Spreading Wings: A Sequential Novel. the Evolution of Crooked Wings.

By Nada Clyne and Alastair Sharp

In Lourdes, on the holy feast day of Assumption, the body of a dead child lies in a pool of blood in front of the statue of the Virgin. Around her stand those who have come to love her, not just as a child, but as a gifted soul, trapped in a disabled body. Their grief at her loss merges with the love that she has awoken in them. Though she is gone, the love that they feel in her presence, grows stronger. Her body returns to the convent of the nuns who came to regard her as their own saint, but at the moment when they are ready to bury her, she lets them know that she is very much still with them. What follows is the evolution of a relationship that began when seekers from different paths converged on a chteau in Entre Deux Mers, South Western France, and discovered this child held the key to their destiny. What began in "Crooked Wings" now takes flight and like birds losing their fledgling plumage, they learn to spread their wings.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: May 13, 2013
• ISBN: 9781475989892

Nada Clyne

Alastair Sharp is an Australian-born writer who lives in Bordeaux, France, except when he sneaks away to his clifftop medieval village in the Lot et Garonne. Writing has been a lifelong vehicle for self expression, where the mot juste joins the forward narrative to create new universes. The mysterious conjunction of elements that become each novel is endlessly nurturing, inspiring and deeply satisfying. Hopefully this is equally so for the reader!

Book preview

CONTENTS

Authorial Note

Book One Assumption

1

2

3

4

5

Book Two Awakening

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

Book Three Mission

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

Book Four Leaving

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

Authorial Postscript

Other works by Alastair Sharp

www.alastairsharp.com

Books for children:

Moona Park (MacMillan)

Terry Trouble at Fimble and Thumb (MacMillan)

The Eye in the Sky (MacMillan)

Teenage Fiction:

Out of your Mind (adapted from the ABC Television series The Worst Day of my Life)

Drama Collections for High School Performance:

Australian Theatre Workshop

One Act Plays

Series 6 and Series 7

Fiction for Adults:

There’s a Way

Up from the Bottom

Crooked Wings (precursor to Spreading Wings)

Devil Whisperer (sequel to There’s a Way)

Après l’Hommage

Forlorn and bereft at the end of their quest

The birds drooped and wilted

Their beaks to their breast,

For what had been sought was not to be found.

There was no such King, not in sky nor on ground.

When many had fallen or given up hope

When wings became weary on too steep a slope

When doubt had spread like an avian plague

When the goal seemed too far, too subtle, too vague,

When at last they had found the King of the Birds,

They heard nothing of comfort just mysterious words:

My dear ones, a murmur, "There is no more to do.

You must simply believe, that deep within you,

Is that which you sought, the goal of your quest,

Is residing inside and it will manifest.

On wingspan of eagle, on feather of wren,

You have travelled so far, now, turn again,

Now take yourself home, to your eerie, your nest.

The King of the Birds now grants your request."

The Hoopoe it was, the first to respond,

She lifted her head with its fine feather wand.

She looked to the sky where her journey had passed

She saw her reflection and knew that at last

What had drawn her to follow some inner command

Was before her, if only she could understand

That she was the holder, she, on her own.

The knowledge she craved was hers to be known.

She spread out her wings and took off with a cry,

We are free to be birds, let us fly, let us fly!

And so it was that the birds, one by one,

Turned homeward, to where their quest had begun.

None could ever forget where they’d been.

Within each was the knowledge that each one had seen

A glimpse of a greatness, of hope and of glory

And their fledglings would hear this mythical story.

Alastair Sharp

Authorial Note

Embarking on the continuing journeys that began in Crooked Wings, I have had to confront the question of whether to retell what has already taken place, to cater for readers who have not read the first book. I have decided it would all be just too much, So if you have picked up this book without reading its precedent, and it draws you into its world, that’s great. However you may want to find yourself a copy of Crooked Wings to fully appreciate the antecedents of it all.

