‘What time is it over there?’
‘Not a clue. But it’s Sophie time, twenty-four seven.’
‘I look forward to meeting this paragon.’
‘He’s not your type.’
‘I’m relieved to hear it.’
‘I mean you won’t like him.’
‘How come you’re so sure?’
‘The job. The friends. The club. The car. The gym. The parents. The cottage. The politics.’
‘But none of that has stopped you?’ I ask, wincing at the exhaustive list.
‘Of course not,’ she says, as affronted as if I had questioned her affection for her old nanny.
Despite dabbling in Bohemia, when it comes to love and marriage she retreats to Wiltshire. Giles has replaced Gregory, whose brash announcement that he went to school at Windsor Comprehensive let even an oik like me in on the joke. Maybe such tribalism makes sense? Throughout my childhood my great-aunt’s marriage to a Methodist was presented as the ultimate betrayal. ‘A primitive Methodist!’ my mother pronounced, as though it were a reflection on his character. With similar relish, she seized on their granddaughter’s recent civil partnership as the inevitable result.
‘She’s “married” a nurse!’
‘What’s his name?’ I asked disingenuously.
‘Susan,’ she replied, with a shudder.
Just as some delight in putting up social barriers, others delight in tearing them down. I can think of one very bright, very beautiful and very big-hearted woman whose love for the cocky young BBC director with a spleen as large as his ego was, to his amazement, prompted by him alone and not an attempt to punish her patrician parents: a woman for whom the only meaningful distinction was talent. She should have stayed closer to home, marrying some decent, dim man who gave her security if not excitement, propriety if not challenge, fidelity if not passion. Instead, she fell for a cheap womaniser, whose mixture of cowardice, vanity, restlessness and opportunism, not to mention, lust, destroyed both their lives.
Would I behave any differently if I fell in love again?
Do I think so badly of myself that I need to ask?
I would be as true to any future love as Sister Anne and Sister Martha are to God.
So what perversity makes me pursue a married woman?
She is sitting some five or six rows behind me, yet I am as alive to her presence as if she had swapped places with Sophie. Just to know that she is so close makes my heart leap. Controlling my desire to turn, I keep my gaze fixed on the window. Having scared her off yesterday, I had to prove that I was no threat and so confined myself to a nondescript nod as she boarded the coach. This strange blend of anticipation and self-denial brings its own rewards, like a child hoarding his sweets to savour at bedtime or, more to the point, a monk mortifying his flesh in the hope of eternal bliss. My grin baffles Sophie. ‘Come on!’ she says, ‘Sucker and succour: it’s not that funny!’ It takes me a moment to realise that she is alluding to Father Humphrey’s joke.
The excitement intensifies. I gibber like a baby and fizz like vintage champagne. I long to transform the coach into the set of a Hollywood musical, dancing down the aisle, partnering each of the women in turn – Marjorie, Tess, Lucja, Patricia, even Maggie – as I head for Gillian, whom I sweep off her feet and across the floor, which expands to the size of a ballroom. On and on we waltz until the final frame freezes and the credits roll over us, locked forever in an image of perfect harmony.
Who cares if I never make the film or, indeed, any film, while Douglas Simcox, fresh from his triumph with the Mugsborough housepainters, is whisked away to a glittering career in L.A.? Real life has never seemed so beguiling. Not even the dull drone of the rosary can shake my mood. Father Humphrey has relinquished the microphone to Father Dave, who injects a serious note into the proceedings, his appeal to the Virgin coinciding, consciously or not, with our reaching a more precipitous stretch of road. He invites a moment of audience participation, or as he calls it, hymn-singing, leaving me free to examine the prospect from the window and, more pressingly, my prospects with Gillian.
We have, as Father Dave reminds us, arrived at the halfway point of the pilgrimage; I intend to make it a turning point for Gillian and me. With the free time scheduled for this afternoon, Saint Savin should be the perfect place to test our feelings which, transplanted from the hothouse of Lourdes, will have room to breathe. In the mountains we will be surrounded by nature, not hemmed in by history. We will be Adam and Eve without the accretions of myth.
Mundanity sets in when, with a nod to his former profession, Father Dave praises the surrounding countryside. ‘They’re developing the region for winter sports. A poor man’s Biarritz. It’s been a godsend for Lourdes. Half the hotel staff come up here out of season.’
