On Chasing Brad Through Purgatory (25 page)

“There was that Manet painting …
Le Déjeuner Sur L'Herbe
.” He was now speaking extremely slowly. “And when you asked about it I didn't raise one single objection did I? I apparently accepted it as absolutely unremarkable that pictures should have titles.”

“It
is
absolutely unremarkable that pictures should have titles. And if you suddenly thought the practice cheesy when we stopped beside the lake I hope you'll remember to tell Leonardo da Vinci that, if you ever happen to meet him. Or Titian or Rembrandt or whoever.”

Yet now I was just playing for time. I'd set him a puzzle and he'd solved it. And I'd prayed about it and this is what had happened. So then, I thought. So then. So then.

And oh sod it I was thinking. If it should still turn out to be a trick … well then too bad too bloody bad that's all.

If it still should turn out to be a trick … well then so help me I should simply have to let myself be tricked.

But Lord I believe. Help thou mine unbelief.

“Yet it makes no difference,” I said. “Absolutely no difference. Even though I may now be ninety per cent convinced that you
are
Brad … I'm still not going to let you free me.”

For it had suddenly come to me afresh. Hit me in the stomach. No not simply in the stomach. Well below the belt.

Because no way—no way—could I go out to him. Exactly as I'd told him earlier (yet now there was no longer the same element of mockery) this was a no-win situation; totally and inescapably so. Either it wasn't Brad out there and I was back in the hands of the enemy; or else it was Brad—a Brad who had demonstrated incontestably, through his pursuit and his persistence, that he was hellbent on releasing me—and then it was he himself who must fall into the hands of the enemy.

And in fact (ninety per cent be damned!) I now believed it truly was Brad. I felt literally an ache at the mere thought he was so close. So unattainable.

“Go away!” I said. “Go away! You're boring me—you with your cheap little tricks!” And then noisily and desperately I returned to the beginning of that selfsame song while, every bit as desperately but a lot less noisily, I strained towards the safety of my refuge. Went in as far as I could go. Stood there—almost slumped there—with my forehead pressed against the rock face and both my hands once more obscuring sound. Heard only my own pulse and the relentless unfolding of Lorelei's simple philosophy—no longer being expounded out loud but still retaining all her single-mindedness and instinct for survival. I really hoped that by its termination Brad would finally have gone away.

Jesus if I could do it for Mr Tibbotson I could certainly do it for Brad.

I suppose that relatively little time went by. Perhaps it was a bit like that afternoon in Leicester Square of roughly two years before. I felt a sudden touch on my shoulder and spun round and he was standing right behind me.

All we did for a moment was simply gaze at one another. He was still wearing his dinner jacket, and though he looked even better in it than I remembered, a dinner jacket in such circumstances appeared ludicrous.

Our embrace was short-lived. When we came out of it he stood wiping away all those tears of mine which hadn't yet had any chance to dry—wiping them away on his knuckles—and then just holding me at arm's length and silently scrutinizing me once more, as though we had been apart for weeks or months not merely days. It had certainly
felt
like weeks or months.

Then we were back in a bear hug. Yet even now I felt constrained not to let this miracle engulf me utterly. I told myself I mustn't forget that it was actually no more than a very merciful interlude; a blessed stay of execution. (Though if such an interlude could turn into a regular daily occurrence it would all but remain miraculous and I thought then that I'd be able to withstand almost anything. Anything within reason.) “But Brad it makes no difference. I'm still not going to let you free me.”

“You don't have to,” he said. “You're already free.”

I drew away from him; instantly suspicious.

“Well it's like I said. Our tests were intertwined. And yes until three or four minutes ago—obviously I've got to tell you this—I really did believe I'd have to take your place. But now we're both free. We've passed. Me because of you, and you because of … Darling we've passed! D'you hear? We have both of us passed!”

Yet monumental bore that I was or killjoy or whatever—and despite what seemed like wholly genuine delight on his part—I still couldn't feel unreservedly convinced.

“But wasn't I supposed to come out to
you
? Not the other way about?”

“That doesn't matter. You were absolutely on the brink. It was clear what made you change your mind.”