BOOK ONE

Assumption

1

On August the 15th, Assumption Day, the Virgin Mary is said to have left the earth to be welcomed into heaven. Whether this really happened or not has been hotly debated for centuries by theologians and skeptics, scholars and ecclesiasts, but nonetheless it is the most popular day in the year for pilgrims to visit the holy site of Lourdes, deep in the French Pyrenees. Ever since Saint Bernadette had her visions, the recurring apparition of the Virgin, and the advent of the holy spring waters, in 1858, pursuers of the miraculous have converged en masse. From all over the world they come by the busload and the planeload, bringing their hopes, their prayers, their faith and their invalids. Every seedy hotel crammed into the steep valley is packed with voluble Italians, humble Indians and disdainful French doyennes of a certain age. The broad plaza that faces the grotto of the Virgin throngs with the full panoply of Christian humanity. Waves of pilgrims, clutching bibles and souvenir plastic bottles in the shape of the Virgin, pushing wheelchairs and gurneys, eddy and flow, inwards towards the lines to visit the revered statue, and outwards towards the lines to take a bath in the holy waters.

On this day, the great influx of the credent and the curious, seemed to part around a still and inward-facing circle. The sea of bodies surging and ebbing seemed oblivious to the nuns, two priests and others, all staring down at the small crumpled figure of a child lying in a pool of blood. As immobile as stone angels in a cemetery, as silent as a scream from a sound proof room, as mysterious as the last supper, a long second of suspension held them inside an invisible sphere.

And then the moment broke.

A paramedic with a first aid box, summoned by one of the nuns, had been held momentarily by the spectacle of the crippled child rising out of her chair and then crashing to the ground. Now he knelt beside her and felt for a pulse. There was none. His forward movement seemed to wake all the others from their hypnotised state. Nuns wailed and prayed. The two priests, still on their knees in prayer, stared around them. The others, the non-religious, seemed stunned, still, unable to move, each of them rooted to the spot, staring down at the blood-soaked corpse. The paramedic pulled his cell phone from his pocket and urgently called for back-up, and somehow this seemed to bring the suspended circle into full animation. The nun, who had run for the paramedic, now knelt beside the child and placed both her hands on the bloodied body. Then she looked up and out beyond the circle up to the rockface of Massabielle, the grotto, from the shelter of which the blue and white statue of the Virgin stared placidly out.

"Prends soin d’elle, je te prie, she called in an anguished voice. Take care of her, I beg you."

Other nuns now knelt and tentatively touched the still warm body. The nuns allowed their clothes, their simple habits, to soak up the blood. The priests, uncertain and bewildered, turned back to prayer and prayed together in voices that rose and began to draw the crowds that had surged unnoticing before. Soon a vast pulsing surge of pilgrims pressed in and around the group, trying to see what lay in the centre.

A small white ambulance inched its way across the plaza like a slow-motion snow plough, its muted klaxon pleading for thoroughfare. When at last it broke through, the crowd parting almost reluctantly to let it come, the doors were thrown open and two attendants dropped down to the body beside the paramedic. They nodded to each other, there was nothing to be done. They brought the stretcher, and with practised skill, had the corpse up and away.

All that remained was the blood, the nuns, the imperiously detached statue of the Virgin, and the vast blue midsummer sky.

2

Shaafia felt that she too had no body. As the last message had passed through her and she had called out Pia tells you, do not be afraid! she had disappeared inside herself somewhere. She was aware of what was happening around her, like a sleeper on a train passing through some midnight town, she was aware, but she was not there. When Pia, small, thin, crippled and unable to speak, had risen from her chair, when her wandering eye had suddenly come into focus and had locked onto Shaafia, neither of them was in their physical body any more. Instead they were away, floating, entwined and full of light. While some small essential consciousness remained a witness to the rise and the fall of the body into its bloody pool, Shaafia herself felt the presence of the other. She knew she was drawn into the luminous circle that emanated from the lady in blue and white. In Islam they revere the figure of Mary, Mother of Jesus, and now Shaafia saw her and was drawn to her. While the nuns wailed and the priests prayed, the ambulance approached and the crowd swelled inwards, Shaafia soared away into the sky with her Pia, knowing that now at last Pia was released from her anguished body.

