After Purple (42 page)

“He
did
, Ray, I swear he did.” I squirted the last dregs of the ketchup into an angry, lurching L. I could have wept with fury and frustration. Somehow, Bernadette had got entangled with two major but quite irrelevant other dramas. I knew why Ray was so resentful. He felt he'd lost his precious virginity on sort of false pretences. If he hadn't believed my rape-by-Lionel story, he'd never have lingered in my room, would probably never have been there in the first place. So now that he guessed the whole thing was a sham, he felt conned, trapped, seduced and doubly shamed. What was worse, he could now label me a liar and close his ears to my tale of Bernadette. It was a wretched irony, since on this occasion, I had never been more burningly sincere. The truth of her appearance was so fierce, so real, so urgent, it was tearing me up inside.

“Ray,
forget
about Lionel. He's not important any more. I mean, not compared with what's just …”

“Lionel
is
important, Thea, and so is his reputation. All right, I admit it doesn't excuse my own action. It was unforgivable. I used you … abused you even. I realise that — and you've every right to feel resentful. I should never have burdened you with my life history, let alone the … other. But I think we ought to leave it until we're both a bit calmer. I've said I'm sorry, Thea. I am. It was a grave sin on my part. But you'll only make things worse by pursuing me up here.”

Pursuing him? He must be crazy, blind. Couldn't he see that sex was just a bauble, now that a saint was tugging at my sleeve? Surely I must be changed, transfigured almost. Bernadette's presence had left some aura around me, some residue of heaven. I could feel it leaking from my soul, pricking behind my eyelids. The trouble was, Ray was still staring at the floor. He seemed too embarrassed to look at me at all. He was so trapped in sin and semen, he couldn't lift up his eyes and behold the gasp and glory of a world beyond our world.

I
willed
him to look up, crammed my voice with the blazing urgency Bernadette herself had used. “Ray,” I implored. “I'm not concerned with you or Lionel or sex or Saturday or any other mortal thing. And I'll tell you why” — I paused, trying to still the shaking of my hands. “I've just seen Bernadette.”

“You've what?” I don't think he could have grasped it. He looked numb, dazed, almost stupid. The crust of bread was pulverised into a little pile of sawdust, which he was prodding with a finger.

“Seen — St — Bernadette,” I gave each word a supernatural charge. “She appeared to me in the Grotto, about an hour or so ago. She told me to tell you …”

Ray had closed his eyes. If he looked like a tiger earlier, now he was a stone sphinx, face of flint, ears of granite, refusing even to listen.

“No, Thea, no more stories.
Please
.”

“She
did
, Ray. That's the only reason I'm here.” Christ, if only he'd lift his head, open his mind, see for himself Bernadette's footprints streaked across my soul.

“Thea, it's late. I'm tired, you're tired. It's all right. I won't send you back. I think you need some rest in any case. You can sleep here. I'll fix you up a sleeping-bag.”

“I can't sleep anywhere. I've just had the most amazing experience of my life. Look, Ray, I actually
saw
St Bernadette as clear as you are now.”

“Thea, dear, you don't have to make up fairy tales. I understand. You wanted a reason to see me, didn't you? Something dramatic which you thought I couldn't refuse. It's all right, I won't refuse you. I'm here if you need me. We'll even talk now, if that's what you want. But no more lies.”

His voice was kinder now, the sort of gentle, wary, pitying voice you use to invalids or idiots. I suppose he thought the shock of the sex had unhinged me somehow. How anyone could inflate a two-second grope to such ludicrous importance quite defeated me. Here I was, entrusted with the biggest news in Lourdes for a hundred and twenty-four years, and the very first priest I'd approached was still relating everything to his E-stream prick. I tried to keep my temper. If Bernadette had chosen me, then I mustn't let her down. Shouting and storming wouldn't help her cause.

“Thea, let me get you an aspirin. You don't look well at all. You've probably caught a bit of a chill or something.”

So he was looking at me at last, furtively, shame-facedly. And all he could see was mortal cold and cunt, not supernatural shock-waves.

