For Wendy, the Agapemone was a safe haven of order. She knew what she had to do, when it had to be done, how long it was supposed to take. Services and meals were scheduled. Duties came around on a roster. The little unstructured time she had was filled with supplementary committee meetings, organized readings or simple prayer. She recognized that, for some of the Brethren, the Agapemone was a God-given excuse never to think for themselves. Marie-Laure, with her convent experience, probably hadn’t made a decision since joining the community. And Derek, whose entire life involved going along with things, thrived on imposed routine.
It was simple to live by the rules, but today Wendy had failed. Having missed the breakfast ceremony, her whole day was out of whack. She had a nervous spurt of sinfulness at the neglect of her duties. At the festival, her special province was the crafts stream; jewellers, silk printers, wood-turners. This morning, she was supposed to have visited the field where the stalls were to be set up, checking that each was in its place according to the prearranged pattern. She hadn’t gone.
With all the Brethren about their particular tasks, regimented by Mick or James, Wendy was alone, at a loose end. It was as if she had used an excuse to get out of a PE lesson. Unsupervised, she was free to do whatever she wanted. But she had never known, not as a schoolgirl and certainly not now, what she wanted. She wandered through the third-storey gallery, an empty and rarely used space that ran the length of the Manor House, and let herself out on the balcony.
She was facing away from the festival site, in the shade, looking further up the hill towards the woodland. The festival had spilled around the house, and she could see people exploring the woods. There were marked areas off-limits to the crowds, but the boundaries would become blurred over the next couple of days. A couple of bikers were pissing against a tree. The shade became colder. They saw her and roared drunkenly, shaking cocks at her with feeble pelvic thrusts. They had beards, proper faces. Laughing, they zipped up and went away. Badmouth Ben was out there somewhere, but Wendy felt safe in the Agapemone itself, as if Beloved radiated a protective shield.
Wendy explored her own feelings, mingling guilt with excitement at her bewildering freedom. Derek would be organizing the traffic patrols, shepherding cars and vans. Karen and Susan would be in the printshop, cranking out programmes. James would be bossing the stage crews, supervising roadies assembling the cliff-face of amplifiers. Away from the festival, Sister Jenny would be with the postulant, Hazel, seeing her through her anointment.
Only she had broken the pattern. Wendy wondered whether, without her, the crafts fair was a free-for-all, stallholders smashing each other’s merchandise, getting into fist fights. More likely though things had gone smoothly, suggesting all her work really did not do much. Once people signed up for their stalls and plots, all they had to do was arrive with their goods and set up. They shouldn’t need a traffic cop.
The Agapemone wasn’t like Rivendell. Ben’s whispered words could hurt but not wreck. Rivendell had been weak before Ben turned up. The Agapemone was strong. Rivendell had no Beloved. Suddenly, Wendy felt an overpowering kinship with Beloved. She felt closer to Him than she had since the Great Manifestation that had brought her into the Agapemone, since the days—before Kate, Marie-Laure, Janet, Jenny, Hazel—when she was the most favoured, the Sister-Love.
Her duties had been a distraction, absorbing too much attention, preventing her from concentrating on the true purpose of the Agapemone. Liberated, she felt herself back in the centre. Beloved was in His rooms, she knew. She was closer to Him than anyone else, perhaps twenty feet away. Wendy had been His first Sister-Love, the first of the Inner Circle. She’d been among the first in the Agapemone. She took off her band and shook her hair free. Ben might find her. Today she might die, but she would have been first.
* * *
When Badmouth Ben died, Rivendell broke up and the remaining members scattered. Wendy held on longer than most, not wanting to disappear immediately after the ‘accident’. She and Derek stayed for a few weeks, while her hair grew out. The police came round, more concerned with discovering exactly who Ben was, so they could notify his next of kin, than in finding out how he’d died. They thought he’d taken a turn badly and his petrol tank had exploded. Now he was dead, everyone realized how little they knew about Ben. No one even knew his surname or where he’d come from.
With Ben dead, Rivendell fell apart, but not before the repercussions and reprisals. Gareth Madoc and Christopher Pringle, Ben’s lieutenants, unable to keep up the reign of terror, fell from power. Christopher left and never came back, but Gareth was local and had to stay around. Two weeks after Ben’s death, a couple of boys kicked some of Gareth’s ribs in and dumped him on his parents’ doorstep. Wendy and Derek left after that, hitching for Liverpool.
