The Missionaries (v1.0), page 8
In the pulpit, in discussion groups, in parish meetings, she had listened to the reasonableness of Mr. Dunbarton too long. Today he would listen to her. To her reasonableness. And when he had listened to her, he would listen to George. And when he had listened to George, he would…Her mind stopped at this point, unable firmly to picture Mr. Dunbarton as no longer a priest of God, but a priest of ustiliath instead. But she was sure the failure was in her own imagination, rather than in the reasonableness and flexibility of Mr. Dunbarton.
His study was nobly uncomfortable, with the rolltop desk and threadbare carpet of his predecessor and his predecessor’s predecessor. Almost the only really personal item in it was a small gold buddha, acquired in his former London parish to show he had sympathy with the young, with the modem eclecticism.
He listened very carefully to what she told him, mostly staring out of the window but turning occasionally to ask intelligent questions. When he did she tried to keep her hands from fidgetting; she was ashamed to let him see how excited she was. Suddenly she had to stop, unable to go on, choked by ecstacy. He allowed a comforting pause.
“You’ve been reading Teilhard de Chardin,” he said. She shook her head. “Then you’ve been talking to someone who has. He covers this concept of a web of minds enveloping the earth very thoroughly. He calls it the no-osphere’.” She stared at him blankly. “What I’m saying,
Mrs. Wordsworth, is that there’s nothing new in the idea. Chardin was a Catholic—unorthodox, but undoubtedly a Roman. His central belief was in Christ as the son of God. I’m sure yours is too.”
“No. No.” She dropped her handbag, then fumbled for it. “No, vicar, the Christian god is a part of something bigger. But it doesn’t matter how big it is, because it’s…it’s tiny as well.” She tried to remember George’s words. “It’s one man with the strength of one man, and an army with the strength of an army. It’s a drop of water with the strength of a drop of water, and an ocean with the strength of an ocean.”
She found her handbag and picked it up. She was glad to see that the vicar didn’t appear to notice how agitated she was. Neither, on the other hand, had he been shocked—as he certainly should have been—by her denial of God. Instead he sat back in his uncomfortable wooden swivel chair and bounced names in front of her like ping-pong balls: Dr. Robinson, Madame Coue, Sartre, Nietsche, Schopenhauer. It was a game she’d seen him play with others and been impressed. Now she was insulted.
“I don’t care what you say.” Why was the air in his study so hot? “I don’t care—prayer to God was a waste of time. Prayer to ustiliath really works. Here and now, on this earth, in this year, in real, practical, day-to-day terms, it really works.”
“Works, Mrs. Wordsworth?”
She looked at him sideways, not trusting him. “I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Things you wouldn’t believe.” She couldn’t tell him about the missionaries, about the miracles, not yet. And he was off again, bouncing this time jargon: mass hypnotism, charlatanism, hallucinogens, fulfillment fantasies. She stood up.
“I don’t care. I came to you because I thought you’d understand. I thought you’d listen.” She started to cry. She cried easily now, which was a relief. “Perhaps I was silly, but I thought you might be my first convert. I thought you’d be interested, More than interested. I thought you’d—”
“And I am interested, Mrs. Wordsworth. Truly interested.” He did not rise, but looked up at her calmly. He appeared to be waiting for her to sit down again, so she sat. He went on: “And I’m also very glad that I was the one you chose to come and see about all this. For I sincerely believe that I may be able to help you.”
“You? Help me?”
“Mrs. Wordsworth,” he spoke sternly, “you are an intelligent woman. You’ve been subjected to an almost unbearable strain all through your husband’s long illness. It would hardly be surprising if—”
“You think I’ve gone mad.”
“Certainly not. If you’d been mad you’d never have come to me for help.”
“But I didn’t come here for—”
“How many of us can really be sure why we do things? I see your coming here as a plea for help, Mrs. Wordsworth. For God’s help and mine.”
She gathered her dignity, having nothing else. “I shall go now, Mr. Dunbarton.”
“The door is behind you.”
He evidently thought she didn’t mean it. “You won’t see me in church, Mr. Dunbarton. Not this Sunday or ever again.”
