Kéthani

EIGHT MATTHEW’S PASSION

I first met Matthew Renbourn in the public bar of the Fleece. He was sitting at the table beside the open fire with the rest of the Tuesday night crowd, a pint of Landlord in his hand. He was laughing at a joke that Elisabeth had just told. Okay, it wasn’t that funny a joke, but he had such a deep, appreciative laugh that everyone else was laughing too. I didn’t catch on to his true identity at first. This wasn’t surprising: he was, in his own words, undercover. Besides, he was implanted.

It was my first Tuesday night at the Fleece for a while, and in my absence Matt had made himself a regular in the group. Now Khalid formally introduced us.

“Andy Souter. Andy plays the cornet,” Khalid said. “Front row for Brighouse and Rastrick, among others. Been round the world as a session man, too. Maybe you should ask him if he’ll help you out with the orchestra.”

I shrivelled inside at this introduction; but I shouldn’t have worried. Matthew was a likeable man. Maybe I should say an exceptional man.

People have a funny way of acting when they meet someone who has made a success of one of their own particular interests. Matthew was a keen amateur musician; nonetheless, he didn’t turn to me in a show of bravado or excess bonhomie as many do when they approach me in my professional capacity. Nor did he make a pretence of false modesty and engage me in sycophantic conversation. He smiled his wide, genuine smile, leaned across the table and shook my hand. “Delighted to meet you,” he said.

Khalid went on, “Matthew is the priest at St. Luke’s.”

Matt laughed. “I’m here undercover,” and he slipped two fingers into his shirt pocket and pulled out a strip of white plastic. It took me a moment to realise what I was looking at. A dog collar.

I stared at the implant at his temple.

He smiled. “No,” he said. “It’s real. Not one of those fakes you hear about.”

He could see I was surprised; he was expecting it, almost looking forward to my reaction.

I don’t believe in first impressions: I think the time to make your mind up about someone is never, and although Matt Renbourn thought the same, he knew other people would disagree. He realised that he was always on show, and so he lived up to it. He liked to make an impression.

Later he told me about his “orchestra”.

“Well,” he smiled. “We used to have a band to accompany the Sunday service. You know, couple of guitars, violinist, kids playing flutes and clarinets. But then we found ourselves an organist, and suddenly the band felt themselves a bit surplus to requirements. My fault, I suppose, but I think you need an organ for the Gloria and so on.”

I said nothing. Call me a snob, but I’ve often thought that if there is a hell for musicians, their punishment will be to spend eternity sitting in a band such as the one Matthew just described playing, “Shine, Jesus Shine”.

“Anyway,” he said, sipping from his pint, “the band didn’t want to just drift along doing nothing, so we continued to meet and practice. Once you removed the ‘church’ association, others wanted to join in. Things have grown from there.”

“Novel,” I said. “Oxenworth has never had an orchestra before.”

“It’s not really an orchestra,” he said, but you could hear the pride in his voice. “More a show tunes sort of band. I’m trying to arrange a series of concerts to help with the restoration fund. I’m going to schedule one for next month. Give the band something to work towards.”

“Still no luck with the pianist?” Khalid asked him. He can be such a stirrer.

“Good pianists are thin on the ground,” Matt said, equably.

I was tempted to volunteer. Earlier, I’d heard Khalid whisper to Matt that I was pretty handy on the piano as well as the cornet, but he didn’t presume upon me. That was one of the many nice things about Matt, I came to discover. The truly religious are hardly ever pushy.

The evening wore on. I had a couple more than my usual two pints, and the more I talked to Matt, the more I warmed to him. He came over as humane and genuine, and more than willing to listen to the other person’s argument.

Towards the end of the evening I asked him, “This orchestra. When are the rehearsals?”

“Every Wednesday evening.” He looked at me.

“And what nights are you planning the concerts for?”

“Sundays,” Matt said, face still impassive.

I nodded. “Well, I have nothing much on those days. Okay if I come along and help out?”

He gave a wide grin. “More than okay, Andrew! Welcome aboard.”

If the truth be told, the orchestra was not very good, but what they lacked in talent, they made up for in Matthew Renbourn. It turned out that he was actually a fairly competent pianist himself, but that wasn’t his real strength.

