Fifty-Minute Hour

by Wendy Perriam

Just thinking of that lethal drill makes me almost faint again. I need a cigarette, a breath of air. I fret back to the kitchen, place the salad on the table with the bread, the wine, the cheeses, then grab my Rothmans, drift to the back door. Giuseppe’s square of brute back yard is dark and very private, so nobody will see me save the stars. They’re very bright tonight and very high, as if someone’s stretched the sky out, like pastry or elastic, put more space and void and darkness between earth and highest heaven. (I doubt that there’s a heaven, but the concept’s quite appealing and I’m glad somebody believed in it enough to coin the word. Weird if we both got there after all – myself and Sua Santità, found ourselves together after death.)

  The streets are strangely quiet. With the canonisation only hours away now, the Blessed Edwin Mumford almost a full saint, I’d have imagined there’d be wide-scale celebrations – fervent pilgrims processing through the city with banners or brass bands; maybe more wild fireworks, or noisy public parties. But I can only hear one whispered pulse of music, very faint and blurred like smoke, curling from a basement room below me. Perhaps the pilgrims are all safe inside – in church or chapel, praying – preparing for tomorrow. An event like that must take such mammoth planning: St Peter’s vast basilica to be primped from floor to roof; all the vestments to prepare, the mitres, Mass-books, music, candles, flowers; all the speeches to rehearse; the security, the crowd-control, the coaches, the Red Cross. I shiver as the sharp night air cuts my naked skin, dodge indoors again. We’re prepared, as well – our last decisions made: when I’ll enter, where I’ll sit, how I’ll pass security (or hope to); exactly at what point I’ll fire the shot.

  Seton’s still not back. He warned me he’d be late and I’m not even apprehensive, let alone plain panicky as I was on New Year’s Eve. We’re much closer now, more trusting of each other, bonded by our mission and our plan. He told me to start supper if he wasn’t in by ten. It’s already quarter past, so I sit down at the table, pour myself a glass of wine, sip it very slowly. It’s a brusque and rugged red wine which tastes of basic powerful things like iron and dark wet earth. I try to wrench that taste out, hold it in my hands. I want to relish everything tonight, make it an experience, a ritual. I cut myself a slice of bread – best white bread with a crisp and powdery crust which snows my hands with flour, a springy crumb so soft you could lie down on it and sleep. I break a small piece off, sniff its yeasty fragrance; crunch a radish first, so the two conflicting tastes and textures startle in my mouth – the radish hard and harsh, the bread doughy-bland and sweetish. Everything seems perfect, as if it’s reached its full fruition and been held there for this evening: cheese ripe but not yet oozing; salads sheeny but not limp; scarlet tulips opened out, yet not one petal fallen or stalk sagged.

  I’m so alert, my taste-buds jolt and tingle with every smallest mouthful, as I register its savour and its smell: blue Brie slightly gamey; Dolcelatte velvety; olives brackish, dour. It’s months since I’ve had adult food – grown-up cheese with stink and rind (instead of those Kraft triangles which are mainly milk and soothe); dark and bitter lettuce. Even here in Rome, I’ve been eating children’s pap: strawberry yogurts, pink ice-cream, plain pasta with no sauce. But childhood seems a mirage when I think about tomorrow. I’ve aged in just a day; grown from stripling to assassin; have to eat to keep my strength up now; fuel my murderer’s courage.

  I pluck a frond of lettuce with my fingers, let its rough and ragged texture graze against my lips; the confused taste of the dressing imprint my tongue with its contradictory messages – now sweet, now bland, now sharp. I watch a trail of salad-oil dribble from my fingers and ooze slowly, slowly down between my breasts; will it not to fall or disappear. I want to preserve this moment, keep it as a memory, wrap it like a precious gift, embalm it under glass. I blot my chest with bread, leave a floury smear, kick my chair back suddenly as I hear Seton at the door. I’ve still got lettuce in my mouth, but he doesn’t wait for me to swallow it. It’s his tongue I’m almost swallowing, the urgent tastes of nicotine and aquavit ousting cowardly salad. ‘It’s supper time,’ I tell him, when at last he’s freed my mouth. He grabs three olives and a piece of cheese, eats them standing up, still touching me and nuzzling me, his outdoor clothes cold against my flesh. I suppose he’s turned on by my nakedness, the fact I’m sitting at the table in the buff, when I’m usually in sweaters, muffled to the neck.

