Sebastian Revisited.
"Sweden?"
"Charles, you haven't changed. Sweden, of course Sweden. There were only so many places I could go in the world during a world war. It was either here or the Vatican. Good God, could you imagine?"
Ryder sat with unmoving strain against the upholstery, and watched his old friend take another sip of sweet tea. The chair wasn't velvet-covered or uniquely embroidered. It wasn't the twenties any more. Nor the thirties. That old age of Lordship and finery was fast-fading. It was just as well that Sebastian had given it all up long ago, had put it away, like a box in the earth.
The last time Ryder had seen him he'd been an afflicted thing, one lung full of fluid, head shorn, clothes shabby, steeped in drink and misery.
The man sitting across from him was unrecognisable – or rather, the opposite. He looked just the same as he always had, before.
He looked almost as he had in Oxford, on that first day, lounging in a boat with his ever-present bear Aloysius.
His thick dark hair splashed over one brow with just a few discreet streaks of grey. His suit was light like summer, his manner as effete and boyish as ever. His eyes were made of the same soft humorous sorrow, his mouth full of the same sweeping changes, from rigid mistrust to conspiring smiles within seconds. As difficult as it had been for Ryder to seek his old companion out, as terribly guarded and precarious as their conversation seemed, he knew that Sebastian was happy to see him.
"You're recovered, I see," he remarked blatantly.
"It has been rather a while. And I haven't smoked in years. Not after this," Sebastian patted his chest impishly.
"Did you tire of the monks?"
"No. Well, yes, but it was mostly the war that scared me off. Not even Morocco safe. Awful business."
"All over now."
The keen eyes came closer as Sebastian leaned forward. "Yes, it is, isn't it. Would you like to tell me about it?"
"No, I'd rather not."
"Good, I'd rather not talk about it either."
Ryder cleared his throat. "Would you like to tell me how on earth you got here?"
"There isn't much to it. The war – my lung was recovered, naturally, but I was weak. I drank everything in sight."
"What happened to Kurt?"
"Oh, I let him go in the end. He was a faithful thing but it could never last. He dragged me down while I was trying so hard."
"To give up drinking?"
"Of course, of course."
Another sip of tea, while the soft sorry eyes flickered at him over the rim of the cup. Ryder's stomach turned over.
"The fright it gave me, I suppose. The war. I simply had to get out, so I did, by doing what I had to." He paused, tongue poised just under his teeth. "The money from Father – God rest his soul – made everything else terribly easy."
Ryder couldn't hold it in. "What did you think of it? Of his having last rites?"
"What did I think about Father passing on in God's forgiveness?" A sharp glance. "His choice, I suppose."
"And what about you, Sebastian? How is your God?"
A smile, a small conspiring smile greeted this. "He has taken a back seat since Morocco. I live quietly here. The people are mostly Protestant, and I hardly intend to go around trampling on their feelings. Besides, God never speaks. Not to me anyway."
"Do you still feel guilty?"
"Why are you so interested?"
A pause in which more tea was taken. Finally, Ryder inhaled and admitted the fatal words.
"I know what it is to feel guilt. I've known for a long time now."
"Catholic guilt?" Sebastian snorted. "At last. How very trite of you."
"No, just the normal sort. But I know – I know what it is to forget yourself in guilt. Sebastian, I felt so guilty I wished I really would die out there. On the front. Walking through Hell. I wished I would die and have nothing, not even that."
The eyes had narrowed into slits at these words. "That's not guilt, that's cowardice."
"Be patient with me. I'm trying to explain."
"Please do."
"I almost made Julia leave her husband. I almost married her myself."
"I know."
"It was wrong of me. She was too haunted. By God." Ryder paused, looking square into Sebastian's face. "I wanted too much."
"I do believe I'm having a sense of déjà vu."
"I'm not joking. I realised what I had done and it made me realise the same about you, Sebastian."
A subtle wince. "I already admitted my sins to you."
"No, I mean that I wanted too much from you. I wanted you to be close to me and suffer your guilt regardless. I did this to you."
"You did, in a way, didn't you. My poor fellow. How very guilty you must feel."
The conversation had turned to open resentment from Sebastian's end now. The soft eyes turned hard and glittered.
"You have a deep knowledge of guilt, but I doubt you know the depths of mine."
Silence dipped over them. Then –
"I could have sent you away," Sebastian sniffed airily. "Any time I wanted. It's not all your fault. And look where I am now."
"Yes," Ryder agreed quietly. "Painting."
