Sacrament

What had happened after that? His mind refused to confess. Rather than rack it for answers, he left the fragments of recollection along with the rubbish, where they lay, and closing the bedroom door, he went to shower. There was a pattern here, he thought, of sleeping, and waking to visions, and showering, and waking again, as though the cycle of diurnal duties had been turned to the purpose of Lord Fox. A canny trick, this: to use the safest rituals of his domestic life to make him shed his assumptions. Washing himself proved a delicate business - the soap and water found broken skin he hadn't noticed - but he emerged feeling a little better. He was in the process of drying himself when somebody rapped hard on the front door. He wrapped a towel around his middle and headed for the stairs, stepping gingerly past the glass as he went. The rapping came again, and with it Adrianna's voice:

'Hey, Will? Will? Are you in there?'

'I'm here,' he said, opening the door to her.

'Your phone's not working,' she said. 'I've been calling for the last hour. Can I come in?' She peered at him as she entered. 'Boy did you ever have a late night.' He led the way into the kitchen.

'What did you do to your back?' she said, following him. 'No, never mind, don't tell me.'

'You want some coffee, or-?'

'I'll do it. You should just call England.'

'What for?'

'Something's happened to your Dad. He's not dead, but there's something wrong. They wouldn't tell me what.'

'Who wouldn't tell you?'

'Your agents in New York. Apparently somebody was trying to find you, and whoever it was called them, and they tried you, but they couldn't get you, so they tried me, only I couldn't get you-' She kept up the story while Will went into the living-room, where he found the phone unplugged. Drew's handiwork, no doubt, so they'd not be disturbed during their night of decadence. Will plugged it back in again.

'Do you know who made the call?'

'Somebody called Adele.'

'Adele?'

'Speaking.'

'This is Will.'

'Oh my God. Oh my God. Will. I've been trying to contact you-' 'Yes, I

'He's in a terrible state. Just terrible.'

'What happened to him?'

'We don't really know. I mean, somebody tried to kill him, we know that much.'

'In Manchester?'

'No, no, here. Half a mile from the house.'

'Jesus.'

'He was just beaten unmercifully. He's concussed. He's got three broken ribs and a broken arm.'

'Do the police know who did it?'

'No, but I think he knows, and he's not telling. It's peculiar. And it frightens me, it really does, in case whoever it is ...' she started to dissolve into tears '... whoever it is ... comes back ... I didn't know who else to turn to . . . so ... I know you and he haven't talked in a long while, but ... I think you should see him...' It was plain enough what she was saying, even if she wasn't putting it in so many words. She was afraid he wasn't going to survive.

'I'll come,' he said.

'You will?'

'Of course.'

'Oh that's wonderful.' She sounded genuinely happy at the prospect. 'I know it sounds selfish, but it'd take such a weight off my shoulders.'

'It doesn't sound selfish at all,' Will said. 'I'll make arrangements right now and I'll call you the moment I get into London.'

`Shall I tell him?'

'That I'm coming? No, I don't think you should. He may not want to see me for one thing: better just let it be a surprise.'

The conversation ended there. Will gave Adrianna a quick summary of what had happened, and then asked her to see what she could do about arranging a flight: any airline, any time. Leaving her to make the arrangements from the downstairs office, he went up to pack. This meant facing the filth in the bedroom, of course, which wasn't particularly pleasant, but he wrapped up the mess as best he could in the sheets on which the feast had been laid, dumped them all in plastic bags, and left them out on the landing to take downstairs. Then he opened the window, so as to let in some fresh air, and hauling his suitcases out of the closet set about filling them.

Adrianna secured him a flight out of San Francisco that evening. An overnight flight that would deliver him into Heathrow Airport around noon the following day.

'If you don't mind,' Adrianna said, 'I'd like to come in while you're away and look through all those pictures you took down-'

'The consumptives?'

'Yeah. I know you think I'm crazy, but there's a book in those pictures. Or at least an exhibition.'

'Help yourself. I don't want to look at another photograph right now. They're all yours.'

'Isn't that a little extreme?'

'That's how I'm feeling right now. Extreme.'

'Any particular reason?'

It was too big a subject to explain even if he'd had the words, which he doubted he did. 'Maybe we'll talk about it when I get back,' he said.

'Will you stay long?'

Will shrugged. 'I don't know. If he's going to die then I'll stay until he does. Isn't that what I'm supposed to do?'

'That's a strange question.'

'Yeah. Well, it's a strange relationship. We haven't talked for ten years, remember.'

'But you talk about him.'

'No, I don't.'

'Trust me, Will, you talk about him. Offhand remarks, usually, but I've built up a good picture of him.'

'You know, that's a damn good idea. I should get a picture of him. Something that'll catch him, for posterity.'

'The man who fathered Will Rabjohns.'

'Oh no,' Will said, heading up to pack his camera, 'that wasn't Hugo. And when Adrianna asked him who the hell it was if it wasn't Hugo he refused, of course, to answer.

ii

He went to see both Drew and Patrick before he left for the airport. He had called Drew several times, but nobody picked up, so he caught a cab to the apartment on Cumberland. Through the bars of the security gate he could see Drew's bicycle in the passageway, almost certain proof that its owner was in residence, but Will's repeated ringing of the doorbell brought no reply. He'd come prepared for this eventuality, with a scrawled note which he jammed between the gate and the brick; three or four lines simply informing Drew that he had to go to England on short notice, and that he hoped to be in contact again soon. Then he went back to his cab and had it take him up Castro to Patrick's apartment. This time the doorbell was answered, not by Patrick but Rafael. He was sneezing violently, his eyes bloodshot.

'Allergies?' Will said.

'No,' Rafael replied. 'Pat just came from the hospital. Not good news.'

'Is that Will?' Patrick called from the living-room.

'Go on in,' Rafael said softly, and disappeared into the kitchen, still sneezing.

Patrick was sitting in the window - where else? - though the vista of the city was largely obscured by a glacial bank of fog. 'Pull up a chair,'

he told Will, and Will did so. 'The view's fucked, but what the hell?'

'Rafael said you were at the hospital.'

'I introduced you to my doctor at the party, didn't I? Frank Webster? Tubby little guy; wears too much cologne? I went to see him this morning, and he just told me flat out he'd done all he could. I'm getting weaker and there's nothing more he can do for me.' There was a new barrage of sneezes from the kitchen. 'Oh jeez, poor Rafael. As soon as he gets upset he starts sneezing. He'll be like that for hours. I went to his mother's funeral with him and the whole family - he's got three brothers, three sisters - they're all sneezing. I didn't hear a word the priest said.' This was sounding more and more like one of Patrick's tales, but what the hell, it was bringing a smile to his face. 'Remember that beautiful French guy Lewis used to date? Marius? You had a fling with him.'