Fifty-Minute Hour (49 page)

I stand stock-still where I am, a rush of heat exploding through my body, as if I've received a revelation. I suddenly know I have to kill him, do the deed myself, save Seton and the others from jail or execution. If I die or get imprisoned, it makes hardly any difference. I was already dead a week ago, and my bedsit is a prison.
This
is liberation – to free nineteen million faithful from tyranny, corruption, and not just Roman Catholics, but idealists like Stefan, who are fighting scandals, burning for a cause. Okay, I don't quite grasp that cause, but if I espouse it as my own, then I'll become another Lazarus, kept alive in history like marble or mosaic, preserved in people's memory. I've always longed to achieve some perfect act, do just one thing successfully, to leave as a memorial, a present to my own John-Paul – not one he can return this time, or spurn as some base bribe. If I kill his namesake, then I prove my worth and selflessness, escape the mess and failure of my life (and death) to date, escape those endless sessions on the couch.

I grope towards a column, lean against it, dizzy; see John-Paul in my prison cell, an admiring awe-struck visitor, paying tribute to my courage; maybe even watching as I coolly pull the trigger at some solemn papal mass. I've been desperate to lay eyes on him since the moment I arrived, trudged to his hotel each day – one of the grandest in all Rome – braved the braided flunkeys who try to debar anyone who isn't dripping mink, or arrives on Shanks's pony instead of chauffeured Rolls. The conference hasn't started yet, but they still insist he's busy, won't divulge his room number, just shoo me out contemptuously, as if I'm a dangerous vagrant who's somehow fouled the air. The place is like a palace – chandeliers and marble, and a sumptuous curving staircase with cherubs on the balustrade entwined with languorous mermaids. (They ought to see Giuseppe's flat, where we all five camp and huddle. It's dark and mean and shabby-looking, with dust as decoration and half a rusting motorbike abandoned in the foyer.)

I struggle to the door again, so hot I need fresh air; relish the sharp slap of cold which reminds me it's still winter, despite the dazzling sun. The sun is dying, actually, dying in this cloister which was once an ancient cemetery and has fragments of old tombstones embedded in the walls. I can hear a siren shrilling from somewhere in the street. Even in Italy, I can't escape the sirens – in fact, they're louder here. I edge up to the group of men, who've forgotten I exist, touch Seton's arm a moment, keep my fingers on his sleeve while I tell him my decision.

Suddenly he's kissing me, and the kiss is part of sunset – blazing, bloody, dangerous, as we're merged with dome and palace in one furious scarlet pyre, which is kindling the whole sky from Ostia to Anzio. The other men are watching, encircled in that same fierce glow, which seems to gash their faces, frets their hands and hair. Seton frees my hurting mouth, turns back to his friends, who all nod and grin and gesture as he speaks swiftly in Italian, links his arm through mine. Giuseppe takes my other arm, Stefan on his left, Marco next to Seton, so we're all joined, arm through arm. Our shadows fuse as well, long dramatic shadows, which leapfrog walls and buildings, as we leave the cloister, surge on down the street, goose-stepping and laughing, blocking the whole pavement.

‘
Vino
!' shouts Giuseppe, as we stop outside a noisy bar, claim a pavement table.

‘No,' says Seton, tipping back my face again so he can run a finger down it, trace my open lips. ‘Champagne!'

Bryan stood dithering at the traffic lights, which had changed to red three times, though still he hadn't dared to cross the road. Even when the lights said ‘Stop', half the throbbing motorbikes appeared to totally ignore them, simply roared across his path, so he'd twice dodged back in terror, almost lost his legs. He was late for lunch already – if you could call it lunch, that sludge of boiled potatoes or tangled tepid pasta – no vegetables, no meat, no comforting hot puddings; just one tiny scoop of white ice cream in a guesthouse like a fridge itself, with draughts from all the windows, and a slimy cold stone floor. It was hardly worth the effort of getting there at all – the thirty-minute bus ride through hooting manic traffic, with all his fellow pilgrims jabbering like gibbons, or singing fervent hymns.

