The Bellwether Revivals (32 page)

Yin squeezed the bulb of his nose. ‘Sure, okay, it’s just—he seems like a pretty nice old man to me, and I don’t know, I feel like maybe we’re taking things a little far. I don’t see how this is gonna help him.’

‘We’re taking it as far as the situation requires,’ Eden said.

‘I just think we might be subjecting this poor old guy to a bunch of stress he doesn’t need. I don’t want his heart to pack up or something. You see what I’m saying?’ Yin’s cheeks were flushed a shade of red. He kept pulling on his nose as if it was itchy. ‘It was different when we were just goofing around with Oscar—he’s young and healthy—but I don’t see what good can come from hypnotising this guy. It’s fun and all, but I feel bad about it.’

Everyone kept their eyes on the water. Eden just carried on punting them along. The pole made gentle splashes as it broke the surface. Finally, he said: ‘Don’t you trust me after all these years, Yinny?’

‘Sure, but—’

‘He wouldn’t do anything dangerous,’ Marcus said.

Eden nodded. ‘I know what I’m doing.’

‘Yeah, look, I know you explained it already,’ Yin went on, ‘but I’m just not comfortable with it. I feel like we’re taking advantage of the guy, that’s all.’

‘Herbert knows what he’s getting himself into, don’t worry,’ Oscar said, feeling moved to speak up on Crest’s behalf. But he was glad that someone had found the courage to question Eden. It was the first real murmur of defiance he’d heard amongst the flock.

‘He’s got a brain tumour,’ Yin said. ‘How much can he really be in control of his mind right now?’

Marcus dismissed this idea. ‘We’re relieving his pain. It’s good for him. It can only be helping him, not making him worse.
Hypnosis never hurt anyone. We’re doing him a favour, the way I see it.’

Oscar might have told them everything at that moment, but he kept his mouth shut, for Crest’s sake, and remembered the feeling that had kept him awake last night: that vague inkling of doubt that had stayed with him after Eden’s paean.

Yin shook his head. ‘We’ve pulled a few stunts in our time, Edie, but this seems pretty crazy.’

‘I don’t see it that way. I see it as progress.’

Oscar couldn’t help peering at the wide stance of Eden’s deck shoes on the till. They didn’t have a single drip of water on them.

Yin folded his arms and stared out beyond the high bank, where the distant steeple of a church was needling the orange-purple sky. Everything went very quiet. Eden turned the boat around. As they headed back towards the house, he said: ‘You know, Yinny, I don’t see what you’re so bothered about. In your country, people do this all the time.’

Yin’s back was turned and his arms were still folded across his chest; he didn’t seem to be in much of a mood for talking. They drifted a few yards downriver, then Yin said: ‘What the hell does
that
mean?’

‘I’m talking about the good old U-S-of-A,’ Eden said, cheerily. ‘That great country of yours. I love it over there. Do you know I’ve been to nearly every State?’

‘Yeah, you’ve only told me about a million times. So what?’

‘Well, have I told you what happened the first time I went there?’

Yin shrugged. ‘Maybe. I can’t remember.’

‘You’re not going to tell the Disneyworld story, are you?’ Iris asked.

‘No, no, that’s old news.’ Eden punted on. ‘I was going to tell them about the time we went to that church in Florida.’

‘I don’t remember any church,’ Iris said.

‘You were only five.’

‘Oh.’

‘Anyway—’ Eden pushed the shirtsleeves up on his forearms. He looked blankly at the clouds. ‘It was my mother’s idea to go there. She must have been getting one of her migraines after walking around Epcot all week, all that muggy weather they have over there. So she took us into this Pentecostal church that someone had told her about. It was near Tampa, one of those giant barn-like places. You know the kind I mean?’

Yin nodded.

‘Well, there were already hundreds of people in there when we arrived. It was sweltering hot inside, too—Florida in the summer, no air conditioning. Horrible. The shirt was sticking to my back. Anyway, there was a big banner above the altar—actually, it was more like a Broadway stage than an altar—but that’s beside the point. This banner was enormous, and I can remember it clear as anything. It said: “Salvation and Revival Week with Pastor John Hoolihan. Come for Your Deliverance!” I remember feeling so excited. It was like being at a concert. Everyone was chattering, waiting for the pastor to come out. And after a few minutes, a choir came running in through the doors, and an organist started to play up above us. The music was only basic, but the sound was incredible, and the congregation went mad for it. People were flailing their hands about, speaking in tongues. Total gibberish. And then—boom!—pyrotechnics are going off and golden tickertape’s shooting out everywhere. Next thing, this preacher runs up onto the stage. He’s got this terrible spray-on tan, and white teeth—I mean, ridiculously white. Straight away, he starts proclaiming the wonders of the Lord Jesus Christ, shouting and screaming and praising his name, and the people are chanting back:
Amen
,
Amen to that!
Meanwhile, the organ’s still playing, and the choir’s still singing hallelujahs.’

