Fifty-Minute Hour (44 page)

I suddenly dodge back. There's someone at the bottom, an intruder and a male one, a tall but stooping figure, standing with his back to me, powerful shoulders hunched. Fear lasers down my spine. Christmas Day is the perfect time for break-ins, with so many folk away, the police careless or half-pissed. He could be armed and dangerous, so if I try to dart away, he'll hear me and swing round, maybe knock me flat. I stand transfixed with terror, just staring at his back, praying to the God I don't believe in.

‘Help me, God,' I whisper, and He does so instantly. The man slowly straightens up, half-turns his head so I can see his striking profile – though he hasn't noticed
me
yet. I know that face, that profile, that dark hair black with rain; even recognise the duffel coat, its middle toggle missing, one pocket torn and stained.

‘Seton?' I call desperately, but his name sticks in my throat, seems too large and rough for it. I'm glad he hasn't heard. I'm terrified he won't know who I am, simply look right through me, like that shaming time in hospital. That was several weeks ago, so he could be even worse now; forget we shared a boat – and life – one brief but vital fortnight. And I probably look much older, so he'll be still more confused. (I aged a lot while searching for John-Paul; lost whole decades scraping his dead cells off the streets around the tower, bottling his dead breath.)

I remain completely motionless, unsure what to do or say – even what to feel. Do I love the man, or hate him; invite him in, or kick him in the teeth? He's churned me up already. I'm no longer numb, but sweaty, and my blood and bones feel different, as if I've been given a transfusion, or changed to someone else. Yet I'm still half-paralysed. I keep staring at him, staring; scared that if I shift my eyes, he may change himself, or vanish. He certainly seems better than he did in hospital; no longer drugged or senile, but looking almost dapper, if you disregard the coat; wearing smart grey cords instead of shabby jeans, and decent shoes, not trainers. I long to touch those shoes, undo their laces, free their soft kid tongues, so they could speak to me and calm me, tell me what to feel. I always loved his feet – size eleven feet which made my own feet small – hairs on all the toes, the nails hacked cruelly short like the square ends of chisel blades. I suddenly know I've got to keep him here, claim him, as it were; not follow my first instinct and creep back up the steps, hide behind the railings, pretend I never saw him.

I force myself to move, edge down one step towards him, even clear my throat. He swings round at the noise, meets my eye, holds my gaze, unsmiling, for what seems like endless minutes, while I slowly die inside. So he doesn't know me, doesn't want to know me. Can I really blame him? I'm all bundled up in baggy shapeless sweaters, the last dregs of my wardrobe; still-ragged hair dripping down my neck. I look away, can't bear his vacant scrutiny, fix my eyes on a patch of grey stone step. More minutes creak and dawdle, then I hear his feet falter on the concrete, hear him spring towards me.

‘Happy Christmas, Nial.'

I'm so touched I can't reply. Someone's actually wished me Happy Christmas, someone real and human, not an airwave or a poster or a sticker through the door. I try to say it back.

‘Lost your voice?' he grins.

I nod, still overcome, not only that he knows me, but that he's made me real as well, used my name, remembers it, dragged all this way from hospital to find me, even dared a smile.

‘Come in,' I mouth. ‘Have lunch.' I try to keep things casual. Seton never liked emotion – not other people's anyway.

I open soup – my last small can – Campbell's Country Vegetable, which seems a bit incongruous in the densest part of London. I even find a chunk of greying fruitcake, heat it in the oven so it's more like Christmas pudding and tastes less old and stale. Then we sit and smoke a while, and it's almost like old times, though neither of us says a lot. I can't; he doesn't want to; seems tense, preoccupied. I presume they turfed him out of hospital for Christmas. That's the policy these days. The birthday of the God of Love and you loose them on the streets without a sniff of turkey or a relation in the world. Where's Zack, I wonder? Cressida? His so-called friends and helpmates?

