Sacrament (31 page)

Leaving the man was like departing a battlefield. The engagement had ended inconclusively; but painful as the
conversation had been, it had obliged him to put into words an idea that would have made little or no sense
before the events of the last few days: that Jacob and Rosa, despite their extraordinary particularities, were
strangers to themselves. They did not know what or who they were; the selves to whom their deeds were
attributed, fictions. This, he began to believe, was the conundrum at the heart of his agonized relationship with
Steep. Jacob was not one man, but many. Not many, but none. He was a creature of Will's invention, as surely
as Will, and Lord Fox, were Steep's own creatures; made by a different process, perhaps, but still made. Which
thought inevitably begged another conundrum: if there was nobody in this circle who was not somehow
dependent upon the volition of another for their existence, could they be said to be divisible entities, or were
they one troubled spirit: Steep the Father, Will the Son and Lord Fox the Unholy Ghost? That left the role of
Virgin Mother for Rosa, which faintly blasphemous notion brought a smile to his lips.

As he wandered back down the dispiriting corridors to the front of the building he realized that from the very
beginning Steep had confessed his ignorance of his own nature. Hadn't he described himself as a man who
couldn't remember his own parents? And later, talking of his epiphany, evoked the perfect image of his
dissolution: his body lost to the waters of the Neva; Jacob in the wolf, Jacob in the tree, Jacob in the bird ... ?
It was cool outside, the air moist and clean. Will lit up a cigarette, and plotted as best he could what to do
next. Some of what Hugo had said carried weight. Steep was indeed dangerous right now, and Will had to be
careful in his dealings. But he couldn't believe that Steep simply wanted him dead. They were too tightly bound
together; their destinies intertwined. This wasn't wish-fulfilment on Will's part; he had it from the fox's own
mouth. If the animal was Steep's agent in the curious circle, which he surely was, then he was espousing Jacob's
hopes; and what was being expressed when the animal spoke of Will as its liberation, if not the desire that he
solve the enigma of Jacob and Rosa's very existence?

He lit up a second cigarette, smoked his way through it and immediate lit a third, desperate for the nicotine rush that would help him clarify his thoughts. The only way to solve this puzzle, he knew, was to deal with Steep directly; go to him, as he'd told Hugo he would, and pray that Steep's desire for self-comprehension overrode the man's appetite for death. He knew how it felt, that appetite; how it had quickened his senses, shedding blood. The very hand that put his cigarette to his lips had been inspired by the knife, hadn't it? Exulting in the harm it was capable of doing. He pictured the birds even now, huddling in the cleft of a frozen branch, winking their beady eyes

'They see me.'

'See them back.'

'I do.'

'Fix them with your eyes.'

'I am.'

'Then finish it.'

He felt a tremor of pleasure down his spine. Even after all these years, all the sights he'd seen that in scale and
savagery beggared the little murders he'd performed, he could still taste the forbidden thrill of it. But there were
other memories, that in their way held as much power. He brought one of them to mind now, and put it between
himself and the knife: Thomas Simeon, standing amongst the blossoms, proffering a single petal.

I'll have the Holy of Holies here - the Ark of the Covenant, the Sangraal, the Great Mystery itself -right here on
the tip of my little finger. Look!'

That was also part of the puzzle, wasn't it? Not just Simeon's metaphysical ideas, but the substance of the
simpler exchanges between the two men. Simeon's rejection of Jacob's attempts to coax him back into the
company of Rukenau; the promise Steep had made to protect the artist from his patron; the talk of power-play
between Rukenau and Steep, which had been concluded, Will half-remembered, with some fine, careless words
of independence from Steep. What had he said? Something about not knowing who'd made him? There it was
again; that same confession. Will's recollection of the conversation between Steep and Simeon was far more
patchy than his memory of the knife, but he had the sense that Rukenau had possessed some knowledge of
Jacob and Row's origins that they themselves did not. Could he have remembered that correctly?

He began to wish he could conjure Lord Fox and quiz him. Not because he believed the creature would have the
answers to his enquiries about Rukenau, he would not; but because for all the animal's prickly manner and
obscure remarks, he was the closest Will had to a reliable touchstone in this confusion. There was evidence of
desperation, Will thought. When a man turns to an imaginary fox for advice, he's in trouble.

'Aren't you cold out here?'

He looked around to see Adele striding across the car park towards him. 'I'm fine,' he told her. 'How's Hugo?'

'All settled down for the night,' she said, plainly happy to have him comfortably tucked up.

'Time to go home?'

'Time to go home.'

He was too distracted to engage Adele in cogent conversation on the way home, but she didn't seem to mind.
She chattered on blithely anyway, about how much better Hugo looked today than he had yesterday, and how
resilient he'd always been (he seldom caught so much as a cold, she said). And how quickly he would bounce
back, she was certain, especially once she got him home where he'd be more comfortable, and she could coddle
him. Nobody was ever comfortable in hospital, were they? In fact, a friend of hers, who'd been a nurse, had said
to her the very worst place to be ill was a hospital, with all those germs in the air. No, he'd be much better off at
home, with his books and his whisky and a comfortable bed.

The homeward trek took them over Hallard's Back, where for a distance of perhaps two miles the road ran
straight across bare moorland. No lights here; no habitations, no trees. Just the pitch-black sweep of moors on
either side of the road. While Adele chatted on about Hugo, Will gazed out at the darkness, wondering, with a
little chill of guilty pleasure, how close Jacob and Rosa were. Out there in the night right now, perhaps: Rosa
hunting hares, Jacob staring at the sealed sky. They didn't need to sleep through the hours of darkness; they
weren't prone to the exhaustion of ordinary men and women. They would not wither; nor lose their strange
perfection. They belonged to a race or condition which was in some unfathomable fashion beyond the frailties
of disease, or even death.

That should have made him afraid of them, because it left him defenceless. But he was not afraid. Uneasy, yes,
but not afraid. And despite his ruminations in the car park, despite all his unanswered questions, there was a
corner of his heart that took curious comfort in the fact that this puzzle was so complex. There was little
comfort, this voice inside him said, in discovering a mystery at the well-spring of his life so banal his
unremarkable mind could readily fathom it. Better, perhaps, to die in doubt, knowing there was some revelation
still unfound, than to pursue and possess such a wretched certainty.

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.'