Do you have lots of friends?
Daisy wondered if Melissa was being sarcastic.
You know, like, other Christians?
We are allowed to have friends who aren’t Christians.
Sorry, that was stupid.
Though Dad was right, her old friends had indeed drifted away, and what had seemed at first a kind of cleansing left a hole more painful than she’d expected. She knew it had been there all the time, that her friends had been a bandage over a wound she was now able to heal, but still she couldn’t bring herself to answer the question, so she flipped it round. You must have loads of friends.
Melissa just laughed. I fucking hate all of them. She took a deep breath and turned to Daisy. Sorry about all the swearing.
We’re allowed to swear, too. Though Tim had told her off for saying Shit.
I get so fucking lonely. A brief pause in the turning of the world. There I go again. Fuck-fuck-fuckity-fuck. She squeezed her eyes shut but couldn’t stop the tears.
OK, people, said Dominic, let’s saddle up and move out.
Daisy gazed at the ground between her feet. A little archipelago of yellow moss on a speckled grey stone.
Are you coming or not? shouted Dominic.
Melissa’s got a splinter. We’ll catch you up. She watched her mother get to her feet and realised that she was in some pain.
Thanks, said Melissa quietly.
♦
New Leaves split from the Vineyard church in 1999. Tim and Lesley Canning were feeling increasingly alienated by the direction the church was taking. Rock music, the Toronto Blessing, speaking in tongues. They held meetings in their kitchen, spreading out to other prayerhouses as the membership grew, then taking out a lease on a hall vacated by a judo club. They were near the university and provided a safe harbour for young people who were often a very long way from home. Singapore, Uganda, the Philippines. They had a stall at the Freshers’ Fair and ran weekly Frisbee and Donut afternoons during the summer. Most church members went out onto Lever Street for a couple of hours every week as part of the Healing Project. Tim had always disliked banner-waving street evangelism, for surely the Lord saved souls not crowds, so they struck up conversations with people who seemed lonely or broken in some way, many of whom were desperate for help. They formed a circle and prayed and often you could feel the presence of Jesus wheeling around that ring of hands like electricity. One man’s cancer went into remission. A man possessed by demons was exorcised and no longer heard voices in his head.
Daisy found it preposterous at first, but the preposterousness would later became part of the appeal, the sheer distance between the church and the world which had served her so poorly. She accepted the invitation to that first service as proof of her own broadmindedness and needed a great deal of it to get through the sixty minutes. Embarrassment, mostly, at the way these people spoke and sang like over-excited children, and mild disgust when everyone was invited to hug their neighbour and she found herself briefly in the arms of a man who, frankly, smelt. Which would have been her remaining impression had not her beeline for the door been intercepted by a tiny Indian woman with bangles and a surprisingly red dress and a smile which seemed to Daisy to be the only genuine thing she had experienced since her arrival. She held out her hand. Anushka. You must be Daisy.
♦
I’ve done bad things. They were sitting apart from the others, far enough away to feel private but near enough to prevent Richard shouting or storming off. That bell-jar feeling, everything muffled and far off. She really did think she might vomit.
Are we talking about a criminal record of some kind? He laughed, not hearing the crack in her voice.
No, not that.
He heard it now, but didn’t think of Louisa as someone who had done anything of great significance, either good or bad, rather as someone who had put herself at the service of others so that they could do things of significance. Tell me.
She closed her eyes. There was no way back. After Craig and I split up I slept with a lot of men.
How many? The doctor talking.
Ten. Ten men. A little white lie. Did it sound that bad? Only if you knew the dates, perhaps. I was drinking a lot at the time. It didn’t seem so awful now that it was out there. She’d been lonely. She’d made mistakes. Say something. Please.
I’m thinking about it. He wanted to know the details and didn’t want to know them.
If only he would reach out and hold her. I took an AIDS test. But it didn’t sound reassuring when she said it out loud…Blood and semen. I’m really sorry. Why was she apologising to him? Why hadn’t he saved her sooner?
He couldn’t think of what to say. Was he being a prude? Of course he was, but how did one change?
Richard…?
It disturbs me a little.
What? Her anger surprised her. He was disgusted. She tried to keep her voice down so that Dominic or Angela didn’t hear.
I’m just trying to be honest.
I trusted you completely. The girl. The one who ended up in a wheelchair. I never for one moment doubted you when…
That’s different.
Why is it different, Richard…?
Because it wasn’t my fault.
You think I deliberately set out to be…?
He couldn’t stop himself. You don’t sleep with ten men by accident. He wasn’t trying to be unkind, it seemed to him to be simply a fact.
Do you actually love me, Richard? Or do you just like having me around as long as I don’t cause any problems?
Of course I love you. Something perfunctory about his answer. They both heard it but he couldn’t change the tone retrospectively.
I’m not sure you know what love means. She had never spoken like this before, not to Richard. There was a sickly thrill in riding the wave.
I know what love means.
So tell me.
It means… but what could he say? It wasn’t something you put into words.
She got to her feet. You come and tell me when you’ve worked out the answer.
♦
The priory, fixed amongst a barbarous people in the Vale of Ewyas, is now a hotel with four bedrooms, each one leading off the spiral staircase of the tower. We advise guests to arrive during bar opening times so as to avoid waiting outside. Ruined arches striding away like the legs of a great stone spider. Transepts, triforium, clerestory. Eight hundred years of wind and rain and theft. Sir Richard Colt Hoare sees the great west window fall in 1803. Banks of mown green baize. Holly Hop and Brains Dark in the cool of the vaulted bar. Snickers and tubs of Ben & Jerry’s with wooden spoons under the plastic lids. Traffic making its way up the valley to Gospel Pass against the flow of the ghost ice, stopping for lorries to reverse, idling behind cyclists. Four pony-trekkers. A steel, a bay roan, two chestnuts. A brief Jacob’s ladder of sunlight, as if heaven were searching for raiders moving over the earth.