Sacrament

... the figure who would, with his subtle appeals to the painter's now debauched instincts, render the glorious promise of his gilded youth a tarnished spectacle. His name was Gerard Rukenau, variously described by contemporary witnesses as "transcendalist of surpassing skill and wisdom ", and, by no lesser personage than Sir Robert Walpole, "the very model of what he must become, as this age dies". To hear him speak was, one witness remarked, "like listening to the Sermon on the Mount delivered by a satyr; one is moved and repelled in the same moment, as though he arouses one's higher self and one's basest instincts simultaneously".

'Here, then,' Dwyer theorizes, 'was a man who could understand the contrary impulses that had fractured Simeon's fragile state-of-mind. A father confessor who would quickly become his sole patron, removing him both from the pit of self-abnegation into which he'd fallen and from the leavening influence his saner friends might have exercised.'

At this juncture, Will put the book down for a couple of minutes in order to digest what he'd just read. Though he now had a few descriptions of Rukenau to juggle, they essentially cancelled one another out, which left him no further advanced. Rukenau was a man of power and influence, that much was clear; and had no doubt powerfully affected Steep. Could Living and dying we feed the fire not have been a line from a satyr's sermon? But as to what the source of his power might be, or the nature of his influence, there was little clue.

He returned to the text, sprinting through a few paragraphs that attempted to put Simeon's work in some kind of aesthetic context, in order to pick up the thread of Rukenau's involvement with the painter's life. He didn't have to go far. Rukenau, it seems, had plans for Simeon's wayward genius, and it soon showed itself. He wanted the painter to make a series of pictures 'evoking', according to Dwyer, 'Rukenau's transcendalist vision of humanity's relationship to Creation, in the form of fourteen pictures chronicling the building - by an entity known only as the Nilotic - of the Domus Mundi. Literally, The House of the World. Only one of these pictures is known, and it indeed may be the only one surviving, given that a woman friend of Rukenau, Dolores Cruikshank, who had volunteered to pen an exegesis of his theories, complained in March of 1723 that:

" ... between Gerard's meticulous concerns for a true reflection of his philosophies, and Simeon's aesthetic neuralgia, these pictures have been made in more versions than Mankind itself, each one destroyed for some piffling flaw in conception or execution ..."'

The one extant painting had been reproduced in the book, albeit poorly. The picture was in black and white, and washed out, but there was enough detail to intrigue Will. It seemed to depict an early portion of the construction process: a naked, sexless figure who appeared to be black-skinned in the reproduction (but could just as easily have been blue or green), was bending towards the earth, in which numerous fine rods had been stuck, as though marking the perimeters of the dwelling. The landscape behind the figure was a wasteland, the ground infertile, the sky deserted. In three spots a fire burned in a crack in the earth, sending up a plane of dark smoke, but that only seemed to emphasize the desolation. As for the hieroglyphics which Frannie had described, they were carved on stones scattered throughout the wilderness, as though they'd been tossed out of the sky as clues for the lone mason.

'What are we to make of this peculiar image?' the text asked. 'Its hermeticism frustrates us; we long for explanation, and find none.' Not even from Dwyer, it appeared. She flailed around for a couple of paragraphs attempting to make parallels with illustrations to be found in alchemical treatises, but Will sensed that she was out of her depth. He flipped to the next chapter, leaving the rest of Dwyer's amateur occultism unread, and was halfway through the first page when he heard Adele summoning him. He was reluctant to put the book down, and even more reluctant to go and visit Hugo a second time, but the sooner the duty was done, he reasoned, the sooner he'd be back in Thomas Simeon's troubled world. So he set the book on the chair and headed downstairs to join Adele.

ii

Hugo was feeling sluggish. He'd had some pain after lunch; nothing unusual, the nurse reassured Adele, but enough to warrant a dessert of pain-killers. They had subdued him considerably, and throughout the three-quarter-hour visit, his speech was slow and slurred, his focus far from sharp. Most of the time, in fact, he was barely aware that Will was in the room, which suited Will just fine. Only towards the end of the visit did his gaze flutter in his son's direction.

'And what did you do today?' he asked, as though he were addressing a nineyear-old.

'I saw Frannie and Sherwood.'

'Come a little closer,' Hugo said, feebly beckoning Will to the bedside. 'I'm not going to strike you.' 'I didn't imagine you were,' Will said.

'I've never struck you, have I? There was a policeman here, said I had.'

'There's no policeman, Dad.'

'There was. Right here. Rude bugger. Said I beat you. I never beat you.' He sounded genuinely distressed at the accusation.

'It's the pills they're giving you, Dad,' Will gently explained, 'they're making you a little delirious. Nobody's accusing you of anything.'

'There was no policeman?'

'No.'

'I could have sworn ...' he said, scanning the room anxiously. 'Where's Adele?'

'She's gone to get some fresh water for your flowers.'

'Are we alone?'

'Yes.'

He leaned up out of the pillow. 'Am I ... making a fool of myself ?'

'In what way?'

'Saying things ... that don't make sense?'

'No, Dad, you're not.'

'You'd tell me wouldn't you?' he said. 'Yes, you would. You'd tell me because it'd hurt and you'd like that.'

'That's not true.'

'You like watching people squirm. You get that from me.'

Will shrugged. 'You can believe what you like, Dad. I'm not going to argue.'

'No. Because you know you'd lose.' He tapped his skull. 'See, I'm not that delirious. I can see your game. You only came back when I'm weak, and confused, because you think you'll get the upper hand. Well you won't. I'm your match with half my wits.' He settled back into his pillow again. 'I don't want you coming here again,' he said softly.

'Oh for Christ's sake.'

'I mean it,' Hugo said, turning his face from Will. 'I'll get better without your care and attention, thank you very much.' Will was glad his father's eyes were averted. The last thing he wanted at that moment was for Hugo to see what an effect his words were having. Will felt them in his throat and chest and gut.

'All right,' Will said. 'If that's what you want.'

'Yes, it is.'

Will watched him a moment longer, with some remote hope that Hugo would say something to undo the hurt. But he'd said all he intended to say

'I'll get Adele,' Will murmured retreating from the bed, 'she'll want to say goodbye. Take care of yourself, Dad.'

There was no further response from Hugo, whether word or sign. Shaken, Will left him to his silence, and headed out in search of Adele. He didn't tell her the substance of his exchange with Hugo; simply said that he'd wait for her at reception. She told him she'd just been speaking to the doctor and he was very optimistic about Hugo's progress. Another week, she said, and he could probably come home; wasn't that wonderful?

It was raining now. Nothing monsoonal, just a steady drizzle. Will didn't shelter from it. He stood outside with his face turned up to the sky, letting the drops cool his hot eyes and flushed cheeks.

When Adele emerged she was in her usual post-visit flutter. Will volunteered to drive, certain he could shave fifteen minutes off the travel time, and be back with the Simeon book before dark. She babbled on happily as they went, mainly about Hugo. 'He makes you very happy, doesn't he?' Will said.