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He was there again, half-sat against the fender of that unmistakable Human vehicle -- arms crossed, faintly scowling, the blank gaze of the dark spectacles fixed on the shop door. Soho flowed by him like a river around a rock (Muriel had taken to watching nature videos on the shop’s clever computer, wanting to learn more than an afternoon’s stroll would show them about this world where they now possessed a sort of work visa). Sometimes he stood like that for hours, some demonic glamour (they imagined) making him unremarkable to Human eyes. Sometimes he was there every second or third day, sometimes several days in a row, sometimes gone for twice that long.
Once in a while, he walked into the coffee bar and came out with one of those pasteboard cups. Muriel had tried the drinks there, but found they preferred the tea that they had learned to brew in the delicate painted china with its gilded accents. The colour was limpid and golden, the scent all but ethereal, and once past the unfamiliarity of consuming gross matter, the effect was bracing and soothing at once. They did still simply sit and gaze at it sometimes.
They wondered whether they ought to speak to him. He’d coaxed them into taking an awful chance once before, after all, and there was no knowing what would happen if they spoke again. Heaven didn’t tell them much, and they didn’t want to ask anyone up there, least of all the Principality – well, Supreme Archangel – himself. Minding the shop was their remit, and collecting the rents. They were rapidly becoming good at sums. There were books about it.
There were books about everything.
As they watched, debating, he poured out the dregs of a tall drink on the pavement, tossed the cup aside and slid into his car. This, they had learned, was littering and it was considered rude. Then again, he was a demon.
They waited until he’d sped off through an impossibly tight gap in the traffic and snapped their fingers. The pavement was clear.
Of course it was the corner office – well, Heaven didn’t have corners, there was simply a haze of white light that opened into space after space as you passed through it, but where he found himself, he had a view of that panorama of Earth’s cities that only Archangels enjoyed entire; when he looked up, there was the great sparkling globe of the turning world on the mezzanine, dark and light as it revolved.
He’d been given a desk (“you had desks in the bookshop,” said the Metatron, “I thought it might help you settle in”), though it was a broad plane of pristine glass that repelled the slightest thumbprint. There were no drawers, no cubbies, no place to stash away precious things according to your own eccentric filing system; whatever he wanted would appear on it at a thought. He hated it, but when they asked if it suited him, he smiled and lied oh yes, lovely. It made a space between him and them at least, a place he could sit while they stood, a barrier that suggested permission to approach.
They would approach, at any and all times – deferentially, formally, but proprietarily; he’d been conscripted to fill a role, and while he hoped that meant he could bend the course of Heaven toward the greatest good, he felt owned more than heeded. One day after the third Dominion appeared with a matter too urgent to wait, he said “I hope it’s not too much trouble, but I shan’t be available for the next hour. There has been a great deal to look after, and I need to meditate upon the will of the Most High.”
“I will inform the others, Pr – Supreme Archangel.”
They forgot sometimes.
He closed his eyes. He hadn’t the slightest interest at the moment in the will of the Most High. There was only one being that appeared in the dark behind his eyelids, only one voice he heard. The pressure of that last desperate, grappling embrace – the last and also the first – the bruising memory of those thin, clever lips against his own.
I love you had risen to his own lips. He hadn’t said it. He’d never been good at saying what had to be said. Words were the edifice of his life, but with Crowley, they failed him.
If he could only speak now.
It calmed him, oddly, to imagine what he should have said. In St. James’ Park, at the Ritz, in those fool’s-paradise months when it seemed they’d have forever to find their way to each other, shy of a misstep, afraid to presume.
The next day he made the same request, and the next, so far as one could mark the passage of time here. He could allow himself an hour out of the formless Celestial day to think of Crowley, couldn’t he? Crowley, for whom he’d made this choice, Crowley who’d surely come to see it was for the best? What was one more white lie (what in Heaven wasn’t white?) after all the ones he’d told?
He murmured them to himself as he sat with eyes closed (his thousand eyes turned inward) , all the unsaid things.
The seasons changed. When the first sharp wind of autumn greeted Muriel as they stepped out on the pavement after hanging up the Closed sign, the sensation was so novel that they merely stood there, taking it in. One Human and then a second – the first bundled in a puffy coat, the second wearing a jumper under a red anorak – blundered into them as they experienced the wonderful, shivery feeling that the air had penetrated their ivory jacket, the legs of their trousers, to twine them in a chilly, shocking embrace. They were dimly aware that their corporation wished to be warm – there was no need ever to think of temperature in Heaven, where everything was unfailingly Just Right – but aware also that there was something wondrous and blessed about the wishing. They let it bloom through them until they found themselves moving again without thinking, the body seeking what it needed without asking permission.
