Jubilate

by Michael Arditti

  Father Humphrey jiggles the bag and pulls out a ticket. ‘Number 333.’ There is no response. ‘All the threes – three hundred and thirty-three. Come on! Someone must have it.’

  ‘Over here!’ one of the brancardiers shouts. ‘Don’t be shy, Kev.’

  ‘Kevin, lad, is it you?’

  ‘I’ve got the ticket, yeah,’ he says grudgingly.

  ‘Well come up and get your voucher.’ As Kevin trudges to the front, I detect a measure of pride beneath the truculence.

  ‘I can give it to my mum,’ he says.

  ‘She may prefer to have a picture of you,’ Louisa says gently.

  ‘Does it include a plastic surgeon?’ Geoff calls out.

  ‘Don’t mind them, Kevin,’ Louisa says. ‘They’re just jealous.’

  ‘I don’t!’ Kevin says, his face resuming its habitual scowl.

  ‘Finally, we have tonight’s star prize. A weekend for two in Lourdes, courtesy of our tour operators, Remington Travel who, I’m sure you’ll all agree, have once again done us proud.’

  ‘And the winner is …’ Alan strums a few suspenseful chords on the guitar as Father Humphrey dips his hand into the bag. ‘Number 158. Who has number 158?’

  No one speaks until Jamie, peering over my shoulder, exclaims: ‘It’s you, chief.’

  ‘What?’ I look with horror at the offending ticket.

  ‘This way!’ Jewel says, as everyone claps.

  ‘Well this is a turn-up!’ Louisa says. ‘Come on out, Vincent.’

  ‘I think someone must have paid a secret visit to the Crowned Virgin,’ Father Dave says, adding to my misery as I creep to the front.

  ‘Here you are, sir,’ Father Humphrey says, handing me an envelope. ‘You’ll be back again sooner than you thought.’

  ‘It’s a fix,’ Brenda shouts. ‘A bloody swindle!’

  ‘Now now, Brenda,’ Louisa says, in mollifying tones.

  ‘Yes, it’s all so as you can get your ugly mug on TV,’ Brenda shrieks at Louisa, before rounding on Father Humphrey. ‘Call yourself a priest? You should be ashamed. And you!’ She turns to Linda who sits, tinsel dangling over her face and a brimming glass of wine in her hand. ‘Get off your bony arse and take me back to the room. That’s if you’re not too pissed.’

  ‘Watch out!’ Linda says. ‘The royal knickers are in a twist.’

  ‘Something else’ll be twisted in a minute. Get up!’

  Linda stands tipsily and pushes Brenda out of the room.

  ‘Oh dear,’ I say, ‘I’d be happy to give the holiday to her, or anyone else for that matter.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Louisa says. ‘Every year it’s the same. Isn’t that so, Marjorie?’

  ‘I’m afraid Brenda doesn’t always enter into the spirit of the occasion,’ Marjorie says. ‘Once she won second prize: a bottle of perfume – which I must say she … Anyway, she raised merry hell because it cost less than the third prize.’

  I rejoin Jamie and Jewel who are now openly smirking, as Louisa winds up the proceedings. ‘Well done to Vincent and to all our winners. And to all our losers, because they’re winners too,’ she adds, with the usual Lourdes logic. ‘I’d like to remind you that we’re due at the baths at nine thirty. Meanwhile, enjoy the rest of the party. The night is yet young.’

  Alan strums his guitar and Louisa herself moves to the piano, while handmaidens bring round wine and Coca-Cola. Sophie returns, looking relieved. ‘Sorry about that. It was Giles. He’s been in meetings all day. He left his mobile at the hotel. Everything’s sorted.’

  ‘I’m very glad. Now remember, you have a matter of a similar nature to arrange.’

  ‘I’m changing my job description – dogsbody, nursemaid and dating agent.’

  As she walks over to Gillian, I turn to Jamie and Jewel for distraction. ‘Are you two hitting the bars?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Jewel says. ‘We’re off to the Solitude to join the brancs and girls in a game of charades.’

  ‘Just remember some of them lead sheltered lives,’ I say to Jamie. ‘We don’t want a repeat of the Fanny by Gaslight incident.’

