He breathed in and breathed out and said airily, ‘Oh, James. You do make a performance out of a drama. It’s just cottaging. Come down and bring me a change of clothes. I’ve been here all night. Hurry up please, they only gave me 20p.’
I can’t say why I did what I did next. Only perhaps that I was afraid, or felt that something was promised. I pulled Isabella’s card from my wallet. I turned it over. On the back, Father Hugh had written his private Oxford number. After a little consideration, I dialled.
‘Benet’s?’ said the voice on the other end.
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘I was hoping to speak to Father Hugh.’
The porter sighed and I heard the sound of papers turning.
‘He’s out,’ the porter said at last.
‘Can I leave a message?’
Another sigh.
‘Could you tell him that James rang? James Stieff? It’s about Mark. He’s at the police station because …’ I stopped. What was I going to say to this porter? I couldn’t tell him the whole business, ridiculous. ‘Actually,’ I said, ‘never mind. Don’t worry about it. I’ll speak to him another time. Sorry to trouble you.’
A final lingering sigh.
‘That’s it then?’ said the porter.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘thanks.’
It was by no means as bad as it could have been. By the time Jess, Emmanuella and I arrived at the police station most of the formalities had already been dealt with. Mark had been questioned but not charged. Police bail was to be arranged.
We met him in a waiting room. He looked dishevelled and exhausted. I handed him the carrier bag of clothes I’d taken from his bedroom. He nodded and attempted a half-smile. This was not the bravado I’d heard in his voice when he called. This Mark, saddened if not chastened, was surprising to me.
I was even more startled when Emmanuella asked, in a cool voice, ‘Did you use condoms?’
Mark nodded. Jess and I exchanged a quick look. We had expected more naivety from her, and more judgement.
Emmanuella looked at him, then pulled out a cigarette and offered him one too. ‘Still,’ she said, ‘you must be tested for … SIDA — how do you say that?’
‘AIDS,’ said Mark. ‘And I don’t have it. I was tested a couple of months ago.’
I stared at the floor. It seemed impossible, but there was graffiti there — someone had drawn a penis pointing towards the table in indelible black marker. I found that I profoundly did not want to be contemplating Mark’s sex life. It wasn’t that I was disgusted by it, although I had never found the idea in any way alluring, but I found this image sordid. Anonymous encounters and prison cells and AIDS tests. I thought of the comfort and companionship of my life with Jess, of our cosy bed with its clean white sheets and patchwork counterpane. I felt a shred of sympathy for Father Hugh’s opinion. Where were all Mark’s lovers now?
He seemed to think something along the same lines, for he took up Jess’s hand suddenly and rested his cheek on it.
‘Thank you for coming for me,’ he said. ‘I knew you would. You always would, wouldn’t you?’
Jess put her arm around his shoulders.
He looked up at us from his seat. ‘Let’s go home.’
Later that evening the rest of us had a conversation — the kind of conversation we seemed to have a great deal in our final eighteen months at Oxford and subsequently — around the question of what could be done about Mark.
Simon, his legs up on the elephant-foot stool, was unconcerned.
‘It’s just normal, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘That’s just the way Mark is, and it’s not as if he’s done anything dangerous, is it?’
I had not mentioned his driving to any of them but Jess.
‘If you ask me,’ said Franny, ‘it’s the normal response of any bloke who went to a public school. They all come out mad. Either totally repressed or totally unable to control themselves.’
‘Hmmm,’ said Jess, ‘but he wasn’t at public school for long, was he? It’s more down to his mother, I think. Hyper-critical, hyper-indulgent. No wonder he’s confused.’
I wondered about all of this. There seemed to be more to Mark’s personality to me than could be easily explained away by reference to his upbringing. Some urge towards self-destruction that was more primal than that. I thought of the figure on the crucifix, and of the ease of Mark’s circumstances, and of a phrase I had seen written in one of Mark’s essays: ‘A pain-free life is unbearable.’
I wanted to explain this but all I could come up with was, ‘I don’t think he can change. Not by himself.’
The group nodded and became quiet.
‘Do you not think,’ said Emmanuella after a while, ‘that we must save him? For his own good, rescue him?’
‘That’d be fine,’ said Simon amicably, ‘if it were, you know, not completely impossible.’
Emmanuella was silent.
‘I don’t know, Manny,’ said Franny, popping a grape into her mouth from the fruit bowl on the table, ‘isn’t salvation something only your God can offer?’
I had come to know Father Hugh’s notes by their envelopes, by the curlicued hand and the slight cigar whiff of them. And the next morning, when one arrived at Annulet House, I knew that something had gone wrong with my calculations.
James,
Written in haste. I received a garbled message yesterday afternoon from you regarding our young friend. Called at the house this evening, no answer. I am concerned, as I am sure you can imagine. Please call me at once; I am in contact with Rome.
Yours sincerely,
Fr Hugh
This note threw me into a panic. It was 9 a.m. and Mark might be awake or asleep, there was no way of knowing. The reference to Rome was ominous. Had Father Hugh consulted with Isabella or with the Vatican? Was Mark’s mother on her way here at this very moment? I telephoned at once.
‘James.’ Father Hugh’s voice was calm and even. ‘I’m so glad you’ve called. Tell me precisely what’s happened, please.’
‘Um,’ I said, ‘it was nothing, Father Hugh, nothing really. It’s been sorted out now. I didn’t mean to leave you a message. I thought I’d told the porter not to.’
‘I’m glad to hear it’s been sorted out, James, but what actually happened?’
‘Oh, it was nothing, not really.’
‘George mentioned a police station, James.’
I wondered suddenly what Father Hugh could do if he suspected I was lying to him. Could he call my college? Report me to the university?
‘I … made a mistake.’
‘A mistake?’
‘Yes, I, it was just a joke, just one of Mark’s jokes.’
Father Hugh was silent for a moment.
‘George said you sounded quite alarmed,’ he said.
‘Oh, I … Well, yes, I was taken in by it myself.’
‘What sort of a joke,’ said Father Hugh, ‘was he making?’
‘Umm …’ I said, ‘nothing. He didn’t say anything. I made a mistake.’
‘James,’ said Father Hugh, ‘I think I understand. You should come and see me in my office, where we can talk privately. Without any chance of being overheard. Come this afternoon, James.’
And I thought again of my college and of Father Hugh’s influential friends and of the fact that Mark might come down at any moment.
‘Yes, Father Hugh,’ I said.
Mark was up early that morning. He was subdued and restive, moving from room to room, making himself cups of coffee and leaving them to get cold. I told him, in as few words as possible, about my blunder with Father Hugh. When I’d finished he took a deep breath in and let it out slowly.