The Grail

David Carroll

The water was cold. It was lapping gently at his legs, well above the knees, and he put his palms upon the surface, trying to relax. It was not easy, and every time he tried to second guess a wave, it came too early or too late. They were only small, and by no means fast, but his inability to get into the rhythm of his environment, even after a few minutes, started to make him nervous, then agitated. He turned his eyes from the neat curve of the opposite edge, and studied the water, gliding his hand up a swell, then leaving it in the air too long, his palm falling like an admonishment.

It was like Chinese water torture, Graham thought, trying to be wry. Only there's more water.

Whatever was supposed to be happening, wasn't. He clenched his fists beside himself, and thought about the old man vomiting into the gutter instead. "Look," said Mike, "he's a soup kitchen."

When Mike laughed, everybody laughed.

There was more than vomiting though. It was like some bizarre alternating series, first the vomitus, then the piss, then those teeth, spat out at them, and then Jenn showed the others how to make him piss blood. When Jenn howled, everybody howled. Even the old man, who had only cried silent tears when they had kicked him, stripped him, beat the teeth out of him; even he had howled then.

Maybe the water is rising, to spite me, he thought, but he stubbornly refused to test this idea; kept his fists clenched and eyes back on the shore.

The man had twisted and turned at the end, finding his strength from somewhere, unable to escape them but whirling as if he could move too fast for them to touch him. The series had degenerated, before it could even be properly defined. When the howling stopped there was only blood, and that seemed to come from everywhere. When the man had stopped turning he was simply dead.

There had been a little more sport, a little more howling and dancing. But when Graham stopped, everybody stopped.

They had looked at him, as he had listened to the night. He bent and kissed the old man upon the forehead, blood on blood, and then he nodded, and they all walked away.

Graham looked around. "This isn't working," he said.

The woman on the bank smiled. "Maybe you should lie in it, like I said."

He shrugged, and after another minute, climbed back over the side and out, taking the towel she offered. The sun shone strongly upon his sallow flesh, but did not warm it. "More pills at three," the nurse said, looking at her watch. "Do you want to go back to your room?"

"No."

She smiled again, squeezing his arm warmly, and they walked back there together. By the time they arrived, he was thinking of the old man again.

* * *

"Graham Hart?" enquired the policeman in the doorway. For fleeting seconds, the name sounded familiar. So many names, so many dates of birth. I am your host for this evening.

"Oh yes, come in."

The policeman was nervous. Neither young nor old, as the normal reckoning went, his manner was of one who had not yet learned that all his fears of the world were real. At least he did not say something asinine, like 'Sorry, I did not recognise you'. Graham Hart had been in a lot of newspapers, but not this scarecrow face pulled tight and hairless by plague.

"There is news for me, yes?" said Graham, trying to read the policeman's name from his eyes. "News that you have been requested to bring, because nobody in the party room wanted to break it themselves. Better this way than from the papers, and better from a stranger than from someone who knew me in my prime. Is that what they said to you? Did they mention my prime, Constable? Because you can be sure they were thinking about it. Come, sit by me."

The policeman walked forward a few steps, then stopped, nervousness deepening.

"Don't be a stranger, Constable McConnell. Tell me the news."

"Jennifer Davison was found dead in her apartment a little after noon today. Initial indications are consistent with a heroin overdose. We think—" He checked himself. "It is believed that this was a deliberate undertaking to take her own life."

In this point in the spiel, Graham was expected to ask a question, but he didn't. It seemed he couldn't even be wry about this use of 'undertaking', either. After a pause, the news continued. "There was no note, that has been found, anyway. The supposition is based on the apparent size of the heroin intake, and from evidence in the apartment that suggests Ms Davison had been putting her affairs into order over the last few days."

Graham nodded slowly, and sunk back into his bed. Like the rest of the room, his bed was white.

"I told her," he said softly. "I told her not to do that."

When Jenn howls…

"I'm sorry," said the policeman.

"Anything else? Any leads on a supplier?"

"No, no. Not that I know of. No suggestion has been made that she was a regular user, of course, so the possibility remains that it was simple inexperience that led to a fatal mistake. But sometimes you don't know people as well as you think." Graham nodded. This combination of eagerness and faux wisdom, normally so useful to him, only wearied him as much as everything did now.

"What of the press?" he asked.

"No word out yet. But it'll be another sleeping pill overdose. I'm sure you know the… drill." The man faltered, as if even he sensed he'd entered dangerous territory.

Graham paused, gathering strength. "Sit," he commanded harshly.

He obeyed. The policeman's hat, up until now clasped respectfully in one hand, ended up on the side table. The hand ended up in Graham's, their fingers entwined.

Graham leant forward and kissed the policeman on the lips. A firm kiss, lasting perhaps ten seconds, and then he pulled playfully at the man's lower lip with his teeth. Though the man did not pull away, his fingers clenched, hard as they were able.

