Sacrament

CHAPTER IX

Will was awakened by the sound of the telephone ringing, but by the time he cleared the surface of sleep it had stopped. He sat up in bed, fumbling for his watch. It was a little after four: cold, dark and still. He listened a moment, and heard Adele say something, her words, which he failed to grasp, becoming sobs. Turning on the lamp, he found his underwear, pulled it on and went out onto the landing in time to hear her putting down the phone. He knew what she was going to say before she turned her streaming face up to him. Hugo was dead.

If it was any comfort, the doctor on duty told them when they got to the hospital, he had died peacefully, in his sleep. Very probably heart failure, a man his age, having taken such a beating; but they'd know more tomorrow. Meanwhile, did they want to see him?

'Of course I want to see him,' Adele said, clutching Will's hand. Hugo was still in the bed where they'd talked with him twelve hours before, his head propped on the mountainous pillow, his beard laid on his chest like a knitted platter.

'You should say your goodbyes first,' Adele said, hanging back to let Will approach the bed. He had nothing to say, but he went anyway. There was something faintly artificial about the whole scene - the sheet too perfectly smoothed, the body too symmetrically laid - why should he not also play a part? Bow his head, pretend to be bereft? But standing there looking at the manicured hands, and the veins on the eyelids, he could only hear the contempt that had issued from this man over the years; the disparagement and the dismissals. He would never hear that litany again, but nor would he ever earn his way out of it, and there would be pain in that, by and by.

'That's it then,' he said softly. Even now, though he knew it was absurd, he half expected his father to open a quizzical eye and call him a fool. But Hugo had gone wherever the sad fathers go, and left his son to his confusions. 'Goodnight, Dad,' Will murmured, and turning from the bed let Adele take his place. 'Do you want me to stay with you?' he asked her.

'I'd rather you didn't, if you don't mind. I'd like to say a few things, just him and me.'

He left her to it, wondering what she would say when he'd gone. Would there be tearful professions of love, unleashed now that she didn't fear his censure? Or just a quiet chat, his hand in hers; a gentle admonishment that he'd slipped away so suddenly, a kiss on his cheek with her goodbye. The thought of that moved him far more than the body had. Loyal Adele, who had built her late life around his father, made his comfort her ambition and his affection her touchstone, murmuring in the ruins.

Assuming she would take her time with Hugo he didn't head for the car park, which was garishly lit, but took a side door out into the hospital's modest garden. There was enough light shed from the windows for him to be able to see his way to a bench beneath a tree, and there he sat to ponder things for a while. After a few minutes he heard motion in the canopy overhead; then a few tentative trills, as the first birds called up the day. In the east there was a merest sliver of cold grey. He watched it like a child watching the minute hand of a clock, determined to detect its motion, but its increments defied him. There was more to see around him, however. Rose-bushes and hydrangeas, a wall covered with creeping vine, the murk still too thick to put colour on the blooms, but rising by the moment, like a print developing in a tray, the tones dividing. On another day, he might have been enraptured, his eyes greedy for the sight. But now there was no pleasure in either the bloom or the day that was sculpting it.

'What now?'

He looked across the garden, in the direction of the voice. There was a man standing beside the viney wall. No, not a man. Steep.

'He's dead, and you'll never make your peace with him,' Steep said. 'I know ... you deserved better. He should have loved you, but he couldn't find it in his heart.'

Will didn't move. He sat and watched Steep wander in his direction, some part of him in fear, some part in bliss. This was what he'd come home for, wasn't it? Not the hope of reconciliation: this.

'How long has it been?' Steep said. 'Rosa and I were trying to remember.'

'Isn't it in your little book?'

'That's for the dead, Will. You're not yet numbered amongst them.'

'Almost thirty years.'

'Is it really? Thirty. And you've changed so much, and I haven't. And that's both our tragedies.'

'I've just grown up. That's not tragic.' He got to his feet now, which motion stopped Steep in his tracks. 'Why did you beat my father half to death?'

'He told you.'

'Yes.'

'Then he also told you why.'

'I don't believe you'd be so petty. You're better than that. He was a defenceless old man.'

'If I never touched the defenceless, then I would touch nothing,' Steep said. 'Surely you remember how quick my little knife can be.'

'I remember.'

'There isn't a living thing safe from me.'

'Now you're exaggerating,' said Rosa, drifting out of the shadows behind Steep. 'I'm immune.'

