by Sarah Mussi
‘You might just be morphine,’ Marcus mused.
But before I could reassure him that I really was real and no hallucination, the trolley rattled to a halt.
A voice cried out, ‘Mr Montague?’
I laid my finger over my lips and signalled at him to stay quiet.
‘Mr Montague,’ insisted the voice, ‘are you awake?’
‘Exactly,’ whispered Marcus.
He pointed at me, his dark eyes wide.
‘Am I?’
Serafina 17
We needed to go somewhere much more private. If someone else were to see me in full apparition form, and fall on their knees and send a prayer up to Heaven, they’d probably get straight on to the Prair Waves – I could just imagine it: Angel Seen on Earth. I’d be discovered straight away.
‘Come,’ I said urgently, touching his hand, pulling at him. ‘Come and walk. Let’s stroll in the garden. I’ve got so much to tell you and time is already fleeing away.’
He looked up. He put his head charmingly on one side. ‘I really love the way you talk,’ he said.
I looked at him. What was wrong with the way I talked? I’d just used a completely standard expression from the Angel’s Guide to Common Phrases on Earth as recommended by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1506 or something. I tried again (updated version 2012). ‘Let’s make a move, an’ roll an’ chat, because I’m on the clock.’ There, was that clear enough?
He shook his head. ‘I’d love to but –’
Good. I cut him short and pulled at him. Oh, please God, don’t let anyone come in.
‘But hey, Angel, haven’t you forgotten something? This man’s a bit tied up right now?’ He gestured at the drips and monitors and medical paraphernalia holding him captive to the bed.
He was right. I had overlooked that. What was I going to do now? How I wished I could freeze time, but in apparition mode you can hardly do anything. My angelic powers were practically zero, and I’d used up far too much energy already on the twirl.
Quickly I removed everything from him. I pulled out all the tubes and whipped the little sticky pads off his chest. He grimaced in pain. He clenched his jaw and flinched.
Oops, I’d forgotten that might hurt. ‘Sorry,’ I whispered. The trolley was rattling right at the door. Never mind. He needed to get better, and we didn’t have time for the human approach to recovery. I breathed the Light of the Lord over him and gave him another Healing Hands booster. That pretty much drained me. ‘You’ll be strong enough for now,’ I smiled. We needed to get going.
‘Yo, now that feels good.’ He stretched. He opened his eyes wide and rubbed the back of his hand where the drip had been. ‘Whatever you’ve given me, it’s the best.’
The glow those words gave me! The best!
‘Thanks,’ I breathed, tugging at him.
He smiled. ‘You’re a real lifesaver, aren’t you?’ He looked so much better. ‘Though being near you could be fatal.’ He raised one eyebrow.
‘Fatal?’
‘My heart.’
‘Your heart?’
‘You make it beat faster.’
Oh, his heart! He’d been shot. Of course, I mustn’t get too near him. I must be much more careful. I must not alarm him.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. The door handle began turning.
‘That was a compliment.’
I shook my head. He confused me. Was it not dangerous to elevate his heartbeat then? I didn’t understand. So all I said was: ‘Come now,’ and kicked an armchair against the door.
‘And you’ve got a killer smile.’
Oh dear, I hadn’t realised humans were so fragile. I must try very hard not to overdo the smiling. ‘Are you ready?’
He slid his feet to the floor.
‘Mr Montague?’ The voice from outside was not giving up.
Someone tried to shove open the door. The chair shifted a bit, scratched over the floor.
‘Have you got visitors, love?’
Marcus looked up. I signalled again at him to be quiet.
‘Should I come back later?’
Marcus frowned at me. ‘Yeah,’ he said.
I exhaled in sparkles of flame.
I hoped that meant a lot later.
Marcus swayed a little as he stood up. I steadied him. He leaned on me. I felt his powerful body through his hospital scrubs. It tingled in my grip, quite unlike any sensation I’d ever had. He must have felt it too, for he said, ‘Weird, it feels like man’s leaning on a hurricane.’
