The Revelations (29 page)

Her face glowed as she spoke.

‘The priests out there really get it. There’s so much energy in the way they deliver the speeches. It feels like it did for us, right at the beginning. The start of an extraordinary journey.’

She paused for a moment.

‘David has asked me to go out there full-time. He needs an administrator in the US, someone he can rely upon to run things, look after the expansion.’

Marcus felt his face drop.

‘But . . .’ he began.

‘He wants you to go with me.’

He stared at Abby.

‘What do you mean?’

‘He wants you to come and work for the Course. We’d share responsibilities. You’d run things while I have the baby. It would be a fresh start for us. It would take us away from all of this.’

‘But what about my job?’

‘You hate it. You said you were desperate to leave. The Course can’t match your salary. But we’d be doing something we really loved.’

‘And the baby?’

‘I’ll have it out there. I told David about it and he said he’d make sure the Course looked after the whole thing. It would be wonderful.’

He pictured the two of them pushing a buggy through Central Park on a Saturday morning, imagined what it would be like to be away from London, away from the guilt and the memories.

‘Can I think about it? I mean, it sounds great, but so much has happened. I just need some time to get it all straight in my head.’

Mouse didn’t come to the service the next day. It was very cold and Marcus thought that the canal might have frozen over. Mouse used to worry that the
Gentle Ben
’s hull would crack in the ice and had spent several days the previous winter boiling kettles and pouring them down the side of the boat. Marcus kept looking out for his friend as the service progressed, hoping somehow that seeing him would help unravel the knot of conflicting emotions in his cold-muddled mind.

After the service they went over to the rectory for coffee. The Earl stood in the corner of the drawing room talking to a tall couple. The woman held a tiny baby in her arms and looked down at it, clucking every so often. Her husband smiled at her approvingly. His name was Simon Cooper-Jones and he was one of the City’s most successful hedge-fund managers, not yet forty and worth tens of millions. He was devoted to the Course and a major donor. Marcus crossed and leaned against the mantelpiece beside them, listening.

‘Your boys are doing a fine job of managing the Course funds,’ the Earl said, chucking the sleeping baby under the chin with a meaty finger, but keeping his eyes on Simon. ‘Up twenty per cent plus in this market isn’t easy.’

‘We’re the best. You know that by now. You should give us a bit more of your own cash.’

‘I might just do that. You’re not worried about another Crash?’

‘Always worried, never fearful. That’s my motto. How’s the US expansion going? I really think it’s an extraordinary untapped market.’

‘It’s going very well in New York,’ the Earl replied. ‘David is doing some work with the Ivy League universities. We’re going at the market top-down – it served us well here and I don’t see why it shouldn’t work out there. Do you have a New York office?’

‘Of course. Let me know which church you want them to attend and I’ll send some of my team along.’

After they had finished their coffee, Marcus and Abby stepped out into the frosty sunlit day. As they crossed the car park in front of the church, the Earl jogged to catch up with them. He took Abby’s arm.

‘I hear that you two are thinking of going out to New York full-time. I’m delighted. It has been a ghastly few weeks. It’ll be a new start for you both. And the Course will flourish over there. I know it. You must treat my apartment as your own. Stay for as long as you like. I’m rarely over there these days. Too old and tired for the transatlantic life.’

As Marcus pulled out onto the King’s Road, he saw a man in a faded velvet jacket walking away from them, west towards Fulham. The collar of the jacket was raised against the wind and the man was smoking, taking deep, angry drags and then blowing the smoke into the air above him. Marcus tried to turn around, but the traffic was heavy in both directions. Abby followed his gaze and opened her mouth to speak. A bus crossed in front of them and when it was gone, the figure had disappeared.

When they got home, Abby walked out to the shops to buy lunch. Marcus sat at the table in the drawing room and thought. He realised that he was being given another chance, an opportunity to make things right with Abby, and that this decision would change everything, define the person he was, and who he would become. He crossed to the window, opened it a crack and lit a cigarette, blowing the smoke out into the cold air. Everything had changed. Even if he stayed in London, it would be a hollow simulacrum of his old life. He’d be like those friends from college who had remained at university to do MAs and PhDs with the same tutors, who would then teach at the college, forever walking in the footsteps of their teenage selves, trying to recapture those happy years. He worried about leaving Mouse, but otherwise there was nothing keeping him here. He finished his cigarette and shut the window.