'I doubt that,' Steep replied.

'Listen to him,' Rosa said. 'Sorry about your father. He needed a little tenderness, that was all-'

'Rosa-' Jacob said.

-so I rocked him for a while. He was so peaceful.'

The confession was put so lightly Will didn't understand what was being said at first. Then it came clear. 'You murdered him.'

'Not murdered,' said Rosa. 'Murder's cruel and I wasn't cruel with him.' She smiled, her face radiant, even in the murk. 'You saw how he looked,' she said. 'How content he was at the end.'

'I won't be going so easily,' Will said, 'if that's what you've got in mind.'

Rosa shrugged. 'It'll be fine. You'll see.'

'Hush,' Steep said. 'You had your time with the father. The son's mine.' Rosa threw him a baleful glance, but kept her silence. 'She's right about Hugo,' Steep went on. 'He didn't suffer. And nor will you. I haven't come here to torment you, though God knows you've tormented me-'

'You began it, not me.'

'You held on,' Steep said. 'Anyone else would have let go. Got himself a wife to love him; children, dogs, anything - but you, you held on; haunting me, bleeding me.' He was speaking through gritted teeth, his body trembling. 'It's got to stop,' he said. 'Now. Here. It stops here.' He unbuttoned his jacket. His knife was at his belt, waiting for his fingers. There was no great surprise in this; Steep was here as an executioner. What surprised Will was how undistressed he was. Yes, Steep was dangerous, but so was he. One touch, flesh to flesh, and he could carry Steep away from this grey morning: back to that wood, perhaps, where Thomas Simeon lay, pecked blind. Where the fox loped; Lord Fox, the beast who had taught him so much. That wisdom was in him now. It made him sly. It made him sleek.

'Touch me then,' he said to Steep, reaching out to his enemy, like Simeon showing off his radiant petal. 'I dare you. Touch me. We'll see where it takes us.' Steep had stopped in his tracks, studying Will sourly.

'You said he'd be weak,' Rosa remarked, clearly amused.

'I told you to be quiet,' Steep said.

'I've got as much right-'

'Skut up!' Steep roared.

'Why don't we just talk this out like reasonable people?' Will said. 'I don't want to be haunted any more than you do. I want to let you go. I swear, I want that.'

'You can't control it,' Steep said. 'There's a hole in your head, where the world gets in. You probably get it from your crazy mother. A little touch of the psychic. It wouldn't matter if you were dealing with an ordinary man.'

'But I'm not.'

'No, you're not.'

'You're something else. Both of you.'

'Yes...'

'But you don't know what, do you?'

'You're more like your father than you think,' Steep observed. 'Both sniffing after answers, even though your lives hang in the balance.'

'Well? Do you know or don't you?'

It was Rosa who answered, not Steep. 'Admit it, Jacob,' she said. 'We don't know.'

'Maybe I could help you,' Will said.

'No,' Steep replied. 'You won't persuade me to spare you, so don't waste your breath. I'm not so afraid of my own memories that I can't endure them long enough to slit your throat.' He slid the knife from its leather sheath. 'The error wasn't yours. I accept that. It was mine. I was alone and I wanted a companion. I chose carelessly. It's as simple as that. If you'd been an ordinary child, you could have had your adventure and gone on your way. But you saw too much. You felt too much.' His voice was thick with feeling, not all of it anger, not by far. 'You .. . took me ... to your heart, Will. And I don't belong there.'

The light was strong enough, and Steep close enough, that Will could see just how sick with anticipation Steep looked. His face was white and fragile; his beauty - despite the beard and the dome of his brow, become almost feminine; almost lush, with the rest wasted, his lips, his eyes, the curve of his cheek. He raised the knife, and at the glint of it Will remembered how it felt to have it in his hand. The heft of it, the ease of it. The way it had carried his fingers with it, to do its work. If Steep got within striking distance, there would be no hope of a reprieve. The knife would find Will's life and take it, so quickly he'd barely know it was gone.

He glanced to his left, looking for the gate that led out of the garden. It was ten, maybe twelve yards from him. If he moved, Steep would intercept him in three strides at most. His only hope was to stop Steep in his tracks; and the only means he had to do that was a name.

'Tell me about Rukenau,' he said.

Steep halted, his face - which in its present state was incapable of concealing his feelings - showing blank astonishment. His mouth opened, but no words emerged. It was Rosa who said:

'You know Rukenau?'

