Breaking and Entering (50 page)

‘That's not fair,' he countered, wounded by the ‘self-obsessed'.

‘Yes, it is. You've upset all the others by your attitude, and you're so concerned with going home to your petty little comforts, you don't seem to understand that we're living in the company of an amazing man who can actually work miracles.'

He sprang up to his feet again, his anger surging back. ‘You've no proof it was a miracle. How the hell do you know the tumour's gone? Did you rush Pat to the hospital for x-rays?'

‘There's no need to be sarcastic. And anyway I
have
got proof. I felt the lump myself, last night. It was really quite grotesque – very big and hard, rather like a cricket ball. And now it's vanished – just like that.'

He began pacing to and fro, hands thrust in his pockets, brow creased in a frown. Penny might be scatty, but she had never been given to delusions. And what about the earlier healing he had witnessed for himself – Margot's sight restored?

‘Look, I'm sorry,' he said gruffly. ‘I just find all this miracle stuff pretty hard to take.'

‘Well, so do I, if you really want to know.' She slumped down on a pile of shale, grimacing at the sharpness of the stones. ‘I was a bit suspicious when Pat said she had cancer in the first place. I mean, she looks so hale and hearty. But Megan told me that's deceptive and she's lost all her usual energy and had to give up her job. And she's also in a lot of pain, but because she's a real fighter, she tends to play it down, so that people think it's nothing. Well, I misjudged her myself, didn't I, and even Corinna had her doubts. I think that's why Megan suggested we should all
feel
the lump for ourselves – to prove her sister wasn't a fraud.' Penny picked up a large stone, as if to demonstrate, running her hands across it. ‘Then, later on, Pat told me the whole story. Apparently the lump was only small when she first noticed it, and she thought she must have banged her leg or something. But it gradually got bigger and bigger, so after about six months she went to see her GP. He arranged a biopsy, and they told her at the hospital that it was what they call a sarcoma – a malignant tumour of the bone – and there was no hope of a cure. In fact, they even hinted that it could be fatal within a matter of months.'

Daniel wrenched out a fistful of grass and started shredding it between his fingers. ‘But how could anything as serious as that just … just melt into thin air?'

‘Search me! The whole experience was absolutely shattering.' She drew him down towards her, placed her warm hand on his arm. ‘Oh, Daniel, let's not quarrel. This is such a special day, it seems criminal to spoil it. I only wish you'd been there.'

‘So do I!' How could he make a judgement, either favourable or hostile, if he hadn't witnessed the proceedings for himself? It seemed ironic that he should have slept through Penny's ‘shattering experience', when his usual problem was insomnia.

Penny slipped an arm around his waist, gazing into the distance with a look of baffled wonder. ‘It wasn't just the miracle, it was the extraordinary way it happened. You see, Stephen seemed to be struggling at first, as if the healing wasn't easy for him, or he was being tested to the limit. In fact, it all got rather heavy, and we were sitting there screwed up and tense, and hardly daring to breathe. And then gradually he changed before our eyes.'

‘Changed? What d'you mean?'

‘Became a different person.' She noted his incredulous look, pounded her fist on her lap. ‘Oh, it's so frustrating, darling! I knew when I told you, you'd say it was preposterous, and I honestly don't blame you. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it either. Look, let me try to explain.' She chewed her thumb a moment, straining to find words. ‘First of all, his voice changed. It went really deep and rumbling, which was uncanny in itself. I mean, he's never spoken like that before. And it didn't fit his age or build or anything, but seemed to be coming from someone else. And then his face and body changed. He became older, bit by bit, and his skin got dark and swarthy, like an Indian's, and he even had a beard.'

‘Oh, Penny, that's crazy! You sound as if you're off your rocker.'

‘I know I do. But everybody saw it – not just me.'

‘Well, you must have been hallucinating – the whole damned lot of you. A case of mass hysteria, I reckon.'

‘That's hardly likely, is it, first thing in the morning in the cold clear light of day?'

‘But you were awake the whole of last night, weren't you? So it could have been caused purely by lack of sleep.'