“I don't
want
aspirin!” I stared at a faded pin-up of a movie star I didn't recognise. One eye was a grease-spot, and a bushy black moustache had been pencilled in above the full pouting lips. She was cheering on Manchester United who'd been ripped so roughly from a newspaper that their goalkeeper had lost his lower legs. The boys had set up quite a picture gallery on the kitchen walls. Pop stars and footballers rubbed shoulders with the Pope who in turn smiled down on a small, fuzzy reproduction of Bernadette herself, stuck up with a piece of chewing-gum. I kept my gaze firmly on her face. I had looked upon that face and must be worthy of it.

“What I
do
want, Ray,” I said, seeing again the full pleading brilliance of her eyes, “is for you to go and tell your fellow priests.”

“Tell them what, Thea?” He was humouring me now, the way he might an infant or a loony, smiling gently at me, setting down the words like brightly coloured sweeties.

“That it wasn't the Blessed Virgin.”

“
What
wasn't?” Ray reached up for a tumbler, dodging the damp trailing washing dangling on the airer overhead. There were pants, shirts, sheets and even nappies. I wondered which of those muscly, stubbly lads were still in plastic pants. They came to Lourdes to beg Our Lady to relieve them of such miseries, to give them grown-up bladders, working tongues and hands. Could I really wrench their miraculous Lady from them, send them home still dribbling and piddling in their beds?

Ray looked as if he could use a miracle himself. His face was grey with tiredness, his movements slow and stumbling. I stared around the room where Lady Poverty had crouched so long, she had left a whispering snail-trail of rust, odours, mould. I almost weakened. If only I could simply shout out, “April fool. April fool!”, pretend the whole thing was the sort of stupid joke his own boys might have played on him. But Bernadette was counting on me. Her very last words had been, “I trust you, Thea.” Maybe she herself was now in Purgatory, racked with pain until her story was put right. Not many people trusted me. I couldn't let her down.

“Look, Ray,” I said. “I'll start again and keep it as simple as I can.” It was no good hoping for the gift of tongues. I would have to rely on my own slight halting powers. Bernadette was probably listening somewhere — she would help. I stretched out my hands and soul and heart and voice to Ray.

“Bernadette appeared to me,” I said. “Down in the Grotto where the statue is. She told me it wasn't the Blessed Virgin that she saw — it was somebody else. I don't know who, I'm afraid, but she asked me to tell everyone — starting with the priests. That's why I've come to you.”

“There we are, Thea. I've given you the fizzy sort. They're easier to swallow.” He had picked out the prettiest tumbler for me, a tall fluted one with flowers tooled into the glass and Disprin frothing at the bottom. He set it down very gently and carefully, as if the slightest noise might drive me further into lunacy or raging influenza. I suppose it suited him to suppose I was a crack-pot. It made his own sin less. Either he could safely deny that the sex had ever happened — pass it off as one of my choicer illusions like seeing saints or receiving heavenly messages from people long since dead — or he could believe that I'd seduced him as a sort of crazed witch with supernatural powers. Either way, his guilt diminished. I realised to my horror that Bernadette was tainted now. Ray could only relate my story to the whole seduction thing. He was convinced I'd come to see him simply to get revenge, or play a mad scene like Ophelia, not to report a vital piece of news which would shatter every life in Lourdes. I should never have gone to him at all. He was too petty, too limited, too entangled with me personally.

“Look, Ray, if you won't believe me, at least you can help me. I want you to write down the name and address of …”

“What the
hell
‘s going on down here?” It was Doc, shambling in in his tartan dressing-gown with a half-empty whisky bottle under one arm, and Val and Alan trailing along behind him. “I can't sleep a wink with you two clattering about and jawing at each other. What's wrong, for heaven's sake? I thought spiritual emergencies would at least be
silent
ones. You've woken half the house.”

“Thea, you look awful. What are you
doing
here?” That was Val, bouncing across the kitchen in winceyette pyjamas and her heavy nurse's shoes.

“Hi, Thea!” grunted Alan, half asleep. “Nice to see you again, even if it
is
the middle of the night. What's up, though? You look as if you've seen a ghost.”

“
Tea
,” said Doc. “Definitely. If Thea doesn't need it, I do. Put the kettle on, Val, there's a dear.”

The kettle looked sick and dazed itself. It was a decrepit, dented thing with half its metal coating flaking off, and orange sticky tape wound round a broken handle.

