Last Days by Adam Nevill Read Free Book Online

heavy make-up. ‘Think of finding a mentor, a teacher, who could release you from yourself.’
    ‘This was Sister Katherine, yeah?’
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    ADAM NEVILL
    She slapped a hand against her forehead. ‘Someone to unclench the fist here.’ Dan jumped behind the first camera tripod. She slapped her bony chest. ‘And here. Wouldn’t you take it? I was a bloody typist. I lived at home. With Mum and Dad. But I wanted music and love and friends. I wanted to do something, be someone, to live. And this was new. You could talk here. Say anything. I was so shy, but she freed me.
    She could be so kind. She was your best friend and your mother and your priest in the beginning. Oh, I cried here.
    Cried as it all came out. You’ve no idea how good it felt. For all of us. To be here, together, sharing this. Young and foolish and in love all of the time. Living a life without secrets, but seeking the greater mysteries of life. We thought we were so free.’ Susan stopped. She released a long, weary exhalation and said, ‘And before we knew it, she had us all.’
    ‘You stayed with The Last Gathering for two years. Why did it take you so long to leave?’
    Kyle wore the cans, had the sound mixer slung over one shoulder, and held the mic boom with both hands. He stood behind the second camera, while Dan filmed a close-up of Susan with the first camera. She was wired up with two Sennheiser radio mics. All three mics went into a hard-drive field recorder beside Kyle’s right foot. It was already the second take because Susan’s scarf had been playing hell with the sound on the first one. They were rushing and hadn’t noticed the scarf when lining up the sound. Dan had set up both cameras to get parallel shots of Susan from different angles at the same time; they knew from experience to get as many cutaways as possible to give Finger Mouse a palette if the interview became long. Which was just as well, because 44
    LAST DAYS
    it was as if a dam had broken inside Susan White ever since she stepped inside.
    ‘Oh, no, you couldn’t leave Katherine. No, no, no.’ Susan stood beside the sash window of the room on the first floor, and stared at the garden. ‘And we were special. We’d beaten the system, you know. We were very pleased with ourselves for what we achieved by being a part of this.’
    ‘But you gave her all of your money to be included.’
    ‘We didn’t need anything! I sold whatever I owned. Some jewellery from my grandmother. Cashed in my little savings account at the post office. I gave it all to her. To the Gathering. The same thing, really. Katherine was the Gathering.
    A few poor girls gave up big inheritances, you know. Like Sister Urania and Sister Hannah. Trusts. Surrendering your worldly self was essential for entrance. One couldn’t be a part of the family otherwise.’
    ‘It must have impressed you.’
    ‘It was a movement. A future! A revolution, we thought.
    We were to be wandering missionaries. Reliant on our wits, you know. We had to “purge” ourselves “through poverty”
    she used to say. Start again. Rebirth.’ Susan paused and shook her head. ‘But I think the only thing that kept us going was the kindness and charity of strangers.’
    ‘What was this floor of the Temple used for?’
    Susan looked about the floor. ‘We slept in here. And in those two rooms back there. The kitchen was used as a quiet room then, where we prepared for the sessions, or sat and thought about what we had learned from the previous night’s meeting. Sat and thought of how greedy and needy and selfish and jealous and childish we were.
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    ADAM NEVILL
    ‘About fifteen of us slept on the floors in here, in sleeping bags. On thin mats. There were people everywhere. At one point there were over fifty of us living in this building. You had no privacy. It was forbidden. For two years of my life I slept in this room.’
    ‘But you stayed.’
    Susan threw her head back and shrieked with laughter. ‘We were celebrities, my dear