Mystical Circles (35 page)

“We can see you tried to protect Rory, Craig,” she burst out, “and yes, I admit that I still want to understand why. Rory’s point of view, I understand very well. Rory adores you. He’s obsessed with you. He longs for you... but you’re not as he is, are you, Craig?”

Craig opened his eyes wide.

“Or are you?” Juliet asked. An inner voice urged her to push the point. She needed to know. She needed to hear from Craig’s own lips. “I want to learn the truth about you, Craig,” she said. At her side, she felt that Don was tense and watchful. She continued. “I know, Craig, that you don’t trust women. Or love. Despite the name of this group you run.” Before he could protest, she hurried on. “Let me hear you say it now, Craig. In your own words. The truth.”

His eyes narrowed.

Her mouth turned dry. Her fingers and palms perspired. Her neck and shoulders felt tense, and her heart hammered. Several moments passed. Then, unaccountably, she felt the hardness of Craig’s will soften.

“Very well, Juliet,” he said slowly. “So it’s my attitude to women you want to know about. I vowed I’d never marry. Nor will I. If I’m being true to the image of myself I’ve projected onto the minds of my followers.”

She swallowed. An
image
? One he’d
projected
? It didn’t add up. “What do you mean exactly?”

“Do I have to spell it out to you?” he said. “The women have come round to the idea that I’m bisexual. The men are all convinced I’m gay.”

A hush fell. “And are you?” Juliet asked.
Say it, Craig. One simple word. So I know before I leave.
Though hearing it said would be worse than anything.

“What I mean,” said Craig, “is this: their ideas about me are false. I’m not any of the things they believe I am at all. I think you’ve long suspected that, Juliet.”

She said nothing. She felt like strangling him.

Craig went on in a reflective tone of voice. “Although, having played these roles so long for the benefit of my followers, I’ve almost convinced myself. The roles seem to suit me. And they’re certainly better than humouring my father in his delusion that I can be prodded into marriage with a girl of his choice.”

Don exploded at this. “Not true, Craig,” he began. “I’ve never...” Then he stopped.

“Surely, Craig,” said Juliet, “you oversimplify human beings. You did that in Rory’s case, and you do the same with your followers, and with yourself, and your father.”

A long silence fell between them. During that silence, many adjustments took place in Juliet’s view of Craig. What was he? A skilled inspirational speaker, a charismatic teacher, an adept in the arts of the shaman? Or a young man tripped up by his own ideals?

“I can’t speak for my father,” said Craig. “Perhaps you’re better placed to do that.”

“That’s enough,” broke in Don. He looked straight at Craig. “What’s the deal?” he asked. “The deal you have for me?”

With that, Craig seemed to snap. “No deal would work with you. The truth is you’ve long tried to control my life.”

“I had to do it,” shouted Don. “No one else could. Your mother wasn’t around. Walked out on us. So it was all up to me. Don’t you think I deserve some thanks?”

For some time nobody spoke. Both men were breathing heavily.

Juliet was about to interpose. But she thought better of it.

“No,” replied Craig. “She didn’t walk, she ran. Before you could break her spirit.”

Don’s face blanched. Juliet looked from one man to the other, not knowing who to believe. She was almost on the verge of seizing Craig and shaking him till his teeth rattled. She restrained herself in time, stepping back against Don. He wrapped his arms around her, evidently in an effort to calm her.

She missed a breath. She was in his arms. It felt blissful. For a few moments, her mind blanked. She couldn’t process any thoughts at all. Shock flashed across Craig’s face, as he focused upon the two of them.  

And in the next moment, Don released her again. Her face burned and her arms and legs felt weak. She battled the desire to collapse on a fallen trunk. She couldn’t handle this. All she saw was Craig’s expression. It was icy and taut with fury.

She had no idea how Don was feeling, even when he finally spoke – not to her, but to Craig. “Why that look, Craig?” he asked. His voice trembled. He didn’t look at Juliet either.

The question wasn’t answered. Moments passed, as all three regained some semblance of poise. Don jerked his head toward the north west. “All right, let’s go for a walk. I know the weather’s miserable, but it might help us think straight.”

