What You Wish For (25 page)

I squeezed my eyes shut. A great sense of disillusionment hit me. Had I been wrong about Marie all this time? If she’d known how much I had been fearful and worried about her . . .

What she had done to me was cruel. It was not the way you treated someone you supposedly loved.

It would be easy to put all the blame on Andrew, to believe that he coerced or brainwashed her. But it didn’t sound like it. It sounded like she had been fully aware of what she was doing. Her belief in the Chorus and this ridiculous idea of a coming rapturous day had made her feel she had licence to do whatever she liked. To hurt people.

I stood up and threw my coffee cup across the room, watching it shatter against the wall, coffee splattering the wallpaper.

I sunk back into my seat, heart beating hard, and returned to the final part of the email.

I’m running out of time here, Richard. I’m afraid that someone’s going to hear my fingers on the keyboard and come and find out what I’m doing. And I need sleep. Tomorrow is the big day. In just a few hours’ time we will make contact.

There’s no way I will be able to sleep.

This is what I’ve waited for all my life. Since my dad left and I discovered the truth. I’ve waited and watched and listened since I was fourteen. I’ve given my life to the pursuit of the truth: that we are not alone in the universe; that there is a great intelligence that wants us, the chosen few, to join it. All across the world, different groups are preparing, each of them waiting to be taken to the Chorus, to be part of it. Andrew believes that only our group are the true chosen ones. Soon, we will see.

I’m shaking. I feel so nervous. But also excited, happy. This is like everything you’ve ever wished for rolled into one – every Christmas, every birthday, every love affair, every present, every exam pass, every job; like losing your virginity, like meeting your true love, like getting your dream job, having beautiful, healthy children, enjoying the perfect night beneath the stars, surrounded by perfect friends. All those things, collected together and multiplied infinitely. Because this is all I’ve ever wanted. And we are the first in human history. The very first.

That, Richard, is why I could not stay with you. Why I had to deceive you and hurt you and leave you. Why I lied and hid and made you cry. One night I almost gave in, and I phoned you, but I chickened out before you could answer. I wept that night, wondered if I was doing the right thing, almost had a crisis of faith. Were we wrong? Have we been fooling ourselves all this time? I lay awake all night, and then I talked to Charlotte, told her my fears. Charlotte went to Andrew, and we talked, and it was just like when we had first met. We talked and talked, and he helped me renew my faith.

I know we’re right, Richard. I know it’s going to happen.

And maybe one day you and I will meet again. Who knows, I may return to Earth to spread the message. Otherwise, I will wait until the Chorus embraces Earth as a whole, welcomes the entire planet, and you will be there among the newcomers. You will see that I was right all along. And I will be waiting.

Until that day, goodbye my love. Please don’t be unhappy. Go on with your life. Be successful, fall in love again, have babies. And watch the stars. That’s where I’ll be.

Love Marie xxxx

I stared at the screen.

Despite my anger and disillusionment, I still cared about her. I couldn’t help it.

And I had a horrible, sickening feeling in my gut . . .

I ran out of the house to my car, then realised I had forgotten my key. I ran back indoors again. I stood in the middle of the living room for a moment and forgot what I was supposed to be doing. I held my face in my hands until the world stopped spinning and grabbed the key from the table.

In the car, I turned on the radio.

The last few bars of a song I didn’t recognise faded into the news. I pulled out behind a bus and headed down the hill.

The first story on the news made me hit the brake, swerve to the side of the road and almost lose my life. I missed the bus by inches.

‘Police in Eastbourne, East Sussex, have confirmed that approximately a dozen people committed suicide today by apparently throwing themselves over the clifftop at Beachy Head in the early hours of this morning. The people who killed themselves are believed to have been part of an alien abduction cult that was based in a village near
Eastbourne
. The police report that they have one witness to the event, but are unable to confirm at present either the number of people who died or their names. The event is similar to—’

I switched the radio off.

I sat and stared.

It took me ten minutes to get to Simon’s. I sat in the car and leaned on my hooter until he appeared. As soon as he saw it was me he looked anxious and uncomfortable.

‘You’ve heard the news?’ he said, opening the passenger door.

I nodded.

‘It might not be her,’ he said. ‘It might . . .’

I looked at him and he shut up.

The road to Beachy Head was crowded with ghouls and journalists. Luckily I had one of the latter in the car with me. Simon flashed his press pass, said, ‘Local press,’ and we were allowed through by the roadblock. I had never seen so many people in this one spot before. They came from all over the surrounding area – Eastbourne, Pevensey, Bexhill, as far away as Lewes – to take a look. The words
alien, cult
and
suicide
had combined to whip up a feverish interest. Of course, anyone who lived near Beachy Head was accustomed to suicide – as the huge Samaritans billboard testified – but
mass
suicides were unknown here.