There was a picture of him and Abby on the sideboard. They were standing in the portico of a church and Abby’s arm was around him. It was the day of their wedding and he was looking away from the camera, off into the middle distance. He couldn’t remember where his gaze had been directed, whether towards Lee, or Mouse, or one of the pretty Course wives holding a baby in the churchyard. But Abby’s eyes stared straight at the camera, hopeful, her smile full of pride. It made Marcus sad to look at her. He realised that, in his mind, there had never been a time when he had been truly faithful to Abby. He had fucked girls behind her back throughout university and, even though – until his most recent indiscretions – he had kept his infidelity in check since joining the Course, cheating was always there in his mind as an option. Perhaps, he thought, his parents had been too happy together, presenting an unattainable ideal which, because he could never replicate it, he had to destroy.

Now he had the opportunity to start again. He picked up the photograph and looked into his wife’s face. He felt a great swelling of love. They were having a baby together. He was going to be a father. He heard her keys in the door. Abby struggled down the corridor and dropped the shopping bags on the kitchen floor. She took off her coat and flung it on the counter. Marcus stepped behind her and folded his arms around her large frame. She leant back against him, closing her eyes, her head on his shoulder.

‘I’m coming with you,’ he whispered.

Her eyes snapped open. A smile broke gently over her face.

‘Really?’

‘Of course I am. We’ll make a new life out there.’

‘Oh, darling, I’m so happy. I couldn’t have gone without you.’

They stood, breathing heavily, listening to the cars on Notting Hill Gate, an Underground train rattling over a bridge, the distant thump of music. Very gently, he slid his hand up under her jumper and let it rest on her hot, soft stomach.

Marcus discovered that it was possible, with a degree of concentration, to pretend that Lee had never existed. He found it easier still now that Mouse had stopped coming to church. Abby and Marcus had hosted the final Course session together, both groups squeezed into the one room. Marcus seemed especially galvanised as he led the discussion. David and Sally Nightingale looked on with pride as the two young people, heads bowed, prayed with the new members. An atmosphere of quiet contentment hung over the group: they had made it through. They were part of the Course. At the end of the session, the members came up one by one and thanked Marcus and Abby.

The twins bounced in front of them, squealing. Neil slipped Marcus a business card with a sly nod. All the pale, quiet girls from Marcus’s group came up to him and hugged him. David opened some bottles of champagne and they toasted each other, toasted the missing members. Neil suggested they toast
Jesus
. When the last members went home, Marcus and Abby walked out into the night with David.

‘Well done, you two.’ The priest sounded a little drunk.

‘It was a good way to finish,’ said Marcus.

‘I always knew I could count on you guys. Lee and Mouse were too young, too fragile. I should have realised that. But you two are my stalwarts, you have repaid the faith I showed in you.’

‘It does feel good, to see the new members like that, to know that the Course is now central to their lives. I feel like we have achieved something, that maybe it was worth all the pain, worth losing Lee and Mouse.’ Marcus smiled at the priest and took Abby’s hand.

‘I’m glad you feel that way. Have you heard from Mouse?’ David asked.

Marcus shook his head. ‘I’ll go up to the boat at the weekend. I’ve left him a few messages. I’m sure he’s just feeling shell-shocked by the whole thing. He’ll be back.’

‘He’ll want to see you before you go. And he always loves Christmas at the church. I’m sure he’ll come to the service on Sunday. We’re singing carols.’

Marcus and Abby got into the car just as the first flakes of snow began to fall.

On Saturday morning, when the snow had been reduced to a grey dusting on slate rooftops, Marcus and Abby walked up to the canal. They would have to leave Darwin behind when they went to New York, and they looked at the dog fondly as he capered alongside them. Sally Nightingale would care for him until they returned. Marcus led Darwin along the towpath, allowing him to burrow into mounds of wet snow, where he’d draw his muzzle out dripping and dirty and fix Marcus with an accusing glare. When they got to the
Gentle Ben
there were no lights on. Marcus tried the door, but this time it was firmly locked.

‘Shall we call his mother?’ Abby asked, as they walked back towards Ladbroke Grove.

‘I don’t know. I think if he wanted to see us, he would.’

As they walked back, Abby took his hand.

‘Do you think you'd ever give up smoking? It would mean a lot to me.’

He reached into his pocket, drew out a packet of cigarettes and crumpled it into a ball. He hurled the ball into the canal.

They made their way up the ramp and onto the bridge. The canal was healing over with ice. Darwin poked his nose through the bars of the railings and sniffed the cold air. Marcus looked up through skeletal trees into the graveyard. He could make out the roof of the chapel in the distance, the peaks of the obelisks that lined the avenue where he had slipped. Abby was watching a pair of Canada geese waddling sedately along the towpath.

‘They look like old women,’ she said. ‘Querulous old women complaining about the weather.’

The geese, seeing a gaggle of their companions squabbling over husks of bread thrown from a narrowboat moored further up the towpath, started to run. Flapping their wings and squawking like old-fashioned bicycle horns, they rose up into the air and were suddenly majestic as they wheeled over their comrades. Marcus and Abby walked arm in arm down Ladbroke Grove, inexplicably cheered by the sight of the geese transformed in flight.

