‘Only on escort duty. Making sure there are no snarl-ups in the women’s queue. Don’t worry, the men’s is always much shorter.’
‘I suppose it takes us less time to undress.’
‘No, there are fewer of you.’
‘Yes, of course.’ I feel my knuckles smart.
‘We may not have the chance to talk later. As soon as we finish at the Grotto, we’re off to the airport. So tell me, have you found the pilgrimage useful? Did you get all you hoped?’
‘Far, far more,’ I say, with unexpected intensity.
‘Yes, I imagine you did.’
‘What?’
‘Don’t look so shocked. Even an old stick like me can put two and two together. A certain person stays out all night, claiming that she was with her mother-in-law.’
‘I’m sorry. I hope you don’t think I’ve betrayed your trust.’
‘Not mine. Whether you’ve betrayed anyone else’s, I leave to you and your conscience. Just take care, that’s all I ask.’
‘I thought you’d be horrified.’
‘Let me tell you a story: no, not a story, mine.’ She glances in the direction of the men’s baths. ‘Yes, it’s quiet – you have the time. Life in the forces can be lonely. Comradeship only goes so far. I used to say I was married to the job (I may even have believed it), but a job can disappoint you as much as a man. Then I met Clive.’ I try not to show my surprise. ‘He was an academic. A philologist. You wouldn’t think we had anything in common – me used to barking out orders, him to studying words – but we did. More than I’d have ever thought possible. We fell in love – we were going to be married. No one in the squadron could credit it. They all made the same assumption as you. It’s no use denying it – it’s written all over your face … But he was killed in a train crash coming to visit me in High Wycombe (they say it’s the safest way to travel). And I soldiered on. I’m sorry – I didn’t mean that.’ She laughs nervously. ‘There again, perhaps I did. At fifty-five, I retired. Back to Chalfont St Giles and my mother. She moved there when my father died. It was a dreadful mistake.’
‘Her moving there or your moving in?’
‘Both.’ We are distracted by a chant that echoes from the Grotto. ‘It was as though she’d just been waiting for me in order to give up. Within a few months of my arrival she grew seriously confused, and within a year she’d lost all her marbles. Believe me, nothing in life prepares you for wiping your own mother’s bum. I began to drink. I’d never been a stranger to the mess bar but this was something new. Whisky was my tipple, and not just a wee dram. Ten years ago you wouldn’t have liked me. Perhaps I should say you’d have liked me even less than you do now.’ She waves aside my protests. ‘Then one day – a day that on the face of it was no different from any other – I took myself in hand. My mother was dead and I was heading rapidly the same way. I went to AA. I gave myself up to a higher power. In my case that was God. And from that day to this, not a single drop of alcohol has passed my lips. That’s the reason I began coming here: not to pray for a miracle but to give thanks for one – the miracle that I’m still alive. A minor miracle, I grant, but one for which I’m profoundly grateful.’
‘I think we all are.’
‘That’s kind of you. Now I’ve kept you long enough. I have to check on the packing and you have to get to the baths.’
Astounded as ever by the sheer unpredictability of people, I watch as she crosses the bridge. Then, conscious of the time, I stride past the Grotto to the baths, where I find Jamie waiting in a queue which, in its organised chaos, resembles Barnsley Bus Station circa 1970. There is a strict sorting system: hospital pilgrims and their carers in one line; children and their escorts in a second; healthy pilgrims in a third. Each moves at a different pace, although in no discernible order. Priority is given to stretcher cases, priests … and filmmakers, as we discover when, five minutes after showing our permit to an attendant who objects to Jamie’s camera, he ushers us inside. A second attendant directs us to one of the small wooden benches in front of a row of blue-and-white curtained cubicles. To my surprise, I find myself next to Lester.
‘Jammy bugger!’ he says. ‘I suppose you waltzed straight in?’
‘Fraid so.’
‘Some of us have been sitting here the best part of an hour.’
‘I wasn’t expecting you at all.’
