The Boundless Sublime (7 page)

Fox always met me at the front door, throwing his arms around me with a face-splitting grin. ‘You came back,’ he’d whisper into my hair.

‘Of course I did,’ I’d whisper back, breathing in his Fox-smell and feeling peace and calm and joy wash over me.

One morning we found Welling in the dining room surrounded by boxes of bottled water.

‘Ruby,’ he said, smiling. His white teeth stood out against his dark skin. My cheeks grew warm. He was the only member of the Red House I found a bit intimidating. Even though he was younger than Lib and Stan and Val, somehow he was the one who seemed the most like a grown-up. Made me feel the most like a little kid. But I was curious about him. How did someone like him end up here, instead of being a charming lawyer or politician?

‘What are you doing?’ I asked, approaching the table.

‘I was just heading out,’ he said, lifting one of the cardboard boxes. ‘It’s my turn to hand out water.’ He considered me. ‘You should come.’

Welling wanted my company?

‘Um,’ I said, glancing at Fox. Did he mean both of us?

‘Please,’ he said. ‘You’d be doing me a massive favour. It can get pretty boring standing on a street corner on your own. I could use the company and, well, to be honest I’d like to get to know you a little better. You seem interesting. Fox certainly thinks so.’

He raised his eyebrows at Fox, and I saw Fox’s cheeks flush crimson.

‘You should go,’ he said. ‘There are some things I’ve been meaning to do around here anyway.’

Welling’s smile was warm and welcoming, and I was flattered that he wanted to spend time with me. I could always hang out with Fox in the afternoon.

‘Sure.’

We went to the main shopping strip near the park, where I’d first seen Fox. With a rush of adrenaline, I remembered that first brilliant spike of connection as our eyes met.

Welling pulled out a bottle of water, scanning the surrounding strip for potential recipients.

‘Why water?’ I asked, hoping for a better answer than the last time I’d asked.

Welling shrugged. ‘People get thirsty,’ he said. ‘And you never know, someone might start a conversation, and that could be the thing that changes their lives. It did for me.’

‘Do many people stop to talk?’ I asked.

Welling’s movie-star mouth curled in a rueful smile. ‘Not many,’ he said. ‘Most people don’t want to realise that their lives are empty. It’s too hard, too big to comprehend. You have to be a special kind of person to accept the possibilities we offer.’

Did Welling think I was a special kind of person? I took one of the water bottles out of the box and examined the label. It was the same as all the others – the weird triangular symbol, and the words BOUNDLESS BODY BOUNDLESS MIND printed below. It was clumsily put together, with an ugly sans-serif font and irregular spacing. Minah would have fainted. Would I have stopped to talk to Welling? Probably not. Not until Fox, anyway. If not for Fox, I would never have gone to the Red House. I would never have met them all. I’d still be sleepwalking through life, drowning in the black tide.

‘Do you want me to hand some out too?’ I asked.

Welling shook his head. ‘Absolutely not,’ he said. ‘I’m not asking you to promote anything that you’re not sure about. That wouldn’t be fair.’

I considered him carefully. He didn’t look like your average commune-living hippy. He was clean-shaven and well groomed, oozing casual masculinity. Even though he wore the same plain linen pants and shirt as the others, Welling’s looked different somehow. Neater. Tailored. Crisp.

‘How did you know?’ I asked. ‘When you were sure about all this. What made you decide?’

Welling handed a bottle of water to a passer-by and told her to have a nice day, before turning back to me.

‘I used to be a broker,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t quite as crazy as it is in the movies – no private jets or massive orgies. But there was a lot of money. A lot of casinos. A lot of women. I was ruthless, and it paid off. I made my first million dollars by the time I was twenty-five. I partied
hard
. I usually didn’t remember much between Friday night and Monday morning. I thought I had it all. When you have money, everyone wants to be near you. But none of it’s real. None of it matters. I realised that one day when my boss had a heart attack right in the middle of a meeting. We were sitting in the conference room, a bunch of dudes in suits, talking numbers, and the boss slumped over in his chair. We thought he’d fallen asleep. Nobody was brave enough to try and rouse him. We kept on with the meeting. It wasn’t until the very end that we all stood up, and he stayed there, his head on the conference table. Someone eventually reached over to him, and realised what had happened. We called an ambulance, but it was too late. He’d been dead for over an hour, and we didn’t care enough to notice.’

‘How were you to know?’ I asked. ‘Surely you just thought it’d be too embarrassing if you woke him up.’

Welling offered another bottle to an elderly man walking a small fluffy dog. The man shook his head and looked disapproving.

‘Have a nice day, sir,’ Welling called after him. ‘What does that say, though? That we were so busy worrying about being embarrassed that we let a man die? I realised, then, in the conference room, that money doesn’t mean anything. My boss had more money than anyone else I knew, but it
didn’t make a difference in the end. It didn’t stop him from having a heart attack – hell, all the booze and cocaine almost certainly
contributed
to his heart attack. Nobody really cared. I mean, people started fighting about who was going to take over, even before the ambulance arrived. But nobody cared that he had died. Nobody missed him. His life had been totally empty. And I didn’t want to be like that. I wanted my life to mean something. So I followed the paramedics out the front door of the building, and I never went back.’

‘You just quit? But how did you know nobody cared? Didn’t he have a family?’

Welling acted like he hadn’t heard me. ‘Walking away was the easiest and best thing I’ve ever done. I was free, for the first time in my life. I gave a bunch of money away and travelled to India and Finland and Turkey and Ghana. I realised how many different kinds of people there are in the world, each one unique. But eventually my money ran out. I came back here, ready to sign up with another firm and start all over again. The thought of it made me feel physically ill. I didn’t want to be a part of the corporate machine. But what choice did I have?’

