13
“Well, that was fun,” growled Bane, as we walked home.
“I know it’s difficult but I thought you handled it really well.”
“Well, that’s nice to hear,” he said more lightly, “what with you being well on your way to getting your counselor’s credentials, from what I hear.”
“Hardly. Lucas is fixated on me like…well, like an imprinted duckling or something. That’s the only reason I’ve been able to help him at all.”
“I s’pose you were the only one who ever forgave him.”
The only one who even wanted to?
When we got home, Bane sat down on the sofa as though he’d no intention of moving from the apartment until our next session with Karen the following afternoon. I made coffee and had just sat beside him, wondering if this were a good moment, when the phone rang. With a groan, I went to answer it.
Sister Immanuella. “Hi, Margaret, you’re in now!”
“Obviously,” I grinned.
“Well, yes! I’ve been trying to reach you. His Holiness has been really wanting to have you round for tea but he’s been so busy. But this afternoon’s just opened up, d’you think you could come up in about, um, half an hour?”
“Both of us?” Things all seemed to be sorting themselves out now, but it would still be good to have a talk. Come to that, just how coincidental was the ‘opening up’ of this afternoon?
“Oh…sorry Margaret, he didn’t mention Bane this time.”
I glanced at Bane on the sofa, trying not to chew my lip. He seemed all right now. All the same…I really wasn’t sure I wanted to leave him. But…what had Eduardo told Pope Cornelius? Had he brought him up to date yet? We needed to catch up a bit, even if Bane couldn’t come.
“He needs to discuss his trip to Brussels with you,” added Sister Immanuella.
“His what?”
“Oh, I probably shouldn’t have mentioned it. Don’t pass it on. But he does need to see you.”
“Right…um…” Had she really just said Brussels? Well, I’d just have to get Jon to come and sit with Bane again. He’d come this morning, so I could go to Mass, a thousand blessings on him, and stayed until I got back from seeing Lucas at midday. “Okay, I’ll be along.”
“Great.”
I stared at the phone for a moment after she’d hung up, my insides churning. Could the Holy Father actually be going to the capital of the EuroBloc? Surely I’d misheard. And surely, surely, there could be no question of me going with him? She had referred to the Holy Father’s trip, not my trip.
Yet he wanted to speak to me.
Lord, please no. Not the EuroBloc itself!
Shaking off the clinging dread, or trying to, I dialed Jon’s apartment. No answer. Oh no! Of course, no answer. He was doing a talk to interested persons, including some members of the press, about his Braille finds. He’d wanted Bane to go, and I’d wanted to go, but Bane really hadn’t wanted to brave the crowd.
Still no answer. His flatmates must be on duty. I ticked people off on my fingers. Fox and Foxie, on duty; Sister Krayj, at Jon’s talk; Sister Mari—busy, busy, busy with all the stuff I ought to be getting on with…so who? Try to park Bane on Eduardo? I winced.
Oh Lord! Help? I really don’t want to leave him on his own so soon! There's got to be someone.
Yes. Oh dear. I picked up the phone and dialed. Come on, pick up.
Eventually, when I’d about given up hope, someone picked up.
“Lucas? It’s Margaret. Talk to me?”
“Hello?”
“Hi. See, the phone didn’t eat you. How are you?”
Silence. “The plants like the room.”
“Oh, good. Everything else okay?”
Silence. “I took food like you said.”
You actually did? Act normal, Margo. “Oh, good. Listen, um, I’ve got a rather big favor to ask you.”
Silence. “Yes?”
“I have to go and have tea with Pope Cornelius. I don’t want Bane to have to sit around on his own. Could he come around to you for half an hour?”
Dead silence this time. Silence that said NO, NO, NO but I’m incapable of refusing you anything. I cringed inside. But…it wasn’t like it would do Lucas any harm.
Finally, “Important?”
“Yes. Remember what we talked about, the day before yesterday?” Remember, please?
Eventually Lucas said, “Yes. And yes.”
“Well, it’s better than sitting around on your own,” I said lightly, as Bane and I headed down to Lucas’s room.
From Bane’s expression, he totally disagreed, but didn’t feel he could argue after what he’d put me through for the last two weeks. “Sure he won’t stab me and eat me raw?”
“I really don’t think so. And don’t you do anything to him, either.”
Bane flapped a hand reassuringly.
When Lucas opened his door at my knock, I flinched—dressed neatly in shirt and trousers, he looked much more like the Facility Commandant I’d once…barely known. Or his ghost. For a moment I was back on that gurney as his knife bit into my forehead, remembered terror threatening to engulf me…
“Margo? Are you okay?” Bane’s grip on my arm tightened, helping me break free of the whirlwind of emotions.
“I’m fine.”
Lucas was shrinking into himself, he’d seen my fear—and my anger. Blast.
“Hello, Lucas,” I said cheerfully. He was trying to help you, remember? And he’s definitely doing you a favor now. “This is Bane, my husband. Bane, this is Lucas.”
Lucas uncoiled slightly, his alarm fading as I tried my hardest to project normality. He looked at Bane, then at me, then another sidelong look at Bane. Finally managed a quiet, “Hello.”
I checked my watch. Time to go. “Okay, I’ve got to be off. Um, I hope you have a nice time, you two.”