  I butter him a piece of bread, feed him like a child, excited by the teeth-marks imprinted on the buttered stub I’m still holding in my hand. I cram it in my own mouth, offer him some wine. ‘No.’ He shakes his head, takes a gulp from my glass, then steers me to the bedroom, to the pile of rugs and pillows we call our double bed. He dumps his coat, starts peeling off his clothes – all of them, and straight away, which he’s never done before. Often, he seems scared of his own nakedness, as if clothes were power or armour and he’s reluctant I should see him stripped and vulnerable. Many times he’s made love fully dressed, with just his zip undone; his dirty jeans or nubbly cords chafing my bare thighs. Tonight is very special. He’s as naked as an olive, his skin as smooth and dark, as I run my hands along his bony back, across his curving buttocks, down between the crease. We rarely lie and just embrace – there’s never time or tenderness enough, but time has stopped this evening, literally. Giuseppe’s bossy clock says five to three. It ran down this afternoon and there seemed little point rewinding it. My own watch is in the kitchen, and Tomorrow’s slunk away, so there’s only now and now and now: Seton’s weight and bulk against me, keeping out the future and the night.

  We’re joined all along our bodies, nipples kneading nipples, his coarse hair snagging mine, our feet coiled round each other’s, our tongues swapped in our mouths. I long to give him everything, as his sister, brother, lover; follow what the Pope said and break the chains of selfishness and sin; share the last crumb of my body with him; every dreg and drop of it poured out for him, like wine. I suspect he feels the same, wants to merge with me, become me, so we’re one gender in one body, with no boundaries or separateness, no more Self and Other. He’s never lain so still before, as if he’s listening to my heartbeat, to the pulses in my wrists and neck, the musings in my mind, the slow tide of my blood as it meanders round my veins.

  I suddenly ache to have my hair not short and ragged, but flowing to my waist again, so I can do a Mary Magdalen, dry not just his feet with it, but swaddle his whole nakedness, hide him here for ever in my bed. I pull away, unplug myself, kneel across his thighs, lean forward and start kissing his bare feet. I’ve always loved his feet. They seem so solid, powerful, grounding both of us, straight and lean and long, with dark hairs on the toes, and narrow bony fetlocks like a thoroughbred’s. I suck each toe in turn into my mouth, tonguing them and drinking them, grazing with my teeth. They taste salty, like the olives; the big toe a prick itself, a small but very stiff one, forcing down my throat. Seton doesn’t say a word, but I know it must excite him, because otherwise he’d shove me off, or snap at me bad-temperedly as he’s done before so often. He’s usually so angry – angry with the Pope, or life, or fate, or even me, but tonight he seems a different person, serene and very steady.

  I release the smallest toe, slowly flick my tongue along the bottoms of his feet, then up around the ankle, up further to the knee. I think the knee must tickle because suddenly he laughs, though he’s never laughed in bed before, rarely laughs at all. Laughter’s catching, obviously, and we lie there shaking, stupid; doing nothing for a while but watch each other’s diaphragms, then something frees in both of us because we each lunge towards the other at exactly the same moment, and he jabs in really roughly, tries so hard to fuse and lock I feel my body’s being battered by the sheer force and power of his, its wish to pierce through boundaries and bone. I’m frightened for a second, then relax and just let go, accept whatever happens – fear itself, and injury. I said I’d give him everything, so how can I hold back? I think I understand him – his wildness, almost frenzy. The ang
er is still clogged there and he needs to hack it out, get rid of his emotion, his terror and vindictiveness, dump it all on me, so that by morning he’ll be purged – nerveless, icy-calm; ready to support me, lend me his own strength, at least before we part.

  All the stress and tension he’s felt these last few days are being shot into my body as he heaves and slams against it. I’ve lost the rhythm, so we’re thrusting out of time, which makes it painful, jarring, especially on the floor, with half the blankets kicked away and the thin and scratchy carpet gnawing at my spine. But pain is simply part of it and I know he needs that violence, so I accept it as my gift to him.

