Wilberforce (58 page)

—Perhaps his task isn't to speak, but to stand beside.

—If that's the case, then a jolly good job he's done of it, buggering off when things turned horrid.

—I thought you said you'd ground him to a bloody pulp. Weren't those the words you used?

Those words might have been used, but Morgan didn't see why the Bishop had to attribute them to him. Still, he supposed it was true anyway. Yet another thing he'd ruined.

—Oh, I'd be surprised if he's gone for good, the Bishop said with bizarre cheeriness.

—But I thought the point was for me to get past these figments and start seeing things clearly.

—They aren't what's standing in the way of seeing clearly.

*   *   *

A draining, then, like when the wireless switched off, when rain stopped. Here it was, the man's true program: to lecture him about sin. This man was not who Morgan had begun to think he was, not the fisherman casting the golden hook, not the possessor of dexterous hands. He was merely a clerical item from the last century, one of S-K's ilk, playing a long game to trap him into a searing moral address. He had been the worst kind of idiot to think otherwise. He slouched in the chair and prepared to put up with it.

—Am I to assume by your posture that the sullen schoolboy has returned?

—Assume what you like.

—I'm not going to lecture you, if that's what you're hoping for.

—If you're going to sashay about sprinkling words like
sin
on everything, the least you can do is say what you mean.

—Do you know what sin is, Morgan?

—It's what boring people call jolly amusing things they're too scared to try themselves.

—What an innovative definition, the Bishop mused. So murder is amusing, you'd say?

—No, but—

—Adultery is jolly?

—I wouldn't know, but—

—Dishonoring your mother, bearing false witness, theft—

—All right! It's a list of things you oughtn't do. And some of them are in the Ten Commandments and are quite nasty, but loads of them don't harm anyone else and are only called sins because they make boring people jealous.

The Bishop, with tremendous effort, got to his feet and pulled Morgan along by the sleeve. Without explanation, save a command to carry the lamp, they slogged across the house to the kitchen. Morgan set the lamp at the table where what's-her-name, that delightful girl, had been slicing onions. The Bishop collapsed into a chair.

—I'd be grateful if you would …

He gestured vaguely at the stove. Morgan went to the doorway to look for Mrs. Hallows, but the house was dark. Feeling like an oversize tyro, he lit the hob and then found some milk to heat in a saucepan with Ovaltine powder. The Bishop seemed to be concentrating on his own irritating obsession with breathing in and out. Whatever had come over the man had taken the wind out of the moral lecture, but Morgan didn't think the Bishop's daughters would approve of his sitting up so late. No doubt his physician had commanded him to bed by sunset. Morgan took an apple from a bowl, sliced it, and set it before the Bishop. Once the man had nibbled a wedge and sipped half a mug of Ovaltine, he began to breathe with less effort.

—Thank you.

—Shouldn't you be in bed, sir?

The Bishop's hands fluttered around the mug:

—I think I had better.

Morgan's stomach dropped. They hadn't resolved anything. He had talked himself into the most compromised position he had ever occupied. Now the man proposed to go to bed?

—I'm sorry, the Bishop said, smiling weakly. The spirit is willing, but the flesh …

—I've kept you up far too late, Morgan said, clearing the table. Your daughters will never forgive me.

—It's none of their affair, the Bishop growled.

Morgan felt a flicker of pleasure at his vehemence. The Bishop tried unsteadily to stand, but Morgan was at his side, taking his arm. Slowly, they mounted the stairs, Morgan carrying a candle from the kitchen. The Bishop's room lay down the corridor from Morgan's. Morgan helped him inside and lit a lamp there for him. Someone had already drawn the drapes and turned down the bedclothes.

—Sir, do you…?

—I can manage to undress myself, thank you.

—Sorry, sir.

The Bishop softened:

—You're the one due an apology. I'm afraid I haven't done very well under this …

He clutched one of the bedposts.

—I'll leave you, Morgan said.