‘If you can’t fleece them in the Grotto, fleece them on the slopes,’ I whisper to Sophie.
‘Do you ski, Vincent?’ she asks.
‘Is that a serious question?’
‘No, of course not. I’m trying to be the irritating Sloane in your flesh!’
‘The answer is no, I’m afraid. I was a wooden-crate-down-slagheap kind of boy.’
‘I was a Verbier-every-February kind of girl. So what? It’s never too late to start. There’s nothing to beat it. The fresh air. The purity. That feeling of being on top of the world.’
‘And then it’s downhill all the way.’
We come to a stark iron bridge spanning a picturesque ravine. ‘Hands up anyone who can tell me who built it?’ Father Dave asks. ‘No, not you, Maggie! We know you know. Yes, Frank?’ He walks down the coach to catch the muffled reply. ‘The builders,’ he repeats for our benefit. ‘The builders!’ He laughs. ‘Yes, that’s certainly true. But who was behind it? Go on then, Maggie.’
‘Napoleon.’
‘That’s right. Legend has it that he was camped with his army on one side of the river and he fell in love with a young lady on the other. So, to facilitate their – how shall I put it? – amour, he had his engineers build the bridge. The path of true love and so on.’
‘How about the path of true adultery?’ I say to Sophie. ‘Isn’t that forbidden by his Church, or are emperors given papal dispensation?’
‘I’m off duty.’
Twenty minutes later we arrive at Saint Savin, stepping off the coach into streets that are almost deserted. The rows of shuttered windows seem designed to deter the casual glance as much as the impromptu visit. I feel a chill down my spine in spite of the blistering heat.
‘I wasn’t expecting a red carpet, but this is seriously spooky,’ Jewel says as she joins me.
‘They’re probably all in church. Two childhood sweethearts tying the knot.’
She looks at me open-mouthed. ‘Would you mind repeating that?’
‘Why?’
‘The christening of the village idiot’s baby perhaps, or the funeral of a downtrodden peasant. Since when did childhood sweethearts enter your calculations?’
‘Am I that predictable?’ I must be on my guard. Rose-tinted spectacles are doubly unseemly at my age.
We watch while the lengthy decanting process begins on the second coach. Jamie leaves Father Humphrey and walks towards us, as the hydraulic lift is released and the first wheelchair laboriously lowered. ‘Next time, how about behind the scenes at Formula One motor-racing, chief?’ Jamie asks.
‘Sure! Fine! Why not a six-part series?’ I reply, irked to hear my own impatience echoed in his.
‘So what’s with the padre?’ Jewel interjects.
‘He’s all right is Father Humph. He drinks; he swears; he gambles. Him and me and some of the brancs are having a poker club tonight.’
‘Deal me in,’ Jewel says.
‘No way. Women verboten!’
‘That’s sexist!’
‘What else do you expect of the Church?’ I ask, in a bid to restore my reputation.
‘It’s cool he’s cool,’ Jamie says. ‘He says the Church doesn’t mind a game as long as the stakes are low.�
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‘Some of these kids have no money at all. They’ve had to scrimp and save to get here.’
‘We’re playing for peanuts.’
‘What’s peanuts for you may be a tidy sum to them.’
‘No, peanuts. You know: salted, dry roasted.’
Eager to escape, I head into the shop for a bottle of water. Maggie, in an accent so thick that for once the French have no need to feign incomprehension, is explaining the purpose of our visit to the proprietor. Her ‘service de huiles’, complete with extravagant gestures, so perplexes him that I suspect he may direct her to the nearest garage. ‘He remembers us from last year,’ she says, seizing on his wary smile. ‘Or perhaps it’s just my filthy habit,’ she adds, pointing to a packet of Marlboro, which he hands her with marked relief.
‘Who can forget that?’ I ask, wondering why, given her obvious desire for penance, she doesn’t just cut out the middleman and say a Hail Mary after every puff.