Fellow pilgrims phooey! He was no one's fellow. They mostly babied him or shunned him now, either regarded him as handicapped, a delinquent child and burden to his Mother, who must be humoured, chin-chucked, fed Valium and Smarties, or feared him as a psychopath, someone unpredictable, dangerously disturbed. A few women seemed quite terrified if he sat down at their table, edged away, or changed places with the men. He had always seen himself as a totally harmless person, gentle as a moth, yet he
had
been violent, hadn't he – attacked those stewards on the plane, even turned on Colin, punched him in the ribs, then had a go at Johnny, who was still walking doubled up. Bryan Payne a desperado, a Hun, a brute, a hoodlum.

Shuddering, he trailed away from the stream of panting traffic, mooched back the way he'd come. He couldn't face another meal with Colin cutting up his pasta for him, or Mrs Carey-Cartwright whispering to her neighbour that it wasn't fair on normal people to allow ‘cases' on the trip. He'd have to find a café, buy himself lunch out, except wasn't that as daunting, when he didn't speak the language, preferred Ribena to red wine? And Rome was clearly dangerous – his Mother was quite right. All five priests had warned them of pickpockets and muggers, wily gypsy children who pretended to be begging, but were trained professional thieves. And half the Roman drivers were murderers in disguise, only waiting for a chance to claim another corpse or three. But what was quite extraordinary was that his Mother was
enjoying
it – had warned him all his life of the perils of ‘abroad', yet now seemed in her element; even loved the crowded streets, the shops which ripped you off, the brilliant bossy sunshine which felt just like a searchlight and made it impossible to hide. It was a sham, that sun, in any case – all glare without the warmth; had tempted him to venture out without his thermal underwear, so that now he was half-frozen.

He scrabbled in his pocket for his non-existent gloves, found a bag of birdseed which Phyllis had entrusted to him with excited eager cries about a black-necked grebe she'd spotted, feeding on the reed-beds of the Tiber. He could eat the seed himself. It would make a quick and easy lunch, without the need to risk diarrhoea trying out some Roman dish he could neither translate nor digest. And he could eat it by the Tiber, which Phyllis claimed was quiet and almost rural, if you walked down by its banks, followed it upstream.

He checked his map, found the Tiber coiling like a snake along the left-hand side. He missed his own snake desperately. A cad called Clive had nicked it, used it as a cricket bat, a doorstop and a muffler, put it on a dog-lead and hung it from the ceiling, doused it in the water-jug, and finally ran off with it and refused to give it back. He'd tried to ask his Mother to use her (growing) influence to command or coax it back, but she'd been ensconced with Father Fox, whom she now called ‘Alfred, dear'; and seemed always far too busy organising prayer-groups or helping ‘darling Phyllis', to spare a word for
him
. She was on first-name terms with all the priests, who admired her selfless courage in devoting her whole life to a defective thankless son.

He increased his pace, braving narrow alleys or heart-stopping main roads; taking out his anger on the flocks of puffed-up pigeons who fled at his approach, or glowering at hirsute and handsome Latins who tried to edge him off the pavement, jeered at his new sunhat. He was tired of Rome already, had spent every free (or stolen) minute searching hopelessly for Mary. How could he find one person in a city of three million, with at least another million tourists – or so it seemed from the crushes in the cafés, the queues in the museums? And there were over a thousand hotels and
pensioni
in just central Rome alone. He'd checked only eighty-three so far (entering each in his red notebook with a dismal cross beside it when the receptionists shook their callous heads, or even failed to understand him); had found no Mrs (English) Hampton; was beginning to lose hope – as well as weight.

He plodded on morosely, his mind on Mary still. She'd probably never come to Rome at all, had changed her mind – or bookings – or been kept at home by a sick and feverish child. Which meant his own trip was a total waste of money; an ordeal and a torment with no prize at the end of it, no lovers' knot to make his pain worthwhile. He crossed another busy road, suddenly found himself gazing down at an expanse of jade-green water. The elusive River Tiber had unaccountably appeared, though he'd long since lost his bearings, concluded that the map had been drawn up by a Roman and was therefore clearly wrong. His spirits rose a fraction. The river looked deserted – no shipping like the bustling Thames, no busy built-up towpath; just that stretch of tranquil water reflecting plane trees on one side, bare and mottled branches rippling upside-down, sturdy trunks dissolving. He'd thought Phyllis was romanticising when she'd talked of rural peace – no chance of
that
in Rome – but as he tottered down the flight of steps to the bramble-tangled bank, the roar of cars and lorries faded to a murmur, and he found himself alone with weeds and water.

