Two Steps Onward

by Graeme Simsion

  ‘If we wait for his heart to stop, no ambulance is going to get here fast enough,’ said Sarah.

  Bernhard took charge, or at least adopted a take-charge voice. ‘I propose we wait until the others catch up. Probably he will be better. If not, Camille can make a phone call in Italian and arrange for the most suitable help. This is better than panicking.’

  I could see that Sarah was about to push back, but she stopped herself and nodded.

  I explained the plan to Gilbert. ‘Is this what you want to do?’

  ‘Wait for Camille? Yes.’

  ‘If you feel worse before that, I’m calling for help,’ said Sarah. ‘You have to tell me, okay?’

  Gilbert nodded and Sarah crouched beside him again.

  It was maybe forty-five minutes before Zoe and Camille arrived. As far as I could see, Gilbert was no better. ‘I am just waiting for the pills to have their effect,’ he said.

  We left him leaning on his pack as we explained the situation. Camille had begun to tell a story about a wine event at which Gilbert had become unwell when Zoe interrupted.

  ‘Sarah, what do you think we should do?’

  ‘Well, like Dad said, we discussed—’

  ‘I don’t care what anybody else thinks. You know more than we do. What do you think we should do?’

  ‘Call an ambulance. Right now.’

  Zoe had her phone out, Bernhard was getting our GPS co-ordinates, and I walked over to Gilbert to tell him what was happening. I knew immediately that Sarah had made the right decision.

  He was sweating heavily and struggling for breath. Something he had said to Sarah earlier came back to me.

  ‘Gilbert, tell me the truth—do you have a heart problem or not?’ History had been a bad word to use with a man who professed to be living only for the day.

  He smiled. ‘My heart is broken.’ Then he lost consciousness.

  77

  ZOE

  ‘No, I will walk,’ said Camille.

  It wasn’t clear that the paramedics would allow Camille to travel with Gilbert, even if she wanted to. Martin took down the name of the hospital and we watched in silence as the ambulance disappeared.

  Martin cleared his throat. ‘Someone needs to go to the hospital. I’ll call an Uber.’

  Sarah was crying and Bernhard was standing awkwardly at a distance. Camille seemed to have shut down emotionally. She just wanted to keep walking.

  ‘I’ll stay with Camille,’ I said.

  Martin had seen what was happening. ‘Sarah and I will go to the hospital. Bernhard can stay with you. Keep your phone on.’

  We left them to wait for the Uber with Gilbert’s pack. It was about eight miles to La Storta, and the sooner we got there the better. If I hadn’t heard anything by then, I’d find a way of getting Camille to the hospital.

  None of us spoke. Camille’s belle indifférence seemed to have cut in. Bernhard looked badly shaken.

  ‘Should we say a prayer?’ he said, looking at Camille.

  ‘For indigestion? I have said one anyway. Nobody else believes, so there is no point.’

  We’d been walking maybe half an hour when my phone buzzed.

  ‘Zoe?’

  He didn’t have to say any more. In my heart I already knew.

  Briefly, instead of thinking of Gilbert, I thought of my late husband, Keith. A good man who didn’t deserve to die. Gilbert had been so full of life. Could Camille and I have walked faster to catch up and to support Sarah: would that have made a difference? Not drunk that last cup of coffee before we left? Could I have pushed harder when I phoned for help?

  For a moment—or was it longer?—I was frozen and numb and just looked stupidly at the phone, even after I’d hit end.

  ‘Camille, sit down.’ There was a rock behind us and I steered her to it. ‘Camille, listen. That was Martin at the hospital. Gilbert had a heart attack.’

  ‘He has indigestion.’

  ‘No, Camille, he had a heart attack. They couldn’t revive him.’ I felt tears streaming down my face. Poor, blindly loyal Gilbert, who loved life and food and wine—and Camille. ‘I’m so sorry, Camille, but he died.’

  She shook her head. ‘Il n’est pas mort.’

  She didn’t look shocked. She looked perplexed.

  Bernhard sat down, slumped.

