Jubilate

by Michael Arditti

  MICHAEL ARDITTI

  Jubilate

  For Cassandra Jardine

  ‘The conflict of faith and scepticism remains the proper, the only, the deepest theme of the history of the world and mankind to which all others are subordinate.’

  Johan Wolfgang von Goethe

  ‘He carried out the gestures and by doing this he found faith.’

  Blaise Pascal

  ‘To Conscience first, and to the Pope afterwards.’

  Cardinal Newman

  ‘Love is lovelier the second time around.’

  Sammy Cahn

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  GILLIAN: Friday June 20

  VINCENT: Monday June 16

  GILLIAN: Thursday June 19

  VINCENT: Tuesday June 17

  GILLIAN: Wednesday June 18

  VINCENT: Wednesday June 18

  GILLIAN: Tuesday June 17

  VINCENT: Thursday June 19

  GILLIAN: Monday June 16

  VINCENT: Friday June 20

  Acknowledgements

  BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  Copyright

  GILLIAN

  Friday June 20

  It’s his breath that wakes me. Hot, heavy breath on the nape of my neck. Breath that for a moment I mistake for his kiss. The breath of a man sated with passion: the breath of a man sated with me. I turn my face towards his, drinking in the sweetness of his breath. Even the faint fumes of alcohol exude no hint of decay. They are as fresh as the wine at Cana.

  I slip my hands behind my back to prevent their straying. Like the mother of a newborn child, I long to run my fingers all over his skin, exulting in his sheer existence. Like a girl with her first love, I long to arouse him with a single touch, marvelling at his maleness. But most of all I long to preserve the moment, extending it beyond the clock, fixing him forever in a world where only I know that he is alive, one where he is alive only for me.

  The basilica bells ring out to thwart me. The jangling melody of the Ave Maria that reminds me of the purpose of my visit is followed by seven stark chimes that warn me I have lingered in bed too long. My mutinous mind replays the chimes as six and I sink back on the pillow, but a casual glance at my watch robs me of hope. It is seven o’clock and all over town bleary-eyed young men and women will be making their way to the Acceuil. Young men and women, harried by hormones, will be setting about their duties, while I, twenty years their senior, seek any excuse to shirk mine. I am ashamed.

  Would anyone miss me if I went away, took a gap year at the age of thirty-nine, a career break from a life of leisure? I except Richard; I always except Richard. I see him now, waking up at the Acceuil, confused by the emptiness in the second bed, searching for the mother who was once his wife. I see a pair of young men holding him under the shower and pray that he does nothing to offend them (I have discovered the modesty of schoolboys twenty years too late). I see them leading him to the basin and handing him a toothbrush. ‘But why do I have to clean my teeth,’ he asks, ‘when I’ve not eaten anything since bedtime?’ Will they come up with a credible answer or will they take his point, a point that gains force as I lower my head towards Vincent’s? I pull away. What if Richard has been awake all night, plagued by the phantoms in his blood-damaged brain? What if the nurses ignored the notes and halved the double dose of pills that he is prescribed in an emergency. And this was an emergency. Oh God, are there no depths to which I will not sink?

  Vincent scratches his chest. I revel in my privileged perspective. There is none of the awkwardness that I feel with Richard, whose every involuntary movement is directed towards his groin. I have an absolute right to watch him. He is my love, my lover, the object – no, subject – of my affections. I study him like a mail-order bride preparing to face the authorities (I must put all thoughts of marriage firmly from my mind). He still has a full head of hair, the boyish curls belied by the greying sideburns. The flaming red may be turning ashen but its pedigree remains clear. ‘Bog Irish,’ he declared defiantly, in case four generations of Surrey shopkeepers had filled me with proprietary pride. He has sea-green eyes, with a slight cast in the left one which would seem to be a hindrance in his profession, and a scattering of freckles along each cheek which put me in mind of autumn. His nose is straight with surprisingly wide nostrils. But his crowning glory is his set of perfect teeth. When he smiles, as he does in private, I am dazzled.

  God forgive me but I love him! I came here looking for a miracle and I’ve found one. So what if it wasn’t the one I expected? Should I spurn it like an ungracious wife whose husband gives her a dress better suited to the salesgirl? Was I that woman? People change.

  I lie back on the pillow and my head fills with questions: questions which resound so violently that I am amazed they don’t wake Vincent. Must I throw up the chance of happiness? Must I turn my back on love? But I don’t need to hear him speak to know his answer. ‘Your religion makes it quite clear. Christ charged us to love one another. St Paul taught us that the greatest of all virtues is love.’ But for once his smile fails to blind me. If the Eskimos have so many words for snow, why do we have only one for love? Or do we? I am brought short by a rush of synonyms. Tenderness. Devotion. Compassion. Service. Sacrifice. And the one that makes a mockery of them all: Lust.

