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.
CHAPTER IV
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 traveclass="underline" 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.