 

46

He held the candle in one hand and the doorknob to St. Anne's in the other. The corridor creaked. He startled at the sound of the hall clock chiming a half hour, but which? Darkness closed in, as if it would ooze its way across him and down his collar.

He was too old to be afraid of the night. He refused to give it satisfaction. He was going to open the door. That was what he was going to do. He was going to open the door, set the candle on the bedside table, strip off, get under the covers, close his eyes, and go instantly to sleep. His teeth could stay uncleaned. Could he wait until morning for the toilet? Perhaps not.

Downstairs, he used the cloakroom without allowing his gaze to fall upon the glass. Veronica always said you couldn't see vampires in a looking glass, so you never knew, when you were surveying the room in one, say brushing your teeth, or, worse, covering your face in soap, whether a vampire was drifting up behind you, ready to sink its fangs—

He was in the cloakroom of a clerical household, on a summer's night in the appallingly advanced year of 1926. If he couldn't pull himself together here, he was a lost cause.

He decided that flushing the toilet would disturb the house (and summon demons from the basin, as Veronica always—enough!). He took the candle up the stairs, along the corridor, and over the threshold of St. Anne's.

Someone had turned back the bedclothes. Droit lounged across them, shoes on feet, cigarette in hand, ashes piled upon the sheets.

Then he was back in the corridor, door closed. Candle wobbled, mind raced: Hiding place? Cloakroom, kitchen, conservatory—

—Come.

He gasped, his heart—but the Bishop stood beside him, taking the candle and leading him away from the door. He tried to protest, but his teeth chattered. Not the golden hook, but an attendant net?

The Bishop had leaned heavily on him earlier, but now the man pulled him with firm assurance. Inside the Bishop's bedroom, the lamp still burned. A worn leather book lay open on the bed.

Words came from his still-chattering teeth: He didn't want to disturb—he didn't—St. Anne's. (What had Fairclough told him to ask for instead?) Saint—he'd—shortly …

The Bishop showed him a divan:

—It's lumpy, but you won't be the first to have slept on it.

—Sir …

His protest died in the dark.

—Just tonight until we can arrange somewhere else for you.

The Bishop produced a flannel.

—Wash your hands and face. Your teeth will have to wait until morning.

He set the candle next to a basin filled with water. Morgan did as he was told. When he'd finished, the Bishop had placed pillow and blankets on the divan.

—Get undressed, the Bishop told him.

He stripped down to vest and pants and slipped beneath the scratchy blanket. The Bishop sat beside him, as his mother used to when she came to say good-night.

—I'll hear your prayers, the Bishop said.

—I don't …

The Bishop folded his hands and began to say the Our Father. He said every word as if he meant it, as if it never got old.
Thy will be done
seemed an indictment of every vanity and willfulness. When he reached the end, to the bit about evil, the room closed around them, dark darker, cold colder. Morgan's eyes pricked.

—
Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord.

Morgan waited for the darkness to obey. The Bishop moved his lips in some other silent words and concluded in the gestural manner Morgan had come to expect.

—Put your head on the pillow.

Then the Bishop's hand was on his forehead, heavy and warm.

—
Defend us from all dangers and mischiefs, and from the fear of them; that we may enjoy such refreshing sleep as may fit us for the duties of the coming day.

How could he endure another day like this? Wouldn't it be better to die in his sleep?

—
And grant us grace always to live in such a way that we may never be afraid to die; so that, living and dying, we may be thine, through the merits and satisfaction of thy Son Jesus Christ, in whose name we offer up these imperfect prayers.

His thumb scraped down Morgan's forehead, then horizontally, as if placing a seal upon him. Morgan clenched his jaw.

—I'll be here all night, the Bishop said. I'm a light sleeper. You've only to call.

He adjusted the blankets, snuffed out the candle, and turned the lamp down, though not entirely out. Morgan lay rigid beneath the rug, the divan indeed lumpy beneath him, but beneath both him and the divan, the Bishop's floor stood still, supporting them as weakness drew in and drew him into sleep.

