Michel Faber - The Book of Strange New Things

‘I’m going back soon,’ he protested.

She shrugged. ‘Whatever.’

He spent the next couple of hours walking outside, circling the compound. He considered walking all the way to the Oasan settlement. How long would that take him? Weeks, probably. It was a mad idea, mad. He needed to be here to receive Bea’s next message. She would be asleep now. She would be asleep for hours yet. They should be sleeping together. Being apart was wrong. Simply lying side by side did more for a relationship than words. A warm bed, a nest of animal intimacy. Words could be misunderstood, whereas loving companionship bred trust.

He returned to his quarters, worked on Bible paraphrases, and moped. Waves of hunger plagued him, interspersed with the urge to vomit. More hours passed. Finally, after having checked the Shoot in vain at least a hundred times, he was put out of his misery:

Dear Peter,

No time to write a long letter as I’m about to go to a funeral but I am still very distraught and exasperated with you. Am making a special effort however to check my spelling so that you don’t accuse me of being drunk. Actually I’d just about recovered from that one when hey presto, you suggest I become an unemployed rural housewife!

Sorry, I know sarcasm is unhelpful.

I’ll write again when I’m back from the funeral. Although I may have to spend some time with Sheila first. She’s going through hell.

I do love you, insane as you are,

Bea

At once he responded:

Dear Bea,

It lifted my spirits so much to hear (read) you say that you love me. I’ve barely been able to function all day for grief at the trouble between us. You are so much more important to me than my mission.

Although you don’t say so in so many words, it’s obvious from your message that Billy Frame committed suicide after all, despite the concern we all felt for him and your recent efforts to offer him support. I can still picture him the way he was when he was a little kid and he was beaming with pride at the wall hanging he and the other children made for us. How awful for Sheila. I can only imagine how stressed you must be by all of this. The fact that you used the word ‘Hell’ to denote something other than eternal separation from God speaks volumes.

I’m sorry you interpreted my suggestions about moving to the country as a plot to turn you into an unemployed rural housewife. I’m sure there will be jobs out there — probably even nursing jobs, less horrible ones (probably) than what you have now. Nor am I suggesting that I’ll spend all day chopping wood or growing vegetables (even though I’ve become quite a happy fieldworker out here). There may be a church that needs a pastor. But whatever work opportunities there are (or aren’t), we should leave it in the hands of the Lord.

I’m deeply sorry about the thoughtless way I have spoken about Grainger and Maneely. Yes, they are females but my role in their lives is strictly pastoral — or would be if they were open to the Lord’s grace, which they don’t seem to be. Maneely has just told me in no uncertain terms that she is not interested.

Words are my profession but I don’t always use them wisely, nor are they always the best way of getting things across. I wish I could just hold you and reassure you. I’ve let you down in the past, in worse ways than I’m doing now, and we got through it together because we love each other. That love is based on communication but it’s also based on something that’s almost impossible to describe, a sense of rightness when we’re in each other’s company, a sense we only connect with when we’re with other people who aren’t right for us. I am missing you so much, darling.

All my love,

Peter

‘What you want won’t be easy to arrange,’ Grainger told him shortly afterwards.

‘But possible?’

The simplemindedness of the question irked her. ‘Everything’s possible if you throw enough labour and resources at it.’

‘I don’t want to cause havoc for USIC,’ he said, ‘but this is very important to me.’

‘Why not just come back to base at shorter intervals? You might be in better shape if you did.’

‘It wouldn’t work. The Oasans live at their own pace. I need to be among them, share in their routines. I can’t just drop in and then get whisked away all the time. But if I had a Shoot out there… ’

‘… we might never see you again.’

‘Please. My wife needs my support. I’m missing her. And maybe whatever you’d have to build to make the Shoot work would come in useful for some other purpose. Once it was there.’

She narrowed her eyes. He realised belatedly that he hadn’t asked her how she was or made any pleasantries before hitting her with this demand.

‘I’ll see what we can do,’ she said.

Dear Peter, he read as soon as he got back.

I wish you had offered to come home instead of reminding me how much money we stand to make if you stay. Yes, I know that it was tremendously laborious and expensive for USIC to invite you. If you’d offered to leave now I probably would have argued you out of it. But it would have been nice to think that you felt enough concern to consider it as a possibility, which you plainly didn’t. It’s clear you are 100 % determined to serve out your time. I understand: it’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance.

Your urgings for us to move to the countryside have stirred up my emotions because it’s only natural for someone in my position to wish desperately that we could just escape all the fiascos and start afresh in idyllic surroundings. But then my common sense kicks in and I’m exasperated with you. Do you have any idea what the countryside is really like? Do you ever read newspapers? (Rhetorical question — I know I’m the one with that sordid habit.) The countryside is a wasteland of decaying factories, bankrupt farms, long-term unemployed, ugly supermarkets and charity shops. (Hey, I wonder if the supermarkets have unsold reserves of chocolate desserts? Now there’s an incentive…) The money you’ll be paid for your USIC appointment is substantial but it’s not a fortune and a fortune is what we’d need to set ourselves up. There are still picturesque, safe, middle-class bits of rural Britain where I’m sure our child would have a nicer start than here in the city but they come at a very steep price. If our child was dumped in some godforsaken town where half the population is alcoholic or on drugs, and the schools are full of low achievers and social work cases, we’ll be no better off. You say, leave it in the hands of the Lord, but whose decision would it be to move in the first place? Yours.

In any case, grieved as I am about the way things are done at my hospital, I still have an ongoing commitment to the place and I feel there’s still things I can do to help. I’m also scared that if I quit this job I won’t be able to get another one, because unemployment levels are soaring as the economy implodes.

Speaking of which: It’s only a few days before I’m due to go back to work and hey presto, I got a letter from Goodman. Once again, I must say that nobody in the history of the world ever had a less appropriate name and it’s criminal that a person like this is in charge of deciding how our hospital allocates its resources. Anyway, the letter is basically a threat. He alludes to some of my more conspicuous episodes of patient advocacy and hints that in the ‘current circumstances’, our hospital cannot afford to devote ‘disproportionate’ staff energies & funds to ‘clients who are least likely to respond optimally to our care’. Which is Goodmanspeak for: we shouldn’t waste our time on anyone who’s mentally ill, bolshie, ancient or too badly injured/cancer-ridden to ever shake the doctor’s hand and say Ta Ta & Thanks For Everything. What Goodman wants is more cleft palate repairs, more robust blokes with fractures, kids with 2 nddegree burns, youngish women getting lumps excised, etc. And he wants my promise that I won’t cause trouble. And he hints that if I don’t guarantee better behaviour, he may ‘re-evaluate’ whether I’m allowed back at all!