While they were on the road, the summer finished, a spectacular thunderstorm putting an end to the drought. Stranded out in the open between lifts, Wendy and Derek were soaked. Wendy thought of it as a cleansing of her sins. She’d thought it would be the end of Ben, the end of her fears and guilts.
* * *
She looked up at the sky, china blue above the chimneys of the house, and wondered how long they’d have to wait this summer. Eventually, the weather must break. It must rain.
* * *
In her memory, the thunderstorm lasted for days, weeks. They travelled the length of the country, clothes plastered to their bodies, emptying and discarding vodka bottles, and ended up on the south coast, in Brighton, where a river was running down the road to the seafront. Washed along in that stream, they reached the beach and stopped running. The only people in sight, where a week earlier there’d been thousands of sunbathers, Wendy and Derek sat down beyond the tarpaulined playground, watching the rain making orange puddles, constantly speckling the sands. They finished their last bottle and rolled it into the waves. Derek gave up eventually and huddled under the West Pier, smoking soggy cigarettes. But Wendy stayed, lying face up like a sun worshipper, rain slapping her face, getting in her eyes, filling her mouth. She felt empty.
* * *
High in the sky, she saw a vapour trail. It was a small aeroplane, passing over the Agapemone. She sat down on the balcony, putting the building between her and the plane’s sightline. She remembered the emptiness.
* * *
Her entire life had been a matter of trying to fill the emptiness. She’d been aware of it since school. She tried to fight. First, she went against parents, teachers, friends. She tried to fill the void with disobedience, thick lipstick, eyeshadow, short skirts, undone blouse buttons, loud music, notes to boys. Her body started getting heavier, her arms and legs chunkier. For a few months, she stood out because she had breasts and wore a bra, but then all the other girls did too. Empty again. She tried working, expending bursts of energy on essays, exams, revision, projects. Her parents and teachers approved, and her reports said she’d settled down. This phase carried her through O and A levels and got her into Essex University, reading geography.
After her first term, as she came to realize what a swot and a virgin she was, she felt empty again. She found Derek in the next room at her hall of residence, surrounded by a haze of dope, listening to his Strawberry Alarm Clock and Jefferson Airplane albums, reading Castaneda and William Burroughs. She tried filling her life with Derek. Then with protests, occupations, campaigns, marijuana, vodka. Her studies became at once difficult and irrelevant. Some of her friends had already dropped out. After a long, serious, mainly one-sided talk with Derek, they followed suit, handing back their documentation to their course tutors. She asked for a notice, explaining their reasons for withdrawing from the university, to be put up in the common room. While children were being bombed in Cambodia, she couldn’t see the value of geography.
Outside, they were together but still empty. Between university and Rivendell, there were five or six years of emptiness, wandering, drinking, doping. They tried drugs, politics, mysticism; Derek always following her lead. Rivendell had been a good idea, but it was an Eden that advertised for a snake. Rivendell under Badmouth Ben was a nightmare that had shown just how easy Wendy’s previous sufferings had been. The first time he hit her, she wasn’t able to believe it. After the fourth or fifth, it became routine. After Ben raped her, she didn’t let Derek near her in bed. Only after Beloved’s healing touch would she let her boyfriend back into her body. The ghastly thing was that with Ben, she didn’t feel empty. While he was alive, she had hatred, fear, the need for revenge, the need to right injustice. Oppression gives the revolutionary a purpose. Watching the bastard burn, she lost her purpose.
On the beach, immediate purpose fulfilled, rain in her face, vodka fug in her head, Wendy felt—as she’d never done when Ben was fucking or battering her—that she might as well die. If she kept her mouth open, she’d drown. The rainwater would fill her lungs. Literally, she would not be empty any more.
* * *
There was someone in the gallery, standing quietly in the doorway. Wendy twisted her head around to look.
Beloved.
