Blinded by the Light Read online

  “She’s left you, Joe,” Fletcher said.

  “What do you mean, left me? She wouldn’t. We were in this together.”

  “Relax. Lie down in bed again. That’s good. I know this won’t be easy for you, Joe, but better you should find out from me than from the others. Bea’s gone. When we got back from Manchester Kate stayed with her, and the next morning we prayed with her. But she was possessed by the Darkness – it was too late. She used bad language and profaned her purity. She stole from other White Ones. And when she was unattended, she ran away. We went to look for her as we know Bea has no family, no one to run to. And we found her. She was in a pub in Rochdale with a young man. His arm was round her. They were drinking and laughing. She kissed him, Joe. We tried to stop it but the man threatened Will with violence, so he retreated. Accept this – the Bea you loved, Joe, only existed here on the farm when she was filled with the Light. The Light has left her. She’s common, no good. She didn’t care about you. She led you astray. Grieve for her, Joe. Pray for her. But do not hope.”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Ask Will,” he said. “Ask Kate. Ask anyone. We should never have let Bea come among us. Not all who are attracted to the Light are worthy of its radiance.”

  “You’re wrong!”

  “You’re getting feverish again, Joe. It was a risk I had to take. The love of a woman is a vastly inferior thing – it says so in the Book. You will forget her. The Light will come with healing in its wings. She is not worthy of you, Joe. You’re better off without her.”

  The way Fletcher was talking now really brought home to me what had happened. She isn’t worthy of you. You’re better off without her. It was the way my mum talked when Tash dumped me. It’s what people said when they thought you were a loser. The reality hit me then. Bea had left me. On one level I couldn’t accept it, but then, girls dumped me, that seemed to be the pattern. Even Bea.

  I can’t began to describe the rush of emotions I had. I felt humiliated, bereft, bereaved. And angry, betrayed and puzzled. I couldn’t take in that just a moment ago, in my mind, we were still one. Now she’d ripped us apart. My rage fought with disbelief. I was sorry for myself, but also, weirdly, sorry for her. I hated her but I still loved her. I tried to harden myself and make myself determined never to let something like this happen again. But most of all, I wanted to see her just one more time, her lovely face, that look she always had for me. I began to cry. Sobs shook me. Fletch was by me in an instant, his arm around my shoulders.

  “I know,” he said. “It’s tough.” There was no reproach in his voice, nothing but compassion. He let me cry it out.

  “I felt like you once myself,” Fletcher said. “I lost someone I loved. The consequences were far-reaching. But I don’t complain as it brought me here, and brought me to you, where my duty and allegiance lie. Bea was a necessary stage in your journey. I think we’ll start out for Orkney as soon as possible. There’s nothing to delay us. Will can be trusted in my stead. And when we return, it will be in glory.”

  I said nothing. I didn’t care any more. Without Bea, Fletcher could do what he liked with me. Without Bea, there was little point in anything. I may as well go to Orkney as stay here – better go to Orkney, as every inch of this farm would remind me of her, places where we talked, places where we kissed, where we prayed. I needed to get away. It would be my convalescence. When I spoke to my parents, I wouldn’t mention Bea. I would tell them I was going to Orkney, for a course, or something. I needed the space.

  Fletcher could tell from my silence that I wasn’t going to put up a fight.

  “I’ll put a call through to Carbister now,” he said. “I’ll tell them to expect us the day after tomorrow. You’ll be well enough for the journey – I’ll make you up a bed in the back of the Transit. Think about the future, Joe, your future. Leave the past behind. The past is dead.”

  He said dead, and I thought of Nick, I thought of Bea’s love for me, and wondered why the path of the Light seemed to lead to death, but my head couldn’t handle it. I lay back in bed, completely and utterly exhausted.

  PART THREE

  THE REVELATION

  16.

  Bea’s Story

  They took Joe away from me. Fletcher carried him in his arms upstairs to his room. I begged to go too but they said no.

