoiled. “Now for the new bit. Shall I just lie back and think of Switzerland?” He lifted from her. “I strongly advise, under the circumstances you should check what you’re letting yourself in for. Any inspection welcome.” – 75 –

She raised from the bed, supported by arms, and tilted her head in a show of appraisal. “Are you circumcised? Does it hurt?” “No, I’m not circumcised. The foreskin draws over the ridge with erection.” Gingerly, she touched the tip of his penis, and pulled forward for a closer look. “It’s just like a plastic one. Where do you put the batteries?” “No. The plastic one is just like this one. This one works without batteries.” “You modelled for the plastic one, did you?” “They were looking for authenticity, I guess.” She giggled and threw herself back, and resumed the breast self-caress. “What about protection? Don’t you wear protection? I’ve never seen a johnny, only in an alleyway or park. Disgusting, actually.” “Condoms are for the working class. Besides, I can never open the packet.” A pause while she continued to stroke herself, eyes closed, mouth open. “Do you put it in, or do I?” “What do girls together do?” “That’d be telling.” He inserted a middle finger into her vagina and found the clitoris. It was what she’d been waiting for, and it was nice. ‘Relax’ Su would breath into her ear. Fee relaxed. A long sigh of delight – the longest. There are times to talk and times not to talk. This was a time not to. Craig was on her, in her. Relax was out. Her hands sought for and found and gripped the headboard. His hands tugged at her buttocks. She climaxed, he climaxed. It was over; certainly for him; she opened her eyes as he slumped by her side on the bed and groaned. A glance at the collapsed state. “Are you all right?” she asked. – 76 –

“Mm.” “You look like you had that coronary you mentioned.” “Mm. How was it for you? It’s polite to ask on a first union.” “It was different.” “How different?” She was on hands and knees, by his side. “More invasive. Somehow more personal. With you.” Astride him. “Over too soon. Much too soon. I’ll bring spare batteries next time.” A ‘ha’ from the bed. Craig reached out to the needle marks on her arm. “Do you inject?” “Do I shoot up? Would it matter if I did?” “Not at all. You’re a big girl.” “Souvenir of Africa, I’m afraid. I get the occasional twinge.” “How often do you…?” “Whenever I have to.” “It doesn’t answer the question.” Nor did she answer. She was off him, away from him, arms around knees. “I was on eflornithine, actually. DFMO – di-fluoro-methylornithine.” The expanded name was said slowly but confidently. “Hair remover.” “Hair remover? Do tell me more.” Fee turned serious. “It’s the best ever cure for sleeping sickness. Women in America use something made from it to get rid of hair from face and legs and wherever. They have it, Africans don’t. Too expensive for Africa. Lives in Africa being less important than perfection of the American female, of course.” Lifting himself on his elbows, Craig smiled. “That could be something I wrote.” “That was something that saved my life.” “I thought God saved your life.” – 77 –

“The Lord found the resurrection drug for me when none was available.” “How? Like fishes and loaves?” “You’re talking about Jesus.” “Was I? It’s strange, you rarely mention Jesus by name. You’re all in favour of the Lord.” “Jesus was one of us. The Lord is the Lord. Anyway, I don’t know where the stuff came from – I wasn’t supposed to ask.” Craig sat up, next to her. “Is it the resurrection drug that you inject? Is it addictive? You still have hair.” “In all the right places, too. Just like you.” Playful once more, she was on him, pulling at his penis. They almost rolled off the bed as they engaged in mock fight. There was no job. True, the girl who had been the author’s research assistant had left. True, there was textual research to be carried out. Andrea had taken over the role, working from home, part-time as and when required. True, there was fieldwork. Much of the fieldwork, which the enquiring writer must himself conduct, outside and away from home, involved Fee. Craig Mains, the chart entering author and challenger of religious dependency, wanted to probe the mind of a devout faith-hugger. He wanted to get behind the frontage of obsessive-compulsive disorder and scrape away at the mental processes that compel an otherwise fairly intelligent adult to ‘adopt an imaginary friend’. Fiona Kemp-Davies provided excellent material. Articulate and avid in her religiosity. Also, attractive and available. Of course, she was aware of these attributes and exploited them, while willingly and deliciously allowing herself to be exploited. Fieldwork was done in the field – café, restaurant, car, bedroom. Actually, the sex brought Fee an unexpected sense of power. Power over Craig, whose relish for youth – almost twenty years separated their ages – came as no surprise but whose verbal foreplay probing (pun intended) of her lesbian – 78 –

past bordered on the excessive. Power over Andrea. It is impossible to appreciate the buzz to be had from screwing another woman’s husband, especially when a buzz is entirely unexpected. Especially when the woman is Andrea. Fee doubted whether Andrea bore the marks of Craig’s fingernails on her behind, doubted if Craig was so emptied after sex conducted as marital duty as he was following physical fieldwork. On the rare occasion when Fee and Andrea would meet, at the Mains home, Andrea was cool in disposition. Fee suspected that Andrea suspected – she hoped she did. That became part of the buzz. And Andrea might, in time, mention her suspicions to Su. What a bonus buzz that would be! Lord guide me for I am Your faithful servant. You despatch me into the unknown for Your special purpose. Let me hold Your hand, Lord. Hold mine. Let courage and conviction take the place of uncertainty and doubt. Give me the strength to accomplish Your will. No job, but the intellectual part of the field research was genuine. Craig would ask the questions, she answered them. Sometimes the questions were hers, and the answers his. There was no pledge to bind an answer to a particular question: the same line of enquiry spun out within separate sessions might produce dissimilar answers, maybe contradictory. Not all the intellectual field research was productive, or even in the least edifying. An early session is an example, the newly empowered Fee leading on faith. Fee: “But surely there is something important missing from a life in which there is no faith.” Craig: “I don’t consider anything is missing from my life. I would hardly call mine a desolate existence.” Fee: “So why the book signings? You want to sell more books, you’re so desperate to spread the non-Word. Surely something is missing.” Craig: “My publisher wants to sell more books. The signings are a clause in the contract. I like to meet people, especially people who want to read me.” – 79 –

Fee: “So I gathered. What about the many thousands of people who wouldn’t dream of reading one of your books?” Craig: “There are none.” Fee: “Well, here’s one for a start.” Craig: “I simply refuse to believe it.” Fee: “That’s your problem, buster.” A short laugh from Craig. Craig: “To turn the argument around, you must perceive as representing a missing element the need which impels you to do your unsolicited good work. You are not complete despite the alleged asset of faith.” Fee: “You’re being pompous. I carry out my unsolicited good work, as you put it, because I wish for others to enjoy the same spiritual awareness as I do.” Craig: “Whether they want to or not.” Fee: “They always have a choice.” Craig: “That applies to my readers. Of which, I am pleased to say, there are many.” Fee: “Now you are being pompous.” Craig: “The many which includes yourself.” Fee: “Actually, I find your latest book quite unreadable. It’s offensive.” Craig: “You must have read it to be in a position to say so.” Fee: “I don’t have to read all of it to know.” Craig: “Then it might only be offensive in parts.” Fee: “I don’t think so.” Craig: “You’re going to lose this one. I think we should stop there.” Fee: “Please yourself.” Another session. Craig: “Cosmologists speak of parallel universes, or coterminous ones. They have nothing to back up their ideas except the philosophical cop-out which proclaims there may be adjacent or alternative universes because no evidence to the contrary exists. Whether now or in the future, there – 80 –

simply is no way of knowing one way or the other. The point I’m making is this: no one derides the cosmologists for their cerebral wrestles with the absolutely unknowable. The existence of God is just as unknowable. Why, therefore, are believers derided by atheists as delusional while cosmologists are praised for the flexibility of their thinking?” Fee: “Surely it’s what I should be asking you.” Craig: “Why aren’t you?” Fee: “All right. Let’s say I’ve just asked you. What happens next?” Craig: “I’m delighted you put it to me. One answer says the cosmologists do no harm with their arcane ramblings. They can neither be right nor wrong – and, quite honestly, no one outside their tiny group gives a fig. Belief in God, on the other hand, allows the belief holders to say they hear God speak to them, and give his instructions. There inevitably comes the occasion when those instructions run counter to established teachings.” Fee: “Like when?” Craig: “‘Thou shalt not kill.’ A basic commandment understood and supposedly endorsed by all. Has it ever stopped kings or devout conquerors waging war? Did it deter Saint Tony from wholeheartedly joining in the carnage of Iraq?” Fee: “Don’t go political on me. I don’t think the invasion of Iraq had anything to do with the Lord.” Craig: “Blair said Bush asked him to do it. Bush said God told him to do it. The trail leads right to the top.” Fee: “Surely this is rubbish. Blair isn’t a killer. He didn’t break a commandment. Anyway, what’s it got to do with faith? That’s supposed to be the discussion topic, remember. You believe in all the wrong things, Craig. You believe in doubt. That’s your faith – not to believe in anything good.” Craig: “I don’t need an imaginary friend to tell me what to do.” Fee: “Not that again.” – 81 –

Craig (reading): “‘A child might have an imaginary friend, and this is generally considered a piece of harmless temporary childhood behaviour. Nevertheless, it can also be a symptom of some unsettling of the mind induced by a situation that perhaps the adults are incognisant of, or elect to ignore. When —’” Fee: “When a grown-up hears the voice of an imaginary friend… Yes, I know – you don’t have to read aloud the entire bloody book.” Craig: “Tell me again, Fee, for the purposes of research – and that’s what we’re engaged in here – why do you think a body needs faith of the religious type?” The sex was easier. Research was difficult because it swirled in two directions. A question from Craig might be answered from the heart or from the head, passionately or not very well or facetiously. The same question, if central to a theme, would be put later to Dominic. If Dominic’s reply was comprehensible, if it was a proper answer, then Fee would throw it back to Craig. ‘I’ve been thinking about what you said last time, and…’ Fee would also put questions to Craig that were borrowed from Dominic, questions given out to faith-students to go away and ponder on. In addition, Fee had questions of her own. Some of these were directed to the Lord, in the solitude of her room at Dominic’s, which she described to Craig as a convent cell. “Have you ever considered becoming a nun?” he once asked. “Wrong habit,” she had quipped in response. In the room inaccurately called a cell, the Lord’s attention was called to the point made by Craig that His specific instruction might seem to override a general commandment. Exodus Chapter Twenty, the seventh item of the timeless code: Thou shalt not commit adultery. The buzz of adultery. A sin. A compound sin. Adultery to save a dissident soul whose confusion was transmitted to thousands of others – 82 –

(according to book sales figures), potentially leading them astray. This was the Lord’s purpose – a transgression of limited dimension necessary for the greater good. She bore the breaking of the seventh commandment on behalf of the Lord and the Lord would forgive her when the special mission was accomplished. A temporary sin for a noble aim. But the buzz – this was not part of the Lord’s plan, surely. To experience the buzz was wrong. The buzz had to stop. As a post-climaxed Craig lay by her side following an energetic summer afternoon’s romp on the Mainses’ marital bed – Andrea away to visit a failing aunt in another town – Fee broke a silence of minutes. “I think we should tell Andrea about us.” The sentence was a bucket of cold water over Craig. “What?” Instantly, his torso was jacked over hers. “Where did that come from?” “She’s your wife. I think she has a right to know.” Craig sat up, away from her, and shook his head as if flicking the cold water from it. “What on earth brought this on? Christian guilt, for God’s sake?” Fee placed her arms round his shoulders. Both were naked on the king-size. “I don’t mean we should stop. It’s wonderful – it really is. I just would be happier if Andrea was treated with respect.” He was up from the bed, at the window, naked. “Respect? That’s an odd concept, seeing you are currently sitting with your knees to your chin where my wife sleeps and sometimes adopts exactly the same pose.” “She probably knows, anyway. They say a wife always knows.” Returned to the bed, Craig perched on the edge, body twisted, as a visitor might do for a patient in hospital. “I sincerely hope not.” Fee threw back her hair. “Have there been others? In this very bed?” – 83 –

He began to dress. Normally, he would take a shower after sex. Sometimes, they showered together. Not today. “Oh, on a regular basis,” he said sarcastically but, she supposed, not untruthfully. Anyway, his past catalogue did not concern or bother her. Trousered though bare-chested, he once more sat on the bed, an unusual edge to his voice. “Are you planning to exercise leverage, by any chance?” “I’m planning to take a shower, actually.” She was suddenly on him, hugging and kissing and full of remorse. “Craig, Craig. I didn’t mean it – it’s not like that – you have to believe me. You’re right – you always are. It is a touch of Christian guilt. I’m a sinner and I deserve to go to Hell.” She straddled his lap and thrust a tongue into his mouth. He didn’t resist though the passion of the moment was hers. She continued. “I’m sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Beat me if you want. Spank me. I’m a very naughty girl.” He studied her. Their faces were very close. “That won’t be necessary. This time.” They kissed; they toppled over on to the bed; he softened. “For penitence, you can tell me this. How exactly do you square our physical sharing with your Christian conscience?” Fee laughed, joyously. “I don’t. Really, I don’t. It’s beautiful.” “Do you not attempt to reconcile your behaviour with the teachings of your church?” He watched as she rolled on to her stomach and make a spread of hands on which to rest her cheek. Several seconds passed. To remind her of an answer, he ran a finger down her spine from neck to cleavage of buttock. She wiggled her lower half. “I am serving the Lord. That’s all that matters.” Said in a serious tone. “Is that what you call it?” Said in a mocking tone. “Craig?” – 84 –

“Fee?” “Will you —?” “Will I what? Or do I fill in the rest?” “Will you come to my awareness event on Wednesday?” A loud ‘ha!’ and a slap of her bottom. “Do you know, I thought you were going to ask me to leave Andrea.” “That as well, then,” Not meant. “No. and no.” Fee turned on her back and looked into his eyes. “Please.” “I can’t” “Why not?” “Whatever would my agent say. She would regard it as a trap which undoubtedly it is. ‘Craig Mains attends secret church meeting.’ Hello pics in the tabloids; goodbye creditability.” “It’s not a trap. It’s not a secret church meeting. You could slip in and listen from the back. Wear a disguise.” Craig stood and reached for his bathrobe from a hook. “False whiskers, eye patch, push-on red nose? Is that what you have in mind, I wonder?” He removed his trousers. “Enough of this idle prattle. I’m heading for the shower. Coming?” No movement from the bed, but a verbal response. “Come as Craig Mains, then no one will recognise you. Make it part of your research: ‘The Shepherdess in action’.” “The Shepherdess?” “That’s what they call me, on the estates.” “They?” “People.” At the door of the en suite bathroom, robe tied, he looked back. “The answer’s still no. I can hear all I need to hear straight from the mouth of the Shepherdess. Surely.” – 85 –

She listened for the sound of spraying water then spreadeagled on the bed, a human X, wondering if Andrea ever did the same. Her lovely recovered body – she wanted to share her body. I’m doing good, Lord. I’m doing good. ***** “Faith helps us. Faith helps us to cope. With work; with no work; with family, mighty upheavals, everyday problems; with the death of a loved one; with the unstoppable advance of our own death. If we believe in the Lord, we can handle any of these. All of these. “I want to tell you of a recent study – it’s on the internet if you’d like to check it out for yourselves. Anyway, the study found that people with faith are happier. Faith gives life satisfaction. Faith in the Lord gives us strength – the Lord gives us the strength to pull through adversity. It acts as a buffer zone, if you like. It provides a reserve of energy when we are most in need. When we think we have reached rock bottom, we can turn to the Lord and follow His direction. When we feel we can’t go any lower, then the only way is up – and the Lord is there to grasp our hands. The study – and this is important – the study was conducted across a wide area – here and on the continent, as it happens – not by a church or a religious denomination but as part of a hard-nosed economic survey. The researchers were looking at unemployment, actually. Instead, they discovered what many of us could have told them – that people with faith are simply happier people. People who believe in the Lord believe in themselves. It’s as simple as that. The evidence exists, for those who doubt the power of the Lord.” Craig was not among the faces. She knew deep down, and not so deep down, he would not come. A little recording machine had captured her words and she would insist he listen to the – 86 –

playback. It would have to do. Lance was there, however. Yes, streetwise Lance and his lieutenant. Attentive, polite, waiting. Before Fee could play the recording to him, Craig appeared on television. She watched the studio discussion on the portable set in her room. ‘Heathen author defends his latest hammy book,’ she smirked as she turned up the volume. “William Blake referred to religious belief as a ‘mind-forged manacle’, an intellectual prison in which the believer, born on the outside, takes residence, locks himself in, and throws the key through the bars as far away as possible. Meantime, the prisoner waits for the end he pretends will never come.” The presenter, who Fee acknowledged as well-known but not to her, a youngish man fashionably retaining a trace of Scottish accent, took the camera. “Well, so much for the rhetoric, and there’s plenty where that came from. What I —” Another guest cut in. “A self-chosen prison can be a very secure place.” A woman, past it in age. Fee could not decide whether the interruption was delivered as criticism or support. “Indeed. What I would like to drill down to is the core proposition,” continued the presenter, “that’s contained within your book and, if I may say so, in others of a growing genre.” “All selling well,” responded Craig. “The core proposition is in the title.” A quick smile from the presenter. “The title is an assertion, and we’ll hear in a moment from the Right Reverend Geoffrey Adair, who would assert the opposite of the title, and in fact has done so in the title of an essay published online. Turning to you, Craig Mains, religilion is a disease? A bit strong, isn’t it?” Craig made himself comfortable in his chair. “Not at all. Let’s get this straight, if you’ll allow – religion is a disease in a – 87 –

specific sense.” The camera had him full face. He looked confident, a smugness that infuriated Fee as it attracted her. “As I laid out in an earlier book, religion had a use in the infancy of the human species. It goes without saying that I don’t subscribe to the human form being a scaled-down God clone – we evolved, just like every other organism on the planet. The brain expanded very quickly and to that we owe thanks for our survival. But the capacity to process the increasing torrent of data lagged behind. Our ancestors needed an external storage device, a separate hard-drive. GOD could be an acronym for general outer depository. The invented receptacle —” A gesture from the presenter. “As you say, that was laid out in an earlier book. What about your latest assault?” Craig could conceal annoyance almost completely when annoyance might be construed as weakness. Almost completely, but not to anyone who knew the man intimately. “I’m coming to that. Secondary uses of religion, for social control and for legitimation of aggression, have dominated throughout recorded history as, I suspect, they also did in the pre-recorded era. Uses, like the primary function, appropriate for their times.” Camera pan to woman, a furrow of confusion; pan to studio link, a Right Reverend placidly waiting his turn to contribute; pan to current speaker. “The civilised mind, civilised culture, has moved on, however. All right, many brains are still overwhelmed, though that’s more a product of selective education. For the civilised world, religion is redundant. It’s a spent device, serving no purpose other than to poison. It’s gangrenous flesh on the body of civilisation. It’s a disease, of the mind, in the sense that alcoholism or a narcotic dependency is a disease. Religion is a deleterious dependency.” “Thank you for that.” The presenter turned bodily to the – 88 –

studio link screen. “Reverend Geoffrey Adair. Is religion a disease?” The link screen filled the television screen. “Good evening and God bless. Well, religion is certainly not a disease. I think only someone eager to sell a few books would suggest such an idea. The need for religion, in the increasingly uncertain world we live in, is greater than ever.” “Though you would say that, wouldn’t you?” interjected the presenter, pleasantly. “Well, I do say it, because it is what I believe. The disease that your guest Mr Mains talks and writes about is not religion. The disease is the proliferation, within our society, of all the sins spelt out in the Bible. Religion is the first aid, and afterwards the cure.” “May I…?” The camera favoured the woman. “May I say —?” “Let the Reverend finish.” “It’s all right. Let the lady speak.” “Thank you. May I say, I have read the – Mr Mains’ book. I have also read the essay by Reverend Adair. Also, a lot of the other material currently doing the rounds. I don’t know about religion being a disease but if it is then evangelic atheism is a complementary contagion. You know, religion and atheism – one mirrors the other. They cancel one another out as argumentative cases. Christianity, Islam, celebrity atheism – all strive for universal conversion. ‘My thinking is right, yours is bonkers.’ Rammed down our throats with missionary zeal, leaving no room for an alternate explanation. Only one god, but so many gods.” The presenter countered. “The atheist, celebrity or otherwise, doesn’t have a god, surely. By definition.” “Science is the implied god of the atheist,” came the woman’s reply. “Scientific knowledge is the scripture.” Craig tried to speak, and the Reverend made a gesture of – 89 –

polite exasperation. The presented motioned to the former. “There’s a lot to be said in support of science,” Craig said. “Nothing in science – true science – is accepted until it’s proven. Nothing is taken on pure supposition like it is in religion.” Reverend Adair’s turn to interject. “The scientific approach does not always lead to good. The Nazis pursued scientific racialism, the Soviets scientific industrialisation. Both put science, or scientific techniques, where God should be, to the detriment of millions of people. And both ultimately failed as a consequence.” “Are you advocating the suppression of science?” asked Craig of the Reverend. “It’s a tradition of the church, after all. Classrooms would be equipped with flat discs instead of globes to represent Earth if the church had had its way. And pupils taught the entire firmament circles that flat Earth.” The presenter held up his hands. “Reverend Adair. Are religion and science compatible?” “Without doubt. They do sit side by side, for most of the time. Theology is as much a means of enquiry as science. Ideas are tested in the seminary like they are in the laboratory. God can be present in science in the same way He is available for every other facet of human activity.” “Religion is science in dream format.” This from Craig who received a look form the presenter, who decided to run with it. “Could you expand on that?” “Yes, I can. It was Sir James George Frazer, writer of Golden Bough, who prepared the ground for proposing that religion, magical thinking, would disappear as fear and ignorance gave way to the advance of knowledge. The one is the natural successor to the other. The dream format has to give way to reality as mankind wakes up in the socio-cultural sense.” Camera pan to the woman. “You used the term ‘natural’ there. I wonder if I could pick up on that. In your book – two, three of them, in fact – you – 90 –

are clear there was a place for religion in early society. Prehistory and pre-dawn.” A nod from Craig. A nod from the woman. “It served a vital function. What you are saying – it’s there once more in your latest book – is that religion is, or was, a natural response to circumstances – this human super-big brain struggling to make sense of everything it absorbed.” “That’s absolutely right. I —” “Natural. I think ‘hard wired’ appears somewhere. Isn’t it a well documented characteristic of evolution that changes occur only slowly over thousands of years, tens of thousands of years, even for our own species? If so, religion is still part of our hard wiring. Belief in God or in gods remains perfectly natural, and to deny its role – to call it a disease – is scientifically unsound at best.” “A scientific argument in support of religious belief – I like that,” the presenter smiled. Craig shifted in his sat. “Look, we’re hard-wired to kill for lunch, but we don’t. We’re hard wired to – oh, I don’t know – to copulate promiscuously whenever we’re not killing for lunch. We don’t do that, either. We’ve developed culture. Culture is the evolution fast-track. It curbs our natural desires which would, if not curbed, be a severe disadvantage to the species. Evolution is working in a speeded-up way. That’s what social culture is. Religion is a throw-back which threatens the process. Its detritus clogs the evolutionary artery.” “Reverend Adair. Where are you on the natural position?” The presenter’s pitching-a-question smile contained a fleeting swallow of embarrassment, or maybe an incipient giggle. Fee caught the moment. Abruptly, she switched off the television and threw the remote control on to the bed. “Pathetic,” was her muttered judgement. “Thanks for wasting minutes of my life.” ***** – 91 –

“Were you watching?” Craig asked. “Some of it.” Fee told him. “What did you think?” “Not enough attention by make-up to your receding hairline.” Craig laughed, but it fell short of authentic. “About the views put forward. You know perfectly well what I mean.” “Do I?” “Come on – sulking only makes you look sexy.” They were in a bar by the side of the regenerated canal that skirted the heart of the city. According to Craig, the venue was popular with writer types. It was a little past noon on a research day, when there was no risk to showing off your mistress because your wife knew about the research. “I’m not sulking.” “I did invite you down to London with me.” The bar was busy, though customers looked commercial types rather than creatives. “Along with you and Andrea? I don’t think.” “I have an aversion to travelling alone. When you declined my all expenses paid offer, I took Andrea.” Fee was feeling miserable. She was not in good health. “Andrea was going anyway.” They ate, for a short while in silence. Craig returned to the television appearance. “It was patchy, unsatisfactory, all over the place, to be frank. There’s never sufficient time to get into stride during these studio discussions. It’s an artificial environment.” “You mean you have to let someone else have a chance to speak.” “I don’t mean that at all. What’s wrong with you today?” Fee did not know what was wrong with her today. Or maybe she did. “I thought they – the others – were more than passing – 92 –

good, actually. The Reverend what’s-his-name had the right ideas. And the woman —” “Guin Latimer. Arch feminist in her day job.” “If you say so. She seemed to get the better of both of you.” Craig looked up at her. “You think so? She’s a fence-sitting liberal conservative agnostic believer. I had it in my mind that she would be someone you didn’t approve of. But then she’s a woman.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” A hand went up as Craig waved to a man three tables along. “He knows he knows me from somewhere. The price of fame…” The man exhibited no sign of recognition, and returned to his meal. Fee shook her head disdainfully. “He’s not looking at you. He’s watching me.” Craig gave a grunt. “Why would he be watching you?” He switched on a grin. “Ogling – is that it? That I can understand.” Fee threw down her cutlery and pushed the chair from the table. “Can we go? I want to get out of here.” She stood and made for the exit. Craig copied. Outside, he grabbed her by the shoulder. “What was that all about? Who was that man – did you know him?” Fee shook his hand away. “It doesn’t matter – it wasn’t the man. I don’t know who he is. I just came over hot, that’s all. I need air.” She began to walk, as if to leave him, but allowed him to catch up. “Ogling, like you said. It’s probably his daily sex fix. Poor sad git,” she added. At the foot of a ramp, which led to a restored Victorian pedestrian bridge across the canal, she stopped and clutched, hugged, clung on to her companion, who was taken aback by the impetuous public display of emotion. – 93 –

“Screw me, Craig. I want you to fuck me, really fuck me, till it hurts.” Craig gave a short laugh and attempted to be light. “What – here? Won’t the cobbles be hard on your posterior?” Her head burrowed into his chest. His arms, partially extended, were brought around her shoulders. She was sobbing, and shivering; violent shakes. Passers by, on their way to or from the bridge, glanced at them. Craig comforted her. Gently, he guided her to an unoccupied bench built into a retaining wall and lowered her down in the sunshine. He sat beside her, holding her hand, and found a handkerchief. “Are you all right?” Sniffles, and cheeks wiped. An energetic nod. “Yes, thank you. I’m fine.” A smile. “Time of the month, I suppose.” He finished off the cheek drying for her. A more convincing smile from Fee; a short laugh. “I still want that fuck, mind.” “And you shall have it, my dear.” The comforting continued in silence. People passed by, but they weren’t glancing. “Who was that man in the bar?” Craig asked quietly. “I don’t know. He could be anyone. He wasn’t ogling me. You said he knew you from somewhere – the television, probably. Pushes the viewing figures up to two.” Several seconds elapsed. Fee recovered and sat upright without touching. “Research day. Working lunch. Tax deductible. Aren’t you going to ask me some questions?” Craig studied her, then turned to look across the canal, at a moored brightly painted residential barge on which there was movement. His attention returned to her. “Very well. What’s your assessment of the televised discussion the other night? Apart from lapses in make-up, that is. Did I get my two pennies worth in? You’ll at least – 94 –

agree I scored a last minute goal.” Fee gave a head shake of apology. “I – I missed the end. One of the faith-students wanted me.” “No matter. I have a recording. We can watch it together. Everyone invited on to the programme gets a DVD, it they ask for one.” The handkerchief was returned. “Thank you. Do you think your appearance will sell any books? Your publisher will be pleased.” “It did me no harm. I received an email from my agent this morning. Warm words.” “Good. I’m pleased for you.” ***** Dominic had checked the figures. There was nothing wrong with them except perhaps they had yet to achieve full potential. He always said that. He always said the same thing. It was his way of saying, ‘good work and all that, but I want more, more, more’. They conferred over glasses of wine. It was getting late. Business out of the way, she would normally finish her drink with a minimum of small talk and leave. The small talk this evening was: had Dominic seen Craig Mains on the television?; to which Dominic replied he had not, adding an opinion to the effect that he was not aware of having missed anything as a result. Mains, in Dominic’s view, was working a seam of wicked mischief, for pure personal gain. One day, Mains would receive an account from the Lord. Fee asked if she could ask something. Dominic sat back, glass in hand, and gestured for her to go ahead. “I’m seeing someone. As in really seeing them.” “A liaison? A relationship?” “Yes. I’m in a relationship. I thought I should tell you.” Dominic waited. Fee waited. Fee went on. “I hope you don’t mind.” – 95 –

“Why should I mind? You are free to make friends as you wish. The Lord unites according to a template which we all have access to, should we choose. May I ask…?” “Boy or girl? A man, actually.” “You have the Lord’s blessing. I’m very happy for you. I was going to say, is it anyone from here?” Glass on the desk, Dominic leant forward, as he had for the business of the evening, as he did during all business. He was no longer in small talk mode. Fee clutched her own glass with both hands. “It’s no one from here. It’s no one you know. Someone safe. Someone I’m going to guide on to the True Path.” A pause before continuing. “The thing is…” “What?” Dominic’s brow furrowed. “He’s an okay guy. He’s kind to me. We make sweet music. But, well, he’s married.” “I see.” Did he? Her glass was suddenly empty, which was a disappointment. She placed it on the desk, hoping for the offer of a refill, which didn’t come. Dominic was in thought. “Who made the initial approach?” “I did. It just happened.” A perfunctory smile. “These things do.” A stroke of the chin. “Why are you telling me? You could easily have kept it to yourself.” “Like I said, I thought you should know. Surely it’s only right that you should know, under the circumstances…” Please notice the empty glass. A delay before the reply. “Yes, of course. You did the right thing. It does add an extra hue, however.” Fee stifled a yawn Her limbs were heavy and ached. “I know. I’m sorry.” At last, Dominic’s glass too was drained. He placed the glass – 96 –

carefully on the desk as if a particular spot had to be covered with precision. “Have you squared it with the Lord?” “The Lord, in his infinite wisdom, has seen fit to approve. This once.” A look from Dominic requesting expansion. “The man in question is a lost soul. It’s imperative that he’s rescued before he comes to harm.” “You said this man was safe.” “He is. I mean, spiritual harm, to himself.” At Dominic’s elbow, the phone rang. He picked it up with a soft ‘hello’, listened for a few seconds, gave an equally soft ‘good’ and replaced the receiver. His hands came together at the end of arms resting on the desk top. No smile; piercing eyes. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Fiona. I want you to be very careful.” Piercing eyes, like lasers. “I will be careful. I am careful.” A relaxation. Would a celebratory toast be raised? “Why don’t you bring him here, to meet us?” Totally unexpected. “I – I’m not sure that would be appropriate. The fewer people who know, the better, surely.” “I know because you’ve told me. I’d like to be introduced.” Exhaustion threatened to overwhelm Fee. She couldn’t think. Her head was swimming. “I’m tired, really tired. I should be going…” She got up, a call on strength. Dominic also stood, and helped her to the door. “Will you be all right?” he asked with displayed concern. “Yes, I’ll be all right. I’m completely bushed, that’s all. It’s been a long day.” He watched her as she walked the corridor: she could feel the laser eyes on her back. As an afterthought, he called out. “Remember what I said. Be very careful.” – 97 –

***** The greeting was less than complimentary. “You look like shit.” Fee felt like shit. “Thanks a million. You don’t look so wonderful yourself, actually.” Craig snorted. “I’ve been up most of the night, writing. What’s your excuse?” She slid the Mercedes into traffic. “The Lord’s whisper from the wings.” Classical music played. For a while, neither spoke. Fee concentrated on the road. They were heading towards the suburbs. Craig, not a comfortable passenger, visually appraised the interior of the Mercedes. Any curiosity he may have held about her use of a luxury saloon remained unvoiced. He wanted to know their destination, however. “Where are we going exactly? You ask to meet in a multistorey car park in town and whisk me off to – to the hills by the look. This cloak and dagger stuff is not my style. It’d better be worth it – my agent tells me I’m a busy man.” “Not nervous, are you? I’m a good driver. You’re safe with me at the wheel.” “I’m not nervous.” “It does you good to break free of your cocoon, now and again. Trust me.” Just Schubert as they travelled with the flow. They left the road before reaching the motorway, and were immediately following leafy lanes, where they met drizzle. Fee brought the car to a halt at a pull-in on the right where a picnic table accompanied a railed viewing point. “I brought you here for a reason.” “I do hope so. Poor day for a picnic, isn’t it? Or is it to be a frolic in the woods? Can’t chase you naked as a nymph in this – 98 –

weather, though, unless you’ve brought your wellies along. Now there’s an image.” “Not today.” She pointed. “Look over there. You can see the house where I live.” Craig’s eyes followed the line of direction. There was only one building to be seen. “The house overhanging the cliff? It looks somewhat precarious.” “It’s on stilts.” “I should trust it is.” She turned to face him. “Would you like to see it?” “I can see it. It’s over there.” “No. To go there, now.” Bemusement from Craig. “And meet the machine? I presume it’s where the machine operates from.” “Would you? It’s also my home.” “I hardly think so. They’d crucify me. Do they still do that?” “They won’t. Not if you’re with me.” Craig showed a trace of annoyance. “Understand me when I say nothing would get me there.” Fee tried pleasant insistence. “I’d like to take you, and introduce you to my faithprincipal. I’m sure he’d like to meet you. You don’t have to let on who you really are.” “He’s certain to know who I am, and he’ll want to make a burnt offering of me – to placate the ‘Lord’.” “You’re not as famous as you like to think, actually. Plenty of people haven’t heard of you. Many millions don’t know your face.” A pursed-mouth exhalation from the passenger seat. “Seriously, Fee, how much does this Dominic know about me? How much have you told him? I want to hear you haven’t dropped me in it.” – 99 –

