by John Dummer
Then there were the whispering voices. From the moment we moved in Helen swore she could hear faint voices, as if people were still living in the house but just slightly removed from our perception. Sometimes I imagined I could hear them too. But despite this the atmosphere in the house felt generally welcoming. That was until we decided to knock down one of the interior wattle and daub walls.
The room we decided was to be our bedroom had a small medieval-type window, and at the far end a small enclosed separate room with a bed in it. We think this windowless cell had been Gaston's mother's bedroom and she probably died there. It wasn't much use to us and I set about dismantling the walls with a sledgehammer. The dried mud and straw created a haze of dust as it collapsed and I was shovelling the mess into a wheelbarrow when I came across a small faded cloth bag tied up with a piece of animal hide. I opened it and found what appeared to be pieces of human hair and chicken feathers rolled into a ball and smeared with something that had long since dried into a dark, dusty mess. I showed it to Helen and she shivered and suggested I make a hole in the wall and seal it back in. I did this, swept up and we went out for a pizza.
When we returned later in the evening we got a shock. Everything had changed. Whereas the atmosphere in the house had been warm and welcoming it was now cold and malevolent, so much so that we couldn't face sleeping there and decamped to our caravan behind the barn.
We woke up the next morning thinking we had imagined it, but when we re-entered the house it was almost as if someone were screaming silently at us, warning us to leave. It was such a strong feeling that we didn't question it. This was serious. We had to do something.
I surmised, in desperation, that whoever or whatever lived in the house had assumed I was trying to knock the place down. It sounds crazy now, but I went into the bedroom and walked about talking in French, explaining that we weren't going to harm anything, but just needed more room. We had no intention of destroying the house. On the contrary, we intended to keep all its original features and reinstate it to its former glory.
This had no discernable effect. The house maintained its malevolent atmosphere. But we eventually managed to overcome our fear and move back in.
Not long after this I woke up in the middle of the night as if someone had touched me on the shoulder. I opened my eyes and saw a white kitten creeping across the big oak beam in our bedroom. When it reached the wall it walked along the top of the door and then climbed down the side, stopping for a moment, backlit from the light in the hall. It shone with an eerie luminescence, and it was only when it had climbed back up the way it had come and disappeared that I realised that this was impossible; the room was in pitch darkness. There were heavy shutters on the windows and no light in the hall. The animal had been glowing with an inner light of its own. I must have cried out loud because I felt Helen grip my arm.
'Did you see that?' she gasped.
We were taken aback when her description of what she had seen matched mine exactly. But at least a ghostly kitten wasn't something to worry about. It wasn't malevolent or threatening. Over the next few weeks the house gradually returned to normal. Even the whispering voices receded. Helen said they were so faint she hardly noticed them any more.
But now they were back.
I didn't like the sound of this. We definitely needed a break away. I decided to put Serge's suggestion about a trip to Lourdes to her.
'There's that fair near Lourdes this weekend,' I said. 'Serge and I were thinking of going to Lourdes the day before. Why don't you come with us? We could take the caravan and have a little holiday.'
'All right,' she said.
It was easier than I thought.
That weekend the three of us were sitting outside a cafe on the main street of Lourdes enjoying the sunshine. The air was fresh and clean, as if it had just blown in from across the snow-covered mountain peaks of the Pyrenees – which it probably had.
Helen had perked up slightly, mostly due to the fact that she was fussing Robespierre. Serge had brought him along 'to get used to people'.
Serge was shamelessly flirting with Helen, turning on his Gallic charm.
'You should bring your beautiful wife along more often, Johnny.' He squeezed her hand. 'This is fun, isn't it?'
Helen withdrew her hand and carried on stroking Robespierre. I couldn't help recalling how Serge had boasted to me about what he'd got up to when he was in the army with the wives of English tourists. How he'd got the husbands paralytic drunk and lured the wives away and 'made love to them' in the public toilets. I wasn't impressed but I'd better make sure I stayed on the wagon just in case.
Serge flicked his fingers to catch the waiter's eye and ordered himself another Ricard. 'Are you sure you won't have a beer or anything, Johnny?'
There you are, he was up to his old tricks again.
'No thanks,' I said, guiltily remembering my lapse at La Fête de la Musique.
'Just a coffee, is it?' He pronounced 'coff-ee' in the English manner. It was his little joke.
'My cousin came and saw the Pope when he came to Lourdes,' he said. 'Young girls screaming and fainting. It was like being at a pop concert.' He knocked back his Ricard and suggested we take a stroll round the gift shops. The high street was crammed with them.
Helen and I were astonished at the bad taste of some of the souvenirs.