  ‘Poor Gilbert,’ I said, trying not to cry. ‘At least he didn’t suffer. We had such a good dinner yesterday.’

  ‘Organising is what Gilbert does best.’

  I put my hand over hers but she didn’t seem to notice.

  ‘He enjoyed the Italian food and wine, non?’ she said.

  ‘He did.’

  ‘You know we were having sex?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘I was worried it was a mistake, but I made the right choice.’

  We sat in silence, but still the tears were mine rather than Camille’s. It was hard to know what she was thinking, and I didn’t trust my reading of her to mention anything about God’s will. I’d leave that to a priest.

  ‘I should have supported Sarah.’ Bernhard’s voice was shaking.

  I didn’t have anything to say to that, and he must have felt it.

  ‘He walked for me,’ said Camille suddenly. ‘And he died because he didn’t have anything left to live for.’

  Not so different to Keith.

  We spent a while just sitting, then Bernhard got up and started walking toward La Storta. A few minutes later, without speaking, Camille and I followed. The walk was…nothing. Easy track in the park, then a bit of suburbia. Three hours that Camille kept silent—almost.

  ‘You want to talk?’ I asked at one point.

  She nodded slowly. ‘I made my decision and God has said: you cannot go back now.’

  Her and me both.

  78

  MARTIN

  All of us— even Zoe, who had acted the most decisively—felt some responsibility for Gilbert’s death, though the paramedics had assured us that it was unlikely that he could have been saved. Sarah had been doing heart compressions when they arrived, but he was already gone.

  At the hospital, after collecting paperwork for Camille to complete, I’d done my best to reassure Sarah that she’d done all she could, but she was straight back into blaming herself.

  ‘I shouldn’t have listened to Bernhard. What the fuck does he know?’

  ‘Nor should I. I’m sorry. I should have been right behind you.’

  ‘I just wasn’t sure. I’m only a med student. Not even that anymore. I was afraid of looking stupid if there were helicopters and everything and…Zoe was good.’

  ‘She was.’

  ‘I’ll say thank you when I see her, but I didn’t say it back then because it was like…it didn’t make any difference.’ She laughed, ruefully. ‘You were right about Bernhard. His father’s a bully and Bernhard didn’t want to be like him, but here we are.’

  ‘Tough lesson.’

  ‘You heard what I said to him.’

  I had. She’d been pretty angry. ‘I imagine he’s not feeling too good about himself at the moment.’

  ‘Well, yeah. He basically stopped someone who was dying—our friend who was dying—from getting help so he could show who was boss. He should feel bad.’

  ‘Are you going to forgive him?’

  ‘I said, you were right about him. Nothing to forgive. That’s who he is. I just don’t want him in my life. I might go back to medicine. So if today happens again I don’t screw up.’

  ‘If it’s any help to you, I think Gilbert was ready for this. Medically and…Camille was set on leaving him.’

  ‘I went through his pills. He was on medication for heart disease. He should have told us.’

  ‘And he probably shouldn’t have been doing this walk with a hairdryer and all the other stuff on his back. Sarah, we make our choices, and he didn’t want to call the ambulance.’ I didn’t want my daughter, or anyone, blaming themselves for what they’d done on this day for the rest of their liv
es. There was enough of that about.

  ‘Let’s focus on what we can do now,’ I said.

  ‘Look after Camille. She needs to see a priest.’

  ‘I guess Zoe’s taking on that role,’ I said. Practice for the future, the way things were sitting.

  ‘Not wanting to be critical of Zoe, but maybe right now she isn’t…’

  ‘At least Camille knows her. Compared with a local priest who she’s never met…’ I had a thought. ‘She has an address book, doesn’t she?’

  Sarah managed a laugh. ‘A paper one. She’ll be carrying it.’

  ‘You think?’

  She started opening the pockets of Gilbert’s pack.

  79

  ZOE

  Four hours after I’d taken Martin’s call, we arrived at the hotel, and waiting in the foyer was Grietje, the Belgian pilgrim whom Camille had confided in before we crossed into Liguria, dressed exactly as she had been in that all-you-can-eat pizzeria.