This wasn't all however. Far from it. I framed my words slowly. “Yet how did you happen to realize quite so suddenly” … I almost said
conveniently
… “that you wouldn't need to take my place?”

But he gave every appearance of being able to take this in his stride. “Danny,” he smiled, “just come along with me.”

Then he took my hand and began to lead me out of the canyon. Even before we'd reached the exit I could see the plain beyond it lay apparently deserted; we might have been the only two people just then in the whole of God's creation. Unremittingly jaunty he pulled me out into the open—virtually to that same spot where on the day before I'd first thrown up. No trace of any vomit. There were again blue skies and birdsong and somewhere a dog barked and I could also faintly hear the murmur of a breeze as it ruffled the grass which had now sprung up out of that cracked earth—with wildflowers dotted in it, and burgeoning trees, and a river running through—but essentially a vast enveloping hush seemed to have fallen all about us. And it was only sometime then that it occurred to me I hadn't in fact been noticing the noise of battle for … well I couldn't say for how long but at the very least not since Brad had first identified himself:
Can you hear me? Don't be scared
. I looked round astonished at the empty flowering landscape and as I did so we stopped and his arms again encircled my waist. “Are you still doubtful?” he asked.

“Yes! You haven't answered me! And even despite all of this … so long as I feel you're trying to fob me off—”

“You really think I'm trying to do that my love? I really don't
need
to fob you off—not any more. And never again. Truly.”

He paused.

“Oh by the way is it now all right to call you my love?” He gazed at me in mock consternation.

I said: “Oh by the way is it now all right to give you a belt across the kisser?”

“In that case,” he continued, amply reassured, “I can tell you I received a message for you. That message itself has disappeared by now but if you'll please stop looking quite so cynical you'll see the manner in which I came by it. A manner which ought to strike a chord in you,” he added drily. “I feel you were always the sort of fellow who looked for signs and seemed to think at one point that even a bit of skywriting would scarcely come amiss. Right?”

“You know damned well it is but—?”

I had already looked up into the sky. There was nothing.

But he pointed out the place where in fact it might have been—I
could
now see a hint of fading vapour trail.

“You're kidding me!” He mutely shook his head. “Then sweetheart … oh for Pete's sake … what did it say?”

“I feel you may have to cut down on your swearing a bit in the future. Maybe give it up completely?”

“Is that what it said?”

“No but it easily could have done.”

I remembered—and felt guilty. For a moment, quite intensely guilty.

“What
did
it say?”

“‘Welcome Danny. Well done!'”

“Christ!” I said.

“Er…?”

“No, sorry! I meant … well I suppose what I really meant was …”

“Yes
wow
absolutely,” agreed Brad. “Double and threefold wow. Wow unto infinity. Mind you is that the best that both of us can manage? Two educated blokes like us?”

Though we hardly felt in the least bit educated. We felt as if our real education and real opportunity for growth were only just beginning. Brad could scarcely answer a single question concerning what was going to lie ahead. “We'll be finding out together,” he said. “Which I for one don't have a quarrel with. Oh incidentally,” he added. “
A rather quaint prelude
, indeed,
even fairly cute in its own small way
! Listen to this you numbskull. Nobody—but nobody—could ever have taken your place. Not ever. Remember that.”

“Oh come on then. So easy to say. Yet where's the proof?”

But in default of being able to offer any—or anything at all, other than instinct, he said, certainty, a two-year fund of memories and an awareness of how we worked together, now compounded for all time by everything we'd just been through—in default of being able to offer me any proof he simply put his arms back round me. It wasn't only this huge sense of awe we were experiencing, there was sheer joy in it as well, confidence, hope, anticipation, a feeling of travelling along a road that could potentially lead us to endless perfection, endless bliss. “Thinks you're awful nice,” he added, after a long period of silence.

“Thank you. You too.”

“No I mean that was the next line of your song. Second time around. We don't ever want to leave things unfinished any more do we?”

“Brad will you butt out please. I would like to have at least a
little
privacy.”

“It's all right. You're safe. Can't do it any more.”

“Then all I can say is—thank God.”

“Yes,” he said. “Thank God. Let's go.”

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2015 by Stephen Benatar

Cover design by Kat JK Lee

ISBN: 978-1-5040-2137-1

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