Chosen (22 page)

All his followers had taken biblical names. Isaac and Hannah had been with him in the street that day, but I'd scarcely registered them. There were not supposed to be any partnerships in the commune. There were dormitories for each sex, sleeping bags and carry-mats in every corner. Everyone wore black socks and pants so they could all be washed together, and in the morning you just helped yourself to any from the sock and undie mountains on the landing.

Because he was prey to frequent visions, Bogart – Adam – slept alone. He had a single room with a tiny balcony, just wide enough to stand on, and when you did and craned your neck you could see a pub and a small triangle of the common. The walls were covered
in pictures of herons: postcards, pages torn from books, a couple of paintings. He slept on an airbed with a slow leak that had to be re-pumped with a foot pump every night.

‘This is my bride in Jesus,' Adam told people that first night. ‘And we will call her Martha.'

I would have liked a prettier name. The Bible is full of lovely names, but with all the eyes – interested, jealous, suspicious even – on me, I couldn't object.

We sat down to share a meal of curried chickpeas with yogurt and chapattis.

‘We've heard about you,' Hannah told me. She was a thin and pretty Australian, with a pointed nose and teeth that crossed foxily.

‘What did he say about me?' I asked her.

‘He was waiting for the Lord to bring you back to him,' she muttered.

‘And he did,' I said proudly, but privately doubtful. Was it really the Lord who'd made me move to London? Was it really the Lord who'd carried my feet towards where Adam was preaching?

‘Believe in miracles and they happen,' Adam said, tuning in to our conversation. He had a chapatti crumb caught in his beard and, as I leaned forward to pick it off, I caught the narrow look that Hannah gave me.

‘Always?' I said.

‘If it's the Lord's will.'

‘But how do you know if it's the Lord's will?'

‘If it happens.'

‘But –'

‘Martha will be staying here,' he said firmly, and loudly enough to count as an announcement, ‘and as my wife, she will share my room.'

I said nothing more and didn't dare to look at Hannah again. It was Saturday and it didn't matter if I stayed away from halls that night. But there were only two more days of term and then I was set to go home. On Wednesday Derek was driving all the way to fetch me.

After the meal the women cleared the table and washed up while the men chatted, making plans for raising funds. I'd begun stacking plates but Adam put his hand on my wrist.

‘Go and bathe,' he said. ‘There are robes in the airing cupboard.' Hannah's hair flew out in zigzags as she flounced off to the kitchen. I went up the stairs. You could tell that this was once a rich person's house; the banister was a gracious curve of shiny wood held up with ornamental ironwork, acorns and corn sheaves and dormice that some idiot had painted over with a thick white gloss.

Upstairs smelled of damp. The bathroom had a sloping floor and the bath was scribbled with curling hairs. There were orange knobs of fungus pressing out from behind the toilet and shimmering green patches on the walls. When I turned on the tap, though, the water was hot. There was a ferocious roar from the boiler and the water thundered from the calcified mouths of the taps, filling the room with steam. Hannah told me later that Isaac – a skinny guy with white eyelashes – had worked for the gas board and had illegally connected us to the mains.

I was in a peculiar detached daze, as if I was stoned, but there had been no drugs, nor even anything to drink with the meal. I stared at my face in the toothpaste-splattered mirror above the basin and wondered about fate or miracle or coincidence. If I hadn't gone down that street at that time, I'd have been back at college by now, in the canteen stuffing myself with crispy pancakes, chips and gypsy tart – my Saturday treat. I'd probably be getting ready to go to the Christmas party in the Student Union. My patchwork maxi-dress was waiting in the wardrobe. Parties made me nervous, but still I might have gone. What if I had? I might have been kissed by someone under the mistletoe that night. I might have met a budding teacher and stayed on to become one myself. And then what?

I stood shivering as steam rose from the bath and clouded the mirror until I disappeared, knowing, as you rarely do, that this was a moment of choice, a hinge point in my life. I could have gone downstairs, slipped out of the door and into a different
future. I did consider it. I thought about the dress poised for the evening, the mistletoe, the buffet and the disco. As I stripped and lowered myself into the hairy water, I imagined swigging beer and trying to dance to ‘Bohemian Rhapsody'. There was a third year called Wayne who fancied me.

