‘You should put your feet up. Anyway it’d leave too little time before the Blessed Sacrament procession. I promise I’ll be back at five.’ I head for the lift which, to my relief, is waiting.
‘Watch out for your purse!’ Patricia calls as I step inside, making me wonder if I may have misheard.
Such a tide of guilt engulfs me on my way through the Domain that I fear I may be forced back. Last night I could pretend, at least to myself, that Vincent’s offer of a drink was nothing more than that. This afternoon I have no such excuse. I am skipping mass to meet my lover. Even if his intentions are pure, mine are not.
I have barely left the square when I spot him among the crowd swarming through St Joseph’s Gate. I am amazed by my sharp sight, which I attribute first to love, then to Lourdes and, finally, to his conspicuous shopping bags. If it is love, it cannot be mutual, since he stares straight through me with no sign of recognition. Each step I take brings his anxiety into clearer focus. Half of me wants to run and reassure him, while the other half wants to steal up on him unawares so as to savour his delight. Suddenly he sees me and swings one of the shopping bags above his head, only to put it down fast before it bursts.
‘Your carriage awaits, Madame,’ he says, leading me out of the gate.
Having pictured us riding through Lourdes in a tourist buggy, I am grateful to find that his romantic spirit runs to nothing more reckless than a cab.
‘You’re mad! The meter’s ticking.’
‘We’ve no time to lose. A mere four hours – no, three hours fifty-six minutes (Madame is fashionably late) – before our next engagement.’
‘Madame is unfashionably sweaty. I’ve rushed.’
‘Then don’t stand out here in the heat. Go in and … stick to the seats.’ He gives me an apologetic smile as he ushers me inside and directs the driver to the Pic. We crawl through the town, my sympathy with jaywalkers shamefully diminished now that I am the one delayed.
At each left turn, the cross dangling from the mirror is struck by a blinding ray of light. ‘Wouldn’t that be just my luck?’ Vincent says squinting. ‘Death by dangerous crucifix.’
‘Maybe it’s a sign?’ I say.
‘Come on! You’re not that credulous.’
‘Joke! You’re not the only one who’s allowed a sense of humour.’
His pained expression melts into a smile as quickly as the laminated Christ turned into the Pope.
We arrange for the driver to pick us up at four, my preference, rather than four thirty, Vincent’s; his protests that we will have barely an hour on the peak undermined by the sign announcing a six-minute ascent. We buy our tickets and take our place in a short queue behind a German couple whose young daughter voraciously licks a Mickey Mouse lollipop. She flashes a coquettish, gap-toothed smile at Vincent, whose eyes well up.
A cloud passes over her face and she tugs her father’s sleeve. ‘Warum weint der Mann denn?’ she asks. He turns round to find the tears now streaming down Vincent’s cheeks.
‘Er hat zu viel Sonne in die Augen bekommen,’ he replies with a frown, pulling the girl in front of him. ‘Deshalb müssen wir immer unsere Brillen tragen.’
I squeeze Vincent’s arm and stroke his hair, full of pity for his pain and frustration at my helplessness to relieve it. ‘Don’t worry, darling,’ I say, feeling an intimacy that reaches beyond the flesh into the very marrow of our bones. ‘I’m here. You’ll be all right.’
‘I already am,’ he says with an effort. ‘That’s why it’s so absurd. It’s when I’m happy that I start to remember. And I’m truly happy.’ He continues to weep, while deploring his feebleness.
I am so grateful for the arrival of the train that I barely wait for the passengers to descend before grabbing our bags and pushing him in. The one benefit of his tears is that they guarantee us a car to ourselves. I settle him on the hard wooden seat and hold him close, as he gradually shrugs off the past and returns to me.
My concern for Vincent overrides my usual fears about safety as we make our rickety ascent through the cedar and pine. Those fears return when we enter a rocky tunnel and the carriage begins to jolt.
‘Relax,’ he says, feeling me tense. ‘This train’s been running for a hundred years.’
‘It feels as if that was the last time they had it checked.’ I grip his hand. ‘We make a fine pair,’ I say, as we emerge into the light.
‘Yes,’ he says, ‘we do.’