Fee surveyed the vale beyond the little viewing platform, then straight ahead. Water was collecting on the car’s waxed bonnet to form globules, or to disperse in sudden irregular trickles. “I haven’t told him who you are. He doesn’t know who you are. You’re just ‘someone’.” Trace of annoyance; annoyance; trace of anger. “Well I don’t want to know about Dominic. He sounds a creep, from what you’ve told me. He’s a rip-off merchant of the highest order. He’s certainly ripped you off.” “He doesn’t rip anyone off. He’s a good man. A lot of good is taught in that place. A lot of people are helped. People are made stronger, made confident in themselves, able to meet the world with courage. They have hope. They are better people.” A lorry passed, a six-wheeled refuse vehicle. The sudden closeness made Fee start, but seemingly not Craig. “You’ve yet to explain exactly how you fit in there, in that peculiar house on stilts, you and faith-principal Dominic.” Again, Fee turned his way. “Oh, jealous, are we? There’s a thing!” He made a sound like a choke and turned to look out the window on his side of the car where he could watch the slow dissolution of tyre impressions left on the wet road surface by the refuse cart. Fee pulled back. “It’s not like that. Dominic is chaste, as far as I know. He doesn’t try it on. He’s never tried it on with me.” But she had a right to be ratty, surely. “Anyway, it’s got nothing to do with you. I don’t ask what goes on between you and Andrea.” Facing her once more. Anger in eyes, anger in voice. “We live as husband and wife – that’s what we do. We live together and we fuck. What do you do, over there?” Quietly, she answered. “We live and we learn and we pray. We don’t fuck. We help each other search for spiritual perfection, not carnal – 100 –

satisfaction. If that’s what you mean.” Conciliation from the passenger seat – sort of. “Look, Fee, I didn’t mean it to come out like that.” Followed swiftly by a hardening. “But you’re not going to get me into that place. I have no interest in meeting your Dominic. I wouldn’t wish to demolish his fantasy world. Now can we return to town? I would like to do some work today.” The engine tished into life. On the way, without Schubert, Fee responded. “What makes you believe you could demolish Dominic’s fantasy world, as you call it?” “Fantasy cannot win over rationality. The reason I have no wish to meet him, apart from it being a thorough waste of time, is that I smell a trap. Why don’t you bring Dominic to meet me? I’m the name, not him. I don’t even know his surname – does he have one?” “Hope. Doctor Hope. Is that an invite, by the way? I can bring him to you?” She could see Craig shake his head without directly looking at him. “It’s not an invite. I just want to forget this afternoon.” Joining the traffic. “There is no trap. You can’t honestly believe I would lead you into embarrassment, surely. I just wanted you to see where I live. And to meet the man who has so much helped me, if he’s there.” Another shake of the head. “There must be some reason why he instructed you to bring me round, and it isn’t to sample the communion crackers. Doctor Hope may have fooled you but he doesn’t fool me. Doctor. Doctor of what – have you checked? As for Hope, it doesn’t exactly push the boundaries of inventiveness. Do some discreet homework, why don’t you?” In the multi-storey car park, they agreed to meet again, in better temper. Fee watched the Mains ugly swank-tank drive – 101 –

away. Obeying the procedure, she waited a couple of minutes before following. A car behind the Mercedes waited as she waited, started off when she started off, turned when she turned, but baulked at the lights when she accelerated to jump them. ***** The regular situation report was not conducted in Dominic’s office, over a glass of wine from the superior private rack, nor with Dominic. It was delivered in Fee’s room, on the bed, over an opened bible, the update propelled by a bottle of brandy and an Antoine, in the receptive company of the Lord. I have tried, Lord, and I will continue to try. I will give it everything I’ve got, to the point of exhaustion, through exhaustion, and beyond. I will succeed, Lord, I will succeed. You have set me the task, shown me the way, presented me with the opportunity. Please give me the strength. Our bodies are not our own but belong to You. Our bodies are Your property – Your temple. ‘Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s spirit dwells in you? That temple you are.’ I am Your temple, Lord. My body is Your temple. On the other matter, Lord. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give to them, and they shall never go without. Guide me Lord when I falter. It is Your work I do – and tell me it is so. ‘This is how one should read us, as stewards of the mysteries of God. I judge not my own self. For I know nothing against myself. He that judgeth me is the Lord. It is the Lord who hears both for and against me. Each man shall have his due praise from God.’ I am the steward of Your mysteries. I do Your bidding, though it may at times seem wrong. How can it be wrong if it has Your blessing. Stop me whenever I am about to err. You would do that, Lord. You would do that, surely. ***** – 102 –

Whatever the season, the Avenue Methodists Hall was dreary. Its north facing windows failed to make the most of daylight and when evening fell the darkness outside descended to permeate the very fabric of the building. Whatever the event, the ambience was one of brown and faded yellow austerity. But the hall was well located, near the junction of two main roads. When Fee arrived, the small frontage was filled with cars, and she parked on the Avenue itself, behind other vehicles. These were not the vehicles of her expected audience, no matter how optimistic she might allow herself to be, but were connected with a preceding event. A placard informed her it was time to volunteer and become part of the community. The event was over: organisers were packing up. Among the tables being collapsed and display boards dismantled, Fee recognised a face. And a second face. Community Advance – it had been a CA road show, aimed at recruiting unpaid workers. One of the recognised faces recognised hers. Uncertain nod was replied to with bland smile. At the back of the hall was a kitchen, at least bright if not exactly modern. It was passably clean; it was somewhere to take breath and get your act together. Fee made herself a cup of tea. Through a serving hatch she watched the CA party shrink. A couple of her own people entered the hall, ladies not yet elderly but looking like they had never been young. Someone else, behind them. Su Gardeen. Fee put down her cup to free hands to pull close the serving hatch twin doors. Not fully, however. She peered through the remaining gap hoping the other occupant of the kitchen, a middle-aged female hall assistant rinsing cups at the sink, would not notice her act of spying. Su and the familiar face talked, and briefly laughed. The familiar face then pointed an arm straight down the hall, at the kitchen, at the gap in the hatch doors, at the person on the other side of the doors trying so hard to be invisible. The arm was followed by two faces turned that way. Quickly, Fee closed completely the – 103 –

doors. There was no surprise, though a quickening of pulse, when Su’s modishly attired generous frame appeared round the kitchen door. “So here’s where you’re hiding, is it?” Not a surprise, but surprise had to be shown, if only to deny the spying. “Su!” Su gave the assistant, who had finished the rinsing and was drying her hands, a smile and waited. It had the desired result: the assistant said a cheerful ‘excuse me’ and left. “You’re on next, I take it. Spiritual awareness for the over nineties.” “Young people attend, too.” “You don’t say.” Su checked the kettle for water and switched it on. “That encourages me to stay and watch the show. If it’s acceptable with you, that is.” Fee tried not to hesitate. “Yes, of course it is. Everyone’s most welcome. Everyone can benefit from spiritual awareness.” A few steps to the sink for a cup, and Su made herself a drink. “You’ve lost weight.” There was a time when Fee might have replied that the same could not be said of Su. “I was ill, in Africa. My weight dropped. I decided to stay this way.” “So long as you don’t bend over and snap.” Silence as Su sipped at the tea. Fee realised she was clutching, hands either side, the work top that was pressing into her back. She released the work top and picked up her own cup. “How’s Ellis?” “Ellis is just fine. He’s a proud published author now. How’s – have you anyone?” A short nervous laugh from Fee. “I have the Lord.” – 104 –

“Yeah. That’s the reason you’re here. When do you kick off?” Fee glanced at her watch. “Now. As soon as your people are gone.” She partially opened the hatch doors. “I think we can get the chairs out.” The session was a success. Fee prepared herself for disruptive comments from Su. But Su, seated at the end of the second of two rows of old wooden chairs, the sort having a rack on their rear for song and prayer books, snoozed for most of the soul awakening, sometimes emitting a snore. A fully conscious Su stayed silent during the interaction time, when Fee would answer questions from the floor, usually called out by a couple of undeclared associates. As was her custom, Fee thanked everyone individually for attending, this done at the door as guests left. Two youths, dressed in blue trackie bottoms and striped white jackets, wearing white trainers and blue baseball caps, youths who had sat quiet and still during the event, held back. As did Su. Fee spoke to the youths, softly, almost in a whisper. They left. Just Fee and Su and an assistant further away, returning chairs to the sides of the hall. “Throwing out time, I’m afraid,” said Fee, glancing over to the chairs. “All good things must come to an end, yeh?” replied Su. They were in the night. Su had parked her car behind the Mercedes. Fee pressed the remote to unlock, and Su stopped. “Bring me my chariot of fire.” “We also have a Bentley at home,” smiled Fee. Dominic’s fleet included a Bentley. Fee used to tell Su about the old Bentley her father drove; perhaps Su thought the reference was to that one; it didn’t matter. Su opened the door of her Lexus. “Stay out of trouble, yeh?” A wave from Fee. “The Lord watches over us.” – 105 –

Su was gone. Fee exhaled noisily. “That was fun,” she murmured sarcastically to the night as she slipped into the Mercedes. From the shadows two figures stepped forward. The youths from the meeting. One tapped on the driver’s window. Fee looked up and partially lowered the window. “Get in.”

– 106 –

5 There are perhaps two distinct disadvantages – the two connected – when life is at a high. The first is that the individual who is enjoying the high has no sure way of knowing that what is being experienced, being enjoyed, is the high point. If it were possible to identify the current situation as ‘this is as good as it is going to be’ then experience and enjoyment could be extracted, wrung out, to the maximum extent. Instead, the high may not be completely tapped, a consequence which later will be remembered in terms of regret. Which leads to the second disadvantage, this being a high does not last for ever. Fee believed herself at a high and in this respect would appear to have avoided the first of the above disadvantages. Her high was made up of highs. Some of the highs were provided by Craig Mains. He was undergoing the sexual oddness of men who have caught a glimpse, hovering ahead and beckoning, of the unappealing spectre of middle age. The tinted side and rear windows of his SUV hid the interior from the outside, and a travelling rug, hung correctly, separated the cab from the rear. On a research day, he might switch off the engine in a busy supermarket car park or at a meter on a lively city street. They would climb into the back of the vehicle and shag. It turned him on to be having sex while the unsuspecting world bustled by mere inches away. Fee preferred the marital bed, though this was rarely made available. She loved to writhe where Andrea surely writhed. But the car parks and streets were also good. In these very public locations, a post-coital verbal ramble would often ensue. “Religion clouds judgement. Take the Middle East. They’re – 107 –

so wrapped up in their medieval hangover that they fail to see what’s happening to their biggest asset and only real chance for the future. The oil beneath their feet is being filched by the industrial nations while they kneel and bring their noses to the ground in the vain hope that the supposed creator of the universe, and all the miserable sand therein, is listening.” “Don’t let them hear you say that. They’ll issue a – a —” “Fatwa.” “Whatever.” “That’s my point entirely. You see, …” And so on. Craig talked after sex only in the SUV. He said it cleared his brain. Some of his best material apparently came in the back of the SUV. In the marital bedroom, he would be a bit on edge, listening out for an early return of Andrea. His sense of unease increased the buzz, for which Fee would later beg divine forgiveness. The sex expanded in scope. When she told him his was the first cock she had sucked, she was telling the truth, and on this he was inclined to believe her. He wanted to enter her anus, and she asked for time to think about it. The Bible condemns sodomy, but only when two blokes are at it. Nowhere does the instruction of the Lord forbid anal sex between a man and woman. ‘Draw me after you, let us make haste.’ Song of Solomon surely must have been composed shortly after the Old Testament equivalent of an SUV shag – the act performed under a blanket in an ox cart at the market place. Nevertheless, the method of sexual satisfaction represented a grey area of instruction and she sensed the Lord questioned its necessity. She refused the once; Craig persisted; she reviewed the texts; in the safety of holy ambiguity she decided it might be fun; in the reality of the SUV or bedroom she was less than sure. What does a girl do? “You’re mad,” he said as he watched her stroke her nipples after intercourse on the limited stay drop-and-pick-up – 108 –

concourse of the main railway station. “Leave me here. Let me do it,” she replied, eyes closed, baby bare and not caring even were people to see. He called her bluff, climbed into the front, and drove off. When they reached the Mercedes parked in a multi-storey, she opened the SUV’s rear door. “I’m going to drive naked through the streets, like an updated Lady Godiva.” “Your hair isn’t long enough to cover your modesty.” “Fuck modesty.” Loudly, a shout to the world: “The Shepherdess is coming!” This time, he did not call her bluff – she had leapt from the platform to swirl in the aisle. He was out of the driver’s door. When he grabbed her she fought. For an instant, he thought she was being playful, but her blows hurt. He pushed her in the back of the SUV where she curled up in a foetal position and started to sob. Minutes later, she recovered and dressed, and climbed beside him in the front. He demanded to know what had been going on in her head. In reply, she said sorry and attempted to explain the incident as a surge of youthful folly, an impulse of total freedom, adding that youthful folly would be something he’d forgotten about. Said with redrimmed eyes and a sniffle, the humour did not achieve full effect – a smile from Craig was one of acknowledgement rather than appreciation. He was studying her, and asked had she taken anything. When she stiffened, the question was qualified: was she on medication? Her head burrowed into his chest and he wrapped his arms round her. It was time to go. He asked twice if she felt up to driving: nod of the head was confirmed by vocal affirmative. They parted in the usual way, though if a point had to chosen at which the affair could be said to have peaked, to have touched the high and be incapable of advancing higher, the concrete multi-storey car park on a chilly overcast mid-week afternoon would probably be close. – 109 –

If Fee had any sensation that the best of the affair might be over, it would be resisted – there was still far to go as regards her lover’s spiritual conversion. At the same time, a high in another aspect of her life was about to move higher. Dominic wanted her to travel to Amsterdam. “I’ve been making some preliminary enquiries,” he told her in his office over wine. “Our good work is not restricted to these shores by any means. We have our links with Africa, for example – as indeed you can testify. There is no covenant insisting the Word of the Lord be English.” “Surely the Lord is polyglot.” “Uniglot if there is such a description. If not, we’ll invent it.” They laughed together, which was rare. “You speak French, don’t you?” “Oui. Comme une jolie fille française.” “Any Dutch?” “I once learnt some touristy phrases: ‘which way to the post office’, ‘the toilet doesn’t flush’, that sort of thing. Rusted away, I’m afraid.” “It doesn’t matter,” he smiled. “I may have some tapes somewhere.” He explained how there was an opportunity to expand the church both on home ground and perhaps on the continent and – who could know? – across the globe (this said with another smile). One step at a time, however. The home network was something he would be working on directly. He did not want her local outreach project to be affected but could she find a weekend to meet a contact, a sister in a very similar foundation? She could. “Thank you, Fiona.” Fee carefully returned to the topic of home expansion to be told that things were progressing expeditiously. Dominic would not be drawn. Not to worry – the continent sounded more her territory. – 110 –

The contact in Holland was a woman called Bridget, originally from Ireland, originally a Catholic. Average height, flaminghaired, tending to plumpness especially around the rear end, Bridget apparently held a position like Fee’s in the simple hierarchy of the establishment she belonged to. Situated in a northern suburb of Amsterdam, the building stood detached from homes of middle managers and in appearance was significantly more church than house, while being modest, neat, and welcoming. Fee took an immediate liking to the place, and wished Dominic could see it. Maybe he had, though Bridget could not say. Fee liked the older Bridget. She was not so impressed by Bridget’s Dominic, an angular-faced angular-bodied fair-haired man above average tall whose name was Jozef but who everyone called Joos. He talked to Fee for about an hour, his English clipped and a little impatient, as Bridget quietly sat in. Fee decided Joos was rather strict with his followers, surely more strict than Dominic. The meeting was essentially one-way: Dominic had advised to be just herself and to ‘absorb’, though it was a formal, slightly nervous Fee who absorbed. Away from Joos, Bridget was a natural buddy. Dominic, on her return, was eager to know how the trip had gone. Fee passed him the locked valise given to her by Bridget on departure. It was said to contain paperwork: background information, draft proposals, templates for association, convergence models, stuff like that. As an item of hand luggage, it was not dissimilar to the valise belonging to Pastor Mchungaji’s nonappearing friend, the valise in Dominic’s safe. ***** Fee’s turn at the Grosvenor Rooms. Everyone used the plural for reference but the venue was a single room, albeit generously dimensioned, one among many in a once majestic building, a reminder of the city’s grand Victorian civic past. The Church of the Message of God hired the Grosvenor – 111 –

Rooms on an exclusive basis, opening two days a week – Tuesday and Friday – as a central facility for worship and for recruitment. Fee had joined the CMG at the Grosvenor Rooms and so had a soft spot for the place despite its tired decor and inadequate heating. Closing up after an undistinguished day, she drove in rush hour density and pulled off just before the motorway to enter the leafy lanes which would lead to Dominic’s house. Abruptly, she stopped in the road and pushed the hazard light button. The car behind braked late. Out of the Mercedes, its engine running, she strode to the car and thumped on the roof with the palm of her hand. A window lowered; the driver, a man in maybe late thirties, was pitched between furrowed anger and slack-mouthed apprehensive. “Why’re you following me?” Fee aggressively demanded. “I don’t know what you’re talking about – I’m following you because I happen to be going this way.” “You’re deliberately following me. You’ve been on my tail for days, weeks. Who are you? ” “Braking like that – you could have caused an accident. I think you should —” “Who are you?” she repeated, this time a yell, making him flinch. “I’m not following you. Why should I be following you?” “That’s what you’re going to tell me.” Fee opened the driver’s door, an action that took the man by surprise. He tried to pull it shut but she defiantly grabbed the side and top. He sighed and let go. “All right.” A car appeared behind the man’s car, and another vehicle after that. He stabbed a thumb in their direction. “We can’t talk here – we’re blocking the road. Pull over, let people pass.” “So you can take off, you mean. I don’t think so.” Fee continued to grip the open door. “Look – this is embarrassing. We can’t hold everyone up. – 112 –

They want to get home.” A horn sounded from behind. Fee pointed to the verge of the narrow road. “There.” She stepped to position herself sufficiently forward of his car for him to pull in, which he did. The first of the waiting cars was instructed, by hand gesture, to advance. Quickly, she climbed into the Mercedes and manoeuvred it sharply in before reversing to the man’s car with little margin for error. One of the delayed drivers stopped alongside and asked, through a dropped near-side window, if everything was all right. It was – everything was fine. The cars passed. At the verge-mounted car, she ordered the man to turn off the engine. “Off!” she barked, when his response was too slow. He complied with a grin. He had a suggestion to make. “Could we go somewhere and talk, do you think?” “This is somewhere. We can talk here. Why do you follow me everywhere I go? Are you stalking me? Are you some sort of pervert? I’ve got your car number.” He removed himself from the vehicle, slowly, trying for casual. Fee decided he was scruffy. “Who do you work for? Who sent you?” Hands went up to stop the verbal pummelling. “No one sent me. I work for myself, not that it’s any of your business.” “If I’m your business, it is my business.” The man waited while a box van slowed to pass. “I’m a journalist.” “Journalist?” “Freelance.” His interrogator eased, just a little, as if the news of his occupation brought some relief, a relaxation the man must have noticed and one she instantly regretted. He was wearing a jacket; the breeze was cool; she wore no outdoor garment; he therefore had the advantage. – 113 –

“Do you have a name, freelance journalist?” “Mike Ferriby. I believe you’re Fiona.” A hand was offered. Fee declined, instead wrapping her arms around her shoulders and leaning sulkily against the wing of his car. “What do you reckon you’re journalising, Mike Ferriby?” His refused hand became part of a shrug. “What do you think?” She looked him in the eyes. “How a faithful servant of the Lord goes about her calling. How she braves the wild estates to spread the Word. How she brings hope to society’s discarded. Am I there yet?” The man laughed and bowed his head. “Is that what you do?” Hands into pockets, feet kicking at loose pieces of road grit. “You should know. You’re my shadow.” “I don’t follow you around. You’re a mite touchy on that score. My journalistic instinct says maybe I should.” “Maybe you should get a life. Don’t even think about following me again. I’ve got your number.” “You said.” She felt cold and knew she was losing ground. Change of tack. “Well, ace reporter Mike Ferriby, something’s caught your attention. Is it the girl or is the car? Maybe I should be flattered. Do I make a complaint, or do we meet up in a cosy country pub tonight and I help you with your investigation?” His head went back, like sometimes Craig’s did. “I’m a journo, not a reporto – there’s a fundamental difference. The pub’s definitely a plan, though.” “The pub it is then. I may still make a complaint. No funny business. No mike, Mike. Just you.” “And just you.” “The pleasure will be all yours.” As soon as she reached the house she sought Dominic. Maureen told her he was out – had been all day. Maureen was – 114 –

busy in the kitchen, helping the chef borrowed for special occasions from a starred restaurant which Dominic had a business interest in. Fee remembered the special occasion and privately spat a ‘shit’. “Hope you’ve pressed your party frock,” Maureen called through steam. A little later, Dominic arrived home in his throaty Ferrari. She heard, she waited. He was in high spirits. She told him about the journalist. “What do you think he wants?” Dominic asked, displaying not a trace of concern. “That’s what I was going to find out,” she replied. “I completely forgot about tonight. Maybe I can do both.” They were in the long hallway at the dining room end. A rebate next to the dining room contained the security screens. Dominic kept an eye on the screens as they talked. He was excited; at one point he seemed to do a little jig. “Why not invite your new-found friend to dinner? Then we all can learn what it is he seeks.” “Bring him here, you mean?” “Unfortunately, it’s not a moveable feast, my dear. The prophet must come to the mountain.” Mike Ferriby refused the offer: it was not what they had agreed. At the pub, twenty minutes drive from the house and not close to anywhere, he had arrived early and was waiting for her, a pint partially consumed. She told him the dinner party had simply escaped her mind, it wasn’t a set-up. Why wouldn’t he come? – it was an invitation unlikely to be repeated. “I’m not dressed for dinner,” he said, and he was right. “I hoped you weren’t going to tell anyone about our meet.” “Did you really?” For your information, we have no secrets in our community. Besides, I’m hardly likely to arrange to meet a strange man at a pub out in the sticks, a man who’s been following me for ages, without a tab on my – 115 –

whereabouts, am I?” He clicked his tongue against teeth. “Will you at least sit down for a few minutes and hear me out?” “With or without you, I’m expected back. I’m going.” He reached out for her arm; she pulled away; he called after her. “Sure you don’t want to know what I have on your other activities?” She stopped. He motioned to a chair, one of three empty, at his table. Fee sat, on the edge of the seat, but declined a drink. “Five minutes max. To shut you up, to get you off my back. There are no ‘other activities’, actually.” He grinned, the winner’s grin, and took a mouthful of beer. “I’ll come clean, since you’re such a nice girl. I’m gathering evidence for a documentary on sham religious outfits which rip off susceptible believers.” Before she could remonstrate, he held up a hand. “On behalf of the nation’s favourite investigative television programme – how about that? You ought to be impressed. If not me, it’d be someone else. You can’t stop it. And I’m not suggesting for a moment the Church of the Message of God is a sham. Not yet.” “Four minutes.” “You can help fill in some gaps. I thought you’d do it discreetly. That was before you ran home and told every man and his dog about this contact.” “Surely there’s no gaps to fill. Don’t you make it up as you go along?” The journalist rotated his beer glass. “You’re normally good at this kind of thing.” “How do you mean?” “The writer chap, Craig Mains. Winger for the other side. Need I say more?” Fee forced blandness into her expression though could not – 116 –

be confident of the result. “So what?” “So how far has that particular ball rolled, would you say? Been going on a while.” The urge to stand up and leave, the urge to leap up and throw the remaining beer in his face and leave, was strong. She lifted her chin. “Three minutes. What’s you point?” “My point? My point is this. If you can find the time and willingness to assist Mains in so-called research – and I’ll put money down that says your ‘faith-principal’ Dominic Hope doesn’t know where you swan off to during the day – if you can help Mainsy and get away with it, you can help me.” The urge to drench him was powerful. But so was the necessity to bottom out this scruffy man’s knowledge. “You’re threatening to inform Dom – Dr Hope that I’ve spoken to Craig Mains on occasions unless I help you – right? Well, sorry to disappoint and all that, but Dr Hope already knows. You’ve just lost your money, journo-type.” A long pull at the beer, his body turned slightly away. The barman was watching them, certainly looking their way, across the near empty room, as he endlessly dried glasses. “My guess is your Dr Hope doesn’t know the whole story, though.” “If you came back with me, you could compare notes with Dr Hope and you’d discover how precious little there is to know.” He was about to speak but she continued. “To be honest, Mike, I think you’re a rubbish reporter. Your pathetic attempts at blackmail are hardly likely to win heart and mind. Not my heart and mind, that’s for sure. D’you know – you’re just this side of being a creep. Anyway, time’s up. Lose game. I’m out of here.” She stood. “Not five minutes, yet.” He also was on his feet, arms imploring, his tone one of surrender. – 117 –

“Okay, okay. Maybe we got off to a bad start. I’m a top grade tosser – it’s a job requirement. I’m full of prejudicial bias. And chauvinism and all the other moral degradation it takes to make a mockdoc. I get a good price for my soul.” “Glad to hear it.” They were at the door to the car park. “Could we start over? I’ve the best part of a minute left.” Fee half through the door. “You’ve got nothing, for all your stalking. You were offered a chance tonight and you muffed it. You’re going to report exactly what your paymasters want you to report – easiest way. Now get out of my life or I’m going to the police. Clear?” Mike Ferriby made no reply. He did not follow Fee but watched through the open door as she stepped across the loose gravel to her car. He was still there when she started off: she played headlights on him, full beam, wanting to fry him, before turning out of the car park. How had she handled it? He was out to portray the Church of the Message of God as a money-making racket. It would probably happen – as he said – with or without his pathetic contribution. As Dominic was apt to pronounce, the Lord prepares for challenges to His work. Doubters are to be pitied and to be helped, not disdained and avoided. Dominic had the answers prepared. Dominic would be looking forward to the free publicity. Journo-type’s implicit single seedy reference to her affair with a married almost-famous writer was a joke, surely. A half good reporter, journalist, whatever, would have produced mouth-watering pictures of her standing naked in the multistorey, hitting away at her lover. Scruffy Ferriby didn’t even have the blacked-out SUV rocking in the street. Scruffy Ferriby wasn’t even half good. Which worried her. Scruffy Mike Ferriby was a little too bad at his job. She had handled the meeting well – brilliantly, – 118 –

actually; but he had failed lamentably. He was a hopeless clodhopper. Nor any mention of him on the internet. Later, when Dominic requested a word-for-word account, and she obliged with accuracy, Fee did not express the misgiving that rustled away in the back of her mind, more than a misgiving if she could be truthful with herself, that the name on the card he had handed her and the occupation printed below it were totally made up. ***** Fee let Fiona in. They sat opposite each other, knees almost touching in the limited free space of Fee’s room. Fiona had recently arrived as a faith-student. The house was groaning under the increased throughput. Dominic said it was only temporary and was to last only until physical construction caught up with his expansion programme. An extension was being built to the house which, when ready, would almost double student accommodation. In the meantime, the existing facilities were to be used to the full, which meant their being swamped. Fee was promoted to faith-mentor. Status in the title, increase in the work load. Certain evenings a week, to be juggled with her community awareness evenings. Exclusive use of the Mercedes, self-contained quarters once the extension was finished, and an official cash stipend – these were the promised ‘compensations’. The true servant of the Lord does not seek rewards as such, not earthly ones, but compensations are in order. Fee was to receive compensations. Fiona was an attractive late teenager, mostly attentive. She dressed for the male eye and maintained that surprised look favoured by some models in girly publications as if they had taken off their clothes and only this moment spotted the camera. Almost everything seemed to surprise Fiona. Fee’s modest bookshelf produced a small pert ‘o’ of a mouth and a widening of blue eyes. As far as Fee was aware, the bookshelf – 119 –

held no title to register surprise. Fiona tilted a head to read spines, and asked Fee if she’d read any of Craig Mains. Fee’s turn for surprise, kept to herself. The author was denied shelf position. Her response was returned as a question: had Fiona read any Craig Mains? “Reading now,” replied the teenager, her body still angled. “Holy Tomorrows. Mains and his theory that Hitler could have been the second son of God, sent to punish the Jews for what they did to the first son.” It wasn’t so much a theory, corrected Fee, but an idea for the reader to ponder. Too late, she realised she’d answered the girl’s question – yes, she had read Craig Mains. She rushed on to say the book, the idea, was interpreted as anti-Semitic by some. At least it provided a topic for this faith one-to-one: what were Fiona’s views on Mains? The student was apparently half into the book, which essentially discussed the future of religion, asking was there any future at all? Would there be a need? The central question was not new, of course – it had been around for centuries. However, Mains had a freshness of mind. These were Fiona’s views. A future in which Adolf Hitler is worshipped just as Jesus Christ and Mohammad ibn-Abdullah are today was not so difficult to imagine, not as Mains proposed. Mains is a persuasive writer, Fiona told Fee, looking surprised. He understood time in the human context. A few centuries down the line, the Holocaust will be largely forgotten, just as other past slaughters have been. The Catholic church even turns its slaughtering into noble heroic acts – prime example, the Crusades. Also, nobody talks about the religious cleansing of the innocent, resolvedly peaceful Cathars. Cathar means purified (Fee was rhetorically asked if she knew). ‘Kill them all’ was the papal cry. Unimaginable atrocities and bloodshed, mass burnings. Then the Inquisition… Fee recalled the list as supplied by the writer of the book – long, depressing and detailed. She interjected the comment that Mains came across as anti-Catholic as well as anti– 120 –

Semitic. With good reason, according to Fiona. The point was, mega-murder only affects the victims. When it suits, the world allows the event to drift off into obscurity. The perpetrators become a distant ‘them’ having no connection with the us and now. Hitler might, in a few centuries, be remembered for the energy he generated. His killing spree will be conveniently historicised. He could be made the second son of God, after Jesus – the same Jesus whose followers were vilified and persecuted in the years and decades following his death, as Hitler’s supporters are in the present time. A nasal exhalation from Fee: her student was almost reciting the book, the parts so far read. Award a star for memory, a query mark for analysis – as Ellis used to say (why Ellis in her head?). Fee was tired, and this adolescent rendering of Craig’s previous book was becoming hard work. It was approaching time to announce enough for tonight. Then, from the teenager, looking surprised: “Mains contradicts himself dreadfully.” A raise of the head from Fee, to prompt the girl to continue. “He does, though, doesn’t he? He queries a future for religion then predicts a new Hitler religion in three or four centuries. He – Mains – wants his cake and to eat it – in my humble opinion.” Fee intertwined her fingers and stretched her arms. Digits were heard unintentionally to crack. “Mains does say that Hitler, the Second Coming as he calls it, got carried away with the mission. He grew too enthusiastic in metering out God’s punishment – a mortal trait. God had to stop him, and let him be humiliated. The father angry at his impetuous son.” Abruptly, Fee was on her feet, the movement surprising Fiona. “Anyway, it’s all very fanciful – like a story missing a plot. You’re right – Mains does contradict himself. He calls genocide an evil, to get the reader on his side, then it’s – 121 –

beneficial to human progress, a part of man’s self-created evolution.” The student took her tutor’s words as a signal for further discussion, but Fee flared, lifting her arms into the air. “What are you doing reading that tripe?” It goes against everything we believe and trust in at the Church of the Message of God. Mains is part of a growing industry that commercialises evil thought for profit. He has no place in our lives.” Blue eyes wide, mouth a capital ‘O’, Fiona stared up at the faith-mentor. “We have to know evil in order to identify good,” she said, softly. “Good makes itself plain. My advice is to turn your back on that drivel,” came the reply. “But isn’t that what Mains is saying? If we turn our back on evil, we can’t know what evil is doing. We can’t learn what evil is capable of.” Fee was at the window to her room. She separated slats of the blind to peer out into the floodlit courtyard, and spoke as she scanned for activity. “We must use our short time to concentrate on the Lord’s purpose.” Dropping the blind, she turned. Standing over the still sitting surprised teenager, she asked: “Are you sure you want to be here, Fiona? Is this the best place for you, do you think? Do you question the wisdom of the Lord?” The girl gripped the sides of her chair. After a pause, she replied. “Yes to the first. Yes to the second. Double no to the third.” The calm and control in her voice were at odds to the astonishment on her face. For a moment, Fee saw an element of herself in Fiona – a fight back mode. Fee sat, and smiled. “Just testing.” “Did I pass?” – 122 –

