first-born,’ their father used to say, and Jon had known almost before he could analyse what that knowledge meant how important it was that David should be the first, the sun, the star, and that he should never attempt to preempt David’s role.
As they grew up, it had become second nature to him to remain in the shadows, to withdraw into himself so that his twin could be first.
David … Stored away in his memory, Jon had a thousand, a million different images of him. David …
‘YOU SEEM … PREOCCUPIED. Is there something on your mind?’
David smiled warmly at his companion and teased him gently. ‘Once a Jesuit priest, always a Jesuit priest.’
The older man laughed. ‘I confess that there are times when the habit of encouraging another’s confession is too strong to resist, but purely for the most altruistic of reasons, I hasten to add.’
Looking away from him, David said passionately, ‘On a night like this, I can’t help wondering what it is about us human beings that compels us to behave so imperfectly when we have been given the gift of such a perfect universe, the potential to enhance our lives, to be the best we can be….’
‘It is a perfect evening,’ Father Ignatius agreed gravely as he sat down slowly next to David on the rocky outcrop of land from which it was possible not just to look up into the star-studded Jamaican sky above them but also out to sea. ‘But there have been other equally perfect evenings and they have not resulted in such a philosophical outburst.’
‘Philosophical.’ David shook his head. ‘No. To be philosophical is to be detached, to talk about the human condition in general terms, whereas I was thinking … wishing … regretting …’
He stopped whilst the priest looked at him and said knowledgeably, ‘You want to go home.’
‘Home!’ David gave a mirthless laugh. ‘This is my home and a far better one than I deserve.’
‘No, David,’ the priest corrected him gently. ‘This is where you live. Your home is where your heart is. Your home is in England … in Cheshire …’
‘… in Haslewich,’ David supplied wryly for him. ‘I dreamed about my father last night,’ he said to the priest abruptly. ‘I wonder what they have told him … about me … about my disappearance. I wonder if …’
‘From what you have told me of your family, your brother, your twin,’ the priest emphasised, ‘I doubt they will have told him anything that might hurt him. But if you really wish to know, then you should go back,’ he said gently.
‘Go back,’ David repeated brusquely. ‘No, I can’t do that.’
‘There is no such word as “can’t”,’ the priest replied sturdily.
‘I’m a thief, a criminal. I stole money,’ David reminded him sharply.
‘You sinned against one of God’s laws,’ the priest agreed. ‘But you have repented your sin, acknowledging it with humility and genuine contrition. In God’s eyes, you are making atonement.’
‘In God’s eyes, maybe,’ David agreed grimly. ‘But in the eyes of the law, I am still guilty.’
‘Which is more important to you, David?’ the priest questioned him softly. ‘The burden of guilt you carry for the debt you owe your family or that which you carry in the eyes of the law?’
‘My father might no longer be alive.’
‘You have other family,’ the priest pointed out. ‘A brother … a daughter … a son …’
‘They are better off without me,’ David told him curtly, turning his head away so that the priest couldn’t see his expression.
‘Maybe … maybe not.’
‘I can’t go back,’ David repeated, but the priest could hear the uncertainty and yearning in his voice.
Ever since he had read the report of David’s nephew, Max’s knife attack, in the island’s paper, he had been preparing himself for this moment. David had become as close to him as a son and the love he felt for him was that of a father, but he was not David’s father, and had he been he knew perfectly well that it was the duty of a loving father to set even his most beloved child free to live his own life.
Since David had been working here helping him in his self-appointed task of nursing the island’s terminally sick, those too poor … too shunned by society to merit any other kind of help, Father Ignatius had come to realise just how solitary and lonely his life had been.
He had found David lying drunk in one of Kingston’s stinking gutters and even now had no real idea just why he had stopped to help him, a man who had cursed him and who, when he was sober enough, had blamed him for not allowing him to die.
It had been months before David had finally brought himself to start talking to him about his life, his past, but once he had done so, the priest had not passed any judgement. Why should he? Judging others was not what he was here for. Helping them, healing them, loving them; those were his duties.
Originally, when he had entered the priesthood, he had been filled with such ideas, such visions, but then had come the faith-shaking discovery that the man he most admired, his inspiration and guiding light, had been guilty of one of the most unforgivable of sins. Father John had broken his vow of chastity and had not just had a secret relationship with a woman but had also given her his child. Torn between conflicting loyalties, tortured by what he should do, in the end the younger man had simply felt obliged to speak up.
The result of his action had been catastrophic. Father John had taken his own life and he, Francis O’Leary, known by the church as Father Ignatius, had been to blame. Totally and absolutely. Even the bishop had seemed to think so.
He had been sent away out of the area, hopefully to get a fresh start, but the news of his role in the tragedy had followed him and he had become untouchable, defiled, someone to be avoided, a priest whose faith not just in others but in himself had been destroyed. He had volunteered for missionary work and had been granted it.
‘Even if I wanted to go home, I couldn’t,’ David said, bringing the priest back to the present. ‘There’s no way I could raise the cost of the airfare.’
It was true they lived very simply and meagrely, growing as much of their own food as they could and relying on the generosity and gratitude of the patients and their families for the rest of it.
‘There are other means of travel,’ Father Ignatius pointed out and then added, ‘There’s a yacht in the harbour now waiting to be sailed back to Europe. The captain was in the Coconut Bar yesterday saying that he was looking for a crew willing to work their passage.’
‘A yacht bound for Europe? What’s her cargo? Drugs?’ David asked him drily.
‘No, but her owner is dying and he wants to go home.’ The two men exchanged looks.
‘AIDS?’ David asked him forthrightly.
‘I imagine so,’ the older man agreed.
A very large proportion of the priest’s patients were in the final stages of that ravaging disease, abandoned by their frightened families and friends. Working alongside him, David had learned to respect the disease and those who suffered from it. To respect it and not to fear it.
‘I can’t go … not now….’ David resisted, but there was no denying the longing in his voice.
‘Do you often dream of your brother?’ Father Ignatius asked him obliquely.
‘Not like I did last night,’ David admitted. ‘I dreamed about when we were children. It was so vivid. It was when we got our first bikes, but the odd thing was …’ He paused and frowned. ‘In my dream, though I could see myself riding my bike, my feelings were Jon’s.’
The