Chosen (37 page)

‘And put sleeping drops in her tea,' Hannah said.

‘But she'll be tired anyway,' I argued.

‘It will ensure docility,' Adam said.

The parlour was where we often greeted visitors. Adam didn't like the unchosen within Soul-Life itself. The parlour was bugged, all conversations recorded, because there were those who threatened our existence. And if a person seemed to be a dangerous influence then the parlour was as far in as they got.

‘I'd better go,' I said. ‘The poor girl is waiting.'

‘You must keep her here and remember, you are nothing to her, just Martha,' Adam reminded me as I hurried off. My brain felt as if it was bulging against my skull, and my heart was pounding. I felt so dizzy I had to stop and lean on the wall to steady my breath before I came out to greet you. And there you were. You were fidgeting outside the gate and I could barely breathe in your proximity when I came close: your hair so dark and glossy and gloriously thick like Adam's once was; your eyes that intense bottle-glass blue; the fresh rosiness of your skin and the shape of your face, so much like Stella's. So familiar to me and yet so much yourself.

Almost the first words you said: ‘I'm bursting for the loo,' and when you said that, so natural, so English, so like yourself, I could have swooned with love. To sit with you in the parlour; to breathe you in; to watch the expressions on your face, to touch you – I can't tell you what joy these simple things gave me. I had to fight against the impulse to tell you who I was; to tell you that for nearly three years I brought you up as if you were my own.

Of course you wanted, and expected, to see Seth – and right away. What were we to do? There was no question of letting you see him then. But if we hadn't at least allowed you to speak to him on the phone, you might have left, or gone to the police perhaps. So Hannah was with Seth each time you spoke, helping him with his responses. In truth, I think she had him drugged so much he hardly knew where he was or what he was saying.

Over those first few days it was agony for me to see you disappointed over and over again, and to have to be the one to disappoint you. But you see, Dodie, there was no other way to ensure we could get Jake – and the thought of Jake was the only thread of hope keeping Adam alive. And I do admit that I was longing to see him too: Adam's grandson, my great-nephew, my blood.

But each time you weren't allowed to see Seth, it got harder to persuade you to stay. You
were
more goat than sheep. The idea, at first, was to smooth you through the
Process so that you brought Jake to Soul-Life of your own free will. If you had been more malleable, more persuadable, we might have revealed that Adam was your true father, that Jake must come and be the saviour – but you never went far enough below the surface to be safe. You proved yourself truly Stella's daughter in
that
way. A bad influence on the other Brethren, a dissenting voice.

†

From the day of your arrival, any pretence of politeness between Hannah and me was shattered, except in front of others. Your presence broke the surface of the water like a newly fallen branch we must all flow round. Adam lay in wait of news of you, or tuned in when you were in the truth-pod – the room with the ripped sofa, wired for him to listen in. When Rod phoned, Hannah spoke to him, or I did. He rang more often than we told you, for your own peace of mind. I won his trust in our conversations and he told me all about your troubles.

‘You're too smothering,' I told you, after Rod had confided that to me. Your face crumpled and something inside
me
buckled too.
Smothering
. Is that how I'd loved
you
as a child? Is it possible to exceed the decent limits of love? Has that been my mistake with Adam; to have loved him no matter what? Has my whole life been a mistake?

I would have spent more time with you but I wasn't well; the pesky cramping in my chest sent me away from you from time to time. And I wanted to be with Adam. Always, I was torn. I was sitting beside Adam as he slept, pondering these questions, when Hannah came into the room. She'd taken to walking in, no knock even, the concept of privacy forgotten.

‘Shhh,' I said, ‘he's sleeping.'

‘No,' Adam said, opening his eyes.

‘She's sabotaging the plan,' Hannah said.

‘I am not.'

‘Telling her she can go. Telling her not to bring Jacob here.'

‘No,' I said, ‘you are too simplistic. Have you never heard of reverse psychology?'

Hannah frowned from Adam to me.

‘She's clever,' he said, meaning me, I think.

‘I tell her she can go – and then she stays. I tell her she needs time away from the baby – then she wants all the more to be with him,' I said.