Craig coldly considered this. His features were still set – with, she believed, intense controlled anger. Then he led them across the car park, over the stile and along the track that climbed steadily upwards into the cool, moist woodland. As they walked behind Craig, she studied him: his tall, slim figure, his resolute pace, his posture; in fact everything about him. She had no way of telling how Don, behind her, was feeling.

Craig halted. So did she. Don drew level. Then unexpectedly Craig closed in on her, his face holding a curious expression. Was he about to change appearance again? Before he reached her, however, she heard boughs being pushed aside behind them. Turning, she saw a fourth person heading up the track in a rain-spattered denim jacket. Theo. What a relief.  Don and Craig couldn’t stage World War Three in front of him. Or might she be mistaken in that?

“Hi there Don, Craig, Juliet,” called Theo. “Good to see you three. A dreary sky and blustery wind can’t put us off, can they? Despite all that’s been happening down there.” He indicated the house, now well below them.

For several moments no one spoke. Even the trees were subdued. No birds were to be seen, either on the branches, or silhouetted against the opaqueness of the sky.

Don was first to break the silence. “We’ve got a dilemma. Put it to him, Craig.”

Craig didn’t speak.

Theo raised his eyebrows. But it seemed none of them needed to explain any further. “You feel hurt, Craig. Because you believe Don has taken Juliet from you.”

Juliet’s jaw dropped. How could she have been so ignorant of what was really going on? Was it possible that she herself was the most deluded person of all?   

Strolling around them and then a short way ahead, Theo turned and faced the three. “I know what it’s like to hold all sorts of wrong notions about other people, and what they do and say – and about myself.”

Juliet held him in view. But she couldn’t trust herself to reply.

“Let’s walk on,” said Theo. The others silently obeyed as if on automatic pilot. The breeze was much stronger and cooler now. How could she have thought, Juliet wondered, just a few minutes ago, that the atmosphere was still? Now she heard the wind rushing through the tall conifers. “Four and a half years ago,” Theo continued, “I started work as a freelance radio broadcaster, alongside my work for the Church. Then, after about two years, without any warning, I quit. Broke my contract. Cut myself off from friends, family, colleagues.”

He tramped on, occasionally stopping to pick something up from the ground – maybe a bird’s feather, or a stone, to turn it in his hands and contemplate it as if it aided his thoughts, then to put it back down somewhere else on his journey. “One day, I was more or less OK, the next, a curtain had fallen – a black, thick, impenetrable curtain.”

“Depression?” said Don.

Theo glanced at him. “Yes.”

“Thought so,” murmured Don.

Craig said nothing. Juliet wondered how much of this he already knew.

“I wanted out. So I ran,” said Theo.

“Where to?” asked Juliet.

“Rented cottage on the most deserted part of the Norfolk coast. And there I hid for the best part of two years.”

“And no one came to help?” asked Juliet.

“No. Once you’re in that black state, you don’t want help. People tend to steer clear of you anyway. If anyone does offer help you reject it. You’re in deep depression. You hate yourself.” Theo picked up a small branch from the ground, and twisted and turned it in his hands, feeling the texture of the bark.

“You had no forewarning of this?” asked Juliet.

“Only that for several months, I’d had doubts. Serious doubts.”

“About your faith?” asked Juliet.

“Yes. That made me afraid. I was broadcasting as a man of faith. But deep inside, I believed nothing.” Theo stared fixedly at the track for a few moments, then lifted his head again. “I’d let everybody down. But I lacked the will to take action. Like you, Craig.”

Juliet gazed from Theo to Craig and back again, puzzled. How did this connect with Craig?

Theo soon dropped a clue. Swinging to face the others, he let go of the branch, and spread his arms. “As time passed, I convinced myself that to ask forgiveness from those I’d turned my back on, would earn me nothing but scorn and contempt.”

Was this the link? Meanwhile, Craig had picked a cluster of leaves from a nearby shrub, and was flipping them back and forth. Juliet couldn’t see his face.

“I had a recurring dream,” went on Theo. “I dreamed I’d died, and was still conscious. I realised this must be the afterlife. Dark and silent. An icy waste of nothingness, and no way out.”

The atmosphere chilled as Juliet contemplated this scenario. She took the leaf spray from Craig, and began to stroke each leaf.

“Meanwhile, in the daytime, the same half-life continued. I never opened mail,” said Theo. “I had the phone line cut off before moving in. No computer, of course. Often, I didn’t get up all day.”