* * *
Beloved found them on the beach. He loomed into her field of vision, rainwater streaming from a wide-brimmed black hat, dog collar white in the gloom, and lifted her, wiping her face with a scarf, kissing her. At once, Beloved was father, teacher, purpose. He was her Saviour. Derek joined them. They were unable to speak. The rain was roaring too loudly, surf thrashing the sand. Beloved radiated His own warmth. Empty, Wendy knew Beloved would fill her.
She realized why she’d been emptied, why Ben had been sent to destroy her old life. She had to begin anew with Beloved, start from nothing, grow from a baby again.
Apparently, Beloved had a Vision, and ventured out into the storm knowing He must find someone, someone who’d be the heart of the community that was already beginning to form. He wore a long coat and elastic-sided boots, shiny with rain. Immediately, Wendy recognized Him for an Angel.
Later, Wendy learned about Beloved. By then, He had broken with the Church. He was living in a tiny deconsecrated chapel, with Mick Barlowe and a few others. He had renamed the place the Adullam, after the Biblical cave in which the unfortunate, the outcast and the desperate took shelter at David’s summons. The rain drumbeat the roof, streaming in and running down the walls. The pews had been taken out and most of the windows were broken and boarded over, but there were mismatched cots and chairs for furniture. It was even more primitive than Rivendell, but the feeling of community was unmistakable. Mick, not yet the composed second-in-command, was totally devoted to Beloved. Beloved fed Wendy and Derek, gave them shelter. After a meal of hot soup and bread, He preached.
‘I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse; I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk.’ He added footnotes, whose meaning would only become clear with time, ‘Thus has the Son of Man manifested Himself among us with eyes like a flame of fire.’ She was captivated. At last, she felt this was it, that her emptiness was cured, gone, forgotten. In His eyes, Wendy saw the Spirit of the Lord. She found her faith and vocation. Then, in that damp and old-smelling chapel, while lightning struck the sea outside and thunder rattled the walls to the foundations, there came the Great Manifestation. Taken to the altar, Wendy held Beloved fiercely as the Spirit moved within her. He prayed for her. ‘Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow.’ He knew, she realized, and felt Love washing over her like rain, cleansing the blood. He forgave her with a kiss. Apparently, she spoke in tongues and had to be restrained. She only remembered a white heat of revelation. When the night was over, she was the first Sister of the Agapemone, the first Sister-Love.
The Agapemone existed before Beloved bought the Manor House. It was a community, not stone walls and a roof. And she was in at its birth. Derek followed her.
And others. The unfortunate, the outcast, the desperate. The Adullam became crowded, a joyous place even when it was so cold you had to wear gloves to bed. Beloved found more Brethren. The owners of the site called them squatters and kept trying to shift them. The Adullam was condemned, a mini-market due to be built where it stood. Beloved claimed faith kept a roof over their heads even if it did tend to drop off in bits. Eventually they were scattered in flats and houses all around town, a skeleton complement left in the Adullam to keep occupancy.
Beloved planned an exodus. He announced that the Agapemone would find suitable premises. Everyone contributed whatever they had, whatever they could. Some apostates left rather than part with their worldly goods, but most gladly gave all. Bequests arrived from Beloved’s former parishioners in Leeds, from mysterious but doubtless devout well-wishers, from a few elderly ladies in Hove to whom Beloved had been a comfort in their last days. The Agapemone became temporally as well as spiritually wealthy. He was more earthly in those days, taking part in the practical organization of the community. With Mick and Wendy, He set out to find and purchase a home, finally coming upon Alder and declaring the Manor House predestined to be the site. Wendy remembered Beloved wandering into these woods after first looking over the property, and coming across a clearing, barren and shingly, where He took a deep breath and went into a trance. She had to support her Saviour, and let Him gently down. Eventually, He awoke, and the business was decided.
‘This shall be our Canaan,’ He told them.
Since then, His trances were more frequent. Once installed in the Manor House, the Agapemone ran smoothly.
‘This one man, myself, has Jesus Christ selected and appointed His witness to His counsel and purpose,’ Beloved preached, ‘to conclude the day of grace and to introduce the day of judgement, to close the dispensation of the Spirit and to enter into covenant with the flesh.’
The Great Manifestation became a regular occurrence. The ranks of the faithful swelled. For a while, for over ten years, the Agapemone had been a paradise for Wendy. Then, Badmouth Ben came back.