Together we walked out on to the patio, past Robyn who was curled up and quite sunken back into her coma, past the rose bushes, down a short private path and on to the grass. The pressure of his weight on mine seemed to rush to my head and make me giddy.
‘Come,’ I urged. I was going to try again. There had to be a way. If I told him everything? Maybe that would help.
‘You’re the boss,’ he said, his crooked smile dancing over straight teeth.
There was so much to tell – of Joey and Larry, the Extension, the contract – and me. What should I tell him first? That I was the Angel of Death who’d come to take his soul, that I couldn’t, that one look at him had undone me? Should I really tell him absolutely everything, how I’d broken all the rules? How I thought we might be destined to be together?
We passed out across the grass and down towards the spreading cedars. We left Robyn behind, a faint outline under a webby gauze. The sun was already high and the quiet of another lazy hospital afternoon had begun. I love Earthly afternoons. l love hospitals, that smell of antiseptic, that perfume of bleached floor, that aroma of clean starched kindliness. Marcus smelt so powerfully of it all. I wanted to press my nose against him and inhale him like a flower.
We reached the first huge spreading tree. One of its long limbs had grown so close to the ground it formed a horizontal seat. To this branch I steered Marcus. He lowered himself gingerly on to it. I sat too. I took a deep breath and resisted the urge to start scratching. (Being in apparition mode is really itchy.)
We sat awhile, quietly. He seemed a little out of breath. If only we could have sat there all year – caught in between the past and the future – we could have created a paradise for ourselves. I glanced across at Robyn and sighed. I had to tell him. The time had come.
I bit my lip. How to start?
‘So,’ he said, looking at me, raising one eyebrow again. ‘If it’s my body you’re after I’m afraid it’s already in Heaven.’
I stared at him. What did he mean? Had another Angel of Death come in the night and taken him? I touched his arm – no, he wasn’t a physical shadow like poor Robyn.
‘Very holy,’ he said.
I still stared.
‘Bullet holes? Holy?’ he offered.
I shook my head.
‘Holy? In Heaven?’
‘Oh,’ I said. I got it! This was a joke! He was having a joke with me!
‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I guess in the presence of an angel, I should be more reverent.’
‘Yes,’ I said. Reverence was definitely good.
‘But life’s a bit of a bad joke, isn’t it?’
I jerked back. That was a strange thing to say. Life a bad joke?
‘You don’t get it, do you?’
I looked at him, very puzzled.
‘A joke. Get it?’
He was playing with me. Joking again?
‘No, I don’t get it,’ I said.
‘That’s the point,’ he said, ‘Nobody gets it. Life’s for living, like I said. How could it be for anything else?’ Suddenly his face grew serious. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘can you tell me something? You’re an angel, you’re bound to know.’
I nodded.
‘Nobody will tell me anything – and I want the news about Joey. Is he OK?’
I must have blanched, because Marcus leaned forward and peered at me. ‘You do remember Joey, don’t you? He was at the club with me. He got shot too.’
My heart hammered. What should I sa
y?
‘He is OK, isn’t he?’
He was far too ill. If he should become faint, I had no power left to help him. My voice cracked. ‘I can’t speak of Joey,’ I whispered. ‘I’m here to talk of your destiny.’
Marcus looked disappointed, lapsed into silence, grew pale. A slight beading of sweat broke out again on his brow.
‘He’s been taken very good care of,’ I said carefully, trying my best to comfort. I fidgeted with my wings. (Misleading another is a serious trespass.) Marcus’s face regained some colour. There was an awkward silence. I didn’t know what else to say.
‘OK,’ Marcus said at last. ‘So let’s talk then, get on with the agenda.’ He raised his hand (well, tried to) and winced. ‘Is man about to die? Is the world about to end?’ I heard his breath, each intake a struggle, each exhalation unsteady. I’d done the right thing not to tell him, hadn’t I?
‘Not yet,’ I reassured. ‘It’s as I’ve said. I’ve come down from Heaven to save your immortal soul.’ I liked the way I said ‘come down from Heaven’ – it gave the whole conversation a certain gravitas. Perhaps that would convince him.