We arrive at the terminus, where I am relieved to find our fellow passengers heading for either the café or the entrance to the Highest Grotto in Europe, leaving us to set off for the peak alone. There are two paths: one wide and gentle; the other narrow and steep. True to form, he favours the latter. ‘How are your shoes?’
‘They’re fine. I’m not so sure about my legs.’
‘Wimp!’ he says, spirits fully restored, as he clambers up a path which looks like little more than a gap through the bushes.
I trudge behind, my weariness intensified by the sweetly soporific scent of juniper and eglantine. Brilliant white butterflies, as powdery as pollen, flit in front of us. The beauty of the scenery almost reconciles me to the climb.
‘Keeping up?’ Vincent asks, without looking round.
‘I’m right behind you,’ I say, sensing that he too is starting to flag under his heavy bags. All at once he turns. ‘Watch out where you tread. We don’t want to wipe out some rare Pyrenean plant.’
‘Of course not,’ I say, amused by this blatant excuse for a pause.
We press on, both too proud to acknowledge any strain, before stepping out of the bushes on to a grassy knoll topped with an old observation platform and a giant masthead.
Vincent finds a shaded spot and sets down the bags, while I recover my breath. ‘Aren’t we going up to admire the view?’ I ask.
‘OK, OK. I admit defeat,’ Vincent says, collapsing on the ground. He opens his arms and I happily sink into them. He is hot and sticky but, far from the revulsion I feel with Richard, I relish his every touch.
After taking the edge off our appetites, we turn to the food. He opens bags of bread and olives, cheeses and ham, pâté and salads, sausage and roast chicken, peaches, strawberries, and apple tarts.
‘Do you like your women big?’
‘I just like my women.’
‘There’s enough here for ten.’
‘I wanted to go overboard. I wanted to be extravagant. I’m sorry, I’m sure it makes no sense.’
‘Oh but it does. It makes perfect sense to me.’
‘I went to the market. I couldn’t resist.’ He takes out a bottle and jauntily pops the cork. ‘Wait for it!’ He grabs a plastic cup as the bubbles gush out. ‘Quick!’
‘Champagne!’
‘Well no, actually. Blanquette de Limoux. The local sparkling wine. I’m told that experts consider it vastly superior.’
‘I’m told that too.’
‘Champagne’s a bit vulgar, wouldn’t you agree? A bit two-for-one at Tesco?’
‘Absolutely. I refuse to allow a bottle into the house.’
‘Cheers, my darling. Here’s to us.’
‘To us,’ I echo, wondering whether the toast will ever be more than an empty phrase. We both gulp the tepid liquid. ‘Delicious,’ I say after a pause. ‘A distinctly superior woody tang.’
‘Especially when it’s served almost at boiling-point. You’re a wonderful liar! I love you.’
For all my misgivings, we make considerable inroads into the food, our party spirits surfacing as, first I dangle a sliver of ham into his mouth, and then he scoops up some pâté on his finger, pressing it between my lips.
Suddenly, I am aware that we have an audience. ‘Warum nuckelt die Frau denn an seinem Finger?’ the German girl asks her parents.
‘Die sind Englisch,’ her mother says, which makes me laugh.
‘Einen schönen Nachmittag noch. Die Aussicht von hier oben ist wirklick herrlich, nicht,’ I reply. She looks appalled, as much by the realisation
that she has been understood as by the prospect that this flagrantly immodest woman might engage her in conversation.
The Germans beat a hasty retreat, leaving us to refresh our intimacy with alternate bites of a tarte tatin.
‘Tell me,’ I say, ‘as a matter of idle curiosity, what was it about me that first attracted you?’
‘Idle curiosity?’ he asks, with a smile that rips through my defences. ‘Sure! Though I can point to a moment more easily than a reason. It was when you took my hand at the opening mass. It was a touch … a feeling. No, it was the feeling. I knew at once that I’d found a bright, warm, wonderful woman: a woman who’d lived.’
‘Really?’ I ask, uncertain whether he is speaking of experience or years. ‘But you must meet so many interesting people.’
‘Perhaps what Father Dave said about St Savin applies to you? You’ve seen more in your quiet corner of Surrey than those of us rushing blindly around the metropolis.’ Yesterday, I would have suspected him of mocking me; today, I am afraid that he may be deluding himself. ‘Do you want me to go on?’
