Sacrament

CHAPTER XIV

i

Adele wasn't alone. There was a meticulously polished car parked outside the house, and inside its owner, a sprightly, even gleeful fellow by the name of Maurice Shilling, the undertaker. Will took Adele aside and explained that he was going to have to leave for a day or two. She of course wanted to know where he was going. He lied as little as possible. A woman-friend of his was sick, he told her, and he was going to drive up to Scotland to do what he could to comfort her.

'You will be back for the funeral?' she said.

He promised he would. 'I feel bad leaving you on your own right now.'

'If it's a mission of mercy,' Adele said, 'then you should go. I've got everything under control.'

He let her return to Mr Shilling, and went upstairs to fetch some more robust attire. Sitting on the bed lacing up his boots he chanced to glance out of the window just as the sun broke the clouds, and laid a patch of gold on the hillside. The laces went untied as he watched, his spirit suspended in a moment of grace. This isn't a dream of life, he thought, nor a theory, nor a photograph. This is life itself. And whatever happens now we've had our moment, the sun and me. Then the clouds closed again, and the gold vanished, and heading back to the business of threading and tying he found his eyes wet with gratitude for the epiphanies he'd been granted. The visions in Berkeley, the visitations of the fox, the touch of Rosa's thread: each had been a kind of awakening, as though he'd stirred from his coma with a hunger for sentience that would not be sated by a single transformation. How many times would he have to waken, until he was as conscious as a man could be? A dozen? A hundred? Or did it go on forever, this rousing of the spirit, the skins of his slumbers stripped away only to uncover another dream, and another?

Downstairs, Mr Shilling was still talking about flowers, coffins and prices. Will didn't interrupt the negotiations - Adele was perfectly capable of driving a hard bargain on her own - but slipped quietly into his father's study to look for an atlas. All the oversized books were collected on one shelf, so he didn't have to search far. It was the same battered edition he remembered from his childhood, furnished whenever he had geography homework. Much of it was out of date by now, of course. Borders had shifted, cities been renamed or destroyed. But the Western Isles were constants, surely. If wars had ever been fought over them, the peace treaties had been signed centuries ago. They were inconsequential; a scattering of coloured dots on a paper sea. Happy with his prize, he slipped out of the study, and collecting his leather jacket from the hook by the door, left the house, while Mr Shilling waxed lyrical about the comfort of a well-pillowed coffin.

ii

'There's nothing to be afraid of,' Frannie had been told by Rosa when she went back in with the bandages. Her instincts had told her otherwise. The cloying heat, the prickly air, the way the sound of Rosa's pain drummed upon the boards: they conspired to give the impression that an invisible thunderhead hung about the woman, and no words from Rosa were going to reassure Frannie that she was safe in its proximity. Fear made her swift. Instructing Rosa to clamp her fingers around the wound to close it, she pressed a wad of gauze against it as though it were a perfectly natural wound, and then taped the gauze down with half a dozen foot-long pieces of tape. To finish the job off she wrapped a length of bandage around the woman's body, though this was, she knew even as she was doing it, absurdly over-zealous. As she was finishing the work, however, Rosa lay her hand on Frannie's shoulder and murmured the one word Frannie had feared hearing:'Steep.'

'Oh Lord,' Frannie said, looking up at her patient. 'Where?'

Rosa had her eyes closed, her gaze roving behind her lids. 'He's not here,' she said. 'Not yet. But he's coming back. I can feel it.'

'Then we should get going.'

'Don't be afraid of him,' Rosa said, her eyes flickering open. 'Why give him the pleasure?'

'Because I am afraid,' Frannie said. Her mouth was suddenly arid, her heart noisy.

'But he's such a pathetic thing,' Rosa said. 'He always was. There were times when he was gallant, you know, and honourable. Even loving, sometimes. But mostly he was petty and dull.'

Despite her new-found urgency, Frannie could not help but ask the begged question.

'Why did you stay with him so long if he was such a waste of time?'

'Because it hurts me to be separated from him,' Rosa said. 'It's always been less painful to stay than to go.' Not such a strange answer, Frannie thought; she'd heard it from a lot of women over the years. 'Well this time you go,' she said. 'We go. And to hell with him.'

'He'll follow,' Rosa replied.

'If he follows, he follows,' Frannie said, crossing to the door. 'I just don't want to face him right now.'

'You want Will here.'