There are some bandleaders who can take a group of musicians and make them play better than they have ever done before. They have a feeling for the music and a way of communicating their enthusiasm that lifts the band to a higher level.

I know, I’ve worked with people like that; and I say without any modesty, I’ve worked with the best. And although these people may have been significantly better musicians, none of them came close to Matthew in his ability as a leader of men and women.

The more I played with him, the better friends we became. And the more I began to have an inkling of what his congregation must feel each Sunday as he preached from the pulpit. When Matthew lifted the band in music, he was lifting us closer to his God.

It was this insight that threw his emerging mysterious side into harsh relief.

I remember one particularly cold Tuesday night in February. The usual crowd had made it to the Fleece through the snowstorm, and there was an atmosphere around the table of bonhomie that often unites people against the elements.

Matt, oddly, was quiet that night. He was not at all unfriendly, heaven forbid. (Heaven forbid? Listen to me! That’s Matt’s influence.) He didn’t have an unfriendly bone in his body, but he was distant, as if preoccupied with his own thoughts. He was certainly not his usual gregarious self.

When it was his round, he took people’s orders and moved to the bar. I gave it a couple of minutes and went to help him with the drinks. While we were alone at the bar, I said, “Is everything okay, Matt? You’re quiet.”

He smiled. “It’s that obvious?”

“You’re usually the life of the party.”

He looked at me, biting his lip. “Well, to tell the truth, I think I’m being followed,” he said, and then returned to the table bearing three pints.

I stared after him, then resumed my seat.

Later that night, more to draw Matt into the conversation, I asked him, “How’s the congregation looking these days?”

Most of Matthew’s flock were implanted, which I found bizarre. They seemed to see no contradiction in worshipping at St. Luke’s and throwing in their lot with the Kéthani: hedging one’s bets, I think it’s called.

Matthew waggled a palm above the table.

“We stay the same. We stay the same. But, the important thing is, we’re no longer falling in numbers.” He looked around the table. “I tell you, the turn around is beginning. The Kéthani offer compassion, but it’s a cold and mechanistic thing. Nobody who has not been reborn really understands it. We view the returnees from the home planet with suspicion.”

I exchanged a smile with Khalid.

“Nobody who has not been reborn?” I said. “You’re mangling the English language, Matthew. Besides, aren’t you paraphrasing a line from the Bible?”

He nodded. “Well done. Still, the Kéthani gift has fallen too easily to us. Anything that is worth having has to be worked for.”

“Many would disagree, Matthew,” Khalid said. I nodded, feeling mellow, halfway through my second pint in the warm bar. Through the leaded window, the sight of the snow sifting down only added to my sense of wellbeing.

“Many would, indeed,” Matt said. “But I wonder if they still feel that truth in their hearts? People used to toil in the fields to stay alive. Now their daily bread is handed to them on a plate,” he smiled, “quite literally! And so they grow fat. Some exercise to burn that off, but others look for the quick fix: liposuction to suck the fat from their bodies and low calorie meals so they can commit their acts of gluttony and not feel the consequences.”

He nodded his head slowly. “Now, as we seek to expand our sugar-free life, where we taste the pleasures and forgo the pain, we are told that we can be resurrected without any sacrifice on our own part.”

I laughed. I knew Matthew that well by then, I knew when I could speak without causing offence. “There’s a strong puritan streak runs through you, Father Renbourn. Are you saying that man must sacrifice his pleasure in this life to achieve happiness in the next?”

He laughed loudly at that and shifted in his chair in an exaggerated fashion.

“This horsehair underwear prickles the backside,” he said, and laughed again. He took another drink and then settled back with a reflective smile.

“Ah, you have a point, Andy. You have a point.”

Khalid bought a round.

“But don’t underestimate the human need for balance,” Matt went on, smiling his thanks at Khalid. “The conscious mind goes for the quick fix, but the subconscious knows that everything has a price.”

He held up his pint. “I was talking about diet. We now face the prospect of eternal life, but still the need for healthy eating exists in our society. The doctors say a little alcohol is good for the body, but how many heed the call and drink a glass of good red wine each day? The Hollywood stars that act as our new messiahs preach self-denial: they prefer the truth of lettuce and low sodium diets to the gospel of Timothy Taylor.”

