Jubilate

by Michael Arditti

  I buy pâté and sausage, cooked chicken and freshly sliced ham from an extravagantly mustachioed butcher, whose stall is hung with spikes of offal like the results of mediaeval torture. I buy sheep’s and goat’s cheese from a farmer who refuses to let me take the quality of his produce on trust. I bypass the fish stall, where the streaks of silver, grey and pink among the ice offer uneasy intimations of mortality, to buy a lettuce as crisp as a rosette and tomatoes as shiny and round as billiard balls from a vegetable stall laid out like a herbaceous border, and strawberries, peaches, cherries and grapes from a fruit stall, whose apple-cheeked assistant is the perfect advertisement for her wares. I hesitate only over the price of champagne at the wine stall, prompting the proprietor to suggest a local sparkling wine which he considers ‘mille fois mieux’. Spitting out an imaginary mouthful of champagne, he cleanses his palette with the Blanquette de Limoux, kissing his fingertips for emphasis.

  I buy two bottles.

  With only twenty minutes left until my meeting with Gillian, I set off briskly for the Domain, when I realise that I have forgotten the one crucial item. Spotting a green cross flickering on the far side of the road, I head for the pharmacy where I wait behind two old ladies. My admiration for the chemist’s patience disappears during the first old lady’s litany of ailments which would doubtless be cured by a baby aspirin. When she eventually leaves, weighed down by a bag of pills and potions, the second old lady takes her place, brazenly lifting her skirt to show how her support stockings dig into her doughy thighs. At last it is my turn and, still smarting from last night’s humiliation, I ask the chemist if he speaks English.

  ‘A little, Monsieur. How can I serve you?’

  ‘Do you sell condoms?’

  ‘Of course,’ he says, his relaxed smile proving there is still one dogma-free zone in Lourdes. Pointing to a display right in front of me, he asks about my preference in size and flavour. Remembering the old ‘small, medium or liar’ joke, I opt for medium and, thankful that Gillian is not so fastidious as to make taste a factor, for flavourless. I buy two packets, counting on there being less wastage than with the food, and, conscious of the time, hail a passing taxi to take me down to St Joseph’s Gate.

  Leaving it with the wine as surety, I hurry into the Domain, planting myself in the centre of the path, to the irritation of several wheelchair pushers who are forced to swerve. There is no sign of Gillian, and I am starting to fear that I might have missed her when the basilica bells send out a reassuring peal. As I gaze expectantly at every passing woman, I wonder if she may have had a last-minute change of heart. Perhaps Richard is playing up or, worse, she has found out about the song and failed to grasp my intentions? My apprehension grows, and I picture the food rotting in the bags: cheeses running on to strawberries; sausages bleeding on to tarts; baguettes crawling with weevils.

  Suddenly she drifts into view and I wave one of the bags over my head like a victory flag. I should never have doubted her. It would have been no more than I deserved if she had stayed away. This is absurd! I have promised her an afternoon’s break and, for that if for nothing else, I must give myself one too. She moves to my side, tantalising me with the delicate fragrance of rose and jasmine. I long to clasp her in my arms, so tightly that our flesh dissolves but, alert to any stray Jubilate, I make do with mouthing a kiss.

  ‘Your carriage awaits, Madame,’ I say, leading her out to the taxi, where I tell the amused driver to ‘brrm brrm’ up to the Pic.

  That is easier said than done. I share the driver’s frustration at the tourists who step blindly into the road as if the patron saint of Lourdes were not Bernadette but Christopher. Yet, given the calm, easygoing Vincent I am keen to project to Gillian, I greet his hoots and imprecations with no more than a sympathetic shrug. In any case, I prefer not to look out of the window, since the pervasive reminders of human misery – the hydrocephalic boy; the burns victim with the Halloween face; the double amputee strapped into his chair like a skittle – are hardly conducive to romance.

  A more painful reminder awaits me at the funicular, where we stand in line behind a young German girl whose smile threatens to unman me. It is not her face or even her missing front tooth that make me think of Pippa (although I still treasure the tooth that she placed under her pillow three days before the crash) but, of all things, her lollipop. I bought Pippa an identical one at a fair on Clapham Common that last summer. I also won her a goldfish at a coconut shy after so many throws that, according to Celia, I might as well have bought a shoal of carp. Memories of that day flood back, bringing tears to my eyes. I am torn between wanting to fix the images in my mind so that I can pore over them at leisure, and wanting them to fade before they cast a shadow over the afternoon.