As if Shaafia had indeed physically disappeared, nobody spoke to her, nobody seemed to see her. In her own membrane of protection, her slight Moroccan body stood still and her eyes watched the chaos unfold, but Shaafia was not there.

Théophile was the first to notice her state. He too had been the voice by which Pia had reached out to them. Her last words had come through him. Through him she had passed on the message of the Virgin. The lady in blue and white is here now, he had called. She has said to Pia: Now you are free to go. And then a great heaviness had fallen on him, as if suddenly his body had been made of leaden bones and he could barely stand. He had called out, no longer bearing the inner messages from Pia, but instead voicing his own deep pain. "Le corps humain est un fardeau lourd." The human body is a heavy burden. And she had fallen to the ground.

Inside himself the desire to scream tore at his throat but nothing would come. He was mutely imprisoned in his own corpse, staring down at the ragged remnant that had been the embodiment of his hope. This was what he had come back for, this child was the one he had been sent to take care of, this was his master, this was the holder and the knower of his destiny. Only now he saw just a bloody mess of thin arms and legs. She was gone. The loss seemed to shred his soul and drop him into a dark pit of emptiness.

As the ambulance turned and pulled away, his utter immobility had allowed him just enough volition for him to turn and search for Shaafia, the only one other than himself who had been able to hear the inner voice. She had been beside him as Pia rose up and out of her chair, but from that moment on he had had no sense of her being there. As finally, painfully, he turned to her, he saw that her face was completely still and her eyes vacant. He tried to comprehend what he was seeing. His mind seemed numb and thick. He tried to reach out to her, to draw some kind of strength from her and then she seemed to sense him and he could see her come back, as if all the blood had left her body like it had for Pia and now it was slowly returning. At last he saw the first glimmer of recognition. She saw who he was. For a moment they stared at each other, he in pain, she barely conscious.

And then Claire fell between them. Pia’s mother, having lost her son, having lost her husband, and now having lost her last child, let herself fall. She had leapt forward as Pia had risen out of her chair, her daughter who could do so little for herself. She had tried to catch her, knowing she would fall. And yet when Pia turned her good eye, then her wandering eye, towards her mother’s face, a vast flood of love had filled her. This love seemed to flood her veins, penetrate her cells, and inundate her mind. She was transfixed with the power of it, the nectarean sweetness of it and the yearning to hold onto it forever. And when her daughter fell and Théophile had cried out, Claire became a great throbbing fire of immeasurable love and that’s what held her. It inflated her like some great helium balloon as if she would simply float off and away to wherever her daughter had gone. Then the ambulance doors had closed and she had heard them. In a small part of her mind the sound registered and she at last grasped what it was. They were taking the body of her child away, and she began to fall.

Kate, Pia’s attendant, her nursing instinct always on duty, had also moved forward when Pia reared up out of her chair. Since the moment they had met and Pia had murmured Haay, the closest she could get to Kate’s name, Kate had been her nurse, her friend and her physical extension. Although Kate had never been able to hear the inner voice of Pia as Shaafia and Théophile had done, still Kate knew Pia better than anyone except her own mother. And yet at the moment when Pia had drawn herself up and out of her wheelchair, when her wandering eye had stilled and come into focus on Kate, she did not move. Instead, in that moment, she felt an inner unlocking, as if she had been holding her breath all her life and at last she could breathe out. Then the ecstasy of the huge inbreath that followed, intoxicated her beyond anything she had ever known. Greater than her initiation in the Australian Desert, greater than the moment of recognition in meeting Pia for the first time, greater even than the moment of finally recognising that her charge was in charge of her, now she recognised that within her there lay an extraordinary power and the inbreath was its fuel. She could barely take in the activity that swirled around her, the ambulance, the paramedic, the priests on their knees and the bloodied clothes of the wailing nuns. Nor could she connect with Claire, even as Pia’s mother fell between Shaafia and Théophile. She was alone, perfectly and ecstatically alone.

