But for now, well, she would be standing in the kitchen in a T-shirt and a little pair of frilly knickers. She would have jam on her fingers. She would look up at one of the cameras Jones had positioned around the place. She would bring her fingers up to her mouth and put the middle three fingers in her mouth up to the first set of knuckles, then she would lick each of her fingers all the way up and down, one by one. She would look at the camera and her expression, close up, would be exactly the same as the expression he had seen in her eyes in the slot made by her veil.

  She would go upstairs… He decided to pull in for a moment, to a layby, under the pretext of consulting a map. No one could see in through the tinted windows but it wasn’t a good idea to drive while he was feeling like this. It wasn’t safe. He didn’t want to have a crash and hurt someone or himself. He didn’t want it reported in the news that came in on the computer in Jones’s office, ‘man with erection kills widow and children,’ or, ‘man dies in car crash, with erection.’ They didn’t report details like that, of course. Or he had never seen them reported. Perhaps it had never happened before? No, men had dirty thoughts about other men’s wives all the time.

  He imagined Joanna Jones going upstairs, knowing the camera was watching her. Knowing her husband was watching her and had perhaps noticed a difference in the way she was behaving. Would she find it stimulating to think that her husband was jealous and had only himself to blame? Would Jones find it stimulating? No, that wasn’t an image he wanted to pursue; Jones wanking in the men’s lavatory at the thought of other men looking at his wife.

  Joanna Jones would go upstairs to the bathroom and remove her knickers. Perhaps she would take a razor and shave the backs of her legs at the top. She might not know that he would find that erotic, so perhaps she would not. What had he told her? What would she do so that he would know that it was for him?

  Had he mentioned jam? Possibly not. He had certainly mentioned her husband. He had hinted at danger. He had thought of having sex with her but not said it aloud. That was all their relationship consisted of. And, to be fair, to many minds it wouldn’t quite constitute a relationship.

  It was a warm, sunny day and he had the air conditioning turned up in the car. Still, he was perspiring. He felt guilty. He wondered whether Angela had fantasies about other men. Thank God women weren’t allowed out of the house. He didn’t mean that, of course. But still. Who did she come into contact with? The delivery drivers, the postman, the milkman. Neighbours going off to work in the morning. Did she have salacious thoughts about any of them? If he asked her tonight, would it put an idea into her mind that had never been there? If he asked her, would she think it was a fantasy of his and try to please him by naming someone? Would she turn to him with her dressing gown half open and nothing underneath and say yes, when I touch myself, I think of Jones. Fortunately not – she didn’t know Jones.

  If Jones asked Joanna, would she tell him that she thought of the man from the Ministry and describe Lucas? Not if she had any sense. He thought of Jones slapping Joanna, saying something like, ‘I’ll beat you black and blue, mate.’ Did Jones call his wife ‘mate’? He didn’t want to think about Jones. He felt aggrieved, as if Jones was deliberately intruding on his fantasy.

  He drove to the address he had been given and parked his car outside. He walked up to the front door. He saw a few weeds in the path. He saw evidence of peeling paint. He saw a sweet wrapper on the ground, left behind by the bin men. He didn’t stoop to pick it up; it would blow away soon enough.

  The miracle that had been reported was something to do with a child. So many women seemed to have a fantasy of themselves as a Mary figure, with their child a saint. It would make their lives easier to bear, no doubt, to have a child who would be looked after and revered. Perhaps the women thought they would be taken away with the child to live in a palace somewhere and be protected. His own belief was that even if he made a report to say that he had found a miracle, someone would intervene, take the people concerned into custody for questioning, harass them, accuse them of being involved in terrorism, then lock them up somewhere for good. Or terminate them. Maybe it was just as well he’d never had to report anything as a miracle – yet.

  The woman who answered the door seemed nice enough, if a little careworn. Her name was Maureen and she was old enough to be his mum. She invited him in. He didn’t have any erotic thoughts, other than to note that he wasn’t having erotic thoughts, which immediately conjured up an image of Joanna Jones in a pair of frilly pants with a pot of jam in her hand, an image he was fortunately able to put aside almost immediately.

  Maureen took him in to the front room and offered him a cup of tea. He said yes, so that she’d have to go away to the kitchen to make it and he could sit quietly and look around. There were no religious artefacts around the place, no pictures of Jesus. It wasn’t against the law to practice religion, although there weren’t many men who wanted to become priests any more. It was often taken as a confession of paedophilia and priests could expect a lot of interest from the authorities. Most took lovers, or pretended to do so, installing attractive female housekeepers to ensure they were not mistaken for paedophiles by the local community.

  ‘Have they told you anything?’ Maureen asked.

  ‘No.’ He always said that, of course. He let them put it into their own words.