  Sophie comes back with the news that Gillian will meet me at the hotel as soon as she has settled Richard. I thank her warmly and hurry out of the room in the hope of triggering a general exodus. Nobody stirs.

  I walk over the bridge to find the path blocked by the Torchlight procession which, yesterday, formed such a felicitous prelude to my encounter with Gillian. As I wait for a convenient gap, an old man with a wall eye wordlessly offers me a candle. Reluctant to offend him but refusing to dissemble, I shake his hand, which is itself waxy, and indicate that I am just passing through. I cross in front of a party of African nuns, whose black faces and white habits feel gloriously incongruous, and hurry up to St Joseph’s Gate and back to the hotel. While not even Madame BJ’s basilisk stare can daunt me tonight, I am relieved to see her young assistant at reception. I explain that Gillian will be arriving shortly and ask him to show her to the bar. One glance at the beery Liverpuddlians watching football is enough to change my mind. I return to the foyer and tell him that I will wait in my room.

  I sit, stand and lie down, flicking through my newspaper and notebooks, as time plays its usual tricks. I hide the crystal angel under the pillow, ready for a chance discovery when she rests her head. I am torturing myself with all the reasons for her to cry off when a knock at the door makes me jump. ‘Entrez,’ I call, finding to my delight that it should have been ‘Entres’.

  ‘I told the receptionist to ring.’

  ‘I like to catch you off-guard.’

  ‘I’m always off-guard where you’re concerned.’

  I leap up and kiss her: first delicately, even tentatively, to re-establish contact; then rapidly and repeatedly, to make her laugh; then deeply and at length, so that nothing can come between us.

  ‘I need to sit – to lie – down a moment,’ she says eventually.

  ‘Mi casa es tu casa.’

  ‘Spanish too? I thought you weren’t a linguist.’

  ‘Is it Spanish?’ I ask with a grin. ‘No wonder that Swiss guy looked confused.’

  She stretches out on the bed, plumping up the pillows in a thrillingly proprietorial way. I perch on the edge, frightened of moving too fast.

  ‘Sophie knows?’ she says.

  ‘Jamie told them both. But don’t worry. They’re utterly discreet.’

  ‘What must they be thinking?’

  ‘That I’m a very lucky man. That we are very lucky people. That we should seize every scrap of happiness we can.’

  ‘I see you’ve picked a crew who share your philosophy.’

  ‘Are you angry with me?’

  ‘Of course not. Why should I be?’

  ‘Because of the song.’

  ‘I was touched … well, taken aback and a little terrified, but touched. I was touched.’

  ‘Apart from anything else, it gave me a chance to get to know Richard.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I now realise that among all your other virtues you have the patience of a saint.’

  ‘I thought you had no time for saints.’

  ‘Only plaster ones.’

  ‘Patricia knows too.’

  ‘Why? What’s she said?’

  ‘Nothing. She didn’t need to. Her face said it all. Ever since I came back this afternoon.’

  ‘She had to know sometime.’

  ‘No, she didn’t.’

  ‘She does if we’re to have any future.’

  ‘What? Like “Excuse me, Mother-in-law, but would you look after your son while I spend the weekend with my lover?”’

  ‘Why only the weekend?’

  ‘It’s so easy for you. You have no ties.’ She catches sight of Pippa’s photograph which, this time, I had not thought to remove. ‘This wasn’t here yesterday.’

  ‘I put it in the drawer.’

  ‘You were that sure I’d be coming back?’ She sits bolt upright.

  ‘Not at all. I slip
ped it in when we arrived. The business with the light switch.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ She relaxes.

  ‘It shows what a difference one day can make. Last night I thought you might be upset, put off. Tonight it never crossed my mind. I want you to share in every part of me, the past as much as the present.’

  ‘She’s so pretty,’ she says, lifting the picture to the light. ‘She has your eyes.’ Then, setting it carefully down, she takes hold of my face and kisses my eyelids. ‘Such expressive eyes.’ I rest my head on her shoulder and her touch becomes almost maternal.

  ‘Nothing in this world is easy,’ I say. ‘The Church has got that right at least. For two people to have as much as we do, someone else will always lose out.’

  ‘But does it have to be someone weaker?’