3

Once the ambulance had left, the crowd that had gathered began to disperse. Curious onlookers moved on in the gathering evening, heading to the booths to buy their candles for the evening procession, heading back up into the town for les aperitifs or an early meal.

Through the scattering crowds came a tiny white electric vehicle, with two dark-skinned, short and round men in green uniforms. The silent vehicle came to a stop at the spot where Pia had fallen. Efficiently, as if this happened every day, the two men unloaded plastic stanchions with orange ribbons running between them to cordon off the area. With polite insistence they ushered the kneeling nuns away from the blood, where several of them rubbed their hands in the precious liquid before they drew themselves back. The two men in uniform brought buckets and detergent and began to scrub the surface of the plaza.

The two priests, politely invited to move back, ended their prayers, struggled to their feet, each helping the other to stand. They stared at each other. What they had just witnessed had had a power that neither of them understood. The sweat had poured from them both, the air still warm from the blazing afternoon sun. Now it began to cool.

Father Lefait took out a broad white handkerchief and wiped his face. Mon Dieu, he muttered. Mon Dieu.

The other priest, the American, picked up the big candle he had been carrying. If you are willing, you must tell me who she was.

Yes. Father Lefait nodded. I will do zat. But first I ask you to come wiz me. She say you must give zis candle. She say zat. I feel, I must, we must do zis. It must be now.

OK.

Around them, the blood-spattered nuns were comforting each other. Sister Geneviève had taken charge of Madame de Fortelle, Pia’s French grandmother, who was ashen and threatening to faint. The big nun guided her to a bench under an oak and sat with her, holding her hand. The old woman had turned to prayer and was muttering almost feverishly. The nun picked up on some of it and joined her, but the prayers were disjointed and jumbled, out of the normal sequence, one running obliquely into another. She lay a protective arm around the distraught woman and held her.

Sister Marie-Louise, having called out piteously to the Virgin, remained crouching where Pia had fallen. Her clothes were soaked in the drying blood of the dead child. One of the other nuns, Sister Catherine, knelt beside her gently rubbing her back. The nuns were all in a state of shock and of grief.

Some kind of official-looking person, a woman in a suit and business shoes that clacked on the marble, arrived with a clipboard and began asking for details of the child who was taken away in the ambulance. Sister Geneviève looked up, but unwilling to leave Madame de Fortelle, she curtly told Sister Hortensia to take care of it. Although she was as shocked and distraught as any of her Sisters, the sharpness of the command had Hortensia immediately obedient and she rose to meet the woman with the clipboard. She stood in such a way as to shield Claire who now sat between Shaafia and Théophile, the three of them inert on a bench with Kate, just along from Geneviève and Madame de Fortelle. A short, terse conversation took place with the woman in the suit before she turned on her heels and clacked away back across the plaza.

Further along from the Grotto, where the alpine river Le Gave runs closer to the rock face, the two priests approached a row of low shelters provided for lighting the candles. Under the iron roof of each shelter ran rows of iron bars with circular candle holders of different sizes. Thousands of candles were already burning, the heat haze rising in the shimmering light against the rock face above. The penitent and the pious stood watching their candles burning, while others stood or kneeled with their heads bowed in prayer. At the far end was a candle shelter for the biggest candles, like the one the American was holding.

As he bent to light his candle from another that was already alight, he turned to Father Lefait. I shall offer this for the eternal rest of her soul, he said, searching the other man’s face for a sign of agreement.

The French priest, however, shook his head. I sink no. She say is for you.

For me? The candle wick sputtered and threatened to go out and he had to bend back and relight it.

She say zis to me, Father Lefait leaned in close to the American. I buy zis candle for her. I sink is for her to be, ’ow you say, make better. He saw the other man nod and he went on, searching for the right English words. I offer zis candle to her and she say no. Is for my bruzzer. She say ’e is burning. Zen we walk and zen she see you, she say is for ’im.

You mean when she saw me praying back there?

No. She say zis before she see you.

The American frowned not sure if he was following. Are you saying she knew I would be there, I mean before she saw me?

Is true.

