The Missionaries (v1.0), page 15
By the evening Dacre had begun to doubt his memory. At first, over tea, when she had been bright and sensible, too bright and too sensible, he’d felt he needed help. And there was the telephone. But what could he say? Could he ring the doctor with the lame excuse that his mother had seemed hysterical? Could he ring London just to tell his father he’d found his mother crying? Crying and nothing else that he could bring himself to describe? What could they tell him except that he should know quite well that middle-aged women were sometimes a little odd?
A little odd…when later, down on her hands and knees weeding the flower beds by the drive, she wasn’t even that? And then, in the evening, getting out Gordon’s bee books and making notes of the things she would need before winter set in, when he’d seldom seen her behave so sensibly? Against all this the recent past was outrageous, not to be credited, and suffered adjustment. It was natural that his mother should be upset sometimes—with his father away she must be very lonely. He simply shouldn’t have let her sit day after day in the study and brood. Over the next few weeks he would take better care of her.
His father, ustiliath, London, everything else would have to wait.
Sylvia was careful. If he guessed where she was planning to go next morning, he’d try to stop her. He was secretly a member of ustiliath, so he’d naturally try to stop her. So would all the people in South Molton; she could clearly imagine them, sitting round their firesides, making their plans to stop her. So she got out Gordon’s idiotic bee books and said she’d go into town next morning to buy sugar and extra insulation. And when she went out into the kitchen to make Dacre’s cocoa she sneaked the car keys off the hook by the back door and hid them, giggling at their coldness down inside her bra, just in case.
The trick wasn’t necessary. Her son let her go next morning without argument, even helping her carry her baskets out to the car. People were ridiculously easy to fool, if you were willing to take a little trouble. Of course, it was Gordon she blamed mostly. He should have been there to stop her. If he’d been there he’d have seen through her trick immediately. He knew her so well…She cried again briefly, as she drove. She didn’t want to go, she didn’t want to hurt him. He should have been there to stop her.
The people of South Molton were shrewder than her poor fool of a boy. They questioned her, never taking their eyes off her for a moment. But she diddled them. She bought all the right bee things at all the right bee shops, and set off straight back up the road to North Molton and the farm. They watched her out of sight, their eyes boring into the back of her head.
And she diddled them. There was a lane she knew a mile out of town that led back round the outskirts and joined the Exeter main road on the far side. She drove slowly, careful not to attract attention, and reached Exeter in the early afternoon.
In the Cathedral Close car park a large angry man—obviously a secret member of ustiliath—accused her of denting his vulgar red motor car. She smiled at him charmingly and told him she was sure he was mistaken. They were determined to rattle her, and she was determined not to let them. As she walked away he shouted after her, but he soon gave up when he saw that she knew quite well what he was really up to.
She found it hard to believe that the secretary to the Bishop of Exeter could possibly be a secret member of ustiliath. But he certainly put a great many difficulties in her path. No, she had no intention of going to see her local vicar first—her mother had always said it was best to go straight to the top. Besides, Mr. Dunbarton would gloat over how right he’d been, and was probably a secret member of ustiliath himself—a lot of vicars were. Neither had she any intention of making an appointment—the matter was far too urgent for piffling bureaucratic procrastination. Indeed, she had no intention of arguing for a single moment longer. She swept the secretary, a gentle man, aside and went straight, as her mother had advised her, to the top.
The Bishop of Exeter was, as might be expected, impressive and polite. She introduced herself, and then passed on to him the message she had been given by the Angel of the Lord. He stared at her over his glasses.
“Ah,” he said, “Revelations, chapter three. Though the feet, I think, are described a little earlier. And, if I remember rightly, they were not of gold but of burnished brass.”
She held her handbag tight against her chest, like a shield. “Well?” she said.
“I was pointing out, Mrs…ah…Wordsworth, that the passage you have just quoted appears in the Revelation of St. John the Divine. A little known verse, but one that an alert parson might very well use if he felt it to be…suitable.”