  ‘Is Richard really that weak? Or is his weakness his strength? You said yourself that, if his brain weren’t damaged, you’d have left him years ago. You feel as guilty as I do, only with far less – with no – cause. Guilty for an act of God! Somewhere deep down, you think God did this to Richard to stop you breaking your vows. So is it a blessing or a punishment? Either way it’s destroying your life. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Why, if it’s what you believe? How you must despise me!’

  ‘You know that’s not true. It would be easier if I did, or at least if I was bored by you or as indifferent to you as I am to Mary or Claire or Tess.’

  ‘She’s looking to have an affair.’

  ‘Who? Tess?’

  ‘Forget I said that! She was overwrought. She’s so worried about Lester.’

  ‘When will you realise that you can trust me?’

  ‘I’m sorry – I’m so confused. Didn’t you promise me a drink? I’d kill for a Minty Mary.’

  ‘No need.’ I pick two glasses off the chair. ‘I pinched them from the dining room this morning. I’m equipped for every eventuality.’ As I pour two large vodkas, her eye falls on the condoms lying on the bedside table.

  ‘So I see.’

  ‘Well I couldn’t afford the bootleg version two nights on the trot.’

  ‘You’ve bought six,’ she says, fingering the packets.

  ‘As I said – every eventuality. Budge up!’ I sit beside her on the bed. ‘Cheers!’ I clink the glass she holds loosely in her hand.

  ‘So what happens next?’ she asks.

  ‘We make love.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘We make love again. Sorry, I know that wasn’t the question, but I think we should take things as they come. I don’t mean slowly. Quite the reverse. Just that we should face each problem as it presents itself.’

  ‘What about the problem that’s already here – that’s asleep half a mile up the road?’

  ‘Some men take on their partner’s children – I’ll take on Richard.’

  ‘That’s easy to say. It’s not all fun and games and party pieces.’

  ‘No, Miss.’

  ‘I’m being serious.’

  ‘So am I. If it’s what you want, we’ll find a way.’

  ‘The trouble is I don’t know what I want!’ She lets her head fall on the pillow. ‘Ow!’

  ‘Oh hell, I forgot! You haven’t hurt yourself, have you?’

  ‘I’ll survive. What is it?’ She lifts up the pillow and pulls out the package. ‘A present for the chambermaid?’

  ‘Hardly. It’s for you. Every angel should have a spare.’

  ‘You’ve lost me. What is it?’

  ‘Open it and see.’

  GILLIAN

  Monday June 16

  ‘Wakey wakey!’ Patricia shouts superfluously through the door. ‘My hands are full.’

  ‘Come in,’ I say, pinching my cheeks.

  ‘I’ve brought you a cup of tea.’ She sets it down on my bedside table.

  ‘That’s kind, thank you.’

  ‘I can never sleep well the night before I travel. Shall I draw the curtains?’

  ‘I’ll do them. It’s fine.’

  She pays no attention. ‘It’s a lovely day. Someone up there’s watching over us.’ She gazes at the garden. ‘Which is more than I can say for your borders. You can take the rustic look too far. Still, I’m sure you’ve a lot to occupy you.’ She turns to my primary occupation. ‘How’s Sleeping Beauty?’

  ‘Still sleeping.’

  ‘It’s a gift. When he was a boy, his father used to say he’d sleep through World War Three. That’s when we still thought there’d be one.’ She kisses his forehead, causing barely a stir.

  ‘Right. I’ll leave you two to get ready. I only have to slip my coat on.’

  ‘We have an hour and a half before the car comes.’

  ‘I’m sorry but it’s the way I am. No point trying to change me now. I’ll wipe down your worktops.’

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t.’

  ‘One less thing for you to worry about. Take advantage of me while you can.’

  She heads downstairs to reassert ownership over my kitchen, where she has been creeping about since six o’clock, in an attempt at silence that grates more than noise. I suspect that even now, with Pattersons sold, Thomas dead and Richard … well, Richard, she holds that everything I have comes courtesy of her. For all her fawning over her son, she never gave him credit for any initiative. No matter how much business he brought in, she shared Thomas’s view that it sprang from the goodwill he had inherited when he joined the firm. Throughout his working life he felt humiliated at having to remain Mr Richard in deference to his father. By the time his father died, he was plain Richard, with no status at all.

