The Rapture Read online

‘Do you miss it, though?’

  ‘No. It wasn’t easy. I was alone.’

  ‘And lonely …?’

  I turn to her and she answers, but only with her eyes.

  *

  I follow the disc of light thrown from the usher’s torch and squeeze past strangers, feeling exposed and clumsy. It’s not until I’m safely in my seat that my eyes adjust. I see a couple stealing a kiss in the corner, and a lady in an elegant cloche wiping her nose on the back of her sleeve. People get a false sense of security in the dark; they think they are invisible so they forget to hide. A young man stumbles on a stair as he tries to find his seat and Grace and I stifle a giggle at his expense.

  The seats are crimson velvet and there are drapes either side of the screen. It makes me think of music hall and dancing girls and the backstreet theatres that Octavia reads about in the newspapers. Boltholes of debauchery. Beautiful on the surface but rotten to the core. I love the extravagance, the red, the gold, the darkness.

  But I must remember that Octavia has sent us here for moral instruction.

  The Scarlet Letter, that’s what we’ve come to see. It’s about the Puritans, and the scandal of an illegitimate child. Octavia liked the sound of that, a good moral tale about the wages of sin. When we mentioned it after lunch She became quite animated, talking about the Puritans’ attitude to sexual relations and the fact they used to have intercourse through a hole in a sheet. I couldn’t work out whether she found the idea disdainful or impressive. But She liked the sound of the film all the same. She is surprisingly open-minded when it comes to Her choices; She’ll even sign off on a love story to remind us that we are better off without the complications of men. Celibacy is not just a requirement, it is a liberation. Watching a woman mooning over her sweetheart looks so ridiculous when you are a bride of Christ Himself. She likes us to tell Her all about it when we get home, so She can tut and roll Her eyes with the moral superiority She would have enjoyed from a cinema seat.

  Grace’s face is glowing, reflecting the flickering light of the screen. If I turn my head a little I can watch her. When you are in the dark your eyes work better that way; astronomers searching for a faint object in the sky will always look slightly to the side. And right now, I dare not look directly at Grace. It would be like staring straight at the sun.

  I move my eyes down to her fingers which are knotted together in her lap; I look at the fabric of her skirt which sits on the top of her legs and falls over the edge of her knees. I don’t often get to study her as closely as this.

  I grip onto the corners of my chair. On the screen the heroine is being led onto a wooden platform, and is refusing to tell the baying crowd who the father of her baby is. They force her to wear her shame, a scarlet letter, on the front of her dress: ‘A’ for Adultery. Grace shuffles in her chair and moves her hand down beside her leg. It is touching mine. I don’t move away. I’m not sure I could, even if I wanted to.

  So there it stays.

  Our hands are still touching when we learn that it is the preacher who has fathered the child. And while we watch him, tormented by his cowardice and hypocrisy, I press the side of my hand against hers.

  Ever so gently.

  By the time he stands and confesses his sin to the congregation our little fingers are intertwined. It’s as if I have no feeling in any other part of my body: every nerve and every sensation alive only in the skin that’s touching hers. I am Michelangelo’s Adam being brought to life with a fingertip: God reaching down from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and jolting me into consciousness.

  Caught up together … in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.

  (1 Thessalonians 4:17)

  Will this be how it feels when Jesus returns to us? The rapture of salvation? I have seen the others performing the laying on of hands in chapel and now I understand. I can feel the spirit flowing through Grace. I am drowning. Drowning in the light.

  As the film comes to an end she squeezes my hand then moves it away, and immediately the heat in my fingers is gone. And all I can think of is Elisha and how he brought a child back to life.

  And he put his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands … and the flesh of the child waxed warm.

  (2 Kings 4:34)

  Woken from death.

  Voices

  Octavia always says the Devil is jealous, he wants to tarnish anything that reflects the glory of God, blacken anything that shines with love. And since Grace came, that’s me. That’s why he is watching me; that’s why he is trying to twist and turn my thoughts.