“So?” Somehow, for some reason, he was getting at her.
“The Revelation is particularly beautiful, and particularly vivid, Mrs. Wordsworth. You say that these words came to you in a vision. My suggestion is that you dreamed—please let me finish—and that you remembered these words from a time when they must have made a strong impression on you, possibly when you were a child.”
“No.” She stamped her heels. “No. I have never heard them before. Not ever. Not ever. Not before yesterday afternoon, when the Angel of the Lord came down to me. And the feet weren’t burnished brass, they were gold.”
His Grace sighed and shuffled the papers on his desk. “If the brass were burnished sufficiently, Mrs. Wordsworth, it would be extremely hard to tell.” He hesitated, then got up. She stood as well, being uncertain of ecclesiastical etiquette. “I really am very grateful to you, Mrs. Wordsworth, for telling me your vision. Now, if you don’t mind—”
“But you’re going to do something?”
“I’m an extremely busy man, Mrs. Wordsworth. Perhaps if you talked to your local vicar, he could—”
“Mr. Dunbarton is a slimey rogue. He is anti-Christ.”
The Bishop became severe. “I cannot have you saying such things, Mrs. Wordsworth. Mr. Dunbarton is a godly man, and an extremely devoted—”
“Your Grace—” There was no time to argue. Naturally he would be loyal to his staff, at least until he had proof of their iniquities. “Your Grace, I expect you to act. Your position demands it.”
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Wordsworth. My secretary wifi show you out.”
“My vision was a clear reference to the hellish cult of ustiliath. It is to be destroyed. You are to destroy it.” She had never before had such courage, never before had such clarity, never before had such words. “Destroy it,” she said, “root and branch.”
“I am well aware of this unfortunate cult, Mrs. Wordsworth. But the Church has seen such things before, and will doubtless see them again.”
“The people,” she shouted,” who propagate it must be destroyed. If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.”
“I suggest you apply that one to yourself, Mrs. Wordsworth. See the pride and malice that are in you, and pluck them out. Then perhaps we can talk.”
She begged him. He had to be made to understand. The missionaries were in jail, they could easily be destroyed, the whole affair could be over by the end of the week. Christ himself said he brought not peace but a sword. Later, everything would be so much more difficult. He had to be made to understand. He was a good man, a learned man, a powerful man, everything she had ever respected. She could not, would not, believe that he too was secretly a member of ustiliath. He had to be made to understand.
The secretary was rung for, and came into the room, and tried to lead her out. She beat him off. She had never before had such courage, such clarity, such words. And the Bishop had to be made to understand. Her hat was crooked, and it didn’t matter that she couldn’t work her hands properly to straighten it. She would embrace the Bishop, hold him closely to her so that he’d see the angel she had seen, and hear the angel’s words that she had heard, and so be made to understand. She wanted to hold him to her, but could never afterwards be sure if she had. The room was so pretty, looking out through gentle stone mullions onto grassy cobbles beside a lilac tree. And she’d never afterwards be sure if she had held the Bishop or not when she’d wanted so desperately to make him understand.
Then a policewoman came, and a policeman who was nodded back out of sight. But Sylvia had seen him, had seen his policeman’s face—the faces were always the same, only the uniforms were different. She knew then that the Bishop hadn’t understood. He hadn’t even understood that she was a Nettleton—not the Warwickshire Nettletons, perhaps, but a Nettleton all the same. She was glad that her mother was twenty-two years dead, and would never see the day.
The Bishop appeared gravely troubled: as he might well be, a man of God calling the police to the Angel of the Lord. He leaned on his desk, and she could see that he was trembling. When she had been quiet for some minutes, he cleared his throat.
“I shall of course prefer no charges,” he said. And it was she, she thought, who should be charging him. He looked up from his desk, past her to his secretary. “Unless of course you, George, feel you cannot overlook
The secretary was mopping a slight scratch on the side of his face with his handkerchief. He shook his head, and stooped to pick up mounds of papers which had fallen on the floor.
