The Rapture Read online

  ‘Let us pray.’ The minister begins to speak and I bow my head, opening one eye just a little to study the embroidery on the kneeling cushion: hundreds of little crosses standing in line like the sufferings of men. How quickly they blur once I open the other eye, a white dove and the word ‘Faith’ coming sharply into view.

  ‘Another hymn. Please join me in singing number 402: “He Who Would Valiant Be”.’ The minister’s voice brings the congregation to its feet. No one bows their head to read their hymnbooks, every word is committed to memory. This is their battle cry: John Bunyan’s words sung in the very church he established. He is Bedford’s most famous son, a bronze statue standing on St Peter’s Green. But all that will be forgotten. When God reveals that He has sent His own daughter to live among us here, Octavia’s glory will outshine them all. Sometimes I imagine Her as a statue carved from white marble; She’d never stand for anything less, and She would have to be standing. I see Her high on a plinth, Her sturdy shoulders hewn from rock, a long skirt falling like a curtain to the floor; disembodied from the waist down, standing perfectly still with Her eyes raised to Heaven. Unshakeable. Immovable.

  *

  I am silent. My lips are moving but forming no sounds. I study the congregation, an anthropologist recording their primitive beliefs: childish, reassuring and familiar. They sing on without me, voices rising to meet the stained glass windows that turn their words to pictures; Bunyan’s allegories painted in sunlight. I study the depiction of his hero Christian, dressed in knight’s armour, slaying the fiend Apollyon. How I envy the violent simplicity of his task, the chance to prove his devotion, to step into battle with the promise of salvation. Win or lose. It is the privilege of man, but I am a woman: no Great War or great coat; no glory. My test is endurance. Patience. Constancy. All I can do is wait for a sign that God has a purpose for me too. A chance to prove myself to Him. And to Octavia.

  After the final verse, the minister concludes the service, sending the congregation on its way with a blessing. They stand and button up their coats, fix their hats and gloves. But I am in no rush to get home. ‘It has always been my favourite,’ says a voice beside me. There’s a woman sitting a little further along the pew. Octavia would say she is barely more than a girl, but she is probably only a year or two younger than I am, in her early twenties perhaps. On her lips she wears a smile: of apology or perhaps amusement.

  ‘The window.’ She gestures with her head. ‘I saw you studying it. St George slaying the dragon. It’s always been my favourite. I think it’s the drama of it.’

  ‘It’s not a dragon,’ I say, surprised at how blunt and distant my words sound. I’m not used to strangers, but I mustn’t be rude. She is only making polite conversation. That is what people do. Other people.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, ‘what I mean is … It looks like a dragon but … look closely and you can just see …’

  Small lines appear on her forehead as she exaggerates her expression, narrowing her eyes and lifting her hand above her brows; an impression of a sailor looking out to sea. She is trying to make me smile. And it works.

  ‘The scales of a fish,’ I say, ‘the wings of a dragon and the mouth of a lion. It is a demon.’ I stop there. I don’t tell her the difference is that dragons are mythical creatures and demons are real. I don’t say that Octavia has seen Apollyon from Her window, or that he waits for Her to leave the safety of the Garden so he can devour Her. If She ventures more than seventy-seven steps outside She will be taken. God was very clear when He told Her that, so She has not crossed the front doorstep in eight years.

  I don’t say any of this out loud to the woman beside me. It would be too much for a non-believer to understand, so I say nothing at all. Instead we sit together in the companionship of silence and I watch her at the edge of my vision: a blur on the corner of a page, the margins of a watercolour hidden beneath the frame. Pale skin, auburn hair pulled back loosely from her face.

  ‘I haven’t seen you here before,’ she says.

  ‘No, I haven’t been. Not for a long time. But I was walking by, I heard the hymn and it brought back memories.’

  ‘Good ones, I hope?’

  I answer her question with a smile but I don’t move my eyes from the window. I wonder why she is talking to me, whether she knows who I am and where I live. Is there something about me that makes it obvious I don’t belong here?

