The Book of Rapture (20 page)

147

The doctor storms out after the son and your three children spin to the windows, to the celebratory blue hollering for them to get out.

‘Come on,’ Soli whispers.

‘Quick.’ Tidge laughs.

‘No,’ Mouse says, ‘not yet.’

‘It’s just
there,’
Tidge cries with his arm around his brother’s shoulders but Mouse rubs his head and says, ‘No,’ as if the whole idea hurts. Tidge drops his hand. His brother hasn’t stopped them because of his pain, he’s stopped them because of something else.

‘This isn’t the way to do it,’ Mouse says. ‘It’ll only make things worse.’

Be truthful, be patient, be generous. These are the three steps to godliness.

148

So. The three of them here. Staying because they have to. Because it can’t be just two of them escaping, because no one’s being left behind. Waiting in this room of shimmering light as two enormous wills do battle in the corridor outside and as Pin walks through the door his face tells you what you never thought you’d see: he has won.

Brim your heart.

Pin gives them the thumbs up, his eyes dance, Soli runs to the waiting blue. Holds out her palms and laughs, holds them flat to the light; drinks up the sky for it’s theirs now, soon, back. The beautiful repairing sun, any moment. The doctor comes into the room and brisks to the desk. He picks up the phone, drumming his fingers impatiently on a book.

‘How did you do it? What did you say?’ Your children fire questions as the doctor concentrates on his call, a hand shielding his forehead as if holding in an enormous headache.

‘I know something I’m not meant to,’ Pin sings in a whisper.

‘What? What?’

‘Something a lot of people want to know. And will pay a lot of money for.’

‘What?

‘I know where__________is. The exact location.’

Your children suck in their breaths. Where, exactly, the man at the heart of this endless fear plague is; the puppet master with the sad speaking eyes who has kept their world under his
thumb, for years now, by a masterful manipulation of paranoia and mystery and fret, by an audacious sense of grandeur and theatrical cunning, by an unholy lust for death. The world has been searching for him for decades now; it’s not known if he’s still alive, he’s morphed into myth.

‘There was a note. A map’ — Pin grins — ‘in Dad’s pocket. I found it by mistake. I copied it. I was looking for Tic Tacs. And I’ve said to Dad that I’ve told several people who I trust where I’ve hidden the information. They don’t know exactly what’s in the envelope, but it’s somewhere in this building, and it’s to be sent on my behalf if ever I give the signal. Or if something ever happens to me. And I’ve just told Dad that if you’re set free —
all
of you, the four of you’ — your children gasp in joy — ‘yes,
every
one’ — he pokes Tidge playfully in the chest — ‘then he can have his envelope back. You’re nothing to him. And the information is priceless.’

Pin smiles a smile that in an afternoon has grown up. ‘The things I do to get you off.
And
those crazy siblings of yours.’ He steps back and assesses them. ‘I’m not sure it’s worth it, you know.’

You want to hold that boy for a very long time, hold him and hold him, in this crackly air, for he has sanctified himself.

A faithful friend is the medicine of life.

149

Pin asks his father if they can have one last play in their room.

The man begins to speak but stops, a hostage now to a son who knows too much. ‘But I’m coming with you,’ he says, ‘I want to check that room out.’

So. There those children are, abreast, walking tall down that corridor into four new lives. Did they call themselves alive in the past? It is nothing compared to now. Their hearts are like windsocks in a stiff breeze, filled up, and you feel stunned by all of this. You have learned astonishment today; from your children, from their friend, from everything that’s gone on. Getting softer and looser by the minute, like an anemone sprung into life by the water’s caress, rescued by forgiveness and brimming with light. They are better than you. They teach you so much.

They take the lift to the basement. Miss Jude Pickering the Third gives not a flicker of recognition, but as your children step out she brushes Mouse’s back, once, in fleeting warmth. It’s all he gets but it’s enough. She’s in the secret, silent loop, just as B is, and so many unseen others in this fragile world and even, perhaps, your Motl, you will never know, it doesn’t matter now. For you have made your choice and you are strong with it. You are so in love with life.

