“Tell me about yourself, Bea,” I said.
“No. I’m more interested in you, Joe. And your ideas. Like – are you happy?”
“I’m happy sitting here talking to you.”
“Are you generally happy?”
“Sometimes.”
“What is happiness?” she asked me, her voice teasing.
I began to formulate an answer but then realised this was a hard question. I struggled a bit. “Erm… happiness is when things are going right.”
Bea looked reflective. “For me, happiness is knowing that you’re exactly where you’re meant to be. Here. Now.”
For some reason, her happiness seemed better than mine. I wanted it.
“Joe, has it occurred to you that most of the time life is empty? That we fill it with trivia, which become obsessions?”
I thought of the computer games I played, of the trashy TV I watched, renting out videos I didn’t like. I didn’t say anything. She continued.
“We’re just here, we have this life, we don’t know what to do with it. Each of us makes up our own reason for being here. Listen. It’s like Rendall’s Tale of the Traveller, the way he builds himself his shelter.” She paused. “Sorry, you don’t know Rendall’s Parables. I’ll lend you the Book some day. You remind me of the Traveller.”
I liked that. I am a traveller. It sounded like something vaguely sci-fi. The thought made me smile and Bea smiled back.
“Come on, Joe. What’s the purpose of your life?”
It was turning out to be an impossible question. I hesitated. He who hesitates is lost. I shrugged.
“So you really don’t know,” she said.
“Does it matter?”
“It matters. Because if the purpose of life doesn’t matter, then nothing matters.”
“Do you know the purpose of your life?” I asked her.
“Yes” she said simply.
Her face seemed to light up as she said that. Like a Madonna. It stopped me doing what I was going to do next, which was to try to kiss her. But it was weird. Not kissing her was almost better than kissing her. Wanting to was more exquisite than doing it. Imagining it was beautiful.
We sat in silence for a while. I couldn’t believe all this was happening to me. Then Bea took me back out to the barn where the blokes slept. She handed me over to Will, who set me up with a sleeping bag in a kind of dormitory with wooden panels between the beds, giving some sort of privacy. A few people were already asleep.
Of course I didn’t sleep for ages. I was just thinking, where am I? Who are these people? I was a bit scared they were born-again Christians, but there had been no mention of Jesus. No crucifixes anywhere, nothing. No attempt had been made to brainwash me. Bea made me think, and think deep, but what was wrong with that? Maybe we all need to think a little more. Maybe I do.
It was true that sometimes I did ask myself what it was all about. Because when you come to think of it, life is incredibly strange. To think that all I can ever know or feel is my consciousness, and yet all the other millions of people on this planet have their own consciousness which I’ll never experience. I don’t know whether I believe in God. I don’t know if I believe in life after death. Though I can’t imagine just being nothing. It occurred to me that what Bea said was right in a way. If there was nothing, if life had no purpose, then I might as well go out and rob and cheat and steal, because it didn’t matter. But I do believe in a basic sort of morality, so it follows I believe life must have some purpose. But what?
Thinking like that can do your head in. It makes you feel spaced out. I liked lying there just thinking in the dark. I wondered if Bea was thinking, and whether she was thinking about me. I wondered what she thought the purpose of her life was, what it would be like to have a purpose.
Imagine if you woke up every morning with something important to do, that you loved doing. If you knew what you had to do. If you were certain. Like Bea.
4. From Rendall’s Book of Prayers: The Morning Service
I ask for the power of the Light to enter my body and soul and make me a force for good. May it be my lot to achieve Perfection. I promise to remain pure, true and strong. I will stay by the fountain of Light. I ask all here present to witness these vows this morning. May it be my lot to achieve Perfection. May it be your lot to achieve Perfection. To the One, to the Light – salaam, shalom, peace. Peace be with you.
After I’d drifted back to consciousness in the morning, I lay awake listening for sounds. There were none. I got the feeling I was alone. I checked my watch, discovered it was eight o’clock and guessed the other guys must have gone to breakfast leaving me to sleep. Quickly I got up, threw on my clothes from the night before and stepped into the centre of the dormitory. It was deserted. I saw some bathroom facilities at one end and got myself presentable.
Then I went outside. It was a fresh day. The wind stung my face and blew my hair around. I could see the moorland clearly now, steep hills rising on one side, on the other the distant road and a criss-cross pattern of dry-stone walls. I felt apart from my normal life. I made my way to the farmhouse where I presumed people were having breakfast. I was sure there’d be something left for me.
When I got there, the kitchen was empty, scrubbed clean. I frowned in puzzlement. I stood there for a while, undecided, then resolved to check out the living room. As I entered I saw people coming towards me from out of the conservatory, which Bea had called the Gathering Place. They were all dressed in white. It gave me quite a shock. Blokes in white jeans and white sweatshirts, the girls in long white skirts and dresses. Bea glided over towards me, her face radiant, like an angel.
“We’ve just finished our morning meeting,” she said, and kissed me on the cheek, as my mother might. Other people shook my hand warmly. It was difficult not to be drawn into such good feeling. I followed them into breakfast, where two of the blokes began to get some food together.
“I could kill for a coffee,” I confided to Bea.
She smiled teasingly. “Coffee? It’s a drug too, you know.”
“Yeah, well, it’s only caffeine.”
But there was no coffee. It was back to the fruit juice and herbal teas. In fact the fresh orange juice I had was very welcome. I forgot about the coffee as I listened to people talk. Some of the blokes were discussing football, which surprised me. Some girls were laughing as if they were sharing a private joke. Fletcher came and sat by me so I was flanked by him and Bea.
“Did you have a good night?” he asked.
I said I did and thanked him for his hospitality.
“You can stay any time,” he said. He cut himself a slice of bread from what looked like a home-made loaf. “What do you think of us?”
I was a bit taken aback by his question, but well-mannered enough to come out with all the right platitudes.
“Everyone’s been great. I really enjoyed the party.”
“No. What do you think of us? In fact. The truth.”
Did he want me to criticise them? Or was he doing what Gemma does when she says, do I really look fat in these jeans? Honestly?
But this wasn’t Gemma. As a novelty, I decided to tell him the truth.
“You all seem weird to me. I was pretty spooked when I saw you all in white. Like, who are you? Bea hasn’t explained properly.”
Fletcher