They looked about at the various frames filled with colour and form, delicate and gorgeous and somehow exposing.
"I can finally see why you wanted to be an artist. It is very therapeutic. You forget your life, don't you. More even than when I used to drink it all away. There is less confusion in painting. Everything is crystal clear and yet still beautiful, every inch of it."
Ryder nodded. "Focusing on a certain immediate thing. It does put the rest of yourself in perspective."
"Have you painted recently?"
"No, not in years."
"You should. I'll lend you a canvas and colours. Paint something for me."
Ryder ducked his head. He could never admit that every blank space he saw nowadays automatically filled itself with visions of horror, half-bodies blown away by shells and shrapnel and bullets and gas. Friends' faces in the mud.
"I can't, dear boy, don't ask me."
"Fine. One day maybe you will. More tea?"
Another silence dipped over them before Sebastian asked, "Have you spoken to Julia recently?"
"No. Not since your Father passed." Meaning since she had broken it off with him. "She's nothing to do with it any more."
He thought he sensed Sebastian stiffen in his chair a moment, minutely.
"Do you like it here, in Sweden?" Ryder said to fend off the looming barriers of awkwardness between them.
"It is pleasant. There are lots of things to paint."
"Would you want to move, now that there's peace?"
"I'm not sure. There's nothing that makes me want to move. Why?"
The moment was creeping closer and Ryder was afraid.
But he was more afraid of what would happen if the moment never came.
His life depended on this moment, depended on Sebastian, depended on this final release from guilt.
"Your God has taken a back seat, you say?"
"Yes, I did say. What of it?"
"You never answered my question. About your guilt. Do you still feel guilty?"
"You mean do I still hear my Mother's disappointment? Does she still haunt me? Do I still believe in her, all of her?"
Ryder waited without breath.
"I am glad to finally be my own person, in Sweden. I am glad the monks taught me that much."
"Be straight with me, Sebastian."
"You be straight with me! Why are you here, Charles? Why now? Why not just leave me be?"
A deep and final shudder of energy passed through Ryder, and he stood from the chair, trembling only very slightly.
"It was wrong of me to take Julia. It was wrong to leave you and your guilt alone. And by wrong I don't mean immoral. Morality has nothing to do with these things, does it, Sebastian, really? If I've learned anything from God it's that morality isn't the half of it. You said – you said that only God can give that kind of love. Do you remember? The last time I saw you? I think – I think I've been misled by all manner of things. And I think if it were to happen all over again I would do the same. But now – after all this – I've been through so much, Sebastian, and it's made me think. While I was out there wishing I was dead, I found myself wishing for something else as well."
The man had uncrossed his legs inside his cream flannel trousers, and laid both hands on the arms of his chair. The cup of tea lay abandoned on the side. Slowly now he also stood, the corners of his mouth turned tenderly down in an unfathomable expression. There was a pause so long that Ryder thought it would break his very nerves, his nerves that had lasted him all the way through the war. To be undone at this point, in front of this man, around whom everything always had and always would revolve, just like the sun. The only sun in the sky.
"Heavens," Sebastian said slowly, without a trace of emotion. "Don't tell me. Don't tell me you've finally realised."
Ryder didn't reply. He lowered his hot stinging gaze, suddenly wishing that he could abscond and never again be caught by those soft eyes, never again be subject to every ounce of agonising guilt he had ever deserved in one single look.
He stood as though naked before the man whom he admitted to loving.
Sebastian's fingers touched his cheek, and traced a gentle line to his chin to tilt it up.
The kiss was sweet like summer wine, all honey and red grapes and spices, just like that night so very long ago. The arm that slid around him was an anchor, finally bringing him into harbour, finally bringing him to rest, telling him who he was, where he belonged, at last. He belonged here. He had always belonged here, in the embrace of the one who had loved him forever.
It was more than God's love, and like wine it had only ripened and grown more delicious with time. With its given time.
"You fool," Sebastian told Ryder against his lips, his conspiring, confidential smile spreading like a warmth that raced through them. "What an awful lot of time you've wasted. It won't be soon now till we're both old and miserable."
"I will never be miserable."
"No, you're right. Of course we won't."
"I'm sorry."
"Stop, please, stop. No more guilt. No more of that. We're leaving all of that behind us."
Ryder clung to him in swooning relief as he recognised the fact. The guilt was gone.
Because now he would make everything right.
Now, after all these years, they could finally go back to that summer. And this time, it really would stay the same forever.
"Let's run away," he murmured as their fingers tangled together at their sides, kissing him again fervently. "Let's run far away and never look back."