Second Twenty-Four
Consciousness returns to him slowly.
He's in the middle of a tangle of limbs. Apparently he's had a busy night.
Both of the female faces that eventually look back at him with the same bewildered lack of recognition seem equally surprised. Fortunately they don't seem particularly displeased, and they're apparently amenable to following up the busy night with a busy morning. He doesn't know their names and they're certainly not going to find out his, but by the time they finally take their leave they're all on exceptionally good terms with each other's bodies.
Unsurprisingly, it's as much as he can do now to crawl into the shower. He's too tired to stand; he subsides onto the floor and lets the water course over him, leaning sideways for just long enough to rub shampoo wearily into his hair. After that, he just sits there looking blankly at his own reflection until the condensation obscures it. He tells himself that what he feels is satiation, but it feels horribly like despair.
He missed breakfast, of course. When he's recovered somewhat, he goes out to find a café.
The food's better than he expected. He tucks himself into a corner from where he can observe. It feels safer, having his back protected.
The bacon is salty and strong. It's a reality in a world that has somehow faded away from him, and he tears into the sandwich with gusto, wolfing it.
There's a pretty young woman sitting just opposite him. Her hair is the fairest possible blonde; the sun isn't shining today, but at a guess sunlight would make it shine like platinum. Just as he has done, she's tucked herself into a corner, and he's noticed her ceaseless vigilance. Now and again their glances have flickered across each other cautiously. He notices she's watching the way he eats, but her gaze doesn't convey disgust but …
…speculation.
She's ordered a soft drink. When the glass is put down in front of her she waits till he's looking in her direction again and then pulls it towards her rather than lifting it. Her fingers are held stiffly, as though she's not used to using her thumb. After a moment, and with another wary glance around to make sure no-one but he is watching, she lifts the glass to her mouth. She uses both hands, and she doesn't tilt the glass immediately to drink; for just a second, she holds it against her chin and drops her tongue into it.
Next second, she's drinking in the normal way, and looking out of the window as though finding the passers-by of enough interest to hold her casual attention. She doesn't remember he exists. She didn't note the tiny tilt of his head or the way he pulled his plate just a little closer by putting just his fingers flat on it and dragging.
Their eyes don't meet again. When he's finished he stands up and leaves without a glance in her direction. She's reading something on a PADD, probably a book. There's no reason why she should look up when he leaves, or when he turns on the pavement outside to walk away as though he hasn't a care in the world.
He slips back to the hotel. He has nowhere else to go, though he detours through a park, where the daffodils are just a little past their best. His mother has always been fond of daffodils; clumps of them ring the garden at home, though the gardener complains annually about the bother of tying them up when flowering is over, and Malcolm suspects that Reed Senior viscerally dislikes anything so gay and flaunting. Thoughts of his parents bring a vague feeling that he should contact them, but it's of short duration. He knows that Maddie obdurately passes on any items of news about the Prodigal Son during her visits, and thus hearing from the miscreant in person is probably quite superfluous – even if Maddie does nag him with monotonous regularity that Mum would like to hear from him. At some point he'll write to Aunt Sherrie, who has always valued his letters and would like to receive them oftener than she does. The fact that eighty percent of his text is outright invention and the remainder obfuscation is neither here nor there; after all, he's hardly in a position to tell her the truth. She's had heart problems lately, and finding out that her favourite nephew has taken up a career as a spy (with the odd bit of sabotage here and there, and maybe the occasional murder thrown in now and again just to liven things up) would probably finish her off altogether.
Then, the hotel room again – even bleaker and lonelier than he remembers it. The clock has picked up speed now, and destiny is rushing towards him. Part of him wants to put out a hand to ward it off, and part of him wants to be done with this misery of waiting. The sword is suspended above his head on a silken thread, and it's time it fell and impaled him.
An hour's nap, which he desperately needs, does little to refresh him. It's just brought Zero Hour that little bit closer.
He can't stay here; the walls are suffocating him. If he put the television on he'd put his fist through it.
There's a pub a short walk away (a 'bar' they call it over here, he reminds himself wryly; the daffodils have taken him back too many years). Yesterday's intake of alcohol has flushed itself out of his system, not that it helped much when it was in there. He's stone cold sober, and at a guess he'd better still be so when he presents himself for duty tomorrow morning. Still, just one beer won't hurt; he can linger over it in some obscure corner and watch real people come and go, while he slides closer and closer to the abyss…
The evening is closing in fast when he leaves the hotel. It's been a dingy day. The sun didn't break through once and it's gone now, leaving the city to the tender mercies of the night. It's pouring with rain, too. He has no umbrella and doesn't care.
He walks rapidly down the street, and finds the bar. The lights from the window are reflected in the puddles. Inside, everyone seems to be having a splendid time; the sound of laughter spills out through the door as someone opens it to go in. He only has to step forward and follow.
He can't.
After a moment he turns and walks away. He carries on walking because he has nothing else to do, not because he has anywhere to go.
It should be a surprise when he eventually finds himself standing outside the church. It's closed and locked and dark. So he doesn't bother knocking, but stands motionless in front of the door, hands thrust into the pockets of his ruined coat. His head is bowed. The rain runs out of his saturated hair and drips down his face, but he can't feel.
"Would you care for a cup of tea?"
Bloody hell, the Section should start recruiting among the clergy; this chap can move like a shadow. And yet it's more than likely that he simply walked up like anyone else would, and the soon-to-be Section operative was simply too sunk in his own self-pity to hear him.
Better not pull that trick too often. The next time could be the last.