‘Yes please,’ I say, eager for anything that fleshes out the fantasy.
‘There’s a sadness in you, but it’s a strength not a weakness: a brokenness that –no surprise – matches mine. And I’ve not even started on your smile.’ He traces it with his fingertips. ‘Your hair.’ He runs it through his hand. ‘The nape of your neck.’ He brushes it with his lips.
‘You’re making me blush!’
‘And your blushes, so innocently provocative! Your turn.’
‘Oh I’ve not given it any thought,’ I reply, terrified of saying something that he will find trivial.
‘Liar!’
‘Your honesty,’ I retort. ‘Your intelligence; your vivacity; your charm. Don’t laugh! The fact that you weren’t at all what I was expecting. Which made me want to look more closely at what you are.’
‘And you’re not disappointed?’ he asks, with affecting diffidence.
‘Quite the opposite. I’m even attracted by your views on the Church.’
‘You’re joking!’
‘Not in themselves I’m afraid, but because they’re the antithesis of mine. My religion is so much a part of me; I could no more think of living without it than without an arm or a leg.’ I shiver. ‘Perhaps that’s not the most sensitive comparison to make in Lourdes.’
‘I promise not to tell.’
‘I’m used to being with people who take faith for granted. Meeting you has been a challenge.’
‘So long as you don’t make it your mission to convert me.’
‘Strange as it may seem, I’d like to keep you exactly as you are.’
‘Thank you,’ he says softly. ‘That’s another thing I love about you: you allow me to see myself through your eyes.’
I lean back against his chest, the baking sun mingling with the life-giving heat of his body. A few minutes later he leaps up. ‘Come on, lazybones! Mattress temporarily withdrawn. It’s time to explore.’ He hauls me up and, after packing away the picnic in best Patricia mode, we climb the ramshackle flight of steps to the platform. The scenery is spectacular but, before I can take it in, Vincent points to the ladder running up the masthead. ‘Shall we?’
‘I dare you.’ Flinging down the bags, he heaves himself on to the bottom rung. ‘Don’t you dare!’ I pull him back on to the platform.
‘Phew!’ he says. ‘For a moment I thought you might watch me go up.’
‘And you’d have been fool enough to do it?’
‘Faint heart and fair lady and all that.’
‘Trust me, she’s already been won.’
He slips his arm around my shoulders and we stand quietly marvelling at the panoramic view of the Pyrenees. I feel the same joy in nature as I did yesterday, more convinced than ever that such magnificence must be part of a divine plan, but no longer concerned to argue the case. We slowly turn to face each point of a landscape that lies, like a sumptuous carpet, at the feet of our love.
‘Oh!’ Vincent lifts his arm to his head. ‘I can feel my ears popping.’
‘Are we that high?’
‘I am. Doesn’t it make you want to throw everything up and come and live here?’
‘Everything’s too easy. It’s when you start putting names to things that it becomes hard.’
‘Don’t be so reasonable. Follow your dreams for once.’
‘Such as? I’m too old to play at being Heidi.’
‘I give up.’
‘Yes, I think you should. We both should, leaving this as a perfect memory. I’ll be the lonely woman you took pity on during filming. An anecdote to amuse your friends.’
‘Do you think I’d ever do that?’
‘No.’
‘Then why say it?’
‘Because I’m trying to make it easier for us. No, be honest, Gillian! I’m trying to make it easier for me. I can’t live on dreams. I need to know what’s real.’
‘Is this real?’ He kisses me, his own sweetness sharpened by the wine.
I let the kiss and the question linger before answering. ‘This is too real.’
‘I can’t win.’
‘You already have.’
We remain joined to each other, oblivious of the outside world, until a high-pitched ‘Yuck!’ forces us apart.
‘Mommy, why are they kissing like that?’ I peer at a ginger-haired boy, sporting a pirate hat and eye-patch, standing beside his parents, who are dressed even more bizarrely in matching mauve baseball caps, T-shirts and shorts.
‘They’re married, Victor,’ his father says. ‘Married people are allowed to kiss.’
