On Chasing Brad Through Purgatory (23 page)

That was the climax though: those nail extractions. Even they felt satisfied by then. Or else exhausted. Decided finally that I might have had enough.

Besides of course. They had already mentioned this many times over; possibly a dozen. They knew we'd all be meeting up again.

Tomorrow.

23

It was because I'd done my best to get away and flout the authority of hell that they were making an example of me; and would go on doing so in perpetuity. I had thought excruciating boredom was the direst fate a person could envisage. How was it possible I could ever have been that shortsighted, that naïve? Now I would so willingly have settled for pure boredom.

And yet … when I'd have thought I would never manage to sleep peacefully again … that very same night I slept well.

Almost too well.

Made a later start than I'd intended.

Couldn't distinguish the baying of any hounds but very quickly heard the sound of helicopters.

Didn't even stop to pick an apple.

24

The devil may have put me through that once but I can't believe that God would really let it happen twice. It isn't possible. It surely isn't possible? I know I've been a sinner—yes obviously I have and how—but I wasn't by any means a Hitler or a Stalin or a Saddam Hussein. I can't be meant to go through all of that again.

There has to be a way out—oh Jesus there simply has to be a way out. Even if I knew I'd been sentenced to only one week of it, just six more days, this would undoubtedly be enough to send me mad … if madness were ever an option. But we're not talking about mere weeks—or months—or years. Nor about decades nor centuries. We are talking about—forever!
Forever
… when I feel I can't get through even one more day. Oh God. There
has
to be a way out.

Prayer? But that's what hell's about or one of the things that hell's about. Knowing the uselessness of prayer. Knowing you live beyond the realm where prayers break through or can ever get listened to. In concentration camps they must have had this feeling. But even in concentration camps there may have been—on occasion must have been—the shadowy glimmer of hope; a faint yet stubbornly surviving belief in better things to come; a something that provided strength. We have examples of people who somehow clung to faith. It's difficult to see how anybody could.

But in hell…?

I don't deserve to be in hell
. That fact alone has got to get me out. If there's no ultimate fairness in the world then after all man can't be made in God's own image.

Because if God who is supposedly all-powerful truly desires to be fair—then ultimately there must be fairness.

And if there isn't, then man cannot be made in God's own image. QED. The best of men—though far from being all-powerful—at least
endeavour
to be fair.

The fact that I can even think this shows there has to be some possibility for change. I hadn't thought it yesterday.

So why then don't I stop to gather apples? Do I
need
to flee from the helicopters? Having gone into the canyon do I
need
to exit at the other end? Once I get swept up between the Scots and Sassenachs—from then on I've no choice, that's obvious. But up until that point…? Why don't I go for apples?

I consider it carefully—and this, as I say, is evidence of the possibility of change; even in hell can there be hope? But I am programmed to escape: escape the dogs if they're being used, escape the fliers if the fliers are. I am programmed to run—and run—and run.

Literally so? I wonder about this. Has there really been time and opportunity to programme me?

Or …

Or could it in fact be something else? Could it be merely that it makes good sense to try to escape the dogs? For if I don't what happens? They either savage me or else bring me to bay. Whichever, I'm back in the hands of my captors, from there to be passed on for punishment. If savaged of course I'm subject to yet further quantities of pain … which might well augment my daily menu but otherwise won't alter anything. Similarly it makes good sense to escape the fliers, since my failure to do so—there, too—will mean a swift return to jail.

Yet if I really have some element of choice … then couldn't I
force
myself to remain inside the canyon? Now that I know what lies ahead, it would be idiotic—lunacy—not to focus every last billionth atom on avoidance. That canyon might even serve as a bolt hole: one among whose rocks I could maybe eke out some Robinson-Crusoe-type existence for the rest of time—apart that is from the hours spent getting there and the hours spent sleeping in the barn? Need such an existence be altogether joyless? Couldn't I try to profit from my own unstated advice to Mr Tibbotson: sing, dance, attempt to think positively? Even humorously.

More—I could sunbathe, do physical jerks, find makeshift weights to keep me healthy. (For what?)

I could invent and improvise in ways at present unimaginable. But Robinson Crusoe himself would have wanted to take stock before deciding what might or mightn't be imaginable. And if I could indeed manage to stay, possibly my days in the canyon would be sufficiently varied to stave off at least some of that hellish dreaded boredom. (Oh Lord! Was boredom
already
something to be dreaded once more?)

However if by that sheer expenditure of will I
can
remain won't the helicopters then try to flush me out—the helicopters or the hounds? All right; I shall refuse to budge! Whatever the unpleasantness which may result from this there'll still have been the pushing back of boundaries. I can hardly believe it. There
is
hope.

Or am I getting wildly—that is, groundlessly—optimistic?

No.

I am simply stepping out in faith. That is what I am doing.

And for the second time, sweating profusely, intermittently blinded and feeling that my lungs have reached the bursting point, I tear into the canyon.

Eventually I pause again and double over whilst gradually the pumping slows and the breathing grows less laboured. From now on I shall simply walk.

And as I say I'll try to stop. I've even planned where I shall try to stop. There's a place where—against the right-hand wall of the ravine—two boulders, set roughly four or five feet apart, obtrude onto the track. Yesterday it crossed my mind they might conceivably form a narrow room: a tiny three-walled refuge. Ideally I'd have liked them more centrally positioned since they're only a very short distance from that terrifying exit point. But, ultimately, even such proximity could prove beneficial. The noise of war will serve as grim reminder if ever I feel tempted to bemoan the tedium of sanctuary. And anyway why should I need to remain in that particular spot once my independence is established? For one day at least I'll have the run of the terrain.

