42

Ewan stood on a pavement in Belgravia, staring up at the imposing Gothic mansion; an address that any man in the street would always follow with a whistle of envy and a bemused calculation of the area’s market value. Manicured shrubs, in variations of new season’s green, were landscaped into the wide paved façade, with not one dead leaf or twig-stalk daring to drop.

He walked towards a pair of heavy glass entrance doors, through which he could see a formal mahogany-fitted reception area. A muscular Afro-Caribbean concierge, attired in full morning dress, stood regally in attendance, fronting a range of intimidating surveillance equipment. As Ewan walked in the man gave a theatrical half-bow and crossed himself.

‘Father Ewan,’ he said deferentially. ‘You are expected. I will programme the lift.’

‘Thank you, Titus,’ he said, signing the proffered visitor’s book.

The lift smelled of cigar smoke and, inexplicably, of money. He exited at the top storey, but he had no need to ring a doorbell; the whole of the penthouse suite was Jacob’s domain. The large reception hall was filled with natural daylight, with every inch of the walls show-casing a stunning record of Jacobs’s life’s work. Sharp, monochrome images covered the global history of the last half-century. The war-torn zones of Angola, Vietnam, Northern Ireland, The Falklands, Iraq and Afghanistan, depicting soldiers and civilians in varying states of filth, despair and injury. From the starving African nations, both pot-bellied and stick-thin children stared without seeing, their huge eyes encrusted with flies. A skull pile in Rwanda. Executed religious exiles from the Balkans. Political protests from the first passive, duffle-coated Aldermarston marches, to the Paris student demos, the miners’ strike, the Greenham Common campaign and the London poll tax riots. In a separate section was his last work before illness overtook him; the face of New York’s grief taken only a few short hours after the devastation. One rare portrait showed the ageing photographer himself, taken at the foot of the twin tower carnage, with his cameras slung over his shoulder and his creased, craggy face in a pose of bewildered desperation; the image that had fronted Time magazine. And then, with dedicated space and display, a whole wall devoted to the single work he considered to be the pinnacle of his achievement, and loved above all others: Crucifix Man.

To Ewan’s surprise Fanny appeared, wearing a long, figure-hugging black tube and dangling gold earrings. How changed she was from the brash young woman who’d clattered her stilettos up to him on that first night in the church, her heavy breasts bouncing in a cheesecloth blouse and dark curls falling over her shoulders. Today’s woman was a dominatrix of the media, lean and lined, with a platinum-blonde crew cut and cubicle-enhanced tan.

‘I wanted to be here for you,’ she said. ‘I’m so, so sorry, my love.’ She kissed his mouth, but with neither the tenderness of a mother nor the energy of a lover. An invisible, close-stitched, unity of long friendship.

‘How is he?’

‘Terribly weak and a bit confused. He had a morphine shot about an hour ago.’

‘So there’s no pain.’

‘Only the mental kind. How long since you’ve seen him?’

‘Over four weeks. I’m so sorry it’s been so long, but I’ve been selfishly absorbed…’

He and Fanny slowly embraced. ‘What can I do to help you?’ she asked.

‘This,’ he replied, pulling her into his chest and tightening his grip. ‘This. I ache for her.’

From a distant room a distressed, feeble voice called out a string of muddled words. The voice that in health had been as loud as boots crunching on gravel, but now hadn’t the strength to crack eggshells. A smiling nurse appeared, wearing a white dress uniform.

‘Hello, Ewan. Can you hang on a minute? He’s not quite ready.’ Within two minutes she returned. ‘All done. You can go in now. I’ll put the kettle on.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I’ve had to draw the curtains. He says the sun hurts his eyes, but actually he can’t bear anyone to see him in full daylight, especially you.’

‘I’ll go into the kitchen and talk to Liza,’ Fanny said. ‘You need some private time with him.’

As Ewan entered he gagged as he inhaled the powerful pungency of the sick room: a sweet and sour mixture of disinfectant, surgical spirit, urine, vomit, sweat and the heady perfume of some lilies in a vase. The bed was raised on blocks and a cylinder of oxygen stood alongside. On the wall that faced the bed hung a three-quarter-size depiction of Crucifix Man, and at its foot was a large piece of crystal mounted on a plinth. The patient, his weakness obvious, was propped up on a bank of pillows. Attempting a gesture of welcome, he raised a bony, wavering hand, disfigured with large purple blemishes. Ewan quickly crossed to the bed and took the offered hand. ‘Jacob.’