Out of the corner of their eye they glimpsed him again -- immobile on the Whickber Street cobbles, propped against his Human vehicle, the wind lifting his very red hair. They had learned to pick out that head of hair even when the street was crowded; come, even, to look for it. It had been a few weeks, and they’d begun to wonder if he would return.
He looked thinner. He had not changed his garments for heavier ones as the Humans had, and held his arms crossed tightly against himself. They lifted a hand in the shy sketch of a wave; there was the slightest movement of his head, but it could have been mere chance.
They felt in their pockets. They had learned by watching the customers at the coffee shop how to exchange money for material objects, and now made sure always to carry some. Perhaps they would buy an anorak.
They wondered if they should get him one.
It gave him comfort to imagine writing letters.
My dearest Crowley,
I am certain that I am creating a force for good here. Heaven lost its way, I cannot say when; perhaps it was God’s will that we learn to recognize goodness by its fruits, through trial and error, rather than to dictate what it must be, and I have my part to play in seeding that change.
But oh, I miss you cruelly. You asked the questions that made me see through different eyes, imagine different choices. If only I had you at my side. I cannot lose hope that you will join me. I have made it clear that if at any time you should wish to Rise, you are to be admitted. I’ll wait.
I pray that you are well.
He would fold the words into his heart before returning to his tasks, to take their place with all his memories.
The coffee Human jingled into the shop on an afternoon of small, cold rain.
“Hello, hello,” said Muriel, looking up from their reading. “The rent is paid for this month. Do you wish to purchase a book? This is Three Hundred And Sixty-six Vegetarian Menus, Each Consisting of a Soup, a Savoury Course, a Sweet Course, a Cheese Course, and a Beverage, (With All Their Suitable Accompaniments) For Every Day in the Year, No Dish or Beverage Being Once Repeated, all Arranged According to the Season, and Without the Introduction of Fish, Fowl, or Intoxicants. It is very entertaining.”
“I – um. No, it’s about the lights. We were thinking of doing something a little different this year, lot’ve us want a change, and as the. Well. Landlord? Uh –”
“I am Mister Fell’s designated representative and eager to serve.”
“In case we need to get permits. For the Christmas lights. The season’s just around the corner.”
“Oh yes. The Festival of the Nativity, at which it is customary for Humans to create illuminated displays and exchange gifts. One must get a permit?”
“Well, if things extend into the right-of-way. Or go above a certain height.” Nina extended a folder with a sketch of the street from overhead, measurements, annotations. “Maggie had this idea for a tree.”
Muriel had seen how Humans paired off when they walked in the park, or through the streets. Certain companions would radiate a common energy – sometimes dissonant but still entwined, sometimes harmonious – taking hands unthinkingly, moving as one, familiarly. Over the weeks and months, they’d seen the two women together more often, and three days ago, the two had come down together early one morning from the flat above the coffee shop, parting with a quick kiss.
“Have you and Maggie become an item? I am learning colloquialisms. That is a term for a special bond between Humans.”
“I – er, not sure.”
“I beg your pardon, have I been rude? I do not fully understand Personal Questions.”
“Oh – no. No, it’s all right. It’s just – sometimes a piece of good luck comes along before you’re ready? So you pull back, but – sometimes your luck waits for you. Taking it day by day, not really partners yet, just – opening the door, no expectations. There’s a lot of baggage.”
“You have an excess of material objects?”
“No, I mean, both have a lot to work out. Old habits and bad ways of coping.” Nina smiled a rare smile. “It’s a colloquialism.”
“Oh! Thank you. I will remember it.” Muriel extended her hand. “I will look at the drawing and contact the Council. I am sure there will be no problem.”
Their eyes followed the Human out of the shop. The day was dark and the streetlamps were already blinking fitfully on and then off again, the rain blowing in a cutting breeze that slipped in the door as the woman left; but there he was, the vivid hair dulled by dampness, a long lock plastered to his forehead.
They crossed Whickber Street in three strides, carrying the tartan umbrella that had leant against the hat-stand for months.