‘No, it couldn't. We all kipped down soon after you'd gone. The rain stopped very suddenly, and once I'd been to check you were okay, I came back to the tepee and went out like a light.'

Daniel didn't answer. It seemed his wife had been bewitched, though he suspected it had less to do with the supernatural than with the compelling force of Eros. She was clearly infatuated with ‘Stephen' – her father-figure/lover. And Claire, Corinna and Happy were all equally adoring, and could easily have convinced themselves that their hero had uncanny powers. As for Andrew and Anita, they were so way out themselves (believing in Tarot cards and angels, and refusing to wear shoes, for fear of harming the ground), that their testimony would hardly count in any case. But what about Dylan and Gerard? He had got to know them better in the last few days, and though they were both highly strung and shy, they were undeniably intelligent; not the types to swallow signs and wonders without demanding evidence. And Pat herself seemed very down to earth; a no-nonsense sort of woman, who, he'd heard from Megan, had a degree in biochemistry. A scientific training would surely make her wary of using words like miracle too glibly.

He was aware that Penny was watching him, looked up to meet her eyes.

‘You don't believe me, do you, Daniel? It's written all over your face.'

He plucked another handful of grass; contradictory arguments swarming in his mind. ‘I just don't know what to think.'

‘Look, I felt that lump with my own hands. I can describe it to you in detail if you want. It was so horrible, I'd hardly have imagined it. And anyway, you're forgetting Pat herself. She felt something really violent actually happening in her body – like an electric shock, she said, shooting through her leg. And before that, she was conscious of waves of … sort of energy, streaming from Stephen's hands. And a sensation of quite stupendous love.'

‘
Love
?' he echoed mockingly.

‘Yes. Andrew questioned that as well, and she said she knew it sounded vague and rather soppy, but it was the only word which seemed appropriate. In fact, she got a bit embarrassed when we asked her about it. She doesn't strike me as a hype-merchant, or someone who embroiders the truth, but she said she felt as if the most powerful source of love she could imagine in a million years was shining like a beam of light directly into her cells. She tried to make a joke about it – said it was like a chicken being micro-waved. But we could all see she was shaken to the core.'

Daniel snapped the head off a plantain. The cynical retort he was on the point of making was silenced as he recalled his own sensations when Happy had laid hands on him, just prior to Margot's healing. He, too, had experienced love – a mother's love, so extraordinarily intense it had overwhelmed him completely. Yet he hadn't mentioned it to anyone, and had even blocked it from his memory till now. Was that because it didn't fit his scheme of things – what Penny would condemn as his narrow blinkered outlook? He caught her eye and immediately she challenged him again, her voice more determined than ever.

‘Okay, Daniel, forget all the stuff about love. I know that's not your thing, but just answer me one question. A big hard solid lump which twelve people examined – thirteen, if you count Tim – has vanished without trace. So what's
your
explanation?'

He crushed the plantain stalk to pulp, wiped his green-stained hand on his jeans. ‘I'm sorry, I don't know. It could be spontaneous remission, I suppose.'

‘But that's a sort of miracle in itself. And it's still connected with Stephen, because it happened while he was healing her, and – wow! – did he work hard! You should have seen his face!'

‘I wish to God I had.' He was feeling increasingly frustrated at having missed this phenomenal session, and was even conscious of a certain irrational jealousy that it was Pat who had been singled out for healing, when she had only just arrived. Why not poor Dylan, who had stood the course for almost a whole month, and was HIV-positive (so Gerard had confided when they'd been chopping wood together). Or why not Pippa, come to that? His daughter might not have a terminal illness, but she was still in need of help. His earlier annoyance with the healer intensified as he recalled her despairing face: its air of desolation; the dark-circled eyes, which seemed to be looking always inward.

He eased himself up from his stony seat, reluctant, as ever, to dwell too long on miracles. Like the stones, they were uncomfortable. ‘Listen, Penny, wonder-cures apart, we've got to do something about Pippa.'

‘We
are
doing something. Just being here is good for her. She's learning a whole new set of values.'

‘I don't think she's learning anything – except how wet Welsh rain is.'

