Jubilate (2 page)

‘’Fout, dear?’ she asks, from the corner of her mouth.

‘To the baths,’ I say, praying that I have answered the right question.

‘Yesterday,’ she says, indicating her husband with her eyes. ‘’Ew woman. Old bones … ew woman.’ She chuckles. ‘God ’ess!’ I notice the pennant of the Pope in her frozen fist and feel ashamed.

I take the lift to the ground floor and dodge the piles of luggage in the vestibule. The Liverpool pilgrims are going home. A young girl, wearing a shocking pink shell-suit, sits on a case, fiercely picking off a label, while her older sister, dressed like her twin, reassures a frail old woman that ‘me ma and me da are just out fetching a
last-minute
bottle of holy water.’ Having braced myself to outstare the proprietress, I am relieved to find a young man at the desk, his face as trusting as if he had just changed out of his cassock. I greet him
with my sunniest
Bonjour
and head for the door, confident that he takes me for a tour rep or an official fresh from a breakfast meeting. To my horror, I walk straight into Madame Basic Jesus herself,
carrying
a box of plastic saints to the gift shop. I feel more rumpled than ever in the face of the grey cashmere cardigan draped effortlessly around her shoulders, the immaculately ironed white blouse and lemon-and-grey check skirt. She smiles coldly and I quail before the formidable blend of worldly elegance and spiritual authority. Unlike her assistant, she is under no illusions about my visit but, for all that she is Lourdes enough to disapprove, she is French enough to say nothing.

Foolishly, I resolve to speak.
‘Bonjour Madame, je viens de visiter un de vos invités, Monsieur O’Shaughnessy. Il faut profiter de notre dernier jour dans votre si belle ville.’

‘I’m sure you’ll profit by it, Madame,’ she replies.

‘Ce matin, notre pèlerinage va aux bains avant de fêter la messe à la Grotte,’
I add, determined not to give her the linguistic advantage as well as the moral.

‘I wish you a safe journey home,’ she replies stonily.

Ceding defeat, I hurry out of the hotel. I hesitate outside the adjacent café, but all thoughts of entering vanish at the sight of a table of Czechs wolfing down their early morning
steak frites
. I walk through a shadowy side street, past a young beggar who makes little effort to look the part. Leaning on a bulky rucksack and wearing earphones, he studies a book of Sudoku puzzles, with nothing but the coin-filled cap at his side to indicate his purpose. Ignoring both Vincent’s claim that pavement space in Lourdes is controlled by a syndicate and my own resentment at his able-bodied indolence, I toss a couple of euros into the cap. Obliged to conceal my happiness from the world at large, I am eager to share it where I can. Keeping his eyes glued to the book, he emits a small grunt of
acknowledgement
. I wonder whether his pickings are so rich that he disdains my meagre contribution, or else that he judges my need to give to be greater than his to receive and sees me as the beneficiary of the exchange.

I continue past a lavender-seller setting out heavily perfumed sachets on his cart and down a pavement barely wide enough for
pedestrians, let alone the wheelchair that sends me scuttling into the road. I linger outside a photographer’s window where a solitary wedding portrait sits among the pictures of current pilgrimages. The Jubilate has its own screen on the far right and I spot myself in the formal group on the basilica steps as well as in a snapshot with Richard, Patricia and Father Dave at the Grotto. I think of all that has happened since they were taken on Tuesday. I examine my face through the blurry glass for any hint of anticipation, any awareness of having agreed to do more than consider giving Vincent an
interview
, but it is as blank as the one in my passport. Richard beams. Perhaps he has just told a joke? Which would explain Patricia’s frown. Or has she seen me with Vincent and understood my
feelings
more clearly than I did myself?

I move away, resisting the urge to buy a copy, refusing to let a photograph compromise my memories, and reach the main road. I pass a crocodile of African nuns, their white habits and black faces still a novelty to my black-and-white mindset, and enter the Domain through St Joseph’s Gate. Even after a week of constant coming-
and-going
, I thrill to the sight of the grey basilica spire soaring above the treetops and the glimpses of the bronze Stations among the foliage on the hill. I join the steady stream of pilgrims making their way to the Basilica Square. Large groups congregate behind banners in Italian, Portuguese and Dutch and one, to my amazement, in Arabic. Most wear matching sweaters or baseball caps or scarves and I think, with a pang, of the wilful individualism that has limited my use of the Jubilate sweatshirt to the pilgrimage photograph. Smaller groups of family and friends stroll hand-in-hand with an intimacy that warms the heart, until a glance at the vacant eyes and too-trusting smiles of the ageing children and the freakishly unlined skin of the childlike adults reveals this to be from necessity rather than choice.

