The Revelations Read Online Free PDF Page B

Mouse and Lee were both lost in the darkness. Lee started to play a series of arpeggios, the music rising out of the silence. Mouse tapped out a gentle rhythm, the drumstick struck against the rim of the snare. Then Marcus and David came in, and Abby began to sing.
    ‘You are a deep sea,
    You are an abyss.
    The more I lose, the more I find,
    So I’ll lose myself in your kiss.
    You are a fire that burns
    Without being consumed
    That takes away the cold
    And guides me safely home.’
    Abby rocked sensuously on her hips as she sang, one arm twirling up towards the roof. Marcus wondered if Abby was thinking about him as she sang, or about David, or Jesus. It was a strangely ambiguous song, just a love song which, because of the setting, was interpreted by the audience as something holy, a hymn. He imagined Abby as the central pillar of a cross, with David and himself as the arms.
    After the music, they ate. Sally Nightingale stood at the back of the room with other Course volunteers doling out food. Marcus was always struck by how attractive the volunteers were. The young men wore aprons over their smart- casual work clothes, smiling with large teeth that were extraordinarily white. The girls were thin and pretty and blonde, dressed in immaculate suits from the office or the expensive bohemian smocks of the stay-at-home mothers. It wasn’t only that the Course attracted its members from the wealthy roads that surrounded the church; some travelled from the other side of London to attend. The Course had links with the top universities, with major public schools, with law firms and investment banks. It was marketed to these institutions as a philosophical way into religion, as a path that encouraged the aggressive questioning of faith. So the people who attended were bright, successful, inquisitive.
    A group of politicians stood at the back of the church talking to their banker friends. They would eat later, after the Course, piling into restaurants on Beauchamp Place or Walton Street. Having recently won power by a thin margin, the politicians wore about them an air of restrained celebration. They were all very young, Eton-educated, near-identical in sober suits and blue ties. They slapped the wide backs of the financiers who were laughing over-loudly at their jokes. Their haughty, exhausted wives, brandishing babies in their arms, chatted to one another in the shadows of the side aisles, discussing schools and nanny troubles. The politicians had been members of the Course since its early days and would now be instrumental in helping David and the Earl to further embed it in the nation’s consciousness.
    Next to the bankers and politicians, hoping to pick up some tradable news, Marcus recognised a number of hedge-fund managers whom he had worked with over the past few years. They always looked slightly ashamed to see him: he was a reminder of the potential for failure in lives that usually never contemplated it. He sat on the Course investment committee with some of them and they shouted over one another to convince him of the brilliance of their ideas. The Earl, who chaired these investment meetings, came and stood beside Marcus as he queued for dinner.
    ‘See the markets today, Marcus?’
    ‘Yes, although I wasn’t around for the close. I had to be here. I’m a Course leader this year.’
    ‘So you are. David told me about it the other night in New York.’
    The Earl leaned heavily on the table, looking at Marcus through narrow eyes under a low brow. He was a big man, ex-army, who wore his sleeves rolled to the elbow, revealing large forearms covered in wiry black hair. His crew cut was shot through with silver, a giant watch sat on his wrist, and a pair of large Oxfords were shined to mirrors on his feet. He edged his hands down the table towards the steaming pans of pasta. Marcus took the food he knew he was too nervous to eat, and went back to the circle of seats. The Earl walked with him.
    ‘I’m concerned that some