  ‘I haven’t been for a while either,’ she says.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I don’t have a church as such. One week I go to chapel, the next I might be at Catholic mass …’

  She pauses and I know I am expected to fill the silence. She wants me to ask her why. I should make my excuses and leave. I mustn’t ask questions because then she will ask them of me. But I can’t help myself.

  ‘Why? Why do you go from one church to the next?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m something of a seeker. Still searching.’

  ‘For God?’

  ‘I suppose so, yes.’ She laughs and shakes her head. ‘Here we are discussing theology and I haven’t even introduced myself. I’m Grace Hardwick. Do you live nearby?’

  Here they come: the questions. I have brought this on myself. But I can do this. I can spread the Word just like the others do.

  ‘I’m Dilys Barltrop, pleased to meet you. Yes, very close, one street away, Albany Road.’

  ‘Albany, isn’t that where …’ I hear words swallowed down; a moment’s pause before she speaks again. ‘The religious group. Of women …’

  ‘The Panacea Society.’

  ‘Yes, that’s it. Are you? I mean to say, is that where you live?’

  ‘It is.’ I prepare myself for her insults. Or perhaps she will simply stand and walk away in silence. But she does neither. Instead she shifts along the pew to sit right beside me.

  ‘How exciting!’ she says, which is the last thing I expected. ‘I have always wondered … A society of women. How many of you are there?’

  I look down at the cuffs of my sleeves, stroking down the nap of the felt. ‘We have almost sixty resident members,’ I say. ‘And half as many again who live in other parts of Bedford. Mostly women, but we do have a small number of men.’ Now I am wishing I had brought one of our pamphlets with everything written down. If it is left to me I’ll probably get it wrong.

  She makes a noise, somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. Octavia always says that non-believers only want to mock and humiliate us, but Miss Hardwick seems fascinated. I am a source of fascination. ‘You must tell me everything,’ she says.

  But I could never do that. There are things that I must never say out loud. Even in the society. Especially in the society.

  ‘There is a lot to tell. I’m not sure what you have heard about our work – the Lord’s work. Great change is coming and it is us – us women – who will usher it in.’

  ‘Given the chance, I would tear this world up entirely and start afresh,’ she says.

  ‘The time is near. Our time.’ I risk a glance up to her face. ‘Perhaps you should come and pay us a visit. I could show you the stained glass window in our chapel … if you’d like to see it.’

  ‘I would,’ she replies, ‘very much. But, oh, we’d better go. The rest of the congregation have left.’

  There’s a lively rhythm to her voice. Her vowels unfurl like stretching limbs but there’s a tension, as if she is trying to fold them back into sharper angles. As if she can’t quite be contained.

  We step outside and she retreats into her coat, dark blue wool, the colour of the night where it meets the horizon. A button is hanging loose on her cuff, small and dark to match the fabric. It is one of a line of ten, each paired with a loop, but this one is breaking free.

  ‘You look terribly cold,’ she says, reaching out to touch my arm. Some people are like that, so comfortable in their own skin that they think nothing of sharing themselves; unaware of the power or threat of their bodies. I shrink back and she hides her hand in her pocket, the loos
e button swinging as her arm grows still. Then, very slowly, her eyes find mine.

  She is holding me with her gaze. I am being held.

  ‘So I should come?’ she asks, softly.

  ‘Of course,’ I say, a little too brightly. ‘You must come. Next Sunday, at three?’

  ‘I’ll see you then. Which house?’

  ‘Oh yes – it’s Number 12.’

  Grace turns and walks into the last of the afternoon. Her button is lying near my feet, and I pick it up and put it in my pocket. Next Sunday at three. How will I explain this to Octavia? What have I done?

  Ugly Ways

  ‘You look much brighter in the eyes. Your little outing yesterday did you good, Dilys.’ With Emily it is always a statement, never a question. ‘But next time I think it would be prudent to wear a more suitable coat.’