  If time is circular, then one part of me is still at that fair, facing the combined might of Celia and Pippa on the dodgems – the dodgems! – as surely as another part stands here with Gillian, as she ushers me on to the train. Yet, despite the physicists’ theories, for me at least, the movement of time is all one way. Time past is time lost beyond recovery. People don’t live in the past; they fail to live in the present. So I must look ahead, before today becomes another missed opportunity and the source of tomorrow’s tears.

  As the funicular judders up the mountainside, a growing awareness of Gillian’s unease lifts me out of my introspection. After bawling like a baby, I am glad to assume a more dominant role when she clutches my hand in the tunnel. We alight at the top where the air is at once muggy and refreshing. To my relief, our fellow passengers head for either the café or the cave, leaving us to climb to the observation post unhindered. Both from a need to regain control after my outburst and a renewed sense of adventure, I insist that we shun the signposted path in favour of a wilder one hewn from the rock. I swiftly regret my choice as we scramble through clumps of tendon-twisting tendrils and calf-lashing ferns, and bemoan my misplaced gallantry in refusing to let her carry even the lightest bag.

  ‘Keeping up?’ I ask, not daring to stop.

  ‘I’m right behind you,’ she replies, with disconcerting vigour. I press on but, just as I am about to step over a broken branch, it rears its head and slithers into the undergrowth. I stifle a cry, telling myself that it is harmless and warning Gillian to watch out for the plants, before resuming the hike. Reaching the top, I make straight for a patch of short grass which, thankfully, harbours nothing but ants. I sink on to the ground and, moments later, Gillian sinks on to me. I am dripping with sweat but she seems not to notice. Normal constraints have been abandoned. With her, I need feel neither embarrassment nor shame.

  ‘Shall we eat?’ I ask.

  ‘You mean there’s more?’

  Reluctant to let her go, I try to open the packages using one hand and my teeth, but she objects, insisting that we lay the food neatly on paper-bag placemats. I am now so hungry that, far from impressing her with my munificence, I fear that I may have under-catered. We seek to satisfy two appetites at once, serving each other with an intimacy that makes the meal, if not the prelude to an immediate act of love, then the promise of an imminent one. Our idyll is shattered by the German girl who, having finished her lollipop, seems to have absorbed some of Mickey’s more irritating characteristics. She squeaks at her parents who stare at us in disgust, until Gillian sends them packing in a language which, now more than ever, I wish I could understand.

  ‘What did you say to them?’

  ‘They left. What does it matter?’

  ‘Why the mystery? Tell me, or I may have to use force!’

  ‘Will it hurt?’

  ‘No, but it may tickle.’ I approach her knee, fingers poised.

  ‘All right, I give in! I told them you were my lover: that we’d met long ago on a pilgrimage and now we come back once a year for a day of unbridled passion.’

  ‘You told them all that in a single sentence?’

  ‘German’s a very succinct language.’

  The glaring implausibility makes me wonder if, bene
ath the jokiness, she is sketching out a possible scenario for our future: an annual reunion on the anniversary of our first meeting. Some couples travel to refresh their relationship; we would be travelling to keep ours alive.

  I feel a momentary chill and, dispensing with the proprieties, take a swig straight from the bottle. The fizz of the wine, the warmth of the sun, the splendour of the view and, above all, the thrill of her presence cast an intoxicating spell. I feel invincible and, although we are at the top of the hill, yearn for new peaks to conquer. I help her to her feet and lead her to the platform.

  ‘Shall we?’ I say, pointing to the ladder running up the central masthead.

  ‘I dare you.’

  Rising to the challenge, I start to climb. Even the bottom rung makes me dizzy but I refuse to lose face and, gripping the rusty rail, gingerly lift my foot. Fortunately, she knows enough of male vanity to pull me down before I can do myself any harm.