He folded his hands as in prayer and looked to the ceiling and I started to laugh. Despite the relatively small quantities consumed, I think we were both farther along the road to drunkenness than we suspected.

“Maybe you have something there,” I said. “I feel guilty if I don’t devote at least an hour a day to practice.” I patted my battered cornet case, tucked safely on the seat next to me. “It’s not just that my embouchure suffers.”

“Puritanism is hardwired into the brain,” said Matthew. “Resurrection is not enough. Don’t underestimate the Church’s ability to adapt and absorb, Andy. We took the winter festivals and made them Christmas, we brought the marriage vows from the doorstep to the altar, we took the rite of the funeral pyre and made it into cremation.”

Khalid looked up from his pint and winked at me. “So how are you going to make the Kéthani your own, Matt?” he asked.

“The Kéthani are but tools to achieve God’s purpose,” Matthew said. “As are we all.”

I was stunned.

“Surely that’s not the papal line?” I said.

Matthew smiled. “Not yet,” he said.

Last orders were called, and conversation turned to a different topic.

The following evening I tramped through the snow to the draughty village hall. My way was lighted, once, by the shaft of light from the Onward Station as it beamed the remains of that day’s dead to the orbiting starship.

I had intended to have a word with Matt about what he’d told me at the bar the night before, that he thought he was being followed. That had to wait: as I arrived he was mediating a dispute between the band and Katherine Emmett. Davey, her mentally handicapped son, wanted to play the triangle in the orchestra, but the rest of the band was not happy about this. Naturally, all sorts of reasons were being given, except for the real one: we don’t want the dummy in the band.

“He keeps putting me off,” said Kelly Wrigley, resting her flute on her knees.

“He hits it too hard, especially in the pianissimo sections.”

“He doesn’t always keep time,” said Graham Leicester.

A lesser man would have pointed out that Graham didn’t always keep time either. But not Matthew. He gazed mildly at Graham and the noise of the complaints just drained away. When he was sure he had everyone’s attention, he spoke quietly.

“Graham, why are you in this band?”

Graham looked confused.

“To help raise money for the restoration fund.”

“Why else?”

A pause.

“I enjoy playing,” he said eventually. He was blushing.

Matthew stared at the band, the uncomfortable silence lengthening.

“Why are you here, then, Matthew?” asked Graham, gaining courage.

“For the same reasons as you, Graham, but I also play to the glory of God.” This reminded me of something Matt had once told me after a few pints: “You know Andy, Benjamin Britten said of J.S. Bach that to truly understand his music one must realise that it was all written to the glory of God.”

Now Graham gave a clever smile. “Shouldn’t the music sound good then, if it’s to the glory of God?”

Some of the other band members nodded their heads. Graham had scored a point.

“Of course,” said Matthew, and something in his tone meant that the nodding suddenly ceased. He spoke in his softest voice. “But even without Davey, will the music we make be perfect?”

Graham dropped his eyes and shook his head.

“Then let him play.”

The music resumed. Davey, thirty years old and like his mother not implanted, sat on a plastic chair at the back of the hall, enthusiastically, if ineptly, bashing away at big steel triangle.

Oh, and just in case I am giving the impression that Matthew is some sort of saint, let me point out that I saw him wince, just as painfully as the rest of us, every time Davey tapped off the beat.

By nine o’clock, the time we usually packed up, Matt was on a roll.

“That was good. That was very good…” He looked around us all. “But it could be better! Guitars, we need more energy. Stab out the chords. Keep them short! Dit! Dit Dit! Not der-der-der.”

It was a piece without piano accompaniment, and I sat out, leafing through the local paper and looking forward to a pint at the Fleece after the rehearsal.

The orchestra started up, and seconds later the music stuttered into silence as first one instrument and then another gave up the ghost.

I looked up. Matt seemed frozen, the pencil he was using as a baton poised in the air. He was staring over the heads of the orchestra towards the door to the kitchen and toilets. He looked shocked, shaken, and I turned in my seat to see what he was staring at.

“Andy,” he said, “would you mind terribly if I handed you the reins for a minute?” And so saying he dropped the pencil in my lap and hurried over to the door. He peered within, circumspectly, then stepped through.

