Divided Kingdom (29 page)

‘How do you feel?' he said.

‘I don't know. Weak.' Actually I felt like a child who had been sick for a long time – or perhaps I was being distantly reminded of my boyhood, the lost years, an illness I had concealed from myself. ‘Are you a bishop?'

The man smiled faintly, lowering his eyes. ‘In a manner of speaking.'

There was a stillness about him, as if he had retreated from the outer edges of his body into a place that was private, inaccessible.

‘When we found you on the beach,' he said, ‘you needed medical attention. We brought you back here, dressed your injuries –'

‘I was injured?'

‘You must have hit your head. You don't remember? You were suffering from exhaustion too.'

‘Were there any other survivors?'

‘Not that we know of.'

The man reached behind him for a glass. I should drink, he said; it would help me to sleep. I lifted my head off the pillow, and he held the glass to my lips. I had swallowed half the medicine when a panic began to unfold inside me, heat flooding across my skin.

‘Is this the Blue Quarter?' I said, looking up into his face.

He nodded.

I sank back with a sigh. Sleep took me.

A bell hauled me to the surface once again. This time a woman was sitting beside the bed. Something about her complexion, some papery quality it had, made me think she must have suffered. She wore her brown hair cut short, like a boy. A book lay open on her lap, the words arranged in blocks. Poetry, I thought. Or hymns.

‘Were you one of the people on the beach?' I asked.

She looked up at me and smiled. ‘Yes, I was there. We were all there.' She closed her book. ‘You probably don't realise this,' she said, ‘but you have performed a kind of miracle by coming here. You've saved the whole community.'

Ever since the vernal equinox, she told me, they had been waiting for a sign, something that would confirm the fact that they were living in the right way, that they had chosen the correct path. All summer they had watched the skies, but they had seen nothing out of the ordinary – no comet, no shower of meteors, no eclipse. In the gardens and the orchard everything grew as it had always grown, the fruit trees bearing fruit, the soil yielding a rich variety of vegetables; eggs were provided by the hens, milk by the goats, honey by the bees. Had times been different, they would have given thanks for this abundance. Instead, it had only caused anxiety, as though the gods of nature were procrastinating, as though they had already made up their minds but couldn't work out how to break the dreadful news.

Then, early one morning, a young member of the community had been walking along the cliffs when she noticed what
appeared to be a wooden figure in the waves below. She ran back to the main house, where she reported the sighting to Owen Quayle, whose community it was. He led his followers down to the coast to witness the sign for which they had all been waiting with such eagerness and trepidation. It was more conclusive than they could ever have expected. The figure the girl had seen was just one of many figures washed up on the beach that day, and the manner in which they had chosen to manifest themselves – dislodged, toppled, overturned – allowed of only one interpretation. They were false gods. They no longer deserved obedience. They should be summarily cast out.

‘And it was you who delivered the sign to us,' the woman said, ‘in person, as it were, and for that we're profoundly grateful.'

‘I was shipwrecked,' I said.

Smiling, she shook her head. I had been too literal. I hadn't understood that facts were only the servants of some far greater message. ‘So long as you remain here,' she said, ‘you'll be treated as an honoured guest, a benefactor.'

I lay back, trying to make sense of this strange information.

‘I've talked too much,' the woman said. ‘You should rest now.' She rose to her feet and moved across the room. Then, with one hand on the door, she turned to face me again. ‘My name's Rhiannon, by the way.'

For days, it seemed, I slipped in and out of consciousness. Usually, when I came round, there would be people in the room, and they would ask me how I felt or whether there was anything they could do for me. I didn't always have the strength to answer. I would close my eyes, surrender to the bed's embrace, my body without weight or substance.

