Alex Preston - The Revelations

Marcus shimmered his most winning smile at the grey-haired partner.

‘No idea. Don’t give a fuck either. I want you to drop Crystal and come with me. I’ve a case I think will really grab you. Fascinating business and needs your brain on it. A Chinese bank is trying to sue Plantagenet Partners. It’s going to be a massive job. Hope you’re not busy over the next few weeks. I’m going to need you to run through walls on this one. Most complicated buggeration of a case I’ve seen.’

Marcus tried to adjust his cock under the desk, stood awkwardly, and followed the partner out. They walked down the corridor together.

‘The first thing you should know is that the Chinese have a bloody strong case. You’re going to need to be pretty tricksy on this one. I’ve already made sure that the boys at Plantagenet have got rid of all the records relating to the transaction that they don’t absolutely have to keep. You might want to encourage them to lose a few more. Software issues, or something. This case will teach you that being a good lawyer means always being one step ahead of the law. Hope I’m making myself clear. .’

Marcus was late for the Course that night. He had slipped away as soon as Faraday went to buy his dinner, but the Tube chuntered slowly, pausing ominously with flickering lights between stations. When he finally arrived at Sloane Square, he ran flat out down the middle of the King’s Road. He came to the familiar black railings and sprinted up the gravel driveway and into the church. David’s voice was very low, very intense, and stopped Marcus as he slipped inside the heavy wooden door.

‘Hopefully some of you will have felt something when we prayed at the end of the last session. If you didn’t feel anything, then don’t worry. It happens at different speeds and with different intensities for different people. But just keep on praying, keep on asking God to come into your life. And he will come. I remember a Course member several years back who approached me on the final day of the Course. He said that he had been asking God to come in and was beginning to despair when he sat in the church silently after one Tuesday-night session. And what he realised, he told me, was that God had been there all along, that he simply needed to open his mind a little more to see that.’

Here he put his hand on the Bible that sat on his lectern, closed his eyes and nodded. From his vantage point at the back of the church, Marcus could see Leo, the lighting and sound engineer, slowly increasing the intensity of the white light until it looked as though the priest had a halo. David opened his eyes suddenly and fixed the room with a fierce gaze.

‘What happens when it gets difficult? When the doubts that we — quite naturally — feel grow into something more fundamental, more painful? What happens when we lose our ability to speak to God? For me, it was to do with suffering. You may know that the Course runs a charity out in South Africa that buys a Bible for every schoolchild in Soweto when they reach the age of twelve. I went out there seven years ago and it was quite wonderful to see the joy on the faces of those young people as they were handed their Bibles and given a blessing. But I also saw some very painful things. I went with a group of the children to visit their parents in an AIDS clinic. I took two of the kids to get tested there themselves. One of them had the disease. I spent time talking with this wide-eyed, happy little girl, and I knew that, because her mother was sick and she had no other family, she wouldn’t be able to get hold of drugs to treat her condition and would very likely die young and alone.’

David looked up, his pale eyes moist.

‘I found myself assaulted by some very serious doubts. What were we doing giving these children Bibles, I asked myself, when there were things they needed so much more? And how could my God, the God I’d given my life to serve, allow this to happen? These doubts caught me quite by surprise. I think that many of us feel that once we have filled that God-shaped hole that we all feel inside us, that we’re there, that we’ve done all of the hard work. But faith requires constant attention. It took me a lot of prayer, a lot of late-night discussions with Sally, and the Bishop and other Course members, before I found my faith again. The problem of suffering is one of the great struggles for the believer, and it’s one you must continue to fight. Now let us pray.’

Marcus made his way tiptoeing down the aisle and took up his seat beside Abby, who was bent over in prayer, her hair hanging down in fronds that were caught in the candlelight. After a few moments he was standing again as they made their way to the stage. He hadn’t been able to attend the last band practice and knew that he was going to struggle to keep up. His fingers felt fat and lethargic, he was still thinking about the case Michael Faraday had brought him in on, was still mentally outside the church, unprepared for the shift away from the everyday world.

As the weeks passed, Course regulars were allowed to move further forward in the church, so that the new members grew used to the sense of being part of a revelation, a happening. Marcus looked at the congregation as his guitar stumbled its way through the first song. Three blonde girls stood with their faces turned upwards, broad smiles unleashed at the stage. They sang along with Abby, swaying as they sang. They were the wives of three of the Course’s largest donors — a trio of hedge-fund entrepreneurs who were millionaires by twenty-seven. One of the girls was enormously pregnant. Her belly rocked from side to side as she moved. Marcus could see the outline of her belly button pressing against her black T-shirt.

Abby had sung the first song standing very still, her hands pressed together in prayer, her eyes closed, her face turned upwards. The next song was faster and Marcus had to lean over his bass and watch his fingers, looking up every so often to try to work out which chords David was playing. Marcus felt that the band was only a small step away from catastrophe. He was certain he was about to lose track of the music altogether. Lee was slumped at the piano, dejection hovering in a cloud over her, her chords thin and without feeling. Mouse was spinning his sticks in the air, half an eye on the three girls in the front row. Only David held them together, his rhythm guitar accelerating as the song moved towards the chorus.

It was then that Abby started to dance. David approved of dancing. He believed that it helped the congregation draw closer to a state of ecstasy. But Abby was really moving, lifting the microphone stand off the ground and slamming it back down, kicking her legs up in the air and whooping between the lines of the chorus. Slowly, the audience picked up on her energy, and the three girls in the front row raised their hands above their heads. Neil, Maki and Philip, standing in the pew behind the girls, began to shuffle awkwardly. Some of the younger members off to the side stood on their chairs, people moved to the open spaces of the aisle and the Lady Chapel and danced wildly, shaking their heads and holding their hands up to the stage, which was now flooded with bright white light. The twins spun in a tight circle in the centre of the aisle, gripping each other by the elbows. The stained-glass window behind the band was luminous, the altar cloth glowed gold. When the final chorus arrived everyone was singing, the music pounded with the rhythm of their hearts, the dancing reached a frenzy and the three girls at the front were shrieking, thumping their chests and then screaming out. Then the final chord and the last echoes swirled up into the high silence of the roof.

Abby bent double, her arms hanging down at her sides. Marcus was breathing heavily. His fingers were numb from playing, small blood blisters grew in the channels that ran across his fingertips. The cheering started. Throughout the church they applauded, calling out and laughing and shouting their approval. Even Lee was smiling. Mouse was juggling his drumsticks and then played a quick roll on the snare. When the cheering stopped, they left the stage and made their way downstairs for the discussions.