Clutching my bottle of Vittel, I join the crowd climbing the hill, pausing to greet Mary and Steve, who carries a chortling Fiona on his shoulders, before moving up to Lester and Tess. ‘Morning,’ I say to a respective grunt and echo, as Lester fights for breath and Tess struggles to support him. I want to help, but the fear of offending him paralyses me. I am back on the kerb with the blind man, praying that his innate road sense will relieve me of the need to intervene. A nagging suspicion weaves through my mind that my reluctance to touch him springs less from regard for his dignity than from a primitive horror of contact with his disease. Keen to dispel it, I edge closer to his side. ‘Bloody steep,’ I say. ‘No wonder the coach-drivers won’t risk it. Anyone like a hand?’
‘Go ahead,’ Lester says, wheezing. ‘Heaven help me if I ever become dependent on her.’
‘The feeling’s mutual, mister,’ Tess replies lightly. ‘Tomorrow there’s no argument. You’re getting a chair.’
Taking Lester’s free arm, I am shocked by its adolescent boniness. ‘Still on for your grilling after the service?’ I ask, to distract us both from the uneasy contact.
‘You bet! Can’t miss my moment of glory.’
‘Are you happy with what you’ve got so far?’ Tess asks me.
‘By and large. Everyone’s been so frank. Not just on film. Last night I went for a post-penitence drink with Gillian Patterson. Have you talked to her at all?’ I ask casually.
‘Not as much as I’d like,’ she replies. ‘She’s an inspiration. I can’t imagine what it’s like to have your husband …’ She stops; Lester coughs; and I describe my chat with Gillian, ostensibly to fill the gap, but also from an aching need to speak her name out loud. Given the urgency of their own concerns, they are less likely to question my exhilaration than Jewel. As I babble on, we pass two young wheelchair-pushers who are making even slower progress than we are. A quick glance at their passenger explains why; it is Sheila Clunes. A second glance revises the explanation; Matt, who was previously paired with Kevin, has linked up with one of the handmaidens – literally, given their interlocked fingers on the back of the chair. I smile, at which she instantly breaks away. Why? Do I emanate disapproval? Or does middle age preclude me from any understanding of love?
Determined to prove otherwise, I make my way towards Gillian, who stands among the crowd in the porch. Discretion prompts me to address my remarks to Marjorie, and I engage her in the gentle ribbing of which the pilgrimage ladies are so fond. I overplay my hand and she flees to the safety of Louisa, leaving me with Gillian, which would be the perfect outcome had I not lost the power of coherent speech. Her radiance reduces me to banalities. The charm of her dress persuades me never again to disregard fashion. Celia cared little for clothes, foraging in charity shops with all the relish of one who grew up with a Harrods charge account. She had a grace and a glow and a youth that made even a cheesecloth skirt look stylish. Gillian is different. A troubled life – or simply a longer one – requires more adornment … I must stop this! It is absurd – not to say, distasteful – to compare a wife of ten years with a woman I have known for two days.
Nevertheless, the mere fact of my doing so convinces me that my feelings for Gillian are real. My mind is a mass of contradictions that somehow make perfect sense. I am at once light-headed and weighed down, as though I were split in two, and yet for the first time in years I feel whole. I worry that all this is happening too fast. It was months before Celia and I were able to speak of love to one another: in my case, because I had been taught to mistrust my emotions; in hers, because she had been taught to mistrust men. But here I am speaking of it – if not to Gillian, then at least to myself – after just two days. Have I become more perceptive or less discriminating? Am I responding to Gillian herself or to my own loneliness? Does this impetuosity come from being in France, home of the coup de foudre, or from being in Lourdes, home of lost causes?
Her expectant gaze only accentuates my confusion. There is something different about her this morning. It is not her hair which, a few tantalising wisps apart, remains coiled in its chignon. It is not her skin, although two days in the sun have lent its natural creaminess a hint of bronze. It is not her eyes, which have the same quicksilver quality as when we sat in the hotel bar last night. It is her mouth. She has chosen a lighter lipstick. If only I knew more about make-up! Celia despised that too … No, stop there! What does it mean when a woman who has always worn plum switches to pink? Is she signalling that she is ready for romance? Or has she simply run out of her usual shade?