  A hand pulls me out of my reverie. A hand in the small of my back pulls me a few inches across the mattress and into the unknown. I am startled, affronted, delighted, grateful. I open my lips to his kiss and am flooded with peace.

  ‘How long have you been awake?’ I ask, with the unease of the observer observed.

  ‘Hours,’ he says languidly.

  ‘Liar,’ I say, relieved by his shamelessness. ‘I’ve been watching you sleeping.’

  ‘I rest my case. You and I are one and the same. If you’re awake, then so am I. Why are you crying?’ he asks with alarm.

  ‘I’m not,’ I say, surprised by the tear that he wipes off his shoulder and presses to my tongue. ‘I should say that it’s because I’m happy, but it’s far more complicated than that. It’s because I’m here. It’s because one way or another somebody’s going to be hurt. It’s because to keep being happy, I’m going to have to choose.’

  ‘Choice is what makes us human,’ he says, suddenly alert. ‘Unless you think God’s some celestial Bill Gates, programming everything in advance.’

  A blast of cold air makes me shiver. I gaze at the window but it’s closed. He is not just the naked man spread out beside me, stroking my forehead until it feels as if it is made of silk, the man who knows instinctively, mysteriously, the perfect way to pleasure a body he first held a mere two days before. He is a man with a past that chafes him like a shoulder strap; a man with set ways and prejudices; a man who, for all our differences, I see as my second self. If only we had been childhood sweethearts, sharing our hopes and dreams like lunchboxes. If only it had been his office, rather than Richard’s, that I had walked into as a girl of nineteen.

  ‘We must get up!’ I take us both aback by my abruptness. ‘It’s half past seven.’

  ‘Half-six. Here! Look at my watch.’

  ‘Only because you were too lazy to adjust it! Next you’ll be glued to the Sky sports channel in the hotel bar.’

  ‘I’m trying to be kind to your body clock.’ Then he presses his lips to my breast as if in confirmation. My protest dies in my throat. As he inches his tongue down my ribs, I luxuriate in my weakness. I wonder at my perversity, when the prospect of future entanglement only adds to the illicit pleasure of the here and now.

  I have never felt so fully in the present. As he laps my stomach in ever-smaller circles, I throw back my head and find myself staring at the ceiling.
The cracked cream paint glows as golden as the Rosary Chapel mosaics. I struggle to keep my arms and legs from thrashing about, afraid that my passion will compromise me, showing him that it is no longer a matter of ‘if’ but of ‘how.’ He insinuates his tongue inside me. My body and mind are mere adjuncts to my desire. I am fire and water, the perfect balance of opposing elements.

  His tongue grows more insistent and then, in an instant, the sensation shifts. I feel not an emptiness but a silence, like the lull between two movements of a symphony. Suddenly, he is all percussion and I sense the crescendo in my flesh. I am at once overpowered and strengthened, pulled apart and made into a perfect whole.

  I smile as a picture takes shape in my mind.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ He licks the tip of my nose.

  ‘St Bernadette,’ I reply too quickly.

  ‘What?’ I sense a slackening that threatens us both.

  ‘I was wondering if she knew what she was giving up when she entered the convent.’

  ‘Not every woman’s lucky enough to enjoy the Vincent O’Shaughnessy treatment.’

  ‘It’s not just you and me,’ I say, emboldened by his swagger. ‘This is God.’

  He replies by redoubling his efforts. He whispers inaudibly in my ear and I thrill to the rush of his breath. He picks me off the sheet and perches me on his thighs, never once loosening his grip. I feel exposed, no longer hidden from the day but brazenly upright. If the walls of the room were to roll away like a stage set, leaving me in full view of Patricia and our fellow pilgrims, I would stand fast. All the opprobrium in the world could not outweigh this. He lies back, pulling me on top of him, and nuzzles my breast. I cradle his head as if he were a child, but a child who is nurturing me. Then he thrusts again so vigorously that I fear I may topple off the bed, but he roots me to him. Next, we are in the air, floating as if on the magic carpet I created from my childhood mattress. It cannot last. The tender expression on his face begins to tauten. Waves of pleasure surge up inside him and crash into me. We cling to each other, desperate to contain the impending ebb. Too soon the inevitable is upon us, as he yelps like an injured dog and struggles to regulate his breathing. I sense that, for my sake, he is fighting his instinct to break free. I know that I ought to release him, giving him my blessing with a gentle kiss, but for the first time I put me before us. He sinks back, his hands limp on my waist. I clench my thighs to keep him with me, but it is no longer enough.