  She droned on. He was feeling unerotic now and back on track. Perhaps he had been under some sort of stress that had now gone away. If he had been a woman, he’d have said it was hormonal. There must have been something, some extraneous thing, that had caused him to behave so oddly. Perhaps he had been the subject of a test? Perhaps Jones had come into his office yesterday and sprayed an undetectable hormone around to gauge its effect on him. Jones was a brute, unpredictable and coarse. Lucas could hardly bear being in the same office building some days. He didn’t know how he endured it. He became sentimental. He told himself that he didn’t care what he had to endure, just so long as he could protect Angela. Just so long as she loved him and she didn’t ever betray him or subject him to any kind of test. He loved her and he was going to prove it by taking her away to Cornwall.

  Maureen was looking at him. He looked back at her, calmly.

  ‘So what do you think?’ said Maureen.

  ‘I can’t really say.’

  ‘Well, what should I do?’

  ‘Who else have you told?’

  ‘Well, as I was saying…’

  He had drifted off and she wasn’t impressed. But the thing was, he wasn’t here to impress her. It was she who had to try to impress him.

  ‘Did you want to take notes?’

  ‘No.’

  He had a piece of the lemon drizzle cake she offered him. It was home-made. He sat and thought about his options while he ate it. He wondered, if this was that rare and impossible thing, a real miracle, ought he to take the woman hostage? He wouldn’t hurt her of course. He’d put a gun to her head for the benefit of any security forces who might turn up to rescue her and he’d call for Angela to join him. He’d state his demands: safe passage to Cornwall.

  It would never happen. They’d never let him go. They’d blow him and Maureen and Angela to high heaven, miracle or not. In fact, if it was a real miracle, it would save the authorities the job of deciding what to do about it, if the evidence was destroyed in the process of protecting lives and the safety of the citizens of London.

  What about Australia? If he could get a message to someone in Australia that he had found a miracle, would someone from there come and save him? Probably not. Even if people in Australia believed in miracles, they wouldn’t sanction hostage-taking, wouldn’t care if a person such as he should live or die. They wouldn’t want to give sanctuary to a gun-wielding, adulterous-leaning miracle inspector. Besides, he didn’t have a gun.

  ‘So do you want to see her?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Christina. Do you want to see her? She’s next door.’

  ‘Might as well.’

  He stood and smiled brightly. Poor old Maureen. What a life.

  Christina was lying on top of the covers on a single bed in the next room. She was an unremarkable-looking child, as they so often were. She looked about five years old although she might have been older. Maureen had probably mentioned her age but there was no need to get mired in details.

  He went up to Christina and smiled at her. ‘Hello.’ No response from Christina. He tried again. ‘Hello, Christine.’

  ‘Christina.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Christina, not Christine.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’

  ‘She understands you.’

  ‘Yes. Does she speak?’

  ‘The doctor says there’s nothing actually wrong with her vocal chords.’

  He hadn’t been paying attention. What was the miracle, exactly? That this poor little child was alive? That she could understand? Or was she supposed to heal the sick? Some of them were very good at the piano but he couldn’t see one in the room, so he might escape hearing any Rachmaninoff today. Dare he ask Maureen to go through it again? What if she reported him? But she wouldn’t. Who would she report him to?

  Lucas said, ‘You want to leave me alone with Christina, here? Might help me get a feel for her… special qualities.’

  She didn’t. He suddenly saw in her face all the awful fears every mother had these days. Maureen thought that he might do something nasty to little Christina. She didn’t believe that he would do it but she thought it. She’d been trained to think it. They all had. Even he thought it. He thought that if a man was left alone with little Christina, he might start touching her inappropriately. He himself wouldn’t do it. The next man wouldn’t do it, nor the next man, nor the next. You’d have to search long and hard to find one who would. But the suggestion was enough to condemn them all to this hell of a life. There was no proper education for the kids, no life outside the home for the women, all of it to keep them safe from inappropriate touching. What if the thought of it was more harmful? What if the fear that covered them all was worse than one child sometimes being touched? You couldn’t say it, of course. Say something like that and they’d lock you up forever. Besides, he wasn’t sure if he even really meant it. He wasn’t sure what he thought about anything. They’d all been conditioned to believe what the authorities wanted them to believe.

  ‘Sir? Do you mind if I stay with her? In case she needs something?’

  ‘No, course not. It’s better if you stay. I’m just going to talk to her. Or perhaps I could watch for a minute, while you talk to her. Could you talk to her?’

  Maureen looked relieved. She’d decided he was a decent bloke. She’d probably decided that the moment he’d had a piece of her lemon drizzle cake. She’d have made it specially for his visit and another man – someone like Jones – wouldn’t have accepted it. Someone like Jones might have wanted it but he’d have said no. Whereas Lucas knew she’d gone to a lot of trouble and he’d had a piece and it was quite nice. He wasn’t born this way, with the ability to put himself in someone else’s place; to empathise. It was the sort of thing you picked up, doing a job like this.

  ‘Do you have kids?’

  ‘Not yet. One day.’

  ‘Married, though? Young chap like you, handsome.’

  Alright, Maureen, calm down. I had a piece of your lemon drizzle cake, that’s all. ‘Can you talk to Christina, then, tell her why I’ve come?’

  Maureen turned to her little daughter. ‘He’s heard you’re special, Christina.’

