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Crowley always went out in the garden when he was in a black mood.
It had happened oftener when they first moved. He’d have moments of fear that Hell and Heaven weren’t done with them; guilt that he’d walked away from his angel at the bandstand in the park; upsurges of the terror he’d had to quash as he rushed into a burning bookshop, piloted a flaming car up the M-Way, felt the gravitational pull of Satan heaving up through the tarmac. That first night they’d spent together, in the darkened flat, he’d whimpered in his sleep as Aziraphale counted the small hours till daybreak, lying clothed and open-eyed on the counterpane beside him, not touching, not moving.
Nowadays he’d come back in from yanking weeds, turning earth, blackguarding his plants – Aziraphale had asked him to stop doing that, but on these occasions he’d politely hear nothing – sigh into the angel’s arms grimy and sweat-streaked, and let Aziraphale stroke his hair and murmur into his ear. It’s all right, dearest, they’re not coming for us, or I meant you to leave, I wanted you safe, or I wish I could take the fear from you. (It was a gift angels had the power to give, but She’d robbed demons of the capacity to receive it. Aziraphale had a list of things he wanted to discuss with Her, if the opportunity ever arose.)
This time was different. It was mid-December, and Crowley, just visible from the kitchen window, wasn’t in his work clothes, and there was no spade or hoe in sight; only a demon with his mobile in one hand, resting on his knee as he gazed into the middle distance from his seat on the garden wall.
Aziraphale turned up the last mixing bowl in the drainer and traded his apron for a winter coat. Crowley’d bought it for him the day after their first windy walk on the Downs: something stylish, can’t have my angel go about lookin’ like a tyre advert in one of those puffy things. The astrakhan at the collar caressed his jaw.
“Darling?”
Crowley pushed the mobile at him without turning round. “Thirteen,” he said. “It's thirteen now.”
“Thirteen – ?“ Aziraphale took the phone, scanned down it.
“Kids dead in hospital. From somethin’ that should just give 'em a sore throat, not kill ’em. Humans’re dead clever, said it so many times. Dab hands at makin’ big bombs an’ torture machines, but sometimes they get it right? Indoor plumbing, medicines. Learned how to cure the big plagues, how to keep ’em from comin’ back. And then what do they do? They pitch it down the drain.”
He turned toward Aziraphale at last, and there was a faint sheen visible below the black blank of his sunglasses, a fainter smear of grime where he’d thumbed tears away. “Three years now and no one bloody learns. They knew better, and they still swung the door open and invited Pestilence back in, and now stuff that’s usually just a few days in bed watchin’ crap telly is takin’ people out in a few hours. Not many so far, just still too many. Thought they’d at least try to protect the kids. Kids didn’t do anything.”
He looked away again, but felt the angel’s hand on his and took it.
“Surgeries askin' folk not to come in unless they're half dead, chemists can't keep medicine on the shelves. There’s people in England can’t afford to eat if they don’t want to freeze, and people abroad bombed out’ve their homes – remember when Kyiv fell in twelve-hundred something? Hell gave me a citation for that one, heathens ragin' into Christendom an’ that. I was just in the area.” He scrubbed the heel of one hand up his cheek. “Whole earth heatin' up like Saturday night in Dis. You’d think the Horsepersons were hard at work. Did it even matter, everything we did?”
“Dear, I think it must.”
“Looks to me like they’re carryin’ right on with ending the world. Without any help from your lot or mine.”
Crowley was shivering now. Aziraphale took off the coat to throw over his shoulders, and sat down on the fieldstone wall beside him, the cold seeping through the seat of his trousers, sharp gusts chilling him through his shirt. A robin uttered its staccato garland of notes from the yew shrubbery.
“That’s exactly it,” he said. “It’s all down to them. That means they’ve got a chance, if they’ll take it. There will always be people who'll do the right thing and lead by example. Some who'll offer help where it’s needed. In that messy Human way, one deed at a time.”
“Feel bloody useless,” Crowley said, almost too quietly to be heard. “What’s the point’ve bein’ able to do miracles when it’s just too many –”
“My love. You know we can’t heal all this. But we’ll do what we always have. What we can." He nodded towards the shrubbery. "And Master Robin still sings. Come in, won’t you?”
Crowley slid off the wall, with that slewing blend of clumsiness and grace that always looked as if he might become boneless, descend into coils.
“I had a letter from Adam today,” said Aziraphale, opening the kitchen door. “He and his friends are at Secondary now, can you believe they’re fifteen? He’s well. Brian’s been ill, but he’s getting better. They’ve launched a masks project at their school, for people who can’t afford the good ones that work properly. Wensley is designing little handbills telling people how to keep safe, and I gather young Pepper has been pressing them on people with quite fiery rhetoric.”
“Glad we got back in touch with ’em,” said Crowley with a fleeting smile. “Feisty lot.”
“So I think they’re going to get a great many donations, and then find a source of those protective masks at a very favourable price. They do make people look a bit snouted, rather like the extraterrestrials from one of those scientifiction programmes, but it’s such a simple way for them to take care of one another. I always wear one in the shops, to set an example.”
He put the kettle on. “And when I’m there, there’s always someone who’s open to a discreet nudge. A thought about why they ought to wear one too, or speak to someone on the Council about keeping people informed, or simply help out a neighbour who can’t go safely among people while there’s so much illness spreading. Perhaps call in to see if they can be of help to someone who's never recovered properly -- I'm afraid there's likely to be a good deal more of that than we imagine. You told me yourself how a small effort has ripples, even if that was about those juvenile pranks you played with tenpenny coins. -- Do you fancy cocoa, or something a little stronger? I believe it’s hot rum weather.”
“Bit early, innit?”
“When has that ever stopped you?”
“Make it with a cinnamon stick?”
“There, that’s my demon. Now come over here and get warm.”