  Reluctantly, I let him go. I shiver as if already stepping into one of the baths. I feel lost and alone and vulnerable. Then he gathers me in his arms and I know that all is safe again. We have a new connection, a daytime connection, a closeness greater than proximity.

  Time re-enters the room with a peal of Aves. I shut my ears to the inexorable chimes and heave myself up before he has a chance to protest.

  ‘It’s eight o’clock. I have to get back to the Acceuil. For Richard,’ I add, more for my own sake than for his. He lifts himself up on his elbows and I am suddenly aware of the shrivelled condom. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  He peels it off as if reading my mind. ‘Another one to get rid of! Any suggestions? It’s probably a criminal offence to wear them in this town.’

  ‘No, just a mortal sin,’ I say, for once with no trace of contrition. ‘Can’t you flush it down the loo?’

  ‘You’re so gorgeously naïve.’ I decide not to ask him to elucidate but watch him wrap it in a wad of tissues. ‘I’ll chuck it in a rubbish bin outside. I feel like I’ve regressed to sixteen.’

  ‘You started early.’

  ‘And stopped far too soon,’ he replies darkly. I lean across and kiss him, but the shadow remains.

  ‘I’ll have a quick shower.’

  ‘I thought you were going to the baths first thing.’

  ‘I am. You’re not serious?’

  ‘What? You think St Bernadette might object if you turn up in the rank sweat of an enseamed … whatever?’

  ‘You’re a monster,’ I say, turning away to hide my smile. I move into the bathroom, surprising myself by neglecting to lock the door. Any hope of a revitalising shower is dashed by the trickle of water. I inspect my vulva, finding no sign of blisters, and swiftly withdraw my hand as Vincent comes in to pee. I feel sure that he is making a point and resolve not to flinch.

  ‘I see you’ve discovered the state-of-the-art plumbing. I think Madame Basic Jesus would consider a fully functioning shower not just an indulgence but a snare.’

  ‘You mean pilgrims should keep their minds on higher things?’

  ‘And there’s an endless supply of incense for when things get rancid.’

  I draw back the curtain and step out of the shower, acutely aware of the brutal strip light. ‘Of course, the truly devout needn’t worry.’ I say, both to tease and distract him. ‘Remember St Bernadette. When they opened her coffin years later, her body was incorrupt.’

  ‘No kidding?’

  ‘There were independent observers. Not just nuns.’

  ‘I’d rather think of those early hermits who wallowed in their own shit. I once got caned at school for asking how St Simon Stylites went to the toilet on the top of his pillar.’

  ‘I bet you were a vile little boy.’

  ‘But the girls loved me.’

  I neatly evade his affirmative lunge and return to the bedroom, where I gaze in dismay at my underwear, wishing that I had thought to pack more alluring pants. There again, if he aims to last the course, he may as well know the whole passion-killing truth.

  ‘I’d kill for a cup of coffee,’ I say, buttoning up my shirt.

  ‘You needn’t go that far. The dining room’s open and the coffee’s not half-bad. I know for a fact because I heard some of the Liverpudlians complain.’

  ‘I couldn’t! You may be feeling demob-happy. It may even make the perfect end for your film: a shot of the director being drummed out of Lourdes with his flies undone. But you’re on your own. I’m not having the waitresses gawp at me as if Mary Magdalene’s rolled into town.’

  ‘Suit yourself. Just don’t start telling people I don’t give breakfast.’

  ‘Pig!’ I grab a pillow but cannot bring myself to hit him even in jest, and let it drop feebly. ‘Now I must go. I really must. Don’t try to stop me.’ He holds up his hands, open-palmed. ‘If you intend to go to the baths yourself, you’d better get a move on.’

  ‘There’s plenty of time. The queues aren’t nearly as long for men. Besides, you shouldn’t underestimate the power of the camera. Forget the stretchers and wheelchairs; make way for the director and crew.’

  ‘I bet you’d take advantage of it too.’

  ‘You do the penance. I get the perks.’

  ‘I don’t know what I ever saw in you.’

  ‘Oh, I think you do.’

  He kisses me and I have no choice but to agree. I pick up my bag with my precious new angel and move to the door. ‘I expect I’ll see you at the Grotto?’

  ‘You will indeed.’

  ‘I’ll be with Richard and Patricia.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I promise to behave.’

  I leave the room without looking back. The atmosphere in the corridor is so different that it feels less like closing a door than crossing a frontier. The cloying mixture of stale air and dust, cooking oil and cleaning products, makes my yearning for coffee more intense than ever and I weigh up whether I have time to slip in to a café on the way to the Domain. The lift is so slow in coming that I suspect a plot to force all but the most disabled guests to take the stairs. At last the doors open, to reveal an elderly man with heavy jowls pushing a withered woman in a wheelchair.

  ‘’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 fis
t 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.