  Grietje flung her arms around Camille, and she finally cracked.

  Martin and Sarah were already there. Martin and I sat in the bar, where I had my first drink since my world had been turned upside down a week ago. He filled me in on what had happened and what would have to happen with the authorities. I wasn’t really taking it in. I had a sense of things falling apart. Sarah had taken a single room, Bernhard was inconsolable, and Camille, who should have been with me, had disappeared with Grietje.

  Martin told me that Grietje’s presence was a result of cell phones and the Italian train network rather than an act of God, though she may not have told Camille that. She had reached Assisi, her final destination, only the day before, and Martin’s call had seemed like divine intervention.

  I wasn’t totally happy with Martin bringing in an outsider when we had looked after each other to within a day of Rome, but it did give me time to get a hold of my own emotions. If that was even possible. Take help when it is offered.

  In the midst of my soul searching over what had happened with Camille, my guilt over her and Keith, and now Gilbert’s death, I found I needed to make things right with my own daughters. I’d been the cause of the problem with Keith’s insurance money.

  I phoned them both, apologised for changing my mind about taking a share and acknowledged my responsibility for the tension that had followed. Tessa was easy: ‘I let you take the blame and it was mine to shoulder.’ She protested—but not too much.

  Lauren was more difficult. ‘I should never have told you that you could have the money—I was trying too hard to be independent. And then I shouldn’t have changed my mind. It wasn’t Tessa’s fault. I can sell the apartment when I get back.’

  There was a silence long enough for me to worry about the connection before Lauren said, ‘I couldn’t let you do that. We’re fine. Tessa was right—I was selfish for ever accepting it in the first place.’

  My heart felt lighter and I wished I could hug them both—hoped they’d be able to hug each other.

  I had rejoined Martin when Grietje came downstairs.

  ‘What is that?’ said Grietje, pointing to Martin’s drink.

  ‘Scotch. Whisky.’

  ‘Is it strong?’

  ‘Strong enough.’

  ‘Can you get one for me, please?’

  Over our drinks, Grietje told us that Camille was coping, and they’d had a long talk.

  ‘Someone had told her that the pilgrimage would set her free. Of course, she was feeling guilty about this.’ Grietje reached forward. ‘Excuse me.’ She lifted one of the charms that I had worn for the walk—the small dove. ‘I reminded her that this is a journey not of freedom, but of peace. Not only for the world, but for oneself.’

  She let the dove drop back into place. ‘Now, you can tell her that I am too drunk to take her to church. It is good that she does not…make God out of me. Better you take her. Can I ask you to do this?’

  Camille was waiting for me, lying on the bed, dressed except for shoes.

  I stayed standing just inside the doorway, feeling awkward. ‘How are you doing?’

  ‘Better. But feeling bad about Gilbert. I made him walk, and this is why he died. He loved me so much, he died for me. No man can do more than that.’

  ‘Martin and I have been talking about it. I think even if he knew this would happen, he would have walked. You gave meaning to his life, and he was a happy man at the end. You…’

  ‘And soon I will be sicker, and God has freed him from the need to care for me.’

  ‘Grietje said this?’

  ‘No, I know this myself. It was his duty after what he did to me, and now God has lifted his burden.’

  I wasn’t looking forward to a couple decades of this kind of thinking, waiting for God to give me the way out that He’d given Gilbert. ‘Grietje suggested we go to church.’

  She stood up. ‘Yes, Zoe, you and me. We must talk with God.’

  There had been plenty of churches on the way in, but Grietje had given me a recommendation. We found ourselves at a busy junction in suburbia, where a small and incongruous pink building was surrounded by haphazardly parked cars. The Chapel of St Ignatius.

  I’d already googled it. Here, in 1537, Ignatius, travelling with friends, had received a vision of God and Christ who said, Ego tibi Romae propitius ero—I will be favourable to you in Rome. Apparently, the Pope was.

