Fifty-Minute Hour

by Wendy Perriam

  He touched his face and body, felt them solid, real, defined. He could live again, hope again, believe in Sense and Shape again, take bold steps in a universe which would no longer flake and crumble, or threaten to extinguish him along with his surroundings. He clasped the man’s firm hand, a hand so like his own in its shape, its bony detail, he realised he was part of God, truly this man’s son.

  ‘We may not meet again, Bryan, but there’s no more need for fear. I see every sparrow fall, you know, and any son or child of mine is worth more than many sparrows. My eye is on you always, and my right hand will be guiding you, as it guides the universe.’

  Bryan stuttered out his thanks, so deeply moved his words were incoherent; then realised that the man had disappeared, left just his light behind. Yes, the crippling blinding darkness was no more. He could make out walls and carvings once again, as if some magic hand had switched back all the lights – still low anaemic lights maybe, but no longer choking blackness. He moved towards the rough-carved loaf gleaming on the wall, touched its crusty surface, as if it had the power to feed him and sustain him. The bread of life, the bread of his redemption. Where were all those other symbols the guide had pointed out – the flowering tree which stood for Hope, Noah saved from death and flood, Isaac spared from sacrifice? He had no more need to sacrifice himself, seek death, annihilation. He didn’t even need his Mother, now he had a Heavenly Father; one who would watch over him for ever, maybe had a notebook devoted exclusively to him – the neatest book of all, with equal margins on each side, not one smudge or error in one single line of writing; beginnings, middles, ends, on every ordered page.

  He was frisking, almost dancing down the corridors, hardly even caring that he was trapped there for two days. He had light now, and new hope, and water was no problem. He would strike it from the rock, as the great Moses had himself – or so the guide had told them; brought refreshment out of aridity and drought. He stopped a moment, frowning, suddenly remembering a session with John-Paul, at least three years ago now, when he’d asked his doctor if he could have a glass of water. He’d been feeling rather faint, after a disturbed and restless night, a panic on the tube. He’d never got the water. John-Paul had spent a good half-hour examining his reasons for requesting it. Perhaps he was dissatisfied with the progress of his therapy, and thus demanding more than merely words; craving mother’s milk, maybe, regressing to the infant state and begging to be fed. Or experiencing some inner sense of poison or pollution, which might make him ask for water as a symbol of purification.

  He had sat in (thirsty) silence, quite unable to respond, until John-Paul tried another tack, exploring that word symbol. Water was a symbol of fertility, rebirth, so they’d sidetracked on to Lena’s womb (he still dry and gasping); then plumbed the Seas of Chaos, and finally examined ‘healing waters’, ‘troubled waters’, ‘still waters running deep’, the metaphor of ‘being in deep water’, and the waters of the Spring (or Tree) of Life. In the end, he’d settled for a cup of tea in BRB’s canteen, feeling baffled and defeated and still more faint and parched. He had forgotten the whole incident, merely shrugged it off, but now it had come surging back and seemed symbolical itself. John-Paul had never granted him a drop of healing water, not in all that time; not one draught of hope or life, nor one beaker, even trickle of refreshment; had merely threatened years and years more painful arid therapy.

  He was standing in a corner, an ancient stone sarcophagus bulging to his right, its carving worn and crumbling, so that the figure in the centre had neither face nor eyes. John-Paul! The likeness was astonishing – both lean and foreign-looking men with elaborate snaky hair, and both obviously tyrannical, with vassals, servants, patients, cowering at their feet. He’d always seen John-Paul as faceless; his features just a bland impassive mask, his eyes black holes gazing into nothingness, his heart as cold as stone. Stuff his years and years! He would never see the man again, never stretch out on the couch for even half a minute, let alone an hour. A fifty-minute hour! That alone proved his shrink was bogus. In his Heavenly Father’s Universe, every hour was exactly sixty minutes, give or take no fraction of a second. Once you started docking time, contracting it, insulting it, then you’d moved away from exactitude and truth; were misleading people, conning them, tampering with the basic rules and structure of the cosmos. No point seeking healing from a con-man, wasting money on a charlatan. ‘Shrink’ was all too apt. John-Paul had shrunk too many things – his mornings, wallet, self-esteem; his bank account, his genitals – and even time itself.