  Kate took me instead to her room and made me tell everything that had happened. At first I wasn’t going to tell her about the conversation we had, for Joe’s sake. But she was pushing and prodding and probing and I was so tired – it must have been five o’clock in the morning, or six, or seven – there wasn’t a clock in the room. Then in the end I thought she needed to know the truth, because we all needed to – our faith is worthless unless we’re free to come and go, unless it works for our good. So I told her everything, how Joe and I began to question everything, how we were going to visit his parents, and that we still wanted to. When Joe was better, I told her, we were going to go. And I begged her, take me to see Joe, I want to know how he is.

  But she wouldn’t. She said, not until after the Morning Service. So we had the Morning Service and it didn’t work for me any more; it didn’t, and I was frightened. I thought why was Fletcher so quick to rescue us? Had he been following us? Or just following Joe? All the time I pretended to the others that I was praying. I thought it was safer to pretend.

  Then Kate took me into the Reading Room, the room where Joe and I first kissed, after my initiation. She locked the door and then she said I had to give him up. That we poisoned each other. That I had to abjure all contact with men. I had a weakness, it was a weakness of the flesh. I told her she didn’t understand – I loved Joe, and it was normal to love someone and want to be close to them – she was the mad one. I got angry, hysterical. That made her shout for the other girls and they all came, and she said, “Bea isn’t well. We must pray together.” Kate put the blindfold on me and I struggled, but they held me down. They tied me to a chair and encircled me, and began the prayers for exorcising antimatter.

  I was scared, really scared. It was the way they were surrounding me. It was also the way they all believed what they were saying. I thought they would be capable of anything because they were all so caught up in it. I tried to work out what to do. I couldn’t run. But, if I sat still and listened, I thought I might start believing in it all again. I had to keep my mind intact. I had to fight.

  So I started talking to them. I said, I want out. I’m fed up with your bloody religion. Let me go. Just let me go. I swore at them – I must have sounded mad. But I wouldn’t cave in. They prayed louder and louder until they were shouting. So I stopped in the end and tried to think of something else I could do. Eventually they came to an end and Kate said again, “Our sister is not well. She needs confinement.” They dragged me to a room somewhere, and locked me in.

  I took off my blindfold and saw I was in a store cupboard, with mops, brooms and buckets. I took a mop and tried to break the door down with the handle. I felt like a wild animal – it must have been my survival instinct filling me with rage. I wanted Joe and I was so angry they were keeping him from me. I was hungry. They wouldn’t even let me go to the toilet. More and more I could see they were all demented. But I wasn’t really thinking then, I was just desperate to get out. In the end I ran out of energy and fell into a kind of half-sleep, sitting up, my back against the door.

  Then the next thing I knew was that someone was opening the door. Auriel. She said, “Quickly, Bea, go! They’re all upstairs with Nick. Go now – here’s some money.” She stuffed some notes in my hand. I asked her where Joe was and she said that he was safe, that she would look after him. She said, “Go! You can help him more if you go.”

  That decided me. I left there and then.

  I had to walk down to the main road to get a bus. No one would give me a lift – I must have looked a mess. I didn’t know where to go. I checked to see how much money Auriel had given me – there was eighty pounds.
I didn’t know there was so much money on the farm. I thought about going to Joe’s parents but I realised I didn’t know where they lived – I knew he lived in Whitefield, but not his address, not his home phone number. Anyway, would they want me? Looking like this? Would they blame me for what happened to him?

  Then I thought of my old piano teacher, Mrs Blake. She was a friend of my mum’s. She would know what to do. Eventually I managed to hail a taxi, and had to show the money upfront to prove I could pay. The driver didn’t like the look of me. I sat back on the leather seats, feeling so disorientated, and thought, am I doing the right thing? Should I have left the farm? Should I have left Joe?

  But it was too late. The cab arrived at Mrs Blake’s house. I paid the driver, ran up the garden path, and rang her door bell. And rang and rang.