The edge of the cliff had been cordoned off, and police kept out undesirables while the emergency services set about trying to recover the dead. Below us, the authorities went about the awful task of recovering the broken bodies from the rocks.

I couldn’t speak. Simon went over and talked to one of the policemen, asked him if they had a list of names yet. The policeman shook his head.

A middle-aged couple stood nearby, both ashen-faced, the woman weeping on her husband’s shoulder. Simon approached them.

‘Do you know somebody who . . . might have jumped?’ he asked.

The woman let out a shrill cry. The man said, ‘Our daughter.’

‘What was her name?’ Simon asked softly.

‘Emily,’ the man replied, turning away. He looked over at the cliff. Wind ruffled the grass; the sky was so low it almost touched our hair. The clouds were dark grey, pregnant and threatening.

‘Was one of them called Emily?’ Simon asked me. I shook my head. I didn’t know.

I managed to speak: ‘I want to go to the farmhouse.’

With Simon behind the wheel, we made it back past the ever-growing number of voyeurs, who had been joined by reporters from national newspapers. A BBC news crew were trying to get their van through the crowds.

I gave Simon instructions and we headed to East Dean. I pointed out the gate where I had parked the day before and we pulled up, then walked down the lane into the farmyard. All the chickens had gone, as had the white van. It was silent.

The front door stood open. We went inside.

We wandered from room to room, not bothering to call out any names. There were no farewell notes, no clues as to what had happened. The fridge was half-f; the TV had been left on standby. The washing up had been left in the sink. Upstairs were half a dozen bedrooms. The largest room, with the best view, contained a double bed that had been made neatly that morning.

Down the hall was a small bedroom containing a single bed and a laptop. Marie’s room. I knew this immediately. The room smelled of her. There were pale red hairs on the pillow. This was where she had slept while I chased around, following her trail. I flipped the laptop open, ran a finger over the keys, where her teardrops had fallen.

‘Come on, mate.’ Simon put his hand on my shoulder. ‘This place gives me the creeps.’

We walked outside. Rain had started to fall. I turned my face to the clouds and closed my eyes, felt the cleansing kiss of rain on my eyelids and mouth and nose. I opened my eyes. I wanted to see into space, but the clouds were in the way.

Andrew had sent out a press release via his website that morning, tweeting a link to it shortly before the mass suicide.

This morning, contact was made between ourselves, the Vox Humana, and an extraterrestrial intelligence known as the Chorus. The Chorus is an interplanetary council made up of various species from across the universe. They have been in contact with Earth for over 70 years now, although successive governments have consistently denied this. Today the Chorus bypassed government and made contact directly with The People.

A craft will land at Beachy Head today to transport us from this solar system. We will step onto the craft from the cliff edge. When we return, it will be to welcome all of humankind to the Chorus.

Until then – farewell.

Vox Humana

It was headline news. And by the following morning, the police and the coastguard had recovered and identified all of the bodies. The names were all over the web, along with the video testimony of the only eyewitness, a man called Gerald Potter, who had been walking his dogs at six a.m., as he did every morning.

In the video, Potter stood on the clifftop, squinting into the winter sun. He read from a piece of paper, making his statement sound stilted and unemotional.

‘I was just heading home when I saw this white van. It pulled up about fifteen yards from the edge of the cliff, maybe a bit
furt
her – just over there.’ He pointed. ‘I thought it was a bit odd, a white van at that time of the morning. I thought maybe someone was going to chuck rubbish off the cliff. If so, I was going to have words with them.’ He coughed.

‘The back of the van opened and a number of people climbed out. They were mostly young women, plus a few chaps. They were all dressed in white robes with hoods, except for one chap, who was wearing black. The one in black gathered the others around him and started talking to them. At this point I thought I’d stumbled upon a coven of Devil worshippers, and that he was their high priest or something. I wasn’t sure what to do. Then they stood in a line holding hands, the chap in black at the centre of the row. I counted them. There were thirteen of them. I know that for certain because I remember thinking it tied in with my idea that they were Satanists. Then they started to walk slowly towards the edge of the cliff, and I realised what was going on. I was too far away to stop them . . .’

Mr Potter was asked by a reporter if there were definitely
thirteen
people.

‘I’m absolutely certain,’ he replied. ‘My eyesight’s as sharp as when I was a boy.’

I stared at the list of names. Of those who had jumped.

Samantha O’Connell. Charlotte Myers. Philip Warner.

Kevin Stiller. Melissa Bourne. Jacqui Etheridge.

