The Book of Strange New Things(133)

On a sheet of paper, he experimented with drawing a sheep. Art was not one of his strong points. The animal he scrawled had a credibly sheep-like body but its head looked more like a cat’s. He struggled to recall ever having seen a sheep in the flesh, or even in photographs. Beyond a vague impression of woolly rotundity, he couldn’t summon forth any details about ears, snout, eyes and so on. Was the lower jaw visible? Perhaps there would be something in the USIC library. Granted, many of the books had pages torn out, but he imagined that if there were any pictures of sheep, they’d be intact.

Absent-mindedly, out of habit, he checked for new messages on the Shoot. Immediately, one from Bea loaded in. She hadn’t gone to bed after all.

Peter, PLEASE PLEASE STOP HARPING ON ABOUT THIS COUNTRYSIDE FANTASY, it’s just making me feel worse. You just don’t seem to appreciate how fast and how frighteningly and how MUCH things have changed. The housing market has COLLAPSED. Like just about everything eslse in this country IT IS KAPUT. Couldn’t you guess that? Wouldn’t that be obvious from all the things I’ve been telling you? Do you really think some nice young coiuple is goimng to be isnepcting our house with a chequebook in their hands? All those nice young couples all over the UK are frozen with TERROR. Everyonbe is just sitting tight, hoping agaimst hope that things will improve. I am sitting tighjt myself, hoping that at last some big truck will finally come and pick up the stinking piles of garbage in front of our home.

As for using the word godforsaken, I’m sure God can forgive me but the question is, can you?

The vehemence of the blow took him by surprise. In the minutes that followed, his brain swirled with hurt, indignation, shame and fear. She was wrong, he was misunderstood, she was wrong, he was misunderstood, she was in trouble, he couldn’t help, she was in trouble, he couldn’t help, she was deaf to his assurances of love and support, she spoke in a tone he couldn’t recognise. Was this what pregnancy had done to her mind? Or had she been harbouring these resentments and frustrations for years? Half-formed sentences suggested themselves, drafts of defences and analyses, ways to demonstrate to her that she was not helping anyone by behaving like this, ways to allude to the deranging effects of hormones and pregnancy without making her angrier still.

As he thought more, however, his urge to argue dwindled and all that was left was love. It didn’t matter, for the moment, that she misjudged him. She was overwhelmed, she was in distress, she needed help. Rightness or wrongness was not the point. Giving her strength was the point. He must let go of his grief at how alienated she was from him. The greater problem was that she seemed alienated from God. A barrage of suffering borne in unaccustomed loneliness had weakened her faith. Her mind and heart were closed like the fist of a child in pain. Rhetoric and arguments were useless and, in the circumstances, cruel. He must remember that when he’d been at his own lowest ebb, a single Bible verse had pulled him back from the abyss. God didn’t waste words.

Bea, I love you. Please pray. What is happening all around you is terrifying, I know. But please pray and God will help. Psalm 91: I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress. He shall cover thee with His feathers, and under His wings shalt thou trust.

There, it was sent. He clasped his hands and prayed she would pray. Everything would be all right if she only could.





III


AS IT IS





21


There is no God, she wrote


‘S????t???,’ he said.

‘????????????,’ she corrected him.

‘S????t???,’ he tried again.

‘????????????,’ she corrected him again.

‘????????????,’ he said.

All round him rose a noise like a flock of birds flapping their wings. It was not birds. It was the sound of applause from dozens of gloved hands. The Oasans – no longer Oasans to him but ????? – were letting him know he was making excellent progress in their language.

It was a perfect afternoon, just perfect. The air was less clammy than ever before, or perhaps he’d grown accustomed to the humidity at last. His body felt free and unencumbered, almost a part of the atmosphere, with no division between his skin and the surrounding sky. (Funny how he’d always been encouraged to conceive of the sky as something that started at some point far above him, whereas the ????? word for it – ?? – recognised that it extended right down to the ground.)

He and the ????? were sitting outside the church, as was their custom when they were engaged in matters not strictly related to faith. The church was for singing, for sermons (although Peter didn’t refer to his Bible talks as such) and for contemplating the pictures his friends had dedicated to the glory of God. Outside, they could speak of other things. Outside, they could be his teachers.

Today, they numbered thirty. Not because the Jesus Lovers had dwindled in total, but because only certain members of the congregation felt confident to give their pastor instruction. Some of the people he was fondest of weren’t here, and he was forging a new intimacy with others who’d been a closed book to him before. For example, Jesus Lover Sixty-Three – so shy and awkward in most contexts – displayed a flair for linguistic problem-solving, keeping silent for long periods and then, when everyone was stuck, uttering the word they were searching for. By contrast, Lover One – the original convert to Christ and thus a person of some eminence among the believers – had declined Peter’s invitation to take part in the lessons. Declined? ‘Dismissed’ or ‘rejected’ was closer to the mark; Lover One was opposed to Peter attempting anything that might dilute the strangeness of the Book of Strange New Things.