I couldn't even be sure, at times, if I was awake or asleep. Once, at night, I became convinced that I was lying on a car seat with a warm rug over me. Through the window I could see black trees rushing past at a steep angle. Above them was the sky, paler, and in much less of a hurry. Stars showed dimly. My parents had been talking in hushed voices, but now they were silent. Soon my mother would look round. I would pretend to be
asleep. She would reach down and adjust the rug, then gently brush the hair back from my forehead. It felt like the beginning of a holiday – or it could have been the end, the long drive home … Another time I sat up to get a drink of water, and there on the bedside table were the cigarette-lighter and the silver ring – all that these people had found on me, presumably, when they took me into their care. I picked up the lighter and ran my thumb across the flint. To my amazement it produced a flame.

Occasionally I would hear laughter coming from outside, or footsteps, or snatches of conversation, and I remembered what I had read about phlegmatic people, that they were ‘dulcet' or sweet-tempered, but not necessarily equipped to deal with life's many tribulations, and gradually I became curious about this community that I was supposed to have saved. I began to question Rhiannon, who seemed to be in charge of my recovery. She told me I should speak to Owen, the man in the blue robes. As founder of the Church of Heaven on Earth, he would be able to give me the answers I was looking for. When I felt well enough, she would arrange an audience.

‘The Church of what?' I said.

She smiled, the dry skin creasing at the edges of her eyes.

‘It's true that we call ourselves the Church of Heaven on Earth,' Owen Quayle said, ‘but I don't want you to get the wrong idea. We don't pretend that things are perfect here. The name expresses an aim – or a yearning, perhaps – not a fact.' He gestured towards a crystal decanter. ‘Can I offer you a drink?'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘Thank you.'

I adjusted my shirt collar, which chafed a little. I was dressed in clothes Rhiannon had laid out for me, my own having been ruined by the sea, apparently. On leaving my room that evening – the first time I had ventured beyond the door – I followed her across a cobbled yard, then down an unlit path and out on to a wide two-tiered lawn. To the left of us was a walled garden. To the right lay a swimming-pool, drained for the winter. The lawn swept up to the back of a large country house whose many windows glowed in the dusk. The place had once belonged to an
arms dealer, Rhiannon told me, and, before that, to a duke. She took me as far as the door of the library.
Go on in
, she said.
You're expected.
It was a comfortable room, filled with well-worn furniture, oriental carpets, and reading lamps with green glass shades. Three walls were lined with books, and against the fourth, between a pair of heavily curtained windows, stood a leather-topped writing desk and a chair whose cushions were moulded to the shape of Owen Quayle's body.

When we were settled on adjacent sofas with our wine, he began, in concise and elegant language, to explain the precepts on which his community had been founded. They believed in God, not as a judge or an avenger, but in the abstract sense, as the seed from which the universe had grown, the source or fount of all existence. They were prepared to accept Jesus Christ too, though they saw him as a teacher rather than a divinity; in their opinion, he was simply a man who had encouraged people to treat each other well. They didn't believe in the resurrection or the life everlasting, and they rejected the notion of an immortal soul. All life was here, on earth. Though they had set themselves apart, on this remote property, they weren't puritans or ascetics. Far from it. The purpose of their ‘church' – a word they used in the loosest sense – was not to renounce the world but to savour it, to relish it – to embrace it in all its rich variety. If they had an aim, it was probably happiness, which they tended to define negatively as freedom from distress and pain. In philosophical terms, the system with which they identified most closely was that of Epicurus, whose teachings could be summarised, Owen thought, as follows: to live in tranquillity, to appreciate the gift of life, to have no fear of death. It was an approach that was at once spiritual and rational. Respect remained a fundamental principle, as did a sense of awe and wonder, but faith didn't really play a part.

‘In that case,' I said, ‘why did you need a sign?'

Owen nodded, as if he had known such a question might be coming. At that moment, however, we were interrupted by a knock on the door. A man with a shaved head announced that everything was ready, then withdrew. Owen turned back to me.
He would be more than happy to continue our discussion, he told me, but it seemed that dinner was served.

He rose to his feet and, reaching for his tall scarlet hat, fitted it carefully on to his head. With his mitre and his robes, it was possible that he had gone too far, but I wouldn't be the one to say so. Where would I have been without him and his followers? If he wore elaborate clothes, it must be because he thought that there was a place for ritual and hierarchy, that they were things that made people feel safe.