Jacob pulled the hand to his mouth and greedily kissed the palm. ‘My dear boy. My old heart is breaking for you. How can I help? Come talk to me.’

‘You know I’m not used to talking,’ Ewan said. ‘Only listening.’

‘If you’re still not ready to talk I’ll respect your silence. Just let me take you in my disgusting old arms.’

Ewan sat on a bedside chair, leaned his head down to rest against the skeletal rib cage and folded his arm over the scrawny body. Jacob’s skin smelled of his usual Diorissima female fragrance, but overlaid with the faint odour of a fermented dishcloth.

‘How do I begin?’ Ewan said. ‘The first thing I always ask my patients is to say the name of their lost one.’

‘Then say her name. Say it. Your beautiful lady of the water.’

‘Marina,’ he said, whispering dryly. ‘Marina. My love. My life. My wife.’

Jacob’s wavering hand clumsily reached out to stroke Ewan’s hair. ‘Your sorrow destroys me, but you had the comfort of being truly loved for so many years. Your people would say it’s a sin, but the sane amongst us will say that it’s a virtue. What is the saying? “Man cannot live by love alone.” Well, perhaps he can’t, but it goes a long way to make it worthwhile. Ewan, when I declared my hopeless passion you could have run away in horror, but you did not. You threaded us together, like two beads on a necklace, and thenceforth we hung round each other’s necks with another sort of love; a declaration of devotion in the name of Plato. Talk to me, my lib. Make use of me while I’m still here to hear you.’

Ewan, with a swollen throat and barely moving lips, continued. ‘The term used in my work is anticipatory death. Of course she gave me full notice of her leaving, but it was no buffer zone. Now I want to cry my misery from the rooftops. I want to shout and scream and publicly applaud her life. The dictum of my life forces me to silence, but I can’t hold it in any longer. I’m burning with duplicity. I’m a fraud, Jacob. My cloth has become a burden, and I’ve resolved to leave the priesthood.’

‘So your God has left you?’

‘I no longer wish to serve Him, but I shall always love Him. We’ve spent so long hand in hand I’ll feel lost without Him.’

‘Is He helping you now?

Ewan shook his head. ‘He’s testing me.’

‘The fucking Gods don’t test you, my boy. They put lead in your shoes. They’re the law, the judge, the justice and the jury, so they never lose.’ Jacob then laughed, but it was a dandelion puff compared to his old giant’s roar. ‘Fanny will give you a double-spread and an exclusive interview. I can already see the headline. Crucifix Priest Loses Faith. The Road to Damascus In Reverse.’ With his exhaustion obvious, Jacob laid his head back on the pillow.

‘Soon, very soon, I shall be gone, and everything I have will be yours. This apartment, the house in Capri, my money and my negatives. Then you will be able to go forth in comfort and take a little bit of me with you.’

‘Jacob, we’ve discussed this so many times. I can’t accept such wealth.’

‘Without office you can accept everything. I love you, and I have no other heir. Crucifix Man has made me a fortune, so it’s only returning to its rightful owner.’

‘Then I’ll accept your wonderful gifts, but be assured I’ll use your riches wisely to benefit my fellow man. Thank you so much, my dearest, loyal friend.’

Liza then came in, carrying a tray of tea, and without speaking or interrupting, poured two cups and left the room.

‘You’re so beautiful,’ said Jacob, running his desiccated finger down Ewan’s cheek.

‘Marina told me I was beautiful.’

‘And you most certainly are. Now will you pass me my tea and I will show off that I still have the strength to lift a cup to my mouth.’

With the tea drunk, Jacob collapsed against the pillow. ‘Ewan. It makes me happy to know that you will have both personal and financial freedom when I’m gone, but you will be completely alone in the world. My next question is the inevitable. Will you now resume your search?’

‘Jacob, somewhere there are, or were, my birth parents. The feisty, loving blonde and the absent fish porter. Perhaps they’re still alive. The blonde maybe back on her knees scrubbing floors. The fish porter may be humping fish. Years ago I wanted to search for them, and you promised to support me, but the coward in me couldn’t do it. I was too scared.’

‘Then you must overcome your fear, or be content to live the rest of your life in ignorance. You are now forty-eight years old, Ewan. Poznanski’s law says that time is the destroyer of all procrastination, and it will soon be too late. Come, my lib. Let’s sing. Let’s sing as we sung on the top of that big, grey mountain in Scotland on Christmas Eve all those years ago, only this time it’s a duet for one dying and one bereaved voice.’

With wavering voices they began.

‘Heavenly shades of night are falling, it’s Twilight Time.’