Mobius

MOBIUS

  By Christopher Best

  Copyright 2016 Christopher Best

  ~~~~~

  Table of Contents

  Part 1: Daniel

  Old St. Bart ~ Gulnaz ~ Prentice ~ Saddam ~ Lucca ~ Escher ~ Long Mynd ~ Millwrights ~ Joan ~ Hawking ~ Alex ~ Greenall ~ Lazarus ~ Thurlestone ~ Greenhouse ~ Leas Foot

  Part 2: Alex

  George ~ Malik ~ Daniel

  Part 3: Mobius

  Take a strip of paper ~ Put a mark on one side ~ Twist the two ends

  ~ And join them together ~ To form a loop

  Author’s note

  About the author

  Connect with the author online

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  Acknowledgements

  I am most grateful to the following people for their advice and encouragement while I was writing this book; to Huw Webb for guidance on the management of burns and scalds; to Ella Cross for her vivid descriptions of working in a care home; to Petty Officer Pete Brierley and Deputy Marine Engineering Officer Tony Ray for their recollections of Falklands service; to the residents of Thurlestone for invaluable background on its history; to the management of the Thurlestone hotel for showing me around and sending me a copy of their book; and above all to Maryam Best for her tireless support as soundboard, critic, advocate, reader and companion.

  ~~~~~

  Part One:

  ~ Daniel ~

  Old St. Bart

  From the Millwrights Arms, chip shop and petrol station, Cooper’s Hill rises for a little under a mile, past a hotchpotch of houses old and new, cul-de-sacs of flats and garages, a launderette, Chinese take-away and general store. Just before the summit, bricks and mortar give way on one side of the road to railings and high hedging, behind which lurks the sprawling cemetery of the local church. The church itself, nestling among the tangled yew trees and gravestones, looks rather forlorn and forgotten. From the road, only the spire is visible, the rest appears only when passing the north or west gates.

  ‘Old’ St. Bart’s (the other Church of Saint Bartholomew in town is presumably younger) is not somewhere people come to seek out the finest stained glass or impressive stonework; or somewhere to gaze in awe at intricate screens or pulpits. Its hard, upright pews speak more of God’s wrath than of His mercy. This is not a church to elevate or inspire, and for much of the time it stands idle, sanctuary only to lovers, drunks and vandals. Increasingly, the doors are simply closed for business. Every two or three months a family service might inject a breath of new life, or a funeral new death; weddings or christenings, never. Of course there are the fixed points of the calendar: Easter, Lent, Harvest Festival, Christmas. The candlelit vigil with carols last night and the full-blown service this morning have undoubtedly been the highlights of the year. But few of the church’s flock will have attended either, and the person now sitting five rows back on the left suspects he’s been today’s only caller since the vicar’s parting amen.

  The Reverend Nicholls would be surprised to see this man sat here. Daniel George was someone who never came to sing hymns or say prayers, or in any other way collude with promises of salvation and eternal life. It wasn’t Christ’s birthday that had drawn him in this afternoon, only the sudden rainstorm on his way to visit a grave. Graveyards he can kind of forgive; churches he can’t. Even as the sermons raise death aloft in hollow praise, outside the lowly graveyard brings it back down to earth with a thud: those tenderly laid flowers that wither and die in mimicry of the loved ones they honour; the headstones that blacken and crumble; the weeds that endlessly invade.

  Even here, walled up behind thick stone, the Almighty is forced to confront nature’s profanities. Around the east window, great patches of damp peel back the whitewash and scatter it confetti-like over the choir stalls. For all the scented candles and applications of wax polish, the musty smells of mildew and mould still taint the air. And our good lord fairs no better against the sacrilege of man. Every wall sports traces of over-painted graffiti; sweet wrappers and used tissues join the discarded orders of service on the floor; someone has stuck gum to the back of a pew. The profane eats into the sacred. The outside creeps inside. Death wins the day.

  It was a death that first brought Daniel here more than ten years ago – though few memories of the funeral survive. Rain or no rain, he wouldn’t have come otherwise. Memories are the last thing he needs more of today. Already they’ve been tumbling unstoppable into his head, like old photos tipped from a shoebox. When he woke this morning his window ledge had become a dockland of model battleships; at breakfast, the sourness of plum jam had whisked him up into the old greengage tree by the garden shed; dunking his hands into the kitchen sink after lunch had brought seawater sifting the sand from a clutch of exquisite shells. And, as he gazes up now at the vaulted roof crossed with beams, he’s seeing only an expanse of Artex strung with paper chains. Those hanging tapestries are just cheap cards threaded on string. The altar, its pewter candlesticks and cloth, are a table set for three, laid with torn vinyl, unmatched tumblers, crackers and a solitary candle tied with ribbon. He’s the child again, kneeling in the corner beside a plastic tree. Around him lie the spoils of a Christmas morning: boxed sweets; tangerines and nuts; discarded wrapping paper – still parcel-shaped at one end, but ripped through at the other like a head-on collision; two sets of colouring pens; a battalion of toy soldiers; the latest Bond car; a pair of trainers; a joke book and a box of magic tricks. The memory lingers over his hands, carefully fashioning a strip of paper, twisting the ends before gluing them together and meticulously cutting the loop lengthways into two. Ever the sceptic, he rechecks the instructions before making the final snip. Then, ‘Hey Presto!’ Just as promised: not two loops at all: still just the one, but twice the length. Bedazzled, he runs the strip repeatedly through his fingers to find the trick. But there is none. This is real magic. Another glance at the instructions and again the lengthwise cut and the boy Daniel is squawking with delight. Two loops now – yet miraculously intertwined like the paper chains above his head…

  …Above his head, the start-stop drumming on the church roof – rain on slate – water on stone, like the drag of waves over shingle; new footage now spooling through his head, old, faded, VHS grade: Daniel, running for all his worth along a coast path towards some unseen end. A second boy running ahead, gaining ground, no intention whatsoever of stopping or slowing down to let his brother catch him; two children, so alike in appearance, so worlds apart in temperament, their fantasies caught against a backdrop of exaggerated hills and towering gorse bushes.