Sacrament

CHAPTER II

There was a meagre lamp burning beside Hugo's bed, its sallow light throwing a monumental shadow of the man upon the wall. He was semi-recumbent amid a Himalayan mass of pillows, his eyes closed.

He'd grown a beard, and nurtured it to a formidable size. A solid ten inches long, trimmed and waxed in emulation of the beards of great, dead men: Kant, Nietzsche, Tolstoy. The minds by which Hugo had always judged contemporary thought and art, and found it wanting. The beard was more grey than black, with streams of white running in it from the corners of his mouth, as though he'd dribbled cream into it. His hair, by contrast, had been clipped short and lay fiat to his scalp, delineating the Roman dome of his skull. Will watched him for fifteen or twenty seconds, thinking how magisterial he looked. Then Hugo's lips parted, and very quietly he said:

'So you came back.'

Now his eyes opened, and found Will. Though there was a pair of spectacles at the bedside table, he stared at his visitor as though he had Will in perfect focus, his stare as unrelenting as ever; and as judgmental.

'Hello, Pa,' Will said.

'Into the light,' Hugo said, beckoning for Will to approach the bed. 'Let me see you.' Will duly stepped into the throw of the lamp to be scrutinized. 'The years are showing on you,' he said. 'It's the sun. If you have to tramp the world at least wear a hat.'

'I'll remember.'

'Where were you lurking this time?'

'I wasn't lurking, Pa. I was-'

'I thought you'd deserted me. Where's Adele? Is she here?' He reached out to pluck his glasses off the nightstand. In his haste he instead knocked them to the ground. 'Damn things!'

'They're not broken,' Will said, picking them up.

Hugo put them on, one-handed. Will knew better than to help. 'Where is she?'

'Waiting outside. She wanted us to have a little quality time together.'

Now, paradoxically, he didn't look at Will, but studied the folds in the bedcover, and his hands, his manner perfectly detached. 'Quality time?' he said. 'Is that an Americanism?'

'Probably.'

'What does it mean exactly?'

'Oh...' Will sighed. 'Are we reduced to that already?'

'No, I'm just interested,' Hugo said. 'Quality time.' He pursed his lips.

'It's a stupid turn of phrase,' Will conceded. 'I don't know why I used it.'

Stymied, Hugo looked at the ceiling. Then: 'Maybe you could just ask Adele to come in. I need a few toiletry items brought-'

'Who did it?'

-just some toothpaste and some-'

'Pa. Who did it?'

The man paused, his mouth working as though he were chewing a piece of gristle. 'Why do you assume I know?' he said.

'Why do you have to be so argumentative? This isn't a seminar. I'm not your student. I'm your son.'

'Why did you take so long to come back?' Hugo said, his eyes returning to Will. 'You knew where to find me.'

'Would I have been welcome?'

Hugo's stare didn't waver. 'Not by me, particularly,' he said with great precision. 'But your mother was very hurt by your silence.'

'Does Eleanor know that you're in here?'

'I certainly haven't told her. And I doubt Adele has. They hated one another.'

'Shouldn't she be told?'

'Why?'

'Because she'll be concerned.'

'Then why tell her?' Hugo said neatly. 'I don't want her here. There's no love lost between us. She's got her life. I've got mine. The only thing we have in common is you.'

'You make that sound like an accusation.'

'No. You simply hear it that way. Some children are palliatives in a troubled marriage. You weren't. I don't blame you for that.'

'So can we get back to the subject?'

'Which was?'

'Who did this?'

Hugo returned his gaze to the ceiling. 'I read a piece you wrote in The Times, about eighteen months ago-'

'What the hell has

-something about elephants. You did write it?'

'It had my name on it.'

'I thought perhaps you'd had some amanuensis write it for you. I daresay you thought you were waxing poetic, but Christ, how could you put your name to that kind of indulgence?'

'I was describing what I felt.'

'There you are then,' Hugo said, his tone one of weary resignation. 'If you feel it then it must be true.'

'How I disappoint you,' Will said.

'No. No. I never hoped, so how could I be disappointed?' There was such a profundity of bitterness in this, it took Will's breath away. 'None of it means a damn thing, anyway. It's all shite in the end.'

'Is it?'

'Christ, yes.' He looked at Will with feigned surprise. 'Isn't that what you've been shrieking about all these years?'

'I don't shriek.'

'Put it this way. It's a little shrill for most people's ears. Maybe that's why it's not having any effect. Maybe that's why your beloved Mother Earth

'Fuck Mother Earth-'

'No, you first, I insist.'

Will raised his hands in surrender. 'Okay, you win,' he said. 'I don't have the appetite for this. So ...'

'Oh, come now.'

'I'll fetch Adele,' he said, turning from the bed.

'What for? I didn't come here to be sniped at. If you don't want a peaceful conversation, then we won't have any conversation.' He was almost at the door.

'I said wait,' Hugo demanded.

Will halted, but didn't turn.