“With flying colours. Session over. Go back to your room and continue reading your book.” The girl rose and picked up her tuition folder. “I don’t think I will. Mains is too full of himself for my liking. He must be a pain to know in real life.” “I imagine he is.” ***** The pain in real life to which faith-student Fiona had referred was being, in real life, a pain. And contradictory. At the beginning of the relationship, he was the one originating the use of the Mainses’ marital bed for extra-marital sex. The buzz was hers, however; for him, the novelty was quickly over. Fee’s presence in the house made him increasingly nervous. On the previous occasion – the fourth in counting – he had been so twitchy he couldn’t get it up on cue. She had to taunt him. His idea, their shagging on the bed he shared with Andrea, was no longer a good idea. That’s what he said. It was not safe, not right, not necessary, must never take place again. But it was about to, Andrea conveniently out of the way for the afternoon. Giving a talk at a gathering of community types. So there was no problem, surely. Fee decided to tell Craig about Mike Ferriby. “He’s out there – I can sense it. He’s watching us.” “All the more reason to stay clear of home ground.” “All the more reason to stay within the safety of home ground, you mean. Fort Knox.” The reference was to recent measures installed to protect home ground from whatever dangers the publishers – whose recommendations the measures had been – imagined or knew to lurk around the abode of a polemic atheist. Remotecontrolled tall gates to the short drive; garden intrusion alarm; a sophisticated dual link to the police (awaiting connection); – 123 –

the inevitable camera or three. Once again, Fee brought up the subject of sharing their affair with Andrea, turning suggestion into frisky threat. Craig said Fee wouldn’t dare tell Andrea; Fee said she should; Craig said it wouldn’t matter, except there’d be no more Craig for Fee. “Big deal,” from Fee. They play-fought in the front of the SUV until Fee warned that Scruffy Mike might be poking out of a drain with a zoom lens. Mercedes followed SUV in the direction of the Mains residence. Andrea reached the centre to give her talk, there to find people standing outside. A water pipe had burst and caused a flood. Electrics were off. Premises closed; talk postponed. Apologies to all. Arriving home, Andrea inserted her key into the lock of the front door but deadbolts prevented her entry. She rang the bell, rapped on the door; chimed, pounded. Craig let her in. “Sorry. I was —” “Entertaining. Save it.” The clearly displeased wife pushed by, raged up the stairs, and entered the master bedroom. Her eyes fell on the impression on the bedspread. At the bathroom door she took a breath, twisted the knob, pushed the door. It didn’t move. One hand worked the knob, the flat of the other thumped at the door. Andrea demanded that the occupant unlock. Door unlocked from inside, door opened from outside. “Hello, Fiona,” the bigger older woman said unwelcomingly to the slender younger underdressed woman, back against the hand basin. “Round for some research, I take it.” An open-palmed hand swung in a curve to hit Fee heavily on one side of the face. Another on the other. Half down, Fee brought her own hand to a cheek. “I – we were going to tell you,” she started. – 124 –

“Don’t be more stupid than you need to be. I’ve known all along. You, though, of all people – you little dyke.” A further blow drew blood from a lip to more invective. Craig waited on the other side of the door for Andrea’s voice to subside, then entered the small room. “Violence is not the solution,” he advised, neutrally. He found Andrea bathing Fee’s upper cheeks with a face cloth dampened from a running tap while Fee dabbed at her lip with folded toilet tissue. “Out!” from Andrea. He went downstairs and poured himself a brandy. Later, the two women entered the hallway. “Will you be all right to drive? Shall I order a taxi?” Andrea sounded genuine in her concern. “I’ll be fine,” smiled Fee. She emitted a short humourless chuckle. “Two shiners to take with me.” Reacting to her husband’s presence, Andrea turned offhand. “Sorry about that. They all take a leaving present with them. Be glad I know you.” ***** Dominic didn’t look up. He was perusing a national newspaper spread over his desk. “Sit down.” Fee sat. “Don’t forget, eight this evening, we’re on the box.” Nothing from Fee. “‘The Faith Trade’. There’s a small write-up here, in the —” He stopped when he raised his head and saw her. “Gracious. What happened to you?” Fee removed a pair of sunglasses. “I wouldn’t expect you to believe it if I said I walked into a door.” “Rather an angry door. A matrimonial door, perhaps?” “Something like that.” – 125 –

A lecture right now would be massively more sanctimonious than sympathetic. Change the topic, change the topic. “What does the paper say about ‘The Faith Trade’?” Apparently, a worthless piece of media attention had alighted on the rapid growth of faith centres, on the way they charge exorbitant fees for a few weeks’ bible reading, as well as signing up course graduates to part with a portion of their future earnings and, in some cases, to legally transfer property and other assets. Distorted nonsense, of course. “Mike Ferriby, by any chance?” asked Fee. “No, he’s too far down the food chain. He’s a mere waste bin rummager. Have you seen him lately?” “He’s out there I’m sure, but being more sneaky. I haven’t seen him.” Dominic folded the paper to a newsstand neatness, and smiled confidently. “We shall weather it, my dear. The Lord protects. In all probability, our humble organisation will receive little mention in this evening’s programme. It’s a generalised assault.” Fee replaced the sunglasses and ran the tip of her tongue over a swollen lower lip. “What about…?” “Business as usual. Just be careful.” “I’m always careful – where it matters.” “I know you are. Be particularly careful. Is it painful?” “It looks a lot worse than it is, actually. I bruise easily.” A strategy was proposed. If the assault continues, let the media in – the Church of the Message of God had nothing to hide. The documentary team could have an accountant look through the books if that was what they wished, on condition they interviewed former faith-students whose lives had been transformed by attending the course. Let them in. Allow the cameras to roll during faith lectures. Absolutely nothing to hide. Turn an inconvenience into a promotional exercise. CMG T-shirts for everyone. Go for it. – 126 –

Fee chose to contribute no comment of doubt. Dominic was in glassy-eyed mode – everything was under control. The strategy had the Lord’s blessing. In the days that followed, she noted vehicle registration plates like a sad anorak. Dominic said to watch especially for vans. “Let the Lord watch over us, but if others also watch, then they will learn our ways and thus be on the path to righteousness.” Spiritual Awareness Event, Jerome Centre. Twenty-nine faces, including reliable grateful Mrs Adamson, her back pain much relieved. Thirty faces when Mike Ferriby slipped in to sit at the back. Fee waved to him and called out a welcome, and to join them. Others turned. He shrugged and moved to the front, taking a seat as directed, near Lance and a youth known on the street as Belt. Fee apologised to the floor for the tinted glasses (a pair purchased to replace the earlier toodark sunglasses) blaming an eye infection the name of which she couldn’t get her tongue round. The lip wound had reduced to a possible cold sore. Themes for events were usually decided some days in advance but occasionally a switch was made perhaps just before the start of a meeting in order to suit circumstances. Listeners were rarely inconvenienced by the changes, there being no announced programme anyway. An unnoticed switch, then. The theme this evening, entitled ‘The Lord moves in mysterious ways’, pursued the proposition that the Lord’s work may at times be called into question because no obvious good can be deduced. However, the Lord’s work is always good – it’s the minds of men who think bad. The Lord is all seeing, all knowing. These are divine qualities which should be remembered. He knows exactly where to put the pieces; He has the picture on the box; He created the picture in the first place. Trust in the Lord’s intention, His purpose. Trust in His vision, which we are not necessarily able to share, which sometimes we resist sharing because it suits our – 127 –

own purpose not to. We are confused when disaster occurs: earthquake, famine, plague, on the world stage. Or personally, such as the death of a loved one. We ask what can the Lord’s purpose possibly be. We see bad because we think bad. We see a tiny piece of the picture and assume it’s all there is. If we could put our entire trust in the Lord, unreservedly, unconditionally, we would know we are safe, for the Lord is on our side. His overall plan can only be good, even if we cannot yet – maybe never – understand it. He calls for us to trust Him, and His work. We must respond accordingly. Our actions must demonstrate our trust in the Lord. Fee called for questions at interaction time, from the front row, from the new face. After all, the switch of theme had been made for his benefit. The object of her invitation stayed silent and contained any embarrassment. At the end of the meeting, Fee thanking everyone individually for coming. Lance and Belt hung back. Mike Ferriby also. Fee waited for him by the door. “I hope you got something out of this evening,” she smiled. “You carry it off well,” he replied. “It comes naturally. I believe, you see.” “I see you believe.” She rested her weight on one leg, crooking the other. “What next? You want to see more?” “More?” “How about an exclusive visit to the centre? It’d be a scoop for you. That’s what you reporters call it, right?” If he was scruffy this evening, the scruffiness was concealed by a raincoat, which wasn’t scruffy but neither was it fashionable. “I’m not a reporter.” “Would you be interested? Still shy?” “I might be interested, yeah.” Mike displayed an attempt at interest. “For balance, Mike, the condition is you speak to some of our satisfied graduates, which is almost all of them, actually. – 128 –

Your documentary gave them a miss.” He laughed, and threw a glance at the two youths who watched without expression from feet away. “It’s not my documentary. I had nothing to do with it. No input whatsoever. I’m off their roll – honest.” “So why did you come tonight?” “Background. For an article on the faith teaching business. I might turn it into a book.” “A book? Books demand a lot of material.” “I know.” The caretaker of the Jerome Centre, an old man who shuffled as if his ankles were chained, was clicking lights off. Fee became brisk. “So it’s a date. You’ll come and see what we do for real?” “Okay. Do I ring, email, or just turn up?” “I’ll arrange it. Give me your card. I lost the first.” He patted his breast in different places. “Wrong coat. I’ll write my number – have you…?” Fee led him to a small table on which there were leaflets spread in fan fashion; she tugged at one to remove it; he produced a pen and wrote on the top margin of the leaflet. A contact established, he left. She gave a wave to the caretaker and stepped into the cool night with Lance and Belt. When Fee rang the mobile number given to her by Mike Ferriby, the call was taken by an answering service. She immediately hung up. A few minutes later, her own mobile trilled, making her start. Craig Mains. He wanted to see her. No ‘How are you? How’s your poor pummelled face?’ She did not want to see him. “It’s over, Craig. Surely you got the message, from Andrea. I did.” “We were careless. I told you the house was dangerous.” “My fault, is it?” Craig saw the incident as unfortunate but not one to affect what they had together. A gasp from Fee before: – 129 –

“Which was?” “Come on, Fiona. Can’t you see, we complement one another.” The left cheek still hurt to the touch. She touched it. “I just don’t get you, Craig. I can’t believe you’re ringing me like this. It’s – it’s unreal.” “Your mission isn’t yet complete, is it?” This was something she didn’t need. Middle of the afternoon, packing for Amsterdam. Dominic said to take the Mercedes this time – there were some other addresses to visit. “What mission? What are you talking about?” “To convert me. To lure me on to the verus semita. I know about it.” Drinking, he’d been drinking. He was drunk. “Like I know about all your previous popsies. Andrea told me.” A noise from the other end of the line. It might have been a snigger. Fee continued. “Andrea told me how you’ve got to have someone young and pretty in tow or you can’t do it.” “Do it? I can always do it.” “Write, I mean. Maybe what you mean, too. ‘It’.” Repetition of the opening sentence. Repetition of the reply. “Craig, really it’s over between us. I wouldn’t survive another round with Andrea.” “Screw Andrea.” “Isn’t that what you should be doing? Try it some time. She’s more your type.” Wrong thing to say: Craig wanted to know what she meant by ‘type’. Age was perhaps what she meant, but did not say so. She listened while Craig drifted to the obvious – that, if anything, Andrea was Fee’s type, being a woman, except that Andrea wasn’t like that. Andrea was a man’s woman. Then Fee became bored with listening. “My mission, as you call it, was a failure. Nobody can help you, Craig, you’re too far gone. You’re a sad sad case. In – 130 –

more ways than one.” “Fiona. Fee. You have it all wrong. I —” “Craig. Don’t ring me again. Ever. Understand? There’s a lid on it now.” The ‘but, but, but’ continued. “Goodbye, Craig. As in: good, bye.” The caller was disconnected; the caller tried again; and again later; and probably after that, too. Amsterdam demanded her attention. Joos had people for her to meet. Bridget took her to dinner. Bridget possessed a wealth of funny stories. Bridget had been around. Bridget was a natural buddy.

– 131 –

6 It was one of the Africa dreams, with fanciful animals having human faces, faces of people she knew or had encountered. They didn’t do anything, these hybrid people-beasts, except to come and go, and to watch her in between. Always they watched her, sometimes with concern, sometimes with suspicion or accusation, but mostly impassively, as if waiting for her to make a move before judgement could appear on their countenances. Watch, and now to make a noise. The noise – at first a hollow sound, like a movie director barking instructions to the actors and crew down a funnel-shaped megaphone. So real, too, the noise. So real it was real. She became instantly fully awake and sat up sharply. Lots of other sounds, outside, in the courtyard. She was at the window, peering through the blind. The sky was early morning, black with a back glow of blue. Blue too was the colour of the courtyard, flashing blue, Police blue. During the leap from bed to window, she had stubbed her toe. It hurt, hurt, hurt but it didn’t matter; this was not the time to pamper a hurt. They were already in the house – she could hear distant disturbances, yelling, and voices of panic. The moment was a shock but not a surprise to her: backroom consciously, she had prepared for this moment, had known it would come, sooner or later. The sounds of police raid drama were getting closer. Hurriedly, she clicked on the light and dressed, snatching yesterday’s clothes from the chair and floor. There were things to gather into a travelling case, to press urgently on top of things already packed. Papers to retrieve from private places. The Shepherdess in full flight. Shouting in the corridor. There was also shouting from the – 132 –

courtyard. Everywhere, everybody shouting. Moving as quickly as the brain commanded, she made the bed, kicked some stray items from the floor into a corner beyond a chest of drawers, threw a bag over a shoulder, quietly unlocked the door, turned off the light, switched off her mobile phone, took position behind the door and clutched the handle of the travelling case as if it were precious life itself. More shouting in the corridor. Someone banged on the door. The knob was tried and the door opened. A second of pause and one in which to be absolutely perfectly still. “Clear,” a gruff male voice declared. And the door was closed. Fee waited, in the blue-flashed gloom, like a strobed statue. The noises continued awhile, added to at one point by a hysterical scream. Something heavy was dragged not carefully along the corridor. Internal activity transferred to the external: vehicle doors slammed, engines started. Wait, wait, wait. She made herself wait – how many times impatient hand on knob? Cautiously, she opened the door. Look right, look left, look right again. For a fraction of memory, she was back at the caserne, about to explore. The present, though, was not about exploration. It was about getting out of here. The case was heavy and slowed her; would slow her – she had to plan the route accordingly. To the fire escape, opened and left ajar as part of the raid. Dawn had broken and it was going to be a nice day, weatherwise. Along the back of the building, away from the end that was near the drive sloping up to the road because at that end were policemen removing waste bins. To the garden, through the wrought gate. Then where to? The garden was overlooked by the Alpine balcony and on the balcony could be policemen being stunned by the view. Also, the garden extended for only a few yards before it submitted to the precipitous drop into the vale below. From over the wall which stopped the courtyard, a new sound. The barking of dogs. Police dogs, sniffer dogs, pursuit – 133 –

dogs. An additional dimension to the situation. Plan A – to hide and wait in the shrubbery – was cancelled. She glanced above to the underside of the balcony. Plenty of beams to clamber along. Do sniffing dogs look up? Do policemen look up? What about the precious life travelling case? Plan B: the vale. There was a path from the garden into the vale – not a path, a zig-zagging scramble, in parts surely as steep as a ladder but minus rungs or steps. Perilous in the dry, suicidal after rain. She had tried the scramble twice, as summer Sunday adventure. Never alone; never with a bulky heavy travelling case. Descent is easier than ascent, so the theory goes. That is not to say descent is easy. Dogs were barking – it had to be the vale. Just before she entered the rough at the end of the neat, where planned planting gave way to dense natural growth, Fee looked back to scan the balcony. Doors on to it rested open, and movement could be fancied in the rooms. Nobody was taking in the stunning view; no one had seen her. A little distance down the path between trees growing vertically from the acute earth, she slipped and slithered and came to an undignified halt against a trunk. Slowly she grasped a branch and recovered her feet. The shoulder bag was a mossy mess. An attempt to remove a smear of mud running from arm to ankle was totally unsuccessful. As she stepped over to retrieve the also mud-marked case, she discovered her arm had taken the impact of her fall and it began to hurt like hell. Broken? It was moveable, so probably just jarred. No excuse to be a baby. Progress was bough to bough, branch to branch, like a ground-creeping one-armed Jane. The other arm – the painful one – lugged the case. After the best part of a lifetime, the slide became a mere slope. She stopped to rest. Hungry, thirsty, grubby, sore, dying for the morning read on the loo, not to mention the little problem of destination. Actually, there was a destination in mind, retained at the – 134 –

back of the mind along with the scenario of the day so far. Amy would take her in, at least for a shit, a shower, and the sofa for a night. Amy would do that, had once promised to do that. Just a matter of getting to Amy’s. No Mercedes – the car would be impounded, on the back of an open truck being taken for forensic disassembly. Far too far and too bloody painful to walk to Amy’s. Vote taxi. A narrow road ran along the bottom of the vale; she had reached it on one of her Sunday expeditions, though it was further from the house than she remembered. She took it, sighing deeply when, round a bend, it climbed the side of the vale. It was the road to the caserne, except trees all round, everywhere, and not a glimpse of ocean. No passing motorist, either. The road met another, equally as narrow, a road she had once driven along out of curiosity. Here was a signpost. This was actually somewhere. She pulled out her mobile phone and hoped its use would not alert the police to her activity. Hooray, a signal. The call was to a private hire office whose number she’d retained from the pre-Mercedes era. She explained to the dull male receptionist how her car had broken down – crashed, actually – and it would be some time before the recovery truck could get out to it. The receptionist asked for the pick-up point and, when given it, sounded substantially less than sure about its location. The conversation ended with Fee gaining no assurance that a taxi would be despatched. There was nothing to do but apply faith. A half hour later, nothing produced something. “You managed to find it,” she said unnecessarily at the driver’s lowered window of a Citroen. “I sometimes bring the kids down here.” The man was from his seat to put her case in the back. “Sorry about the mud. I had a slight accident.” “No problem. The office said you’d had a spill. Where’s your car?” “Back there. Half buried in a tree. Going nowhere.” – 135 –

Amy lived on the outskirts of the city, the area reached in under twenty minutes. Fee asked to stop at a cash point, where she withdrew to the daily limit. Near her destination, she directed the driver to a bus pull-in on the main road from which she walked an eighties-built avenue to a close near the end of which, in a modest immaculate two-bedroomed semi, lived Amy, her husband Neil, and small son Oliver. “Fee-Fee, this is a surprise!” “Isn’t it. Can I use your little room before I burst?” Tea, bickies, explanation, request. Amy learnt that Fee had had a terminal fall-out with the centre where she lived and worked, and was moving on. This clearly not being her special day, she had also tripped and fallen – reference the catching-up-with-the-gardening look and a bruise-blackened arm. A bath, soiled clothes in the washing machine, fresh clothes courtesy of a slightly fuller Amy. “It’ll only be for the one night. I won’t get in the way.” So much to catch up on; Oliver to play with; Neil home from work at teatime. Bedtime for the little one; more talk; television; late evening news; regional news. …dawn raid at the home of the leader of the Church of the Message of God where a large quantity of illegal drugs is believed to have been seized. Three people, including Dr Dominic Hope, founder and so-called faith-principal of the sect, were arrested and a number of others are assisting police with their enquiries. From Amy, pointing towards the television screen: “That’s your lot, isn’t it?” From Fee, adjusting her sitting position: “Er - yes. I didn’t know.” From Neil, drinking beer from a can: “Dawn raid. Weren’t you there?” Fee shook her head, not at the question but at the news. “I knew something was wrong. I knew something was about to happen. That’s why I left.” Neil again, frowning. He was a man in his thirties; fit; face a – 136 –

little too round; an electrician by trade – factories and big projects; never taking to Fee. “When did you leave, then?” “Last night – I told Ame. I slept in the car, with a rug over me. No mod cons.” “The car you crashed this morning.” “Yes. That‘s right.” Fee woke early and tidied the sofa. Neil departed in his van and Amy got on with being the mother of an active curious little boy. The women took the child to a supervised play park and sat to watch him with his friends in the morning sunshine. “He likes it here. Be prepared for some waterworks when we have to go,” Amy warned with a grin. Then: “Fee?” “What?” “It’s not like the good old days, you know. We’re different people.” “I know.” “And Neil. He works hard. He gets tired.” “I know that, too.” “He – well…” Fee’s fingers found Amy’s. They faced each other. A smile from Fee. “I fully understand. Honestly. I’m out of you life.” A nod from Amy. “Where will you go?” “I’ll stay at a hotel while I pull my thoughts together. I’ll find one for tonight. To be truthful, it’s all been quite a shock. I don’t want to make a rash decision.” Amy gently withdrew her fingers. “Hotel? You can sign in at the ‘so-fa so good’ if it’s only for another night or two.” “Neil wouldn’t want to hear that. No, I can’t. I’ve imposed enough.” – 137 –

Exhalation from Amy. “He’s a good man is Neil. I’m sure he wants to help if he can.” A short silence. Amy again, change of topic. “What are you going to do about your meetings? Is it all over, do you think?” Fee grimaced and threw back her head. “I’ve one this evening, as a matter of fact. I don’t know…” Amy turned her attention to an outbreak of squabbling in the play area. The disagreement dealt with by a supervisor, she waited for Fee to continue. “I should hold the meeting – people rely on me. The CMG is not emphasised. It’s the Shepherdess the faithful flock to see.” “The Shepherdess?” Laugh from Fee. “Yes, that’s what they call me. That’s who I am. It’s what I try to be.” “Will you be going?” A shrug, no reply. “You can borrow my car, if you want.” “I couldn’t.” “You could – just for now. Will your insurance company be providing one while yours is being repaired?” “I suppose they will. It’s something I must sort out.” “Then it’s settled. Hold your meeting – Shepherdess.” Courage nearly failed her, once, twice, again. On arrival at the community centre, however, courage reigned proud and determined, like it always did when the metaphorical curtain was about to rise. Something to do with adrenalin, a lot to do with the Lord. On with the show. No faces to cause alarm. An odd stare here and there told her that the news of the police raid would have to be grasped firmly by the balls. She told the meeting it had been a dreadful mistake. The church had recently been subject to vicious criticism and attempted – 138 –

ridicule, but had won through. The church would surely likewise survive misinformed malicious accusation. She made brief reference to the Gospel according to Saint Mark, and approached the front row. Her arms lifted, palms to Heaven, and her normally gentle voice became a dramatic call. “Look at me.” Everyone looked at her. “Would I be present, this evening, among you, if there was evil in my church? Look at me closer. Do you see evil?” Pause before a change to lower voice. “Or do you see hope?” She stood within inches of Lance, whose unblinking eyes were on her as momentarily hers were on him. Back to the flock, voice powerful. “Faith in the Lord is relief from suffering, relief from misery, relief from oppression. I bring you faith in the Lord. I bring you hope. I am here for you. This is my place, among you. Trust me. Trust the Lord.” An unexpected round of applause made her smile. She felt good again. At the finish of the event, she stood near the exit, receiving words of encouragement, pats on the shoulder, one kiss on the cheek. Lance and his lieutenant were last, as usual. Usual was to escort her to the car, to watch the old dears set off for home, to check the street for them. No trouble when Lance was around. Usual was to check the street again when the others had gone, then to sit in the back of the car, do the business, and be away, swallowed by the estate. During a previous evening event, someone had tried to break into the Mercedes, activating the alarm. The culprit fled unseen. Next day, the local news bulletin told of a youth found badly beaten, broken bones and bleeding, in a cutthrough not far from the venue. She did not raise the issue: there was no further unwanted attention to her car. Usual was unusual because the vehicle she opened the door of and climbed into was not the usual big bright Benz but a humble economy hatchback. Also unusual, after the business – conducted as usual with a minimum of words – Lance – 139 –

made no move to depart the car. He had a question. “Lord still providing, yeah?” He and his silent companion filled the limited space of the rear bench seat; Fee, in the front, twisted to face them. “Yes, the Lord will provide. Paul puts it better in his letter to the Philippians. ‘And my God shall fulfil every need of yours’. Chapter Four, if you want to look it up.” “Only, things have been happening, like. Know-waddamean?” She gave a little laugh and wished she hadn’t. It sounded nervous – perhaps the result of the confines of the car. “Have I ever let you down, Lance? Has the Shepherdess ever failed to deliver the goods?” Lance was at his most menacing when impassive. She waited under the dim interior light. After some seconds of stillness, he made to leave, and his sidekick also. “That’s all right, then,” he replied. Out of the car he added his usual parting phrase. “Safe ride – yeah?” Amy asked about the meeting; Neil said little; exhausted Fee had to wait for the two hosts to go to bed before she could flop on to the sofa. Sleep, though, would not come. Pressure, pressure, pressure. If only she were back in Africa, at the mission, with the children. But that was not the Lord’s plan. Or anyone’s. Leaving the sofa to pull out the travelling case stored upright behind it, she unlocked the case and brought out her bible. The good covers parted obediently at John 10. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish; and no one shall snatch them out of my hand.

Fee went with Amy and Oliver to do the weekly shop at a local supermarket. Her offer to pay for the entire trolley load – 140 –

was reduced to a contribution at Amy’s insistence. This was a relief. Although cash wasn’t an immediate problem – she had used a cash point the night before, on the way to the awareness event, going some distance out of her way so as to confuse the tracing of her withdrawals; and she was holding the payment from Lance, which was correctly Dominic’s money, except he wouldn’t be needing it for a while – cash not an immediate problem though soon enough it would be. The next raid on the hole in the wall would empty her account. That action had to way till later – the supermarket’s cash dispenser was too risky: it would put her in the same part of town as the taxi-stopping withdrawal two days earlier. Amy broke her thoughts. “Any luck with finding anywhere?” enquired Amy. “I’m on it.” Then, sweetly: “Amy dear. Could I borrow your car, to go and look at a place? This afternoon, if that’s all right. I’ll fill the tank.” “Of course you can. Don’t worry about the petrol.” “No, no. I insist on paying my way. It’s very good of you.” “That’s what friends are for. No news about your car?” “I’m waiting for their call.” By one of those coincidences that may come across as somewhat contrived in the telling, Fee’s mobile phone trilled. They were in the car, the shopping loaded from the rear, Oliver strapped in his child seat, Amy poised with the key. “Hello?” Fee realised she was acting and sounding sort of jumpy for a call supposedly waited for. She forced a relaxation, but it was short lived. “Who is that?” Amy checked the till receipt for bargain reductions. “No, you must have the wrong…” And: “Yes, that’s right… How – how did you get this number?” Fee listened some more before abruptly ending the call. – 141 –

The engine fired and the car inched backwards out of the parking bay. “Not the insurance company about your car, I take it,” she smiled. “Junk call.” It needed more – for Amy it did. “Connected with the life I’ve just walked away from. I don’t want to know, actually.” They were moving forward, slowly, towards the car park exit. “It’s your thing, isn’t it? Walking away.” The comment was made pleasantly, humorously. Right on, nonetheless. Lunch over, Amy passed the car keys. “Good luck.” “Mmm?” “With the house, flat, bedsit, whatever – place hunting.” The hand that took the keys was trembling. Both women noticed. “Excitement. Thanks again.” Fee hugged her friend, wanted to kiss her, passionately. Amy gently uncoupled. “Better stop there,” she said softly thought firmly. “Like I said yesterday, we’re different people to what we were. Halcyon days no more. Accept it.” “I’m sorry.” They remained face to face in the small kitchen. Amy had matured, had advanced a whole life stage. “We should go forward, never back.” “You’re right. Absolutely right.” Plates to gather up; Amy to it. “Fee – d’you think Su ever sussed?” A single clap of hands from Fee. “Su sussed from the very start. She knew all along, actually. We had her permission.” – 142 –

“Her permission?” Water taps running. “It wouldn’t have happened without.” Amy emphasised her bemusement as she started on the dishes. Fee reversed the theme. “What about Neil?” “Neil’s more sensitive than he lets on. He’s uncomfortable right now.” “You think…?” A glove-protected soapy hand went up, a yellow stop signal. Fee drove along main roads and stopped at an ATM of a site completely unknown to her until this moment to withdraw the remaining balance. The machine refused to oblige, and kept her card. All credits into the account had been transfers from the Church of the Message of God: expenses, allowances, contingency reserve (as Dominic called it), the first of her stipend. All legitimate, all rightfully hers. Well, she could march into the bank where the account was held and demand the rest of her money together with an apology. Yeah, right. Her hands were trembling again. It was late when she returned to Amy’s. “Any joy?” asked Amy, perhaps for Neil’s benefit. “Nearly there. I’m going to open up the Grosvenor Rooms tomorrow. It’s my turn, actually. Then I’ll be out of your hair. The day after – promise.” Neil’s face said the word his lips retained: ‘good’. His wife, too, caught the look, and exchanged glances with Fee. “The Grosvenor Rooms – part of the church, isn’t that right?” “City centre pop-in. I don’t know if anyone’ll be popping in tomorrow.” A short laugh. “What’s going to happen to the pop-in now that – you know?” A stretching out of arms from Fee, accompanied by a beam of confidence, at the moment of birth of a brilliant idea. “I’ll take over.” – 143 –

Delight from Amy. “You? You’ll take them on, these Grosvenor Rooms?” “It – there’s only one room. Big, though. Yes, I’ll run my very own mission, right in the middle of town.” “That’s good. Positive thinking, at last.” Neil addressed Fee. “How will it work? Do you charge?” “It pays, actually. Donations large and small. You’d be surprised how generous people can be. And there’s a grant.” “Grant? I’m in the wrong trade.” “Something else – the rent’s very low. Because of our status.” No reply from Neil. His interest in the matter of Fee’s business plan was spent. Popular television awaited. Fee’s spur of the moment conversational plug was an example of pure inspiration. She told herself this, and repeated it. Step in to fill the void, part of it, left by the Dominic-less therefore leaderless therefore futureless Church of the Message of God. The faith-follower base remained broadly intact, surely. On her way to the Grosvenor Rooms, by bus because Amy was using the car, the idea developed and grew by the thought. Gone were yesterday’s shakes and downs. Thank you, Lord. Thank you for everything you bring. Minutes were spent pad-padding along the sombre corridors of the august long block that contained the Grosvenor Rooms in the search for the elderly but spry caretaker who held keys to all the rooms and offices of the building on a ridiculously big metal ring, like a jailer. He made no comment as she called herself an idiot for leaving her key in the car which was in for servicing. He ventured no opinion regarding the present or likely situations of the Church of the Message of God on the way to the Grosvenor Rooms. Until, as he unlocked the door, he surprised her with a question verging on prescience. “Will you be carrying on with the church’s work, Miss?” – 144 –

“Oh, yes. I’ll be taking over.” End of conversation, other than the instruction that she would have to find him when she wanted to lock up. There was no hint in his manner either of approval or disapproval of her intention. The caretaker gone, she wedged open both the tall doors to invite the world in. Also, it helped clear the accumulated fustiness. If no one called, she would use the day to flesh out her plan. For the first time since the dawn raid she felt it safe to think in the longer term. The church had gone but she remained. There were challenges – great challenges, bloody great ones, surely the greatest – but the Lord had shown her the path ahead. The faded grand gathering room had three standard sized doors in its back wall. One led to an antiquated but clean and functioning toilet with hand basin having a cylindrical water heater above. Another accessed a small store room, filled to head level with boxes and bundles believed discarded by the previous user or users, whoever that or they may have been. Between the two was a larger and mainly empty room – the ‘back room’ – windowless and old-smelling, brown and worn, but with space to flop. She closed the door to the room after a quick calculation of what might be required to make it temporarily habitable. A regular caller to the Rooms, a cancerconsumed woman in her sixties, had entered the seating area, lowering herself at the end of a row. Fee went over to her and they talked. A little later, another regular, a man not old but vulnerable. By mid-day, she was able tentatively to assess that her flock had not deserted her, perhaps only some. She slipped out to a sandwich bar along the street, leaving the doors open, which was normal practice, there being nothing in the Grosvenor Rooms worth stealing. On her return were two men in suits sitting on the front row of seats. Viewing them from the rear she sensed the pair to be one of her great challenges. “Good afternoon, for afternoon it is,” she greeted them, in – 145 –

her soft saintly Grosvenor Rooms voice. Hands linked across tummy, nun smile. “And welcome.” The two men stood, nodded, and also smiled, although not nun-like. One possessed the build of a bouncer; one might have been an expellee from accountancy. Each was taller than she. “Are you members of the Church?” she enquired, already knowing the answer. A single slow shake of the head from the accountant-type. It was to her to lead. “Is this your first visit? If so, I extend a special welcome on behalf of—” Not the old name – that was defunct. “of the Mission.” There was an uncomfortable delay before the accountanttype replied. “Tell me about your mission, please.” Defining moment. “Well, the Church of the Message of God – the name on the door – trains faith-students so that they may go out into the land, the world, and spread the True Word. Some of those students are given the opportunity to start their own mission. The same True Word, of course, but locally applied. People matter, you see. A mission can —” “Who gives the opportunity?” “Oh, the Lord. Circumstances. The Lord presents the circumstances which in turn present the opportunity.” A patient smile in reply. A silence waiting to be filled. “I happen to be one of the fortunate souls who the Lord has seen fit to bless with an opportunity. This is my mission. The Cade Mission. Today is the founding day, as a matter of fact. Perhaps the two of you could be my very first new members.” She was screwing up inside. Saying too much. Losing it. Come on, Fee-Fee. Back in the saddle. “Would be nice,” the accountant-type said with such – 146 –

gentlemanly pleasantry. “It’s what we had in mind.” Fee suggested they all sit. Declined. “We must be going. My favourite word, ‘opportunity’.” Accountant-type took a step towards her. Bouncer-type was at their side, facing them both. All close. Eye-locking, intimately close – in her valley looking up at mountains smelling of male deodorant. “We’ll be in touch, —” A cough of feigned embarrassment. “What will be your form of address?” Be calm, be calm. Lord make me be calm. “No formality at the Cade Mission. I am Fee Cade. Fee to everyone.” Moments of nothing – minutes, hours. Accountant-type scrutinised her face in electron microscope detail as he smiled that professional’s smile. “Fee Cade, I wish your mission every success.” She watched them go as she slowly lowered on to the nearest seat. Accountant-type looked back from the corridor and gave a coy little wave. Recovering the sandwiches from a chair of another row where she had deposited them before the greeting, she went into the back room and switched on the electric kettle. Challenges, Lord. You in your infinite wisdom have set me formidable challenges. I won’t fail you. I will never doubt you. Kettle boiled, a cup of tea poured, sandwiches started on, she checked the big room. No one in at present, much noise from the corridor of clattering heels and lunch-break chatter. The trembling had returned, and the small of her back hurt – a sure sign of some serious stress. She went to the main entrance of the building, which led directly on to the busy city street, and faced into the warm sunshine, eyes closed. Pleasant; if only there were nothing but sunshine and her mission hall to tend; if only the rest of the shit would disappear. Diverting her head from the sun, she glanced up and down the street. People, buses, people, shops. Diagonally across the street, a figure not moving with the opposing – 147 –

streams, a figure loitering in the doorway of a vacant retail property. Mike Ferriby. He did not see her, or chose not to. She back-stepped, into the path of a man leaving the building. “Sorry.” And returned to her station. Was opening up the Grov such a good idea? Where to find Fiona Kemp-Davies, where to find Fee Cade, where to find the Shepherdess? – the Grosvenor Rooms of course! If closed, try again later. No appointment necessary, no admittance charge, the doors wide open to everyone, to all comers old and new. To the dying, the vulnerable, courteous illegal drug wholesalers, and detectives masquerading as investigative journalists. Why not? At the table in front of the dusty plain curtain which hung from the ceiling to reach the floor – the curtain’s significance was never explained to her but it did hide some grotty flaking paintwork on the back wall – she fell to her knees and prayed silently, hands together under chin. The urge to strip off and bare before the Lord was strong. If only there were nothing but sunshine and her mission hall…. Neil ordered takeaways to be delivered. It was Fee’s last night and they should make it special. He was talkative. Neil was nicer when he didn’t engage. “Your old place has been the on telly again. On the news.” “Has it?” “Yeah, the faith centre. They found a fleet of top notch motors – Bentley, Ferrari, Merc, Range Rover, and an open top sports job. Life of Riley, that boss of yours.” “He wasn’t my boss. He was – is the faith-principal, actually. The centre isn’t at all how the media portray it. They deliberately distort things.” Quiet Amy was a flushed Amy, and puffy-eyed: she’d been crying. Fee placed a high probability to the couple having had a right old set-to – subject: their house guest. Amy remained quiet. – 148 –

