Alex Preston - The Revelations

Mouse paused. ‘I don’t think it’s fraudulent. Or no more fraudulent than the building itself, you know? The Earl just wanted to get the whole thing right. Because his family couldn’t have lived here for that many generations. Lancing Manor was only built in 1890. None of it is older than that. It’s why it manages to feel so authentic. It’s new enough to be convincing.’

‘I always find him a bit sinister. I know he does amazing things for the Course, but I can’t shake the feeling that he’s only in it for the money, that all the talk of building the Course into a global franchise is just so that he can somehow make more cash out of it. I’m sure he gets backhanders from the hedge funds we use for the Course’s investments. I can never understand why we stick with some of the funds that are clearly going down. Except that the managers are Course members.’

‘But that’s it, isn’t it? The Earl is sending out a message that he’ll stick with people as long as they keep attending the Course. I think he wants to make it so that you can’t get anywhere in the City unless you’re a Course member. You’ve seen how the bankers all get together after services. They look after each other. Anyway, the Earl doesn’t need money.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I heard him talking to Neil earlier. He’s just made twenty million pounds on his Chinese stamp collection.’

‘What?’

‘When everyone else was buying up the Chinese stock market, the Earl sat down and tried to work out what else would rise in value when the economy took off there. He settled on stamps. Stamp collecting is a very middle-class hobby there, as it was here, I suppose. The Earl realised that as the middle class grew, stamps would rise in value. He bought up some major private stamp collections in the late nineties. Sold them at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong last week.’

‘That’s amazing.’

They smoked in silence for a while. Mouse put his arm around Marcus’s shoulder and spoke softly in his ear.

‘Will you speak to Lee? I’m so worried about her at the moment. She’s worse than ever. I can barely look at her.’

‘I’ve tried. It’s hard to get through to her. She seems so distant.’

‘It’s not just her promiscuity. Although have you noticed how that side of things always flares up when she’s in one of her slumps? Sometimes when I see her face the sadness just swamps me. The poor thing needs help.’

‘Should we tell David?’

‘I think he’s already spoken to her. He knows everything.’

‘Of course he does, he’s David.’

‘Will you try again? We all look up to you. You know that, don’t you, sport?’

‘That’s. . that’s really sweet. Thanks.’

Mouse squeezed Marcus’s shoulder and then let his hand fall to his side. Someone coughed in the darkness.

‘Marcus? Mouse? Are you up there?’

It was Maki. She walked across the grass and leaned between Marcus and Mouse on the metal rail. Drawing out a packet of thin menthol cigarettes, she lit one as Mouse sent his own spinning down into the shrubbery.

‘My friends told me that the Course would be a good way to meet real English people.’

Marcus liked the softness of her voice, the kindness in her dark eyes.

‘But I hadn’t realised quite what a small world it would be. I feel very foreign among so many girls who look alike.’

‘It’s not surprising though, is it? Given where the church is, where it draws its followers from?’ Marcus tried to read her face in the dim light as he spoke. ‘The church is supposed to represent its local community, and even though people come from all over London to join the Course, to worship at St Botolph’s, the place necessarily attracts a type of person who feels comfortable in that square among those high, disapproving houses.’

‘Or wants to feel comfortable there,’ Mouse said, fiddling with his signet ring. ‘When I first joined the Course, I found it very intimidating. It was like being at university again, all of these rituals that everyone else seemed to know inside out. But I wanted to be part of that world. It was glamorous and the people were so grand-looking.’

‘Don’t you find it a bit claustrophobic, though?’ said Maki. ‘I do wonder how effective the Course can be when it draws from such a narrow group of people.’

‘St Botolph’s is just the beginning,’ said Mouse, lighting another cigarette. ‘It’s the base for our global expansion. And at the moment we do need people who are able to finance this evangelism, who can work for free or very little while we get the thing established. Remember that St Botolph was the patron saint of travellers and missionaries. We won’t be stuck in Chelsea for ever — we’re getting out into the world and spreading the word.’

‘I suppose so. .’ She stared out into the darkness.

‘You’re part of our family now,’ Mouse said quietly. He put his arm around her shoulders. ‘We’re incredibly fond of you. I really don’t know what we’d do if you left.’

‘I didn’t say I was leaving. Just that I don’t feel totally comfortable yet.’

‘You will, though. Because we love you, and we want you always to be one of us.’

‘That’s really sweet. Thank you.’

Marcus and Mouse waited for Maki to finish her cigarette and then the three of them made their way back down the spiral stairway and into the dining hall. Abby and Lee were standing in front of the open doors of the armoire. The twins were only visible from the waist downwards as they burrowed among the dark shapes hanging in the cupboard. Marcus saw Abby running her hands over one of the shapes and realised that it was a long fur jacket. Maki walked over to join the girls and the twins emerged, fox stoles wrapped around their throats.

‘Let’s put them on,’ said Mouse, running over to the cupboard. ‘Why don’t we get dressed up and go and find the motorway?’ His words tumbled out as he pulled down a rabbit-skin jacket and wrapped it around himself, seized a bottle of red wine and threw open the doors of the hall, turning around with a laugh. He dragged a chair over to the cupboard and rummaged along the top shelf until he found a blue three-pointed hat.

‘I’m going to be Napoleon,’ he said, pulling it down over his head. It was far too big for him and covered his ears. His eyes bulged from the shadow cast by the brim.

Invigorated by Mouse’s enthusiasm, the other Course members jostled to find coats that fitted them. Only Abby hung back for a moment.

‘Should we really be taking these? It seems rude, without asking.’

‘We won’t damage them. Come on, Abby, no one will know.’ Mouse was shouting now, already down the steps and pointing towards the haze of synthetic light that hung over the pine trees.

There were enough jackets for all of the members, although Philip’s was too short and meant that he held out his arms like a zombie as he walked. The twins had to hitch up the long tails of their own jackets, making their way daintily down the steps of the dining hall and onto a path that ran between thickly planted pine trees downhill to the lake. Mouse used his lighter to illuminate the path as he scuttled wheezing ahead, past the lake and the boathouse whose roof was brushed by pine branches. The earth at their feet was red; Marcus drew in a breath, savouring the scent of the soil and the pines and, faintly, woodsmoke. Or the woodsmoke might have been a scent-memory, a smell that had at some previous time existed strongly for him alongside the smell of the earth and the pines and was therefore repeated here.

The hill steepened as they descended. Ferns trembled in damp clumps above clusters of mossy rocks. Marcus slowed to help Abby climb over the knotted roots that spread from the bases of the trees. Then down into a gully where the ferns grew very thickly, and without the light of the bright moon that fell between the trees they would have surely had to turn back. Mouse roared ahead with the twins following closely in his wake, fur coats flying like capes behind them. Mouse had one hand pressed down on his head to keep the hat in place. Marcus felt Abby slip her arm inside his jacket and about his waist. Lee had her camera around her neck and was taking photographs of the group, the flash pausing time for a moment, freezing them as they made their way down the hill. Neil brought up the rear with Philip. Looking back, Marcus laughed at Philip’s horizontal arms, at the expression of dignified discomfort on his face as Lee took his picture. The roar of the road was now very loud in their ears and seemed to quiver in the needles of the pines.