‘A being from another world, eh?’ He bent his head quizzically on one side. ‘Yes! You have a look of something other-worldly about you – might be the wings – could be the halo . . .’
I looked at him wonderingly. This strange, fascinating boy. I wasn’t sure if it was me, or him, or humans, but I had the feeling I was standing on the edge of a chasm. Every word Marcus uttered was confusing. Was he in jest? Was he not? Should I be stern? Should I chastise? Should I laugh? Could I tell him the truth? How could he be so frail? Yet seem so strong? How could he be so sinful? Yet look so divine? Why did my heart flutter like this? What was I to do?
I shook my head.
‘Do you remember anything about the night before last?’ I asked. I had to start somewhere, didn’t I? I had to try and find a way to reach him, before I told him everything.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘It was my eighteenth birthday. I was in the club. Let me guess . . . those dimples – you’re a cherub?’
‘Please continue,’ I said, prompting him as gently as I could.
‘There were a lot of guests. I was dancing; the Crow showed up.’
‘Who exactly is he?’ I asked.
‘He’s the hardest meanest dude this side of the city, discounting me,’ he said. He flashed me a wicked smile. (I just love gold teeth.)
‘Why did he want to kill you?’ I asked.
‘Ah,’ said Marcus. ‘Now that, you don’t want to know. Some things we do to survive on Earth might upset you, Angel.’ He stared moodily into the distance as if before his eyes scrolled scenes he’d rather forget. ‘Gang stuff,’ he said, a bead of sweat trickling down the side of his jaw.
‘Please try me.’ I really was quite interested. I imagined blood and body parts and guns and motorbikes and fast cars, dark nights, loud music and gold, heaps of gold.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘these neighbourhoods are mine. I run these streets. I treat my boys well. Nobody’s family goes without things on my patch. There’s a reason why I get a nice private little room and all. I help out, see. Folks are grateful.’
Overhead the tree creaked, swayed slightly. A ray of sunshine lit up the lawns. A light breeze scuffed the autumn leaves. I wondered what exactly ‘helping out’ meant.
‘And that makes some people jealous.’
‘The Crow was jealous of you?’
‘He’s jealous of the loyalty I get, the streets I control, jealous of the love people show me – and he specially didn’t like it when his girlfriend showed me the love too!’ Marcus leaned forward, tried to laugh, but folded his arms and broke into a coughing fit.
‘Candy?’ I asked.
‘Yeah,’ coughed Marcus. ‘She’s really something.’
I looked at him confused. He liked Candy? A hole opened up in my chest. I felt my insides drain out. But all I said was ‘Oh’ in an unhappy little way.
‘And she knows it.’
‘Marcus,’ I said, suddenly stern. ‘It’s right and good and proper that you confess all your mortal sins to me, but you must try to turn your back on them, however far you are from repentance, however much you feel you cannot fully renounce your life of crime. Small steps count. We cannot speak of sin, or the . . . um . . . the affections of a young lady, without in the same breath praying for forgiveness and . . .’
Oh dear, it just wasn’t coming out right. I sounded as boring and longwinded as St Peter. And he had pushed Candy behind him. He wasn’t all bad. I’d seen kindness in his eyes, smelt goodness in his scent.
Maybe he really liked her . . . I suddenly felt quite flat and deflated.
Marcus looked at me. ‘OK, Angel,’ he said, ‘I won’t speak about them. But you asked me why the Crow came after me. That’s why. I control these hoods – I closed down his business – that’s what I do – and his girlfriend won’t leave me alone. Any of those would do – and I’m not sorry about none of it.’ He clenched his fists until they turned quite pale. A muscle flexed in his jaw. His brow clouded over.
A sharp wind blew across the lawns. It bit into my skin. He was right, I had asked. I did want the truth. I ought to be happy he’d told me. But I can tell you there’s nothing pleasant about contemplating sin. The thought made me feel quite ill. And if he liked this Candy so much that he was ready to take bullets for her, and if he really wasn’t anxious to change, then what was I doing here?
The thought made all the fire inside me die. A horrid cold congealed in my throat, a sudden pain stabbed at my chest. I shivered. ‘Just the wind,’ I choked, almost as if I felt it too.