  Safe on solid ground, we gaze at the Pyrenees which stretch out at our feet like a stage-cloth. If the mountain up which Satan took Christ had been one of these, He would have yielded to temptation on the spot. But the very beauty that convinces me that everything is possible has the reverse effect on her. She has been a stranger to happiness for so long that she thinks its door will be barred to her for life. The only comfort I can offer her is myself, which I do, not by speech but by touch. As we revel in each other’s company, we face a second intrusion, this time from an American boy dressed as a one-eyed pirate.

  ‘Mommy, why are they kissing like that?’

  ‘They’re married, Victor,’ his father says. ‘Married people are allowed to kiss.’

  His smugness enrages me. ‘Yes, we are married,’ I say. ‘Only not to one another. Still, what can we do? My father saw her first. Have a good day!’

  Let them build a wall round their son if they like, but not if it encroaches on my land, obscures my light and prevents the birds in my trees from nesting!

  We clamber off the platform, leaving the family stunned. Grabbing our debris (even incestuous adulterers respect the environment), Gillian hurries me down the hill, the memory of the snake reconciling me to her choice of path. We wait in deepening gloom for the funicular and, by the time it disgorges us at the foot of the hill, I face a withdrawal more brutal than that from any chemically induced high. The driver picks up our mood and, after three questions about the visit, which Gillian answers for both of us, we return to the town in silence. I drop Gillian at the Acceuil, reassured to know that we will be meeting again very soon, albeit with several thousand other pilgrims in procession, and continue to St Joseph’s Gate. Switching on my mobile, I find two messages and three texts from Sophie, the final ‘Where r u?’ followed by a line of question marks that spills off the screen. Eager to postpone her reproaches, I text back that I am on my way and ask the crew to meet me by the statue of the Crowned Virgin.

  I arrive to be met by a concerted look of disapproval, which I seek to deflect with a breezy smile.

  ‘Back in the nick of time!’

  ‘For what?’ Sophie asks. ‘Midnight mass?’

  ‘Come on! A little nervous tension can be creative. Get the juices flowing for the final day.’

  ‘Seems like yours have been flowing already, chief,’ Jamie says. ‘All the way down your kecks.’

  ‘What? Oh Hell! Grass stains.’ I twist my neck to see. ‘Are they on my back as well?’

  ‘What does it matter?’ Sophie says. ‘They’ll be setting off any minute. Here!’ She hands me a Jubilate sweatshirt, which I gaze at blankly. ‘For the procession!’

  ‘Where can I change? There’s no time to go back to the hotel.’

  ‘Here,’ Jewel says. ‘I’ll hold your bag.’

  ‘Right here?’

  ‘No one’s looking,’ Sophie says.

  ‘Come on, chief,’ Jamie says, ‘flash the flesh!’

  Feeling as bashful as a boy on a beach wriggling out of his trunks behind a skimpy towel, I pull off my T-shirt, which inevitably sticks on my head.

  ‘Hey Mr Macho Man,’ Jamie says.

  ‘Wow, Vincent!’ Jewel says. ‘I never knew you had such a hairy chest.’

  ‘So? I’m a mammal, aren’t I? Are we going to stand here all day discussing my secondary sexual characteristics? I thought we were pushed for time.’

  I lead them swiftly towards the bridge, to find the procession stalled in a dispute over precedence.

  ‘First shall be last,’ Louisa says, ‘except, it would seem, if you come from Milan.’

  ‘Is there a problem?’ I ask her.

  ‘Latin temperament! The older I get, the happier I am to be Anglo-Saxon. Ah ha,’ she says, as Ken races back from the front line to give her the thumbs-up. ‘They appear to have reached a compromise. By the way, try not to include any shots of Gillian Patterson this afternoon, would you?’

  ‘Really? Why not?’ My heart ricochets in my chest, as thoughts of spies, secret courts and anathemas flash through my brain.

  ‘She’s forgotten to put on her sweatshirt. Idle on parade!’

  ‘Of course,’ I say, heaving a sigh of relief. ‘Something similar happened to me once.’ I am gripped by a memory so powerful that I have to share it with someone, even Louisa. ‘My parents-in-law threw Celia – my wife, well at the time, my fiancée – an engagement party. She forgot to tell me it was black tie.’

  ‘Heavens! Did you turn up in jeans?’