  Suddenly, he comes, in a great gasp and shout of fury, and I’m clawed and almost winded as his groin collides with mine, and he keeps juddering and jerking, grinding me into the floor; his mouth clamped against my lips, one hand tugging roughly at my hair. I almost weep with disappointment. I wanted him to come, but not so soon, and not alone. I’d planned to give him everything, spin the night out, make it really memorable. He’ll stop now, slump against me, pause a few cruel seconds to catch his breath, recover, then drag up from the bed and slink away. He never waits to see if I’ll come, or lures me with his finger, or just stays around to play the loving friend. I try to cling to him and anchor him, deny the come, keep him there despite it, then I realise that he hasn’t stopped, hasn’t slumped at all; is still ramming, smiting into me, and now the rhythm’s right, at last, so I’m part of it, part of him, taken over, kicked out of my head into his groin. He keeps moving, snaking, circling, until I’m scorching past that neat blue line where you can still think and keep control, and careening down the other scarlet side, and my body’s turned right inside-out, so all the nerve-ends are exposed, and they all flinch and shock together as I come myself, arching up against him, shouting out his name.

  I come again, immediately, and he still stays stiff and spurs me on, and I’m exploding like a firework, one of those wild rockets which go off in several stages – one burst, two bursts, four. I’ve never found it very easy to come with him, or anyone. All that training with my clients not to feel, or give; all the fear of being too exposed. But this evening’s changed all that. We’re both still avid, greedy, as if we haven’t come at all yet, haven’t even started, hardly got our clothes off. I tug the tangled rugs back, make the pile of pillows a buttress for my spine, then jack my feet right up on his shoulders, as he slides slowly in again. It feels quite different that way, especially as he’s moving very teasingly – almost almost coming out, nearly breaking contact, then slicking back much faster, pressing in and down. Our two stooks of pubic hair look exactly the same colour, seem to merge into each other, share the same strong roots; my feet growing from his shoulders so we’re one (strange) body now. He leans down to kiss my mouth, can’t quite reach until I shift my legs, and then the angle’s new again and I’m suddenly excited and churn and thresh against him, yelling crazy jumbled words which spew from somewhere older than my brain.

  He waits until I’ve come again, then hauls me to my feet, leans against the wall and tries to do it standing up, which isn’t very easy until he lifts me off the floor and I wind my legs around his waist; feel his own legs trembling as he bends forward, dovetails in, and we seem to lose all sense of whose limbs and cries are whose. I’ve never felt so light before – not clumsy hulking freakish Nial, but delicate and fragile Nial, whom Seton dwarfs, desires still. We both collapse on to the floor again, not tired, just out of breath. I don’t think we’ll tire – not ever. We’re pumping life and strength into each other, as if our comes are mutual blood-transfusions, so the longer we go on the more roused we are, and potent, the more part of one another.

  I turn onto my side to face the wall, and Seton fits himself against me, his chest pressing in my back, then joins us lower down (which takes a while because we suddenly start laughing once again – God knows why – maybe just because we’re happy, which is pretty rare for one of us, let alone for both, and both together). We take it quietly this time, a sort of slow and gentle savouring, and though I come, it’s a very languid come, and Seton merely ripples. ‘Running short of sperm?’ I grin. He seems to see that as a challenge, because he starts thwacking at me wildly, then suddenly whips out, so he can demonstrate the sperm. I’m sticky now, all over, from sweat and heat and semen; use the corner of a blanket to blot my chest and thighs; then fling it back, lie flushed. The room feels sweaty, too; looks slovenly, dishevelled, as if it’s been joining in with us. The pillows are all scattered, the chairs shoved to the wall, and there’s that curdled slightly rancid smell you always get with sex – ripe bodies and stale come.

  ‘Smoke?’ asks Seton, bundling up a rug to make a cushion for our heads, and reaching for his jacket so he can find his cigarettes.

  ‘Ssh,’ I say, half-sitting up to listen. I’ve just heard a clock strike something from the foreign land beyond our tiny window, which is blurred now from our steamy panting breath. The quarter? The half hour? I’ve no idea, except it must be getting on for midnight – that sharp electric-fence between tomorrow and this evening. I suddenly cool down, as if a chill wind’s blowing right into the bedroom, or my body’s closed its mouths up, grown a scaly shell. It’s time to stop, turn from play to pledge. I’m committed to tomorrow, to completing what I promised, and I feel I must prepare – prepare in mood and spirit. When midnight strikes this time, it won’t be like New Year. We can’t be whooping, laughing, knocking back champagne.