Days passed in busy preparation for their move. They would be spending Christmas with Marcus’s mother in Surrey and then flying to New York on the twenty-seventh. There was still no sign of Mouse. Marcus tried his mobile every few days, but it always rang through to the answerphone. He had stopped leaving messages. Snow began to fall again, and this time settled in heaps outside the front door of the block of flats. Marcus persuaded himself that he could see Abby gaining weight. He kissed her very carefully in the mornings before he set off for work. Barely allowing his lips to graze her skin, he’d lean down over her and watch as she smiled in her sleep.

Marcus had handed in his notice to Michael Faraday, his senior partner at the law firm.

‘But you’re doing very well here,’ the sharp-faced little man had said, running his eye down Marcus’s evaluations. ‘There’s a big future for you at the firm if you stick at it.’

Marcus just grinned and shook his head. It was agreed that he would work until Christmas.

In the event there was very little for Marcus to do. No one wanted him to start a case when it was known that he was leaving. The Chinese bank had dropped its case against Plantagenet Partners due to lack of evidence. Marcus spent his days organising the move. They would let the flat in Notting Hill to a couple from the Course. With this income and the salary that he had agreed with David, Marcus worked out that they wouldn’t be much worse off in New York than in London. As he strolled out for long lunches during those weeks in early December, he thought ahead happily to the life they would build in another city, to the child who would come.

On the Wednesday afternoon before Christmas, Marcus set out for Senate House. He had spent the morning on the telephone to the removals company that was transporting their books and clothes out to the US. After lunch he sat throwing a tennis ball against his window until the partner in the office next door hurled a book at the wall. Marcus reached for his phone and started to dial Mouse, then stood up and pulled on his coat.

He walked up through the City, along High Holborn and up Farringdon Road. Snow blew in gusts along the wide roads. He saw the flushed faces of lunchtime drinkers, ties loosened around fat necks, hands clasping pints as they braved the weather to smoke. He drew out a piece of nicotine gum and chewed it, realising that he didn’t miss smoking. It had become a chore, the need to make chilly forays into the freezing winter for the diminishing hit of his super-light fags.

When he came to Russell Square he looked up at the tower above him, straining his eyes to see the misty summit. There were strange runic designs in copper set into the front of the tower. It looked to him like the headquarters of a cult. He walked through the heavy metal doors and into the entrance hall. It was gloomy inside. The marble floor was wet with muddy footprints, blown-in snow.

Marcus followed signs for the Special Collections Reading Room. He knew this was Mouse’s domain. The lift was an ancient contraption, and it moaned and clunked as it took Marcus up to the fourth floor. He stepped out and walked over to a bank of turnstiles. It was silent in the wood-panelled hallway. He stood at the desk and rang a bell; it trilled loudly enough to make him jump. Finally, a girl wearing thick glasses and a green cardigan walked through the swing doors behind the desk and nodded at him.

‘Can I help you?’

In the instant that the girl moved through the doors, Marcus had seen Mouse. His friend was in the room behind the doors, his feet up on a table, a mug of tea in his hands.

‘I’m looking for Alastair Burrows. If you wouldn’t mind telling him that Marcus is here to see him.’

‘Um, yes, OK. I’ll go and get him.’

The girl disappeared behind the doors again into what Marcus presumed was a staff room. Several minutes passed and then Mouse came out, alone.

‘Hi, Marcus.’

‘Hi.’

They stood looking at one another in the yellow light of the old library.

‘I can do you a day pass if you’d like to come in?’

‘That would be good.’

Marcus waited while Mouse tapped away at a keyboard. The turnstile opened and he walked through. Mouse stepped out from behind the desk and held out his hand to Marcus. Marcus shook it, then reached over to hug him. They stood in this awkward half-embrace for a moment and then Mouse drew back.

‘I just wanted to check that you were OK,’ said Marcus. ‘We missed you at the last Course session. At church, too.’

Mouse shook his head. ‘Are you just passing by? Or can you stay for a bit? We could go up to my room.’

‘I’ve got some time. I told Abby I’d be back for dinner.’

Marcus followed Mouse out to a stairwell. They walked up three flights and the stairs ended in a door marked
Staff Only
. Mouse unlocked this and it gave onto a smaller stairway. They climbed up together. Marcus counted the floors as they rose through the library. Mouse panted as he climbed. On the fourteenth floor, Mouse opened the heavy brown door on the landing and they stepped out into an empty corridor with a parquet floor. Marcus recognised the howling wind from telephone conversations that he had had with his friend.