I left them both wearing near-identical expressions of resigned skepticism.
“Margaret, my dear, come in.” Pope Cornelius ushered me inside and took my hands, his eyes running over me anxiously. “You look so pale and thin.”
“It’s been a bad two weeks.”
I don’t know what he saw in my eyes, but he drew me in for a rare—but very welcome—hug. Held me at arm’s length and looked me over again. “Well, come and have some cake.” His gaze paused on the left side of my face, but he made no comment.
“Actually, uh, could I use your phone for a moment?”
“Of course.”
I dialed Eduardo’s number quickly. “Hi, Eduardo, it’s Margaret. I’ve just left Bane with Lucas—I really don’t think they’re going to do anything to each other, but…well, I just thought I’d call it to your attention.”
“Scraping the barrel, weren’t you? I could’ve sent someone up.” There was a pause as Eduardo navigated to a screen. “Just now Mr. Everington is offering Bane a plate of sandwiches—cucumber, by the look of it—so relax.”
“Oh, great. Um, thanks.”
Eduardo always forgot to say goodbye, so I just hung up and went back over to where Pope Cornelius had two cups of tea and plates of cake waiting.
“How is that fellow doing, by the way?”
“Lucas? Very well, actually. I was afraid he might have gone backwards after—well, I couldn’t visit him for two weeks—but actually he didn’t at all. Not…after I reappeared, anyway,” I said guiltily. “The guards were that fed up of watching him behaving himself that he moved into his own room today.”
“Still, he and Bane, don’t sound the safest combination to me—at least, if certain things I’ve heard are correct,” he finished delicately.
I winced. Who’d been speaking to him? Kyle? Antonio? Eduardo? “Yeah, I know they’ve both got a reason to be mad at the other, but that’s just it: they can’t throw stones and don’t want to upset me, I think they’re safe. I really hope so because I can’t help feeling Bane would come off worst.”
“If you think that, why risk leaving Bane there?”
How much did he know? “Look, I’d really like to bring you up to date on…everything that’s been going on these hellish two weeks. If we’ve got time? Though it sounds like you’ve heard most of it already.”
“Today I’ve been hearing a number of things people know or think they know, but I’d much rather hear it from the horse’s mouth.”
“Right.” I told him all about it. He listened without interrupting. “…And some of the stuff I said to Kyle I really didn’t mean and pointing the nonLee at him—I don’t know what came over me! I think I really need to go to confession.”
“Oh dear,” he sighed, when I fell silent at last. “It really has been a bad patch, hasn’t it? Poor lamb, have another slice of cake…”
I hadn’t eaten much that day, and it was a nice English fruitcake, so I accepted without hesitation.
“You can confess now, if you like,” he told me. “I mean, after you finish your cake, no rush. But I’m sure reconciliation with Kyle will come soon enough, if you both want it.” He gave me rather a close look. “Is there anything else that’s bothering you?”
“What, other than the life-and-death vote in just over a month?”
He grimaced. “Other than that, yes.”
I found myself tracing a circle on the table. “Well, yes, there is. You see I…well, I’m…not sure I’ve really forgiven Lucas. Let alone that assassin!”
Instead of looking surprised and saying, “But the whole world knows you have,” he just gave a sad smile. “Ah.”
I rushed on, voice wobbling, “I thought it was going so well…but just now, I remembered that time in the Lab and… I wanted to just…hit him…and hit him.”
I didn’t want to feel like that about anyone. “Now I realize I can care about him and look after him and feel like I’ve forgiven him, but only so long as I don’t actually think about how he hurt me…that can’t be forgiveness!”
Pope Cornelius sighed again. “True. To forgive someone completely you must be able to face them with the hurt and pain they caused you alive in your mind and still love them.”
“How am I ever going to do that?”
“Love is an act of the will, and forgiveness is little more than love given to someone who has hurt us. Your forgiveness may not be complete, yet, but never think, for that reason, that it is not there at all.”
I frowned. Love was an act of the will, yes, so if I already willed to forgive Lucas, then to some degree, I did already forgive him. Just not completely. I’d a nasty feeling he needed completely—or close to it.
“In both cases,” Pope Cornelius added, “in order to do someone good, you must first will to love them, even if you don’t feel full of warm emotions towards that person. Since you have acted for the good of both Lucas Everington and, what’s his name, Georg Friedrich, the assassin, I think your forgiveness of them is well underway.”
I thought about that a bit more, beginning to feel more cheerful. At least until Pope Cornelius said, “Anyway, on to what I really need to discuss with you.”
My heart went thunk down to the floor. Please Lord, not me. I tried to look attentive rather than terrified.
“The discussions between the USSA delegation and the EuroGov representatives were concluded successfully. More successfully than we could possibly have hoped. I will be accompanying the USSA delegates to Brussels in three days’ time, as part of their delegation. Thus sharing their diplomatic immunity.”
I hadn’t misheard. Excitement surged in me, despite my trepidation. He was going to Brussels itself! What an opportunity! But…oh no, he was eyeing me gravely. An ice-cold tingle began to creep up from the base of my spine. No, no, no…
“The USSA delegation,” he went on, “have also issued the invitation to you.”