Sanctuary

29

?

As I ran to meet Stewart, the skies darkened. Who was it — Eliot? — who wrote something about what the thunder said. In Galway it said, ‘You’re fucked.’

Stewart was all settled in for a chat and tea. I grabbed his arm. ‘We have to move and fast.’

Probably didn’t fit in with his Zen gig but I wasn’t in the mood for any laid-back bullshit and as I steered him towards Ben’s house — I couldn’t call him Benedict — I told him all the stuff that had gone down. Meeting with the psycho nun’s brother, then her giving me the feather, her call. . and her ominous final warning about what had happened to her brother for his ‘betrayal’.

We’d reached the Fair Green by now, not a spit away from the church where the priest had been decapitated. This had been the case where Father Malachy had enlisted my help to try and find whoever had killed the priest. I’d like to say it had turned out well. It hadn’t.

Stewart stopped. ‘Phew, slow down. Let me digest some of this.’

Digest?

I said, ‘We’re not having fucking lunch, we’re trying to see if a poor bastard needs help.’

He still wasn’t moving. I wanted to wallop him, hard.

He asked in that ultra-cool tone, ‘So why didn’t you call Ridge? You want her back in action.’

I said through gritted teeth, ‘Because it looks like she’s making marriage plans.’

That finally got a stir out of him. He nearly gasped. ‘Wow! Who’s the lucky woman?’

How much had we changed in our society that he naturally presumed it was a woman. I know he knew Ridge was gay, but the ease with which he asked was still startling.

I said, ‘Look, can we do all this shite later?’

He finally moved, said, ‘Jack, don’t you ever wish for a more. . uneventful life?’

I could have gone deep and said, I wish for some peace. Like that was going to happen. I went with ‘I wish you’d shut the fuck up.’

He did.

We got to the house and the door opened at our touch.

I said, ‘I’ll go first.’

He nearly smiled. ‘That’s why we pay you the big bucks.’

We found him upstairs in bed. He looked terrible.

He said, ‘Jack, my constant visitor, you’ve arrived with little time to spare. My sister was here and persuaded me to have a drink.’

His smile was almost beatific in its glow. He continued, ‘I’m always up for a drink — I’m sure you can empathize. But she had laced it with some kind of poison, not too painful but deadly. . I can feel my life pouring away and it seems sort of fitting that you should be the witness to my demise.’

‘I’ll call an ambulance.’

He shook his head. ‘Have one for the road with me, Jack. A drink, that is, not an ambulance.’

He gave a small laugh at his wit and it caused a horrendous bout of coughing. He managed to gasp, ‘God in heaven, I’m glad I never smoked.’

I had, alas, seen enough men die to know he was right. Already that waxen pallor had circled his face.

There was a bottle of Bushmills on the dresser and some glasses. I poured two large ones, handed one to him.

He studied the glass as if it might tell him something.

‘What shall we drink to, Jack?’

Jesus wept.

Long life?

He said, ‘Let’s toast the friendship we might have had.’

We clinked glasses and drank deep.

I felt such a wave of affection for this man. I didn’t try to figure why, it was just instinct.

We heard Stewart climbing the stairs.

Stewart, on seeing the colour of the man, looked like he was going to throw up. So much for fucking Zen.

Benedict said, ‘There’s some nice iced water in the fridge downstairs if you feel faint.’

Jesus, I couldn’t help but like this poor sad bastard. He was unable to move because of his sheer girth and he still had fucking manners. That killed me, and I swore an oath, an unholy one, that I’d make that bitch suffer as I killed her.

He said, ‘Jack, it’s OK, I don’t mind shuffling off this mortal coil, if you’ll excuse my showing off my little learning. And as they say in the Claddagh, “Death was a blessed relief.”’

I have never hugged another man, not even me own beloved father. It’s our upbringing — you never put your hand on another man unless you want to lose it from the shoulder. Now I leaned over and put me two arms round this massive man.

He started to cry, muttered, ‘Thanks, Jack.’

Fuck, fuck and fuck it all.

This hugely obese man, lonely as only the truly lost can be, was thanking me and he wouldn’t let go. I had the horrendous thought, He’s never had a hug in his whole life. And that the first should have to be from a fucked, deaf, limping trainwreck like me. .

God is in his heaven and I had some serious issues to run by him.

I clapped Benedict’s back, lied, ‘It’s going to be all right.’

No — that it certainly wasn’t. But it would be fucking medieval when I caught up with her.

We, how do you say, disentangled, and he said, ‘I needed that.’

Then he looked at me — I mean, truly saw me — and said, ‘There is a goodness in you, Jack. You deny it, fight it and act like you don’t care in every way you can. Is it self-preservation that makes you go hard arse against the world? But you know something?. . Jack. . I love you.’

Then he closed his eyes and died. . right there in front of me.

I touched his face, rubbed his massive cheek and said, ‘I wish I could have been your friend.’

God only knows what he’d endured in his life. I could only guess. I pulled the sheet up over his huge body and touched his hand. It was still warm. I squeezed it and said, ‘You were a gentle man.’

And the fucking rage in me. . I’d been angry, enraged and all that, but this was a whole new era.

Stewart returned with a bottle of Galway bottled water and I took it to wash down a Xanax. Stewart didn’t comment, just looked at the sheet pulled up.

I said, ‘He’s dead.’

Stewart seemed mesmerized by the sheer size of the poor bastard. He said, ‘He sure was-’

I grabbed his arm. ‘You use the word fat and I’ll break your fucking arm.’

He pulled his arm free. ‘I was going to say brave.’

Then he asked, ‘What are we going to do?’

The only thing to do.

‘Get the hell out of here.’

‘Shouldn’t we call someone?’

As I headed down the stairs, sick to my very stomach, I said, ‘It’s a little late for the Samaritans.’