There is so much I want to say to her but, instead, I come out with an archaic, almost flippant compliment (since when has luscious featured in my vocabulary?). I follow it with an equally inane question about her dreams. No wonder she looks lost. What do I expect her to reply? ‘Yes, and you played the lead in all of them, shinning down a chimney –’ or some equally phallic symbol – ‘to rescue me from a dragon with Patricia’s face and Richard’s tail’? I am so on edge that I challenge her most casual remark and she responds with an account of her mother’s dementia. The thought of her suffering torments me, and I long to ensure that she never has to go through such an ordeal again. That longing feels even more quixotic when I realise that she goes through something similar every day and that her only way out lies in Richard’s death. However hard I try, I cannot bring myself to wish for that. He may not be the man he was – he may scarcely be a man at all – but he still is. And, if I have learnt anything from Lourdes, it is how much of life remains on the margins.
I strive to change the subject and, catching sight of Father Dave, ask about the church’s patron saint. The news that he was a hermit is not encouraging. For all my antipathy to Bernadette or, more accurately, the sentimental cult that has grown up around her, at least she engaged with the world. Saint Savin withdrew from it, abandoning family and friends (as soon as we return to Lourdes, I must ring my mother) and any hope of leading a productive life. However abhorrent it may be to me, I am afraid that such conduct may find favour with one who is prone to renunciation. I have to show her that if the concept of sin means anything, then it is the rejection of all that is good; all that is happy; all that is beautiful in the world. In a word, it is the rejection of love.
I would go further and say that the true sin is to surrender one’s free will to an oppressive and outmoded ideology, but prudence prevails and I put the case for worldly pleasure in terms that any catechism teacher would approve. So I am doubly nonplussed when Father Dave poses a question that is both simple and unanswerable: ‘Who’s to say Saint Savin didn’t sit – or, more likely, kneel – in his hermitage and experience overwhelming joy: that he didn’t see as much of the world in his small patch of ground as any twenty-first-century jet-setter?’ His message hits home as if he were bellowing it from a pulpit – no, precisely because he is not bellowing it from a pulpit but rather intimating it in the porch. If I had stuck to my small patch of ground: if I had not sought satisfaction elsewhere, I would not have destroyed my marriage. We would sti
ll be a family rather than two mourners and one grave.
I hereby swear by all I hold most sacred, by the memory of that family which, with the bitterest irony, gives me the chance to redeem myself, that, should I be offered another taste of love (no, it is too late for self-protection), should Gillian return my love, then I will make it my whole world. I will not be diverted by a passing fancy; I will not look for meaning in a chance encounter; I will not seek fulfilment in a stranger’s sheets.
Louisa and Marjorie return, accompanied by the sacristan brandishing keys, and we follow them inside. I am instantly hit by the scents of beeswax, incense and dust, along with a hint of stale flesh, that take me back to my childhood. For once I am happy to sit quietly in my allotted pew, stilling my racing mind among the cosy certainties.
‘Look, chief,’ Jamie says, pointing to the angular wooden crucifix hanging on a pillar. ‘His eyes follow you all through the church.’
‘Not just the church, Jamie, life!’ I say jokily. ‘Every good Catholic from here to Timbuktu knows that the eyes of the Lord are on him day and night.’
‘Scary!’
The truly scary part is that, even sitting here as a rational adult, I feel the eyes boring into me. I wonder if I shall ever escape, focusing on the familiar irritations of the service to sustain my dissent.
Midway through proceedings, Father Paul moves to the pulpit. ‘Many of us are parents; all of us have parents,’ he begins, before expounding on the nature of family. I never cease to be amazed by the ease with which priests pontificate on an institution from which they are themselves safely removed, like staff officers in support trenches sending foot soldiers over the top. Although, at least in Father Paul’s case, the officer has risen from the ranks.
After a concluding paean to the Holy Family, he steps down, whereupon Father Humphrey moves to the altar to bless the oils, and we prepare to film. Any hope of slipping unobtrusively out of the pew is thwarted by the tightness of Jamie’s squeeze. I fix my attention on the ritual. I am intrigued by the notion of priests as shamans channelling a spiritual power which, to judge from the recipients’ faces, touches them deeply. The big surprise is Lester, who tumbles to the ground the moment Father Paul signs the cross on his forehead. Tess cries out, and consternation ripples through the church. To my dismay, Jamie lowers the camera. ‘Sod’s law, chief,’ he whispers. ‘Tape jam! I’ll nip out and change it. Be right back!’
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