 

47

His mother was singing in the kitchen, a song in Irish he didn't understand. She sliced bread fresh from the oven, the kind of bread only she made. He rushed in from the garden, threw his arms around her waist, and buried his face in her apron.

—You've come back!

He wanted nothing but to touch her and to climb into her lap, as he was doing. Nothing mattered anymore, not where she had been or why she had gone away or why she had come back, or even whether she was still angry with him. She was back and he would surrender everything to keep her.

What a transubstantial miracle for her to walk, breathe, bake, and feel warm beneath his arms, to smell like herself, to sound like herself, to be
alive
. It had seemed that the rift could never be mended, but now after so much time, it was.

Mr. Grieves sat on the other side of the table in his cold-water flat.

—They're coming, he said. You'll have to hurry.

But he was wearing only pajamas. How could he escape in bare feet?

—You'll have to go as you are, Mr. Grieves said.

And that boy, Ripping Yarns, met him outside. They were coming down the road even now, he said, and even if Morgan went back for his clothes, all the windows would be locked, every door stopped with wax. They were outlaws, Rip said, but once they got away, they'd have no end of a jolly time.

And he was running back to the garden, stubbing his toe, pounding the door:

—Let me in, let me in! It's a matter of rife and death!

Rip was at his neck like snow and Morgan was screaming until his throat hurt:

—Let me in! I've been a waif for twenty years!

Up stone stairs to the Hermes Balcony. Spaulding was waiting. He wasn't dead after all.

—I never was, Spaulding said with a smile.

And he was touching Spaulding, his chest, his hands. He was warm, firm, alive. How the mistake had happened Morgan couldn't guess, but none of that mattered because Spaulding was here now, and they had all the time in the world. They could finish what they'd begun. Spaulding would play rugby, and when summer came, he'd play cricket, and when it was Patron's Day, he'd win the match instead of Morgan, which might be disappointing, but nothing compared to having Spaulding back. It was like being allowed to take an exam over; they tore up your first paper so you could swot properly and get things right the second time.

Spaulding unbuttoned Morgan's trousers:

—You know what
sui generis
means, don't you?

Morgan did know, but he couldn't think of it just then.

—It means
pine box
, Spaulding said.

*   *   *

Morgan lay rigid on a divan, heart racing, cold to the core. The blanket had fallen away. A light burned dimly.

Spaulding wasn't alive. Not really. But he had seemed so vital. He had been
warm
.

What had he said about
sui generis
?

Morgan tried to reach for the blanket but froze.
Sui generis
didn't mean
pine box
.

Something had been in his dream just now, in his very mind as he slept, and that something was not Spaulding.

Bugger off!
Morgan thought in his loudest voice.

The cold sank deeper.

Bugger the hell off!

And the Bishop was at his side. He took the blanket from the floor and placed it over him. Lit the candle, sat down. Morgan shivered and kept shivering. The Bishop placed a hand on Morgan's chest and began to recite the Our Father. With each word, heat flowed, through the blanket, rewarming his blood.

When he finished, Morgan was no longer shivering. He felt safe for the first time he could immediately recall. The Bishop tucked the blanket around him, and he felt a sudden and drowning desire to be the Bishop's child, not a visitor, not a case, but his real child, like Dr. Sebastian and Elizabeth and Agnes and Lucy and even beautiful, bolshie Flora.

—Did your children sleep here when they had bad dreams?

The Bishop smiled faintly.

—Some of them did.

—Who else slept here?

—Oh, the Bishop said vaguely, I've slept there many a night when the bed wouldn't do.

Morgan wasn't sure what he meant, but he felt a curious lack of desire to ask questions. If he were indeed the Bishop's child, adopted but real, then he wouldn't need to question every single thing.

The Bishop gazed at him beside the flickering flame, as if he would watch until Morgan fell asleep again. But even if he did, Morgan realized sharply, nothing could defend him inside his dreams.

—Sir?

The word felt formal and twisted, not like the man beside him.