‘I really don’t remember
any
of this,’ Iris said. ‘Where was I?’

‘Oh, you were there too. Somewhere. Maybe you stayed in the car, I don’t know.’ Eden ducked to avoid an overhang of
hedgerows, steering them around it. ‘Anyway, after a few minutes, the preacher calls up a little boy from the crowd and pushes a microphone into his face. And the boy—he’s not much older than me, maybe seven or eight—starts saying how he’s had a sore throat for months, asking if Jesus can make it go away. So the preacher just laughs and goes,
Of course he can, son
.
You were born with the love of Jesus in your heart!
Of course Jesus will cleanse him of his sins and take away that sore throat. No problem. So he puts his hand on the boy’s head and pushes it backwards and the choir’s still singing hallelujah, hallelujah. The boy’s just completely bewildered by the whole thing. He’s got this anguished look on his face. But suddenly his legs start to go.’

Eden paused, letting the boat drift along on its own. He crouched down to put his hand on Yin’s scalp like Pastor John, calling out in a faulty Southern accent:
‘Praise Jesus, son! For he has redeemed you for your sins and healed you of your ailments! Praise Jesus our Lord in Heaven!’
He stood up, stomping around on the till for a while, flailing his mad preacher’s hands before settling down. Yin was smiling now, but Eden wasn’t. There was a steely concentration in his eyes. He took up the pole again and propelled them downstream. ‘Next thing, the kid falls back into Pastor John’s arms and starts clutching his throat, like all the pain has been suddenly lifted out of him.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Oh, I’m telling you, it was an amazing thing to behold. It went on for hours. The preacher kept dragging people out of the crowd. People were wheeling their relatives up the ramp and Pastor John was blessing them. He had them eating out of his hand. Everyone was in this state of delirium, just complete and total ecstasy. People were fainting in the aisles … And I remember seeing my mother standing there, waving her hands in the air like some little kid at a pantomime, just dying to be chosen. She was actually shouting
Over here! Over here!
I’d never seen her quite so animated before.’ Eden stopped to take a rest. Holding the pole across his chest like a rifle, he stared down at his wavering image in the
spreading wake. They coasted towards the bank at the foot of the Bellwethers’ garden. Everyone was waiting for him to finish, but Eden didn’t say anything further, and the punt gradually lost its momentum.

Oscar leaned forward. ‘Did she get chosen?’ he asked.

Eden seemed to be expecting the question. He smirked and tore his eyes away from the water. ‘That’s not the point of the story.’

‘Of course it is,’ Iris said. ‘If Mum got up there, I want to know about it.’

‘I was
trying
to explain something, that’s all.’

‘That there are crazy old people in Florida?’ Yin said. ‘Big revelation.’

‘Did she get up there or not?’ Iris asked.

Eden stayed quiet.

‘Fine,’ she said. ‘I’ll ask her myself.’

When they reached the bank, Eden jammed the boat against it with the pole. He took Jane’s hand and helped her onto dry land, then reached out for Iris’s. She let herself be lifted, but skipped over the side by herself. ‘All I’m trying to explain,’ Eden said, staring after her, ‘is that there are plenty of people in the world who believe a preacher can rid them of their pain.’

‘So what?’ Yin said, climbing out.

Eden threw him the tether and huffed out a heavy sigh. ‘So if Pastor John Hoolihan can do it with nothing but a spray-on tan and a smile, what makes you think
I
can’t? I’m better equipped than he is. I understand things that he couldn’t even come close to understanding.’

Oscar jumped onto the bank, linking arms with Iris. The fresh air had roughened her skin.

‘That’s different,’ Yin said, hitching the rope to a stump. ‘Nobody can argue with Jesus.’ And he went off through the tall grass, laughing, before Eden had a chance to respond.