“Some good money in drug distribution. Cash on the nail, no waiting months after invoice. No income tax or VAT worries, either.” Fee sighed. This was not what she wanted. “The drug distribution charges are mere allegations, and will be thrown out. The money comes from the centre’s seminars and faith courses. It’s worked for, hard work. And donations from graduates and supporters. There’s a lot of those. You can’t prevent people from donating.” “That’s not what it said on the telly.” The takeaway order arrived. Neil paid the man, and Amy prepared plates. Fee tried to put a time to the ninety-nine per cent certain row between husband and wife: Neil, habitually a late worker, must have come home early. “So where’s your new place?” Neil asked through a full mouth. Amy played with her pizza, and Fee had poor appetite. “I’m going back to the countryside. I like it there.” “City life getting to you, is it?” Amy spoke. “Neil – please!” He chomped awhile but had not finished with his aggressive pitch. “The illegal drugs – alleged drugs – was big time, apparently. Your boss had territory. How can you live there and not notice?” “Nothing’s proven. It’s been exaggerated and taken out of context. A few faith-students brought some gear in with them, that’s all.” “Is that it?” “Yes.” Fee ate without enthusiasm as Neil consumed his pizza and, by gesture alone, asked for and was passed Amy’s hardly touched meal. “You didn’t know about the drugs, you had no warning of the raid, but you managed to get out just in time. Eh?” – 149 –

“I told you before – it was coincidence. I was leaving anyway. I’d made up my mind.” “With nowhere to go? ’Cept here.” Fee’s head ached, her hands trembled – but not, she knew, as a result of Neil’s assault. “I acted on impulse. I have a place but it wasn’t ready. A mix up over keys.” A look from Amy. “You didn’t say…” “I wasn’t sure. I’m sorry. I feared a further let down. The game’s not won till the whistle.” Fee knew Amy knew Fee was lying. It didn’t help. Neil again. “Thing is, Fee, I don’t mind you staying with us, not in the general run. You used to stay the odd weekend, when we had a spare bedroom, and that was fine. And I know Ame said you could come here if ever you needed help. That as well is fine by me – I only pay the mortgage. You know —” “Someone came looking for you.” It was blurted out, as if the pressure of holding the information had become too great. Amy blurted, then held fingers over her mouth as if to stop more blurt. “Who? When?” Fee’s eyes were wide. Neil spoke for his wife. “A guy came knocking. A young guy, youth, yob. This afternoon. Ame rang me at work and I came straight home. It upset her. I don’t like my wife upset.” “Who was he?” Amy answered, avoiding eye contact, her tone sour. “I don’t know. We didn’t exchange personal details.” She inhaled to achieve composure. “He was, well, not the sort of bod I want at my front door, if I’m honest, Fee.” “What did he want?” “You!” Loudly from Neil. “How do you know?” – 150 –

Amy looked Fee in the face. To Fee, Amy at that moment was a stranger. “He said he wanted the Shepherdess. Not ‘I’m looking for someone called the Shepherdess’ or ‘is the Shepherdess staying with you’ or anything like that. I told him I had no idea what he was talking about. ‘I’m talking about business, lady,’ he said. Business.” “How could he know where —? How did you get rid of him?” An unhappy smile from Amy. “I told him you weren’t here. It was a mistake – I wasn’t thinking. It was confirmation that I’d heard the name, and I wish I hadn’t. I just wanted him to go away, right away, from my house.” The question hadn’t been answered. Amy understood as much and continued. “I said you had gone and I didn’t know where to. He checked behind me and for a second I honestly thought he would force his way in. He looked the sort who might. He didn’t. He said something like, ‘that’s all right, then’ and left. I didn’t see a car – I just shut the door and bolted it, and the back door, and rang Neil at work.” The old Amy returned, albeit upset. “I was scared, Fee. He was menace incarnate – I can’t describe what I mean. I never want to see him again. Please believe me when I say that.” Neil had softened while listening. He was on his feet, behind and soothing his sitting wife. “It’s all right, it’s all right. He won’t be back, not while I’m walking the earth.” Without moving, he address Fee, softly too. “This is about drugs, isn’t it?” Fee made to contest the point but he raised a silencing palm. “I don’t want to know the details. I don’t want to know full stop. I’d like you to take hold of your big case that’s behind – 151 –

our sofa and leave this house, Fee. This evening. Now. If you’re in trouble with this guy and with whatever was going on at the other place, then why don’t you go to the police? I can’t understand why you didn’t go to them before, when you heard about the raid. It’s my guess you escaped —” A repeat attempt to defend her position was thwarted by a step rise in volume. “Like I say – I don’t want to know.” A forefinger in her direction. “I appreciate you and Ame go way back – I respect that. But you’re trouble, Fee. It’s written all over you. No doubt you’re in big trouble yourself. I’m sorry for you if you are. The thing is, I have a wife and child here in the home all day on their own. I can’t take the risk. Go where they can’t find you, if they’re after you – I don’t care. Don’t visit this address again. Don’t ring. Don’t even think of us. Okay?” Amy’s hand rested on her husband’s hand which rested on her shoulder. Tears welled in her eyes. A final message for Fee. “I’m sorry, Fee. I’m sorry it’s come to this. Neil’s right.” Fee aligned her cutlery across an unfinished pizza. “I know. I’ll pop to the loo then I’m out of here. For ever.” The above proposes an explanation for the arrival of Fiona Kemp-Davies, with travelling case and shoulder bag and sundry plastic carriers, at the front door of the home of Su Gardeen. It was not direct cause and consequence, however. While still at Amy’s, Fee fleetingly considered asking for one last loan of the car. This was cut by Amy’s offering to drive Fee to the new abode, a suggestion in turn cut by a resolute ‘no’ from Neil who, sensibly if belatedly, didn’t want the car linked to Fee in any way. A private hire taxi was called. Fee stepped out to it through pouring rain. “Where to, love?” the driver chirped. “Victoria Street, city centre.” “On our way.” – 152 –

Intermittent small talk, then a gasp of exasperation from the driver. “They drive so close it’s like they’re on tow.” Fee turned but could define little. To the driver: “Has that car been behind for long?” “Long enough. I must have a magnetic back bumper.” “He’s following, actually.” A grunt from the driver. Fee followed up. “I won’t bore you and don’t ask, but some blokes simply can’t let go.” “It’s like that, is it? D’you want me to lose him?” “Could you?” “Watch me.” With a ‘hold tight, here we go’ from the excited driver, the car made a sudden left turn into a street narrowed by twin lines of parked vehicles, then into an alleyway, to emerge among a maze of industrial sheds through which the car swept, perilously fast, until a main road was reached which Fee recognised as one running almost parallel with, but maybe half a mile from, the one so sharply exited. No car in tow. Victoria Street. “Here, please.” The municipal pile was locked. Inside, the Grosvenor Rooms would be locked. No keys. Technically, no rights. Silly choice of destination. Why not a hotel for the night? And then where to? Lord, direct me. TELL ME WHAT TO DO! “Terrible night for it,” prompted the driver as he ogled a group of giggling young females out to score, their only protection from the dismal rain being girly umbrellas and skimpy fashion. “Change of plan. Could you take me to an address out in the sticks? About twelve miles from here, actually.” “Return mileage.” “No problem.” – 153 –

The driver thanked her genuinely for the tip, a tip made generous with the proviso that he magically forget where he dropped her, and should anyone ask, it was in the city centre, which was nearly true. Fee had one last request. “Will you wait a minute – I can see lights on, but I can’t be absolutely sure anyone is at home. I’ll wave…” The rain in the sticks was fair sluicing down and Fee was glad of Amy’s final act of kindness, the gift of a mechanically awkward brolly that was otherwise destined for a jumble sale. Ring the bell, like the night those months ago, when a stoned Dominic answered the door. Ring the bell at the double-fronted elegantly converted farmhouse facing the village green, which in a previous life did not need to be rung because behind this door was home before Africa was home and before Dominic’s was home. This night, Ellis opened the door. Not stoned but certainly puzzled. A similar delay in recognition, a glance down at the luggage. “Hello, Ellis. Is Su at home?” A gust of wind tugged at the edge of the umbrella and her hand went up to secure it. The cab pulled away, the driver obeying the agreed signal. End of escape route. “No, she’s out. At a meeting.” “When are you expecting her?” “Well – if she doesn’t go for a drink afterwards, I’d say halfnine, thereabouts. On the other hand, nearer eleven.” Fee experienced an intense shiver of utter loneliness. After a shiver, she would reconcile it as the Lord taking loo time and leaving her to fend. Very unpleasant while it lasted, a shiver like this. Also, she was trembling all over. “Could I wait for her, do you think?” Ellis made the effort. “Wouldn’t you be better coming back another time? Perhaps tomorrow evening, if it’s important. Su’s got nothing on tomorrow evening, as far as I know. Phone first.” “I mean, wait inside. My cab’s gone. And it’s a really vile – 154 –

evening.” No move from Ellis, paralysed by thinking. He was scanning her, registering the pallor under the poor light, the loss of weight, the fast forward ageing. Thinking of the impossible position she was putting him in. “Please, Ellis.” A stage sigh, a body roll of great reluctance, a standing to one side. “Does Su have any idea you might come?” “Thank you. Deep deep down, yes, I’d say she does.” Fee dropped the travelling case and the various bags in the entrance hall and shook the umbrella outwards over the threshold. It refused to collapse properly and she carefully positioned it inverted in a corner. She slipped from her coat and shook it too over the threshold. Ellis watched without move or word. He was thinking. Then he asked her if she would like a hot drink, to which she replied most affirmatively. They were in the lounge. It had been redecorated since she last saw it, possibly more than once. She sat forward on an unfamiliar sofa, hands clutching the mug. Ellis rested back in his easy chair, same physical location, different furnishing style, different upholstery. “You’ve made some changes,” she said, looking around in a show of admiration. “Seasonal.” “Very nice.” So it was, in a Gardeen way. A wall-hung wide flat television screen was turned off: Ellis was listening to classical music from an undetermined source, turned low, presumably on her arrival. “Mahler?” “‘Resurrection’. I particularly look forward to this, ‘Ulricht’. I find it haunting.” “Yes, it is.” Music off, by remote control. “Fee, may I ask why you are here? Su will ask, and I’d like a – 155 –

preview, so to speak. So that I can follow the script.” “There isn’t a script. I’d rather speak to Su. No offence, but it’s – delicate.” “I’m sure it’s delicate. Wasn’t it your last known place of employment, the Church of the whatever, that was busted for drugs at the beginning of the week?” She looked down into the mug and up again. “There’s a bit more to it, actually.” “Were you involved?” “Marginally, I suppose.” Ellis stood and poured whisky into a tumbler at a drinks cabinet. Some things hadn’t change – it would be a single malt. He returned to his easy chair but did not sit. “Is Su going to like what you have to say to her?” “Not a lot.” “Should I ring her, to tell her you’re here, waiting?” “That wouldn’t be a surprise.” He clicked his tongue against teeth. “I’m not supporting the surprise element. On the contrary, I’d strongly recommend against it. I could catch her before she heads for a post-meeting restorative. Unless you’d prefer to surprise her down at the Miller’s Arms. The other pub has closed. “She’s in the village?” “The school. Special Governors’. Budget shortfall.” “Ring her.” Softly: “Please.” Su? Yes, sorry to… Okay. I thought you should know we have a visitor. Must talk to you. It’s someone you know very well and apparently have been expecting, deep deep down… Right first time, give the lady a… I know… yes, I know… My sentiments exactly… Understood… All right. “The meeting’s winding down. She’s on her way. You’d better brace yourself.”

– 156 –

7 Remember the television advertisement for a particular brand of household battery in which a comparison with the life expectancy of other brands was made by fitting all into toy rabbits playing drums? The drummer bunnies were observed as they slowly wound down, their frenetic tattoo reduced to intermediate taps, like the sound of the passing of a thunderstorm heard from under canvas. Except for one lucky toy equipped with the advertised cell of onboard energy which was able to rat-rat-tat ahead. Su Gardeen was that drummer bunny, a one-woman powerhouse who could give complete attention to a meeting, to guide, and to advise the meeting towards a satisfactory outcome although the day is old, although there have been meetings to advise and guide both in the morning and afternoon, that day and for the others in the week. But even a favoured drummer bunny winds down. Su was near this stage when her mobile phone trilled – her instrument of personal communication being the only one exempted from the ‘all mobiles switched off during meetings’ rule that she invariably imposed – and Ellis told her of the arrival on the domestic doorstep of Fee. It had been a heavy duty week. Su and her colleagues at Community Advance, whom she made sure shared her load, were working hard not only on initiatives which always demanded hard working during an initiative’s often brief span but also on a veritable prize among initiatives. The agency was in the running to launch a national pilot campaign against drug abuse. A successful bid would bring prestige to CA; and government cash; and the promise of a media profile, at least at regional level, for the drugs tsar or, as would be the informal title in this case, tsarina. – 157 –

There were no competitors for the prize within the region, but there were of course lots of other regions. The number of community development agencies in a bidding process is sensitive information the government mischievously does not willingly divulge, if at all. That there was bound to be several did not deter Su – rather, it had the opposite effect. She drove the staff hard, herself harder. The campaign needed the right calibre of person to lead it and, in Su’s words, ‘cometh the hour, cometh the man’ is pathetic; cometh the hour, the woman has it already sorted. If convincing the suits at the Department that Community Advance could do it better was a challenge, then the actual doing would be challenge multiplied. Su did not underestimate the responsibilities attached to a national pilot. However, one step at a time. Most output by the Department is waffle, is shiny rhetoric designed to separate the naïve from the gullible, but occasionally an individual emerges from the flannel factory who actually talks like a human being and not like a preprogrammed robot. Alasdair was a highish-up suit within the Department, though his precise position and degree of power within the hierarchy was never made clear. His was an easy going, free speaking approach which stood out a mile from the usual bureaucratic reticence. Ellis, hearing a description second-hand, suggested Alasdair might be from an upper crust background, maybe mildly aristocratic: that would explain his relaxed confident manner and lack of concern about emphasising his place in the pecking order. Alasdair had appeared at short notice to ‘break bread’ with Su, to warn her what she might be letting herself in for, to implicitly indicate her organisation’s expression of interest had been taken seriously. He didn’t arrive at CA Central alone – Department personnel rarely travel alone – but his companions were presumably told to go and play: Alasdair wanted Su to himself. At Su’s arranging, the two were in the interview room, recently decorated to produce an ambience of neutral territory; her own office, being the environment of – 158 –

a hands-on woman, was one of frequent interruption and distraction. Also, it looked untidy even after a tidy-up. She sat, facing the door, a habit. Alasdair was a pacer. He walked the room as he talked, not in a restless way but as a commander might do on the eve of a great battle. “An opportunity presents itself, which is also a necessity. Our streets are awash with illegal drugs – it’s an epidemic. Why do you think that is?” The question did not invite an answer. “I’ll tell you. Because of systemic failure of the enforcement strategy. A complete cock-up, to not mince words.” He stopped and turned to her. Not just a suit but a supersuit, judging by the cut and cloth. She took a guess at his being a well-kept forty-five, give or take, and no stranger to the squash court. “I’m sure you’ve done your homework – I would expect nothing less of you, Ms Gardeen – Su. Is it all right if I call you Su?” “Please.” “Good. Then we’ll recapitulate together, Su. Same hymn sheet, as they say.” Pacing resumed. An occasional pinch of the nose. “Everyone doing their best to keep a lid on the drugs trade. Customs and Excise boys leading the way, of course; National Crime Squad;, Criminal Intelligence Service, Immigration, even MI5 – all mucking in. Along comes a bright spark, couple of years back, pours the lot into one pot. ‘Britain’s answer to the FBI’ – how many times did we hear those words?” Another question seeking no reply. “Serious Organised Crime Agency. SOCA, in acronymese. ‘Make life hell for organised crime’ – that’s what they said it would do. Officers from within have different things to say. ‘Dismal failure’; ‘no sense of direction’; ‘total shit’. Collapse of moral, officers wanting out. Have got out, in droves. And they’re the canny ones.” – 159 –

Another brief stop from pacing. “D’you know? – no sooner was the curtain up when the bean counters made the most ghastly hash of salaries. Told officers to pay money back – money they’d sweated for. Beggars belief. Rows about overtime ever since. Budget trimming by the Home Office doesn’t help.” Continuation of movement. “Whole thing’s been a shambles from the start. An impotent hybrid. Too many chiefs and not enough Indians. Computer systems that don’t talk to one another. Criminal underworld’s dream come true. No finer time to be a Mr Big.” Alasdair sat down opposite Su, elbows on table, one forefinger wagging in her direction. “Thing is, SOCA’s priorities are to tackle Class A drugs and immigration crime. Remove attention and effective enforcement from the former and what are you left with? Class A drugs available like never before.” On his feet once more. “It’s where we come in. Department can do nothing about SOCA’s bad show. Home Office pigeon – wish ’em the best of luck, eh? But HMG is embarrassed by the spread of drugs. Wants the D to have a go from the other end, so to speak. We can do that, can’t we, Su? We can dampen demand on the street.” Su smiled, unsure whether they’d reached an answer gap. “Given the chance, yes, we can do that.” Taking a chair, not opposite but diagonal to her, and he not looking at her but into a private distance, Alasdair emitted a thoughtful ‘mm’ before an equally thoughtful few moments of quiet. Then: “Not enough funding to go round – never is. Hence the pilot. Very important. If the pilot works, there’s the case to take to the Treasury.” His eyes sought hers and found them. “Very important,” he repeated. “For everyone concerned.” – 160 –

Su immediately began making plans. She announced a crash diet, ignoring teasing remarks from Ellis and from Geri, her personal assistant. This time was different – she would have to look good in wide screen high definition. Dieting was known to make her grumpy; that was because, when on a diet, she felt grumpy; but not this diet; there wouldn’t be time to feel grumpy. Along with the plans and the diet grew the conviction that a clout-wielding Alasdair had returned to London and submitted his recommendation. Nothing further was heard from London in the days following the breaking of bread in the interview room, but that was not necessarily a bad thing. The Department had to be seen to go through the motions. As a matter of principle, it did not announce decisions quickly, even when it had made up its collective mind. Then a bummer. At a conference, minor in itself, Su met up with managers of community development agencies from across the country. Among a small inter-acquainted group of females assembled for lunch, conversation turned to the drug abuse pilot. Su learnt that Alasdair ‘the smoothie’ had taken his performance on the road, visiting all of them and leaving each with the impression they were on the shortlist, a shortlist maybe of one. “Did he tell you to keep it under your hat for now?” one manager asked. “‘In a manner of speaking’?” mimicked another. “And how the eyes of the nation would be upon you?” from yet another. “He stressed how important it was,” contributed a suddenly deflated Su. At home, Ellis said not to worry: it was always going to be a competitive process. Bravely, he tried to prevent Su’s embarking on a comfort binge with only partial success. At the office, she rang the Department and asked to speak to Alasdair, to be informed he had moved on. A further announcement about the pilot would be made shortly. – 161 –

The coming to terms with the knowledge that Community Advance was not the one but merely one of many in the running served to snap Su out of the wounded sulks and to work ever harder at the plan. She considered launching a drugs awareness drive at local level as a way of demonstrating just what she was capable of. Her favourite and sometimes heeded adviser was the wise and loyal bear-like Roger, the agency’s legal representative. Roger was of the opinion that to do her own thing at this point would be sending a message that CA had no need of national pilot status or – more to the point – funding, and the prize would be awarded elsewhere. All this going on; plus some irregularity within the credit union that she chaired; plus a budget shortfall at the village school; plus a dozen other worry pups yapping at her ankles – all this and Ellis trills to tell her that Fee is sitting comfy as you like in the lounge as if she’d never been away. Cometh the hour, the woman has it already sorted. If Ellis Carmichael expected a best seat for the performance of the return of the prodigal daughter, he was to be disappointed. Yes, Su swept in, wearing that look on her face when hatches should be battened. Yes, Fee stood to attention, clutching her mug, and started her pitch, albeit limply. “Hello, Su. How are you doing?” “I’m still keeping zoo. Good enough for yah?” Fee got to the point. “Su, can I talk to you? I’m sort of in a spot of bother.” “You always were bother. Bother without balls.” “It’s urgent.” Su had reached the drinks cabinet; Ellis saw she poured wine, not vodka. It meant Su was curious at least as much as she was angry. Nothing from the cabinet offered to Fee. “I reached that far myself.” The mug was placed on an occasional table. Fee approached Su. – 162 –

“Look, can we talk?” A glance towards Ellis. “Alone? It’s private.” Su downed the wine. “Not in the club, are we?” A laugh from Fee: no mirth, just nerves. “No, I’m not in the club. It’s something else. Worse, actually.” Su, refilling from the bottle, gave an ‘oh’ of ridicule. Then a hint of melt. “You’d better come upstairs. Don’t get excited – I don’t do dykery anymore. Also, I’m completely knackered. No rest for the wicked, my old gran used to say. You don’t look fully charged yourself. My old gran was right. ” Despite the apparent common exhaustion, the two women were in Fee’s old bedroom, redecorated as a guest room, for a long time. Ellis correctly assumed Fee would be staying the night. He saw out Newsnight and the Review, secured the house, went to bed, read for a while. Whatever hour it was that Su climbed into her own the bed beside his, he didn’t note it. Morning came: Saturday; Su not setting off for the city to arrive at the office before everyone else. Su was asleep when he got up, snoring as she often did. No sign of Fee. Saturday was supermarket day, and other shops day, either in the city or a market town as took their fancy. How would today roll out? At his desk, he browsed the internet for news, global, national, local; and checked his email. On the stroke of ten he took Su a cup of tea. She was eyes-blinking awake. Slowly, she pulled herself up and took the tea. “Thank you.” Ellis made to leave her but she patted the bed for him to sit at her legs. “Madam’s in some thick manure.” He sat and waited. “She’s on the run, to be precise.” – 163 –

“From whom? The police?” “Them an’ all.” There had been a period in their relationship – his, hers, Fee’s – when he would not be privileged to confidences of the kind presumably entered into the previous night. That was then. He and Su had become significantly less the servant and masterful mistress. Since Ellis’s publication of a well received textbook, made possible with Su’s financial backing, a hale respect had grown from a struggling shoot. Ellis was Su’s trusted sounding board. “Perhaps I made a mistake in letting her in,” he ventured. “She wouldn’t have gone away. She’d have curled up on the doorstep. A trouble shared is a trouble disposed of. I bet she’s sleeping like a top.” “A trouble that took hours to dispose of.” “Hours to drag out. Troubles plural.” As Ellis heard it summarised, Fee had got religion real bad, left home, gone missionary, cocked it up in Africa, returned to Blighty where she’d fallen in with a fake holy father figure who used our little Godette to deliver drugs in the city’s chavlands at the same time as doling out faith, hope, charity and the promise of life after crap. If that wasn’t enough, also to personally import the powdery best from Holland hidden away in a secret compartment under a swanky S-class. Along come the intrepid boys in denim and nail Svengali and his squealing bunch of suckers but let our sweet girl miraculously escape. She dumped herself on Amy – remember Amy? – till the poor thing got the wobbles when a grubby yobbo banged on her door wanting to make sure the next delivery was secure. In addition, a couple of heavies came calling at the sacred place of work, some dump in town, no doubt planning to move in on the newly vacated territory. Our girl knows the local scene, yeh? Heavies want to supply the seedy little highrise pushers; drug squad wants to track the heavies to Mr Big. Common factor? – our girl. At least she has the sense to put it all together. And to run like her fanny’s on fire. – 164 –

“Our girl?” asked Ellis. “For the moment. Can’t turf her out in the situation she’s in. I wouldn’t want her floating corpse on my conscience.” But Ellis saw the danger. “Aren’t we importing trouble?” No one knows she’s here, ’cept for the cab driver, who she paid to swear blind he dropped her off in the city.” He gave a shake of the head. “I don’t like it,” he said in a sing-song voice. “You don’t have to like it, Ellis. Just talk nicely to her – for the time being.” She took his hand and smiled. “No going backwards; there’ll be no ménage-à-not-quitetrois nonsense. I’m a reformed woman. Can’t be doing with the emotional string plucking.” The smile was silently returned. Her hand broke free and patted his. “I just want to help the daughter we never had in her hour of need. It’s the most we can do.” Ellis stood after moments of thought. “What’s the programme?” A sigh from Sue as she prepared to get up. “To be honest, I’m still working on it. Rabbit wanted for vacant top hat. She says she wants to go to America.” “America?” “All guns and Gaad. They wouldn’t let her in even if our lot would let her leave.” He drew back fully the partially open curtains and looked out across the green below as she slipped into her housecoat. “Why doesn’t she help the police? Do a deal with them.” “Live bait, you mean? Nah – she’s lost her bottle. ‘The Lord’ won’t talk to her, apparently. She’s been a naughty girl and the Almighty is giving her the cold shoulder.” “‘The Lord’ has a point. She has been a naughty girl.” Su, on her way into the bathroom, lifted her voice. “Not for her part in the drugs trade, you understand. Fee – 165 –

hasn’t the ittiest bittiest remorse about that. Would do it all over again, I dare say. No, it’s because she’s letting H-I-M down in abandoning her flock. Leaving the old dears in the lurch. Madam is their only medium, to hear her. Calls herself the Shepherdess, to show she’s modest.” No reply from Ellis. He slapped his thighs, exaggerated a nod, and left the room. Su called him back; she was half through the bathroom door. “It wasn’t an easy decision, Ellis, pulling her aboard. It’s only temporary.” He believed her, and appreciated the gesture. All the same, temporary was going to be tricky. In a break to the established routine, Ellis went foodshopping by himself, which he disliked. Fee was shown the new kitchen and utilities area, a sizeable add-on in keeping with the character of the gentrified old farm house, a project of extension which had been no further than the doodle stage when Fee had left. The women spent the afternoon in Fee’s old bedroom, an arrangement which Ellis considered a little unusual since there were more comfortable places in the house to talk, and arguably unnecessary. Su later called it a debriefing session – no, not that kind of debriefing. Sunday pub lunch was cancelled: they couldn’t take Fee with them and Su wouldn’t leave her by herself. Another late rise for Fee, more closet debriefing in the afternoon. In the evening, Ellis was invited to sit in on a ‘where to from here?’ discussion, Su naturally taking the chair. “Let’s not confuse moving about for going somewhere.” Fee had recovered a little of the once familiar Fee. “I know where I want to go,” she said. “I was speaking figuratively,” returned Su, deliberately patronising in tone. “You’re not going anywhere till the dust has settled. You’re not even here – comprenez?” “Yes,” from Fee, momentarily adolescent. “I don’t want Ellis opening the door to thugs and hit men – I shudder to think what he’d do to them.” – 166 –

A grin from Ellis, who then turned serious. “Or the police. This village…” “What am I going to do all day?” asked Fee. The thought had already been exercised by Ellis, who’d intended to throw it to Su later. “You’re going to get the guy upstairs to re-engage,” Su growled. “I’d like to hear from Him.” It would have sounded funny, the plaintive wish from Fee, had it not been said with genuine emotion. It did sound funny. “Like Joan of Arc? Didn’t do much for her, if I recall.” Su’s remark was pointedly ignored by Fee, although Su hardly noticed. She was, like Ellis, thinking. The discussion ended with Su declaring that, by Friday close of play, there will be – for which read ‘going to happen’ – a non-deferrable, everyone-present-with-brains-in-gear, answers-only plan. ***** Fee lay on the bed which had once been hers, now a spare room bed, a single guest bed for a single guest, which brought her back to herself. The Lord was punishing her by denying sleep. By her side, the lamp saved her from the darkness and devils. Her father entered her head. Fee-Fee, the apple of his eye. Fee-fi-fo-fum. What of her father: Selwyn Kemp-Davies, MBE. Prisoner number dah-dah-dah, RIP? What shall Fiona speak? Love, and be silent. Goodbye, Pops. Adore you, but don’t want you lurking around. Bad influence. Am I the daughter to be proud of? You’d be proud of me. Survivor, I am. It’s still goodbye. The Lord will look out for me. The Lord is good. – 167 –

Trouble without balls. Well, that’s a stroke of luck, actually. When you have balls, people have somewhere to kick. No balls, but plenty of pluck, and not just because it rhymes with fuck. Better than pluck – spirit. Kemp-Davies spirit. And divinity. Cade divinity. So what does the Shepherdess have for you? Her brain was bathed with magnificent clarity, the purest intellect, the totallest recall. Was there nothing she didn’t know? She could recite from the entire sacred scriptures if she wanted: from any selected one of the twenty-seven, and the thirty-nine that precede the twenty-seven. If she wanted. She could describe the product range, if the customer asks. Go on, tell the customer. The customer is always right. Amphetamines, phets, speed, whiz, billy, baby milk, talcum powder, paracetamol – the last three make impure. Not company policy to cut – ‘the only thing we cut is the price’. They believe it, they believe the Shepherdess. Strong stimulant, snorted, smoked, swallowed, dissolved to shoot up; excites the central nervous system; ideal for the gregarious. Ruins appetite, of course. Doesn’t do much for the concentration, either, but who wants to concentrate? On what? Possibility of short-term memory loss, so not all bad news. Cannabis. Marijuana, spliff, weed, skunk, blow, puff – ooh, get you! Comes as leaves, stalks, resin, seeds, sticky; popularly smoked as a joint. The company prefers medicinal requests, though order northern lights and you get to see the northern lights. Harmless except for the harm it does. Three, four, Methylene-dioxy-methamphetamine. That’s if you’ve a special talent for remembering names of chemical compounds because you went to a really expensive school where they did chemistry for girls; ecstasy if you don’t and – 168 –

you didn’t. E, doves, echoes, burgers, or Bruce if three syllables are a struggle. Disco biscuits release seratonin and you love the whole world. Maybe you’ll dance till dawn and dehydration. MDMA is Class A, but nobody cares. Cocaine is big boys’ (and big girls’) stuff. Charlie, C, coke, snow, toot. Snort a line and you’ll feel fine. Inject for instant high. Try our rock – it’s a crack performer. Anxious? Paranoid? Can’t sleep? That’s what happens to big boys and girls. Oh, and watch out for the nose bleeds. Heroine, my hero. That’s Jack, rhymes with smack, and Henry, too. Kills pain stone dead. Requires cutting since purity can kill the customer – not good policy, healthwise or businesswise. Very addictive therefore excellent for the company. Also pricey, but what else would you want to spend your money on? Lysergic Acid Di-e-thylamine is for that long trip into a parallel universe. LSD, acid, dots, Batman, Bart Simpson, the pictures change all the time. Not on the company list, actually – reason not known. Something to do with production rights. Doesn’t matter. Temazepam – now there’s a grey area, surely. Notice how often it’s spelt wrong, given an ‘n’ to end with. Actually Benzo-diazepine, a Benny – or Bennie if you have to; let’s stay with Temazzy; but not Pam because girls’ names are so not cool. Can make you invincible for a while, and promiscuous, and exaggerated. Or angry and aggressive. Special K for breakfast. Ketamine, an even greyer area. Takes you through the K-hole and out of yourself. No pain, no strain, especially when it paralyses. As used by vets, for lucky cats and dogs and horses and moo cows. Not a good mixer so all the more reason to mix it. – 169 –

Why are you talking like this? You don’t talk like this, it’s not your style. You’re not talking, you’re thinking. All right, then, why are you thinking like this? It’s not your thinking. It’s not you doing the thinking, it’s someone else in your head. Somebody’s taken over your brain. Not your father, lying there on the cold stone floor of a miserable cell, never to get up. Not your mentor, so successful he tried to fly but came tumbling down like he’d fallen from the Alpine balcony into the stunning view below. Not your clever semi-famous lover, screwing you in the flesh whilst screwing you for the truth you hold. Not Su, horrible cruel wonderful resilient Su, who’ll get you out of this poo pit because she can and she wants to. Surely not Ellis. None of these, but all. Qui sont toutes ces autres? Pourquoi sont-ils ici? They together, crammed into your head, all talking at once, making you think as a multi-person, inserting their vocabulary and their accents and stress patterns into your words, words only you can hear. You and the Lord. The Lord speaks to you except when you are not deserving to receive. But the Lord’s voice is not among those pervading the tissues of your brain. The Lord’s voice is always distinct, clear, precise, perfect. The Lord does not attempt to think for you, like these others; He charges you to think for yourself, and judges you accordingly. That’s how it should be, surely. You choose between good and evil, and the Lord lets you. It is the only way you have of knowing what sort of person you are. How do you recognise good from evil? How do you know, if there is no prescription, no handy wallchart of rules which quickly to refer? The two boys at the bottom of the tower block stairwell, boys hardly youths, totally out of it like their heads had imploded, their young lives already fucked up from the gear you peddle; the two boys you happened across on your way to see one of your flock and the lifts were out of order; the boys weren’t in your flock; they didn’t know you; they were incapable of knowing anyone, actually; you could – 170 –

walk past and away; you did walk past and away; you could dismiss them as totally unconnected with you; as society dismisses and disconnects them; but there they are slap in the middle of your delivery patch; and Lance believes in hooking ’em young; Lance who’ll say a prayer for them; Lance doing them a favour by introducing them to a fantastic alternative to the grindingly totally hopeless shit-existence at the bottom of the stairwell and the fetid social heap. It’s not down to you to fuck up their lives – that’s already done. You’re the deliverer of deliverance. You do good. All the Mrs Adamsons for whom your visits bring such relief. Who else can do that? Go on – answer! There is no answer, not to that question, and it’s not the totally useless NHS. There is only good in what you do; the Lord shows you a way to help when the rest out there, in their surgeries and clinics and hospitals, simply shrug their shoulders at the outpatient pain – when they can be arsed, that is. How do you know good from evil? Easy-peasy – the Lord punishes those who choose evil. He does not save your life, bring you back from the dead; He does not buy you a Mercedes-Benz; He does not guide you to a haven of safety when those who wish only to skin you are in pursuit. He does not do these things for someone who is evil, He does it only for someone willing to listen to His word and follow His wise advice. The Lord watches over those who choose good. I have chosen good, oh Lord. And I thank you for your forbearance. I know you will not abandon me in my hour of need. Please also help those who help me – they too are good, inside. The Bible says absolutely nothing about marijuana. Not a mention of MDMA, meth, magic mushrooms, nor about substances not beginning with M. No actor in either Testament smokes, snorts, or shoots up, for good or for bad. During a faith-discussion – yes – on the use of drugs, a faith-student had challenged Dominic, with references to Paul’s letter to the Romans and his letter to Titus and Peter’s – 171 –

letter to the displaced of Asia Minor, that it was a duty to respect and obey the laws of the land. Let every person be subject to the authorities. He who resists the authorities resists what the Lord has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgement. Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution.