‘When in Rome.’ He shows no inclination to talk so I look round the shabby vestibule, studying the posters on how to pray. I am about to ask Jamie to pan over them, when an attendant steers Lester and myself into the far left-hand cubicle. He holds Jamie back until I once again produce the permit, which he examines diligently before allowing him in. We join three fellow pilgrims, two stripped to their underpants: a stringy old man with a savage scar across his chest and feet like rock crystal; and a close-cropped young man who might be waiting for an army medical. I have never taken much interest in other men’s bodies, either as a source of comparison or fulfilment, but there is enough of the prurient schoolboy in me to gawp at the slack-waisted friar who pulls off his habit, revealing a pair of jazzy boxer shorts and a strikingly protuberant navel. He catches my eye and I quickly stare at the floor. Meanwhile Jamie stands to one side, wreathed in embarrassment, as though he were the one with his pants down.
A hospitaller escorts a young African out of the inner sanctum and summons the friar. I notice that Lester is having trouble unlacing his trainers. ‘Would you like any help?’
‘Like? No. Need? Yes. Sorry, sorry, thank you. I can’t seem to manage this morning. My arms feel as though they’ve lost a foot overnight. Hey, that’s funny. My arms have lost a foot! No, it’s not.’ I squat and pull off his shoes and socks, leaving his toes looking strangely raw.
The friar returns with a beatific smile that makes me doubly ashamed of my prurience, and the hospitaller leads in the old man. I gaze at the African who has put on a T-shirt and jeans, the damp patches on his shoulders and back belying all the claims for the miraculous properties of water that dries instantaneously on the skin.
The hospitaller leads out the old man and calls me into a marble-walled chamber with a vaulted grey ceiling and a dangerously slippery floor. An enormous bath stands at the centre, and an image from the Satyricon flits irreverently into my mind. Three more hospitallers stand at the ready. Their colleagues must have told them of the filming since they express no surprise at seeing Jamie, camera in hand.
‘English?’ one asks, in a thick Mediterranean accent. I nod, strangely tongue-tied. A second conducts me to the corner of the room. ‘Please take off your shorts and put on this,’ he says, in a mild Bostonian twang. He hands me a wringing-wet linen cloth and holds up a towel to protect my modesty. ‘Nothing below the waist, please,’ he says to Jamie.
‘Don’t worry,’ he replies, ‘it’s for the BBC.’
With the cloth wrapped loosely around my hips, I approach the bath. I am enough of my mother’s son to worry about all the people who have immersed themselves before me. The Friar’s skin looked suspiciously sallow. What caused the old man’s scar? Has the African been exposed to tropical diseases? I anticipate my commentary as I wonder how many healthy – or relatively healthy – people return from Lourdes sicker than when they arrived, having caught an infection at the baths or a chill from the damp or, simply, taken a tumble on the floor.
I stand on the top step and turn back to Jamie, who has the camera trained on my every move. The American hospitaller takes hold of my arm and asks me to make my intentions. I try to empty my mind, but it is filled with thoughts of Gillian, who has grown so dear to me that I am ready to give up my most cherished precepts, even the one against prayer. After a moment he breaks the silence, saying: ‘St Bernadette, pray for us! Holy Mother, pray for us!’ before leading me down the steps.
The water is glacial and I feel like a Christmas Day swimmer in the Serpentine. Gripping me tighter than ever, the man directs me to sit down as if on a stool. He draws me back until I am up to m
y neck in the water. The cold is so intense that I seem to lose all sensation. He then raises me up to face a small plaster statue of the Virgin. I am uncomfortable standing bare-chested in front of her – the it has instinctively vanished – until I recall her presence in countless Crucifixions and Pietàs. The man says the Hail Mary and instructs me to the kiss the statue’s feet which, whether from courtesy or cowardice, I do without demur. He then guides me up the steps and into the corner, where I unwrap the dripping cloth and clumsily pull on my pants. The first hospitaller escorts me back to the cubicle and calls in the young man, who shows no resentment of my having usurped his place.
‘How was it?’ Lester asks.
‘Teeth-chatteringly cold. But strangely enough, I feel quite warm now.’
‘Sometimes you have to live on the edge.’
Looking at him in bemusement, I start to dress. My clothes feel damp but not unpleasant. After a quick goodbye to Lester, I follow Jamie outside to find Sophie and Jewel waiting for us by the river.
‘Did you get everything you wanted?’ Sophie asks.