“No charges, then.” The Bishop crossed the room to her. She backed away and he paused, an elderly man not knowing what to do with his hands. “I’m sorry,” he said. Then he turned to the policewoman. “Look after her. All this will be very strange…and I’m sure it’s not something that will happen again.”
She went without argument, politely, knowing that she was now utterly alone. She went to the station and accepted the tea they gave her. She said what was expected of her, and she didn’t know what had come over her, but that she was very sorry, and better now, and quite able to drive home safely. For she was alone now against the whole world. She thanked them, and said how sorry she was to have been so much bother. The name of the Bishop’s secretary, you see, was George. And George was the name of the leader of the missionaries. She used the police station lavatory, and straightened her hat in the police station mirror. For she was alone, and the members of ustiliath were everywhere.
Three days later, in London, the missionaries were granted three-month work permits—without prejudice—and were released from custody pending a High Court decision on their status as reconstituted nonhuman aliens. And the devil was abroad in the land as a raging lion.
Willoughby-Parkes organised a small celebration party for the missionaries—some ninety guests—to which they were to be brought from the Home Office building where the final formalities would take place. The party was to be held in the dining halls of the London Forum Club where the detailing, if not Egyptian, was at least only discretely Roman, and the marsala of acceptable quality.
Gordon sent an invitation for the party down to his wife at the farm, but she refused. She was far too busy with the bees, she said, righteously, over the phone—and went next morning to Bampton some thirty miles away for an item of very curious shopping. She was alone now, and must plan accordingly. She went to a gunsmith in Bampton to buy .38 ammunition.
Willoughby-Parkes had new clothes waiting for the missionaries when they arrived at the club, so that they could change in an anteroom before making their first official public appearance. He had decided that their reconstituted Dacre and Janey clothes were quite unsuitable, and had engaged a renegade church tailor to design dignified suitings, secular but with strong monastic overtones. The result was a dark brown lapel-less outfit for the boys, faintly reminiscent of an early pop group, and oatmeal-coloured smocks for the girls. It was all highly tasteful and never, after this one party, to be worn again.
Gordon paid for the clothes, as he paid for everything else. He was selling gilt-edged, and would soon have to mortgage the North Molton farm. He himself had come out considerably, and wore donkey-coloured moleskin. He swaggered a little, and wherever he went people knew who he was. He had been speaking regularly for the last week or more, sometimes twice a day, and had adopted a shrewd, no-nonsense style in sharp contrast to the booming rhetoric of Mr. Indomitable Wilcox. In fact, they complemented each other very well, for Mr. Wilcox readily admitted that he was more at home touring the streets on the back of a lorry or debating loudly in some working men’s institute than addressing one of the brigadier’s more rarified assemblies.
Naturally, however, Mr. Wilcox was invited to the party. Though the London Forum Club was not his metier, he was proud simply to be present. After blundering his wheelchair about among the elegant elbows for a few minutes he retired to the self-inflicted temperance—George having no objection whatsoever to alcohol—of blackcurrant juice by one of the several bars. Although he might be in the company of the best people—and the kingdom of ustiliath had room for all sorts—they were a gang of fart-arsing ponces all the same. He even found the brigadier, with his fancy new ways, a bit on the poncy side.
Willoughby-Parkes had decided that there should be no public address. Mass evangelism and marsala did not mix. He and Gordon had explained this to the missionaries on the morning of the party, and they had seemed to understand. Contacts should be made on a strictly personal, hushed, upper-class basis. If people wanted groaning and speaking with tongues, they went to Billy Graham. Willoughby-Parkes said no more.
At about the time when the missionaries were receiving their final briefing, Sylvia was driving at breakneck pace through Taunton. Quite unknown to anybody, even to Dacre who thought she was going to the public library in Barnstaple, she was on her way to London.