Dominic’s reply was simple and calm. ‘We must obey the Lord rather than man.’ Acts of the Apostles, of course. Dominic went on to say that the laws of men are ephemeral and sometimes ill-conceived whereas the law of the Lord is constant, eternal, and forever just. ‘No man can serve two masters,’ which is from Matthew and which is repeated for good measure in Luke. The faith-student, a chubby swarthy young fellow who never looked freshly shaved, was not satisfied. Dominic asked him if he drank wine, or beer, a question to which both knew the answer: yes, he did. ‘Is it not wrong to do so?’ Dominic posed. ‘No’, came the defiant reply. ‘Not in moderation. Everyone does it.’ Dominic pointed out that in Saudi Arabia, as an example, the young faith-student would find himself on the wrong side of the law for such an action – possibly for the admission alone – and be punished. ‘I’m not a Muslim,’ the young man retorted, glancing round the room for signs of support and finding none. ‘Nonetheless, you would be breaking the law of the land,’ breathed Dominic with one of his smiles. Man-made laws, you see, are mere local whims in the eyes of the Lord. The only laws that matter are the laws of the Lord. The Bible does not condemn the consumption of alcohol. Indeed, what is it that Jesus turned water into? Evidence suggests that Jesus was rather fond of the grape. There’s lots of wine sploshing about the OT, too. The Lord isn’t teetotal. And the Bible says absolutely nothing about drugs. Nothing, nothing, nothing. You heard – nothing! – 172 –

A tap at the door of the bedroom halted the commentary and paraphrased exchanges. “Everything under control in there?” It was Su, muffled by the door, but when Su opened the door and entered she was not muffled. “Only, some of us need sleep around here. As in, it’s work tomorrow and an early start. For some of us.” Fee hurriedly shuffled under the covers: she’d discovered she was naked. Su jerked her head to signify a glimpse of the nakedness, and spoke again. “Sounds like you’re holding a party in here. Nobody hiding in the wardrobe, is there?” Su, fully dressed, looked very big, somehow out of scale for the room, and menacing. Fee replied. “I was having a dream. Was I making a noise?” Big bad Su gave an affirmative widening of the eyes. “There’s nothing like a dream with a soundtrack. Nothing like a finger up to go with it.” “I wasn’t…” started Fee. To herself: don’t go there. “See you tomorrow. Don’t wear it out.” Su retreated, like a balloon deflating, and was suddenly no longer in the room. The door was closed. The door opened. Her father entered wearing his customary smile of optimism though it was unable to cloak the sadness he felt – for himself, for both of them. “Just you and me, now.” The word had become phrase of the week since the funeral. “We’ll win through.” Her mother’s tragic self-arranged death from pills washed down with lashings of her much-loved gin was a pause in the programme – an unexpected though not surprising event when viewed in retrospect, years later – but it was only a pause. A temporary brief sorrow, surely genuine, though quickly overcome. Actually, Fee had trouble visualising her mother. Not her father. He sat by her. “Remember the good times we had?” he asked. “The places – 173 –

we went?” “Yes, of course I do. How can a girl forget? It was wonderful growing-up, Pops. Thank you for those times.” How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is To have a thankless child “Bright as a button, you were. The school loved you.” “I know.” He reached out and took hold of her hand. She supplied the continuation of his topic thread. “Expensive, wasn’t it? My education was so expensive.” So expensive, Pops had to cheat to pay her way. “It was a good investment, Pops. I’m a clever girl when I want to be. People see me as silly – some people. ‘Eternal teenager’ I’ve been called. Trapped in the good times you won for me, Pops. I’m not silly. I’m a lot cleverer than how they regard me. I’m doing well, Pops. You’ll be proud of me, you see.” Pops smiled, an optimistic gesture, but he remained sad underneath. The cheating, you see, proved too easy. Cheating for a noble purpose advanced into cheating as a business strategy; cheating as a mission, sort of. Her hand now gripped his. “I understand, Pops. Honestly. It’s in the Second Letter of Peter. If only you’d had the Lord to guide you. The Lord…” Her hands were free and stroking her breasts under the duvet. A flash of recall. “Do you remember that summer in St. Tropez?” she smiled, eyes closed. “We went into that mini-market down by the beach. And you turned around in the little queue at the checkout, and there was this girl standing right behind you, completely topless. Your face…” The memory lingered as a smile after a short laugh. She – 174 –

opened her eyes and looked to her side. Her father had gone. Fee whispered after him. “Goodbye, Pops. See you next time in Heaven.” My Lord, my Lord, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from hearing my groan? I call all day, my Lord, but you answer me not. And by night, but I find no rest.

Fee did find rest, in sleep. Whilst in sleep, her lamentation, borrowed from the Psalm of David, which is numbered twenty-two, was answered. The Lord spoke to Fee. However, such is the nature of the dreaming state that the words of the Lord were hardly retained, and no vision element was stored – if indeed there had been one. Perhaps it wasn’t a dream: perhaps it was a change deep within the brain brought on by a re-routing of electrical charges between cells of the organ, and by chemical changes within the cells themselves. Fee, awakened in the middle of the night by a need for the toilet, wasn’t in the mood for neurological technicalities. The Lord had spoken to her, sternly but forgivingly. The Lord was back. In the bathroom – the one for guests, along the corridor – she wretched and nearly choked. Crouched by the side of the toilet, clutching the rim, she waited, not sure for what. Eventually, she washed her hands thoroughly and rinsed out her mouth at the hand basin while trying to avoid the mess in the mirror. She had thrown on her dressing gown for the journey to the bathroom, though had not pulled its ties together. This she did before leaving the bathroom. The only sound was the slow knowing tick of the grandfather clock, one of Su’s antique must-haves, on the half-landing. At the end of the corridor rose a flight of step-ladder-like stairs leading to a professionally added room in the roof space: Su’s den, her special place. Feeling substantially recovered from the attack of nausea, and confident once – 175 –

more under the gaze of the Lord, and not the least bit tired, Fee climbed the stairs. There was a door to the den which, in the past, had normally been kept locked to ensure the room’s privacy from painters and decorators and the not infrequent deliverers of furniture who might find themselves alone and curious on the upper floor of the house – as Fee currently was. This night the door was closed, but not locked. Fee crept in and switched on the light. The den was as untidy as she remembered it. It had become, partly, another store room for Su’s incurable impulse purchasing. Standing barefoot on the rug, Fee felt no desire to touch the papers on the desk, or open drawers or turn on the computer, or anything like that. Actually, she couldn’t say why she had wanted to try the den door, except perhaps it being another caserne moment. She turned to go. To one side was the big bookcase almost filling one wall; most of the shelves were filled with vertically stacked books and files on which more books and files rested horizontally, and by various items ranging from redundant computer hardware to pieces of perceived or maybe genuine objet d’art. And she saw the figurine was still in place. Fee went over to it and picked it up. She held it high, then at chest level, then before her face as if to study it. The representation was of a younger Fee, modelled from a photograph in which she wore a bathing costume, and a cardigan dropping down her back, this denied the fall of gravity by elbows. A summer’s evening in the garden, sun going down and no clouds to trap the heat of the day, had been the setting for the pose. The figurine had been Su’s idea, a generous birthday present to Fee which Su had never properly handed over but instead had put on display in her den. Pewter on a resin base, the little statuette was dusty and a little darkened by a patina. The off-the-shoulders cardigan gave the impression of wings; on its removal from the packing material, it had immediately been dubbed ‘the Angel Fee’. – 176 –

She replaced the figurine on the shelf, taking care to align the base with the pristine circle in the layer of dust. The Lord was manifesting His return to her – it had to be so, there was no other explanation. First the speaking dream, then the door to the den not locked, and finally the rediscovery of the Angel Fee. Back in her bed, she fell asleep. If the night produced any further experiences, they were lost before she awoke.

– 177 –

8 Monday morning. Su in office mode, joining the early-bird commuters. Ellis in domestic mode for the morning before settling at his desk in the downstairs study to research and to write. Fee in bed till late morning, appearing in dressing gown and yawning a lot. Ellis settling but not settled. When working, his rule was silence, but in the afternoon Fee switched on the lounge television: the muted volume and her very presence irritated him. A little later, he made a vocal admission to his keyboard. “This isn’t going to work.” He prepared a hot drink, and Fee one too, and with biscuits carried them on a tray through to the lounge. “I’m having a cuppa and I thought you’d like one.” “Thank you.” She took the nearer mug and he continued with the tray to place it on a side table next to his chair, which he eased himself into. “Su tells me you would like to go to America.” “That’s right. I would.” “To do what?” “Open a mission.” “Ambitious.” “Join a mission, actually. At first.” “Well, there’s plenty of those.” Fee’s attention drifted back to the wide screen and a repeat of Colombo. Ellis struggled with annoyance. “America baffled De Tocqueville.” “Who?” “Alexis De Tocqueville. He was puzzled by the allpervading religiosity he found there.” – 178 –

Repeated Colombo was more interesting. Ellis tried again. “Some say religion will be the downfall of the American empire.” With what may have been a scowl, Fee muted the television audio and sat up. “Who say?” “It’s not the who that’s important, it’s what they say, I would have thought. The United States as a nation is as caught up in religion as it was a hundred and fifty years, two hundred ago, and perhaps that’s understating the position. Americans can be cranks to begin with – religious cranks are even more alarming.” Pout from Fee: a bit of the old familiar Fee was back. “America’s a great country.” “Have you been?” “Have you?” No, he hadn’t. Nor had he a particular desire to go. “America’s only a great country if you’re a compulsive flag waving, narrow minded, isolationist, bigoted, god-besotted Amurrican.” Fee drank from her mug. With rapid movement, she dabbed the remote control. The dated episode disappeared. If Ellis wanted a debate, he could have one. “The Lord favours America.” “The Americans certainly believe so. Some of them would like to think he invented America, just for them.” “No, He does, actually. Why is it, then, that America is so rich and powerful? Why is it they are blessed with so much?” Ellis sat forward with mug in his hand, like Fee on the sofa. “There’s an entertaining thought. In Gaza, say, they have nothing but woe. They are poor and they are politically impotent. Is it because Allah disfavours them? Is that how it works? Is Allah a dud, do you think?” “You can’t compare America with Gaza. That’s silly. They’re different in every way, surely.” He sat back. – 179 –

“You’re absolutely right. Afghanistan, then. Or Darfur, or the Congo. Poor deal from God. With reference to your model, does God despise the people in those places? – I was going to say god-forsaken places but I suppose that’s exactly what they are.” Some colour had entered Fee’s face, the first Ellis had seen since her arrival; she looked better for it. “It’s not what I mean. They’re war zones. America isn’t a war zone.” “America is at war. It’s at war with anywhere that isn’t America. It’s at war with any country that worships an alternative version of God. War is how Americans learn geography. Though they don’t always call it war. Bush sent his mighty men on a crusade – his word. The crusades were excuses for massacres and every evil that God tells us not to practise.” “Bush was a nutter.” “A nutter elected by the majority of Americans. Twice.” The mug was finished with. Fee supported her body by her arms, palms spread across the seat cushions. “Why are you so against Americans? Surely that makes you narrow minded and bigoted.” “I’m not against Americans. They can be wonderful as individuals, but they’re terrifying as a nation. When it comes to foreign policy, they confuse ‘democratise’ with ‘placing under American influence’. I return to my original point: religion will bring America’s downfall. All that creationist drivel.” Ellis half raised a hand . “Sorry – are you a creationist, Fee?” There was a tone of levity to his question. Fee took a moment to find the riposte. “Do you believe in the Big Bang drivel?” “Is the Big Bang drivel? The theory is arrived at by sound reasoning, if you’ll pardon the pun.” She was up from the sofa, arms from her sides as if imploring. – 180 –

“What – all the contents of the total universe squeezed into a single atom – smaller than an atom? You believe that?” “The cosmologists have no problem with it.” “And theologians have no problem with Genesis.” Sitting again, she continued, softer but determined to appear no less resolute. “Neither do I.” A short silence ensued, while Ellis sucked his upper lip. “Staying with the cosmos, what about this? Space telescopes are able to detect objects – quasars – from which light has taken ten billion years to get here. These quasars were God’s embellishment ten thousand million years ago. That’s quite some time before the first line of the Old Testament which, if the diligence of Archbishop Ussher is respected and accepted, has a date of 4004BC – a mere six thousand years ago, just over.” A shuffle on the sofa. “Genesis deals with our bit of the universe. Quasars weren’t discovered when Genesis was written.” “The scribes got it wrong?” “They recorded what the Lord told them to. No point in adding info that could be of no use to anyone.” “Need to know.” A loud exhalation from the sofa. “Yes. Why not? The Lord has wisdom.” “So – the creationalists are proved wrong.” “As I said, the Creation applies to our local universe. The creationalists don’t – may not – have it wrong. Surely it’s a question of scale. ‘With the Lord one day is as a thousand years.’” Ellis smiled. “How would you reconcile finds of dinosaur skeletons? They’re not something to be swept so easily under the creationalist carpet. Do you think there could there be a factory somewhere, churning out fake bones by the truckload and sending sneaky employees under the cover of night to – 181 –

bury the bones, not too hidden mind, in —?” “Don’t be ridiculous.” Fee was flushed She felt flushed. She didn’t care. she went on. “‘There were giants in the earth in those days.’ It’s spelt out in Genesis.” “Genesis isn’t talking about dinosaurs. The giants of Genesis are big men and presumably big women.” A hand motion from Fee, like a wave, intended as a signal of correction. “Nn-nn. A matter of translating too hard. Giants are giants – dinosaur bones are bones of giants. It’s an old argument, Ellis. I’ve been here before.” Ellis pursued his humorous thread. “The church used to have us believe fossils were the skeletons of animals that Noah didn’t have room for on his ark. Imagine two Tyrannosaurus Rex cooped up on deck with a couple of full-size Apatosaurus and a pair of horny Stegosaurus, for a hundred-and-fifty days, too.” “That’s silly.” “Yes, I know it’s silly. Perhaps the whole tale lends itself to silliness” The sofa retaliated. “The ‘tale’ is taken out of context. Noah took mainly animals and fowl he would need for a new start after the flood.” “Leaving the dinosaurs behind.” No response. Ellis rolled on. “If I recall, Noah is reported to have been five hundred years old when he ‘begot’ his sons.” The sofa stared, tight lipped. “It must have been something in the wine. Noah liked his wine. In Genesis, if I understand it, he allows himself to become inebriated on one occasion.” “Where is this going?” “All right. He has too much to drink and falls asleep naked – 182 –

in the tent. When his sons enter, one of them covers him, out of propriety. Noah comes round, acts angrily because his sons have seen him in a state, and – following the quaint tradition of justice which prevailed at the time – curses the son of the son who dared cover him. The unfortunate grandchild happens to be dark-skinned. He is cast into slavery as a punishment. Now, fast forward several millennia, to the establishment of the Americas. Among god-fearing Christians, black is equated with bad, and Noah’s curse is used for justifying slavery.” “I don’t see what —” “Your favoured America plunged enthusiastically into slavery. White Christians went to the Bible in search of a passage which would make the evil slave trade appear fine in the eyes of decent upright citizens. Hallelujah!” Vigorous head shaking from the sofa. “That was the Deep South. They lost. Surely the Lord punished them for what they had done.” “A bit late arriving at the scene, wasn’t he? One could be forgiven for thinking the Lord might possess a nasty streak of racism.” “He isn’t a racist. All men are equal in the sight of the Lord.” “It doesn’t actually say that in the Bible.” “The Americans say it.” Ellis turned to look out of the window. “Do they?” When he returned his attention to the room, Fee was standing once more. “Anyway, I’m tired. I’m going to my room. Excuse me.” Alone, Ellis made a sucking noise. That had been annoyance turned enjoyment. In the last few minutes, Fee and he had talked together more than they had the whole period when she was resident in the house. What was more, they’d discussed something together without Su playing the touchy referee. It had been an intellectually lightweight exchange – – 183 –

little more than an implicit mutually agreed banter. Fee, though, had stood her ground, defending her religion if not – he suspected – taking its teachings too literally. He could be sure that Fee was no more a creationalist than he, but she was prepared to defend her god against any assault. She had referred to the Big Bang as drivel, tossing the derogatory term back at him, and he had jumped in on the side of the cosmologists who proposed and promoted the theory; yet, in truth, he had never been comfortable with Big Bang – there had to be a better explanation for the universe. Touché, girl. Tuesday’s afternoon followed a similar pattern to Monday’s. They both wanted it to, though neither would have agreed with that suggestion, perhaps not even each to themselves. It was as if two people, after having shared an awkward first date, knew this time they would see dawn together but nonetheless were observing the proto-lovers’ ritual – the initial display of polite indifference, the rebuff, the disclosures of intimacy. “Want a cuppa?” “No thanks.” Fee was watching a crass game show on the wide screen. Then: “All right. Seeing as you’re having one.” The television was shut down in stages. First the sound turned lower; next, the sound off; finally – after a delay – the picture gone, too. Some small talk to begin with, no reference to the previous day’s conversation. The small talk was intermittent because Ellis and Fee didn’t do small talk; that is to say, in the past they had never done small talk, just terse essential sentences. Then: “Ellis, could I borrow your car? I must see some of my members. They’ll be wondering what’s become of me.” “They already know – you’ve disappeared.” “Could I? It would be only for a couple of hours. It’s really important.” A furrowing of the brow to highlight the – 184 –

importance. “I thought you were keeping your head down. I meant to ask, what happened to your car? Mercedes, wasn’t it? Very nice.” “I had a —” Fee stopped herself from repeating the crash story. “It was a pool car, actually. It belonged to the centre.” “In keeping with the tenets of the faith.” Remark ignored. Ellis continued. “I must refuse your request. Take it up with Su, this evening. Some things haven’t changed, Fee. Going against a Su edict is definitely one of them. You wouldn’t expect me to act otherwise, would you now?” Fee shrugged her shoulders. They were sitting exactly as the afternoon before. A further question from Ellis, adopting a more sympathetic tone though he immediately realised that it might only serve to raise hopes of a change of mind. “Which members is it so important to see?” “It doesn’t matter.” He was going to leave it but, yes, her hopes were raised. “Some people in pain, actually. They welcome my visits. They look forward to my – they depend on me, as a matter of fact. They’ll be wondering why I haven’t called on them.” “Home visits, you mean?” “Faith Awareness, meeting this week,” she half answered. “Couldn’t you ring wherever? Say you’re indisposed. It would have the impress of truth.” “It doesn’t matter,” she repeated. “Maybe if —” “I’ll ask Su, this evening.” Subject closed? Not quite. “You’re right, Ellis. I’m sorry if you were put on the spot. I didn’t mean to…” “I’m accustomed to being put on the spot. I live with Su.” He said this lightly, ending it with a gasp-laugh. He didn’t want Fee to go. Also, it may have been the first ever instance of a straight apology to him from Fee. – 185 –

A short silence was broken from the sofa. “Do you still read Craig Mains?” “Yes, I do, as it happens. Andrea Mains insists on sending complementary copies, to Su.” He was on uncertain ground with the subject of Craig Mains as far as his present company was concerned. Only recently, Su had passed on grapevine gossip, the telling of which contained the unmistakable timbre of internal rage. “What do you think of his writing?” Fee asked, neutrally. ‘What do you think of him?’ would have been rather an awkward question to answer. ‘His writing’ was an invitation almost impossible to resist. “Style or content?” “Both.” “His latest book?” “Well, all right.” “I haven’t had chance to read it through. I’ve read others, of course, so I think I have a route map.” “You’re not a fan of his exactly, are you?” Fee made herself more comfortable while Ellis composed his reply. “Mains is more convincing when he’s not posturing. I mean that in a literary sense rather than his exercising celebrity status, though that as well. He strikes a chord when he says religion had a place in human activity before ideas and experiences were written down. Oral transmission of specific guidance and information has severe limitations of poor spread – only so many ears for each voice; and distortion between nodes of communication – people speaking different dialects and people of different generations. Writing and reading represent the beginning of accountable reason, the beginning of history, just as the invention of printing marks the beginning of public history. Mains says the written word should have pulled the plug on religion, since the passing down of oral rules and traditions, down and down till the original circumstances for the introduction of the rules were – 186 –

forgotten or mythicised, could be replaced by a record of the original circumstances for later generations to scrutinise. He’s assuming religion as a code of instruction, which is generally right – I’ll go along with that. It’s also safe to say that recordability is crucial to the development of rational culture because ideas can be built upon and developed. No one individual need know everything, or try to remember everything, because there’s a separate record to be accessed whenever required. And the course of the development of an idea can be traced – that’s important, too.” Pause for a thought refill. “I agree with him about the fears that must have been felt among the ruling elite when the written word was introduced, and the horror they must have attached to the printed word. The high priests tried to retain the written medium as their own for as long as they could – an example of religion slowing progress. In our own society, documents of control were composed in Latin for only the purposely educated class to understand. When William Tyndale published the Bible in the language of the land, he was condemned as a heretic. But I’m drifting off topic. I’d just add that the way to maintain elite-only access to the recorded word is to prevent the masses from being able to read the recorded word. Illiteracy among the common people is a leader’s instrument. Still valid – that’s why our state schools are so bloody awful. Getting back to Mains, he concludes his initial attack – if I remember correctly – by declaring that to continue with religion after the introduction of recorded transfer is to reveal an altogether less worthy agenda.” Ellis glanced across at Fee and saw she was listening. “I must admit he loses me when he describes science as an offshoot of religion, a type of religion. I don’t quite follow him. I might, if he led, but he doesn’t take it very far.” Fee brought up her legs, hands grasping knees, and rested bare feet removed of slippers on sofa before replying. “He contradicts himself a lot. Science is the ‘antidote to – 187 –

religion’ in another book.” “Yes, he does trip himself up sometimes. I seem to recall his blaming science for the overextended stay of religion: science is failing to come up with the answers to fundamental questions such as ‘what is life’. The voids continue to be filled by religious hyper-imagination. Of course, his work is compilation as much as it is genuine contribution. Often, when I’m reading Mains I have the impression I’ve read it elsewhere. All right, he does accredit, and his referencing is on the whole comprehensive. But – I don’t know – there’s synthesis.” “What do you mean?” “Well, he’s skilled at extracting from other sources and inflating an idea or observation to process and insert in his text along with other borrowed and inflated ideas. The finished product is then served up as entirely his own.” Defence from Fee. “But he does have a lot of his own ideas, surely.” “Indeed, he does. He’s absolutely original half the time. It’s the other half.” “‘Half substance, half bullshit, all right wing cant,’ you once called him – his books, at least.” “Did I?” They shared the moment with smiles. Another first. Her knees to her chin, hands clutching shins, Fee looked the perfect attentive student. “You did. He’s not right wing, actually. It’s a show. It’s to annoy lefties into reading his books so they can fume. It’s to tickle the pleasure zones of righties so they’ll buy his books, for the orgasm.” “Are those his words?” Ellis felt he’d overstepped the mark, and held his breath, but it was a different trigger pulled. In a calm voice, Fee opened up with proud candour. “I know Craig Mains rather well, as a matter of fact. It’s no secret – I had an affair with him. Su will have told you, – 188 –

anyway. We had more going that sex – we talked. We discussed his writing.” Without checking the reaction across the lounge, she went on. “Half substance, half bullshit, too much kowtowing to the publishers. That’s the Craig Mains I know. If he were allowed to be himself, he might be worth reading.” Curiosity chewed Ellis. “You were – close?” Half question, half statement, a lot of unexplainable excitement. Fee had unwound her body, and was perched on the lip of the sofa cushion, as if to be nearer her audience. “Yep. Fun while it lasted. Till Andrea caught us at it. Recreational hazard, I guess. Deflowered by none other than Craig Mains. One for Fiona’s CV.” A straight-backed Ellis suffered temporary trouble with words. Fee affected a tone of patient explanation. “By a man.” “I see.” “Do you, Ellis? I don’t think you do.” She left the sofa and suddenly was kneeling at his side, like a daughter begging to have a puppy. “Can I borrow your car, Ellis?” No reply. “I’ll tell you secrets about your second favourite writer that nobody knows, including his stuck-up wife.” “Who’s my first favourite writer?” “You are your first favourite writer. Well done, you. I like your book.” “Have you read it?” There were copies around the house. “It’s good.” He could not recall a time when his face and Fee’s, his lips and hers, had been in such close proximity, a small neck adjustment away from kissing. Yet neither could he recall a time when, being this close to a woman in her sexual prime, he felt less inclined to kiss. – 189 –

“The answer has still to be a no, Fee. You said you were going to ask Su.” On her feet, Fee kicked them into the slippers in front of the sofa, and pouted like only Fee knew how. “She’ll be a no, no, no. I was asking you. I forgot – you’re so under her thumb it must hurt.” “Well, ask her anyway.” Whether there might have been a potential element of accommodation in his words, along the lines of ‘ask Su and if she refuses then ask me again tomorrow’, Fee did not wait to explore. She was gone. That night, in the bedroom, Su propped up in bed against a pillow, tapping jerkily at her laptop, and Ellis in his own bed holding the latest Mains book, he told her about the afternoon, in summary form, and the repeated appeal for the short loan of his car. “Coming on strong, was she?” was Su’s response, peering over her large tinted spectacles, movie-star fashion. “She’s a leg opener, that one. Are the two of you safe to be left together?” “I couldn’t if I wanted to,” replied Ellis, truthfully. Wednesday was given no opportunity to mimic Tuesday or Monday. Su, out of the house earlier than her usual early, was back in it, unexpectedly, at lunchtime. She brought with her a stack of folders, spilling the unstable load on to the kitchen table. “Fee?” she shouted to Fee in the lounge watching television, her loud call making a lunch-munching Ellis start. “Here.” Fee entered; Su pointed. “Homework.” Some of the folders contained expense claims submitted by staff at CA Central. “You know what to do with these. Process makes perfect. And these.” Petty cash receipts. – 190 –

“I’ve forgotten,” whispered Fee, pushing towards moan as far as she dare. “Then take a moment to remember. Okay? Moment over.” “But —” “It’s called ‘earning your keep’, sweetie. Your chance to make it to the top of the backlog.” Quieter: “And if you do a good job, after tea I’ll take you see your old dears.” Before Fee could respond, if indeed there was anything to respond to, Su was out the door. That afternoon, Fee begun the clerical task and, later, Su was true to her word. The evening meal over, the two set off for the city. Fee had brought a carrier bag. “Just some bits and bobs,” she smiled uncertainly from the passenger seat of Su’s Lexus. Su grinned, a totally false exaggerated contortion. “Fee, I know what you do, yeh? You told me.” She locked the door to her room and slipped out of her bathrobe. Having showered to wash away the miasmic traces of the estate, she was clean and good, naked and pure. Exhaustion had threatened to overcome her – she’d nodded off in the car on the journey back – but there are ways to postpone collapse. She felt good. Thank you, Lord. Thank you for your mercy. And your protection. Thank you for your understanding. Continue to guide me, Lord, for I am your faithful servant. Give me the strength, give me the strength. The following day, Thursday, she slept in, as she had done every morning since her arrival. She hadn’t meant to on any of the days – early rising, like cleanliness, is next to Godliness – but this day there was no feel good, more like yuk! Downstairs in her housecoat, successfully avoiding Ellis, a strong coffee, a bowl of sugary cereals at the kitchen breakfast bar; upstairs to throw some clothes on; downstairs – 191 –

again at the period bureau in its alcove off the hall to get on with Su’s rotten receipts, waiting for rescue by Ellis. From the time of her previous term of residence, Ellis had changed. He was Ellis, though not Ellis. Actually, it was she who had changed. Surely they’d both changed. There was now a dab of contact where before an unbridgeable gap. She had overheard him tell Su that Fee had grown up, Fee had become someone Ellis could hold a sensible conversation with. Yes, Ellis, I can hold a sensible conversation. Like right now. Ellis passed, on the way from the study to the kitchen. His smile froze. “Are you feeling all right, Fee?” “Yes. Why do you ask?” “You’re – well – pallid.” “I’m a little tired, to be honest. Out of practice with office grind.” “Shall I make us a drink?” Something to eat?” “That would be nice.” “I’ll catch up with you in the lounge, if you like.” They were in their ‘sensible conversation’ positions. Again Ellis remarked, sympathetically, on her drained appearance. He didn’t mention the bloodshot eyes – the mirror had brought that effect to her notice; or her cracked lips, disguised by a smearing of petroleum jelly. Fee set the ball rolling. “What is it you’re working on at the moment, Ellis? Or is it top secret?” Her words made him smile. “Nothing I write about is top secret. I could bawl it through a loud hailer from the roof and it would be safe. People comfortable in a society have no desire to know how the society functions. They have no wish to learn what an insignificant part they play within the grand scale, or to become aware of how little influence they have. They certainly have no desire to learn how manipulated they are.” – 192 –

“Except you.” A short laugh. “And a few others. Craig Mains – dare I mention the name? – has scratched the surface. I have to give him that. However, his angle is very different from mine, of course. My approach is sociological, and Craig is no sociologist.” “You don’t think?” A shake of the head. Fee, after a moment of hesitation, went on. “What you just said – it sounded like him. Not the words, the way they came out. You and him sound quite alike sometimes – I’ve noticed.” Ellis did not take obvious offence. “In a way, I suppose Mains provides a complement to the sociological approach. He does say something about manipulation, that’s true. He has a go at with class but doesn’t fully understand it.” “Do you?” Kinder: “Does anyone?” “Marx was almost there. Add the various interpretations and other valuable contributions, and it’s just about all there, if untidy. Marx of course didn’t complete his study. I think towards the end he became a bit confused by events.” “Are you – do you see your book as an interpretation or a contribution?” He looked across to her; he sitting back in his easy chair; she high on the sofa, legs folded under her – like she used to repose with Su. “A bit of both. I don’t so much interpret Marx – I do the honours but I don’t fall at his feet – instead, I interpret my own observations. And I contribute, though often to observations made by others.” Fee closed her eyes. She was in another world, listening to Ellis. Craig without the come on. Her imagination failed to supply a scenario in which Ellis was doing anything remotely like sex. Way back, Su would sometimes make a video of Su and her on the bed together. Where were the tapes or discs? – 193 –