The American stared down at his candle now burning more strongly in his hand. When you came and began to pray next to me, I took it as a sign from God.

Yes.

And then, when you took me over there, she said, or that guy standing next to her said, at least I think he said… He paused, trying to prise the exact phrase fom his memory. What had followed seconds later had almost obliterated it from his mind. I think she said that she knew what I was praying for.

Is true, nodded Father Lefait. "She say you ’ave ze same tentation, ze same as me."

The two priests stared at each other, both covered in sweat, their faces red from kneeling in the sun. Both were taken to that dark place within them where both had faced the temptation of the flesh. And now each knew that indeed they were brothers in more ways than one.

Then I shall offer this candle for us both. And the American bent further forward to lodge his candle firmly in a candle holder. Then they stood silently side by side in prayer. The flame flickered in the slight breeze, then became more centered, flared a little and then rose to become steady, still and perfect.

As they watched it, an attendant came up and stood beside them. He said something quietly in French, then moved further along the row of candle shelters, removing spent candles. Father Lefait translated for his American brother. ’E say when ze flame becomes still, is not moving, is when God ’ears.

Ah, sighed the American, and he bowed his head to hide the tears in his eyes.

4

As they returned from offering the candle, Father Benedict, the American, spoke quietly. Although I have been to confession, many times, and I have done penance and more penance, I would like to talk to you about the reason I am here. If you and I have something, if we have that in common, if our transgressions are similar, I would be very grateful if we could speak.

The Frenchman nodded. I sink she would wish it.

The girl?

’Er name is Pia.

You must tell me about her, too.

Yes.

The nuns had finally begun to organise themselves and were now shepherding the group towards the Basilica of Notre Dame. Sister Geneviève kept a protective arm around Madame de Fortelle, while the other nuns walked with Claire, Sister Catherine holding her hand.

Sister Marie Louise seemed barely able to walk and tottered along behind the group in a stupour. The empty wheel chair that had been Pia’s vehicle had sat unnoticed until Marie-Louise had dragged herself to her feet impelled by one of her sister nuns. She had stared down at it, then absently began to push it in front of her as if Pia was still in it. In this way the wheelchair kept her upright and moving forward.

Kate and Shaafia walked together but alone, barely aware of each other. Théophile walked behind his mother, glad that he did not have to deal with her grief just yet.

The Grand Basilica of Notre Dame is built above the original smaller Chapel of the Virgin and is approached by two long curved rising ramps. The slow moving group of mourners arrived as much like a funeral procession as if the body of Pia were being carried with them. The empty wheelchair came last.

As they entered the vast double doors, the voices of a massed women’s choir rose to meet them, soaring cadences of feminine harmony resonating from the vaulted gothic ceiling, and late afternoon rays of the westering sun slanted through the stained glass windows bathing the dim interior in red and blue light.

Sister Geneviève shepherded the group into several rows of pews just inside the doors and they all sat, except for Marie-Louise who pushed the wheelchair into the central aisle, sank to her knees behind it and stayed there.

Each of them descended into their own inner world, carrying their images and their after-images of the death of Pia.

Shaafia had meekly allowed herself to be carried forward with the group, completely inside herself, her legs merely obeying a distant command. Now inside the church, she found herself floating into a wide, deep interior sanctuary, where her Koranic prayer, the one that had sustained her through so much, now came flooding in. It harmonised with the voices of the choir and she let herself become lost in the beauty and the comfort of it.