‘I hope so. You’ll have to ask Jamie.’
‘Sure, so long as the Great British Public is ready for the sight of the chief in the altogether.’
‘The half-together, thank you! We’ve a quarter of an hour till the Grotto mass. Shall I join you there? There’s someone I have to find.’
‘If it’s the someone I think it is,’ Sophie says gently, ‘she left the baths with her mother-in-law twenty minutes ago.’ My throat constricts as I wonder whether their meeting were planned or if Patricia hurried down here after our talk. With no way of finding out, I suggest that we go straight to the Grotto. The more the film takes shape, the more certain I am that it must stick to the logic of the journey; which makes the final mass the obvious place to end.
At the Grotto, Ken and Derek are setting up for the service. With the help of two Domain officials, they clear the benches of unauthorised pilgrims, arrange the altar and lay out hymn sheets, several of which are immediately scattered by the wind. Shortly afterwards, the Jubilates start to arrive, some in a group from the Acceuil and others in batches from the baths. Ken marshals people to their seats more brusquely than before. I wonder whether his patience has finally snapped or he is simply anxious about time. Even prayer has to defer to Louisa’s schedule.
‘Toot, toot!’ Richard roars down the pavement, pushing Nigel at breakneck speed, an image that risks becoming literal as he swerves to avoid a dwarf with a callipered leg. Geoff, who tears after them, manages to gain control of the wheelchair just as it looks to be heading straight for the river wall. Richard and Nigel rock with uncontrollable laughter. Gillian and Patricia rush towards them but, with neither facing my way, I am left to speculate on their expressions. Geoff wheels Nigel into position beside Brenda, and Gillian threads her arm through Richard’s with an intimacy that tortures me. Then, as she leads him to his seat, she turns and fixes me with the most tender, loving and unequivocal smile.
I have passed my A levels; I have been taken on by the BBC; Celia has said ‘yes’: all in that one smile.
As soon as everyone is settled, Father Paul calls for the Jubilate roll of honour to be brought up to the altar.
‘Do you want this, chief?’ Jamie asks.
‘What? Oh yes, everything.’ I struggle to concentrate as four young brancardiers and handmaidens move forward with what looks like an old quilt covered in scraps of paper.
‘Are those the names of pilgrims who’ve died?’ I ask Marjorie, who is standing beside us.
‘Heavens, no! What a morbid imagination!’ she says, nervously fingering her crucifix. ‘They’re the intentions of all the helpers. We wrote them down during the training day and pinned them on. It’s Louisa’s idea to help everyone bond. Which it does, of course. Though we may not have time for it next year.’
We sing the hymn, ‘Mary Immaculate, Star of the Morning’, accompanied by the usual band, although without Fiona, who is too daunted by the crowd to mount the rostrum. Under cover of the prayers, I cast my eye over the assembled ranks of Jubilates, most of whom I shall never see again. I linger on those I chose not to include in the film but whose stories have nonetheless touched me: the teenager whose mental development has stuck at the age of five but whose physical development is normal, leaving her as terrified of her monthly periods as her peers are of pregnancy; the lawyer with breast cancer who has hidden it from her husband for fear of worrying him, pretending that she has spent this week at a conference; the middle-aged man with the tragically unlined face, who shuffles up and down the Domain as though wearing carpet slippers, his every step guided by his eighty year-old father; the woman with cerebral palsy whose sharp mind is obscured by the tortuous process of tapping out her thoughts on her synthesiser, compounded by the robotic male voice in which they are expressed.
Each one of them would have added a different colour to my portrait, but I am confident that none would have changed its shape.
Before the sermon, Father Dave calls on Louisa to deliver the final notices. ‘I’m sorry it’s not Father Humphrey who’s asked me up here because it’s the last time I’ll have to be obeyed … or even listened to.’ She chuckles, to the bewilderment of the bystanders. ‘Next year we’ll all be in Marjorie’s capable hands. So I’d like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who’s helped with the running of this year’s pilgrimage. You all know who you are and you’ve all been terrific. I’d also like to thank the hospital pilgrims who’ve put up with our little foibles –’
‘Hear hear!’ Brenda interjects.
