Alex Preston - The Revelations

‘Darling, we need to discuss things. Mouse, Lee, everything. But first, there’s something else I wanted to speak to you about.’

Marcus poured himself a glass of wine and sat looking over at his wife.

‘I can’t tell you how wonderful it was to be in the States. The Course has just exploded over there. And of course we have only done the North-East. There’s such enormous potential.’

Her face glowed as she spoke.

‘The priests out there really get it. There’s so much energy in the way they deliver the speeches. It feels like it did for us, right at the beginning. The start of an extraordinary journey.’

She paused for a moment.

‘David has asked me to go out there full-time. He needs an administrator in the US, someone he can rely upon to run things, look after the expansion.’

Marcus felt his face drop.

‘But. .’ he began.

‘He wants you to go with me.’

He stared at Abby.

‘What do you mean?’

‘He wants you to come and work for the Course. We’d share responsibilities. You’d run things while I have the baby. It would be a fresh start for us. It would take us away from all of this.’

‘But what about my job?’

‘You hate it. You said you were desperate to leave. The Course can’t match your salary. But we’d be doing something we really loved.’

‘And the baby?’

‘I’ll have it out there. I told David about it and he said he’d make sure the Course looked after the whole thing. It would be wonderful.’

He pictured the two of them pushing a buggy through Central Park on a Saturday morning, imagined what it would be like to be away from London, away from the guilt and the memories.

‘Can I think about it? I mean, it sounds great, but so much has happened. I just need some time to get it all straight in my head.’

*

Mouse didn’t come to the service the next day. It was very cold and Marcus thought that the canal might have frozen over. Mouse used to worry that the Gentle Ben ’s hull would crack in the ice and had spent several days the previous winter boiling kettles and pouring them down the side of the boat. Marcus kept looking out for his friend as the service progressed, hoping somehow that seeing him would help unravel the knot of conflicting emotions in his cold-muddled mind.

After the service they went over to the rectory for coffee. The Earl stood in the corner of the drawing room talking to a tall couple. The woman held a tiny baby in her arms and looked down at it, clucking every so often. Her husband smiled at her approvingly. His name was Simon Cooper-Jones and he was one of the City’s most successful hedge-fund managers, not yet forty and worth tens of millions. He was devoted to the Course and a major donor. Marcus crossed and leaned against the mantelpiece beside them, listening.

‘Your boys are doing a fine job of managing the Course funds,’ the Earl said, chucking the sleeping baby under the chin with a meaty finger, but keeping his eyes on Simon. ‘Up twenty per cent plus in this market isn’t easy.’

‘We’re the best. You know that by now. You should give us a bit more of your own cash.’

‘I might just do that. You’re not worried about another Crash?’

‘Always worried, never fearful. That’s my motto. How’s the US expansion going? I really think it’s an extraordinary untapped market.’

‘It’s going very well in New York,’ the Earl replied. ‘David is doing some work with the Ivy League universities. We’re going at the market top-down — it served us well here and I don’t see why it shouldn’t work out there. Do you have a New York office?’

‘Of course. Let me know which church you want them to attend and I’ll send some of my team along.’

After they had finished their coffee, Marcus and Abby stepped out into the frosty sunlit day. As they crossed the car park in front of the church, the Earl jogged to catch up with them. He took Abby’s arm.

‘I hear that you two are thinking of going out to New York full-time. I’m delighted. It has been a ghastly few weeks. It’ll be a new start for you both. And the Course will flourish over there. I know it. You must treat my apartment as your own. Stay for as long as you like. I’m rarely over there these days. Too old and tired for the transatlantic life.’

As Marcus pulled out onto the King’s Road, he saw a man in a faded velvet jacket walking away from them, west towards Fulham. The collar of the jacket was raised against the wind and the man was smoking, taking deep, angry drags and then blowing the smoke into the air above him. Marcus tried to turn around, but the traffic was heavy in both directions. Abby followed his gaze and opened her mouth to speak. A bus crossed in front of them and when it was gone, the figure had disappeared.

When they got home, Abby walked out to the shops to buy lunch. Marcus sat at the table in the drawing room and thought. He realised that he was being given another chance, an opportunity to make things right with Abby, and that this decision would change everything, define the person he was, and who he would become. He crossed to the window, opened it a crack and lit a cigarette, blowing the smoke out into the cold air. Everything had changed. Even if he stayed in London, it would be a hollow simulacrum of his old life. He’d be like those friends from college who had remained at university to do MAs and PhDs with the same tutors, who would then teach at the college, forever walking in the footsteps of their teenage selves, trying to recapture those happy years. He worried about leaving Mouse, but otherwise there was nothing keeping him here. He finished his cigarette and shut the window.

There was a picture of him and Abby on the sideboard. They were standing in the portico of a church and Abby’s arm was around him. It was the day of their wedding and he was looking away from the camera, off into the middle distance. He couldn’t remember where his gaze had been directed, whether towards Lee, or Mouse, or one of the pretty Course wives holding a baby in the churchyard. But Abby’s eyes stared straight at the camera, hopeful, her smile full of pride. It made Marcus sad to look at her. He realised that, in his mind, there had never been a time when he had been truly faithful to Abby. He had fucked girls behind her back throughout university and, even though — until his most recent indiscretions — he had kept his infidelity in check since joining the Course, cheating was always there in his mind as an option. Perhaps, he thought, his parents had been too happy together, presenting an unattainable ideal which, because he could never replicate it, he had to destroy.

Now he had the opportunity to start again. He picked up the photograph and looked into his wife’s face. He felt a great swelling of love. They were having a baby together. He was going to be a father. He heard her keys in the door. Abby struggled down the corridor and dropped the shopping bags on the kitchen floor. She took off her coat and flung it on the counter. Marcus stepped behind her and folded his arms around her large frame. She leant back against him, closing her eyes, her head on his shoulder.

‘I’m coming with you,’ he whispered.

Her eyes snapped open. A smile broke gently over her face.

‘Really?’

‘Of course I am. We’ll make a new life out there.’

‘Oh, darling, I’m so happy. I couldn’t have gone without you.’

They stood, breathing heavily, listening to the cars on Notting Hill Gate, an Underground train rattling over a bridge, the distant thump of music. Very gently, he slid his hand up under her jumper and let it rest on her hot, soft stomach.

Marcus discovered that it was possible, with a degree of concentration, to pretend that Lee had never existed. He found it easier still now that Mouse had stopped coming to church. Abby and Marcus had hosted the final Course session together, both groups squeezed into the one room. Marcus seemed especially galvanised as he led the discussion. David and Sally Nightingale looked on with pride as the two young people, heads bowed, prayed with the new members. An atmosphere of quiet contentment hung over the group: they had made it through. They were part of the Course. At the end of the session, the members came up one by one and thanked Marcus and Abby.