Alex Preston: The Revelations

David woke Sally at seven. She lifted her head from the pillow with narrow eyes blinking at the bedside light. David placed a cup of coffee beside her and opened the cupboard at the end of the bed. He drew out a navy suit with a fine pinstripe.

‘This one?’

Sally, who had shifted into a half-seated position, squinted at him. Her hair was stacked on her head in an untidy pile. For the first time, David remembered his nightmare in its entirety, and realised that it was not the first time he had dreamt it. The images had all seemed horribly familiar. He shuddered.

‘Of course that suit,’ Sally said. ‘It’s your lucky one, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. Yes, this is the one. I had the most awful nightmare.’

‘Mmm. . Did you?’

Sally stretched and David could see the ugly crêpey skin under her arms, blued by stubble.

‘Just terrifying. I’ve been up for a couple of hours.’

Sally smiled at him.

‘It’s a big day for you. You should expect that. To feel nervous.’

They had breakfast together in the kitchen. David insisted on eating standing up. He was gulping coffee, his fourth cup already. He could barely swallow. The muesli tasted dry and seemed to expand in his mouth. The feeling of having a throatful of bandages returned, bringing with it the white horror of the nightmare. Sally came and stood behind him. He knew that she was worried about him, and he tried to relax his tense body against her. David watched his wife pluck her eyebrows in the bathroom mirror while he showered. He bounced his foot impatiently while she straightened his tie. They were ready to leave.

David drove badly when he was nervous. Sally twined her fingers around the armrest and closed her eyes as they made their way through red lights and clipping traffic cones, the wrong way down one-way streets. There was a jam on Park Lane, but they still reached the church far too early. David got out of the car and strode up and down with his mobile clenched in his hand, trying to work out how to use the automated parking line. Sally stood on the steps of the ancient Marylebone church while David went to buy another coffee from an Italian delicatessen up towards the Euston Road. He stood reading his notes as he waited for his coffee. He pulled out a pen and scribbled furiously, held the paper out in front of him, as if judging the effect of his editing, then scratched out the words he had written. His shoulders slumped.

The Earl arrived at ten. He was dressed in a charcoal-grey suit. He looked hard at David.

‘Are you ready? You look like shit.’

‘I’m ready. It will be fine.’

‘It has to be. We won’t get a second bite at this.’ He looked up. ‘It’s going to rain. Let’s go inside.’

They made their way into the cool interior of the church. Someone was practising the organ. David watched the Earl turn his head and listen for a moment, nodding in appreciation. Chairs had been laid out alongside the pews. They were expecting a large audience. David felt a brief tremor of nerves. He breathed in through his nose, savouring the familiar fusty air that reminded him of being a young priest, of the endless hopefulness of those days.

‘We need the help of the American churches, David.’ The Earl guided him into a corner and placed a thick hand on the sleeve of his jacket. ‘With the support of these organisations, the Course will be taken seriously in the States. And not just in New York and LA. We’ll be rolled out across the country. Every white clapboard chapel in every hick town in every flyover state will have your picture in it. Billboards along the highways, ads on the radio blasting your voice across America. I’ve already had talks with three cable channels. One of them will be here this morning. They want you to have your own show. You’ll be watched by millions. It will finance everything we’ve dreamed of doing. You deserve this, David. We all do.’

Time seemed to accelerate suddenly. One moment, David was sitting sipping coffee in the chaplain’s office, then the Earl was pumping his hand and Sally was hugging him and he was walking out onto the stage, blinking into the bright white spotlight that followed him to the lectern. The chorus of a song by The Revelations blasted out of the speakers either side of him.

‘All shall be well,

And all shall be well,

And all manner of thing

Shall be well.’

He realised that he had forgotten his notes. He must have left them on the counter in the cafe. He drew another deep breath and looked down at the audience. Sitting beside the bulk of the Earl was a row of four serious men in dark suits. All in their fifties, all wearing sober ties, wide-collared shirts, shined black loafers. They looked up at the stage with cool, calculating eyes. The representative of the Evangelical Free Church of America took notes in a black leather notebook. The head of the American Family Association stared up into the dim heights of the church’s roof. David recognised the charismatic leader of the Back to the Bible organisation. A heavy thatch of white moustache perched above his lips, a silver fish was pinned to his lapel. Next to the Earl sat the CEO of Mission Media Productions. He leaned back in his seat, chuckling at something the Earl had said, dabbing at the corner of his eye with a hairy wrist.

The Earl was looking up at David expectantly from the front row, his large hands knitted together in his lap. The doors at the back of the church slammed shut. David waited for the music to stop. There were three, perhaps four hundred people staring at him. He attempted to unleash his famous grin, but felt his skin tightening as he smiled. He found himself thinking of the smell of Lee’s hair in his dream, the way the strands had come glittering out in his hands. Pull yourself together , he said to himself, then suddenly worried that he had spoken the words out loud. He smiled again, and the smile came more easily this time. He twinkled his eyes. The music faded. A beat of silence.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. A particular welcome to our friends visiting from across the Atlantic,’ he began, his voice remarkably steady. ‘I started the Course because I kept hearing the same thing from the young people I spoke to. And it was very different from the message that I was hearing from the press, the message I got from my own church. This wasn’t a Godless generation. These young people weren’t drugged up and lacking in morals and beyond saving. They just didn’t feel that the church, or rather the experience of church that they had through school or through their parents, spoke to them at all. So I decided to do something about it.’

It began to rain outside. Shadows passed across the stained-glass windows. He took a sip of water. It was going well.

‘We have three hundred churches in the UK running the Course, a further sixty in Australia and New Zealand. And — and this is our great success this year — we have just signed up the two hundredth church in the United States. So over five hundred churches have decided that change is necessary, that we must find a new way of doing things, that our faith will die if we don’t breathe life into it.’ He was sweating a little.

‘That life comes from the energy, the optimism of the young people in our church.’

David heard, very faintly, the sound of Lee playing the piano. Panic hit him like the smack of a wave. He looked around the hall wildly, then back to the empty lectern. He could feel his heart beating hard in his chest.

‘I feel so blessed to have had the opportunity to work with our young people, with the Course leaders. .’ David paused, looked out into the audience. The Earl was tugging at his ear lobe. He tried to remember if they had discussed a secret signal of some sort.