  I know what I saw: a face, looking in through the window at Castleside. Not one of the others, not a lady with a pocketbook and pen, not Peter or Edgar. This was a face I didn’t recognise. But I knew right away what it meant.

  I don’t know how long it had been spying, or whether it had a body attached. I was working much later than usual, drawing up the latest list for Octavia to read out in chapel, a request for linen for the bishops: more pillowcases, napkins and towels. When I looked up from my desk, night was pulling a curtain of darkness across the bare windows; the panes fading to black mirrors, reflecting my own image within their frames. And when I snuffed out the desk lamp I saw it: another face merged with my own, a face pressed to the window, a hand held above the eyebrows. It looked just like the face of a man, it had no horns or scales or claws. But I was not fooled. I know it was the Devil that I saw. I know it was the Devil who called my name through the glass. I cried out for God’s protection and the face turned away and disappeared.

  *

  In the cinema I was filled with God’s light. I thought it had driven the Devil from the dark corners of my mind, but now he is not just whispering from the shadows of my thoughts. I have seen him with my own eyes. And I know he is watching me. Just as he told me. Just as he told me in chapel last night.

  ‘The Lord wishes to protect us from temptation,’ Octavia said, when we gathered to hear the words She had received through Her pen. ‘Before the Fall we were like children, with lives uncomplicated by the desires of the flesh. When Jesus comes we shall return to that blissful state of innocence. But until He does we must be vigilant.’

  It’s you, the Devil whispered. She is talking about you and Grace.

  ‘Members must not embrace, whether in greeting or in consolation,’ Octavia said. ‘Hands will not be held or shaken. Even those who are in the habit of meeting or parting company with a kiss on the cheek must do so no more. Even the slightest touch could lead to sin.’

  Even the slightest touch, he said, just think where it could lead.

  And I did. I started to imagine.

  As I sat there in chapel he whispered all the ways I might be tempted, all the things we would be forbidden to do. And though I tried to drown him out, though I raised my voice to sing Jerusalem, I couldn’t help but listen. The thought of her made me thirsty. Made me ache. A heavy weight pulling down inside me, like the pain that comes with menses. As though the butterflies had fluttered further down, or the moths were gnawing at the empty place inside me. Dark and destructive and eating away at the deepest parts like cashmere in a wardrobe. I felt ragged, held together by fraying threads.

  I saw you in the dark, he said. I know the secrets of your heart.

  And something woke in me. A rush of beating wings and pulsing blood.

  Anchoress

  It is too late. I will never see Adrian again. Not in this life, and according to Octavia, not in the next either. He must have written to Her too, because She knows about his engagement. ‘He is choosing to marry,’ She told Emily and Peter over dinner. ‘He is refusing to follow God’s call to remain celibate. He has banished himself from the Garden for eternity.’

  The Lord will forgive him, though Octavia cannot. Not now. I will continue to pray for him, though I won’t write back to tell him so. Best to cut all ties. Octavia says we must withdraw from him: doubt is infectious, it can spread from one person to another like di
sease. And even now he tries to persuade me to leave, to move out to India. He says there will always be a place for me with him and his fiancée. Her name is Marjorie and she is from a good family who are mentioned in Debrett’s. I imagine he hasn’t told them about Octavia’s calling. I imagine he hasn’t told them about me either. And though he promises he’ll continue to write, I know this is the end for us.

  Last night when I fell asleep I heard him call my name from the Garden. I dreamt that I got up to look out of my window, but when I opened my curtains I found a wall of bricks. And instead of terror I felt relief, that I hadn’t found the Devil looking in again. I was safe. And holy. A medieval anchoress being sealed into a crypt at the side of a church. My bed was a funeral bier, and standing over me Octavia read my last rites, Her tears hidden behind a black veil, as a choir sang my requiem. I felt pious and beautiful; a shaft of light fell on my face in the darkness and Octavia whispered that She loved me, then She turned away and left. All I could hear was the scraping of mortar onto bricks as they were piled up one by one behind my door, and I was dead to the world, released from its expectations; alone in silent prayer and mortification.

