Entering the rear of the church he crossed himself again, then stood for some moments in humble silence in front of the beautiful Madonna and Child icon. The blessed Virgin Mary! She protected them all on this island. And she had rewarded him for his lifetime of devotion by bringing the American here to save them.
He wondered if the American would be joining them for matins. Some mornings the American sat beside him, usually accompanied by young novices. Other days, the American had told him, he preferred to hold his own private prayer vigil in his room.
Father Yanni loved to see these novices in here, all such gentle, polite young men. So sincere, so devout, so dedicated, praying with such vigour and fervour. The energy of youth!
The American’s name was Harald Gatward. He was a good man, the Abbot knew that much, but he knew little else about him. Only that the Virgin Mary had brought him here – which was all that he needed to know.
The monastery of Perivoli Tis Panagias had been built in the ninth century as a remote offshoot of the Holy Mount Athos, providing an alternative haven for Greek Orthodox monks. They lived an ascetic life here. Worldly pleasures were strictly forbidden – these were temptations by Satan to distract and corrupt. This included chatter. Conversation was strictly on a need-to-know basis. Idle gossip led to malcontent and sin.
The Abbot was the only monk on the island who spoke any English, and his grasp of this language was limited and mostly archaic. He assumed the American must be a very rich man. When the Council of the Greek Orthodox Church had made the decision that they could no longer justify the cost of running Perivoli Tis Panagias for just five monks and had placed the tiny island on the market, hoping to attract a property developer to turn it into a resort, the American had outbid everyone. And this wonderful man had assured the Abbot that it was God’s will that he and his four fellow brothers should live out their lives in peace here.
Of course there had been a few changes. The biggest of these was the new buildings, and women arriving on the island. But they were housed beyond the monastery walls, and none of them had ever encroached on the church, nor entered the refectory.
*
In his tiny cell, even more modest than the Abbot’s and lit by a solitary candle, Harald Gatward knelt beside his bed, face buried in his hands, communing with the Lord in a prayer vigil he had held, with only one short break to check his emails, since eleven o’clock last night.
Gatward was a shambling bull-necked giant of a man, six-foot-six-inches tall, with a baby face that belied his fifty-eight years, and a mane of shaggy, greying hair that hung down from either side of his bald dome. A former colonel of the 51st Airborne, Gatward had been decorated for courage under fire in Vietnam.
And later that same year, on that same field where he had earned his honours, he had held the charred body of his fiancee in his arms as she died. An over-enthusiastic US military helicopter had inadvertently dumped several gallons of self-igniting chemical defoliant onto a field hospital and its staff, just as he was arriving to collect Patty at the end of her shift.
She had run towards him, her clothes, her hair, her hands, her legs, her face all burning, screaming for help. He’d rolled her over on the ground, torn his own clothes off and bound them around her to smother the flames. But no sooner had they gone out than like some joke candle on a birthday cake they reignited.
Later, long after the flames had died and she had begun to cool, her skin suddenly slipped away from her chest and her arms, as if he was easing her out of a coat.
‘Dear God,’ Harald Gatward said as he kneeled against the bed, ‘when you created man you made him in your likeness.’ After a brief pause he repeated the same line. ‘Dear God, when you created man you made him in your likeness.’ And then he repeated it again.
No human being should ever have to die the way Patty died, Harald Gatward believed. Chemicals had killed her. Man messing around with chemicals caused all kinds of problems in the world. All the bad shit. It was Satan who put the formulae into people’s heads. Now stupid, hubristic man was no longer messing around just with chemicals, he was fooling around with human life itself. Doing all kinds of shit with genes.
God had informed Harald Gatward throughout his life. He had told Harald how to turn the inheritance from his father, who had made a sizeable fortune with auto spares manufacturing plants in Asia, into a multi-billion- dollar global empire. He had told Harald that it was right to go to Vietnam and fight for his country. He had shared many secrets with Harald over the years, many insights, many visions. He brought Harald to the monastery of Perivoli Tis Panagias to save the monks. That was important but that was only a small part of the reason he had come here.
The real reason, God had explained to him, was that from his island, Harald Gatward must begin the work that would save the world from scientists.
The sun will never set again and the moon wane no more; the Lord will be your everlasting light and your days of sorrow will end. Then will all your people be righteous and they will possess the land for ever. They are the shoot I have planted, the work of my hands, for the display of my splendour. The least of you will become a thousand, the smallest a mighty nation. I am the Lord; in its time I will do this swiftly.
You will be named the Disciples of the Third Millennium.
63
Naomi had lunch with Rosie, and was so engrossed with discussing what had happened she forgot the time. She was now ten minutes late. Shit.
To her relief as she drove into Caibourne, in torrential rain, she could see she wasn’t the last. Two large off-roaders were pulling up ahead of her outside the homely, slightly dilapidated-looking detached house close to the village church that hosted the twice-weekly playgroup, and there was a line of cars stationary in front of those.
She parked untidily, one wheel on the pavement, battled the driver’s door open against a strong gust of wind, then as an afterthought hastily popped a chewing gum in her mouth to mask the alcohol on her breath. She didn’t like being late – punctuality was one of John’s Swedish traits that had rubbed off on her.
She shouldn’t have drunk anything, because she was driving, but, hey, she thought, these last two and a half years, since well before Luke and Phoebe were born, I’ve had no life. Now they’re getting a little older, I’m damned well going to have one again. And anyhow it was just two glasses, with food, over a two-hour period. Not exactly reckless.
The path to the front door of the house was a chaos of lashing rain, hurrying mothers, tangled children and tangled umbrellas. Muttering brief hallos to a few familiar faces, Naomi hurried through them, head bowed against the elements, and made it into the sanctuary of the building.
The hall walls were covered in children’s paintings, stuck up haphazardly, and a row of framed certificates. Squeezing past a bunch of mothers trying to get their children into coats, Naomi went through an open door into the main playroom. A tiny girl, wearing Walkman headphones, was bouncing up and down on the very beat-up- looking sofa. Another girl sat at one of the tables, engrossed with an assortment of plastic creepy-crawlies and prehistoric monsters. Two small boys, one in a green hard hat, the other in a baseball cap the wrong way round, were arranging vehicles in a multi-storey car park on the floor.
No sign of Luke or Phoebe.
As she squeezed her way back into the crowded hall, Naomi saw one of the mothers she had met before, who had been very friendly to her. She was busy wrestling her small boy, Nico, into a red coat.
‘Hi, Lucy!’ Naomi said. ‘Horrible weather – September is usually such a-’
The woman, in a plastic rain hat and drenched Barbour, gave her a cursory nod, then dragged her child out towards the front door. Before Naomi had time to react, Pat Barley, who ran the playgroup, a tubby, jolly-looking woman several inches shorter than herself, with a pudding-basin hairstyle, was standing in front of her.
‘Hallo, Mrs Klaesson,’ she said. ‘Do you mind if we have a quick chat?’
‘No – of course,’ Naomi said, a little surprised at her sombre and formal tone. ‘Where are Luke and Phoebe?’
Instantly, she detected awkwardness in the woman’s face. ‘Just in the small playroom, through there,’ she said, pointing through another doorway.
Naomi peered in. Luke and Phoebe were sitting side by side on a settee in total silence, staring blankly