“You feel Christianity has failed you. Believe me, you’re wrong. If anything has failed you, it is I.”
But he didn’t believe it; he sat so smugly, feeling no pain. She rose and went quietly to the door.
“Not this Sunday,” she said. “Not this Sunday or ever again.”
She went out. At the front door she paused, and had the satisfaction of hearing him sigh, lift the telephone receiver, and dial. A pause, and then, “Is my lord the bishop free, please?”
She had him worried after all. She let herself out, closing the door behind her with a bang so that he should know that she had heard.
Outside in the sunshine she walked briskly, trying to recapture the day’s joy. The vicar had nearly spoiled it.
When she reached the gate to the churchyard she went quickly in. Always in the past the interiors of churches had frightened her. She had gone into them—never between services—to be frightened and to have her fear comforted. They were dark and cold, and rustling with God. She had hidden in the liturgy, there, right under God’s nose. But today, safe and new, she went into the church boldly. She was curious to see what it was really like.
Stopping beside a pew, she picked up a prayerbook, noisily riffled its pages, and put it back. She went to the altar, clumping her feet, and took down one of the candlesticks. It was very heavy. She stood quite still, weighing it in her hands, listening for the rustling of God and hearing only birds…and people walking down the path beside the churchyard. Abruptly, like a small child, she threw the candlestick away from herself, down the chancel steps. It rolled to the base of the pulpit and she waited. She stood for a very long time, waiting for a sign. The red and purple patterns of sunlight moved perceptibly across the pew ends. When no sign came, she walked mildly disappointed down the chancel steps, picked up the candlestick, examined it for dents—it had none—walked back up the steps and replaced the candlestick on the altar. It would have been too easy to hurt Mr. Dunbarton through his church. And the day’s joy was quite restored to her.
On her way down the alley to where she had parked the car, she became aware of strange noises in the street ahead: the murmuring of a small crowd, and over it a curious foghorning drone. The drone had affinities with a voice she was afraid she recognised. She hurried the few remaining paces to the main street.
Opposite her, on the steps leading up to the fine regency arcading of the white town hall, hardly needing them for he was a good six inches taller than anyone else in sight, she saw Mr. Wilcox. His mouth was open, and in his right hand he held a long pole on the end of which was tacked a square of cardboard with the legend:
USTILLYATH SAVES
He wore, pathetically, his best suit.
“Hell is on earth,” he foghorned, “and likewise heaven. Here and now, on this earth, in this year, in real, practical, day-to-day terms…”
Sylvia watched him, not daring to intervene. It was too late now, anyway. And George couldn’t possibly be angry with him for breaking instructions if he brought in converts. After all, that was what she herself had hoped to do.
“Ustiliath can move mountains. And that’s not just talk. I mean real mountains—dirty great ’eaps of shit and rubble. It’s all in the mind, see. You got a bit er ustiliath in your mind and I got a bit in mine. Join all the bits up and what’ve you got?”
From the back of the crowd somebody answered, “A horrible, bloody mess.”
“YOU GOT POWER.” The volume doubled with no apparent effort. “YOU GOT THE STRENGTH TO MOVE MOUNTAINS”
Sylvia had to admit that his chances of making converts in drat particular crowd were remote. Once he strayed from the remembered script he was less convincing. The crowd, already small, and objecting to being shouted at, began to drift away. As a Saturday afternoon spectacle, Bleeder Wilcox gone holy—barmy?—was of very limited appeal. Sylvia wanted to catch hold of them, to make them stay. For all his size, the poor man was so vulnerable.
“Look at me,” he said. “Just look at me.”
“Must we?” The heckler, whoever he was, was moving forward, growing bolder.
“Yeah,” said Mr. Wilcox. “Give yourselves a treat. Get an eyeful of that bloody horrible man Wilcox.”
He won a laugh and some embarrassed nudging among the onlookers.
“Look at him and ask yourselves what he’s got that you haven’t got. And I’ll tell you. He’s got peace of mind. That bloody horrible man Wilcox is saved.”