The bath was so big I had to press my elbows against the sides in order not to drown and I lay there, braced, imagining a kiss from Wayne, imagining taking him back to my room – but it was no good. Now that I'd seen Bo – Adam – again, there was only him for me. I was a goner.

†

There was no curtain in the heron room, but Adam had put night-lights on the windowsill and the flames reflecting against the glass seemed cosily to exclude the night. I stumbled into the room in the too-long gown I'd found hanging among others, all in shades of lavender and lilac. This was the colour of spirituality, Adam told me, and the ‘girls' had dyed them. Before we made love we kneeled and prayed.

‘Thank you Lord for delivering my true love, my wife in your eyes, back to my arms. Forgive me for doubting that you would do so in your infinite wisdom. Now she is grown-up and ready to serve you through her service to me. Oh Lord, we make love blessed in the sacred joy of your love. Amen.'

And then we did make beautiful and familiar love on his funky-smelling sleeping bag. He was just the same, and his fingers found me out in just the same old way. ‘Maybe this time my son will be conceived,' he said, and he splayed his palm over my belly. That was when I should have told him I'd been sterilized – but it was a moment I didn't want to ruin. If I'd told him that there was no possibility of a child, then what? The choice to deceive him was made, out of cowardice, out of tiredness, and couldn't be unmade. I began to shiver. He re-pumped the airbed and we squashed together into the sleeping bag. He started talking about tomorrow and I told him I had to go back.

He just laughed.

‘It's the end of term,' I explained, ‘and then –'

‘Forget it. This is your calling: me, us, Soul-Life.'

‘But –'

He put his finger on my lips, and replaced it with his mouth. I was too tired to argue. I could feel myself slipping into a drowse. I'd explain to him in the morning. I'd tell him I needed to be in Peebles for Christmas but that I'd be back. I'd tell him I wanted to finish my teacher training, but I could come to him every weekend. But I never did. It must sound pathetic that I said none of these things and in fact didn't go back, even to collect my books and clothes. It was the Lord's will, you see. Or at least it was Adam's, which was much the same thing to me.

When Derek came to fetch me on the following Wednesday, I wasn't there. I was unaware of the fuss that ensued until I saw myself in a newsagent's window. It was nearly a week later. I'd gone out into the streets with Adam, Isaac and Hannah to spread the word and sell some Christmas pompom decorations we women had made. It was the first time I'd been outside since I'd arrived. The sky was high and white and tiny grey snowflakes shimmied about in the air. People gave us such looks as we paraded along in our lavender robes and woolly hats, and I had to keep in the proud giggliness I felt to be a part of something like this, and such an important part.

I'd been meaning to ring home, but there was no phone in the house and I hadn't been out. It was thoughtless and heartless and a failure of imagination not to realize how anxious Aunt Regina, Derek and especially Stella would be. I'd kept telling Adam that I must go out and ring, but because of the intensity with which he – and my own feelings – engulfed me, I lost track of the days. When, passing a newsagent, I saw a picture of me, taken from a school photo, my silly grinning face under the headline
NO CLUES ON VANISHED STUDENT
I stopped as if I'd hit a bollard. The others sailed on ahead, but missed me eventually and came back. We all stood and looked at my grainy face.

Adam went in to buy the paper. He handed it to me, and with the snow skittering off the print I read about my disappearance. A quiet and somewhat naïve student, who kept herself to herself was how I was described. Aunt Regina was quoted as saying it was uncharacteristic behaviour and they were out of their minds with worry. Anyone with any information as to my whereabouts should contact the police.
Naïve?
I thought. We all trooped to a phone box. Adam gave me a ten pence piece and they waited outside while I rang. I shut my eyes and imagined the goatskin rug on the hall floor and the dusty black of the telephone on the bottom stair. I prayed that Stella would pick up, but it was Aunt Regina who answered in a tight, high voice.

‘It's me,' I said.

There was a silence before she shrieked: ‘It's her!'

‘I'm really sorry,' I said. ‘I should have rung.' I could hear a commotion taking place as they all crammed into the tiny hall.

‘Where are you?'

‘I've kind of joined a religion,' I said.

‘She's joined a religion,' she relayed.