I knew that feeling. Trapped inside your own life, as if there was no way out.

‘I was heading to a job interview, and I was shaking all over. My mouth was so dry, I didn’t think I’d be able to speak. I started to sweat, and my heart was going a mile a minute. I couldn’t breathe and I honestly thought I was going to die. I stumbled in the street, and someone caught me. Handed me one of these.’

Welling held up a bottle of water.

‘It was like a bolt of lightning. I
knew
. All my fear and panic evaporated. It was Stan, that day, with the water. He told me that money was my prison, a prison I’d chosen for myself.
But I could make a different choice, if I was strong enough. He invited me to the Red House, and I’ve never looked back.’

I bit my lip, scepticism battling with envy. I wanted to be sure. I wanted to
know
. I didn’t feel as though I knew anything. But I wanted to. I wanted the peace and serenity that Welling and the others had. Maybe I could get it. Maybe if I pretended to be sure, eventually
pretending
would melt into
being
. Maybe.

‘So you don’t miss anything about your old life?’ I asked.

‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t give up standing here, being me, for all the money, and blow, and blow jobs in the world.’

I smiled weakly.

‘Don’t worry,’ he reassured me with a grin. ‘You’ll have the avocation. I know you will. You need to give yourself permission. Leave your toxicant life behind. Don’t worry about what has happened in the past, or what might happen in the future. Everything is only
now
.’

I felt myself sink back into darkness. Whatever an
avocation
was, I’d never have it.

‘Ruby.’ Welling’s voice was serious, his brows drawn together in concern. ‘I was a terrible person, before. I was greedy and selfish. I treated people as though they were nothing. Especially women. When I think of how I treated the girls I dated back then …’ He shook his head. ‘But I left that behind. I’m not that person anymore. So whatever it is that you’re afraid of – you don’t have to be that person either. It’s your choice.’

‘I’m afraid.’ My voice was barely more than a whisper. ‘I’m afraid that I won’t be able to be who I want to be.’

Welling put his arm around me and gave me a friendly squeeze. ‘That’s where the technic comes in,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to do it alone. There are steps. Pathways. And all the other members are there with you, supporting you,
cheering you on. It’s not just the diet, you know. Feeling healthy is a big part of it, but once you move beyond that to the next stage, everything changes. Your IQ skyrockets and you can perform mental feats that surpass even what supercomputers can do. You are free of disease – diseases of the body
and
of the mind. No more anxiety or depression or addiction. Your memory, eyesight and hearing are flawless. Your mood is always joyful. It’s … well, it’s sublime.’

Even though it sounded ludicrous, a part of me wanted to believe him. ‘Are you saying you’re all those things?’

Welling’s expression was tinged with longing. ‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘But I will be. I’m getting closer every day.’

I wanted that peace, that clarity.

‘Here,’ I said, reaching out for the bottle of water. ‘Let me help. I want to.’

5

‘So it’s a cult,’ said Minah, stirring another spoonful of sugar into her coffee.

‘No,’ I replied. ‘It’s not a cult. Don’t be so dramatic.’

I knew I shouldn’t have told her. But I hadn’t been to school for days, and I wanted to tell her about Fox. I wanted to tell everyone about Fox. He filled my every waking thought, and it was impossible to exist in the world without a little bit of him spilling out of me. I couldn’t talk to Mum or Aunty Cath about him, so Minah it was. I’d asked her to meet me in the café I’d first taken Fox to. I’d started to order my usual flat white, but then stopped myself. I didn’t need all that sugar and dairy and caffeine clouding my thoughts. I ordered a mineral water instead.

‘So what is it then?’

‘It’s a different way of living. It’s nurturing the body. Did you know that we are capable of so much more? But people clog up their bodies with cholesterol and artificial preservatives, so everything swells up and slows down. Stan calls normal people
toxicants
.’

Minah raised her eyebrows. ‘Sounds like a cult to me.’

I sighed. ‘What do you even mean by
cult
? Is every gathering of like-minded people a cult? Is your art class a cult?’

‘No,’ said Minah. ‘A cult is something that indoctrinates you into a restrictive ideology by suppressing your sense of freedom and cutting you off from your friends and family.’

I opened my mouth to disagree with her, but then realised I didn’t know anything about Maggie’s family, or Lib’s, or Welling’s. I knew Fox’s father was back at the Institute, but did that even count? I decided to change tactics.

‘People used to think Christianity was a dangerous cult.’

Minah looked at me as if I was insane. ‘Christianity
is
a dangerous cult,’ she said. ‘It’s
the
most dangerous cult. Have you met my parents?’

I rolled my eyes, exasperated. Minah obviously wasn’t going to change her mind. She was stuck in her own rigid way of thinking. I’d seen this happen before. She was stubborn, and never admitted she might be wrong. She saw compromise as a weakness, not a strength. I sipped my mineral water, feeling as clear and sharp as the bubbles that were surging through it.

‘Is there yoga?’ asked Minah. ‘Cults always start with yoga.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘There’s no yoga. And yoga isn’t a cult, anyway.’

‘Maybe not,’ said Minah, ‘but there’s something about all that deep breathing and stretching that makes people’s minds more susceptible to bullshit. It’s a gateway drug. There was a group called the Great White Brotherhood that was all about yoga, and you
know
that anything called the Great White Brotherhood is going to be a bad scene. And Aum Shinrikyo? The cult responsible for the Tokyo Subway gassing in the nineties? That started as an elite university yoga club. And have you ever talked to someone who does that weird hot yoga? They are drinking some kind of Kool-Aid for
sure
.’