"No, Julian McConnell," said Graham, as the two parted. "I'm not sure I do know the drill. Maybe you could show me, one day."

The reply was a mute nod.

"You can go now."

The man nodded again, glanced quickly at the open door (the corridor empty beyond it), gathered up his hat, and fled.

"I told her," Graham whispered. And then he shouted. "Didn't I tell that cunt?" If anyone heard him, it seemed they did not dare to answer.

* * *

There were better times to remember. Of course, just about any time he could summon to mind was better than this, but there were better times than the old man, and that was where his reveries always led. The old man's blood.

It had got most of them, it seemed, that tainted ichor; though for the others the period in which the virus reached detectable levels had only recently elapsed. Within Graham, he felt the contagion blossoming within him the very next day. He, who had survived poxes great and small without so much as a sneeze, and who mingled with the addicted, the desperate and the incautious as much as the wealthy and the bored. Twenty long centuries of physical health, and now a disease had taken hold, progressing into the initial illusory stages, through symptomatic HIV infection and now full-blown AIDS in a matter of two short months.

Unprecedented, said the first doctors he saw (for who else, really, was there to turn to?) He moved on from those proclaimers of lazy diagnosis. More cautious — and more motivated — practitioners did discover precedent, though such knowledge led to no mystic revelation, no medical clues, no feeling of companionship with the discarded husks of an unfortunate few.

Many in the 'AIDS community' spoke of hope, these days. The new generation of combination therapy could push the virus below detectable levels. It became a matter of defending against opportunistic infection, and searching for that ever-elusive cure. For most of the filthy rich patients of this clinic, continuity of health was such that throughout the rigours of on-going treatment, any words of hope were banished as unnecessary.

For Graham, the vast and unpleasant array of pills, not to mention all their diets and injections and strained interviews, seemed only a wall of wishes against the wind. Worse; no side effect, no infection, no instance of pneumonia or tuberculosis could make a threat comparable with the seemingly unstoppable daily attrition of his white cell count. One physician had told him that at the current rate of depletion he would simply reach a point where the very air he breathed would be a poison to him, and then he would die.

Leeches, they used to call members of that profession. Graham approved of the sentiment, even as he had finally given his body to a clinic where those that would cure him were only planning his autopsy. But through the sleepless nights, the doctor's words lingered longer than the doctor herself had.

"It's not fair," Graham whispered into the dark.

* * *

He was back in the small lake again, standing helpless against the lapping of the waves. There must be a filtration system creating the ripples, he thought, distractedly.

"Come on," said the nurse softly, from right behind him. "I'll hold you up."

Slowly he lowered himself, let his feet slide beneath him, felt arms at his back. The water was still cold, but the woman's grip was firm and warm.

Some minutes went by.

He felt the arms move to release him, and he tensed. Waves lapped at him, but it was not like torture at all, and he relaxed again. It seemed he could float, looking up into a cloud-scudded sky.

"Nobody else comes into the lake," he murmured.

"No," said his nurse, who still stood beside him.

"I like that."

He looked at her, dressed in a muted red one-piece suit, hair still neat. He wished she was still holding him, but there was no urgency in him.

"What is your name again? I have forgotten it."

"Gayle," she said.

"Grail? It is a pretty name." He paused. He was going to tell her that when he first saw her, he had wanted her. Wanted her prostrate before him, to beg of him, to take him inside her and share his fluids and want him even after he was dead and she was dying. He was going to tell her not to worry, because now she was safe.

"You must understand," he said instead, "that there is no miracle, even from the first. The wine was poured into the cup, and the next day blood, already dirty with sand, ran into it as well. That is all."

"But the blood was rich," she said quietly.

"Rich as all the world, but gone too soon. They say that Christ will come again, as a thief in the night. Trust me that He has done so already, and only taken the righteous, along with the silverware. All that is left is you and I." He smiled, looking past her, into the sky.

* * *

"Wake up, you old bugger."

Graham blinked into the glare. "I thought you were dead."

"God almighty! That was Jenn, went out on a high, remember? Or do you think I'm one of your mewling playthings come back to haunt you? Ghost of Christmas Past, that sort of thing. At least Jenn had the chains, if you knew where to look."

He was having trouble keeping up with this. He was on intravenous now, and the puncture wound felt like it was growing. He was sure it was now half as wide as his forearm was long, and would swallow the whole arm by nightfall. Meanwhile, his stomach and indeed the whole digestive tract seemed external to him, which was disconcerting but overall an improvement on the alternative. Most other aches were washed out by the insistent pain of his right knee and the lightness in his head. Nonetheless, he focussed.

"Rey, I'm flattered by your attention, of course. What's been happening on the party room floor?"

"Well, it's obviously a bit slow, but things are ticking over. Best news is that Little Miss Senator has done something very bad, and very provable. Mikey's making introductions this afternoon."

"Heh. Who said politics doesn't require any preparation? And what of the Lustration?"

"Still strong. Numbers are down a little, but the faith is there, the power is still there."

