Benjamin Wood - The Bellwether Revivals

Copyright 2012 by Benjamin Wood

All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency is an infringement of the copyright law.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Wood, Benjamin, 1981
The Bellwether revivals / Benjamin Wood.

eISBN: 978-0-7710-8933-6

I. Title.

PR6123.O64B45 2012 823.92 C2011-904427-7

We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and that of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporations Ontario Book Initiative. We further acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program.

DSM-IV TR Diagnostic Criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder reprinted with the permission from The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision, copyright 2000, the American Psychiatric Association

Extract from Johann Mattheson: Spectator in Music by Beekman C. Cannon, copyright 1947, reprinted with permission from Yale University Press

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Cover Image: Hulton Archive / Getty Images

v3.1

FOR MY MOTHER

They heard the caterwaul of sirens, and saw the dust rising underneath the ambulance wheels at the far end of the driveway, and soon the darkening garden was a wash of flashing blue lights. It only seemed real when they told the paramedics where to find the bodies. There was one upstairs on the top floor, they said, another in the organ house, and one more at the foot of the gardenthe last one was still breathing, but faintly. They had left him on the riverbank in a nest of flattened rushes, with the cold water lapping against his feet. When the paramedics asked for his name, they said it was Eden. Eden Bellwether.

It had taken too long for the ambulance to arrive. For a while, theyd assembled on the back porch of the rectory, thinking, panicking, staring out at the same old elms and cherry trees theyd stared at a hundred times before, hearing the wind disturb the branches. They all felt responsible for what had happened. They all blamed themselves. And so they arguedabout who was most to blame, who should feel the guiltiest. The only one who didnt talk was Oscar. He leaned against the wall, smoking, listening to the rest of them bicker. When he finally spoke, his voice was so calm it silenced them.

Its over now, he said, extinguishing his cigarette on the porch-rail. We cant go back and change it.

Just a few months ago, theyd been sitting out on the same sapspotted decking behind the rectory, chatting about nothing too importantthe rules of badminton, some Alain Resnais film theyd all seen and hated, the saddening obsolescence of the cassette tapeall six of them just winding down, a bruise of clouds spreading darkly across the Grantchester sky. Theyd gathered round the same wooden patio table, picking at the citronella candle drippings on the wine bottles, throwing dry wax at the midges. Everything had been different back thenso weightless and loose and easy.

Now they watched the first paramedic working on the riverbank, feeling for Edens pulse, strapping an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth, feeding in a drip. They heard the murmur of the other medics voice coming over the dispatcher: VSA. Purple plus. Over.

They didnt go with Eden in the ambulance. They werent prepared to follow in their cars. Instead, they went into the organ house to see the other medic wrenching off her latex gloves. Shed placed a green sheet over the body and it was quivering on the breeze. Dont be going anywhere, she warned them. The police are on their way.

It had been the hottest June day but a cold breeze had been gathering strength all evening, and now it was sweeping across the garden, through the open doors of the buildings. It was blowing into the broken pipes of the old church organa weak and tuneless drone that sounded on and off, on and off, with the steadiest of rhythms, like some machine that had found a way to breathe.