Fifty-Minute Hour (50 page)

He paced up and down the bank, shivering in the snappy breeze which had sprung up from the east. The sun had disappeared; the water now looked black and almost curdled. Heavy clouds were snagging on the plane trees; the dead and bloated body of a water-rat floating slowly down the river. He shut his eyes, saw his Mother's corpse instead, battered by cruel northern seas as she was swept from her small lava-lump by a relentless tidal wave. He'd murdered her, destroyed her, and was now totally alone – no family, no hearth and home, no rules and meals and timetables to keep away the Terror, save him from the Void. It was only now he realised how desperately he needed her as Orderer and Bulwark, craved even her complaining, to prove she cared and noticed him, fill the endless silence. Four years with John-Paul and he was worse than when he'd started. All those shaming pricey struggles to wean him from his Mother, and he was still groping for her nipple, sobbing for the shelter of her strict and chilly womb.

Mary couldn't help him. There
was
no Mary, anyway. She was not in Rome, maybe not in Walton. All solid things were beginning to unravel, including his own brain. He suddenly longed to see the crowds again, even hear the traffic, speak to someone – anyone – prove he still existed. Fifty yards ahead of him was another flight of steep stone steps, leading up to street-level. He hurtled to the top, started sprinting down the pavement, headed for the seminary, praying he was wrong and he'd find his Mother digesting her
vitello
, or enjoying a Cinzano with Father Campion. A bus whimpered to a stop just a pace or two in front of him. He tried to jostle on, met curses and resistance, realised he was entering through the exit. He found the proper entrance, struggled with the bodies (which seemed all jabbing elbows), but was ousted once again, this time because he didn't have a ticket. In any normal country, you bought your ticket on the bus. But in Rome, you probably got it from the gypsies or the Vatican, filled in a form in triplicate.

He pounded on again, willing to risk a heart attack if it would bring his Mother back. He passed a Metro station, but dared not brave the tube. He'd tried it only yesterday, trembled down three escalators, found every filthy lurching train packed with mafiosi; panted vainly up again, back where he had started. If his Mother was still living, he'd insist that they went home, would lock the doors and stay there, never venture out again, not even to Kew Gardens, let alone to Rome.

‘
Rivoluzione
!' screamed a graffito on the wall. He didn't know Italian, but the word seemed oddly menacing, made his feet move faster, as he dodged past tourists, shoppers; dashed between fast cars.

At last, he reached the seminary, pelted through the gates. The pilgrims should be back from lunch and assembled in the hall for announcements and the rosary before their afternoon excursion to Ancient Ostia. He stopped dead in the courtyard, hair tousled, tie askew. At least a hundred of their party were seething round the fountain – pushing, shoving, jostling, most without their coats, some even in their dressing gowns or half-naked with bare feet, as if they'd rushed down from the washroom to witness some emergency. Dozens more were spewing from the building, trying to butt their way to the centre of the crowd, ramming with their heads, or heaving with their shoulders, more like hoodlum rugger players than pious prayerful pilgrims. Some were armed with cameras and were jumping up on ledges to get a better view, yelling ‘Look this way!' or ‘Smile, please!' to someone in the centre, someone totally obscured by the mass of serried bodies. Another group were on their knees, eyes closed in rapturous ecstasy as they recited a hushed prayer; a further large contingent pouring out a hymn of praise, arms outstretched to heaven. The noise was overwhelming – singing, shouting, cheering, clashing in a discord; a swell of mad excitement surging from the courtyard as two hundred eager voices expressed their joy and fervour.

A bow-legged blue-rinsed matron was hobbling swiftly past him, murmuring ‘Praised be God Almighty!' He grabbed her dangling rosary, stopped her in her tracks. ‘What's happened?' he cried hoarsely. ‘What in God's name's going on?'

‘A miracle! A miracle!' she shouted, almost breathless. ‘Let that go immediately! I'm going to get it blessed.' She tugged her beads back rudely, started forcing through the crowd, swearing at two greyheads who tried to block her way. The mood was turning ugly, several women hitting out with handbags, fists or hymn books, as they wrestled with each other, tried to push in closer. Total gawping strangers had now appeared from nowhere and were swelling out the crowd, Italian peasants clamouring ‘
Miracolo! Miracolo
!' as they fell onto their knees.