“I saw you standing here. It is raining and very cold. I wish you to know that you are always welcome in the shop whether or not Mr. Fell is present. May I offer you a cup of tea?”
He looked past them toward the shopfront. “No,” he said.
“Then please, take this umbrella – you are becoming very wet –”
“Sod off,” he said, finally turning towards them, and it was as if all the hate in the universe had found a home in him. Angels aren’t meant to fear, but they felt a cold that wasn’t the weather.
They jumped back at the slam of the car’s door, just in time to be out of its path as it sped away.
My Beloved Crowley,
I can say that, in this letter that will never be set down in writing, much less read. My companion, my conscience, the other half without which I shall never be truly whole.
The Metatron said you would always go your own way, and I know I cannot constrain you. You would not be my Crowley if I could. Yet even less would I be your angel if I ceased to care for the world. I must do what I can. Still, your absence is a wound that is always fresh.
Do you remember when I was certain I would Fall? That I would be cut off from the light of Heaven? There is no refuge here from the relentless light, so different from the glory of your stars when they first burned against the darkness. Sometimes I feel Heaven has forgotten that both are needed. And sometimes I would gladly Fall, if I fell into your arms.
Sometimes…
“Supreme Archangel?”
Aziraphale opened his eyes. Michael.
“My apologies for interrupting your meditation. The Council of Archangels is about to convene.” Her gaze was assessing, unsmiling.
“Ah – yes. Of course. I’ll join you in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”
He smiled as she did not, as he had been remembering how to do since returning to Heaven – the smile that left his heart untouched, that he’d learned to wear like armour.
She waited silently, regarding him as if she could see into his head. There were no walls in Heaven, only spaces.
Sometimes I want so badly to come home to you.
Muriel looked up at the sound of the chime.
“Uhm. Ahem.”
There appeared to be a large potted plant standing in the entry – taller than a Human, with dark, shiny leaves spreading from thick stalks.
“I’m sorry I was an arse. Can I come in?”
Today was bright and crisp outside, the sun slanting down from the central oculus, picking out the dancing motes of centuries-old dust. The street sounds filtered in briefly before the door fell shut.
“Oh – um – yes, of course –”
“Put this down somewhere? Peace offering.” The familiar dark glasses appeared to one side of the greenery.
“Where – ah – wherever you think it best. I am not expert in the care of plants.”
“Right here, then.” He set it where it would catch the light from the Greek Street side, just inside the window. “Water her twice a week, don’t stand for any bloody spots. She knows better. Remind her I’m not far away. She’ll listen, I’ve trained her.”
“Water. Remind. Righty-ho. That signifies assent.”
“I’ll – stop in every so often to make sure she behaves.” He turned to go.
“Would you –”
“Yes?”
“Would you like that cup of tea now? I mean – I am currently not performing important duties.”
He nodded after a beat of hesitation.
“If it’s still on offer. Sure.”
“Didn’t really have much of a chance to get to know you. Seem like a good egg, really. Just – allus been kind’ve allergic to angels.”
“But you associated with Mr. Fell.”
“That was different.” He sat awkwardly on the battered Chesterfield, limbs pulled in as if afraid he might touch something.
“Were – are you and Mr. Fell an item?” At his blank stare, they clarified: “Partners.”
He looked down into the Limoges cup. “Thought so. Guess I was wrong.”
“Do you both have a lot to work out?”
“Hah. Don’t reckon it’ll ever happen now.”
“Oh, you must not say that. I am only a thirty-seventh degree scrivener. Who would ever have thought I would be placed in charge of a shop filled with material objects? Every day I discover something new. Do you know the desk has many clever little places to hide things? There are many fascinating Human artifacts. Here, in this small drawer, these are writing instruments. As a scrivener I find them professionally interesting.”
“Wait – right, I got him that one. Self-filling fountain pen. First one on the market. Good at thinkin’ up things, Humans.”
“And here is one made from the feather of a bird of the air. I remember when those were made. I was tasked with recording the names of the anseriformes.”
“Couldn’t tell you all their names. Just don’t give ’em bread.”
“And here is a quill that has not yet been crafted – it is in perfect condition –”
“ Is that – let me see –”
He turned the inky flight feather over gingerly in his palm. “Didn’t know he kept this.”
“You have seen this before?”
“It’s mine.”