  I don’t respond. It is the only power I have. She wants me to know that she saw me leaving the house, that nothing is beyond her reach. We both understand she would prefer it if I was out of the way, out of the picture, so she could paint herself at the centre of the scene; at Octavia’s right hand. She is becoming more like Her every day, or trying to. Both wear their hair piled high in styles that were fashionable twenty years ago: pompadours that make their heads resemble cottage loaves. Both wear the same high-necked dresses. Octavia’s hemlines have retreated to no more than an inch above Her ankles, stubbornly refusing to accept that Queen Victoria is no longer on the throne, or that values have changed outside the walls of the Garden. That’s why good manners are so important in here. That’s why Octavia insists we call a napkin a napkin, never a serviette. That’s why our elevenses have been served on a mahogany stand: a rich fruit cake cut to fill three tiers with identical slices. Though we know without being told that we must not take a piece; that we must choose a teacake from the plate instead. The fruit loaf will return to the kitchen to be brought out as decoration again tomorrow.

  ‘Well, it is lovely to see you looking so well.’ Emily’s words are like a trail of breadcrumbs and Octavia follows.

  ‘You went out yesterday, Dilys?’ She asks.

  ‘Yes, Octavia. Just for a walk along the river.’ I should tell Her I went to church. I reach for a teacake. I need time to calm my breathing, gain control.

  ‘Was it pleasant?’ She asks.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  She looks to Emily with an eyebrow raised, then turns back to address me. ‘Your walk, Dilys.’ She sighs. ‘Was it pleasant?’

  ‘Yes. Thank You, Octavia.’ I should tell Her that I went to church. I should tell Her in case anyone saw me.

  She turns her attention to a copy of the Telegraph, while Emily refills Her cup, and in the interval of silence it is already too late to confess.

  ‘Dreadful,’ She says, without lifting Her eyes from the newspaper. ‘News of another earthquake in Italy.’ She turns the page, scouring the columns for more evidence of disaster, plague or pestilence: signs that the End Times are upon us.

  I didn’t actually tell a lie. If She had asked me outright, I would have admitted I went to church. I’m almost certain of it.

  ‘I saw Edgar while I was walking,’ I say, filling my mouth with other words so the truth won’t come spilling out. ‘He was out for a stroll too.’

  ‘No,’ says Emily, relishing the chance to take control of the conversation. ‘He was on his way to the station to meet Donald from the train. That young man seems to be spending more time here than he does in Cambridge. I’m not quite sure how these students get away with so little work.’ She pauses to see if Octavia is listening, but Her attention is still focused on the headlines. ‘I shouldn’t wonder that he’ll ask to move here permanently once the summer comes. It is heartening to see youngsters coming into the fold, isn’t it?’

  ‘As it happens, I met someone yesterday,’ I say. ‘A Miss Hardwick …’

  ‘Who?’ says Octavia, folding Her newspaper and tossing it aside, as if satisfied that the reality of life has lived up to Her worst fears.

  ‘A young lady called Miss Hardwick. She wishes to know about us … about the society. I thought we might invite her to pay us a visit.’ I don’t tell Octavia that I have invited her already. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think we had better ask the Lord,’ She says. ‘Let us pray.’

  I bow my head and shut my eyes tight. My heartbeat starts to slow, a feeling of calm climbing up my legs and into my stomach, turning like a cat about to settle for a nap. I know that Octavia will say yes. But not because I have asked Her. Because God has. For the first time in a long time I feel He is listening to my prayer. Octavia clears Her throat and I look up.

  ‘Very well,’ She says. ‘Do you have her address?’

  I don’t. But I nod.

  ‘Then send word. Invite her to come.’

  I try not to show my relief but I drop my guard, become slovenly, and within minutes Octavia clatters out of the room with the wild look that makes me think of doctors and locked doors. I was eating my teacake too loudly. The scraping of the knife as I spread the butter, the crunch as I took my first bite. Perhaps it is the carnality that offends Her: the sounds of the body taking pleasure, the jaw, the teeth, the throat. Perhaps it reminds Her that we are flesh and blood after all.

  Octavia leaves in such a hurry She almost knocks into Peter who has just arrived to join us at the table. ‘I’m sorry. Please excuse me. My fault entirely. I should not have been late.’ He’ll be stewing on this all afternoon now. In his eyes he is always the one to blame and, deep down, I think he is always sorry for the same offence. As an Australian citizen, he could have signed up to face death with our boys in France, but to his eternal shame, he chose to live instead.