'Yes, I

'You think he can save you?'

'Maybe.'

'He can't. Believe me. He can't. He's closer to Jacob than he realizes.'

Frannie turned from the door. 'What do you mean?'

'I mean they're a part of one another. He can't save you from Jacob, because he can't save himself.'

This was too big a notion for Frannie to chew on right now, but it was certainly something to be filed away for later consumption. 'I'm not going to abandon Will, if that's what you're suggesting.'

'Just don't depend upon him,' Rosa said. 'That's all.'

'I won't.'

She opened the door, and looked for Sherwood. He was sitting on the front step, stripping bark off a twig. Rather than call to him - who knew how near Steep was? - she went to the step to rouse him from his thoughts. When she reached him she saw that his eyes were red-rimmed. 'Whatever's wrong?' she said.

'Row's dying, isn't she?' he said, wiping snot from his nose with the back of his hand.

'She'll be fine,' Frannie replied.

'No, she won't,' Sherwood said. 'I feel it in my stomach. I'm going to lose her.'

'Now stop that,' Frannie gently chided him. She took the stripped stick out of his hands and tossed it away, then caught his arm and pulled him to his feet. 'Rosa thinks Steep's in the vicinity.'

'Oh, Lord.' He glanced out towards the street. Frannie had already looked that way. It was empty, as yet.

'Maybe we should go out the back,' Sherwood suggested. 'There's a garden, and a gate that takes us out onto Copper's Lane.'

'That's not a bad idea,' Frannie said, and together they made their way back down the hallway to where Rosa was standing. 'We're going out the-'

'I heard you,' Rosa said.

Sherwood had already made his way through the kitchen to the back door and was now attempting to haul it open. It was stuck. He cursed it ripely, kicked it, and tried again. Either the kicks or the curses did the trick. With the hinges objecting noisily, and the rotted wood around the handle threatening to splinter, it opened up. What lay beyond was a wall of green, the bushes, plants and trees that had once been the Donnellys' little Eden now a jungle. Frannie didn't hesitate. She plunged into thethicket and ploughed through it, raising lazy swarms of seeds as she went. Rosa plunged after her, stumbling a little, her breath raw.

'I see the gate!' Frannie called back to Sherwood, and was within half a dozen strides of it when Rosa said:

'My bags! I left my bags.'

'Forget them!' Frannie said.

'I can't,' Rosa said, turning around to head back to the house. 'My life's in there.'

'I'll fetch them!' Sherwood said, sweetly delighted to be of service, and darted back towards the house, with Frannie telling him to be quick about it.

There was a time of curious calm when he'd gone. The two women standing in the midst of the bower, dwarfed by sunflowers and banks of hydrangeas, bees in the rampant roses, and blackbirds in the sycamore. It was, for a moment, a haven; and they felt quite safe from harm.

'I wonder...' Rosa said.

Frannie looked round at her. She was staring at the sun, unblinking. 'What?'

... if it wouldn't be better to just lie down here and die.' There was a smile on her face. 'Better not to know ... better not to ask even ...' Her hands had gone to the bandages, and were pulling at them. 'Better to flow...' she said.

'Don't!' Frannie said. 'For goodness' sake!' She pulled Rosa's hands away from the bandaging. 'You mustn't do that.'

Rosa kept staring at the sun. 'No?' she said.

'No,' Frannie replied.

Rosa shrugged, as though the notion had merely been a passing fancy, and let the bandaging alone.

'Promise me you won't do that again,' Frannie said.

Rosa nodded, the directness of her stare almost childlike. Lord, but she was a strange creature, Frannie thought. One moment something to be feared, wrapped in thunder; then a bitter woman talking of the brotherhood of Jacob and Will; now this wide-eyed innocent, gently compliant when she was chastised. All of these were true Rosas, she suspected, in their way: all part of who the woman had been down the years; though perhaps the truest self lay under the bandages, aching to flow

Only now, with this minor crisis managed, did Frannie's thoughts return to Sherwood. What the hell was he doing in there? Telling Rosa to stay put she went back into the house, calling for Sherwood as she went. There was no reply. She crossed the kitchen and stepped into the hallway. The front door was still open. There was no sound from either above or below.

And then he was there, in front of her, reeling out of Rosa's room with his eyes wide and his mouth wide, a low moan escaping him. And rightbehind him came Steep, his hand clasped to the nape of Sherwood's neck. They appeared so quickly Frannie stumbled backwards in shock.

