What You Wish For Read online

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ said Rick. ‘I’ve seen how your eyes glaze over when Zara talks about them.’

  ‘No they don’t. And Zara knows I’m genuine.’

  He snorted. ‘Zara’s a dumb hippy. Plus she’s got the hots for you and can barely see past your pants.’

  ‘Hey, listen here . . .’

  ‘No, you listen, asshole.’ He leaned towards me, something stale and rank on his breath. ‘I looked your name up online. You work for a British paper.’

  Oh shit.

  ‘Rick, I can explain . . .’

  But he wouldn’t let me finish. ‘This is my fucking story. I don’t want any British reporter muscling in, trying to steal it from me. I’ve heard all about your British tabloids.’

  Realisation hit me and I laughed with surprise. ‘You’re a journalist?’

  Jesus, I couldn’t get away from them. I decided to lie, to play along with him. I mock-sighed. ‘OK, you’ve sussed me. But I’m not going to steal your story. I’ll just take it back to England and sell it there. It won’t affect you at all. I’m a photographer, anyway. Maybe we can team up.’

  ‘Humph.’ He folded his arms.

  ‘Look, if you’re going to give me grief I’ll have to tell Zara you’re a fraud.’

  ‘And I’ll tell her about you.’

  ‘And we’ll both lose out. And I think this story’s rather more important to you than it is to me. The ball’s in your court, buddy.’

  He exhaled loudly. ‘OK. I’ll tolerate you. But if you get in my way . . .’

  ‘Chill out, Rick. I won’t. I promise.’

  He glared at me. ‘OK.’ As we left the bathroom he added, ‘I can’t believe you turned Zara down. I’d give my left nut for an hour with her.’

  I decided it wouldn’t do any harm to attempt a spot of male bonding. ‘Hey, you’ve heard her alien orgasm stories. There’s no way either of us could measure up to that.’

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ he replied.

  We returned to the car where Zara was waiting with our subs. I felt sorry for her. Both Rick and I had completely fooled her. Her psychic powers obviously weren’t working very well this week.

  We drove down roads that twisted like the tails of serpents, coiled around rocks in the mist. All around us forests clung to the land; intermittently, patches of blankness stood out where swathes of pines had been felled, and the occasional timber truck passed us on the road, heading to the paper mill.

  In the back, Rick closed his eyes. This landscape held no novelty for him. He was probably dreaming of journalistic fame, of his big story. Or getting into Zara’s knickers.

  Zara kept her eyes on the road. Only occasionally would she glance over at me.

  Once she touched my knee. I moved it away.

  The road wound on until, without warning, the Pacific Ocean loomed into view. I opened my mouth to gasp but no sound came out. We crossed a suspension bridge across the mouth of a gaping river. I didn’t ask its name. I just stared in awe.

  ‘Nearly there,’ said Zara, and then we were driving along the coast, and I leaned forward in my seat and felt my heart elevate into my mouth. I thought, This is it.

  This is it.

  We turned off a few miles north of a town called Yachats – pronounced ‘yah-hearts’. Zara swung the car right and we drove up a sand-strewn road between some high dunes. As we emerged through the dunes I saw the house. It was set high above the beach, surrounded by sharp grasses, and even larger than I had expected. Constructed from timber, it was painted white, like Zara’s house but on a much larger scale. At the front of the house was what I can only describe as a spire, near the peak of which was a large, round window. Above the window somebody had painted a gold heart.

  Zara switched off the engine.

  ‘Welcome to the Embassy,’ she said.

  The ocean was just fifty yards from the house. The sand was pale and damp; pebbles and sand dollars were scattered around. Along the coast were other houses and chalets, but the beach was deserted. It felt like the edge of the Earth. I tried to imagine how the first Europeans to stand here must have felt, after their long trek across the continent. They must have thought they had finally mapped the whole world. And now, hundreds of years later, their descendants stood here, unhappy with the world that was, looking and hoping for other planets. New territories to map; territories beyond the stars.

  I broke into a run.