  The person who eventually answered the door wasn’t Mrs Blake, but an old lady, still in a dressing gown, who turned out to be Mrs Blake’s mother. She apologised for being hard of hearing. I asked for Mrs Blake, but she was out, teaching. I felt sick hearing that, nausea swept through me and it reached my head in a kind of fug.

  I knew I was going to faint just before I did.

  17.

  Early the next morning we left for Orkney. I was able to walk by myself to the Transit, although my legs were shaky, like an old man’s. The day was overcast and the sky was a white blanket of cloud. Fletcher had made it cosy for me in the back of the van – there were a couple of mattresses, some cushions and sleeping bags. He’d packed the small amount of belongings we had in an old, battered brown suitcase. He said I could either lie down in the back or travel with him in the front. I chose the passenger seat – I wanted to watch the farm recede and see the road in front of us.

  Once we’d left Hebden Bridge it occurred to me I hadn’t been away from the area for months. It was refreshing to see new things, new places. Fletcher didn’t say much, but later played a tape we’d all made of prayers, chants and songs. It was good to listen to. It insulated us against the world, Fletcher said. He didn’t notice when the recording of They have all gone into the world of Light began. But I did. I could hear Bea’s voice. It hurt me so badly to hear it, so pure, so clear, knowing what I know now. Fletcher hinted there were more things about her, things it would pain me to hear. How could I have been taken in like that? In the end, it was too much for me, listening to her. I told Fletcher I was tired and wanted a sleep. We stopped at a lay-by and I got into the back of the van. The wind was cold and damp and there was a flurry of rain.

  I lay on the mattress and put the sleeping bag over me. The trouble is, I thought, you can’t learn to unlove someone. You can’t turn off a switch and forget about them. So I kept trying to think of what could have gone on in Bea’s head to make her forget about me, or maybe that there was another explanation for what happened. I made up stories about how we would meet again. Sometimes she explained everything and we got back together. Other times she wanted me back and I told her no way, not after leaving me like that. Eventually the van rocked me to sleep.

  We drove and drove. In the early evening Fletcher pulled into a twenty-four-hour lorry park because he said he needed to sleep. He bought us both some food from the café and I fell on it hungrily. Then Fletch bedded down on one of the mattresses at the back and was asleep in almost an instant. I noticed he’d forgotten to pray. I couldn’t sleep, and spent time thinking. I thought about what lay ahead of us, and how I knew I wasn’t really a Perfect, but that I wanted to get away and Orkney suited me well enough. I remembered Fletcher had promised I could ring my parents, but he never brought the phone. I thought about Bea – it was like probing an open wound. And I recalled, bit by bit, the things we’d said to each other that night in Manchester, and how I’d wanted out. All that seemed very distant now. I watched Fletcher sleep. There were frown lines between his eyes and occasionally he twitched, like a corpse receiving an electric shock. Later he muttered something, and I thought I heard my name. But it could have been my imagination. Eventually I slept too.

  We started on the road before dawn. Fletcher said the ferry left around midday and we still had a fair way to go. We drove through the wild and remote Scottish countryside, through swathes of bleak, windswept hills, mountains – it was all a blur to me. Arriving at Scrabster was a relief. There were other cars, families, and ferry workers going about their jobs. The air of normality was reassuring.

  Fletcher dealt with the tickets and I saw we were queuing to drive on to the car deck. As stupid as this sounds, I was excited. I’ve always liked travelling, especially on planes and boats. It was also good to be out, back in the world. I was feeling better, cheering up. And then a thought about Bea would hit me and the world would lose all its colour.

  Once the van was safely stowed we went on deck to watch us pull away from the coast. Quite a few people were on deck, wrapped up warmly against the biting wind. The coast of Scotland receded, its hills fading to soft curves, then just a thick line on the horizon. In front of us was the open sea. There was a tang of salt in the air and a cold wind that penetrated our clothing. The wind blew the clouds around above us. The oily, woody smell of the boat reminded me of other holidays. I told Fletcher I was hungry, and he said he’d get something from the café below. I took a seat on a bench and stared out to sea, lulled by the gentle motion of the boat.

