The Last Four Things

3

When Vague Henri, IdrisPukke and Kleist had decided on their careful pursuit of Bosco and his prize they had expected him to head straight for the safety of the Sanctuary, so the long detour taken by Bosco made them wary and suspicious. IdrisPukke only realized where they were going a few hours before Tiger Mountain appeared on the horizon. He was surprised that the news seemed to amaze the two boys.

‘This is the Holiest site in the Good Book,’ said Vague Henri.

‘I didn’t think you believed in all that any more,’ replied IdrisPukke.

‘Who said we do?’ For the last few days Kleist had been even touchier than usual.

‘It’s not that,’ said Vague Henri, ‘but we’ve heard about this place all our lives. God spoke to Prester John on that mountain. Jephthah sacrificed his only daughter to the Lord there.’

‘What?’

The two patiently explained the story, so often repeated to them it no longer seemed a real event with real people – a none-too-sharp knife and a twelve-year-old girl willingly bent over a curved rock.

‘Good grief,’ said IdrisPukke when they’d finished.

‘And it was where Satan tempted the Hanged Redeemer with power over the whole world. I got a hefty thrashing for pointing out that Satan must’ve been a bit of a dunce.’

‘And why’s that?’

‘What’s the point of tempting someone with something they don’t want?’

The unexpectedness of Bosco’s diversion meant that they had little water and no food for two days. But Kleist had shot a fox and they were waiting with sore stomachs for it to cook.

‘Do you think it’s ready?’

‘Better wait,’ said Kleist. ‘You don’t want to be eating undercooked fox.’

IdrisPukke didn’t want to be eating fox, undercooked or otherwise. When it was ready Kleist cut it (carving a fox into three equal parts was no mean feat), complete equality of shares being ensured by the law of the acolytes that whoever divided what they were about to eat had to take the smallest portion, an insight into human nature that had it been extended to a great many grander matters would have transformed the history of the world. IdrisPukke was still looking down at the fair third of the crisply done animal on his plate while the other two were on the point of finishing, though a good half-hour of bone and marrow sucking would follow.

‘What’s it like?’ said IdrisPukke.

‘Good,’ said Vague Henri.

‘I mean what’s it taste like?’

Vague Henri looked up, thoughtfully, trying to be exact in his comparison. ‘A bit like dog.’

Eating it, it was food after all, IdrisPukke was reminded of pork cooked in axle-grease, if axle-grease tasted anything like it smelt. When, with a full and queasy stomach, he fell asleep, he dreamt all night, as it seemed to him, of teapots pulsating in the night sky. When he woke up with the sky beginning to barely lighten, it was to the sound of Vague Henri cursing in a foul temper.

‘What’s the matter?’

Vague Henri picked up a rock and hurled it at the ground in a great fury.

‘It’s that shit-bag Kleist. He’s run away, the treacherous bastard.’

‘You’re sure he hasn’t just gone to relieve himself or to be on his own?’

‘Do I look like an idiot?’ replied Vague Henri. ‘He’s taken all his stuff.’ He continued pouring execrations on Kleist’s head for a good five minutes until picking up the same rock and throwing it down with a last burst of temper, he sat down and boiled in silence.

After leaving him in silence for a few minutes, IdrisPukke asked him why he was so angry. Vague Henri looked back at him, indignant as well as bewildered.

‘He left us in the lurch.’

‘How so?’

‘It’s ...’ He was unable to put an exact finger on why. ‘... obvious.’

‘Well, perhaps. But why shouldn’t he leave us in the lurch?’

‘Because he was supposed to be my friend – and friends don’t leave their friends in the lurch.’

‘But Cale isn’t his friend. I heard him say so any number of times. I don’t remember Cale having a good word for him either.’

‘Cale saved his life.’

‘He saved Cale’s life at Silbury Hill – and more than once.’

Vague Henri gasped in irritation.

‘What about me? He was supposed to be my friend.’

‘Did you ask him if he wanted to come with us?’

‘He didn’t say anything when we started.’

‘Well, he’s said something now.’

‘Why couldn’t he say it to my face?’

‘I suppose he was ashamed.’

‘There you are then.’

‘There you are nothing. Granted that judged by the highest standards of saintliness he should have explained his reasoning to you personally and in full. You claim to be his friend – has Kleist ever implied any aspirations to saintliness?’

Vague Henri looked away as if he might find someone ready to support his case. He said nothing for some time and then laughed – a sound partly humorous, partly disappointed.

‘No.’

Unable to resist moralizing, IdrisPukke continued complacently. ‘It’s pointless to blame someone for being themselves and looking to their own interests. Whose interests would they look to? Yours? Kleist knows what’s waiting for him if he’s caught again. Why should he risk such a hideous death for someone he doesn’t even like?’

‘What about me?’

‘Why should he risk such a hideous death for someone he does like? You must think awfully well of yourself.’

This time Vague Henri laughed without the disappointment. ‘So why have you come then? The Redeemers won’t be any kinder to you than to me.’

‘Simple,’ said IdrisPukke. ‘I have allowed affection to get the better of my good judgement.’ He could not resist the opportunity to expand on another one of his pet notions. ‘That’s why it’s much better not to have friends if you have the strength of character to do without them. In the end friends always turn into a nuisance of one kind or another. But if you must have them let them alone and accept that you must allow everyone the right to exist in accordance with the character he has, whatever it turns out to be.’

They struck camp in silence and had carried on the same way for a good while when Vague Henri asked his companion a surprising question.

‘IdrisPukke, do you believe in God?’

There was no pause to consider his answer. ‘There’s little enough goodness or love in me, or the world in general, to go about wasting it on imaginary beings.’