Blinded by the Light Read online

  “Joe – you’re very quiet.”

  “Sorry.”

  Guilt washed over me. Here we were, on our first Attracting mission, and all I’d been doing was reminiscing. We’d reached the top of Oxford Road, and the university was about a mile away. Just then I didn’t feel as if I had the strength to make it.

  “I need something to eat or drink,” I told Bea.

  We began to look for somewhere. Mainly it was just bars and restaurants that were open. We felt like going somewhere quieter, and cheaper. But the small coffee shops and cafés which were open during the day were closed now. There was only McDonald’s.

  “We’d better go there,” Bea said.

  So we did. We queued up at the counter and my mouth began to water at the thought of the burgers and fries. All we could have was fruit juice.

  “Or maybe a milk shake,” Bea said.

  It wasn’t a stimulant, that was true.

  The guy at the counter eyed me suspiciously. I bristled at that. Hadn’t he been trained to deal with the public? Then I caught a partial reflection of myself in a mirror, in my dirty white denim jacket, my white tracksuit bottoms and white T-shirt. My face was pale and my eyes had dark rings under them. I suppose he thought I was a druggie waiting to shoot up in the toilets.

  “Large fries,” I demanded, “and a chocolate milk shake. And a Diet Coke.”

  We would have to confess all of this when we got back, but it would be worth it. Anyway, I’d heard that White Ones on Attracting missions often had to make compromises.

  I carried the tray of food to a corner table and Bea and I squeezed behind it and fell on the food. The fries were like manna. It was hard to slow myself down so that Bea could have a fair share too. I had half a mind to go back and get some more, which would have cleaned out our funds completely. Then we took turns slurping at the milk shake. It was sickly and wonderful. Neither of us said a word. The ice in the Coke bobbed against my lips, temporarily numbing them. When everything had gone, I breathed deeply I felt much, much better.

  Bea said, “They’ve been starving us.”

  “Yeah, there’s not much food. It’s difficult to feed us all.”

  “When I fast,” Bea said reflectively, “it sort of removes a barrier. I feel more spiritual.”

  “Yeah – me too.”

  “So have you ever thought that the spiritual feeling is a result of the fasting and not of the Light?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I don’t know.”

  McDonald’s hadn’t changed at all. The décor was bright, upbeat and garish. The people in it were a blend of post-cinema diners, some students and a few lonely people with nothing better to do. Someone was washing the floor at the other end of the restaurant. I knew McDonald’s was the ogre of Western civilisation, but when I was little I wouldn’t eat anywhere else. It drove my mum mad. I wouldn’t touch her burgers, only McDonald’s. Gemma always had a Happy Meal and hoarded the toys she collected.

  “I keep thinking about my old life,” I told Bea. “Because I’m here in Manchester.”

  “Me too,” she said. “My mother used to take me to the Opera House whenever there was a touring opera company. Or a ballet.”

  “Do you miss that?”

  “Of course I do.” Bea looked blank, unfocused.

  “And do you sometimes think, we’re all a bit mad, hiding ourselves away on the farm?”

  “Maybe we have to do that for now.”

  “What do you mean, for now?”

  She was silent.

  “Are you saying,” I continued, “that there’ll be a time in our lives when we’re no longer White Ones? Or do you mean that some White Ones could live in the rest of the world, keeping the beliefs, but having normal jobs and families and that?”

  “I hope so,” she said.

  “So do I.”

  And that was when it hit me. I had only ever seen being a White One as temporary. Like a serial relationship. I needed it back in November. I was grateful, I’d put a lot back into the community, I believed, more or less, in most of the stuff, and loved some of the stories in the Book. But the ASD was an ordeal, it was humiliating, and then at other times, I looked at everyone, and just thought they were stupid. But every time you had a negative thought you were supposed to say, it’s the antimatter.

  Bea said, “Would they let us – you know – leave?”

  “Yeah. Why not? Everything we’ve done we’ve chosen to do. No one brainwashed us. So we could just leave.”

  “I’m scared to leave,” she said.

  “We’re not going to leave,” I reassured her. Maybe I was reassuring myself too. “It’s still working for us. It’s because we’re away from the farm, we’re looking at it differently”

  Bea fiddled with the straw of the milk shake. I thought about what I’d just said, and saw the individual White Ones pass in front of my eyes. There was Will, who, when all was said and done, wasn’t very bright. Kate, who, despite her composure, mutilated herself. Auriel, who was profoundly disturbed. And Nick. Nick was sane but desperately ill, and there’d been no news of him for days, only rumours. Finally there was Fletcher himself. I shuddered as I thought of him. God knows why. Then my mind’s eye flicked to last night’s Evening Service when we were all together in the twilight, hands joined, singing, and it was all incredibly beautiful.

  I thought, so what if they’re not perfect?

  And then I thought, but they’re supposed to be perfect. And me, I’m supposed to be a Perfect, but I’m not. I found myself wishing I was the guy in the baseball cap behind the counter stoking fries into a bag. I reached out for Bea’s hand.

  “I don’t feel good tonight,” I told her.