When the missionaries finally arrived in their tasteful clothes at the party, Willoughby-Parkes met them on the marbled entrance steps and led them modestly to one of the tables of food; he had laid on fresh fruit and simple cheeses, setting the tone. Deprecatingly he waved down the applause that greeted them. His clients weren’t film stars, they were humble missionaries. Though he was far too sensitive ever to speak—or even think—words like product or presentation or marketing concept, they nevertheless pervaded everything he did. He introduced the missionaries to their first strictly personal, hushed and upper-class contacts, and melted professionally away. The party would proceed with modesty and distinction to its modest and distinguished conclusion. His work done, he looked for Gordon, joined him beside a Doric column, and became invisible.
Much as Gordon respected Willoughby-Parkes’ judgement, he knew the missionaries extremely well by now, especially since the men possessed many of the qualities of his son Dacre. Prominent among these was a disrespect for protocol, a recognition that formality was often no more than an evasive device. So he was unsurprised to see, after a very few minutes, the missionaries’ carefully chosen contacts abandoned, and George standing on a table, his arms upraised for silence. Indeed, the sight heartened him, for he had felt the secretive, muttered approach specified by Willoughby-Parkes to be somehow shameful, unworthy of the all-encompassing truth of ustiliath.
George was impressive. In spite of his clothes, in spite of his youth, in spite of his patched-up face and his politician’s gesture, he possessed a new dignity. It was this, more even than their curiosity, that silenced the surrounding guests. Even Willoughby-Parkes, fidgetting at Gordon’s side, made no move to interfere. What was about to be said seemed suddenly important.
He began quietly, filling in the necessary background. “People are always disappointed,” he said, “at how little we can tell you about our home planet. Yet it’s so distant and so different that you yourselves have no name for it and, as far as I can find out, not even a number. In fact, some astronomers I have talked with doubt very much if we exist.”
He stared at them solemnly and got the small laugh he hoped for. “Naturally we ourselves have a name for it, but it only means the same as yours does: Earth. We live on our Earth and die there. As you do. We make machines to work for us. As you do. We share concepts with you: life and death, pride and shame, love and hate. And we have a faith, as you once had, that we consider worth trying to spread. We share concepts, therefore, but little else. The moment I try to describe the things of our Earth, language breaks down and I’m left muttering foolishly about incomprehensible vistas, about colours without names and shapes without constancy…”
Sylvia was late reaching the club. The maze of streets behind the Bayswater Road had confused her, and finding a parking space had delayed her still further. By the time the man at the door had inspected her invitation and let her in, George had already been speaking for some minutes. Her plan was thus simplified, for her arrival went unnoticed. She skirted the main crowd, found a staircase leading to a row of unused upper dining balconies, and climbed it discreetly. From the shelter of a balustrade she looked down and saw George close below her, standing on a table. He was delivered into her hands. She rested her handbag carefully on the table and regained her breath. The weight of Gordon’s army revolver was enormous.
. . our light is not your light,” George was saying. “Our air is not your air, our shapes and non-shapes are not yours. Our commonplaces are your magic. Our magic starts in your unknown and moves away. So there’s really very little I can tell you about us, except the obvious—that we’re a bit better at space-time travel than you are.”
Again he got his laugh, but this time slightly anxious. Sylvia laughed also, soundlessly, knowing her own power. She might be an unwanted, ugly woman, but it was she the Lord had chosen. She watched George, so close beneath her, and gloated.
“But we share something else; we share ustiliath. We share it with you, with every being, every planet, every ball of incandescent gas, every speck of dust in the entire universe. You are aware of it just as we are. You sense its presence and brush it off with an inadequate, even disreputable word. You shrug your shoulders and call it life force, not to be taken seriously. We on our Earth serve it to final unity and glory, and call it ustiliath.”
She winced at his glib mouthing of the vile word. Not that she hadn’t heard it all before a dozen times, till it made her sick. She opened her handbag and with difficulty took out the gun. It was big, bigger even than she remembered.