  He turned to face the sarcophagus square-on, punched his fist into the flattened flaking features. ‘Take that!’ he said. ‘It’s over. I’m free at last – free from bills and lies, free from dawn ablutions, stumbling in the dark from bed to tower, from nightmare to bad dream.’ Okay, so he hadn’t yet resolved his negative transference, or come to terms with his anal-sadistic regression and ambivalence, but half his so-called problems had been invented by John-Paul, endowed with fancy names so that they’d take longer to eradicate, keep his natty doctor in silk shirts and calfskin shoes.

  Anyway, he wouldn’t have the time now for long-winded psychotherapy. He had decided to enrol in the Open University or start a course at night school – not ‘Science and Society’ one footling night a week, but a proper university course, worthy of the son of Skerwin Senior – and in theology, not science, so he could get to know much more about the real and ordered universe, the Great Father who controlled it. He must send up for prospectuses, buy new pens and notebooks, list all the things he’d need. He would actually have money for the first time in four years, could stop his endless scrimping and economising; splash out on a car, invest in some new clothes, even book a proper holiday; not a vulgar pilgrimage, but some highbrow course or cruise, with cultured intellectuals as his friendly fellow voyagers. He might even meet a girl, a woman all his own, not pregnant and promiscuous and tied to seven males, but a fair and lovely innocent who’d …

  He grabbed the rough stone tomb. Frantic thudding footsteps were careering down the passage just above his head. ‘Barbarians!’ he gasped, recalling the guide’s tirade on the waves of ruthless tomb-robbers who had looted Christian corpses for their jewels, their precious relics; Lombards, Goths and Saracens pounding through the centuries, plundering these catacombs. And here they were again – no respect for death – just breaking in and battering down, snaffling what they could. He dodged right, then left, then right again, panicked by the sound of feet on steps. They were crashing down a staircase; must be on his level now, only dangerous yards away. If there were no dead to rob or ransack, then they’d rape and mug the living. The guide had stressed how cruel they were, how savage and rapacious. He didn’t want to die – not now – not with an ordered universe, a loving caring Father, the prospect of some money in the bank. Desperately, he tried to run, despite the gloom and shadows, the rough uneven floor; hurtled round a corner, cannoned smack into the rear wall of a cul-de-sac, dashed the other way, straight into the outstretched arms of a tearful flurried Phyllis, with Colin, Father Campion and two distraught Italian guides cantering out-of-breath behind her.

  ‘Oh dear,’ he said, embarrassed. ‘I thought you were the Goths.’

  He hardly heard their reprimands, their naggings, trouncings, censure – how irresponsible he was, how selfish, stupid, careless; to lose his party, drag behind, frighten them to death; even risk his own death, or at least a nasty chill. He had eyes only for Colin, the object in his hand – something long, bedraggled, limp and very precious.

  ‘Anne!’ he breathed in wonder, as the wet and wounded body was shoved into his arms, its tail half-burned away and dripping dirty water, its felt tongue hanging loose, its colour strangely faded, and an unpleasant pungent odour clinging to its skin. Never mind the smell. His Heavenly Father had sent his absent child back, made his joy complete.

  ‘Yeah, I reckoned you’d be chuffed, mate.’ Colin grinned and shrugged. ‘Though I had to fight Clive to the d
eath for him, you realise. In fact, I jolly nearly …’

  ‘Now, come along, Colin.’ Phyllis jabbed him with her torch. ‘We haven’t time for chitchat. You’re in charge of Bryan. Hold on to him tightly and make sure he doesn’t slip away again. I’ll lead the way with Father.’

