The Shell House (11 page)

‘You want to believe in your God, so you’ve got easy excuses for all the things he makes a bodge of.’ He paused to marshal his argument. ‘Listen. You’d say, God knows everything, right?’

‘Yes, He’s omniscient.’

‘Right. And he can do everything, as well, because he’s God.’

‘Omnipotent.’

‘OK. Omniscient and omnipotent. And the third thing, God is good.’

She nodded.

‘Well, it doesn’t add up, does it? You can have any two of those things, but not all three—it doesn’t make sense. Because as it is—as you believe it, I mean—your omniscient God knew hundreds of thousands of people were dying in that war, were
going
to die. They were going to be shelled to bits or get gassed or get gangrene or drown in shell-holes or die in agony in hospitals or go mad with fright. And he didn’t lift a finger to stop it. Even though he could have, if he’s omnipotent. So those two things rule out the third—if he exists at all, he can’t be good. And that’s only one example. Same applies even more to earthquakes or floods or avalanches. Acts of God, they’re called, aren’t they? What sort of God would deliberately act like that?’

‘Wars are made by men,’ Faith said. ‘And even floods and tornadoes might be, because of global warming. God chooses not to interfere.’

‘So he’s not good!’

‘No. Not because He’s not good. Because it’s in our best interests not to interfere.’

‘How can you say that? How could it be better to let the First World War happen than not? And the Holocaust—how could that be in
any
one’s interests? And famines, and land-mines and the Twin Towers?’

‘We can’t know the reason for things like that. But God
must
have a reason.’

‘What, like you said he has for Michelle McAuliffe—for keeping her tied to a dialysis machine at the age of fifteen? Don’t tell me—it’s a punishment for something she did in a previous existence, right? Or what about
him
?’ Greg touched the EP initials above his head. ‘The baby, I mean, not our Edmund. Dying as a baby—what was that, a punishment for him, or for his parents, or for all of them?’

‘We can’t know. I don’t believe in that punishment-for-a-previous existence line. But there may be some good to come out of it. Michelle, say—she must be a different person because of her illness. She must affect people around her.’

‘But where’s the logic in that? If illness is so good for everyone, why aren’t we
all
ill?’

‘That’s stupid. If we were all ill, how would we appreciate health?’

Greg threw out his hands in frustration. ‘That’s what gets me. It’s a circular argument, isn’t it? We don’t know why things happen, so we invent an omniscient God who does know, and because according to you he must be a good God, there must be a good reason for everything, however terrible. It’s an easy answer,
too
easy.’

‘We don’t invent God. He exists,’ Faith said passionately. ‘He exists. He sent His son to prove it. He’s in everything. In you and in me.’

‘Leave me out of it. I’m just a collection of cells. Think about it! The Earth is a tiny planet in a solar system somewhere in an immense universe that’s been here for billions of years. Jesus didn’t turn up till two thousand years ago. That’s a bit of a late entrance, the way I see it.’

‘So you do believe in Jesus?’

‘I suppose so. But only as far as there must have been someone by that name, who lived and died. But I also know there’s a couple of hundred billion stars in the Milky Way, and that’s only our own galaxy—it’s mind-boggling! What’s so special about this planet? It’s just a—a chunk of rock hurtling round a minor sun that’ll fizzle itself out in a few billion years. Why should God decide to send his son
here
?’

‘At least you’re prepared to have your mind boggled! That’s a start.’

‘OK, but it’s not a start in your direction. Why should God, if there was a God, think I’m important enough to bother with? I’m an insignificant speck—so are you.’

‘But don’t you see?’ Faith turned to him with missionary zeal. ‘You’re asking questions—you’re thinking about the reason for your existence! It’s a first step to faith. Doesn’t it occur to you that God has brought you to me, a believer, for that purpose? I don’t believe anything happens by chance.’

‘Oh. Right. God sees me wandering about aimlessly, and he thinks: “I know! I’ll introduce him to Faith. That’ll soon put him right.” What is he—a heavenly dating agency?’

Faith laughed. ‘If you like.’

He immediately wished he hadn’t said that,
dating
. It was all too obvious, wasn’t it? Faith thought she was going to turn him into a God-squaddie, so that he’d be an acceptable boyfriend—acceptable to her parents as well. No thanks.

‘You see yourself as my saviour, do you?’ he said, flippantly.

‘No.’ Her face became serious. ‘There’s only one Saviour.’ She touched the crucifix at her throat. ‘If you open your heart to him, He will show you His love and His truth. And that’s the only way it can happen. You can’t get there by reason, or logic, or arguing.’

‘But reason and logic are all there is. How can I know what I think otherwise?’ He got up and stood by the lakeside, looking out at the wind-ruffled water. It was hopeless, trying to have a sensible discussion with her. She twisted and turned everything to suit herself.

‘Reason and logic can get in the way,’ she insisted. ‘Trust your instinct. Your instinct is leading you towards God’s love. You can turn your back on me, but don’t turn it on God.’

He wished she’d stop talking like Thought for the Day on the radio in the mornings. Any minute now she’d be inviting him to Sunday school. Why was it that the more scorn he poured on her arguments, the more she thought she was succeeding?

‘My instinct,’ he said, ‘is leading me towards the loo and a cup of coffee. And that’s all. I’m going back up.’

Approaching the front, Edmund thought whimsically, was like reaching the seaside. The front line was a barrier more effective than coastline or cliffs. No-Man’s-Land was a dangerous channel; sentries were like coastguards, scanning the sea for invaders. The land beyond, German-held, was alien country. The analogy was reflected in C Company’s nicknames for the area: the irregular trench that fronted their sector was called the Golden Mile, a night show of Very lights or star shells was Blackpool Illuminations, and a sap that stretched out into No-Man’s-Land was known as Morecambe Pier.