He was biting his underlip, and there was a faint sheen on his cheeks. They had seen this once or twice in Humans; it signaled distress. “I am sorry,” they said. “Have I done something wrong?”
For several long moments he didn’t answer, though he was clearly drawing breath as one needed to do to speak on this plane – unsteadily, in choppy little hisses. His shoulders were shaking. Perhaps he was cold.
“No,” he said finally, rising to drop the feather into their hand. He was at the door before he spoke again, and they scarcely knew his voice.
“See you round. Thanks for the tea.”
My own Crowley,
I found myself thinking of Job today. Do you remember how She asked him where he was, when all the stars sang together and the angels shouted for joy? And I wanted to ask Her, where was She when you built that nebula? Did She fail to see what I saw?
Because – I know it is blasphemy, and though I do not commit it to paper, I think it here in Heaven, where one imagines the slightest thought of heresy would cry out – your joy at that moment was the purest I have ever seen. Your goodness was complete.
Perhaps, after all, She agrees with me. You know the door remains open.
I miss you.
He began to show up – perhaps not regularly, but often enough that they began to look forward to his footfall after the sound of the chimes.
“Allus filed invoices on that spindle. Used to let ’em pile up till he couldn’t fit any more on.”
“Ah. I will do the same, then.”
Or:
“Gramophone worked fine ‘cos he expected it to. Can’t remember Heaven ever slaggin’ him off about it, you could enjoy a bit’ve music if you wanted.”
Or:
“Used to keep the cocoa in the left-hand cupboard. You use the mugs. Human drink, you’d like it.”
One day they said: “You are so familiar with this shop. If you wish to use the flat upstairs, I will not consider it an imposition. I am sure Mr. Fell would not mind.”
“Uh – got myself a bedsit, akshly. Well, it’s really the use’ve Maggie’s bedsit. Over the record shop. Said she – well, I was having a kip in the Bentley and she knocked on the window. Said Mr. Fell forgave me so much rent, and I’m over at Nina’s most all the time now, I’d like to pay it forward. Told me not to pay anything till I could.”
“Ah. So they are unpacking their baggage.” They gave him an innocently curious look. “Do you have baggage?”
“Hah.” He still sat awkwardly on the Chesterfield, hands knit between his knees, and looked down at them now. “Guess you could say that. Hell let me have my flat back, you know? And – couldn’t be there. Too many memories. Stuff I couldn’t chuck out, couldn’t live with. That Thermos. Souvenir from a church, take too long to explain. Night he spent there, before – anyway. Got digs on my own account now, way they do it. So. Thinkin’ of finding a situation. Garden shop or summat.”
“Are you moving on?”
“Am I wot?”
“It is a thing the Humans say when they have concluded an association. It indicates withdrawing one’s emotional energy from the past connection. It is considered healthy.”
He was silent so long they were afraid they had done something wrong again.
“Dunno if I ever can,” he said finally. “Probably should.”
“Oh, hello, hello, hello. A. Z. Fell’s Booksellers. Though we would prefer it if you were to merely come in and look at them. –– Oh, the Council. –Yes, we are eager to construct the seasonal displays. It is uplifting for Humans to practice festive observances. –Please allow me a moment to procure a writing instrument and blank paper. I am the locum and there are many places of storage. –Here we are, under the –” they stopped short.
“Yes. Excuse me. I found something I did not expect. It temporarily startled me. Please repeat the information.”
“For me?”
“It is customary for Humans to exchange gifts at this time of year. As I am now stationed here, I thought it appropriate.”
“Got nothing for you.”
“It is also customary to say that does not matter. Please, accept it.”
“Hey. Red. Just my colour. I mean, black’s my colour, but y’know, miss the old outfit sometimes.”
“It is called an anorak. For rainy days. I bought it, with Human money. Does it fit?”
“M-hm – inside pocket, waterproof, nice rain hood, double-ended zip –” He turned this way and that, trying to see his reflection in the dark windows of late December. “Why’d’ye do this for me?”
“Because you are a friend. This is a term for a human connection that is not an item. It is important to have friendships as well. I have been reading books on the technique of being Human, since I do not know how long this post will continue.”
“Never really been good at that. The friends thing. They’re gone so fast. He used to say –” He stopped short. “Ah, you don’t wanna hear me bang on about him. Just – thanks for the present.”
“So you have not moved on.”