  Colin marched behind obediently, but slowed his pace a little until Phyllis and her entourage were safely out of earshot, then continued with his saga. ‘I reckon this whole thing was meant, Bryan – I mean, your getting lost like that. Not one single pilgrim remembered seeing you down here, or even on the coach, so we all assumed you’d decided not to come and were skulking in the seminary. They sent me off to find you in the pigsties, and instead I found your snake friend, lying in a pool of liquid pig-shit. Well, I took him to the washroom and was trying to sponge him clean, when Clive comes in and sees me, and we start this tug of war. Clive wins, of course – he’s brawnier – and says “Listen, lad, if you want to get the bugger clean, let’s do the job properly, okay?” And he turns the shower full on and dunks Snakey underneath, holds him there forever, till the dye’s all streaming out of him. But that’s not enough for Clive-mate. He starts stuffing your poor pal right down the plughole, with the water still cascading down on both of them. Well, at that point I saw red. I really beat him up, Bryan – I had to, didn’t I? – to save poor precious Snakey, though it cost me a few bruises and a sodden pair of jeans. In fact, I was just dashing off to change my clothes when Father Campion nabbed me, said he was driving back to the catacombs to find you, and would I come as well, and make it sharp. He didn’t even give me time to grab a towel …’ Colin’s words ran out, at last, as he gestured to his streaming clothes, tweaked the snake’s wet tail.

  Bryan himself said nothing, just shuffled, stumbled on; victorious Anne clutched close against his chest. The guides, the priest and Phyllis were already far in front, though he could hear their steady drone. They were probably still complaining about careless thoughtless pilgrims who were a constant bane and worry and would be better off at home. He must say his sorrys later, thank brave Colin later, buy him several pints, but at present he was too overcome to speak. His mind was on his snake, his Noah-snake, saved from flood and drowning, his Jonah-snake, his dear beloved Isaac, who, like himself, had been snatched from vengeful death, to live again, enjoy again – a life not shrunk and jargonised, but transfigured and expanded.

  ‘Thank you, God,’ he murmured, saw a smuggish Skerwin Senior part the clouds a moment and flash him a shy smile.

  Chapter Forty One

  I pour glistening virgin oil into the salad-bowl, watch it gleam and tremble in the light. I’m an untried virgin myself when it comes to preparing food. I never cook for anyone, and my own meals are mainly snacks or just apologies. I’m not cooking now, in fact, just using every skill I have to make this supper special – a last supper, you might call it. I could be dead tomorrow, mobbed by furious crowds, and if not killed – in prison. I toss a few crushed walnuts in the bowl, add a grind or two of peppercorns, a trail of honey, splash of wine, a final kick of mustard, fierce and hot. The dressing’s ready. Now I make the salad, shredding curly crinkled lettuce the colour of dark blood; quartering tomatoes – large misshapen lumpy ones with yellow wounds blistering their skins. I slice beetroot into gory discs, cut carrot sticks so sharp and thin they could be tiny scalpels. It all looks very pretty, dangerously pretty.

  Seton isn’t back yet. I’m Woman in the kitchen, waiting for him, waiting on him, setting out his meal. The flat is clean and tidy – I scoured every room myself, bought tulips for the table, arranged them in the coffee-jug because I couldn’t find a vase. I didn’t buy a lot of food – there didn’t seem much point when Giuseppe, Marco, Stefan have already gone to ground (disappeared last night, mysteriously and late), and Seton and myself won’t be eating here again. But everything I did buy I made certain was the best – the freshest bread, the moistest cheese, the most expensive olives. I kept it very simple. I feel this need to strip things down, slough off fuss and frills, focus on the basics – life and love and death. I’ve even stripped myself off. I’m working absolutely naked in nothing but my skin. The flat is stifling hot tonight, but it isn’t simply that. Clothes make you Man or Woman, and I’ve no wish to choose between them, know I must be both – Woman in the kitchen and in Seton’s bed tonight; Man with my Beretta.