  ‘No, far, far worse: an off-the-peg suit from Burton’s.’

  Louisa looks at me with unexpected fondness. ‘Please, forget I mentioned it. Film whatever you like. We’re all one in the eyes of God.’

  Grateful for her sympathy if not her logic, I leave her and join the Pattersons, flirting with danger, or at least with Gillian, under her mother-in-law’s nose. Sensing that she is uneasy – and not just about her anomalous top – I walk away to meet Jamie and Jewel at the Breton Calvary, filming the procession as it wheels around the Esplanade and into the underground basilica, which exudes a far more welcoming air than it did on Tuesday.

  ‘Have they changed the lighting?’ I ask Jamie, who shakes his head. ‘Or rearranged the seats?’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Sophie asks. ‘Will there be a continuity problem?’

  ‘Only in the commentary. I was too quick to run this place down. It wasn’t designed to be a jewelled chapel for the elite. It has to house thousands of people every day.’

  They look at me in astonishment. ‘You didn’t eat any dodgy mushrooms on your walk, did you, chief?’ Jamie asks.

  ‘Ha ha! All I’m saying is that we shouldn’t compare it with Westminster Abbey when its job is to be more like Wembley Stadium.’

  A steward checks our permit with undue officiousness before steering us into a recess beside the choir, from which we film the procession as it files down the nave. The profusion of priests and bishops is much as before, the key difference being that the Cardinal bringing up the rear carries a golden monstrance, shaped like a sunburst. As he places it on the altar, I feel a lump in my throat, which is no less real for stemming from nostalgia rather than faith.

  The service is as incomprehensible as its predecessor, with only the occasional English passage and French word (seigneur, dieu, ciel) to keep me on course. Somehow I find the mystification less irritating than before. The prayers provide a setting for my own reflections as my mind, no longer confined by the concrete, soars to the peak of the Pyrenees.

  As soon as we are back outside, I take my leave of the crew and arrange to meet them at eight for the evening’s concert.

  ‘Communing with nature again, chief?’ Jamie asks slyly.

  ‘Not at all. I’m rehearsing my party piece.’

  ‘You’re not thinking of performing?’ Sophie asks incredulously.

  ‘Stranger things have been known.’

  ‘What are you planning to do?’

  ‘Wait and see! I did wonder about a chorus of ‘When Irish Eyes Are Smiling’ accompanied
by Frank on the spoons, but I couldn’t answer for the consequences.’

  ‘It’s official,’ Sophie says, ‘you’re out of your mind.’

  Leaving Sophie shocked, Jewel worried and Jamie unflatteringly excited, I walk to the top of the ramp where, once again, I find myself waiting for the Pattersons to emerge from the church.

  ‘I wonder if I might borrow Richard?’ I ask, after some desultory chatter.

  ‘Like a library book?’ Richard asks.

  ‘To interview?’ Patricia asks.

  ‘It’s part of our surprise.’

  ‘I have to go with him,’ Richard says.

  ‘I don’t see why not,’ Gillian says, ‘but it’s half past six. There’s only an hour before dinner.’

  ‘That’ll be enough.’

  ‘I have to go!’ Richard grasps my arm with a force that makes me tremble for Gillian. I struggle to keep up my smile as I prise him off.

  ‘Take care of him,’ Patricia says anxiously.

  ‘I’m not a library book!’ Richard shouts back as we walk away.

  Patricia’s words haunt me as I lead him down the riverbank. Is it guilt that makes a mother’s routine concern sound so desperate? Richard may not be the only obstacle to my happiness, but he is the greatest. It would take a saint not to speculate on his – on its – being removed. I watch him clamber on to the low stone wall, stretching out his arms and feigning a wobble as though on a tightrope. If he were to fall, or if I were to stumble and knock him off … but he is too strong and the water too shallow. On the other hand, if he were to try the same trick on the main bridge with its fifty foot drop … This is wrong! Even to fantasise about his death is a denial of everything I believe: everything I am. But what’s the alternative? I can’t just wave Gillian goodbye at the airport as though she were Louisa or Maggie. She is worth fighting for; we are worth fighting for. As if to show me that the fight is more equal than I might suppose, the strains of a Spanish prayer float across from the Grotto. I have love on my side; Richard has God.