Théophile was alone in his agony. He had looked again and again to Shaafia but she was not really there at all. Now the heaviness that had consumed him in the moment when Pia fell to the ground, became so great that he could no longer function. After what seemed like an eternal climb up the gradual slope of the ramp, with the last ounce of his strength, he shuffled along the row of pews to be next to his mother. It was all he could manage. He closed his eyes and slumped there, feeling desperate. At first he was unaware of the choir but gradually the music reached him, and its beauty was the one single thread he could follow. He held on to it tenaciously, like a shield against the threatening weight of his own mortality and the loss, the ineffable loss of what he had only just recognised as being his most precious connection. And then somewhere inside himself, he saw the Medan, the inner courtyard of the Ashram in India, where this strange journey had begun. He saw himself seated on a folded blanket, on the cold marble floor. He saw the empty wicker chair of Padma Amma and he longed to see her come out, the Guru in her rust coloured sari with her grey hair piled up in a bun on top of her head. He longed for her to see him and to comfort him. He longed for Darshan. His longing came from the deepest part of him and began to ripple out. He could almost see it, wave after wave of the energy of yearning. As he witnessed this outflow, he recognised that the heaviness of his physical body was being pushed away by this new emanation and with great relief, he could rise with it, leaving his leaden physical self behind and float with it. At last Théophile began to feel a little more at peace.

Kate let the swell of the choir flow around her, but it was far away, while inside herself, her ecstatic state was like a fire blazing, dazzling her. Since the moment that new fire had burst open, she had been consumed by it. Later she would have no recall of walking up the curved ramp into the Basilica and could not describe what it looked like. She had no thoughts, her mind had ceased to function and she had no way to register anything other than just being. It made no difference that she sat in the Basilica, that she was in Lourdes, that she was in France. She could have been anywhere. All she knew was that she wanted to stay like that forever.

Claire too had walked away from the bloodied site of her daughter’s sudden exit, without really registering where she was going and with whom. She had let go. On the arm of Sister Catherine she walked steadily but she saw nothing, while her heart was full and throbbing with the love that had descended upon her. She was with Pia now, but not in any way that she had ever known when her daughter was alive and dependent on her for every small physical need. Now Pia was a source of indefinable love, so big, so joyful, so complete, so close that Claire had no way of looking outside herself. Now that Pia was free, Claire was free. The love of her daughter was now full and unfettered. She could simply love her. And she could be loved by her. The love that pulsed between them was perfect. Bathed in this love, Claire allowed Sister Catherine to guide her up the incline of the ramp and into the Basilica, then the nun sat next to her with her eyes closed.

The two priests sat behind the women and dropped into prayer. The choir voices rose to a magnificent crescendo and fell away into silence. Somewhere in the congregation a child cried and the small voice rose into the ceiling and seemed to hang there.

5

The cool of the evening drifted into the incense and the shadows of the Basilica when Sister Hortensia joined the other Sisters. She sat quietly next to Sister Geneviève and whispered in her ear. The nun nodded as she listened, then turned to find Théophile. He sat along from her, next to his mother, with his eyes closed. For a moment she studied his face, wondering what was happening inside him. Between them, Madame de Fortelle had shrunk down into herself, her hands clutched grimly in her lap, her face a rictus of grief.

The nun leaned carefully across, so as not to disturb the older woman. When Théophile felt the gentlest of pressure on his knee, at first he thought he was sensing some inner contact and he tried to focus on what it was. Something was calling to him from far away. He tried with all his concentration to trace it, the yearning within him adding urgency to his search. Eventually the insistent tapping brought him back to the physical world and he opened his eyes. He looked from the hand on his knee back to its source and the nun motioned with her head that she needed to speak with him. It took a moment to decipher what she meant. Finally he managed to nod and worked at reconnecting enough with his body to get up. Leaving his mother to her isolated misery, he edged to the end of the row of pews as Sister Geneviève went the other way. As he slipped past the other nuns, each of them deep within herself, the world of the Basilica seemed strangely alien to him, a shocking replacement for where he had been in his mind. He had to will his feet to keep moving past the hushed introspection of the nuns, muttering "pardon, pardon" as he went.

At the entrance to the Basilica, Sister Geneviève waited for Théophile to join her, then they moved just outside. The air was now beginning to cool as a mountain breeze descended from the high Pyrenees at the top of the valley and Théophile shivered when it hit him.

There are formalities. Sister Geneviève was terse and business-like. You must go the office and sign papers for the release of the body. She will have to do it but you will help her of course.

He nodded. Inside himself he felt a sharp surge of rebellion, almost panic. He desperately wanted someone else to take responsibility.

