Jubilate (15 page)

‘She wasn’t the only one. If
The Song of Bernadette
’s anything to go by – and I saw it every spring at school – the local priests were
initially
as hostile as the civic authorities. What swayed them was the
sixteenth apparition, when the lady named herself as the
Immaculate
Conception. That was a new dogma proclaimed by the Pope only three or four years before. There was no way that an illiterate village girl could have known about it.’

‘Not read about it, I grant. But the issue would have been in the air. She might have picked up on it without realising. The same thing happened at Fatima when the Virgin appeared to the three shepherd children and demanded the Consecration of Russia a few months after the February Revolution. It begs the question of why she always chooses the poor, the illiterate, the weak and the young – in a word, the gullible. Why not Voltaire or Stephen Hawking or, better still, Richard Dawkins?’

We edge closer to the Grotto, but all we can see are the pilgrims emerging on the other side. Some are so moved that, even though able-bodied, they have to be helped out by their friends or the Domain officials. Priests are right to talk about the
mystery
of faith, albeit not in the sense they intend. The mystery is how people can cling to a belief-system that has been the source of so much conflict and misery and violence and repression for the past two thousand years. I long to run up and down the line, forcing everyone to
confront
the truth: that God did not create the world, either in seven days or billions of years; that Jesus of Nazareth did not die for our sins but in a small-time religious uprising; that good and evil lie within our own control. Needless to say, I do nothing of the sort but wait patiently, a fake among the dupes.

‘You’re very quiet all of a sudden,’ Gillian says.

‘I’m sorry. I find this extremely painful. I understand how a nineteenth-century doctor might have been swayed by the lack of a scorch mark, but these people have access to the whole world on TV. Have they never seen the firewalkers in Fiji treading on red-hot coals without so much as a blister?’

‘All right, let’s forget the candle. What about the cures? Seven in the first nine months.’

‘Yes. And I don’t doubt they occurred. Faith healing is a well-
documented
phenomenon. There’s a perfectly good natural explanation.’

‘And a perfectly good miraculous one too.’

‘So how come the cures are always for conditions that might have
a psychological cause: the blind seeing; the lame walking, and so on? Why not the amputee sprouting a new limb?’

‘That’s disgusting!’

‘Not for the amputee.’

We turn the corner and face the Grotto. I watch the pilgrims filing past, pressing their hands to the rock before wiping the
condensation
on their faces. A mother holds up a young boy who seems uncertain what to touch. Three Asian pilgrims shuffle forward on their knees. A nun causes a temporary blockage by prostrating herself on the ground.

‘May I ask – purely out of curiosity – why you’re so opposed to any notion of miracles?’

‘That’s easy. If I thought there was the slightest possibility of God intervening in the world – no, if I thought there was the slightest possibility of God, full stop – then I’d have to spend the rest of my life hating. How else could I cope with His arbitrariness, His
favouritism
, His cruelty?’

‘So you’d judge Him by human standards?’

‘Not human … humane. Besides, according to your Church, God made us in His own image, so surely we have the right – no, make that the obligation – to apply our standards to Him? And if any human father had treated his children the way God has treated the world, He’d have had them taken away from Him thousands of years ago.’

‘That’s all very clever –’

‘No, just true. On the one hand Christians profess to value modesty, and on the other they maintain that we stand at the
pinnacle
of creation. Excuse me? We’re nothing but microbes who’ve outgrown their environment, a chance evolutionary process.’

‘And isn’t that the greatest miracle of all? You talk of the cruelty of God –’

‘No, of Nature.’

‘I think of the beauty, the kindness, the love. The love that I’ve felt all around me, the love that – no doubt you’ll think this
presumptuous
– I’ve found in myself. And I know – don’t ask me how, but I know it as surely as I know my own name – that it comes not just from inside me but from beyond. Now you can call that whatever you like; I call it God.’

