Bones and Silence

'Surely any learning experience is worth it?' he said.

She pulled herself back to the vertical and his pulse returned to a mere fifty per cent above normal.

'Depends what you learn in the end,’ she said. 'It's a funny thing about plays, Pete. They're all about pain, did you know that? Even the comedies; especially the comedies. They end in union, tragedy in separation, because that's the only answer we've found. I know about separation. Mummy died when I was eighteen, Daddy when I was twenty-six. This surprises you, don't it, Pete? Big girl like me missing her mummy and daddy? But I was nothing and nowhere without them. And I never found anyone else, because I seemed to get too busy with other people finding me. The world's full of shit, Peter. Read the papers, watch the box, it's coming thick and fast from all sides and it's getting worse. You stick to Ellie, hon. Two people clinging together get to ward off some of the crap for a while at least. That's all that comedy is, a tragedy postponed!'

He could see her cracking up before him with pain and despair showing through. It was more than he could bear, yet within his own pain he felt an admixture of resentment. Chung shouldn't be like this, not Chung who had come among them like a goddess, asking nothing but worship for her healing touch.

He took another step and said urgently, 'Isn't it possible to make sense of it? Isn't that what all these plays and books and works of art are about?'

'You reckon?' she said. 'So what's to do when you realize that all that Shakespeare can offer us in the end is resignation? And all that the Mysteries can offer is . . . mystery.'

'Chung, for God's sake, I mean, for my sake, for our sakes. Whatever you feel, we love you, we need you.'

'Love,' she said. 'Need.' As if they were foreign words.

Far below, the noise of the crowd reached a climax as Dalziel arrived. Then suddenly Chung smiled and in an instant was herself again, beautiful, and strong.

'Jesus, Pete, you look terrible! Look, it's OK, baby. No need to come rushing over here to make a grab at me! You don't really think I'd let someone I like as much as you watch me jump, do you? Come on! God's passing by, the show's nearly over. Time to start planning the next one, huh? I'm really glad you're here, though. Would you mind leading the way down those nasty stairs? They really give me the creeps. You'll never believe this, but I'm terrified of falling!'

She moved away from the parapet, laughing joyously, and Pascoe, his limbs trembling with relief, laughed too as he turned towards the doorway.

But even as he laughed and turned and lost sight of her, he knew he was in error.

He spun round and his mind kept spinning as his eyes sought desperately for some sign, some trace.

But he had known before he turned that he was at last completely alone on the tower.

And now to the half admiring, half mocking cheers of the crowd as the God, Dalziel, passed in all his glory, was added a new wailing, shrieking noise, haled out of horror and dismay. It rose up the sides of the great cathedral, spiralling towards the sun like the thin piping of a bird, and was absorbed as though it had never been into the vast empty sky.

Raging, Pascoe looked upwards and cried, 'Damn you! Damn you! Damn you!'

And did not know if he was addressing Chung, or God, or Dalziel, or merely himself.