He kept his back carefully turned to her, his fists balled in the pockets of the anorak. “How the fuck could I ever?” he grated. “Maybe he can. He fucking forgave me, the bastard. Guess I should know when I’ve been dumped, slow learner, me.”
“There is something that I should show you,” they said.
“They were not here the first time I looked in that drawer. I did not read them, past the salutation. It would have been like listening when you had your private talk.”
The stack lay on the centre of the blotter, page upon page covered with sepia ink in Aziraphale’s unmistakable hand – so disciplined and graceful, unlike Crowley’s own jagged scrawl.
His hand shook a little as he lifted the first sheet. “12 December, 2023.”
“Is there a variation in calendars? I remember something from several centuries back.”
“Nah. All in for Papal reform, Az.”
The paper was watermarked foolscap, the lines perfectly straight as only Aziraphale could seem to do, as if they’d been traced over an exercise book.
My precious Crowley…
“How many of these were in there? How many?”
“That is all of them. I shall retire if you wish to read them in private.”
“No – no, just – he keeps the whisky in that cupboard. No, the one over there, behind the gramophone.”
“Ah. An intoxicating beverage. These are used by Humans in moments of stress. I shall find a drinking vessel –”
“Just give’t here.”
The only sound in the shop was the faint rustle of the pages as he set them aside one by one, reading from the bottom of the stack until he reached the last.
My precious Crowley,
They’ll be putting up the lights in Soho, I expect. Do you remember how you used to scoff when I put the star on the tree, and make the eggnog, and give you a gift? And after everything you said about Human festivals and stealing from the pagans and how conspicuous consumption was one of your best, you would always have something for me? Just saw it, happened to think I’d like it, not a Christmas gift really.
They don’t observe Christmas in Heaven, Crowley. I miss it terribly. I miss sitting in the backroom with the carolers pestering at the door. I miss emptying the glasses with you. I miss the things we laughed about and the way you taunted me and the way your eyes looked in the firelight. You’d say it wasn’t even his proper birthday, and I'd say that wasn't the point, it was about there being an island of warmth in the dark. And then at the end of the evening, after all that derision, you'd turn on the doorstep before you left and say Merry Christmas.
And I would long to say stay, stay, be my warmth in the darkness. Stay the night with me, beneath these lights, like your stars.
We’ve both been fools, dancing around one another, never talking properly about how we felt. The habit of six thousand years. I should, I should have spoken, instead of waiting for you to go first, waiting until it was too late.
Her Word speaks of the peace that passeth all understanding, but the silence here is merely hollow – the light so cold, the spaces so empty. But for now, I must stay the course. If I cannot find peace, I hope you do.
“Your face is moist again. Have I erred in showing you these? It was not my intention to cause distress.”
“No, I, ah – fuck.”
“If you wish to take them away with you, I will find a box.”
“No, just – keep ’em where you found ’em, only – who handles mail Upstairs these days? Still the Virtues?”
“Yes. As lower ranking we can be doubly trusted not to unseal classified communication, even by accident.”
“Right then. Get me an envelope. Second cubby on the left-hand side.”
“The morning’s despatches, Supreme Archangel.”
The diplomatic pouches from Hell had their own distinctive whiff; they could wait until after the day’s meeting with Michael. The reports from the Second Annunciation Task Force, the Celestial Wages Reform Committee, the Divine Diligence Department.
At the bottom was an envelope marked Year-End Financial Report of A. Z. Fell, Booksellers, compiled by the Virtue Muriel, Scrivener, Thirty-Seventh Degree, currently seconded to Earth. For the eyes of the Supreme Archangel only.
Dutiful child. They must have been promoted; there was password protection on the dispatch envelope. He smiled as he opened it.
The pinion – blue-black, perfectly preened, only a few barbs separated at its tip – was folded inside a page of the bookshop’s stationery, bearing one line in that dear, jagged hand. Ten words. They swam in his vision as he read them over.
There was no place in Heaven to hide away precious things.
He looked up. Michael’s angular, schoolmistress silhouette was already approaching through the ambient incandescence.
The diplomatic pouch accounted for any whiff of Hell that might linger, as he read the single scrawled line one more time, committed it to the secrecy of memory. There had been so many cryptic messages burnt after reading, so much guilty evidence that had disappeared. What was one more time? He closed his eyes, fixing the image in his heart, the feather, the blotted writing. I can't come to you this time. But I'll wait.
He snapped.