Hortensia will go with you, added the nun, perhaps sensing how he felt. She is practised at such things. As if she knew what was happening Sister Hortensia appeared at the door.

You will ask her to come now, said Geneviève, her voice carrying the natural authority of the nun in charge. He had no defence against it and turned meekly to do as she asked, walking with measured reluctance back into the Basilica.

Claire seemed to be completely at peace as he looked along the row towards her. As he approached, carefully inching past Kate who had her eyes closed and Shaafia whose lips were moving gently, he dreaded what her reaction would be when he disturbed her. However, when he bent over her, she opened her eyes and gave him a dazzling smile. It was not what he was expecting and it completely threw him. He gaped at her. She had a beauty to her in that moment that stunned him. Her eyes bathed his face, full of love and his heart thumped in his chest. He took a breath and tried to find his voice.

There is formalities that we must take care of. His whispered voice seemed thick and horribly accented to his own ears and he felt himself flush with awkwardness. We must go to the bureau and sign papers, legal papers. He had bent close to her to whisper and he had a sudden spasm in his back. He jerked upright but she didn’t seem to notice.

Of course. Claire’s voice was soft and full. The sound of it seemed to wash over him like a warm balm. His back ached but his heart threatened to leap out of his chest. Neither Shaafia nor Kate moved, as Claire rose to join her brother-in-law. Sister Catherine was instantly alert, but Claire put a gentle hand on her shoulder and smiled. The nun closed her eyes and went back to prayer.

Théophile waited for her at the end of the row, roiling with inner confusion. Again as she passed him, the same dazzling smile washed over him. He tried to smile back but he had no control over any of the muscles of his face.

As Sister Hortensia led the way towards the administration building, Claire took Théophile’s hand. He glanced sideways at her to see her face. She smiled at him as before, her face glowing in the reflection of the rows of street lamps that were just starting to come on. He squeezed her hand, it was the best he could manage and felt distinctly lightheaded as they walked. Sister Hortensia was talking as they went, listing all the different requirements of the Lourdes bureaucracy. From time to time Théophile felt called upon to translate for Claire and she would nod, but he was certain almost none of what he said was really reaching her. He wondered if he himself was making any sense.

Although he was deeply struck by the way she looked at him, there was a part of his mind that began to worry that perhaps she was in some delusional state of shock, some kind of temporary euphoria that blocked her real emotions and that perhaps at any moment she might collapse into a distraught heap. He dreaded having to be the one to deal with it.

At the modern cement and glass administration building, Sister Hortensia was all business, striding in front of them with her practised assurance, knowing where to go and who to see. It was quickly apparent that they were expected and that their procedure was something that happened all the time. Various forms had been prepared, and Hortensia guided Théophile to show Claire where to sign and to draw from her the necessary information. Claire gave the required responses in her quiet distant voice, her face relaxed. The small part of her that could function in all this matter-of-fact business was accessible but only just. There were some immediate decisions that had to be made.

There was the question of what to do with the body. A medical certificate would be ready whenever they wished. It was quite common for pilgrims to die, said the tiny birdlike woman behind the counter. Maybe, she intimated, rising onto her toes to emphasis her point, to die in such a holy place was a blessing. This had no impact at all on either Théophile or Claire. Did they wish a post mortem? Claire shook her head. Did they wish the child to be buried in Lourdes? It was such a holy place, chirped the woman, many pilgrims wanted to be buried here. Again Claire shook her head.

We shall take her back with us, she is ours, announced Hortensia, taking charge. She waited for Théophile to translate and Claire nodded. There then followed a complicated conversation about Pompes Funebres, offering masses and transporting dead bodies, most of which Théophile did not bother to translate. When all the forms had been correctly filled in and signed, Hortensia insisting on duplicate copies of everything, they left the building. Hortensia muttered as they left: They will lose the documents. I know how they work.

