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The next day began with the invasion of his voice: And Thomas attended church later that afternoon, in innocence of the terrible calamity that was about to befall the city of Oxford …
Despite my determination to ignore his narration, I longed for more elaboration on the phantasmal figures that followed Father and me to the evening service. The monks shadowed our shadows, some six feet behind us, their hoods drawn so tightly that their features were scribbles of darkness. My father glanced back too and immediately reached for my hand; in spite of all my internal reminders that the true age of my soul was a manly twenty-six, I found myself gripping his tightly in turn. He muttered a reminder that the monks were here to protect us, thanks to the compassion of the Vicar and our Father above, but even so, neither of us dared to look back again as we sped towards the church.
It was so congested that every pew was soon filled, and a crowd were forced to stand at the back. A place had been saved at the front for my father and me. There I sat and attempted to calm my nerves by reminding myself that the monks were a fiction. Then I caught sight of a cut on my forefinger that I had acquired last week, and which was slowly healing. It had hurt and I had bled. I was not exempt 93from suffering in this place, and neither was Rachel. I considered her view that the ‘atmosphere’ in this story had darkened since I had gained awareness of my situation, and frowned: was Fate trying to beat me down? My gaze was drawn back to the minacious throng of monks standing behind the Vicar and the fear of what these mysterious beings were, of what they might be capable of, trembled in my heart.
I found myself close to praying so that He might help her, and then recoiled. Only I could help Rachel, and only through my own choices and actions. My father had let slip that she would be collected in a carriage at five o’clock: an hour from now. I had intended to slip out midway through the service, run to the Carmichaels’ house and save her with my own hands, so I felt troubled when I saw the monks closing the heavy oak doors. My departure would now be conspicuous; yet if I remained trapped here for the entirety of the service, I might be too late …
‘Beloved Brethren! The figure of Satan, whose presence has come to be felt so keenly among us, has in recent years become a matter of buffoonery – a dancing fiend at the Punch and Judy show, a lurking menace in a ghost story – and it is this dangerous levity when we ought to be solemn, this laxity when we ought to be guarded, that has led to our present calamity …’
So began the sermon. The Vicar, standing on tiptoes in his pulpit, focused his gaze approximately a foot above the congregation, as though he perceived a flickering army of spirits above our heads, poised to seize on weaker souls.
‘The snow continues to afflict our skies and defy the season of summer.’ The Vicar’s voice quietened to a 94portentous whisper. ‘And while it strikes terror into the heart of each believer, it also behoves us to respond with the sweetest compassion, to award cathartic release to those who writhe under the galling yoke of the beast, and purify our parish …’
The congregation, pierced by orgiastic fear, let out sighs and cries that infuriated me with their ovine ignorance. Turning to my father, I whispered that I was not feeling sound, and he gave me a look of such tenderness that I found myself smiling up at him; then that look began to dim with disappointment. Rising to his feet, he addressed the Vicar thus:
‘I am afraid that, as much as I love my son, he has not been well. Dr. Adams pronounces him fit in body and mind, but I am conscious of a sickness in his soul that has been afflicting him over the past week. I beg that you help my dear Thomas. He speaks of imaginary beverages; he is possessed by troubled thoughts I am not privy to.’
‘Father – no!’ I cried, but my protest only delighted the congregation further. ‘Be logical, be wise – you are a man of science! Would Mr. Darwin agree with such a verdict?’
A flicker of doubt passed over his features, but it was gone quickly, and replaced with the pink skin of embarrassment. My father was not the same man outside the church as he was under this roof.
‘Father, I am your son … If you love me, protect me!’
Two of the hooded monks departed from their shadowy line beside the choir and swept towards me, silently gliding down the aisle of the church. My footsteps echoed like gunshots as I fled down the centre aisle; the crowd at 95the back scattered; the doors refused to yield, even when I flailed at them furiously with my fists.
Above me the voice of Fate boomed: And so Thomas was forced to undergo an exorcism, helpless to save his loved one, as she was hurried away to the asylum. There they would shave her scalp and apply leeches to her temples to cure her melancholia.
‘Fuck you, Fate,’ I whimpered into the heavy oak of the door. ‘Fuck you.’
The monks’ grip was fiercer than I had anticipated. I could not detect the sketched outline of a nose or chin as they led me back towards the Vicar. Once more, I glanced at my father, cut by his betrayal, only for him to respond with an encouraging nod.
The Vicar stared into my eyes as though I was no more than a vessel playing host to a demonical parasite. A hot anger rose up inside me and I whispered, ‘Look at me, you fool! I am not the devil: I am real.’ At my protest, he became wildly triumphant, interpreting my words as an act of satanic ventriloquism.
In that moment, Gwent’s dictum returned to my mind: Remember, you cannot control what he does to you, but you can control how you react to him. Adaptation is necessary for survival. My weapon would be rationality. The congregation desired a Spectacle; and I would give them one. I must perform it swiftly – to delay, to argue, would be to let Rachel down. I let my hands fall slack, my shoulders rounded, and I began to walk in a figure of eight, occasionally exposing an armpit so that I might scratch it, while pursing my lips and emitting the hoots of a chimpanzee. Our audience made suitably horrified noises. The Vicar 96seemed pleased, until I feigned to remove some fleas from his head.
‘You are infected with Darwin!’ he cried. ‘You see the consequences of Darwin’s words. What devilry he has created. Darwin is a man who requires an exorcism!’