Just the wind?
What was I thinking of? Marcus might catch a chill. Human beings are so fragile. One cold breeze and they all get the plague. I looked at him. His lip still bloodless, his brow all tense.
I needed to take care of him. ‘Come,’ I said. I took his arm and steered him towards an arbour covered in climbing roses. Inside was a sheltered seat. Over everything spread the branches of a fruit tree.
I tried not to hurry him, but he shouldn’t stay out in the wind. When we were seated I took his hand. ‘Marcus,’ I said gently. ‘You are troubled; you must trust me; please tell me what it is that eats away at you, what drives you to this life of crime? I’m not at all sure it can just be about the money.’ I was in deadly earnest.
A frown darkened Marcus’s face. I lifted my finger to the crease lines between his eyes. I smoothed them away.
‘I know I sound serious, but we have so little time to put everything right and much has gone so wrong. This is why I’m here. I think if we can get to the bottom of your sorrow, to the thing that causes you such pain, we can start to mend it. And solutions may follow – then repentance will be much easier.’
‘You are quite lovely,’ he said, suddenly. ‘And you really do care, don’t you?’
Was this another joke? Was he trying to divert my attention away from everything that needed saying?
‘Is Heaven full of serious angels, like you?’ he asked.
‘Of course,’ I said.
‘You almost make me want to go there.’ He considered this for a minute. Then whispered (conspiratorially), ‘Do any of you get up to anything . . . you know – naughty – behind the big G’s back?’
He was joking again.
I laughed and the sun broke from behind a cloud. Then I laid one finger across his lips. ‘You mustn’t think like that,’ I whispered. ‘Heaven is wonderful. There’s nothing impure in anything we do.’
‘So,’ he said, ‘that adds up to paradise, eh?’
Was he still joking?
I couldn’t tell. He was such a perplexing creature. So I just answered his question as best I could: ‘Well, it’s not like Earth. Not that I don’t like Earth, but here you have such sad things to deal with.’ I thought of all the pain etched on faces. I thought of the dark nights, and the desperateness of everyone at that disco, all try
ing to have fun, as if fun was something that the minute you grabbed it just evaporated in your hand. I thought of the sad lined faces in the queues at Styx. I thought of the thin girl over there, huddled beneath the gossamer trying to accept her death. I thought of death. To know that everything ends there, to fear there’s no afterlife, to count your days and see each dawn break and finish, each evening close down on another day of your life, and to know they’re finite.
‘You are so beautiful when you’re sad,’ he said and reached out to me. I smiled. His hand hovered, touched me, ran a thumb down my cheek.
A confused look came over his beautiful face. ‘Your skin feels strange,’ he said, ‘I can’t seem to really touch you.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘That is how it is. We Seraphim are of a different realm. You cannot touch me, not in an Earthly way.’
‘Not touch you,’ he said, as if this were quite a new idea. ‘But I must touch you,’ he said simply. ‘I have to touch you.’ He raised his arm and reached out as if he intended to break through all the regions that lay between us. His face twisted and I could see it hurt him. He was struggling with himself. And when his arms found nothing, he let out such a cry of pain that it issued forth in a half-strangled sound. ‘There must be a way,’ he cried. ‘I have to touch you.’
I looked at him. I saw his eyes ablaze with something so fierce it almost frightened me.
‘Teach me how to touch you!’ he demanded.
‘I don’t even know how,’ I whispered. ‘I have appeared before you. You can feel me; here is my hand. But I don’t think any mortal can touch the Seraphim. Not in the way you desire.’
‘Maybe this is really it,’ he murmured as if he had asked himself a question. ‘I can’t hold her. I can’t touch her. She talks to me of goodness and of righteousness, of saving my soul and healing my pain and I want to touch her.’ He seemed to find this funny and smiled a strange savage smile.
He made as if to take my hand and once again shook his head, puzzled.
How disappointed he looked. How I would have given anything to have had a real human hand, just for a few minutes, just to feel his touch on my skin. What would it have been like?
Far away a buzzer rang.