“No, I’m not a Christian.”
“What do you believe, then?”
“Believe about what?”
“The things that religious people think are important. Whether there is a God. How do you explain evil? What happens when we die? Why are we here? How ought we to live our lives?”
Theo said: “The last is the most important, the only question that really matters. You don’t have to be religious to believe that. And you don’t have to be a Christian to find an answer.”
Rolf turned to him and asked, as if he really wanted to know: “But what do you believe? I don’t just mean religion. What are you sure of?”
“That once I was not and that now I am. That one day I shall no longer be.”
Rolf gave a short laugh, harsh as a shout. “That’s safe enough. No one can argue with that. What does he believe, the Warden of England?”
“I don’t know. We never discussed it.”
Miriam came over and, sitting with her back against a trunk, stretched out her legs wide, closed her eyes and lifted her face, gently smiling, to the sky, listening but not speaking.
Rolf said: “I used to believe in God and the Devil and then one morning, when I was twelve, I lost my faith. I woke up and found that I didn’t believe in any of the things the Christian Brothers had taught me. I thought if that ever happened I’d be too frightened to go on living, but it didn’t make any difference. One night I went to bed believing and the next morning I woke up unbelieving. I couldn’t even tell God I was sorry, because He wasn’t there any more. And yet it didn’t really matter. It hasn’t mattered ever since.”
Miriam said without opening her eyes: “What did you put in His empty place?”
“There wasn’t any empty place. That’s what I’m telling you.”
“What about the Devil?”
“I believe in the Warden of England. He exists. He’s Devil enough for me to be going on with.”
Theo walked away from them and made his way down the narrow path between the trees. He was still uneasy about Julian’s absence, uneasy and angry. She ought to know that they must keep together, ought to realize that someone, a rambler, a woodman, an estate worker, might come along the lane and see them. It wasn’t only the State Security Police or the Grenadiers they needed to fear. He knew that he was feeding irritation with irrational anxieties. Who in this deserted place and at this hour was likely to surprise them? Anger welled up in him, disturbing in its vehemence.
And then he saw them. They were only fifty yards away from the clearing and the car, kneeling in a small green patch of moss. They were totally absorbed. Luke had set up his altar-one of the tin boxes upturned and spread with a tea-towel. On it was a single candle stuck in a saucer. Beside it was another saucer with two crumbs of bread and, beside that, a small—mug. He was wearing a cream stole. Theo wondered if he had been carrying it rolled in his pocket. They were unaware of his presence and they reminded him of two children totally absorbed in some primitive game; their faces grave and dappled by the shadow of the leaves. He watched as Luke lifted the saucer with the two crumbs in his left hand, placing his right palm above it. Julian bent her head lower so that she seemed to crouch into the ground.
The words, half-remembered from his distant childhood, were spoken very quietly but came to Theo clearly. “Hear us, O merciful Father, we most humbly beseech thee; and grant that we receiving these thy creatures of bread and wine, according to thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ’s holy institution, in remembrance of his death and passion, may be partakers of his most blessed Body and Blood: who, in the same night that he was betrayed, took Bread; and, when he had given thanks, he brake it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, Take, eat; this is my Body which is given for you; Do this in remembrance of me.”
He stood back in the shelter of the trees and watched. In memory he was back in that dull little church in Surrey in his Sunday dark-blue suit, Mr. Greenstreet, his self-importance carefully controlled, ushering the congregation pew by pew to the communion rail. He remembered his mother’s bent head. He had felt excluded then and he felt excluded now.
Slipping away from the trees he went back to the clearing. He said: “They’ve nearly finished. They won’t be long now.”
Rolf said: “They never are long. We may as well wait breakfast for them. I suppose we should be grateful Luke doesn’t feel the need to preach her a sermon.”
His voice and smile were indulgent. Theo wondered about his relationship with Luke, whom he seemed to tolerate as he might a well-meaning child who couldn’t be expected to make a full adult contribution but who was doing his best to be useful and was no trouble. Was Rolf merely indulging what he saw as the whim of a pregnant woman? If Julian wanted the services of a personal chaplain, then he was prepared to include Luke in the Five Fishes even though he had no practical skills to offer. Or had Rolf in that single and complete rejection of his childhood religion retained an unacknowledged vestige of superstition? Did he with part of his mind see Luke as the miracle-worker who could turn dry crumbs into flesh, the bringer of luck, the possessor of mystic powers and ancient charms, whose very presence among them could propitiate the dangerous gods of the forest and the night?
Friday 15 October
I am writing this entry sitting in the glade of a beechwood, my back against a tree. It is late afternoon and the shadows are beginning to lengthen but, within the grove, the warmth of day still lingers. I have a conviction that this is the last diary entry I shall make, but even if neither I nor these words survive, I need to record this day. It has been one of extraordinary happiness and I have spent it with four strangers. In the years before Omega, at the beginning of each academic year, I used to write an assessment of the applicants I had selected for admission to college. This record, with a photograph from their application form, I kept in a private file. At the end of their three years it used to interest me to see how often my preliminary pen- portrait was accurate, how little they had changed, how powerless I was to alter their essential natures. I was seldom wrong about them. The exercise reinforced my natural confidence in my judgement; perhaps that was its purpose. I believed that I could know them and did know them. I can’t feel that about my fellow-fugitives. I still know practically nothing about them: their parents, their families, their education, their loves, their hopes and desires. Yet I have never felt so much at ease with other human beings as I have been today with these four strangers to whom I am now, still half-reluctantly, committed and one of whom I am learning to love.
It has been a perfect autumn day, the sky a clear azure blue, the sunlight mellow and gentle but strong as high June, the air sweet-scented, carrying the illusion of wood smoke, mown hay, the gathered sweets of summer. Perhaps because the beech grove is so remote, so enclosed, we have shared a sense of absolute safety. We have occupied our time in dozing, talking, working, playing childish games with stones and twigs and pages torn from my diary. Rolf has checked and cleaned the car. Watching his meticulous attention to every inch, his energetic rubbing and polishing, I found it impossible to believe this innocently employed natural mechanic with his simple pleasure in the job was the same Rolf who yesterday had displayed such arrogance, such naked ambition.
Luke busied himself with the stores. Rolf showed some natural leadership in giving him this responsibility. Luke decided that we should eat the fresh food first and then the tins in their date-stamped order, discovering in this obviously sensible priority an unwonted confidence in his own administrative ability. He has sorted out the tins, made lists, devised menus. After we had eaten he would sit quietly with his prayer book or come to join Miriam and Julian while I read to them from Emma. Lying back on the beech leaves and gazing up at the glimpses of the strengthening blue sky, I felt as innocently joyous as if we were having a picnic. We were having a picnic. We didn’t discuss plans for the future or the dangers to come. Now that