Though Owen wasn't looking at me, he appeared to feel my gaze on him and to have a rough idea of what I was thinking. ‘I don't always dress so formally,' he said, ‘but tonight's a special occasion, as you're about to find out.'

The following morning, after breakfast, I went for a walk. In the daylight I could see that they had put me in a stable-block which, like the main house, had been built from limestone, austere and grey. Though it was only a few weeks until Christmas, the sun was shining, and a haze that felt autumnal clung to everything I saw. Tranquil pathways led between high hedges. Lawns were silvery with dew. I passed a lake with an island in the middle, then climbed unsteady steps into a wild meadow. In the distance a black cat picked its way through the tall grasses, setting each paw down with the utmost care, as though the ground were mined. From where I stood, I saw how a ridge encircled the house on three sides, hiding it from the world. The tension and anxiety I had felt while staying with Fernandez had lifted away, and I was filled with a new optimism. Against all the odds I had made it to the Blue Quarter. The crossing had been unorthodox, to say the least – perhaps they all were – but the border was behind me now, and I could start thinking once again about what it was that I wanted to attain. I couldn't help but believe that there would be less resistance from now on, less danger, that things would, in general, be easier. The essential nature of the people in this country dictated it.

At the top of the meadow, I looked back towards the house,
remembering what had happened the previous night. Once we had left the library, Owen escorted me down a corridor and into a room that was entirely dark. Before I could voice my bewilderment, I was blinded by a sustained flash of electric light. When my eyes had adjusted, I saw that I was standing on a dais at the far end of a dining-hall. In front of me were dozens of faces, all lifted in my direction, all applauding me. Owen put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. These would be the people I had seen on the beach, I realised. These would be the members of the Church of Heaven on Earth.

‘We have gathered here tonight, as you know,' Owen began, ‘to honour an unexpected guest –'

A ripple of amusement washed around the room.

‘Unexpected, but certainly not unwelcome. In fact' – and here he couldn't resist a smile – ‘it might have been nice if he had come a little sooner.'

Loud laughter greeted this.

‘It has been a troubled year for all of us, but now, thanks to the man standing beside me, I think I can honestly say that we feel better in ourselves. Now, thanks to him, our life can go on.'

The hall erupted in cheers and whistles.

Owen lifted his hands in an appeal for quiet. ‘Let's raise our glasses to this long-awaited messenger – our saviour, you might even say – Thomas Parry!'

I smiled as I started up the hill. Although I had felt humbled by the reception, fraudulent too, in some respects, I had thought it only polite to respond to Owen's speech with a few words of my own.

‘Thank you.' I cleared my throat. ‘I'm afraid I don't know very much about your community. I'm not even sure I share your beliefs. To be perfectly honest, I don't know where I am at the moment –' My opening remarks had created a slightly awkward silence, but now I heard laughter swooping through the room, the exaggerated laughter that often accompanies a release of tension. ‘But I do want to say one thing,' I went on. ‘You took me in and showed me kindness, and, in my situation, that was more than I could ever have expected, and I simply want to thank you
for that.' My voice had begun to shake, which surprised me, and I found myself adding, ‘Really I'm just happy to be alive.'

A standing ovation followed. Embarrassed, I looked away.

Owen approached me again, and I thought I saw both fondness and compassion in the smile he gave me. I had surprised him too, perhaps. In a gesture I scarcely recognised, I took his right hand in mine and placed my left hand over it. It wasn't a handshake so much as a way of demonstrating the sincerity of what I'd said.

I came out on to the brow of the ridge and set off along a path that led to the sea. In half an hour I had reached the cliffs. Far below, the waves threw themselves languidly against a strip of mud-coloured sand. There was an eerie quiet down there, a sense of lassitude, and even though the sun still shone I had the impression that something had leaked out of the day. Whatever had been easy-going and benign was gone.