'Let him go!' she screamed at Steep.

At the shrill din she uttered, Jacob's glacial expression broke, and much to her astonishment he did as she'd demanded. Sherwood's moan stopped and he fell forward, unable to bear himself up. She couldn't support him either. Down he went, sprawling, carrying her down to her knees beside him.

Only now did Steep speak. 'This isn't him,' he said quietly.

Frannie looked up at him, guiltily thinking - even in the terror and confusion of this moment -that she'd misremembered him. He wasn't the forbidding fiend she'd pictured whenever she recalled handing over the journal. He was beautiful.

'Who are you?' he said, staring down at brother and sister.

'Will isn't here,' Frannie said. 'He's gone.'

'Oh Jesus...' Steep murmured, retreating down the hallway. He'd got maybe three yards when Rosa said:

'Another mistake?'

Frannie didn't look around. She turned her attention to Sherwood, who was still gasping on the ground. Sliding her hand beneath his head, she lifted him up a little way. 'How are you doing?' she said.

He stared up at her, his mouth working to make a reply, but failing. He licked his lips, over and over, then tried again; still no sound emerged.

'It's all right,' she said, 'You're going to be all right. We'll get you out into the fresh air.'

Even now she assumed he'd been saved by her intervention. There was no blood on him; no sign of assault. He simply needed to be taken out of this awful place, out amongst the sunflowers and the roses. Steep wouldn't stop them. He'd made an error in the shadowy room, thinking he'd caught Will. Now he'd realized his mistake, he'd let them go.

'Come on,' she told Sherwood, 'let's get you up.'

She unknitted her hand from her brother's, and put both beneath him so that he could hoist himself into a sitting position. But he just lay there, staring up at her face, licking his lips, licking his lips.

'Sherwood,' she said, trying again.

This time she felt a tremor pass through his body; nothing significant. But at the same moment he simply stopped breathing.

'Sherwood,' she began to shake him. 'Don't do this.' She pulled her hands out from under his body and head, and opened his mouth to apply the kiss of life. Rosa was saying something behind her, but she didn't hear what. Didn't care, right now. She breathed into his mouth. Inflated his lungs. Put pressure on his chest to expel the air, then breathed into him again. Repeated the procedure; and again; and again. But there was no sign of life. Not even a flicker. His poor body had simply ceased.

'This can't be happening,' she said, raising her head. Her eyes were stinging but her tears weren't coming yet. She could see Sherwood's killer perfectly clearly, standing in the hallway on the spot to which he had retreated. If she'd had a gun in her hand she would have shot him through the heart right there and then. 'You bastard,' she said, her voice coming out like a growl. 'You killed him. You killed him.'

Steep didn't respond. He simply stared at her, blank-eyed, which only enraged her more. She started to step over Sherwood's body towards him, but before she could do so Rosa caught hold of her arm. 'Don't-'she said, pulling her back towards the kitchen.

'He killed him-

-and he'll kill you,' Rosa said. 'Then you'll both be dead, and what will that prove?' Frannie didn't want to hear reason right now. She tried to wrench herself free of Rosa's grip, but despite the woman's wound she remained strong, and would not let Frannie go. There was a moment of uncanny silence, when nobody moved. Then came the sound of footsteps on the gravel pathway, and a moment later Will was at the doorstep. Steep looked round at him, his motion lazy.

'Stay away,' Frannie yelled to Will. 'He's-'she could hardly get the words out '-killed Sherwood.' Will's gaze went from Steep's face down to Sherwood's body, then back up to Steep again. As he did so he reached into his jacket and pulled the knife into view.

'We're leaving,' Rosa said to Frannie, very quietly. 'We can't do anything here. Let's just ... leave it to the boys, shall we?'

Frannie didn't want to leave. Not with Sherwood lying there on the dusty ground, glassy-eyed. She wanted to close his lids, and put him somewhere comfortable; at very least cover him up. But she knew in her gut Rosa was right: she had no place in what was unfolding down the hall. Will had already made it plain to her how private his business with Steep was; even if it was fatal business. Reluctantly, she allowed Rosa to take her arm and coax her to the back door and out into the lush green.

Of course the bees were still droning in the overgrown flower beds. Of course the blackbirds were still raising a sweet chorus in the sycamore. And of course nothing was as it had been three minutes before, nor could ever be again.