At least he's made my Christmas. I'm a couple now, a family, lolling at the table amidst the wreckage of the nuts and wine, the brandy, the liqueur chocolates. We're drinking coffee, actually, Tesco's cheapest instant. I haven't any booze at all, no chocolate but my Twix. But it's warm and quiet and peaceful, and I'm very nearly happy, soothed by soup and aspirin, contented Seton's there. We're both much older than when we met the first time; no longer need the charge of violent sex. He doesn't even touch me, but I'm flattered by the fact he actually sought me out, translated my address from two lines on a jotter to reality, desire. I think he sees me as a sister now, regards my pad as home. I've always wanted a brother, not a dead one or preferred one, or a substitute for me, but just a loving equal. I once felt jealous of his ten years with John-Paul, the fact that he seemed special, a favoured long-term patient, the beloved hoped-for boy. But now I realise we're both abandoned children, both rejected by John-Paul, which is another bond between us, and perhaps another reason why I shouldn't go to bed with him. It would be a kind of incest.

‘Thanks for coming, Seton,' I whisper to him hoarsely. It's exhausting talking with no voice, but he seems to understand, says ‘Ssh, don't strain your throat, Nial,' then reaches out his hand.

‘You've got fantastic hair,' he murmurs, touching it a moment.

I nod. I haven't had it trimmed or tamed since I hacked it off myself, and it's grown very strange and shaggy, sticking up in places, uneven everywhere. I remember when he said those words the first time, how different we both were. Nothing lasts, not even hair, or pain.

I light another cigarette, stir sugar in my cup, try to concentrate on tiny things: the taste of sweetness in my mouth, the balm of nicotine, Seton's strong and sallow hand resting on the table by my own. I've learnt these last few days (or weeks) there are only little things – no fatted calves or silken robes, no wild rebirths, re-deaths. I edge my hand a little nearer Seton's, touch my thumb to his – a sister's touch, not sexual. He still seems a bit distracted, as if his body's here with me, but his mind is somewhere else, working on some problem. His feet are twisted round the chair-rung, fretting at it, nervous; a tiny muscle twitching in one cheek. I suppose he feels displaced, with no real home, no role. I never believed that story of him working as Zack's framer. He could hardly afford ten years of private therapy on a framer's meagre wage. Half of what Zack said was simply fiction, intended to impress me, or merely shut me up.

I squeeze his thumb, long to make him better, offer him some hope – though hope's like booze and turkey – in pretty short supply. I suppose I could invite him to live
here
. I've never lived with anyone for more than just a month or so, but things can always change. We could start some new small business, become partners, not just siblings. I reflect on that word ‘partners', its overtones of mutual trust – closeness, continuity, sharing minds and plans. I've never had a partner, not in any sense. Though I'd have to introduce it really casually, so as not to scare him off or make him fear some trap or tie or cage.

‘Seton,' I croak out. ‘Don't laugh, but …'

He suddenly jumps up. ‘It's time,' he says, pushing back his sweater sleeve so he can check his watch, compare it with my clock.

‘What for?' I whisper, startled. ‘It's time' is John-Paul's phrase, and always murmured softly; sounds wrong when Seton raps it out staccato.

‘We've got to leave.'

‘Leave for where?'

‘You said you'd help me.'

‘Help you?' I keep parroting his words in my eunuch of a voice. He's smashed the silence, and is pacing round the room now, disturbing sleeping dust. I pray he won't start ranting. I just haven't got the strength for those wild long-winded arguments we indulged in on the boat. I had less than two hours' sleep last night, and that was mostly nightmares.

‘You promised, Nial. You said you would.'

‘Would
what
?' I try to shout, but it only hurts my throat, comes out like a rasp.

‘Help me kill the Pope.'

I stare. ‘Seton, you're insane. I never said …'

‘You did. You said it on the boat, the first time we made love. You said we'd kill John Paul together and …'

I'm suddenly back there on the bunk – naked, avid, furious; my nails scratching down John-Paul's small smug back, my whole body wild and fighting him. Yes, I said I'd kill him – Seton's right. The words exploded out of me, were part of my whole lust and rage and longing. I try to shrug them off now, embarrassed and ashamed. Could I have ever really meant them, or even cared that much? ‘John-Paul, maybe,' I mutter, looking down to hide my guilty face. ‘But not the Pope.'

‘John Paul
is
the Pope.'

I sag back on my chair. How can I refute him with my cracked and crippled voice? Even simple chitchat proved too much of a strain, let alone a full-scale crazy argument.