She steps aside to wait for Richard and Patricia, who have lagged several paces behind. I move forward to join Jamie and Jewel at the Grotto which, up close, looks distinctly womblike, a hollow where the ancient Gauls might have worshipped Mother Earth. We film the Jubilate pilgrims in a similar act of devotion, focusing first on Lester and Tess, who linger hand-in-hand at the statue of the Virgin, and then on Matt, Geoff and Kevin, three of the young brancardiers, who lift Sheila Clunes out of her wheelchair and deposit her on the ground, where she kisses the spot on which Bernadette first prayed.

‘Urgh!’ Jamie says, ‘think of all the feet that’ve trodden on it.’

‘Not to worry,’ I reply, ‘they’re the feet of the faithful.’

The momentary irreverence restores my spirits, which have sunk lower than I realised after my exchange with Gillian. If we were
anywhere
but Lourdes, I would blame a malignant spirit for urging me up on my hobby-horse to trample over both our affections. What do I know of the strains of looking after a brain-damaged husband, aware that there can be no let-up until one of them dies and, in the darkest moments, not caring which it is? What do I know of looking after anyone? Supposing our positions were reversed and it was me left with a wife who – for instance – had been horribly maimed in a car crash? How long before my pledges of devotion rang false and I hired a carer or, worse, put her in a home where weekly visits became first monthly and then confined to high days and holidays, as though she were an elderly aunt.

To be fair, I believe that I could cope with a child whose injuries simply compounded her need, a child whom I carried from sofa to bed as though she were her sane, strong sister who had dozed off in front of the TV. But a wife would be something else: a once powerful adult reduced to a state halfway between patient and captive. I think … I know that I would prefer her dead.

Does Gillian ever succumb to such treacherous thoughts? Or does
not my will be done, but thine
,
oh Lord
hold true, even in extremis? What does her faith mean to her? Is it the usual baptismal
brainwash
or is it rooted in something real? Is that what she means by the love she found in herself? In which case I should know better than to doubt it, since it has touched me more deeply than anything in years. But that is still no reason to pursue it. Even if she were a free agent
– or simply shared my taste for the furtive – our relationship would be doomed. We have nothing whatsoever in common. It is only in fiction that opposites attract; in real life they keep their distance.

The procession over, the Jubilate pilgrims stroll back to the Acceuil, apart from Tess and Lester who, still holding hands, stand staring at a bank of burning candles.

‘Earth to Vincent!’ Jamie calls, waving his hand in front of my face.

‘Sorry. I was miles away.’

‘Lunch!’

I follow the crew out of the Domain, braving the crowded streets as we search for a restaurant that is cheap (Jamie),
music-free
(Sophie), and vegan-friendly (Jewel). I am unusually compliant since I am conscious of no needs beyond Gillian. Without realising, I have regressed to a state of adolescent impotence where the only way to express my feelings for a girl was to ink her name on my arm. My mind is racing so fast that I can do little more than nod at the choice of the Café Jeanne d’Arc.

‘Have they no shame?’ Sophie asks. ‘What does Joan of Arc have to do with Lourdes?’

‘What does Shakespeare have to do with Barnsley?’ I ask. ‘But you still find his name above a local pub. Not everything in Lourdes is a sham!’

My outburst takes them by surprise, but I have neither the will nor the strength to explain, lowering my head to my
demi
and letting the conversation flow over it. While Jamie and Jewel discuss various remixes of tracks that I am too old to know in the original, and Sophie replies to messages and texts on her mobile, I reflect on my predicament, faced with the resurgence of emotions that I had thought were long dead.

‘Would you please tell the court how you can be so sure?’

‘Because I buried them myself, m’lud.’

To my relief, the others leave me in peace, attributing my silence to thoughts about the film. At the end of the meal Sophie calls for the bill, deftly divides it, and leads the way back to the Acceuil where we are to conduct the first of the afternoon’s interviews: with Father Humphrey who is waiting for us in the Priests’ Room. In spite of the plural, there is only one bed.

‘We share it. Not at the same time.’ He says with a chortle. ‘
Whichever
of us is on night duty.’

‘Of course,’ I say, immune to the bar-room humour. The monastic bed looks a tight squeeze even for one. Given my current concerns, I am convinced that his bulk is compensation. Moreover, with his mountainous gut overhanging his genitals, he must be able to break the golden rule of his Church and maintain that what he cannot see does not exist.