I took my place before the bemused villagers. “Okay,” I said. “Bar forty-six, I’ll count three in…”

They played, and seconds later Matt reappeared. He entered the hall and looked around, then strode past us and moved to the front door. He was gone for about five minutes. I wondered if he’d seen an intruder and was about to call a halt and see if he needed assistance when he hurried back into the hall, thanked me and took up the baton. His hand, as I passed it to him, was shaking.

Ten minutes later he brought the rehearsal to a close.

I packed up, then caught Matt’s eye while he was in conversation with Mrs. Emmett. He seemed distracted, not himself, and he kept darting glances towards the kitchen door. I mimed downing a pint, and received his affirmative nod. While the others were packing up, I left the hall and hurried through the village, more than a little perplexed at Matthew’s odd behaviour.

The Fleece was a haven of warmth and inviting firelight.

Of the usual Tuesday night crowd, only Khalid and Doug Standish were present. Doug was a big, almost stereotypically burly, gruff police type, whose initial morose manner had mellowed, as we’d come to know him, to reveal a sensitive character with a dry sense of humour.

I secured a pint of Landlord and joined them by the fire.

A minute later the door blew open admitting a cascade of confetti-like snow and the red-faced figure of Father Matthew Renbourn.

Khalid waved him over. “Ah, ‘tis the Father, bejesus, and you’ll be having yourself a pint of the usual, I’ll be bound?” This hardly raised a smile from Matt.

Khalid went on, serious now, “Are you okay?”

Matt sat down before the fire. I gestured to Sam at the bar to pull Matt a pint.

“What is it?” I asked.

Matt looked from Doug to Khalid, and then at me. “You know I mentioned yesterday that I thought I was being followed?”

I nodded, guessing what was coming.

“Followed?” Doug said, his professional interest aroused.

“For about a month or so now,” Matt said, “‘I’ve been seeing… well, I don’t know if you’ll understand…”

“Try us,” Khalid said.

“Well, I’ve been seeing bright, white figures lurking at the edge of my vision, which mysteriously disappear when I try to look closer…”

I said, “And you saw another figure tonight, right?”

Matt took a long draught of creamy ale and nodded. He explained to Khalid and Doug, “In the hall, towards the end of the rehearsal. I saw something… a figure… near the door to the kitchen and cloakroom, but when I went to have a look… Nothing. It’d vanished.”

Doug said, “Tell us more about these figures.”

“There isn’t much more to tell,” Matt said. “I’ve seen about half a dozen of them now, approximately once a week. Tall, glowing figures, watching me—or that’s what I feel they’re doing. And when I investigate, they’re gone in a flash of light.”

Something about the expression on Doug’s big, jowly face prompted me to ask, “What?”

“It’s strange,” he said, staring into the remains of his pint with a distant expression, “but remember the murder of Sarah Roberts a few years ago?”

Khalid said, “Wasn’t she something to do with the Onward Station?”

Doug nodded. “A liaison officer. Anyway, I investigated the case. Very mysterious.” He gave a gruff laugh. “Like something out of an Agatha Christie novel. Roberts was found dead in a house surrounded by snow—no footprints leading to or from the place. Also,” he looked up at me, “Ben Knightly reported seeing a great beam of light, almost like a meteorite’s tail, fall into the valley where the farmhouse was, on the night she was killed.”

Matt stared at him. “And? Was the case ever solved?”

“It’s odd, but I always thought there was something strange about the affair. As if certain aspects of it were hushed up. Oh, officially it was explained—we found that the killer had probably stowed himself in the house before the snow fell, and then escaped later when the snow on the path to the house had been thoroughly churned. But it was never solved. The killer was never found. And do you know something, I’ve always had a strange feeling about that case—as if there was more involved than met the eye.”

“Like what?” Khalid wanted to know.

“Well, I heard rumours much later that Sarah Roberts wasn’t human at all, but a Kéthani emissary, keeping an eye on things on Earth.”

“But why would anyone want her dead?” I asked, amazed.

Doug shrugged his big, bison-like shoulders. “I honestly don’t know. It’s almost as if, when I think about it, I’m prevented from recollecting the events with any clarity.”

Khalid hummed the signature tune from an old sci-fi TV show. “Creepy. And you think that Matt’s mysterious figure and white light might be linked?”

Doug looked at the priest. “Do you have you any idea what they might be, Matt? Any theories?”