  I swathe myself in Seton’s coat, slip into the kitchen, find my watch amidst the debris of the peelings. Ten to twelve. I sit out those ten minutes, hearing Seton in the shower – splashing, running water, whistling some harsh tune. I don’t stir or move a finger, just shift into the future in my mind, examine the alternatives – death and retribution, injury, imprisonment, interrogation, beatings-up, acquittal or escape. They all seem heavy and black-edged, except acquittal and escape, which I simply don’t believe in. I get up from the table as my watch-hands clasp each other, walk slowly to the bathroom. Seton’s standing naked on the mat, water streaming from his body. His skin is marked in places where it’s been pressing on the floor, one elbow sore and reddened. I kiss his back a moment, seem to taste not soap, but blood – tomorrow’s blood, tomorrow’s fear and pain.

  ‘Tomorrow’s here,’ I whisper, as I try to wipe my hands clean. ‘Too soon.’

  Chapter Forty Two

  I stand a moment, motionless, in St Peter’s crowded square. It has never seemed so vast before, so splendid and sublime. Despite the crowds, there’s so much sense of space, as if the whole of teeming tangled Rome has simply disappeared, leaving one huge soaring enclave where nothing ugly, base or cramped is allowed to spoil the feeling of timelessness, immensity. Every stately column (and there must be hundreds, literally) has been given room to breathe, flaunt upwards and exult. The sky itself looks infinite, swelling out beyond the dome, beyond the gesturing statues on the roof – a whole preening tribe of Catholic saints sculpted in grey stone – some I’d never heard of until our first guided tour of St Peter’s and its square.

  They’re so high up, I can hardly make them out, but I try to spot Saint Thecla, whom I remember in particular, since she cut off all her hair and disguised herself in man’s clothes, then followed Saint Paul from Iconium to Myra and all over Asia Minor – a first-century groupie, as mad for her apostle as I was for John-Paul. She eventually stopped tagging him and retired to a rock-cave in the wilderness, where she worked miracles for seventy years, on a diet of black bread. Then some ruffians tried to rape her at the age of ninety-odd, but the solid rock-face opened up miraculously to afford her an escape. She was never seen again, vanished like a sigh. I envy her today – not the rape at ninety, but her absolute extinction. I long to disappear myself, to be rubbed out like a pencil-mark, so the page is clean and white again, undefaced, unstained.

  I let my eyes fall from the statues, which are only looming shapes, so I can’t tell man from woman, or
Thecla from Saint Paul. The twin colonnades below them reach out like two huge arms, embracing all mankind. And all mankind is here – pale faces and black ones, and most shades in between; flapping shoals of nuns from every country in the world; tonsured friars in fancy dress, sober-suited priests; bubbly blushing schoolgirls in pleated navy pinafores and white bows in their hair, and whole coachloadsful of English from as far afield as Sunderland and Birkenhead, judging by their accents. I’d no idea I had so many fellow countrymen in Rome. Where have they been hiding, or have they only just arrived – bluff Yorkshiremen in anoraks with polyester wives, or Surrey spinsters all dolled up in honour of their Saint?

  I feel a different breed – a foreigner, an aristocrat, in my mantilla and black fur. I’m no longer a Saint Thecla, no longer wearing man’s clothes, but an elegant black dress (with nothing underneath it), and stylish high-heeled shoes. God knows where Seton found the shoes, especially in my size, nor how he dug that coat out. It may be fake for all I know, though it’s long and very glossy, gives me instant class. The whole thing seems a fake – not just the coat, but the very notion that our plan could ever work. They’ll never let me in, never pass my camera-case, will nose out the gun immediately, arrest me as I climb the steps which lead up to the church. The police are already clustered at the bottom of those steps, the special branch security men who are so heavily armed themselves I don’t stand the slightest chance.

  My compact little gun weighs as heavy as a howitzer as I steer a slow and zigzag course between scrubbed and tethered children straining at their parents’ arms, television cameramen dropping ash and cable, and troupes of English matrons carrying coloured silken banners proclaiming ‘Guildford Catholic Widows Group’ or ‘Union of Catholic Mothers – Bridlington sub-branch’. I ache to swap with them, carry just a banner, or a prayer book, or a baby, and not a deadly weapon. Seton’s armed the gun already, so I won’t waste vital seconds doing it myself, or arouse suspicion by a sudden jerking movement. All I have to do is pull the trigger – and make sure whatever happens, I don’t drop or bang the camera-case before I’m due to fire. With the safety-catch released, that impetuous Beretta is just chafing to go off.