What confidence—though perhaps only due to the fact I'd slept so well! A further restless night and my buoyancy might all have been destroyed?

Naturally the sky seen from the canyon is once more blue. Even at this depth shafts of sunlight still fall across my path. Birdsong returns: each chirrup corresponding to its counterpart of yesterday? Drawing closer to those two boulders (and maybe growing paranoid again) I suddenly wonder about the possibility of some force field I shouldn't be able to cross; then in a panic start to pray, totally forgetting that God apparently has no dominion over the devil—and that anyhow there was a lengthy portion of the previous day when I'd been telling him explicitly how much I hated him. But old habit dies hard; especially in emergency. And despite all the horrors of the world, I now remember the God who cured my brother Simon's meningitis and assisted me to win the long-jump championship, the God whom I felt performed any number of small things throughout my boyhood and early adolescence to convince me that he really did exist; a helpmate and a friend who truly cared. Events like my meeting with Brad had consolidated a slightly wavering belief: five seconds later he'd have left the pub and I'd have lost him. (If I
had
lost him of course I shouldn't be in my present pitiful position. But that doesn't change my thankfulness—not basically, no way—despite what I might say, or rather yell, under extreme duress.)

As usual I try to incorporate into my prayer all feelings of gratitude; which unfailingly include both Brad and my family. And my friends.

But now I've reached the stones.

So this'll be it.

Of course you can
.

Oh Brad I can't.

Bullshit. Take hold of yourself. Don't even think. Just do
.

For a moment I listen to the sounds of slaughter. But I do think. I think about the battlefields; I think about the torture chair. I turn into my refuge, whip round so as to be facing outwards, brace myself between the pair of stones—and wait.

A side step executed in a second. I may have taken them by surprise. No force field.

But I suspect that if they pull me out a force field can be set there in an instant. And it occurs to me that to pull me out they may resort to some kind of suction device: a mini-whirlwind for example. Or in default of suction a mountain lion—a cobra—a tarantula? Again, though, I feel I should hardly be envisaging such way-out possibilities; and for the time being simply continue to brace myself between those rocks … as if for all the world I were Samson and about to push down the pillars of the temple.

25

However there was one way-out possibility which I had
not
envisaged. They say the devil can quote scripture. What they don't mention is that he's also pretty expert at impersonation. I heard my name being called. I had been there less than three minutes and I heard my name being called. I had expected force of some kind. I had not expected sweetness. I hadn't thought I might be listening to the voice of Brad.

“Danny? Can you hear me? Don't be scared. It's me.”

I said nothing. My heart did all sorts of stopping, beat-skipping, soaring, sinking things; it must have run the full gamut. But even so I said nothing.

The counterfeit called: “You see, I didn't want to give you too much of a shock.” (What the devil was he talking about?) The tone was tentative even though it next attempted humour. “Bring on a heart attack or something.”

Brad wouldn't have said ‘shock'; he would have said ‘surprise'.

So I decided I wasn't going to provide the satisfaction of an answer; any answer. Did they really think I could be fooled as easily as this? To some extent I might have got the better of them but they must still consider me a very poor kind of opponent.

Good! Well that could work to my advantage.

“Darling it's me it truly is. I know what you're thinking. Since you died I've known everything you've been thinking. Every single thing. I've been with you every step of the way. Literally.”

This was diabolical; and I wasn't the type who could keep quiet indefinitely, no matter how wonderfully frustrating I thought it would prove for the enemy. “You're wasting your breath!” I shouted back coldly.

And think now. What sort of sense would it ever make for Brad to be in hell? He had neither taken his own life nor was he remotely evil.

“Those aren't the sole requirements.” God this was insidious. The person or the thing out there had even caught the underlying chuckle so heart-piercingly familiar. “There's another one: running in pursuit of somebody you love—somebody you always did love, deeply, but whom all the same you've come to love inexpressibly more with every passing moment. I told you I'd come back for you. I know you haven't forgotten it so I'm almost forced to conclude that you didn't take me for a man of my word. Despite tautology.”

I wasn't sure how long I could hold out. Once more I braced my arms between those reassuring boulders.

“I can't come in,” he said. “This is your final test. You need to trust in God and simply to step out in faith. Which we both know is a phrase you yourself have lately had in mind—and a precept you've been straining to put into practice right from the beginning. So come on. Show you're ready now to lean back on him
entirely
. You've shown love; you've shown hope; you've shown charity. Only one thing remains and then you're through.”

I smiled very slowly. He shouldn't have said that. The counterfeit shouldn't have said that. I mean certainly not those first few words … which had rendered all the rest of it fallacious. And just at that very moment when I might actually have been weakening! Thank you God oh thank you God.

This slip suggested that—very poor kind of opponent or not—I was at least a little more alert than he was.

For had he forgotten? Scarcely three minutes ago?
You see, I didn't want to give you too much of a shock
. His exact words.

And the inference to be drawn? The obvious, indeed the only possible inference? That
otherwise
he wouldn't merely have called out from a distance in order to give me warning; he'd have charged straight in and thrown his arms about me; impatiently dispensing with preliminaries.

Besides the counterfeit was very nearly pleading. (What did that remind me of?) The counterfeit was almost holding out a bribe. This surely shouldn't be the way that good things happened.

No. I was steadied by the cool smoothness of the stone against my palms. I couldn't go back to Scotland. I couldn't go back to France. I couldn't go back to the Gestapo. There were those no doubt who'd been through similar experiences and had managed to retain their faith—their belief in the ultimate victory of good. I envied them this strength and was totally amazed by it, made to feel indescribably humble and undeserving, but I was not and never could be of such calibre. There were certain places in this world where faith just wasn't viable. There were certain places in this world where God had never been.