Matt stared into the leaping flames of the log fire, as if contemplating whether to tell us what he was thinking. He looked up, at each of us in turn. “I don’t expect you to share my conviction, gentlemen, but it occurred to me that they just might be angels.”

He drained his pint, excused himself on the grounds of a sick parishioner, and left the three of us staring at each other in wonderment.

On Thursday evening I finished practising around nine and decided to pop into the Fleece for a quick one.

Khalid and Doug, Ben and Elisabeth, along with Richard Lincoln and Dan Chester, the local ferrymen, were encamped around the table beside the fire. The topic of conversation, not surprisingly, was Matt and his angels.

“Do you think he’s going off his rocker?” Elisabeth asked.

“You know these religious types,” Dan said. He’d been married to a Catholic who’d refused to have their daughter, Lucy, implanted. He viewed all religions that were opposed to the Kéthani with suspicion, and it had taken him a while to welcome Matt into the fold.

“I’m concerned,” Khalid said. “Matt doesn’t seem to be himself these days.”

“Well, neither would you if you were seeing angels!” Elisabeth said.

“I think the hallucinations are manifestations of… I don’t know… stress, overwork.” Khalid looked at me. “What do you think, Andy? You know him well. He always seems hale and hearty, but what is he like when he isn’t…” he smiled and said, “performing?”

I laughed. “Do you know something? I think he always is performing.”

“Even when alone?” Elisabeth asked.

“Is a man who believes, as Matt does,” I speculated, “ever alone?”

“You mean he’s performing before his God?” Dan said, sarcastically. “Nice one.”

Elisabeth stared into her Belgian lager. “What do you expect from a religion that doesn’t allow its clergy to express their sexual desires? It’s a wonder he isn’t hallucinating Playboy centrefolds.”

“Anyway,” I said, in an attempt to bring the conversation back into line. “I don’t mind saying that I’m worried for Matt. Let’s keep an eye on him, okay?”

We all nodded and agreed.

Towards closing time, I noticed that Khalid was looking somewhat pensive.

“A penny for them,” I said.

“Oh, I was just remembering something. You recall a while back, Matt said something along the lines that the Kéthani are in the power of God?”

I nodded. “It struck me as bizarre, too.”

“Well… What he said just doesn’t sit with what I experienced on Kéthan, with what I learned.”

“Go on.” Conversation around the table had ceased, and all eyes were on Khalid.

“The odd thing is, when I look back on my experience of resurrection on Kéthan, to be honest I can’t actually recall exactly what happened.” He smiled. “I learned a lot about myself. I became a better human being. And I know I absorbed philosophies, too. Anyway, the abiding impression I gained is that the Kéthani don’t believe in a spiritual afterlife. I gathered that they think the foundation of the universe is purely materialistic. That’s why they go about the universe, bestowing immortality upon ‘lesser’ races…” He shrugged. “I think Matt’s deluding himself.”

Elisabeth said, “But you said yourself that you don’t have a perfect recollection of what happened.”

He nodded. “I know. And perhaps I’m wrong. But that doesn’t make me any the less worried for Matt, though.”

As we were leaving the pub that evening, Elisabeth caught up with me and said, “About Matt, Andy—you’re seriously concerned?”

I said reassuringly, “I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about, Elisabeth.”

Three days later, though, I had cause to revise that opinion.

I was driving home from a job in Leeds, taking the treacherous moor road towards Bradley. The roads had been gritted the night before, but were still icy in patches, and the undulating countryside on either hand was resplendent with snow in the light of the setting sun.

I was a couple of miles from Oxenworth when I saw the old Micra.

It had veered off the lane and into the ditch, and the driver’s door was flung open. I slowed as I approached. There was no sign of the driver or any other occupant.

I braked and only then realised that I recognised the vehicle. It was Matt’s. The mental alarm bells started ringing.

I jumped from my car and strode over to the little red car, half expecting to find Matt collapsed in the ditch.

He wasn’t, but what I found was perhaps even more worrying. A set of footprints led away from the abandoned vehicle, up the snow-covered grass verge towards a stile. On the other side, I made out the footsteps disappearing off up the rise of a field.

I set off in pursuit, wondering what on earth might have provoked Matt into leaving the car, climbing the wall, and haring off over a snow-covered field at sunset.