Every night at seven, Andrea would drop Crest off at the house, leaving the engine running while she helped him to the front door. She’d ring the bell and leave the old man standing there by the great glass entrance, and wouldn’t return until around ten thirty, the milky daub of her headlights brightening the flowerbeds. Oscar would go to greet Crest in the atrium and he’d take him to the drawing room and pour him a glass of water. The old man would sit there gulping it down every time, like it was the first drink he’d had in months. Then he’d hand the glass back and ask for another. He’d drink the second more slowly and, if the others were around, he’d take the opportunity to ask them a few questions: How did they all know Eden? What were their best memories of Eden? How did they all learn to play so well—did Eden teach them? What could they tell him about Eden’s parents? After a while, they seemed to get tired of these questions. They started to avoid being in the house when Crest arrived each night, and would wave at him from the far end of the garden, or from the top of the stairs.

Oscar couldn’t tell what Crest thought about Marcus, Yin, and Jane—or if it really mattered in the scheme of things—but Crest
did
seem to care about the impression he was making on them: ‘I bet they see me as a sad, strange old man, huh, coming here every night to get my head wet? They must think I’m desperate as hell.’

‘I think they just feel sorry for the pain you’re in,’ Iris told him.

‘Well, haven’t they heard? Sympathy’s a waste of time.’

When he was done with his third glass of water, Crest would go out to the organ house and rap his knuckles against the oak. Eden would let him inside and they’d spend an hour together, just the two of them, with the doors locked. Crest liked to call these moments ‘our little sit-downs’. As much as Oscar tried to see in through the windows, as much as he leaned his ear against the gap in the doors and tried to hear what they were discussing, all he could make out were a few dull mumbles and two fuzzy shapes. He couldn’t even tell which of them did most
of the talking—from outside, their voices had the same rhythm, the same dry timbre—and Crest would never tell him anything afterwards. He said it would be wrong to betray Eden’s confidence, and if it was all going to end up in the book anyway, what was the problem?

On the phone each morning, he’d be just as elusive, speaking to Oscar in vague phrases he knew would placate him: ‘Oh, it’s like drawing blood from a stone in there sometimes, but I’m satisfied with how things are going’; ‘We still have a long road ahead of us’; ‘I know I don’t have much time to play with here, Oscar, but I’ve never rushed anything in my life and I’m not about to start.’

The longer it went on, the less they all seemed to think about what they were involved in. What took place in the organ house each night became perfunctory, an ordinary social event as mundane as a band rehearsal or a visit to the cinema. Around eight o’clock they would file into the organ house, barely a word passing between them. They’d take up their usual positions and go through the precise routine of it all over again. There was something quite pacific about the ceremony of it.

Iris would go straight to her cello to tune it. Marcus and Jane would kneel, opening their folders of notation. Yin would stand with his arms folded, staring down at Crest with a kind of pity. Oscar would change the tape in the camera, clean the lens with his jumper. Crest would dust off the tuning forks and ready himself without a smirk, without a shrug, accepting each wet strand of muslin like a Catholic taking his communion wafer. As soon as Eden struck the first organ note, they fell into gear—the music took over them; the thrill of playing, of being involved in something, no matter how crazy, held a certain power over them. They knew their parts well and performed them with a kind of involuntary focus. And although they knew better than to glance towards Eden for a nod of approval when they sang their counterpoint harmonies in perfect sync, Oscar would catch some of them doing it now and then.

Only Iris wavered from the routine: she couldn’t help but embellish moments of her cello line, adding new runs, new flourishes. For the most part, she would stick to the pattern of things, but there were chords that she bowed differently, notes she held a fraction longer every night. Oscar knew that she wasn’t doing this to steal the limelight from her brother; it was just how she played. If she couldn’t add her own individuality to a piece of music, she grew bored. Eden must have noticed it. But he seemed to tolerate her ornamentations; he’d furrow his brow or give a little shake of his head, but wouldn’t admit to his frustration.

Then, late on Thursday, after Crest had gone home and the others were winding down in the drawing room, Oscar looked through the French doors and saw the two of them arguing outside the rectory. He didn’t like the way Eden was clutching so tightly at her elbow, how Iris was struggling to prise herself from his grip. Her face was flushed and the sleeve of her cardigan was snagged between her brother’s fingers. Oscar could hear their raised voices as he hurried out through the back door. ‘Come and look,’ Eden was shouting. ‘Come and look at it on the page, if you don’t believe me. Don’t argue.’