Bryan was still completely mystified, still lurking by the wall. He inched up very cautiously to the nearest group of women, hovered just behind them, shut out by their jostling backs, but listening to their babble.

‘A shaft of light streaming from the altar …'

‘Pierced right through her leg …'

‘And she's not even one of
us
…'

‘Hasn't been baptised …'

‘Though she's marvellous with that son, of course …'

‘And suffered all her life …'

‘In pain since 1940 …'

‘Always dragged her leg …'

‘Could never dance or run, poor dear …'

‘Even in a wheelchair on the plane …'

‘Not fair on us good Catholics, though …'

‘Don't gripe, Madge dear. God works in mysterious ways.'

Horrified, he backed away, tried to find a hiding place, make himself invisible. So his
Mother
was the centre of this crazy dangerous hubbub, cause of this hysteria; her private shaming history on every pilgrim's lips. He must leave himself immediately, hoof back to the Tiber, hide in those tall grasses, before he was pounced upon, derided. He started edging down the wall, skulking in its shadow, stopped in sudden terror as he saw three tall policemen swinging through the gate, armed with guns and truncheons. He wheeled the other way, almost collided with a woman who was trying to embrace him – Phyllis in a sweater and her flannel petticoat. He removed his face from her knobbly knitted bosom, tried to dodge her tickling hair which was tumbling from its bun.

‘Bryan, my dear, you're here at last! I've been searching for you everywhere. A quite amazing thing has happened. Your mother has been healed.'

‘Healed? She wasn't ill.'

‘Not ill? Your mother's been in wicked pain since she hurt her leg in 1939. That pain's completely vanished. The leg is back to normal and she can gambol like a child. It's the Blessed Edwin Mumford's latest miracle.'

‘But …' Bryan's voice died away. His Mother had no time for the Blessed Edwin Mumford, but how could he tell Phyllis so, explain that just a week ago she'd spoken quite contemptuously of ‘unhealthy religious mania' and ‘so-called jumped-up saints'? And miracles were moonshine, simply couldn't happen. There wasn't any kindly God to heal or intervene, only chaos and disorder, anarchy, blind chance.

‘Now, I'm sorry, Bryan, I've got to dash. I'm on my way to the
Congregazione per le cause dei santi
.'

‘
What
?'

‘The Office for Canonisations. They've simply got to know about this latest splendid miracle. And I'll inform the press, of course. It's our duty, dear, isn't it, to spread news of God's goodness, when so many silly people blame Him for disasters?'

‘Well, I …'

‘You go and find your mother, dear. She'll want to share her joy with you, show you her healed leg. Now don't be frightened of the crowds. They'll let you through, you see. Just a second – I'd better brush your coat first. You've got burrs all down your back.'

She started pouncing on his coat, letting out a little yelp of triumph for every burr she loosened, then propelled him with a final lunge down towards the mob, whispering to a Franciscan friar (who looked a useful sixteen stone or so, and was pushing in himself) to ‘let the poor soul through'.

‘No!' Bryan tried to shout. ‘Don't want to … Don't believe in … It's all Chaos, all …' His voice was lost, his legs were lost, as he felt the Franciscan's rough brown bulk butting from behind, and he was bullied, bustled, bulldozed, through the first layers of the crowd. People tried to stop him, tugging at his coat, flailing with their elbows, yelling out abuse. No one seemed to recognise him, or allow him any rights as his Mother's only son. He was just a casual interloper, some rude and pushy upstart who must be kicked back where he'd come from. He was bruised and clawed both sides as the friar continued acting as a holy battering-ram, whilst the mob in front fought back with fist or boot. He closed his eyes in terror, bowed his bloody head, became a frisbee or a football, an object with no feelings and no bones.

Suddenly, miraculously, the frantic pushing ceased, and he saw light and air again; found himself cowering by the fountain, where he'd collapsed on to the cobblestones, the vast crowd now behind him. Slowly, he looked up to where all other eyes were gazing, saw his queenly Mother surrounded by an awe of priests, some he'd never seen before, all staring at her leg with expressions of bewilderment or triumph. He clutched the fountain basin, dragged up to his feet. Never mind her leg – her whole being was transformed: her face no longer putty-pale, but flushed and even youthful, her eyes lifted up to heaven, both arms outstretched in prayer; a new radiance about her, as if she'd changed from flesh to flame.