He trudged along the bank, crunching through the dead brown leaves, dodging burrs and nettles, half-hidden by the waist-high grasses which began to close him in. Swift white gulls skimmed across the water, perky sparrows quarrelled in the undergrowth, tussling over scraps. He was ravenous himself, had better eat his birdseed, not waste it on a grebe. He chose his picnic site with care, turned his back on the battered cans, twisted scraps of metal, piles of dirty newspapers, which had spoilt the view so far, and sat right down by the bank, spreading his grey raincoat underneath him, so he wouldn't develop haemorrhoids, or a chill in either kidney. He shook the seeds into his palm, chewed each twenty times; felt a sense of sweet relief as he imagined all the other pilgrims slurping down spaghetti with its dangerous lack of fibre, or fidgeting through grace (which often lasted longer than the perfunctory meal itself).

He lay back on the bank, lulled by sun and chewing, closed his eyes, tipped his sunhat over them, let his breathing deepen. He could hardly sleep a wink at night, what with the singsongs and the japes, the snorings and the sleep-talkings, and his own desperate wish for Mary – not to mention kidnapped Anne. He imagined his soft snake miraculously restored to him, coiled close against his chest, murmured to it fondly as he let himself drift off.

Twenty minutes later, he jackknifed to his feet, sweat beading on his forehead, despite the brisk December air. He'd actually been dreaming in that short sleep on the bank, despite his determination never to dream again. The last nightmare he'd endured involved a battle with the Vatican in which he'd queued for years and years to get official papal permission to go to bed with Mary, then spent so long filling in the forms (thirty sheets in triplicate) that his Love had shrivelled to a crone by the time he'd crossed the final ‘t' and signed his doddering name. Now he'd dreamed again – and things were even worse this time. He'd had the dreaded Parcel Dream, but with a completely different ending. He'd posted off his Mother to a new volcanic island, but instead of her returning thump-thump on the doormat, she had remained quietly on the lava in her corrugated wrappings; not even tried to force her string or struggle through her sealing wax.

He should feel thrilled, triumphant – to have reached that resolution, that denouement he'd been working for through four long years of therapy; to have achieved a major breakthrough and be freed, at last, from Mother. In fact, he felt quite terrified – alone and lost and vulnerable. Who would find his snake for him, or calm him on the plane, wash his thermal underpants, cut his horny toenails or the nails of his right hand? His Mother was neglecting him already, never seemed to speak to him, or even say goodnight; never joined him at the guesthouse or helped him through the meals. Her leg was very painful still, so she was spared the jolting bus-rides, ate at a taverna just three steps from the seminary with ‘Alfred dear' and ‘Snowy' (Father Smithby-Horne). According to the rumours, these meals were grand affairs – veal or sole or fillet steak, washed down with best Chianti. Breakfast she enjoyed in bed, waited on by the youngest of the curates, a tall and dashing fellow who looked as if he'd been rented from
The Thorn Birds
.

But what about this morning? Had she had her breakfast? Was she even
there
? Dreams could be prophetic – he knew that from John-Paul. His Mother might have vanished, and the dream be trying to warn him. He certainly hadn't seen her, not since late last night when she'd been sipping a liqueur with Father Fox. A liqueur! She never touched them, cautioned him repeatedly about the dangers of all alcohol – how wine upset your liver, spirits killed the brain-cells – yet here she was indulging with the clergy.

He tried to drag his mind back to this morning, remember some odd glimpse of her, maybe limping to the bookstall, or arm in arm with Phyllis, who had become her bosom friend. No. He hadn't seen a sign of her, and even Phyllis had asked him where she was. Fear choked his throat, hammered in his head. It was all his fault. He'd sent her in the dream to a terrifying island, a waste of bare black lava which had appeared several hundred miles from the barren coast of Iceland just a month or so ago, and been reported in the
Mail
: the most desolate island ever known (though not as bafflingly remote as Tristan da Cunha which was thirteen thousand miles from the nearest inhabited land, and where he'd already sent his Mother at least half a dozen times, though always had her back within the day). The new island was uninhabited and completely uninhabitable – no Post Office departments he could bribe or beg or bully, no bureaucrats to wheedle, no telephone to make an anguished call.