There were St Bernadette holy cushions, St Bernadette sacred slippers, St Bernadette consecrated potties, even St Bernadette blessed backscratchers. I toyed with the idea of a St Bernadette miraculous plastic water-filled dome. When you shook it bits of glitter swirled around a garish grotto with St Bernadette kneeling at the Virgin's feet. But in the end I couldn't bring myself to buy it. Despite my supposed interest in kitsch religious memorabilia Helen and I were beginning to feel faintly queasy at the sheer grossness of some of the products on sale here.
'Seeing all these shops cashing in, I can't help thinking about Jesus driving the money lenders and merchants out of the temple,' said Helen.
'I can imagine him having a similar reaction to this lot,' I said.
Serge was unfazed and insisted we buy blue plastic water flasks with carrying straps and screw lids decorated with religious depictions of the Lourdes miracle. 'We need them for collecting our holy water from the grotto.'
I was leafing through a booklet on the counter in an attempt to try and find out more about St Bernadette and the real story of Lourdes when the shopkeeper – a formidable grey-haired woman in a twinset – snatched it from my hands.
'If you're not going to buy that then don't read it.' She replaced it on the counter and walked off.
Serge thought this was a great laugh.
'Don't mess with these shopkeepers, Johnny. They're like straight-laced school mistresses, they don't take any shit.'
'I was only trying to find out a bit more about St Bernadette.'
'Let's go and have lunch,' he said. 'I can tell you everything you need to know.'
We found a restaurant with a good set meal and as we ate Serge told us the Lourdes story with an attention to detail that surprised me.
'St Bernadette is the People's Saint,' he said, 'in much the same way as your Diana was the People's Princess. When she was only fourteen she had a vision of a beautiful girl in the mouth of a grotto here while she was out gathering firewood. The girl in the vision was small – the same size as Bernadette herself – and said she wanted to be her friend.
'After that Bernadette kept coming back and seeing the vision so regularly that all the people in the village, as Lourdes was then, took to following her out and watching. They couldn't see the vision themselves but they were so impressed that word soon spread and crowds came from far and wide to watch her kneeling in prayer, gazing up at the grotto. The beautiful girl told Bernadette to dig in the rock with her fingers and drink the muddy water that appeared. But when Bernadette turned round with her face all muddy and covered in bits of grass the people watching cried out with revulsion and wondere
d why they'd come at all. "This cave used to be a pigsty," they said, "and now she's become just like a pig."
'Well, that blew Bernadette's reputation completely and the local police and priests had her in with her father and mother to try and persuade her to stop going up to the cave and causing such a fuss. But she carried on and the people forgot the muddy face incident and her fame spread, especially when a fresh water spring flowed from the rock where she'd dug a hole and the water was reputed to have miraculous healing powers.
'Needless to say, the Church jumped on the bandwagon and decided the vision was of the Virgin Mary. A famous sculptor was commissioned to create a statue like the beautiful girl in the vision. He worked away and when he'd finished it everyone said how wonderful it was and so like the Virgin it was uncanny.
'But when Bernadette saw it she cried out: "No, that's not her!" And the poor old sculptor was crushed and said it was the most disappointing moment of his life. But they put it up in the mouth of the grotto anyway and it's still there to this day. And since then they've built a basilica and churches and God-knows-what on the site and so many people have had miraculous cures the Pope decided to make Bernadette a saint.'
'Do you believe in it?' asked Helen. 'Do you believe in the miracle?'
'I believe Bernadette had a vision,' said Serge. 'But it could have been because she was hallucinating from starvation and sickness. She had cholera at the time. And people were so bored they needed something to spice up their lives a bit.'
'But I thought you were a good Catholic,' I said.
'I was – once. But like you I'm lapsed. I don't know what I believe any more.'
'So why did you come here?' said Helen.
'Well, it can't do any harm, can it? And I've not been to Lourdes since I was a kid. I thought it might do me some good.'
He unscrewed one of the plastic flasks and sniffed at it. 'You may not believe this but when I was a young lad I dreamed of becoming a priest.'
This was such an unexpected gem of information that I found it hard to keep a straight face. Helen was more sympathetic. I couldn't be sure but I had a feeling she was warming to him.
'But we seldom end up fulfilling our dreams do we?' he said. Let's go and fill our flasks with some of this famous holy water.'
We followed the signs out of the town centre up to an imposing gated entrance leading onto a grand drive which swept up to the various churches that had sprung up over the years. It was hard to imagine now what the place had been like in Bernadette's day.
There was a sign on the gates in several languages saying 'NO DOGS ALLOWED'.
I agreed to take Robespierre back to the van while Serge and Helen went up to the grotto. As I walked back through the town with Robespierre pulling on his lead I had a vision myself. It was of Serge trying to lure Helen up to the toilets.