  ‘Hey, wait, Richard . . .’ Zara called, but I didn’t listen. I ran to the door of the Embassy and pushed past the man who stood there. He tried to grab my arm but I shook him off. I ran into a large room with white walls. Half a dozen pairs of eyes looked at me. I scanned the faces. No Marie. I ran out of the room and down a hall. I pushed open doors: a cupboard, a kitchen, bedrooms, an office. No Marie.

  Panting, I flew up a flight of stairs. More doors. Shocked faces stared out at me. A man came out and said, ‘Can I help you?’ and I froze.

  ‘Marie,’ I gasped, ‘where is she?’

  ‘What?’ He looked at me with suspicion and confusion.

  ‘Marie. Where’s Marie?’

  ‘There’s no Marie here, man. Is she a friend?’

  ‘Or Candy. Maybe that’s what she’s calling herself.’

  He gave me a curious look. ‘There ain’t no candy here,’ he said, and laughed.

  I stopped listening and ran back down the stairs, straight into Zara, Rick and a bunch of others. Zara said, ‘Richard, what’s the matter? What are you doing?’ Rick was glaring at me with horror.

  ‘I . . . I . . .’

  That was all I could say before I collapsed.

  I woke up in a strange bed and jerked upright.

  ‘Hey, cool it!’ A young man with a wispy beard stood over me. He laid his hand on my arm and restrained me from jumping out of the bed. ‘Calm down, man. Take deep breaths.’

  I obeyed. It slowed my pulse a little. ‘Is it true?’ I asked. ‘Is Marie not here?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ the man said. ‘There’s nobody at the Embassy called Marie. Or Candy.’

  ‘But . . .’

  Zara came into the room. Her eyes burned into me. ‘Richard, please tell me you’re OK. They’re having a discussion downstairs, asking questions about what kind of person I’ve brought with me.’

  The walls of the room were pure white, like the interior of a hospital ward. The man with the wispy beard was dressed all in white too – loose white shirt over white jeans – and Zara too had changed into a long white dress. Both she and the man (whose name, it turned out, was Carl) had gold heart shapes sewn above their real hearts.

  ‘Richard, talk to me!’ Zara raised her voice for the first time since I’d met her.

  I gathered my thoughts as quickly as I could. I didn’t want to be chucked out of here. Even if Marie wasn’t here – and the disappointment almost choked me – there might still be people who could help me. Pete, for example. Marie might be in one of the other embassies. Or she might be on her way. Somebody here had to know something.

  I coughed. ‘Marie . . . Marie’s the name of my visitor friend. It’s the name she gives herself when we’re together. I guess I was so overwhelmed about being here and about . . . about what’s going to happen that I got carried away and flipped out for a minute. I expected to see her here. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Marie, huh?’ said Carl, not a hundred per cent convinced. ‘Weird name for a visitor.’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Zara. ‘I’ve heard of it before. Some visitors give themselves human names to make the contactees feel more secure.’

  ‘That’s what Marie said,’ I lied.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Carl.

  ‘Would you like to rest?’ Zara asked.

  ‘No, I’d like to meet everyone. If that’s all right.’

  Zara kissed my cheek. ‘Of course it is.’

  I went to get out of bed and realised I was naked. I wondered who had undressed me. Zara? Carl? Embarrassment tinged my che
eks. ‘Um, where are my clothes?’

  Carl handed me a pair of white jeans and a shirt just like his. ‘Here.’

  I hesitated.

  ‘Don’t be shy, dude. We have no secrets here. And clothes won’t be necessary after contact.’

  Zara laughed at my look of consternation. ‘Poor Richard’s shy. Sweet thing. Come on, Carl.’

  Carl rolled his eyes but followed Zara from the room. The ivory glare of everything around me was giving me a headache. I ran my fingers over the gold heart pinned to my shirt. I had a feeling I’d made an awful mistake coming here.

  Zara took me downstairs and into what she called the open room. This was the room I had first entered, where a number of white-clad Loved Ones sat around drinking, chatting and watching videos on a widescreen TV. An episode of Third Rock from the Sun was on, the sound turned down. Rick sat in front of it, trying his best not to look out of place. Curtains were drawn across a large bay window that would otherwise have given a perfect view of the beach.

