CHAPTER SEVEN

Brother Zebediah had not received the letter informing him of my imminent arrival; the squat - for such the house he lived in was - had at best an erratic postal service which seemingly depended largely on the sympathy or otherwise of the post-person on whose round it was.  The household did not possess a telephone, so the letter had been our only means of communication.  Accordingly, no preparations had been made for my arrival.  Zebediah did the best he could however, considering.  He was all set to give me his room which he shared with Roadkill, his girlfriend, while they decanted to the loft, but on viewing the room and the state of the plaster on the walls, I suggested that the loft might be more suitable for me, as I could rig my hammock safely between two of the roof trusses.  Roadkill looked relieved at this.

The loft was haphazardly floored with old doors and random bits of wood; I had Zeb rearrange these and take away the single electric light bulb which hung from the roof; I would use a candle for light. (In fact I had been hoping that the squat might be entirely free of electricity, and I had been disappointed to find that it was not.) In addition, Zeb generously donated a rug and a small table from his room to make the place look more welcoming.

I stuck my head out of the skylight to check which direction was nor-nor-west, then instructed Zeb - who had found a hammer and two six-inch nails - where to rig my hammock.  With it in place, we repaired to the kitchen, where Zeb lit the stubs of some scented Order candles and ceremonially washed my feet in a small plastic basin while Roadkill prepared food in the form of some type of pastie or samosa; I handed her some blessed tea and a tiny amount of lard.  She looked at the two little twists of greaseproof paper oddly, then looked inside, sniffing.

'This smells like tea,' she said.  She had a pleasant accent I was unable to locate anywhere more exactly than south-east England.

'It is,' I told her.

'Eeurgh; this one smells of animal.'

'That is lard,' I said, and looked severely at Zeb, who was cleaning between two of my toes with his little finger.  He looked guilty, as well he might; it was obvious that Brother Zeb had not been performing certain of our dietary rituals.

'What, like from pigs?' Roadkill asked.

'That is correct,' I told her.

'Can't handle that, man,' Roadkill said, taking the tiny package in two fingers and dropping it on the Formica-topped table near me.

'Roadkill's a veggie,' Zeb said apologetically.

'That is quite all right,' I said, and smiled at the lass.  'I understand.  As you no doubt know, our own Faith forbids eating some meat too, in the form of that from anything with two legs, like birds for example.' I saw Roadkill and Zebediah exchange an odd look at this point, and surmised that Zeb had been corrupted by the city to the point where he had eaten fowl.  My mission down here might have to include bringing Brother Zebediah back onto the straight and narrow too, I suspected (if there was time).  Appearing not to notice their guilty glance, I went on, 'If you'd just put a little of the tea into whatever you are making for me, I'd be most grateful.'

'What, tea leafs, in the patties?' she asked.

'Just the merest sprinkle,' I told her. 'As if it were salt or pepper.  It's not for taste; it has symbolic value only.'

'Right,' she said. 'Symbolic value.  Sure.' She turned away, shaking her head.

I retrieved the little twist of lard and pocketed it; I would anoint the food with it myself just before eating.

There was a bang from the hallway, footsteps, and a large young white man with very short hair and wearing a grubby anorak with colourful badges on it entered the kitchen.  He stopped and looked down at Zeb, who was still washing my feet.  I smiled up at him.

'Chroist,' he said in an Irish accent, and grinned.

'Close,' Zeb said, sighing.

'You've got a step-sister called what?'

'Hagar,' I confirmed, nodding.

'But that's a guy's name, innit, Zeb?'

Zeb looked vague, and shrugged.

'Yeah,' Roadkill said. 'Like that strip in the Sun.'

For a moment I wondered what possible relevance removing one's clothes in daylight had before I recalled there was a popular newspaper called the Sun. 'Well, as I understand it,' I said, 'Hagar is a biblical name, a Hebrew name; that of Abraham's wife's maid; her slave.'

'Cool.'

It was early evening and we were walking back from an off-licence on Kilburn High Road, through the roar and stench of the rush-hour traffic; I had volunteered to help Zeb and Roadkill fetch some celebratory alcohol for the squat's evening meal; I rang my 2-9-4 code back to the Woodbeans' house from a nearby call-box while they were actually buying the drink.  This turned out to come in the shape of garishly labelled plastic bottles full of something called Litening Stryke, a form of cider.

I thought some more. 'And I have a step-brother called Hymen.'

'Hymen?' Roadkill said. 'Like in virginity; like in maidenhead?'

'That's right.'

'A step-brother?'

'Yes.'

'Weird.  Does he really use that name?'

'Regrettably, no; Brother Hymen is an apostate, and-'

'A what?'

'An apostate; one who has renounced his or her faith.'

'Oh.'

'I'm afraid so.  Apparently he makes a living diving for golf balls in lakes on American golf courses, and goes under a new name now.'

'Don't blame him; I mean, Hymen.'

'It is a male name, you know,' I said. 'Hymen was a Greek deity; the son of Apollo.'

'Wow,' Roadkill said admiringly. 'You know a lot about this holy stuff, don't you?'

I smiled. 'Well, you might say it's my job.' (Zeb guffawed, then looked a little fearfully at me, but I just smiled.)

'What exactly are you supposed to be?' Roadkill asked.

'I am the Elect of God,' I told her. 'The third generation of our family born on the twenty-ninth of February.'

'Wow.'

'In my case, I was born on the twenty-ninth of February nineteen seventy-six.  Officially, if you were to ask me what age I am, I would have to say that I am four and three-quarters.'

'Shit.' Roadkill laughed.

'Not four and three-quarter years of course; four and three-quarter quadquennia.  I am nineteen years old.'

'Hmm.' Roadkill looked thoughtful. 'So what sign does that make you?'

'Astrologically?  It is our belief that the Elect have no sign.  It is one aspect of our holy separateness.'

'Freaky.' She shook her head. 'Shit, you must have to have a hell of a birthday party if it only comes round every four years.'

'We try to make it special,' I agreed.

'Tell Roadkill about the Festival, Is,' Zeb suggested, putting together the first real sentence I'd heard him utter since I'd arrived.

'You mean you haven't, Brother?' I asked.

'He ain't told me nothin' about this sect of yours,' Roadkill said, hitting Zeb on the forearm with her free hand.

'Well.  Shit.  You know.  Complicated,' Zeb said, reverting.  Actually I was glad he hadn't.  While any festival is by its very nature not something one can really keep secret, Salvador did prefer us not to bruit the details of ours about too much, for the media-sensitive reasons I have already gone into.  However, I judged that telling Roadkill was probably a reasonable course of action.

'It happens at the end of May every year before a leap year,' I told her. 'We ask those wishing to participate to perform the act of love without contraception as frequently as possible around that date, to increase the chances of another Elect being born.'

'Fuck,' Roadkill said after a moment's thought. 'An orgy?'

'Well, that's a pejorative term, isn't it?' I said. 'No; that implies exclusively group sex, I believe, whereas the Festival is concerned to promote all forms of potentially procreative activity.  Really, it's just a huge celebration; the public side of it wouldn't embarrass the most prudish soul.  What goes on behind closed doors afterwards is up to the individuals concerned.'