The Book of Strange New Things (12 page)

Once, years ago, while going through the complicated procedure of locking up the church (deadbolts, padlocks, mortice locks, even a chain), he’d suggested to Beatrice that they should have an open-door policy.

‘But we do,’ she’d said, puzzled.

‘No, I mean no locks at all. The doors open to anyone, any time. “Entertaining angels unawares”, as the Scripture puts it.’

She’d stroked his head as if he were a child. ‘You’re sweet.’

‘I’m serious.’

‘So are the drug addicts.’

‘We don’t have any drugs here. And nothing that could be sold for drugs.’ He gestured at the walls decorated with children’s drawings, the pews with their comfy old cushions, the wobbly lectern, the stacks of well-worn Bibles, the general absence of silver candelabras, antique sculptures and precious ornaments.

Bea sighed. ‘Anything can be sold for drugs. Or at least the person can try. If he’s desperate enough.’ And she gave him a
You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?
look.

Indeed, he knew all about that. He just had a tendency to forget.

Despite his resolution to stay awake until the time Grainger might show up if she hadn’t received his message, Peter fell asleep. Two hours passed and, when he woke, the room was stable and the view through the window was unchanged: lonesome expanses of darkness, speckled with eerie lamplight. He shambled out of bed and his foot kicked something flimsy across the floor: one of his socks, dried out and stiff, transformed from cotton into cardboard. He sat at the Shoot and read a fresh response from Grainger that had his own ‘sorry to bother you’ lure hanging off it.

A telephone call would have bothered me a lot more, she wrote, especialy if Id been asleep. No, there are no phones. USIC tried setting them up in the early days but reception ranged from lousy to nonexistant. The atmosphere is wrong, too thick or something. So weve done without. And its been OK. Lets face it, most of what phones get used for is a total waste of time anyway. Weve got red buttons all over the place for emergencies (and never need them!). Our work schedules are on printed rosters so we know where to turn up and what to do. As far as chat goes we talk face to face if were not too busy – and if were too busy we shouldnt be trying to chat. When special announcements need to be made, we pipe them over the PA. We can use the Shoot also but most people wait until they can discuss things face to face. Everybodys an expert here and discussions can get quite technical and then theres the give+take of problem solving in situ. Writing stuff down so as the other person can understand it and then waiting for an answer is a nightmare. Hope this helps, Grainger.

He smiled. In one sentence, she’d flushed thousands of years of written communication briskly down the toilet, having already discarded a century and a half of telephone use in the previous dump. The ‘hope this helps’ chaser was a cute touch, too. Chutzpah of a kind.

Still smiling, and picturing the boyish face of Grainger in his head, he checked for messages from Beatrice, not really expecting any. A long scroll of text manifested on the screen and, because it appeared instantaneously, without fuss or fanfare, he was slow to recognise it for what it was. The screen was full to overflowing. He looked into the nest of words, and spotted the name Joshua. A cluster of six letters, meaningless to most other people, but it sprang into his soul and made it come alive with vivid images: Joshua’s paws, with their comical white tufts between the pink pads; Joshua covered in plaster dust from next door’s renovations; Joshua performing his death-defying circus leap from the top of the fridge to the ironing board; Joshua scratching at the kitchen window, his soft cry inaudible over the peak-hour traffic; Joshua asleep in the basket of dried washing; Joshua on the kitchen table, stroking his furry jaw against the earthenware teapot that never got used for any other purpose than this; Joshua in bed with him and Bea. And then he saw Bea: Bea only half-covered by the yellow duvet, reluctant to move because the cat was asleep against her thigh. Bea’s ribcage and bosom, poking through the threadbare cotton of her favourite T-shirt which was too old to be worn in public anymore but which was just right for bed. Bea’s neck, long and smooth except for two pale creases like seams. Bea’s mouth, her lips.

Dear Peter, her letter began.

Oh, the preciousness to him of those words! If there’d been no more to her message than this, he would have been satisfied. He would have read Dear Peter, Dear Peter, Dear Peter over and over, not out of vanity, but because these were words from her to him.

Dear Peter,

I’m crying with relief as I write this. Knowing that you’re alive has made me all shaky and woozy, as if I’ve been holding my breath for a month and I’ve finally let it out. Praise the Lord that He kept you safe.