‘Mother …' he said weakly, though he hardly dared to speak to her she looked so otherworldly. She didn't hear him, didn't turn her head. ‘It's Bryan,' he said. ‘Your son.'

Had she ever had a son? He doubted it, the way that she ignored him; seemed aware only of the clergy and their powerful God above, who appeared to be conversing with her; he a mere intruder, or perhaps not there at all. He felt himself dwindling into nothingness, extinction. Could
no one
hear him, see him, plead his cause with Lena, inform her of his presence, his existence? He glanced back at the crowd. Faces, faces, faces, as far as he could see, but not one who seemed to recognise him, or care about his plight. Every single one of them was goggling at his Mother, rapt and near-ecstatic, as she began to walk a circle, to demonstrate her healing, intoxicate the mob. He stared in disbelief. As long as he remembered she had always dragged her leg, always complained of pain and inflammation, but now the leg looked normal, the recent angry swelling completely disappeared, and she was moving with an ease and grace unthinkable before – as Phyllis said, frisking like a ten-year-old.

The crowd was pressing closer; cameras clicking, frenzied flashbulbs snapping, rosaries and prayer books waved beside her nose, or rammed into her back, as if she could bless them by her touch or just her aura. Someone seized her handkerchief, ripped it into shreds, two dozen frantic jealous hands fighting for a relic. A prostrate sobbing woman was kissing both her shoes, a younger girl trying to snatch her coat belt.

‘Get back!' the priests were shouting, as they tried vainly to control the mass of heaving bodies, reassert their power. ‘Clear the square immediately and assemble in your dormitories. We can't call this a miracle. It's far too soon. We'll need to …'

‘A miracle, a miracle!' defiant voices roared, as they kept mobbing, jostling Lena; one man trying to prise the cobbles loose where her sacred feet had trodden. ‘God has shown His favour. God is here amongst us!'

Bryan was blinded by a flash of light, saw not God, but two professional photographers who had somehow sweated to the front and were filming the whole uproar, one on video. He used his scarf to mask his face as he dived into the crowd, battled back the way he'd come, hitting out himself now as he stampeded through the tide of mad humanity. Supposing someone saw him in the film – his boss at BRB, or Fletcher in Accounts? He'd never live it down. He'd told his firm he was going on a cultural trip to study ancient art, not cavorting with a horde of religious maniacs.

At last, he struggled free, severely bruised and battered (and having lost one shoe and half his coat to the more ferocious of the pilgrims). He heaved the other shoe off, hurtled towards the gate – feet screaming out their pain – almost hit the bonnet of a huge black shiny limousine gliding slowly through it. The car swerved to avoid him, then skidded to a stop. All four doors sprang open and a bishop in full purple strode majestically towards him, flanked by four more dignitaries, all dressed in formal robes; a posse of armed policemen bringing up the rear.

‘No!' he yelled. ‘It's all a big mistake. It's a fluke, that's all, a freak. She's not even my Mother. She …'

He tripped and fell, landed on his face, lay bleeding on the cobblestones as the bishop's lowering shadow marched across his feet. He glimpsed truncheons, holsters, brute black boots, closed his eyes in terror.

‘John-Paul!' he cried. ‘Come
back
!'

Mary skittered down the Via della Scrofa, free at last, alone at last, exulting in the brisk and brilliant morning, the freshly laundered sky – best of all, in the lack of any ties. No small and sticky hand in hers, no heavy husband tethering her arm, no two testy fathers demanding sweets or smokes or toilets. James had hunted down a golf club, disappeared all day, complaining almost happily about the long drive out of Rome and the fact he'd have to hire his clubs, which were bound to be inferior. All three boys had gone with Grandpa Lionel to the zoo in the Borghese Park. She was surprised he'd spared the time for them, but he seemed obsessed by lions, had found his noble namesake everywhere in Rome – marble lions and stone lions, lions rampant in museums, or reverent in churches – and now wished to see the living kind, admire the king of beasts. (She suspected that he saw himself as a rampant king of men – yes, even in his eighties.) Poor Harry was laid low in bed, afflicted at both ends, blamed his sickness on the Roman food; his diarrhoea on the water. She couldn't leave him long, but she'd dosed him with a mixture which contained a dash of morphine, so with any luck, he'd sleep – at least until she'd carried out her all-important mission.