I didn’t realise I wasn’t alone until Stephomi spoke. ‘You’re late tonight, Gabriel. I’ve been here for hours.’
I spun round with a startled yell, making Stephomi jump himself. ‘How did you get in here?’ I asked hoarsely.
‘I hope you don’t mind. I just came to tell you, well, to warn you
… But I see you already know-’
‘Know what?’ I managed, willing my body to stop shaking. It was all the more disturbing because, even if something deep inside me remembered, I had no conscious recollection of what I was so scared of.
‘It’s begun,’ Stephomi said, with a nod towards the furthermost wall of the room. On it was hung a painting of Jesus, and I could see even from here that he was weeping. Tears of blood ran down the canvas, staining and marking the picture horribly. ‘Your neighbour will give birth this Sunday — six days from now. Every religious picture or statue in the city is weeping like that. Eerie, isn’t it?’ he said, with a glance of distaste at the carvings on my kitchen table, now floating in a pool of their own blood.
‘What is this?’ I asked, holding up my bloody hands.
Stephomi frowned at me. ‘I just told you. Every painting and-’
‘No, no, what is this? What is this?’ I asked again, gesturing with my hands. ‘Why do I remember this?’
‘What do you mean?’ Stephomi asked, looking puzzled. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Did I hurt someone?’ I asked, afraid of the answer. ‘I did something, didn’t I? I did something really, really awful to someone.’
Something was tugging at me. I needed to remember something that had only happened a few weeks ago. Something that had been wrong though I hadn’t realised it at the time… Something Stephomi had said to me that hadn’t been right… He had contradicted himself; he had lied to me… If I could just remember what it was, I could confront him with it and he could give me the logical explanation that I knew must exist. I glanced at the weeping statues and painting again, hating them. They were doing this to me! Along with those devils in my head. It wasn’t me, it was them!
‘Make them stop,’ I pleaded. ‘They hate me! They want me to be insane like them! Don’t you understand? They’re trying to destroy me! They want me to forget again!’
Calmly, Stephomi picked up a kitchen towel and handed it to me. ‘Clean that blood off your hands,’ he ordered.
I did as he said; glad to have someone telling me what to do. At the same time, Stephomi turned the painting of Jesus round to face the wall, then took the towel from me and dropped it over the bloody virgins on the table.
‘No more blood,’ he said. ‘All right? Do you feel better now?’
‘ The rest of your family were there…’ I said, remembering at last.
‘What?’
‘When I asked you if you came to Nicky and Luke’s funeral, you said yes.’
‘What of it?’
‘And then you said that the rest of my family went to support me.’
‘So?’
‘So I don’t have any other family. I said so in that letter I wrote my aunt before she died. There wasn’t anyone else apart from Nicky and Luke. You’re not still lying to me, are you, Stephomi?’ I was almost begging him.
I saw him hesitate and then I knew for sure, and it made me feel sick. With myself as much as with him… I was so tired of having to rely on other people to tell me who I was. How many times was I going to have to go through this miserable uncertainty? It was starting to make me feel like a shadow rather than a real person.
‘Why did you lie about the funeral?’ I demanded. ‘How much of what you told me about that day was true?’
Stephomi sighed. ‘None of it.’
‘ None of it?’
‘Gabriel, you have to understand; I lied only because I knew the truth would hurt you. You weren’t all that stable and I thought these stories might help you to become more grounded. Make you feel more normal.’
‘More normal?’ I almost whispered.
‘If I’d told you the truth, you might have done something stupid. You hated yourself for everything that’d happened.’
‘I killed them, didn’t I?’ I said, almost to myself, realising what Stephomi was going to say. ‘I killed my wife and son somehow. That car crash was my fault, wasn’t it?’
‘There never was any car crash,’ Stephomi said quietly.
I stared at him, felt my heart begin to lift. ‘You mean… Nicky and Luke… are alive?’
‘No. They, er… they never existed.’
Never existed…? After a moment I laughed, sure that he must be joking. But Stephomi didn’t laugh. For once, he wasn’t even smiling.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I said, staring at him. ‘I have the documents that prove they existed. I have their death certificates and our marriage certificate and-’
‘Forgeries,’ Stephomi said.
‘Rubbish! If they never existed then why do I miss them so much?’
‘Because you love the idea of them,’ Stephomi said, with a shrug.
I shook my head, torn between amusement and irritation, ‘All right, humour me. Where is my real family?’
‘You don’t have one,’ Stephomi said simply. ‘You’ve never had one.’
‘Oh, I see. You mean, I was miraculously conceived as well?’
‘You were orphaned.’
I gazed at Stephomi — for the first time realising what a pathetic person he was. How could I ever have relied on him the way that I had? Well, I had Casey now. I didn’t need him any more.
‘I don’t think we should continue to see each other,’ I said stiffly. ‘It’s quite clear to me that you have a compulsive lying disorder. It probably relates to some kind of repressed childhood trauma. I’ve read about these things, you know. It’s all psychological. I would advise you to seek help. All you’ve ever done is lie to me. Come to think of it, I haven’t heard about this so-called religious War or the Antichrist from anyone but you; I’m half inclined to believe that you were making it all up to impress me.’
‘That would be a very dangerous thing to do,’ Stephomi warned, quietly.
‘You’re jealous of her, aren’t you?’ I said, realisation dawning.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Stephomi asked, watching me with a strange look on his face.
‘You’re jealous of Casey.’
‘Why should I be jealous of her?’ he asked me patiently, like someone humouring a madman.
‘Because of me!’ I said gleefully. The thought gave me this happy, selfish little glow inside. ‘I really needed you before I met her, didn’t I? You just loved it, didn’t you? All that attention. I relied solely on you for companionship, advice, answers about my past
… And then I started spending more time with Casey and less with you, and you decided you’d come round here and tell me another story about my past to get me interested again. It’s not a dead family this time, it’s a lonely orphan. How stupid do you think I am? You need me far more than I need you now. I’m not interested in the past any more, Stephomi. I know that my family were real. I can feel it. I don’t need anyone to prove it to me. And there’s nothing you can say that’s going to make me doubt that.’
‘Have it your own way,’ Stephomi said, shrugging easily. ‘But don’t be too quick to dismiss me, my friend, for you might need me in what’s to come, and then you might regret what you’ve said.’
‘What’s to come!’ I repeated derisively. ‘Assuming that there is anything to come, I will just pray to God if I need help.’
‘ Prayer! ’ Stephomi practically spat the word. It was the first time this evening that I had seen him show annoyance. ‘Christ, Gabriel, how can you be so naive? When has prayer ever worked? Do you know what happens to people when they pray? They draw attention to their own sins and God punishes them. He sends plagues, He sends