  We walked up a slight hill and went inside. We were alone: the cars must have been for something else. Unlike the many cathedrals and abbeys we had visited in the last ten weeks, this was simple, austere. One painting of St Ignatius. Nowhere to buy candles, though there was a spot to place them, and to give money if you wanted. Camille had brought two. This would be the last time she’d need them; tomorrow we’d be at St Peter’s.

  She gave me mine but didn’t move to light hers. ‘I think you are a little jealous of Grietje,’ she said.

  ‘No…’ I knew it was a lie as soon as it came out of my mouth.

  ‘Because you always want to be the one to help me. But it is not pure; you are also helping yourself.’ She put her hand up to stop me interrupting. ‘Nobody is pure.’

  ‘You think,’ I said, ‘that back in college, I helped you for reasons of my own.’

  ‘Yes. I think this is true. I came to you because I thought you were also religious, in the American way. And that…what we did was a sin for your church too.’

  I took three deep breaths. Her truth, not mine, but how was she to know that I had been in the middle of rejecting the church—and all that went with it? ‘You wanted me to talk you out of it.’

  ‘To help me out of it. Otherwise, I would have asked Mary-Lou or one of my friends.’

  Martin had been right. I could only be grateful I’d had time to process it all rather than finding out from the person I’d thought of as my soulmate, on the day of her husband’s sudden death, that I’d ruined her life. Because, I was sure, that was how she saw it.

  Except: ‘Camille, I hear you. But remember when I was on the other camino, and you lent me that money and you said that you finally had a chance to thank me? I mean, when you said that…’

  ‘I know. I wanted to thank you for the burden you have carried. That burden was my fault. And I thought you must feel guilt, not for what we did, because I know now you do not have a belief about this, but for the pain you caused me. I thought you understood that, because you were always checking to see how I was, maybe hoping my life was okay.’

  I thought of her miscarriages, the IVF, the break-ups. That’s what she wrote to me about: wanting me to know how fucked up her life was, that she was getting her punishment. And maybe she was right: perhaps I had written to her hoping for good news, news that got me off the hook. None of it was conscious, at least on my side.

  Camille was fumbling in her bag so she wasn’t looking at me when she added, ‘I thanked you because I was not ready to forgive you.’

  I wasn’t ready for that. Part of me wanted to scream I don’t need your fucking fo
rgiveness. But, of course, I did. However unconscious my motivations might have been, Camille had been collateral damage—and I had always known that seeing my mother on the way home was about my shit, not Camille’s. Yet the tirade we endured had hurt Camille as much as it had me.

  Camille put her hand on my back and steered me outside, more in control than I was.

  ‘I can’t smoke in the church,’ she said. ‘I’d need another candle to apologise.’ And she lit up for the first time I’d seen on the journey. ‘I told you I was doing this walk to be absolved of a lie? This is not exactly true. The lie was to you. About why I was walking.’

  ‘It’s all right. I know. You were walking because of what happened in LA.’

  She nodded. ‘I did the pilgrimage to ask the Pope for forgiveness. For both of us. Now I am responsible for taking a second life. He will not forgive me—I do not deserve it.’

  ‘You wanted to save me. But I’m…I’m not Catholic.’ I wanted to add, ‘And I think a woman’s body is her own business,’ but now was not the time.

  ‘I know. I didn’t know exactly how, but I wanted to take away your burden too. I know you do not trust in God, but you have a belief in the Chemin…’

  Camille dropped her cigarette on the ground, put it out with the ball of one of the evening shoes that Gilbert had carried for her, then walked back into the church.

  She was right: exactly right. I’d carried a burden of shame, guilt for using Camille’s crisis for my own ends. And that was why—absolutely why—I needed to care for Camille in her illness. And why she had accepted my offer. To allow me to do penance.

  ‘So,’ said Camille, ‘you are correct. I did not have a solution, but I did the best I could. And tonight, God sent me a messenger.’

  ‘Grietje?’

  ‘Grietje. She told me what I have to do. It is not easy for me.’

  I looked at her, and realised what she was saying, and tears started rolling down my cheeks.

  ‘I think I can make it a little easier for you,’ I said. ‘Can we do the candles first?’

  Camille gave me a candle and we each placed one on the small table.