He brandished a large glittering cross at me while ordering the spirit to be gone from my body, and I feigned torture, as though a narrow beam of energy were tunnelling into my heart. My monkey chortles evolved into howls, such that my voice filled the building. It felt satisfying to vocalise the rage I had been forced to repress these last few days, to let Fate hear my rebellion. Then, as the Vicar swirled his hands about me and recited some Latin, I allowed my cries to soften. As I fell silent, the Vicar concluded his exorcism, and turned back to the congregation, his chest puffed, whereupon he was met with weeping and applause.
The service concluded thus, and each member of the congregation rose with the dazed look of one who has read a particularly gruesome penny dreadful, before they all trailed out into the graveyard. Despite my cleansing, they treated me as though Darwinism was a contagious ailment. I cared not; all that mattered was Rachel.
I was about to hurry away, when my father caught my arm. Snowflakes gently mocked his cheeks. He wiped his face, his eyes clouded, and I saw him visibly slump with confused disappointment: they had followed the ritual, so why was the world still one of disorder and chaos; why was God failing to maintain his side of the bargain? His hand curled on my shoulder. He did not look at me – for his eyes 97were fixed on the distant curve of his lost love’s grave – but I sensed his impulse towards regret. I shook away his hand, still raw from his betrayal. I wondered if he was not so very dissimilar from my own father after all.
A carriage was hurrying past the church; I recognised the black silk of the horse’s coat. A face appeared at the window of the carriage and I cried out, ‘Father! They are taking her! Rachel!’
My protests were drowned out by the noise above us. At first, it sounded like a torrent of bees. The Vicar, who had just exited the church, gazed upwards, and his congregation followed suit, for the cacophony amplified until it seemed that a steam train was hurtling through the sky. A wild laugh tumbled from my mouth, for the recognition was a joyful one – ‘A helicopter!’ I watched it swirl, slicing air, blowing the hats from the heads of the congregation and sending them tumbling across the graveyard. I might borrow it yet; I might fly and swoop down and save Rachel. Could it be – could it be that Fate had decided I needed relief from torment, and given flesh to the machine I had recently drawn?
‘You!’ My father’s hand flew from my shoulder. ‘What have you summoned? What new devilry is this?’
As the helicopter swung and circled back to us, its beam fell upon the crowd, lighting up an array of visages pinched by horror. But the congregation’s fear could no longer settle on a target, for they were too bewildered, too preoccupied with dodging its peculiar illumination. Someone cried, ‘Surely this is a sign of God! It is not a demon, but an angel!’ A few crossed themselves and many looked relieved. 98
I saw that Rachel’s carriage was now stationary in the middle of the road, the coachman gazing upwards, while Dr. Adams peered out from his window, stunned by the sight above him. I wanted to run to the carriage and tear open the door, but I too was mesmerised, rooted to the snowy ground in a gasp of fear and wonder. The helicopter swooped down toward the crowd, its propeller spinning at a wild velocity, and I glimpsed the pilot – laughing, crazed, as though Fate’s doppelganger – before he did slam the vehicle into the church.
The thunder of this collision was so noisome that every grave appeared to shudder. I heard the crash of masonry; a flock of birds took flight, cawing. Then fire erupted. A fountain of smoke poured forth into the sky. Flares roared across the church roof and the Vicar descended into hysterics, sobbing lines from the Book of Job. My eyes were fixed on Rachel’s carriage, for Dr. Adams had flung open his door and was running into the graveyard as fast as his portly figure would permit. I saw her pale figure emerge and hover, ghostly, on the road. I made to run to her, but my attention was seized by the man Dr. Adams was tending to: my father lay sprawled in the snow.
I ran to his side and he clutched my hand, whimpering boyishly. Tears trickled down my cheeks and on to my sooty neck. He must have been gashed by the falling masonry, for his forehead was dizzy with the flow of blood; I tore my handkerchief from my pocket and attempted to stem it. I told him that I loved him and he whispered, ‘My son.’ All around me was a chaos of screaming and fleeing parishioners, but I pushed them into the shadows, fighting to hold my father’s gaze. 99
‘Make haste, Thomas, we must go!’ Mr. Gwent appeared, chiding me. His face was smeared with smoke, and there was a hole burnt into his waistcoat, as though a cigar had been plunged into the silk.
‘But my father!’
‘Let me tend to him, Thomas,’ Dr. Adams advised, glancing up in horror at the church, before jumping violently as another chunk of burning stone toppled and missed him by a few yards.
‘He is not real,’ Mr. Gwent whispered in my ear, kneeling down beside me. His expression had never looked so sombre, his usual gaiety had entirely dissipated. ‘But you and Rachel can be freed – we must seize this moment.’
‘But—’ I turned back to my father and attempted to untangle my hand from his, but his eyes flew open and he clutched me all the more tightly. I wept.
‘It is surely my doing, not just Fate’s – I drew the helicopter, I drew it into the story—’
‘This is Fate’s cruellest trick,’ Gwent hissed. ‘Your father is only an illusion and you must tell yourself this, over and over. We cannot control the tragedies that Fate bestows upon us, but we have the free will to react to them.’
In their repetition, these words seemed less like wisdom and more like a dictum, created to make life survivable in this world.
‘I know that Fate has found a way to harness your weakness, but you must fight it! Remember your real name: Jaime, Jaime, Jaime.’
Drowning in grief, I could not believe in his words; Jaime was but a dim, shadowy memory. Dr. Adams intervened, forcing my hand away, and begging Gwent to assist him in 100dragging my father away from danger. As I watched them do so, smoke frothed about me, and a trembling beset me: my heart begged me to chase after them while reason ordered that I must let my father go. I became conscious of someone calling my name. I turned and I saw her, holding out her hand to me: my dear Rachel.
Mr. Gwent returned to our side and we made haste to his house, stumbling along the streets, choked with smoke and chilled by the snow.