‘Not much further,’ Mouse muttered as he led them down the corridor, through a set of swing doors and then around a corner into another long passageway. They walked through more doors and then the corridor turned again, ending abruptly in a brick wall. Mouse opened the last door on the right-hand side and Marcus followed him through it into a large, echoing hall. Along one side of the hall were long windows, with stained glass in the uppermost panes. Marcus saw a date – 1936 – set into the red and green glass. There were no shelves in the hall, but Marcus nonetheless caught the sweet, dusty scent of old books. At the far end, Mouse had built a den. A wardrobe stood against one wall with a duvet and several pillows lining the bottom. Shirts hung above the little nest. A trestle table sat in front of the window with a desk lamp on it, books piled beside it and scattered across the floor around it. There was a cardboard box in which Marcus saw various bottles, a loaf of bread, some toiletries.

‘Is this where you’ve been living?’ Marcus asked, turning to his friend.

‘Do you want a drink?’ Mouse walked over and found a half-full bottle of wine. He pulled the cork out and poured it into plastic cups. ‘It was cold on the boat. The heating isn’t all that good. And I knew you’d come looking for me there.’

Marcus sipped the wine.

‘It’s amazing up here.’

Mouse walked over and opened a window. Snow was falling outside. They both stood and looked out over the roofs and down to the dome of St Paul’s. Mouse drew out a packet of cigarettes and offered one to Marcus.

‘You have to lean out, otherwise the smoke alarms get you.’

Marcus held up his hand. ‘I’m not smoking.’ He paused. ‘Abby is pregnant.’

Mouse turned to him with delighted eyes. ‘You’re joking. Sport, that’s grand. I’m so happy for you both.’

Marcus was touched by his friend’s joy. ‘I shouldn’t really tell anyone yet. You might have guessed that we’ve had some trouble before. But I’ve a good feeling about this one.’

Mouse put his arm around Marcus’s shoulder and blew a jet of smoke out of the window.

‘Have you got names yet?’

‘No, that would feel like jinxing it somehow.’

The snow began to fall more heavily. Mouse finished his cigarette and closed the window. The wind had picked up and moaned balefully as Mouse opened another bottle of wine. They sat on pillows with their backs against the wood-
panelled
wall. The light had dropped outside and Mouse switched on the desk lamp.

‘We’re going away for a while,’ Marcus said.

Mouse looked across at him.

‘Where?’ he asked.

‘David has asked Abby to stay on in New York. I’m going to go with her. Only for a year. Two at the most.’

Mouse’s face fell.

‘You’ll have the baby out there?’

Marcus nodded.

‘Oh. I was hoping . . . I suppose I can come out to visit.’

‘Of course you can. You can come whenever you want. You’ll be the godfather, of course.’

‘Of course.’ Mouse smiled. ‘When are you going?’

‘Straight after Christmas.’

‘Oh. That’s very soon.’ Mouse stared down at his hands. Marcus’s voice softened.

‘I just realised that we had to grow up. When Abby came back, she seemed changed, suddenly an adult. I’m going to be a father; I’m fed up with pretending I’m still a teenager. I want my kid to have a dad he can be proud of.’

‘You’re a Course leader. You’re a successful lawyer. I don’t understand.’

‘All of us, we’re in hiding, obsessed with our narrow little world. I’m not saying that going to America will change all of that, but at least it’ll change something.’

‘But what about me? What about us?’

‘Lee’s death has altered everything. Things can’t go back to how they were. David will find a new group of Course leaders, but The Revelations are finished.’

They drank the remains of the bottle of wine.

‘Listen, I’m going to have to get going. Abby, you know . . .’

‘I know. I understand.’ Mouse looked downcast for a moment, then smiled over at Marcus hopefully. ‘Will you stay for just one more drink? I have some vodka over here somewhere.’ He rose. ‘Here it is. Stay and toast the end of an era. Just while I have one last cigarette.’

Mouse filled both their glasses and walked over to the
window
. Darkness had fallen, but the lights that illuminated the tower blazed up into the night sky. The snow raged in the beams of light, whipped across their field of vision by the wind, swirling upwards and then exploding in all directions as it hit the building. Marcus watched flakes land at Mouse’s feet and disappear into the parquet floor. He crossed to stand behind his friend.

‘You know the story about the lights?’ Mouse was staring out into the blizzard, the cigarette held in his lips, his hands either side of the window frame.

‘During the blackout, Senate House was the only building illuminated in Bloomsbury. A beacon of light for the German bombers. They never switched these things off. But it wasn’t hit. Through the whole of the Blitz this enormous building stood here, like a middle finger raised to the Germans, and never once did they hit it. Bombs fell either side, they devastated the area up towards Euston and across Clerkenwell and Holborn, but never here.’