Alex Preston - The Revelations

That evening at the Course they played one of these songs. The older Course members knew the words and stood with their arms wide and their faces towards the roof, singing. Staring out over the candlelight, Mouse found himself mouthing along as he drummed. Lee had taken the lyrics from Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Divine Love ; he remembered her scribbling them in an old exercise book one afternoon at her flat, thumbing through a tattered copy of the mystical text as she wrote. Now the ancient words were new-made, sung over driving rock music.

‘In falling and rising again,

We’re always kept in that same precious love.

Between God and the soul there is no in between,

So we pray and our prayers fill our hearts

with your endless love.’

He thumped his foot down on the bass drum, smashed the cymbal and tapped away at the high-hat: it was the perfect instrument for him. Only when he was playing the drums did he lose the feeling of jittery energy that had once sent him running in mad bursts around the quads at university, that caused him to fiddle and jiggle and jerk his way through life.

In the discussion group they talked about the Retreat. Mouse stood up immediately as the group settled in the room in the crypt.

‘It’s the most brilliant experience. It should really be viewed as the pinnacle of your time here. Although there are sessions afterwards, they draw heavily upon what you learn at the Retreat. It’s a time for us to bond, for us to really talk — not in the way we do here, but with real depth. There’ll be a few wee services to go to, but the rest of the time is yours to speak with David, speak with us. I have to say I’m jealous of you. I’d love to have my first Retreat all over again.’

‘My first Retreat’, said Lee, ‘made me feel like a child.’ Her voice took on a dreamy note. ‘It was all so simple, and so perfect. Beautiful autumn weather and time to spend with friends. And they’ve all been like that, ever since. The Retreat is an oasis.’ She was wearing a short denim skirt over dark tights and her hair was tied with an elastic band in an untidy pile on her head. Mouse could smell something rich and unwashed when he moved close to her. He noticed that her tights were laddered.

‘Do you ever get anyone who freaks out? I’ve heard it can be pretty intense.’ Philip was looking at Lee, but Mouse answered him.

‘It’s such a friendly atmosphere. We’ll all be there, you know. It’s like a massive, brilliant sleep-over.’ He smiled.

‘But someone told me you have to speak in tongues. I don’t know if I want to do that. It sounds a bit weird.’ Maki looked at Mouse with her eyebrows raised, but he just smiled and nodded. David had prepared them for this.

‘Don’t worry too much about what you hear. The whole speaking in tongues thing is just a small part of the Retreat. It’s. . it’s a bit like those Magic Eye books. Some people find it really easy, some people just don’t get it. If you let yourself go with the flow, you’ll get there. Just don’t fight it.’

Lee nodded.

‘You know David is always going on about how empty the world feels?’ she said. ‘How our lives are so fragmented and superficial? When you hear the tongues, this beautiful, eerie music, and everyone is chanting together, it makes all of that go away for a while. It’s this most extraordinary feeling of release, as if everything suddenly makes sense. And the silence afterwards, it just blows you away. .’

When the discussion groups were finished, Marcus and Abby said goodbye. Mouse watched them walk off towards the car, Marcus’s arm around Abby’s broad shoulders. A police siren wailed down by the river and Mouse shivered. Lee came up behind him and slipped her arm through his. Huddled together, giving the impression of one body, so closely were they linked, they made their way to the pub under misty cones of light that hung down from the street lamps.

Mouse kept her clasped closely to him as they sat in a dimly lit corner. At first, they were quiet, and he felt her breaths rise and fall under thin ribs, let her pale, drawn face rest on his shoulder as they watched people go to the bar and play fruit machines and walk out to smoke cigarettes. Lee sighed.

‘You know that image from Bede?’ she said.

‘Hmm?’ He had been enjoying the silence and now brought her into focus with difficulty.

‘The one that says our lives are like the flight of a sparrow through the night into a bright mead hall? We fly from darkness into light and laughter and then out again into darkness. Sometimes I feel like I’ve already come out the other side. That my teenage years were my real life, when I lived everything so intensely, when I was completely carefree and wild. And these days I’m just in darkness, flying along without any idea of where I’m going.’

Mouse took a sip of her drink and lifted his arm from around her shoulders. He turned to face her, frowning.

‘Honestly, cheer up, will you? The Retreat’s almost here. Things can’t be as bad as all that now, surely?’

‘I’m afraid they are.’ Her voice was very low.

‘Jesus, Lee, will you get a grip? This self-pity, this constant misery, it’s just exhausting. I could strangle you sometimes.’ His voice rose in pitch and Lee winced. ‘You’re young, you’re very beautiful, you’re scarily clever. A lot of girls would die to have what you have. You need to pull yourself together. This can’t go on.’

‘Please don’t do this. I’m really tightroping at the moment. I need you to keep me steady.’ Lee was knitting her hands in her lap.

Mouse could see that Philip and Maki, who were standing at the bar, had stopped talking and were watching them. He lowered his voice.

‘Your problem, you know, is that you have forged this identity for yourself around religion. Lee the sexy little party girl has been replaced by Lee the pious saint. But it’s not a good religion, not a real one. It’s based upon those hysterical women you are such an expert on.’

‘I’m going to go. . I’m leaving now.’

Mouse gripped her wrist and spoke in a violent whisper.

‘No you’re not, you’re going to sit here and listen to me. What you believe is a heavily mediated, crackpot version of religion. Two hours, two short hours is all we have of Jesus, if you read out everything that he actually says in the Bible. Our entire religion is founded on those two hours. Your problem is that you concentrate too little on Christ’s words and too much on the hysterical writings of a bunch of madwomen.’

‘Some of their stuff is amazing. You’ve said so yourself.’ His hand still gripped her wrist painfully.

‘Some of it is beautiful poetry. I can see how it’s helpful alongside the real thing. But not as a replacement. I’ve met some girls in the Course over the years who seem to have based their belief on St Francis, St Augustine. Both heavily mediated versions of real faith. But at least those saints were adepts, at least they were fully schooled in the doctrine, and could serve as reasonable proxies for Christ. Your women are just early incarnations of Christina Rossetti, wringing their hands and moaning and pretending it’s a religious experience rather than just frustrated sexuality and thwarted ambition. Hildegard, Catherine of Siena, Margery Kempe — hysteria and weeping were to them what sex was to the Wife of Bath. They won’t help you.’

‘But they do help me. They make a huge difference to me. And you didn’t mention Julian of Norwich. She’s no hysteric.’

‘Julian spent all her days locked in a cell meditating on Christ’s suffering on the cross, fixated on his wounds. This is exactly why you’re such a mess. You’ve put suffering and guilt at the very centre of your conception of faith. These women were writing about their religious feelings, but they were also conveying the very painful truth of what it was like to be a woman in fifteenth-century England. Don’t confuse the two. They’re leading you in completely the wrong direction. Faith should be a comfort, not an ordeal.’