After Purple (27 page)

I felt slim and almost exotic in comparison. I'd washed my hair in henna and it hung dark and thick and coppery to my waist. I was wearing black velvet jeans which I'd bought in a good-as-new shop at a special rate. I'd chosen black because it was still a time of penitence. Although the Lenten fast was over and today was Easter Saturday, I'd decided to continue my own penances until the actual moment of my Communion on Resurrection Sunday. I'd been reading up about the sacraments as well as about Lourdes and I knew you needed to prepare yourself. Ray had taught me about mortifying the flesh. I'd seen him only half a dozen times since leaving hospital, but on every occasion he'd been shabby, sleepless, serving, burning and obviously half-starved. During Lent, he'd almost wasted away. He never made a song and dance about it — he was holy with a small “h”.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is Captain Lineham speaking. We have now reached our cruising height of twenty-five thousand feet and are passing over the English Channel. To the right, you can see
…”

I grinned to myself. I knew he'd got it wrong. We were far far higher than twenty-three thousand feet and his so-called English Channel was simply one of the paddling pools in heaven. I could see tiny toy boats chuntering across it and God trailing his fingers in the water, leaving little lines of foam. Some of the clouds had fallen in, or were floating just on top like white waterlilies. The English Channel was another world away. Ray would have crossed it yesterday, holding the heads of his retching handicapped. He'd never held my head, but he'd gripped my hands for
hours
while I'd sat quaking in the dentist's waiting-room, a month or two ago. He'd taken me to the surgery himself for all the major onslaughts on my mouth, which was just as well, since the dentist's gentleness and courtesy stopped abruptly with his private bills. On the NHS, it was a brusque, “Open wide”, or a stream of idle chatter to his blond dental nurse across my slumped and wincing form.

At least I had two new teeth. They were only temporary fixtures until the final operation on the adjoining two, but they made me look normal, even quite appealing, instead of like a witch. Mind you, I hated wearing that slimy foreign contraption in my mouth which skidded about and couldn't cope with apples. But Ray had helped again. He'd given me a point and purpose in my life, so that things like cut-price dentures and supercilious surgeons shunted into second place. We were both preparing for Lourdes. He didn't know, of course, about my intended First Communion. He must have assumed I'd made it twenty years ago, as a tot at my mother's knee. But he'd helped get me back into spiritual training, so to speak, and on top of his lists of prayers to say, and books to skim and sudden eccentric little sermons on God or Love or Lepers, I'd added my own private religious instruction as a second secret subject. I'd mugged up saints and sacraments and refreshed my memory on all the rules and rubric of the Church I'd known at school. Then I had stood outside it, nose pressed greedily against the window. Now I was already almost in the sweet-shop, and tomorrow God Himself would lay the bonbon on my tongue.

For the first time in my life, I had a true vocation, something which kept me busy and fulfilled. There wasn't time for boring Burton Bureau jobs like Mayfair receptionist now that I had a spiritual career, not to mention check-ups from a social worker and calls from the GP. The whole world seemed to know about my mouth. Busy professional people had me on their worksheets, in their case-notes, on their consciences. I began to feel important.

I was even learning French. (I'd tried out my first few words on the air hostess when I stepped aboard the plane, but unfortunately she answered me in South Thames English.) There were also all the Lies, which, like the French, took time and preparation. I'd had to lie to Adrian who kept worrying about me not having a Future and travelling on my own; and to Leo who was angry and suspicious when I turned his house into a chapel and spent his money on books called
Lourdes, a Modern Miracle
, and even to Ray who would keep harping back to Patricia Jane, when I'd long since packed her off to hospital with a badly fractured femur. Then there were the lies about my spending money. I had raised it, actually, by selling one of Leo's Victorian prints. It was only a mingy one with a besotted nymph and shepherd on it, and Leo was so preoccupied, he didn't even notice. Anyway, it wasn't really stealing, because one of the new, vital reasons I was going to Lourdes at all, was to bring him back a miracle. He needed one. In twelve weeks, he still hadn't got it up. He had refused to even try on more than three or four occasions. Each failure made him so desperate and humiliated, he dared not risk another. I knew I was responsible. By hitting me, he'd somehow disabled himself. Sometimes I felt a horrifying little dart of satisfaction, even pride, but most of the time I just felt anguished for him. He'd developed blinding headaches and dermatitis on his hands. He was rusting, ageing, while I lolled about on sofas reciting the Prayers Before Communion in French and
blooming
.

