THALIA by Bergotte (ebook reader .txt) 📕

making clear to the church members that she had no religious affiliation whatsoever and that she did not consider herself to be divinely appointed, or speaking God’s words to them or anybody else. In the following month of March she made another appearance on Radio Bristol, telling her listeners how she was gathering quite a following in the area. She described how the press from both Bath and Bristol were beginning to report her public speeches. The DJ suggested that she was becoming a local celebrity, a suggestion with which Thalia readily concurred.
“Even Bath Preservation Society has taken an interest in my work,” she said.

By May time Thalia had become quite accustomed to living at David’s house. She went to see her aunt and uncle occasionally but they did not take a great deal of interest in her. They continued to call her Megan and would not countenance the name Thalia under any circumstances. They had been disappointed that Thalia had never found a proper job and were dismissive of her attempts to pursue academic work and try to gain a place at university or college.

One day, David announced that his parents would like to meet Thalia.
“After all, they are your aunt and uncle, you know. You ought to meet up with them some time. They’ve invited us for Sunday lunch, so we’ll drive over to Clifton after church. Okay?” said David.
“Yes, okay,” agreed Thalia. She had supported David and his friends faithfully during the last few months, when they had set up the church in Peter’s home. She helped out in looking after the children, occupying the very young ones with toys and games in the crèche. She had read the lessons from the Bible occasionally and took part in the string quartet, which accompanied the hymn singing. She enjoyed the social part of church life, particularly meeting the new people that were coming. They now had a membership of some twenty adults.

However, she knew that there was a big gulf between her and the rest of the fellowship. They believed strongly that Jesus was their saviour. He had died on a cross for them, had risen from the dead and promised them eternal life. She did not believe such things, could not imagine she would ever believe, though she believed in God. For her church was drudgery rather than ‘drudgery divine’. She valued her independence and autonomy, unwilling to follow God’s will for her life.

Andrew had explained to Thalia that she had already surrendered her autonomy in being prepared to act as a prophet for what he termed ‘an unknown god’. Furthermore, she had to her surprise, enjoyed studying the Bible as part of her academic coursework, especially the Old Testament prophets. She had explored the concepts of eschatology with Andrew, but it was not on the syllabus and she had no particular interest in it. He told her it was best left until she went to university. Thalia replied that she thought it was best left.

“My parents are pillars of the Church of England,” David explained to Thalia on the drive over to see them. “My father has been a church warden for many years, whilst my mother sings in the church choir.”
“Do they disapprove of your not going to a CofE church?” she asked him.
“They think of our church as a sect,” he replied, “though they are pleased that I do go to church and that I have a faith.”
“It’s your church, not our church,” said Thalia. “I don’t belong to it. I’m not a church member and I don’t want to be. I would feel trapped.”
“Okay,” said David, “let’s not quarrel over it.”

David’s parents made Thalia very welcome. She was led straight into the dining room, where the four of them sat down to a sumptuous meal of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, accompanied by roast potatoes, greens and gravy, in the presence of Colman’s English mustard. This was followed by apple crumble and custard. They sat down together in the living room to take coffee after the meal.
“Thank you very much,” said Thalia to her aunt, “I much appreciate all the hard work you have put into making the meal.”
“Don’t mention it, my dear,” replied Mrs Phillips, “we always have a roast dinner on Sunday.”
“It’s traditional, isn’t it Myra?” said her husband.
“We’re very traditional people, aren’t we John?” she affirmed. “Now, Thalia,” said uncle John, “tell me about being a prophetess, I’ve heard so much about you from David and I’ve read a bit in the local rag about you.”
“What would you like to know?”
“Where do you think these prophetic utterances originate?”
“I’ve absolutely no idea. I used to think they were connected to my dream life, but I’m not sure of that any more. The contents of my dreams don’t really seem to have any bearing on what I say in my prophecies.”
“Well, Freud believed that every dream has a meaning which is displayed by the unconscious,” said Uncle John.
“Since when were you interested in Freudian psychoanalytical theory?” David asked his father.
“Oh, for some time. There’s more to life than making money, you know!”
“I don’t know anything about Freud,” said Thalia, “and I certainly can’t interpret my dreams in any way that I make a connection with my prophecies. Sometimes they involve a key and a lock.”
“Freud thought that a key and a lock represented sexual desire,” said Uncle John.
“But, Freud reduced everything to sex, didn’t he?” objected David.
“He thought that there were many symbols in dreams, but what they symbolised was relatively few, and one of them was sex,” said his father.
“None of this has anything to do with the end of our world, or with civilisation ending,” Thalia contended.
“No, I don’t suppose it has,” said Aunt Myra.
“Can you tell me Uncle John,” asked Thalia, “how you came to be known as ‘Mr Money’?”
Her uncle smiled and replied,
“Yes, it’s quite simple. I wasn’t called up during the war. I was deemed to be unfit for military service. I needed to earn a living, so I worked in procurement of goods for people who needed them. After the war, I stayed in London and ran an import-export business dealing in cameras. That is when I started to make money. I invested what I made and my investments were very successful. They made much more money. I met your Aunt Myra in the early nineteen fifties, and moved back to Bristol where I started a wine importers and that has been very successful as well. We now have a dozen different retail outlets.”
“Isn’t there a conflict between being a Christian and being very rich?” Thalia interjected.
“No, not at all,” replied her uncle, getting up to assist Myra in the kitchen.
“Do you fancy a wander across the downs, to Clifton suspension bridge?” David asked Thalia.
“Yes, that sounds like a good idea,” she replied. As soon as they had finished their coffee they went out for their walk.