"No questions, I promise you." The voice is deep and kind, its accent unmistakably Jamaican in origin. "No tricks. Just a cup of tea. When you want to leave, you can leave."
He follows, because he has nowhere else to go. It's not far, just the next block: a flat like all the others, reached by a stairway that's smelly and grimy and poorly-lit.
The priest opens the door of his flat, after shaking the worst of the wet off his umbrella in the stairwell. He goes into the bathroom and brings out a towel, and after that produces a set of clean if faded clothing that was probably donated to charity. Then, leaving Malcolm in the small lounge as if they've known one another for years, he moves calmly into the little kitchen and sets about making tea.
Slowly the Englishman starts stripping off his soaked clothes. It's hardly polite to leave them in a sodden heap on the carpet, so he picks them up and takes them into the bathroom, where he drops them into the bath to let them drain for a while; then, wrapping himself in the towel, he sits gingerly on the edge of the smaller of the two shabby armchairs and begins rubbing himself dry.
He's just in the process of donning the clothes when his host reappears. They don't fit very well – the shirt in particular hangs loosely on his slight frame – but his appearance is the last thing on his mind right now.
He watches the priest lay down the tray, with its pieces of worn china, none of which match. There is a packet of biscuits; he heard the sound of them being opened, and can guess that they're a luxury held in reserve for the benefit of visitors.
"Please. Relax."
The curtains are open, and his host draws them to shut out the darkness and the cold before switching on a side-lamp, which introduces a softer light into the room. It's more forgiving of the clutter, and deals kindly with the unmistakable signs of age, wear and poverty.
"You don't mind a little music?"
He doesn't. Right now he doesn't mind anything. Wrapping the damp towel around his neck to absorb the drips from his sodden hair, he sits down again and picks up a cup and saucer. The tea is hot and sweet, and makes him aware for the first time of how very cold he is.
The music is obviously a favourite; the chip is already in the player, which like everything else in the room has seen considerably better days. But for all its age and battered condition, the sound reproduction is exquisite. The single crystal notes of the piano fall like snowflakes into the still air.
'Spiegel im Spiegel'. He knows it, every note of it. He's even played it, long ago, back in the high, echoing music room of his senior school; Alan Lawley would sometimes consent to play the viola part, when he was in the mood. Lawley went on to play in the Royal Philharmonic, and travelled all over the world, but he remarked on more than one occasion that young Reed had a decent touch on the piano and could make something of himself if he practised more….
'Make something of himself'…
And this is what he's made of himself, finally: a spy in the service of a foreign government, a soon-to-be saboteur and assassin. Estranged from his family, without ties, without roots, without friends.
Without hope.
The cup and saucer fall to the floor, which wasn't what he'd intended, and he's sorry for the mess, but suddenly he's on his knees beside the man seated in the other chair, and great heaving sobs rack him as he presses his face into the worn black cassock.
"I have to … I'm so sorry … I have to…"
"I'm sure you do." The hand strokes tenderly across the back of his head.
"I gave my word. That matters, doesn't it?"
"More than anything in the world."
He cries for a while longer, because he'd so much rather it wasn't true.
And yet it is true, so slowly his sobs diminish. It's unbefitting a Reed and an Englishman to break down so utterly, but then he's disgraced his family name and is hardly likely to bestow lustre on the land of his birth by any of his future deeds, so maybe it's just a little forgivable.
When he's quiet again, he feels no immediate compulsion to move. The hand is still stroking his hair, the contact reaffirming his humanity in a way that none of the frenzied acts of copulation during the past forty-eight hours have done.
"Listen," says the low voice above him. "The music has changed. This is one of my favourite recordings."
He pays attention. It's another piano-led instrumental piece, but not one he recognises.
Neither of them speak till the music ends. Then, "It's called 'And They Have Escaped The Weight of Darkness'."
"Do you think that's possible?" he asks at last, into the black cloth. "Do you think there really is a God?"
The slow smile is audible. "It will be, when the time's right. When you want it badly enough. And as for God, I've always thought it doesn't matter so much if we don't believe in Him, as long as He believes in us."
The words are a gift. If it's not hope, at least it's the possibility that hope may exist; and it's more than he came with, and as much as he can carry away with him.
Malcolm's suddenly deathly tired. It's all he can do to scrub his face clean with a borrowed handkerchief; his embarrassed attempt to clean up the cassock as well is stopped with a gentle gesture. He puts the cup and saucer back on the tray, and mutters an apology for the spilled tea, which is also waved away.
"I've a spare room, if you need one," his host offers softly. "No charge. And your own clothes should be dry by the morning."
The refusal is on the tip of his tongue when he thinks better of it. It would be the act of a boor and an ingrate to insist on leaving. Tonight, perhaps for the last time, he can be human again.
He looks across at the kind, worn, serene brown face of the man opposite him. The priest is no longer young, and living in a neighbourhood like this he's probably had plenty of sad experience of the dark side of human nature. And yet hope survives, enabling him to offer hospitality to a total stranger. If there is no evidence for the existence of God, in this room there is ample evidence for the existence of the human spirit; and maybe that's as close as he'll ever come to believing.
The spare room is shabby but very clean. It's so tiny there's hardly room for a bed, but as he stretches out on the mattress and snuggles down under the worn blankets, he's at peace. The morrow can look after itself.
"Sleep well, son." The whisper through the crack of the door hardly penetrates his mind, which is spiralling down to oblivion.
And the moon which presently comes out from behind a cloud and peers down through the cobwebby glass finds Malcolm sleeping soundly.
At last.
The End.
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