I clambered over the stile and sank into the snow up to my knees. I plodded up the incline, panting with the unaccustomed exercise. It was hard going, as I had to lift my feet high to clear the snow with each step.

I followed the trail left by Matt up the rise of the field to its high crown. The evidence of the snow showed that he’d stumbled from time to time, creating churned areas of dark shadow in the blindingly white mantle.

I wondered how long he’d been out here and hoped that I wouldn’t find him unconscious after hours of exposure.

In the event I found him fully conscious, though that hardly came as a relief.

I crested the crown of the hill and peered down the other side. I made out a dark figure, reduced in the distance. It gave the odd impression of being that of a dwarf, at first, until I realised that Matt was kneeling in the snow so that only his upper body showed.

I yelled his name and clumsily galumphed down the hillside.

“Matt! What the hell—”

I drew near. He was kneeling in prayer, his red hands clasped beneath his chin, and his body was shaking with sobs.

“Matt!” I cried again, falling beside him and putting my arm around his shoulders.

He seemed barely aware of my presence. He was staring into the distance, his expression at once amazed and terrified.

“Matt!”

He turned and stared at me. “Andrew?”

“Come on,” I said, attempting to haul him to his feet. The cold was getting to me, and I could only assume that Matt was half-frozen. “Back to my car.”

“Andrew,” he went on, “if only you could have seen them! They were… beautiful and at the same time terrible. The light… But what can they mean, Andrew? What portent? Am I damned or exalted? What do they mean?”

It was his words, more than the fact of his sequestration in the middle of a frozen field, that alarmed me then. Initially I had been worried for his physical health; now I worried about his mental stability.

“They were at the side of the road,” he said, “watching me. I stopped and climbed out. They moved, flew towards the sunset, creatures of such beauty and grace, Andrew.” He stared at me as I hauled him to his feet and walked him slowly back to the car. “But what can they want with me?”

Somehow I managed to get him over the stile and safely ensconced in the passenger seat of my car. I found his keys and locked his Micra, then drove the remaining mile into the village.

He sat beside me, hunched, occasionally wiping his eyes with a big handkerchief. He said nothing, and I found it impossible to initiate any meaningful conversation. At one point he broke down again, sobbed briefly, and then pulled himself together—actually squared his shoulders and sat upright, as if chastising himself for such a lapse.

I drove him to his house beside the church. “I’ll see you inside, Matt,” I said.

I helped him from the car and walked him down the drive. He gave me the keys and I opened the door and ushered him into the lounge. He sat on the sofa, fingering his rosary, while I fixed a couple of stiff scotches from a well-stocked bar in the corner of the room.

He gripped the glass and smiled at me. “I needed this, Andrew. Thanks.”

“If there’s anything else I can do…?” I said lamely.

He shook his head. “I’m fine. It’s just… well, it isn’t every day that one is pursued by angels, is it? I cannot help but wonder what it is they want with me.”

I smiled and looked away from his penetrating gaze.

“Do you know, Andrew, sometimes, I can’t work out whether I am blessed, or damned…”

I considered what Khalid had told me last night, about his experience on Kéthan, and wondered whether to broach the subject with Matt. I decided against it, however: he was confident in his belief, one might almost say his passion. Who was I to gainsay that?

A little later, after assuring him that I’d fetch his car, and his reassuring me that he was feeling much better now, I took my leave and repaired to the Fleece.

It was after nine by this time, and the table by the fire was crowded. Khalid, Ben, and Elisabeth budged up to make room for me. Dan said, “I was just telling the others, Andy. On the way over from Bradley I saw a car abandoned in the ditch. I’m sure it was Matt’s. You know? That little red one he has?”

I nodded. “I know. I saw it too—then I found Matt.”

I gave them the story.

Everyone was silent when I finished. I looked around the table, and the similar expressions of concern on the faces was in an odd way reassuring. It confirmed what I’d thought for a while: these men and women, my friends for over a year since I moved to the village, were good people.

“So,” I said into the silence. “What do we do?”

Dan said, “Is there much we can do, Andy? Be there for him…”

“Perhaps,” Elisabeth said, “the Catholic Church has some kind of… I don’t know… helpline for distressed clergy.”

“Maybe we should contact his bishop,” Ben suggested.

“I’m not too sure he’d appreciate our going behind his back like that,” I said.