  Once again, things were making sense. My journey to Perfection was taking this shape, a voyage across the sea. I was sure and certain that this was precisely where I was meant to be. Then, just as the sun disappeared behind a heavy cloud, my confidence vanished. I realised if the other people on the boat knew why I was there, they would be astonished. They would think that Fletch and I were mad. Just like I did when nearly a year ago I went to Lower Fold for the first time and saw them all in the Evening Service. A bunch of nutters, I thought. Harmless, but nutters.

  But then I got intrigued with them and somehow they knew how to draw me in. At first it had been like a game, but soon every step I took was in earnest. I couldn’t even remember when it was I began to think like them and use their language. And so it was I had left Mum and Dad and Gemma, given up my place at uni, lived the life of a labourer, fallen in love, got let down, all for… For what exactly? To achieve Perfection. What Perfection?

  Some gulls wheeled above me. The wind messed around with my hair. What if I’d made a terrible, terrible mistake? What if the White Ones were living a lie, or they had all deluded themselves as I had deluded myself? No – I wouldn’t go there. Not yet. I was still weak, physically and emotionally. I needed to look after myself, take it easy. Treat this trip as a break, a chance to recuperate. And then I would think what to do with my life. Later. When I’d had a rest. I noticed the sea was getting choppy, so I focused on a stack of rock that was coming into view.

  Fletcher arrived then with some cheese and tomato sandwiches and some Cokes. We ate our lunch in silence. Then Fletcher spoke.

  “You know, Joe, the other candidates have failed.”

  “What candidates? What do you mean, failed?”

  “Other cells have sent potential Perfects to Carbister to meet Rendall. They have all failed the test. A lot is riding on you, Joe.”

  “Don’t talk like that.”

  “I’m sorry I understand how you might be feeling. But promise me one thing, Joe. Should it be you who is Perfect, grant me the chance to serve you.”

  He was talking like a bad movie. I wished he’d stop it.

  “Yeah, whatever,” I said.

  Then he took my hand and held it for a few moments. And I thought, fuck this! What if the other people see him do that? What the heck will they think about us? I wriggled my hand out of his but he didn’t seem to notice. The rock stack was straight ahead now. I could see birds nesting in the crevices. And dots of bird shit everywhere. I tried to remember how rock stacks were formed but it had all gone from my head. I thought, had I been brainwashed? No – I’d brainwashed myself. Or had I? The doubts were coming back
even though I’d decided not to have them. I didn’t like this. I was beginning to feel a little seasick too. I mentioned that to Fletch, and he said it was better to stay on deck and look out to sea. I told myself to ignore the cold.

  After what seemed like an eternity, the coast of Orkney came into view. Soon I could see a higgledy-piggledy collection of houses and boats, the houses looking like they were scrambling up the hill to get away from the water. It wasn’t like English harbours where the houses face the sea, looking out at it with a sense of ownership. Stromness was different, chaotic, a jumble. I watched us dock and then went with Fletcher to reclaim the van.

  “Do you know how to get there?” I asked him.

  He nodded, and I got the impression he didn’t want to talk, which was fine by me. We got out of Stromness fairly quickly – it was only a small place – and I tried to keep an eye on where we were going. Most of the signs seemed to lead to Kirkwall, and there were loads of those tourist signs pointing to various monuments. I remembered one – the Ring of Brodgar – it kind of struck me. I guessed it would be something like Stonehenge. But mainly my impression was of gently rounding grey hills and a sky which was so pale it seemed to run out of colour at the horizon’s edge. Farms and cottages were dotted about here and there but there weren’t towns or villages as such. It wasn’t that different from the English countryside, except there were no trees. None whatsoever. But instead I noticed jagged fingers of stone pointing to the sky, just one in a field from time to time. I guessed these were standing stones. Relics of a past religion. People must have lived here for thousands of years – why? It was so remote, so empty and ghostlike. Orkney seemed like the end of the world to me.