How many existed? Did Su let Ellis watch them? Was that his sex? “How much of my book have you read, if much is the word?” asked Ellis, puncturing her wandering. “I’ve dipped. That’s how I read a book, actually. Not very systematic.” “It’s a dip-into kind of book. Textbooks often are. Too heavy going, cover to cover.” She uncurled. If she were to be honest, she felt strange, like she was lifting above the clouds, that bit closer to Heaven. How could she know Heaven? Was this a preview by the Lord? In Heaven, would the Lord sit where Ellis sat, to have sensible conversation? Ellis was speaking again, asking a question. “Which bits have you dipped? My tour de force on health, education —?” “Education.” He raised his hands and let them fall with a padded clap on his upper legs. “Oh, my. Education.” Fee was unsure what the response was supposed to convey. “What you wrote. I think it’s – detailed.” “Detailed?” Ellis repositioned himself, almost losing from the arm of his chair a crumb-strewn plate. “Since you brought the topic up, let me rush you down the main avenue. Better still —” He rose, moved the plate to a side table, and briefly left the lounge. When he returned to his chair with a copy of his book, he was able immediately to find the section he wanted. There was whispering to self while he browsed, then he began to speak as if reading aloud although only twice did he glance down at the pages; for the rest of the time his eyes were directed ahead, as if there were a class of students before him. “Say we were called upon to design a society which could ensure for itself the greatest functionality with the minimum friction between its parts. How might we go about it? Well, – 194 –

we could arrange the highest quality of education for a few that would enable them to lead. Others would be given a practical learning to equip them for interpreting the ideals of the leaders and translating these into actions. Still others would receive an amount of training adequate for them to carry out the actions without developing a capacity to consider the implications. Finally, quite a number would be given hardly any education since their role is to remain intellectually inert and economically powerless. They would exist only to provide a reservoir of disposable labour or be military expendable in times of conflict. The scheme is perfectly logical. Indeed, many observers would argue this is the very system we employ today. There.” “It sounds so…” What did it sound? “Prescriptive?” “I was about to say that.” “Were you?” Ellis closed the book and ran a hand over it repeatedly as if stroking a cat on his lap. “It sounds like we have no choice in our destiny,” she said. “Socially, we don’t. The trick is to convince the individual from a lower order that there is the possibility of a rise above the family placing if they work hard, while at the same time training the individual in behaviour that will ensure this never happens. Over-education, education beyond society’s role for the individual, leads to disappointment and frustration. Under-education, in the bright child, also produces frustration, and a build-up of energy which may release itself in antisocial acts, though the risks are acceptable within the greater scheme.” Fee was experiencing a full floating sensation. Not the helpless floating of dreams but the calming buoyancy of the Dead Sea. She waited for Ellis to continue, but he didn’t. It was a device to coax sensible conversation from her. “But surely we do have a choice. I want to become a – a servant of the Lord, so I’m a servant of the Lord.” “Within a fairly narrow band. You are a middle class servant – 195 –

of the Lord. There was never any intention by society for you to be an upper class servant of the Lord. From the moment you were born, society imposed its limits on you. The higher up the social scale, the greater the application of eugenics. At the very top, birth and blood are absolutely everything. To have stood a chance of being a royal servant of the Lord, you would need to retreat along your family tree an impossibly long way.” She fought a yawn. She wasn’t bored, merely tired. “Which class do you despise the most?” she asked him. “It sounds like all of them.” A choked chortle from Ellis. “The human being is a socially hierarchical animal. There always has to be a small top and a broad base. Concepts of a homogenous society where everyone is equal are pure tosh. We don’t work like that. Equality is a dream that the less than equal are sold in order to keep them trying. It’s an illusion. To home in on the question, I don’t despise one class more than another, or any of them, because there really is no point. Social grading is the sine qua non of human society, in practical terms. The British take it much further than is strictly necessary, of course. Our class system is gratuitously oppressive and it’s made all the more grotesque by an obsession with petty power and privilege. Leaders adopt a deny-and-apply approach to the class system because they cannot imagine, as a result of their education, an alternative.” He erected a finger. “The one class that does disturb me in its potential for the dissemination of rank injustice is – it’s not a class, it’s a type – is the bureaucrat band. At its lower reaches at least, we have individuals programmed to follow instructions to the serif of every letter. They are prepared to fulfil their dictated duty in a manner entirely purged of implication of morality, sensitivity or good sense. The British minor bureaucrat would make a perfect Nazi, you know.” “Nazi?” – 196 –

“Yes. ‘Follow orders’ to the exclusion of everything else. A complete fear of inserting own initiative. It’s not their fault – again it’s the way they’ve been educated. The system wants it like that; the system gets it.” To overcome a heaviness of eyelids, Fee blinked energetically and hoped Ellis hadn’t noticed. In an effort to re-engage and revitalise, she changed the topic. Her mouth was dry and the word came out as a drained croak. “Health?” She gave a little cough to clear the throat and said it again, louder. Smiles were exchanged. Ellis addressed the expanse of the lounge rather than the sofa. “Another of my favourites. In here, too.” He tapped the book then placed it carefully beside the plate on the table. “We’re a miserable nation of ill health. There are the genuine sick, of course. Sickness can be temporary, or chronic, or terminal. That is inescapable in any society. In the UK, we’re encouraged to embrace ill health. The National Health Service is the nation’s largest employer and therefore a political necessity – all those jobs, you see. Big market for drug companies, too. Got to keep the customers coming. Got to persuade the poor to be old and frail before their time.” “You say it’s a class thing – in your book.” “Age, or health?” “Age and health, actually.” A nasal exhalation of acknowledgement. “I observe that, among the upper classes and governing elites, age is seen as sage; it’s a mark of maturity and conveys confidence. In contrast, age among the lower classes is used as a tool of oppression. The fifties and over are encouraged to feel inadequate and insecure, looking to fill in whatever trivial way they can the rest of their worthless days, their productive phase truly over. At sixty, the poor are shown the road to steady senile deterioration. They’re encouraged to look old, feel old, act old. Mustn’t have the lower classes, who – 197 –

have time on their hands, using that time to think, to reflect on just how raw the deal was. Mustn’t stimulate age rage.” A glance her way. “As for health, certainly it’s a class thing. How many of the better off do you see hobbling into NHS establishments? The wealthy have a desire to be pampered; they crave for fuss and attention; but they prefer to do it privately. Not so the masses. It’s a fact that in the months immediately following the start of the NHS, demand exceeded expectations to the point of it overwhelming the fledgling service. This was not the result of poor preparatory calculation, it was simply that the offer of free care allowed people an excuse to discover they had something wrong with them. Many just wanted sympathy, an ear to listen. The supposed malady being suffered was a metaphor for a duff life deal from society: theirs was a sociological condition, not a medical one. And they flocked in their hundreds of thousands because, of course, that’s how many there were.” “But surely the Health Service helped – helps – a lot of people.” “The high table of capitalism saw the opportunity in postwar reconstruction and wanted a workforce fit enough to generate the returns. National health provision was never for the sole benefit of the poor, nothing ever is, but for the country as a whole, especially for the upper levels whose wealth is commensurate with the country’s industry. It rather backfired, in those early years, though the NHS since has proved a convenient lever of social control and an indispensable political tool. All that is required is for the poor to continue to smoke, to eat too much, and to dissolve their livers in alcohol. To suffer depression, to be decrepit by the time they reach middle age. Culture does that, and this country’s culture is a direct product of its class system.” On the sofa, Fee experienced a moment of painless confusion, a second or two of disconnection. Was this Ellis or Craig in the same room? Ellis, because he wasn’t feeling – 198 –

her crotch. Ellis, because there was more than a trace of lifelong anger in his words. This she said aloud as she repositioned herself, and Ellis agreed. “A citizen has a right to be angry when society categorises him, determines his position at birth, and does its utmost to hold that citizen in the position for life. Think about it: a newborn baby of an estate class mother can never be king or queen, is excluded from titled aristocracy, and is most unlikely to enter the professions when adult. Society has no welcome for anyone from the estate.” “That newborn baby may be healthy, thanks to the National Health Service, and never know famine or fear of death by war. I’ve been to Africa, remember, where they have these things. A baby in Africa, or a baby here born with physical disability or an incurable disease – surely that’s a citizen with a right to be angry.” Single nod from Ellis. “I couldn’t agree more. Every right to be angry. The West has no interest in letting Africa develop, especially with climate change high on the agenda. An additional environmental load on the planet after China and India would be too great for the industrial nations to bear. They would face increased real pressure to cut down on their own emissions. Besides – it’s probably not PC to say this – Africa is a very long way from industrialisation as we recognise the term, and may never take off. What do they say? – you can’t clear a chasm in a series of leaps – it’s all or nothing. Africa has the nothing. The necessary preconditions simple don’t exist in the African psyche, and where it might flicker, it is promptly extinguished by Western interests. Mineral wealth is earmarked for the making nations.” He paused to send an apologetic glance. “I’m drifting into Mains territory. Doesn’t he say that Africa may have been mankind’s launch pad but nature has, over the long term, been too kind to Africa? Apart from Egypt’s spectacular though ultimately lost lead, and a handful of – 199 –

attempts at empire elsewhere, the African has preferred to live off nature’s bounty. Environmental plenty led to cultural retardation and an inability to ward off aggressively exploitative colonialism.” “Something like that.” “It’s a simplistic explanation in my view, and I detect a flavour of the right wing cant you say he’s not guilty of. However, that’s enough of Mains – we’re talking Carmichael, we’re talking class.” “So what’s your answer to the class thing?” Fee asked, aware of a faint slur to her speech. A response might have pursued the following strain – One should of course start with a robust definition of a class, and of subclass, and of further convenient divisions, bearing in mind the ambiguous boundaries that exist and drift between the various slices. A definition may require to be worked outwards away from the accepted descriptive title for the class towards the boundaries, to the very edges. There may be some solid ground on the way – for example, the working class can be defined in terms of its members having no control over their own employment; conversely, there may be hardly any solid ground, as with the upper class – let’s call it the ‘invisible’ class. It’s invisible because of a subtle rule in sociology which states that no class is equipped properly to study a class above. By this rule, the middle-class sociologist finds it virtually impossible to get into the head, say, of a member of the landowning nobility – all he can do make observations from the little that is revealed, and to apply calculated guesswork to the rest. Also bear in mind that class boundaries may overlap or bleed into one another, and are dynamically relative. Then there is the difficulty of parallel classes. An aid to reliable definition is class consciousness. Imagine a transparent membrane placed between yourself and the class above. You can see where you would like to be but the – 200 –

membrane, thin though it might appear, is only possibly permeable after a great deal of effort and a bit of luck. Here’s a test: suppose the numbers of the National Lottery were to fall in your favour; would your first impulse be to tear your way through the membrane? The answer to that, I wager, is a resounding ‘you bet!’. Is the sudden influx of a substantial amount of money all that is needed to propel you up the social scale? Well, income and wealth are vital factors in class determination, but they’re by no means the only ones – it is those other factors that we must explore if we are to understand class occupancy. Outside of lottery wins, people tend to make the most of their position, realistically abandoning the prospect of ascent if never altogether giving up on the fantasy. This is class consciousness; it places you where you are, makes you who you are. – but, before his reply was ready, Fee reacted to the sound of a vehicle pulling into the drive by leaping up. “Su! I’m going back to my mouldy receipts.” It wasn’t Su. It wasn’t a key in the door but a ring of chimes. It was a display of warrant card in a small unfolded wallet. It was a suited detective, in his late thirties or early forties, accompanied by a younger uniformed policewoman. “Nothing to be alarmed at, sir.” This after rank and name. “Just an enquiry. May we come in?” “An enquiry about what?” “Routine, sir. It’s possible you may be able to help us. Inside would be better.” Ellis stood aside to let them in. He wished for them to stay in the hall but the detective made for the lounge. To Ellis’s immense relief, Fee was gone, as was her plate and cup. He didn’t offer the visitors a seat, nor did he sit. “What can I possibly help you with, Detective Inspector?” “Is there anyone else in the house?” – 201 –

“Not at the moment. My partner lives here. There’s no one else.” The detective completed his visual scan of the room. “Do you know a Ms Kemp-Davies, sir? Fiona KempDavies, also known as Fee Cade?” The uniformed policewoman, having silently admired the flat screen television, was inspecting framed photographs on a glass corner shelf. Suzie with her parental family, Su meeting special people. None included Fee, or himself. Ellis noticed the policewoman was wearing gloves. “Fiona? Fee? Yes, she lived here. She left us some time ago.” “That’s what we were told. Has she been in contact?” “She sent a postcard from Cameroon, on the west coast of Africa.” “No recent contact?” Ellis felt the blood in his cheeks: this was a moment to get right. The policewoman was trying to read the title of his book over the bulk of the chair. “That’s me. I like to read my own stuff, occasionally. Gives me a confidence boost,” he smiled “Are you sure?” from the detective. “It’s my work?” “Are you sure neither you nor your partner,” he turned his head as if the partner might be standing in the room, “have had any communication from Ms Kemp-Davies within the last few days?” “I am absolutely sure.” Throw something back. “Has anything happened to her?” Unanswered. “Is your partner at home, sir?” “Like I told you, no one else is in the house at the moment. She’s at work. Community Advance – she’s the CEO.” You’re telling them too much! The detective seemed satisfied and moved to leave. Ellis stepped forward. – 202 –

“Is Fee – has anything happened?” he repeated. “Not as far as we are aware.” The detective paused. “She may be in danger, sir. We’re trying to locate her for her own safety.” “Danger? What kind of danger?” At this point, the motionless detective had a brief discussion with himself before deciding Ellis was able to cope with the extra. “Have you heard of the Church of the Message of God?” He glanced at the policewoman for confirmation of accuracy, or to assess her opinion of the risk. A barely perceptible nod from the woman; a frown of forced recall from Ellis. “There was a drugs raid or something, at their place, their faith centre, last week. I saw it on the television.” “Were you aware Ms Kemp-Davies is a prominent member of the organisation?” “Er – I suppose I was. I don’t know how… Is it related?” A calling card was produced from an inside pocket. “If either you or your partner receive any information regarding the present whereabouts of Ms Kemp-Davies, please give me a call. It’s important that we find her.” Ellis took the card and inspected it without reading; he showed the visitors to the door; watched them drive away in an unmarked car; closed the door, slumped against a wall, and gave a loud exhalation. As if jolted by an electric shock, he grabbed the hall telephone and rang Su on her office number. I know… They’ve been sniffing around here, her last known place of honest toil… Told ’em she wouldn’t dare show her face… Was that a click on the line? Fee emerged from the direction of the kitchen and utilities extension. She brushed by Ellis; when he opened his mouth to speak she gave out a breathed ‘leave me’ before running upstairs where she shut herself in her old room until Su came home. Su went to talk to Fee while Ellis served dinner. He called ‘ready’ up the stairs. – 203 –

“We’ll have to share hers,” Su said on her return to the kitchen. “And, by the way, your policeman pal was masquerading as a journalist last time Madam crossed words with him. He’s serious serious drugs. The manure just got thicker.” Friday was an ‘act normal’ day. Su to the office, to play host to a civic dignitary (not so normal). Ellis to his domestic routine, to write a bit, to watch for unfamiliar vehicles around the green. No phone calls other than the dull. Fee to stay away from windows and to resist any sudden urge for gardening. Powwow after tea. At mid-day, Ellis carried a snack up to Fee’s room, and tapped lightly on the door. “Yes?” He opened the door. “Lunch.” “Thank you. Would you like to come in?” He entered, leaving the door ajar. “You don’t look so good,” he told her, understating the case. “Legacy of Africa. I’ll get over it. I usually do.” Tray put down, he was leaving. Then, an invite most unexpected. “Stay if you want.” “Is it what you want?” “Yes, Ellis. It is, actually.” When Su bought the old farmhouse, the room had been bagged by Fee because its window caught the morning sun. As Fee slowly pushed herself into a sitting position on the single bed, and Ellis removed untidy clothes from the only chair, the sun was almost finished with this side of the house. He would need to remind Fee about evening, for her to make sure the curtains were fully together before switching on a light. The silence that followed was one of implicit joint – 204 –

reflection. Fee made a start on a sandwich and sipped the tea, then coughed – a strange disconcerting sound – before breaking the mood. “We haven’t always seen eye to eye, you and me, El.” El? Where did that come from? Only Su used the abbreviation, and only very rarely. He said nothing. “I do respect you. You’re the one to keep Su on the rails.” He smiled and cocked his head in feigned exaggerated embarrassment.” “I mean it. I left – left Su because I honestly thought she was going mad. She was acting cruel, going off her rocker.” Another smile, perhaps of agreement. “Has she still got that stupid punishment frame thing?” “It’s in the box room, under a lot of other junk. Difficult to recycle as furniture. I’d put in on eBay if only I had the courage.” More sandwich. “She once told me about her family – her mother, you know…? She thought she might have it, and so did I. She was acting odd, though, wasn’t she?” “Her mother passed away. Su hasn’t got Alzheimer’s, certainly not the early onset variant.” “I’m glad.” “Su has an incipient drink problem – that’s her threat.” In the hall, the telephone rang. Elis waited for the answering machine to pick up. It was no one he needed to talk to. “You saved her. That’s how I see it,” Fee nodded. “Well, she’s not safely on the wagon; she runs alongside it. I sometimes have to hide the bottle. She gets the point.” “You’re there for her. She couldn’t survive without you, El.” “Oh, I’m sure she could. Su’s a born survivor. She —” “Everyone needs somebody.” There was no reply to that. Fee drained the mug. “I have the Lord. He is my somebody. He is always there for me. For everyone. Except when I upset Him. He’s – 205 –

forgiving. He doesn’t like being taken for granted, that’s all. There has to be two-way traffic. When I’m bad, He let’s me know. He’s my man – the only man I’ll ever need. I am His servant.” Ellis almost asked how she knew God was a man but sensed it wasn’t appropriate at this time. He continued to listen. “Sometimes the Lord commands His servant to do things that other people see as bad. That’s the hardest part. The Lord isn’t wrong. It’s people who are unable to recognise the good residing behind what they see as bad. I trust the Lord – I really do. I just wish He would show a little more of His hand, sometimes. Life’s confusing enough.” “Tell me about it!” “I’m a good person, Ellis.” A quietness descended. Fee was without motion, without expression. Her eyelids drooped. “I’ll leave you to rest,” Ellis said softly, standing and collecting the tray. “Thank you. Thank you for – not telling the police. Thank you for everything. Tell Su.” He closed the door carefully behind him.

– 206 –

9 The planned discussion that Friday evening regarding what to do about their uninvited guest did not take place, at least not as either Su or Ellis might have imagined its likely course. Fee was dead. Su discovered the body when, there being no response to come down for tea, she had entered Fee’s room. Discovery was disbelief – a blank refusal to acknowledge the reality even when Ellis answered her cry and dared to check for signs of life in the staring cold white corpse, and checked again at Su’s insistence. Downstairs, Su poured a drink while Ellis went to the kitchen to put a stop to the meal they would never have. Su joined him and sat at the breakfast bar. She began to tremble as disbelief gave way to harsher belief. “What now?” she croaked. It was a question Ellis realised he shared through his automaton numbness. “Call the doctor? A hospital?” “She’s dead, ” snapped Su. “The police. We’ll call the police.” As he passed, she grabbed his arm. “No. Not the police.” “We must.” She let go and emptied the glass. “They’ll know you were lying, for starters. And I was being economical with the truth.” “Who, then? We can’t leave her there.” Su’s hand went up. “Just – just let’s think this through. Get me a refill, will you.” Ellis hesitated, then went. On his return, Su articulated an idea. – 207 –

“Nobody knows she’s here, yeh? ’Cept us. No one’s going to miss her, apart from some old dears. Tough.” “Are you sure you weren’t seen on Wednesday evening?” He caught her look of disdain, which she meant for him to do. “I parked well away. She walked. My car is no problem – part of my job is estates. Head below parapet through the village.” The second drink was disappearing fast. Ellis switched on the electric kettle. “I don’t see that we have any choice but to call the police.” “No police. They crawl all over. What do you think is in – has been in – that suitcase of hers?” “I hadn’t given it much thought.” A further look of disdain, before a bombshell. “We get rid of the body. Bury it. Fee was never here. We move on.” Ellis put a palm over her drinks glass. “Are you out of you mind? I can’t believe you just said that. What the hell are you talking about?” Su gave a growl of impatience. “Hello police, goodbye future. So long big salary. That’s the one keeping the both of us in a manner accustomed to. In case you’d forgotten.” His hands were now clutching the edge of the breakfast bar as he leaned low to speak into her face. “Su, you – ‘the both of us’ – will be saying goodbye to more than a big salary if we go for a secret burial.” He stood back. “You’re in shock, Su. You can’t know what you’re saying.” “I can. I do. Another drink.” The boiling kettle clicked off. He went to it. “No more, Su, till we get this sorted out. And you stop the nonsense.” “I’m —” Ellis was at her side, voice loud. – 208 –

“What’s happened to your moral decency, for God’s sake. That girl upstairs is Fee, Fiona. That girl deserves a proper burial. We don’t yet know how she died. Don’t you think we should find out?” She removed her glasses. For some moments, Su myopically scrutinised the face near her own as if trying to attach a name to an acquaintance of the past randomly encountered in a public place. Ellis glared back. He watched as her eyes filled with tears and her mouth slowly spread open to emit a wail of delayed sorrow. “She’s dead…” An arm of comfort round her shoulders; her head falling into his chest; muffled sobs. Later, they agreed their plan. Accordingly, Fee had turned up out of the blue late on Thursday, after the visit by the detective. That way, the worse they would be rapped for was not getting in touch as instructed, and that could be explained by a decision to let the clearly distressed and exhausted young woman rest. Where had Fee been staying? Check the hotels and guest houses, detective inspector. It was what they told the police, who sifted diligently through Fee’s few belongings which did not include a travelling case. The detective who was once anxious to locate Fee for her own safety returned to the house and introduced himself to Su, expressing his sympathy. He did not question the story supplied by Su but voiced the problem of not being able to account for Fee’s whereabouts in the period between her leaving a friend’s house on a Friday evening and arriving at a former place of residence on the following Thursday evening – almost a week of unaccountable activity. And, yes, he had checked hotels and other places of possible accommodation. Su asked the detective why he was so interested in Fee’s movements, why so interested in Fiona, receiving for her trouble the pursing of Ellis’s lips. The detective’s reply was – 209 –

that investigations were still ongoing into the religious sect with which Ms Kemp-Davies had been involved, there being a potential link to the drugs world, as expressed by the media. His delivery contained the signal that he knew Su knew more than she was telling, confirmed by his parting advice that she should be careful. A momentary exchange of glances with Ellis persuaded her from ploughing on with something like ‘be careful of what?’. “I’m always careful”, she said after the detective’s departure. “No Sherlock, he. DI Ploddington’s hit a dead end – literally – and he’s shaking the tree to see what drops out. Well, the lady’s not for shaking.” Ellis served himself a single malt and sat in his easy chair. “Whatever he knows about her associations, the fact is we know next to nothing about Fiona’s family background. Certainly, I don’t. All you’ve ever told me about her is she went to a posh school and when ready for work she replied to an ad which, in a gesture of grandeur, you placed in the jobs supplement of a national daily. It doesn’t explain why she left London for here. Or why she came back after Africa. The truth is, I’m having a distinct lack of success in attempting to track down some family to inform of her accidental death, if that’s what it was.” “You still think suicide?” “Part of me does, yes. All paths lead to death – suicide’s merely a shortcut. The other part says she was dying anyway. We should have got her to a doctor while she was still alive. We’re part responsible for her death.” “Don’t regurgitate. We can’t bring her back.” “Would we want her back? What were we going to do with her?” “Ellis! I thought you and she were exchanging vibes.” Su poured a vodka and also sat. “Mm – you’re right, though. A considerate point at which to pass over to the other side, if I’m honest.” – 210 –

A mouthful of vodka for reflection. “I’m sorry she’s gone. We shouldn’t be talking like this. It’s not right.” Ellis splayed a vertical hand. “I know, I know. Sorry old girl. Reaction, I suppose.” The vodka was drained before the whisky; Su studied the empty glass a while before standing to refill it. “Come to think of it, Ellis Arthur, you’ve never said much about your family. I can’t imagine the Carmichael ancestry. What were they like?” “I’m not remotely curious. Neither should you be. They failed me.” “Failed you? In what way?” He gave a grunt which could have conveyed one of a number of meanings. “I wasn’t born in line to the throne by a good seven digits of order. I wasn’t born rich or even wealthy. I merely fulfilled a working class urge. That’s me. That’s all I’ve got – exactly the same as on the last occasion you asked about by family.” It was his turn to approach the drinks cabinet. “What about you, Suzanne Angela? The noble Gardeen line.” “You know my tale of debauchery. There’s nothing to add. Madness in the genes, but a modicum of madness is maybe what it takes to succeed. Your theory, pet.” Back in his chair, he laughed. “All right. Two points and a starter for ten. What do you know about the doings of the late deceased that the dicky tecky thinks you know? A weekend-long tête-a-tête must have given you some insight.” He took a sip before finishing his request; the next bit was risky. “I normally wait for you to tell me, if you’re going to tell me, that is. In this matter, I think we should share what’s going through your mind. Don’t you?” “Girl talk,” responded Su, a little sharply. She glanced over the glass that was at her mouth, and adjusted her tone. – 211 –

“Beyond the religion you mean? It was a slick operation out at the wonderful faith centre.” She stopped. Ellis waited. He gave in. “And?” “And what?” “Like our friendly detective, I sense there is a whole lot you’re holding back, Su.” A short play with the near-empty vodka glass before: “Fee was absolutely mortified by the prospect of prison, if you really want to know. She believed she would buckle under interrogation – she’d have to tell the truth because that’s what true believers are supposed to do, yeh? Her team-mates would not have been best pleased had she squealed. Trusted player was Fee. Being pulled in every direction, poor dear. She took the swishmobile over to Amsterdam. On the return trip there was a security alert, apparently – danger, terrorists at work. Bothersome vehicle searches, but silver S-class Mercs exempt. Guess who was waved through on a smile.” “Perhaps Fee didn’t look like a terrorist.” “No tea towel up top, you mean. Oozing sweet innocence through the tinted glass. They were saving her for later.” Another stop, another vodka. Ellis showed three fingers and was sent a fake snarl. Su sat, but had shared all she was going to. She had the wide screen’s remote in her hand. “All in good time, Ellis. Now let’s catch up with the big outdoors, shall we?” ***** Fiona Cecile Kemp-Davies died at the age of twenty-eight specifically from a brain haemorrhage and non-specifically from an overdose of drugs; that is, from no one chemical substance in particular and not as the result of a single desperate session. As Ellis had partially guessed, Fee was destined to meet an early end, her experience in the illequipped hospital of an African bush mission effectively – 212 –

sealing her fate. The rest was knowingly accumulative. Cut open, dissected, signed off by the coroner. Only after Fee’s burial, paid for by Su, did Ellis, through enquiry delayed in the reply, learn of a family plot in a north London cemetery provided by her father, himself presumably interred therein. Fee’s final resting place is in a council-owned cemetery in a greener part of the city which had become her base. The send-off was attended by a handful of staff from Community Advance who had worked alongside Fee; Su and Ellis, of course; a weepy Amy and sullen Neil; Detective Inspector Filey, otherwise Ferriby, casting regular discreet visual sweeps of the environment; a woman of about Fee’s age endowed with striking good looks and an expensive taste in appropriate attire but possessing a disinclination to explain her presence; a couple of faith-graduates of the Church of the Message of God, together with a third; and, from a distance where he observed unnoticed by the others, the almost famous author Craig Mains, without his wife. Afterwards, there were thanks for coming and brief exchanges of conversation but no regrouping for a bite to eat or anything like that. “Goodbye, Fee,” sighed Su, driving back to the village through pelting rain. Ellis, by her side, remained silent. “Over with, but not over with – according to our favourite detective,” Su continued, forcing herself to rally. “He seems to have taken a shine to you,” Ellis murmured. “Doesn’t he, just. Nice of him to pay his respects – as he checks out the mourners. Who do you think the mystery woman might be? Family?” “Maybe. There was a certain resemblance.” “You think? Having a good ogle, were we?” Sensing a mood change for the worse, and himself in poor mood, Ellis played it as it came. “I think we both were.” The journey was completed to middle-of-the-road mood music, the volume set slightly too high.” – 213 –

***** “And the winner i-i-is…” Everyone in the room knew the name of the winner; nonetheless, they displayed the excitement of suspense. Their leader drew from an unsealed envelope a sheet of paper and cleared her throat as she pretended to have difficulty understanding the contents. “Community Advance!” The office was on its feet, whooping, some embracing their neighbour, some kissing. Roger pecked Su on the cheek, Su hugged Geri. A call for attention from their leader. “We’ve made the premier division, boys and girls. Eyes are on us. It’s up to CA to show the rest how a major government-funded project is gonna be done. We’re writing the instructions. We’re the folk behind the help button. We’re the answers before the questions. It won’t all be easy, but mine’s a strong whip arm.” Laughter. “As for tonight – tonight is on me.” Cheering. The news, when it finally arrived, produced some genuine relief: in her heart of hearts Su had prepared for disappointment. During the stages of the process she’d constructed a hurdle between the bid and CA’s possible success, this being that the problem of illegal drug distribution in the city and surrounding areas which constituted the domain of Community Advance was not sufficiently severe: other cities could testify to more serious situations, rampant and out of control. Her advisory bookends, Roger at the office and Ellis on the home front, both suggested that her assumption – that the pilot would be awarded to the worst basket case city – was entirely – 214 –

misplaced. Both told her, in similar manner, that the Department wound not choose one of the unravelling drug hotspots for fear of assured failure even before the initiative started, leading to subsequent political embarrassment. On the contrary, the Department would consider an agency in a city where drug distribution networks were tight and well organised – if by the wrong people. “The point is,” offered Ellis, “efficient distribution is covert distribution. The authorities have no way of gauging the true extent. It can be reported as required – high or low – and no one is able to contest.” “I would say,” provided Roger, “the Department has a desire to see us enter the arena as if driven by a burgeoning national issue which we are seen gradually to scale back to a little local difficulty. A flexibility of interpretation is our strength.” Roger and Ellis were usually right – this she accepted – but she was always righter. Her patch wasn’t hairy enough for the pilot. The Department had provided the hints from which she had piled up the hurdle. Firstly, at her scabby presentation. She’d been summoned to Leeds to stand in front of suits and deliver her spiel – straightforward, yeh? Delayed on the motorway because of a shunt, cheated out of the perfect parking space by a supercilious smart-arse in a soft-top BMW, nagging herself she was late for a very important date, she’d arrived a tad less than cool, calm and collected. Except it didn’t matter because the presentation event was of the conveyor belt variety and the previous candidates had built up a lag so she entered the waiting area just as her name was called to perform for the suits, hardly time for the loo. Five of them – five! Four males and a female note-taker. Her bloody laptop wouldn’t recognise the mounted screen until the youngest of the suits left his chair behind the big forbidding table to fiddle with a few keys. Lots of truly dull if not dumb questions to which her answers, as sparkling as she – 215 –

could polish them, and returned with a special Gardeen smile to match, generated no outward signs of orgasm among the panel who had already churned the routine, in plural, and could only look forward to more of the same before time to go home. One of the suits asked about her own philosophy on illegal drugs – what sort of a question is that? “I recently lost a dear friend to an unfortunate overdose,” she replied, temporarily dropping the special smile. “It was an untimely waste of a useful life.” That bit worked. The young computer-savvy one sideglanced his colleagues as he remarked there couldn’t be a fairer answer than that. They thanked her in that ‘next’ sort of way, there being a next in the waiting area, a slim-waisted smooth operator dressed to make ’em drool. It all comes down to sex in the end. She departed Leeds informed that a small number of agencies would be receiving a visit from colleagues dispatched specifically to examine facilities, to ascertain capacity, and to assess general fitness for executing the project. These agencies could consider themselves on a final shortlist. Three weeks elapsed. A letter told her to expect the colleagues. Su went into turbo. She personally supervised a comprehensive scrub-up, which included her own office: Blutack was removed from walls; the big clock above the main office door made to work again; the CA dress code reviewed. “Look good, look busy,” she ordered her staff with reference to the imminent visit. “And keep it up when they’ve gone,” she added. To herself: ‘I’m ready when you are.’ An email arrived a day before the expected arrival. Over a cleared desk, she read the message. Due to unforeseen circumstances, the planned visit has had to be cancelled. However, the inspection conducted [date provided – this being when Alasdair let his associates wander the corridors] may have supplied the platform information. – 216 –

She was not a happy bunny – in fact, a grossly deflated bunny – but she put on a brave face. That’s what a good leader does. In the days that followed, there were requests from the Department for this silly figure or that trivial statistic – salt into the wound. Then she received the phone call from the Minister’s Private Secretary. Whoopee! On the next day came the formal letter of confirmation, with promises of tons of backup and tips on how to relate to the media. One more time – whoopee! Okay, she wasn’t always righter than the bookend advisors but when she was wrong she got it right. Anthony had communicated ten thirty, and ten thirty was the time when he pushed the button to be admitted into the headquarters of Community Advance. Su’s stately descent of the staircase down to reception was momentarily checked when she saw a well-built black man at the desk. She introduced herself. “Ms Gardeen, I am pleased to meet you,” he smiled with a flash of whiter than white teeth. His accent was pure confidence; his huge hand could have crushed hers to pulp but instead was courteously gently firm. The Department had sent along Anthony to advise on the pilot’s first wheel turn. In advance of his arrival, Su had installed a desk in a small first floor room which had previously been used as a store. It quickly emerged that Anthony was not a desk in a small room type – he wanted to feel the streets. He was referring to the mean streets where drugs are traded, and he wanted Su to take him. “I have read your prospectus,” he told her as they entered a council estate. “It is ambitious if a little light on detail.” “We’ll fill in as we develop,” answered Su, thinking on her bum. “Of course.” They drove slowly around the outer parts of the estate, respectable in parts; Su, sensing her passenger had yet to see – 217 –

what he was looking for, drove to the untidy centre. He had a question. “Ms Gardeen, forgive me for asking this. Have you ever taken illegal drugs?” “No!” she retorted, her eyes too long from the road and her arms having to correct their path. “I have,” he confided. How should she reply? By waiting – that’s how. “I can smell them.” “What – like a sniffer dog, you mean?” Su wanted to get to the other side of her surreal guest. He gave a laugh, loud though pleasant. “I used to be a policeman.” They left the estate to join an arterial road. Her stomach was telling her lunchtime was slipping away when, as if reading her mind, he asked if there was a place nearby which she could recommend for refreshment. Over a meal and drinks at a pub on the outskirts of the city, the bill to be charged to expenses, Anthony used the setting to continue his unusual familiarisation. “I am chosen for my dishonourable knowledge of a dishonourable business. Plus, I am black.” The pleasant full laugh again. “Whitehall is frequently accused of being too faithful to it name.” “Like it should be White-with-a-touch-of-black-hall.” He raised a hand in acknowledgment of her wit. “I guess I’m the token black of the Department, blessed with a knowledge of the illegal drugs trade which is greater than that of the colleagues combined.” “Doubly useful,” volunteered Su. “It is satisfyingly secure.” He switched from smile to earnest frown. “The objective of this pilot, of the scheme when it is rolled out, is to reduce demand within the community. It is not to pass judgement; it is not to ensnare on behalf of the police.” – 218 –