“And still no faith?” asked Juliet.

“Nil. I believed nothing.” He paused. “I didn’t even have the energy to be an atheist.”

“What?” Don asked. “I never needed any effort for that. Always came naturally to me.”

“Atheism is a belief system like any other,” said Theo.

Don looked unconvinced.

“The idea of heaven became hollow and meaningless,” continued the clergyman. “How can anyone be happy there while the rest of us wallow down here in the mud?”

“I never really looked at it that way,” said Don.

“But I did,” continued Theo. “And so I concluded that none of it makes sense. It doesn’t work. God’s got it wrong.”

Juliet, Don and Craig all kept quiet.

“But of course,” went on Theo, “if He’s God, He doesn’t
have
to do anything I think He should do.” He looked straight at Don and Craig. They both exchanged an uneasy glance.

Craig turned back to Theo and said, “You mean all our expectations might be defeated?”

“I do,” said Theo.

Juliet surveyed Craig. He stood slightly apart from them, his expression frozen. She couldn’t even guess what he was thinking or feeling.

Don took Juliet’s hand and squeezed it. She turned towards him, and responded, putting her hand on top of his. His hands felt warm beneath hers, despite the weather. She looked at him. He was so different. This wasn’t the emotionally buttoned-up man she’d known so far. There was feeling in his eyes, real feeling. Something in her heart gave way. What was happening to her? And to Don? Suddenly she saw him as all that was secure, solid, down to earth, trustworthy. Diametrically opposed to much of what she’d found here in this community.

In the next moment she found herself swept into his arms, and crushed close to him. She was stunned. All she could think was, Don, is it you I’ve wanted, all along?

Several moments later, Don released her. Her breathing came fast now, and she looked around, bewildered. Craig had disappeared. But Theo was still there, damp and windblown. Even the field maples and beeches seemed to have forgotten it was summer. Their leaves hung limp and dejected from the boughs, or so it seemed to her. She looked at Don.

“Juliet, I…” he began. His eyes seemed now to be pleading with her. She guessed he was as confused, overwhelmed as she was. Had he meant to do that? Was he too struggling to come to terms with his feelings and actions, previously totally out of character for him? As, perhaps mistakenly, he’d thought?

Theo strode across to them both. “Juliet, do you have a vision?”

“Yes, Theo,” she responded, “you know I do.”

“What happened to it then? What are you and Don thinking of? And Craig’s gone. What do you suppose he makes of you two?”

“I never meant…” said Don.

Juliet gazed at Theo, appalled by his words. On his face, she read a disturbing mixture of disillusion and bafflement she hadn’t believed him capable of. It shook her to the core.

“I don’t understand what’s happening to me,” she whispered.

“You still won’t come clean with yourself?” returned Theo. “Or has your goal moved into a region of the unknown you forgot to map?”

Juliet’s face burned.

“Well, Don,” said Theo, “Your move now.”

“How?” asked the Yorkshireman. “When? In what way?”

“In every way that matters,” said Theo.

20

Thistle in the Picnic

After Theo and Don had returned to the house Juliet chose instead to walk on for what seemed like miles. One moment she felt ecstatic, the next despairing. Her emotions were chaotic. Don and Juliet …  who’d have believed it? She, herself, had certainly never dreamed she was attracted to Don. And yet… more and more she’d felt he was a far better option than his son. Reliable, steady, rooted in the earth…

She did acknowledge she’d grown fond of him. Did she really want him?  Yes, and no.  What would it mean for the future? Where should she go from here? There was no one to turn to for advice. Zoe would be hopeless. Hardly Don himself. Even less Craig. And she certainly wouldn’t ask Theo. She’d heard quite enough from him on the subject already.

And so her imagination freewheeled. By the time she approached the house, she’d exhausted all the scenarios her mind could conjure. Arriving at five-thirty she entered the sitting room. There were two hours until dinner. What would she do? Mental and physical tiredness took over. She sank down onto the sofa, and into a deep sleep.

The next thing she knew she was sitting up, bewildered, staring into the face of Al. The American lounged opposite wearing a flamingo-pink shirt, with a quizzical expression on his good-natured face.   He glanced at his watch, a flashy silver affair that had probably been picked up from a cut-price designer watch shop in Hong Kong.