Sacrament

CHAPTER IV

i

He slept deeply, up in the beamed room which had been his as a boy. There were new curtains on the window, and a new rug on the floor, but otherwise the room was virtually unchanged. The same wardrobe, with the mirror on the inside of the door where he had appraised the progress of his adolescence countless times; studied the advance of his body hair, admired the swelling of his dick. The same chest-of-drawers where he had kept his tiny collection of muscle-boy magazines (filched from newsagents in Halifax). The same bed where he had breathed life into those pictures, and dreamed the living bodies there beside him. In short, the site of his sexual coming of age.

There was another piece of that history, albeit small, at work downstairs the following morning. 'You remember my boy, Craig,' Adele said, bidding the man working under the sink to emerge and say hello.

Of course Will remembered him; he'd conjured up Craig in his comadream: a sweaty adolescent who for a few hours had roused in the elevenyear-old Will a feeling he could not have named; desire, of course. But what had seemed for a little time attractive in Craig the adolescent - his scowl, his sweat, his lumpen weight - was charmless in the adult. He grunted something unintelligible by way of a greeting.

'Craig does a lot of odd jobs around the village,' Adele explained. 'He does some plumbing. Some roofing. He's got quite a little business going, haven't you?'

Another grunt from Craig. It was strange to see a grown man (he was fully a foot taller than Adele) standing crab-footed and bashful while his mother listed his accomplishments. Finally, he grunted: 'Have you finished?' to Adele, and returned to his labours.

'You'll want some breakfast,' Adele said. 'I'll cook up some eggs and sausage, maybe some kidneys or black pudding?'

'No, really, I'm fine. I'll just have some tea.'

'Let me make you a couple of slices of toast, at least. You need feeding up a little bit.' Will knew what was coming. 'Have you not got a lass to cook for you?'

'I do fine on my own.'

'Craig's wife Mary is a wonderful cook, isn't she, Craig?' The grunt, by way of reply. 'You never thought of getting married? I suppose with yourwork an' all, it'd be hard having a normal life.' She chatted on while she brewed the tea. She'd spoken to the hospital this morning, she said, and Hugo had passed a very comfortable night, the best so far in fact. 'I thought we could both go back to see him this evening?'

'That's fine by me.'

'What are you planning to do today?'

'Oh, I'll just have a wander down to the village.'

'Get reacquainted,' Adele said.

'Something like that.'

ii

When he left the house a little before ten he was in a quiet turmoil. He knew his destination of course: the Courthouse. Unless he'd missed his guess there he'd find Jacob and Rosa ensconced, waiting for him. The prospect aroused a cluster of contrary feelings. There was inevitably a measure of anxiety, even a little fear. Steep had brutally assaulted Hugo, and was perfectly capable of doing the same, or worse, to Will. But his anxiety was countered both by anticipation and curiosity. What would it be like to confront Steep again after all these years? To be a man in his presence, not a boy; to meet him eye to eye?

He'd had a few glimpses of how it might be, in his years of travel: men and women he'd encountered who carried with them some of the power that had attended Jacob and Rosa. A priestess in Ethiopia, who despite the plethora of religious symbols she carried about her neck, some Christian, some not, had spoken in a kind of poetic stream of consciousness that suggested she was deriving her inspiration from no readily named source. A shaman in San Lazan whom Will had watched swaying and singing before an altar heaped with marigolds, and who had given him healthy helpings of sacred mushrooms - teonanacatl, the divine flesh - to help him on his own journey. Both extraordinary presences, from whose mouths he might have imagined Steep's grim wisdom coming.

The day was calm and cool, the cloud-layer unbroken. He ambled down to the crossroads, from which spot he'd once been able to see the Courthouse. But no longer. Trees that had been svelte thirty years before were now in spreading maturity, and blocked the view with their canopies. He paused just long enough to light up another cigarette and then headed on his way. He had covered perhaps half the distance when he began to suspect his assumption at the crossroads had been wrong. Though the trees were indeed fuller than they'd been, and the hedgerows taller, surely by now he should have been able to see the roof of the Courthouse? He walked on, the suspicion becoming certainty the closer he came to the spot. The Courthouse had been demolished.

He had no need to clamber through a hedgerow to get into the field which it had dominated. There was now a gate at the spot, through which, he assumed, the rubble had been removed. The field had not been returned to agricultural use however; it had been left to the vagaries of seed and season. He clambered over the gate - which to judge by its condition had not been opened in many years - and strode through the tall grass until he came to the foundations, which were still visible. Grass and wild flowers sprouted between the stones, but he was able to trace the geography of the building by walking it. Here was the passageway that had led to the Courtroom. Here was the place where he'd found the trapped sheep. Here was the judge's chair, and here - oh here - was the place where Jacob had set his table

'Living and dying

-God help him; God help them both

-we feed the fire.'