  ‘Everyone, this is Richard,’ Zara announced, and I squirmed awkwardly as a dozen heads turned my way.

  ‘Welcome, Richard,’ they said.

  I knew from my dealings with believers so far that the people here would seem ordinary and normal on the surface. And so they were. There was one woman in her sixties, a couple of middle-aged men. They were all as white as their clothes, with the exception of one black man, who must have been almost seven feet tall, with a perfectly bald head. A woman with bad teeth smiled gruesomely at me. Next to her stood a hugely fat man, who held the hand of a skinny girl with raven-black hair. The only people who made me feel uneasy were a pair of bulky, muscular guys who lurked at the edge of the room, watching everything.

  A group of six or seven people moved towards Zara and me.

  ‘Richard’s from England,’ Zara said.

  The woman with bad teeth said, in a strong Mancunian accent, ‘Which part?’

  ‘Hastings,’ I whispered.

  ‘Oh.’ She looked disappointed.

  ‘Why were you running around the house when you came in?’ a man with a gold sleeper in his nose asked.

  I looked to Zara for help. She said, ‘Richard was so stoked to be here he couldn’t control himself.’

  There were nods of understanding. Rick looked over at me and sneered, though nobody else seemed to notice. They were all staring at me.

  ‘I’m so glad . . . to be among you,’ I said.

  The fat man and his skinny girlfriend came over and wrapped me in a three-way embrace. ‘It’s good to have you, Richard. I’m Denny, and this is Laura.’

  ‘And I’m Cory.’

  ‘Emma.’

  ‘Merlin.’

  They each came up and introduced themselves. The tall black man, who was called Jake, said, ‘A lot of the guys are in their rooms. But they’ll all be delighted to meet you. You and Rick. We rejoice every time somebody new joins our family.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. I was amazed that nobody had mentioned aliens. Maybe it was so taken for granted here, that that was what bound them together, that there was little need to talk about it. I soon learnt that they were waiting. Trying to be patient, superstitiously afraid that too much talk would postpone the momentous event.

  I sat down on a floor cushion with Zara. She put her hands on my shoulders and gently massaged the tension out of them. It felt good. ‘Is there somebody here called Pete?’ I asked. ‘He’s the guy I got the flyer from in England. I expected him to be here.’

  Jake overheard. ‘You talking about the Jinx?’

  That was what Pete had called himself the night I met him on the East Hill. ‘Yes,’ I said, unable to keep the excitement out of my voice. ‘That’s him.’

  ‘He’s off on his travels,’ Jake said. ‘He’s been gone a while. All over the world, visiting the other embassies. Last I heard he was in Italy. I must admit I’m kind of hoping he doesn’t come back. Nothing ever seems to happen when he’s around.’ His laugh was deep and velvety, but there was something in the way he looked at me, like he was sizing me up, that made me uneasy.

  ‘But he is due back?’

  ‘Oh yeah. Pretty soon, I think. Lisa would know.’

  I spoke to Zara. ‘Is that the friend that you told me about?’

  ‘Yes. But you can’t see her at the moment. She’s communicating in her room.’

  ‘Communicating?’

  ‘With the Chorus. Listening to the vox celeste. She says the voices are getting louder, which means they’re coming closer. But she can’t be disturbed. Although I’m sure you’ll meet her soon.’ Her voice brightened. ‘Hey, are you hungry?’

  I was.

  Zara led me into the kitchen, another room that I had run wildly into earlier. I must have looked crazy. I was so certain that Marie would be here, but I had come all this way and I was still no closer to finding her. What if I was wasting my time? I remembered watching a TV documentary once about a woman who spent twenty years searching for her daughter who had disappeared after attending a party. The woman scoured the world, devoted her life to the hunt, lost everything in her obsessive search: her husband, her money, her sanity almost. In the end, the deathbed confession of a man who had been at the party revealed that the girl had died on the very night she vanished. She had been murdered and thrown to the crocodiles in a Florida swamp. The twenty-year search had been a waste of time.