  That caught him unexpectedly, nearly choked him. Everything about it. The love in Maureen’s voice when she spoke to the child. The lie of it, the terrible lie in that word special. She was a sweet enough little child, she was loved. But special? She was terribly unfortunate; that was the word he would have used. He felt suddenly so desolate and desperate that if he’d had a gun in his hand now, he would have put the barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger. Perhaps he’d even do the kid the favour of taking her with him. Perhaps he’d lean down and put his head against her little head with its soft shiny hair and put this imaginary gun against his temple and blow them both away.

  ‘See, that’s what she does when she’s happy. See that? That little smile? It takes a tremendous amount of effort for Christina to do that. She only does that for people she knows, or if she likes you.’

  ‘Lovely.’ He ought to – but he thought of it quite often and he couldn’t do it for everybody and so in fact he had never done it – he ought to remember their address and send them some money anonymously. Do something to help them, make their lives better.

  ‘Oh, but that isn’t the miracle.’

  ‘Of course not. No.’

  ‘You see, if you had something – if you were unhappy…’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘If you were unhappy about something. Or if you were sick. I mean – I know you’re not…of course. But if you were troubled or…’

  ‘Oh, I get it. Like a cat?’

  He meant it genuinely. Any warm-bodied, empathetic creature without the power of speech: the perfect confessor. Always listening, never giving advice. Poor old Maureen, he might as well have slapped her. He might as well have dragged her by the hair into the kitchen, filled the sink with water on top of – he hadn’t seen it, he was guessing here – its dirty dishes, and repeatedly dunked her face in it, pushing her head down towards the plates with (guessing again) their traces of baked bean juice, then held it under the water as a very few uneaten baked beans dislodged from the plate and floated slowly towards the surface, like lilies unfurling in the daylight.

  ‘I wouldn’t say that, sir.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s altruistic, isn’t it? A miracle. They never try to heal themselves. It’s others they help.’

  ‘No, exactly. Standard question. Right answer.’

  ‘You’re not writing any of this down?’

  ‘I’ll make the report after, don’t worry. I like to take it all in. You’ve got your head bent over a piece of paper, you’re likely to miss something. The sly look between conspirators.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Or the moment when the miracle happens. You see what I mean?’

  ‘Oh. Yes. ’

  She was reappraising him, Maureen. His stock was rising. He was in charge, he knew what he was doing. She’d thought him a bit of an idiot; too young, with his blue eyes and his pretty face and his day-dreaming. Now she knew he was in charge. And she thought that because she could see that he was clever, it made her clever. But she could only see it because he let her see.

  He turned to the child. ‘Now then, Christina.’

  What on earth was he going to say to her? To be fair, he did think he could see a tiny little change in her expression, a glimmer.

  ‘She likes you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  They sat in silence for a while, all three of them, Maureen content now for him to be in charge. He wondered whether he ought to go through some farcical examination whereby he brought in the sick and the heartsick and paraded them in front of Christina to see whether they could be cured. But it didn’t seem fair on the kid, to raise her hopes only to say it hadn’t worked. Maureen might quite like the company but she didn’t have money to be spending on lemon drizzle cake for sundry visitors. Besides, she’d be bitterly disappointed when he declared there hadn’t been a miracle.

  ‘Does she like singing?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘My wife has a lovely voice.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Angela.’

  ‘Really? I’d love to hear her sing some time. I’m sure Christina…’

  ‘Ah, well. She rarely gets outside the house.’ That’s the way you expressed it these days, as if it was a minor, temporary inconvenience, particular to the person being discussed. You’d never say, ‘Isn’t it terrible, all the women in London being under house arrest?’

  ‘Did you ever work, Maureen, outside the home?’

  She looked a bit nervous. You ever asked anyone a personal question, they assumed it was a trap. Quite right, too. But Maureen was game. She wanted him to declare that Christina was a miracle. So pretty much anything he said, she was going to play along. He thought she was going to say she had done something domestic and dreary. But she didn’t.

  ‘I used to read the news. On the local network.’ Christ! Now he was interested. ‘It might have led to something. I was only young. I actually reported on the attacks that changed everything – though I didn’t know how far-reaching the effects were going to be at the time.’

  ‘No one did.’

  ‘I had Christina very late.’

  ‘Yes. Or rather, I mean, you don’t look…’

  She laughed. ‘I know what you mean.’

  He realised that something had changed. He was talking to her as an equal. At first, he’d dismissed her as some worried old bag with a disabled daughter who couldn’t come to terms with what had happened to the child. But her situation was more complex than that. Here was a woman who had worked for a living, who’d once had a job. He was being awkward and she was being nice to him. He suddenly wished that he could tell her about Angela. His wife was the sort of person who ought to have a good job. Maureen had been on TV. His wife ought to have been on TV, with her voice. To hear her sing, it was like hearing the angels singing. No, that was a crap way of putting it. Maybe Maureen, with her journalistic background, would have a better way of expressing it. He tried to imagine Maureen, microphone in hand, reporting live on Angela’s singing, with respect and enthusiasm, and a neat turn of phrase.

  He couldn’t remember the last time Angela had sung anything. He would go home and ask her to sing.

 

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