I pass under the massive stone ramp that leads to the upper
basilica
and glance at the knot of people by the drinking fountains. Some put their mouths to the taps; others fill bottles and jugs; still others wash their faces and hands. A wiry old man, with tufts of white hair protruding from his grimy vest, cups water in his hands and pours it over his head and shoulders. To his right, an olive-skinned boy struggles to carry a canister which dwarfs him. I allow my gaze to
drift towards the Grotto, but the sight of the crowds hurrying to the Baths keeps me from dawdling. I step on to the bridge and look up at the Acceuil, its irregular, fan-like structure strangely
reflective
of its status: half-hospital, half-hostel. I slip in by a side-door and walk down the labyrinthine corridors to the lift. Making way for a stretcher, I brush against a pair of Milanese youths, their
Buon
giornos
muted by the rivalry at yesterday’s procession. Irritated by their private jokes, I consider disconcerting them with my
Linguaphone
Italian, but I arrive at my floor too soon.

I enter a hive of activity. Everywhere, nurses and handmaidens are preparing their charges for the final morning of the
pilgrimage
, anxious not to hasten the moment of departure while at the same time packing up the equipment for the journey home. An end-of-term mood grips some of the young helpers, with one
steering
his friend, the virtuoso guitarist of last night’s concert, around the nurses’ station in a rickety wheelchair. He earns the inevitable reprimand from Maggie, as keen to prolong the stay as any of the ‘
malades
’, acutely aware of the authority that will seep away on her return to the small retirement flat in Deal where her only
subordinate
is her cat.

I break off in dread at the dismal picture. For all I know, she may be the leading light of the local bowls club with a social life that is the envy of the South Coast. I realise that it is not her future so much as my own which frightens me and despair that my happiness should have evaporated so fast. I head for the bedroom and bump into Ken, supervising the brancardiers, while exuding his familiar air of a hunting dog that has been kept too long as a pet.

‘Been for a stroll?’ he asks, weighed down by the box of groceries he is carrying to the van. Caught off guard, I strain to detect a double meaning. His kindly smile makes me feel twice as guilty. The only duplicity is mine.

‘Making the most of it while I can. Now I’d better go and find Richard.’

‘No rest for the wicked!’

‘None,’ I reply, determined to keep from anatomizing every remark.

I approach my bedroom and am intercepted by Fiona, formally
dressed for the trip, her Easter Island face at odds with her Barbie doll hair. As ever she carries her tape measure, which she presses against my legs. I pause as she loops it slowly around my knees before holding it up for my inspection.

‘I can’t bear to look. Have I put on weight? All this rich food!’ Unsure whether it is my jocular tone or her own high spirits that spark off her fit of giggles, I carry on down the corridor where I come across the guitarist and his friend, now gainfully employed hauling boxes of equipment.

‘I really enjoyed your playing last night,’ I say as we pass. A boyish blush suffuses his pustular cheeks and his friend smirks as though at an innuendo. I speculate on the street meanings of
enjoy and play
and recall my first encounter with Kevin who, four days later, still cannot look me in the eye. Talking to teenagers is even more fraught than talking to Fiona.

I enter the empty bedroom to find the floor strewn with clothes, evidence either of Richard’s primitive attempts at packing or the brancardiers’ struggle to get him dressed. The noise emanating from the dining room suggests that he is still at breakfast and I seize the chance to change my bra and shirt, free from the threat of his prying hands. I am busy folding pyjama bottoms and T-shirts when I hear a knock at the door.

‘Come in!’ I call, too feeble as ever to emulate Patricia’s
commanding
‘Come!’ Louisa enters, her upright bearing and forthright manner a testament to her years in the WRAF. For all her fusty
officiousness
, I like her. It is as though she once heard one of her
subalterns
describe her as ‘Firm but Fair’ and has striven to live up to the label ever since.

