Alex Preston - The Revelations

She leaned towards him again.

‘I say my prayers quite often. When I’ve been really bad.’

Marcus looked at her, frowning.

‘That’s one of the things that bothers me about the Course, though. You have so many people who think that they can act without consequence. As long as God forgives them — which of course he always does — they’re in the clear. They can do almost anything — no matter how cruel.’

‘I suppose that’s what makes you Christians seem so otherworldly. You are cut off from the rest of us by your ability to be forgiven. Whereas, even though I try to pray, I never feel all that confident about it.’

Marcus sipped from the bottle and passed it to her. She took a long gulp and choked a little.

‘You look a lot like a friend of mine. A friend I don’t see any more.’

‘I get that quite a lot. I always take it as an insult. That my face is just this tabula rasa that people project their images onto. I want to be an actress, so I don’t suppose it’s the worst thing.’

‘No, but you look exactly like her. It’s bizarre.’

Marcus looked back towards the house, trying to make out Mouse through the kitchen doors. There was a thick pack of bodies in the room. Everyone was dancing and Marcus found it hard to distinguish between the dancers.

‘Shall we go inside?’ said Rebecca, rising to her knees.

‘Sure,’ said Marcus.

Rebecca took him by the hand again and led him into the surging mass of people. She still carried the bottle of vodka and passed it to him as they began to dance. She fixed her eyes upon his as they moved together, leading him through the sweating, gurning partygoers, spinning him in the darkness. A slower song came on, something deep and trippy, and Marcus felt Rebecca press herself against him. She snaked her thigh between his legs and looked up at him.

‘Here, have one of these,’ she said.

Rebecca emptied a small paper package into her palm. Two white pills. She picked one of them up between small finger and thumb and forced it gently between Marcus’s lips. The pill was bitter and caught in his gullet for a moment. He watched Rebecca take her own pill and then she leaned towards him and kissed him, pushing her tongue where moments before she had pushed her fingers. They continued to kiss as they danced, and he realised that she was smaller than Lee, her hands were like paws on his body, clawing away at him, burrowing under his shirt to twist the hair of his chest. He allowed himself to imagine her as Lee, though, and half-opened his eyes to see the pale skin marked by freckles along her cheekbones.

After fifteen minutes, Marcus began to feel the pill working on him. He seemed to hear the music more clearly, to sense the surge and life of the surrounding dancers. His skin tingled whenever Rebecca touched him and when he kissed her the world seemed concentrated in their mouths; then the music changed again, and he was spinning very quickly, and Rebecca took him by the arm and led him upstairs.

Carrington’s studio was empty when they walked inside. The bright lamp was still on in the corner, casting extraordinary shadows across the room, picking up small sculptures and exploding them against the wall as a violent Guernica of strange, dark images. Marcus took Rebecca in his arms and they began to kiss again. They danced in dreamlike patterns, feeling as much as hearing the music from the party below. Marcus thought suddenly that he could see the mist that had moved in the air that night with Lee. He lifted Rebecca’s jumper off and helped her to undo her shirt. Marcus’s heart banged hard in his chest.

It began to drizzle on the skylight above them. Rebecca, wearing only her underwear, dragged a beanbag to the centre of the room.

‘I love to look up at the sky,’ she said.

‘Lee. .’ Marcus moaned, and then reached down to slip off her pants.

She looked very young. Marcus remembered kissing Lee in her room at university, and tried to imagine what would have happened if Abby had not come in that night. He realised he was still fully clothed. He knelt down on the wooden floor, took one of Rebecca’s ankles in his hand, and began to lick slowly up her leg. His tongue went dry very quickly. He suddenly thought of Darwin, and hoped that the dog wouldn’t be lonely without him there. He reached the top of Rebecca’s leg and slipped his tongue inside her. She moaned quietly, placing her hands in his hair. Marcus began to cry. At first silently, wetting the inside of her thighs with his tears, then in great gulping sobs as he licked hopelessly at her.

‘Oh, you poor darling. Come here, Marcus.’

Rebecca was very good about the whole thing. She held Marcus’s head in her lap until his sobbing receded, and then he told her the whole story. She listened in silence to the tale of Lee Elek, nodding sympathetically whenever Marcus looked up at her. The drizzle had turned into driving rain. Marcus lay down beside Rebecca on the beanbag and they looked up at the sky. She shivered and Marcus found a sheet and draped it over her. The effect of the pill was beginning to wear off and Marcus felt suddenly very tired.

‘I’m sorry. I’m such a mess at the moment. I’m so embarrassed.’

‘Don’t worry. It’s better than my usual experiences up here. I like you, really I do. I would suggest we see each other again. If you weren’t married, that is. And a religious nut.’

Marcus spluttered.

‘I’m joking, I’m joking. But seriously, you need to get out of the Course. Those aren’t good people you have been telling me about. You’re better than that.’

As it began to grow light above them, Marcus said goodbye to Rebecca and crept downstairs. People were sleeping everywhere. The last revellers sat smoking in the rain by the dead fire, umbrellas capturing the smoke as they exhaled it, forming foggy huts around them. Marcus couldn’t find Mouse. He walked out into the dreary morning and trudged up Hackney Road looking for a cab.

*

Marcus slept as the taxi made its way through empty streets across London, his cheek pressed against the cold glass. He woke with a start as they sped along Bayswater Road. It was only when they drew up outside his flat that he realised that he had lost his key. He searched through his pockets, turning out tissues, his phone, his wallet, and a packet of cigarettes, but the key was not there.

‘Fuck,’ he said.

‘No money, mate? Need a bank machine?’ The cabby looked at him in the rear-view mirror.

‘No. I’ve lost my key. Shit!’ Marcus remembered that he had given Abby’s key to Mouse. ‘Listen, would you mind taking me to the top of Ladbroke Grove? Just past the Sainsbury’s. A friend of mine has a spare key.’

‘No problem, mate.’

Marcus was feeling terrible by the time they got to the canal. His mouth was dry, his throat had begun to scratch and his sinuses ache; he could sense that he was coming down with a cold. He paid the driver and stepped out onto the bridge, then made his way down to the towpath. The wind sent the rain raking painfully down his cheeks. He held his arm up, shielding his face with his jacket, but the wind whipped around, and he found himself dancing to try to avoid the rain. Dark clouds raced across the sky as he squelched along the path, his shoes wet through, his socks damp and cold. The trees shuddered in the wind, sending spirals of their last leaves down onto the water to float among the cans and plastic bags. The canal was brown with fallen leaves, pockmarked by the rain.

Marcus reached the Gentle Ben and stepped down onto the deck. He banged on the door of the cabin. No response. He cupped his hand to the window where the curtains hung open a crack. He could see no one inside. He banged on the door again, then tried the handle. It swung open. Gratefully, Marcus flung himself down the steps and into the dark cabin. It was cold inside and Marcus tried without success to locate the heating controls. He flicked the light switch and nothing happened. Marcus opened the curtains, but it was so dark outside that it barely altered the murky cabin.