They walk tall to the room that has imprisoned them for so many days, feeling straighter and stronger with every step they take. Relief is turning them all zippy and giggly, they can hardly
contain their energy; soon they’ll be flooding their lungs with sun, soon. And you must let them go now, you must turn from this, striding into a darkness that is luminous, marinated in love and at peace.

Friend, go up higher.

150

Pin’s father checks behind curtains and whips the cover from the bed. Begins to open the cupboard with Mouse’s quilt of words within it. Your boy’s face is as white as flour. The man’s pocket rings. He takes out a phone, concentrating on the call and missing entirely the meticulous chronicle of their life in this place. The man turns to a corner of the room deep in talk. Mouse flops on the bed, arms spread, and smiles in enormous relief.

Suddenly, slogged by tired. All four of them. There’s still much to be done. Mouse looks at the cupboard; his words have to be tidied for a start. He hates the thought of leaving it unfinished: ‘Write as if you’re dying,’ you’d said with a laugh once, ‘believe me, it works.’ He slips out his father’s pen and gazes at it as if it’s a sword to be carried through the biggest battles of his life. Each of your children takes a last look around. Part of them will be left behind in this place but three new people are stepping out, uncurling their pale backs, grown tall, spined up. Outside a wind has come, it’s whipping up a flurry of leaves and dust, rattling windows and snatching hats, moving the world on. Calling your children into the tall happy light and they’re more than ready now to be among it, your three bouncy puppies, running and lolloping at all the green shoots.

Look at Soli. Shining. Retrieving your scrap of kitchen towel from inside her pillow case, holding it to her face and breathing it in deep, your gardenia perfume still faintly upon it. Look at
Tidge. Clutching his father’s doll as he reaches under the bed to collect your old key to whatever they want, clutching his doll like he’ll never give him up. He can’t reach. Pin drops to his knees, gets it, just: ‘Bingo,’ he says, handing the key across. Your boy holds it to his lips and chuckles his thanks, chuckles and chuckles, they both do, can’t stop. The others join in, joy roguish through each of them and the wonder intensifies. At all of this, all that has happened in this place. Because it feels like you’ve been bulleted into living and the world surprises you still and that gives you hope. You’ve witnessed something rescuing here. Grace. Which can change everything in an instant. Release hearts.

They’ll be all right, they’ll be all right.

A serious house on serious earth it is.

151

The doctor drifts into the corridor, lured away by the importance of his call. Mouse calls Pin across. Opens the cupboard door, trust now brimming his heart.

‘Wow,’ his friend whispers, running his hand over all the words like a jockey appreciating a horse.

‘You can read it all when we’re long gone from here. Will you look after it for me?’

‘Of course.’

‘My dad told me to do it,’ Mouse says. ‘He said that telling the truth gives you this weird kind of calmness among all the craziness. It’s been like my daily glass of whisky, I guess.’ They both laugh. ‘Now there’s just one more thing I’ve got to do.’ He slips inside. ‘To finish it off. I just need a moment.’

    
This. (Hang on. Soli’s yelling out. "What, sister dear?’ ‘Thank you, Mr.’ ‘For what?’ ‘For being so grown up. For helping out. You write that down.’ Well, if I must, I must.)

    Whistling away in there, and your heart is filled with it.

    
Now where I was I? Oh yeah. Imagine this. I’m running down to the beach at Salt Cottage and stripping off and getting sand all over me and cleaning myself with it and RUBBING THIS WHOLE EPISODE OUT. Kaput. And then I’ll just be quiet for a bit. No words. I want to lose talk for a while, and all the writing, and just stand there and let the sea and the sun and the wind blow it clean out of me. And rest. God yeah, that. Ahead feels like this big empty house that’s warm with light and waiting and ready to be filled up. It’s CLOSE! YIPPEE!!

    So to this. The photo of their football, the last thing left from the memory box. Curling on its bit of toothpaste and Mouse wants it with him, wherever they’re off to next, so much. He hovers his fingers over it, can hardly bear to touch, hovers, can’t quite abandon it.

    
No. I’ll leave it. For you. For us
.

These things are happening. CAN ANYONE HEAR US?

Love does not dominate; it cultivates.