  I’ve thought about that dream all day, about the women who chose to live their lives among the dead, about all the ways they starved and scarred their bodies, and whether that was what God wanted. In my cell of stone I imagine a peephole for myself. Anchoresses were granted the luxury of spying on the congregation during mass and tonight I’ll do the same. It is only 8 p.m. but I have come to bed so I can listen in. I can hear them coming along the landing now. Octavia and the Four meet every night in the Upper Room, next door to mine. It used to be Adrian’s bedroom but after he left Octavia put it to good use. She held the first services there, when the faithful numbered only a few. She brought up a hall table to serve as an altar, adorning it with Her best lace doilies, and a coral floor lamp to help Her banish the darkness that has stalked Her for as long as I can remember. But now that we have dozens of members and a chapel in the Garden, it is open only to the Chosen. Peter, Edgar, Kate Firth and Emily: the four living creatures of Ezekiel’s vision, the four creatures around the throne of God in the Book of Revelation. They never speak about it to the rest of us, but Octavia has told us it is a laboratory, for the practice of theosophy. And when they welcome angels from the other side it’s important that they make the right impression: hand-sewn tapestries on the wall and a vase of daffodils which Octavia cuts from the Garden Herself. She even serves tea and biscuits; the spirits are of radiant form but those with mortal bodies still need sustenance.

  It was Edgar who persuaded Her to use Her powers. Receiving the Lord’s Word at Her writing table is a lonely business, but together they can share the burden. And the joy. Edgar reassured Her he could keep them safe, he knew the rules: how to welcome the angels of light, how to banish the angels of darkness, and how to spot the difference. Their confidence is growing. I hear them praying, laughing, crying; cursing the Devil and praising the Lord. They bang on the walls and stamp their feet and raise merry Hell, daring demons to rise up so that Octavia can subdue them. But it is Emily who seems to excel when it comes to spirits. I know this because it is Peter’s job to take notes of these experiments, and my job to type them up; lines scribbled in the lulls between miracles.

  Emily Goodwin started to play just like one that has had too much to drink. Laughing and laughing like a little child. Kept beating time as if conducting an orchestra. She jumped up and down and stretched her arms out, rocked herself from side to side and spread out her arms and gradually slid down to the floor. It was evident to those present that she saw some beautiful vision, for she smiled all over her face … She then stood up and seemed to embrace all present with outstretched arms.

  I am never present. I am never invited. I am next door, listening with a glass pressed against the wall. But not tonight; tonight I’m going to take a peek. I open my door very slowly, the hinge creaks and so does the floorboard outside their door, but they do not hear, they are too busy chanting. I bend down and look through the keyhole. Dark green, that’s all I can make out. The dark green jacket that Emily was wearing at supper. She must be sitting in front of the door. Suddenly my eye is flooded with light. It takes a moment or two for me to focus. I can see Octavia, just a chink of Her through the narrow keyhole, a slice of eyes and mouth and blouse and skirt, a face without ears, a body without shoulders. From here that is all there is of Her.

  It looks as though Emily has stepped behind Octavia, helping Her to take off Her cardigan. And then her hands come to Her neck. Octavia’s eyes are wide open, Her face resolute, Her body still. Emily’s hands are moving but Octavia does not struggle. Why is no one stopping her? Why is no one prising Emily’s fingers from around Her throat?

  I am blind again. Another figure has moved in front of the door. Dark blue this time. I reach for the handle but the figure moves and I see Octavia. Emily’s hands are no longer around Her neck, they are moving lower. The ribbon on the top of Her blouse is hanging loose. Emily is untying Her. Unbuttoning Her. Undressing Her. Revealing the lines of braiding on the neck of Her petticoat.

  Octavia doesn’t flinch or blink when the pale skin beneath Her throat is exposed. A figure steps in front of the door, blocking my view, and when it moves I see it is Peter, carrying a chair in each hand. I hear them being put down on the floor and then I see him lying down on them, and the back of his head appears in Octavia’s lap.

  What are they doing? I don’t want to see this but I can’t look away.