Seton stops his pacing, pauses for a moment just below my window-bars, peers up into daylight. ‘Though actually he's not. John Paul's a fucking actor – everyone knows that. He planned a career in theatre long before he ever joined the priesthood; got involved in student drama, played endless parts himself. Playing Pope is just another role for him. He's bogus, Nial, a joker. Those robes are just his costume which he strips off when the lights go down, strips off with his smile.'

I smile myself, to humour him. Here we go again. We'll probably have the wolfhounds next, or even the ex-wives.

Seton reaches up both hands towards the small barred square of sky, as if he's trying to pull it down, transform my gloomy room from dusk to day. ‘He made my parents stay together. He
killed
them, do you realise, Nial, killed the marriage dead? They were enemies, sworn enemies, but he won't allow divorce, just wraps wives and husbands up in metal swaddling bands, then ties them tight together, till they choke each other, suffocate.'

I nod, a mite depressed now. I don't like this conversation. My own parents weren't exactly friends, died fighting to the last, tied not by any tyrant Pope, but by lethargy and habit. Seton strides back to my chair, leans down very close, till I see myself reflected (dwarfed) in his dark and angry eyes.

‘He killed me, too, John Paul did. If you suffocate both parents, the child always dies as well. I'm
dead
, Nial.'

‘So am I,' I whisper. The words shape themselves, unbidden. I never meant to say them, nor even thought them out, but I suddenly feel bitter, not just about my own parents, but Seton's too –
all
parents. No one should have children. It's too hazardous, too cruel. Yet Big Brother Pope insists, lays down the law for Catholics, even for the world. Not just no divorce – no contraception either. Unwanted children are the worst (and saddest); females forced on parents who wanted only males, huge great hulking daughters in place of dead and fragile sons.

‘Well then, what are we waiting for? Everything's arranged.' Seton starts taming out his pockets, shows me airline tickets, passport, Italian currency. I'm astonished that he seems so … well, so
normal
– organised and practical like your average seasoned traveller who's thought of all the details. And without his grubby duffel coat, he looks very nearly smart, as if he's dressed up for the flight, wearing an expensive lambswool sweater and a rather dashing jacket the colour of wet slate. He must be better, surely, if he can plan like this, make bookings, buy himself new clothes, deal with banks and airlines. There's just one thing he's overlooked, one rather crucial matter.

‘There won't be any flights, Seton, not on Christmas Day. Nobody would work today, not pilots or …'

‘They do. I rang the airport earlier this morning. About ten per cent of flights still leave, including two to Italy.'

He's right. I scan the tickets, check the date and time: 25 December, 14.35. Alitalia to Rome. ‘
Rome
?' I gasp, as I re-read the tiny print; feel distraught and almost dizzy as I suddenly remember that Rome is where John-Paul is, my own John-Paul, my Pope. He wrote it down, didn't he, on the same white solemn paper he uses for his bills. I screwed that paper up, tossed it in the gutter, but not before I'd glanced at it; glimpsed ‘ROME' in bold black capitals, and the dates he'd be away. I thought he meant next year, was totally bewildered, but now everything is slowly coming back – some Psychiatric Congress it was vital he attended, and how although he'd be away, I'd still be his patient and still in therapy – what he called therapy without the actual sessions. I was scornful at the time, saw it as a con, a way of getting rid of me, but now I'm so keyed up I can't sit still; keep jumping up, slumping back, trying to sort my thoughts out, stop them bursting through my brain or through the walls. If I went to Rome I'd find him, raise him from the dead as he raised me. Double Lazarus. I'd be restored, his child again, his son. He might give me back my lunch hours – even give me lunch – let me share his table, feed me from his plate. And if I went with Seton and he accepted him as well, we'd be truly brothers, bonded. I'd have a proper family, a father and a sibling.

‘Hurry!' Seton urges, collecting up his lire and heaving on his coat. ‘There shouldn't be much traffic, but we're still pretty pushed for time.'

‘Look, wait. I'm still not …' I curse my useless voice, feel paralysed, uncertain, full of doubt, suspicion. There's so much I need to ask first. Where will we be staying? How did he get that money, or afford two sets of tickets? Will I need to pay him back? Can I even find my passport and is it out of date? I start hunting through the drawers, still trying to voice objections, but it's impossible to argue. Seton's standing at the door, impatient fingers tapping on the handle, all objections swept into his pockets with the tickets and the currency, a last small knob of cake. ‘Come
on
, Nial.'