I lifted Robespierre up onto the front seat of the van and wound down the windows halfway. The sun was strong now and I didn't want him to overheat. I poured some Evian water into a plastic dog bowl and positioned it where he could get to it if he was thirsty. He had his nose up on the glass, watching me forlornly as I walked off.
16
THE MIRACLE
Back at the entrance gates the crowds were streaming up the drive towards the Basilica. What had drawn them all here to Lourdes? Not everyone could be sick or crippled and in need of a miracle cure. There were a few tourists in shorts with cameras slung round their necks. But a large proportion of the visitors looked well-scrubbed and smartly dressed, as if on their way to attend Sunday mass.
A few little old ladies went past clutching prayer books. And then, surprisingly, a line of what looked like hospital trolleys being pushed by nurses. Each trolley supported a sick patient wrapped in blankets. They appeared to have emerged from a hospital building situated in the grounds. Were miracle cures a regular occurrence here at Lourdes? If not, it seemed cruel to offer such slim hope to desperately sick people.
I started to worry about Helen and Serge. They had promised to meet me here.
A group of leather-jacketed bikers, one wearing a neck brace and hobbling on crutches, went by, jostling each other. And then a party of handicapped children in wheelchairs pushed by nuns.
Still no sign of Helen and Serge.
I was about to give up and ask someone where the nearest toilets were when I spotted Helen's red hair bobbing through the throng and she emerged smiling and waving at me.
She hugged me and squeezed my hand and I felt ashamed of myself.
'Where's Serge?' I said.
'Filling our bottles with holy water. Come on!'
She was energised like I hadn't seen her for ages.
We found him by a line of chrome taps set in a wall – the push-button type you often find in gents' urinals. He was tightening the tops on our blue plastic flasks. When he saw us he unscrewed the removable beaker on one and squirted some water into it.
He handed it to me. 'Take a swig of that. See if it makes you a nicer person.'
I drank some down. It tasted like ordinary water to me.
'No, still the same miserable bastard,' I said, handing it back. I looked at Helen and pulled a face.
'Helen's already had some,' said Serge. 'She's gone all holy. Don't tell me you hadn't noticed.'
'I had actually,' I said, and they both laughed.
'We can go up and look at the Basilica,' said Serge. 'Then come back later in the evening for the candlelit service at the grotto.'
We strolled up towards the grandiose Basilica of the Immaculate Conception. It seemed overblown and hardly in keeping with the story of St Bernadette that Serge had told us. Maybe the original intention had been to magnify God in all his glory. But it appeared to me that the Church had hijacked something simple and moving to use for its own political ends. It reminded me of everything I found distasteful about organised religion.
Inside there was a vast painting on the ceiling, purportedly of the Virgin Mary.
'Oh my God! It looks almost like a devil to me,' said Helen.
'Yeah,' I said. 'It's like a big, floating, evil face.'
'I think it's really creepy,' said Helen.
'Looks like they had trouble with their painters as well as their sculptors,' said Serge.
'Where's the grotto?' said Helen. 'This place is horrid.'
'You know, you're right,' said Serge.
We followed him out into the fresh air and down some steps to a lower level. With his bright blue plastic flasks of holy water hanging round his neck he looked like a big kid let loose in Disneyland.
The grotto itself was the complete antithesis of the puffed up Basilica. It almost seemed to be cowering down beneath it, an unprepossessing, half-moon shaped cave of white rock inset with a coloured statue of the Virgin. There were lots of ancient crutches hanging pathetically from the stone walls, but strangely enough, no shiny new ones. Maybe something miraculous had happened here in the past but there was no concrete evidence of recent cures.
A handful of people drifted by, looking at the statue and up at the crutches. It felt like we were in a museum that had no real relevance to the world today.
'Is that it?' I asked Serge. 'Is that all the grotto is? I was expecting at least a decent-sized cave.'
'It's not what I expected either,' said Helen.
'It's a bit drab,' I said.
'Yes, and very sad,' she said, 'with all those crutches.'
'I reckon they just hung them there to impress the punters,' I said. 'Probably the same time they put up the statue. I'm not fooled.'
'Please don't make fun of it,' said Serge. 'I told you I wanted to be a priest once. I still have finer feelings you know, despite being a brocanteur.'
I couldn't help smiling, thinking of some of his more recent tricks.
'I don't think I could work up the enthusiasm to come to a candlelit service tonight.' I said. 'Maybe we should skip it.'
'Let's see how we feel later,' said Helen, 'after Serge has checked into
a hotel.'
We left the grotto, climbed the stone steps and walked back up the drive to the main gates. There was still a constant flow of people drifting in and out.
As we drew nearer to our parked van we could see Robespierre's face up at the window.
'Do you think he's been looking out for us like that all the time?' said Helen.
'Of course he has,' said Serge. 'That's one faithful little dog – a real character.'