His tone is so censorious that I contemplate flashing my ring. Vincent responds more aggressively. ‘Yes, we are married. Only not to one another. Still, what can we do? My father saw her first. Have a good day!’
Leaving the trio dumbfounded, Vincent takes my hand and sweeps me off the platform, his attempt at a dignified exit thwarted by the wobbly steps. I hustle him down the hill, this time determined to choose the path myself.
‘Don’t you think we’re breaking enough taboos already?’
‘Smug git,’ he says. ‘He deserves all he gets.’
A cloud of melancholy descends on us as we take the funicular back to the bottom, where we meet up with the cab driver.
‘L’Acceuil Notre Dame, s’il vous plaît, Monsieur,’ Vincent says.
‘La porte de derrière,’ I add, compounding the gloom.
A web of side streets leads us swiftly to the Acceuil, where Vincent sees me to the door with strangely old-fashioned courtesy. ‘At least it’s au revoir not goodbye,’ he says lightly.
‘I should hope so, since we’re due at the procession in ten minutes.’ I take a precautionary step back. ‘That was very special. Thank you for a truly wonderful afternoon.’
‘It’s not over yet,’ he says, before returning to the cab.
I go indoors, thrilled by the promise with which he invests such routine words. The interlocking corridors confuse me, and I am obliged to an Irish pilgrim who informs me that ‘the Jubilates’ have already left for the Adoration Tent, so sparing me the need to find my way upstairs. Hoping to catch them en route, I hurry to the front of the building and along the riverbank to the meadow. The crowd is so dense that I despair of locating anyone, until the glimpse of a horn-playing Gabriel on a drooping banner directs me to the far side of the Tent. The moment I arrive, I realise my mistake. Everyone, from Louisa down, has put on the regulation sweatshirt, whereas I am wearing a primrose top that might as well be scarlet. Any hope of running back to the Acceuil is dashed by a burst of activity inside the Tent that signals the start of the procession. I decide to brazen it out and head for Richard and Patricia, who are sitting on a stone bench beside an elderly Scottish couple whose names I can never remember. Richard gives me a cheery wave and Patricia a withering look, but I am saved from further scrutiny by Fiona who, after measuring my leg, drags me off to her mother, who is guard
ing her collection of squashed flowers.
‘They’re lovely, Fiona. Did you pick them yourself?’ I ask. She nods proudly, picking a buttercup from the bunch and holding it to my top.
‘Yes. What a clever girl! They’re the same colour,’ Mary says. I force a smile, my gratitude for Fiona’s welcome rapidly waning. We stand in edgy silence until Ken gathers us into line. ‘First the wheelchairs. Next the rest of the malades. Then everyone else,’ he ordains with the last-will-be-first Lourdes logic. Richard bounds up to me with Patricia on his heels.
‘She won’t let me go with Nigel.’
‘Nigel’s in a wheelchair,’ Patricia says firmly.
‘I can push him.’
‘We had enough of that this morning. Besides, there are too many people.’
‘What do you think?’ Richard asks me.
‘Your mother’s right,’ I say diplomatically. ‘You walk with us.’
‘I don’t want to walk with you. You’re not wearing your proper shirt. I’ll feel stupid.’
‘I’m sorry. I was late back from the town. I didn’t want to miss the procession,’ I say in my most placatory tone. ‘Anyway, do you think God cares more about what we feel or what we wear?’
‘What we wear,’ Richard says with a grin.
‘Thank you for that!’
‘It’s not a question of fashion but of respect,’ Patricia says, determined to have the final word.
I step into line, the glow of the afternoon fading. Richard, with a rare sensitivity to my mood that does nothing to lift it, takes my hand. We inch towards the bridge where we converge with several other groups in an almost military profusion of banners. There we come to a standstill, sweltering in the heat, while our leaders discuss the arrangements.
‘They’re arguing over the order,’ Maggie says knowingly, as she passes round paper cones of water.
‘Shouldn’t they have worked it all out before?’ I ask.
‘They did! Ken told me. It’s the Poles, then the Catalonians – or is it Catalans? – then us.’ I pull Richard’s cone off his nose. ‘But as usual, the Italians think that they have a God-given right to go first. And this lot aren’t even from Rome!’
Jubilate Page 9