‘Well at least we’ve one satisfied customer! On a practical note, I’d ask that at the end of mass you proceed straight to the lighting of the pilgrimage candle. That’ll be just to my left in one of those strange huts that look like burnt-out railway carriages.’ The image startles me. ‘Then please make your way as fast as possible back to the Acceuil. Teams A and C to the ward for cleaning duties. Team B with the hospital pilgrims to the top floor to wait for the coaches.’
Louisa steps down and Father Dave preaches a short sermon, which is lost for some in a crackly microphone and for me in contemplation of Gillian’s smile. We sing the hymn, ‘Sweet Sacrament Divine’, during which Father Humphrey consecrates the elements and the brancardiers pass round the collection plates, with Matt and Geoff boldly targeting the onlookers. The offertory gathered, Father Humphrey proclaims the Peace, prompting the entire congregation to break ranks, as though determined to greet everyone with whom they have journeyed over the week. Afraid of tempting fate, I make no attempt to approach Gillian. Instead, I shake Jamie’s hand and kiss Jewel and Sophie, before moving on to Derek and Charlotte, Mona and Fleur. Avoiding the crush around the wheelchairs, I head for Lester and Tess. ‘Peace be with you,’ I say, feeling like an oncologist abandoning them to palliative care.
‘Are you getting God, chief?’ Jamie whispers, as I return to the crew.
‘No, Jamie. Peace. And I have more of it to spread around than I have done in years.’
Everyone resumes his place apart from Nigel, who clasps Richard’s hand and refuses to let go. Richard looks alternately perplexed and impatient as he tries to shake off a grip of steely desperation. No one moves to intervene, as though the thought of Nigel’s return to life in a geriatric household shames us all. Finally, Gillian walks over to them and, after stroking Nigel’s cheek, succeeds in prising them apart. While Richard shows his crushed fingers to Patricia, eliciting surprisingly little sympathy, Gillian crouches beside Nigel and whispers something in his ear which, to judge by his grin, comforts him.
Father Humphrey leads us in prayer. After stressing the link between the manger, or feedbox, in which Mary laid Christ and the altar from which we feed off him, he invites us to do just that, a long-drawn-out process despite the strategically placed assistance of Father Paul and Father Dave. I am amazed to see Gillian standing in line beside Richard and Patricia. Yesterday she was adamant that she could
not take communion while in a state of mortal sin, a state that can only have been reinforced by last night. So what has changed? Has she been to confession as well as the baths? Or – it is almost too much to hope – has she refined her sense of sin?
With the walkers returned to their seats and the wheelchairs to their places, we sing the final hymn, ‘Dear Mother of our Saviour Christ We hail Thee, and depart’, which is nothing if not to the point. Father Humphrey pronounces the Blessing and we process out of the Grotto, behind the large Jubilate candle with the trademark angel stencilled on the wax, towards what, pace Louisa, looks less like a burnt-out train than a row of kebab stalls. An official directs the two brancardiers who are carrying the candle to place it in a cluster of similar size and varying states of deliquescence. Father Humphrey lifts up Fiona to light it but, despite the priestly windshield, the flame repeatedly blows out. So he takes it on himself, succeeding at the fourth attempt.
‘May this candle continue our prayers.’
I contemplate lighting a candle for Pippa, a gesture of woeful inadequacy. Moreover the waste would outrage Celia, who once deeply offended my mother by claiming that Judas was right to condemn Mary Magdalene for pouring oil on Jesus’s feet rather than using the money for good works. The thought of my mother prompts me instead to light a candle for her, carefully choosing one of just above average length, balancing her dread of ostentation against my wish that it should last.
‘Toot toot! Toot toot!’ Richard, back behind the wheelchair, propels Nigel through the crowd, which parts hastily. Linda, however, lingers, with what looks suspiciously like a flirtatious smile.
‘You’ve made a friend for life there, mate,’ I say, making him blush.
‘Come on you!’ Brenda says, twisting her neck a few millimetres towards her companion. ‘You’ll only encourage him and who knows where it will lead. Filthy beast!’ She snorts, prompting Linda to whisk her away. Nigel claps his hands as if the scene had been staged for his benefit, but Richard looks uncharacteristically abashed. I scour the background for Gillian, who is nowhere to be seen.
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