  Without moving Her gaze, Octavia lifts Peter’s head into the crook of Her arm. ‘Like newborn infants, you long for the pure spiritual milk,’ She says, ‘that by it you may grow up into salvation.’ Her fingers stroke the nape of his neck, and comb up into his hairline. Is this how She used to caress me? When I was brand new, still wearing the creases of birth on my skin?

  She said that touching was forbidden. I hear the voice again, inside my head. But just look at Her, with Peter at Her breast.

  Through the keyhole it looks like something it can’t be. I mustn’t listen. I can’t trust my thoughts and now my eyes deceive me. For the briefest of moments Octavia’s eyes seem to look straight at the keyhole. And I stare back, willing Her to remember the mother She never was to me.

  Ellen’s Parlour

  ‘The country is going to war with itself,’ says Ellen. ‘I wish I could come with you. I’m no good to anyone sitting here.’ She hasn’t felt well enough to attend chapel for nearly a fortnight now, so I have started to visit her in the late afternoons.

  ‘We’ll be thinking of you,’ I say. ‘Won’t we?’ I turn to Grace who is sitting in her usual spot, beside me. She joins me on these visits, when she can spare the time. Ellen enjoys the company, and since what happened at Castleside I don’t like to walk outside alone. I’m starting to wonder whether there was a face at the window at all. Or whether I’m seeing things, hearing things; things that aren’t really there. At breakfast I looked for any sign of strangeness between Peter and Octavia, any recognition of what they may have done in the Upper Room last night, but there was nothing: no glances, no silences. Just Peter being his usual doting self and Octavia chastising him for spilling tea on the tablecloth.

  Ellen reaches out and pats us both on our wrists. Her hands are icy, so cold they burn. But perhaps it’s not the touch of her skin that jolts me, perhaps it is Grace’s spirit I can feel, flowing through Ellen’s body and bridging the space between us. The Devil tries to keep us apart, tries to tell me I can’t trust myself. Think of all the ways you could be tempted, he says.

  I hear him when I am alone at Castleside, when I sit and type at my desk. But I won’t stay away. I can’t. Whenever we are together I know I am where God wants me to be.

  ‘It sounds like quite an adventure,’ Ellen says. ‘Reminds me of my missions for Mrs Pankhurst … Sneaking around in the dead of night!’ We laugh but it is bravado, because although we don’t say it out loud, we
are frightened. Octavia has told us we must go out tomorrow night to bury squares of linen around the town. The trade unions have confirmed there will be a strike to support the miners, and in three days’ time they say they’ll bring the country to a standstill and plunge it into darkness – no transport, no gas or electricity.

  ‘Do not be fooled,’ Octavia told us in chapel. ‘That is just the beginning of their plans. The working man means to stage a revolution and he will lead his armies into battle on the streets, looting, plundering …’ She pauses, ‘… ravishing. He will not rest until he spoils that which he covets.’

  Though we will be safe here in the Garden, we must do all we can to protect important landmarks: the churches, the town hall, the railway station and the bridges. She has breathed on an extra roll of linen and tomorrow we shall bury squares of Her blessing around Bedford. We don’t want to wake up and find it has been razed to the ground.

  ‘Mrs Goodwin is drawing up the plans for who will go where,’ Grace tells Ellen. ‘And Dilys has been put in charge of preparing the linen squares.’ She suddenly sits upright. ‘Oh, I’ve just had a thought. If we’re going to bury them, won’t we all need trowels?’

  ‘Good point, Miss Hardwick,’ I say, with an affected solemnity. ‘I shall mention it to Octavia. Perhaps She should have put you in charge.’ I nudge her shoulder with my free arm and salute. And she pulls a face at me, wrinkling her nose.

  We can be easy here with Ellen. She is not like the others: she doesn’t make comments about Grace’s station, or how busy she must be, or express surprise that she can spare so much time to spend with me. Of course it is my behaviour they are addressing. They don’t think that I should lower myself to a friendship with a servant. We may all be equal in God’s eyes but not in Octavia’s, so I don’t linger too long to talk with Grace in the hallway, and we are careful not to sit together in chapel.