“I keep waking up very early in the morning,” Thalia told David, as they gazed down from the bridge to the water of the River Severn, hundreds of feet below them.
“How early?”
“Usually about half past five. I get up and wander about the flat, like a lost soul. I can’t settle to read anything or listen to music, so in future, I thought I would go out for a walk. Coming up here has reminded me of that. I like the idea of walking in the early morning light, when nobody is about.”
“Yes, you won’t meet many people at that hour in the morning,” said David with a grin.
“You don’t mind at all, if I go out walking?”
“No, I shall be tucked up in bed, sound asleep, so I don’t mind at all. There’s one thing I wanted to ask you. Since you were seventeen last November, have you ever thought about learning to drive a car?”
“It has crossed my mind, yes, but I haven’t got a car, have I? So, that solves that problem.”
“I have and you can use it. I think you ought to have lessons with a driving school and use my car to practise on.”
“It’s a good idea. Yes, okay then.”

As they walked back to his parents’ home, David told Thalia that he would insure his car for her to drive and book some lessons with a driving school.

CHAPTER XII

On the following day, Monday May the nineteenth, Thalia awoke early in the morning, got out of bed and dressed herself. She left the house on Bathwick Hill and walked down the hill towards the city, but instead of taking the road to Pultney Street she turned sharp left to walk under the railway bridge. She had gone a few yards when she realised that, in the next ten minutes, she would be walking past La Sainte Union Convent, the school she had been attending until the summer of 1968. Now, in 1969 her memories of that school were clear and painful.

She decided not to turn back, but to continue past the building that had meted out to her such traumatic experiences. As she walked past what to her were the evil buildings, she prepared herself to confront her demons. She called to mind the pettifogging rules that the nuns rigidly enforced, such as the need to wear a pair of indoor shoes in the classrooms and corridors and to change into outdoor shoes whenever she stepped outside. The memory of the silence rule, not only in the library but in all the corridors and ensuing punishment for any infringement of this rule, such as allowing a door to bang shut on a windy day, flooded into Thalia’s consciousness, as she walked by, glad to be on the outside of that school.

She remembered the bark of the headmistress who complained of her poor deportment, her untidy hair and slovenly appearance. Her mind was dragged back to the cruelty of the prefects who taunted her as a ‘pseudo-intellectual’, punishing her with the slightest excuse. She winced as she recalled the verbal bullying she received from many members of staff and girls in her own form who teased her because she liked playing the violin, had no liking for pop music and could not even name a single member of any pop group.

She strode on quickly; glad to be out of the vicinity when she passed under the railway bridge, making her way towards Widcombe and the Avon and Kennet Canal. Thoughts of life at school remained with her as the school buildings receded into the distance behind her. Thalia remembered the many Roman Catholic dogmas, which the staff imposed on the pupils unquestioningly. There was the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, the idea that the Virgin Mary was born sinless. Thalia bitterly resented learning about so-called red-letter Saints and their influence on the church. She also loathed the Pope, whom others referred to as the Holy Father. She smiled to herself as she thought how glad she was to be free from that insidious environment.

When she reached the canal she found the lock gate and sat down heavily on it, breathing rather heavily, hoping that the spectres that had arisen before her in her mind’s eye would quickly vanish. They did. They were replaced by visions of her parents and mental images of their dying in the car accident. She had not been present but had a vivid imagination: the young policeman, who had been given the difficult