'It was him,' Hugo said, very softly. Now Will glanced over his shoulder. His father had taken off his spectacles and was staring into middle distance.

' Who?'

'Don't be so dense,' Hugo said, his voice a monotone. 'You know who.'

Will heard his heart quicken. 'Steep?' he said. Hugo didn't reply. Will turned back to face the bed. 'Steep did this to you?'

Silence. And then, very quietly, almost reverentially. 'This is your revenge. So enjoy it.'

'Why?'

'Because you won't get another like it.'

'No, why did he do this to you?'

'Oh. To get to you. For some reason that's important to him. He did state his devotion. Make what you will of that.'

'Why didn't you tell the police?' Again, Hugo kept his counsel, until Will came back to the bedside. 'You should have told them.'

'What would I tell them? I don't want any part of this ... connection ... between you and these creatures.'

'There's nothing sexual, if that's what you think.'

'Oh, I don't give a damn about your bedroom habits. Humani nil a me alienum Auto. Terence-'

'I know the quote, Dad,' Will said wearily. 'Nothing human is alien to me. But that doesn't apply here, does it?'

Hugo narrowed his puffy eyes. 'This is the moment you've been waiting for, isn't it?' he said, his lip curling. 'You feel quite the master of ceremonies. You came in here, pretending you wanted to make peace but what you really want is revenge.'

Will opened his mouth to deny the charge, then thought better of it, and instead told the truth: 'Maybe a little.'

'So. You have your moment,' Hugo said, staring up at the ceiling. 'You're right. Terence does not apply. These . . . creatures ... are not human. There. I've said it. I've thought a lot about what that means, while I've been lying here.'

'And?'

'It doesn't mean very much in the end.'

'I think you're wrong.'

'Well you would, wouldn't you?'

'There's something extraordinary in all of this. Waiting at the end.'

'Speaking as a man who is waiting at the end I see nothing here but the same tiresome cruelties and the same stale old pain. Whatever they are, they're not angels. They're not going to show you anything miraculous. They're going to break your bones the way they broke mine.'

'Maybe they don't know what they really are,' Will replied, realizing as he spoke that this was indeed at the heart of what he believed. 'Oh, Jesus...' he murmured almost to himself. 'Yes ... They don't know what they are any more than we do.'

'Is this some kind of revelation?' Hugo said in his driest tone. Will didn't dignify his cynicism with a reply. 'Well?' he insisted. 'Is it? Because if you know something about them I don't, I want to hear it.'

'Why should you care, if none of it means anything anyway?'

'Because I have a better chance of surviving another meeting with them if I know what I'm dealing with.'

'You won't see them again,' Will said.

'You sound very certain of that.'

'You said Steep wants me,' Will replied. 'I'll make it simple for him. I'll go to him.'

A look of unfeigned alarm crossed Hugo's face. 'He'll kill you.'

'It's not that simple for him.'

'You don't know what he's like-'

'Yes I do. Believe me. I do. We've spent the last thirty years together.' He touched his temple. 'He's been in my head and I've been in his. Like a couple of Russian dolls.'

Hugo looked at him with fresh dismay. 'How did I get you?' he said, looking at Will as though he were something venomous.

'I assumed it was fucking, Dad.'

'God knows, God knows I tried to put you on the right track. But I never stood a chance, I see that now. You were queer and crazy and sick to your sorry little heart from the beginning.'

'I was queer in the womb,' Will said calmly.

'Don't sound so damn proud of it!'

'Oh, that's the worst, isn't it?' Will countered, 'I'm queer and I like it. I'm crazy and it suits me. And I'm sick to my sorry little heart because I'm dying into something new. You don't get that yet, and you probably never will. But that's what's happening.'

Hugo stared at him, his mouth so tightly closed it seemed he would never utter another word; certainly not to Will. Nor did he need to, at least for now, because at that moment there was a light tapping at the door. 'Can I interrupt?' Adele said, putting her head around the door.

'Come on in,' Will said. Then, glaring back at Hugo. 'The reunion's pretty much over.'

Adele came directly to the bed and kissed Hugo on the cheek. He received the kiss without comment or reciprocation, which didn't seem to bother Adele. How many kisses had she bestowed this way, Will wondered; Hugo taking them as his right? 'I brought you your toothpaste,' she said, digging in her handbag and depositing the tube on the bedside table. Will saw the glint of fury in his father's eye, to have been seen addle-headed, asking for something he'd already requested. Adele was happily unaware of this. She fairly bubbled in Hugo's presence, Will saw, sweetly content to be coddling him - straightening his sheets, plumping up his pillow - though he gave her no thanks for her efforts.

'I'm going to leave you two to talk,' Will said. 'I need a cigarette. I'll see you out by the car, Adele.' 'Fine,' she said, all her focus upon the object of her affections. 'I won't be long.' 'Goodbye, Dad,' Will said. He didn't expect a reply, and he didn't get one. Hugo was staring up at the ceiling again, with the glassy-eyed gaze of a man who has more important things on his mind than a child he would rather had never been born.