Dropping away.
He was padding down the corridor of the condo in California. He heard his father snore. Rest in peace, he murmured. I will always love you and you will always love me. Somewhere in eternity we are father and son running on that beach, and it doesn't matter what kind of love I feel for you.
And he moved past the little table with the telephone to turn left, leaving Philip behind him in their big Lancashire bed. He turned at the doorway, to see him asleep in their old flat. Well, what do you know, baby? We both finally grew up.
And he slipped downstairs towards the sitting room in the Camden flat and the expressionistic toilet. Who had left the lights on? He thumped down the steps and was only mildly surprised to see there was a party. It was all right, he realized. He had been having a New Year's party of his own.
'Hello, hello!' said James the Irish monk, merrily. He was wearing a lumberjack shirt now, instead of monk's robes, and a handsome moustached man in plus fours canoodled next to him. 'This is my George. I wanted you to meet him. He came to the monastery. He followed me all the way to California and I just went away with him to Big Sur. ' They both had grey hair.
Michael smiled, pleased for them.
'Ah!' A voice. 'Ah, my old friend!' And Michael was suddenly enveloped in Picasso's arms. 'Look, look at what you made possible for me!' Picasso threw an arm up towards the wall of beautiful paintings. 'Here, here, did you see this?' He pushed a leaflet at him, glossy and in four colours. It was for an exhibition. 'MODERNIZING ART' it said, and showed a computer screen full of glowing colours. It was Michael's own mirror face.
Al pressed against him, and stepped back and was enfolded in the generous arms of Mark. 'We've just realized we should have met because of you,' said Mark. 'You and I would have become lovers for a while and afterwards Al and I would get together.'
'And then we'd both be alive,' said Al.
'Can you be together now?'
'We always were. That was the potential,' said Al. He seized Michael's hand hard. 'And that's as real as if it had actually happened.'
Someone put on music. The old Oceanside record player sang out Cinderella.
Bottles came dancing towards Michael, and took him up mischievously in her arms. She held her nose up in the air, miming Broadway posh.
Billie Holiday leaned next to the record player. She was older now, in the 1950s, and she was wearing a blue satin dress.
'Man,' Billie said, chuckling to herself. 'How can anybody sing that stuff? It sticks in your throat.'
She tried anyway. Billie sang Julie Andrews as if it were true in her rough old voice.
It was a sweet song about falling in love. Billie gave it uncertainty. Billie turned it into a song about last chances.
The old music swelled, and the two voices blended, hopeful, exhausted and innocent, exalted. The sweet long ended.
'Happy New Year,' growled Billie and held up an unsteady toast for them all.
And there was Henry.
Henry was weeping with joy. 'It's all right Michael,' he said, shaking. 'It really is all right. Everything will be fine. Really.' Michael hugged him, to soothe him.
'I love you,' said Michael.
'I love you too,' said Henry.
Michael said, 'You know who's upstairs?'
Henry nodded yes and smiled.
'You planned this!' exclaimed Michael, realizing.
Henry closed his eyes once and opened them. 'I can see all the way to the end,' he said. His eyes were as steady as car headlights. 'I am,' he said, 'there.' And he pointed far away, beyond. Michael knew what he meant: Always.
'I gotta pee,' explained Michael.
Michael stumbled out of his sitting room into the dark landing with the floor that would ram slivers into his feet. Parched, headachy and hungover, he slumped down on his own cold-seated toilet, and held his head in his hands.
He could feel a movement in the structured fat of his brain, a kind of kink, as if it had shifted gears. Abruptly the music was turned off.
Suddenly it was dawn for real, grey and quiet.
Michael wiped himself and padded out into his neglected sitting room. It was empty and quiet and dark. God, it was drab. It was like a hangover after a party was over. Why was it so dull suddenly? It wasn't just that the lights were off.
Then he saw why.
The walls were blank. All the Picassos were gone. So was the desk that was the only thing Picasso had directly carried up the steps himself.
And suddenly, eyes wide with terror, Michael knew what that meant. It's over. My God, it's over. And then he remembered Stumpy. He had not got the Angel's home address. And he couldn't ask Henry; Henry would be gone. Would the real Stumpy have any trace of memory of meeting Michael? What if he couldn't find Stumpy again?
Michael ran up the stairs and darted round the lintel of the doorway into the bedroom. And he saw the bed was full. A pale, silver arm reached across the empty sheet for Michael. Everything else had gone, but the real Stumpy was still there. Then Michael knew what that meant, too.