It was so long ago, and yet as he stood there, where he'd stood, it was as if he were a boy again: the languid air darkening around him as though the survival of the light depended upon the cremation of moths. Tears came into his eyes: of sorrow, for the act, and for himself, that he was still in his heart unredeemed. The grass and stone ground dissolved beneath his feet; he knew if he let himself weep he'd not be able to govern himself.

'Don't do this,' he said, pinching the tears from his eyes. He could not afford to indulge his grief today. Tomorrow, maybe, when he'd met with Steep, and played out whatever grim game lay ahead, then he could take the time to be weak. But not now, in an open field, where his frailty might be witnessed.

He looked up and scanned the hills and hedgerows. Perhaps it was too late. Perhaps Steep was watching him even now, like some carrion bird, assessing the condition of a wounded animal; waiting, as Will had waited so many times, for the moment of truth, the moment when, in tears of desperation, the subject of study revealed its final face. Searching for a title for his second collection, he had made a list of words relating to the business of death, and had lived with the alternatives for a month or more, turning them over in his head so often he had them by rote. They were in his head now, coming unbidden.

The Pale Horse and the Totentanz, Cold Meat and Crowbait, A Bed of Clay, A Last Abode, The Long Home

This last had been a contender for the title: describing the grave to which his subjects were about to be delivered as a place of inevitable return. It was distressing to think of that now, standing as he did within a mile of his father's house. It made him feel like a condemned man.

Enough of this creeping despair, he told himself. He needed relief from it, and quickly. He climbed over the gate, and without a backward glance returned along the road with the determined stride of a man who had no further business in the place behind him. He was out of cigarettes, so he made his way into the village to pick up another pack. The streets were busy, he was pleased to see. There was no little comfort to be had in the sight of people about their ordinary lives: buying vegetables, making small talk, hurrying their children along. In the newsagent's he listened to a leisurely conversation on the subject of the Harvest Festival, the woman behind the counter (plainly the daughter of Mrs Morris, who'd run the place in Will's youth) opining that it was all very well trying to bring folks in to church with fancy tricks, but she drew a line at services being fun.

'What's the problem with a bit of fun?' her customer wanted to know.

`I just think it's a slippery slope,' Miss Morris replied. 'We'll have dancing in the aisles next.'

'That's better than sleeping in the pews,' the woman remarked with a little laugh, and picking up her chocolate bars, made her exit. The exchange had apparently been less jocular than it had seemed, because Miss Morris was quietly fuming about it when she came to serve Will.

'Is this some big controversy?' he asked her. 'The Harvest Festival, I mean?'

'Nooo ...' she said, a little exasperated at herself, '... it's just that Frannie always knows how to stir me up.'

'Frannie?'

'Yes.'

'Frannie Cunningham? I'll be back for the cigarettes-'

And he was out of the shop, looking right and left for the woman who'd just breezed by. She was already on the opposite side of the road, eating her chocolate as she strode on her way.

'Frannie?' he yelled, and dodging the traffic raced to intercept her. She'd heard her name being called and was looking back towards him. It was plain from her expression she still didn't recognize him, though now - when he saw her face full on - he knew her. She was somewhat plumper, her hair more grey than auburn. But that look of perpetual attention she'd had was still very much in place, as were her freckles.

'Do we know each other?' she said as he gained the pavement.

'Yes, we do,' he grinned. 'Frannie, it's me. It's Will.'

'Oh ... my ... Lord ...' she breathed. 'I didn't ... I mean ... you were ...'

'In the shop. Yes. We walked straight past one another.'

She opened her arms, and Will went into them, hugging her as fiercely as she hugged him. 'Will, Will, Will...' she kept saying. 'This is so wonderful. Oh, but I'm sorry to hear about your Dad.'

'You know?'

'Everybody knows,' she said. 'You can't keep secrets in Burnt Yarley.

Well ... I suppose that's not quite true, is it?' She gave him an almost mischievous look. 'Besides, your Dad's quite a character. Sherwood sees him at The Plough all the time, holding court. How's he doing?'

'Better, thank you.'

'That's good.'

'And Sherwood?'

'Oh ... he has his good times and his bad times. We still have the house together. The one on Samson Street.'

'What about your Ma and Pa?'

'Dad's dead. He died six years ago this coming November. Then last year we had to put Mum into a hospice. She's got Alzheimer's. We looked after her at home for a couple of years, but she was deteriorating so fast. It's horrible to watch, and Sherwood was getting in such a depression about it.'

'It sounds like you've been in the wars.'

'Oh well,' Frannie shrugged. 'We battle on. Do you want to come back to the house for something to eat? Sherwood'll be so pleased to see you.'

'If it's not going to be an inconvenience.'

'You've been away too long,' Frannie chided him. 'This is Yorkshire. Friends are never an inconvenience. Well. . .' she added, with that mischievous twinkle. '... almost never.'