By now, Steep had recovered himself enough to say: 'Impossible.'

'Then how-'

'It doesn't matter,' Steep said, plainly determined not to be distracted from his purpose. 'I don't want to hear about him.'

'I do,' Rosa said, striding towards Steep. 'If he knows something, then we should have it out of him.' She pushed past Jacob, and stood between Will and the knife. It was a little comfort, at least, not to be able to see the blade. 'What do you know about Rukenau?'

'This and that,' Will said, attempting to keep his manner light.

'See?' said Steep. 'He knows nothing.'

Will saw a flicker of doubt cross Rosa's face. 'You'd better tell me,' she said, softly. 'Quickly.'

'Then he'll kill me,' Will said.

'I can persuade him to let you go,' she said, her voice dipping close to a whisper. 'If you can get a message to Rukenau ... tell him I want to be back with him...'

Will caught a glimpse of Steep's face over her shoulder. He was tolerating this exchange; but not for much longer. If Will didn't supply further proof of his worth very quickly, the knife would be on him. He took a deep breath, then gave up the only other piece of genuine information he possessed.

'Back in the House, you mean?' he said. 'In the Domus Mundi.'

Rosa's eyes widened. 'Oh my Lord,' she said. 'He does know something.' She glanced back at Steep. 'You hear what he said?'

'It's a trick,' Steep replied. 'It's something he found in my head.'

'You never let me see that far,' Will countered.

Rosa's eyes were back on Will, blazing. 'I want to be back there,' she said. 'I want to see-'

She didn't have time to finish. Steep caught hold of her arm and pulled her away from Will. Her response was instantaneous. She wrenched her arm from his grip and struck Jacob in the face, almost casually. The blow caught him off-balance. He staggered back, more surprised, Will thought, than hurt. 'Don't you dare lay a hand on me!' she spat at him, turning back to finish her interrogation of Will. 'Tell me quickly what you know,' she said. 'You help me, I'll help you, I swear it!' She was genuine in this, Will saw. 'I told you, I'm not cruel,' she went on. 'Jacob wanted your father dead, not me. He wanted you weak with grief.' Behind her, Steep let out a growling din. She ignored it, and kept talking. 'We don't have to be enemies. We both want the same thing.'

'And what's that?'

'Healing,' she said.

And then Steep took hold of her again, more roughly this time, hauling her out of his path. This time she didn't strike him, but turned, loosing a curse at him. What happened next? It was so quick it was hard to tell. Will glimpsed the knife between them, moving as it had in the copse, like lethal lightning. Then it was gone, eclipsed by Rosa as she turned, its blade sinking into her chest. He heard her expel a breath, which turned into a sob; saw her turn her face to Steep, who in that same moment dropped his gaze to the place where the knife had gone. Drawing a second sobbing breath, Rosa pushed her assassin from her. He went, empty-handed, and she teetered for a few seconds, raising her hands to snatch at the blade, which was still buried in her to the hilt. Her fingers found it, and with a cry that surely woke every patient sleeping in the hospital, pulled it out of her flesh and cast it to the ground. A strange fluid came with it, copiously, spreading down her blouse and into her skirt. She looked down at its progress with a kind of curiosity on her face. Then, lifting her head to fix Steep afresh, she stumbled towards him.

'Oh, Jacob,' she sobbed. 'What have you done?'

'No, no-' he said, shaking his head, tears rolling down his cheeks. 'That wasn't my doing-'

'Hold me!' she said, opening her arms and swooning towards him.

It was plain by his expression that he didn't want to touch her, but he had no choice. His body moved to catch her, his arms opening like a mirror of hers, then locking around her, the violence of her fall carrying them both to their knees. He didn't protest his innocence now. He simply lay his sobbing head on her shoulder and said her name, over and over.

Will didn't want to see the end of this. He had a moment to escape, and he took it, giving the pair a wide berth as he crossed to the gate. On his way, his eyes alighted on the murder weapon, lying in the dewy grass where Rosa had dropped it. His instinct was quicker than his doubts. In one motion he stopped and scooped it up, its weight exciting his hand as he went on his way. Only when he'd cleared the gate, and felt safe from pursuit, did he turn to look back at Rosa and Jacob. The pair had not moved. They were still on their knees, Steep clasping the woman to him. Was he sobbing? Will thought so. But the din of the birds, rising everywhere to get about the business of the day, was so loud his grief was drowned out.