Khalid said, “I’ll look into it at hospital, talk to a shrink and see if there’s anything they might suggest.”

We all nodded, impotent in the light of our friend’s religious hallucinations.

The topic of conversation changed, and I enjoyed a few more pints, but I could not help but contrast the Matt I had known over the weeks and the figure I had seen collapsed in manic prayer earlier that evening.

The following night I arrived at rehearsal five minutes late, and the players were already tuning up. Old Mrs. Emmett gestured me over. “Matthew just phoned,” she said. “He’s at the church, in a meeting. He said he’d be here at eight.”

I suggested that we run through a few numbers for thirty minutes until he arrived, and I conducted the Oxenworth Community Orchestra through an arrangement of the theme tune to Raiders of the Lost Ark. It sounded strangely flat and lifeless without Matthew in charge. Eight o’clock came and went, with no sign of our conductor. At eight-thirty, Mrs. Emmett said, “You don’t suppose anything’s happened to him? Sure-iv he would have phoned to tell us if he couldn’t make it?”

I remembered last night, and part of me feared for Matt. I volunteered to pop along to see what was keeping him.

The snow had not let up in the last week, and it was a foot deep in the little-used lane that connected the church to the village hall. I hurried through a fresh fall, shoulders hunched, came to the church and pushed through the heavy timber doors.

The place was warm and silent. I hurried down the aisle, looking for Matt. I peered into the vestry, but he wasn’t there, and so I tried his little office next door.

It was there that I found him.

He was sitting in a swivel chair behind his vast oak desk. The chair was not facing the desk, but turned away, as if he had been addressing someone standing in front of the roaring fire.

He was smiling, his posture slightly slumped, and something about the glassy immobility of his stare told me that he was dead.

I hurried around the desk and felt for his pulse. There was none. I touched the implant, at his temple: the small, square device thrummed beneath my fingertips. Even now, the nano-machines would be coursing through Matt’s system, working their miracle, and bringing him back to life.

Already, the Onward Station would know about his death; a ferryman would be on his way.

I phoned the police at Bradley, and then let Mrs. Emmett know that Matt wouldn’t be in that night. I left it at that; for some reason I couldn’t bring myself to say that my friend was dead.

I found a chair and sat down, considering that a few years ago, before the coming of the Kéthani, Matt would have been dead forever. Like my mother and father, and my brother…

Ten minutes later the police arrived, and minutes after that Dan Chester. I could see the sadness in their eyes as they took in the corpse: despite the fact of our resurrection, evidence of our erstwhile mortality still has a powerful effect on us. Dan and his assistant removed Matt’s body from the office; I gave a statement to the police and fifteen minutes later returned to the village hall to relay the news to a shocked orchestra.

After that, there was nowhere else to go but the Fleece, for a session of liquid therapy.

Khalid was there, propping up the bar, and I told him about the evening’s events.

An hour later, Doug Standish joined us. “Thought you two might be here, somehow. The usual?”

When he returned from the bar, he said, “I was down at the station when I heard about Matt. Apparently he had a massive heart attack.”

For the rest of the evening we reminisced about Matt, telling stories of our friend, and smiling at the memories. As we left the Fleece around midnight, we were halted in our tracks by a blinding bolt of light from the distant Onward Station as it beamed the demolecularised remains of the dead up to the Kéthani starship.

Khalid stared up, his brown face made pale by the light. “There he goes,” he whispered.

“I wonder what kind of Matt he’ll be on his return?” I wondered.

I took charge of the rehearsals at the village hall, and in spring we staged the first and what would turn out to be the last of the concerts in the church itself. It went down well, but something was missing—Matthew. The orchestra was a dying thing. In six months, I guessed, it would be gone, with no hope of resurrection, Kéthani or otherwise. Only when life became eternal did I truly appreciate the fact that nothing ever lasts forever.

Matt was missing from our Tuesday night sessions, too; our gatherings just weren’t the same without him.

The day of his return came about, and there was a big crowd of locals in the reception lounge of the Onward Station that afternoon. His parishioners were out in force, ninety-nine per cent of them implanted; a gaggle of clergy was present, too. His Tuesday night friends formed a small knot among the crowd.

At three on the dot, the head of operations at the Station, Director Masters, made a short speech, and Matt stepped through the sliding doors and greeted us.