“I know.” “Ms Gardeen, I asked you earlier if you had ever tried illegal drugs. May I do so again?” A pause. She was aware of his intense attention. Note use of polite address and not Su, as had been invited. “Once, a long time ago, I smoked a joint or two. Youthful experimentation.” The intensity continued for a few moments. “Thank you, Ms Gardeen. We can be honest with one another. That’s my point. I will be available when you feel you are in too deep. It will occur – I can assure you. You are about to take a poke at a very dangerous animal and it will attempt to bite you.” That evening, over late dinner, Su relayed the gist of the day’s adventure to Ellis. “There I was, expecting a stuffed shirt and I got a real beenthere,” she said as he cleared the table. Ellis smiled. “First the newshound detective and now Black Anthony looking out for you in case you stumble. How long is he staying, your exotic guardian?” “He wouldn’t commit. He’s dossing at the Royal tonight.” Ellis made the suggestion that perhaps Su ought to invite Anthony for dinner before his return to London, to which Su replied she had already thought of it, and would put it to Anthony in the morning. Anthony, however, did not make a presence the following morning. Su considered calling his mobile number but decided against it: he was her self-styled preserver, not she his. It was late afternoon when Su, returning from the bank, remarked as she passed the reception desk on the very new Mondeo parked on the limited area reserved for Community Advance on the communal strip behind the building, to be told it must be Anthony’s. He was in his small office when Su checked, she a little annoyed at not having been advised of his schedule. The car was hired, she learnt. At the corner of his desk rested a – 219 –

paged street plan of the city. Anthony, it transpired, had spent the day feeling the streets on his own – a second spike of annoyance. Looking up from his laptop, he caught her glare and apologised for his independent action. “I have no wish to be a burden on your precious time, Ms Gardeen.” She switched on a smile to rein in her mood. “If I were to invite you to my home for dinner, could you manage to call me Su?” “That’s a conditional question. It may no apply.” “How about this evening? You have a car and you’re good with maps.” “I’d be most pleased to accept.” “No longer conditional, then.” Ellis being Ellis, he’d anticipated an affirmative to the invite and prepared the kitchen accordingly, though he grumbled at the lateness of confirmation. Anthony had agreed seven and at seven was pressing the door chime. The meal was supplemented by some fine wine newly arrived as a case consignment. “An excellent meal,” complemented Anthony. “Thank you,” replied Ellis. “The cook who consumes his own fare is the cook who indeed inspires,” Anthony continued. Su remarked it sounded like a saying. “Coined especially for the occasion,” the guest declared with a show of whiter than white teeth. Not long after nine o’clock, and having warmly expressed his gratitude, Anthony was gone. “A most unusual fellow, given his job title and employer,” Ellis said, partially mimicking Anthony’s speaking pattern as he poured more wine. He and Su were sitting at the cleared dinner table, which sometimes they did as an alternative to the lounge. “He doesn’t give much away, does he?” “Dark, very dark. That’s before we reach the skin.” – 220 –

“He says he’s leaving you tomorrow. Has it been an instructive visit?” “Yes – and no. Instructive between the lines. Su had donned the look of being somewhere else which, when Ellis mentioned it, she brushed aside as her being tired, that’s all. That and the wine. “Yes, it is rather good, this batch,” Ellis agreed. “It needs to be for the money.” “Not money again. Let’s maul Black Anthony.” As Ellis had indicated, there was little to maul. Their dinner guest had demonstrated a quality of conversation but had also designed his engagement to prompt rather than contribute. Su was rarely at ease with anyone she perceived as being further up the intellectual or cultural or career hierarchy: her participation tended to wander between diffident and flippant. “Do you think I come across as the right person for a very important pilot?” The words caused Ellis to put down his glass. “That’s an odd question spilling from your lips, Su Gardeen. There’s no better individual in the whole land. I call on you to agree.” She smiled and shook her lowered head. “Okay, I agree. It’s just —” “Just what? Out with it, woman.” “I don’t know where all the mines are buried.” Ellis served her another drink and topped up his own glass. “It doesn’t matter. Like any good general, send your least valued foot soldiers to walk the ground ahead. The bangs are the clue to where the mines are.” “A good general doesn’t ask even a least valued foot soldier to do something she wouldn’t do herself. It’s my call.” “Black Anthony’s your unerring guide – you said so, he said so. Or try a leaf out of Fee’s book and appeal to the highest authority.” He stood, slightly unsteady in the rising, glass in hand. – 221 –

“What is this? – you’re the tops. You’re the ball-breaker supreme. This is no time to have a falter coming on. Next week you’re on the telly, and you have to sock it to them. You have to show them who’s in charge.” A glass raised in salute. “To the boss.” Su also stood, and the glasses chinked. “To the boss, yeh?” They laughed and for a few seconds danced in their own circles, drinks held high. Black Anthony refused to say goodbye. His departure was a physical illusion, he said. Spiritually, he would remain by Su’s side for the duration of the pilot. He would be only as removed from her as the telephone on her desk or the mobile in her pocket. The Department wanted the project to motor; therefore it would motor. He tapped the fat pack he’d brought for her, the guidance and protocol manuals along with other documents, and with a show of whiter than white teeth he bid her happy reading. Su delivered him to the railway station. Back at the office, she flicked through a wad of blank weekly progress forms which she decided would, once the regular wording was established, be Geri’s responsibility. The manual and its appendices would be for Roger to digest. An effective leader delegates the yawns. She had some research of her own to conduct. ***** The Grosvenor Rooms was being redecorated: an oblong of cardboard propped against an upturned bucket warned, in felt script, of wet paint; a man in white overalls worked on a wheeled scaffold frame; a similarly garbed youth was treating the big double doors; splattered sheets protected the floor; a bulbous dusty ghetto blaster poured out content from an FM pop station. – 222 –

“Sorry about the pong.” The young woman stood from a heap of papers on the floor and rubbed her hands down the long blue dustcoat she was wearing. A part-filled plastic refuse sack rested against a chair on which a small pile of documents were saved. Behind the sorting operation, a door opened to a storeroom stacked with newspapers and manila folders dumped on some ancient cardboard boxes. “I’m Fiona, by the way. Welcome to the Church of the Message of God. As you can see, we’re having a spruce. It’s good for the soul if not so easy on the chest. Have you been before?” Su visually took in the room, scanning the ceiling and all walls. “Not in person.” “Your first time to the church, perhaps?” “In a manner of speaking. Fiona, you say.” “Fiona Whitgift. Faith-leader.” The girl beamed and extended a hand. A sincere shake. Su sat on a chair next to the one holding the saved papers. She picked up the most recently rescued item and glanced over it: a flyer from the fifties advertising a search of the scriptures session. “Fiona replaces Fiona.” “Yes. Fee Cade is no longer with us.” Sadness expressed. “She recently passed away. An untimely loss to the world.” Pause. Brightening. “Did you know her?” “You could say that. Did you, beyond her name?” The girl beamed again. “She was my faith-mentor,” she said proudly. “When I was a faith-student.” “Was she any good?” They were now both seated, the rescue pile between them. “Fee was excellent. She understood things. I learnt a lot from her.” “You would, if she was your mentor and you a student.” Fiona looked over to the storeroom and the work still to be – 223 –

done. Su continued. “You couldn’t make the funeral, then?” Their eyes met and held until the man on the scaffold called something out to the youth at the door when both women turned their heads for a moment towards the source. “No, I missed it. I was out of the country. The church was represented.” Fiona swept back her hair with one hand. “Are you Su?” “That’s me.” “I’m – sorry. For you loss…” The scaffold man descended and came over. “We’re off for a pasty. Everything’s still wet. Careful how you go.” The Grosvenor Rooms was suddenly quiet of pop music. “Lunch. Why didn’t I think of that?” Su said. “Fancy a break? Snack bar, café, pub?” “Fiona smiled. “No, I couldn’t – really. Someone ought to stay here. The painters haven’t a key so I can’t lock up. Thank you all the same. I brought my own lunch.” “You can’t eat in here – you’d be chewing on fumes.” Ready agreement as regards the fumes. And an idea. Fiona began to remove the dustcoat. “Yesterday I ate my lunch out in the yard through the back. There’s an emergency exit. It’s pleasant in the sunshine. Peaceful, too. And I can keep an eye out. Why don’t I put the kettle on and we share sandwiches? I always do too many.” The enclosed yard of the municipal building was characterised by peeling fire escapes, ventilation grilles, and shapeless forms under grimy green covers. The girl was right about the sunshine and peace. They sat together on a stone step, between outward-opening push-barred solid metal doors, separated by a picnic box and two mugs of tea. Su asked about the church. Fiona told her, “We’re carrying forward. Our faith is unyielding. We’re young and we can take the knocks. The – 224 –

church is the Message of God.” “What’s the word on…?” Su pretended to search for a name. “Dominic Hope.” “It’s all in the past. Dominic was diverted into sin. He fell to temptation. His misfortune is a warning to us all. We can draw something positive from his tragedy.” Another broad smile. “The fair sex is much stronger.” Fiona then asked if Su followed the True Word. “Me? I’m so full of myself there isn’t room for gatecrashers.” “You see the Lord as a gatecrasher?” “In my head, he would be. That’s the way it is. It’s how I left the factory.” “He makes us all different.” “And the state does its damnedest to make us all the same.” Su was quoting Ellis because she felt like it. Fiona developed her own thread. “He makes us different for a purpose. I don’t know whether you’ve heard of a writer called Craig Mains but, anyway, this writer asks, ‘if God wants absolute devotion from us, why doesn’t He make us born with absolute devotion built in rather than offer it as an optional extra?’ It’s a valid point. Fee had the answer. There would be no ‘us’ if we were all the same. The individual is the soul – the flesh and bone is merely the vehicle, a product of biology. The Lord produces the soul, and gives us our individuality. It’s up to each and every one of us to make the choices – that’s the gift of the Lord to us: freedom to choose.” “Choose what?” “Good from evil. To believe or not to believe. Ultimately, Heaven from Hell.” Su let Ellis speak – not Craig Mains because she had never read any of his books. The busy woman doesn’t have the luxury of time to read books with no story and no happy ending. “Who decides what’s good and what’s evil? Don’t we just – 225 –

call something ‘good’, do it, and give ourselves the cigar? During conflict, bashing the other side is good because we decide it is. Handy, yeh? Point is, we switch to kid ourselves, to justify our rotten ends. It’s called pragmatism. It works – believe me. God is ideology, the blind opposite of pragmatism. No need of choice. So what’s ‘He’ doing?” Fiona thought before replying. “The Lord isn’t an ideology. The Lord sets us free and we construct our own good or evil, and He subsequently judges us on what we do. He teaches us, He guides us, but it’s us who make the decisions. We learn that evil isn’t the path to salvation.” “So why aren’t we all good little boys and girls? Some of us must have learning difficulties. Some of us fall to temptation like darling Dominic.” A break to finish off the sandwiches. “Dominic was a first-rate faith-principal despite the accusations against him. There wasn’t a line in the Bible he hadn’t put to rigorous examination. I know Fee admired him.” “Dominic was a bloody drugs dealer.” “The case has yet to come to court – but, yes, he was mixed up with drugs. There were drugs at the centre when —” “Stop right there. I don’t want to hear this. Save it for the witness stand. Tell me about your intentions for the church. What’s your business plan?” They both adjusted their sitting positions on the hard step. “Well, the redecoration will be finished for next week, and one of us will be attendance each day, except Sunday. The lease doesn’t allow Sunday use, a leftover from Victorian days, apparently. Silly, isn’t it? We’re also going to resume faith courses as soon as we secure premises.” “Out at Dominic’s ranch?” “Oh-no, nothing like that. We don’t want any connection with the old place. It’ll be a fresh start, with a programme of paced expansion.” – 226 –

“Who pays for it?” Su received a glance. “There’s an endowment – there always was. Donations, subscriptions, all above board. The biggest investment comes from within our own faith. We’re committed to contributing whatever it takes.” “Who exactly are ‘we’?” “The church. Most of us are faith-graduates.” “And of course the regular attenders.” “They’ll return once we advertise.” A cloud veiled the sun for a few seconds and it subtly changed Fiona’s mood. She replaced the lid on the sandwich box, which had attracted a wasp. Her turn to ask questions. “How did you know someone would be here today?” “I didn’t. Lucky strike, I guess. That’s me.” “Why did you come? Are you wanting to help us?” “You seem to be getting it together as you are.” A male voice from close behind made them start. “We’re back, there. Just thought I’d say.” The decorator retreated and Fiona gathered up the mugs before standing. “What is it you do, Su? If you don’t mind my asking.” Su got up from the step, not in the lithe single movement of Fiona. She held the sandwich box. “How do you know I do anything?” “You’re in social services, aren’t you?” “I think not. Community development, if you please. Community Advance. Heard of us?” The reply was a less than convincing nod. Su tried again. “Did Fee ever mention the name?” “She may have done…” They re-entered the building, gloomy after the sunlight, to walk the short corridor to the Grosvenor Rooms from where pop once more played and paint fumes assaulted the nostrils. Su halted at the doors. “You said Fee understood things. What did she – 227 –

understand?” “Fee understood the power of the Lord. She was a true conductor of that power. You knew her – weren’t you able to feel it? I could. I still do.” “Did she ever use the name ‘the Shepherdess’?” “Oh, yes. That’s what the children called her when she worked in Africa. It stuck. Her awareness events were a gathering of the ‘flock’. I went to one of her events once – part of the course. ‘The Shepherdess is here,’ she told the flock, ‘with a learner shepherdess’.” Inside the room, the scaffold was being moved. Fiona transferred one of the mugs to join the other and motioned to the sandwich box. “I’ll take that, if you like. Thank you…” “Will you be continuing with the awareness events?” Su asked. “We hope to, in time. Our priority is here and the faith courses.” “You don’t reckon the estates?” Careful to avoid contact with the big double doors, Fiona stepped into the room. Su didn’t follow. “We’re not ready for them yet. Community penetration —” the girl smiled at the phrase – “is for later. We might come across one another, Su. In the meantime, you know where to find us. I’ve enjoyed our chat. Let the Lord be with you.” Su gave a little wave. To Fiona: “Good luck.” To herself: ‘The question is, can the Lord keep up?’ ***** Phase One was called ‘Feel the Streets’ and that was what she proposed to instruct her outreach managers to do – to feel the streets, just as Black Anthony had done. Following his lead, as interpreted by Su, they were to go out into their estates and learn how to smell the drug hotspots. The six managers, a contrived equal divide of the sexes, had been – 228 –

called to a special meeting at CA Central in order to discuss the ‘script’. “This is what I want you to do,” Su told them as she wafted a copy of the stapled sheets they’d all had chance to read. “First, the venues. Then get me names. I want to familiarise with the local networks.” Tracy asked if it would be safe, a question backed by the rest via monosyllables. “It’s like a police operation,” commented Paul. “Won’t it be easier to get the police to share their information?” “Why do we need to know the networks?” asked Steven. “It’s tomorrow’s potential user we’re trying to dissuade.” A good leader does not throw herself on the advancing spears. Su raised her hands. “Okay, okay. Let me reshape it. How does your local pusher recruit? You’re an adolescent – how does the bad guy approach you? That’s what we need to determine. That’s why we need to find out who the bad guys are. Names. Places.” Tracy was not mollified. She repeated her anxiety, adding verbal visions of bricks through windows and threats to staff. Paul returned to the police: wasn’t it their duty to provide information, since this was a government initiative? Su responded. “I’m not asking anyone to take risks. I simply want the lie of the land. We’re not rushing in without a map. The police are all one way and not necessarily to be trusted. This is our op.” Six faces held their doubt – not the start she wanted. Theirs was a desire to fight the campaign against illegal drugs use from behind a desk, with trainees and placements between the desk and the front line. Theirs was the natural reaction of community development outreach managers. Theirs was not to deliver what she wanted. “Do I detect a smidgen of uncertainty here and there? Okay, it’s a big ask. I take on board what you’re saying about the element of risk. But that’s the fun part – more exciting than ensuring the photocopier’s serviced on time or there’s every – 229 –

colour of paper in the stationary rack.” Paul, the oldest of the outreach managers, conveyed in a glance the caution that she should not belittle the work they did, the responsibilities they shouldered within the organisation and the community. He was right, she was pushing it. So, a special Gardeen smile, an adjustment of tone designed to win hearts and minds. “Look, I realise this might be a whole new ball game for some of you. Our golden rule has always been: we don’t encroach where the angels of social services tread; we don’t stray in the way of our venerable constabulary; and we don’t clash tongues with the health trust. We’re community development – that’s what we do. And we do it brilliant at CA – the Department picked us out, yeh? But, as each of you knows only too well, there are plenty who’d pull us down, not least the bean counters always wittering on about value for money. In short, we need to keep ahead of the game. This pilot is the big opportunity.” Su lifted the stapled sheets. “‘Feel the Street’ says we’re not afraid to expand our caring into new territory. If we stay still, we fall back, in the money stakes. It’s that simple, folks.” The outreach managers were listening, which was better than their answering back. “I will lead you into the new territory. Personally. Tracey, you are rightly concerned about staff safety. So am I, obviously. I’ll spend a couple of days with you, and time afterwards – time with you all – to go through phase one, step by step. Starting today.” The outreach office, a converted quartet of council houses on a refurbished nineteen-thirties estate, had a ground floor designated a resource centre, and offices upstairs. Tracy was relatively new to CA. At the interview, she’d described herself as a refugee from banking. Su had appointed Tracy despite accepting she would never come to really liking the woman. – 230 –

The new girl on the block had presented a reference generously sprinkled with words such as ‘efficient’ and ‘effective’. Omitted from the testimonial were ‘outspoken’ and ‘challenging’. It didn’t matter: the good leader is aware of the perils provoked by surrounding herself with consistently pliable sorts – the sort who strive to be supine and not to opine, as Ellis described them. The good leader is advised to accept into the outer fold a more forceful personality, provided they talk sense. Tracy talked sense. Tracy was a brass tacks type: the banking sector should have hung on to her and others of similar mould, then maybe it wouldn’t be in the current poxy mess. Tracy was CA’s gain. “We can’t just breeze up to people and ask if they supply drugs,” Tracy reasoned. “We can’t hang around street corners hoping to catch a transaction. And we can’t pose as punters, either. How exactly do we ‘feel the street’?” Also: “I’m repeating what’s already been said but I still don’t see what use the information will be to us. We should be focusing on young people to divert them away from the prospect of drugs, and alcohol. The health trust is making a real impact with the campaign to not start smoking.” Valid moans. Su threw suggestions at Tracy. “Reformed users come into the resource centre, yeh? Not all of them reformed. We ask.” “We do not ask. Even if we were to, we wouldn’t get answers. No one’s that stupid, even round here.” “Youth clubs. You know, if I was branching into drugs, the youth clubs would be my first stop.” Tracy pressed her lips together. She rose from her side of the desk to check the door to the office was properly closed, and returned to her manager’s chair. “Su, it’s not my place to say this – maybe it is – and please don’t bite my head off. This isn’t going to work, is it? ‘Feel the Street’, I mean. We have no idea what we’re doing.” “Have you read the notes I sent you?” – 231 –

“The notes don’t say a thing about the actual mechanism. There’s no detail.” “Then we develop the detail.” Elbows on desk, Tracy rested her cheeks in her hands. Some moments elapsed as she assembled the words, or the courage to say them. She lifted her head, released her arms, and looked Su in the eye. “You’ve come to show me how to go about a task I honestly don’t think I can perform. Perhaps it’s me and I’m not up to it. To be frank, it frightens me, Su. It really does.” Su’s reply was stalled by the trill of her mobile. She took it out. Hello? … Can’t it wait? … I see. I’ll be there as soon as. The call finished, she returned attention to her manager. “Trouble up at t’ mill. I’ll have to leave you.” However, this was a conversation requiring an end. “Back to the drawing board, eh?” she said to Tracy. The outreach manager adopted a brisk tone of resolution. “Let’s acknowledge – Community Advance, I’m talking about – let’s acknowledge the networks are a given. They exist on our patches if not right to our doorsteps. Let’s also acknowledge that networks are people – individuals, gangs, you know? Names are only relevant if we were attempting to address the supply side, wanting to shut the networks down, say. We don’t need names. It’s not our remit. We’re addressing the demand side. That’s what we should be shutting down. The project – the rationale behind the project, driving it – is all about the demand side. I’m all for that, Su. Not the other. None of the managers are. I can’t see why you want names and places – honestly, I can’t. It doesn’t make sense.” Su lifted herself from the seat, then lowered. “I hear you, Tracy. I guess you said it all, for all.” A muscle-twitched smile from Tracy: it could have signified guilt, apprehension, relief, politeness, confusion, none of these or all. Su was on her feet. “Tell you what. I’ll feel the street.” – 232 –

10 They drive in every weekday, one after another, into the city, riding the commuter highway, and they enter their offices and fire up their computers and think of all the different ways they can improve a failed community. When they’ve done that for a few hours, they return to their leafy suburbs and dinky little villages where they offload their difficult day and agree how hard it is to get a positive response from the poor. At weekends they can forget about the poor, just like politicians do all the time except before an election. Monday dawns, and a fresh week of the same routine: car after shiny car heading for the city, because that’s where the poor are found, on reservations of deprivation called estates that could be inner city or peripheral, depending on the long-discarded whims of the planners who decide how the poor should live. Estates are useful for precise demarcation and for focussing stigmatisation – these makes the job easier. The estate class are lesser beings, you see, and are to be isolated from mainstream society lest they contaminate. Improve the community? Develop it? Is that the attraction of the estate – an overwhelming desire to go therein and sort things out? That might be the mission statement but it isn’t the intention. Ask this: why would the self-acclaimed poverty warrior drive in every weekday, leaving behind the leafy suburb or the dinky little village for the grotty council estate, and want to improve the life chances of the inmates? If that were to come to pass, then what need of the poverty warrior? What would the poverty warrior do without deprivation to tackle through mission statement? A more convincing explanation is that the daily commute is made in order to secure a salary. The rest is a sophisticated pretence. What – 233 –

sensibly minded salary seeker would wish to see the source of the salary evaporate? In any case, the estate class are too far gone to improve and develop. They are schooled from their earliest years that they have been allocated the sediment of society and that they’d best get accustomed to it because that’s the deal for them. Lest they occasionally should glance to the sky and dream of somewhere else, they are constantly reminded of their situation by systematic environmental neglect, and by benefits entrapment, and by the concerted opprobrium of the rest of society. Only losers would sink to the estate, right? That’s why it’s called a sink estate. No matter that the loser was born there and brought up there and kept there by societal pressure – it’s still the loser’s fault, and nobody respects a loser, especially the self-deluding poverty warrior who drives in every day to claim that salary. Ellis was reading through hand-written notes from the phase in his life when moral anger presided over intellectual argument. In that period, he’d come to perceive community development as a complete sham. It was certainly ineffectual, otherwise the country would not persist with twelve million poor. There had been a slightly earlier time when he actually accepted the mission statement at face value, and so had a trainee outreach worker called Suzie Gardeen. She, though, had beaten him to the reality and had turned it to her advantage – had never stopped doing so. ‘The secret is not to try to make a difference. That’s never going to happen. You might shake the cobwebs in your own office but that’s about all. If you set out wanting to make a difference then you’ll end up believing you’ve failed.’ Her private words, or something like. And he had joined her, accepting shared domesticity with strings. As Su ungraciously reminded him from time to time, usually when he was advising her to pull back on spending and she wanting to redirect the conversational flow, that his comfort was a result of her developing the community, and – 234 –

long may it last. The sentiment would sting: being the object of the sentiment would sting. But the sting would quickly pass. Living as he had done for the worst part of five years on a council estate taught him the futility of shouting from within. Nobody listens; the unheeded rage threatens sanity; nothing is changed. In contrast, the carefully assembled written argument, composed well away from the estate, has a prospect. After application of patience and discreet determination, the message finally emerges in the public domain, for all to read. Su the sponsor is perfectly aware of the bubbling invective but doesn’t seem to care. She can ride it. No comment either from the community development crowd: perhaps trenchant criticism is not a favourite for the bedside table following an exhausting day at the front. His book was not limited to biting the hand that feeds, it was essentially about the maintenance of poverty, a subject that deserves more debate than it attracts – though, yes, his polemic had stirred debate if you knew which websites to surf. He opened his bureau copy of Tending Poverty, the one he had read from to Fee. Debate gives the impression – a subconscious signal – that authority is not in control of the issue. Debate implies the possibility of compromise. Authority does not wish to demean its status by debate. Now, ‘a chance to have your say’ is something quite else – a pressure release valve for a subjugated group. A good old moan and groan, a wish list and discharge of indignation. All your forums and workshops and Q&A sessions – they are the bling of democracy. Nothing is going to change in reality, no matter how bloated the huffing and puffing. The decisions have been made by authority, and that’s that. ‘But isn’t there such a thing as public opinion?’ I hear asked. ‘What about people power?’ Well, when authority realises a dreadful mistake has been made, that a plan has not been

– 235 –

thought through, then the face-saving stance is announced: ‘we’ve listened to the people, and we’ve acted accordingly.’ With that disarming phrase, authority gets to look good for being right after all.

The above refers to debate in the context of the estate – the estate class don’t debate, they mouth off a bit but ultimately they listen to what has been decided for them. On the other hand, debate that follows the publication of a polemic idea is proper debate, conducted among intellectual peers, aimed at separating left-wing giveaway liberal thinkers from right-wing purveyors of pure cant. Sometimes the right-wing purveyors are proved correct in what they have considered, sometimes annoyingly so. He wished he held the shield of insufferable smugness to hide under, like Craig Mains, who assumed that people only question him because they are not in full possession of the facts. What an admirable outlook! It irked him that he’d modelled himself to a degree on Craig Mains. Not willingly; not even admittedly until recently, and only to himself. There were passages from the pen of Mains that he himself might have written. Mains’ success was not the consequences of style or quality but of purpose and target. A writer has to want to be a popular seller more than he (stroke she) wants to be a writer; however, to be a writer is all many do want, and the great majority of these will fall lamentably short of achieving even that. Target is essential – it’s often deployment of sixth sense bathed in good luck, the well-timed word count for the prevailing public mood. Mains had target; Carmichael simply blasted away. Religion as target. But it could be ventured that atheism is a substitute for religion, a perfect mirror of the faith it rejects, a rival to the Bible, and all that. An alternative position might be to settle for the label of agnostic, a non-believer, or having entered a phase of post-credulity. Mind-shackling now takes other forms; also there are social controls better adapted for – 236 –

modern industrialised society – consumerism being instantly recognisable. The big churches have always structured to maintain a rich-poor divide: when stripped of the pomp and regalia – the ‘fancy dress ball of the righteous’, as Mains phrases it – any one of the principal faiths is, in the flesh, a self-serving elite bent on instructing the masses how to behave and what to believe – which of course is a reflection of the society the church serves. People turn to religion in troubled times; they are seeking a meaning to life, and hope God will pay off their credit cards. With civilisation being barely skin deep, religion is an insurance. Note, however, the built-in contradiction: conservatism is necessary as a backbone for a big faith, yet the same conservatism hinders progress because it commits every new generation to a previous stage of development. The call for innovation comes, barely heard and quite ignored, from the bottom of a rut. Then there is fundamentalism, or how to manifest one’s insecurity about one’s religion. Fundamentalism is the call for strength from behind the sandbags. Nobody would be able to spit venomous fundamentalism across the world stage were it not for the scale of broadcast offered by modern communications. Oh, the delicious irony! Do you see how the merest suggestion of a moderate presence of doubt flows into the atheist’s channel? Popular atheism, commercial atheism, best-selling atheism – takes up the slack in the doubt. Promoters of the new religion are as keen and able to hook you into their doorway as the followers of the old religions. To the fresh-faced honest clean-living passer-by, they’re whores, the lot of them. Why can’t there simply be no god, no metaphysical statement, no belief? Also, no no-god pitch and no talk of god delusion? One answer could be that the free floater, steering neither one way nor the other, is what an elite-led system fears the most. We’re expected to show a colour, to be with or against. – 237 –

Ellis closed his book and shut down his thinking. There was an evening meal for two to prepare. Success gave Su an appetite. Her argument was she worked harder for success. Her justification for eating when things were not swinging her way was that the brain needs more fuel for planning the fightback. Otherwise, eating was what people sit at a dining table for. Her frequent diets were applied with determination – usually between meals. Superdiets tended to last longer, and on the rare occasion – for instance, in the days prior to a full medical check for employment insurance purposes – had a discernible though temporary impact on the Gardeen girth. Su’s most effective weight reducing tool was the television: before a scheduled appearance, food was banned like it was never invented. There had been two television appearances – three if a repeat was to be counted. A street interview and a lunchtime studio slot were limited to regional coverage. Ellis told her she was a natural for the screen and he meant it. Studio work involved a careful choice of outfit in order to avoid the busybody social worker look. “You’ll wear out the mirror,” Ellis humorously warned. “Do you think my bum looks kissable in this?” she replied, doing a twirl of admiration. The invitation to appear on Newsnight precipitated superdiet mode, and the purchase of the right sartorial statement significantly abused the notional monthly clothing budget. Su’s part in the item was as a talking head via a link-up from the regional studio. It was hot in the cubicle at the studio, and very bright; there was a lot of waiting before anything happened; nevertheless, she put in a credible performance. “You were great,” Geri told her, speaking the following morning for the staff of CA Central. “Really great, Su.” A hug for the boss. “I was wanting the loo bad. They wouldn’t let me go, the prickles.” – 238 –

“We’re proud of you.” “Mustn’t let it go to my head. CA’s Got Talent, Big Sister, here I come.” “No, I mean the way you answered the questions. No hesitation, cool as you like.” Su smiled as she sat at her desk and started opening the mail addressed specifically to her. “Gotta throw it back.” “You did that all right.” Ellis had timed her onscreen articulation and her total presence on the wall screen, to one side of presenter and studio guests, to the precise second. Only two incidents of ‘er’ and a single request for a repeat when the question was not clear. Favourite word was ‘however’ which is everyone’s when thrust into a formal situation. Facts and figures at the ready… “Actually, I got one of them wrong,” Su confessed with a smile to Ellis. “I made it up.” “It didn’t show.” “It didn’t matter.” The pilot was under way, fuelled by apparent enthusiasm from those assigned to it, the outreach managers having been assuaged. According to Geri, the staff saw Su’s energy as a response to grief over Fee’s death. Su did not deny the interpretation. In the days when Fee was been on the CA payroll she was generally viewed as incompetent, promoted about her capability because she was the boss’s lover, until a change of role and good results as a representative in the field had won her a measure of respect. No one had expressly hated Fee; after her death people began to remember her with fondness, old resentments seeping away. No one spoke ill of Fee for the manner of her dying. It was, of course, too early to assess the pilot as regards its influence on the young of the trial territory, but not so early for Su to want to reward herself for personal input and – 239 –

assumed success of the exercise. Over an evening meal at home she introduced the topic of Mercedes-Benz; that is, she was thinking of trading in the Lexus for a new car, and possibly a change of marque. She had no grouse about Lexus but she fancied a sharpening of image. Ellis listened without listening: upmarket was Su’s only direction of dreaming, which was understandable – the same can be said of any consumer population – but Su’s spending dreams were apt to appear on her list of things to do. Brochures were spread on the table top and their pages turned and specifications read out. On the following Friday, Su arrived home in a mood of excitement which she pretended to conceal, like a child who has peeked the presents before their wrapping. She performed with a key fob, placing it down in the kitchen and picking it up, and repeated the cycle. Deliberate actions. Ellis brought her a glass of wine and gave his attention to the cooking. Su could contain herself no longer. “Fancy going for a spin? After tea, I mean.” It had been a grey day with the wind cool; rain was forecast for later. One for the fireside. “Where to? What for?” “Anywhere. Nowhere. As for the reason – come and have a look.” Before the meal was served, she had him out into the yard before a silver S-Class bearing a current plate. “Whose is it?” he asked, bracing himself for the answer. “Don’t wilt. It’s a demo. Mine for the weekend. Like it?” Sales in luxury cars were down because of the recession – fact; and a weekend loan was a tactic. Ellis attached another fact: a dealer in expensive roadware would let a car out for the weekend only to a potential customer who could demonstrate a certain degree of purchase intention, even in these difficult times. He brought her inside and served the meal. She asked again what he thought. “Su, you can’t afford it. You don’t need a new car. The Lexus isn’t paid for.” – 240 –