152
The Last

Reality now, this irreversibility. You know what is wanted, you have made your choice; you have to open your heart, surrender, to move from this limbo into the light. And so this. Your final testament, your conclusion, for you are the last one left with the key to unlock Project Indigo. You understand what is required of you now. You will see your children again if you do what is best for the research, you will see your husband again if you do what is best for the research, you will leave this room if you do what is best for the research. They have given you a sheaf of paper and a pen, and this testimony you have sewn them and sewn them in response is what is needed, required, now. They will get nothing else. You have learned the rightful resonances of the word sacrifice. You have learned a lot. All their roaring words, yes, in all their books; but now
your
roaring words. This manuscript, this final testament, will find its way to a good place, you are sure of that. You have made your choice and you are strong with it. It is time to go. You are not afraid. Your family will be alright, your children are in safe hands. This room is lumen now. What you believe in is all you have left.

Nothing evolves us like love.

Chapter Lessons: Sources

Lesson 1: Hafiz (fourteenth-century Persian poet)
2: The Bible
3: The Koran
4: The Bible
5: Robert Burton
6: Samuel Johnson
7: The Bible
8: The Koran
9: Gotama Buddha
10: The Bible
11: Hafiz
12: The Koran
13: The Koran
14: The Koran
15: Hafiz
16: Fiona Omeenyo (Australian Aboriginal artist)
17: The Bible
18: Buddha
19: Confucianist Scriptures: The Shih King
20: Buddha
21: Hafiz
22: Aristotle
23: The Bible
24: The Koran
25: Buddha
26: Dalai Lama
27: Buddha
28: Confucianist Scriptures: Lamentation
29: Buddha
30: The Koran
31: The Bible
32: Hafiz
33: Hafiz
34: The Bible
35: The Bible
36: The Bible
37: The Bible
38: Oliver Cromwell
39: The Koran
40: Buddha
41: The Bible
42: The Bible
43: The Koran
44: The Bible
45: Hafiz
46: Buddha
47: Hafiz
48: Hafiz
49: Dalai Lama
50: The Rig Veda Samhita
51: Hafiz
52: The Bible
53: Hafiz
54: Hafiz
55: Iris Murdoch
56: Hafiz
57: The Koran
58: Buddha
59: Hafiz
60: The Bible
61: Hafiz
62: The Bible
63: Buddha
64: The Bible
65: Buddha
66: Buddha
67: C.S. Lewis
68: Confucianist Scriptures: The Li Ki
69: The Bible
70: Buddha
71: The Koran
72: The Bible
73: Hafiz
74: Buddha
75: The Bible
76: The Bible
77: The Bible
78: Hafiz
79: Buddha
80: The Koran
81: The Bible
82: Buddha
83: Hafiz
84: The Koran
85: Patrick White
86: The Bible
87: Dalai Lama
88: Ella Wheeler Wilcox
89: Buddha
90: The Koran
91: The Koran
92: Hafiz
93: The Bible
94: The Bible
95: The Bible
96: Cicero
97: The Bible
98: Willa Cather
99: The Bible
100: Benjamin Disraeli
101: Hafiz
102: Matthew Arnold
103: The Bible
104: The Bible
105: The Bible
106: Sri Ramakrishna
107: The Bible
108: The Koran
109: The Bible
110: The Bible
111: Robert Browning
112: Buddha
113: Buddha
114: The Bible
115: The Bible
116: The Koran
117: Dalai Lama
118: The Bible
119: The Koran
120: Oscar Wilde
121: Buddha
122: Hafiz
123: R.S. Thomas
124: The Bible
125: The Bible
126: The Bible
127: The Bible
128: Hafiz
129: The Koran
130: The Bible
131: The Bible
132: The Bible
133: The Koran
134: Buddha
135: Buddha
136: The Bible
137: The Bible
138: The Bible
139: The Bible
140: The Bible
141: Buddha
142: The Bible
143: Peter De Vries
144: Hafiz
145: Buddha
146: Dalai Lama
147: Buddha
148: The Bible
149: The Bible
150: Philip Larkin
151: Goethe
152: Hafiz