‘All Thursdays in memory of the arrest of the Hanged Redeemer (fifty-two days a year).
‘All Fridays in memory of the death of the Hanged Redeemer (another fifty-two days).
‘All Saturdays in honour of the Hanged Redeemer’s Virgin Mother (another fifty-two days).
‘All Sundays in honour of the resurrection (fifty-two more days).
‘And all Mondays to remember the departed souls (fifty-two days).’
In addition to banning marital intercourse on two hundred and sixty of the three hundred and sixty-five days of the year, Bosco went on to forbid physical contact of any kind for varying periods before and after half a dozen particularly sacred holydays.
It took Gil, no mean calculator, several minutes to work out that in the first year it would be possible for married couples to dench on only five days.
‘Do you think it’s too many?’ said a concerned Bosco. ‘By the third year all that will be behind us.’
‘More than enough,’ said Gil. ‘But where are our soldiers to come from?’
‘We have enough to wipe the world clean with a sponge as we are. You and I must be here to see the Redeemers wither away so that God can begin again with a creature more deserving of his gifts.’
The other question, the Cale question, had been dealt with by the invocation of a great secret prophecy concerning his return. The prophecy was now locked away in the vaults of the Holy City of Chartres having been given credence by a group of nuns he had talked to when they visited the Golan Heights. He had then mysteriously disappeared from amongst them although no one had actually seen him disappear. In this way the useful belief arose that he would return to fulfil his eschatological duties but only if the Redeemers faced great peril in their attempt to wipe evil man and his dreadful nature from the face of the earth.
‘What if they find out the truth?’
‘We don’t know the truth.’
‘He betrayed us, the ungrateful shit-bag.’
‘You keep talking about him as if he is a person. He is not. When he realizes and when others realize he’ll return, because if he is not part of the coming deluge there’s no point to him. At the right time a twitch on the thread will do it.’
Gil had wondered if Cale’s disappearance would damage the cause. What was the point of an absent saviour? God had revealed his hand when it was needed but then withdrawn it with a clear demand that the Redeemers themselves must act. Otherwise what was the point of them? However much destruction must be delivered to the world, including their own, God did not need them to achieve this. By sending Cale to intervene so miraculously he had made this obvious. By withdrawing Cale, God had shown them that he had not deserted the Redeemers and that if they followed his will by destroying all apostates and unbelievers he would not forget them when the time came to destroy themselves. Their annihilation would surely be a door to the next world. It was in mulling over his mistake that Gil, still a profound believer in the end of mankind, began to see that, whatever Bosco might think, Cale had now outlived his usefulness. A permanently absent Cale would do no harm at all. Quite the contrary. A live one, on the other hand, could and probably would become a serious threat. Something must be done.
To bring his great speech to a climax Bosco warned against a dangerous new kind of woman he knew was emerging, not the naughty beauties of the Materazzi with the stretched-forth necks and mincing walk and big hair that the Lord would smite with scabs at a point of his own choosing, nor the wantons of Spanish Leeds who made a tinkling with their feet because soon instead of a girdle about their womb there would be a rent. But there was a new threat from women who wanted to be the spiritual equals of men, to show off their strictness and persecute anyone insufficiently pious and even burn other women as a warning by showing that they too could be as generously harsh in the ways of orthodoxy and righteousness. The congregation nodded but did not understand that his wrath was aimed at his predecessor and his fear that there might be more like her. Perhaps many more. Perhaps they were everywhere. There were rumours out there, though, digging in like slugs for the winter, emerging in gossip and drunken talks among friends late in the night, but nothing at all like the truth that a woman, no better or worse than her male predecessors, had ruled the Redeemers for twenty years.
‘Consider the last four things as you go back to your diocese,’ finished Bosco. ‘And prepare for the extremity to come.’
After he had left the celebration that followed Bosco’s inaugural speech Gil went back to his enormous apartments, where his new secretary, Monsignor Chadwick, who had not been invited, was desperately hoping that Gil would be in the mood to let fall some news of who had been there and what had happened and how the new Holy Father was. There was only disappointment to be had.
‘Find me the Two Trevors,’ said an ill-tempered Gil. Hope on Chadwick’s face was replaced by instant dismay.
‘Ah,’ said Chadwick followed by a long pause. ‘Would you know by any chance where they might be at all?’
‘No,’ replied Gil. ‘Now get on with it.’ As Chadwick shut the door as mournfully as a door can be shut Gil knew perfectly well how very unreasonable he was being. The Two Trevors were not a pair it was at all easy, or even possible, to find no matter who you were.
‘More light?’ asked Cale.
‘I can see well enough,’ said the seamstress from the vegetable market. ‘The question is: what’m I lookin’ at?’
‘Old lady who spidered a fly,’ sang Vague Henri.
‘What’s he saying?’
‘He’s singing a song – he’s well off his track. Don’t worry about it. I want you to stitch his face. He won’t feel anything – or much anyway.’
‘You’re crazy. I just stitch clothes. You’re crazy. I don’t know anything about stuff like that.’
‘But I do. I’ve stitched people a hundred times.’
‘Then you do it. I’ll get into trouble.’
‘You won’t get into trouble. I’m a very important person.’
‘You don’t look like anyone important.’
‘How would you know? You just stitch clothes for a living.’
‘You want me to do somethin’ like this an’ you insult me? I’m goin’.’ She made for the door.
‘Fifty dollars!’ She stopped and looked at him. ‘He’s my friend. Help him.’
‘Let me see it – the money.’
Because of Kitty the Hare’s generosity, a wallet with three hundred dollars had been delivered the day after their meeting; he was able to count it out on the table there and then. The girl thought for a moment. ‘A hun’red dollars.’
‘He’s not that much of a friend.’
They settled on sixty-five.
As she went back to examining the mess of Vague Henri’s face he started singing about goats. ‘He won’t feel a thing while you work and I’ll take you through it. I know what needs to be done but it’ll take a fine touch if his face is to be saved. Think of it like you were sewing a collar to a jacket. Just make the neatest job you can.’ He remembered to flatter her. ‘Without you he’ll look like a horse’s arse. I saw how good you were. You have talent – anyone with brains can see that. Forget it’s someone’s face and think of him as a suit or something.’ Softened up by the compliments and understandably tempted by such a large amount of money she began looking at Vague Henri as a professional problem.