“Any decent grub going?” Alan yawned so hugely, his face concertina-ed out of shape. “If you've
got
to wake us up at this unearthly hour, we might as well have breakfast and be done with it.”

Val peered into the fridge. “Well, I could do you eggs,” she offered. “Fried or poached or scrambled. We seem to have about fifty dozen here. Or — I tell you
what
— let's have a pancake party! After all, it
is
Easter Saturday night. Fancy pancakes, Doc?”

“At three am? You must be joking. I'll stick to tea and Johnny Walker, if you don't mind.”

“I'll have pancakes — good idea! And I'm sure Desmond won't say no. He was just complaining he was starving. I'll go and get him, shall I?” Alan ambled out again.

“Let's get
everyone
.” Val was flinging cups and saucers on the table, banging cupboard doors.

“Val,
no
.” Ray looked hopeless, helpless. “Thea's not too well. She needs some peace and quiet. She's just had a sort of …”

“Oh, don't be a
spoils
port, Ray. The boys would love to see her. They'll cheer her up. She looks as if she could do with it. I've never seen anyone so sort of …
shattered
. What's hit you, Thea? You look white as a sheet. Look, have some tea. That'll help. I'll make it nice and strong, shall I? Fancy a pancake with it? I know the lads would! Shall I get them down? They'd be
thrilled
to see you again, I know they would. Barry kept asking about you yesterday, and John even saved you an extra bit of cake. He said you didn't eat yours. You wouldn't mind them down here, would you? They're all awake in any case, so we can't really leave them out.” She filled the teapot, crashed the lid down, sloshed milk into a jug. “Right — tea up! I've made enough for everyone. We'll call this Party Night! Hold on a mo — I'll just get Mary-Lou to give me a hand with those scamps.”

She rocketed off. Doc groaned and rubbed his eyes. He had slumped beside me with his elbows on the table and his feet stretched out on a second chair. He was a small wiry man, with that sort of bluff, jokey veneer which people have who deal with suffering all the time, but have never bled themselves. He reached across and touched my arm. “What's the trouble, kid?”

I glanced at his strong shoulders, his broad, coping hands. Bernadette hadn't actually said, “Tell the doctors”, but on the other hand, her own Dr Dozous had been an ally from the start, and at least Doc had never screwed me. “It's not exactly
trouble
,” I said. “Well, I suppose it
is
, but … You see, Bernadette appeared to me. Oh, I know you'll think I'm mad. It
sounds
mad, I realise that. But I'm perfectly sane, I promise you. You can do any tests you like — take my pulse, blood pressure — anything you choose. Then you can
prove
I'm …”

“It's not tests you need, love, it's a good strong drink and some shut-eye. That's what we
all
need. I'll be seeing Bernadette myself if I don't hit the hay soon.”

“Oh, for God's
sake
!” I almost shouted. “I've been sleeping all day long.”

Ray stumbled on his words, he was so keen to take me up. “It w … was probably a
dream
, then, Thea, don't you see? One of those very vivid frightening ones which seem so real, you can't really tell you're not asleep. That would explain it now, wouldn't it?”

“It doesn't
need
explaining,” I said. “It's a fact — not a dream or a delusion or a joke or a … Look, you can all accept that
Bernadette
saw someone, can't you, so why is it so impossible to believe I saw
her
?”

Doc was pouring out the tea. “Well, she was a bloody
saint
to start with.” He added a generous sloosh of whisky to my cup. I ignored it, like the aspirin. “Sugar?” he asked. “You shouldn't, you know. It's bad for the teeth.”

“No — I mean yes to the sugar, but
listen
— you've got it the wrong way round. She was only
made
a saint because she saw Our Lady. Without that, she might have married a punk or beaten up her kids or … anything. So if she
did
n't actually see Our Lady, well, where does that leave us?”

“Ready for our beds, I'd say,” grinned Doc. “Here, want a snifter, Boss?”

Ray shuddered. “No, I … er … won't, thanks.”

Doc cradled the bottle on his lap as if it were his first-born. “Don't want to be rude, my dear,” he said. “But why should Bernadette appear to
you
? I mean, when there's hundreds of nuns and priests available — not to mention doctors!”