He had, she supposed, heard the phrases on other street corners in other days. She shrank back into a shop doorway, suddenly afraid that if he saw her he might call on her to give witness. She’d heard that that sort of thing went on all over the place. It was very worrying. Looking at Mr. Wilcox, she wondered if George was right, if the lumbering sergeant major really did have the same spark of ustiliath as she. And he such a vulgar man.
“YOU’RE NOT LOOKING AT THAT BLOODY HORRIBLE MAN WILCOX, YOU’RE LOOKING AT THE POWER OF USTILIATH.”
“Ustili-whatsit washes whiter.”
“Nah. Look at he—washes purpler, I reckon.”
“YESTERDAY, LAST NIGHT, THIS MORNING EVEN, I WAS A SHADOW, A WALKING CORPSE. I WAS A SICK MAN. BUT NOW—”
“Yeah, a sick man. Sick in the head.”
Mr. Wilcox came two steps down. “Listen here, you little shite, if you’d had one half the pain I’ve had in the last twenty years, you’d…”
She couldn’t bear it. He was making himself ridiculous. And she’d seen him on his knees, crying, not ridiculous in the least.
“Never mind that,” she called, astonished at herself. “Tell us about ustiliath.”
She used her girl guide voice, and it carried. Mr. Wilcox looked up, scanned the confusion of prams and shops and anxiously uninvolved passers-by. She drew back still further, and watched him through the glass.
“There are men up on the moor,” he said, “men who can say a lot more than me. They do miracles. Heal the sick and that. LISTEN TO ME, ’COS THIS IS BLOODY
IMPORTANT. THEY’VE COME TO…TO____” He hesitated, obviously unsure of the true missionary purpose. “THEY’VE COME TO SAVE THE WORLD.” Such a worn-out phrase, Sylvia thought, so meaningless. Why couldn’t he simply say they’d come to help? It was so much humbler, so much more suitable. That was what she liked about George and Sally and Cora—not William—they were so…suitable.
The heckler was shouting again—she could see him now, a pasty youth with a harelip.
“Tell you what. I reckon you bin got at by them Commie spies. Them as tried to get at Janey Martin.”
“Spies? You believe that fart-arsed story?”
“They tried to get at Janey. Why else has her been kep’ down at the nick ever since?”
The crowd had stabilised and was growing even. With a spokesman they had no need to be afraid.
“Course there’s spies. Why d’you think the army’s out?” Mr. Wilcox came down the last few steps and thrust through the crowd to where his heckler was standing. “I know you. You’re one of the motorcycle crowd. It was you that—”
“Tell us about these people that’s come to save the world. Has they fur hats then?”
A cattle lorry went by, and Sylvia couldn’t hear. She saw Mr. Wilcox, his arms straight at his sides, barking short sentences at the crowd that now surrounded him. She wondered why evangelists were always men of so little breeding. The noise of the lorry faded.
“…and all you can do is rabbit on about some little whore and the lies she’s spreading”
There was a murmuring from the crowd as it egged on its spokesman. “Who’s this you’re calling a whore, then?”
“I know Janey Martin, and I know the lot she knocks around with.”
Sylvia despaired. The exchange was all so loud and coarse. The real trouble was that there had been no time for George to lay down a proper code of behaviour. What on earth did Mr. Wilcox imagine all this bad language had to do with ustiliath?
“You don’t know nothing at all about her. You take that back.”
But Mr. Wilcox, as if hearing her thoughts, had lifted his head again to the crowd and to the skies above the crowd. “Believe in ustiliath,” he said, “and you can’t go wrong. There’s ustiliath in me and in you and in all the bloody lot of us.”
Harelip was swearing and attacking him. He held the boy off with one enormous hand, like a bouncy puppy.
“We’re all like a…all like cells in one dirty great battery. All we need is the connections.”
But the crowd was having fun now, and jostled him, accidentally, while his attention was occupied. Sylvia actually walked a few quick steps across the pavement in his direction. But he was a big man, and she told herself that if there was anything the army taught you it was how to look after yourself. So she stopped by the kerb, and watched the foolish scuffle along with all the other Saturday afternoon people.