  “Maybe this is normal for the first time you leave the farm,” she said, with a forced brightness. “What we ought to do, is wait and see. We’ll Attract tonight, and leave it a couple of weeks, and talk again.”

  “Yes. That’s good. We’ll have a clearer picture then.”

  Or maybe we shouldn’t even go back to the farm at all. Maybe Bea and I should just walk and walk until we get back to my old house, and ring my parents’ bell and just say, hi. And the nightmare would be over.

  Maybe.

  I concealed that hope, that intention, like a secret weapon. Later on tonight I would let Bea know what we could do. But not now. I wasn’t ready yet. And I’d been looking forward to being able to Attract for months. I was determined to find out what it was like.

  One way or the other, it would resolve the issue. If we Attracted, then there was meaning. We were being guided by an Unseen Hand. If we didn’t, if it all went pear-shaped, then we could… then we could…

  “Let’s go, Bea,” I said.

  14.

  To: [email protected]

  It’s me, Gem. Thanks for inviting me to your party and I might come. I’ll see what things are like at home.

  Actually, they’re crap. My mum’s seeing this counsellor person and I reckon it’s making her worse. Mum is like, he’s been brainwashed, I don’t even know if he’s well or ill. Do they have any doctors there? Is it my fault?

  I told her it wasn’t her fault but I fucking HATE!!!!****!!!!! that bloody stupid fucking cult. They’ve stolen my brother. And you’d think I’d get used to it but I haven’t. Like Mum says, you don’t know how he is or what he’s feeling.

  And I think they’re cowards, Mum and Dad. If it was me I’d go up there with the police or the SAS or something and get him. But they say he’s 19 now and it’s his choice. Some choice.

  And then I meet people, and they’re like, d’you have any brothers and sisters? I dunno what to say. Sometimes I say, I had a brother. Coz in a way he is dead.

  Sorry to babble on like this but sometimes it like all builds up and I feel like kicking and screaming or something. But it’s not fair on M & D if I let it all out.

  So thanks for reading this – you can delete it now.

  Luv, Gemxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

>   Once we got back out into the street, we felt a lot better. Having that meal had been the right thing to do. I found myself cheering up.

  “Hey, Bea. It’s weird. Like, we were in McDonald’s and we had all those bad thoughts. Like the place itself was infecting us. Do you reckon McDonald’s is a channel for antimatter?”

  “It makes sense. When you think of the animals killed for burgers, and all that suffering, it has to have a reaction somewhere down the line.”

  “Yeah. You’re right.”

  I was back in the rhythm again, feeling in tune with myself, having a purpose. Perfect. And so we carried on walking south, under some scaffolding and past the Big Issue seller by the Cornerhouse. We talked about social diseases like avarice and quoted the Book at each other. I noticed some people looking at us oddly, but that was no surprise.

  We came to the Royal Northern College of Music. Bea paused.

  “I had lessons there once,” she said.

  “You told me.”

  “Yes. And I was in the youth orchestra for a while, before Mum was ill. That’s where we had our concerts. They were good times. I miss the concerts. Maybe by joining the White Ones I was searching for the same thing, that sense of belonging.”

  “No, Bea. You were searching for the White Ones and found the youth orchestra by mistake.”

  It was bothering me, the way she was talking. We’d finished with all that negative stuff. I wanted everything to be simple again. I needed to find someone to Attract. I was getting tired. We reached the Whitworth Art Gallery. Bea was quiet now. Groups of students passed us on their way into town. It gave me the illusion we were heading in the wrong direction, a small boat setting sail against the tide.

  By the time we reached the Student Union, we decided to rest. We sat on the steps. I was thirsty and thought longingly of the Coke I’d had at McDonald’s. That was bad, and so I spoke some prayers silently in my head. I begged that the right person should be drawn to us, that we should be of service. I asked the Light to use me as a channel. People shot us curious glances but no one approached us. The Union was shut and I realised, too late, that we should have stayed in town where there would have been more chance of striking up a conversation. We waited for five minutes, ten. Fewer and fewer people were around. Ten minutes, fifteen. Maybe even longer than that. Nothing happened. I was shivering with the cold and snuggled up to Bea.

  “This seems pointless,” she said.

  “Have faith,” I told her.

  It was easier to tell someone else to have faith than to have it yourself. The truth was, I was beginning to feel more and more uncomfortable. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. We were to have met someone, dazzled them by our vision of what life could be. But to an outsider, we looked as if we were the ones who needed help.

  “I think we ought to go back into town,” I said. I heard Bea sigh.

  We got up then. As we did so I realised someone had been watching us. He was a bloke who looked a little older than me, but not much. It crossed my mind that he could be the one, the one we had been destined to meet. My heart pounded as he came towards us.

  “Have you got a light?” he asked.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I don’t smoke.”

  “Cheers,” he replied, and wandered off.

  That was the moment it happened. The whole absurdity struck me. I thought this guy was my destiny and all he wanted was to light a cigarette. What sort of idiot was I? What the hell had been going on with me? I asked myself what I was doing here, on the steps of the uni, trying to convert people to a half-baked belief system I had stopped believing in? Until then, I hadn’t realised that I had stopped believing in it. Maybe I had thought there was too much to lose if I admitted it. Now there was nothing to lose.