Graham snorted.

"Listen, there are so many things you have not taught me. So many texts I have not be able to find. Now is the time. You have tasted of my firstborn, and have held my seed of the springtime equinox. You know of my devotion."

Graham snorted again. "I know of your tractability and submissiveness, pup, little more. But come, kiss me and tell me you are worthy." He held up his hand, and though the skin was unbroken, blood welled out between the knuckles.

Rey shook his head. He spent some moments gathering his thoughts, and spoke in contempt and disappointment. "It has come to this, has it? You used to be able to do anything, open any chamber of the soul, and now you are so bowed to this disease you cling to it as the only weapon remaining to you."

Graham sighed. "I have known you for a few years, Rey. You have always grasped for meanings, gathered clues to your world like a bird building a nest, weaving together the small and the sturdy and the bright. And here you sit within that nest, mouth open, waiting for food. Tell me, what have any of us, but the liqueur of our veins?" His voice was powerful now, and the pain in him forgotten. "You ask me for my power, and no doubt you have sought it more violently from others who seek the same, for I am aware the Lustration has not been going well. But it is I who am the vessel and the flesh of transformation, and that is not to be taken. Feed me lead, whelp, and I will shit gold into your palm. Feed me bile, and I will give you ambrosia. If so I desire."

Rey stood straight, bowed; murmured words of obeisance through stained lips. At a gesture, he bowed again and left.

Graham smiled. To the young and the stupid, he toasted silently, and with some affection. The pain was there again, but distant, still etching away at its new boundaries. He wondered if he could get out of bed.

* * *

The photos appeared in the Herald two days later. He looked dead. The administrator of the Clinic himself came to apologise before Graham had any idea the photos existed.

The administrator was very afraid, and his apologies quickly became repetitious, but Graham simply took the paper and started reading.

Graham Hart, a shadowy figure whose name has been linked to scandals in two successive Federal elections, was admitted to...

He skipped the diagnosis, and scanned lower. He suspected the words were only there to fill the page, to provide some thin excuse for those two photos, in which his skull seemed overripe to escape the flesh that had encased it for so long.

The only son of a steelworker and seamstress from Newcastle... Jesus, he hoped this had sounded better when he'd originally written it. Son of a smithy and a whore from the Eastern provinces, perhaps, come to Rome under Nero to discover that great game of politics, in which men hide from themselves.

Not that he had any influence on the madness of the Emperors. It would be centuries before he had any such capability.

...Hart attended universities in Canada and the United Kingdom before returning, apparently dedicating his life to—

He didn't continue, didn't see what motivations this journalist had ascribed to him.

He dedicated his life to... Graham said softly, leaving the sentence hanging, for someone to complete it.

The administrator blinked at him, his words tapering off.

"Continue," Graham told him, not knowing how much command there was left in his voice, but the man stood there for hours, those apologies becoming an increasingly incoherent litany of sordid and uninspired faults long past. The nurses who came on occasion slipped by him, did their job and slipped out again, trying not to touch, or even look at, either occupant of the room.

* * *

He walked out towards the centre of the perfectly round lake, not fast, but with confidence. The sun glinted on the water from almost directly overhead, somehow reminding him of a calm and golden sea where once he had fished.

The lake was not deep, and his nurse stood at the centre, water lapping beneath her bare breasts. He liked that, too.

It seemed she reminded him of somebody, seeing her like this, but sometimes faces slipped like the years, and perhaps it was just the pleasant buzz of the female form. When he reached her, he let himself slip, and floated in the water.

Some minutes passed.

"Do you still deny the miraculous?" the nurse asked softly.

"No, though there are but fragments remaining. Maybe the Christ will come after all."

"Now it is you who are deluding yourself. As you said, He has been and gone." Her voice was still friendly, and she was massaging his shoulders, running her fingernails in slow lines down his back.

"Yes, I did say that. So there are no Biblical plagues, no fire from the heavens. Just you and I." Her ministrations were more assertive now, catching at his skin, and his distant pain screamed to be heard. Nausea and faintness were closer, threatening the mood. He thought it was the sun. He glanced backwards, and it seemed the woman was dressed in red after all.

"You, I, and a lot of very rich people with problems to solve," she said.

"Always the—" he tried to finish, say something witty, but he found he had to conserve his strength instead. To his faltering eyes, the water around him was also red, beyond the limit of his sight. That had to be worth an observation. Something about the Sea, maybe. Except it reminded him more of a cauldron, from where he lay.

He looked up again, read the name in her eyes, finally understood.

…everybody howls.

"We shall create a shrine," Jenn said. "And they will bathe in it, and say that there is still some magic in the world."

"This is my body," he protested weakly, but it wasn't any more.

David Carroll has had a number of stories published, with recent examples appearing in Daikaiju, Southern Blood and Agog! He has also written lots of articles, reviews and interviews, many of which appear on his website at www.tabula-rasa.info He was a judge in this year's EyeScream short horror film festival.