Once she had escorted them back to the Basilica, she would return and take care of all the remaining details. There would be no need for Claire to do anything more. The most important decisions had been made. The body of Pia would be taken to the mortuary and would be collected by one of the many funeral businesses that thrive in Lourdes. A good living can be made from the dead. The coffin would follow them back to the convent in a corbillard, that just happened to belong to the brother of the woman at the counter. It was very modern and comfortable, the woman had assured her, a brand new Mercedes, especially appointed. It had air-conditioning. Hortensia had frowned at the undisguised nepotism but let it pass.

By the time they had returned to the Basilica everyone else had emerged and they were standing in a quiet group looking at the sunset. The evening was cool and the pale eggshell blue sky in the east contrasted starkly with the last pink wisps of cloud following the sun’s fading western rays. Crowds of pilgrims had begun to gather in the wide open area between the ramps below the Basilica, assembling in their different groups to prepare for the Marian Procession. Every evening throughout the year, the procession would form after sunset, each pilgrim holding a candle with a paper shroud to protect it from the often blustery mountain winds. A statue of the Virgin is carried by a group of priests after which all the groups of pilgrims follow, chanting the rosary. Already various signs and banners had been brought, showing from which congregations the groups had come: Napoli and Cork, Budapest and Kolkota, Fatima and Chicago. There was an air of excitement through which the voluble Italians seemed the most noticeable.

Geneviève gathered her flock around her, the nuns, the two priests, and the de Fortelle family group. I wish to ask if anyone would like to eat something before the procession. No-one did. Then we shall get ourselves our candles and be ready. The calm authority with which this was said galvanised the group and they followed her as a troupe down the right-hand ramp. No-one spoke and all seemed intent on simply doing as they were asked. Madame de Fortelle had a nun on either side of her, and Sister Marie-Louise followed at the back pushing the empty wheelchair. Geneviève had everyone acquire a candle at a booth near the main gate and Sister Albertine who had left the group, when they emerged from the Basilica, now returned a little breathless holding a banner that had obviously been used many times before. It was a little battered at the edges but the lettering was clear along with the image of the small birds and the fountain. "Le Nid Des Oiseaux Serènes" arched over the image in slightly cracked gold letters.

At the appointed time the small group of priests in white appeared bearing a statue much smaller than the one that represents the Virgin in the Grotto of Massabielle. Carried on their shoulders on a simple palanquin, the statue seemed to radiate light as it approached. Various marshals scurried backwards and forwards, herding the different groups into a semblance of order. There were thousands of pilgrims now and the open area in front of the Basilica was packed. Geneviève kept her own flock in tight formation, the nuns creating a kind of protective circle around the others. Father Benedict had attached himself to the group and showed no sign of going anywhere else. He stood beside Father Lefait with his candle and shield, waiting for Sister Agnès to move through the group, lighting their wicks with her plastic gaslighter brought for the purpose.

Then the chanting began. The massed voices rose in the chill evening air, seeming to bounce back from the high snow-capped peaks dominating Le Gave as its icy waters rushed along beside the route of the procession. The statue moved off and the groups were shepherded into a very long crowded line. By the time the "Le Nid Des Oiseaux Serènes" banner moved, thousands of people had already begun to walk forward. The nuns chanted strongly and this served to bring Madame de Fortelle out of herself at last and she looked up and around herself as if coming out of a long hibernation. Sisters were walking beside her and she lent her voice to their Rosary with all her emotion, tears streaming down her face.

As the words of the Rosary were not familiar to Claire, Shaafia or Kate, they walked in company with the group, each of them still very much in their own worlds. It had been just hours since Pia had risen out of her wheelchair, bathed each of them in her love and crashed to the ground. Théophile, having had to deal at least a little with the reality of the formalities that follow a death in the family, was aware that in a very real way he was now in a funeral procession. At the same time, the conflicting forces inside him gave him no peace. The heaviness of his own mortality was still there, the desperate yearning to be back with the Guru in India was still there, and at the same time the extraordinary way that Claire had bathed him in her look of love was also very palpable. He plodded on in the midst of the chanting, feeling as if his intestines were being torn and shredded. The long forgotten words of the Rosary rose to his lips uninvited.

Shaafia turned back to her own inner chant, her