  ‘Octavia, are You all right?’ he calls after Her but She doesn’t answer. She is already in the hallway, already climbing the stairs to Her bedroom. Peter looks to Emily for explanation.

  ‘What happened?’ he asks, patting the crown of his head as though taming his unruly hair will calm his nerves. The natural curls fall into ridges across his scalp, the ends so frizzy they look as though they have been waved with irons left too long in the fire.

  ‘It was me,’ I say. ‘It was my fault. A teacake …’

  I am selfish and I am thoughtless; too big, too loud, too irritating. I forgot the rules and I nearly spoiled it. If I had taken that bite when I asked Octavia about Miss Hardwick, She might have said she couldn’t come. I must make myself smaller. Quieter.

  The things that make it difficult to live peaceably with a person are the things that must be altered. They are worse than sin because they make other people sin.

  I know God will admonish me tonight.

  I know just how it will go.

  At 5 p.m., Octavia will sit at the desk in Her bedroom, lifting the pen to receive His word, Her body stiffening as His Spirit enters Her.

  At 5.30 p.m., She will be holding a piece of paper written in a hand that is not Her own. Heavy splashes of ink beside the scratch of a nib too faint to read, where the words have poured out too quickly.

  At 6 p.m., we shall gather in the chapel to hear His daily message. Octavia will begin as She always does, reminding us that we are the chosen ones. Eve ate from the tree. We, her daughters, must be the ones to heal the rift with God. Motherly encouragement, which in the next breath turns to discipline.

  All ugly noises and ugly ways of eating tend to make people unpopular, however good they are. It may be very pleasant to exercise good teeth in this way but it will not be tolerated here.

  She will not say my name, but I will know She is talking about me. And so will Emily, who will take out her pencil and pocketbook and add it to the ledger of my faults.

  Disciples

  My father came to visit me again last night, while I was sleeping. I was eight years old when he died. It’s difficult to know whether my memories really are my own, or planted by someone else, like a cuckoo’s eggs. Now they have hatched and my dreams of him are so vivid they’ve
become the truth. An idea starts like a spiral of smoke, but if it is persuasive enough it takes shape, forms sharp edges, becomes solid. When I see him he is always standing behind a lectern: an eagle made of gold. He is looking out at his congregation, his eyes moving across the rows of faces trying to find just one. Lifting his arms, he starts to speak, but the words won’t come out. He drops to the floor and all I can see are the bottoms of his legs, twitching, jerking, jumping. One of his turns. We never knew when they would happen or when he would wake up. Then one day he didn’t.

  I wonder what he would have made of the Panacea Society, whether he would have been a believer, or have covered his ears before the Truth could persuade him. What would he have made of the chapel I sit in now, in the Garden? It is everything the Bunyan Meeting Church is not: small, dark, domestic. God’s drawing room. Octavia calls it cosy. You can see her influence in every detail, the ladder-backed chairs, the Persian rugs, the arrangements of artificial flowers: silk roses blushing beneath a layer of dust, velvet leaves faded to carmine by the passing of years.

  Wood panels line the walls of the chancel, which is furnished entirely from Liberty’s homeware department. A fluted console table serves as an altar, framed by twisted brass candlesticks that stand on narrow shelves at either side. The lectern is a tall plant stand, its legs cut into cusped arches like church windows. From behind it Octavia delivers the Eucharist. She has a handkerchief draped over Her head, embroidered with a dove and an olive branch. She wears a red priest’s stole, vestments only ever meant to house a man’s form, pulling tightly across Her bosom. And there’s a scarf around Her neck: a paisley of dark blues and greens, tassels printed around the edges to make it look like a shawl.

  Octavia does not approve of calling out or speaking in tongues, not if it interrupts Her sermons. But I can hear someone whispering, the same words over and over again like the hiss of a train’s pistons, picking up speed, pushing on towards Heaven. Others raise a hand above their heads, eyes closed in rapture, like children reaching up to catch drops of summer rain. And occasionally someone will swoon or fall to their knees. All these are signs that they are receiving the Holy Spirit.