  I leave my carrot-shrapnel, go to check the gun. It’s still hidden where I left it; looks bigger somehow, treacherous, as if it’s decided to betray me, rat on me itself. I keep trying not to think about the morning – the canonisation Mass with ten thousand pilgrims packed into St Peter’s, two of them with plans to kill the Pope. Yes, I’ve changed my mind again, agreed to fire the shot. I sag against the wall, feeling sick and really faint, which happens every time I allow that thought to surface, remove it from its lock-up in my head. It was not my own decision, but a message sent from some power outside myself and relayed through a fortune-teller. ‘You must kill the thing you love,’ he said. How weird he understood. I mean, I’d hardly told him anything, yet he knew about my mission, used that very word. I thought I’d found him just by chance, but I see now it was meant. I was idling down the Via del Tritone and turned into a square I’d never seen before, and there he was, sitting by the colonnade. I only stopped to talk to him because he looked so like John-Paul – the same short stature, foreign looks, and religious-like intensity – even eating like John-Paul; chewing on a stump of hard salami with such passion and solemnity it seemed more than merely food. I was attracted by his eyes, fervent burning black-bruise eyes which never left my own as I sank down at his table, let him take my hand. ‘You are being used,’ he whispered, once he’d studied both my palms and then the exotic-looking picture-cards I’d picked out from his deck. ‘But that is good thing – very good. You not fight it. You say “yes”. You kill the thing you love.’

  Kill the thing I love. It sounded like a poem and I knew instinctively he was right. It’s because I love the Pope I have to kill him – save him, if you like; save him from senility, despair and disillusion. Last night, I read a speech he’d made a year or two ago, about our twentieth century being not the height of human progress (as so many cretins think), but a new Dark Age of poverty and violence. Giovanni Paolo has had seventy years of violence; needs releasing into unconsciousness, allowed peace and sleep, long sleep.

  The fortune-teller didn’t say a lot. He seemed restless, almost edgy, somehow bothered by my presence, but just as I was going he unpinned the silver brooch he was wearing on his lapel and pushed it into my hand, so hard its sharp pin jabbed my palm, actually drew blood. I thought it was a newt at first, or some weird sort of snake thing, but he called it salamandra. Salamanders leap from flames, escape from fire and danger, so I presume he must have meant it as, a sort of badge of courage. I’ve wrapped it in a handkerchief and left it with the gun. I’ll need them both tomorrow – courage and eight bullets.

  I’ve learnt to load that clip of bullets, arm and fire the gun. We drove out to the country on a borrowed motorbike, found a dark secluded wood where some other guys were already shooting birds, gunning down anything that flew. I felt sick from bloody feathers, the thud of falling bodies; remembered my own martyred bird – the one my father burnt alive when I was only five or so, and still in love with him. Seton loathes weak women, so I pulled myself together and tried aiming at the oil-can he’d strung up from a tree. I only had eight bullets, and the first two missed completely. He let me move from twelve feet in to nine, and then I hit each time; hardly even shuddered at the kickback of the gun. It’s the smallest lightest handgun Seton and his cronies could hunt down here in Rome – a nine-millimetre Beretta semi-automatic (which are issued to the Spanish secret service and the police in Buenos Aires). I’m relieved I won’t be using that brutish sawn-off shotgun, which is heavier and larger and more difficult to hide. Seton planned to pare it down, then tape it to the stem of his bulky golf umbrella – remove a few spokes firs
t and bag the folds around it, so it would look badly furled, but otherwise quite innocent. But once it was decided that it was me – not him – who’d fire the shot, and at a solemn papal ceremony, he realised the umbrella would seem suspicious, out of place. He wants me to be tarted up in a snazzy dress and coat, to match the snazzy ticket which will admit me to a seat right up the front, and a hulking great umbrella would hardly match my gear. Also, I somehow like the feeling of having those eight bullets – eight chances, if you like, instead of only one or two.

  ‘You’ll need to fire as many times as possible,’ he told me in the wood, as he snapped open the Beretta, removed the empty bullet-cases. ‘Before you’re overwhelmed.’ Overwhelmed. I left the word behind, lying in the undergrowth like another stunned and bloodied corpse, drove back to beer and skittles – or at least beer and backgammon.

  We practised all the other stuff indoors: how to make my movements quicker, but to slow and calm my breathing; appear casual and relaxed when just about to kill – how I’ll ease the gun from the false bottom of the camera-case, slip it up my coat-sleeve (the left sleeve with the steadier right hand); conceal it there until I’ve edged up closer, closer, then whip it out – and fire.