We all nodded and agreed.
Towards closing time, I noticed that Khalid was looking somewhat pensive.
“A penny for them,” I said.
“Oh, I was just remembering something. You recall a while back, Matt said something along the lines that the Kéthani are in the power of God?”
I nodded. “It struck me as bizarre, too.”
“Well… What he said just doesn’t sit with what I experienced on Kéthan, with what I learned.”
“Go on.” Conversation around the table had ceased, and all eyes were on Khalid.
“The odd thing is, when I look back on my experience of resurrection on Kéthan, to be honest I can’t actually recall exactly what happened.” He smiled. “I learned a lot about myself. I became a better human being. And I know I absorbed philosophies, too. Anyway, the abiding impression I gained is that the Kéthani don’t believe in a spiritual afterlife. I gathered that they think the foundation of the universe is purely materialistic. That’s why they go about the universe, bestowing immortality upon ‘lesser’ races…” He shrugged. “I think Matt’s deluding himself.”
Elisabeth said, “But you said yourself that you don’t have a perfect recollection of what happened.”
He nodded. “I know. And perhaps I’m wrong. But that doesn’t make me any the less worried for Matt, though.”
As we were leaving the pub that evening, Elisabeth caught up with me and said, “About Matt, Andy—you’re seriously concerned?”
I said reassuringly, “I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about, Elisabeth.”
Three days later, though, I had cause to revise that opinion.
I was driving home from a job in Leeds, taking the treacherous moor road towards Bradley. The roads had been gritted the night before, but were still icy in patches, and the undulating countryside on either hand was resplendent with snow in the light of the setting sun.
I was a couple of miles from Oxenworth when I saw the old Micra.
It had veered off the lane and into the ditch, and the driver’s door was flung open. I slowed as I approached. There was no sign of the driver or any other occupant.
I braked and only then realised that I recognised the vehicle. It was Matt’s. The mental alarm bells started ringing.
I jumped from my car and strode over to the little red car, half expecting to find Matt collapsed in the ditch.
He wasn’t, but what I found was perhaps even more worrying. A set of footprints led away from the abandoned vehicle, up the snow-covered grass verge towards a stile. On the other side, I made out the footsteps disappearing off up the rise of a field.
I set off in pursuit, wondering what on earth might have provoked Matt into leaving the car, climbing the wall, and haring off over a snow-covered field at sunset.
I clambered over the stile and sank into the snow up to my knees. I plodded up the incline, panting with the unaccustomed exercise. It was hard going, as I had to lift my feet high to clear the snow with each step.
I followed the trail left by Matt up the rise of the field to its high crown. The evidence of the snow showed that he’d stumbled from time to time, creating churned areas of dark shadow in the blindingly white mantle.
I wondered how long he’d been out here and hoped that I wouldn’t find him unconscious after hours of exposure.
In the event I found him fully conscious, though that hardly came as a relief.
I crested the crown of the hill and peered down the other side. I made out a dark figure, reduced in the distance. It gave the odd impression of being that of a dwarf, at first, until I realised that Matt was kneeling in the snow so that only his upper body showed.
I yelled his name and clumsily galumphed down the hillside.
“Matt! What the hell—”
I drew near. He was kneeling in prayer, his red hands clasped beneath his chin, and his body was shaking with sobs.
“Matt!” I cried again, falling beside him and putting my arm around his shoulders.
He seemed barely aware of my presence. He was staring into the distance, his expression at once amazed and terrified.
“Matt!”
He turned and stared at me. “Andrew?”
“Come on,” I said, attempting to haul him to his feet. The cold was getting to me, and I could only assume that Matt was half-frozen. “Back to my car.”
“Andrew,” he went on, “if only you could have seen them! They were… beautiful and at the same time terrible. The light… But what can they mean, Andrew? What portent? Am I damned or exalted? What do they mean?”
It was his words, more than the fact of his sequestration in the middle of a frozen field, that alarmed me then. Initially I had been worried for his physical health; now I worried about his mental stability.
“They were at the side of the road,” he said, “watching me. I stopped and climbed out. They moved, flew towards the sunset, creatures of such beauty and grace, Andrew.” He stared at me as I hauled him to his feet and walked him slowly back to the car. “But what can they want with me?”
Somehow I managed to get him over the stile and safely ensconced in the passenger seat of my car. I found his keys and locked his Micra, then drove the remaining mile into the village.
He sat beside me, hunched, occasionally wiping his eyes with a big handkerchief. He said nothing, and I found it impossible to initiate any meaningful conversation. At one point he broke down again, sobbed briefly, and then pulled himself together—actually squared his shoulders and sat upright, as if chastising himself for such a lapse.
I drove him to his house beside the church. “I’ll see you inside, Matt,” I said.
I helped him from the car and walked him down the drive. He gave me the keys and I opened the door and ushered him into the lounge. He sat on the sofa, fingering his rosary, while I fixed a couple of stiff scotches from a well-stocked bar in the corner of the room.
He gripped the glass and smiled at me. “I needed this, Andrew. Thanks.”
“If there’s anything else I can do…?” I said lamely.
He shook his head. “I’m fine. It’s just… well, it isn’t every day that one is pursued by angels, is it? I cannot help but wonder what it is they want with me.”
I smiled and looked away from his penetrating gaze.
“Do you know, Andrew, sometimes, I can’t work out whether I am blessed, or damned…”
I considered what Khalid had told me last night, about his experience on Kéthan, and wondered whether to broach the subject with Matt. I decided against it, however: he was confident in his belief, one might almost say his passion. Who was I to gainsay that?
A little later, after assuring him that I’d fetch his car, and his reassuring me that he was feeling much better now, I took my leave and repaired to the Fleece.
It was after nine by this time, and the table by the fire was crowded. Khalid, Ben, and Elisabeth budged up to make room for me. Dan said, “I was just telling the others, Andy. On the way over from Bradley I saw a car abandoned in the ditch. I’m sure it was Matt’s. You know? That little red one he has?”
I nodded. “I know. I saw it too—then I found Matt.”
I gave them the story.
Everyone was silent when I finished. I looked around the table, and the similar expressions of concern on the faces was in an odd way reassuring. It confirmed what I’d thought for a while: these men and women, my friends for over a year since I moved to the village, were good people.
“So,” I said into the silence. “What do we do?”
Dan said, “Is there much we can do, Andy? Be there for him…”
“Perhaps,” Elisabeth said, “the Catholic Church has some kind of… I don’t know… helpline for distressed clergy.”
“Maybe we should contact his bishop,” Ben suggested.