In fact, Leo did go out a lot, striding down the street with Karma trotting on one side and Otto on the other, or blazing off in Otto's haughty car. I hated that, but at least the house was less tense and agonised without him. He'd tried ginseng and a hypnotist, and when neither worked, he wrapped his headaches around him and made the whole place glower.

At first, I missed sex. I felt so desperate sometimes, I almost went up to total strangers in the street and begged them to be so kind as to rape me. Then I realised that perhaps it was a Sign. If I were meant to be a Catholic, then I shouldn't be screwing anyway, whatever Ray might say. I wanted to make my First Communion in a state of virgin purity like his, so I accepted Leo's limpness as a sort of extra Trial. I even stopped my masturbating. It made me feel odd at first, as if there was a great tall flashing lighthouse stuck inside me, shuddering on and off. I decided later, that was Sanctity.

I could feel it now, throbbing through my thighs with the motion of the plane. I stared out of my little port-hole window (God or Lady Bountiful had even wangled me a window-seat) and there were yards and
yards
of sanctity swirling just outside the plane, trailing from the lower rungs of heaven. I watched the whole dazzling cloudscape shift and merge, higher clouds rippling into lower ones, foam breaking on to foam. I had left the earth behind and turned into a bird, a star, a soul. There was no sea or land or cities any more, nothing to hurt, want, stain, roar, die. Just light and space, radiance and God. I touched the Ukrainian's hand. I wanted to share it with him.

“Yes, ‘allo,” he said. The conversation ended. I wished, now, I'd learnt a little Ukrainian as well as French. And yet it didn't matter. It was enough just to waft my joy in his direction, spread it over everyone, like grace. I gazed around the plane at the rows of heads. Half the lips were moving as they recited the rosary, some of the mouths gaped open as their owners snored. Leo would have disowned the lot of them. Adrian would have enrolled them in an adult education class on “Agnosticism, a Rational Approach”. I
loved
them.

It was the first time I'd flown without Adrian beside me, lecturing me on the geographical features we were flying over, or the cultural treats we were about to sample on our trip. He'd be lecturing now — to Janet. He'd taken her to Poitiers to convalesce, but I suspect it was really an excuse to study the Romanesque churches in the region. I could see him marching her up and down those endless naves, marvelling at the proportions, pointing out the symbolism in worn and crumbling carvings. She'd be bored, baffled, blistered. Adrian wouldn't notice. I'd had diarrhoea in Delphi and laryngitis in Crete, but we'd still done all the ruins. I'd lost my voice completely for three whole days, but with Adrian doing the talking, it hardly mattered. I wasn't even missing him. I'd never travelled on my own before. I'd gone straight from my mother and the F.E. College to Adrian, and from Adrian to Leo. Now, I suppose, I'd jumped the gulf to God, which meant I wasn't alone at all.

With five priests on the plane, God seemed even closer. Two of them were ours, a dark stocky Dubliner and a grey ethereal wraith from Chorley Wood who looked as if he had prayed himself away and was already in the Next World. It seemed strange, almost magical, to have priests in the family, wearing the same badge as mine. I could see their black shoulders sticking up among the froth of grey perms. And the sixth priest, my own priest, would be meeting me tonight. Ray had promised he would be in the underground basilica for the Easter Vigil, which was the opening ceremony of both our pilgrimages. He'd be accompanied by all his boys, of course, but we were bound to find some chance to be alone. He'd been so busy and committed these last three months, he needed and deserved a break.

The woman in the row in front of me suddenly turned round. We were so squashed together on the plane that my knees had been almost sticking in her bottom. I thought she was going to complain, but she only smiled and said, “Praise be to God, they're serving lunch at last! I'm ravenous, aren't you?”

I shook my head. Several rows in front of us, two stewardesses were manoeuvring a huge metal trolley along the aisle, doling out trays and snapping open bottles. As they swayed and clattered nearer, I could feel my stomach screaming out for permission to end its fast.

