Sacrament

CHAPTER VII

Something was happening to him. There were little signs of it every day. He would look up at the sky and feel a strange surge of exhilaration, as though some part of him were taking flight, rising up out of his own head. He would wake long after midnight and even though it was bitterly cold, open the window and listen to the world going on in darkness, imagining how it was on the heights. Twice he ventured out in the middle of the night, up the slope behind the house, hoping he might meet Jacob up there somewhere, star-watching; or Mrs McGee, chasing hares. But he saw no sign of them, and though he listened intently to every gossipy conversation when he was in the village - picking up pork chops for Adele Bottrall to cook with apples for Papa, or a sheaf of magazines for his mother to flick through - he never heard anybody mention Jacob or Rosa. They lived in some secret place, he concluded, where they could not be troubled by the workaday world. Other than himself, he doubted anybody in the valley even knew they existed.

He didn't pine for them. He would find them again, or they him, when the time was right. He was certain of that. Meanwhile, the strange epiphanies continued. Everywhere around him, the world was making miraculous signs for him to read. In the curlicues of frost on his window when he rose; in the patterns that the sheep made, straggling the hill; in the din of the river, swelled to its full measure by an autumn that brought more than its share of rain.

At last, he had to share these mysteries with somebody. He chose Frannie, not because he was certain she'd understand, but because she was the only one he trusted enough.

They were sitting in the living-room of the Cunningham house, which was adjacent to the junkyard owned by Frannie's father. The house was small, but cosy, as ordered and neat as the yard outside was chaotic: a needlepoint prayer framed above the mantelpiece, blessing the hearth and all who gather there; a teak china cabinet with an heirloom tea-service elegantly but not boastfully displayed; a plain brass clock on the table, and beside it a cut-glass bowl heaped with pears and oranges. Here, in this womb of certainties, Will told Frannie of the feelings that had risen in him of late, and how they had begun the day the two of them met. He didn't mention Jacob and Rosa at first - they were the secret he was most loath to share, and he was by no means certain he would do so but he did talk about venturing into the Courthouse.

'Oh, I asked my Mum about that,' Frannie said. 'And she told me the story.'

'What is it?' Will said.

'There was this man called Bartholomeus,' she said. 'He lived in the valley, when there were still lead mines everywhere.'

'I didn't know there were mines.'

'Well there were. And he made a lot of money from them. But he wasn't quite right in the head, that's what Mum said, because he had this idea that people didn't treat animals properly, and the only way to stop people being cruel was to have a court, which would only be for animals.'

'Who was the judge?'

'He was. And the jury probably.' She shrugged. 'I don't know the whole story, just those bits-'

'So he built the Courthouse.'

'He built it, but he didn't finish it.'

'Did he run out of money?'

'My Mum says he was probably put in a loony bin, because of what he was doing. I mean, nobody wanted him bringing animals into his Courthouse and making laws about how people had to treat them better.'

'That was what he was doing?' Will said, with a little smile.

'Something like that. I don't know if anybody's really sure. He's been dead for a hundred and fifty years.'

'It's a sad story,' said Will, thinking of the strange magnificence of Bartholomeus' folly.

'He was better put away. Safer for everybody.'

'Safer?'

'I mean if he was going to try and accuse people of doing things to animals. We all do things to animals. It's natural.'

She sounded like her mother when she spoke like this. Genial enough, but unmovable. This was her stated opinion and nothing would sway her from it. Listening to her, his enthusiasm for sharing what he'd seen began to wane. Perhaps after all she was not the person to understand his feelings. Perhaps she'd think he was like Mr Bartholomeus, and better put away.

But now, her story of the Courthouse finished, she said: 'What were you telling me about?'

'I wasn't,' Will replied.

'No, you were in the middle of saying something-'

'Well it probably wasn't important,' Will said, 'or I'd remember what it was.' He got up from his seat. 'I'd better be off,' he said.

Frannie looked more than a little puzzled, but he pretended not to notice the expression on her face.

'I'll see you tomorrow,' he said.

'Sometimes you're really odd,' she said to him. 'Did you know that?'

'No.'

'You know you are,' she said, with a faint tone of accusation. 'And I think you like it.'

Will couldn't keep a smile from his lips. 'Maybe I do,' he said.

At which juncture, the door was flung open and Sherwood marched in. He had feathers woven in to his hair.

'You know what I am?'

'A chicken,' Will said.

'No, I'm not a chicken,' Sherwood said, deeply offended.

'That's what you look like.'

'I'm Geronimo.'

'Geronimo the chicken,' Will laughed.

'I hate you,' said Sherwood, 'and so does everybody at school.'

'Sherwood, be quiet,' Frannie said.

'They do,' Sherwood went on. 'They all think you're daft and they talk behind your back and they call you William Daffy.' Now it was Sherwood who laughed. 'Daffy William! William Daffy!' Frannie kept trying to hush him, but it was a lost cause. He was going to crow till he was done.

'I don't care!' Will yelled above the clamour. 'You're a cretin, and I don't care!'

So saying, he picked up his coat and pushing past Sherwood - who had begun a little dance in rhythm with his chant - headed for the door. Frannie was still trying to shush her brother, but in vain. He was in a self- perpetuating frenzy, yelling and jumping.

In truth, Will was glad of the interruption. It gave him the perfect excuse to make his exit, which he did in double-quick time, before Frannie had a chance to silence her brother. He needn't have worried. When he was out of the house, past the junkyard and at the end of Samson Road he could still hear Sherwood's rantings emerging from the house.