Hannah sat on the other side of the bed. Adam lay between us, his face turning from one to the other, a beat behind the rhythm of our conversation. Who did she think she was, sitting on
our
bed like that?

‘If he comes –'

‘When,' chipped in Hannah.

‘What is the plan?' I pressed on.

‘I'll bless little Jacob,' Adam said. ‘Our Lamb of God. I'll baptize him. He will be the Saviour of Soul-Life.'

‘You won't be able to
keep
him here,' I said. ‘Not against Dodie's will.'

‘No?' Hannah said. I caught the tip of her index finger surreptitiously stroking Adam's arm.

‘And anyway,' I said, ‘how would we get him here? If she goes home to fetch him, she'll never come back. I have to battle for every moment that she stays.'

‘Yes,' Hannah said. ‘But I've been talking to Rod again. I told him Dodie might not make it back in time for him to go on his trip and he was furious.' She smiled and leaned in to Adam, as if to exclude me from the conversation. ‘How about we offer to pay for his flight to bring Jacob here before he goes off?'

Adam blinked, smiled. ‘Yes, my love,' he said.

My love
. He didn't know which of us was which any more. His vision foggy; his mind foggy. My breath was coming fast, that rising pressure in my chest again.

‘Are you not well?' Hannah said. ‘Look at her colour, Adam, she needs to rest.'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘I'll rest here.' And in front of her I slipped
off my robe and climbed into bed next to Adam and I knew that wasn't what she'd meant; I saw the darkening of her face. Adam shifted. He was in pain of course, and so much worse than mine. I held my breath, praying that he wouldn't tell me to get out in front of her, but he didn't and I laid my head against his shoulder and closed my eyes until I heard the door click shut.

‘Jesus wants a sacrifice,' Adam said, waking me some time later from my doze. ‘A Festival of the Lamb.'

I hauled myself up to look at his tired face. He lifted the lids of his eyes, so watery now, as if he was on the edge of weeping all the time. He winced as I shifted.

‘You're not well enough,' I said gently.

‘Jesus has spoken unto me,' he wheezed.

I laid my hand across his forehead, like a mother. I stroked his cheek. ‘I really don't think you're up to it, my love.'

‘One more lamb,' he said. ‘Ask Isaac to procure a lamb.'

I dreaded the Festival of the Lamb. I had always thought it a cruel and ludicrous pantomime – those thoughts, suppressed for so long, sprung up toughly now. I never could bear to watch Adam slice the razor edge of the knife through the wool and skin. I could never bear that he could bear to do it.

‘Perhaps. But you're hardly well enough to stand,' I pointed out.

‘The Lord will provide me with the strength,' he said. The thought of the festival already seemed to have energized him. His breathing changed and he began to fumble at my breasts. ‘Soft,' he said, ‘so soft.' He took my hand and pushed it down under the quilt.

‘Hey,' I said.

‘Please,' he said, and rolled his eyes up. We had not made love for such an age I didn't know if either of us was even capable. But by the time I was lying back down beside him, the impulse had gone. He wept a little and we lay together skin on skin and slept.

†

Obadiah rarely came to our room. It had been months since Adam had even pretended to have anything to do with the mechanics of running Soul-Life – and in fact it had always been Obadiah's operation in the financial sense. He had a genius for making money – or once he had. Whether it was age that was catching up with him or whether it had always been inevitable that the IRS would catch up with us, I don't know. He said the global economy had gone into meltdown and whether that was truth or excuse, I neither know nor care.

I'd just left you, Dodie, after one of our conversations, and was hurrying back to Adam, worried by your attitude, wanting to talk to Adam, praying that Hannah wouldn't be with him, when I met Obadiah in the corridor outside the door to our room.

He was walking with his characteristic deep stoop – the result of years bent over paperwork and in front of a computer screen.

‘Oh hello, Martha.' He smiled when he saw me.

‘I imagine Adam's asleep,' I said.

‘Can you check?' Obadiah said. ‘He needs to know –'

‘No,' I said. ‘He doesn't need to know anything.'

‘But –'

‘
Listen
. He hasn't got long, Obadiah, please don't upset him.'