“I’m getting —” Mock humble correction. “The nice man offered me a generous trade in.” “Did he really? What did you mean by ‘sharper image’?” “What?” “The other evening, you said something about wishing to sharpen your image. Isn’t it sharp enough? Who additionally do you need to impress?” Her excitement saved him from a retort. “Did I? I can’t remember.” He knew she could remember. A gentle return to lack of affordability. Su was dismissive. “I will be able to.” “How? We’re flashing the amber alert as it is.” “We?” Time to back off. He let her describe the car’s features, no doubt an accurate repeat of the nice man’s showroom patter. He acquiesced to the offered spins over the period of the loan, being passenger and – for a little distance – driver as the machine clocked up a cheeky trial mileage. It was returned and the Lexus reappeared. Su entered a detached frame of mind, pensive, mentally distracted, for the best part of a week. Any day, the Mercedes might appear, not on loan but owned, at least in title. If this were to be the event, Ellis hoped Su would stay with the demonstration model and chip away at the price. It did not appear. Friday – why always a Friday? – Su poured out a vodka, soon after dinner which included a shared bottle of wine. She was stressed despite reporting a good day at the office. The car? Ellis asked – better it was out than festering within. They were sitting in each their favourite seats in the lounge. There was a delay before Su’s reply. “Ellis, I want that car. I want more than that car.” “Don’t we all?” “I mean want, as in ‘going to have’.” “Ambition was ever your strong suit, Su Gardeen.” – 241 –

“It’s there, waiting to be grasped by the dangly bits.” “The car is? I’d have expected a new car of that build quality to be without dangly bits.” “Not the car.” “Promotion?” Had Su spotted a vacancy in a loftier stratum as a result of her dealings with the Department? Su poured a second vodka. Why the stiffener if the news was good? And it was a stiffener, not a celebratory drink; he could tell by the actions – the pouring, the looking into the glass, the moment of angry resolve that brought glass to parted lips. “All there. The pieces are all in place.” “Go for it. Is that what you want me to say? Who am I to stand in the way of an ambitious woman?” A long pause and inspection of the remaining vodka. “You remember that last weekend with Fee?” “How could I possibly forget?” “We – she and I – we talked.” “You certainly did that.” “Well, it was a crash course on what she was doing besides spreading the word. We – us – had her figured wrong, that young filly.” “I know.” “I thought I knew her, inside and out – literally.” A quick smile at a memory. “I didn’t know the half.” “Which half are we talking about?” “Her time with the church of blah-blah, with that creep who ran it. Her time on the estates.” “It requires imagination, I suppose.” “No, it doesn’t. It’s all spelt out.” Su rose for a refill. Unusually, actually unprecedented, she poured Ellis a single malt and took it over to him. “It’s a bit early in the evening, old girl, but thank you all the same. Am I going to need it?” A show of tongue and shake of head as reply. She sat and continued. – 242 –

“Madam, may she rest in peace, had it in the bag. Names, places, dates – the director’s cut.” “Why did she share her ill-gained knowledge with you?” “She didn’t, not willingly. I asked.” “Why did you ask?” “She told me some, and I got interested. Natural curiosity, I guess.” “Why would she tell you even when you asked? What were you going to do with the information?” “She wanted desperately to offload. She wasn’t going back.” Ellis was leaning forward from his chair, tumbler in hand, whisky as yet untouched. “But she did go back – you took her one evening.” “Strictly a humanitarian run. Medicinal.” He sat back and took a sip, cautiously, as if the beverage might be hot. Thinking space. “So she told you enough to put her away for years.” “Enough plus. Everything.” “You can’t know that.” “Yes I can.” “I still don’t see why. She could have confessed in general terms. ‘Forgive me, Mistress, for I have sinned.’” “Wrong church. I told you – I asked.” Whisky tumbler down on the table beside the chair. “Why, Su, exactly did you ask?” Each word was enunciated slowly and carefully. Quicker: “You’re going to tell me you asked for research purposes, to help with the pilot. Insider information, and all that. Commendable. But what if the police think you know names, places, dates, everything? They’ll pull you in. What if the gangs think you know? They’ll pull you apart.” “Lose the sweat. Nobody knows I know. Why should they? Fee is who they wanted and Fee is yesterday. Fee who took so much with her they had to dig a bigger grave. Incidentally, you’re bang on about the research angle. Give yourself a star.” – 243 –

Moments to let the situation loosen. Sips of drinks. Su again. “This is where you ask me why I brought this up tonight.” “You’ve been wanting to for days. Let’s have it. You want the Mercedes and much more. You tell me Fee’s legacy will set you up for a specialist subject on Mastermind. I’m looking for a connection. Presumably there is one.” Su grasped her hands and rested them on her knees. The tight mouth under the big blue-tinted lens of her glasses lent her a moment’s passing similarity to an Area 51 alien. “The connection is breathtakingly simple, El. I expected you to be there waiting for me.” “What do you mean?” She emitted a sigh, more of patience than exasperation. “Head of buzzing community development agency, well on top of a government pilot to discourage take up of drugs. Blessings from up high, departmentally speaking. Newsnight approved. Front page of national in-house mag. Wey-hey! – I’m the complete antithesis —” She glanced for confirmation that the word was correctly used and said. A nod spurred her to continue. “— of your vile drug distributor. I’m untouchable, yeh?” Ellis waited. “Also, thanks to Madam, I know the personae dram—” “Dramatis personae.” “Whatever. I know how it revs. With me so far? I also know there is a network waiting to be shook into shape by someone who – shall we say – ranks among the very best when it comes to organising a network.” Su was becoming animated; Ellis sipped with a contrived contrasting calmness. “Here’s one for you, Ellis. What’s the safest investment in a time of economic meltdown? It sure ain’t the fiddling banks, or shocks and stares. It’s the market for good gear out on the street. Blue chip. Demand never drops.” Ellis lifted himself and crossed the room to the drinks – 244 –

cabinet. Su held out her empty glass. “Same again, bartender.” Back in his chair, drinks replenished, he raised a palm. “Su. I have to declare I have no idea what you’re talking about. I hear what you say, I grasp the points made, but where are you taking this?” He was studying Su who appeared to be preparing herself for a momentous announcement: lips moistened by the tongue; an adjustment of glasses; a blind glance to the corner of the room. “The Shepherdess is dead – yeh? How about ‘long live the Shepherdess’?” “I’m still not with you.” “Do I have to spell it out? If Madam had them running about, just think what a totally protected born organiser could achieve.” She waited for his response, the student anxious to learn about her essay. Ellis dragged fingers over his mouth then the same hand stroked the hair at the back of his head. “I don’t know what to say.” “That’s a change.” “Are you telling me you’re —? No.” “Nearly there.” “It sounds like you’re contemplating taking over Fee’s role on the estates. Joke?” “Without the bible-waving warm-up, yes. No joke. And the rest.” He stood; she stood. he without tumbler; she downing in one. “It can’t fail, El. Not with me in charge.” Ellis shook his head. “What about the pilot?” “The pilot will come and go. No sooner is an initiative launched and the government starts to tire of it. Produce a few glossies, throw some taxpayers’ money at it, you know the line – it’s in your book. This pilot is to wake up SOCA. If – 245 –

they smell coffee, they might actually do something that resembles useful. Meanwhile, the pilot is my ‘not go to jail in the first place’ card.” He sat again; she remained standing. “Well, you’ve certainly changed your tune. The pilot was everything you’ve waited your life for, until tonight. Now you want to side with the baddies. Mess with that lot and you might find jail could be the nicest thing that happens you to. Tell me this is a mind game, Su. Tell me it’s a rehearsal for a CA role play workshop. Tell me I’m asleep in my bed after too much cheese for supper.” “I’ve worked it all out. I want the challenge, El. I want the money. Like I said, I want that car. It’ll do for starters.” Ellis held his tumbler to the light. “As far as I’m aware, Fee didn’t make any money. Not for herself.” “Fee wasn’t in it for the money. God told her to do it – one modification I intend to make.” Ellis signalled he’d had enough. “I don’t believe you. I don’t believe any of this. It’s – well, it’s just crazy.” She spread her arms under shrugged shoulders. “At least think about what I’ve said. I’ll need to know if you’re in or out.” “What if I’m in? What if I’m out?” Su poured another vodka which she was about to take upstairs. “I guess the answer is in the question. In: you do nothing ’cept watch for movement in the long grass. Out: drop your keys through the letterbox when you go. I don’t see other options. Do you?” “Yes, I do. Let’s see. There’s forget this conversation ever took place. There’s a return to reality. There’s enjoy what we’ve got, which is more than a lot of people. There’s making an appointment with a psychiatrist.” “Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there’s kicking myself for ever till I – 246 –

die because I sat on the toilet while the train left for Paradise. I’m going to have a bath and an early night. Don’t drink the lot.” ***** Morning came and Su left for the city. Ellis, unusually, was a little late in getting up. He tidied downstairs and went on the internet. In the late morning he too drove into the city. If Su had caused concern when she suggested illegally burying Fee’s body, her latest idea was certifiable. Shortly after a very much alive Fee had departed the address, subsequently to do her thing in Africa – departed, by the way, because of Su’s increasingly bizarre demands in the bedroom, Su had experienced her mother’s being delivered to a home where to end her days in mental oblivion. A depressive time for Su who had sought comfort through copious repeat doses of her favourite Russian panacea. He had brought her off the bottle – not altogether, miracles take longer, but certainly detaining her from self-destruction – and had worked to convince her she wasn’t losing her own mental presence. This had been entirely successful – for Su. The return of Fee, however, had started, perhaps rekindled, a condition which, as far as his inexpert assessment identified, had nothing to do with Alzheimer’s but was nonetheless abnormal. Was it temporary? The manic desire to conceal the body had been short-lived. Rationality and responsibility had returned leaving just enough contrition and embarrassment in its wake to be able to attribute the incident to shock. The proposal to take over an illegal drugs operation was not the consequence of shock, not even belated shock. It was madness, based on pseudorationality; a faulty connection within the brain’s analysis of observed data. Everything Su had said was right in its own dubious context; as a whole, it was preposterous, nonsense, insane. Okay, it might be temporary, something to laugh about in years to come, but a lot of damage could be done – 247 –

while the idea ran, while nice men in plush car showrooms cultivated her materialism, as if it needed cultivation. So why was he here, in his modest Ford, at the figurative gates of the estate which had once been where to find him? Purpose and place. Purpose first. Was it the ultimatum? In or out, for or against, as expressed by Su, or the vodka, or the temporary mental disconnection. Well, he was against her. Obviously. But shouldn’t he be for her – with her – in another sense, helping her until the madness passed? Or was the parting of the ways written on the wall? How strong was the relationship? Could he cope with a dominant partner’s decline into whatever mental twilight the Gardeen genes carried in their code? Responsibility wasn’t his best score. Let someone else take the risks, make the decisions. The Carmichael condition. Clever but cowardly. A brain without a spine. He had no respect for people who might fit the description, only loathing, which he had to suppress in order to live with himself. This thread was going nowhere. Place, then. If the worst were to happen, he would leave the Gardeen guardianship and go precisely where? Here? The estate? His philosophical launch pad, so to speak. Ellis drove to the area where once a tower block had been his refuge. A grassy knoll marked the site of high-rise assassination. He left the car and climbed the knoll. To one side stood houses, single and in abbreviated rows, like odd teeth in a hag’s mouth, the result of eighties’ Right-To-Buy being in the way of fin de millennium government insistence on demolition of surplus council stock. Owner-occupied houses remained scattered amid a plain of ‘landscape reconfiguration’, of ‘estate remodelling following comprehensive consultation with the residents’, which meant that the council had come along one day to spread a trailer of grass seed and to knock into the ground some wooden posts to prevent travellers from setting up camp. Why had the stock been declared surplus? Because the – 248 –

government hates council housing. Renting from the local authority is to be regarded not a matter of personal choice, you see, but is made a symbol of poverty. Remove the symbols and you can ignore the poverty, as any politician will tell you. It’s more than that. The masses are brainwashed into believing they cannot be recognised as proper citizens unless they own their homes. It’s an illusion created in order to provide a greater yield for that sector of society which aggressively controls wealth, a sector which exists solely to exploit the rest of society, a sector we shall for present convenience refer to as ‘capital’. A home purchased via a mortgage costs substantially more than the listed buying price because of the years and years of interest; perhaps twice the buying price, sometimes more. All right, bring on the old argument about mortgage being preferable to rent because one day the last loan payment will be made whereas rent has no end. That irresistible slice of tomorrow. Yes, the argument’s correct, it’s always been correct, but the fact remains that the interest has to be laboured for as well as does the principal amount. The fruits of the additional labour go to the lender, to capital. Rent paid to a council does not benefit capital to any similar degree, therefore it is to the advantage of capital to persuade people to take out a mortgage. The government, an essential agent of capital, coerced councils into tearing down their surplus stock – homes made ‘surplus’ because demand was low because of neglect because the council had insufficient money because the government seized most of the receipts from Right-ToBuy sales, and held up housing maintenance grants, and employed every other devious devise because the government hates council housing because capital does not make money from council housing. Ellis exhaled loudly. The same government is now urging, as a political reaction, the building of new council homes because demand has soared. Actually, demand was always present; there never was a surplus; the surreal and grossly – 249 –

inefficient atomisation of a community which lay before him need not have happened. He turned direction to face, in the middle distance, the neighbourhood integrated service centre, built and opened since his lifestyle move. It was architecturally tasteful; modern without the excesses that modern architects are prone to. A smart edifice as a monument to PFI, the private finance initiative; government in collusion with capital; a pleasant working environment for those who drive in every weekday from leafy suburbs and dinky little villages. A gaudy burger van broke his gaze; he surmised the vending vehicle was on its way to the entrance of the estate’s secondary school. Lunchtime, though he wasn’t hungry. He returned to his car. Su’s car – it belonged to Su. Every material bloody thing he possessed belonged to Su in the sense that it had been purchased using her money. Now she wanted more money. More for her, more for him, if he stayed around. If he chose not to, if she chose not to let him, then there was always the estate. Except the council had demolished his ivory tower of concrete. How many former residents of the removed homes in the sky had ended up in a double-fronted converted farmhouse overlooking a village green? In a rough corner of the estate was a broken walkway that led past a row of derelict single-storey shop units. He pulled up by the side of the road near the wide path and left the engine running. Two adjoining units, knocked through, had once been occupied by Advancing This Community, as an outreach office. It had been at these premises that he had met Suzie. Advancing This Community had metamorphosed, with the aid of regional development funding, into Community Advance, and Suzie – in readiness – had metamorphosed into Su. The one, it seemed, no longer provided sufficient challenge for the other.

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The mantra of the nineties has been abandoned in favour of a more technical tongue which speaks of tackling, or at least addressing, the issue of social fragmentation, of ‘placeshaping’, which apparently means reasserting a sense of place. Some of the original ideals linger, such as giving the community a voice, and making it self-reliant, though the heavyweight stuff has been passed on to the regenerators.

On the estate’s main thoroughfare, he had discovered a large graffiti-graced sign which announced future generation without specifying which future. Community generation is community development for grown-ups. Community regeneration sets out to atone for the crass mistakes of the sixties and seventies, and perhaps to leave something for which to atone in turn to would-be urban engineers of tomorrow. Community regeneration gets physical. It costs serious money.

He had slowed almost to a halt. Vehicles were behind. Pulling away, he used the next side road to turn around, and retraced his route. Community development and community regeneration both engage in reconstruction. The term would suggest a preceding deconstruction or disintegration, or destruction. This is all in the past, and not to be dwelt upon, or even explained. Also notice, under the rubric of regeneration, words like re-asssertion and re-skilling. The entire community lexicon acquires an overused common prefix.

Time to go, to leave the estate and return home, to his partner’s home. The partnership approach is seen as best because no single agency will have the answer. A partnership brings together senior individuals who have the power to make decisions and to commit resources and, above all, who understand what

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they are doing. So purrs the promise. The reality can be very different…

Su rang to say she wanted to eat out that evening. Over the meal at a country restaurant coping bravely with financial downturn, she asked him if he had had his think. “Regarding last night’s conversation, you mean?” “What else?” “Yes. I’ve had my think. I hope you’ve had one, too.” “No change, except it make more sense than before. I take on board your concerns for my security, which is sweet of you. It would have to be watertight – no shit hitting any fan in my proximity.” Ellis stretched his arms. “Watertight or not, the police would find out. Look how they rumbled what’s-his-name and his phoney church.” “The police are in the bag.” From Su, that certain jolt and lean of the head which said she would wait for him to ask what she meant, and be silent till he did. “Expand, please.” “We’ve joined forces. CA and the fuzz. Can you believe who’s the liaison officer – besides yours truly, naturally?” “I’m not able to put it to the test until you tell me.” “Guess.” Guessing stressed him He shook his head, then indulged her. “DI Filey?” “In body and soul. Mark – I get to call him Mark.” “Whose idea was it to ‘join forces’?” “Mine. Ours. The Department’s. Does it matter? It’s a turnout. Protection.” Ellis laughed – “Surveillance. He’s watching you. He’s ahead of you, Su.” – and received a Su look from behind the tinted spectacles across the table. – 252 –

“Mark Filey’s a pillock. He’s too cack-handed to be ahead. That man wouldn’t smell his own trousers smouldering.” Elbows on table, hands together, Ellis sought her eyes. “I still don’t believe any of this, you know. All for a car. It’s nonsense.” “Old ground. Let’s move on. Where’s the sweets trolley?” The old ground was revisited when they were home. Su alluded to her ultimatum and Ellis said he would be leaving if she carried the insanity further. His choice of the term was deliberate: ‘insanity’ was supposed to be a shock word, though on this occasion it appeared to have little effect. She asked him where he would go – back to the estate? When he gave no reply, she taunted him with the option, as if somehow knowing he’d been there earlier in the day. He wondered if she had been following him, or if one of her ground troops had spotted him; and dismissed both as highly unlikely. As a token of retaliation, he outlining a scenario of her life without him, domestically lonely and likely to wobble off the rails. It received a loud ‘hah!’ of contempt. There was an elephant in the room. If Ellis were to leave, he would be taking with him information in his head to bring her crashing down, should she continue with the mad plan. How would she ensure his silence? What would she do? What was she capable of doing? A mutually accepted silence descended as they watched Newsnight together, then retired to bed. Ellis laid awake with a mind unsettled while Su snored as if life were perfect and her dreams better than life. ***** “Comfortable down there? The worms not found you yet? They will. Bet you aren’t looking so good right now. Serves you right. You’ve only yourself to blame, Madam. The Lord gave you just enough rope, yeh? Not that I subscribe to that pompous claptrap. Craig Mains has it bound up. You’d know – 253 –

that, of course, seeing you were so cosy-uppy with him. Silly girl. Slick artist, our Craig, by accounts. He wanted Andrea to find out – you were his dupe. It’s a game they play, one you wouldn’t understand. Men were never you’re A-starred plus. You should’ve stuck with what you know – fond memories, yeh? As for converting the smug bastard, you never stood a chance. Craig Mains doesn’t care whether there’s a fucking god or not, but he’s wise to what sells books. Rabbiting on like you did about the Lord and His wonderful vision for us all just gets on everyone’s tits. Me, I’ll take my chance. I’ll do what makes me what I am and I’ll give ’em a pasting if they piss me off at the pearly gates. The other place doesn’t sound so bad – I could make a go of it. ARE YOU LISTENING, GOD? Sorry, dear. Did I disturb your peace, down there? Seriously, you let the god bug in – that was your boo-boo. Life is up to the individual and religion is not to be relied on like it’s some kind of universal social benefit. Sounds a bit like Ellis. He misses you, Ellis does. Honest. I think he always had a soft spot for you, under all that wool. He still enjoys the movies we made together, you and me. Gets himself off on them. Poor Ellis. He’s another lost soul, or would be without me to poke his arse. He’s a half man. Most of them are. Thank the Lord for that. D’you think the Lord is a voyeur, like Ellis? Well-placed to ogle the action, yeh? Pulling away at his plonker. No age taboo, either. You’re never alone with a god. Now you’ve had sex with the Lord – you said so in those very words, though you were probably too spaced out to remember. And frolics with sinner Mains. I reckon there’s a story in there. Do you have sex with God now, in your new place? The stamina of the man. Wait till I get there – I’ll sort you out. Happy days, yeh? And nights. But you’ll have to fatten out and get some colour in those cheeks – you looked like fucking death warmed up that last week on Earth, like you’d snap under a good humping. The chemicals, I know, I know. First rule of the drugs trade – you’re supposed to peddle the muck, not stuff it into every orifice. Big mistake, getting – 254 –

hooked yourself. You got the habit without becoming a nun. That’s a funny. You told me it, come to think. Anyhow, I don’t have need of chemical assistance ’cos I produce my own buzz. Being Su Gardeen is cool for any gal. SU GARDEEN, EVERYONE. Okay, okay, I’ll keep it quiet, this being a cemetery an’ all. Your neighbours, I should imagine they don’t complain. It’s a blessing to have nice neighbours. Old misery guts next door to me is mouth-farting about the leylandii again. I’ll sent Ellis round. Ellis is an ace at that sort of thing. He waffles on a bit, likes the sound of his own brain, but he has his uses. I wouldn’t be without him, if I’m honest. It goes without saying, he needs me more than I need him, which is the pre-whatsit of a lasting relationship. I like having him about. He wears the fetters with pride. I like that in a man. And I’ve had him in that punishment frame you hated. Had him, from behind, with Our Mutual Friend. And he begged for more. Thing is, he’s not with me on – well, you can guess. That’s why I’m here, really. Yes, yes, and to pay my respects. Why else would I be crouching like I’m taking a piss, on wet grass and mud, catching my own death under cold fucking drizzle without a jolly brolly. I’m here, consulting with an unseen stiff, in the middle of a council graveyard in the middle of the working day when there’s an empire to run. Ellis said I’d be alone if he went. Fact is, I feel alone right now, just you and me in the current conversation. I don’t do alone so well, not anymore. A self-made woman needs a staunch man behind her, and a supple filly under her. Well, you did a runner. I wouldn’t want El going the same road. You thought I was cracking up, yeh? Am I cracking up? Not doolally like Mum. You never met Mum, did you. Not neurotic like Margo. You never met my sister, either. Blessing for both of you. Okay, I make the wrong noise now and again, scare the horses, know what I mean? It’s lightweight, it’s not a step closer to the funny farm. No way. I’m class when it comes to self-preservation – read my story. Remember that special sense I have which tells me when I’m – 255 –

wading in too deep? Too bad it’s only for the greatest. You, Madam, were over your head – which leads us back to the god bollocks. It made you overconfident, and immoral. I don’t have a god, dear, I’m strictly in-house on the morality front. Su Gardeen may not have the edge on God but Gardeen is more believable. No god pushing me on – I know when to stop. I know when to go on, I know when to turn back. I know what’s cool, what’s hot, what’s a winner, what’s a turkey, what’s what, what’s not. You made a balls up, in the end you did, and you admitted it. To me. You told me everything, every fucking scintilla. Why was that? Because I asked for every fucking scintilla, nagged away till you started making it up. I wanted to know. When it came splattering out, I was impressed – really. And faith-phoney Dominic thought you just a cowhand, yeh? I would never have said you had it in you, but you did. That’s my gal. After my own image but without the physique, which did for you in the end. I asked and you delivered, big time. For once, you showed the way. You shone the torch, you Girl Guide you. You shepherdess. Know what? I can be just like you but a million times better because I’m organised and wily and a complete prat when pratness is the password. I can be you and Dummy-knob combined. May he rot in jail for eternity. He led you away from me to that silly church of his. My loss, his loss. Your loss. My loss again. No, not my loss again. Not this time. I want something out of it and I hold the remote control. I’m glad I asked. The grave is no fit depository for all the gen you held. You were a sweet thing corrupted. By me, by others, by the Almighty himself. Gotta go – getting cramp. It’s been nice having you listen. Sleep well, down there in the dirt with the creepy-crawlies. I should have had you cremated, cast your ashes to the wind, free and floating, like. Too late now. See ya later.” ***** – 256 –

Ellis was reminded of the last days with Babs, his first and only wife. She had taken the employee-employer relationship too far at the pub where she was barmaid. In truth, the affair represented the final yank of the plug on the marriage and provided a convenient excuse to call time, so to speak. Those last days, before the physical parting of the ways, saw enactments of false politeness or frosty correctness as two adults shared the same roof while wishing the core of the Earth lay between them. The children were aware, as children dependably are, of the situation while they pretended everything would be all right so as not to upset their parents, who were grown-ups and therefore not very good at being grown up. He and Su had entered that state of limbo, though with no kids to emphasise the unreality. Emphasis was not necessary. The Babs time lasted six unpleasant weeks, most of the evenings of which Babs was working. At least he’d known – or could expansively imagine – what she was doing. Not so in the case of Su. Evenings of not coming home – doing what? Meeting whom? When she was home, he wanted her not to be. Except it was Su’s home, which essentially made him the unwanted presence. And a week had yet to elapse since the restaurant. Focus – he had to focus. Self-reliability in funding, living, surviving. It had become foreign territory – harsh and disorientating – beyond the village green, outside of his now fracturing cocoon. He hoped for something to happen without being able to suggest an event, something to break the limbo, to trigger resolving action. In the absence of an own provision of impetus he had to wait until the following week. Su arrived at tea-time and made directly for the drinks cabinet. Adult vodka. “What’s the matter?” he asked, neutrally. Leaving the vodka, Su went upstairs. Ellis indulged in a shrug and returned to the meal he was preparing, certainly not one of his specials, merely a duty being performed. When – 257 –

the meal was ready, he called upstairs. Minutes passed before Su appeared and sat at the table, bringing the untouched glass of vodka through with her. “Operation Shepherdess is under way,” she announced in a low voice. Ellis paused his eating to respond. “Oh?” “Don’t you know?” she half snapped. “No,” he replied, truthfully. None of his business other than to pack bags. “You must have seen the internet.” “I’ve been writing.” It neither answered her question nor stemmed his own confusion. “I thought you’d be following it on the local rag site. Media diarrhoea.” “Operation Shepherdess?” As soon as the prompt for further information was uttered, he decided it must sound moronic. “Yup. Filey’s idea, no doubt.” “DI Filey?” The unoriginal contribution brought a flash of anger. “Yes. Detective Inspector bloody Filey. Who else, for crying out loud?” Ellis put down his cutlery and made to leave the table. He was going to seek explanation from his computer. “Don’t go. Don’t leave me.” Said in a tone of pleading. He sat; she continued. “Stay with me. I’m in need of a friend.” “It’s there, by your right elbow.” At another time, Su’s nasal exhalation might have signified an appreciation of his wit. Ellis resumed his meal. “Eat up, it’s getting cold. The cook’ll feel slighted.” Nothing from Su. Hold tight and dive in. “So what’s the story? In what way has co-liaison officer Filey got under your fingernails?” A fork of food. “Only if you want to tell me, of course. It’s not my place to pry.” – 258 –

Su shook her head like she was trying to evict an insect from her hair, then buried stilled head in hands. He finished eating and pushed away his plate. She raised her head and stiffened her back, and spoke in a voice she probably used at meetings: deliberate and a little raised. “The police have launched the biggest orchestration of raids on properties the city’s seen in a long time. Ever. Starting this morning at daybreak. I got to know at the same time as the media because I’m privileged. Operation Shepherdess.” “You said. Coincidence?” “Don’t be daft. Drugs squad have had the whole show carefully planned for some time. It’s been like the sack of Rome.” “I wasn’t there.” Another change from Su. She played with the vodka glass, looking down, seemingly lost in thought until Ellis lifted himself from his chair. “Filey has his own interpretation of liaison,” she told him. “You mean he didn’t let on. You couldn’t expect him to. You were told when the media were told, which is better that learning about it as breaking news.” “The police had an informant.” “Filey told you that?” “A reliable source. From beyond the grave.” “Sounds spooky.” Su looked up at him. “Fee was always a notebook freak. Her little black book of mysteries. Very secret.” “Little black books are traditionally secret.” “Hers was red, actually. So where was it, when we cleared out her things?” “Hidden? Shall we have a look for it?” Irritation from Su. “Hidden, not. She gave it to the police.” “Did Filey tell you? Did Fee?” Ignored. – 259 –

“She told the drugs squad everything. She told me everything, minus the small detail that she told the drugs squad.” “You asked.” Su thumped the table making the vodka tremble in the glass. “You simply don’t get it, do you? Madam set me up.” Ellis stood and went round the table to her. “That’s rubbish.” “Is it?” “It is. From every direction. One: you don’t have any evidence the police are in possession of her little black – red book. She may have destroyed it after the showdown at the faith centre. There may not have been a little red book in the first place, not one the police would find of any value. Or, it could still be here, somewhere in this house. Two: —.” “One: Ferriby has her book. She gave it to him.” “When?” “The police didn’t turn this place upside down because they already had what they wanted. They didn’t mention the cache they failed to find, the one we got rid of, because they weren’t interested.” He sat down on the chair next to her and laid his arms on the table. “Su, you’re taking your imagination for a walk without a lead. It’s running off into the distance.” “You’re not listening to me – she was working with Filey.” “I am listening.” “Something was going on between them. There had to be.” Ellis inhaled deeply. “Two: why would she do such a thing? Why on earth would she want to set you up, as you put it?” “She knew she was about to croak. That’s why. ‘Something to remember me by.’ Like you once said: we are what we intend to leave behind.” “We can’t be sure Fee knew she was about to die.” They were looking into each other’s faces. – 260 –

“You thought suicide. You commented on how ill she looked. You blamed me for not bringing in the doctor.” “All right. Scrub two. Three. She gave you the information to help you. Because you were asking. You’d applied for the pilot; you wanted to be in front of the curve. You alone nursed the crazy notion of becoming Shepherdess Mark Two.” “I could have been, too. Everything was coming together.” “Four – and this is the clincher, it should have been point one. As I would understand it, this morning’s raid – series of raids were at the homes and hideouts of no-good little two-bit dealers and their runners, and maybe some prime users – I don’t know. They wouldn’t be in Fee’s book – she wasn’t involved with the last lap. Today’s operation had nothing to do with Fee.” “Apart from the name, you mean?” Su turned away. Not immediately, she continued. “Madam had key contacts on every estate. They’d be in her little red book. The police would take it from there.” Ellis’s voice was low, like a growl. “That’s what you’ve been doing, isn’t it? You’ve been seeking out the lowlife.” Louder, angrier. “Have you any idea what kind of danger you put yourself in?” “I haven’t gotten very far.” This said after an ironic grunt. “They don’t trust me – I’m community development. Plus, they scare the steamy poo out of me. My wise and faithful managers have it right.” Su hung her head and spoke in a whisper. “Big ideas and cold feet, that’s me.” Face towards face once more. “I hate the estate. If Hell’s anything like a council estate, I’m not going.” “Is that what you think?” he murmured. Su searched his eyes, one and then the other, a trick from – 261 –

their early days. The little girl look. She leant towards him and fell into his waiting grasp. “I don’t know what to think, anymore,” she sniffled. “Then my advice is to have a break from thinking, old girl,” he comforted. “I’ve been a silly clod.” “You’ve been studying every option. That’s all.” Many seconds passed before she responded. “That’s all.” ***** Community Advance were able to announce their initiative an overwhelming success. The organisation’s leader (see press photographs) said her staff had worked tirelessly and would continue to do so, in order to make the streets safe from the dangers of illegal substance abuse. She hoped the initiative would be rolled out across the country and said the CA template would be available to assist agencies planning their own schemes. The police were thanked for responding to the community’s call to come down heavily on those who spread misery. Black Anthony made a visit to tell the team how pleased the Department was at the result, and how fortunate CA must feel in having a supremely capable and totally committed individual at the helm. Drug transactions were significantly down on estates in the city. Demand was dropping by the day. Entire communities were better off. Su used the official accolades and media coverage to secure CA’s position within the submission processes of the various sources of funding: bodies local and regional and national, the majority of which increasingly refer to urban community development in a form of rhetoric detached from intention. At the office, she welcomed the raising of the bar by her staff and told them she would continue to hold it aloft for them. A prize for innovation or an idea for efficiency was introduced, the Fee Kemp-Davies Special Merit Award translating to – 262 –

vouchers for the High Street. She promised that a downsizing of human resources, necessary because of the recession, would be implemented through natural wastage as far as possible. It was agreed among senior management – Su, Roger, Geri, and the representative from the council, nearing retirement and no boat rocker – that the CEO was entitled to a bonus for elevating the profile of the agency, a reward which was gratefully accepted but not widely reported. The last word must surely go to Ellis. Loyal, supportive, fully domesticated, self-reproaching, socially aware, analytical but occasionally nonplussed, latently resentful, comfortconscious, armchair ideologue Ellis. His beloved book rests next to three publications by Craig Mains on the shelf above his desk. He is busy transferring material from VCR tapes to DVD discs on equipment sponsored by Su, an attempt to immortalise Fee as, at one time, she was in the flesh – literally, as Su likes to add. The task is not without guilt; the guilt arises not from what is happening in the scenes on the recordings, not from the sexual abuse inflicted by Su, but from the fact that the participating subject of abuse and his own eager voyeurism is Fee. In his opinion, he – they – owe Fee respect, the respect she failed to find for herself. He muses that maybe Fee is having the last laugh. Perhaps she was sensitive to people’s inner weaknesses and fluttered among the weaknesses, like a butterfly visiting flowers in the garden. Ironically, her own weakness she saw as her strength. Her avowed purpose was to reach ever closer to her god, and the final length delivered her. Ellis wishes he’d said as much, or something equally fitting, at Fee’s funeral, but at the time it seemed inadvisable to speak; no one who had known the young woman said anything at the funeral, not even Su. Regretted forever. Su rings to tell him she’ll be late: a little local difficulty which he expects to be informed of later. The community continues to be developed; it is in good hands; communities – 263 –

across the land will continue to be developed, whether they want it or not. And regenerated. The zoo is promised a make-over, following which it will be redesignated a PFI theme park, a better place to live and work, to bring up children – you know the line. New forces are at work and the canny head zoo keeper sees her role steadily eroding. She has to think about the future, her pension, her next new car. In the meantime, she milks the social poverty mercilessly. They all do.

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