“No,” I told it firmly. I was determined not to eat a single crumb for two whole days. Good Friday had been the first — all good Catholics starve themselves on
that
day — but I was going one better. My First Communion would be all the more glorious for having suffered for it. Anyway, I had to pay for Leo's miracle. I couldn't expect a return to a full six or seven inches, without first punishing the flesh.

I took my tray and stared at it. There were four little plastic niches filled with food. One cradled a rubbery boiled egg, split apart and crouching on a mattress of cold cooked peas and carrots, blanketed with mayonnaise, the next a slimy slice of ham, hiding a salad so insubstantial it looked like one of Janet's “garnishes”, the third held a roll and cheese, both unnaturally pale, and in the fourth, wet glacé cherries bled into whipped cream trifle. All these offerings were tightly covered with a layer of cellophane, stretched taut like a Durex. The Ukrainian ripped his off and started on the trifle, which I think he must have mistaken for some sort of Russian
hors d' oeuvre
. I could see shiny mandarins and fat wet sponge quivering on his teaspoon. He left both his cherries till last, and then ate them slowly, rapturously, with a dollop of the cream. I turned away, to try and distract myself, but there was more whipped cream outside, a whole skyful of it, piped in rosettes all the way to heaven. God was the cherry on my own cream trifle. I would swallow Him on Sunday. Who needed mortal food?

When I looked back again, the Ukrainian had his paper napkin tucked around his neck and was biting into his cheese. I could see a line of large uneven teethmarks trampled over the square of processed Cheddar. I glanced at his teeth to see if they matched the marks. Since my accident I was obsessed by teeth. Before, they'd just been part of people, like nails or hair or necks, something you took for granted and hardly even noticed, but now I saw them everywhere — teeth grinning from posters or leaping out of magazines, bared teeth greeting you before you knew their owners' names. I gave people marks for their teeth — ten out of ten for white, bright even ones, seven out of ten if they had their own at all. The Ukrainian got seven.

The stewardess brought coffee, which I decided to drink — since the cups were too small, it hardly counted anyway. There were two little paper sachets, one of sugar and one of something called creamer which looked like powdered soul. I ignored them both, as black bitter coffee was more of a penance. The Ukrainian had two sugars and a double Cognac and then started on his roll. I was quite relieved when they took the trays away.

I was so empty, the coffee had gone right through me, so I squeezed past his knees and walked along to the toilet at the far end of the plane, passing half my family on the way. Several of them smiled and nodded, and the Irish priest called, “How's it going, Thea?” which
thrilled
me, because I'd only half mumbled my name to him and it can't have been an easy one when most of his flock were called Mary. The seventh Mary in our group also remembered me and said, “Nearly there now, darlin',” and I stood in the queue for the toilet and felt a wave of whipped-cream joy surge over me. I was a darlin', a daughter, a member of a large and happy family, not just a tourist wasting time and squandering money, but a pilgrim with a purpose in my life.

The loo was so small and smelly, I decided to count it as another penance. I stared at my face in the mirror above the wash-basin. It was almost beautiful. My scars were fading and I'd covered my forehead with a special camouflage cream I'd got from the doctor. My teeth looked white and at least three-quarters normal. My eyes shone with the glory of my new religion. I sat on the toilet seat and
glowed
. Through the door, I could hear an announcement crackling over the intercom: “
Ladies and gentlemen, in a few minutes we will be arriving at Lourdes. Would you please return to your seats, fasten your seat-belts and extinguish all cigarettes.”

I almost ran back up the aisle. I mustn't miss a moment of this glorious, unique descent, the goal I'd longed for since the Upper Fourth. I could already see the land — little patchwork fields tipping sideways and still tangled up with cloud, brown ribbon roads suddenly changing direction as the plane did. Closer now — furrows on the fields, dark splodges of forest, the bowed heads of poplars dodging down from the roar of the engines.

I gripped my seat. We were lurching, tipping, out of control. Clouds shot away from us, fields swooped up to thwack us and then dived off again. Something had gone wildly, blindly wrong. We were about to crash. Any minute now, the plane would hurtle on to the runway, land sickeningly on its head and roll over, over, over …