Matthew, in his late forties when he died, now looked a good ten years younger, his waistline slimmed down, the fat of his face pared—even the distinguished grey at his temples was gone. He looked leaner, fitter, somehow more full of energy, if that were possible.

He made the rounds, shaking hands, hugging, slapping backs; many of his flock were in tears.

I wondered if it was significant that he was no longer wearing his dog collar, or if he was undercover here, too.

“The beer brigade!” he greeted the Tuesday nighters. “God, I’ve missed a pint where I was…” We laughed.

One hour later, Matt was driven away by the officials of his Church.

As I watched him go, I thought over what he had said all those months ago about the Kéthani and their place in the scheme of things, and I wondered if Father Matthew Renbourn would slip quietly back into his old way of life in the village. I should have known the answer to that, of course.

That evening, just as I was about to call it a day, pack up my cornet, and slip out for a quick one at the Fleece, the phone rang.

It was Matt.

I couldn’t conceal my surprise. “Matt, great to hear from you. Look, do you fancy a pint? We’re meeting at the Fleece at nine.”

He made an excuse—he had a lot of work on. But, he said, he would like to see me.

I evinced my surprise yet again. “Well, of course. Great. Where?”

“Could you pop along to the church in ten minutes?”

It was high summer and a magnificently balmy evening. Not that I appreciated the sunset and the birdsong as I made my way down the lane to St. Luke’s. My head was full of my imminent meeting with Matt.

I found him in his office, seated behind his desk in the very same chair I’d found him in six months earlier.

He smiled at me. “Andy, sit down. I’d like to thank you for your work with the orchestra.”

“You’re welcome. It’s not the same without you… But that isn’t why you wanted to see me, is it?”

He grinned disarmingly. “Of course not. Doug told me that it was you who discovered the… my body.”

I nodded. “It was something of a shock,” I said.

“I can well imagine.” He paused and thought about what he was going to say next. “I think I owe you an explanation,” he continued.

I stared at him, not understanding. “About what?”

“About my death,” he murmured, “what else?”

I made a feeble gesture. “But what is there to explain?” I said. “You died of a massive coronary.”

“Officially, Andrew, I died of a massive coronary.”

I tried a smile. “And unofficially?”

“I’m not at all sure you’d believe me.”

“Try me.”

Matt leaned back in his chair and arranged his fingers in a fair imitation of a church steeple. “There is a lot we don’t know about, Andy. A lot happening in the big, wide universe out there that we, with our limited perceptions, cannot even guess at.” He paused, looked at his hands. “Do you recall those figures—the figures of light? I mentioned they were following me.”

“How can I forget?”

He nodded. “That night, six months ago, one came to see me, came here, into this very office. That night. Orchestra night.”

“What happened?” I asked, my voice far from steady. “What did it say?”

“It said nothing,” he told me. “It merely sent me on the next stage of my journey.”

I was suddenly aware of how loud my heartbeat was. “It killed you?” I murmured.

“It reached out,” he said, “and touched my chest, just here,” he lay his fingertips on his sternum, “and I felt a sudden and ineffable sense of joy, of affirmation, and I knew that my true quest had begun.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think I understand,” I began.

“When I was resurrected on Kéthan, I was instructed. I learned many things about the universe, the various races out there, the many philosophies. I was given the option of returning to Earth, or going among the stars. They showed me a vast starship, due to explore what we call the Lesser Magellanic Cloud. They want me to be aboard it when it sails.”

I hardly heard myself say, “In what capacity?”

He beamed at me. “To spread the word,” he said.

“The Kéthani…” I whispered. “You said, a while ago, that they were but tools to achieve God’s purpose.”

He nodded. “And I think they know that, too, my friend.”

A little later he showed me to the door of the church and shook my hand.

“Goodbye, Andrew,” Matt said, and turned and walked up the aisle towards the altar and the figure of Jesus on the cross. I watched him kneel and bow his head in prayer.

That was the last time I saw Father Matthew Renbourn. In the morning he slipped quietly from the village, leaving behind him the mystery of his death and the even greater mystery of his mission among the stars.

That night, I left Matt praying to his God and made my slow way to the Fleece. There, I informed the others what Matt had told me, and we speculated long into the night whether our friend was blessed… or deluded.