She watched a policeman trying to force his way through. She saw Mr. Wilcox suddenly disappear from sight. She saw Harelip emerge on the side of the crowd furthest from the policeman and walk slowly, unconcernedly away. Hadn’t Dacre mentioned that one of his friends had a harelip? When she looked back the crowd had gone. A few people lingered at a safe distance, staring at the policeman and at Mr. Wilcox sitting at his feet. His placard had been trodden on and its pole broken.
Their shadows were sharp in the sunlight and cars continued to pass. Somewhere dose by an ice cream van played its electric, out-of-tune tune. And Mr. Wilcox continued to sit on the pavement. How unmusical people were, not to have thought of complaining.
She ran across the road. Now that it was safe, now that it was too late, she ran across the road between the passing cars. Mr. Wilcox looked up, unsurprised to see her.
“I can’t move,” he said. “That little bugger stuck a knife in me.” He winced. “If you’ll pardon my French,” he said.
They laid him down and she waited with him while the policeman went and phoned for help an ambulance. She put her coat, her best summer coat, over him, not so much because he might be cold as because he looked so silly, lying on the pavement. It reached from his chin to his hips and he looked even sillier. But at least it could be seen that she had done something.
As she waited his breathing became unnecessarily loud. The main thing in times of crisis was to remain calm and sensible. She hoped the policeman would come back before Mr. Wilcox did anything to make her really ashamed of him.
Item from the Missionaries’ I.G. Handbook.
In the early stages any convert who does not temper enthusiasm with discretion is likely to become socially unacceptable. Speaking objectively, this is not altogether undesirable, since in most cases adversity reinforces faith. Which is not to say that adversity should be sought, but merely that it should be accepted philosophically if and when it occurs.
When Dacre’s mother had driven away from the farm leaving him and Cora and Sally sitting in the sun on the lawn, she had imagined—wrongly that they were talking about ustiliath. They were in fact talking about Janey Martin. Cora and Sally had found her experience stores seriously inadequate and were doing their best to fill in some of the worst gaps. It interested Dacre to have them describe Janey s picture of society; it was like an early map of the world, with the tiny area round the Mediterranean very big and the rest quickly fading away to Here be Dragons, and the whole thing supported on the backs of six elephants.
He saw now why any serious consideration of the world outside South Molton had produced fear and therefore anger. In another age it would have produced fear and therefore superstition. Obviously, for the stupid—and Janey was stupid, not just ill-educated—a choice existed between anger and superstition. It was a nice sociological point, and Dacre knew which of the two he preferred—or which, putting it bluntly, worked better.
He tried to give Cora and Sally a slightly clearer picture of the modem western industrial state—a process which he enjoyed enormously since they seemed incapable of being bored. When they had grasped this—they did so very quickly—he asked them if they didn’t think the new religion they had brought was not rather low on superstitition and ritual. Would a religion that worked every time do much to reconcile people to the inevitable misfortunes of life? People had to die, for example. Or didn’t they?
“Of course,” said Cora, doctor Cora. “Dying proves we bain’t like our necessary equipment.”
“Doesn’t anything else?” He’d heard them talk about their necessary equipment before. There was a mystery there somewhere.
“Death proves life. So does pain. Ever hear of a computer feeling pain?”
“What an odd idea,” Dacre said. “Are you afraid of your necessary equipment?”
Dacre had noticed that occasionally the girls suffered a total blankness, as if their minds were being expected to do too much and momentarily shut down. He saw this happen now.
Then it passed. “I reckon you’m round the twist,” Sally said. “We need our necessary equipment. Why the hell should we be afraid of it?”
Dacre left the subject. It was a measure of Janey’s intellect that they obviously thought such an answer would satisfy. He tried his question about superstition and ritual again, framing it in words within Janey’s simple vocabulary. It really was a pity they hadn’t been able to choose some more distinguished mind to reconstitute and occupy.
“You mean singing and dancing and praying?” Sally said. “We had to leave all that till we got here. Stands to reason our sort wouldn’ go down with your sort. Same with things as mean things.”