  I had this experience once before. When I was fourteen, I went out with a girl – Tracey – for a couple of weeks or so. It was mainly just so I could show everyone I could pull. Then one night we went to see a film and I thought, what am I doing with her? I didn’t even like her. She giggled all the time and kept poking me in the arm. Then it was just a matter of working out how to finish with her. At the time I thought it was weird how I could go off her in one moment, kind of.

  Remembering Tracey helped steady me. The first thing now was to let Bea into what I was thinking. As much as I wanted to loosen the bonds between me and the White Ones, my relationship with Bea was the one real thing, the thing worth saving.

  “Come on,” I said. “Let’s head back.”

  Bea linked arms with me and we fell into step together.

  “Are you disappointed?” she asked me.

  “No. Maybe this was meant to happen. Like, finding no one who was interested.”

  “I don’t know. I’m getting fed up with thinking that everything has a purpose all the time.”

  I knew it. Bea was thinking in the same way as me. Yet such was the hold of the White Ones that even then I was tentative in expressing my thoughts, or getting her to express hers. It seemed dangerous. Blasphemous, even. So I was careful.

  “What do you mean – fed up?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Like, don’t you wish you could just take time out? Watch TV, maybe, or leaf through a magazine and look at the latest fashions? Just for a break. To get away from the intensity of everything.”

  “I’ve been thinking, I wonder what goes on in people’s heads when they’re supposed to be praying. I watch them at Services. They don’t concentrate on every word. They just make out as if they do. To be honest, that’s what I do. I try to make it all mean something, but most of the time I’m thinking, are the others watching me, and am I praying convincingly?”

  Bea’s voice, when she replied, was urgent. “Yes! I can’t concentrate on the prayers all of the time, even on a good day. I reckon two-thirds of what we do is pretence but we have to, to encourage everyone else, and just in case…”

  “Just in case what?” I asked her.

  “Just in case it is true.”

  “So you think it might not be true,” I insisted.

  “No! I believe in the Light and the importance of Perfection. Well, I want to believe. There’s so much wrong with the world. But I miss the world, and I want some of it back.”

  “This is what we’ll do, Bea. When we get back to the farm, I’ll talk to Fletcher. I’ll say I feel we need a break.”

  “He won’t agree.”

  That chilled me. I wanted to take issue with her. “No. He’s always been reasonable. Like, I thought he would freak at us and our relationship, but he didn’t. He might be upset, but he’s never stopped me doing anything I wanted. All we’re going to be dealing with here is that he’s going to be disappointed – big time. It’ll be tough but we’re going to have to break free. He won’t stop me doing what I most want to.”

  “But you’ve never tried to leave before.”

  We’d reached the city again, and I’d hardly been aware of our walk – our conversation had been so vitally important. Bea and I had talked ourselves into wanting out. I could never have imagined our Attracting mission would have ended in this way. Normality had never seemed more tempting. I thought, if I went home now, I could sleep in my own room. In a comfortable bed. In the morning, I could fry up some bacon and eggs. I could introduce Bea to my parents. They would love her. I could begin to assess what had happened to me.

  Maybe, if I was going to leave, now would be the best time.

  “Bea, what if we were to go home – to my home?”

  “Could we?”

  “Why not?”

  I looked at her to gain strength and I think she was doing the same to me too. I couldn’t believe it was all unravelling so quickly At least Bea was for real.

  “OK,” Bea said. “But look. I need the loo.”

  I guessed she was feeling the same terror that I was. Luckily we were approaching McDonald’s again. It was still open so she said she’d go in there. I said I’d wait outside. I wondered whether to ring my parents, except they mi
ght be asleep. I had the mobile Fletcher had given me. Did I have the courage to ring them?

  I got out the phone and unlocked it. The screen lit up. Only some yobbos were arsing about on the other side of the road and I wanted to be able to hear properly. I thought about going into McDonald’s but this was going to be an important conversation. I needed to be alone. I needed quiet. So I walked round McDonald’s to a bus shelter, stood by it and dialled home.

  There were no warning signs. They were on me in a moment. One grabbed my phone, the other punched me so that I doubled up in agony. I was on the floor, someone was going through my pockets. Then the kicking started, boots connecting with my legs, my crotch, my face. Pain crashed around me. I saw nothing. It lasted for ever but was over in a moment. There was a whimpering heap on the pavement and that heap was me.

  Slowly my mind cleared. I thought I had better go into McDonald’s and get Bea. So I tried to get up but my body didn’t belong to me any more. Which struck me as strange. I noticed some people across the road who glanced at me and walked on. I suppose they thought I was a drunk. I tried to call out to them but my voice was tiny, like in those nightmares when you try to shout and you have no voice. Pain radiated from my middle, reverberated around my head, but if I didn’t move, I would be OK.

  I told Bea that when she found me. “I’m OK,” I whispered hoarsely, “but I can’t move.”

  Her face was blank with horror. I wished she would smile because that would have made me feel better. She kept saying my name, then stood up and shouted for help. Soon there were a few people around me, gawping.