‘I understand you didn’t sleep here last night?’ she asks, instantly slipping into Pilgrimage Director mode.

‘No,’ I say, strangely relieved by her bluntness. ‘I went for a drink with some of the kids at the Roi Albert. I knew I’d be late and didn’t want to disturb anyone so I stayed with my mother-in-law in the hotel.’

‘Yes, Patricia’s here,’ she says, in one breath blowing my cover. Her eyes fill with disappointment, as though I were a pregnant flight
sergeant
afraid to trust her. I suddenly feel sick. ‘Why do you ask? Has anything happened to Richard?’ 

‘Don’t worry; he’s fine. Busy having breakfast. The last I saw, he and Nigel were competing with each other as to who could eat the most Weetabix.’

‘What it is to be six again!’

‘Nigel’s been six since the age of twelve,’ she replies severely. ‘But I’m sorry to say there was an incident last night. Richard went on walkabout. I expect he was looking for the lavatory.’ She glances in confusion at the bathroom. ‘By a stroke of bad luck, the nurses’ station was temporarily unmanned. He muddled the rooms and made for Brenda and Linda’s next door.’ She rehearses the evidence as though for a military tribunal, while I picture the two women: Brenda, paralysed and solid, her face shadowed by a visor, forever seeking to sell me a cure-all magnetic bracelet for which she is hardly the best advertisement, and Linda, scraggy and wan, with no
distinguishing
features other than lank hair and foul breath. ‘Richard tried to get into Linda’s bed. She woke up screaming, which alerted the nurse, but she couldn’t get him off. He’s very strong.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘Fortunately, Father Humphrey and Father Dave were burning the midnight oil. They heard the rumpus and managed to
disentangle
Richard and take him back to bed.’

‘Is Linda all right?’

‘Just a few ruffled feathers. We’ve explained that Richard isn’t himself.’ I nod politely at a phrase that has made me squirm for the last twelve years. ‘But the Pilgrimage has a duty to protect vulnerable people.’

‘Richard is vulnerable too.’

‘Believe me, I do understand, but we’re in a delicate position. Linda could lodge a complaint when she gets home. Some of our hospital pilgrims are funded by their local authorities.’

‘Yes, I see. It’s my fault. I should have stayed with him. I’m extremely sorry.’

‘It’s forgotten.’ She moves towards me and I fix my grin in
anticipation
of a squeezed shoulder or, worse, a hug, but she thinks better of it and, with a sunny smile, turns and walks out. I am left to clear up the mess of my marriage and seize gratefully on the more
pressing
task of clearing up the discarded clothes.

Richard saunters in, stopping dead the moment he sees me. He stands still, putting his hands over his eyes like a child who has yet to learn the laws of perception.

‘I’ve been a naughty boy.’ I blench to hear the timeworn words, which used at least to be ironic. He walks towards me with a shy smile. It feels wrong that, after all that has happened, he should still exude such charm. He plants a wet kiss on my cheek and continues across my nose and up to my ear, until I feel devoured by his empty affection. I take him in my arms and stroke his hair, proving yet again that pity is a most overrated virtue.

‘I looked for you in the night and you were gone.’

‘I told you I was staying at the hotel.’

‘You told them you were staying with me.’ I look up to see
Patricia
, her timing worthy of a wider stage, her face a mask on which I project my guilt.

‘I’m sorry. I thought it for the best.’

‘Who for? I came in at eight o’clock to serve the breakfasts and what do I find?’ Richard, responding to the inflection, looks up, but she is not playing the game. ‘Whispers and insinuations flying around from people who should know better: people who know nothing at all. Poor Richard muddling the rooms in the dark. It’s an easy mistake. But no, you’d think some people had never taken medication! All that screaming and shouting. My darling, you must have had a dreadful shock, and on the last night too! Are you feeling better now?’ She moves to kiss him but he burrows his head in my breast and she adroitly switches to stroking his neck, while turning her fire on me. ‘I can’t believe you’d be so irresponsible. Gallivanting off and leaving him here on his own.’

‘One night! One night in twelve years! There are doctors, nurses, priests. How much more responsible could I be?’ I hate myself for craving her understanding, even if not her approval.