Penny grinned and stood up too; gazing round admiringly at the range of purple-browed hills. ‘Give her time. She's already shared in a few rituals, and they're important in themselves. They break down the division between mind and body, and between different parts of our self, and they help to …'

‘For God's sake, Penny, all that malarkey may be food and drink to you, but it's hardly of any interest to an isolated thirteen-year-old who's pining for her dog.'

‘But she'd
not
isolated here, Daniel. That's the whole point of community living. We're part of something bigger than ourselves.'

‘That's all very well in theory, but in actual fact she's sitting on her own in a dank and airless tent, staring into space and looking the picture of misery.'

‘That's her choice, though, isn't it? She could have come to the healing if she wanted.'

‘I don't call that a choice! Other girls her age are busy playing tennis, or going to the cinema, or being taken to the zoo by doting aunts or grandmas.'

‘She can do all that the rest of the year. She'll never learn spiritual values stuck in Wandsworth.'

‘What's wrong with Wandsworth? You've never complained about it before.'

She stretched out her arms to the sky in what he felt was an absurdly theatrical gesture, a parody of Happy. ‘It's too far from our roots,' she said, face upturned to the sun, expression maddeningly smug. ‘People need a sacred space where they're more in touch with nature, and with the whole world of myth, which links them to the past. There's no sense of continuity in cities. Everything's too new and artificial.'

He wheeled away in irritation. She had been brainwashed by Corinna, or JB, and was spouting their pet theories secondhand. He stumbled along the path, suddenly noticing a clump of flowers – tiny bell-shaped trumpets with striking glossy leaves; two peacock butterflies hovering above them. Higher up, a buzzard circled slowly in the sky, its movements as unhurried as the lazy clouds themselves – pearly wisps merging into blue. The countryside
was
beautiful – there was no denying that – and he would never get this sense of space in Wandsworth, this view across lush fields and dramatic dappled hills. As usual, he was torn; one part of him pining for London and the comforts of his home; another part exulting in the grandeur of the landscape. But it wasn't simply a matter of fine views and pretty flowers – his daughter's health and happiness were at stake. Should he keep her here in the hope that she'd be cured, or return her to the safety of Elveley Road?

He drifted back to Penny, who was absorbed in watching the buzzard; the majestic bird soaring almost out of sight towards gold-tinged swathes of cloud. It seemed unkind to drag her back to petty arguments, or to break the all-embracing silence, which was now so profound he felt it should be put in a glass case and labelled ‘utter peace'. But this was their only chance of talking. ‘Look,' he said, taking both her hands in his as a gesture of appeasement, ‘apart from anything else, I'm worried about Rick. Pippa seems to absolutely loathe him.'

Penny slipped her hands free, as if unwilling to be fettered. ‘Maybe she does, but he's the means to her healing. Stephen told me yesterday.'

‘Oh, that's idiotic, Penny! How on earth can she be healed by a whippersnapper schoolboy?'

‘You've changed your tune, I must say! Rick was supposed to be so wonderful, I thought.'

‘Not wonderful, just ordinary. And hardly likely to be working miracles in conjunction with your Stephen.'

‘He's not “mine”.'

‘Oh, really? You could have fooled me. Anyway, this is beginning to sound more and more ridiculous. First she's meant to find salvation through some wounded dribbly dog, and now thorough a boy she shuns like the plague and who has problems enough himself.'

‘Daniel, what's got into you? There's no need to be so scathing.'

‘What's got into
you
? You're not thinking about how Pippa feels at all. Why the hell should you foist her on someone she obviously detests?'

‘I'm not foisting her on anyone. I'm just giving her the chance to see things from a different point of view. Anyway, if she does go home, what then? D'you think she'll magically recover there?'

‘At least she'll have more to do.'

‘She's got masses to do here. And it's good for her to be with other people.'

‘But she's not with other people, is she? What you really mean is it's good for
you
.' He broke off in annoyance. Half a dozen sheep were edging curiously towards them, as if attracted by this marital altercation. He shooed them away, resumed his argument. ‘Just because you're the centre of attention, with Stephen and Corinna fighting for your favours, you assume that Pippa and I should be equally keen on living like a band of gypsies.'