Authors: Michael Arditti
‘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 my 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.
‘A candle, Vincent?’ Louisa asks wryly, as I skewer it in place.
‘For my mother! It can’t do any harm.’
‘I told you the spirit of Lourdes would get to you in the end.’
‘Some people have managed to remain immune.’ I point to the departing Brenda.
‘That’s up to her … to them,’ Louisa says. ‘All we can do is present people with it – we can’t dictate how they respond. I once saw Clive – my fiancé – give a couple of pounds to a beggar. ‘He’ll only spend it on drink,’ I said. ‘What of it?’ he replied. ‘I expect I would if I had his life.’ You understand what I’m saying?’
‘I do.’
‘Good. Now we really should head back to the Acceuil, or we may find ourselves missing the plane.’
She moves off and I turn to Richard. ‘Have you lost Gillian?’
‘No,’ he says defensively. ‘She’s at the river talking to Mother. I expect it’s about me.’
Eager to find her, I head first for Jamie, who is standing with Jewel, talking to Lucja, Claire and Martin. ‘The coach is picking us up at the hotel, but I have a couple of odds and ends to settle at the Acceuil. Can you grab my case and take it with yours? You know the one – blue with a black band.’
‘I should do,’ Jamie says. ‘I lugged it halfway across Africa.’
‘I had food poisoning.’
Jamie winks. I walk through the forest of candles, coming across Maggie, who is talking to an elderly Scottish couple with whom I have barely exchanged one word.
‘Maggie, you haven’t seen Gillian? Or Patricia,’ I add diplomatically.
‘Not since the service.’
‘If you do, will you tell Gillian I’m looking for her?’
‘
If
I do. But I’m about to shoot off.’
‘Your filthy habit,’ I say lightly.
‘Not at all,’ she replies, affronted. ‘I’ve promised to take some spring water back for a sick neighbour.’
I reach the final pricket where Tadeusz is holding Pyotr up to the flames. ‘See,’ he says to me sadly. ‘Nothing. I show him the candles and he shows nothing. Not even to close his eyes.’ I gaze at the blank face, whose only sign of life is the bubble at the corner of his mouth. ‘You should not have lighted the candle,’ Tadeusz says, bitter at the betrayal. Then he lays Pyotr tenderly on his shoulder and walks away.