What’s it like where you are? I don’t mean the room, I mean outside, the whole place in general. Please tell me, I’m desperate to know. Have you taken any pictures?

As for me, relax, I haven’t aged fifty years or even developed any wrinkles since you last saw me. Just some bags under my eyes from lack of sleep (more about that later).

Seriously, the last four weeks have been hard, not knowing if you would get there in one piece or if you were already dead and nobody told me. I kept loitering around this machine even though I knew that nothing would come through for ages yet.

Then when your message finally did come I wasn’t here to receive it. I was trapped at work. I did a morning shift which went OK and I was about to go home but by 2.45 it was clear we would be 3 staff members down – Leah and Owen phoned in sick and Susannah just didn’t turn up. No joy from the nursing agency so I was asked to stay on and do a double, which I did. Then at 11 PM, guess what? – half the night staff didn’t show up either. So I was pressured to do a triple shift! Highly illegal, but do they care?

Tony from next door popped round to feed Joshua but didn’t sound too happy when I phoned him. ‘We’ve all got problems,’ he said. All the more reason to help each other, I almost said. But he sounded stressed out. If this happens again, I may have to ask the students on the other side. I’d probably have to teach them how to use a tin opener.

Speaking of Joshua, he isn’t coping well with your absence. He wakes me up at 4 AM, miaowing in my ear and then flopping down demonstratively on your side of the bed. Then I lie awake until I have to get ready for work. Oh, the joys of being an abandoned mother.

I’ve been checking the news on my phone obsessively, in case there was a news report about you. I know that’s daft. USIC is not exactly the world’s most high-profile organisation, is it? We’d never even heard of them before they approached you. But still . . .

Anyway, you’re safe now – I’m so indescribably relieved. I’ve finally stopped trembling and I feel less woozy. I’ve read and re-read your two messages over and over! And yes, you’re right to assume that it’s better to write to me when your brain is scrambled than not to write at all. Perfection is not ours to achieve.

Which reminds me: please stop worrying about the last time we made love. I told you it was all right and it was (and is). The orgasm wasn’t primarily what I wanted from the experience, trust me.

Also, stop worrying about what these guys (Severin etc) think of you. It’s irrelevant. You didn’t go to Oasis to impress them. You went to Oasis to witness to souls who have never heard of Jesus. In any case these USIC guys have jobs to do and you’ll probably not see much of them.

I can’t really picture the Oasis rain from your description but green water sounds a bit alarming. The weather here has been terrible since you left. Heavy downpours every day. I wouldn’t say it’s like bead curtains, more like getting a bucket of water emptied over your head. There’s been flooding in some towns in the Midlands, cars floating down the street, etc. We’re OK except that the toilet bowl is slow to drain after a flush, ditto the plughole in the shower cubicle. Not sure what’s going on there. Too busy to get it seen to.

Life in our parish continues hectic. The situation with Mirah (?Meerah) and her husband has reached crisis point. She finally told him she’s been attending our church and he hit the roof. Or to be more precise, he hit Mirah. Many times. Her face is a swollen mess, she can barely see. She says she wants to leave him and she needs our (my) help with the legalities – housing, employment, benefits, etc. I’ve been making some preliminary phone calls (ie, a few hours so far) but mainly just providing TLC. Her prospects for independence are not good. She can barely speak English, she’s totally unskilled and to be honest I think she’s of below average intelligence. I see my role as being there for her emotionally until her face heals a bit and she goes back to her husband. In the meantime I hope our house doesn’t become the scene of an Arabic honour killing. I’m sure that would traumatise Joshua no end.

I know I sound flippant, but the bottom line is that I don’t think Meerah (?Mirah – I’ll have to get the spelling straight if I’m to be filling in application forms for Crisis Loans, etc) is ready to receive the support & strength she would get if she gave her heart to Christ. I think she’s attracted to the friendly, tolerant atmosphere of our church and the tantalising notion of being a free woman. She talks about being a Christian as if it’s a gym club membership you can sign up for.

Well, I see that it’s about 1.30 AM which is bad news for me because Joshua will no doubt wake me two and a half hours from now, and I’m not even in bed yet. I hear rain again. I love you and miss you. Don’t worry about anything. Trust in Jesus. He has made the journey with you. (I only wish I had.) Remember that Jesus is working through you even at those times when you feel you’re out of your depth.