* * *
Wendy stood up, and stepped into the gallery. ‘Beloved,’ she said, spreading her arms.
He looked at her with compassion, understanding and sorrow.
‘We share Love,’ she said.
‘Love,’ He agreed.
He had not apparently aged in over fifteen years. She imagined a hat on his head, water pouring out of the halo-sized brim. She heard the steady beat of rain on sand, the whoosh of surf, the calling of seabirds.
‘Beloved.’
She stepped towards Him. He did not move. My Lord, but Beloved was a handsome man. Water coursed down the walls, discolouring the plaster. Wendy looked up. Water was flowing across the ceiling, gathering at the beams and falling floorwards. She took another step, but got no nearer Beloved. The gallery was stretching. Beloved was yards further away. She walked, ran. The walls cracked as the gallery became a corridor. Lumps of plaster fell from boards. Doors flowered like fungus, and lolled open.
‘Beloved!’
She ran hard, heavy pain in her heart. There was water in her eyes, and she couldn’t see Him clearly. She rubbed her face, wiping away water to no purpose. Shapes came through the doors. Water ran cruelly against her ankles. Her shoes were filled, her feet heavy. It was difficult, pulling her feet out of the icy stream and putting them down again. She tripped and fell, shoulder first, into the running river. There was carpet under the water, squelchy and loose.
Beloved stood, miles away, still.
A filthy seagull, wings edged with oily muck, dove at her, beak thudding against her skull. It bounced away, wings backpedalling against the wind and rain, and lurched upwards. The bird had stabbed her scalp, and there was blood in the water pouring from her hair.
‘Beloved!’
There were people standing over her. Someone stepped between her and Beloved. A girl, thin, with a fringed jacket, long tangled dark hair and shining eyes. Allison Conway. Wendy took hold of the girl’s legs, and pulled herself to her feet.
She turned, and saw three, maybe four young people. The nearest was the thick-faced lout James had fired from the carpark crew, Terry Gilpin. He shot a fist into her stomach, and put his weight behind it. She lost her wind and bent double.
Terry looked around to his friends for approval, grunting a laugh. One of them was wearing a soaked panama hat, and looking out of his depth. The other was a girl with a tall hairstyle, a skeleton draped with a black spiderweb shawl, chains around her neck and waist.
Allison put an arm around Wendy’s shoulder and pulled her up. ‘This the one, Ben?’ Allison asked.
The familiar figure pushed its way through the rain, elbowing aside Terry and the others. Water pooled in Badmouth Ben’s sunken eye sockets, running down deep grooves where his cheeks had been.
Ben nodded. ‘Sheep,’ he said, chilling her.
She twisted her neck, looking for Beloved. She could see the far door of the gallery, but there was only darkness.
‘Sheep,’ Ben repeated, spitting the word out with difficulty through his mess of a mouth. He put his bone-and-scrap hand on her throat, not squeezing but kneading, and ripped downwards, tearing at her blouse. Buttons scattered, and his ragged nails scored her skin. Terry sniggered at her jelly-mould breasts, but Allison shut him up with a slap and said, ‘This is serious.’
Panama Hat bit his lip and reached out. He pinched Wendy, taking a handful of loose skin from her ribs and pressing it tight between his fingers. It was an experimental cruelty. He laughed in relief as he let go, finally believing he’d done it and nothing had happened to him.
‘Happy now?’ Allison asked.
Panama Hat nodded and shrugged at the same time, then he stepped away, deferring to Ben.
His patchy flesh shrivelled on to his skull, bone soot-blackened. Wendy saw through the ragged skin, saw how the jawbones locked together, how the shrunken muscles worked.
Ben took a huge knife from a sheath on his belt, balanced it in his hand in front of Wendy’s face, and then shook his head, rejecting it. He tossed it away. The taller girl unbuckled some of the thongs at her waist and thigh, and pulled a nine-inch stiletto out of its sheath. She handed it to Ben like a nurse passing a scalpel to a neurosurgeon.
‘Fuck,’ Ben said, tongue running between his black teeth, wet knife sparkling in the rain.
‘Fuck. Kill. Eat. Wear.’
Wendy shut her eyes and prayed.