  I taste the tea, which is predictably weak: a single ‘as it comes’ when Richard first took me home, having established a pattern for life. Has she never considered that nervousness at meeting my prospective mother-in-law might have made me eager to please? At what point in subsequent years did it become impossible to set her straight? Or has she known all along and been secretly laughing at my cravenness? The thought is too appalling to contemplate.

  I give Richard a gentle shake. He turns to me groggily and starts the day with a slurred invective, a gust of stale breath and a routine fumble with my thigh. I push away his hand and apply my usual mixture of carrot and stick. ‘Breakfast time. Your mother’s downstairs.’

  ‘What’s she doing here?’ he asks, a tremor followed by a frown.

  ‘She stayed the night, don’t you remember?’ I hustle him out of bed and into the bathroom. ‘We’re going away, so give your teeth an extra-special brush.’ He moves to shut the door. ‘Why so coy all of a sudden?’

  ‘Mother,’ he replies, slamming it in my face.

  I return to the room and make the bed, venting my resentment of Patricia on the pillows. I should have stuck to the original plan of picking her up on the way to the airport rather than letting her twist my arm. ‘It will be one less thing for you to worry about in the morning. And you’ll be doing me a favour,’ she said, shamelessly playing the old lady card. ‘I have to put Toby in kennels the day before, and I don’t feel safe in that big house all on my own.’

  At least she keeps herself active. I dread to think what will happen when she grows frail or incapable. Will I have to look after the mother as well as the son? By rights that task should fall to Lucy, whose annual visits home are as routine and joyless as dental checkups. I would feel more aggrieved were it not for her hints of some childhood murkiness involving Thomas, which she blames Patricia for ignoring. Having watched him operate at the office, I am loath to pry.

  Richard emerges from the bathroom. ‘Your clothes are laid out on the bed,’ I say, prompting a snicker on which I prefer not to dwell. ‘Go downstairs as soon as you’re dressed and your mother’ll make your breakfast.’

  ‘That’s your job.’

  ‘I have to get ready. We don’t have much time. The driver’ll be here in an hour.’

  ‘What driver?’

  ‘To take us to the airport, remember? We’re going on holiday.’

  ‘No, we
’re not. We’re going to church.’

  ‘We’re going to Lourdes, on a pilgrimage.’

  ‘I know that – I’m not stupid,’ he says sharply. ‘To sing at the cave and hold candles and pray with the priests.’

  ‘Very good,’ I say, impressed by his memory if disturbed by its slant. ‘All that will make you hungry, so be sure to eat up.’

  I shower and put on the Liberty print skirt that Patricia has bought me for the journey, a gift that I would have received with more grace had it not come with a reminder that ‘first impressions count’. I gaze rebelliously at a pair of trainers, which I slip into the top of my case before dragging it downstairs. Patricia hears the clumping and dashes out of the kitchen.

  ‘You don’t need to do that. I arranged with the taxi firm – the man will bring down all the luggage.’

  ‘It isn’t heavy.’

  ‘That’s not the point. He’s been paid.’

  I follow her into the kitchen where Richard is eating a boiled egg in a yellow chick eggcup that Patricia must have unearthed from the back of a cupboard. Has she no qualms? It is bad enough that she should connive at his infantile antics without ferreting through my shelves.

  ‘Everything’s out on the table,’ Patricia says.

  ‘Thank you. Richard, stop playing with your food! Can’t you eat properly just for once?’

  ‘I think this visit to Lourdes is going to do you a lot of good,’ Patricia says.

  ‘If nothing else, it’ll be a break. It’s our first week away since … well, in years. People aren’t exactly showering us with invitations.’

  ‘I hope you won’t take this the wrong way – as you know, I’m the last one to criticise – but you’re a bit too inclined to feel sorry for yourself. Seeing all the severely handicapped people, some no better than vegetables (not that you heard that from me!), will show you how well off you are.’

  ‘I can’t wait,’ I say, taking a bite of cold toast. For all her cod psychology, Patricia has failed to realise that the last thing I want is to see people worse off than myself. I am well aware that, in the roll call of victims, I rate fairly low. Hello, Mr Double Amputee, have you met Mrs Sprained Ankle? But the ankle still hurts. I don’t want it put in perspective; I want it cured.