As for our old friend Saint Paul, he might not approve of how much I wish I could curl up in bed next to you right now. But yes, let’s quote his wise advice on other matters. My darling, we both know that the effects of your travels will eventually pass and you’ll be rested and then you’ll no longer be able to sit in your cosy quarters writing epistles to me and looking out at the rain. You’ll have to open the door and start work. As Paul says, ‘Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time.’ And remember I’m thinking of you!

Kisses, hugs, and a headbutt from Joshua,

Beatrice

Peter read this letter eight or nine times at least before he could bear to part with it. Then he fetched his bag, the one that the Virgin check-in girl had doubted was enough for a one-way transatlantic flight, dumped it on the bed and zipped it open. It was time to get dressed for work.

Apart from his Bible, notepads, a second pair of jeans, polished black shoes, trainers, sandals, three T-shirts and three pairs of socks and underpants, the bag contained one item of apparel that had seemed uselessly exotic when he’d packed it, an item he’d figured he was about as likely to wear as a tutu or a tuxedo. The USIC interviewers had advised him that there was no particular dress code on Oasis but that if he intended to spend a significant amount of time outdoors, he might wish to invest in some Arabic-style garments. Indeed, they’d dropped strong hints that he might regret it if he didn’t. So, Beatrice had bought him a dishdasha from the local cut-price Muslim outfitters.

‘It was the plainest one I could find,’ she said, showing it to him a couple of nights before his departure. ‘They had ones with gold brocade, spangles, embroidery . . . ’

He’d held it against his body. ‘It’s very long,’ he said.

‘It means you won’t need trousers,’ she said, half-smiling. ‘You can be naked underneath. If you want.’

He thanked her but didn’t try it on.

‘You don’t think it’s too girly, do you?’ she said. ‘I think it’s very masculine.’

‘It’s fine,’ he said, packing it away. It wasn’t effeminacy that worried him; it was that he couldn’t imagine himself swanning about like an actor in an old Bible movie. It seemed vainglorious, and not at all what modern Christianity was about.

One walk in the Oasan atmosphere had changed all that. His denim jacket, still in a crumpled heap on the floor, had dried stiff as tarpaulin. An Arabic smock and pyjama-style pants, such as he’d seen several of the USIC staff wearing, was probably the ideal alternative, but his ankle-length dishdasha would do nicely too. He could wear it with sandals. So what if he looked like a fancy-dress party sheikh? This was about practicality. He pulled the dishdasha out of the bag, let it unfurl.

To his dismay, it was spattered and stained with black ink. The ballpoint pens that had exploded during the flight had splurted their contents directly onto the white fabric. To make matters worse, he’d evidently scrunched the garment further down in the bag when he was preparing to leave the ship, causing the ink stains to reproduce themselves in Rorschach fashion.

And yet . . . and yet . . . He shook the garment straight, held it at arm’s length. Something astonishing had happened. The ink pattern, created randomly, had turned into a cross, a Christian cross, right in the middle of the chest. If it had been red instead of black, it would almost be the insignia on the tunic of a medieval crusader. Almost. The ink stains were untidy, with globs and stray extra lines marring the perfection of the design. Although . . . although . . . those faint lines ghosting under the crossbar could be interpreted as the skeletally thin arms of the crucified Christ . . . and those spiky smudges higher up could be seen as thorns from Jesus’s crown. He shook his head: reading too much into things was a weakness of his. And yet here it was, the cross on his garment where no cross was before. He prodded the ink, to check if it stained his fingers. Apart from a slightly tacky patch in the very centre, it was dry. Ready to wear.

He threw the dishdasha over his head and allowed the cool fabric to slide across his skin, sheathing his nakedness. Turning to appraise his reflection in the window, he confirmed that Bea had chosen well. The thing fitted him, as though a tailor in the Middle East had measured his shoulders, cut the cloth and sewn it for him specially.

The window he’d been using as a mirror became a window again, as lights flared up outside. Two glowing points, like the eyes of some monstrous organism approaching. He stepped closer to the glass and peered through, but the vehicle’s headlights disappeared just as he recognised them for what they were.