‘But Hannah said –'

‘Hannah said what?'

He shrank into himself, all the grey hair and whiskers and long trailing eyebrows, you could hardly see his features any more. I'd known him as a youngish man, or a tall and virile guy at least, and now look. It made me angry to see time and age so cruelly demonstrated.

‘Hannah doesn't understand how ill he is,' I said. ‘Not even in his right mind half the time. What's the point of making him think it's all going to collapse? He'll just die bitterly.'

The whiskers stirred as his lips pursed. ‘Sure,' he said, after a moment. ‘Maybe I'll just put my head round and say hi.'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘Thanks. Wait there.'

I went into the room. Adam was alone and asleep. The Bible lay on his chest, his finger trapped between its pages. I let Obadiah see.

‘Later?' I said. I closed the door on Adam and we stood outside the door, suddenly awkward.

Obadiah took my hand in his.

‘What will you do?' he asked.

I looked at him, puzzled, though I knew what he meant.

‘Once Adam dies?' he said.

Although I am over fifty, I still feel like a child with Obadiah. Older than Adam even, he's the oldest member of Soul-Life. I looked at the floor. The circumstances had never been so openly acknowledged. The sense that things were spinning out of control, that we were hurtling towards dissolution. It struck me for a horrible instant that maybe Hannah had been right; Adam should have been told the entire state of things, to have had the chance, while still capable of deciding, how the end should come. But it was too late now.

‘When he's gone, I'll go too,' I said.

He grabbed my hand and squeezed. ‘Not
you
, Martha. You're too young.'

‘No, not
that
,' I said. ‘
Leave
. Leave Soul-Life behind.'

Those words hung in the air between us, simple but momentous, and tears flooded down our cheeks. We stood and cried, staring at each other aghast, as the truth presented itself, cruel and stark and unavoidable.

†

The following day Obadiah sought me out to give me an envelope, which he made me promise not to open until after. After
what
, there was no need for him to say. I couldn't wait, though, and as soon as I was alone I opened it. It
took me a few moments to understand that the document I was looking at represented the transfer of the ownership of a house in Florida from Obadiah to me. Ten years ago, it seemed, he'd bought it for himself.
Ten years ago.
A house by the ocean.

And then I understood that I'd not been fooling Obadiah with my innocent questions about how the banking system worked. He'd actually been helping me in my embezzlement of Soul-Life funds, and had been doing the same himself. How many others of us had been doing that?

A house, though. My own house. I went straight to the admin block where Obadiah was gazing at a screen, the mouse scrolling over columns, aimlessly, it seemed to me.

‘I opened it,' I said, ‘and thank you.'

His eyes didn't leave the screen, though the cursor jerked wildly among the columns.

‘But why don't
you
keep it and go there yourself?'

‘At my age?' he said, and smiled and shrugged his bent old shoulders. ‘You should go soon,' he added. ‘It's only a matter of time till the law gets in. And that'll be the end. We are preparing for the end.'

‘Come with me then,' I said.

‘Years ago, if you'd said that . . .' His eyes lingered for a moment on my face, slid down my body and I shivered as if stroked by a feather. I looked down at the floor, blood throbbing in my face. It had never occurred to me that Obadiah had thought of me like that.

‘But
still
, come,' I said. ‘I'll look after you.'

‘It's too late,' he repeated, with a sad and puckered smile.

†

In a coincidence, which confirmed for Adam that the Lord's will was being done, Rod and Jake arrived at Soul-Life during the Festival of the Lamb. I was busy all day helping Adam and didn't know until later that they were there. It was the first occasion that Adam had been out of bed for
days, and I had to help him walk onto the platform. It was amazing that he found the strength to speak, to slaughter the lamb, to bless the Brethren with the blood. You looked so pale and shaken, Dodie, as he smeared you with the blood. I longed to take you aside and reassure you that everything would be all right, but it was Adam who needed me most then. After the ceremony he was in a state of near collapse. I took him back to our room and helped him from his robes. I washed his hands and feet and got him settled in his bed. I lay beside him, listening to the rasping of his breath.