I invite him to share his experience of Lourdes. He responds with a potted life- history, peppered with the cringeworthy jokes which I used to think priests told to show that they were still one of the boys but which I now realise are a way to distance themselves from the awful reality of their lives. He starts with ‘I was born in a Lancashire village so prejudiced that, when the postmistress asked what
denomination
of stamps you wanted, you’d reply five Roman Catholics and no Protestants,’ followed by ‘Would you like to know how I became a priest? When I was sixteen, my father told me the facts of life. There are nine in this family and only eight beds. You’re out.’ Just when the sense that he has mistaken the interview for an audition becomes overwhelming, he embarks on a long and heartfelt account of his stint as an army chaplain. ‘We all know that it’s hard for soldiers to readjust to civilian life,’ he says. ‘Let me assure you it’s equally hard for priests. I’ve never felt so alien, so lonely and, to be honest, so
disgusted
with the people I was supposed to love. The men in the desert had been ready to lay down their lives – and some did, some did – to bring peace to a foreign land; I had parishioners who wouldn’t lift a finger or, at least, put their hands in their pockets to help the
homeless
on their doorsteps. But God answered my prayers. I was in a bad way, on the verge of despair, when I received a phone call from the Jubilate director – not She Who Must Be Obeyed, her predecessor – to say that they were looking for a priest to lead their pilgrimage and a friend had suggested me. A friend indeed! At first I made up my mind to refuse. A trip to Lourdes didn’t rate high on my list of priorities. But, thank God (and, believe me, I do every day), I had a change of heart. Here, I saw the same self-denying love I’d seen in the forces. I met men and women willing to set aside their own wants for the sake of others. Lourdes has given me back my faith in
humanity when it was in danger of disappearing for ever. And, if that’s not a miracle, I don’t know what is.’

I am more grateful than ever for my pose of professional
neutrality
. After thanking him for his time, we leave the Acceuil and trek down the Esplanade to the Breton Calvary where, to the muted grumbles of a footsore Jewel and parched Jamie, I have arranged to film a joint interview with Maggie and Ken. It comes as no surprise that ‘You don’t want me; I’ll crack the camera’ Maggie and ‘You’ll have to take me as you find me’ Ken have both dressed up for the occasion, with Maggie having added a garish gash of lip-gloss. They each describe the ‘love affair with Lourdes’ (Ken’s phrase,
Maggie’s
simper) that began on their first visits, Ken accompanying his elderly father and Maggie her pregnant niece.

‘Steve – her husband – wouldn’t come. He’s an agnostic – not an atheist, mind, so there’s still hope. He said to her: “Why not ask Aunt Maggie? She’s a midwife. That way you’ll have your very own medical team.”’

I struggle to remain alert as they trot out their carefully polished anecdotes.

‘I’m sure that none of this can be of interest to you,’ Ken says over-modestly.

‘On the contrary,’ I reply, ‘you’ve both been fascinating.’

The filming over, we make our way back across the Domain in a sweltering heat that shows no sign of abating, to the hillside above the basilicas, ready for the five o’clock Stations of the Cross. The
precipitous
path would appear to exclude the disabled pilgrims but, as we approach the first station, we find various helpers straining to push wheelchairs.

‘Puts hairs on your chest,’ Jamie says blithely to a handmaiden with a faint moustache.

We amble up to the Jubilates, who are easily identifiable by their sweatshirts, although some of the younger ones have changed into T-shirts and two of the boys have stripped off their tops. Looking around with studied indifference, I spot Gillian walking up the path with Louisa and wonder if she is deliberately seeking to keep me at bay, like a schoolboy sticking to a teacher when he knows that his tormentor is lying in wait at the other end of the yard.

Losing patience with myself, I search for Kevin, whom we are due to follow on the walk. He is angrily putting on his T-shirt after a
reprimand
from Marjorie. ‘She says it’s disrespectful. Why? Didn’t God make our bodies? Didn’t Jesus walk around in a loincloth?’

‘I’m not too hot – sorry – on Messianic raiments. Still, a T-shirt makes sense if we’re going to film you. Don’t want to set too many female hearts aflame.’