‘And it was you who delivered the sign to us,’ the woman said, ‘in person, as it were, and for that we’re profoundly grateful.’
‘I was shipwrecked,’ I said.
Smiling, she shook her head. I had been too literal. I hadn’t understood that facts were only the servants of some far greater message. ‘So long as you remain here,’ she said, ‘you’ll be treated as an honoured guest, a benefactor.’
I lay back, trying to make sense of this strange information.
‘I’ve talked too much,’ the woman said. ‘You should rest now.’ She rose to her feet and moved across the room. Then, with one hand on the door, she turned to face me again. ‘My name’s Rhiannon, by the way.’
For days, it seemed, I slipped in and out of consciousness. Usually, when I came round, there would be people in the room, and they would ask me how I felt or whether there was anything they could do for me. I didn’t always have the strength to answer. I would close my eyes, surrender to the bed’s embrace, my body without weight or substance.
I couldn’t even be sure, at times, if I was awake or asleep. Once, at night, I became convinced that I was lying on a car seat with a warm rug over me. Through the window I could see black trees rushing past at a steep angle. Above them was the sky, paler, and in much less of a hurry. Stars showed dimly. My parents had been talking in hushed voices, but now they were silent. Soon my mother would look round. I would pretend to be asleep. She would reach down and adjust the rug, then gently brush the hair back from my forehead. It felt like the beginning of a holiday — or it could have been the end, the long drive home … Another time I sat up to get a drink of water, and there on the bedside table were the cigarette-lighter and the silver ring — all that these people had found on me, presumably, when they took me into their care. I picked up the lighter and ran my thumb across the flint. To my amazement it produced a flame.
Occasionally I would hear laughter coming from outside, or footsteps, or snatches of conversation, and I remembered what I had read about phlegmatic people, that they were ‘dulcet’ or sweet-tempered, but not necessarily equipped to deal with life’s many tribulations, and gradually I became curious about this community that I was supposed to have saved. I began to question Rhiannon, who seemed to be in charge of my recovery. She told me I should speak to Owen, the man in the blue robes. As founder of the Church of Heaven on Earth, he would be able to give me the answers I was looking for. When I felt well enough, she would arrange an audience.
‘The Church of what?’ I said.
She smiled, the dry skin creasing at the edges of her eyes.
‘It’s true that we call ourselves the Church of Heaven on Earth,’ Owen Quayle said, ‘but I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. We don’t pretend that things are perfect here. The name expresses an aim — or a yearning, perhaps — not a fact.’ He gestured towards a crystal decanter. ‘Can I offer you a drink?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’
I adjusted my shirt collar, which chafed a little. I was dressed in clothes Rhiannon had laid out for me, my own having been ruined by the sea, apparently. On leaving my room that evening — the first time I had ventured beyond the door — I followed her across a cobbled yard, then down an unlit path and out on to a wide two-tiered lawn. To the left of us was a walled garden. To the right lay a swimming-pool, drained for the winter. The lawn swept up to the back of a large country house whose many windows glowed in the dusk. The place had once belonged to an arms dealer, Rhiannon told me, and, before that, to a duke. She took me as far as the door of the library. Go on in, she said. You’re expected. It was a comfortable room, filled with well-worn furniture, oriental carpets, and reading lamps with green glass shades. Three walls were lined with books, and against the fourth, between a pair of heavily curtained windows, stood a leather-topped writing desk and a chair whose cushions were moulded to the shape of Owen Quayle’s body.
When we were settled on adjacent sofas with our wine, he began, in concise and elegant language, to explain the precepts on which his community had been founded. They believed in God, not as a judge or an avenger, but in the abstract sense, as the seed from which the universe had grown, the source or fount of all existence. They were prepared to accept Jesus Christ too, though they saw him as a teacher rather than a divinity; in their opinion, he was simply a man who had encouraged people to treat each other well. They didn’t believe in the resurrection or the life everlasting, and they rejected the notion of an immortal soul. All life was here, on earth. Though they had set themselves apart, on this remote property, they weren’t puritans or ascetics. Far from it. The purpose of their ‘church’ — a word they used in the loosest sense — was not to renounce the world but to savour it, to relish it — to embrace it in all its rich variety. If they had an aim, it was probably happiness, which they tended to define negatively as freedom from distress and pain. In philosophical terms, the system with which they identified most closely was that of Epicurus, whose teachings could be summarised, Owen thought, as follows: to live in tranquillity, to appreciate the gift of life, to have no fear of death. It was an approach that was at once spiritual and rational. Respect remained a fundamental principle, as did a sense of awe and wonder, but faith didn’t really play a part.
‘In that case,’ I said, ‘why did you need a sign?’
Owen nodded, as if he had known such a question might be coming. At that moment, however, we were interrupted by a knock on the door. A man with a shaved head announced that everything was ready, then withdrew. Owen turned back to me. He would be more than happy to continue our discussion, he told me, but it seemed that dinner was served.
He rose to his feet and, reaching for his tall scarlet hat, fitted it carefully on to his head. With his mitre and his robes, it was possible that he had gone too far, but I wouldn’t be the one to say so. Where would I have been without him and his followers? If he wore elaborate clothes, it must be because he thought that there was a place for ritual and hierarchy, that they were things that made people feel safe.
Though Owen wasn’t looking at me, he appeared to feel my gaze on him and to have a rough idea of what I was thinking. ‘I don’t always dress so formally,’ he said, ‘but tonight’s a special occasion, as you’re about to find out.’
The following morning, after breakfast, I went for a walk. In the daylight I could see that they had put me in a stable-block which, like the main house, had been built from limestone, austere and grey. Though it was only a few weeks until Christmas, the sun was shining, and a haze that felt autumnal clung to everything I saw. Tranquil pathways led between high hedges. Lawns were silvery with dew. I passed a lake with an island in the middle, then climbed unsteady steps into a wild meadow. In the distance a black cat picked its way through the tall grasses, setting each paw down with the utmost care, as though the ground were mined. From where I stood, I saw how a ridge encircled the house on three sides, hiding it from the world. The tension and anxiety I had felt while staying with Fernandez had lifted away, and I was filled with a new optimism. Against all the odds I had made it to the Blue Quarter. The crossing had been unorthodox, to say the least — perhaps they all were — but the border was behind me now, and I could start thinking once again about what it was that I wanted to attain. I couldn’t help but believe that there would be less resistance from now on, less danger, that things would, in general, be easier. The essential nature of the people in this country dictated it.