  Was I wasting my time, looking for Marie? My search had veered into its current direction because I had become increasingly convinced she had run away. If that was the case, then the longer my hunt remained fruitless, the more my frustration grew. She knew I loved her; she’d said she loved me. But could she really love me if she had deliberately left me? Doubts whispered in my ear: was she really worth searching for? But as this thought popped into my head, more questions crowded in. If she had run away, was she of sound mind? Had she been coerced? Was she scared of something or someone?

  And if she hadn’t run away, what had happened to her? Had she, like the woman who had been fed to crocodiles, been murdered on the day she’d gone missing? Was her body in Hastings somewhere? Had she been abducted? Was she, now, being kept prisoner somewhere, hoping desperately that I would keep looking for her?

  I groaned and Zara looked at me, probably thinking I was regretting my earlier foolish behaviour. If I fully believed that Marie had run away, had deliberately and calculatingly left me in the lurch, then I might have decided at that moment to move on – or at least take the first step towards moving on. I might have given up.

  But the possibility that she had been murdered, or abducted, or hurt . . . I couldn’t give up. Even though I was exhausted.

  ‘What do you want to eat?’ Zara asked.

  We found some pasta in a cupboard and I stirred the sauce while Zara buzzed around the kitchen, setting out plates and breaking bread. There was a bottle of Californian pinot in the fridge, which Zara opened. We ate and drank and talked.

  Zara asked me about my life back home, and I told her an edited version of the truth.

  In turn, Zara shared her background: high school, college, dead end jobs in restaurants . . .

  ‘And then I discovered my gift. I was waitressing, and I found that I often knew what customers wanted before I asked. I spoke to Lisa about it and she encouraged me to develop my talent, to exercise it. I spent hours flexing my mental processes. It was tougher than any gym.’ She laughed and gulped wine. ‘Lisa says she knew it would be useful for the group, a way of seeing if people were genuine. We attract a lot of frauds. A lot of kooks.’

  ‘I bet.’

  ‘Yeah. It sucks. I mean people think we’re kooks. Group hysteria, they call it. Lost people with nothing else to believe in. But they’re the deluded ones. The last laugh will be ours, Richard.’

  It was so much like talking to Marie. But with Marie I might have argued back, if I was in the mood, while with Zara I had no choice but to nod and agree.

  She asked suddenly,
‘Why are you in so much pain?’

  Why did she have to ask questions like that? I faked a smile. ‘I think I feel a little better now I’m here.’

  She liked that. She reached across the table and touched my hand. I felt the spark, the frisson of lust, and I tried to fight it. I stood up and said, ‘Shall we join the others?’

  We took our glasses of wine into the open room. There were about twenty-five people, glowing in their all-white clothes, sitting or standing around, drinking, passing around spliffs, laughing, chatting. Somebody had put a Calvin Harris CD on and a couple of girls were dancing together in the corner; every couple of minutes they would beam and hug each other.

  ‘They’re on E,’ said Jake, coming up and saying hello. ‘I don’t touch that shit myself. I don’t need artificial joy. I’ve felt the real thing.’

  I asked him what he did before joining the Loved Ones.

  ‘I was a teacher in LA. Same hood where I grew up. Kind of place where the kids have to walk through a metal detector on the way in. I left a couple of years ago and travelled all over the States. I was looking for the truth. This is where I found it.’

  The others told a similar story. They had all had encounters. Seen UFOs close up, been abducted, or had visitations during the night. Rick loitered behind me, making mental notes for his story, while I talked to a group of Loved Ones. They were all so friendly and welcoming, it was instantly apparent to me how someone could get sucked in to one of these groups – a cult, if that’s what you wanted to call it. They made you feel special and worthwhile. They were beautiful and happy and seemed to be having so much fun. And they had found something to believe in. Each of them had experienced an epiphany; now they were awaiting the rapture.

  Denny had been a self-professed bum in Wisconsin. ‘I sat in front of a TV all day, watching adverts and eating junk. I didn’t even know I was looking for anything until I came across Lisa’s website one day. It hit me right here.’ He tapped the flesh that padded his heart. ‘I went to see a hypnotist and he retrieved all these memories from when I was a kid, every night being taken from my bed by visitors. They wiped my memories. But they were still there, buried deep, waiting to be retrieved.’