Kelly Smith. Katie Johnstone. Alison Bradfield.

Jenny Taylor-Reeves. Maggie Sherman.

I scanned the list from top to bottom, then from bottom to top. I closed my eyes, refocused, then read it again, counting to eleven.

There were two names missing.

Epilogue

I tread the crooked path to the top of the hill.

The first colours of spring are breaking through, and the world smells fresh, new. Reborn. The sun is sinking and the sky turns cobalt. Soon the stars will come out. And I will watch.

I will watch the sky.

The bodies of Marie Walker and Andrew Jade were never found. I phoned around the news agencies that first day – or rather, I got Simon to do it – to check that it wasn’t a mistake, that they hadn’t just omitted two names from the list.

‘That’s the funny thing,’ one news editor told Simon. ‘That guy who saw the whole thing swears blind there were thirteen people who walked over the cliff, but they only found eleven bodies. I guess they must have been swept out to sea – or the old guy miscounted. Easily done, isn’t it?’

I watched the news for weeks afterwards, expecting them to say that two bodies had been washed up on the beach, but it never happened.

The story was big news for about a week. The police quickly located the farmhouse, and pictures of the empty rooms appeared in all the papers. The media made a big fuss over the fact that there were some very young girls involved. When they found the alien porn sites on the internet they almost exploded with excitement. The government promised to look into it. Samantha O’Connell’s books temporarily went to the top of the bestseller lists. Everyone who had ever had any contact with Andrew was interviewed and his university past was dredged up.

There was great debate over the missing bodies. The coastguard explained that it was possible they had been carried away to sea, but very unlikely. Many people thought Andrew and Marie must have planned their escape, fooling their fellow pact members. A lovers’ tryst, they called it. The witness was old, had been busy operating his new mobile phone when the group jumped. Had Andrew and Marie broken free of the line and saved their own skins? Most people thought so.

A lovers’ tryst. Could that be true? Had Andrew chosen Marie over Cherry?

Had Marie chosen him over me?

Meanwhile, the ufology community had its own ideas about what had happened.

Contact had been made. Andrew and Marie were the only true chosen ones, and they were, at this moment, among the Chorus, the first humans to join an extraterrestrial culture.

The mystery had been taken away from me. It was no longer mine to solve alone.

By Christmas, the fuss had died down. The story had been replaced by some other tragedy. I hear there’s going to be a BBC documentary screened soon. Simon said I should talk to them, give my side of the story, tell them what I know. But I don’t want to. I don’t want to be dragged into it.

The Vox Humana story tied in with stories from across the world. Government agencies in Japan, Italy and the USA planted undercover operatives in a number of known alien abduction cults. Each of the cults was raided on the very same day that Andrew’s thirteen walked towards the edge of Beachy Head.

In Oregon, an undercover FBI agent called Rick Delaney gave evidence against a cult known as the Loved Ones. The cult’s leader, Lisa Mendelsohn, and five men were arrested for fraud, deception, harbouring known criminals – and the murder of a British citizen, Gary Kennedy.

I couldn’t believe it – Rick, an FBI agent! He had fooled us all. And part of the evidence included the flash drives Zara had fetched from her house, which contained details of everyone who had ever been part of the Loved Ones, of the money and possessions they had signed over and the enormous shopping spree it had
funded –
cars, diamonds, houses, cocaine, and so on – to bring criminal prosecutions against Lisa.

I scoured the reports, in print and on the Net, but there was no mention of Zara.

Maybe she never went back after dropping me at the
airport
, although it seemed unlikely. Some dark nights, at four a.m., when my soul howled with loneliness and I imagined Marie and Andrew together, I thought about going back to America and finding her.

There had been a connection there. We had both lost people we loved. I should go out there, find her, start again. But then morning would come and I’d change my mind.

Because I’m getting on with my life. I’m healing.

Healing.

Bob Milner asked me to go back and work for the
Herald
. I said no. I’ve found a much better job. The
Sunday Telegram
wants me to work as a features photographer on their magazine. It looks like my ambitions might be fulfilled after all. Marie would be proud. It should be exciting: a new life, a new start. A new me.

A week or so after the suicide, I went to visit Marie’s mum. She was back home and had good news: her cancer was in remission.

‘Waiting for the all-clear from the oncologist,’ she said, attempting a smile.

She made us a cup of tea and we sat out in the porch, on wicker chairs, looking out at the birds hopping about in the bright winter sunshine. She thanked me for searching for her daughter, and I said sorry that I was unable to bring her home.

‘I think she’s still out there,’ she said. She stared at me, an imploring look that made me uncomfortable. ‘I’d be able to feel it, wouldn’t I, if she was dead? And they would have found the body.’

