Sacrament

He could never tell anybody about these memories, of course. He wouldn't be able to boast about what had happened with Rosa once he was back amongst his schoolmates; and he certainly wouldn't talk about it in adult company. People already treated him as strange. When he went out shopping with his Mum, they'd peer at him, pretending they weren't, and talk about him in lowered voices. But he heard. They said he was odd, they said he was a little wrong in the head; they said he was a cross to bear and it was good his Mum was a Christian woman. He heard it all. So these rememberings had to stay hidden away, where people couldn't see them, or else there'd be more whispers, more shaken heads.

He didn't mind. In fact he liked the idea of keeping Rosa locked up in his brain, where only he could go and look at her. Perhaps he would find a way to talk to her, as time went by, persuade her to lift her skirts a little higher, a little higher, until he could see her secret place.

In the meantime he worked his belly and hips against the weight of the sheet and blankets, pressing his hand hard against his mouth as though his palms were her breasts and he was back licking them; and though he had cried himself dry in the last little while, all his tears were forgotten in the thrill of the memory, and the strange hotness in his groin.

Rosa, he murmured against his hand; Rosa, Rosa, Rosa ...

CHAPTER VII

By the time Will opened his eyes the fire, which had been in its heyday when he arrived, was now in its embery dotage. But Jacob had laid his guest close to it, and there was still sufficient heat in its dwindling flame to drive the last of the chill from Will's bones. He sat up, and realized he was wrapped in Jacob's military coat, and naked beneath.

'That was brave,' somebody on the other side of the fire said.

Will squinted to see the speaker better. It was Jacob, of course. He was lounging against the wall, staring through the flames at Will. He looked a little sick himself, Will thought, as though in sympathy with his own condition; but whereas Will's illness had left him worn and weak, Steep glittered in his hurt: pale, gleaming skin, shiny curls pasted to the thick muscle of his neck. His coarse grey shirt was unbuttoned to his navel, his chest arrayed with a fan of dark hair which ran over the ridges of his belly to his belt. When he smiled, as he did now, his eyes and teeth glistened, as though made of the same implacable stuff.

'You're sick, and yet you found your way through this blizzard. That shows courage.'

'I'm not sick,' Will insisted. 'I mean ... I was a little, but I feel fine now...'

'You look fine.'

'I am. I'm ready to go any time you want to.'

'Go where?'

'Wherever you want,' Will said. 'I don't care. I'm not afraid of the cold.'

'Oh this isn't cold,' Jacob said. 'Not like some winters we've endured, the bitch and me.' He glanced back towards the Courtroom, and through the smoke will thought he saw a contemptuous look cross Jacob's face. A heartbeat later, his gaze came Will's way once more, and there was a new intensity in it. 'I think maybe you were sent to me, Will, by some kind god or other, to be my companion. You see, I won't be travelling with Mrs McGee after tonight. We've decided to part company.'

'Have you ... travelled with her for long?'

Jacob leaned forward from his squatting position and picking up a stick, poked at the fire. There was still fuel concealed in the embers, and it

caught as he raked them over. 'More than I care to remember,' he said. 'So why are you stopping now?' By the light of the spluttering flames (whatever had been cremated here, it had been fatty) Will saw Jacob grimace. 'Because I hate her,' he replied. 'And she hates me. I would have killed her tonight, if I'd been quicker. And then we'd have had us a fire, wouldn't we? We could have warmed half of Yorkshire.' 'Would you really have killed her?' Jacob raised his left hand into the light. It was gummy with something that looked like blood, but mixed with flakes of silvery paint. 'This is mine,' he said. 'Shed because I failed to shed hers.' His voice dropped to a murmur. 'Yes. I would have killed her. But I would have regretted it, I think. She and I are intertwined in some fashion I've never understood. If I'd done harm to her...' 'You'd have hurt yourself?' Will ventured. 'You understand this?' he said, almost puzzled. Then, more quietly: 'Lord, what have I found?' 'I had a brother,' Will replied, by way of explanation. 'When he died I was happy about it. Well, not happy. That sounds horrible-' 'If you were happy, say so,' Jacob replied. 'Well I was,' Will said. 'I was glad he was dead. But since he died I'm different. It's the same with you and Mrs McGee in a way, isn't it? If she'd died you'd be different. And maybe you wouldn't be the way you wanted to be.' 'I don't know either,' Jacob replied softly. 'How old was your brother?' 'Fifteen and a half.' 'And you didn't love him?' Will shook his head. 'Well that's plain enough,' Jacob said. 'Do you have any brothers?' Will asked him. Now it was Jacob who shook his head. 'What about sisters?' 'None,' he said. 'Or if I did, I don't remember them, which is possible.' 'Having brothers and sisters and not remembering?' 'Having a childhood. Having parents. Being born.' 'I don't remember being born,' Will said. 'Oh you do,' Jacob said. 'Deep, deep inside-' he tapped his breastbone -there's memory in there somewhere, if you knew how to find it.' 'Maybe it's in you too,' Will said. 'I've looked,' Jacob said. 'Looked as deep as I dare. Sometimes I think I get a taste of it. A moment of epiphany, then it's gone.' 'What's an epiphany?' Will asked. Jacob smiled, happy to be a teacher. 'A little piece of bliss,' he said. 'A moment when for no reason you seem to understand everything, or know that it's there for the understanding.' 'I don't think I've ever had one of those.'

'You wouldn't necessarily remember if you had. They're hard to hold on to. When you do, it's sometimes worse than forgetting them completely.'

'Why?'

'Because they taunt you. They remind you there's something worth listening for, watching for.'

'So tell me one,' Will said. 'Tell me an epiphany.'

Jacob grinned. 'There's an order.'

'I didn't mean-'

'Don't tell me you didn't mean it if you did,' Jacob said.

'I did,' Will said, beginning to see a pattern in what Jacob asked of him. 'I want you to tell me an epiphany.'

Jacob poked the fire one last time, and then leaned back against the wall.

'Remember how I said I'd endured colder winters than this?'

Will nodded.

'There was one worse than any other. The winter of seventeen thirtynine. Mrs McGee and I were in Russia-'

'Seventeen thirty-nine?'

'No questions,' Jacob said. 'Or you'll have nothing more. It was the bitterest cold I've ever known. Birds froze in flight and fell out of the air like stones. People perished in their millions and lay in stacks unburied because the earth was too hard to be dug. You can't imagine ... well, perhaps you can.' He gave Will a curious little smile. 'Can you see it in your mind's eye?'

Will nodded. 'So far,' he said.

'Good. Well now. I was in St Petersburg, with Mrs McGee in tow. She had not wanted to come, as I recall, but there was a learned doctor there by the name of Khrouslov who had theorized that this lethal cold was the beginning of an age of ice; that acre by acre, soul by soul, species by species, it would grasp the earth'Jacob closed his stained hand into a fist as he spoke, until the knuckles blazed white. 'Until there was nothing left alive.' Now he opened his hand, and lightly blew the silvery dust of dried blood off his palm into the dying fire. 'Plainly, I needed to hear what the man had to say. Unfortunately by the time I arrived he was dead.'

'Of the cold?'

'Of the cold,' Jacob replied, indulging the question despite his edict. 'I would have left the city there and then,' he went on, 'but Mrs McGee wanted to stay. The Empress Anna, having recently executed a number of well-loved men, had commanded an ice-palace be built as a distraction for her disgruntled subjects. Now if there's one thing Mrs McGee loves it's artifice. Silk flowers, wax fruit, china cats. And this palace was to be the greatest piece of fakery ice and man could create. The architect was