For now, the sector was fairly quiet. The 5th Epping Foresters were occupying a front-line position close to the Belgian border. It was rumoured that the next offensive would take place farther up, around the town of Ypres, where the bulge of the salient was surrounded on all sides by German-held ridges.

‘I want
action
,’ Alex grumbled. ‘All this waiting about is driving me mad.’

‘You’ll get action soon enough,’ said one of the other officers.

Alex had been promoted to captain. Edmund watched him going about his duties with a mixture of admiration and envy. He was energetic, meticulous, leaving no detail unchecked; he was far more popular with the men than Edmund ever managed. As Alex moved among them, making sure their food had been served before eating his own meal, or checking sentry positions along the Golden Mile, he had the knack of making an easy joke or asking about a sweetheart or baby in a way the men obviously appreciated. Trying to copy, Edmund was unable to shake off his reserve, or a suspicion that the men laughed at him behind his back. It seemed to come naturally to Alex. When Wadey, a young lance-corporal, went into a shivering funk during a burst of shelling, Alex soothed and comforted him with a kindness that surprised Edmund; he could just as typically have reacted with scorn or impatience. Edmund was almost jealous.

If Alex ever felt afraid, he did not show it. Edmund saw the gleam in his eye as he planned a forthcoming trench raid with Captain Greenaway in the officers’ dug-out over the remains of their supper. Talk of gun emplacements, sniper cover, box-barrages; games of tactics and daring; the company of other men—what more could Alex want? This was what he was good at; the war brought out his finest qualities.

‘If you were sent home on leave for a fortnight, this very minute,’ Edmund teased him when the discussion was over, ‘I believe you’d refuse to go.’

‘Home?’ Alex had hardly slept; he rubbed a hand across his eyes. ‘What is there for me to do at home other than fret to be back here? I haven’t got your rolling acres to wander in, or country house-parties for amusement.’

Mid-February, and winter showed no sign of yielding to spring. The frost turned soil to concrete and breath to steam; it numbed fingers and noses and threatened toes with its bite. This was a mining area, bleak and industrial, the landscape pimpled with slag heaps and pocked with quarries. The scenery held little to attract the eye. Efforts were concentrated on strengthening the line: attempting to dig sumps, and carrying supplies of wire, duckboards and sandbags through the poorly-marked communication trenches. Through nights of intense cold this work progressed, not without casualties. It was said that the Germans knew the position not only of every road, but of every duckboard and walkway; they picked out occasional victims with surgical accuracy.

Almost nightly, patrols were going out into No-Man’s-Land to check the flanks of the sector and to find out whether a clump of bushes or a remnant of brickwork might conceal a machine-gun post. The barbed wire must be regularly repaired, a dangerous and time-consuming task. To his own surprise, Edmund was acquiring a reputation for recklessness; he was catching bravery from Alex. They volunteered for patrols, and sometimes made unauthorized forays beyond the wire. There was a thrill of bravado in leaving the cover of the trench, in being exposed to the night; in creeping, sometimes, close enough to the German trenches to hear snatches of conversations of which they might understand an occasional word. Once, as they returned from patrol, a rifle bullet passed so close that Edmund felt the rush of air on his cheek and heard it slam into the sandbags behind him. He felt light-headed, invulnerable. Hissing the password to the sentry, he slithered down into their trench, pulled Alex after him and helped him to his feet, laughing. Both of them were coal-streaked and filthy in the early grey light. For a wild moment Edmund thought: I have never been happier in my whole life. This is living in a way I have never dreamed.

‘Do you
want
to get yourselves killed?’ said the new junior officer, Paterson’s replacement.

‘Both or neither.’ Alex spoke into Edmund’s ear. ‘Both live or both die.’

In daylight, all life was conducted below ground. The furtive creeping, head kept carefully below the dripping parapet, felt to Edmund like a literal enactment of the secrecy of his personal life. In the back-to-front world of the trenches, day was night and night was day. Daytime was for rest and sleeping, for brewing mugs of tea, for distributing mail and for writing letters. Night-time was for working-parties, and for vigilance, when the two armies, dug into opposing trenches, revealed their presence through desultory shelling, a sniper’s rifle, the rise and flare of Very lights. Humans needed to be as alert and cunning as foxes or rats.

Edmund was in the officers’ dug-out, trying to sleep. Captain Greenaway was snoring, with a rasping intake of breath that strained Edmund’s nerves; Barnes, the other subaltern, was reading. Turning uncomfortably to face the shored-up wall, Edmund pulled his blanket over his ears. Alex was a few feet away on his own bunk, already unconscious, one arm flung loosely aside. Every time they settled to sleep, Edmund lay in a frustration of longing and desire. If Barnes as well as Greenaway had been soundly snoring, he would have risked crossing the few feet of clinker floor just to touch Alex’s trailing hand or gaze at his sleeping face. As it was, he had to make do with imagining. Closing his eyes, he thought of his lover’s body warm and close, the smell of his skin, the way his blue eyes looked vague when he woke, then sharpened into alertness. Edmund put the trodden coal-dust and the gas-curtain out of his mind to see instead the light-filled window of the Picardy farmhouse, the long dusks and dawns, the bare floorboards and simple furniture of their attic refuge. Here he was driven to distraction—they were so close and so apart. Is this love, he wondered, or is it madness? I am obsessed with him to a pitch of delirium. And then Alex would look at him in that fleeting, intimate way, or touch his hand, and he would be momentarily soothed until next time the fever burned him.