‘What denomination?' I heard Kathy ask.

‘Let me handle this,' Derek said, and then his voice came loud down the receiver. ‘Has this got anything to do with that beatnik?'

I shut my eyes and flinched. ‘If you mean Bogart, yes.'

‘What did I say?' he said to the others, and then to me: ‘Where are you?'

‘Tooting Bec.'

‘Address?'

‘It's Cooper Road,' I said.

‘Number?' He was barking the questions like a sergeant major. ‘Pen,' he ordered. He would be pinching his fingers together and twitching his hand around.
Why the devil can't we keep a pen beside the phone
, he was always saying, and in fact I'd tied one to the banister once, but someone had taken it down to use the string.

I put my head out of the box. ‘What number do we live at?'

‘Sixty,' Hannah said, before Adam could stop her. I shut the door again. There were cartoon faces scratched on the thick plastic glass and the smell of pee was somehow comforting.

‘Can I speak to Stella?' I asked.

‘We'll set off immediately,' he said. ‘Eight hours should do it.'

‘Just a quick word,' I said, and I don't know if he would have fetched her but the pips went and there was the buzz of an empty line. I opened the door again. ‘Can I have another ten pence?' I said, but Adam dragged me out. He was furious. I'd never seen him like that before.

‘Great,' he said. ‘Now the pigs'll be round.'

‘So?' I said. ‘We haven't done anything wrong.'

He looked at me.

‘She's right,' Isaac said.

‘I'm nineteen,' I reminded him. ‘I'm a free agent.'

Adam's face relaxed. He stood for a moment, thinking, opening and closing his fists. ‘Phone the pigs,' he said at last, fishing in his robe for another coin.

By the time I got through to the right department, Derek had already talked to the detective in charge of the investigation. All I got was a telling-off for being so inconsiderate and I took it meekly, saying,
sorry, sorry, sorry
, looking down at the wet that had soaked into the bottom of my robe. I was lucky not to be charged for wasting police time. I could feel my communal knickers drooping between my legs as I apologized.

Isaac and Hannah went off with the bags of pompoms while Adam and I returned to Tooting to get ready for my family. We tidied up the kitchen, and Bethel made some biscuits. We sat in his room cross-legged on his sleeping bag, face to face. He held my hands. It was so cold I couldn't stop shivering, but he thought it was nerves.

‘Be strong in the Lord,' he kept saying. ‘They will try to take you back, but you won't go with them because you belong here with me. The Lord, in his grace, allowed them to have you back until you were ready, until you were mature. Now you are an adult and you can go wherever you want
to go, be with whomsoever you choose to be with. And you have chosen me.'

‘I know,' I said.

‘You have chosen the Lord.' He smiled and cupped my cheeks in his hands. ‘They will try to persuade you. This is the devil's work. Remember, Martha, that he is wily and his sleeve is full of tricks.'

‘I'll be OK,' I said. My teeth were chattering. He went down to fetch tea and came back with a hot water bottle. He wrapped me in a blanket with the bottle. His beard was soft against my forehead as he kissed me.

‘You're my wife,' he said.

‘But I'm not,' I said. ‘Not really. They won't see it like that.'

I felt steamy in the wrapping, like a baking pie. Adam picked up his guitar and twanged about a bit before he settled into a long rambling song about miracles and herons. The chorus went:

It was catchy and from my blanket nest I joined in. He sang with his eyes closed and a spiritual smile flickering at the corners of his lips, then stopped abruptly and put the guitar down. ‘Thank you!' he said, looking at the ceiling.

‘What?'

‘Stay put.'

I could hear him galloping downstairs. I snuggled into the blanket, the hot water bottle burning the skin of my belly. I couldn't believe they would be coming all the way to London. Derek thought nothing of driving thousands of
miles; it was one of the things Aunt Regina loved about him. No sooner did she say she wanted to go somewhere than he was revving up the engine. He'd be driving now, peering forward like a tortoise from its shell. Aunt Regina would be beside him and, in the back, maybe Kathy (though I hoped not) taking up three-quarters of the seat, probably handing out her sickening goats'-milk toffees, and Stella would be crammed into her tiny quarter, screwed up in a knot of arms and legs.