I began to say ‘Not necessarily,’ but she talked over me. She looked exhausted, puffy bags drooping beneath her eyes. ‘She’s either out there somewhere,’ she said, gesturing at the garden and beyond, ‘or she’s out
there
.’

She looked up at the sky.

And that’s the end of my story. Later tonight I’ll go home and feed Calico, who seems to have settled since Marie’s final disappearance. He doesn’t stand on the windowsill any more. He seems content. Maybe he knows something I don’t.

Or maybe he’s just a cat, with a short memory.

I will never forget Marie. She was the sun at the heart of my system; she was the fire in my personal hell. She changed me. She showed me the summits and the depths, the zenith and nadir of love. I am scarred and scared – it will be a while before I am able to open myself up again, expose myself to hurt. But I know I will. I know how sweet love can be, and I couldn’t go the rest of my life without tasting that sweetness again.

I will only ask one thing of any future lover: that they don’t believe in aliens.

Except . . . I don’t mean that. It’s my attempt to make a joke out of what I’ve been through (although, to be honest, it’s one of the things that stops me going out to find Zara). I’ve spent a lot of time trying to make sense of it all, to squeeze some meaning, some lesson, from my experience. To think about what Marie did in a rational, unemotional way.

Andrew accused me of not believing in anything, an accusation I had already aimed at myself. What makes me different from people like Marie and people who go to church, or join cults, or become protestors or jihadists or risk their lives for a cause? I have no religion, no great political passion, no creed that governs my life. I don’t belong to any organization. I vote, but I have never marched.

Marie’s mum told me that, from when she could first talk, Marie was ‘always asking questions. She’d want to know everything. Why did God allow people to suffer, did animals go to Heaven, why do we have wars? All the usual stuff kids ask. There were a few
Musl
im kids in her class, and Hindus. They talked about going to the mosque or the temple. And Marie wanted to know why we didn’t go to church, started pestering her dad and me. So I took her – her dad moaning about what a waste of time it all was – and she loved it. Loved singing the hymns, reading all the Bible stories, talking about Jesus like he was a pop star or something. It was sweet. But then her dad stopped her going, told her it was all a load of crap, that he didn’t want his daughter to be a “Bible basher”.

‘After he left us, I thought maybe she’d start going again. But she wasn’t interested any more. She wasn’t interested in anything, I thought. Until the aliens. It started with a book she got from the library about these people who said they’d had experiences . . . you know, all the stuff she went on about. And that was it. It was like there was a hole inside her, a
space
, that needed filling. Marie had a need to believe in something different, something
better
.’ She paused before making a final declaration. ‘I blame her dad.’

It’s easy to think that anyone who becomes a born-again
Christian
or gives up their life to become an animal rights protestor, or who joins a cult like the Loved Ones, is searching to fill the hole that Marie’s mum talked about. That they do it because they have something missing in their lives.

And perhaps there’s an element of truth in that – but what about the rest of us? Are we content, fulfilled, happy with our lot? What about me? Before I met Marie I was drifting, going through the motions, getting by day to day, like most people. My basic needs – food, shelter, water – were met. But the closest I got to spiritual ecstasy was watching my football team win the league, or buying a cool new phone. Why didn’t I join a church or take up a cause?

Where was the meaning in my life?

Here is what I’ve concluded. That just because I don’t believe in anything doesn’t mean I believe in nothing. I am not a nihilist. I have rules, guidelines, morals, ethics, a code by which I live my life. I have dreams and desires. I want what most people want: a decent job, enough money to stop me worrying about getting into debt, someone to love, someone to love me back. I want kids some day. I want a family, friends, people to care for and who care about me. I want to look back on my life and feel I tried hard, that I took opportunities when they came, that I was a good person, that I didn’t waste my years on this planet.

I do believe in something. I believe in people. I don’t care if it sounds sappy, but I believe in love, in its redemptive and transformative powers. And I believe in myself. Or, at least, I know myself – far better now than before I met Marie.

Maybe that was the difference between Marie and me. She didn’t believe in herself. She felt she needed rescuing, but for reasons of nurture or nature or both, she never built the self-belief that would give her the strength to save herself. Instead, Andrew became the person she saw as her saviour. That was her tragedy. Because I believe the only person who could save Marie was Marie herself. All I could have done was help, and my failure to do so will haunt me until I die.

Having said all that, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Marie
was
saved. Maybe she found the fulfilment, the peace, she sought. Perhaps she’s out there now, happy, all her dreams come true.

I may never know, but I hope that she found what she was looking for, even if it was in her final moment on Earth.